Monday, 8th June 2020, 16:41 by Olliff
I don't think we should necessarily stop nerfing good stuff, and I am fine with item nerfs.
Nerfing things that are reliable such as starting spells is also substantially higher impact that nerfing rng based loot such a reflection/reflect missiles equipment that seems borderline OP. The other changes to loot such as standardizing attribute and evasion rings to +6 or -4 also was a fairly significant buff since +6 before was fairly rare and they can drop very early on.
I am not a primary spellcaster player, but it seems these changes have hit casters harder than other playstyles. Was that intentional? Reading the patch notes implies it was partially done to make the magic school more distinct.
I don't have access to the stats, but I would focus on nerfing unreliably RNG loot spikes first before nerfing the core tools of backgrounds unless their win rate was crazy high, which I find hard to believe since melee seems easier to win in this game.
I would revert some if not all of the spell changes and revisit the attribute/evasion ring stat to changes to something like -4, +2, +6. On my last .25 run I had three +6 items before D:10. Also consider changing reflect/repel missiles items. I would also try avoid nerfing starting spells unless there is a very compelling reason to do so. I personally already find spell backgrounds more challenging than melee ones, and these changes seem like clear nerfs despite being done for "design" reasons.