instead of removing ITD's why not give us a buffs that (reduce base dmg for 30-40% and 20-30% more Hp?) and it stay forever.

i posted about this on other thread but since u made this i resay it.

I love the idea of this Sedy, it will require A LOT of work though as I'm sure you are aware. There's a great deal of skills that not only increase damage to ungodly amounts but also reduce damage to nothing not to mention heals for 15k +, then there are pots with % based heals etc etc. I already mentioned in the Myrmidon thread that if you were to make a test server to see how this plays out then we'll all gladly help.

Before you remove the ITDs though, could I make another suggestion? Instead of removing the ITDs from the game, remove % based bonus damage from the skills which have an ITD associated with them and test with a fixed amount of bonus damage as I think this is one of the biggest problems encountered atm and is one of the largest factors in the ungodly damage being dealt.

Another method could perhaps be to lower weapon damage values to reduce overall base damage which should prevent both of the ITD bugs from rearing it's head. I've noticed that once damage gets to around 63k thats when it starts to rear it's head (PvE experience) and so far in PvP I haven't been able to hit for higher than 33k on an ITD yet.

The above 2 suggestions would save a lot of time and work and would more than likely solve both issues encountered so far.

I love the idea of this Sedy, it will require A LOT of work though as I'm sure you are aware. There's a great deal of skills that not only increase damage to ungodly amounts but also reduce damage to nothing not to mention heals for 15k +, then there are pots with % based heals etc etc. I already mentioned in the Myrmidon thread that if you were to make a test server to see how this plays out then we'll all gladly help.

Before you remove the ITDs though, could I make another suggestion? Instead of removing the ITDs from the game, remove % based bonus damage from the skills which have an ITD associated with them and test with a fixed amount of bonus damage as I think this is one of the biggest problems encountered atm and is one of the largest factors in the ungodly damage being dealt.

Another method could perhaps be to lower weapon damage values to reduce overall base damage which should prevent both of the ITD bugs from rearing it's head. I've noticed that once damage gets to around 63k thats when it starts to rear it's head (PvE experience) and so far in PvP I haven't been able to hit for higher than 33k on an ITD yet.

The above 2 suggestions would save a lot of time and work and would more than likely solve both issues encountered so far.

Yeh it would be a lot of work but I think it would probably be worth it. From what people are telling me, things feel pretty broken at the moment when it comes to PvP.

Damage numbers are getting ridiculously high now and it's causing bugs to appear because of the way the game is coded. I guess they never intended for this game to be expanded because you can see it all the time in the code how things are setup.

I would like to go through and remove all the ITD from skills and replace it with increased bonus damage and probably replace all the percent bonus damage too.

I'm not TOO concerned with defenses of players because a lot of jobs have -defense debuffs now and they can always be adjusted, same goes for the buffs that the defense jobs have. And anyway, these jobs SHOULD be hard to kill. I know they have some more damage now with the 3rd jobs, but that would get reduced with the loss of ITD.

You mean like a permanent buff that is always on, or just in battlefields?

Somebody else suggested a buff in battlefields too but I don't really think it's the answer. We have field PK too and of course PvE which is just too easy now with all this damage. It's hard to make any new content that gives a challenge.

permanent buff.

Oh forgot to add. In my tests, it doesn't always matter how much ITD a skill has, it could be only 10% and another 100% and they both do the same damage lol.

Removal of ITD would mean that tanks and healers will hardly be killed. Then again, I really dislike the idea of itd where you can just burst damage and 2 shot people. I hope for a more balanced gameplay.

Perhaps considering a direct (not buff please because it will be unfair to certain classes) - all damage absorption buff to replace itd, since it will not be as overpowering as itd and achieve sort of the same effect of course, the damage inflicted will be reduced.

I like the idea of - heal received. Almost all classes have them and it is a great way to counter healer with these skills however, healers can just ailment pot/ debuff those debuff away so maybe you might want to look into this.

Removing nimble tongue card so that healers can no longer achieve instant, to nerf them, but this is a very PvP perspective since they still need their heals in dungeons. Just my thoughts

At the moment, neutral. Requires further thought before voting

oh forgot to mention, you gotta do something with healing and tanker's def as well.

I'm not sure tank jobs would be that much of a problem with -defense debuffs that most jobs have now and more could be added in place of the removed ITD. Also a lot of jobs now have dots that don't care about high defenses.

Healers on the other hand are a problem and measures were already taken in this update to not buff them AS much as the DPS jobs, mostly on gear. They don't get as much as a boost as the rest on their weapons and armor and -cast was kept minimal, less than on 75 gear so if they want the -cast they have to sacrifice slots and use Nimble instead of All Stats. I would of course look at their skills too and make adjustments where needed.

