07-04-2012, 07:11 PM
I've been jumping into hard servers every time I see more than a handful of people in one, and the furthest we've gotten since the patch is Einherjars. Which actually doesn't seem too unreasonable to me: IMO it's as far as most groups could've gotten on most maps pre-patch as well. In my experience (and I've played enough hard mode to see Odin twice), the vast majority of pre-patch hard mode play consisted of:
* Abusing poor AI pathing and the bench "spot" in the old Swadian City map;
* Spamming infinite res tomes to raise rambo commandos; and
* For well-coordinated groups, horse walling to nerf cavalry waves (such as mounted soldiers).
Even without all the class changes, if you simply dropped most pre-patch groups into a setting with the removal of those crutches, I'm sure that the vast majority of them would be floundering as well. So given how much people have been scared off of hard mode since the patch, IMO it's premature to simply pin everything on the class changes instead of all these other factors. We'll have a better picture as more people slowly start venturing into hard again.
I'm pretty sure though that snipers will be dominating hard mode now. I have a lvl52 sniper, and even without any legendaries I think the sniper nerfs are vastly overblown. You still have high rate-of-fire into crowds simply by releasing early before the reticule has fully closed (with still much better accuracy than throwing weapons), and you still have very good (if not perfect) long-range accuracy when taking your time and adjusting your aim higher. Body shots are a bit less lethal, but headshots still kill rangers. And sniper-skirmishers can still easily kite entire waves. I don't feel that snipers are underpowered at all, just less easy than they used to be. Compared to the across-the-board reduction commandos received and the underpowered new classes, snipers will soon be recognized as the new undisputed kings of hard mode (again), even if (as evildan pointed out) commandos still own normal mode pretty handily. Hard mode groups are going to be leaning on (and demanding) quality sniping a lot more than they used to.
* Abusing poor AI pathing and the bench "spot" in the old Swadian City map;
* Spamming infinite res tomes to raise rambo commandos; and
* For well-coordinated groups, horse walling to nerf cavalry waves (such as mounted soldiers).
Even without all the class changes, if you simply dropped most pre-patch groups into a setting with the removal of those crutches, I'm sure that the vast majority of them would be floundering as well. So given how much people have been scared off of hard mode since the patch, IMO it's premature to simply pin everything on the class changes instead of all these other factors. We'll have a better picture as more people slowly start venturing into hard again.
I'm pretty sure though that snipers will be dominating hard mode now. I have a lvl52 sniper, and even without any legendaries I think the sniper nerfs are vastly overblown. You still have high rate-of-fire into crowds simply by releasing early before the reticule has fully closed (with still much better accuracy than throwing weapons), and you still have very good (if not perfect) long-range accuracy when taking your time and adjusting your aim higher. Body shots are a bit less lethal, but headshots still kill rangers. And sniper-skirmishers can still easily kite entire waves. I don't feel that snipers are underpowered at all, just less easy than they used to be. Compared to the across-the-board reduction commandos received and the underpowered new classes, snipers will soon be recognized as the new undisputed kings of hard mode (again), even if (as evildan pointed out) commandos still own normal mode pretty handily. Hard mode groups are going to be leaning on (and demanding) quality sniping a lot more than they used to.
Main Characters: Lanseril (L.52 Sniper), Grundus (L.52 Pikeman), Eledwyn (L.49 Commando), Rutgard (L.52 Sharpshooter)
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