Firstly and foremost, let me say a big thank you to anemar. To those who think he/she is my friend, you're wrong. If he/she is my friend, I'd have told you his/her gender. Rather, anemar was one of the developers at Cryptic who recently left in search of greener pastures. I firmly believe anemar will be fondly missed by the community. After all, anemar did do a bang up job so far in communicating with the fanbase and fixing whatever needing a fix. As a result, we got a general gameplay patch list the size of Russia (for the woefully uninformed including my fellow S'poreans as well, Russia is actually the largest country in the world).
Good news(?) for all the aggro monkeys...
I really like what I'm seeing in the patch. This time round, Kariss Locras will have a decent defensive game (in other words, the post-Mod 5 tweaks were no different from the annual Halloween party in Sentosa when it comes to solo PvE). There are some radical changes here, a couple of which will contribute greatly to the fury spec. Out of the 3 paragon skill trees, only seduction offers a decent defensive game (read: good enough to survive the first couple of mob onslaught). Once the patch hit home, I may end up doing a free respec so that Kariss will become a seductive hellbringer (read: I still got problems trying to reconcile her character with her choice of a fury spec).
From whatever little info I've gleaned so far, it seems that the scourge warlock may have been buffed in a less-than-typical manner. The versatility is def there. Ironically, it's not so much of the Dept of Dps Radiation (something and the only thing this aggro monkey class is known for). Rather, the availability of defensive options is the key. The versatility lies in the strategy rather than tactics (i.e. strategy is all about planning the situation, tactics are all about playing with the situation). The presence of defensive upgrading lies mainly in the reworked Infernal Spheres and Blades of the Vanquished Army where the former confers damage resistance while the latter gives you a whopping total of 25% deflection chance. Ask for my opinion, however, and I'll say no to BotVA unless your warlock has a good defensive game boons-wise (read: deflection is a modifier stat instead of a core stat). Infernal Spheres, however, is different ball game. It's basically a game of this. Ultimately, the only way to make either/both means work lies in Warding Curse. This class feature is the most direct way to prevent your warlock from dying instead of having enemies dying. In other words, it's all abt defensive synergy rather than just a one-shot fix.
Interestingly, the warlock gamers seemed to have a different opinion. Quite the opposite tbh. They said the class got nerfed. If so, then it's most likely down to the reworking of Tyrannical Curse. Either that or I'm not seeing enough information here. Ofc there's this question of curse expend instead of curse synergy. If it's true that 90% of the original curse expend has been replaced with curse synergy by time you guys (and gals) see this post, then surely it's a massive nerf on the one-shot dps. If there's any trade-off as a result, it will be a sustainable dps game instead of one-shot nuking. Which would go a long way in explaining why the warlocks believe that the aggro monkeys are currently devolving instead of evolving. So much for evolution and Darwinism. *shrugs*
Blame the Koreans?
Interestingly, the warlock gamers seemed to have a different opinion. Quite the opposite tbh. They said the class got nerfed. If so, then it's most likely down to the reworking of Tyrannical Curse. Either that or I'm not seeing enough information here. Ofc there's this question of curse expend instead of curse synergy. If it's true that 90% of the original curse expend has been replaced with curse synergy by time you guys (and gals) see this post, then surely it's a massive nerf on the one-shot dps. If there's any trade-off as a result, it will be a sustainable dps game instead of one-shot nuking. Which would go a long way in explaining why the warlocks believe that the aggro monkeys are currently devolving instead of evolving. So much for evolution and Darwinism. *shrugs*
Kariss Locras' (ideal) theme
Blame the Koreans?
It may have become semi-official now. The hunter ranger class has gotten an upgrade. A massive upgrade no less. In fact, I'm pretty sure detractors (i.e. those who have been whining abt great weapon fighters and guardian fighters) will start crying foul due to what they'll eventually see (read: the Korean logic). As a hunter ranger from Mod 4 unto now, does Arylos give a two hoots' damn about this or that? The answer is an obvious no. After all, the concept of conflict between outcome and process do have its legit moments.
With that being said, the new changes are anything but a form of persona non grata. In Prince Andy's own words, awesome. I don't know whether my future girlfriend does have a habit of using this word, but awesome is basically what I'd use to describe the changes. There's virtually zero nerfing to be seen here. Only a reworked system where we may easily end up seeing great weapon fighters like this one below.
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| Not to mention combat hunter rangers as well for reasons quite the opposite... |
One of the greatest reasons (if not the greatest) why hunter rangers were so used to griping like a bunch of Singaporeans is due to a legit concern of every other class out-dps'ing them left, right, and centre. If even a guardian fighter can out-dps your hdps archer, it means serious business afoot. And trust me when I say it's true that guardian fighters do have a decent probability of doing just that (hilariously enough, even a devoted cleric can out-dps Kariss despite her being a fur(r)y spec. >.<).
Ofc I could have made a switch in terms of my choice of main (in fact, I'm far more of a trickster rogue than a hunter ranger, gameplay style wise). Fortunately (albeit belatedly as well), I chose to emulate a true blue talent (disclaimer: there is nothing of note when it comes to whether there's a relationship of inspiration between the real Suárez and the real Arylos).
