Cryptic is reworking how the combat system in Neverwinter works. This was announced in a recent developer blog post on the official Neverwinter site.
The goal of the rework is to make the combat system, stats and rating easier to understand for players, and making it easier to gear up.
A thread on the Neverwinter Reddit was posted with mixed feedback from Players where the developers have participated actively in the discussion to try to answer questions for the player base.
The changes can be tested now on the Neverwinter preview server for anyone interested.