Game Balance

[pimpjwp]

And by your reasoning it makes it even more crazy that a 700 hp 63 ac full caster with a pet thats as strong as some toons who out due most in meele can spam full dc caster one shot spells with a 37 dc was not some how depowered is just plain ole silly. Its by far the most unbalanced class but a favorite among the qc so its left alone hogwash. None of the classes depowered are like this . The cleric fs and bard you actually have to be able to play them to make them work the dragon ward up and your good for hours lol. The exact opposite of balance . Lets all look up the definition of balance and see if this fits nope. Sure fits in the imbalance category though . And if you doubt one stat i can log a druid dragon and show ya

[Mursey]

I did just say I hope druid dragons get hit with the nerf bat too.

[Valefort]

The dragon druid is a tank but their melee damage is definitely subpar pimpjwp, it's a pretty slow killer compared to most melee characters. On the other hand it never dies, that's for sure. Please have a little patience instead of imagining conspiracy theories, it was already controversial enough to nerf anything.

[Ariexedes]

shame that dragon druid has to try and survive till 28+ with 27+wis waste a feat to get dragon shape. as a druids only gimick. am sorry oh wow that druid has 700 hp with that 63 ac. look at any well-built pvp op'ed fighter or barb with 400-500+ hp with like 40-60bab to hit something for those crits of like 200-300+dmg. ' Dragon Druid' is all the druid has thats the whole class's gimmick ' nerf bat that ' and you'll maybe see one maybe two druids on the entire server . Dragon druids are very easily killable. Pve not so much (as they are the 'tanks') pvp seen it happen a good few times (as they can't hit worth crap) and crumple to a mords or anything that knocks them outta shape. Point is , thats like saying take away the wizard shape change into a dragon as well. ' But Ari wizard dragons aren't as strong as druid ' why is that cuz it's the druids thing. and Count how many times a wizard shifts into a dragon for sheer tanky ness of it + any buffs that trans over from wiz to wiz dragon ?. Again beating the dead horse with the bat, that all the druid has, nerk the frenzy on a FB , lower the sneak on a rouge (or better yet take hips from the rouge) point is druid = dragon gimmick

[Kiran]

So cleric fs and bard were slighty to strong so we depower them but a dragon druid running around with a 63 ac full caster level of 30 does the same dmg in melee as most front line fighter and has 700 hp while spamming 37 dc one hitter quitter spells didnt make the depower list lol lol lol. Are we kidding ourselves? How is depowering all but the qc favorite class the dragon ( yes many of you ran this as your main for years)balance? Shouldnt the dragon get a hit to if clerics and bards are . As it stands there twice as powerful as oh say 30 monk, 30 fighter, 30 rogue, 30 bard, 30 man at arms, 30 warlock, 30 of almost any class . So if were so obsessed with balance how has this went unchecked for years just saying. If we wanted clerics fs and bard much less powerful than the druids why act like its balance just straight say i want the dragon more powerful than those classes saves alot of time

Wrong.

Our AC is a bit higher, plus our DC one hit kill on Frost king or Naga queen is like dcc 40/41, so much higher than a awful 37 dc.
Also forgot to mention we can spawn a pet that's stronger than most fighters, especially when you buff it with avatar, then ontop of that summon a monster that is stronger than most other summonses as all our spells work on them, making an air elemental incredible.

But I mean dude.. I am a dragon... I want to be more powerful. Have we ever considered elder dragon form?

I like to think as Elder dragon form as being.. for the druid that has everything, but still wants more, kind of transformation.

[thids]

Would have been better to give Tensers BAB instead of nerfing DP's BAB, then find other ways to deal with Favored Soul and Cleric being overtuned.

I think you guys need to sit down and define clearly goals for class/ability balance on the server, because some decisions don't quite make sense. While I am all for Favored Soul and bard nerfs, I do think that those who decide on balance changes sometimes don't take the entire picture into consideration.

You guys seem stuck in 2016 if you think Bards, favored souls and clerics are the "big problem". The big problem has been created by the devs and QC themselves in the meanwhile. I am talking about the disgusting thing which we label as "barbarian" these days.

The +2 AC bonus from barbarian 20 "removed" when raging (a -2 ac penalty is applied instead of actually removing). No more special rule for shield and raging.

The Barbarian is an absolutely disgusting class. Those who play it will admit it themselves. Taking 2AC from them does nothing, they still seem as if they came from a different server.

[c2k]

Barbarian used to be the weakest class on the server and it used to get alot of attention because it was just in a bad place compared to every other class. Its very possible its overtuned, but I think you would need to see if it greatly out-perfoms some the cookie cutter Wpnmaster builds(the popular ones with the maxed UMD, etc.) in PvE before considering what to nerf on the barbarian.

[Steve]

I agree with thids that Barbarian was improved to such a point that is deserves re-consideration.

It would seem that a desire was fulfilled to create a melee focused, non-casting build route in the Barbarian, so that it could offer Players a path to play outside magic buffs and UMD. And I personally agree with the goal, but question the actual result, myself.