Yea the damage numbers are starting to get pretty stupid in comparison to before, a combination of almost every class having an ITD with 20-50% bonus damage on a 20-100% ITD is makin things pretty fuckin horrible for some classes that don't have the skill set to combat ITDs. The only classes I've seen so far that can handle the amount of ITDs now are the Sages with Grace and Sorcs with Wind Fort and even then it's only delaying their inevitable death.

Have you experiment with how damage is calculated btw? It may not be a case of changing damage values/armour values which will cause more work overall, perhaps looking at how damage is calculated and then overhauling that particular mechanism to properly reflect how the damage should be showing, that way you can get rid of the pesky ITDs in a slightly easier way.

Adding a perma buff feels too much like a bandaid, I would rather fix it at the root

Side note:
"Removal of ITD would mean that tanks and healers will hardly be killed. Then again, I really dislike the idea of itd where you can just burst damage and 2 shot people. I hope for a more balanced gameplay."
For me that's the main purpose... I don't think healers and tanks should be easily killed, like 2-3 shots, on the same way I don't think healers and tanks should be able to kill people...

Anyways, regarding the removal of ITD, I agree. Even though it doesnt affect me directly as i can heal myself almost enough to cover some of the ITD skills, I agree with its removal because if feels almost illogical. Like, whats the point of having 40k or 70k defense if with 1 single skill i will be as good as naked?

I think the ITD can be removed and replaced with spikes from critical hits, and get the resistance stat actually working, to be able to dodge/resist critical hits...

well that is up to you, for me, giving us that kind of permanent buffs is not too much effort

Natsu you should noticed that the healer's buffs that give heal its the same as at lvl 65... we havent had an increase of heal since lvl 65 except on the armor pieces. The new lvl 85 armor pieces, makes us loose -15% cast speed.... isnt that enough? O.o

The protection stats do work, it's just that crit is so high you need a lot of it to be effective.

I tested the ITDs a lot before the 3rd job patch came in and found the only class that showed this was the Berserker with the 3 instant ITDs they have (too lazy to check their names atm). Those 3 always matches up to the damage of destruction. Mercs 75% ITDs didn't work in this way.

Post 3rd job class I have been able to test 2 classes in depth, those being Soul Blader and Sorcerer. The Soul Bladers min-max damage on the ITDs actually function the way the tooltips state in terms of damage dealt, they haven't bugged out and achieve the correct amounts of damage based the 0.9 - 1.1 multiplier built into the game. How the game works out what value is taken between 0.9 and 1.1 and then used to multiply damage and heal is beyond me though, it seems to be totally random. Sorc pretty much follows suit with their ITD's for the 3rd job.

One thing puzzles me though and I have not yet figured this out, how in the fuck does the game allow an ITD skill to deal more damage on a char with full defence than a normal skill with bonus damage on a 0 defense target? I tested using SB: Omen on a target with 0 defence and dealt less damage than with my opponent at full defence using CTP.

One thing I did notice though is that the ITD SBs have on a fixed amount of bonus damage always deals pretty much the same amount of damage and only varies by a few hundred, I haven't noticed that result on the other ITDs with % bonus damage as the min-max can be a big difference.

I think I found what I was looking for and now understand how this is working. Or more importantly, how it's NOT working as I previously thought. ITD skills will very likely be removed over the next days. I might leave one or two in for some jobs but they will be on longish cooldowns if I do, and that's a big might, not will.

All ITD at the moment are ignoring 100% defense which explains the really high damage and buggy damage figure display when it goes over a certain number. Poor Iris never expected to see such high damage. I already increased the damage display to 5 figures from 4 back when we started almost, so imagine now when she sees more

Is this going to be a permanent thing or just until you fix the the problem? I ask from a pvp perspective.

I agree that there shouldn't be skills that simply destroy a tank, however their current attack value is too high for them to be simply indestructible, so you'd be fighting against someone who damages you while you cant even touch them. Still, i do agree on their removal simply because tanks are supposed to be hard to kill.

However, don't forget about the other form of defense: evasion. If ITD's go, 100% hit skills should go with the same logic. Remember mail classes usually have extremely low defense so each hit we take is a real pain. Raising the Eva-Hit cap a slight bit wouldn't hurt a lot either I believe, but it's all about testing how it works.

It's not so much the high defense jobs I'm worried about, it's the others with less HP that are getting destroyed in 2 hits by all the ITD skills.

