Recent changes to Thaz gear..long post

Syalara

Dalayan Beginner
...have kinda jacked progression. There is no real reason to equip most of the class specific wizard loots atm, even the upgraded versions. I dont know if other classes share the same issue but I am gonna wing it and say they do. Personally, I will only talk about Wizard items cause those I am familiar with.

Meat note: Zaela is still in the process of tinkering with loots at this tier, so the stats items currently have are not final!

IP Boots

Azrath, Slippers of Raging Ice
AC 18
Sta 20, Int 15, Cha 20, HP 140, Mana 165
CR 20
Effect Shojars Cruelty


Upgraded Thaz boots

Arcanist Slippers
AC 14
Sta 10, Int 16, Cha 22, HP 125, Mana 165
All resists +4
Effect: Range Increment 7

I would lose 15hp, 10 sta, go nowhere with mana or resists, and lose AC just for taking the time to advance an entire raid tier AND farm the essences for the upgrade. This makes no sense at all, there is no item progression here. RI7 isnt uncommon enough to warrant not gaining any mana or hp or resists over a tier we passed looooong ago. The fights in Thaz are alot damn harder then in IP, the loot should reflect the time and effort put into beating the encounters/farming the encounters.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

IP Wrist

Fedraz, Bracer of Chilling WInds
AC 18
FT1
Wis 11, Int 11, Cha 18, HP 125, Mana 150
CR 18
Spell Ward 2%


Upgraded Thaz Wrist

Arcanist Wristband
AC 11
Effect: Surge of Magic
Sta 8, Int 12, Cha 15, HP 120, Mana 160
All resists +3

Lose overal resists, lose ac, lose 2% spell ward, lose hp, and lose 1FT to gain 10m and a proc that dosent work when compared to an IP wrist. To make matters worse, I could compare this item to a VALOR A wrist (Bracer of Everburning Flame) and there would be only a +10m difference but I would also lose a proc that does work and I would lose -1 agro and get to keep the same total resists all for the low low time investment of raiding 2 more tiers and spending time farming w/ 17 friends to upgrade the wrist from the state in which it drops. (Immaculate Silk Wristband)

-------------------------------------------------------

CoD Loot

Ageless Silk Pantaloons
AC 15
Evocation +10
FT1
CSI 6
Cha 22, Int 18, Hp 100, Mana 155
+7 sv/all


Upgraded Thaz loot

Arcanist Trousers
AC 24
CSI 7
Sta 14, Int 20, Cha 25, Hp 145, Mana 165
+6 sv/all
spell ward 3%

Well, a 10m increase in mana but losing FT means I lose mana here and for what? a .1 decrease in my archaic nuke cast time? At least I gain hp and AC by upgrading my Thaz legs, thats something I guess......

---------------------------------------------------------------

ValorB miniboss loot

Tansas Robe of Mastery
AC 28
Relentless Arcana
Effect: Enthanns Guard
Int 25, Cha 20, HP 150, Mana 200
fr/cr +15
-2 Aggression
Spell ward 1%


Upgraded Thaz loot

Arcanist Robe
AC 28
DI 7
Effect: Arcane Barrier
Sta 15, Int 25, Cha 22, HP 155, Mana 205
+8 sv/all
-3 aggression

DI7 once again isnt rare enough to warrant such a minor increase in stats between these two items. I would gain 5m and 5hp, and some resists for advancing tiers. I would however lose an effect not commonly available for wizards, Relentless Arcana and while gaining overall resists, its minor considering the tier jump, the time invested, oh and the fact that Thaz aoe's are MUCH harder to resist. Also Enthanns Guard may be a usefull proc to have on occasion...a rare occasion but nonetheless better then a clicky on Thaz robe which ADDS to my agro and is never used. Ever.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And for my final comparison, here we pit an upgraded headpiece from one of the highest raid zones in game with a simple quest head piece from PoT, thats right folks...Plane of Torment.

