Feedback on TTK, Gear Changes, and Mana (Post-Patch)

🛡️ Feedback on TTK, Gear Changes, and Mana (Post-Patch)
Posting my feedback after extensive testing in both PvE and PvP, with some insight from guildmates and personal experience. I've tried to keep this respectful and constructive, as requested.

⚔️ TTK – PvE & PvP Impressions
PvE (Tango’s Cave / Brightmound):
I farm Brightmound daily, and before the patch, I could take him down in under 2 minutes as a 550-power tank. He hit hard, and it required my full kit — a fun, tight fight.

Post-patch: it takes 8–9 minutes to kill him. He barely scratches me now, but the fight is a slog. I often run out of mana, and it’s no longer engaging — just long and dull.

PvP (Tank build):
With 244 power and new gear like the Blackfeather Tunic (which has absurd physical power even at uncommon), no other class can touch me in 1v1s. Either I outlast them completely or kill them fast through stun-locks, regen, and lifesteal.
Mana is the only real limiter, not threat from other players.

I haven’t tested vs. newly geared mages/bards — most in my guild logged out after an hour because their gear stats changed to something useless (like Strength on Bluebell gear).
PvE fights now feel like they drag on forever without solid gear. I can’t imagine what it’s like for newer or under-geared players.

🧪 Are Gear Changes Balanced?
Right now, none of the gear changes feel like they’re working as intended.

Stat Scaling (Con/HP/Mitigation): It’s unclear if the bonuses scale correctly.

Set Bonus Builds: It’s difficult now to assemble 3/5 medium or heavy sets due to stat changes, even though the bonuses are essential for tanks(and all classes in that matter).

Support Classes (Bards/Healers) need their own gear: Right now they’re lumped in with caster sets, which doesn’t work.

Damage gear should focus on offensive stats (magical power/int or STr/phys power)

Healing gear should prioritize healing +, wisdom, mana regen, and healing crit.

Wider gear diversity would make it much easier to balance builds across the board.

🩸 Suggestion: Instead of changing TTK, apply a Global PvP Damage Nerf. This targets the core issue directly without wrecking PvE pacing.

🏹 Weapon Trees and Class Impact
The weapon skill tree rework has hurt build freedom.
For example, the Longbow tree now forces you to take 3 useless points. It kills viable glass cannon builds and stifles creativity.

Also, changes to attack speed and accuracy hit some classes hard — especially those that relied on faster scaling weapons.

One example of gear imbalance:
A level 10 weapon like Flayer’s Fleshripper now has double the physical power of a Tumok raid boss weapon.
While I appreciate phys pen being more relevant now (more choices is good), this feels like unintended power creep.

Casters, in contrast, got kneecapped. Healers and mages need separate, class-appropriate gear.
Right now, casters feel like an afterthought.

💧 Mana Issues
This is critical. All classes burn through mana in 2–3 minutes of combat — sometimes less.

This makes long fights (sieges, raids, boss grinds) nearly impossible without being forced into awkward regen breaks.

And with Bards preventing pot drinking, it’s even worse.

Please prioritize fixing this. Mana is too central to combat pacing to be this broken.

🛑 Stat Swaps on Caster Gear: Huge Mistake
Swapping caster gear stats to Strength or physical stats was a major misstep.
At minimum, gear should’ve retained Intelligence, Wisdom, or flat Magical Power.

This drove many players (especially casters) away instantly. It made them feel like their entire build was invalidated overnight.

Classes like mages, summoners, and healers need tailored gear with:

Separate level 10 and level 20 sets

Clearly tuned to their role (DPS vs. support)

Right now, crafting level 10 gear is mostly pointless. Why not rush 20 and grind greens that outperform a +20 lvl 10 legendary item?

Enchanting also feels like a waste. New gear gives tiny stat boosts per enchant, not worth the time or gold.

🔨 Crafting & Economy Concerns
I haven’t fully crunched the numbers, but here’s what seems obvious:

Enchanting adds almost no value, so crafting is de-incentivized.

If it takes weeks to unlock Apprentice crafting, players will skip crafted gear entirely and just farm level 20 drops.(they could just remove hard drops as well to fix this issue.

)

Crafted level 10 gear is obsolete unless stats and scaling are fixed.

There should be a progression floor:

For example, a +5 level 0 item should equal or beat a base level 10 drop of the same rarity.

