Defender 2.0 beta nerf

[kanisatha]

If it happens I will sadly kick Eder out of my current parties and never take a warrior again.

This. It is especially sad for me because I think Eder is arguably the most interesting of the NPCs.

 

Also, for someone like me who dislikes casters and prefers melee classes, and where this game was already heavily favoring caster classes, sucks to have even the tanking role better served by a caster class (or a paladin).

[Gary1986]

Well we can hope they revert the changes before the expansion/patch gets its official release. 

[Doppelschwert]

Nope, I don't think we're being overdramatic here. Let's see what 20 deflection means for a tank: 

 

Let's assume a dedicated tank's defense is 50 points higher than the opponent's accuracy ( which is not unusual, if you stack deflection ). What you end up with is a 0.175 damage multiplier (you're grazed on a 65+ on the combat table; thus, you take no damage 65% of the time and half damage 35% of the time, for a total 17.5% average damage ) before damage reduction. If your defense drops by 20 points, you're going to take( 17.5% + 20% = 37.5% ) average damage*0.375 instead. 

That's slightly more than twice as much base damage taken. 

Now, as I said, that's before armor, but it's still a lot more damage taken, and, in PoE, reducing damage taken is pretty important for a tank, because healing, with few exceptions, only affects endurance. 

Taking twice as much damage as the next tank is pretty bad, especially if tanking is pretty much your only niche in the game. 

 

As for fighters taking multiclass talents, that's not even remotely the same thing as another class grabbing veteran defender.

As you said, fighters are, intentionally, a low manteinance class. This means that their power can be easily gauged and kept in check; the lower the complexity of a class, the easier the assesment of its power. 

Casters, however, aren't simple by design, quite the contrary, they're pretty much as complex as they get, they have a huge toolbox of skills that can adapt to pretty much any situation, and, what's more, their huge repertoire of spells allows them to find and exploit way more synergies than a simple class like the fighter.

IOW, casters are way harder to balance just by virtue of having more options; you can easily create a subpar caster, but, as long as you know what you're doing, you can also create a caster that absolutely wrecks any opposition. 

 

The fighter's durability comes from four sources: his health/endurance pool, his armor, his defenses and his class abilities.

His class abilities are (were) mostly about buffing defenses and self healing: defender took care of his defenses, constant recovery, unbroken and unbending took care of the self healing part. 

Now, anyone can access armor; sure, it costs some dps but you can still equip it ( and it's not like the fighter didn't lose anything when using armor, it's just that a full tank dealt pitiful damage anyway ); just about any caster class, with the exception of ciphers, can somehow heal themselves in a way that's at least comparable to the healing Unbending provides; also, they have their own defensive buffs.

So, if you  drop the fighter's deflection by 20 points and give the other classes 2/3rds of his self healing,  suddenly you've got a character with decent survability (compared to the fighter's) and the wide array of options of a spellcaster on one side, and a class with good survability and pretty much nothing else on the other.

 

However, if you give the fighter a multiclass talent, you don't get a character with good survability and a decent amount of options, you get a fighter with a magic missile.

I'm not trying to be snarky here, but I guess you have some information I'm lacking, because I don't understand some of the arguments.

 

1) If you change from a fighter with defender pre-2.0 to a fighter with defender 2.0, you loose 20 deflection, alright. That's hitting hard I guess, but why wouldn't you compare the class pre-2.0 with defender to 2.0 with cautious attack? Thats a difference of 5 points in deflection and increases the damage taken from 17.5% to 22.5%. At the same time, a paladin in 1.06 can achieve the exact same value of deflection as a fighter with defender, which would mean that 17.5% compared to 22.5% would be the comparison between the paladin and the fighter in 2.0 if I did't miss anything.

 

Arguing with a loss of 20 points when its actually 5 is a bit dramatic in my eyes. My resumee would be that fighters clearly loose deflection and are not the class with the most available deflection anymore, but the difference to the other classes doesn't strike me as so big it makes them useless.

 

2) I don't know how a wizard would heal himself.

 

3) I don't know why the multiclass talents are described so one-sided. If you give your fighter lore and invest in some ingredients, you can have a lot of those powerful spells at your disposal. That doesn't even cost you a talent. You don't want to argue that you need them every single battle, do you?

 

4) Multiclass talents include a charm spell, an accuracy aura, a small debuff to enemies defenses and a summon. To me, this is hardly useless stuff.

