<Knife_Fighting>
As a psycho knife killer, I welcome the damage mod changes and ability changes that made knife a lot more fun, but also more viable at higher levels. The expansion of "not looking at you" to include stuns and fears was much needed, and opens up new combo possibilities where before it was *always* the same (mes, then backstab or surprise throw). I especially love the bleed mods for DoT trauma and poison, which bring my bleed abilities up to a useful level for Venomstrike and Backstab.
The buff for throwing knife abilities makes my heart sing, as those are my bread and butter knife damage. The damage might need a little reigning-in, but I have not tested extensively and I was not taking more than 40-60% of the kills over an archer/druid while in Gazluk Keep (with all useful mods on her suit). It's still not terribly overpowered because metal slabs are required for the throwing knives, and that seems loosely-akin to archery's fletching.
Adding the offhand knife was a great way to introduce knife in combo with other skills with a wield requirement in the main-hand, although I have not seen any with skill wield requirements (they were all no wield) and they do not seem to be dropping on Gazluk Keep mobs aside from a select few bosses. This means that unless you are lvl 1 Knife, the offhand knives are not viable at the moment since you cannot get the full whack of offhand mods necessary for a build.
</ Knife_Fighting>
<AoE_Damage>
I am guilty of at least partaking a few times in the Kur AoE farming gig (although I never did so when anyone else was out there) and Knife does have an AoE, That being said, I can see where a diminishing return on damage for AoEs is necessary or one risks everything high levels camping low dungeons and areas using these attacks, leaving little to hunt for the lowbies. Personally, I never really use burst attacks on more than 3-5 mobs, and its usually just to grab their attention away from a group-mate about to get toasted. Sure you will have complainers, but I think that is a necessary growing pain for a game in development.
</ AoE_Damage>
<Performance>
Serbule still seems bad during peak times, but I have noticed a decrease in bottlenecks and increased response time during these times of server stress. Oddly, even though the peak times seem better, there is still a little stuttering even with <120 players logged in. This is somewhat perplexing but since I am not privy to the inner workings of the server it would be inappropriate to comment much further. Keep the performance fixes and changes coming, because they seem to be working.
</ Performance>
</ Post>