Neverwinter new pics - OH GAWD ITZ HEAVAN

[Gerrard]

If people spam them it should be affordable.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yea, its bonus isn't on par with that of, say, the Rust Monster (in a fight where +500 Pow/Rec would be handy you're probably going to be fighting for much longer than 25 seconds; it's not a bad bonus, but it's not a bonus worth paying for), it could be fairly cheap once the hype dies down. Rust Monster has an awesome bonus and it's less than 400k on the Auction House.

 

[Gerrard]

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/sh...-20140616d-2&p=8209811&viewfull=1#post8209811

First ToD patch is already on preview.

Unstoppable: Unstoppable now grants 5-10% damage resist when activated (down from 25-50%

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Come now, you knew something had to give in some way when GWF could deal way more damage than Rogue and tank way better than GF.


Lets see class by class...

Wizard

Well, Singularity isn't quite as good now (one of the main perks was that Singularity affected a huge number of targets), Shard got nerfed hard (something tells me Shard was not benefitting from Armour Penetration before; it'll still probably deal crazy amounts of damage, just less crazy amounts), Steal Time is even more awesome than before and will deal crazy damage, Conduit of Ice is nerfed, Icy Terrain is better, RoE cooldown shenanigans are going to need re-evaluation again (RoE was actually worse with Mastery due to much higher cooldown), not sure if Chill Strike needed its little nerf, Magic Missile's position is shaken and feats will shake it further. Sudden Storm got nerfed, Eye of the Storm is dead in the water (90 second cooldown rofl), Fanning the Flames has a relatively minor nerf, Furious Immolation is buffed, Scorching Burst might actually have function for more than just Smoulder Refresh now.

The real hard nerf is for some of the feats, while other feats are going to become crazy good: Focused Wizardry is dead in the water and will be fully displaced by Learned Spellcaster, Arcane Enhancement and Wizard's Wrath are going hang around only by default.

Oppressor: Alacrity is crazy good now, Chilling Control is wtfpwn power boost to Sudden Storm, nobody still gives a shit about Glacial Movement because nobody still gives a shit about Ray of Frost, Twisting Immolation's daze effect seems to be actually worth a damn now, Shatter Strike HOOOOOOOLY SHIT does it seem crazy good next patch.

Thaumaturge: Assailing Force JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESUS CHROIST it might be a boss-killer must have (twenty bucks says won't work on bosses and has ICD), Destructive Wizardry seems like a great deal (essentially permanent +5% damage), Malevolent Surge is not worthwhile anymore, Drifting Embers is still pretty meh, Elemental Empowerment got a big buff (some 700+ damage DoTs with a good weapon), Far Spell is a little better, Frozen Power Transfer is now roflmao megagood being +15% damage forever, other changes fairly minor nerfs overshadowed by the massive buffs elsewhere.

Renegade: Energy Recovery might turn Chilling Cloud into a legit tanking tool, Chaos Magic is less chaotic now and is completely overshadowed by the other two capstones (may be a great heal tho), Nightmare Wizardry will probably have better uptime due to increased duration, Phantasmal Destruction was nerfed in exchange, Chilling Advantage is more crit, Arcane Burst remains useless, Unrestrained Chaos remains meh, Masterful Arcane Theft is now the main reason to go Renegade.

Overall wizards are probably a little bit stronger afterwards but the orthodox build status quo has been severely shaken since you have to make up for nerfed base damage by stacking the new feats and many previous stand-out powers are nerfed. Yours truly is probably wise to use a potatospec to switch to Thaumaturge or Oppressor if they keep the changes like this. Chilling Cloud is a must-have now. Spellstorm Mage is shaken in a lot of ways (Storm Spell and Thaumaturge feated Storm Pillar are the reason to go Spellstorm now that Eye of the Storm is le dead) and Master of Flame comes out stronger in comparison.

Assuming these changes aren't rolled back or changed drastically.


Cleric

Has eluded the first batch of changes.


Great Weapon Fighter

GWF's exploitable powers (Roar, Takedown) got nerfed, the real change is that being a GWF is now a matter of choosing between Destroyer and Sentinel paragon paths (Sentinel has access to previous Unstoppable DR and then some). I'd say that's a good change.