PoT quest

Mutilated Skull of Torment
AC 25
FT1
Str 5, Sta 5, Agi 5, Dex 5, Int 10, Cha 10, HP 100, Mana 120
Sv/all +6


Upgraded Thaz loot

Arcanist Crown
AC 16
FT1
Sta 10, Int 18, Cha 15, Hp 135, Mana 170
Sv/all +5
Mind shield +5%

I actually lose resists and AC but gain 50m and 35hp. That would be a sought after upgrade if I werent comparing PoT stuff to Thaz loot. If anyone had told me whlle we were raiding PoT that it would take me 2 years to gain 50m in my head slot, I think I mighta hung myself with Cat5 cable on the spot. We are talking about a ludicrous number of hours spent in game raiding between PoT and Thaz.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please reconsider the changes you have made to the upgraded Thaz gear and please spend the time fixing items that have been dropping in zone since its inception before nerfing items.

If the changes were in line with progression, I would have much less of a problem with them. But they are outta whack completely. IP items and below were already nerfed once, I am not suggesting they be nerfed again. It would make more sense to just squash the changes to Thaz loot. The encounters in thaz arent getting any easier, in fact they have recently been made more difficult.

Progression was fine before. We still need to farm the hell outta ToT to be able to kill the boss of the zone and anything in Tarhyls wing. We needed the guild HEAVILY equipped in pre nerf Thaz and ToT gear just to get as far as we have come in Farhags. Thats progression. Nobody was in danger of farming thaz and blammo killing Tarhyl.

Even still I think item progression is biased towards IP loot, look at Nevian in its nerfed flavor we see today for example. FT2 and 140m from IP and Iceflow from Thaz w/ 165m and FT1, thats a loss of mana right there for the majority of encounters in Thaz and beyond. I am not saying nerf IP, I am saying boost Thaz loot and above. If that means making some encounters a little more difficult, fine. I would rather face a challenge and see a worthwhile upgrade when its overcome then have to compare my IP loots to Thaz+ loots to even see if its worth a minor upgrade.

WRU wizard backslot thats better then the (nerfed)Reverence?

Sorry for the super long post.

Safiya
 
This does indeed affect all other classes. When comparing IP and ValorB loot to Thaz and ToT loot, some are just as good. Take for example the Denos BP and Melodic BP. The Denos bp has more ac, the same hp, more DR, and just as good of stats. Are these items supposed to be on the same tier? Because I know Denos is pretty easy compared to Thaz encounters. Even the hat from Denos is comparable to or better than Thaz or ToT gear now because it has almost as much hp, but way more AC. I would also like to point out that Melodic gear lost the intelligence that was just recently added to it, making this armor lose even more.

In terms of the bard mods, lower end items have just as good or better mods than Thaz or ToT gear.

We have only gotten 2 Inner Sanctum loots, but the ones we have gotten are minimal upgrades. Kade's hat even got nerfed after it was already pretty terrible for Sanctum loot. What is the point in doing a zone that is super hard for 2ac 10hp/mana upgrades?

The problem with this "balancing" is that it makes lower tiered stuff just as good, and really not point to explore new content. Sanctum is already ridiculously hard. Any sort of item nerfs across the board just make that part of the zone that much harder.

Are the encounters getting scaled back because our gear is weaker now, and PoT4 is not as strong? When IP has easier encounters for comparable loot, something should be re-evaluated.
 
I won't do the same comparison with Mage items but it's basically the same as Safiya wrote. Because of these nerfs ALL back-content needs a nerf? - haven't we done this already??

Removing foci from items is really bad form I think, such as on the Beastlord BP, Comp Str 7 has been removed - which is probably the main reason that people go for this item.

Also why has the mage armor been reverted back to it's original state? i.e. where is the improved pet-heal focus on gloves (yadada, legs & gloves have been switched back to how they used to be - but why??) - This isn't a complaint since the set has gained 1ft (but lost 80+ mana), but I'm totally confused at the inconsistency here.
 
Since the staff have deemed it necessary to nerf the Thaz armours after over a year in game and a previous set of adjustments Id like to know the logic behind it. To say they were overpowered is not a justification. It is like any time a person posts in S&R saying something is underpowered, they are asked to quantify their claim. Since Prison and preceding gear sets were already nerfed Im assuming that they were put where they were felt they belonged in the progression. The only reason I can see is that the gear from the last 2 or 3 wings of ToT were not seen as enough of an upgraded compared to prenerf Thaz gear. If this is the case Id like to know why they weren’t bumped up a bit. My understanding was that with the last sweeping set of nerfs a system was devised to ensure that when gear was created it fit into its designated tier. The constant changing of gear makes it seem like there is no system or much thought put into itemization of new areas.