 

As a short summary: I

-  agree fighters got nerfed

-  agree Defender might be kind of useless in the new version depending on AI

-  agree that fighters will be worse tanks

-  disagree that fighters niche is to be a tank, they are better suited to be an offtank

-  disagree that fighters will be that much worse overall because of the patch

-  disagree that casters are that much better off, given that there are scrolls available to everyone

 

I will leave it (and the thread) at that. I can see the frustration, but for me its not that bad if you put it into perspective, especially given that there is so much stuff I still don't know (higher level fighter abilities, AI, soulbound fighter gear in the expansion, etc).

 

By the way, I will probably start a fighter as a main for the expansion, which won't be a tank.

[rkade8583]

I wonder if I can be a barbarian tank... I just like tanking and not relying on anything save my own innate abilities (fighter for cultured badass and barbarian for lunatic meat shield.) As long as I can tank well in at least one of those scenarios, I'm good.

 

Yes my first characters are always "me." Yes I'm Scottish. We Scots are well accustomed with the duality of human.

[Njall]

 

Nope, I don't think we're being overdramatic here. Let's see what 20 deflection means for a tank: 

 

Let's assume a dedicated tank's defense is 50 points higher than the opponent's accuracy ( which is not unusual, if you stack deflection ). What you end up with is a 0.175 damage multiplier (you're grazed on a 65+ on the combat table; thus, you take no damage 65% of the time and half damage 35% of the time, for a total 17.5% average damage ) before damage reduction. If your defense drops by 20 points, you're going to take( 17.5% + 20% = 37.5% ) average damage*0.375 instead. 

That's slightly more than twice as much base damage taken. 

Now, as I said, that's before armor, but it's still a lot more damage taken, and, in PoE, reducing damage taken is pretty important for a tank, because healing, with few exceptions, only affects endurance. 

Taking twice as much damage as the next tank is pretty bad, especially if tanking is pretty much your only niche in the game. 

 

As for fighters taking multiclass talents, that's not even remotely the same thing as another class grabbing veteran defender.

As you said, fighters are, intentionally, a low manteinance class. This means that their power can be easily gauged and kept in check; the lower the complexity of a class, the easier the assesment of its power. 

Casters, however, aren't simple by design, quite the contrary, they're pretty much as complex as they get, they have a huge toolbox of skills that can adapt to pretty much any situation, and, what's more, their huge repertoire of spells allows them to find and exploit way more synergies than a simple class like the fighter.

IOW, casters are way harder to balance just by virtue of having more options; you can easily create a subpar caster, but, as long as you know what you're doing, you can also create a caster that absolutely wrecks any opposition. 

 

The fighter's durability comes from four sources: his health/endurance pool, his armor, his defenses and his class abilities.

His class abilities are (were) mostly about buffing defenses and self healing: defender took care of his defenses, constant recovery, unbroken and unbending took care of the self healing part. 

Now, anyone can access armor; sure, it costs some dps but you can still equip it ( and it's not like the fighter didn't lose anything when using armor, it's just that a full tank dealt pitiful damage anyway ); just about any caster class, with the exception of ciphers, can somehow heal themselves in a way that's at least comparable to the healing Unbending provides; also, they have their own defensive buffs.

So, if you  drop the fighter's deflection by 20 points and give the other classes 2/3rds of his self healing,  suddenly you've got a character with decent survability (compared to the fighter's) and the wide array of options of a spellcaster on one side, and a class with good survability and pretty much nothing else on the other.

 

However, if you give the fighter a multiclass talent, you don't get a character with good survability and a decent amount of options, you get a fighter with a magic missile.

I'm not trying to be snarky here, but I guess you have some information I'm lacking, because I don't understand some of the arguments.

 

1) If you change from a fighter with defender pre-2.0 to a fighter with defender 2.0, you loose 20 deflection, alright. That's hitting hard I guess, but why wouldn't you compare the class pre-2.0 with defender to 2.0 with cautious attack? Thats a difference of 5 points in deflection and increases the damage taken from 17.5% to 22.5%. At the same time, a paladin in 1.06 can achieve the exact same value of deflection as a fighter with defender, which would mean that 17.5% compared to 22.5% would be the comparison between the paladin and the fighter in 2.0 if I did't miss anything.

 

Arguing with a loss of 20 points when its actually 5 is a bit dramatic in my eyes. My resumee would be that fighters clearly loose deflection and are not the class with the most available deflection anymore, but the difference to the other classes doesn't strike me as so big it makes them useless.

 

2) I don't know how a wizard would heal himself.

 

3) I don't know why the multiclass talents are described so one-sided. If you give your fighter lore and invest in some ingredients, you can have a lot of those powerful spells at your disposal. That doesn't even cost you a talent. You don't want to argue that you need them every single battle, do you?