Guardian Fighter

Block appears to be getting redesigned to work like Champions block (stamina gauge aside), assuming it no longer takes a Stamina/Guard hit from being hit. This would be a great change for GF and improve tanking greatly. GF will also have bucketloads of hp now due to Constitution granting twice the hp. Enforced Threat is super-mega-good with the new Mark changes and its buff (20 target max? r00fles!). Enhanced Mark is worthless, since Mark is now KILL ME I'M HERE KILL ME KILL ME NOW DO IT DO EET. With the new Armor of Bahamut, Protector might be close to indestructible.

Both fighters are affected by the PvP nerf of Frontline Surge and Threatening Rush.

Hunter Ranger

Aspect of the Serpent is easier to use and less confusing, some shit was changed for Constricting Arrow that I don't quite understand, and Grasping Roots was completely changed and there was much rejoicing among the PvP community. As for feats...

Archery: A lot seems to be completely changed. Keen Eye is new, Broadhead Arrows is moar crit, Unflinching Aim and Bottomless Quiver are crazy good, Rising Focus is insanely good, Stillness of the Forest makes you into a mega-sniper, Predator makes this even crazier.

Combat: Again, most feats seem to have been changed completely. Bloodletting is kinda meh, Serpent Weave seems really strong, Piercing Blade is potentially very powerful, Wild's Medicine might cause the Ranger to turn into Wolverine when combined with Battle-Crazed, Scything Blades seems to be the real thing you go Combat for, Battle-Crazed is like Bloodletting except might be actually good, Blade Hurricane HOOOLY SHIT if it's full damage instead of weapon damage.

Trapper: Even the name is changed. Ancient Roots seems really good for rooting, Deft Strikes is a reworking of Bloodthirsty from old Archery, Fleet Stance is eh, Readied Stance might be just for tier upping, Biting Snares seems really good, the Aspect of the Serpent class feature seems to be there to make this feat tree, encounter cooldown reduction feats are combined into one in this which might be a great pick, Thorned Roots might be good.

Ranger comes off much stronger in deeps if these changes stick.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

Both fighters are affected by the PvP nerf of Frontline Surge and Threatening Rush.

Oh noes, not my favs...

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The nerf for those is largely for PvP. Takedown and Frontline Surge now stun players hit instead of knocking them down like AI targets, and Takedown deals 30% less damage. Threatening Rush is otherwise unchanged, but now comes with three charges (like TR's Cloud of Steel) that have an 8 second cooldown so it can't be spammed anymore.

 

[eklektyk]

i wonder if they will give us respecs after totaly fucking over all my builds .....wonderfull news indeed

and Ray of Enfeeblement as a useful debuff for team play is totaly fucked to ground and below with making it shit and useless ....no coments

it looks like some monkey at craptic died one time too many to wizard in pvp and is out for blood ...

but i see patern here : lets see what makes class work and fuck it into oblivion ....clerics =they heal - lets cut their heals ...yeah that'll teach those fuckers to heal
wizards can deal fast burst dmg and debuffs ...lets nerf that shit bro .... gwf main and only feature - unstopable - becouse lets face it nobody uses more than 3 skills on whole tree there ...and what they do ??
and cherry on top guardians ..... still after all this time code for guard is so fucked that they want to remove it [ i asume they finnaly admiting its so fucked it cannot be repaired? ]

FUN times ahead .....worrying is that rogues and cleric are suspiciously absent here ...wonder what those geniuses are afraid of showing about them ....

./rant off

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Unstoppable is ONLY nerfed if you don't spec for tanking on GWF, which is like it should be for balance's sake, since currently Destroyer can deal more damage than any other melee class AND tank better than any other class.

As for Guard, it's not the code, the reason Guard was fucked was because Guard never quite worked in a multi-hit environment. Changing it to work like Champions guard with a gauge limit is a step in the right direction, assuming this means Guard gauge is NOT affected by hits under the new system.

So far the only stupid change presented is removing RoE's party function.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Just to remind anyone who cares, you need one Protector's Garden key per alt if you want access after all, post-event the key is consumed when used to enter but access for that character is permanent.

