The big nerf list (patch 1.2) (WIP)

[dunehunter]

Maia's damage has slowly been catching up with my MC Nature Godlike monk since she got driving flight and that OP legendary gun that has a 50% damage lash on it. She's the scout mutli class so that helps too. She's more item dependent, but seems quite a viable character. I'm not sure about ranger by itself though.

It’s just because ranged weapons are op...

[dunehunter]

I disagree strongly with the "nerfing" mentality.

 

The game has to be balanced on harder difficulties? Sure! But the player SHOULD feel empowered at higher levels, that's kinda of the purpose to leveling up. If the game makes you grind just so you can keep up with the challenges something is kinda wrong...

 

That said i think the encounters should be made more challenging, more enemies, more aggressive enemies, SMARTER enemies who use THEIR abilities and spells into a greater degree.

 

I'm really hoping this game doesn't get the "Blizzard treatment" where the strong gets nerfed into the oblivion just for the sake of "balancing". If some multiplayer game balancing logic should be applied i think it should be Dota 2's one, where "keep the strong there and buff/rework the weak options until it gets good enough".

 

The player should have MORE options, not less. And the game should be balanced around it.

But player experience is different on different classes now. When u play a monk and you do feel really empowered, while as a weaker class u might not have same experience, let’s say a ranger or priest.

 

Also it is really hard to make enemy smarter. It requires a lot AI programming and I believe balance classes is a more efficient way.

[Climhazzard]

 

Maia's damage has slowly been catching up with my MC Nature Godlike monk since she got driving flight and that OP legendary gun that has a 50% damage lash on it. She's the scout mutli class so that helps too. She's more item dependent, but seems quite a viable character. I'm not sure about ranger by itself though.

It’s just because ranged weapons are op...

 

 

 

That's definitely part of it, she wasn't really doing to bad with just a superior Arquebus though.  That's still due to items I guess though since between her armor and Acina's Tricorn she has -40% reload very easily.

 

Another problem is a lot of groups have so little HP that she's already done enough damage by the time the melee get into the battle that they can't catch up anymore, lol.

[dunehunter]

 

 

Maia's damage has slowly been catching up with my MC Nature Godlike monk since she got driving flight and that OP legendary gun that has a 50% damage lash on it. She's the scout mutli class so that helps too. She's more item dependent, but seems quite a viable character. I'm not sure about ranger by itself though.

It’s just because ranged weapons are op...

 

That's definitely part of it, she wasn't really doing to bad with just a superior Arquebus though. That's still due to items I guess though since between her armor and Acina's Tricorn she has -40% reload very easily.

 

Another problem is a lot of groups have so little HP that she's already done enough damage by the time the melee get into the battle that they can't catch up anymore, lol.

For classes that don’t have lash abilities, +50% lash is exactly equal to boost your damage by 50%. Lash is more powerful than damage bonus.

[Alhoon]

I'm really hoping this game doesn't get the "Blizzard treatment" where the strong gets nerfed into the oblivion just for the sake of "balancing". 

Funny you would say that, seeing that Blizzard balancing (at least in World of Warcraft) is pretty much the sole reason everyone is shouting at current age game devs to buff enemies instead of nerfing player characters. The end result is the same, but for some preposterous reasons this is the direction every game should take, because nerfing supposedly feels bad but buffing the enemies for some logic defying reason does not, even when they have exactly the same effect but one takes like a million times more work.

[Irori]

 

Rangers can probably use some buffs.  They lack this... "battle mode" a lot of other classes have (frenzy, swift flurry, stances, etc).  

 

Rangers absolutely don't need a buff. People keep saying the class is weak so I'm running PotD with single-ranger as my main.

 

I'm just sitting in place spamming Evasive fire to get rid of all level 10 - 16 contents. Use 47k Cp rifle. Boss is an enemy mage? Mark. Empower Accurate Shot. Bam. Over 200 crit damage, dead in one shot. Spam evasive fire some more. It's so OP to the point I sometime forget to control the mages because I was killing everything too fast.

