In particular interest to me:
How have the to hit modifiers affected those under level 50?
Do the run speed buffs help?
How much different is the armor resistance?
Is the mez change helping?
I know its a bit soon, but i just wanted to hear what you guys thought.
I haven't had a chance to test any of the changes myself, the nerf to cabalists debuffs didn't really affect me thank god. Though i think i would have about cried if i had respecc'd to spirt and found out that they'd made that change.
(Edited by Malison at 9:49 am on Aug. 8, 2002)
The only encounter I had with a blue con yesterday was not very pretty. He was a thrusting nightshade (which gets a + vs. studded) and he almost killed me in 3 rounds of combat without using poisons or landing his PA. I managed to stun him (on the 3rd try *sigh*) and run away with a sliver of health left.
>>Do the run speed buffs help?
The run buffs are on a static 2.5 minute timer no matter where the keep is located. If you start from sauvage, the timer runs out at excaliber (which doesn't have a hastener) and will also run out before you can get to beno if you get buffed at surs. There's also a bug (?) where the hastener doesn't buff your pet - which I think only affects cabalists.
I'd say overall it helps quite a bit but it's still a very poor subsitute for a real run speed buff.
>>How much different is the armor resistance?
Combine this with the fact that scouts now have access to all 3 damage types, it's a whole lot different in RvR for me. Also, doubling armor resists in RvR made a huge difference. If I didn't use the right type of arrow, I'd get crit shots that look something like this: 400 (-350)
I was looking through the tables and came up with this conclusion:
Slash has the most bonuses but also has the most resistances.
Thrust is good against heavy armor, but bad against light armor
Crush is good against light armor, but bad against heavy.
>>Is the mez change helping?
Yes. The longest duration I was mezzed for yesterday was 30 seconds. I have yet to be mez healed unfortunately. (I thought a minstrel in our group cast it on me, but it turned out it was a new purge animation) I don't know why this ability was given to minstrels, they have way too much to do in RvR as it is. Standing back casting mez heal is alot less productive than mezzing, stunning and melee'ing.
Overall, I'd say it was a good patch for scouts. Respec should give us alot more shield slammers and a reason to fear us in melee, the new arrows will allow us to be effective at taking out healing classes, and the damage-type vulnerabilty of studded armor should keep most tanks from killing us in 2 hits.
Camo sucks though :\
You can get from sauv to Renaris, rebuff, renaris to berk, rebuff, etc. without too much trouble. It's better than nada IMHO.