Neraphim

[drunkenboastor]

The XR subrace Neraphim:

Human
"Neraphim" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance)

- FC: Fighter

- STR +6, CON +4, INT +4, Search +4, Spot +4

- Free Feats: Power Attack, Improved Power Attack, Expertise, Improved Expertise, Armor Skin

- Other: All elemental damage Immunities +10%

If it is not obvious to you why this subrace is broken, here is the explanation why.

1- Ability Scores
- Strength +6, To compare a build with Neraphim and a BUR subrace, Half-Molydeus, Kolyarut and Salamander are only options to compare to. So the best build that Neraphim can make should be better than could be made with one of those BUR subraces. 
- Constitution +4, Classes that benefit most from Con are barbarians (extra damage), Druid (Blood Frenzy Spell), Dragon Disciple (Wing Buffet). In addition, classes with d6 hp per level in effect get a higher percentage bonus to their hit points from having a higher constitution than a class with a d10 hp.
- Intellegence +4, Assuming 14 Int before racial modifier, 18 Int after. To put less than 14 in would mean that Kolyarut may be better for the build. Rogue capable builds like Retribution's Vorpal Retribution assassin build, require this high Int. Fighter builds would need a useful skill dump like LSA hide to maximize skill points. Most 4 skill point per level builds would have excessive skill points.
- Dexterity +0 , With no bonus to Dex, a light armor using build will not be an option. 

2- Feats/Skills
- Armor Skin, Lore thing for this race. Required feat for all strength tanks.
- Search +4 Spot +4, Lore thing for this race. I guess the +4 to search is useful if going to take Harper Scout.
- Improved Power Attack and Improved Expertise, You know you can't use these at the same time right? Weaponmasters are the best users of these feats, but kolyarut makes a better weapon master than Neraphim. The power attack feat is useful for qualifier for devastating critical. 
- 10% Elemental Immunity, Wow, the creativity in the bonus ability is comparable to the bonus feats.

The ability scores of Neraphim suggest lock picking strength assassin, but it is weaker feat wise than Half-Molydeus. I would suggest improving the subrace in following ways:
- Hide +4 Move Silent +4, This would allow taking assassin at 2nd level, if start as a class with hide/ms as class skills. Would be better to be +6 so have more options.
- Stealthy, This is for LSA hide. Only needed if going to build whatever wacky fighter build this race was "designed" to be.
- ESF Hide, If never invest in Dex besides having 14 from start, cannot hit 127 hide with out feats.
- Bullheaded, Slaad models all have big heads. LSA Discipline, +1 will save helpful for low will fighters.
- Can dump the 10% elemental immunity for the bonus feats and skills.
The addition of the hide and sneak can be supported lore wise because Neraphim have a motion camouflage ability. 

[Raj]

I was hoping to see any sort of dev action before dumping a bunch of suggestions about improving some of the most useless xr races so not going to waste too much time writing here, but ye, neraphim sucks. Like most of the generic tank subraces. Fwiw they're supposed to be the 'best in slot' for specific builds, but obviously the builder who suggested this as an upgrade for any past build was a terrible player.

Half-Dogai is the str assassin subrace fwiw, this one is worse than burs and provides no unique ability (10% elems is a joke, maybe good pre-randomization when people had issues in pyramid and played planewalkers) and a bunch of pre-epic feats of which fighter has no shortage of. XRs also aim at +14/16 stats but not all stats are equal and the builds who benefit the most from high CON have no shortage of skill points to put INT in use as well (maybe for expertise but the race gives it for free, bad synergy).

If you want to suggest anything while waiting for devs to come back I'd focus on something different than assassin that is already covered.

Apr 12, 2017 17:16:18 GMT drunkenboastor said:

- Bullheaded, Slaad models all have big heads.

Epic suggestion. Should upgrade all ogre/minotaur races as well! RP ftw!

[fallenwizard]

Listen, Disc, tumble, CA, CW, parry, (hide) - that's 18int on human 2skill class. Ftr, WM, CoT, XDD, paladn and BG are all 2skill classes - out of those you probably wouldnt use cot/pala/bg as human cus lack of listen on human base. Assasin barb and monk wouldn't need that many skill points, unless splashing rogue, when you'd have to drop 1 of the listed skills or get even more int. What I'm saying is that I like the +4int for almost any subbie. That being said, I dont think it is even relatively as important than dex is. Out of CA/CW/hide/parry 1-2 can often be ignored, its luxury not necessity to have them all.

Extra hp from con is very hard to give value to. For me it is very low as I tend to start with 8-10 con on most of mine because raw dmg of enemies isnt what kills tanks, getting disabled/inflicted does. So focus on countering effects and having ac/conceal > hp. Koly that gives +5str/dex is good for ac, both checks and ab which ever you're using as main stat.

The pre epic feats, that this race gives 4, are very debatable, as you mentioned cant use them at same time. Imp pow attack is a nice boost for dmg that I think is used less than it should be. I guess most tank players are lazy (my self included). Imp expertise is sort of "panic mode" when you need the ac to survive, but it getting disabled when you drink heal (or any other action) is what makes it feel really bad to use properly. There's really not much use for expertise's as you generally get more out of using heal + restoration or a gr pot, or if needed spam those. IE is situational when you tank 1-2 enemies while being debuffed, if everything goes well you never use it. That being said, you get a wm enabler feat, a dev crit enabler feat and a epic feat. Armor skin being epic bonus feat for all melee classes that I can think of. Some times its one of the few that you can use, it being free can even force you to pick something "useless" like epic energy resistance on lvl up.

That being said, I agree on this being lackluster race.

I dont know what this is meant to upgrade, as you mentioned, half-moly and salamander builds are probably ones to look at. I cant see my self using ftr based builds on those. Assasin or str ranger come to my mind, but as Raj pointed out, there is str assa sub (Half-Dogai) and str ranger (Favor of Mielikki). Going for straight up strength fighter that gets 11 bonus pre epic feats IPA and IE are pretty useless, armor skin can be read as +1 epic prowess transfer.

It is very hard to think of a build to use this over bur races.

I get the hatred towards str/dex races on dev perspective, but us players go for them because that's what makes you survive. I understand that no single char is supposed to "survive" HG. Definitively not while also killing stuff. That in mind, I'm really not sure how to make these "single stat" melee races more appealing. For starters the 10% elemental immunity should be 10% all immunities (maybe not physical). Perhaps give some lore fitting endgame immunity; PWK? Implosion? Petrify? Weird? Disint? Some of the Dom effects? or maybe boost the class ability notably. If this is a str ftr sub, increase the dmg you get from whetstone? Duration of greater parry? Ftrs are kinda jack of all trades when it comes to weapon usage, make PWA give full bonus to all alternative picks, so you could pick a slash, blud and piercing wep and swap accordingly.

[drunkenboastor]

An oddity of this subrace is it's size. Logging onto a server for the 1st time since it reset will make size medium. Changing the appearance by cycling through the 3 appearance options will also make size medium. Re-logging onto a server changes size to large. The quick bar seems to think large size all the time, when trying to slot main and offhand items (example med sized, but allowed to quick slot trident in main and offhand, only one will be equipped when slot is used). Because of the quick bar issue thinking large sized, when re-log all tiny weapon slots are removed. Can quick slot tiny weapons, but cannot do so with any offhand. In effect making this a poor race for a tiny weapon user, in particular assassin dagger.

This subrace would be a poor choice for assassin, ignore my initial post on making it easier to be a better build for one. I still think this race needs to be fixed.