 

I'm waiting to see Post-level 16 come to fruition now. Buff, shoot, Evasive to the backline, use the pet line-prone to knock everything down, swap to double saber and just AoE spin everything to death. Laugh if you crit and the Gatebreaker perma knock down everything.

 

 

You see, there are several issues why ranger imo just isn't on par with others.

i) Other class can often become super strong without needing a 47k cp rifle.  When we take things like unique items into account, we have chanters who regain empower orb with a sword, monk with the frost bow who would just annihilate stuff.

ii) 200 dmg per empower is actually pretty weak when empowered spells from casters can just kill several enemies.  Its not rangers, it just empower.

iii) The only big thing rangers have, imo would be their pet.  Since a lot of abilities from other classes do not have weapon requirements.  Sadly, this means a monk with swift strikes, or a barbarian with frenzy may make a stronger "ranged weapon user" compared to the ranger class.

[Tosho]

I dunno man I can do similar (if not far more) damage, only those builds are nigh immortal and can endlessly spam their resources. Or they are 6-8 pets that do more dps overall while I sit in a corner and sip tea and take 0 dmg. Or Missiles/Meteors that do 1000+ damage while I'm far far tankier than Ranger. Or killing every mob while I'm invisible. 

 

I'm not saying Ranger is bad. It just doesn't appear to belong on this list.

 

IMO Pet and Shadowed Hunters need a buff. 

 

 

Yeah rangers are fine. They make a very boring class, but far from weak.

 

I believe OP list nailed it. 

 

Agreed.

 

That's what we are pointing out. That they are fine and  not OP like many other classes. 

Edited May 18, 2018 by Tosho

[aweigh0101]

Just to summarize:

- Everyone who says balancing in SP games is unnecessary is wrong.

- Everyone who thinks "don't use it" is a logical argument is also wrong.

Alright, just wanted to set everybody straight. Carry on.

[Leafar]

Someone please make a big buff list as well

[BalkothTheFeared]

Empowered would be fine if there was a penalty to resting. Right now, other than RP reasons, you can spam resting after every encounter then hit enemies with 2k fireballs every fight.

[Tosho]

Someone please make a big buff list as well

 

Wizard conjured weapons

[Zeitzbach]

 

You see, there are several issues why ranger imo just isn't on par with others.

i) Other class can often become super strong without needing a 47k cp rifle.  When we take things like unique items into account, we have chanters who regain empower orb with a sword, monk with the frost bow who would just annihilate stuff.

ii) 200 dmg per empower is actually pretty weak when empowered spells from casters can just kill several enemies.  Its not rangers, it just empower.

iii) The only big thing rangers have, imo would be their pet.  Since a lot of abilities from other classes do not have weapon requirements.  Sadly, this means a monk with swift strikes, or a barbarian with frenzy may make a stronger "ranged weapon user" compared to the ranger class.

 

 

1) We do have to take items into account because it affects how the class play after a certain point and weapon classes are especially balanced around using them as only magic and pure skill scale with level and benefit from higher base damage.

 

Perk of playing a single-ranger. Other class can't just pick up a rifle, shoot down a squishy, switch to a dual saber, dash in and spam Heart of Fury for AoE damage. Majority of them can only do half of that. Either pure melee, Pure range spell OR mixed melee tanky. Don't even need the 50k gun unless you want long-range single target damage. The triple ice bow that inflict AoE on crit is also op on ranger because of their high accuracy allowing them to abuse the proc way better than most classes especially with bounce so you can't just cross that off the list because Monk exists.

 

https://i.imgur.com/5dEKDse.png

 

Done with a single AWS at level 14. Can't wait for Twin shot in 2 more levels. Money is also inflated in this game anyway. Don't even need to abuse the fish merchant. Hunt a few high level bounty around and that's already enough money to upgrade the bow to legendary. Weapon user are expected to have legendaries by at most level 14 anyway if they want to be able to keep up with casters. Any earlier than that and casters can't compete until they unlock T9.

