Shifter nerf

[Daltian]

Wow I see alot of complaining because you had shifters that would near match AC/AB wise cross-classed near maximized other toons. And you had immunities a plenty to boot. Im sorry shifters cant run easily to 40 solo anymore. Welcome to the world of alot of other classes on NS4, its being worked on . . . constantly, thank the DMs and the Devs for their pride and dedication to making the game as good as possible for EVERYONE. G'nite!


Edit : Do what everyone else does... find a cleric and a bard to run with!

So when my lvl 35 char dies to non epic relic guards I should go find bard and cleric so that they can babysit me?

Thanks for your hard work. I appreciate it. I am a bit sad though that I have seen 5 people with high lvl shifters leave the game. TC has low population and every loss hurts a lot. We have no other appeal to players except shifters and when they get nerfed this much we lose members. So just asking to be sensitive about it, nothing else.

[Shhhhhhh]

Please play a shifter yourself before you comment on this or say its a great nerf.
Sure shifters have lots of immunities in varies forms,lots of great benefits. Its easy to list, crit imun as undead, imun to lvl 8 spells and lower as rakshasa, trueseeing and mind imun as dragon, hips as kobald sounds like great stuff.
But yet you can only have 1 shape at a time.
And I think you'll find whichever form you pick it has some weakness too and some downsides.
Granted a risenlord with points in dex and const, with blinding speed and epic damage reduction and a subrace giving 50% concealment + spellresistance is rather strong with only minor downsides, but thats in a way the problem with shifters and why they're hard to balance i guess. For a general shifter that wants to play all shapes, the risenlord isnt that strong at all, you need 30 wisdom for dragonshape so dont have much points to spend on other stats. But if you specialize in 1 shape and hide some weaknesses that way the risenlord becomes a ton stronger.
If they balance it looking at general shifters, you will have these 1 trick ponies that will be rather strong, tho not game breaking i'd think? If they balance it looking at the stats of a 1 trick pony, then general shifters wont have a chance at all anymore.
Personally I didnt see a problem with the current way, specialize in something should make it stronger, while staying general gives you more options.
Tho ofcourse the damage the risen lord got from his weapon was very much over the top. All shifter shapes have low damage, higher survivability, risenlord had both high.

[Korr]

Ive had level 35 take bad runs against non-epic relic guards... it happens. Everyone who runs in a party tries to bring a cleric and/or a bard. Shifters went a long time being able to solo alot of areas that were near impossible (or took too long to make it worth it) for other classes to do.

[Lokey]

Let's see. I know we can add requirements to feats and undead shape could certainly use one. I wonder if we can get away with lowering them as well. Go like something 18 wis for undead, 20 for outsider, 22 for construct, 25 for dragon? If we lowered the req for dragon we'd probably want to do a another tier of them, like pre-level 35 gets one version, post gets another. Dragons should have different stats per form but I don't want to dig back into the 2da until we have an idea of where to take stats on the other 30 forms though.

We'll go for untouchable SR on Rak and golems, make sure the other SR gaining forms are good (I think drow and azer work fine). No changes from me until at least tomorrow.

[Daltian]

We'll go for untouchable SR on Rak and golems, make sure the other SR gaining forms are good (I think drow and azer work fine). No changes from me until at least tomorrow.

So Rak will have SR, not spell immunity?

[Lokey]

hmm. Functionally there's not supposed to be a difference. If you think there is, it must mean that's an important change to make

[Daltian]

Well, super high SR means Rak will be immune to lvl 9 spells too. Non super high SR means it will be possible to Mord him and then it will be possible to use spells on him. So it doesn't look like same thing.

[Korr]

Depends on the definition of "super high SR"... I might assume its higher than a pure monk with all DR feats... which is 71 SR.

EDIT : and that means the spells that dont use SR will be able to affect you, but thats supposed to be the case with immunity, though I dont think it was (but cant be sure)

[Lokey]

EDIT : and that means the spells that dont use SR will be able to affect you, but thats supposed to be the case with immunity, though I dont think it was (but cant be sure)

I suspected something like that was the case

Moot, that idea is dead for now. Also, can't lower reqs server side only, that would have been nice. We can still slap a req onto undead shape though.

At level 22 in the plain mithral gear (bludg/pierce) I'm not having any problems in Sunken. It's certainly easier than my pali had it in the same equipment. Ithillid is 46 ac, but does poor damage on stuff that resists pierce. Mind blast works too well. Vampire obviously cruises through. Imperials are run away from, 2 on 1 is tough on vamp...didn't try some of the other powers out on them.

Edit: remember to bump disc on dragons a bit.

[Korr]

I had a few level 22-24s I ran through sunken with and those imperials can really lay a smack down!!!

If you wanna add requirements for the shapes look into things like the 1st level only feats that dont do a whole lot, and the other feats like that (blooded, silver palm, etc) and then you can feel a lil better about leaving shifters higher up there. They "wasted" a feat to get to where they are as an undead(or w/e)!!!

[Lokey]

Sunken may not be a good example. For some classes it's easy, some it's hard and for under equipped people (10 resist at 20 instead of 5) it can be a deathtrap.

Crits from imperials hurt. Well that and disarm. Undead form is good for first and any shifter form is immune to disarm. Compared to cr 18-low 20s creature areas, Sunken or a faction city is going to be harder, but drops tend to be a lot nicer (one run down the island and around the city I practically had a new wardrobe).

Ithillid form had better ac so could survive, but lots of pierce resist in sunken and not good damage (however if you have someone else with you, the stun gaze would work great). Manticore had ac 44ish, wearying to take down an Imperial.

So here's how things look now: Data collection is slow, it's just me doing it. We're talking weeks until I have enough info to start making adjustments. If that's going to continue to be the case, I'd rather pull the shifter plug now and just work on making the druid forms better scaled and useful.

[Amoenotep]

here's the part where all you whiners about how shifters are messed up can do some data collection in game and post here your results. that helps lokey and yourselves out at the same time

[cRaZy8or5e]

Was that a request for help from players? I couldn't tell.

[Daltian]

Will it help that I died in FD giants with lvl 35 toon in undead shape (2nd map, 1st was empty). Also, died in IoD on 1st mob I meet. Also, improved elemental shape is excellent, but it isn't shifter shape. Its kind of funny to see elemental shape being better then what shifter has to offer.

[Metis]

I will chime in here, as one who spent countless hours trying to tweak them it is a total nightmare. Yes, player feedback is needed but specifics.

""I am a 15/15 druid/shifter and tried giants with level 30 armor and weapon, I was killed very easy since I had only 30 ac and my ab was 30 in my medusa form, i also tried manticore and it had... so i couldnt hit anything but I tried rak form and with a xxac and xxab with the sr it was well balanced"" - get the idea?

No need to type more, this isnt about nerfing anything its about balance I am not around much and poor lokey cant do it alone so give him some solid figures to work with.

This thread is growing so unless you are giving some useful info please do not post here.