Slight RP Issue with Reveal

If reveal is used to "un-camo target(s)" and they die...they hunter doesn't receive RP unless he directly inflicts damage on the target(s).

The changes to Stalker Surroundings do sound interesting. I am with Compost relative being able to see others under the spell's influence so as not to get too far from the caster. Something else I am currently considering is something I believe I read in the recent past. That is, some of the knights auras are being converted to area buffs, so to speak, in an effort to lighten the load on the servers. With this in mind, how does the change to Stalker Surroundings impact server load? Does it remain similar to today? It seems like it would...I guess I am looking for a little clarifaction.

New Ao1 needs its mana cost reducing greatly and moving down the skill tree as it in no way qualifies as a lvl 19 skill anymore. As Ultimate pointed out one good kick and its gone and 400 mana for a wasted 10 seconds CANNOT be used every 30 seconds, yes Ao1 was OP but a 30 second duration with a 120 second cool down rather than a 10 second duration would have been alot more viable.

To make this spell work you would need to give knight unstoppable madness or one CC and thats 400 mana down the drain at least the area spells are still active when you're on your ass.

I wont be bothering with Ao1 i used it as a tool to keep fighting/retreat before but now it isnt good for either of those, sadly i think this is exactly what NGD want knights to do.

NGD needs to listen to their customers, no matter what they say, we are the ones who pay the bills. their job is to keep the customer happy, and this update is doing the opposite of that (mostly Ao1)

NGD can always find new customers :p

I see the duration being increased a bit but this overall idea of ao1 is becoming a improvement

i have a question about reveal, so if hunter a is in camo and hunter b reveals him, so hunter a is attackable for the duration off the spell? correct? (just a question). don't have time to test it myself.

regards

So far every knight is in disagreement with this change (on the forum at least). And I agree with Any that if you don't play knight after 50, don't post about something you are not familiar with.

you obviously dont have a knight, or you would know that knights have very limited tanking ability without Ao1. 10 seconds is not long enough to tank effectively, i think Umaril's idea is the best option for Ao1.

The manacost should be reduced first, and then tested from Knights in war.

i can post about duration, and that sucks, for any class, 10 secs is to short, let alone for the last spell in the tree.

I like uma's idea & i have played a high lvl knight before

in reality most knights don't use Ao1 to "Tank" & Support they use Ao1 then rush into a group of people by themselves get Ms'ed then most likely die.

if they played with the durations/cooldowns this spell would make knights very dynamic and awesome

I do agree 10 seconds is not enough unless made a instant - the mana cost will be lowered later on if they continue with this

I love the changes on stalker surroundings and reveal enemy. When it'll get tweaked even more, it'll be quite useful spell. I didn't really see it used widely, but I guess that'll change.

From my view: Well done NGD :D

I can't speak on the spells, as i don't have a knight...

Bug with Stalker
2 Hunters Stalkering a group - when one stalkers, then the other. The last stalker will cancel the first and the first casting hunter will now be visible.

You are spot on, if they played with duration and cd and mana cost more it has promise. In this current state however, it is a broken spell now. Hopefully it will be altered. 10 seconds is simply far too low for a melee tank class. I'll repeat again. One knock and ao1 is pretty much done for. One balestra and ao1 is done for. One spring and run around for 10 sec and ao1 is done for. One winter stroke and ao1 is done for. And it will not be able to be casted again due to mana. We do not have range or cc like archer so this is not really comparable to sotw.

*Duration has to be increased to a minimum of 20 seconds for this to be effective at this rate. Even 20 seconds is low but alot more effective than 10. And hopefully cut mana by alot. Alot being a max of 200 at lv 5.

Additional Bug With Stalker and Camo
Similar scenario - stalker will cancel camo

You sure that spells are usefull? cmon rigorus has less hit chance debuff than evasive tactics penalty. Oh wait for better tanking use awareness you see "Miss" once per 30 hits. Woot! Anyway you should never touch army of one. The old one (30 sec duration) was ok you made it overpowered and now useless. Keep going! Regards

btw can knights have steel skin pl0x? why is it conjs now have a better tanking spell than knights.

