And the Pendulum Swings Which Way ?

[jared96]

Ever since the infamous Patch 1, many have felt that the way Nevrax fixes things is to overfix it. Instead of bringing the pendulum back to rest in the middle, it swinds from one side to the other. Things that were too easy, get too hard. Things that were too hard get too easy. Little ole Aen was a doormat for anyone who wanted some good loot before the patch and since, I havent heard of anyone successfully taking Aen down. They way they proposed to even out melee warriors was to boost heavy armor's resistance by a much smaller percentage than the medium and light armor. I don't get that one....seems if you wanna improve a class with respect to the others you give them a greater, not less, benefit than the others.

So how goes the pendulum on September 29th's patch ?

[akicks]

So how goes the pendulum on September 29th's patch ?

Things look to be just right. But don't trust me, try it out yourself

[iwojimmy]

had a good hunt, 3 melees and 2 healers, highest about 203, doing great najabs in void. only got wiped if the spawn popped on top of us.
High level ele can still do kills faster than teammates can get hits in... but not as bad as previously.
healing is ok, but having to pay time credits to cover the extra costs on doubles (emergency heals) makes life interesting.
I suppose i need to go bash some Zerx now, to see if armour really defends against specials... if it does - I have some payback to administer

overall.. so far.. thumbs up to Nevrax

[art3an]

had a good hunt, 3 melees and 2 healers, highest about 203, doing great najabs in void. only got wiped if the spawn popped on top of us.
High level ele can still do kills faster than teammates can get hits in... but not as bad as previously.
healing is ok, but having to pay time credits to cover the extra costs on doubles (emergency heals) makes life interesting.
I suppose i need to go bash some Zerx now, to see if armour really defends against specials... if it does - I have some payback to administer

overall.. so far.. thumbs up to Nevrax

Agree

Now, go fix ranged Nevrax!

[thebax]

Saw several newer players declare they were quitting, several older players who were going to go play WoW until heal was restored, and one elder who kept saying "This is stupid". Those are just the face to face meets, not region/guild chat.

This weekend might be a bit rough on Neverax's pockets.

[sidusar]

I suppose i need to go bash some Zerx now, to see if armour really defends against specials... if it does - I have some payback to administer

You'd be disappointed, armor doesn't protect against magic attacks like the zerx spit, jewelry does
But yes, my quickly self-made set of level 60 jewelry decreased the spit damage from a roaring zerx from 800 to 400.

[trenker]

The pendulum has swung way too far on the sap and stam heal side, but I like it, because I can spend more time healing and as a healer the melee folks with poor sap heal can beef me up between rounds.

[jared96]

Things look to be just right. But don't trust me, try it out yourself

That's what we have all been doing. But anyone who observes change and adapts to it, especially over the short term, may not notice all the nuances of the change. In such instances, the wise problem solver will ask others for their opinions, evalute same, compare with their own observations and maybe adjust their own preliminary conclusions based upon others experiences.

For example, as I am primarily a pike user, it seems the cost of Hi QL pikes will be going down.

Axes / maces @ 20 % more damage and 10 % speed reduction means 8% more damage over time (120 % x 90 %= 108 %).

Pike @ 20 % less damage at 10% increased speed means 12 % less damage over time (80 % x 110 % = 88%).

And BTW, unless I am mixing weapons up in my head, my 250 QL pike was 552 @ 30 hpm is now 441 @ 31 hpm....80 % damage but not 10% speed increase.

It makes perfect sense that the relative properties of different weapons would have differnt damage and speed results but this change is such as to push peeps away from less effective weapons damage wise and into more effective weaps. The relative effectiveness of pikes to axes / maces is that a pike is now only 81% as effective as an axe / mace. And this is unfortunate to as the reach of a pike makes holding, for exampe, 3-4 ploderos clones on the meat shield a valuable team addition. However, less and less peeps will be working the pike skill tree so that when you get to 5* purple plods, there won't be many around.

And yes, I am aware that the pike user now takes, suppossedly, (I havent seen a noticeable difference) less damage this is of little significance in team fighting. Going back to the numbers (80 % x 110 % x 110 % = 96.8 %)...still significantly less than the 108 % change on the axes / maces..

As people start out of the 2h skill trees now, we will see a lot less peeps choosing pike as compared to the axe / mace. Good news for axe / mace crafters....bad news for pike crafters. To me anything that reduces the variety of what we see and experience is not for the better.

Over all, IMO, it was a good idea to get a bit more strategy into the game. But it didn't take into account human nature in that peeps will generally choose the weapon which produces the most damage. Just look at how many elementalists we have compared to all other classes.

Is it bad idea, the direction they went ?....no....it just needs just a tad of tweaking. One final coment, the stated reason of many of these changes was to make the melee class MORE effective.

The axe and mace melee player is 8% more effective; the pike user somewhat LESS effective. The increased absorption of armors however was smaller in the mellee class than in any other class.

LA went from 10% to 15 % (average), a 50 % increase
MA went from 25% to 30 % (average), a 20 % increase
HA went from 50% to 50 % (average), a 0 % increase

Based upon the above, I would say that, in these respects, nevrax "missed their stated goal" of making the melee class more effective.

Overall one thing I have noticed but am not yet prepared to comment fully on is that killing things takes a lot longer than it used to. Whether this is less than optimal stanza creation (time credits now needed to make most powerful spells) or whatever, non boss, hi level mob fights are to the point where I can whack a mob, go make some coffee, and come back in time to see him fall.

[calel]

You forgot to mention that a pike has a greater reach now, making the wielder take 10% less damage and the fact that pikemen have Ignore armour!

There' s a whole lot more tactical advantages now than there were and each 2h weapon is now getting it' s purpose.

Axes though slower hit harder and still have the nifty bleeding stanza, where a sword deals less but allows you to actually parry more often or decrease the target' s chance to parry. I'm not to sure everyone will go for the highest damage dealer from now on if they can avoid getting hit or hit more themselves with some small sacrifice.

[caitiff]

You looked and the speed and the damage of the weapons only. You also touched very briefly on range. You failed to look at the specials for the different weapons as well (slow, ignore armor, bleed). A pike does have ignore armor which means damage is higher as well. So now the pike will be a good choice for a person wearing medium/heavy armor but may not be such a good choice for using against someone with light armor, maybe the axe/sword will be better now. This means that there will be a point to bringing multiple melee skills up now. If you wanted to do the most damage to someone in any kind armor maybe it will be best bringing both pike and 2H sword/axe up to lvl 250. Of course I am not saying these are the best combinations or anything, just using them as examples to show that the variations in the weapons will make more of a difference depending on the situation. Pike is no longer the best choice in all situations because of it's strength and ignore armor, it will only be most effective some of the time. I personally think this is a GREAT change.

As for the healing, I think the change is well needed. Again it may be harder at first because you are used to one w/ little strategy. In the past it was always use as much hp up as you could, throw in ranged credit to save some, and use the rest in sap. The healer then proceeded in healing hp mostly with the occasional cast of sap. Now you will actually have to figure out what will be the best for the fighting. I don't know why sap/stam (from what I have seen) is higher than HP now though, seems kinda odd to me but things will change. Maybe we will see more jewelry/armor with sap and stamina bonuses on them instead of just HP and focus. Sounds good to me.