Shattered Kingdoms

Honest Question:
What kind of game balance would be affected if enchant armor had a selectable rsult, instead of a random one?

I mean it, I'm really interested to hear how that would affect game balance, other than how time consuming it is.

Also:
Baldric, thanks for the tips

It's hard to say exactly what the game balance changes would be. If enchant armor became selectable, something else would have to change to keep things balanced. The idea would be to make things less frustrating by of reducing randomness, while not making it significantly easier to make a power suit.

If you made enchant armor selectable, the overall quality of suits would drastically increase, effectively nerfing casters. Warriors would all have high MP armor and high WP/fort jewelry. They would have a much easier time shrugging off spells like sleep, fear, weakness, and so on. Classes like hellion and shaman, who rely on maledictions, would be hit especially hard. Necros and sorcs would be hit hard but would be able to use melee damage still. Warlocks wouldn't be affected as much because reflex is thought to be less desirable. Paladins would suddenly be unable to land BoG on anyone who happened to be vulnerable to it.

I think the most effective balancing act to targetable enchants is making the chance of fading or evaporating increased. Maybe also to put an upper cap on the number of enchants per piece (say, 8-10), although I'm less in favor of that option.

With the new impairment affect this is less of a concern than it used to be.

Has anyone done testing with impairment?

People keep bringing it up in debates over mechanics, but has anyone even seen it in action in pvp, or done any kind of testing with it?

Mostly just in PVE for myself.

The impairment effect seems minimal, for maledictions at least. Even the longer casting maledictions (like slow) which are supposed to have a bigger impairment effect, doesn't seem to greatly increase the chances of it landing, even after multiple (2-3) attempts. It might have a bigger effect on reflex saves than it does on fort or will.

Exposure to impairment-giving spells hasn't changed my mind about the limits of its effectiveness, either.

I'm in overall agreement with OA on the above. Making enchanting beyond a certain point possible but raise the chance of fading/evap.

[edit] Removed due to doublepost

What it's such a rare occassion you agree with OA you had to post twice?

Time for me to get a lottery ticket then!