Nerf to Evasion / Glancing Blows / Fortify Defense

Yes same here with an AL 59 toon in offline mode. Unless I get to take Samael with me I will have to train all my offence, defenses and stats to 80 to make it through.

The SPO and offline modes have to be viable for people to use otherwise that is a design problem.

 

I see your problem here with this pass.

But I wonder if :
- one can hide using stealth to avoid the fight,
- one can go through quickly enough,
- one can mesmerize the enemies until the gates open,
- one can win the fight with cover and a combination of some skills.

 

A hole in a cliff doesn't let you keep your distance and some cover against SOME enemies isn't very reassuring. Don't forget the fighters who chase you down. Doesn't afford you much time to stop and fight. I'm not a level 90 uber mage. I'm a fighter with a sword and shield. I need a better defense than hiding in a hole.

 

Indeed, I must admit that there is probably a balance problem here.

 

- one can hide using stealth to avoid the fight, - No. Even if you could avoid fighting you wouldn't be fast enough to get through the gates.
- one can go through quickly enough, - Probably not. Gate of the first camp is just too far. 2nd camp? Maybe??
- one can mesmerize the enemies until the gates open. No. It's not timed. You have to kill everything or they won't open. And it's multiple waves of enemies.
- one can win the fight with cover and a combination of some skills - Try if for yourself and see.

 

This is should not be the basis for balancing armor in this game. Offline mode should be viable. You need to realize a 59 toon is low level for that zone. Not to mention you should be comparing your self with the same gear as what we have. That i do not believe is the case in your offline game also. They will balance everything in the game for offline mode also just like they are balancing bosses.

Either way saying this is the only way to handle something doesn't make it right. All it does is prove that the stat is contributing too much to mitigation. This means it needs to be nerfed and then the other sources of mitigation compensated to bring everything up to par.

 

Well that.. yeah.. general balance problem I'll agree with. I was able to get through Malice at around 40 and everything else on the Path of the Oracle.. but Grannus Colossus.. over 20 levels later.. ain't happening. Avoidance for my offline character is currently my only hope.. and it might be enough except for the blasted high cult mages for as it was pointed out earlier.. avoidance doesn't work against magic damage. And while I allow myself a mixed build offline so I can heal myself.. I can still barely solo one of those guys with cover. Barely..

 

That or you might be too low level for the Zone ... your Defenses might not be high enough for the Zone... Lots of things to consider here.... It doesn't change the fact that Avoidance needs to be changed. Try not to hold onto what is, as it is the only thing you know. Think of what it should be if it were balanced.

 

The offline comparison is still valid so long as the balance issues are still the same. And a 20+ level discrepancy is difficulty is pretty significant. Although a different issue it still worth consideration until that issue is fixed.

And what is the same gear you have? I could for example never achieve 100 avoidance.. no matter how high my skills get I could maybe hope for 80 online.. that's if all my defenses are maxed. Perhaps it's your gear that needs to be nerfed then if that's what allows you to get 90+ avoidance? Cause with 70% I still have to be careful with how I fight.

 

We are not the ones you need to convince so please spare the lecture. Especially if you're going suggest my defenses are not good enough awhile arguing for nerfing them. For me online everything in those camps are green to yellow. It's the numbers plus over powered mages that cause problems there.

Lots of things to consider except something other than avoidance might be a problem? I submit that there are more issues at play in the balance than just one stat.

 

I have to get enough of an increase in resistance to offset any loss to avoidance otherwise I am worse off than before and can no longer fight effectively.

Yes I do stack Glancing Blow, Fortify Defense and Shield of Ice if needed, but I also have GM Deflection and both Earth innates in the 80's.

I use chain armor since I like to use some magic for offense, defense, healing and water or earth elementals for backup.

 

Do you have The best crafted gear you could get ? I know i do. My crafted gear is specifically tailored to my character. There is a Masterwork that increases the avoidance on your pieces. With a Grand master crafter that has 100+ on their masterwork potency. These Avoidance masterworks range from 1.9-3% per a piece. Not to mention you can get more from a shield if needed. Ring of the gambler adds 5% which is not represented on your paperdoll. The point is, You are not going to have access to the best gear in the game unless you put in the work for it in Offline Mode. With the best gear and GM skills it is quite easy right now to get 90+ Go above GM to 110 or 120 on your avoidance skills and now you are looking at 96-97% 130 on your skills and you are 100% avoidance with out the Ring of the Gambler.

So you stating you cannot go through a R7ish zone with a level 59 that has sub par gear is to be expected.

 

The moment I learned that high levels of avoidance were a must for any piece of armor that could have it - I knew it was going to be nerfed sooner or later.

 

You can't balance on an assumption that every player is going to have the absolute best armor possible specifically tailored to their build and playstyle. Not online or offline. Especially when the system is designed to make that extremely difficult to do. Offline where I get about 72%.. I would have to go through all the trouble of GMing 3 different masterworks (shields and weapons can also have avoidance) to get the best numbers which is an insane amount of work. Your average player just isn't going to go through all that. Nor can the average player online afford the insanely high prices to pay a crafter to get armor like that.