I haven’t looked at every set of gear but Id like to pick apart some of the shaman gear changes. Keep in mind that each Thaz item not only requires you to get an armour drop from a named mob but also a rare class specific gem and an essence from each wing of the zone for each combine. I know the argument will be put forth that Thaz gear can be double auged but when you consider that these take an upper Thaz named drop, a class specific rare gem and an essence to get the following:



…its not hard to see why not many people have more than one or 2 Thaz augs in all their gear.

The worst change of the lot is the Spiritcaller Greaves. These lost 10hp, 15mana and 4 to each resist. Now consider that most shaman prior to SC greaves are wearing Zejav legs from IP. The mob that drops Zejav is significantly easier than either of the 2 mobs that drop the base Thaz legs not to mention all the other pieces you need to do the upgrade. Now look at the stats on Zejav (which were also nerfed not too long ago) 15 more mana and only 5 less hp and 2 less on resists. Certainly the addition of 1 FT to that slot is an upgrade but it is fairly marginal compared to the difference in difficulty of obtaining these two items.

The Spiritcaller bracer is now not worth wasting the class gem and essences on, especially if you have the much easier to obtain Fedraz from IP. You would be further ahead to hold on to the 4 essences and use them to make augs considering the paultry 10 mana and 10 hp you get from the upgrading the Thaz bracer. Some may say the bracer proc (10% mana cost decrease for a very short duration) is an upgrade but in the short duration you will get 1 spell off if you are lucky, likely you will be casting Woundbane or your relic dot which will save you a whopping 30 or so mana. Id rather have the raw mana in Thaz augs elsewhere or the constant benefit of the FT on Fedraz rather than hoping for a proc then hoping that the slow casting spell I triggered the proc with finishes in time for me to take advantage of the proc before it wears off.

Spiritcaller Gloves have less AC, mana and resists than Cherish from IP but hey, those 15hp sure will help.

Spiritcaller Hauberk is 30 mana more than Bulwark of Malice from CoD but you lose FT in the process and given that FT is considered to be 50+ mana on a boss type encounter thats a net mana loss.

All the other pieces are now marginal upgrades to the preceding IP/CoD/Valor B mini loots despite all the pieces needed to make the upgrade and the increased difficulty of the encounters.

All told the shaman gear lost 95 mana, 65 hp and a staggering 120 to resists! Seems Woldaff’s little main page claim that "Not all pieces have been struck and total mana/hp lost across an entire set is only around 50-70" was way off. And yes EVERY shaman piece lost at least 10 mana and HP if not more. I know he was under no obligation to state the amount of the changes but his attempt to soften the blow only made the final kick to the nuts that much more painful.

I realize that not every upgrade is going to be earth shattering but as Safiya stated the amount of time you have to spend raiding to get such small changes hardly seems worth while. Then you face the regular nerfs that happen a year after a zone goes live it’s really quite frustrating. Realistically, I guess this wont impact my game play or my guilds raid ability that much as we have moved through this content but it certainly will make it that much harder for the guilds just trying to make headway in Thaz especially given the recent changes making some of the encounters even harder.
 
Spiritplx said:
In terms of the bard mods, lower end items have just as good or better mods than Thaz or ToT gear.

It appears the high tier mods were changed without reference to low tier mods. For instance, the hat from the hardest encounter in ToT has the same mod as the Harmonic Mandible, droppable face piece from Rust Factory. I can only assume that the lower end instrument mods will be looked at and balanced with respect to the (now comparable) high tier instrument mods.
 
lots i don't understand.

Sanc hat gets in essence a 20 mana nerf.

Thaz gear which i assume was made (resist wise) so you don't have to change out half your gear for resists is now nerfed in half.

Items in Ip will have to get another nerf cause they are almost as good or better than Thaz gear.

Why the hardon to not have 200 mana plus items (other than weapons and bps) and no FT3 items with stats?

why release content to raid when its not even suppose to be killable (per a dev) but not release the next zone in progression before sanc.?


The world is ending ARRRRRGH!
 
