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Wiseman -> RE: =ED= DNS - January 04, 2012 Frysteland Final Phase An Epic New Year! (1/4/2012 19:07:49)
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Just want to explain the changes, and toss out a few points that haven't been mentioned yet.
Giving TLM Blood Shield does a lot more than just change their resistance skill, it also takes away their ability to improve Smokescreen and bot damage. Also since blood shield requires HP instead of energy, reroute does not help the skill at all. Someone said that TLMs have frenzy to get the hp back, however before now they were receiving the energy for technician back with reroute, and didn't even lose a turn in the process, at least with frenzy they use up an extra turn.
The new passive armors are basically just hybrid without the ability to switch, though I believe all of the passive armors (Hybrid, Mineral, and Plasma) are being nerfed a bit.
Cyber hunter may be a good class to tank with, however unlike TLM they have to use a turn to get energy back, and static charge can be blocked, so it's not as reliable as reroute. One reason we don't want plasma grenade improving with Dexterity is because of possible overpowered tanking abilities of CH using High Dex, Malf, Mineral Armor, and Plasma Grenade. Also maxing out Plasma Armor, Static Charge, Shadow Arts, and still having other skills will be very difficult. Having enough strength to use static charge effectively wont be easy either, since Plasma Armor will require tech. It may indeed be possible to tank with CH, but we have tested that build ourselves and it's not as strong as TLM tanks where. One thing is certain though, Cyber Hunters will be stronger with this change and it will be a new and interesting challenge to fight them, after all, this is the first class to have a constant resistance boosting skill. With CH having energy resistance, TLM having physical defense, and regular Mercs being able to utilize both, choosing between physical or energy weapons should be a bit more difficult.
As for artillery strike: All AoE skills scale at the same rate and have the exact same power, we buffed the others to be equal to artillery a while back, so it's only fair to remove the requirement on artillery strike. Mercs and TLMs will still have to deal with the DEX requirements on Hybrid and Mineral armor so it wont be that easy to bypass the DEX issue, also since Field Medic was changed, support itself still isn't as overpowered as it once was.
Maul received it's full damage potential at level 1 and worked best with builds that already had high strength to begin with. Basically it took high damage builds and increased the damage further while needing low energy and having a chance to stun. While this works with the the Mercenaries skill tree, it was a bad idea on a class that already has a way to boost their damage (smokescreen) and a large energy pool (reroute), regular Mercs have neither of those advantages. Basically Maul was built with the Regular Mercenaries shortcomings in mind, and was never meant to be on a class with Debuffing or Regen skills. Maul was a big problem on the TLM skill tree, as it allowed them to do strong damage with very low energy cost while already having high damage capabilities and a large energy pool.
Putting stun grenade in its place does 3 things.
First: It means TLMs will have to pay more energy to use the skill (it starts at a higher energy cost than Maul). This means reroute will be less effective and they will probably need more energy which will drop some of their other stats.
Second: Unlike Maul, Stun grenade is weak at level 1 meaning that in order for it to be useful a TLM will have to invest more points into the skill.
Third: Maul was best used with offensive builds on a class that already had good offensive capabilities, Stun Grenade on the other hand, forces them into a more defensive build if they want to utilize stuns. In my opinion Maul was never a problem as far as tank builds are concerned, the problems with Maul steamed from strength builds.
Lastly I'll talk about adding Energy Shield to Blood Mage, it wasn't really a Buff or a Nerf, we just decided that two stat increasing skills on one class had the potential to be overpowered if used correctly. Also those skills where never meant to be together, we planned on switching Technician out for Energy Shield a long time ago (about the same time that we gave Blood Mages Reflex Boost) but sadly we couldn't fit it in at that time, and the change was delayed up till this point due to more pressing balance issues and events.
There are some advantages to having energy shield over technician, a couple of them are that Blood Mages can probably hold off Energy based Cyber Hunters, and Super Charge Mages a bit easier than before.
About the Regular Mages being buffed, we do eventually plan to change one more of their skills to be usable with swords and staffs, however a problem in the code is preventing us from making that change at the moment. I don't think any other plans are in the works for Tech Mages, however if you think about it, now that Tech Mages are the only class with Technician, that in itself can be considered a buff (it allows them to use +5 focus bot builds more effectively than other classes).
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