Shifters Overpowered? Just Right? Glaring Weaknesses?

[BlkMamba]

Burra is saying that you're being thick, and I agree, BECAUSE you try to compare your tensor builds with an epic dodge str shifter with 80 AC. Again you make an invalid comparison as the limits of what an EMA build was capable of was 100 AC caster tank with a plethora of sorc/wiz spells to draw upon, an arsenal of wands, and the ability to do damage to any and every build out there, AND counter the one of the main builds capable of damaging (other casters) with a counterspell ability. Shifters can't come close to that, in any way shape or form.

That's the proper comparison for EMA vs shifter, and a shifter doesn't stack up, not even close.

Neither do them casters, they didnt have uncanny dodge, they didnt retain there AC while flatfooted
they had alot of issues, Primarch had prolly the best AC of them all, and he still got whacked by melee plenty
can shifters be beat by mages? Sure, and the mages before the EMA nerf could be beat by a variety of things as well
and again am i makeing a ply to restore EMA, no i'm not, everyone felt it needed nerfed, well then fine, its nerfed
I do realize that both of you have posted that shifters do need looking at, i'm just tired of people saying that there
just fine and makeing some very lacking points that there just fine, when every other faction, that has had there toons
nerfed for the same points that were makeing toward shifters.

Mamba..

[cRaZy8or5e]

Burra is saying that you're being thick, and I agree, BECAUSE you try to compare your tensor builds with an epic dodge str shifter with 80 AC. Again you make an invalid comparison as the limits of what an EMA build was capable of was 100 AC caster tank with a plethora of sorc/wiz spells to draw upon, an arsenal of wands, and the ability to do damage to any and every build out there, AND counter the one of the main builds capable of damaging (other casters) with a counterspell ability. Shifters can't come close to that, in any way shape or form.

That's the proper comparison for EMA vs shifter, and a shifter doesn't stack up, not even close.

Neither do them casters, they didnt have uncanny dodge, they didnt retain there AC while flatfooted
they had alot of issues, Primarch had prolly the best AC of them all, and he still got whacked by melee plenty
can shifters be beat by mages? Sure, and the mages before the EMA nerf could be beat by a variety of things as well
and again am i makeing a ply to restore EMA, no i'm not, everyone felt it needed nerfed, well then fine, its nerfed
I do realize that both of you have posted that shifters do need looking at, i'm just tired of people saying that there
just fine and makeing some very lacking points that there just fine, when every other faction, that has had there toons
nerfed for the same points that were makeing toward shifters.

Mamba..

Primarch was busted from the get go. Those builds (sorc/mk/RDD casters) were neat in what they were capable of, but the low spell penetration made them irrelevant unless they were used in large numbers, and even still they were only capable of 85-90 AC fully buffed. Not even close to what I'm talking about.

[Rufio]

Just nerf githzerai and ghostwise. Those inflate AC and hide numbers just as much or more than any class. Really if you build something with relatively high ac or hide, just slap those races on the build and it is instant very high ac and hide.

But no one would like that (well, maybe RK will).

[Rainswept]

I can feel myself get stupider.

Oh my. I need to go add a little something to my sig, pardon me.

[Blystos Re]

+2 Nerf Bats.

[Amoenotep]

+4ac and +10hide= way overpowered?


also..this thread is still going?

[Shamedmonkey]

I can feel myself get stupider.

Oh my. I need to go add a little something to my sig, pardon me.

"I don't HiPS spam."

Heh.

[Shadowalker]

+4ac and +10hide= way overpowered?


also..this thread is still going?

There is no thread

[Rufio]

+4ac and +10hide= way overpowered?


also..this thread is still going?

4 ac can be the difference between you hitting me 25% of the time on your first attack and you only hitting me on a 20. 10 hide can be the difference between you spotting me 50% of the time and you not being able to spot me at all.

The main problem is that the bonuses are independent of the build, making builds that are balanced with any other race imbalanced. A high ac build can become an unhittable build and a high hide build can become an unspottable build.

Notice that this directly applies to shifter builds, as the ones people are complaining about are the 120+ spot hipsers that are all ghostwise halflings, and the high ac tanks that are all githzerai.

[cRaZy8or5e]

+4ac and +10hide= way overpowered?


also..this thread is still going?

4 ac can be the difference between you hitting me 25% of the time on your first attack and you only hitting me on a 20. 10 hide can be the difference between you spotting me 50% of the time and you not being able to spot me at all.

The main problem is that the bonuses are independent of the build, making builds that are balanced with any other race imbalanced. A high ac build can become an unhittable build and a high hide build can become an unspottable build.

Notice that this directly applies to shifter builds, as the ones people are complaining about are the 120+ spot hipsers that are all ghostwise halflings, and the high ac tanks that are all githzerai.

Trying to explain your point to 'tep only increases his disdain at an exponential rate.

[Amoenotep]

it could also mean that your build sucks and you need to do it better?

if i make my l337 hogre hips rogue with 50 hide/ms and you can't see me, does that mean that my build should be punished to make it easier for you?

remember primarily the only real nerfs that go in try to bring the builds into some semblance of an average among builds..some will be better and some will be worse, but the average numbers are the most important.

[Eldaquen]

Regarding Hips, it is the depth of items available with hide/move silent properties that make a hipsing build overpowered. I would like to see the number of available items with hide and/or move silent decreased. Only boots with move silent properties. Only cloaks and/or armors with hide properties. No more rings, shields, medium/heavy armors, etc. with these properties. Shiney and clanky metal items should cause negatives to hide and/or move silent; examples metal helm would reflect light causing negative to hide, metal shield or weapon would clang everytime it hit the user's side and/or other equiped gear causing noise, thereby reducing move silent. A sword swinging would make a noise as it passes thru the air, causing noise thereby reducing move silent.

