Stat caps need a rework
I found that the soft and hard caps on stats are too limiting and removes all build diversity stat-wise. You can just hard-cap str and dex, get vit/end/will to around 16 to get most of their value and then throw the last points into any of the 3 for an insignificant boost to them. Stats feel like a checklist, not a customization. There is no reward, not even a small one for investing more in a stat.
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However I have run into a few strength and vitality builds that feel completely broken. These players were almost exclusively using strength scaled "hyper armor" charge attacks (only interrupted by charge break attacks or two attacks, witch I am not sure if there are 2 attacks that chain fast enough to break them). It took me 6 attacks on average to match their damage per single attack
Charge attacks are easy to deal with, you can use charge breaks positioned for ease of access, or since they're so slow you can just treat them like free damage, hit the guy once and then block or dodge or parry and give him a second helping of pain. Just don't button mash, keep your eyes open and they're free openings.
Really kills versatility and unique builds once you hit the soft caps.
Also Absorb is complete shite when compared with dodge and parry. Absolutely useless, the timing is so precise for something that is so useless, and really only serves to get your character killed that much quicker by even trying to time it.
Maybe afterwhich they can take a look at the stat system as a whole.
Also, vitality scales absolutely TERRIBLE so wouldnt worry about that :P
Do have to agree on a rework concerning the caps tho. Atm most people (even ones that try to be different) dont differ to much
My letterrs are Str - C, Dex - B, Move - B - and Mobility - Fast 26.
So why is it with Windfall style and B's in the two speed related modifiers that when I put points in Dex after 12 my damage moves up .1 or .2 pts. When I do the same with Str I've seen it move up .5 to .3. Shouldn't the B in Dex along with my Windfall style mean that the points in Dex equate to larger jumps in damage vs the Str points? I had to restart a new character because I honestly didn't think Str was that important for me early on. I reached level 50 with an old character before I started seeing adding points to Str and seeing the big jumps in damage.
This game has both soft and hard stat caps but you might as well treat the soft caps as hard ones since you get almost nothing past them. For those allergic to reading I'll just post the stats you should go for if you want something that squeezes the most value out of stats and explain after.
18 str
18 dex
16 vit
16 end
16 will
Now for the reason you want this. Going past 18 on strength and dexterity gives you so little it doesn't make a difference and if you pick a style that boosts one of these you'll hit the cap anyways. Lets look at our other 3 stats, vitality, endurance and willpower.
Lets use some people's favorite dump stat, Willpower as our example. If you think willpower doesn't matter, you're kidding yourself. Powers are very valuable and can change the flow of a fight drastically. Just because you have some notion that they're dishonorable doesn't mean your opponent will. Stagger style for example gets a boost to will and hits the cap of 2.0x shard generation at 16 will. Stagger ability does not refund stamina and even costs some, leaving shockwave as their go-to stamina management tool. 16 willpower gives an overall 33.3%/31.3%/30%/26.6% increase to shard generation for Forsaken/Kahlt/Windfall/Stagger respectively, this doesn't sound like much and you'd think you could do without it and you'd be partially right. The problem is that the 10 points you poured into willpower will have even less of an effect anywhere else thanks to soft caps. If you got vitality up from 16 to 26 you'd see a 5.9%/1.7%/10.7%/9.9% overall boost in hp for Forsaken/Kahlt/Windfall/Stagger respectively. At best you get 10.7% more hp on windfall, but smart use of the extra shards from willpower would likely make a bigger difference in the fight overall. These 10 points poured into endurance would make a 5.8%/5.8%/10.5%/0.7% stamina difference thanks to the very steep cap on endurance returns. Putting these 10 points into strength or dex past 18 will have such a small effect on damage that you'd never notice it.
I would love for the devs to either rework or remove stats altogether because as things currently are, you don't have a good reason to get different stats and they only serve to screw some people over because they went over the soft cap without knowing about how wasteful it is.
If you want to have a look at numbers here's the stat data for vit/end/will: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KX27IGTxBKXs0Z5M-z25n7qScT_noWAJtQR_zNB8PFQ/edit#gid=0