Okay so, most endgame players probably have figured out by now that the most recent update has yet again nerfed several armors AND weapons. All armors have about half as much elemental resistance now, some had their bonuses changed from high/medium to low, others had their bonuses changed completely.
It seems weapons were nerfed aswell, since my Cold Iron Vanquisher is now dealing just half as much as it used to deal. And it was already screwed up, with the last attack of the combo dealing much less than the other two hits, and the charge attack dealing normal damage instead of double. (That was fixed now, however with the nerf there's no point)
And shields. Grey Owlite had ALL of its resistances removed. Honestly, there's no point in shields with pure defense right now other than the Omega Shell. The little more health it has in comparison to other shields might not seem that big, but it ends up making a major difference, and Omega Shell is able to take as many hits as any other shield, and sometimes more.
Now I ask; What's the point in all those nerfs? Ever since the status effect based zones/monsters updates, many players have reported that the game got way harder than it used to be, to a point of being impossible in Tier 3. Recently, with the update in type defense, it was made quite easier, although still harder than it used to be. Then, we got another update - This time nerfing status effect resistance. Oilers in fire arenas? You're dead. Maximum fire resistance possible to obtain without variants, including using trinkets? You're still dead.
Immunity was also possible before this update, however it's not anymore. And now the Grey Owlite shield was nerfed aswell, and there's only one type of shield for any status effect resist, other than fire and stun, in endgame. Their health and defense are also usually very weak comparing to other shields, being broken in only two or three hits. And at the moment, only two endgame shields offer elemental defense - Owlite and Dragon Scale. Since Dragon Scale does not offer any normal defense, it's not really a viable option and it will be very weak at defending nearly any attack. Owlite, without any status effect resistance, isn't really worth it. And considering elemental type attacks are literally everywhere in T3, this makes for a very complicated situation, shield-wise.
And with all those nerfs, I'm going to assume T3 is even harder now. I know that T3 is focused on team gameplay, however this is just too exaggerated. Consider this; I have full five star gear, and back when status immunity was still in, before nerfs, some T3 freeze zones would still be a bit troublesome, and those are the easiest ones. After the nerf on immunity, I haven't been on freeze zones - But I can tell you that fire arenas, for example, are usually just way too difficult. It's common that we'd need at least one energy revive to complete one. Shock arenas are even worse. Poison arenas are kind of fine, but those are really uncommon, apparently. The game likes to create Concrete Jungle levels more than actual poison levels, on poison stratums.
Now think how hard this would be for a first timer on T3, who would just have four star gear, not that much experience, and etc. It's just ridiculous.
What we needed right now was for it to be slightly easier, mostly on status effects. Fire and shock are seriously ridiculous right now - Fire is a death sentence and shock is "you're on solo you're dead".
But instead of making it easier, you just keep making everything HARDER?
While I understand some equipment is unbalanced, and some few sets/weapons prove to be more effective than others, nerfing the stronger ones is not the answer. Buffing the weaker ones is.
Let's compare a Cold Iron Vanquisher to a Divine Avenger, for example.
My CIV would deal around 400 damage to zombies at moderate speed at around depth 25, while my DA deals about 320, at usually slow speed. This might seem like CIV is really overpowered or DA is underpowered, no? Wrong.
On T3 it's nothing about damage, but survivability and strategies. CIV is pure damage, while DA is a strategical weapon. CIV has no knockback; DA has quite a helpful knockback.
While fighting slow mobs such as wolvers, CIV obviously is more effective. But for fast attacking ones such as zombies, it's obvious you'd preffer the DA over a CIV. Whenever I opt to use CIV instead of DA for zombies, I get hit at least five times more often. This is a lot considering T3 is quite dangerous.
While CIV's damage was quite high and somewhat unbalanced, the nerf was just too heavy on it. It's the same as the Antigua lines nerf, really; It went from a great, however not that reliable weapon because of no real strategic value to a mostly useless one. I mean, come on. I'm dealing half as much damage now. It's obvious that DA is way more worth it now. Even on mobs resistant to the elemental type, it'd deal more than CIV.
All those recent updates only seem to be nerfing equipment and weapons. Mostly the strong ones, but sometimes even the weak ones. This is not the answer for balance on endgame. Buffing the weak equipment is.
Sorry for this extremely long thread, but it's what I'm feeling in regards to those balance updates.
Agreed, Those nerfs are unnecessary and buffing other equipment would be more useful to balancing.