Nerf Agi and Make Ironflesh Useful

[Kafein]

If you think IF isn't useful you have no idea what you are talking about. Which is understandable. I can gather you play the long axe often? No need for a build even remotely competitive when using that, you'll dominate anyway. Fact is with a good armor choice, investing in more IF instead of another agi tier is going to make you survive usually between 2 and 6 more hits. Agi is never going to make that much of a difference. The combination of high armor reduce and IF investment easily transforms someone into a damage sponge with only marginally lower acceleration, speed and wpf than a build that converted those IF skills into agi. Overall, IF is a much better skill than shield skill or riding as it remains fully effective under all circumstances and doesn't stop being effective above a certain item difficulty threshold.

[Voncrow]

On another note, can't you just make it so every level of str you have you get -1 hp such as

hp = hp -1(str) 
then change if in the way San said or something like that.

Although I don't actually think this should happen, but is it actually impossible to do?

[Jack1]

The big problem that I find with agi based builds is that they break animations for me at 150-170+ wpf. Perhaps lowering the speed of everything(arrow speed, movement speed, wpf, weapon speed) at a particular ratio and then increasing the server speed? Other than that all you can do is buff IF ALOT so people actually use it(I haven't had it for 2 years) or buffing PS so higher str builds hit harder then the agi builds with their huge wpf damage enhancement.

[Jona]

If you think IF isn't useful you have no idea what you are talking about. Which is understandable. I can gather you play the long axe often? No need for a build even remotely competitive when using that, you'll dominate anyway. Fact is with a good armor choice, investing in more IF instead of another agi tier is going to make you survive usually between 2 and 6 more hits. Agi is never going to make that much of a difference. The combination of high armor reduce and IF investment easily transforms someone into a damage sponge with only marginally lower acceleration, speed and wpf than a build that converted those IF skills into agi. Overall, IF is a much better skill than shield skill or riding as it remains fully effective under all circumstances and doesn't stop being effective above a certain item difficulty threshold.

I stopped reading your BS at the bolded text. I mean, are we talking full +3 milanese tincan vs level 1 peasant? If so, sure... having the whopping 12 or so more hit points might allow you to survive that many more hits, assuming the poor peasant can even manage a solid non-glancing blow. But in practice? No... having a few more points in IF will never allow you to take that many more significant hits. Heck, almost no one even survives 6 solid hits nowadays, not even tincans... some IF is never going to change that.

And for the long axe dig, I have been playing my alt an awful lot recently in order to grind out some loompoints, and I have been placing just as highly, if not higher on the scoreboard when going 1h and 2h compared to my polearm main, which uses far more than just the long axe. Using my lower level alt is what influenced me to make this post, since having 3 less strength and 4 less IF made almost no impact in how many hits I could take. With that large a discrepancy in my IF stat, I could take maybe, MAYBE 1 more solid hit on my main. If we are counting glances as hits, well then I suppose I could take upwards of 10 more hits! But that would be retarded to... oh... wait...

The big problem that I find with agi based builds is that they break animations for me at 150-170+ wpf. Perhaps lowering the speed of everything(arrow speed, movement speed, wpf, weapon speed) at a particular ratio and then increasing the server speed? Other than that all you can do is buff IF ALOT so people actually use it(I haven't had it for 2 years) or buffing PS so higher str builds hit harder then the agi builds with their huge wpf damage enhancement.

I don't find that broken animations are limited to agi builds for me. Even with your 3WM build your 2h spam still insta-swings half the time.    I am fairly certain that it is just server lag or broken game mechanics that have been around forever now.

Also, I believe that the main issue with agi builds hitting almost as hard as str builds is the speed bonus they get. Looking at damage calculators, wpf barely increases your damage output (compared to PS, anyways). However, something that is a lot harder to calculate is how much damage you get per athletics speed increase (assuming of course you know how to use that speed bonus). I am fairly certain that with your build you are not only fast, but have one of the highest damage outputs available, save for maybe a full PS build.

[Digglez]

increase IF to 3-4 HP per and/or give it the ability to add to your armors soak value.  The more IF you have, the more effective it should be, ramping up in in a curve instead of linear progression

[Admerius]

Here's another idea to make IF more viable,
Make it more exclusive and "cheaper"!

Change it ti 1IF for every 6 str instead of 3 str.
Change bonus from +2hp to +5 hp<<<------Edit: This might be to big a buff... maybe 4hp is enough

This way Str builds don't need to sink so much skillpoints in to IF, and it also gets buffed a bit.

