Balance Update 2011 - Stage 1 - Initial Discussion

[Torcida]

What exactly is so OP about will domain?

[DemonMonger]

Originally Posted by Torcida

What exactly is so OP about will domain?

Im not sure..... I thought that skill was well placed as it was normally.
Range was decent, duration devent, doesnt do damage when you fall....

[Torcida]

Originally Posted by DemonMonger

Im not sure..... I thought that skill was well placed as it was normally.
Range was decent, duration devent, doesnt do damage when you fall....

Does NGD realize that removing will domain would be a kick below the belt for us? It is a crucial spel especially in pvp, there is no point in removing it!

[bois]

I rather look at what is presented in this first stage than jumping the gun. This process may extend over many stages.

* Feint: moved to the “vanguard” -knight only- discipline to replace “intimidate”
* Intimidate: moved to the “Tactics” discipline instead of “Kick”
* Kick: Moved to the 1st place of the discipline in place of feint

Feint to Vanguard is fine by me. I am not so sure about Intimidate going to Tactics but let us be fair, how many barbs are going to waste points on this considering they have spring and horn is still there? Are they going to skill this for a measly 10% slow? I wager they will put the points in damage or other more profitable CC. Knights hardly use the spell because of its mediocre performance. Intimidate should be fine in Tactics. Most likely Knights will skill it anyway. I am in agreement with this move. I might be tempted to leave Kick where it is but I must consider that low levels will find this spell invaluable for grinding and war. Reduce effects to 2,3,4,5,6 seconds

* Ambush: The range of this spell will be reduced to melee range. This will allow archers to have a CC suited for melee classes (so to gain range for a brief period of time) but not against other ranged classes.
* Stunning Fist: the effect “Cannot attack” will be replaced either by “Stun” or “cannot cast” (please let us know what you think)

I don't like the melee range for this. You want risk but not too much risk. I would consider a 15m range for this one. Enough range to be highly risky but not too risky. I like the concept of putting hunter in the mid range role. Defenses must be boosted though. At this range a 0.5 cast could be considered. Reduce effect to 2,3,4,5,6 seg.
I think stunning fist could stay as it is right now. I think the risk is high enough. Cannot cast is an option but against melee this may be too weak. Reduce Effect to 2,3,4,5,6 seconds. I say leave this one untouched but reduce effect time.

* Will Domain: this skill is going to be replaced by "Mummify".
* Mummify: transforms the objective into a mummy showering its movements. Reduces movement speed and attack speed.

2 things. First up, the mage class needs a knock. Secondly, this skill feels like an arcane magic one. Indeed there is Slow and Petrify hands in Arcania.
I still like the concept of the spell though. I understand the idea is to reduce knocks in the game. Of course this will be a nightmare for Knights which are the slowest in the game already and would make them suffer slow even more painful deaths. I would like to try 2-6 second knock first. Will domain could be swapped with splinter wall. Splinter wall is one of those risky point blank spells. It could be moved further down without much harm I think. If I really wanted to get fancy I could say that DoT attacks cancel Knock. In that case leave this knock as is.

* Burst of Wind: damage will be removed.
* Mana regen: slightly reduced during combat (we’ll add feedback on GUI while “in combat” status)

Agree. Especially the slight reduction in mana regeneration. That is one of the biggest problems with Marks at the moment.

Look forward to round 2. It would be interesting if Knock was cancelled by any DoT spell. Just a thought.

[hawk0xad9]

Guess I'll throw my opinion in the pot as well.

Originally Posted by chilko

Class: Warrior (Barbs & Knights)

The damage that Barbarians can do is high. We don’t believe that the issue is with the damage but with the fact that they have 2 Knocks (feint and kick). The ability to combine both skills creates the opportunity for a barbarían, to eliminate its opponent without a chance to get up.

Both of these skills are part of the “Tactics” discipline, and we don’t want to affect the Knight with this change so we will do the following modification:

• Feint: moved to the “vanguard” -knight only- discipline to replace “intimidate”
• Intimidate: moved to the “Tactics” discipline instead of “Kick”
• Kick: Moved to the 1st place of the discipline in place of feint

We’ll have to do minor adjustments to the mana consumption and/or duration of these skills because of the change of place in the discipline. Although Barbarians will lose one of their CC skills, they will earn a slow skill that will allow them to reach their enemies.

Agree with most of it. Only potential problem I see is the speed difference between barbs and other classes, although it may not be an issue in game.

Originally Posted by chilko

Class: Archer (Hunters and Marksmen)

The tactical situation between Archers and Warriors should play around the difference of range. In normal conditions a warrior that reaches melee range should have a positional advantage.
Because of the different CCs and “counter damage” available in the “Tricks” discipline This theoretical situation does not happen as often as we would like.
The following changes will be introduced with the intention of revert this. The following changes will be introduced with the intention of reversing the aforementioned situation.