 

4) Multiclass talents include a charm spell, an accuracy aura, a small debuff to enemies defenses and a summon. To me, this is hardly useless stuff.

 

As a short summary: I

-  agree fighters got nerfed

-  agree Defender might be kind of useless in the new version depending on AI

-  agree that fighters will be worse tanks

-  disagree that fighters niche is to be a tank, they are better suited to be an offtank

-  disagree that fighters will be that much worse overall because of the patch

-  disagree that casters are that much better off, given that there are scrolls available to everyone

 

I will leave it (and the thread) at that. I can see the frustration, but for me its not that bad if you put it into perspective, especially given that there is so much stuff I still don't know (higher level fighter abilities, AI, soulbound fighter gear in the expansion, etc).

 

By the way, I will probably start a fighter as a main for the expansion, which won't be a tank.

 

 

1)I don't compare it to cautious attack because deflection only mitigates a part of the damage intake; all of the other defenses just dropped by 5/10 points as well with this change, so it's either -7 deflection and -10 to each other defense with cautious attack, or -20 deflection and -5 to each other defense with the nerfed defender. 

Also, a paladin is already 6/8 points ahead of a fighter in terms of deflection, even with the current defender ( same starting deflection, +11 faith and convinction + 10 cautious attack, +2 deep faith, if you really want to push it, vs +15 deflection from defender ) and  way ahead in terms of defenses anyway, because of faith and convinction, which leaves even the old defender in the dust as far as defense bonuses  go.

 

2) Concelhaut's parasitic staff, Concelhaut's corrosive Siphon, Infuse with vital essence, Concelhaut's Draining Touch: first, second, second and third level spells respectively, so the first three are actually per encounter abilities at 11th level. Draining Touch might become per encounter at 13+ ( we don't know for sure yet ).

 

3) Dude, I don't want to be snarky either, but I don't even know what you're arguing here. I can already invest in lore and crafting, this has nothing to do with the relative value of multiclass talents or the power levels of the classes, why are you even bringing it up? Invest on lore with, say, your wizard, and you're still way, way ahead in terms of power and options compared to the fighter, and you'll also be able to find and exploit way more synergies between your class abilities and the scrolls themselves.

 

4)You seem to be missing the fact that what makes casters powerful isn't the ability to charm stuff, or the ability to hit from a distance, and it isn't even their AoE CC, their buffs, or their self-healing.

What makes them powerful is having all of these options and being able to choose at their leisure which one to use depending on the situation.

That's why the multiclass talents don't really cut it in this regard: they still only add a single option on top of the nothing the fighter has. 

Edited August 15, 2015 by Njall

[evilcat]

If the main advantage of class is that it can take generic talents and level up spellcraft to use scrolls... that is not a good sign, not good at all.

 

Fighters have a niche of tanking, since ware able to reach high defenses and have stronk survivability, hardly ever requiring healing, most of the time last man standing.

But even with 1.06 people are drfting away to other classes (Chanter, Paladin) since others have better outside effects. And heaving niche in tanking is already bad sign, since for tanking you need generic talents, shield and other gear. If class is useless we can always give it a shield and send as meatshield.

 

I am looking forward to see this Bruiser Fighters since right now they are meh. +20% on choosen weapon set and possibly +15% free speed (Grace) is not impressive. Minimal CC and no Buffs/Debuffs dont make it better.

 

It is especially problematic for story players, since they could like to have Eder in party, but now Eder will be weaker, and it will be harder to give him things to do.

Edited August 15, 2015 by evilcat

[Elric Galad]

I agree. All other fighter abilities are currently meh. Not that bad, at least none are too much situational and all of them stacks with about everything... but only defender was really good.

 

Another niche could be reliability against strong opponents: confident aim gives me a good feeling.

 

During my last run, I ****ed up a bit against <final boss>, my party was wiped after I killed the 2 <sidekicks of the last boss>: Eder remained alone. 1 versus 1. He single handly killed him. The duel took maybe 5mn of auto-attack, I even thought I could prepare a coffee. Unbroken triggered. But he won eventually. Such an epic win !

Eder was my 5th damage dealer. It sounded like a revenge on barbarian/rogue/wizard/cipher he protected during the whole adventure without getting the kills.

 

Maybe deflection could be slightly lowered because invincibility is a bit boring.

But I hope Obsidian will keep this feeling of the stubborn warrior who never gives up.

 

Possible suggestions :

- defender could apply a speed debuff instead of accuracy or deflection. Maybe a hard -2 which also cancels speed buff. This way it will not be active all the time.

- confident aim could have a related talent to improve graze to hit.

