But you can see the difference in classes who rely on stats vs classes who don't. My intelligence is meaningless except for symbol strike and cosmicfire. Even if I bought a damage rune I am told by admins that my damage for torture and crucify comes from no damage source will not be buffed, despite that I have to spend massive power on crucify or time a web/torture. These are my main sources of damage and yet they will see nothing from buying artifacts which I consider a major problem that the staple of what could be my damage offense cannot be buffed while a warrior/monk can buff theirs as far as their money will take them.

An example of a class that does rely on stats as much as warrior are bards. Take a look at the way Xiel can build his damage on his songs with cha/int affecting his main staple attacks along with his artifacts buffing it. You can't compete with that 2-3k song damage I used to take on top of passive confusion/lethargy which made me never regain eq when the artifacts won't buff you and your intelligence stat plays no part.

Admins should really take a look at that for a concept and perhaps bring the rest of the classes up to par with the damage that others can do as well as the artifacts that are accessible to them.

Divine fire for bashing only would certainly help many things.

Concrete suggestion: make guardians not require special GUARD verb (or whatever it is) to do everything. When you're locked into a guardian, why not just have your movement commands move the guardian? I mean, it's not like you're going to be able to move your physical body separate from the guardian, anyway. It would make the guardians more accessible without having to alias the move/attack commands to make your keypad macros work.

I don't think so at all. Divinefire is still trumped by instakills. Its not like you see many 1 on 1 fights where Divinefire is just causing the destruction of midbies who would otherwise win. Divinefire is a single use ability that saves someone from certain death from usually a gank. Demigod is not worth it without divinefire.

Yeah, I've been on the bad end of Xielithoid damage with a magic weakness, I know what sort of damage can be built up and having seen guardian damage from two completely different stats, I know what you're talking about.

Demigod is worth it even without divinefire. Demigod is a whole bunch of stat arties + regen + escape move + area attack packed into one. Don't exaggerate.

Removing divinefire will make them less of a pain in pvp, both 1v1 and group since it removes their panic button.

In fact, just last night, Thoros and co. raided for hours, used fire, ran away, waited till the next IC day, then came back the moment they had fire again so they can bail ad nauseum.

P.S. If guardians are trying to kill with damage, you're doing it wrong. I might as well complain I can't kill with mana drain.

Demigods have been nerfed a lot already. The issue is not really Demigods (even Divine-fire is a once-per-hour escape hatch that all sides have learned to deal with, and once it's popped... well, that person becomes a higher target the next time through).

The issue is primarily elemental runes. Demigod exacerbates the issue by giving +2 strength points, which buff warrior damage pretty well, but if a non-Demigod (say, level 95) was to pick up a set of fully-runed weapons, stack on all the various damage buffs (Karma War, War Domoth, etc), they would also be rather damaging to the low-health cloth wearers.

The issue isn't Demigods, it's Warriors with artifacts.

(Note: I am not saying that this trumps everyone. It is well-possible to beat it, but this is the source of the complaints from the squishier and less combat-capable population of the game-- being nearly insta-gibbed by warriors who aren't even trying, just mashing a swing-macro for the damage kill in 1-2 rounds)

Bards do have their own issue with being able to stack on too much stuff as well, so my other solution (even noted in an envoy report) is to address how +% damage stacks. Because that is ALSO a big issue. If you have a high-damage attack, +% damage affords you a much greater buff than your counterparts in other guilds... and leads to obscene damage outputs.

You guys really underestimate the importance of suddenly having a lot more health, better stats, a once-per-hour-live move, and more, heh.

Not to conclude things one way or another, but the fact that there is an arms race for demi by all sides speaks for its importance.

Btw I also have divinefire and I love using it as much as the next guy, but we'd be better off without it IMO

I'd like it to be an option. Or at least an option I can buy with artifacts as readily as a bard can.

Also I can't mana kill either. I don't think Celest does much of that either too. And maybe Grego can vouch for mana drain on MD.

I just threw out mana drain randomly, I can could have easily said 'balancelock/soulless/etc'!