 

[Gerrard]

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/sh...hter-Changes&p=8241371&viewfull=1#post8241371

The GF changes to block are retarded and here you can read the retarded reasoning behind them.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Given that the implication is that blocking damage doesn't eat Stamina, I'd say the new (old; Stamina bar aside the system is straight from Champions) system is going to end up with much better tanking capability.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Unless they also increase the damage output, i highly doubt the GF's popularity will increase. Waiting ages for the game to fill the last spot in a group with the mandatory GF is not going to change. Altough lowering the damage resistance for destro GWFs could be a step in the right direction towards a more balanced group setup, considering that groups entirely consisting of CWs and GWFs are the norm right now.
But it is the usual dilemma when a game has to balance PvE and PvP... And with a new class that will probably be the new king of the hill on the horizon, balancing the old classes properly will not be a priority for PWE.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Given how radical the CW and HR feat tree reworks are, I think they ARE going to try and seriously balance the classes out a little. The big question to me is WHAT the Warlock is going to do that sets it apart from Wizard (one possibility I've pondered about is barriers, given how their Warlock NPC has done those both on the opening cinematic and later in Dread Ring intro quest). My guess is that Warlock will be doing something different than just plain deeps, since there's so many DPS classes right now (even just control-oriented deeps, since Ranger also dips into that like the Wizard does). Is Warlock up on Preview yet?

And I agree, they should greatly diversify the GF feat trees and give a little more base damage for the class. Making Enforced Threat hit EVERYTHING is a step in the right direction in that sense, as long as the block works like in Champions. The way Threatening Rush working differently for GWF and GF is at least a sign of this direction, since it gives hope that GF's Flourish and Crescendo will get redone damage calculations (Flourish is currently worthless because GF lacks the base weapon damage GWF has, which in calculations means that Flourish is one of the weakest attacks for GF; Crescendo is still decent enough).

EDIT: One thing that can be deduced based on the Warlock NPC's moveset in Zulkir of Tourism dungeon is that the class will probably orient more around poison/radiation and dark fire looking magic, and that the default weapon is a single ritual dagger. Someone also speculated on the forums that going by 4E it might be a mid-ranged class similar to TR, focusing on debuffs, life steal and single target damage.

 

[Bliblablubb]

I remember reading some guy whining that GF's crescendo would deal only 20% the damage a GWF's do. I hope hope that was just the usual whining exaggeration.
My only experience with a Warlock was the class in NWN2 so I don't know what they made out of it (considering that the Cleric is a caster now).. i wasn't impressed by this weird abomination they cooked up there. I would like it to be some sort of magic supported melee class, maybe using lifesteal or absorbing stats, buffing themselves and their allies by it, similar to one of the hunter armor's set bonus.
Considering that we currently have 3 melee classes (GWF, GF, TR), 2 ranged classes (CW, DC) and 1 hybrid (HR), i guess the Warlock will be mostly ranged or switching between ranged and melee like the hunter.
If he ends up being a debuff/dot/healing class the Clerics will join the GF in their hole of depression.

EDIT: the most important fix for flourish would be to speed up the animation somewho, i dropped it on my GWF because it took to long and could be interrupted.

 

[eklektyk]

i like how CONTROL wizard is gradually stripped from all the CONTROL that is supposedly hallmark of that clas .... LOGIC!!!111

so warlok can be anything and as usual will break game ...hunter proved that

 

[Bliblablubb]

Newly added classes are always overpowered, people are expecting that before investing time into it. After the devs had enough fun with it in PvP, it will get beaten by an ugly nerfbat and the cycle starts anew.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

ekl, if anything the current class on Preview does two things: First it permastuns everything by glaring at them, and then those things die.

RoE has *never* been anywhere NEAR the real control effects a Wizard had. And in case of HR, the sole genuinely overpowered thing was Split Shot.

 

[eklektyk]

i was moar reminesing on how nice and useful repeling and choking was back when those things ACTUALY worked on anything stronger than a sparrow ...
as thing stand i'm slowly learning how to use steal time and when best to use it and how ....i avoided that spell coz all wizards were runing with it... now its only viable setup with coming changes it seems so ...

