Because faelings are part of the envoy war, and other races are not.

And I can't really agree with lowering balance, sip, -and- str. I'd at least like the str back. Shadowlords really do need it. The speed was never needed, and I'm still uncertain on lowering the sip.

Because people are painfully determined to go for the 'us' vs 'them' mindset. Everyone agrees that faelings are fine right now.

The snit comes in that when the speed changes come in, they will be buffed further than what would be needed, and thus folk are trying to take their chance to jab at the 'other side' while another perspective is trying to argue for the maintenance of the status quo by lowering faeling speed to level 2 (which, with the speed changes, would leave them virtually as they are now which most people don't have a problem with).

In the scanning that I've been doing over the thread, no one has ever asked for more STR for the race, but now people are arguing to hit that point down a level, as well as their sipping bonus, which I don't see as stemming from anything but player bias now.

And no, I'm not a faeling, so I'm trying to keep the arguments that I can see for and against changes as level as I could.

What? What are you talking about? I don't really have an opinion on this argument, but I think it's quite clear that while everyone from Glomdoring may agree on that, the consensus from the rest of the game is leaning towards the opposite.

Really? Then it might be an over-arching generalization on my part, but when I see Mag monks and mages being faelings, bards from other organizations as faelings and whatever changelings we have going faeling for revolts, I'd tend to assume they'd think it was fine.

Unless you're making the argument that they're too strong charismatically?

Fine is a bit of a misnomer. Faelings aren't just fine, they're pretty great, actually.

Whether they're too great is what's being argued, and if so, how best to tone it down.

Take the balance down to 2 and give the strength back please. Still not sold on lowering sip too.

I... what? Doesn't this suggest that faelings are too strong? Which would mean that they aren't fine?

I'll repeat, I see very little problems with Faeling - I think they're part of a problem, but not the problem themselves. Any nerf going at them needs to be done VERY carefully, lest you shaft another race for a year or two.

Lower balance to 2, keep str as it is pre-change and probably sip, honestly.


EDIT: My intention is mostly to keep Faeling static through this process or perhaps even use them as a standard or obvious example of a well-built race. Just because I have a knife and you have a rusty one doesn't mean it is overpowered when it comes to cutting steak - it just means that your knife sucks.

I think they're great in speed and CHA, definitely, but then if those were what people think were off about them, why aren't those the things being poked at as opposed to the sip bonus and the STR? This roundabout way people take to address things just gets lost in communication then.

As for the second part of Everiine's post anyway, yes, I wouldn't mind people actually remembering the mugwumps and merians either.

Please keep faelings as they are now. Mitigate the subject of what should be changed to the other races as well. If faelings are being used so much, it would logically imply that there is a problem with the other races. Fix those other races. Remember that also, Faeling is an elfen extreme as per the description.

Now we have a few people saying what they can tank as a faeling, but they are exceptions to the rule. Except for warriors, and with the PvE novice population, reducing the sip bonus will hurt to an extent. If the sip bonus was to be reduced, increase the health for faelings, and reduce the health increased by shadowlords so it's a bit more evened out. This way it wouldn't be one group that is targeted, one segment as well.

egh... move on to other races please?

Normally you make pretty solid arguments, but this one made me do a WTF? face.

I don't have "an agenda" because I'm changeling, so for all I care, every day of the week they could switch which race was dominant stat wise and nerf all the others into the ground. I'll be fine. I also have nothing against Faelings - hell, I've been one save a few odd days for the human xp bonus for over a year now because domoths remain fairly constant on them. My opinion is that if we're going to consider Faelings the "fine" or "balanced" race, then we have A LOT of work to do on almost all of the other races. Which I'm cool with. I'd rather see races bumped up than races nerfed down. Nerfs generally make people bitter and make them feel singled out, so if we can avoid that, I'm all for it. It's just a matter of buffing a lot of the other races to bring them into line with Faelings then, because really, they are a great race on their own, and more so great when you stack demigod + the usual domoths they hold.

So yeah, maybe we shouldn't be crying NERF FAELING, but rather BUFF EVERYONE ELSE - but actually do it then. It's a huge undertaking and will probably require a lot of of balancing, but it's an option that the administration could take and the player base could support. With the current changes right now, for example, Merian is in now way near Faeling in terms of being a viable race.

