Quote from Steelstar on discord this morning

The thing I'm saying is we've spent somewhere in the vein of a hundred hours of specific balance work on Inquisitive, and at the moment we believe it's specifically where we intended to put it. If people believe it's too strong, like I said this morning: The best way to do that is to show us specific comparisons vs. similar Rog GXB builds in actual dungeons

Xbows have been massively OP compared to other ranged options (until monk pass boosted stars) since the rogue balance pass put them at the head of the list.   

The sustained DPS is not greater than a melee, but the burst DPS is off the charts better.   Add that to the extremely favorable defensive advantages of attacking from range and it's just not balanced at all.

Melees are somewhat balanced within melees.   I'd argue THF needs a boost, Pally KoTC needs a small boost and Kensai needs a small boost (Because Kensai should never not be in the top tier) but these are more minor quibbles. 

Ranged is nowhere near as balanced.   XBows and Stars are god mode and bows and anything else throwing is hot garbage. 

And the Ranged - Melee balance is pretty out of whack.   They haven't figured out how to thread the needle of "ranged needs to be good enough to be worth playing for a decent/respectable DPS with strong defense type of build but not so good that it becomes a great DPS with strong defense build".   Because true DPS melees have always be pretty much glass cannons to create separation between the DPS and Tank builds.   They have always gated the ability to get strong defense AND strong offense on a melee.   But with ranged that isn't possible because strong defense is inherent in the combat style.  (based on current game design)

Unless they want to go to what PnP did and give ranged characters MASSIVE penalties when an enemy is in melee range.   (try realistically firing a bow or reloading a crossbow while someone with a sword is in melee range trying to kill you).   Both defensive and offensive penalties.   Also, unless you have shot on the run (and/or other feats designed to counteract movement penalties while firing ranged weapons), you should probably have zero dodge and a prone AC while firing a ranged weapon.   

For the same reason you want melees to have to choose between tanking and DPS in their build, you should not allow ranged kite tanking effectively while the build is completely DPS focused in feats and AP spend.   Any ranged build can be a tank just by staying out of melee range of the enemy.   Works well in a good number of raids and quests.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but to say that the imbalance doesn't exist between ranged and melee or between xbow/stars and bows/daggers/hammers/axes/darts is patently false and there is plenty of evidence to this effect.   To make the standard be "show that inquisitive is different from Rogue G-Xbow" is to say "Show me that Steph Curry is not markedly better than the rest of the league by comparing him to Jame Harden."   (Who is also markedly better than the rest of the league).            

Meursault wrote on Sep 19^th, 2019 at 9:31am:


Ok.  Maybe that’s part of it but it’s also massively outclassing vistani (factoring defense and burst) and scourge and tiefling and falconry and every other paid class or enhancement options. 

Rubbinns wrote on Sep 19^th, 2019 at 9:53am:

Other games provide their players built-in real-time DPS meters.  DDO can't even dump combat logs to a file for offline analysis.

What are talking about with dungeon performance? 

Is it running E/R1-4 as fast as possible?   Comparing run times across levels and content?

Is it end game raiding?  Comparing raw numbers on bosss beat downs? (In this case the kobold dummy times are pretty relevant.  Assuming you don’t pull boss aggro.   But some of that is based on the quality of the tank and your threat management)

Is it R8-10 end game group runs?  Measuring time to complete?

Is it R8-10 end game solo runs?   Measuring ability to complete and time? 

All of these are different.  I’m some of them (like the first one) it doesn’t matter what you use.  In some it does.    The context matters.

Quote:


Keeping in mind INquis got the most fort bypass of any class in the game, in an expansion where it is required to have 100% and even that's not enough.

HelloKitty wrote on Sep 19^th, 2019 at 11:18am:

this is how I know you are a bad. Your first mistake is "he is right". Your second shows exactly where you are as a player. At least as far as dps goes, maybe you're a DC caster or a tank, idk, but dps is not for you.