As for Awareness rigorous prep combo, you really haven't ever played a knight have you.

Again nerfing poor knights? cmon, we have no dmg... how im supposed to kill now anything? Every other class can pass those 10 sec and kill me.
And dont tell me that knight should be a supporter at all, 2 low areas diesnt make me a supporter...

completely agree with klutu on this.

Oh God, nerf to the weakest classes only useful spell, and buff the most overpowered classes decent spell.

Why do you hate knights?

Why do you love hunters?

hmm 10 sec 400 mana cooldown means nothing because I only have enough mana to cast it one time. So that means I will just die even faster than I do now. please understand the average knight at lvl 50 only has 1300 to 1400 mana to work with and remember on horus conjus are not able to supply the mana due to the world's lower population

This update is awesome for knights. +1 NGD

For those who don't see it, knarb!

10s of high damage resistance → they who cast area defence buffs harder to kill for duration of buff. Of course it does nothing for alowing the group to move if the knight is CC'd.
But you should rename it to 'brigade of one' or 'barber-shop quartet of 1'

Although some changes are nice. If you cannot see that army of one has been practically taken away as a skill lol, you shouldn't call those knights knarbs, instead you should realize you don't know how to use this skill properly.

The fight on amun just now was short but fun. Shield wall though very small duration is nice I admit this way. But again I was fed tons of mana on the amun fight, I would not be able to sustain that on horus.

After testing ao1 on fort guards and in war I conclude that this version is pretty much a worthless spell now. It is as if it is not needed in the skill tree anymore because it doesn't provide anything for a knight whatsoever. Please rethink duration and mana cost.

<3 deflecting barrier ^^

New stalker is nice, we need to see each other though to make it useful.
Stalker cancels another one (old issue) and camo, this has to be fixed.

Mobility(1) is a joke, +2% speed for few seconds is useless.
Spell elude is useless even on level 5.

Death sentence is nice, but enemy affected by it should be somehow more obvious imho.

Hunter should be able to track under Stalker, as he can under Camo.

I'm still not happy with the number of power points available to an archer, i know you want to reduce versatility, but why not increase other classes versatility instead ? It would make the game funnier for all.

Reveal looks nice (but no rp issue), but i don't get well how it works (duration, please explain how you want it to work).

Cold blood is only 2-3 hits with fast bow + rapid shot.

Rake(5) damages were not reduced by casting Acrobatics after it affected me, is this a desired thing or a bug, it is not the case on Horus ?

Overall, nice step but still need some tuning.

The new Stalker Surroundings is simply great. It makes the Hunter class a complete, playable stealth class again, with even more of an emphasis on group support in RvR than it had before. Tactically, the possibilities of how to use the spell seem endless.

The sparkling indicator that shows Reveal Enemy is active is pretty important in my opinion. Hunters are going to need to keep an eye on who has Reveal active to avoid having their prime spell broken too easily.

In a perfect world, it would be nice if the Hunter had a defensive stealth skill in the Scouting tree to replace the loss of speed. A short-term camo with large speed bonus had been suggested here. This isn't as necessary now as it was, but it might be something to consider.

Well I had a look

Ao1 is um.. no longer worthwhile. I agree that the current version on the live servers is too long and quite OP depending on the circumstance and opponents.

In some cases even on the live server it can be quite useless.

So what do we have on live servers:
Mana from 340 -500 for 50 seconds and you get from 40% to 80% resistance. CD is 180 seconds with a cast time of 1 second.

The new version is:
Mana from 320 -400 for 10 seconds and you get from 40% to 80% resistance.
CD is 30 seconds with a cast time of .5 second.

Now the change is not going to hurt me much but seriously, 10 seconds? I wonder how rosy it would look if UM got knocked off from 21 seconds to 10. Who knows that might be good too.

