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.

After lots of testing last night and some sleep and time to think, I am not going to remove ITD at this stage. I am going to change all the Percentage based ITD skills to a fixed amount first and see how that plays out. The bugged damage is most certainly caused by that combination. I was actually able to make some of these ITD skills (as they are now) reach figures that could not even be displayed properly, so more than 5 figures.

Once this is done, I will test more and take feedback as always.

I am also going to change some of the Wizard/Sorcerer AoE skills back to how they were intended, damage every 2s not 1s, it's just too much with an ITD. Those skills are meant to be strong but at the moment it's way too much, especially if they have further affects added like stuns.

If you wanna longer pvp, give every class 40% abs buff like sorcerers or prophets got. Idky why shouldnt we got abs buff as well since sorc got nice itd like merc or zerk before and stuns like magi before, and they got sleep also.

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

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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.

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My point:

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

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

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.

Although not really unexpected, I still have...mixed feelings for this matter. As it seems we're talking PvP here...

On the positive side: first and foremost, PvP mechanics will surely shift, as removal of ITD means no more OHKOs or unescapable combos that result in the same, really. (Take Vanq/Sorc, for example.) This is obviously good and will finally make PvP combat, whether 1v1 or mass, more interesting, long-lasting and...tactical, if you like. This is a significant improvement.
Second, this will give a reason to build Defense (not just stack Damage Abs.), allowing more gear flexibility (= good); far as I've seen, it's largely ignored right now. (pun intended)
(PvE-wise, reduced burst damage will prolong pack/boss fights as well, raising their difficulty.)

On the negative side: foremost, it immediately comes to mind that you are going to revamp Vanquisher [and, possibly, Windwalker] class should you remove ITD - those classes heavily rely on it. (Not because they can't fight w/o them, just because ITD was the core of their mechanics.) I, for one, don't really see any substitutes for this mechanic except probably something involving Crit...but I guess it's no longer my concern.
Second, speaking of Crit: as with ITD removed, it will be the only thing multiplying attack damage, it must as well be entirely rebalanced to provide effective counters (Protection) for it, as it is at the moment heavily underestimated (and rightfully so, as usually a person's Crit chance exceeds the likely target's Protection too far to somehow counter it).
Third, as many have mentioned before me, it will be substantially harder to kill tanks and/or healers. I know they indeed shouldn't be killed in 5-7 hits, but with the durability they currently have they will just wear the target down (1v1) or request focus fire on it (mass); they shouldn't be nigh-invincible, either. While there are specific classes that counter them (say, Crusader, whose bleed damage cuts through Templars' shields, Champions' reflects and Priests'/Prophets' heals.), there should be at least some general mechanic through which other classes can damage them. ITD executed precisely that function.
[to avoid tanks/healers raging on me: I did not say "mechanic to allow other classes to easily kill them", I implied "something that counters high defenses and/or healing" - this isn't the same thing. Remember, everything has a counter.]

Overall, my stance is neutral, leaning more toward keeping ITD.
I personally think it's better to invest your time and effort to try to fix the bugs with it, rather than just removing it altogether (if it's actually possible to fix them, that is.). It's too great/versatile a mechanic to just drop it.
My 42 cents.

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

Just remove 3rd job. I prefer playing a zerk without itd destruction which can't kill anyone than be dead in 1 second with 120k hp.

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.

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...

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

EVEN YOU REMOVE ITD OR NOT ~ NOOB PLAYER WILL BE A NOOB PLAYER ~ PRO PLAYER WILL BE PRO WHAT EVER IT TAKES... and theres always a QQ.... Let the people adopt on each class first before doing something master sedy
-This issue won't solve anything theres always a QQ... especially for those people who can't move on because of this new 3rd Job.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

lol Bias bish ... Thats wat i wanna correct hahah

Not just Warlocks Ray, Mercenary/Zerker/Glad/Advent had the ITDs before on retail and it never caused a problem. I totally agree with the removal of all new ITDs and having those skills adjusted to compensate so actual attack/damage values apply, it should only take some tweaking of the defence values and absorption values to start noticing a difference.

That makes a good point, the abs mechanic is one that I noticed counters ITDs quite nicely, could a slight change in present/future abs stats perhaps be a viable counter to ITDs? I noticed that WLs wind fort skill at max rank of 40% reduced my 24k damage to like 800 damage (pre 3rd job and post 3rd job).

No Soul Blader love Fist =(

Joking aside, I agree almost entirely with your post. On the part about inescapable OHKO why not just remove that combo entirely? Change the skills so that either the amount of time to execute the combo is drastically reduced or that there is no form of hard CC used to start it (perhaps even lower some of the CC efficiency so that a potion can dispel the debuff?).