• Ambush: The range of this spell will be reduced to melee range. This will allow archers to have a CC suited for melee classes (so to gain range for a brief period of time) but not against other ranged classes.
• Stunning Fist: the effect “Cannot attack” will be replaced either by “Stun” or “cannot cast” (please let us know what you think)

Hmm, these seem like too much. Maybe a compromise of ambush range to around 15 would be better than melee range. I didn't think stunning fist was much of an issue to begin with, so it can probably be left alone. If it was changed, archers already have a stun skill, and "cannot cast" would be fine for mages, but not for warriors (like someone else previously mentioned). Surprised to see nothing on confuse though...

Originally Posted by chilko

Class: Mages (Warlocks and Conjurer)

Based on the previous explanations we propose the following changes:

• Will Domain: this skill is going to be replaced by "Mummify".
• Mummify: transforms the objective into a mummy showering its movements. Reduces movement speed and attack speed.

Perhaps sharing more info on how this plays in would help... it's a nice skill on paper though, just not as a replacement for will domain in my opinion.

Originally Posted by chilko

Subclass: Masksman

We have read many posts about this subclass being OP. We think that this issue is much more related o CCs than damage. Marksmen have a great amount and diversity of long range control skills that allows them to “keep range” all the time.
The combination of said CCs give them an edge against melee classes that need to reach them in order to fight.

This subclass has two CC skills that include damage, Winter Stroke and Burst of wind (cannot be stopped by “divine intervention” hurting team-play)
Also, after the last balance update mana regeneration was increased and it may be too high for this class (both for PVP and RVR)

• Burst of Wind: damage will be removed.
• Mana regen: slightly reduced during combat (we’ll add feedback on GUI while “in combat” status)

I like these changes; DI may become more powerful as a result. It would be nice to see a slight change in winter stroke as well, in cooldown (25 seconds maybe?).

* It would be nice to have some info on mana cost, duration, cooldown, etc. changes, but I suppose the details may not be exactly set in stone just yet. It's also hard to see in some cases if the changes listed will be for the better or the worse without knowing about the changes planned for the other skills, but hey, it's a start. Looking forward to the rest of this process.

[animalartist]

Originally Posted by Torcida

Wooooow relax NGD, Whats up? You want to kill mages or something? Will domain is our most important spell can't imagine winning a pvp without will domain, I mean comon it isn't a OP spell or something yes it is fast but take a look at the range! Its just 20, so it totally compensates with its fasr casting, other players can simply avoid getting will domained by just move out of its tiny range! Also I never heard anyone complaining about will domain at all... Don't you think you should focus on the REAL problems in CC-balance?

Hands off of Will domain!

Totally agree.

Originally Posted by RicksaR

+ 1,

Ambush reduced to melee range is as said before a terrible idea it'll just screw hunters over even more so than what they already are...


And +1 to Vincents proposal of ambush becoming a hunter only spell, useless camo corpse spell needs to go etc..

Agreed also, but take whole tricks tree from Marks.

[_Enio_]

Nice to see work on these matters!

In the OP i see options taken away or nullified which makes me nervous ~.~ so i can only remind to not lose the fun and interaction aspect out of focus.

Similar to Offensive Banners, the loss of control spells leads to "no options" situations - that is bad.
Like when designing from scratch you add spells, and add counter spells, synergies that lead to fun in playing. Just a friendly reminder to not go it backwards all the way. If not careful we end up with the only tools left for tactic and timing will be the correct placement of Banners and Defensive Auras.

Add gameplay options while defusing problematic parts.

Looking forward to testing.

[Kyrottimus]

Originally Posted by _Enio_

Looking forward to testing.

ENIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Looking forward to seeing you back dude, a few of us have been missing the hell out of ya on Horus

[TheMessenger]

Originally Posted by chilko

Balance Update: Crowd Controls
Subclass: Masksman

We have read many posts about this subclass being OP. We think that this issue is much more related o CCs than damage. Marksmen have a great amount and diversity of long range control skills that allows them to “keep range” all the time.
The combination of said CCs give them an edge against melee classes that need to reach them in order to fight.

This subclass has two CC skills that include damage, Winter Stroke and Burst of wind (cannot be stopped by “divine intervention” hurting team-play)
Also, after the last balance update mana regeneration was increased and it may be too high for this class (both for PVP and RVR)

• Burst of Wind: damage will be removed.
• Mana regen: slightly reduced during combat (we’ll add feedback on GUI while “in combat” status)

We wanted to have an initial discussion about these changes before we upload to Amun. Please try to explain yourselves and maintain a constructive thread.

I think that BoW needs more of a nerf. The duration needs to be lowered to 7 or 8 seconds at lvl 5(I think it is ridiculous that a marks has 11second dizzy like this, vs lock its rape) but CD down by 5seconds or so.

I will leave my answer for mana regen when Isee it

[TheMessenger]

Originally Posted by animalartist

Agreed also, but take whole tricks tree from Marks.

I guess you didn't think of the outcome of this?

If you take tricks tree away from marks all you will see is range 50 marks never letting any class get 30m in range, even more so then now. It is possible.