Also: squishing stats between bad and good gear erodes player motivation.
You no longer feel stronger as you gear up — and that's a huge problem for long-term grind engagement.

💡 How I’d Fix TTK Instead:
Remove the TTK changes from PvE entirely (for now).

Instead, implement a global PvP damage nerf to address burst/TTK issues in competitive play.

Revisit TTK after:

Class-specific gear sets are in place

Mana and regen systems are stabilized

Weapon trees offer more build flexibility

This buys time for proper long-term balancing, without making the current gameplay miserable for most players.

🙏 Final Note
Thanks to the dev team for their continued work and listening to the community. This post isn't meant as a complaint, but as actionable, specific feedback from someone who plays daily, tests thoroughly, and wants to see the game thrive.

Let’s keep the convo going.

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Comments

kerrai

Great feedback. For what it’s worth, Flayer’s Fleshripper is clearly bugged and I assume is getting fixed. Not sure what happened with it but it seems to just have roughly triple the intended power.

ButtercupClover

I'm not entirely sure about the fleahripper. With diminishing returns on the power stat, it looks more like a trap than anything else. It's got no substats like pen to help it out so raw power with dr isn't all that great.

Azherae

And, since I know how hard it can be to get feedback from less engaged players, the perspective from the opposite side - 'doesn't actually test actively right now but generally follows whatever can be followed without actually playtesting':

Looks like you're just starting over, Intrepid? Posts like the OP are well detailed and give a lot of relative clarity, unfortunately for us less invested who use these posts to get a sense of what's going on, it looks 100% like y'all are just messing around (or making a mess) again to try some stuff, which is confusing since it seemingly went past PTR.

Almost every outcome reported so far is unsurprising considering the usual quality/expectations of work (they are not particularly positive or high expectations). But the response isn't 'oh they don't know what they're doing at all', it's just 'oh they're finally getting around to trying some stuff and weren't actually seriouslly working on this before'.

So, do your thing, it's your budget constraints, hope it works out.

As for me personally, I'd say the #1 reason this outcome was the expected one for me is that this was not the order one solves this problem in, a lesson I hope is learned across the industry.

Incentives -> PvE/Comfort feeling -> Stats -> Economy -> PvP Feeling -> Repeat.

If this happened because the testers/Devs felt that the PvE feeling was still good, {That's too bad.} But it's probably just not as 'bad' as the first responders are making it out to be... right?

zbitango

We ran forge for a few hours trying to farm the "new gear" Steel neck and a few other phys/magic items well. After hours of farming mobs that DO NO DAMAGE to me or my group (expect for the big fire boss who still does his massive aoe boom for over 5-8k) and there is a bugged skeleton near the forge lord that blows up for 3-5k dmg as well. besides these two mobs, nothing else hurt. TTK for pve we had a full group of 8, all over 200 power , and the time to kill was terrible, at some points we had respawns right behind us as we were fighting mobs ahead of us.

Also after HOURS of farming, NONE of us got a single item drop besides the healing gloves off the nurse boss........ So no upgrades slow ttk, and idk RNG I guess? But the TTK is main issue not the drop rates. If we could kill faster and not at a slow boring pace it would make not getting drops less painful..

Also a lot of the "new" caster gear drops from bosses that DO NOT EVEN SPAWN ON THE MAP CURRENTLY.... So mages mainly cant get their "new gear" uh???? How to test without the gear drops?

Also words from Lammi and Milkman , two of the top mages...

@Lammi the third iteration, which each new version, comes more unreasonable requests.
LISTEN HERE STEVEN, MAKE MAGES GREAT AGAIN:
Ball lightning moves at double its current speed, does old ball lightning damage procs
Shell acts as a CC break
Slumber is instant cast
Arcane circle 30% dmge instead of 20%, increase size of animation by x2 to let ppl know mages mean business
Make fireball actually do the same damage as 3 firebolts
FIX THE MF CHAIN LIGHTNING DOUBLE HIT PERK
Make blizzard GREAT AGAIN, I want double the diameter in range and I want anyone in my blizzards domain to have damaged doubled if chilled and tripled if frozen, since mobility sucks already with it, you may as well make us invincible and unable to move during cast
Make arcane eye last as long as rogue stealth
LET US CAST WEAPON ENCHANT ON OURSELF
Magma Field creates an exploding pillar like firestokers in forge, consume all burnings dots instantly at 50% additional damage
If you stack all 3 enchantments in arcane circle, beam should do an additional 50% damage and have 25% more range
Why can bards gravity jump but a mage can't? Make blink omidirectional
Arcane volley is useless, reduce cast time by 50%, add 1 more volley hit
Why can't hoarfrost freeze people already chilled? same with frostbolt....

