stainer wrote on Aug 23
rd, 2011 at 4:22pm:
One of the reason I like my FvS is the solo ability of the class. Now, I don't solo epics, but I solo some Amarath quests and normal with my FvS when I am people hating mood. I hope this doesn't jack up my ability to do that. I have 2 FvS and 1 Cleric and I like all three, but the all play way different (evoker, WF Melee FvS, and healbot cleric). I want them to stay different.
My thoughts are that it won't make any difference in playstyle in the high majority of quests.
It is typical for me to self provide haste, line select points in a hallway in sins and let the orthons/barbazu soften themselves up making their way to me. I've never been a fan of kiting strategies anyway...
Having jump and haste makes makes kiting mostly anything pretty easy anyway. Never had an interest in soloing raids/epics to completion due to the resource cost. However I've finished off Arri on a couple of occasions I can recall with blade barriers. That was past losing people during lag spikes before nerfdate 5.
Wing use for blade barrier kiting has never been a must have. This is why the devs fucking around with timers doesn't bother me. What continues to vex me is twofold:
1. Any of my melee fvs builds raid heal and help dps. Divine punishment made my preferred playstyle more potent. Healing TOD on the main tank became more interesting. Timing when to stack dots on Horoth vs potentially stealing aggro made a boring job (heal the hp bag) more engaging. A few people with long posting history have taken issue with this on the official forums. They are receiving a damage buff in update 11 as a response. It still won't allow them to out dps my skinny little elf fvs over time. So, they've turned a genuine chance of making melee dps more relevant into shit.
2. Changing core class abilities. According to what I've been aware of, Fvs gains flight of 60ft a round. That's pretty double the run speed of the other party members. DDO chose to implement this with a speed boost type mechanic instead of actual flight. That's a kick in the shin right there. Now suddenly, they want to change it again by extending the cooldown and sp cost. What this seems to suggest is that anything is game to be transmogrified into something that caters to jealous whiny barbarian players.
A better solution would be along the lines of the heavy gravity mechanic. An FvS is supposed to lose flight when in medium or better encumbrance, as well as when wearing medium armor or better. Being chained is
supposed to take flight away. A raid boss/high level evil outsider should have this as a tool to stop the 'nuke it from orbit' stratagem. It's their way of saying get down here and face me.
Or better yet, our dm had a way of reversing shit on you. You want to spend your actions trying to nuke that devil? Okay cool, now watch this shit... 'You find yourself chained and bound to the ground. The Horrned Devil flaps it wings, and with a resounding roar takes to the air above you. Roll to save versus Meteor Swarm. Role reversal is effective. I wonder why all of these winged bosses never bother to fly, eh?