Malluas said:
lots i don't understand.
True that, brother. Now unless im completely illiterate, I thought this change was about nerfing obvious Thaz loot to put it more in line with where it should be, and I completely agree with Syalara that the progression is completely fucked now... lots of stuff out of prison, cod, valor and other zone that are easier than Thaz now have comparable loots... but no, nerf Thaz harder. On top of this the mobs in Thaz were even made much harder... sweet, the 6 months progression yeilds +15 mana hi5!

Let's now quote the front page:
-Thazeran's Tower class armor sets have lost their battle at evading the item nerfs of three months ago. Not all pieces have been struck and total mana/hp lost across an entire set is only around 50-70.

-Sanctum loot is getting an area wide rebalanced to make it worth while for the difficulty of the area.
So, what up ToT item nerfs? I lost more mana off my ToT loots than I did my upgraded thaz armor :what: :what: :what: Also, LOL at the sanctum loot getting rebalanced, it's still complete garbage for it's difficulty. Now I know why it was rumored Sanctum will never be killed; the loots suck... but thanks for the 5hp on the ring :dumb:
 
Malleus said:
All told the shaman gear lost 95 mana, 65 hp and a staggering 120 to resists! Seems Woldaff’s little main page claim that "Not all pieces have been struck and total mana/hp lost across an entire set is only around 50-70" was way off.

I have 4 pieces of Thaz class armor and lost 70m and 30ish hp and about 40-50 resists. And im likely underestimating the resists.
 
After I Logged in today I was floored by the so called balancing. The fact that you can compare an item from PoT to Thaz tower is insane. Items like the melodic BP and the Denos BP should not have the same stats. I agree some Thaz gear was a little out of line, but it takes some serious farming to get the class specific pieces made.

Finny said:
Let's now quote the front page:So, what up ToT item nerfs? I lost more mana off my ToT loots than I did my upgraded thaz armor :what: :what: :what: Also, LOL at the sanctum loot getting rebalanced, it's still complete garbage for it's difficulty. Now I know why it was rumored Sanctum will never be killed; the loots suck... but thanks for the 5hp on the ring :dumb:

ToT nerfs make me :psyduck: I was expecting a buff on alot of the items from there.

I wanted to LOL at the last sentence. Unfortunately its not funny because its true. Gongoreth was hands down the hardest encounter we have ever downed, and the loot off of it was such a disappointment(we were told at the time of the kill we would see upgrades to the items....not downgrades).

Hat from Gongoreth in its current form.

Martivir, Headdress of Introspection
Slot: Head
AC: 25
Effect: Flowing thought II
STR: +16 DEX: +16 CHA: +18 INT: +20 HP: +175 MANA: +195
SV F: +12 SV C: +12 SV M: +12
Mind Shield: +10%
Class: NEC WIZ MAG ENC

This lost 1FT and gained 20 mana, How is that an upgrade :what: :what:

I really hope that this Item balance gets a serious looking into.
 
Agreed. Thaz class armor in most cases I've seen now is certainly NOT worth the time investment spent to acquire it. Take the mage gloves. The pertinent stats being

RI7, 175m 130hp +4 to all resists, stun resist 5% (the rest at this tier really doesn't make a lick of difference, i.e. stats). Now while I'm glad the range increment is back (because the new heal focus with the status of mage healing as it is, was totally garbage), the nerfs make no sense when compared to say loathing.


DI7 (far far more useful focus than range increment, trumps so far, and we're just starting.) 160m (15 mana loss, acceptable equality considering the usage and difficulty of getting DI v. RI on a by piece basis), 135hp (laughably a 5hp upgrade on loathing), and while the resists on loathing are only in the Disease and poison area, they far trump the resists present on the upgraded gloves in sheer quantity 32 points total (16/16, whereas the other gloves top out at a miserly 20 total).

This is only one example. But it stays constant across the pieces. It appears to be completely uneccesary, and I highly doubt there will be many class armor upgrades in the future. From what I've seen so far, someone would have to be out of their mind to spend any amount of effort other than incidental in acquiring essences. As far as I've ever heard TOT is supposed to be on a comparable level to thaz. The reward for gathering essences is now inconsequential, and quite frankly not worth it.

Also over 2 pieces of class armor, 50m lost about. No ft lost thankfully but there was only 1ft to begin with. God only knows how many other stats got lost. Ludicrous.
 