(Talking 1v1 here.)
By "inescapable combos" I mean something a bit different from what you thought: they are MEANT to be near-inescapable, however it is possible to live through it if you take defensive measures about it (Promise? ) or simply interrupt it.
A prime example is Vanquisher's Impale>Overpower>rapid skill spam. It IS intended to be this way - it is barely escapable (afaik, Impale cannot be dispelled), but you can (and should try to) survive using any of the vast defensive capabilities - either use your job's defensive skill (all classes have that kind of skills: Templars' Divine Intervention, Windwalkers' Beastial Instincts, Sorcerers' Wind Fortification, Assassins' Protection Aura, Prophet's Sanctioned Grace, etc. etc.), an absorption/healing pot or a transform (Nirenia), OR interrupt the attacker (some classes do not have means to do that, however) - Serpent Sting, Enchanted Shock, SB: Omen/Abyss, Shield Slam... w/e else that has a hard CC in it.
(Some combos, though, are literally inescapable - Wizards, anyone?)
The problem is NOT with the combos; their damage initially wasn't usually enough to instantly KO the target and left it a window of opportunity to retaliate...but now that the damage has skyrocketed, they do not even leave any chance to survive, let alone counterattack. From what I've seen, right now the situation is that those same Vanqs/Wizards/Sorcs utterly destroy their target in a very short time span; caught unprepared (which's usually the case), victims' chances are abysmal.

TL;DR - it's not the combos, it's the imba damage

If you're implying Sorcs being imba, I reluctantly agree they are, but keep in mind they are tailor-made top counter melee classes.
Actually, if I'm to suggest how to nerf Sorcs someday, I'd go with the range first. Greater risk = greater chance of getting counterattacked; the high damage is somewhat intended.
(inb4 Sorcerers read to this point: ROUND 1. FIGHT)

more than 10k damage haha, I can't even moer than 5k.

Vanquishers aren't the only class that die quite rapidly, don't be so narrow minded. The current ITD issue affects EVERY player and EVERY class, not just you and not just Vanquisher.

I know? Thats why remove every 3rd job and even dont give me back itd destruction. Give me even only 1k base dmg just remove that 3rd job.

I know what you meant I wasn't clearer in my reply to you and I apologise for that.

Promise is physical only so no dice for us against Sorcs/Wizs, it'd be nice to have a magical reflect on there as well. Actually, I'm yet to meet a Wiz in PvP yet but as SB my skill set is such that Wizards shouldn't present a problem as I studied their 85 skill set and combo potential. Vanqs are the same, SB shits all over Vanqs.

Sorcs are the ones that fuck me up tbh dude, once my 100% abs pot goes on CD I can survive the first wave of Pyro > E Blast > Armageddon and if I manage to get close enough to try and silence to stop the combo reset then I get blasted away with pushes and whacked with the combo, if I'm quick enough or not under hard CC then I can nirenia. IF I manage to outlive that then I am now a victim to EoS because the full radius of the AoE doesn't show on the floor and if I get close enough to the Sorc to attack then I'll more than likely be in the AoE which they have casted under their feet while they stand there with 40% abs shield and spamming dots waiting to proc E Blast =).

Thats why Wizs are reclassing atm lol And I started going to BF on my Sorc, funny shit lol

Yea I know they're made to counter melee users perfectly but what seems to be happening now is what happened before with Zerks. To be honest before the new ITDs came in for Sorcs I already found WLs to be a nice counter to the Zerks that were runnin around in a group situation such as BF (YES thats right folks, GROUP PvP!!!!).

I agree with your range suggestion, means they get 2 30 secs of almost total invulnerability (2 uses of wind fort in succession) then they're pretty much normal for 1min bursts which would allow Melee users to get in close and actually deal damage. I don't like wind fort though and atm with the range Sorcs have and the tools at their disposal, wind fort is just too strong, a replacement would be something akin to Wizards shield, allows for a more tactical use of spells instead of a 'trolololol' style of play. The class also doesn't just counter melees, it counters EVERYONE with the current skills in use.

I'm digressing though, this isn't a thread on bashing sorcs and I don't intend on making it as such, it just so happens they are rapidly becoming the new Zerker and long time players who have stuck to WL are enjoying the new power, I don't blame them for wanting to hold onto it and I can see the justification in enjoying such a position.

Why? What will that actually solve?

Just hp only wont solve the problem, cuz even if you get like 130k hp or a bit more you are still gonna be 3-4 hit by 40k dealers and that can be done in matter of seconds 2-3 and ye its that fast that you can get it.

Well pretty much everything dies in a matter of seconds 1-3sec and boom you are dead... I stopped even buffing myself just no point, I cant touch anything long range or even try to do anything~

You can be even naked and nothing changed lol

haha so true, might even set a new record for a mili second death

yep , maybe will be a good option to quit ITDs , increasing hp , but we will need more defense on the classes that lacks def , like mail users , there are 35k -40k dmg dealers , so , it will be needed more def ...