And from Milkyman - they should have gently buffed con and mitigation stats for ttk - agree 100% , or do a global dmg nerf .

And lastly, Nerf Bard dmg more please, remove flying mounts, or limit them so they are just cosmetics that can not leave the cities or carry mats , and only partake in siege wars. More limits please, limit them useless!

lancehavenbay

I feel like a lot of your post desperately needs clarity and is VERY vague.

What about the sets make it difficult to assemble? Stats that are not similar to what you're looking for?

Why would a support class need class specific items instead of the already present power, crit, and cast speed? Would that not already encompass what a support does? There are items that provide healing specific bonuses, crit, regen, etc. Do you mean you'd like to see more of those?

I'm not at all, not even remotely a fan of separate PvP balance. It's an absolute nuisance and completely unnecessary if balance in the game itself is done correctly. A player is no different than any other NPC, albeit players are more intelligent with tactics and pathing. TTK most definitely needed to be updated so that combat does not revolve around 1 hit kills and spiking, and instead on organized tactics and playing smart.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at about build freedom being hurt, as the weapon skill tree only affects that weapon now. It has no effect on your skills. So it does not at all affect builds, only basic attacks. And if projectiles get a a damage bonus, it doesn't hurt something that has projectiles.

You can get obscene crit and attack speed if you mix and match armor and sets. I reached 50% crit and 0.4 sec on Mace swing combo time. You need to pick a playstyle you like and focus into it.

Truthfully, a lot of players run through mana because they are reckless about spamming skills and pretty much activate anything that isn't on a cooldown. A lot of this comes from the lack of build variety, and the lack of options to output damage aside from skills themselves. This is something specifically that I will be making an in depth post about.

100% agree that crafting is not paced well at all, and is absolutely pointless pre-10, and possibly even pre-10 with the huge cost associated and small return associated with it.

I think with the crafting issues right now, it is harder to feel more powerful - but the base gear itself feels good. Its a smooth progression the provides small but noticeable changes in gearing - assuming you gear with a purpose. Going from level 1-10 will increase your power and crit meaningfully if you search for specific gear. As will your defensive ability for taking damage.

Imnotkio

zbitango wrote: »

⚔️ TTK – PvE & PvP Impressions
PvE (Tango’s Cave / Brightmound):
I farm Brightmound daily, and before the patch, I could take him down in under 2 minutes as a 550-power tank. He hit hard, and it required my full kit — a fun, tight fight.

Post-patch: it takes 8–9 minutes to kill him. He barely scratches me now, but the fight is a slog. I often run out of mana, and it’s no longer engaging — just long and dull.

They are already tweaking pve. There is a feedback thread on the Discord now saying that mobs are doing too much damage. Overall, they don't need to revert any changes to fix this. Decrease mob HP when appropriate, increase mob damage when appropriate.

zbitango wrote: »

PvP (Tank build):
With 244 power and new gear like the Blackfeather Tunic (which has absurd physical power even at uncommon), no other class can touch me in 1v1s. Either I outlast them completely or kill them fast through stun-locks, regen, and lifesteal.
Mana is the only real limiter, not threat from other players.

The game is not balanced for 1v1s. It should not be. Tanks/clerics being hard to kill at 1v1s is a sign of a well-balanced group vs group scenario. But even then, my current experience is that it is not true either. Rogues can easily kill a cleric with mana drain. Rangers can kite tanks if they know how to play, and it's a fairly even matchup, but it's winnable for rangers. Mages are just too broken still and can melt any archetype regardless.

Once players learn how to build for other stuff rather than try to push a heavily DRed power stat, it will get even easier to kill these archetypes, and TTK will go down (sadly).

zbitango wrote: »

🧪 Are Gear Changes Balanced?
Right now, none of the gear changes feel like they’re working as intended.

Stat Scaling (Con/HP/Mitigation): It’s unclear if the bonuses scale correctly.

