Nerf Agi and Make Ironflesh Useful

[Wraist]

The difference between 6 and 8 PS is not a 6 skill point difference.

It's 7

[Macropus]

Can't say agi is definitely OP, but I wouldn't mind to see a slight damage nerf, either by removing the damage bonus from WPF or reducing the speed bonus damage for all classes by like 10-15%.

It's 7

Well no, it's 14 (assuming you have 18 str in case of 6 PS and 24 str in case of 8 PS).

The difference between 6 and 8 PS is not a 6 skill point difference.

Which kinda proves Falkas point since if the difference of whole 6 attribute and 2 skill points of Power strike doesn't result in much damage difference, there's even less point in putting it into PS.

Anyway, to me IF seems to be reasonably useful, 7 points of IF usually increase your HP pool by 20-30% which is easily competitive with damage bonus of PS or any other skill.

[Wraist]

Can't say agi is definitely OP, but I wouldn't mind to see a slight damage nerf, either by removing the damage bonus from WPF or reducing the speed bonus damage for all classes by like 10-15%.
Well no, it's 14 (assuming you have 18 str in case of 6 PS and 24 str in case of 8 PS).

You are correct, my apologies ~_~

[Jona]

Which kinda proves Falkas point since if the difference of whole 6 attribute and 2 skill points of Power strike doesn't result in much damage difference, there's even less point in putting it into PS.

Well if you pump 6 attribute points into strength in order to put 2 skill points into PS and not IF, you get 6 hp (at essentially no cost) and a 16% damage increase. There is no way to get a "free" damage increase. Let's put it this way... sure IF can be useful, but if you have 1 skill point to use and you just hit the next multiple of 3 for strength... do you put that skillpoint into PS or IF?  Look at it this way, PS gives you an 8% increase in damage output, regardless of the weapon you use. IF gives you 2 hp, regardless of how much hp you have. So at level 1, with 38 hp, that 2 extra hp is only ~5.3%. Now what if you have 18 strength, and put your first point into IF? Then that is only a 3.6% increase. The trend continues onwards, of course, where 2 hp becomes a smaller and smaller increase with respect to your total health. PS will remain a constant 8% each and every time you spend a skill point on it.

I think we have kind of gone off on a tangent here, discussing whether or not you should invest 7 points into +3 agi/str and then +1 WM/ATH/PS or all 7 into IF. I sure hope having 7 points in one skill would prove more useful (which is still debatable, imo) than having just 1 in any other. As others have mentioned, someone who knows how to use speed bonus really well might get way more out of just 1 more point in athletics than they ever could out of 7 in IF. With a ton of athletics you can avoid getting hit at all, or always giving your opponent negative speed bonus so if you DO get hit, it barely even hurts, regardless of the fact that you have little to no IF.

To prove my point (which is merely that IF is the weakest skill) just think to yourself, as a melee build, how would you rank the importance of IF, PS, Ath, WM?

Imo, they would be:

1. Athletics
2. Power Strike
3. Weapon Master
4. Iron Flesh

Athletics and PS are definitely really close, and I would say that at lower levels each increase in PS is more advantageous than athletics, but once you get past 5 PS or so, athletics becomes more powerful. As for weapon master, once you get past a decent amount of wpf... around 140 or so, then you are pretty much set, and anything on top of that is merely bonus. IF however just never seems like an attractive option, or something that you look forwards to after leveling up. When one of my alts gets a new point in athletics, PS, or even WM, I practically jump for joy. Another point in IF makes such a small, unnoticeable difference there is no reason to look forwards to it. That said, sure jumping from 0 IF to 7 IF is awesome... but compare that to the difference from 0 PS or 0 ATH to 7.

[Macropus]

Oh wow, there must be a slight misunderstanding. IF is definitely the least usefull skill, which doesn't mean its not worth putting as many points as you can into it. We're not comparing 7 IF to 7 PS, but merely 7 IF to +3 Str and 1 PS. 
Anyway, I think its all about preference, which is good as it means it's relatively balanced.

