Aren’t Chthonians the main focus of vanilla, Aetherials of AoM, and humans just a filler with two lesser factions, mostly trashmobs not even a dedicated roguelike? Of course there are strong bosses but… bringing them up is actually an argument against the nerf. Alex (acid), Fabius and Brother/Sister Kymon (cold) are all mostly problematic for the damage types nerfed by this.
All due respect, but it seems to me you’re based mostly on softcap/hardcap values. In fact (sorry if I sound like I’m trying to teach a hen how to lay eggs, that’s not what I mean…) it’s all about scaling and how affordable certain values are at certain ranks in terms of 1) the investment required and 2) what else is gotten from those nodes for those points. As far as I read this thread, no preat except Fluff seemed to take into consideration that AoM is nowhere near FoR or Steel Resolve for the simple reason that 1) it scales extremely badly now and 2) it has close to nothing for acid and cold except that 1% racial per point.
So, while 15% to humans at softcap doesn’t sound so terrible, having to spend 6 more skillpoints to have 10% racial less than I had at 6/12… If this was 15% at 6/12 then I would still probably be bitching about it but I would have no choice to call it reasonable.
Now it’s not reasonable to push AoM further than 3/12 with, what was it, 7% racial. Which is the one good thing about it. Cold and acid can forget about meaningful human racial like it never existed but got 2-8 skillpoints to move around.
I would make it like this: rank 1 - 5%, ranks 2-6 scaling 2% per point til 15% at rank 6, then scaling 1% per point till softcap with one upgrade missing (20%) and then 0.5% per point (till 25% at hardcap - where nobody gets anyway - so with a possible boost in the top two ranks making it 30%). This way all nightblades would retain some reasonable amount of human racial, and bleed and vit would still be kept in check by the nerfs to the gear. Or if 20% at softcap still feels like too much I’d keep scaling to 15% at 6/12 and then 1% per 2-3 points till the end.
EDIT: Apologies to repeat the same argument over and over again. But no-one on the opposing side seems to acknowledge it.
Try with this: [1.1.0.1] << C.H.I.L.L. >> ABB/OFF Cold/F-burn Spellbreaker (Crucible 7:18). Cold spellbreakers practically went extinct with this nerf (always was a problem but now Fabius + Kuba = alt + f4). Or Dunefiend or DEE witchhunter. Even this: [1.1.4.1] Silvie the Squish - RoH/Melee Hybrid Infiltrator (c+) (sr) - though I admit is kinda gimmicky for its squishiness but otherwise quite strong - has serious problems with Fabio (whose total da shred lost about 100-150 - don’t remember - but is still deadly at 510 if you don’t kill him before his Blade Spirits start rolling)