Sweeping Mechanic changes, to what end?

[Phiphler]

There have been a couple of broadly sweeping mechanic changes done by Mythic, which does make sense at a developer level, but at a class level are just stupid. Im talking about 2 very specific changes that I know of:

1. Absorb type abilities no longer get ANY mitigation.
2. Resist buffs/debuffs do not stack.

While it might make sense that Absorbs should be kinda weak, after all, no one likes seeing all their damage mitigated, it upsets class balance. For example, the Swordmaster's mirror to the Black Orc skill Da Toughest! is called Phantom's Blade. Notice the difference: The Swordmaster one can not take advantage of any mitigation, while the Black Orc gets the full mitigation.

This also affects the Blackguard with his Shield of Rage, and the Swordmaster's Protection of Hoeth, now very weak skills that provides little tanking ability. Not to mention the healer absorb shields, they are at the same level as the combined heals in that they are not worth the AP and GCD required to cast them. Yes thats right, its better to HoT something else and ress the guy later instead of trying to save him from Focused Fire.

The resist affecting abilities not stacking might make slightly more sense, except at a class level. Chosen's Blast Wave removes EXACTLY as many resistance points as their aura in the same tree Discordant Instability. Since this is by far the strongest aura in the tree, and usually the one you use, Blast Wave's debuff becomes pointless.
Same thing for Swordmaster really, Heaven's Blade and Wrath of Hoeth are mostly pointless.

Mythic should either revise these changes, or change the affected abilities so that they remain useful.

[jdela13]

I love seeing my class for an example for all of these changes. Makes me want to rethink my life :) But hey, nerf <insert nerf cry of the month here> instead. Yes, Mythic has a test server and does not use it. They do not seem to think some changes through and how it will affect multiple classes. Since beta my SM has played more ways than I can count. I log on and never know to what to expect. In a way it is good, because I feel like I have played 4 or 5 different classes (only 1 in beta was really good unfortunately).

[Aryl]

The resist buffs not stacking makes sense to me. If they did, it would be very easy to completely mitigate a caster's damage because there is currently no resist cap. Even without stacking there is already a lot of issues with characters stacking up to 75% damage reduction.

As far as the shielding/absorbs go....there is no mention of taking damage reduction into account on the tool tips. I assume this is because that's how they were intended originally. If you think of these skills as bubbles around the character then it makes sense that they absorb damage before taking armor armor into account. This is how just about every other game does it.

You raise a good point with the disparities between the different tank classes, but i think this is a specific balance issue. The normal healer bubbles should work like they are now.

[Phiphler]

Yes, I know that these changes make sense on an overarching level, but at the individual level they do not.

For example, why should anyone other then a Chosen every bother with any kind of resistance buff, when the Chosen one affects everyone and gives a LOT more resistances?

Atleast allow some kind of diminishing returns instead of a complete no no to stacking, this includes debuffs as well of course.

Shields, well they probably are working as intended, problem is that they seem to be intended to be inferior. I question this, I think shield abilities are entirely too weak right now.