 

2) 200 easy crit shot at mid-level isn't weak especially when you consider it also bounce for 150 ish more. Most Druid/mages only have Tier 5 spells and will do around 150 assuming they empower-crit. Throw in 7x normal Evasive Fire that deals 70-90 damage every 0.5 seconds because it has no recovery time and you can see how ridiculous the ranger dps can be.

 

Empowering the skill isn't even the best choice on ranger anyway and you only use it to gip the squishy bosses. Just empower the char for resource point and spam more evasive fire because it has no recovery. Evasive fire also scales with PL not with gear so it deals more damage as you level up. Imagine it 20 where it can function like a single-target salvo for bosses if you're willing to dash in the same location 15 times, just a bit behind because it's not empowered. It's great being able to deal both sustain damage and burst damage at any range.

 

3) Pets are trash because they don't scale well even if you pour tons of talent on em. Also, ranger weapon do work with melee weapon too unless stated other wise, like Evasive fire only deal damage with ranged and the T8 skill is either melee only or range only. The +20 accuracy full attack strike? Work with Dual-saber just fine. It's a 1-bond spell for easy double crit against whatever ranger marked with minimal recovery time.

 

The only thing the top broken pick atm really has over single-ranger is the infinite life buff that can easily be denied if they just give the enemy ranger concussive shot that -30s off all buffs. It's not even hard to code this because the game use the same AI system we have. The only thing we have atm is the Risen mage using Wall of Draining and that's lolwhatajoke.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Zeitzbach

[dunehunter]

Empowered would be fine if there was a penalty to resting. Right now, other than RP reasons, you can spam resting after every encounter then hit enemies with 2k fireballs every fight.

 

I like this idea, for example give character -1 PL til rest after he use empower.

[Irori]

If the penalty is too harsh then people would just go back to town to rest up.  It is a very lazy solution to the issue where empowered abilities easily take out/weaken a batch of enemies.

[Maxzero]

 

Empowered would be fine if there was a penalty to resting. Right now, other than RP reasons, you can spam resting after every encounter then hit enemies with 2k fireballs every fight.

 

I like this idea, for example give character -1 PL til rest after he use empower.

 

 

What has me stumped is that they moved away from balancing around resting with the new spell casting system.

 

Then they bring it straight back with Empower system.

 

So how do you balance it? Are Wizards balanced around resting after every fight and using Empowered spells or not?

Edited May 18, 2018 by Maxzero

[knownastherat]

 

 

 

Nature Godlike.

True, I'm tired of all my characters being green. I'll think of a good solution and add to the OP.

Why do people ask for nerfs in a single player game?

 

Just because you personally don't find something fun, it doesn't mean everyone else agrees with your preferences.

Because the game has 0 replayability due to being trivial AF atm?

Yet here I am replaying this the 3rd time, while I quit from 1 when I finished TCS on the last patch, as it devolved to a wet noodle fight simulator due to people like you.

Powerful abilities are fun, they should fix bugs (like inifinte cloaking and spell sniping), maybe add some AI or limit the most powerful abilities by resource cost. What you ask is gutting the game from any and all fun. Honestly castrating the first game was enough, thank you, don't mess this one up as well.

 

According to you BGII shouldn't have any replayability due to (amongst many) Timestop or UAI, yet it's still one of those games that keep people entertained. Replayability comes from fun and complexity not from everyone doing 1 damage to each other just with different color.

Bg2 is replayable because it’s difficulty mods like tactical mods, since deadfire now didn’t have one, it relies on obsidian to make it more balance and challlenging.

 

 

I guess it's individual. It took me almost 2 years to finish BG2 simply because I always quit before the end and restarted with a new class/build. This way I finished it with every class, solo. 

 

Let's do a reality check, however. I would guess that the number of people who replayed it many times, with or without mods, solo or in a party, is minimal in comparison to the number of people who bought the game. So who is this balancing for? Loud minority. 

[theBalthazar]

-Meteor Shower - halve the damage.