Set Bonus Builds: It’s difficult now to assemble 3/5 medium or heavy sets due to stat changes, even though the bonuses are essential for tanks(and all classes in that matter).

Support Classes (Bards/Healers) need their own gear: Right now they’re lumped in with caster sets, which doesn’t work.

Damage gear should focus on offensive stats (magical power/int or STr/phys power)

Healing gear should prioritize healing +, wisdom, mana regen, and healing crit.

Wider gear diversity would make it much easier to balance builds across the board.

One example of gear imbalance:
A level 10 weapon like Flayer’s Fleshripper now has double the physical power of a Tumok raid boss weapon.
While I appreciate phys pen being more relevant now (more choices is good), this feels like unintended power creep.

Casters, in contrast, got kneecapped. Healers and mages need separate, class-appropriate gear.
Right now, casters feel like an afterthought.

They definitely need to do a gear pass and work out stat distribution on the available gear, but that's a good thing. It wasn't a problem before because ppl just stacked power, and no other stat mattered. Now that other stats are important, we are seeing a need for more diverse gear.

zbitango wrote: »

🏹 Weapon Trees and Class Impact
The weapon skill tree rework has hurt build freedom.
For example, the Longbow tree now forces you to take 3 useless points. It kills viable glass cannon builds and stifles creativity.

Also, changes to attack speed and accuracy hit some classes hard — especially those that relied on faster scaling weapons.

Weapon trees need a rework for sure. Overall, the limitations applied are good tho, to avoid players freely stacking a stat with no building cost.

zbitango wrote: »

💧 Mana Issues
This is critical. All classes burn through mana in 2–3 minutes of combat, sometimes less.

This makes long fights (sieges, raids, boss grinds) nearly impossible without being forced into awkward regen breaks.

And with Bards preventing pot drinking, it’s even worse.

Please prioritize fixing this. Mana is too central to combat pacing to be this broken.

I think they should fix this by slightly increasing mana regen out of combat and buffing the bards' ability to maintain their teammates' mana throughout combat.

zbitango wrote: »

🔨 Crafting & Economy Concerns
Right now, crafting level 10 gear is mostly pointless. Why not rush 20 and grind greens that outperform a +20 lvl 10 legendary item?

If it takes weeks to unlock Apprentice crafting, players will skip crafted gear entirely and just farm level 20 drops.(they could just remove hard drops as well to fix this issue. )

Crafted level 10 gear is obsolete unless stats and scaling are fixed.

The solution to this issue is simple. Remove gear drop from mobs of rare and under rarity past level 10. Replace it with materials used for gear crafting. This helps several issues:

1. Level 10 gear becomes relevant while journeyman benches are not unlocked
2. Players now have more incentive to pvp over grind spots (gear mats dropping becomes a valuable reward to pvp)
3. Players are incentivized to engage with all systems in the game instead of grinding to max level only. Now players need to engage with the economy, do professions, run caravans to gear rather than just grind and get gear, and grind and get gear.

zbitango wrote: »

Enchanting also feels like a waste. New gear gives tiny stat boosts per enchant, not worth the time or gold.

I haven’t fully crunched the numbers, but here’s what seems obvious:

Enchanting adds almost no value, so crafting is de-incentivized.

There should be a progression floor:

For example, a +5 level 0 item should equal or beat a base level 10 drop of the same rarity.

Also: squishing stats between bad and good gear erodes player motivation.
You no longer feel stronger as you gear up — and that's a huge problem for long-term grind engagement.

Enchanting is not a waste. It is the last progression step on your gearing journey. It is supposed to be hundreds of hours for small % gains. Doesn't matter how small it is, players min-maxing their toons will engage with it because there is no other vertical progression path to engage with at that point.

A huge feeling of progression and feeling stronger in pve and a game with a heavy focus on pvp and competition can't coexist. PvP needs a saturated and limited power creep, to allow for more casual players and for players that started late to participate in a lot of the "forced" content in the game (wars, sieges, PVP events, caravans, open world PVP, etc). Content that if the general audience ends up being one-shot over and over again without a chance to play the game, makes them just quit and never look back.

So while the feeling of being stronger may have been diminished, it is way healthier for the longevity of the game than having ridiculous power creep and the playerbase being limited to only the sweatiest players that started on launch day.

Veeshan

I think ranger beating tank comes down to whether or not the tank can figure out how to pull out a bow and shoot it

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