The most recent changes simply make casters even less effective than before vs weapon characters. It's absolutely ridiculous that casters have all of these stupid limitations that everyone else simply doesn't have. These primarily effect NTs, as they are PURE casters. Here's why.
* Casters do not get instant attacks.
Under the new PVP rules, a soldier can still instantly kill you with a burst/FA/fling combination (40%, 40%, 20%).
Dimach likewise will remove 40% of your hp instantly.
Many high level brawls do 40% instant damage.
So why don't casters get a do-40%-damage-instantly button? Huh? Why not? Why should everyone else have a do-40%-damage-button-instantly-with-no-chance-of-failure-and-no-skill-required?
The new pvp changes just amplify this effect, because the longer a battle lasts, the greater the chance the non-caster has of getting a 2nd brawl or burst in.
What this effectively means is that any battle lasting the recycle time of brawl or burst will effectively wipe the caster out.
But it gets worse:
* Casters have their damage output capped
Yes, CAPPED. And quite often this cap is LOWER THAN THE OPPONENTS HPs. Funcom, in all its infinite wisdom, has decided to halve damage but keep max nano constant. This means that not only is your combat damage halved, but your total POTENTIAL damage over time is halved!
Do guns hold half the ammo they used to now? NO. Do swords stop swininging after 4 attacks? NO. Do MA's fists get sore and require bandaging after hitting you three times? NO. NO NO NO.
Fight against a doc? You wish! Their heals are now effectively twice as powerful as before. Since you don't have enough nano to take them out WITHOUT HEALS, there's no point even bothering to start the fight. Type /terminate.
This limitation on casters is absolutely RIDICULOUS. Why limit potential damage like this?
* Range reduced
The ONLY advantage NTs ever had was in range. So you decided to remove that (and break blind and a bunch of other stuff). Brilliant. So now we have NO advantages. NONE.
* Lowest HPs in the Game
We also have lower hp than anyone else in the game. Thanks. Just what a gimped prof needs.
Everyone else gets remove-40%-of-hps-now moves. NTs DONT. Everyone else gets to do infinite potential damage: we're capped at a number that's quite conceivably BELOW the opponent's hps. Furthermore, we've got ZERO advantages.
Come on Funcom, get a clue. PLAY an NT for once. Obviously none of you play a lev 40+ NT and have ever tried pvp. It's simply not excusable. Restricting one of the major professions like this is utterly ridiculous.
SNARF.