evasion

[Taem]

How interesting; I had no idea this was changed so drastically. In LOG1, I always played minotaur archers in the front focusing heavily on evade and was far, far more adapt than anything relating to protection. Protection in LOG1 was the bastard step-child everyone ignored it seems to me. Now it seems the devs decided to do a complete role reversal due to massive comments regarding the mechanics in LOG1 and may have overshot. I'm surprised so much in the game wasn't fully play-tested for balance issues prior to release.

Of the changes I'd like to see:

• A little better evasion for dex-based front-row melee builds
• Complete reworking of the firearm system and ammo situation
• Spell damage scaling slightly with +Wisdom
• Chargable items with 0-mana cost
• And lower cooldown on all special attacks, because as of now, its far better to just use the standard attack and "dance" around opponents

EDIT: I put cool-down for chargable items when I meant zero mana cost. Lets face it, most of the time your standard attack is far superior to these special items, so they are items of last resort, when your mana has already fun its course. So as it stands now, since they cost mana to use, they just sit in the inventory or are blatantly discarded. Just my 2-cents.

[AngelFist]

I think its okay the way it is.

Maximum pre Dex Potions is around 55.

O.o

yeesh, I was using a mino and only managed to get my total strength up to 40, even with pots and everything to boost it.

how did you manage to get dex to 55?

No, not Dex 55, evasion 55. If you craft and use dex ptions your evade will rise. Thats what i meant.

I think the balance is very good now. Nothing stops an high evade charakter from wearing heavy armor (you just need 4 sklil points for armor skill) you can max dodge skill and max weapon skill.
So a semi Tank has: 4 Armor, 5 Dodge and 5 Weapon Skill.
If you want a full Tank its possible, too. Put the points from weapon skill into athletics.

If they buff Evade Skill to 5 points per lvl. It simply would be too strong.

Compare:
25 evade (buffed dodge skill) or 100 HP (athletic skill) its a no brainer...25 evade are worth a lot more (given the fact, that you still run 300HP and a protection of around 100)
15 evade (dodge skill) or 100 HP (athletic skill) is a matter of decision (testing reveals 15 evade to be superior, when you have 300HP and 100 protection)

My impression is, you just want to make a frontline rogue viable. On Normal he is, on hard he shouldn´t. At least in my Books.

Dex based Frontline Tanks are perfectly viable on hard mode (Ratling knight with dagger and shield).

[Ichthyic]

I think the balance is very good now.

and i completely disagree. I think they went overboard trying to rectify the evade-tank builds people used for grim1.

My impression is, you just want to make a frontline rogue viable.

you'd be wrong, but so what if someone did? EVERY other rpg known to man has had rogue be a viable front liner... because of things like dex based evade.

are you saying it shouldn't be possible, just because YOU don't like it?

that's not exactly a well-reasoned argument.

[Dr.Disaster]

No, not Dex 55, evasion 55.

I see how you will reach Evasion 55 without buffing dex in theory.

A Ratling can start out with Evasion 19 tops with +5 to dex, Agile trait (+2 dex), Evasive trait, Dodge 1.
Add 4 more points for Dodge 5 and he's at 31.
Make him a knight, give him the highest Evasion shield out there (Crystal) and let him add another 15 this way.
Add the best cloak you can get for 5 more Evasion and you're at 51.
Add 4 parts of Rogue set and Knuckles of Steel and you are at Evasion 57.

Protection would be like 20 but who cares; it's a theory-craft.

[Neutronium Dragon]

you'd be wrong, but so what if someone did? EVERY other rpg known to man has had rogue be a viable front liner... because of things like dex based evade.

Given that most of those RPGs hard-coded rogues as wearing leather armor and wielding daggers (or equivalents), as opposed to Grimrock where the rogue class means "you have a lower dual-wield penalty and a better ranged crit chance" and nothing else, it isn't really apt to compare the LoG2 rogue to those other games' rogues. Moreover, every other game did NOT make their hardcoded-as-light-armored-knife-wielder rogues into front liners. In many RPGs, especially early ones, the rogue was outright bad at fighting no matter which line they were in because they were oriented toward non-combat functions, and in others they were okay on offense but still expected to have a glass jaw if something took a swing at them. Given that the LoG 2 rogue can be a viable front liner by wearing heavy armor - unlike the other games you're referring to where they're often hard-coded incapable of even equipping it - there is no need to build anything into the game specifically for that one class.

Likewise, in most of those old RPGs - and in some current ones still - light armor was always meant to be inferior to heavy rather than just as good (but weighing a lot less). You CAN be a light armored front line character of whatever class in LoG2, and it works to a reasonable degree - but you shouldn't be surprised that heavy armor is better suited to the job of withstanding ogres' clubs and ratlings' blades, especially since heavy armor requires more skill investment.

[AngelFist]

I think the balance is very good now.

and i completely disagree. I think they went overboard trying to rectify the evade-tank builds people used for grim1.

My impression is, you just want to make a frontline rogue viable.

you'd be wrong, but so what if someone did? EVERY other rpg known to man has had rogue be a viable front liner... because of things like dex based evade.

are you saying it shouldn't be possible, just because YOU don't like it?

that's not exactly a well-reasoned argument.

EVERY other rpg ? seriously ? Look at post above for explanation.

it shouldn´t be possible, because rogue in our understanding means main damage dealer. a main damage dealer, who is capable of being the main tank is not balanced. pretty easy i think.
In log2, you can design your rogue to be anywhere in the spectrum of tankyness on the one end vs damage on the other. But you can not get both. That is what i call balance.

[Luj1]

[*]Spell damage scaling slightly with +Wisdom

This !!

[Saice]

I will say Evasion + Protection is the win.

Right now my front line is a Dex based Knight and a Str Based Barb. The barb has a much higher HP but the Knight has a little better protection (form class bouns) and the knight is sitting on almost 50 evasion. Long fights the Barb is always the first to drop or need HP pots. The knight gets missed quite a bit. It is a vary nice combo.