 

 

No. After many test, if you nerf Meteor shower, you must nerf also others spells extremely powerful. But don't forget : Single class are already not very powerful in herself. Except few exceptions (monk ability etc.) So there is a debat... Empower this is insane yes. After that, wait and see the PotD mod.

 

-Turning wheel. Nerf to 2.5% lash/wound. 50% "passive" lash is too massive especially considering all other buffs monks have.

 

 

Less than the paladin. Ok it is via one active ability with paladin, but Paladin share more theorical damage and here you have to increase wounds. So there is a "start". Debatable in a sense. I get 10 until 50 % of damage with a necessity VS 10 accuracy +15 %+25% + 20 % almost instant. At your first phase your max at 2 wound with nalpacza, or more at the first strike with shattered pillars, but halved via cap max. Or if you take a hit.

 

So nerf of 50 % of 50 % is extremely severe I think... Don't forget, there is also Monks there are single class...

 

 

Devotion of the faithful ; but they are not gamebreaking in a way

 

 

It is game breaking. Far more few examples you give ! ^^ Because all the team get +20 accuracy and +4 might. Crazy. Too much. But yes you're wright, if you nerf that, priest have almost nothing else actually. And personnally I will never take a priest again. So It is extremely problematic. 15 would be ok. 10 not, because few classes have 5 of accuracy, and the differential become too light and not worth it. I prefer in this case a true additionnal and real fighter.

 

So 15 is a good number. Increase delay of casting is not a good idea, because Priest need to participate more than only the guy who throw devotion for the faithful at the start and do his best after that.

 

We can also consider, each class have a trump card.

 

Fighter = cleave stance (and few times ago, disciplined strike)

Chanter = Brilliant inspiration.

Priest = devotion

etc.

 

When you look the way of thinking of obsidian. The company doesn't like perfect balancing. But more functionnal and viable balancing (which is not always true when you saw few abilities completely useless, they are not even "viable"). So Obsidian will nerf only the breaker.

 

There is only one really breaker actually : door's + brilliant affliction.

 

Devotion for the faithful is unbearable because it remember to me there is locked system of accuracy where the HIGHTER value always win. In this case Devotion is an obligation. 

 

It does not go in the direction of fun. It would be fun if it was a bonus of 15 + 5 of others bonus. Same result, but more flexible. But impossible with actual stacking rules.

 

So you take Devotions, and it is all, all others abilities giving accuracy is useless.

 

This is the reason for the "packs" (Paladin and Fighter) elsewhere. Don't believe Obsidian give a gift to you. It is a confession of weakness of this system. You must be able to SWITCH^^ if not your invest (At the creation : Oh yes 5 pt of accuracy !!) is down...

 

Except, generally I do Devotion first, before attacking (first action in a sense) so I don't even activate zealous focus. I stay on defensives auras and there is no special strategy. And for fighter, cleave stance give a reason to never use the two others stances. So... Accuracy is totally useless. Obsidian have created abilities theorically totally useless in this system.

Edited May 18, 2018 by theBalthazar

[dunehunter]

 

-Meteor Shower - halve the damage.

 

 

No. After many test, if you nerf Meteor shower, you must nerf also others spells extremely powerful. But don't forget : Single class are already not very powerful in herself. Except few exceptions (monk ability etc.) So there is a debat... Empower this is insane yes. After that, wait and see the PotD mod.

 

-Turning wheel. Nerf to 2.5% lash/wound. 50% "passive" lash is too massive especially considering all other buffs monks have.

 

 

Less than the paladin. Ok it is via one active ability with paladin, but Paladin share more theorical damage and here you have to increase wounds. So there is a "start". Debatable in a sense. I get 10 until 50 % of damage with a necessity VS 10 accuracy +15 %+25% + 20 % almost instant. At your first phase your max at 2 wound with nalpacza, or more at the first strike with shattered pillars, but halved via cap max. Or if you take a hit.

 

So nerf of 50 % of 50 % is extremely severe I think... Don't forget, there is also Monks there are single class...