Separate point but also relating to Hide:
Any weapon with a fire property, flame weapon, holy sword (divine energy) or dark fire (fire, lightning) should also have a property of giving off a light source up to 10', due to the flame/electricity (maybe 5' for electricity). Right now weapons with these spells or properties do not give off light. IMO they should. If they did, SD would have to weigh the benefit of extra damage verses the negative of -10 to situational hide due to a light source.

For that matter the more encumbered someone's pack becomes, the more labored the effort is to carry it. There should be negatives to move silent as the percentage of weight carried increases, as compared to the build's max carrying limit, and appproaches or exceeds 100%. If someone is able to carry 100 pounds and pack is at 100 pounds the build would eventually breath heavier due to the physical effort of carrying a full pack, causing extra noise.

The rate of speed a SD travels should also have an impact on move silent, as they are hastily stomping the ground the faster they move their feet, causing more noise. There should be a negative to move silent correlated to the percentage speed bonus a build possesses.

[Amoenotep]

it has been discussed alot, but i'm pretty sure spot/listen can get higher than hide/ms. so no matter how sneaky you are, if your opponent plans and builds correctly they will always see you.

just look around the server...there are some serious spotter builds floating around. (120+ spot)

[Daral0085]

I agree that it's possible to build very high quality spotters and I can even go so far as to say that I'm planning one right now that I think will be hilarious. However, I would agree with Elda in that I think it's easier to make a top level hipser than it is to make a top level spotter for one main reason: dex is a stronger primary stat than wis.

Looking at the toons on this server it's generally easier to build a strong toon pumping dex than wis. In order to hit 125 spot, you need 43 ranks + 17 feats + 50 magic + 15 wisdom mod, which means 28 wisdom base. If you don't take alertness or blooded, then you need even more wisdom. The only toons getting 28 wisdom are certain shifters, clerics, maybe some sort of zen monk/AA, and so forth. Basically you're either going to be a caster or zen archer, because there's no other way to get AB out of wisdom. However, everything else in the server is going to be pumping dex for AB/AC, which you get just by taking 1 feat (finesse), rather than having to go monk/zen to get the exact same thing.

So that's why the server has like a million dexers and not as many wisdom toons. From my experience, most of the builds that get more than 120 spot usually do so by sacrificing a bunch of other stuff, like killing power or survivability. Not saying it can't be done, but it's very hard to balance between spot and being competent against non-hipser builds.

[Bargeld]

Shiney and clanky metal items should cause negatives to hide and/or move silent;

They do, any but robes have a skill check penalty and also max dex limits.

examples metal helm would reflect light causing negative to hide

paint it with a matte dye

metal shield or weapon would clang everytime it hit the user's side and/or other equiped gear causing noise, thereby reducing move silent.

shield is addressed above, most sneakers don't have anything metal except maybe a helm anyway. Also things are MAGICAL

A sword swinging would make a noise as it passes thru the air, causing noise thereby reducing move silent.

I think this is a bit of a reach personally.

Any weapon with a fire property, flame weapon, holy sword (divine energy) or dark fire (fire, lightning) should also have a property of giving off a light source up to 10', due to the flame/electricity (maybe 5' for electricity). Right now weapons with these spells or properties do not give off light. IMO they should. If they did, SD would have to weigh the benefit of extra damage verses the negative of -10 to situational hide due to a light source.

Many of them do, and I always thought that it was for weapon balance. Best example I can think of is kamas. Glimmer emits light and is therefore -hide. It is also only a +6 weapon. In order to avoid this and still get 3 attacks in phase1 and then hips, you step down to a skull reaper +5.

For that matter the more encumbered someone's pack becomes, the more labored the effort is to carry it. There should be negatives to move silent as the percentage of weight carried increases, as compared to the build's max carrying limit, and appproaches or exceeds 100%. If someone is able to carry 100 pounds and pack is at 100 pounds the build would eventually breath heavier due to the physical effort of carrying a full pack, causing extra noise.

Strength limits are entirely subjective anyway. Don't forget about 'encumbered' and 'heavily encumbered' status. Theoretically there is no str max, you are only limited to how much you can fit in your pack. This opens the door to a concept you really can't get into, as how can a halfling with 30 str carry 60 heavy armors without physically showing it onscreen? I'd leave this line of thinking alone also.

The rate of speed a SD travels should also have an impact on move silent, as they are hastily stomping the ground the faster they move their feet, causing more noise. There should be a negative to move silent correlated to the percentage speed bonus a build possesses.

Haste is magical. Blinding speed is not able to be reproduced in the real world as we know it (hence I won't try to explain it rationally). The same thing with regards to 40 monk speed... it's supernatural and doesn't succumb to our earthly ways of thinking.

If you insist on considering things like this, then follow through... a shifter or druid that changes shape and 'merges' all of it's gear would not be succeptable to any of the above you stated. This would give them even more benefits over the standard sneaker.

Daral, reconsider your statements, wisdom adds to ab when you zen. Monk and cleric kinda go hand in hand. You don't need ANY gear to detect if you get a buff from ANY caster with 3 feats in div focus (think: triple logger or team play). In order to make a top tier sneaker, you have to sacrifice AC during movement, cloak, rings, armor, boots and maybe a shield, PLUS you still need something to put you over the top tiers like a single crappy race, high levels in a class (SD or domain clc). Spotting listening is also very biased to certain factions which have better wis based combos available to them (druid shifter in TC, CoT mk clc in NC).