I want to argue that nerfing the abilities is detrimental to the game.
I will try to be clear and short and give examples when needed.
This is a reaction to the last patch (1.1.0.0035) which, in my opinion, is going in the wrong direction.
Let it be clear that I speak of abilities in general including spells and active skills but also passive abilities and modals.
What I found fun in the battle of this game is that a well placed abilities can win you a fight. I like to have to rethink my strategies to have to win battle. This is enabled by strong abilities that can change the course of a fight.
Nerfing abilities raise the relative strength of the plain attack. In my opinion that changes the game more toward a boring “I hit you, you hit me until the dude with the strongest stat win”.
Making the game harder can be achieved without nerf to the abilities. As an extreme examples, consider the following: instead of nerfing Swift Flurry what about putting a handful of angry blunderbuss wielding Monk/Berseker to every fight ? Or a couple of meteor shower casting mage ? This would make the game harder.
More seriously I believe making the game harder and more interesting would require an overall of the IA and the builds they use. And of course better abilities usage. But nerfing the abilities does not necessarily make the game harder.
The IA also use abilities. Reducing their effectiveness can arguably makes the game easier. This is because the face value of an abilities is more important to the IA while the player will adapt the usage of the ability. For example the nerf to the duration of arcane veil make it so that it is more important to use the ability at the right time. A thing the IA is not really good at while the player will adapt its behavior.
Note that I do not think that the meteor shower or the swift flurry did not deserve a nerf. I am ok with a few particular change to hinder a very strong combo. It is more the general nerf to just about everything that is deemed strong that I fear.
What do you think ?
Most importantly have fun and have a good day !
