[zericosmic]

The nerfs are still confusing and suck which adds to the feeling of all this, but like.. The stuff we got this update (bar a select few exceptions) has kind of just been underwhelming? I dunno, everything this patch has had me less and less excited to bother to engage with the game mechanically at all (and I'm someone who usually engages in both PvE and PvP) to the point that outside of what I've had to do, and dipping my toes in one of the new zones, I've really just been avoiding it unless it was necessary to get to 60.

The new items just kind of exist, some are cool, most of them are very gimmicky, I don't think almost any of them come close to stuff that we got in the( by comparison, minor) whip item drop. A lot are just side-grades  like the magic wara J's, but like.. that's not really exciting, despite being useful. Most of the reactions to the items I've seen could be summed up by the guy looking at the fridge and being disappointed gif.

Shinobi is also just kind of.. okay? Its found some use as support for a spellcasting class, but this class originally seemed like a genuine spell blade, and its reception on drop has been the most lukewarm class drop I have seen so far.. Generally most of the class just seems lacking.

Overall I feel like this has just been a very underwhelming patch on the mechanical and balance side, i straight up feel like what was lost wasn't worth what we got, if you gave me a choice to take it all back, I'd do it without a shred of doubt. (outside of the new maps and races, ofc).

[Trexmaster]

It feels like a lot of what we got had to get some weird caveat carved into it to avoid it standing out at all.

Razor Talons needing two different items enchanted with Winged to fully function.

Starless Night requiring Darkheart enchanted on it to provide the reason you'd ever use it.

The Alchemical Torso items are all 0 base stats so their sole effect of doubling item material parameter bonuses is worthless until we get a parameter bonus large enough to warrant using it.

The Daikyu and Hankyu need to be two-handed in order to confer their bonuses (which does nothing for bows normally), the latter having a second conditional (enemy must be within two range) for a whopping +10 Hit/Crit.

The Batwing Cloak requires you to go airborne from a field object exploding to get its evade buff, and to have the Winged enchant to confer its crit damage reduction. The crit evade coupled with the buff is pretty significant (assuming you run 0 battle weight) so this one can actually be okay.

Outside cheese setups with Sasumata making some mobs entirely unable to fight back or abusing the Gunbai when you know you're running into a ranged matchup, not much of the new stuff really jumped out at me. Dragon Queen Horn was a nice albeit expected addition. Morimayer got a laugh out of me in being able to RNG someone into gaining White Prison to cast once. Magical Warajis are probably the biggest thing we got given the prevalence of Ogata's.

What really disappointed me were the materials. We got Boulder as a wood and finally got a metal Dark casting tool, so those two were really nice. Everything else was very lukewarm. Getting a wood casting material for water isn't nearly as big considering the gem staves exist. It's nice, but at this point we really need to stop drip feeding these already and just make a material in every flavor for each element, if not adjust some existing materials to act as casting materials.

The big winners of materials were Sheet Music (enables a few things but since we already had Jade Insect Whistle doesn't actually do that much) Hollow Log (Boulder Wood, very useful) Thick Padding (adding absurd Armor value to Cloth Torsos, +7 over the previous highest), and Gravestone (Ereshclair goes brrrrr (RIP the Rotwood Eresh)). Fine Art/Silk/Aureate/Ivorywood/Rainbowbark get runner up for gimmick potential. The rest are extremely niche. I'd also like to add it's sad that the Fancy material value bonus is only +5 worth. For how much it takes to make or otherwise drop an item in the Fancy material, I feel like its bonus value could be higher.

I just wish we'd get more impactful things rather than seemingly operate on a fear of creating anything that'd potentially take the spotlight.

[Miller]

hey dont forget redthread and rainbowthread that +1 evade will save lives

But uh, honestly to play a bit of devil's advocate here, I honestly think... it's a good thing we got a rather middle of the ground patch in terms of new items and classes, real specific gimmicks are more fun than just strong generic items in my eyes; Shinobi imo is a fairly solid class and well balanced but has a few odd quirks that really sting and make it feel disjointed.

That said, I do think there's almost no excusing the weapon line-up, pretty much every single weapon I've looked at I say 'oh that's neat' only to realize there's a big stinking fat downside that makes me not want to bother.

Like how Cougar's Claws only has 1 range on its bootleg flipshot that can't be increased via any means; it can trigger its special strike which is entirely cool until you realize you need to land 8 hit checks for a mediocre CEL buff that works with your weapon for a +5 bonus to all relevant stats.... Which sounds cool until you see the stats and they're basically entirely baseline for their weapon type.
Like how Puppet Strings has only 3 base power (wtf) and ideally wants thin steel for another -5 power (wtf).
Like how Holy Word has an amazing gimmick but you're hard locked to jeweled if you want to take advantage of it.

I can go on and on, but seriously; so many of these weapons I've looked at just have either boring scaling line ups or absolutely terrible statlines that make them a non-contender for any build (looking at you Giant Slayer).

My biggest disappointment though? where the heck is an even lighter weight wood material
WHERE IS MY BLOODY PALMS
WHERE IS MY STR SHURIKEN
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Snake]

Holy Word could scale from SKI instead of STR.