So if that's part of your basis for saying avoidance is overpowered.. then I suggest that argument is skewed by your own armor. You yourself are pretty much overpowered and probably not in the best position to judge for the rest of us. How long and how much work is it going to take the average player who might get say.. 10 hours a week in to play.. to GM all of those skills.. and harvest all that material just to get avoidance that high?

If anything, your own statements tell me that avoidance for the average player is not over powered at all, but the hardcore player is benefitting from all that work. If anything, cap avoidance from armor at 85% or so.. such that if your avoidance from skills are lower than 85% then with gear you can't exceed 85%.. but if you can get it higher than 85% with skills (not sure that's possible?) then gear adds nothing on top of that. As it seems the only balance issue here is for the hardcore player.

But if EP1 boasts 40+ hours of gameplay content.. it shouldn't take a couple hundred hours of work just to get through 1 scene in the story cause you need to GM several skills just to get good enough gear. If you nerf avoidance across the board you're only making it harder for everyone. Other things need to be fixed first.

Oh and I never said I had sub-par gear and my main online was 67 going through.. haven't even tried it offline yet cause I know how hard those darn high cult wizards are that I'd have to deal with. You don't need 80+ to deal with the archers and fighters.. but you do need it reasonably high.

 

Definitely the main thing is that if one aspect (and in this case a rather important aspect) of defensive combat changes, it really needs to be accompanied by balance tweaks across the board to truly "fix" the problem. This is something where a bandaid isn't going to cut it.

 

Actually they do need to balance the game around players having some of the best gear. Offline Mode game play is going to take the backseat to Online game play where the majority of players play. You are talking about one of the higher level zones for Episode 1. You need good gear. That is why i am saying either you need more levels to compensate for your lack of good gear or you need to work on getting your gear your self. If you watched that whole Show and Tell they get into loot. NPC's will start dropping loot that is actually meaningful. That will probably be your answer to not having the best of the best crafted gear but you still need good gear to go into those zones at this time. Till then zones like this will be balanced around online play initially. If they wern't the game would be entirely too easy for everyone in online mode as good gear is not hard to find.

I consider my self an average player. I am only level 89 now. As for my Armor set ... It was crafted by @Mangar He is an Excellent crafter. My gear costed me My mats which i harvested and a tip for his time. Some of my pieces i got extremely lucky on as they were first or second attempts. Others like my Helm. I still do not have the "perfect" helm. I have some damn fine helms but they are not perfect. Most of my armor pieces would sell for around 12-22k gold. The even funnier part was the fact that i made it to level 74 in crap armor that i crafted my self with out a problem. I was hunting level 120 liches in said crap armor. Either way this doesn't change the fact that Avoidance is overpowered right now. The point we have been making is that other armor stats need to take over and balance the armor system out.

Even if we are all nerfed into the ground for a month. This will be better for the game as we will have a solid foundation. Think long term.. What happens in Episode 2 ? The level cap in this game is 200. You will only go up in level and get stronger. This means you will have even more avoidance if you so choose. This will make all content past Episode 1 trivial unless the mitigation is split among the other armor stats.

 

If you use sprint, stealth and double tap run in that order you can make it through both gates without combat.

I bash in Grannus a fair bit and even though I don't need to, I sometimes use this method.

 

Ok, add a fire glyph that lowers avoidance called "pants on fire".

 

So a heavy armor build is totally screwed on this point is what you're saying. Sprint is a light armor skill.. and also stealth is unnecessary if all you need to do is run through.. the mobs won't be able to make it through the gate.

 

You can't assume the all players.. or even a majority are going to have gear that's extremely hard to get. In fact, in terms of getting through story scenes, you need to be able to do it with starter armor. You can't assume all players will want to craft at all. If we're talking in context of playing through the story, gear should be irrelevant whether we're talking offline or online.

But if we're talking about nerfing avoidance (or anything for that matter) then we're talking about what it SHOULD be.. not how it is.

Only...

Nobody is going to argue that combat has balance issues or that balance isn't a good thing.. BUT.. I think simply saying "avoidance is over powered" is misleading. At 70% I can finally hunt stuff worth XP and actually survive but I still have to be very careful to keep my defenses up or I'm in trouble and with all the mages about I have to be that much more careful cause a high cult wizard will toast me pretty quickly. It doesn't feel overpowered at all since if I let my guard down I'm dead.

My gear may not be "the best" but it's not poor either.. but even with that 70% I still needed 2 obsidian food buffs AND 2 shrine buffs on top of that with 60% resistance as backup to shut down my first siege. (Granted that was with a lich mage only by the time I finally got to that point).

It seems to me that avoidance isn't what is overpowered.. it's the ability to get it over 85-90%. The function of the skill itself works just fine. It just needs to be capped. (Not the same as a 'nerf')