- armored grace should be proportional to armor increased value. Armored grace with robe sounds stupid.

- they could have an ability to reduce a percentage of enemy DR (per encounter power?). No class can do that.

- apply a long lasting very small stacking malus to enemy defenses per hit. (Like -2 for 20 seconds). Fighters never gives up.

- apply a long lasting very small bonus to fighters defense from 1 single ennemy each time he is attacked. Fighters win... eventually.

- if all the previous are applied, wary defender could be nerfed. This talent is indeed too powerful )

[Kilburn]

What else did they change? Or they just brutally destroyed defender and left everything else untouched?

 

Is there a list of all the changes yet?

 

This heavy handed approach is kind of disappointing. I was hoping they would tweak everything and bring better internal balance to the classes.

[Gary1986]

What else did they change? Or they just brutally destroyed defender and left everything else untouched?

 

Is there a list of all the changes yet?

 

This heavy handed approach is kind of disappointing. I was hoping they would tweak everything and bring better internal balance to the classes.

 

 

Some of the changes can be found here http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/7/entry-186-update-notes-20-in-progress/

 

This is only a beta patch so hopefully they will sort out/fix Defender/Wary Defender before the final patch gets released.

[Kilburn]

Wow they added immunity. That could make potd really really hard. I like it. Except I hate getting stun locked by wind blights lol.

[Gary1986]

Can somebody who goes one them forums Josh Sawyer goes on where he answers questions and ask him why the major change to Defender. I'm very intrigued to know.

[View619]

Can somebody who goes one them forums Josh Sawyer goes on where he answers questions and ask him why the major change to Defender. I'm very intrigued to know.

 

They're moving towards fewer sources for deflection stacking and Defender + Wary Defender gave + 15, iirc. They may need to tweak that to giving +5 total deflection or something with the old +10 bonus to other defenses instead of a straight nerf to deflection and +5 to the others.

[docfc]

But what about paladin ? Mine had more deflection and defenses than adra dragon (on hard), thanks to their OP passive !

[View619]

What about Paladins? Have their Faith and Conviction bonuses to deflection been altered? I don't plan on hiring one, but feel free to check yourself.

Edited August 16, 2015 by View619

[Gary1986]

All they need to do is turn the -5 on Defender to +5 and everything is solved.

[joshua43214]

The question every one seems to be missing is "What class is meant to be a tank?"

 

 

PoE is NOT DnD, it is not Icewind Dale, it is not BG, etc.

If we are all going to persist in thinking this game is the same as the old games, we are all going to sit around being unhappy about the game.

 

 

That said, if the fighter is meant to be a tank, then this nerf is stupid. As a fighter gets better he should be able to engage more enemies and take less damage from them at the same time. The best solution for balance would be to delay the talent two levels so he has to really become a better fighter instead of a slightly better fighter.

 

 

On the other hand, if fighters are meant to fight then there is nothing wrong with the nerf. It just means that PoE has broken the current paradigm of fighter tanks in favor of something else.

[Njall]

The question every one seems to be missing is "What class is meant to be a tank?"

 

 

PoE is NOT DnD, it is not Icewind Dale, it is not BG, etc.

If we are all going to persist in thinking this game is the same as the old games, we are all going to sit around being unhappy about the game.

 

 

That said, if the fighter is meant to be a tank, then this nerf is stupid. As a fighter gets better he should be able to engage more enemies and take less damage from them at the same time. The best solution for balance would be to delay the talent two levels so he has to really become a better fighter instead of a slightly better fighter.

 

 

On the other hand, if fighters are meant to fight then there is nothing wrong with the nerf. It just means that PoE has broken the current paradigm of fighter tanks in favor of something else.

[...]Each class holds the line in its own way. As covered in Update 52, the monk absorbs damage to fuel special attacks through the use of accumulated Wounds. These attacks can stun, push, or weaken individuals or small groups around them. While monks have to be monitored to ensure their Wounds do not overwhelm them, they can absorb a large amount of punishment and hamper enemy movement on the battlefield. In contrast, the fighter holds the line the traditional way: by standing her ground, blocking opponents, and being infuriatingly difficult to knock out. Barbarians are designed to jump into the fray swinging wildly. Lacking the accuracy and strong Deflection of the fighter, the barbarian makes up for his lack of discipline through sheer speed, savagery, and abilities tailored for fighting groups of enemies.[...]

 

http://eternity.obsidian.net/news/update-81-the-front-line-fighters-and-barbarians-

[Njall]

 

Can somebody who goes one them forums Josh Sawyer goes on where he answers questions and ask him why the major change to Defender. I'm very intrigued to know.

