Word of Faith balance?

[Blystos Re]

Do you really expect to be able to continue dodging, evading and tumbling while you CAN'T SEE?

Yeah.
That's why we have a feat called blind fight.

Look 90% of the time a dexer without blind fight will do really well, but without blind fight you have a weak spot. It's a trade-off. Do you want the feat that lets you do 2d6 more damage, or the one that helps when you're blinded? You make the call, you live with the consiquences.

We all have a give and take with our builds. In my opinion, that's what makes this server fun. Nothing is guaranteed. I might win the fight or I might lose. If it was all certain, there would be no draw because I'd be invincible every single time and everybody would just stand aside while I walk in, pluck their relic and then walk out - backwards. Nobody will try to take me on, nobody will attempt to fight me for any reason.

...and suddenly I'd be sick of playing and looking for something more challenging.

When you take the challenge and the strategy out of a game like NS it turns gray and bland. Everyone gets the same gear, everyone looks the same and uses the same classes and skills and all of the sudden you're playing GuildWars and you're like " ...what just happened??"

This thread is like a train-wreck...I just can't look away.

[-BannyD-]

im not really sure who you are talking about here Blystos, the toon i gave the example of losing huge ac has blind fight and uncanny dodge...both of which should negate the loss of AC under these situations but dont

[Sparky]

I can confirm that being Blind is basically a death sentence to Dex builds if you have no way to remove the debuff. Against the Dexxer I tested WoF against, they had Blind Fight, Uncanny Dodge, and well over 70 AC, I was striking with rolls of 47, indicating they probably lost both Dex and Dogde bonus.

Being blind confirs the negatives to Hit and skills, but those were negligable compared to the high AC loss.

One of the above feats, Blind Fight, or Uncanny Dodge, is not performing as it should in this situation.

Just throwing out my findings to those curious.

[Death Dealer1]

wow look at that..someone tested it and gave a result of which Banny was talking about. a loss of more than 20ac...thats alot. especially when you have feats to combat just that situation. if the spell doesn't need looked at those feats just might.


oh and blystos..not sure if you noticed, but everyone has the same gear and everyone uses the same builds....

[Celorn]

I just want to comment that MENTAL and the old DD crew pre-wipe used to spam the Brethren with WoF all the time, and did we go and cry about it like big babies?? no! We just dealt with it and incorporated it into our own lineup to fight fire with fire... You can't expect to run around with GOD TOON and not have any weaknesses (as blystos pointed out).

Even still, with the bugs..... a mage can stand 50 feet away and destroy any toon on the server in a few seconds, in some cases, with a single spell...Yet the only way to combat part of it (IGMS etc..) is to REPEATEDLY use a spell mantle scroll(crafted but slow), or potion(found only so short supply). --- yet WoF requires the cleric to first hit their victim with the spell, then catch them to chop them down, and only have a short time to do it... so I don't see how any balacing is needed.

It does sound like uncanny dodge isn't firing... Perhaps it's because the toon in question only has 3 levels of barbarian and the electronic gods within NS4 decided he didn't deserve to have uncanny dodge .

[Sparky]

A feat like Uncanny Dodge, a type that is automatically applied given a certain situation (similar feats: sneak attack, death attack), is generally hardcoded, meaning they cannot be changed without extensive hacks.

[-BannyD-]

I just want to comment that MENTAL and the old DD crew pre-wipe used to spam the Brethren with WoF all the time, and did we go and cry about it like big babies?? no! We just dealt with it and incorporated it into our own lineup to fight fire with fire... You can't expect to run around with GOD TOON and not have any weaknesses (as blystos pointed out).

so what you are suggesting is to fight a cleric you must be a cleric yourself? What do other classes do? Yes it might seem foreign...but there are other classes available on the server. The last thing i think everyone wants to see is the server full of clerics and mages like it used to be in beta simply because nothing else could compete. I want to avoid that and am simply looking for -balance-. It is not my fault you chose the route of fighting 'fire with fire'. I am trying to do the server something good by posting suggestions to change an imbalance. If that's crying...so be it.

Even still, with the bugs..... a mage can stand 50 feet away and destroy any toon on the server in a few seconds, in some cases, with a single spell...Yet the only way to combat part of it (IGMS etc..) is to REPEATEDLY use a spell mantle scroll(crafted but slow), or potion(found only so short supply). --- yet WoF requires the cleric to first hit their victim with the spell, then catch them to chop them down, and only have a short time to do it... so I don't see how any balacing is needed.

does the mage not have to first hit a target with the spell as well? In your examples, that instant death spell has a save as well as many of the highly effective spells...they can be resisted without magical means. But yes I agree, IGMS is a great spell for fighting a single creature. Add more creatures...and the spell very quickly loses its edge. Add more creatures to a cleric with WoF, and the spell gains power exponentially.

It does sound like uncanny dodge isn't firing... Perhaps it's because the toon in question only has 3 levels of barbarian and the electronic gods within NS4 decided he didn't deserve to have uncanny dodge .

then i suppose a certain barb/bard/wm will also not have uncanny dodge. will one miss an ability one is supposed to receive but doesnt? most certainly. However, i believe uncanny dodge is a hardwired thing and would be extremely difficult to change compared to WoF - the spell that most easily removes it. I have never heard of another spell that negates a feat before.

oh and by the way...please keep this on topic, i want this to be a discussion not a flame war. kill me in game if you dont like me, talk sensibly here.

[Death Dealer1]

maybe we should test each of those feats seperately. one at a time on different dex toons using WoF to see if 1 or all of the feats aren't firing for some reason.



you can't bring up Mental and the old DD crew into this. the DD are killing machines. we find a loop hole in a spell and gank you with it just for fun. then we pass it around so that everyone can have the same fun...too bad this type of stuff doesn't really advance other classes, but hey who knew we would actually come out of beta.

