Shifter change

[Daltian]

I can understand the shifter nerf after all the whining. But lower AC by 15 is a bit too much. Was it planed to lower AC by so much?

[LinuxPup]

You'll have to be less vague... what form? What was it? What is it now?

[Daltian]

kobold lost 15 ac and some ab, drow lost 10 ac and some ab and slow on hit, vampire lost 10 ac and it seams that gaze got much lower dc, dragon got nerfed a lot too with ab going down a lot and ac ba 10+. I got 24 lvls of shifter so its not because I dont have enough lvls.

Pretty much kobold got totally useless now since ac was only defense it had, hide is not an option since shifter doesn't have move silent as class skill.

Dragon is now easy to hit and doesn't have high enough ab to hit high ac chars.

Vampire has too low ac and since he cant heal himself and gaze wont work on most chars (between outsiders (imune dominate), palemasters, casters with mind immunity and chars with 25+ will save remains nothing to dominate).

Drow lost 10 ac and is now getting hit by most mobs easy and easy to hit in pvp, also lost slow on hit which is strange.

I really didn't expect such a major nerf. I mean few points in ac could be understood, but 15 or 10 ac is really a drastic measure in world where just 1 point means a lot.

Now Shifters are left with just few decent forms, with most of them being gung ho(risen lord with not too good ac and inability to heal) or ultra defansive ones like
iron golem with great immunities and no damage potential because of really bad ab and not so great damage.

With so many chars based on shifter its sad to see all of them going down the drain. And with only few epic forms remaining usable, all the shifters that were
multiclassed with some other classes are dead weight now since they were never able to get the epic forms anyway and non epic forms are bad now.

[LinuxPup]

Welcome to mortality...

Shifters were simply insanely overpowered since I redid their merging system. Kobolds still have over 60 AC, so its not that bad... they have HiPS remember? They're AC is now more like a regular shadowdancer, where is should be. In fact, most of the AC fixes still leave them above most other builds, so there really isn't that much to complain about.

On-hit cast spell is generally frowned upon, performance wise.

As far as undead/golem forms... they have immunities which make up for AC... and its not like their AC is that bad anyway. I saw an iron golem just today with 77 AC. And I haven't changed the AB bonus on undead, golems, or the kobold form.

And yeah it may seem drastic, but that's how overpowered shifters really were... It was possible to have 79 ab, and 80+ AC in dragon shape... no way, not in Neversummer 4.

[Daltian]

Dont bard/PM's have 88+ AC? And shifter cant use hips effectively like regular shadowdancer since they don't have move silent as class feat so they can hardly hide to anyone.

[LinuxPup]

Pale Masters can get crazy high AC too if they put a lot of PM levels in, but then their AB isn't so hot... take some rogue, monk, or bard levels with your shifter for the move silently... still plenty of options. I've seen a shifter kobold with over 100 hide/ms... that's not too shabby (their AC was over 100 at the time too ).

[Daltian]

Pale Masters can get crazy high AC too if they put a lot of PM levels in, but then their AB isn't so hot... take some rogue, monk, or bard levels with your shifter for the move silently... still plenty of options. I've seen a shifter kobold with over 100 hide/ms... that's not too shabby (their AC was over 100 at the time too ).

100+ AC was not possible. You are wrong there. Also, PM/bard gets very good ab, and haste which means 1 more attack at highest ab.

[LinuxPup]

107 Actually... and I don't think the character sheet was wrong either... Lolth could only hit on a 20.

Saw it with my own eyes... this was before previous AC fixes.

[Daltian]

107 Actually... and I don't think the character sheet was wrong either... Lolth could only hit on a 20.

Saw it with my own eyes... this was before previous AC fixes.

Possible only before they took away wisdom ac from monk/shifter. But that is in the past.

[Daltian]

And wisdom AC on monk/shifter was already nerfed some time ago, with a good reason!

[Daltian]

Bard/PM has curse song, taunt, improved invis and haste better ac, a little lower ab (but compensated with abilities i listed). Might I say that I never survived an encounter with one of them in kobold shape.

[LinuxPup]

So far I'm very happy with these changes... the staff will decide if things need to reduced further or increased a bit for balance.

[Apokriphos]

The forms are being tweaked and the changes are still being looked at. Shifters and Dragonshape were overpowered and changed. They may be readjusted - we will be watching to see how this turns out.

*looks up* What he said

[DOGsoldier]

In vampire form i had a ac of 80, with a gaze dc of 50, im immune to crits, and all the other undead things, an opponet would have to make a save vs neg energy againest con and when the player cant save no more they are dead. and you thought this wasnt uber? Stone golem form immune to 75 percent slash and pierce weapons and like 1000hit points like 50 percent vul to blud weapons so wear all blug armor and shield, immune to crits, kds, immune to lvl 6 spells and under, and other little things to go along w/ a golem form and ac of 79, im sure i couldld get ac higher on both chars. this isnt uber? 10 percent or less of server has a ac of 80, and maybe 10 percent is a lil high too. Need to wake up and understand that is a uber char.


i wasnt even lvl 40 yet either,

[Daltian]

In vampire form i had a ac of 80, with a gaze dc of 50, im immune to crits, and all the other undead things, an opponet would have to make a save vs neg energy againest con and when the player cant save no more they are dead. and you thought this wasnt uber? Stone golem form immune to 75 percent slash and pierce weapons and like 1000hit points like 50 percent vul to blud weapons so wear all blug armor and shield, immune to crits, kds, immune to lvl 6 spells and under, and other little things to go along w/ a golem form and ac of 79, im sure i couldld get ac higher on both chars. this isnt uber? 10 percent or less of server has a ac of 80, and maybe 10 percent is a lil high too. Need to wake up and understand that is a uber char.


i wasnt even lvl 40 yet either,

But now it has gaze dc 33 that works only on non planetouched and non mind immune enemies -> useless. ac of 67. -> will not be used anymore. Also remember that vampire had very low AB so it was a survivor but couldn't really kill most of enemies. Now it wont be able to kill anyone.
For golem even with all bulg armor it only cancels voul to bulg, so get a hammer in your hand and hit it until it dies. Also golem has AB of 43. Cant really see me killing anyone in PvP with it.
10 percent of server has ac of 80. Kobold has ac of 62 now. Now that is uber. Will be shifting in it when I need someone to kill me when I cant take DE.

Also shifter can be dispelled by anybody and looses further AC and can't rebuff until all enemies are dead. Can't use items, can't heal when in undead shape.