Before
12 str 4 IF =55hp
18 str 6 IF=65hp
24 str 8 IF=75hp
30 str 10 IF=85hp

After:
12 str 2 IF =57hp(+2hp +2 free skillpoints)
18 str 3 IF=68hp(+3hp +3 free skillpoints)
24 str 4 IF=79hp(+4hp +4 free skillpoints)
30 str 5 IF=90hp(+5hp +5 free skillpoints)

[Kafein]

I stopped reading your BS at the bolded text. I mean, are we talking full +3 milanese tincan vs level 1 peasant?

No, we're talking about somewhere around 38c against 70 body armor, which is pretty much where people tend to stop the armor stacking. With 6PS, 184 effective wpf and 33c it's not out of the ordinary to hit those guys more than 10 times before they die. I also have a lot of experience being the HP sponge myself so it's not like I'm trying to change the game to fit my build here. Surviving that many hits removes the tension and transforms combat into a numbers game. I'm relatively happy with the AGI/STR balance right now. Maybe STR could get a little something. However buffing IF in a way that increases survivability is the worst possible solution. If you want to make IF more useful what about reducing the free HP pool? You get 35HP at level 1 (+2 due to STR), but what about reducing that to 30?

[Grumbs]

If high level builds weren't so OP we could shuffle around the STR reqs of armour and leave IF alone. Str guys will get a noticable benefit in terms of defence, when you add that they have good armour and more HP from STR and IF. I'd also increase the difference between low armour, medium and high. Get rid of +15 armour just from gloves, reduce the armour you get with light and medium armour and increase the STR requirement on medium-heavy armour

That will mean str get more defense than agi, but agi get all the benefits that come with fast acceleration and faster swings

[korppis]

I also think part of the solution to balancing agi-str (if they are indeed not balanced) is to increase the STR requirement on armors so that people will no longer be able to be tanky AND agile.

This would be good step to start with.

[_Tak_]

Give stun-resistance to IF and it should balance the game ;)

[Jona]

I also think part of the solution to balancing agi-str (if they are indeed not balanced) is to increase the STR requirement on armors so that people will no longer be able to be tanky AND agile.

This is definitely something to consider. My only objection to this, and I may be alone in this regard, is that I almost prefer fighting agi builds who are using heavy armor compared to agi builds in light armor. They receive a huge wpf reduction in addition to a hefty speed reduction. This almost defeats the entire purpose of their build. Sure, they move faster and swing faster than a tank using similar armor, but it isn't as bad as the super spammers who run around in something like the byrnie or mail shirt and fur, who are able to take a decent amount of hits but have great body armor compared to the total weight they are carrying. The agi builds who run around with anything of the weight comparable to the mail shirt (or less) can spam faster than the eye can see... that is when the agi build truly shines in my opinion.

[Voncrow]

With 6PS, 184 effective wpf and 33c it's not out of the ordinary to hit those guys more than 10 times before they die.

I don't know what game you are playing, but I never see that happen. I can take up to 5 hits if I'm lucky wearing my 72 body, 60 leg, 53 head, it rarely go beyond that that even if I'm fighting a one hander or anything other than peasant gear really. The build I use is 25/15 with 8 if and I usually die in 2-4 fours hits, 4 being pretty uncommon even then with my higher tier armour, and I rarely see otehr people fairing that much better. The fact that their are people in EU who are bullet proof makes me think something fishy is going on over there.

[Dalfador]

YES! You hit the nail on the head jona.

[StonedSteel]

Change the game back to the way it was b4 Tydeus stupid agi overhaul.

There you go, all problems solved. Also change valor back to the way it was b4 tydeus changed it, to get more people playing for longer. Also change the xp requirements for lvls back to what it was b4 tydeus changed it. Also...ahhh heck, can we just get rid of Tydeus?

[Kafein]

I don't know what game you are playing, but I never see that happen. I can take up to 5 hits if I'm lucky wearing my 72 body, 60 leg, 53 head, it rarely go beyond that that even if I'm fighting a one hander or anything other than peasant gear really. The build I use is 25/15 with 8 if and I usually die in 2-4 fours hits, 4 being pretty uncommon even then with my higher tier armour, and I rarely see otehr people fairing that much better. The fact that their are people in EU who are bullet proof makes me think something fishy is going on over there.

Well it's my experience as someone wearing 70 body armor, with 24 STR and only 3IF. Some guys with very powerful weapons still hurt badly, but I can laugh at 1h bar the very powerful ones or if the other guy is stacking 10 PS. One of the consequences of the general drift towards AGI has been that tank builds got even more tankish due to lower damage.