[Gumppy]

Ya you are still crying, banny, like fatso said getover it.

My vote is to leave it and go METIS ! finally some sense there are have been and always will be ways around things on this server.

I agree with celorn - i vote leave it alone we dont need more nerfs for clerics other things need doing like SL jobs, pureclass bonuses, crafting improvements etc etc.

ya it appears its blinding u and your losing 20 ac oh well did u see metis post on the duration lvl divided by 4 ? wow at lvl 40 your ac is 20 less for 10 rnds at lvl 40 mind u 1 on 1 u should be able to survive that chug some positions like your other slave mates 2 or 3 on 1 you were gonna die anyways.

seriously we have seen it all over the years no >?? the cheese build whine, the paly sorcerer whine, the SD whine, The bigby whine, the cleric is better than fighter whine, etc etc, and now the wof whine you know what give me a dry white and shut the hell up notice on my list above all of the things above were changed cause of non stop cry babies "social communists " like kromix said BTW HTF ru kromix so u all know its me milkman 99 aka pink and as kromix will tell u a hundred other usernames.

man chase where are u do it for a day chase implement the +2 stick thing and lvl 1 starting gear show these clowns the end result of whining man i miss the old days when kromix and i were best of mates but if i raided NS with a toon for some xp he would still go at me and after it was all done we was still mates, comeon get over it play the game expend your energy on build that can get around stuff.

Notice how ppl have 20 toons in some cases, they have builds for all occassions who want 1 toon on here thats unbeatable seems to me banny your striving for the holy grail, you will never find it.

P.S . Kromix look me up in game we can smite each other again the way its supposed to be no shout whining and other crap , bring havok :_)) u back in NS mostly now rent you, im gonna come raid you old gezzaq LMAO

[Milkman99]

gumppy whats wrong with you lol, hahaha milkman99 still works Woooohooo
here i come .

[kingfatzo]

sounds like the slaves are a bit upset ....maybe you should shift your HQ to MA and build pm's '

way to go ! page 3 allready !!!!!

[Binkyuk]

did u see metis post on the duration lvl divided by 4 ? wow at lvl 40 your ac is 20 less for 10 rnds at lvl 40

which means at level 32 they get 7 rounds on you, multiplied by the number of slots they dedicate to it (lets say 5), giving 35 rounds.

a possibility might be to add as an effect of WoF, immunity to WoF for 20 rounds just so it can't be spammed (similarly to wail), in which case the super short duration would be a good drawback, and you could reasonably counter it with Remove Blindness without having to mem as many of them as your opponent has WoFs.

er, fatzo of the list you gave 6 of the 12 were changed and about the only reason HiPS hasn't been changed is 'cos it's too hard coded.

[Blystos Re]

Ok, I take back the blind fight bit. Wasn't aware that you had that. Now if we test it against a toon w/o blind fight what would the results be?

But mainly, as far as any dodging goes, IRL if you were suddenly struck blind it would lend to a bit of confusion. You would lose some of the advantages of your highly trained reflexes because a good portion of that would be based on hand-eye coordination. Rangers rock, but they're not Ninjas. To me it makes sense, sorry that we don't see eye to eye on that.

There was a server that I used to play on that had a Hell plane. Word of Faith would blind, daze and stun all of the demons that were there, do a handful of dice of divine damage AND unsummon their mummys. Any other class under 35 would get obliterated in there in groups less than 4. I could solo with my level 25 cleric because of WoF. THAT is an unbalanced server. Fortunately we have a highly skilled team of devs working on fixing some of this stuff so that no one build can own the world...

...oh, wait.

[Sparky]

Results would be exactly the same most likely.

In my testing, Blind Fight functioned as it should have for the Blinded character. I gained no bonus to hit when striking him while he was blinded.

I can conclude that Uncanny Dodge is the offender. I'll check the Bioware site later on today to see if I can confirm Uncanny Dodge is not working as it should.

And we can't really use RL as a good example for a Fantasy world. I know there is a desire to try and rationalize the game with the world you experience, and in a small way you can, but you have to observe DnD's scale for real life characters.

Every character in NS4 is practially God-like in DnD standards in terms of raw ability scores and stats. In today's world, this roughly translates to:
1. An Average person as an ability score of ten.
2. An exceptional person has an ability score of 11-14.
3. The pinnacle of human-kind has an ability score of 18.
4. Your average person is going to reach level 2-3 at highest in their life time, in the commoner class, or maybe a slightly more specialized class, like Warrior (not fighter, warrior is a less skilled class) or Expert (Someone with training in a specific profession).
5. People of exceptional skill and experience will reach level 8-10.
6. People higher than 11th level are so skillful and powerful that they are legands of their times. IE, your Alexander's, your Spartacus', your Richard the Lionhearted.
7. DnD classes have access to abilities of which we cannot even fathom. Even the mundane non-magical classes are exceptionaly quick on their feat or tough in a fight.

The DnD characters we play, as you can see, are way above average, and way above what we would experience in our lives.

/rant off.

[havelot]

I can conclude that Uncanny Dodge is the offender. I'll check the Bioware site later on today to see if I can confirm Uncanny Dodge is not working as it should.

See, people, that's what makes this server great. Responsible, rationale and interested developers. My hat's off to you, Sparky. FYI, I did some searching on the Internet for some indication of a problem with blindness for dexers but could find nothing - even in the newsgroups. It seems that if this had been perceived (observed) as a problem, it would have been publicized to some extent. My impression is that the contributors to the NWN wiki have tested a lot of things, the results of which are found in the numerous footnotes scattered throughout its many pages.