The changes in the archery tree lie in the feats more than anything else. Granted certain moves got tweaked (Aspect of the Falcon, in particular, will surely make Korey into the Jeanne d'Arc of all things artillery), but the gamechanger stops at the feats rather than the encounter powers. A lot will be said on whether Aimed Shot has officially become the new face of drastic evolution as a form of gaming science, but the feats will remain as the mainstay of the archery tree.
A bit on the Aimed Shot here. I'll have to admit that plenty of archers will want to use this. However, the tricky part lies in having only two at-will slots. For the stormwardens, it's easily a no-brainer as all they need to do is slotting an Aimed Shot plus a quick-firing at-will. It's only when you're a pathfinder where things will get interesting. The oft understated strength of the HR lies in a fast at-will offensive game. Which is why having two slow firing at-wills would have defeated the purpose of playing one. It's either Aimed Shot or Hunter's Teamwork, I can assure you of that. Do not underestimate the impact behind such a dilemma. As I've said, the main player in the improved archer HR lies in the feats. In other words, it's up to the gamer to decide whether the Quarry feat is still worth the 5 pts (read: feats synergy has always been the mainstay behind every build). And this is not to mention the potential dps catastrophe caused by a Quarry+Hunter's Teamwork+Carefule Attack+same target. It's doable, trust me. I'm the one creating Korey as both a playable character and part of the Neverwinter Six saga for crying out loud!
Which now comes to the trapper. Basically, not much has been changed. The only notable change lies in the cooldown aspect where Swiftness of the Fox and Forestbond is concerned. More specifically the buggy multi-cooldown effect (which wasn't intended in the first place, I'm sure of that). As for the multi-proc of Biting Snares, I'm pretty sure it means sustaining the effect via rapid stance switch (read: using two grasping roots attacks in one go). In other words, there's nothing much being fixed for the trapper apart from buggy issues in every sense of the word.
Combat spec is where the greatest changes may be seen. During Mod 4, my combat Arylos wasn't doing anything of note. This is mostly due to the HR being underpowered since the end of Mod 3 (not to mention trickster rogues and control wizards being hideously broken unless you happen to be someone using either class). In Mod 6, the new feats only served to further shaft this paragon tree which made the likes of Aragorn and Drizzt Do'Urden so famously badass. Definitely not awesome, man.
The greatest complaint I've seen in the official forums lies the lack of muscle for the at-wills. If the archery tree was underpowered mostly due to a broken feat system (since the at-will damage is quite decent albeit Aimed Shot was unplayable in a negative sense), then the combat tree has suffered from a chronic case of at-will anaemia. While nothing has changed for Careful Attack (that one doesn't need to be fixed anyway), the combo damage for Rapid Strike (and Rapid Shot for that matter as well) has been upped. The biggest change, however, lies in Clear the Ground. The base damage got upped, overall combo damage also got upped. Given the 3rd hit is a so-called "double burst" attack (read: CtG is considered a burst attack), it merely further upped the overall damage to an epic level (hopefully, that is) once you hit home the crit.
Lucky Blades now confer bonus damage for encounter powers upon proc (which is a killer given the synergy with the Endless Assault heroic feat). Battlecrazed now gives you bonus damage on top of bonus deflection. Scything Blade now gives you a base 5% damage increment apart from the original per-every-enemy modifier. Due to potential repercussions resulting from such a deadly dps combination, it's only a no brainer that Piercing Blades got a minimal boost (from 40% to 50% piercing damage). In fact, this was also the reason why the original plan to create a 4 hit Blade Hurricane sequence was scrapped.
All in all, a dps monster in the making. Which now comes to the main drawback. Under the previous system, it's possible to utilize a decent lifesteal game even if you don't have a decent base lifesteal stat. This is due to a combination of Bloodletting (+5% base lifesteal chance on max level) and Battlecrazed (+15% lifesteal chance in total on max level). That gives you a whopping 20% lifesteal chance. Plus Wilds Medicine in the fray and the survival aspect is plain crazy. This time round, no such luxury. Battlecrazed now confers bonus in damage and deflection per hit, not lifesteal. In short, you won't have the best of both worlds in the same way you can never date two beautiful radiographers instead of just one. I'm perfectly fine with it though. I mean the gameplay, not the beautiful radiographers.
As for Blade Hurricane, it got buffed. Due to too much badassery in other aspects, however, the 2 secs rule may not work that well in the event where you're out to pull off an Aimed Strike. Still better than last time round, but the total number of hits doable will be severely limited. By my own estimation, you can only pull off 2 at-wills under this kind of situation compared to any other at-will powers combination (where you may have a decent chance of pulling off 6 attacks instead of just 4). On the flip side though, you can now proc BH via just about any melee encounter power. Which means non-damage melee buffs like Oak Skin are now officially legit.
Korey's (ideal) theme
Conclusion
Due to negative feedback from the warlocks, I may need some time to decide whether Kariss' eventual gameplay will suit my style (read: I'm more of a Mourinho than Pep even though I do enjoy tinkering like Joachim "Der Löwe" Löw). As for Korey, no point for me to do wholesale changes since it's my intention to make her as the Jeanne d'Arc of all things artillery. For Arylos, however, I'm now verily tempted to use a free respec. After all, melee was my first love when I first started out in this game. Does that make him any less of an Edward of Woodstock? Well, once a Black Prince, forever the Black Prince.
Arylos' (ideal) theme
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