also to the Dev team can you give us any examples of say lvl 5 or so gear? IE will we keep NS4's style of DR DI on armor and mas crit ect on weapons? i personally like this style as it makes it more balanced for melee style toons.
Having tinkered around on some servers that are out there ( just biding my time NS5 lol ) SL (stormlord) are a common fav of players as they add a much needed ( in the case of most servers ive tryed ) weapon damage boost. is a rather easy class to gimp out IMO ive seen the ftr monk cleric SL in full gear whipping what seems like 20 shrunkin a round with SL damage at targets its a rather sick display of gimping IMO as that will do far more than a hasted WM will in a round. however if you add in enegy immunity electrical spell as a buff aginst these builds you realy take them down a notch so they are not without a achelles heel.
Duelist combos seem popular for adding some extra AC and abilitys to your ftr rogue SD thankfuly the SD and every HIPS ability have a 6 second cool down (you get one chance per round) so that will please alot of you non spotter melee lovers.
Clerics and FS are popular tho cleric is often used for some free domain feats rather than a base class ( if any class needs some level limits this would be one 5 min on clerics id say just to aviod the 1 level feat farmers ) FS is more the chosen combat caster as it gets the free weapon focus feats and DR and haste along with sorc style base cleric spells to cast. i have found Paladin FS to be quite effective as most pallys have only 14 wis anyway and a 16+ Cha its a natural fit for the holy warrior class to add some buffs and other abilitys.
Druids .. what can i say but they rule fire blade and 3 levels of DR spells, animal companions, wildshape and feats that use wildshape casting for activation ( elephant hide ect ) along with natural spell feat that allows casting in form. the Druid has all this and more making it the best choice for a war machiene style build. i fore see alot of natures wrath roaming the lands.
Mages and Sorc not much has changed for the masters of casting most of the old standbys are there ( bigbys issacs ect) with a fiew new spells added in ( yay return of mirror image ) if you love the sheer destructive power you wont be disapointed, if you love to strip abilitys off your enemys and curse them to dust you wont be dissapointed, if you love all the hoards of tanks that flock to you for buffs and protections you wont be dissapointed.
Warlocks .. the new caster with some wierd abilitys i cant comment on them too much in regards to NS5 as i dont know what all they are going to nerf on them. I will say they make for great artillary support their regular blast has a good range and if using spear form it is even better. they do eventualy become the wrecking machiene of damage but only if taking full eldrich boost feats ( eldrich master and some epic eldrich blast) but for muti classing they are a distant 4th caster choice.
Bards i like the new style of bard with both constant Inspirations and limited duration songs and some new feats like armored caster make the bard one of the best party support buffers ever and not too shabby handeling their own either. i suspect there will be a gnome population exsplosion in the near future
to be continued with the rest of the classes ...