And here I thought my subsequent post clarified that bit. I'm still wondering why, though, if people think that the speed and CHA are what's off about faelings, then why aren't those being addressed rather than the sip bonus and the STR that's being tossed about.


Oh, and rather than double post, I have another question: Sior stated changes to the wounding bonuses for the warrior and monk spec races were increased to +7% rather than the current +5%. I'd always assumed that the native weapon bonuses translated to a +5/+10/+5 statistical bonus for one-handed weapon spec races like igasho and krokani and +10/+20/+10 for the dwarves and orclach. Am I to assume that all along, these races had a wounding bonus on top of the statistical weapon buffs?

Does this +7% increase in wounding as opposed to the 5% increase that I didn't know existed mean folk would be more willing to go igasho with their 10 base DEX still? Mind, I'm no warrior, so I don't know if this is a big enough incentive for a bigger racial spread than not.

I don't think I like the idea of influence maluses. I also don't feel like every race needs to have a bonus, particularly since this makes it hard to mix and match them appropriately (level 3 weakening for elfen? Buh?).

I'd stick some empowerment bonus on mugwump and charity on furrikin, then call it a day.

Oh christ why do you guys like adding more new things to balance around. This is a racial revamp, not racial expansion.

Uh, yeah. That's entirely unnecessary.

*insert quote of previous suggestions here*

That still doesn't address Tae'Dae and Igasho and their whole "slow tanks that are in actuality made of latex and filled with confetti for ammo" thing that's going on.

What if we were to let Strength affect wounds for Axelord and Bonecrusher, and dexterity affect it for the two sword specs, and make this unaffected by the diminishing returns that plague INT/STR damage. How far would something like that go, if it can be done?

EDIT: Quote for clarification/

Because Faelings are used for much more than just the handful of Shadowlords in existence, and it's better to just fix Forcefield than to nerf a whole pile of caster-classes because they got a balance bonus they can't use effectively (or, if it's dropped to level 2, a straight-out nerf of 1% in balance as well as a loss in sipping to their already painfully low con). Especially because the forcefield problem will still exist if you do this; effectively 19 constitution, still with a level 2 sip bonus, and with no sacrifice in other stats, is not exactly 'balanced' even then either. Even more so when it comes hard-coded with damage reduction from every attack that scales based on health and does not check to see if you are using Forcefield so really have a much higher pool...

The only saving grace to the low constitution for those without Forcefield is the sip bonus.

It does not counter the low health completely even at level 3. Dropping sip bonus without upping constitution is a very big deal. Nor does the race need an across-the-board nerf as you seem to be proposing with this, it just needs to not be upgraded.

... And we need to make it so that you can't completely bypass low Con by switching to a high-stat alternative at no loss because that is also a large part of the 'large number of Faelings' discussion, but that's a separate matter.

Oh right, I might as well address this ahead of time like I did in the last thread:

The improved equilibrium bonuses for Mugwumps allow mugwump bards to pull off a nearly-guaranteed instakill.

The problem here is in Perfectfifth, which extends the duration of earache (which is already between 7 and 9s, I think?). This extension stacks, so it's still possible with multiple bards. A mugwump with celerity has a fairly good chance of killing someone if they do blanknote-pfifth-pfifth-deathsong. Anyone without a forced movement of some sort is screwed. And I don't think the existent of forced movement to everyone (via gust enchantments) is a particularly good justification for having a technique like this. Especially when lol summon resistances.

It's a bit easier with Ecologists, really - blanknote, pfifth, forest smudge, beast gust + deathsong. I might have gotten the smudge placement mixed up in there somewhere. Either way; preemptive fix if this is going to go through, please. Same thing with Destruction being on balance.

Edit: I am also skeptical on just nerfing Forcefield. Seems out of this review's scope (to be fair, a lot of proposed changes are), and it's really the main 'tanking' thing most mages have going for them. Not that I'd know. I'm a wimpy TP. ;_;

Bard instakills don't happen in 1v1s. Everyone can get gust. And yes, lol summon resistances. I can never seem to be able to resist gust. Please fix.

That's still not a good justification for something that'll take 0 effort to pull off. As I said.

It's clever, sure, but it's stupid and broken.

Well, Sahmiam is saying that it's absolutely necessary that if the monk balance was set at 3s min, then all the grapple times and etc. should need to be adjusted. Since that seems to fly, you could just as well adjust earache times here appopriately - so if you have a quick eq regain, your earache time is reduced accordingly.