With AoS, period.
The implementation of that patch was a nice addition on production shards. Insurance was implemented, sure, but so was an item based system that assured to be competitive you would need the items. Great for those shards with insurance, but not so great for Siege.
We're stuck between a rock and a hard place. If you run the high end gear, it is expensive, hard to find, and a hassle to replace upon death, which occurs often on our shard because of the all Fel rule set.
Now take the other side of the coin, what if in a perfect world, everyone agreed to not use faction artifacts? I believe this is a problem in itself, and here is why:
The current PvP system is developed to be balanced between the templates available, and items available. Meaning this: A player like a bushido dexer is only killable because of the high end items other players can get.
Imbuing aside, try to imagine this scenario: a dexer using jewels and a weapon bringing DCI to 40 and HCI to maybe 30 is fighting.... any other template. He is a bushido dexer using a war fork. The parry chance he has gained from skills, coupled with his bonus from a pair of so so jewels has given him the ability to evade, the ability to be missed about 70+% of the time, and even the ability to heal instantaneously. He can utilize confidence, as well as bandages with the following template:
120 fencing
120 parry
120 Bush
120 resist
100 heal
90 tact
50 med
90/120/45
His lightning strike is going to allow him to hit another player with 35 point lightning strikes for minimal mana, while evading their offensive attacks, leaving them running for mana, or their lives. All he needs is a good warfork, something like DCI, SSI, Lightning, DI and maybe HLD. A pair of crap jewels, 25 or so HCI and 25+ DCI between the two.
Put him against a mage with no faction arties. It isn't easy to find a set of 1/3's with DCI on them, and a high end no DCI shield isn't easy to find without using artifacts either. What happens to a parry mage against this character? Coming from a mage's perspective, I am probably going to get whooped, due to my lack of either offense, or mana, break it down:
120 mage
120 EI
120 resist
120 parry
100 anat
Either 120 med, or mess around with something like scribe and lack mana.
90/50/115
If this warrior evades an explosion/ebolt or some such combo, a mage with no artifacts and the base barbed no mod suits everyone lusts after is hurting on mana. He is now at about 75 and the dexer just has to eat up cures and heals while hitting his self bandage macro, did you forget with dex pots he will be 150 dex, at the healing cap?
And that is the problem with people hating these artifacts. They balance the game. Some templates are built for slow play(bushido characters) and others are built for speed(Ninja type chars with DS, necro, etc)
I'm not saying we need insurance here, or we need this or that. I am just trying to explain to people why these base suits everyone misses so much won't work any more. Templates have changed, you need the ability of fast play to take down slow play templates. I don't mean this as a rant, this is just coming from someone who understands PvP. Right now PvP is pretty balanced with faction artifacts, as balanced as I have seen it. Don't forget the double axe pain spike necro's of AOS, or the stun mages of P16, or axers of Ren. As it stands right now, any template can beat any other template. I don't want to see a world where moving shot archers destroy all but parry mages, parry dexers destroy everyone or are at least unkillable, parry mages can't kill anyone due to lack of offense, etc.
The implementation of that patch was a nice addition on production shards. Insurance was implemented, sure, but so was an item based system that assured to be competitive you would need the items. Great for those shards with insurance, but not so great for Siege.
We're stuck between a rock and a hard place. If you run the high end gear, it is expensive, hard to find, and a hassle to replace upon death, which occurs often on our shard because of the all Fel rule set.
Now take the other side of the coin, what if in a perfect world, everyone agreed to not use faction artifacts? I believe this is a problem in itself, and here is why:
The current PvP system is developed to be balanced between the templates available, and items available. Meaning this: A player like a bushido dexer is only killable because of the high end items other players can get.
Imbuing aside, try to imagine this scenario: a dexer using jewels and a weapon bringing DCI to 40 and HCI to maybe 30 is fighting.... any other template. He is a bushido dexer using a war fork. The parry chance he has gained from skills, coupled with his bonus from a pair of so so jewels has given him the ability to evade, the ability to be missed about 70+% of the time, and even the ability to heal instantaneously. He can utilize confidence, as well as bandages with the following template:
120 fencing
120 parry
120 Bush
120 resist
100 heal
90 tact
50 med
90/120/45
His lightning strike is going to allow him to hit another player with 35 point lightning strikes for minimal mana, while evading their offensive attacks, leaving them running for mana, or their lives. All he needs is a good warfork, something like DCI, SSI, Lightning, DI and maybe HLD. A pair of crap jewels, 25 or so HCI and 25+ DCI between the two.
Put him against a mage with no faction arties. It isn't easy to find a set of 1/3's with DCI on them, and a high end no DCI shield isn't easy to find without using artifacts either. What happens to a parry mage against this character? Coming from a mage's perspective, I am probably going to get whooped, due to my lack of either offense, or mana, break it down:
120 mage
120 EI
120 resist
120 parry
100 anat
Either 120 med, or mess around with something like scribe and lack mana.
90/50/115
If this warrior evades an explosion/ebolt or some such combo, a mage with no artifacts and the base barbed no mod suits everyone lusts after is hurting on mana. He is now at about 75 and the dexer just has to eat up cures and heals while hitting his self bandage macro, did you forget with dex pots he will be 150 dex, at the healing cap?
And that is the problem with people hating these artifacts. They balance the game. Some templates are built for slow play(bushido characters) and others are built for speed(Ninja type chars with DS, necro, etc)
I'm not saying we need insurance here, or we need this or that. I am just trying to explain to people why these base suits everyone misses so much won't work any more. Templates have changed, you need the ability of fast play to take down slow play templates. I don't mean this as a rant, this is just coming from someone who understands PvP. Right now PvP is pretty balanced with faction artifacts, as balanced as I have seen it. Don't forget the double axe pain spike necro's of AOS, or the stun mages of P16, or axers of Ren. As it stands right now, any template can beat any other template. I don't want to see a world where moving shot archers destroy all but parry mages, parry dexers destroy everyone or are at least unkillable, parry mages can't kill anyone due to lack of offense, etc.
