New Balance Update: more adjustments and a new spell (phase 7)
 

Hello everyone

We have made some more adjustments to the numbers behind hit chance and evasion. Same chances as before, but using clearer multipliers.
Base blocking chance of all shields have been halved to provide the same results as in RA but using the new formulas.

Protections are going to be adjusted in general considering the armor increase, especially for mages.

Spell Changes:

• Force armor: duration increased to 60 seconds Cooldown increased to 70s. Protection reduced to 10-30%
• Precise block: Same duration for all levels (30s). Block chance adjusted 10%-30% from level 1 to 5.
• Dead Eye: speed penalty reduced to 5%- 15% from level 1 to 5.
• Steel Skin: Resistance Bonus reduced to 50%-70% from level 1 to 5
• Heroic Presence: Cooldown reduced to 120 seconds. Cast time reduced to 1.5 seconds. Protection reduced 40% - 80% from level 1 to 5. Mana reduced to 320 – 400 from level 1 to 5.
• Army of One: changed for a more tactical use. Duration Reduced to 10 seconds in all levels. Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds. Casting time reduced to 0.5 seconds. Mana reduced in all levels to 320 to 400 from levels 1 to 5. (try using a combination of awareness and rigorous preparation for better tanking)
• Natural Armor: Protection reduced to 10% to 30%.
  
• New Spell for hunters: Reveal Enemy. Allows a Hunter to interrupt the effect of camouflage, Stalker Surroundings , and camouflage corps. Duration 15-50 seconds. Cooldown 20 seconds. Mana 200-300.
  
• Enhanced Stalker Surroundings: Now caster and his allies can move with a reduced speed of 40%. Allies loose the effect if they get 10 meters away from caser for a period of 5 seconds.
  
• BUG fix: a bug with Recharged Arrows when running out of mana has been fixed.

Confirmed, thank you.

Thank You for that. I hope that all players under stalker will be visible for other party members cause if they will remain invisible for others under stalker then it will be hard to coordinate the movement.
Anyway it is good that this Nessa suggestion was taken serious.

I'm really astonished at this change. I beg you not to implement this change. 10 seconds is worthless, i assure you. Please do not do this to the knight class. You took away 40 seconds. For 10 seconds I will be ignored now because my enemy will know, "oh it's a knight just wait a few he will become worthless in a sec." Now you don't even need ms to beat a knight just one strong knock or balestra. Please, please do not do this. If this passes through I assure you I will never play my knight again because I know that in another 4 months perhaps ao1 will be completely taken away and I will be given a stick to fight with (this is how I view this change, sorry for some disrespect but this is a low blow for a class I love to play)

Why didn't you implement Umaril's idea for army of one instead of this? His was much more tactical for a knight though a tad op, but this is making the spell completely useless. And on top of that protector is gone.

I understand this change is preliminary but I voice my opinion because I do not want this action to be even thought of being ok.

1) wow, you made Ao1 USELESS. PLEASE CHANGE THIS!!! the two other skills you mentioned for this are as far as i can tell, useless.

2) i like this spell, although i think the mana cost is too much

3) also i like what u did with stalker.

You should try this first Ulti, with 40s of Ao1 you been ignored and just ms'd way more than it will be now as you have it evry 30s ready again and the short cast time allows you to use it more situational than before.

AO1 is so OP that the other protection and blocking spells are not used at ALL...

please try combining those spells not relying on just one OP spell

we've been debating about doing this since the first iteration of Stalker.
I don't even know who Nessa is, but congratulations Nessa! :)

If you knew me at all you would know I don't rely on only one spell. I am just saying that you are clearly nerfing it by a great deal. And no ms doesn't always undo my ao1, many times it is blocked or resisted or ms doesn't pass through. 10 seconds is far too short even with the new duration of cd. You realise now if a barbarian uses kick 4 on me after I use ao1 it is basically done with, or any range can winter stroke me and I debuff. this is a horrible idea in my opinion.

And chilko, good knights used to use protector and defensive stance and caution and tank well, this option is now gone for us. Taking away army of one basically is what this update will do makes things much worse.

Also the spell was not op at all, plenty of ways a smart player could stop you by outwaiting the 50 sec which took some skill, now no skill will be involved to outlast ao1. Ms, balestra, feint, kick, dlimb and run around abit, plenty of ways to counter. Now just use spring 4 and run for 10 sec. Please rethink this idea.