The times that I actually need Ao1 are usually last ditch cases. 10 seconds is not going to do anything. The obvious solution is the new protector/caution combo. If Ao1 goes live it will become a useless spell and I probably wont skill it anyway. No loss. I would have 3 points to put elsewhere. Unfortunately I still have to put this to 19 to get my 5 stone temple points. If it wasn't for that I could probably dismiss Vanguard totally now.
As suggested above the skill should have been nerfed on the effect time to maybe 25 seconds and the protection itself nerfed. I say cap it at 60 % resistances and drop the cd time to 60 seconds. Mana cost for the spell is insane. That is the most debatable thing about this. 320 mana for 10 seconds is simply not worth it.

Protector + Rigorous preparation? Best laugh I had all day.

Those two were ineffective when the cast time was like 4 seconds. They were ineffective when the cast time went to 1 second. They remain ineffective to this day. If I skill those two to level 5 I deserve to die in a twisted heap. Yes, I tested these two extensively over the last 2 changes and found them wanting badly. I miss in about 12 to 21 hits is a joke. -26% HC and -16HC critical correlates to almost nothing in the WZ. I know you guys are desperate to make these have a place. I doubt they ever will.

Heroic Presence I could live with.
Precise block doesn't matter because blocks are random anyway. I don't even skill it on the live servers anymore.

At the end of the day I keep on playing. When it goes live I give it a go. I won't be any worse off anyway. If I remain in the same place or improve as a class will be proven then.

What was interesting though (noticed today in RvR mock battle) was that casting those new areas on a moving army would be exceeding hard to pull off. That would be interesting too.

I look on in interest.

Artec

Please do reply and tell me the 'proper' way to use Army of One, and for that matter the proper way to play knight.

Maybe I just don't use the skill in the 'proper' way. I use it on a lower level for when I need a safe entry to the fort or to get out of a hairy situation. More of a last minute escape spell. As a knight I have other ways of tanking and don't rely 100% on Army of One, like 90% of 'knights' do.

But you might be right, the 'proper' way is probably prebuffing it and using the skill on level 5 whenever it isn't on cooldown.

I wouldn't mind a longer duration but the game is changing so its shorter duration spells with high mana. Onslaught duration was 10 seconds, area buffs are 10 seconds. Seems like thats the way the game is going, I don't think it will change.


Edit: The change in precise block wasn't really needed, but I will have to do some testing on how the blocking was changed to see if its worthwhile skilling this again.

I just dont like the effect reduction on steel skin.
I think as conju, the buffs that we do to ourself should have longer effect time as possible for us to have more time to cast on allies than to cast on ourselfs.

shorten duration of spells on conjus make then more dependent on cs items.

At least the buffs that conju cast on himself should be possible time fixed just evolve the effects as energy barrier.

Torin I never said what the proper way is, and only replied because basically you called me a knarb. Do you agree that the amun version of ao1 is completely useless? I have tested it out and I'm pretty sure it is. Better to remove it from skill book and give us another spell.

Comparing nerfing duration to ons is laughable. A barb can hit into 1000's easily, a knight can barely do any serious damage, therefore we need serious tanking abilities. Defstance alone will not cut it.

Some spells like old Death Sentance that aren't making dmg weren't helping you to get RPs (broken stuff). :/ Also its fair if you stalker someone that kills something else after some time to give you RPs...

Hehe. 90% is a bit sensationalist Torin. Some players do but quite a few do not spam it. Even as is that spell is very expensive and as such demands sparing use.

I wouldn't mind 15 - 20 seconds on this and a reduced mana count on it. But, it is an iteration and it still is not set in stone.

It just doesn't feel like a level 19 spell anymore . You know what I mean?

Even UM is 250 mana for 21 seconds. I suspect that spell will get a touch next up.

We shall see. I hope barbs don't scream murder if they do.