Not to say Barbarians, currently, are invulnerable or godlike in their powers, but if Buffing weak Classes to like Barbarian is now, then "nerfing" other Class aspects to below what the Barbarian achieves, will definitely set red flags to the more builder-Minded players who obsess over this shit.

There are many ways of achieving a result, and instead of Buffing/nerfing the option could be to weaken mobs/bosses, thus making power actually useless, for example. But like many wish to understand, it is the Standard or objective here, and what is the standard by which we should measure.

Something the Community can understand and refer to, while not being on Staff.

[cosmic ray]

The dragon druid is a tank but their melee damage is definitely subpar pimpjwp, it's a pretty slow killer compared to most melee characters. On the other hand it never dies, that's for sure. Please have a little patience instead of imagining conspiracy theories, it was already controversial enough to nerf anything.

That is true and I know it because I have a dragon druid.

It's also true that, while shapeshifted, the druid cannot use any items.

Sometimes I have to back up from fights because neither side can win. This has been the case both in pve and pvp.

Of course that pimp has a point: nerfing clerics and bards before touching dragon druids is strange (not that I think anyone should be getting nerfs; if anything, you should be making the unplayaable classes, some of which were actually nerfed when brought into the server, playable again), but if you do nerf dragon shape, don't forget that having a shape that can indeed die but still cannot win will just ruin it completely.

[ARHicks00]

How about nerfing the dragonslayer class or improving it for non-casters ???

Dragonslayer is in the sane boat as Warpriest. Not many good features and the is not worth goung pass level 5.

[Deathgrowl]

if anything, you should be making the unplayaable classes, some of which were actually nerfed when brought into the server, playable again

This caught my attention. What classes are currently unplayable? I know Blackflame Zealot was the absolutely least played class for a while, but after we buffed it and renamed it to Darkfire Disciple, it seems to have picked up a bit in use. Harper Agent also sees very little use, but we've added three other Harper PRCs that are relatively well used.

Shadowdancer and blackguard are really powerful to level 3-4, both of them (shadowdancer also at 5 if you get improved evasion from somewhere else and 25 dex for epic dodge), but going beyond that is usually not worth it (although neither could be in any way reasonably claimed to be unplayable by level 10), though there has been some brainstorming on what to do about that.

Divine Seeker is probably a PRC we should consider looking into empowering a bit, as it's currently quite lackluster.

But that's about what I can spot. I don't really think I'd call it unplayable, though...

[Avanos]

42 AB without STR or feats, is not just ok. It's GODLIKE.

It breaks a little my mind, the complaint that you've reached +20 AB magic cap and somehow it's not enough ?

Divine Power:
Calling upon the divine power of your patron, you imbue yourself with strength and skill in combat.

That seems to be the point of the spell, to become imbued with the power of a god for a short period of time.

[wurdpass]

Deathgrowl - I personally like the balance changes.

Other than Divine Seeker I feel that the Dreadmaster, Dervish and Thayan Knight classes are underpowered to the point that if I wanted to play one of those character concepts for an RP reason I would be mechanically encouraged to use different classes rather than the class literally designed for the RP concept. Invisible Blade is borderline as well because of the broke Bleed damage.

[Ravial]

42 AB without STR or feats, is not just ok. It's GODLIKE.

It breaks a little my mind, the complaint that you've reached +20 AB magic cap and somehow it's not enough ?

Divine Power:
Calling upon the divine power of your patron, you imbue yourself with strength and skill in combat.

That seems to be the point of the spell, to become imbued with the power of a god for a short period of time.

It doesn't say "Imbue yourself with power of a god". It's imbuing yourself with strength and skill in combat Which! Is literally what it does and what it'll still be doing. Difference is only BAB changed to AB.

Technically speaking, every divine spell cast is caling upon the divine power of your patron!

[cosmic ray]

@Deathgrowl

Obviously, the use of the word unplayable constitutes hyperbole, as they aren't literally unplayable, just very lacklustre relative to everything else, as you've said.

Some of those examples are the ones I had in mind too. Shadowdancer and blackguard are very strong, but only as splashes, which does not make the classes bad, but limits variance in character-making, which is also a bad thing imo. When you begin to see "stock" splashes like fighter 4; shadowdancer 3; blackguard 3-4; swashbuckler 5 (moving the ability from level 3 to 5 is more of a hindrance than a boon; what I think everyone would have preferred was a boost throughout all of its levels); etc, you should think that something may not be right with certain classes.

I didn't know that blackflame zealot had been buffed, but that was another one on my mind, along with warrior of darkness.

This may be slightly controvesial, but Red Wizard isn't great when compared to its PnP implementation, since, in NwN2, the class lacks its strongest ability, namely Circle Magic, which surely must have been the main reason for the hefty penalty it gets. This game retained that penalty but eliminated the best ability. However, as I said, this opinion may be controversial, so feel free to ignore this entire paragraph.

I've already alluded to it above, but does anyone actually play single-class swashbucklers or, at any rate, swashbucklers with a majority of character levels spent in that class?