Zaela said:
New plan:
Gonna restore thaz armor (and keep some little things I added), go back and nerf a few things that were too good to begin with, make upper ToT items insane, and make prison sanctuary items more insane.
As to the thaz augs: I don't see how you're seeing it Malleus, thaz augs are INSANE. Some of them are 20 mana! Let's add 20 mana a 190mana ft2 item on top of a regular 30 mana aug! Xeldan's design of thaz armor as a be-all end-all for its time is what inspired nerfs of any kind to begin with.
But, that will be how it is, again.

Awesome Zae thanks for the quick response and these planned changes sound great. 8)
 
well if thaz armor is reverted.. can we get tot reverted also since tbh, i find tot fights > thaz minus a couple.

i do agree with the augs tho. Make each type (each element) lore.
 
Zaela said:
New plan:
Gonna restore thaz armor (and keep some little things I added), go back and nerf a few things that were too good to begin with, make upper ToT items insane, and make prison sanctuary items more insane.
As to the thaz augs: I don't see how you're seeing it Malleus, thaz augs are INSANE. Some of them are 20 mana! Let's add 20 mana a 190mana ft2 item on top of a regular 30 mana aug! Xeldan's design of thaz armor as a be-all end-all for its time is what inspired nerfs of any kind to begin with.
But, that will be how it is, again.

Thank you for reverting the Thaz armor changes.

<3 u long time.

PS - FT thaz augs were INSANE, these seem just about right considering the farmage involved. Trust me, Thaz after the 101st time and still needing armor and augs becomes a tad less then exciting.
 
Zaela said:
New plan:
Gonna restore thaz armor (and keep some little things I added), go back and nerf a few things that were too good to begin with, make upper ToT items insane, and make prison sanctuary items more insane.
As to the thaz augs: I don't see how you're seeing it Malleus, thaz augs are INSANE. Some of them are 20 mana! Let's add 20 mana a 190mana ft2 item on top of a regular 30 mana aug! Xeldan's design of thaz armor as a be-all end-all for its time is what inspired nerfs of any kind to begin with.
But, that will be how it is, again.

On a side note Zae, would you keep the RI7 on the mage gloves for the moment. They are actually better than the redesigned focus effect with just plain old RI, b/c of class issues, or a change to just vanilla healing increment 7 would be better by far (as HI would take mend into account, something the redesigned focus did not account for, and as it stands the standard for mage pethealing)
 
Zaela said:
New plan:
Gonna restore thaz armor (and keep some little things I added), go back and nerf a few things that were too good to begin with, make upper ToT items insane, and make prison sanctuary items more insane.
As to the thaz augs: I don't see how you're seeing it Malleus, thaz augs are INSANE. Some of them are 20 mana! Let's add 20 mana a 190mana ft2 item on top of a regular 30 mana aug! Xeldan's design of thaz armor as a be-all end-all for its time is what inspired nerfs of any kind to begin with.
But, that will be how it is, again.

Ok thanks restore em back to 2.4 as bard mods kkthx
 
vistachiri said:
On a side note Zae, would you keep the RI7 on the mage gloves for the moment. They are actually better than the redesigned focus effect with just plain old RI, b/c of class issues, or a change to just vanilla healing increment 7 would be better by far (as HI would take mend into account, something the redesigned focus did not account for, and as it stands the standard for mage pethealing)
Please no. Revert the RI back to the legs :( Put HI7 on the gloves tho.
 
This thread is about a big enough topic that I'm gonna have to stand on anyone trying to bleed it into other areas.

Malleus said:
Since the staff have deemed it necessary to nerf the Thaz armours after over a year in game and a previous set of adjustments Id like to know the logic behind it.

This would be a massive shift in the direction of the thread. So: No.

Finny said:
Also, LOL at the sanctum loot getting rebalanced, it's still complete garbage for it's difficulty. Now I know why it was rumored Sanctum will never be killed; the loots suck... but thanks for the 5hp on the ring :dumb:

Sanctum loot got a back bench because nobody was raiding it so we paid attention to the content that was, you know, in use. Not only is discussion about sanct stuff offtopic, it's also very silly because you were told at the time it was still being fiddled with.

To recap? No cluttering up the thread about why thaz needed changing (which it so, so obviously did) and no sanct stuff on account of how fluid it still is. Got it? Good.

edit: And for the record, from my armchair position it seems like the class armor's a bit lacking in raw hp/mana.
 
Back
Top Bottom