 

They're moving towards fewer sources for deflection stacking and Defender + Wary Defender gave + 15, iirc. They may need to tweak that to giving +5 total deflection or something with the old +10 bonus to other defenses instead of a straight nerf to deflection and +5 to the others.

 

 

Edit: came out snarkier than intended. Paraphrased: nerf shields rather than talents. They give a bunch of deflection for a minimal investment, and with a single talent they also add a lot of reflex defense. 

Also, all top-end tanks use them.

Edited August 17, 2015 by Njall

[View619]

If by "minimal investment" you mean significant drops in accuracy, then I agree. Single weapon vs sword & shield with the largest shield is a big drop in accuracy.

Edited August 17, 2015 by View619

[MunoValente]

Shields are fine, shields should provide a large defensive boost, that is why shields exist, otherwise they are pointless and they are pointless in a lot of games.

 

Defender isn't an ability for pure tanks anymore, it's an ability for fighter who wants to dish out damage with disengagement attacks.  A more traditional tank fighter would use guardian and/or cautious attack.  Maybe Guardian could be given a boost.

 

Allowing cautious attack could be active with Defender or Guardian would help.

[hilfazer]

The question every one seems to be missing is "What class is meant to be a tank?"

 

 

PoE is NOT DnD, it is not Icewind Dale, it is not BG, etc.

If we are all going to persist in thinking this game is the same as the old games, we are all going to sit around being unhappy about the game.

 

[...]

 

On the other hand, if fighters are meant to fight then there is nothing wrong with the nerf.

 

And PoE isn't an MMO either.

 

No class is supposed to be a tank. Fighters have some offensive abilities and some defensive ones. It 'just happens' you can build them as a tank. Or at least you could before the nerf to Defender.

 

Going from bonus of +15 to malus of -5 is sick even for Obsidian (who have no problems dividing numbers by 4-5 after game release).

[tinysalamander]

No class is supposed to be a tank.

 

Nobody is supposed to be a nobody as well, though.

[evilcat]

Shields are not exacly free deflection, since it drops accuracy, and deals less dps than 2h or 2wf.

It is fun if i have 3 weapon slot, and could rotate over range, dps, defensive. But that requires race or talent, so still not free.

Of course slightl nerfing of shield is a option to consider, and it is quite resonable.

 

I doubt defender nerf is something everyone was waiting for.

It could be done in fallowing months after expansion and it would be better. More feedback, possibly less work.

 

This -5 deflection does not fit fighters, since fighters do not benefit from being hit. -X deflection is ok for Barbarians (for rage) or for Monks, but not for fighter.

Maybe for some godlike built (fire, nature) but that is too specific.

Beside that -5 deflection (Wary) Defender could be nerfed if devs feel it is necessery.

 

Also if Devs want to push some other fighter archetype, like single target dps, or tactical combat master there need to be more talents to support that, and some of current could be made better (accurate baragge is not really apealing).

 

It is rather pointless to argue "Paladins are supposed to be better tanks than fighters!" since it is childsplay.

However, it would be better if every class has a couple of archetypes which devs knows about and support with design. And unspecified number of gimmick builds which are possible with sick combos (they will just exist).

So setting "One of Fighter archetype is >>tank<< front fighter with high defences" is good design.

Setting "Fighter is not supposed to be tank, but supported archetypes are..." is also good design.

Unfortunetly, aproach "Fighters are class when you can pick neutral talents, get good gear and use scrolls" is bad design. Since the same can be done with other classes, but better.

 

It is all about design, and premise "what we want from that class other than taking party slot?"

 

There is also the option that nerf is not that bad, and Fighters could be still in parties, and we are complaining too much.

It just could be done better, not just change the shade of "bad".

Edited August 17, 2015 by evilcat

[Kilburn]

Dual wield hatchet is better than using a shield. You can keep quite a bit of offensive power and still pump up deflection. And that rending hatchet guarded by the lions is fairly easy to get and quite powerful.

[rheingold]

There is also option that defender nerf is red herring. Every major patch or expansion will have some bugs or imprefections, so it is easy to add some unnnecessery change for players to beach about, forgiving all other imprefections. Then the nerf could be tuned down, and everyone will feel better. That brings crowd control to new level. ;-)

There is also option that defender nerf is red herring. Every major patch or expansion will have some bugs or imprefections, so it is easy to add some unnnecessery change for players to beach about, forgiving all other imprefections. Then the nerf could be tuned down, and everyone will feel better. That brings crowd control to new level. ;-)

WOW! Think I've finally met my match. Someone who is more cynical than me.