AoE Changes & Discussion

[Dibbuk]

I have to admit I was disappointed in the nerf as well. I had expected to see all classes to be granted at least one AOE attack, rather than nerf the existing AOE's. It will become much more difficult to develop a character, knowing it can be nerfed as soon as it becomes capable of solo battle.

[OpieFisher]

The problem with an AoE nerf is the same problem with AoE builds in general which is in short that it's not really needed in the first place. In at level play you have to do horrible things to the nice people in your group to do enough damage to warrant trying to use AoE for damage in the first place.
Even playing perfectly you are gonna mess up eventually and pull the next room over. Eventually the Bacon meter will run out and the ability bar will turn grey.
You got a lot of tools to help solve the situation you made if you are playing with Ice or BC,but that doesn't change the fact that the entire group has to account for the way you play for you to do alright damage in the first place.
I say again,alright damage.This is coming from a guy that had group with folks that were down for my shenanigans even.
The whole reason to play an AoE build is so that you can wear and/or say off color stuff and get away with it strictly off the fact that you clearly make poor life decisions and have already been punished enough.Well that and going down to the value town that is roots/BC buffs but you get the gist.

Kur panthers are fine and dandy but you try that in labs or gazlak keep get ready for a hot mess and see previous statement,we're talking two different beasts and I think that bears pointing out.
I'd rather have seen something like an open area,out in kur mountains for example, would have a dampening effect on AoE like the scale is now but in a dungeon the damage would have remained unchanged.

If the problem is farming that needs to be fixed in and of itself.
It aint just an AoE change that's gonna solve that bit on it's own not to mention the game itself becomes a lot more tedious if eliminating farming altogether is the end goal here.
I farm in Rahu for the most part with all kinds of builds and thought that was decent money,just as a side note there.

Honestly the change felt more like a curse than anything,like it should have been used as a mechanic in a zone/boss/rage attack.
Could have made it into a mod for an ability too if you take the base idea and play with it,a damage/healing mod that scales with the targets involved.

All that being said I still like playing AoE builds even after the change so I can't complain too much.

[Mikhaila]

I have to admit I was disappointed in the nerf as well. I had expected to see all classes to be granted at least one AOE attack, rather than nerf the existing AOE's. It will become much more difficult to develop a character, knowing it can be nerfed as soon as it becomes capable of solo battle.

Every character is capable of soloing. Not every character could drag in a dozen mobs and kill them at once.

[Celedor]

One thing I tend to forget is that we're play testers. So when there is a nerf that greatly affects my character, I shouldn't be too upset, and view it instead as the developers trying to get the game right according to their vision.

Easier said than done though. I still get a bit annoyed when this happens

[Golliathe]

What really bothers me about the AoE nerf is that this little gem didn't get touched at all:

Whenever you take damage from an enemy, you gain Bard Base Damage +8% for 15 seconds

Excuse me? How did this not get nerfed into oblivion? Bards are still running into groups and killing everything if they have this mod.

Now there is a big argument though on just how effective gear mods should be when it comes to character strength, and the devs have lowered gear mod strength and increased base attack damage in the past, and they might do it again if they're looking at reducing damage. Right now character strength is heavily based on gear, especially when it comes to damage, but there is a reason for it.

Please tell me what that reason is that makes the game make sense. I'm level 74 wearing lvl mostly lvl 50 gear.I can compare my gear to someone who has fully kitted/crafted items in the same class. He does 3x my damage with each attack. That's lame. If this game is supposed to be like everquest then gear should be no more than ~20% of an increase from best in slot to pretty good gear you farmed solo.

I realize they don't want everyone carrying around a fire staff so that when they get to the boss that is weak vs fire everyone becomes a fire mage. But by the same token gear shouldn't have +100% damage boost to a skill because you have one attribute on one piece of gear. I expect more like 10% boost and keep the base damage massively higher.

In other words....in moderately crappy gear my attacks do about 400 damage at lvl 70. Someone in full damage gear does 1200 damage per attack. How about we make the game so that the base damage on the attack is somewhere around 1000 damage. So me in my crappy gear I might do 1100 damage, and the guy in the uber gear set now only does 1350 damage.

Yes that's a huge nerf on the guy who min/maxed everything but now you don't have anyone powerful enough to solo the "end tier" content. Isn't that really the point overall? Otherwise the next meta will just be single target death strikes.

With that being said I think this still creates tons of room for utility buffs instead of just +insane damage numbers. Looking at my example the guy with end tier armor has all kinds of crazy buffs from armor and even though his damage is only slightly higher he has an insanely easier time fighting the same content because of all the other bonuses floating from his armor... but he takes almost as long as me to kill everything. The difference is that he can probably be sipping tea with one hand while he fights in a very relaxed state.

Isn't that what this thread is really about? Hey something is wrong when one guy can do damage like an entire group. How does he do massive damage like that? The answer seems to me that armor is giving too much of a damage bonus (not that aoe attacks are inherently the problem).

[VanHelsing]

Please tell me what that reason is that makes the game make sense. I'm level 74 wearing lvl mostly lvl 50 gear.I can compare my gear to someone who has fully kitted/crafted items in the same class. He does 3x my damage with each attack. That's lame. If this game is supposed to be like everquest then gear should be no more than ~20% of an increase from best in slot to pretty good gear you farmed solo.

Hey, mind posting your build? i remember being lvl 50 in lvl 50 crafted gear outdpsing lvl 70's by 3-4k. It may just have to do with how you mod your gear, though the end game gear does provide a very noticeable boost to damage you shouldn't be doing that little damage unless you aren't properly modding your gear/transmuting those 50 legendaries to get the mods you need. (Assuming you have 50 legendaries) Also your rotation prioritization might have something to do with it as well so posting that may help me help you figure out what your doing wrong.