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

There's a fuckload of spells that work, and the other major control spell, Icy Terrain, was ALSO buffed significantly. Repel was also improved by making it prioritize non-immune targets first when used with Mastery.

And of course, there's no more or no less enemies that are immune to CC than before.

 

[eklektyk]

o really ????
every fucking new mob that comes out has either total imunity or some fucked up superpower that is retarded ...as module3 amply demonstrates

and icy terain just kills my fps

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The only mob that's CC immune in Mod 3 is the Frost Giants (Young Remorhaz are only immune to being moved). Otherwise Mod 3 has probably less CC immunity than the previous two, since the only mob that I recall with a red animation is the dwarf Arcanist.

 

[Gerrard]

More upcoming changes

Great Weapon Fighter: Sprint: Sprint now grants 30% more damage resistance while active and makes you Immune to CC while sprinting.

We are making a change to the shift powers for all classes to make them more responsive and improve player survivability as long as you can react. Being able to shift out of encounters and dailies will make reacting a much more important factor in high end PVE and PVP combat.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Sounds good so far, makes it worth sprinting in ways other than GTFO of a red zone.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Btw, Eye of the Storm's ICD on preview has been lowered to 25 seconds (so it's merely meh instead of dead), and Shard is now a proning power (3.5 second prone).

Cryptic is still in denial over High Vizier being the biggest source of problems.

EDIT: Anyway, some Wizard predictions based on the current trend of things:

- At this rate, Spellstorm will become a rare breed, as without a strong Eye of the Storm or other means of increasing damage the path is inferior to Master of Flame both in terms of damage and control due to lack of synergy.
- Arcane Singularity will be seen rarely, mostly replaced by Oppressing Force and feated Furious Immolation, which are both just plain superior to it with the nerfed cast time and target limit, and in case of Furious Immolation by its higher damage, fast cast and feat Daze. Not to mention Oppressing Force and Furious Immolation deal damage to CC immune targets as well.
- Master of Flame Oppressor will be the standard cookie cutter wizard, hogging most of the damage output for the class and having better spell synergy. Lag reaches critical mass from all the Icy Terrains and Freezes everywhere.
- Thaumaturge hinges on Assailing Force having low ICD and high proc rate, otherwise it cannot compete with Oppressor.
- Renegade is dead in the water. Wizards no longer EXTREME.
- The only Spellstorms around will be those using feated Sudden Storm for instant 5 stacks of Chill.
- Steal Time will officially be crowned the king of all spells, reigning over its dominion with a firmer iron grip than it already did.
- Bowling Ball is used just for bowling.
- Nobody will give a shit about Arcane Mastery stacks anymore.
- People will stat Crit Chance for Wizards without exceptions now.

- The new god-tier spell slotting will be Chilling Cloud, Scorching Burst, Mastery Fanning the Flames/Conduit of Ice, Steal Time, Icy Terrain, Icy Rays, Oppressive Force/Furious Immolation, Ice Knife, Critical Conflagration, and Swath of Destruction.

Other predictions:

- The entrance of the Warlock will go unnoticed by the general public, due to how tremendously OP Ranger will become.
- Guardian Fighter still won't do enough damage to justify its existence outside of PvP, in terms of PvP the new mechanic and prone nerf will see the class gone from there too.

So ultimately I would wager that the only real loser in Mod 4 is probably (AGAIN) going to be GF.

 

[Bliblablubb]

More upcoming changes

Great Weapon Fighter: Sprint: Sprint now grants 30% more damage resistance while active and makes you Immune to CC while sprinting.

Well hello there! Unless you suffer from terrible lag, you could give your Sentinel GWF near invulnerabilty if you mangage to shift around like a twitchy hunter during unstoppable. But I expect the 30% DR only to kick in after 2-3 seconds of sprinting, otherwise the butthurt would be epic... What? Castle Never has shown I need all the DR i can get. Fuuuu Fireball!

The CW's most likely shift to icy terrain already makes my computer cry... ice sometimes creates slowdowns for no reason.