[AkaInuHime]

I kind of like there being a bunch of sidegrades this patch. A lot of the major patches the past year or so have been pretty balance warping, with solbladers and druids overwhelming most of everything else out there on release. Things feel a lot more stable now while still opening up interesting niches like with sheet music, a dark casting metal, boulder wood to help catch bows up to melee weapon power, the on-hit/grapple enchants, anti-movement skill stuff with the new polearm...

Shinobi has a lot of cool stuff it can do, but nothing quite as immediate and extreme (at least that I've seen/figured out) as release holy shield and solsphere with their lack of counterplay (couldn't really circle around or dispel or even dark water an omni-direction holy shield user, couldn't really destroy a solsphere but at least you can kind of space around it, moreso now that you can time it out), speed of light being able to cross map combo you (even starting turn KD'd), druid never missing dodgies while also doing extreme damage to them, so on.

Kanabo and gunbai definitely look strong and dopamine inducing when you pull them off, but there's plenty of intuitive ways to play around them, such as not ending turn next to a kanabo user or circling around / chip damaging / status cleansing a gunbai user.

[caliaca]

It feels like a lot of what we got had to get some weird caveat carved into it to avoid it standing out at all.

Razor Talons needing two different items enchanted with Winged to fully function.

Starless Night requiring Darkheart enchanted on it to provide the reason you'd ever use it.

The Alchemical Torso items are all 0 base stats so their sole effect of doubling item material parameter bonuses is worthless until we get a parameter bonus large enough to warrant using it.

The Daikyu and Hankyu need to be two-handed in order to confer their bonuses (which does nothing for bows normally), the latter having a second conditional (enemy must be within two range) for a whopping +10 Hit/Crit.

The Batwing Cloak requires you to go airborne from a field object exploding to get its evade buff, and to have the Winged enchant to confer its crit damage reduction. The crit evade coupled with the buff is pretty significant (assuming you run 0 battle weight) so this one can actually be okay.

Outside cheese setups with Sasumata making some mobs entirely unable to fight back or abusing the Gunbai when you know you're running into a ranged matchup, not much of the new stuff really jumped out at me. Dragon Queen Horn was a nice albeit expected addition. Morimayer got a laugh out of me in being able to RNG someone into gaining White Prison to cast once. Magical Warajis are probably the biggest thing we got given the prevalence of Ogata's.

What really disappointed me were the materials. We got Boulder as a wood and finally got a metal Dark casting tool, so those two were really nice. Everything else was very lukewarm. Getting a wood casting material for water isn't nearly as big considering the gem staves exist. It's nice, but at this point we really need to stop drip feeding these already and just make a material in every flavor for each element, if not adjust some existing materials to act as casting materials.

The big winners of materials were Sheet Music (enables a few things but since we already had Jade Insect Whistle doesn't actually do that much) Hollow Log (Boulder Wood, very useful) Thick Padding (adding absurd Armor value to Cloth Torsos, +7 over the previous highest), and Gravestone (Ereshclair goes brrrrr (RIP the Rotwood Eresh)). Fine Art/Silk/Aureate/Ivorywood/Rainbowbark get runner up for gimmick potential. The rest are extremely niche. I'd also like to add it's sad that the Fancy material value bonus is only +5 worth. For how much it takes to make or otherwise drop an item in the Fancy material, I feel like its bonus value could be higher.

I just wish we'd get more impactful things rather than seemingly operate on a fear of creating anything that'd potentially take the spotlight.

let razor talons work on flighted races im begging


but no again, this is a pretty much everything has been covered moment but im definitely not using any of these weapons and the alchemy stuff is just mathematically bad. So is the acid damage over time enchant. 

I wouldn't call this stuff side grades really, the numbers just aren't there in a numbers game.

[Shujin]

to me Kamiya (or what the swiftguard katana is named) was my personal highlight of the update, only wish I could have a Knight Ring mirror instead so dogies finally get their much deserved life line so they can handle PvE. Cause the sword itself is trash, outside of that effect.

The Dagger/divine eyes nerfs were pretty mind boggling to me. Daggers already struggled before, and divine eyes while 300 damage IS good no question...Was it OP though considering the cost and the race it was on? 4 traits, 10% health, HP on use, needs to be build in a way where you can hit, HAS to be dagger which has the worst hit?
Its still just the poor mans shaitan grapple, and I`d consider it worse even with 300 damage any day of the week. Thats ignoring all the other VERY powerful passives and immunities shaitan gets on top of the better tank AND dodgy buster.

Smoke shuriken is the only one I understood, damm those were good, but also REQUIRED in high level PVE, kinda wish there was a PvE/PvP change for it. It was really mandatory for every dodgy that didn't want to insta die.

But good luck hitting or criting anything anymore with an dagger user, while not instantly dying next round in high level content. (Assuming its the speedy/crit evady enemies or bosses)

Shinobi I enjoyed in concept, but it DOES feel a bit weak. (Also where Chidori/rasengan?) Kinda wish kagebunshins also stayed a little longer.

But my frist instinct reading of the patch notes was certainly also "Ehh..guess my dagger build dead, better play tank" and "Oh thats cool, new stuff."