Art.

I didn't call you a knarb, I just said this update is good for knights. If you took it personally to think it was directed at you then maybe you have doubts in your setup and think you are a knarb(?)

I asked you to tell me the proper way, after a comment like this I am just curious. Please teach me how to use Ao1.

I don't think it is completely useless, you just have to find new uses for it. After the ons change many barbs adjusted and still use it, auras were changed and now Ao1, knights will learn to adjust.

I agree it needs a touch-up, but it isn't totally useless.

Consider the spell change with the fact that knights can now tank pretty much non-stop instead of thinking of the change with the tanking situation on horus currently.

Sorry for double post.

Then it is a bug...level 1 distracting shot gives RP, lvl 1 ambush gives rp and so on. I'd expect they are oversights.

With the seemingly new focus of shortening some aura and buff durations perhaps it's time to change the CC aswell, how about halving every single stun, freeze, immobilize, knockdown etc.

And with the new change to reveal, being able to detect enemy corpses perhaps you could make camo corpse actually useful. Cremation is way overpowered _relative_ to its counter: camouflage corpse. The mana cost is too high, the cooldown is far too high, and the duration is far too low, there is zero point in using camouflage corpse. And noone does. Yet a _lot_ of people (at least on Horus) use cremate. Please address the balance between these two because it is seriously out of whack.

You said this update is good and those that don't agree are knarbs :P
I don't agree with this ao1 change one bit lol. Therefore, your post is aimed at my viewpoint.

My views on current live ao1- Use on door defense with defensive stance and cc everymage in sight
-Use with either shield wall and db and you can stand in front of your friends for long time while boosting them.
-In one on one it is great against hunter that use pets, use ao1 and kill pet, hunter will lose advantage.
-There are other great uses too like having fun with this and protector combo and can stand in enemy army and run back safely.

All these past pluses to ao1 will no longer exist due to it's lack of duration.
With 10 seconds you will be able to knock me once and I will lose my buff, even a lv 1 knock will do and then you get some distance and i waste 400 mana. Any archer or mage can now cc a knight once during and before a charge with ao1 and the buff will wear off.

You don't see anything wrong with what happened to this spell? It still has a use yes, you can take one or 2 hits at - 80% at lv 5:) There is no use for this spell. I'd love to hear what a 10 second ao1 can do for anyone that is better than a 20 or above second ao1 with a slightly higher cd. Like I said before it is as if it is not a skill anymore, it doesn't belong in a knight tree because it doesn't help tank effectively.

* For an idea how about getting rid of ao1 completely and replacing it with old protector, with this i'd be happy getting at least one of my tanking spells back.

You are a knarb. If you are offended that everyone thinks you're a knarb, don't be one. The aim of the new Ao1 is great, however with 10 second duration and 30 second cooldown, it should be fairly spammable. I think 200 mana cost or so would be more appropriate.

And you should learn to read.

I'm not sure why you're bringing personal attacks into a balance update thread... especially since I basically agreed with you; 10 seconds isn't worth such a large mana cost, and the spell should be fairly spammable.

No I think just about all the other classes are agreeing on top of all the Knights as well.

Yes this has made AOO more tactical I imagine Knights will now make the tactical choice and either never skilling Vanguard again or Skill it to 17 for the last active useful RvR skill in it, Herioc Presense.

Like every other person in this thread bar a select few I agree the duration is FAR TOO SHORT one knock at level 5 will reduce the time of aoo to 2 SECONDS. And everyone knows there will be another knock the second the first has ended.

The mana cost is FAR TOO HIGH, like almost everyone agrees.

10 seconds is NOT a level 19 skill. Also I hear from NDG how they want fights to last longer. How do 10 second buffs and aura's encourge this?

Any tanking ability we had that left us with offense (the lowest damage offense in the game might I add) is now gone. Obviously the swords and various weapons given to a Knight are only for show, cause we certainly won't be doing much with them now.