10sec defence buffs are almost entirely pointless, as Ulti said, people will simply ignore the knight or put him under 1 CC then moving on taking over half its duration. A simple ambush would leave 3 seconds(!!!) of use for army assuming that the hunter hits the knight as soon as its cast.

10sec auras are ok because, well, you cant CC everyone, but for a self buff? I can say both in war and in 1on1 keeping a knight off you for 10 seconds is very easy, even the current ao1 in 1v1 I have no real issues running a knight around for 50sec untill it wears off, 10 is a walk in the park.

And 400 mana for a spell that can be ignored to easily? A mere 100 mana cut in exchange for 40 of the spells duration?

I have yet to try tanking with a rigprep-awareness combo but unless they changed from the liver server versions without me noticing (havent loaded this variation of Amun yet, doing other things) I cant see how that works, 30 sec duration (each) 4 sec cast time (each) so thats 8-9 seconds and over 500 mana to buff these, which basically just give you a slightly better evade chance. Not very reliable, and not very 'knightly.'

Many knights use the other defence spells (caution etc) but, they are not that great, infact they all pale in comparison to Acrobatic (a archer spell!!) and most are not as good as frenzy (a barb spell!!) Ao1 is the last ditch knights have at true 'tanking' this new version is a heavy nerf, no matter how short the CD the mana cost kills it 400 mana every 30 seconds is silly. Without heavy support no knight will be able to use this more than twice in a row, and even then thats with very limited use of other buffs auras and spells.

Knights are the probably the class that most needs to come out of this update better than before, and though grinding is improved and more wep speeds are now usefull, I still think this will end up worse off.

Do I get this correctly?
I now have 10 seconds of AoO....costing 400 out of my 1000 something mana?
-.-
Also I wanted Mages to have the reveal enemy, but I guess not ;D
Except for that it looks ok, I guess.

Now lets add auras(areas now) which were about 3-400 mana also? Now all these buffs, 200 mana each. CC, 100-140 each.
I guess ill just stay in the back and cast auras(Areas now\o/) and dance with my buffs on, screaming for mana :D

EDIT:
Testing on Amun now. Lets check if it changes my view :D

EDIT2:
Mhm...My AoO days are over. Not using it any futher in its current state.

Amun is UP!

yup, the change to Ao1 is not tactical, it is useless. you cant use army of one effectively in 10 seconds. its not like DPSing where it my only take a few seconds, tanking takes time.

I'm not a knight but I kinda agree with Ultimate, 10 secs is really too short any archer with lvl 3+ dist shot can just pretty much cancel out Army of One.

As always is a first iteration

No Enio you are unfortunately wrong in this. Sorry but I've played this class too long and know pretty well how things work and don't work for it. And I'm saying it now, with 10 sec duration no one will bother with me. Again 1 kick and my duration is pretty much up. With my old duration people did try to ms me knock me etc. This basically makes knights a barbarian with similar defense but lacking any sort of offense now. Ao1 was a true tanking spell for a knight to stand in front with protector and use auras,(what we were meant to do) Now there is nothing that comes close.

Again I'm voicing my opinion knowing this is a first draft, but I do not want it to continue this way.

We still have Defensive Stance :D Which in my eyes is OP >.>

dont be sarcastic, NGD will nerf that next.

there seems to be a trend that the first iteration is the one that is implemented

first you get protector nerfed/removed now this, shame on you

Love all the changes -

Ao1 is going in a better direction but 10 seconds isn't enough imo..

Id rather see

15 duration 30 cooldown

20 duration 40 cooldown

10 seconds really isn't enough

what? they have changed many spells that people disagreed with

Also Chilko, you guys took away the only spell that blocked for knight, protector, so I don't see how this argument makes any sense.

Please try to be honest... look into all these iterations and you will see a lot of adjustments. look at Dead Eye from 6 to 7 for example.

This change in Ao1 seems hurt knights a lot (10 sec and 400 mana ...). But with all the changes, who can predict how gamelpay will be in live with large fight ?