 

1. I think it's better to nerf Empower than spells. Make Empower +5 PL instead of 10 would be a good start.

 

2. Generate wound is very easy in DF. also you are comparing an active ability with a passive, I would not do that. Also you compare one ability with two ability + class trait, which I wouldn't do that either. If you really wanna compare both ability, then it is Turning Wheel VS FoD, not FoD + Eternal Flame + Bleakwalker trait. It is +5% lash per wound at max of 50% lash vs 10 accuracy, 25% lash and full attack ability.

Edited May 18, 2018 by dunehunter

[theBalthazar]

Extremely difficult to say. Because we can do combinations. Active+Passive.

 

Multi Monk don't have the best active. So it is a point of view. Active bonus is also important at the end of the end.

 

I agree with +5 PL, seems more reasonnable. But in this case, perhaps unlock to 2 per battle.

 

I always found stupid to have only one Trump card. If this is less powerful, I change that for 2 per encounter. Even at PL+3-4 for example.

Edited May 18, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Kaylon]

Most classes are already weaker than they were in PoE and starting with the class nerfs is just stupid. Right now the imbalance is caused mainly by 3 things:

1. Empower - because of the huge effect it has on some spells

2. Items - some new items are too strong and can turn a weak class into a viable one or a balanced one into an OP class 

3. New game mechanics - the armor doesn't count anymore with enough penetration which means you can deal full damage to the enemies all the time, while healing has become too powerful making you almost immortal - these are some of the reasons the encounters feel trivial now

Once these issues are addressed then class abilities can be tuned. 

[ppscurry]

Some people just don't understand the fact that being PL9 means you are at the end game...if you halve meteors damage, there is really no point to it being there. You have to specialize as a pire wizard and only get it ar 19,20. With your nerf, i might as well use a freaking delayed fireball. PoE 1 was a disaster for me, it wasnt that much harder but boy was conbat a lot more tedious. Rather than nerfing everything that seems remotely strong, how anout improving the enemy resistances instead? Even bg2 required more counter play than this potato nerf war.

[Thetis]

 

 

You see, there are several issues why ranger imo just isn't on par with others.

i) Other class can often become super strong without needing a 47k cp rifle.  When we take things like unique items into account, we have chanters who regain empower orb with a sword, monk with the frost bow who would just annihilate stuff.

ii) 200 dmg per empower is actually pretty weak when empowered spells from casters can just kill several enemies.  Its not rangers, it just empower.

iii) The only big thing rangers have, imo would be their pet.  Since a lot of abilities from other classes do not have weapon requirements.  Sadly, this means a monk with swift strikes, or a barbarian with frenzy may make a stronger "ranged weapon user" compared to the ranger class.

 

 

1) We do have to take items into account because it affects how the class play after a certain point and weapon classes are especially balanced around using them as only magic and pure skill scale with level and benefit from higher base damage.

 

Perk of playing a single-ranger. Other class can't just pick up a rifle, shoot down a squishy, switch to a dual saber, dash in and spam Heart of Fury for AoE damage. Majority of them can only do half of that. Either pure melee, Pure range spell OR mixed melee tanky. Don't even need the 50k gun unless you want long-range single target damage. The triple ice bow that inflict AoE on crit is also op on ranger because of their high accuracy allowing them to abuse the proc way better than most classes especially with bounce so you can't just cross that off the list because Monk exists.

 

https://i.imgur.com/5dEKDse.png

 

Done with a single AWS at level 14. Can't wait for Twin shot in 2 more levels. Money is also inflated in this game anyway. Don't even need to abuse the fish merchant. Hunt a few high level bounty around and that's already enough money to upgrade the bow to legendary. Weapon user are expected to have legendaries by at most level 14 anyway if they want to be able to keep up with casters. Any earlier than that and casters can't compete until they unlock T9.

 

2) 200 easy crit shot at mid-level isn't weak especially when you consider it also bounce for 150 ish more. Most Druid/mages only have Tier 5 spells and will do around 150 assuming they empower-crit. Throw in 7x normal Evasive Fire that deals 70-90 damage every 0.5 seconds because it has no recovery time and you can see how ridiculous the ranger dps can be.