[Kalam]

I wish I had footage of how things were with 200+ wpf, to try and determine if this was the cause. I wonder sometimes if it isn't just an optical illusion that is caused by the longer, oddly proportioned weapons. I've noticed that I saw this, for instance, with the masterwork goeddendag I used to use.

What? I've never gotten a swing in after getting hit, given the stun duration.

Also, I've never seen this insta-swing that's being discussed. Which makes me agree that it's likely a connection issue. I've got a 20-30 ping pretty much all the time. Maybe I should go play EU for a while and see if I can see it there.

I do it regularly enough, and both Tretter and Firebus utilize it often.

I like the idea of increasing armor difficulty to deal with high agility characters. I'll be the first one to admit that without decent, loomed armor the deaths come twice as fast.

[MURDERTRON]

IF is the least useful skill because it adds nothing to your ability to do damage.  PS obviously increases your damage and causes you to glance less.  WM allies you to swing faster and beat your opponent to the hit, and also increases your damage slightly.  Athletics allows you to move faster, letting you pick your spots, go for ganks, but it also lets you run away and choose your opponents.  Athletics can also add to your damage if you use your speed bonus, but according to San its not as much as you think.  I believe that's because your agi adds more to your acceleration, while athletics adds more to your top speed.  Since fighting involves repositioning yourself constantly, you rarely achieve top speed, the exception to that would be spinners.  IF only allows you to take more hits, and you can't make a build around getting hit.  A good player obviously hits more than he gets hit most rounds, so IF doesn't directly increase your deadliness, but it certainly isn't useless.

Think of it this way.  In every iteration if Counter-Strike, you bought armor almost every round, although it didn't directly increase your killing power.

[FRANK_THE_TANK]

Make all armour from weight 21.1 up to 23.6 req 18 STR and everything above that should req 22 str. Make heavy gauntlets req 21 as well.

[korppis]

How about leaving IF with +2 hp bonus but also make it give +1 to armor? Say it's a skill that also makes you utilize your armor better or something. That way it would give a bit better soak value for high str/if builds, and high agi wouldn't benefit so much unless they use heavy armors... which could be countered by tweaking strength requirements.

[Molly]

IF is the least useful skill because it adds nothing to your ability to do damage. [...]

Ofc it does. You're allowed to miss more blocks, you live longer, you have the chance to do more damage (over time).
It does not affect your damage directly, true, but it does add to your ability to do damage.

Not enough tho. Played a Strength build the last couple of days and I was really disappointed when I went from 3 IF to 6 IF on a level up. There is literally no noticeable difference between 3 and 6 IF.
Lesson learned: always max. Strength and only put the useless left-over points into IF. Although even 2 Throwing is probably more useful.

[Molly]

True, in theory it should add to survivability and therefore to damage output (over time).

[Mr.K.]

With low or medium armor you don't really notice the difference, but with heavier armors 60+ BA you can survive one or two hits or a couple of HA arrows more if you have 7IF instead of 0. Pretty much all my chars have maxed IF so I can keep blocking with my face.

[Kafein]

I don't agree IF isn't powerful, or that it should be more powerful. It multiplies the effect of armor by an actually sizable fraction. Getting 33% more HP (that's roughly the difference between 0 IF and max IF) means that considering an after action report, a random hit from that report is 33% less likely to kill you than with 0 IF. In turn this means that each of your lives are 33% longer (assuming hits are evenly distributed over time). When you use a lot of armor, damage is not coarse enough for that reasoning to be invalid. I agree it's not that useful if you don't have much armor though.

[Sandersson Jankins]

b-but this also would nerf my not-as-effective gimmick of stacking STR without IF so I can gain obscene amounts of PS.

pls no

[Phew]

b-but this also would nerf my not-as-effective gimmick of stacking STR without IF so I can gain obscene amounts of PS.

pls no

It's not a gimmick, because this is what everyone does, and the purpose of the thread is to end the practice.

Just like the wpf patch ended the practice of stacking ridiculous str/agi while ignoring WM, something should be done to encourage people to choose between survivability or damage output, rather that getting both just by putting points in strength and ignoring IF. There are 24/24 guys running around fast as fvck in heavy armor that still take 10+ hits to kill. Make them give up 3 str or agi if they still want to be tanky.