The direction of DR seems to be taking a very sudden u-turn in the next patch.

i went on the PTS to pvp with the devs and see the new balancing and queue systems.

it seemed to do a fairly good job of balancing my dmg and skills against a lvl 100 opponent...until...

I used holy roller (im a mage, with a few other skills from fighter and ranger)...holy roller did nothing to my opponent?!?!?! no dmg, no slowing, and no knockback

i was told much to my disapointment that the skills was changed and based off of AR now...surprisingly enuff HR is all spell dmg and is affected by int, yet it only hits if u have enuff AR?

all in all i see this as the devs placing ppl into well defined class's instead of the free form class's we had before, which seems to be a complete u-turn from the concept the game was started on. this was one of the things that first drew me to the game. but now it seems just like every other game out there i will be forced to use x set of skills, x set of stats, and be x class to be effective.

this is pretty disapointing, and will probably lead to me eventually leaving the game. i understand that ppl are gonna say things like "well it was op'd" or "well ur a mage!"...and my response would be fine, if its opd balance it, but dont go from full all out effects to 0 effects if u dunt stack a stat that only some ppl go for. also if im a mage and shouldnt be able to use ANY skills i like, then you as x class should be limited to only your class's skills too, but thats not how the game started.

well guys gl hf, i hope that im the only 1 that does feel this way bc you guys are a great community, and up til now i thought the game was goin in a fresh new direction.

Because 1 thing doesnt work in pvp, doesnt mean this is the end of the world. Try to throw some creativity in, try another setup or even another class. There are always ways to improve something. When something is nerfed, its a chance to make it better, a new challange, people saying we need new content, I consider this as content, also. When you succeed you'll see you will be happy. Just try it.

One of the devs suggested that I picked up this skill (yes, under this build) which I'm going to do. I just don't think they would suggest it if they thought they made it worthless.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with it. The knockback on HR can certainly miss now, but currently all of my knockbacks can also miss...

Yeah, I understand your frustration on this Holy Roller change. The new Holy Roller requires a successful attack roll to hit properly. Divine resistance also adds another layer of protection against it.

Holy Roller is envisioned to be an intercept skill. It's meant to quickly close on a runner and immobilize them while you chop them up with melee attacks. Specifically, it's meant to catch those squishy ranged attackers that always seem to run when you get close to them.

The problem with it not being based on attack rating is purely a PvP issue. In PvE, this isn't a problem at all. Basically, the problem is that cloth wearers were able to use Holy Roller to immobilize slow moving plate wearers. Cloth users are already the most mobile characters and Holy Roller allowed them to dominate slower characters with ease.

Holy Roller has been changed, that's true. However, it's still quite useful to hit low defense rating characters. A pure intellect mage will find it to be very unreliable. Although a character with reasonable attack rating will find it to be useful.

It's important to note that Holy Roller increases your attack rating by 100% when it strikes. So, you can have a pretty low attack rating and still use it. Still, though, a no attack rating character will find it to be useful only as a closing skill.

Hey, we also added Mad Melee mastery which can increase your attack rating by a great percentage (at the expense of 20% health). It starts at +80% and ranks up to a boatload. This skill will really help you melee users (hybrids especially) hit more effectively.

Sorry for the change... but I believe it was needed. I hope you can find the skill to be useful again with your build with the tips provided. Let me know how it goes!

steve

Unfortunatly, i see a big dif between "nerf" and "balance"

when you nerf something you take it from one extreme to another, wereas when you balance something you make it fair for everyone, or on par with other similar things

You took a skill with knockback and slowing, and made it so only 1 class can effectivly use it. Not only that, it has a much shorter cd then some of the other knockback skills i looked at (stomp and smackdown).

my HR reads a 6.6 sec cd(i use sissys staff) and my smackdown is more than 2 times longer at 15sec...so a fighter can close the gap on me 2 times for every 1 time i can knock him away.

I would think that putting such sevre limits/reqs on skills would funnel people into ditching hybrid class's and going pure class's. Also doesnt this defeat the purpose of a free form class system, i mean sure i can train the skill, but if i have to take a drastic cut on skills/stats for my build so that one works, that doesnt seem feasible.

i mean you coulda made the skill's dmg based on AR or someother stat in favor of melee class's, or if making it viable for only 1 class, then increase the cd on it. It doesnt make sence that you have a skill that does all magic dmg rely on a melee stat (or that a melee skill does all spell dmg, i dunt think many melee characters stack int).

Also were running used to be a periodic strategy, it will now become the only strategy for mages, as to keep melee off of us we will have to countinually run...running periodiclly was looked down on before, imagine all the -speed armor wearers complaining that now all mages do is run...7 mins of turn nuke,run,nuke,run,nuke,run.

I know that fighters were hurting in pvp before, but this completely flips the table now. now i gotta deal with some 1 having the advantage of beating on me with low armor, being able to "intercept" me 2.5 times for every 1 time i can use a skill to distance myself, and they can still use things like smackdown or ice bolts...

i mean if ima have a fighter tossing smackdown's and icebolts at me while HR'in when i try to run, id like to have some way to distance myself.

If stacking slowing effects was the problem before, simply limit the amount of speed that ppl can be slowed to. You already added a skill that return you back to normal speed. So if a mage stacking slowing effects with HR and other skills was a problem, shouldnt the count for this be that the target use the skill to remove slowing effects then HR back?

IDK, ne way ima try a few more times on PTR and see if i can find a way around this issue, but it really disapoints me, not so much because i want the skill...more because i see it as 1 step closer to what every other game does....force people to play a certain spec to be viable for pve or pvp (obviously pvp in this case).

well ty for the responses guys, i understand your trying to do whats best for everyone and truely hope im the only one upset with this change

Holy Roller for Mages was overpowered: use it in conjunction with Ice Bolt and you can pulverise a Fighter with minimal damage to yourself. Now tell me that the update is not required for balance.

No knockdowns in PvP. Instead, Mages can pile Ice Bolt and Holy Roller onto enemies, and they will be completely unable to move: well, close to, anyway.