How would feel if we drop divinefire and the stat bonuses from demigods?

The big thing here is the health/mana/ego boost That helps survivability far more than a once-an-hour escape card (which, don't get me wrong, is super-nice... but the extra h/m/e I've got gives me an all-the-time "live more").

^^ This is the point I was trying to make.

P.S. I wasn't saying Guardians should be damage killing. I was merely drawing a parralel of high damage (based on guardian) compared to demiwarrior with artifact runes.

I still stand by affliction classes have been near useless for a long time, barring a couple classes with excellent ability to hinder and afflict at the same time.

I don't think that dropping the stat bonuses from demigod altogether would be a great idea, however, I would advocate lowering them. As for Divinefire, I don't have an issue with it at all. Sure it sucks when you're working on Ceren (or whoever) and he fires, but that just means you can kill him next time if he comes back around.

That's not the problem though, Estarra. The real problem being complained about is the damage, which is exacerbated slightly by Demigod... the main reason you see it attributed to Demigods is that not many others buy the boosts or go all-out to maximize damage in the same way.

The issue is stacking of artifacts and +% damage, which is further pushed upwards by stats, but is in no way caused solely by those stats. Removing stats won't fix what's being complained about.

I wouldn't drop Divinefire completely. Just as Sojiro said, make it bashing only. This should be doable given other skills being converted to bashing only.

Well Soj, lets do a scenario. Me vs 3 midbies and you vs 3 midbies.

If I plan to soulless, not only is it vastly evident that I am going to thats going to be stopped awfully quick by the person just leaving while his two buddies beat on me.

If I plan to manakill, I will have to be ready to take the beating from his friends.

If I plan to balancelock which isn't even approriate term cause its no lock compared to what is available to monks/warriors, its simply extended timer on regaining balance, then there is no way through simple hindering of the group that I am going to manage it since timing is key and there is no timing in this sort of group.

while you on the other hand can simply cleave through person after person with massive damage/afflicts/pinleg to the point they are ripped apart. Warrior has it much easier. Even with flailing around and attempting to hinder you, you are going to put them down. Just the same that Vath, Thoros, ect can put down groups of noobs fast.

Casters don't have this benefit period, unless you are a crazy damage stacking bard. All I am saying is I would like to be able to purchase my damage buffs in the same manner that warriors can.

Also, how about instead of removing the stats, you make it like fortuna (I think that is the one) where each month it buffs a random stat?

Just tossing out an idea.

No, no , no, no. The fact wasn't listened to that Divinefire as Xethnos said is a one time thing that makes the person more readily targetted on the next go around. Getting rid of it would only prompt higher ganks and zerg teams. not to mention its easily broken with dominate, trying to run (havens), or killed by instakills

Getting rid of stat buffs? that meaningless to warriors who are already stacking 25 str and ridiculous health or so but classes like casters who will writhe at the thought of less dex/con to save them.

Stop nerfing everyone in the hopes of making swipes at those obscenely powerful. Seriously, if this goes the way of being a permenant change my Demigod was for nothing and I am pretty much done. Stop taking away consequences/buffs/tactics simply for the whiners. If you want to make this game a numbers game on who wins simply because they brought the most of who can nature curse or vines, you are doing pretty well.

See, I've never felt shut out of combat because I've never gotten demigod. There are times where I look at certain demi-warriors or demi-monks and say to myself, "How are you allowed to exist?" Deep down, though, I know that there's more to that than +2 to a couple stats. That's the funkiness involved when two archetypes are so numbers-dependent and the rest just aren't, combined with a whole slew of other non-demi buffs and variables that exist for warriors and monks that don't exist for everyone else. Warriors and monks can buff themselves to increase damage done, rate of afflictions per attack, and speed per attack. Stacking int as a druid doesn't increase sap delay. Stacking cha as a bard doesn't guarantee me the good plague afflictions from my songs.

Really, aside from demi-warriors and demi-monks, the only demigod I've looked at and said "Why?" was Krellan, and that's just because druids are supposed to be wet paper bags for balance reasons, and he was one of those five layer heavy duty lawn compost paper bags.