I'm going to sit down tomorrow and rework all the skills, replacing ITDs and percentage bonus damage and adjusting defenses too.

Not sure I get your point about evasion or how it relates to this really but I don't actually like guaranteed hit skills. I am of the opinion that if you want to guarantee your hits you should specialise in gear and cards with hit on them. I don't think we actually have that many skills with extra chance to hit right now but I will certainly check whilst I'm changing the skills.

It would be permanent I guess, or until I get the skills needed to rewrite some of the code. To be honest, I never cared much for ITD anyway and I'm just sorry I added so many new ones in the 3rd jobs. At the time I believed it was only the debuff-type ITD that was doing 100% and even when I tested I thought it was working fine, but it's not at all.

yes it will be a problem , and , itd is only on melee classes so it doesnt matter if they kill each other , the problem is , the magical users will be more powerful

and the Wind walker will be so nerfed , i mean , ITD was the thing making they STRONG what u said in a last post , so make sure to balance good the classes if youre going to quit ITD

I agree with the removal of the ITD but... knight its gonna be OP

NO no no... I'm just starting to like Vanquisher. What would us be without our signature ITDs.... QQ

this will be more exciting.

for the mean time, pls spawn mini boss at their exact time. Ive been searching them this whole day. I just saw a strawberry boss. Poor me. (delete this post after reading it)

hehe. Thank you.

I think if you take the skills ignore defense both physically and magically, you lose the essence of the old iris.
In my opinion the only end up playing worse, thus leading to bankruptcy.
I think what makes success is difficult to achieve high damage and the quest to reach new levels.
Let the difficulties that we have today and learn to play with them, from what I've seen so far the game has improved a lot, more have lost many players, maybe it's time to stop the changes.

Dracke.

time to make a templar -17k pdef with high abs and def

how about trying to increase HP buff given by lvl 85 armors?

yes yes yes remove those ITD. we sniper never rely on those skills. and we can still kill some class. just alot of work.

Yeah try to kill a healer without ITD when my hit is like 3k and they heal more than 15k. And on tankers it will be 1k or less.

==a, i enjoy this games again since 3rd job show up. if change so many thing, it will make more confuse. Just my oppinion, i think more HP will make more longer time in pvp battle.
About dungeon, why not make lisk like the old iris again, we can raid party, but lisk become more harder ever. maybe like lisk insane for future. I think more ppl in dungeon should be more fun, better then just 6ppl. Just my oppinion ^^

If the ITD is going then there is no need to remove % bonus damage, don't give yourself the extra work where that's concerned. The major reason why ITD is important at the moment is actually due to HP values, those who have invested physical money or a great deal of time farming for moolah to buy the relevant accessories have greatly increased damage/hp/def etc which is where 'OP' classes and all that jazz come from. If someone is sittin with IV/V/VI cards for just stam/intel or w/e is obviously going to have much lower of the aforementioned stats hence them getting destroyed in 1 or 2 hits.

If you went to a BF before the 3rd job update you would see what I mean and I am sure you have went before and know what I mean. People who invested time and money in their gear dominated those who did not, before I spent money on my char I got 2 shot in DMs, once I invested £££ in my char that no longer happened and that is pretty much what it comes down to, also the use of trans cards and pots etc

The previous issues that were present only really applied to the Zerker and that was the class people complained about hence it's surge in popularity but even then only the donator Zerks could go around 2 shotting people and that was not everbody, only those who could not pvp or those who did not invest the same amount of £££ or time cold truly roflstomp. Mercenary class was strong but only a handful of us existed, Advents started creeping in popularity after their buffs, same applies to WLs, Magicians stayed roughly around the same in terms of how often they were played.

The biggest mistakes in the introduction of the 3rd update, in my opinion, are as follows;

The introduction of the imbued recipes and then the weapons they created further pushing the damage values higher than they were already causing both bugs to appear

The inclusion of other classes having ITDs, Wizards should not have one, the Sorcs ITD should have remained at 1 (Explosive Blast 2), Tanks ITD should have been removed as they are just that, Tanks, not damage dealers

% Bonus damage should not have been placed on ITD skills as it creates problems when players damage gets too high, having % bonus on non ITD skills is fine though and is a logical progression plus a nice attempt at working round the necessity of 3 classes having an ITD buff intrinsic to their way of playing. If you wanted to add some bonus damage then a low-mid fixed amount wouldn't cause any problems.

The above are not your fault though as you were pressured by people in the community who just whined about '3rd jobs not being here, I'm going to quit' and all that shite, that caused the problems Sedy, not you.