 

Empowering the skill isn't even the best choice on ranger anyway and you only use it to gip the squishy bosses. Just empower the char for resource point and spam more evasive fire because it has no recovery. Evasive fire also scales with PL not with gear so it deals more damage as you level up. Imagine it 20 where it can function like a single-target salvo for bosses if you're willing to dash in the same location 15 times, just a bit behind because it's not empowered. It's great being able to deal both sustain damage and burst damage at any range.

 

3) Pets are trash because they don't scale well even if you pour tons of talent on em. Also, ranger weapon do work with melee weapon too unless stated other wise, like Evasive fire only deal damage with ranged and the T8 skill is either melee only or range only. The +20 accuracy full attack strike? Work with Dual-saber just fine. It's a 1-bond spell for easy double crit against whatever ranger marked with minimal recovery time.

 

The only thing the top broken pick atm really has over single-ranger is the infinite life buff that can easily be denied if they just give the enemy ranger concussive shot that -30s off all buffs. It's not even hard to code this because the game use the same AI system we have. The only thing we have atm is the Risen mage using Wall of Draining and that's lolwhatajoke.

 

 

Thats not the ranger class carrying thats frostseeker being frostseeker and you can do the same with a rogue/monk... just better

[AndreaColombo]

Funny you would say that, seeing that Blizzard balancing (at least in World of Warcraft) is pretty much the sole reason everyone is shouting at current age game devs to buff enemies instead of nerfing player characters. The end result is the same, but for some preposterous reasons this is the direction every game should take, because nerfing supposedly feels bad but buffing the enemies for some logic defying reason does not, even when they have exactly the same effect but one takes like a million times more work.

 

To give you my perspective (again, for what it's worth.)

 

My maximum enjoyment of a roleplaying game comes when I'm at max level with endgame gear. I enjoy it the most because that's when I'm the most powerful and look the coolest. That's when I face the coolest enemies. In general, I like it better when I'm a 20th-level Fighter facing a dragon than when I'm a 1st-level Fighter fighting a xaurip, even if the relative power should ideally be about the same.

 

By the same token, I'd rather have powerful abilities to use against powerful enemies than to nerf my abilities so they can be on par with weak enemies.

 

With that said, I am not opposed to nerfing in principle. I don't necessarily agree that everything listed in the OP should be nerfed, or that it should be nerfed to the extent suggested, but I do agree that even if PotD is rebalanced, some things will need a rethink as they're too good. I just prefer a gradual, step-by-step approach to problem solving where we take a small step, test it in-game to see where we're at, and make a decision on the next step (e.g. before we nerf Swift Flurry, for example, let's prevent it from proccing itself and see what it plays like—if it's still too good, we can discuss further steps to ameliorate.)

Edited May 18, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[MadDemiurg]

Most classes are way stronger than PoE1 actually.

 

I don't remember any PoE1 classes being immortal or oneshotting whole screens of enemies.

 

Empower is far from the only problem and probably not even the biggest one. Many of these are more like bug fixes as well (Swift flurry).

 

Get over "but muh class", it will make the game more fun. Being ridiculously OP is not fun. Yes, Fighters, Chanters and Monks are OP too, not just empower Wizards. I'm trying to make this as unbiased as possible even if I also have my preferences.

 

Speaking of meteor shower, I think it would still do a lot more damage than delayed fireball even at 1/2 damage. Maybe it's bit too harsh combined with empower nerf but I remember it doing ~2k damage when empowered. How many health/resistances do you expect enemies to have exactly? I don't think any AOE ability should be doing more than 500 damage, even that is probably be too much. Anyways, my suggestions are only rough recommendations, I didn't test them all of course. Obsidian can do more fine grained tuning and find a better number for the nerf, I just have no doubts it needs to do significantly less damage. There are also more spells that need attention for sure, I've just listed the most blatantly obvious ones for now.

Edited May 18, 2018 by MadDemiurg

[MadDemiurg]

Someone please make a big buff list as well

It's gonna be too long. I'll probably make some class specific eventually.