Isn't it time to "test" in live servers ? Why somany change in one go ...

that is because any blocking spells are either useless or not practical. (or being taken out like protector)

Not sure about reducing conjurer defenses... they're already pretty vulnerable. Especially force armor; That was pretty borderline useful as it was. A 10-30% armor bonus I'm afraid will do next to nothing, because a mage's base armor is too low for an armor bonus (especially a small one) to do much for them. I suppose we will see how this plays out in combination with general armor tweaks.

As for Ao1 change, I can't say I support it. Same deal as cold blood: too short a duration for too much mana.

Everything else looks good. I especially like how hunters seem to be taking a possible support role now, I'm eager to try that out.

Slight Balance Issue with Stalker Surroundings

Hunter can use stalker and move ANYWHERE they want with pet. Basically a camo with pet for 5 minutes. This is even more OP then Camo + Pet.

Also, slight change needed for this to work well in RvR. Members needs to be able to see each other in stalker; otherwise, folks will have issues moving - etc.

I gave up on those after you nerfed Blocks to the point of nothing but a dice game. :/
By you I mean NGD ^^
I really like defensive stance tho ^^

Something I failed to bring up also is the current mana consumption. I've been playing on mobs and fort guards and 400 mana for every 10 seconds is not possible. Basically, to get the use of my old army of 1, I would have to expend more then 2000 mana. If you plan to reduce the effect to 10 sec I suggest reducing the mana of army of one to a max of 150 for lv 5.

And the duration itself is far too short, if I cast this before charging at an enemy I will already be on cd before I reach them. Only chance is to use this now in a fight already. But in the end it won't matter because my enemies will just wait or knock me once and it will be over. And I will not have another 400 mana to be able to stratigically recast this.

We are looking into this, we thought that maybe the 40% speed penalty was good enough to compensate.

we are still developing this feature... of course members will be able to see each other.

mheh, been lvling my knight for nothing, and about first and second versions etc, thats worth pants to me, for my main class (hunter) i only saw my playstyle detoriate even more with the later changes(no, i dont have a friggin troll) even less range, hitting 150 on wild sabertooths, nty, i dont like them, for my lock, practicing on horus again, i got spare gear(mana etc) not nerfable, so i can drop my cs gear, and the gcd, well, use spells without a cc effect, shorter gcd, means you can still do a fair bit of dmg, wont differ to much.

@NGD, and whats with things like magn weps, i just got the lb for like a month, and now slow bows will be crap for hunter, and to find something thats worth a magn wep, and that someone wants to trade is very hard, will there be a option to make it a sb? Dont expect much of this, but its worth the shot >.<

10 seconds of AoO is ridiculous. 400mp is even more ridiculous.

For something that is supposed to be "used more frequently" it could at least cost a lot less mana.

/me shakes head in disgust

Well, at least reduce the mana for Ao1... who will pay 400mp for a 10s buff? ¬¬

10/30 on Ao1 will of course not allow the same old habits.

It shifts from a general uncounterable style to a more situational one. I hope we get similar improvements on barbs UM.

However 400 mana is way too much to make it more aviable, cut that to 200 at max on 5.

Barbs apparently xD

but lower the mana cost on ao1 by half atleast

or utilize umaril's idea. it would work much more effectively than 10s. or just leave Ao1 alone.

Enio this is not about habits or fear of change or anything. This will not be some situational boost. This will not encourage knights to think harder or anything. It is simply a huge decrease to the power of tanking. Army of one was very easily counterable, you of all people know that, you've fought me plenty and the cc works fine on a current ao1 knight. 10 seconds need to be bumped up to a minimum of 20, and mana reduced drastically (with this I agree with you, but duration is not ok in any way shape or form).

Imagine sotw for 5 seconds... would this a boost you think even if it was 30 sec cd...

i heared cold blood is OP, thats 300 mana 6 secs >.>, imo all spells shorter as 20 sec at such a high place or high value are UP

Thanks. We are going to fix this.

We are actually working on this feature and it will be able soon.

Regards!

This change in Ao1 is ridiculous, I couldn't agree more with Ulti on this one. Any kind of lvl 1 cc and we just wasted 400 mana. NGD is making it impossible to play knight after this update goes live.
Knights are desperate for help, new spells, good ones, not stuff like the new d-stance and auras...

And I'd very much appreciate if people who have never played a knight in their lives stopped giving worthless opinions about a class they *obviously* don't know sh** about. I'm getting tired of all the ass-kissing that's been going on lately.