The only real problem people complained about before was the Berzerkers destruction and even then that was only an issue with certain people due to their high base damage values. I can guarantee you that some of those who complained about being stomped by the likes of a Zerker or Merc were the ones who did not compare gear wise and also used this to their own advantage when killing those who were poorly geared in comparison to them, but they did not complain then =). Funny thing is that the Glad has/had a similar skillset to the Zerker minus the CD reset and I only ever saw a handful of people as a glad in BFs and only 1 who could kill people but that was because he had thrown $$$ into his character and could stomp almost everybody.

BFs before the update actually had 3 or 4 people per team minimum during my nighttime, usually it was higher, now there are 4 people in an 85 DM/FM/BoA TOTAL, if we're fortunate enough to even have the BF load as people just don't go anymore. I think that speaks volumes as to the state of the game then and now. There are so many things in the game at the moment that cause characters (NOT classes) to be considered 'OP' and when the ITD is removed you will still have the same cries but from different people.

Make yourself 1 of each of the popular classes that are being played currently, gear it to a level that is feasibly possible in the game or simply examine those who are considered well geared and replicate their setup, take those characters to a lvl 85 DM, do a bit of pvp and test for yourself to understand better how things are working at the moment, better to get first hand experience than folks reporting to you their own biased opinion.

Edit: I still say ITD should be removed by the way, I'm just throwing caution to the wind for any further changes to the state of the game.

so ITD very important. wonder why GM sedy not giving us those ITD buff for our class. so we can kill those healer and tank.

Yes it wud a nice idea to remove itd.. but but.. if the itd is gone who can kill them healers.. them templars.. a properly equip vanquisher cant even do more than 10k of damage and healers heals like more than 10k of hp..

its ok to remove ITD but also... decrease the defense of all... because for what i notice.... even with ITD its so hard to kill a high defense char like templar.. how much more if no ITD how can we kill a high def templar

coz u have DOT my god.. like crusaders they dont have much itd but they got serious bleeding..!

You folks don't get it, tanks are NOT supposed to die, you aren't supposed to be able to kill a tank in 5 or 6 secs then move on. Please drop the 'we can't kill a templar' shite and actually focus on the long term repercussions of the changes to the game if ITD is removed/kept in or w/e. The same applies to healers, they aren't supposed to be unkillable but they aren't supposed to drop in 2 hits either.

The one thing people need to remember is that the ITD punishes those who decide to play by just stacking defense, I'm guessing that was it's actual purpose as I can't find a logical reason for the inclusion of such a mechanic, unfortunately the Eya devs didn't have any foresight so fucked things up for the future and has brought us to the impasse we currently are at.

Btw Sedy, how does all this affect the damage absorption mechanic? Certainly this also plays a part in ITD/def and the future changes you wish to implement? Personally I hate the damage absorption mechanic as much as the ITD mechanic and I would like to see it removed along with ITD, just messes things up.

Okay. I'm going to take some time off work to actually state my own opinion. Other can hate on me if I speak biased for some reason, but yeah.

Here we go.

ITD, originally, was never designed to be "Ignore TOTAL Defense". It should have never been 100% in the first place. Sedy already pointed that out that it is bugged, we -- are now leaving people to tear up like paper in 2-3 hits. And not just any person -- every kind of player.

Citadel has mentioned this in his post. There is a difference between Donators and Non-Donators. As much as people want to WHINE and GRIPE about having less gears/cards/wings than others, that's how a game is. People with $$$ will get better gears than those who dont. Why do you expect to be at the same level as them when they spent real money? Comprende?

Therefore.

The ITDs and other debuffing skills and such tip the scale. But Donators have an advantage, they have more HP without losing Attack. Ergo, balance in their build compared to those who are in Int + Stam.

In conclusion to that.

Just cause you want to balance the game, does not mean you should make everything "equal". There should still be a distinction between people who spent, who farmed, who saved up vs ones that just play willy-nilly.

How else would NS make money from it, right? LOL

--------------------------

Now in my opinion, I do see a favor in the decreasing the amount of ITD-ing skills we have at the present AND INSTEAD -- giving the said skills boosted dmg output. Ergo, you only deal with damage, retail the target's def.

Just because by the mere fact that we experience bugs about these skills.

In fact, if I recall, the only STABLE class WITH an ITD was Warlock (not Sorcerer). The old client designed Warlocks to have one 75% def ignore with a needed invoked skill upon the target (Explosive Blast). And that never changed at all.

Everything that was newly designed? Are all buggy and throwing wonky numbers.

Correct me if I am wrong though.

--------------------------

My point:

I personally like having ITDs in the game. But too much, is too much. =)