Quote from Kaeporo;1260609:
Battlefield Overture normally grants a 36% damage bonus (without reforges) to nearly every class.
...and piercing, which increases damage by upwards of 75%.
Don't forget all of the new stats from skills, bone chips, and various debuffs. If you removed reforges, melee and archery would become pretty terrible; otherwise, we would be just as overpowered. Nothing would change for the better.
Quote from JoeyDee9;1260610:
Overture.
Overture is a temporary buff that applies to everything. Reforges are permanent and the problematic ones tend to be unique to one skill or weapon. Balancing Overture is a simpler because of that one, uniform increase that cannot create a power gap within a party, though it would be wise to make it channeled (or otherwise change it) so it doesn't just become a free damage add-on. Reforges create huge power gaps between players (which are amplified by Overture). They're also far less accessible, widening the gap between the masses and the elites. That kind of gap is what makes it so difficult to put in challenging content that can be enjoyed by enough people to justify placing it in the game.
Piercing, in its current form, is kind of silly. It amounts to a huge damage increase that sneaks in under the guise of something else...it's good against high def monsters and, surprise, all monsters are high def monsters. Who knew~ Perhaps if we had some HP tank monsters with low defense and perhaps lowered piercing weapon damage somewhat, we'd see at least one situation where piercing wasn't the best option.
That said, I'm not advocating for a removal of reforges, but a reworking. Like enchants, titles and everything else, they'd be more interesting if they were true specialization rather than random boons. Say, a reforge boosted smash damage (by a reasonable amount) while reducing windmill damage. Now the player still has a distinct identity, but they have to change up their play-style to take advantage of it.