I know that they are nerfing TM and making it do less damage and was wondering how bad the changes will effect MMs.


Stolas

There is knowledge hidden in the shadows

And it depends on which changes are going in. Many have been discussed. For example, if the retreat penalties are implemented (making retreat as slow as advance) along with the evasion nerfing, moon mages without WD may be in serious trouble target hunting (especially in swarms) unless you have trained up MO, shield and/or parry skill. Also, it is a question of if the nerfing results in less damage or less hits. The former we may be able offset with by pumping higher mana into it and actually gain from that change by more PM/harness learning; the latter will likely require higher charisma/disc training so that MB and calm, etc. actually work on the critter. But heck, you will learn to love backtraining; you were circling too fast anyway. :)

One problem, of course, in the short term is that not all the changes will be happening at once. As they are implemented bit by bit, there may be periods of time when it is highly dangerous to hunt as you have in the past. On the good side, you always wondered if you wanted to get Contingency spell; now you know.

Wulfcat

I'm guessing that damage "shouldn't" drop that much unless one has seriously boosted agility with the intent of trying to get TM damage up rather than focusing more on base ranks. I know my evasion is going to suffer because that's exactly what I did with reflex to help my evasion for awhile during a period in which I didn't want to train it as a sort of substitution. Does anybody else feel this way or am I misunderstanding what they are saying?

Player of Pormithius

1/3rd of the effectiveness of before would be cataclysmic.

However, as per Ssra's posts, what is changing is the BONUS to our capacity to target. The ranks themselves aren't up for nerfing per se; what is scaling is the bonus being applied by your stats (in this case, primarily discipline).

So if your ranks are low and your discipline is low, you won't see much of a change. If your ranks are high and your discipline is high, then you'll definitely see a hit, but even then, it won't be reduced to 1/3rd effectiveness; the bonus from discipline (and any other stats in question) will be what is reduced.

Small change for some, significant change for others, but it will be mitigated by the evasion tweak, and as has been mentioned, we have a variety of excellent ways to incapacitate before we strike. Our milk isn't spilt yet. <g>


-- Nomad Reike

>observe weather
You glance up at the sky.
Thick clouds above obscure all but a few lucky stars.
>thank my lucky stars
Please rephrase that command.

>>From what I understood ... they are reducing the effectiveness of TM and ranged combat by 3 times. That doesnt sound like a small change. I may just be reading what is being discussed but having 1/3rd the effectiveness as before is bad.<<

You're reading it wrong. Evasion is bonused by reflex by a factor of twice as much as reflex bonuses shield and parry. So the bonus, due to reflex, is being put at the same as shield and parry. The same thing is happening to TM and ranged. They were getting bonused to a huge degree by agility and in the case of TM, discipline. These bonuses due to power trained stats are being taken down to the same as melee. TM base ranks should be the same after as they were before, it's merely the degree to which it's bonused by stats is being changed.

-Wighten

<<1/3rd of the effectiveness of before would be cataclysmic.>>

Not even close to 1/3rd. :)

-Ssra

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." -Albert Einstein

<<I have fairly high discipline and I am noticing a very significant drop in the effectiveness of my TM. Before the change a single 22 mana cast of CRS would always drop a scorpion. Now it never does.>>

Do you play in TF? The change to TM/Evasion is only live in TF.

-Ssra

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." -Albert Einstein

>>No, I am in prime. Is there any other change that would have made a difference in TM? <<

Ah, the placebo effect.

-WIghten

Welp...checked it out in TF. No more 150th circle flex westies for me, no sir. Back to rock trolls. Completely devastating change.

Ok, not really. I could oneshot them before, and I still do now. Snap casts aren't quite as effective. CRS still annihilates them with no discernable difference. Likewise for PD with even a partial target.

I do have one concern about the change.

TM Vs. BMR was laughably worthless before this. Now that TM is even more difficult to connect with in the first place, I think that situation could use some serious reassessment.

<<TM Vs. BMR was laughably worthless before this. Now that TM is even more difficult to connect with in the first place, I think that situation could use some serious reassessment.

I second this. Before the change as it stands my 700+ TM has an incredibly hard time hitting a barbarian with Partial Displacement fully targeted with 500 evasion. That's a huge gap to fill and I'm worried about enlarging that gap possibly. I don't want this to sound like complaining but rather I just wanted to address a potential problem.

Porrecam, have you tested which stat allows you to break through barbarian BMR best? I'm guessing Charisma is best for offensive and Discipline for defensive vs roars.

Player of Pormithius

Vision, what spell(s) did you use so far to test with?


-- Toldorf GurKct, melee Kcontortionist

We think about posterity again.