What hits back in end game that doesn't wipe you in one or two? What hits back a ranged build perching or kiting? What hits back when it is being tanked?

What are you going to get in a dungeon? Kill counts? Against low hit point thresholds of mobs that are helpless and CC'd? Or maybe ee/r1 speed runs? Who is going to be doing the comparison? You in GXbow build then you tr into Inquisitive? On whatever the highest difficulty you can do?

Do you even know your dps benchmarks? Can you even execute that on a dummy, let alone in game? Do you even know the sequencing and correct order? Reading Slarden's, Chai's, and Yammani's replies on the mobos tells you all you need to know. And Slarden and Yammani are confirmed bads by by the better players on their servers. They can't even read hotbars and buffbars correctly to even explain their dick tucked, misinformed, opinions on things that they are not even remotely skilled at.

DPS tests are benchmarks for what you can do at your best performance. If you can't analyse that, then you're a bad. It's just as simple as that. Does Sym or Vincio always do 50-70k dps on every boss in game? Does that mean you can't tell what build deals what damage when compared relatively?   

HelloKitty wrote on Sep 19^th, 2019 at 11:18am:

Which would still be an Inquisitive. Which I tested and the times are close to to Inquisitive dual xbow builds, but only during NHB activation. Outside of NHB, dual xbows pulls ahead. And by far largely due to rate of fire relaying that much more sneak and law damage over time.

Beer wrote on Sep 19^th, 2019 at 12:13pm:

This post is how you know someone is good at MMOing. Then you can group with him on live so he can also confirm it for you there.

Asheras wrote on Sep 19^th, 2019 at 9:40am:

LOL, you're right, I should have said "comparable to free options or option's you've already paid for" 

Carpone wrote on Sep 19^th, 2019 at 3:26pm:


nah he will just cry about dire charge being op again 

Wipe wrote on Sep 19^th, 2019 at 7:56pm:


Can confirm it is not.

The sadest thing is that some people in the discord and on the forums actually believe it

Wipe wrote on Sep 19^th, 2019 at 7:56pm:

Yeah, if you're a good player than you can pull it off in game. I know a good amount of guys that don't care about lama testing, but those guys are pulling it off in game on the hardest difficulties, and would also do so on a dummy anyway.

And most of those players can agree on how powerful Inquisitive's combo of range + dps really is. Kill counts will confirm it, pulling aggro off anyone in game can confirm it, skilled players in hardest difficulties playing or playing with someone in their group as an inquisitive can confirm it. The sheer number of Inquisitive builds per server can confirm it. There is a ton of data out already. Steel is lying to us.

Honestly I don't think SSG balances for top tier players.  Given all of the stacking DPS multipliers in the game, I don't think they can.  The differences between a "standard" build, a good build, and an optimized build are enormous.  People post their X second kobold kill up on YouTube, the fourms go ballistic, and if pretty much anyone on the fourms were to try to replicate that performance, they wouldn't come close.

I really don't care of ranged DPS is actually allowed to do...DPS.  I really don't care if, at the bleeding edge of performance, a particular DPS build is significantly better than others, even if it's ranged.  In that middle tier of players who have played for a while, who have worked on their builds and gear, but who aren't twitching, popping short term buffs constantly, swapping weapons, etc, it's important to have balance.  The bleeding edge players will constantly find broken builds.  Chasing that will just damage the majority of players.  (Like nerfing monk in a way that lowered heroic damage, or nerfing wolf builds in a way that lowered heroic damage...all because the high performers had to post their videos).

This is a leveling / grinding game.  Give us more builds that are fun to grind with and stop nerfing builds in a such a way as to make them less enjoyable to grind with.  I don't care if a top tier guild runs 11 inquis and a tank in their reaper raids.  There should be viable, functional, and enjoyable builds for multiple playstyles.  Melee is a playstyle, ranged is a playstyle, CC is one, Burst casting is one, make them all good at their jobs.