Balance Update 2011 - Stage 1 - Initial Discussion

[jesus2]

Originally Posted by Darcyeti

I'm looking forward to test the things you mentioned here.

I love the idea of taking feint away from barbs. Nevertheless the duration of feint/kick should be reduced as well.

Ambush range melee is to hard imo, range 10-15 would do well.

Burst of wind without dmg? That's great.

Would love to see winter stroke cd made longer.

Stunning fist changed to stun or cannot cast? I don't know really, but it's worth a try.

Will domain changed to mummify sounds interessting, must be tested how useful it will be.

Mana at marks is not such an issue imo, it would be better to lower their defence. Strategic position moved from marks to hunters would be a good way.

Great summarize of ideas man.A huge +1 for this, it is exactly what most players have in mind .Hope NGD listens sometime

[LawZ]

Originally Posted by Darcyeti

I'm looking forward to test the things you mentioned here.

I love the idea of taking feint away from barbs. Nevertheless the duration of feint/kick should be reduced as well.

Ambush range melee is to hard imo, range 10-15 would do well.

Burst of wind without dmg? That's great.

Would love to see winter stroke cd made longer.

Stunning fist changed to stun or cannot cast? I don't know really, but it's worth a try.

Will domain changed to mummify sounds interessting, must be tested how useful it will be.

Mana at marks is not such an issue imo, it would be better to lower their defence. Strategic position moved from marks to hunters would be a good way.

Exactly my thoughts summarized for the time being...

[HuntShot]

Originally Posted by Darcyeti

I'm looking forward to test the things you mentioned here.

I love the idea of taking feint away from barbs. Nevertheless the duration of feint/kick should be reduced as well.

Ambush range melee is to hard imo, range 10-15 would do well.

Burst of wind without dmg? That's great.

Would love to see winter stroke cd made longer.

Stunning fist changed to stun or cannot cast? I don't know really, but it's worth a try.

Will domain changed to mummify sounds interessting, must be tested how useful it will be.

Mana at marks is not such an issue imo, it would be better to lower their defence. Strategic position moved from marks to hunters would be a good way.

Jup +1

Only problem is, ambush if you guys are going to reduce range to melee then reduce the cast speed to please to compensate the lose.. 1,5sec melee near a barb? Equals dead.

And Will Domain well, i like the Idea... in some way, it's just many locks have Will Domain as their base CC by saying that I mean they Start or they Need Will Domain in their CC Chain in order to work.. I think I can adjust my CC chain but im 100% sure it will be less useful, still lock indeed needed a little nerf.




Overall I think I can talk for everybody if I say that you did a great job NGD, telling us the changes so we can discuss them before you put them on Amun! Another great step in the right direction!

[bois]

Originally Posted by Darcyeti

I'm looking forward to test the things you mentioned here.

I love the idea of taking feint away from barbs. Nevertheless the duration of feint/kick should be reduced as well.

Ambush range melee is to hard imo, range 10-15 would do well.

Burst of wind without dmg? That's great.

Would love to see winter stroke cd made longer.

Stunning fist changed to stun or cannot cast? I don't know really, but it's worth a try.

Will domain changed to mummify sounds interessting, must be tested how useful it will be.

Mana at marks is not such an issue imo, it would be better to lower their defence. Strategic position moved from marks to hunters would be a good way.

Good summary indeed. I am concerned about stunning fist. In my view "cannot cast" will weaken this spell too much. As a point blank spell I think it is fine at the moment. Maybe duration could be lowered marginally.
Will domain is a touchy one. I think mages need this knock. I was thinking somewhat radically with this one. If the mechanics somehow permitted it, any single target DoT spell would cancel knock. This may be impossible but the spell is reasonably balanced right now anyway. Changing it outright to mummify does not look so good on paper. Knights will suffer and it will not be that effective on barbs. Mummify is essentially an anti melee spell. If mummify must come in , I think a cap would have to be considered on slow spells or prevent them from stacking.

I think differently about mana and marks. In the past Marks had too little mana. Now they have access to too much. A compromise must be struck where a marks will have to think about reserving mana and mana sucking spells can become effective on them again. As is they have to pay too little attention on their mana reserves. This should be adjusted slightly to make their spell selections more challenging.
The rest of the ideas are not in round one so I will not comment on them yet.

[Raindance]

Looks like the majority of people want hunters with Strategic Position and Winter Stroke destroyed, alright, but remove Confuse, however, all in all that would be a very lazy thing to do rather than thinking of something else to improve hunters.

Nonetheless, Strategic Position needs to be 20-25% at level 5.

[53453467734534]

Ok...

First: My opinion (+ suggestions) on CC spells
http://www.regnumonline.com.ar/forum...8&postcount=15
and http://www.regnumonline.com.ar/forum...26&postcount=3

Furthermore a class balance poll with more than 100 votes.
I think you can call it representative.
http://www.regnumonline.com.ar/forum...ad.php?t=78449

Now my views on these planned changes:

Feint: moved to the “vanguard” -knight only- discipline to replace “intimidate”

I wasn´t directly an advocate for this change, but it seems justified.

Intimidate: moved to the “Tactics” discipline instead of “Kick”

Questionable...
Barbarian already has "spring" and in combination with these other changes to "Ambush" and "Will domain"... Moreover this is even more dangerous for Warlocks and Hunter (two weaker classes at the moment), because it is more difficult for them to stay out of "Intimidate" range (12)
Better swap with "Challenge" (good against this silly "horse escape")

Kick: Moved to the 1st place of the discipline in place of feint

If "Feint" is (re)moved this is fair enough. Approve

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.

Ok, this will help Warlocks...
but very bad for Hunter and nearly everyone thinks, that Hunter have to be buffed (see poll)

Swap with Death Sentence? Or replace "Camouflage corps"?
BUT this will possibly create more problems (see "Will domain comments" below)
However Marksmen can simply shoot up the gate, instead of knocking the outcoming warriors down.
Whether this is fun is another question.

Stunning Fist: the effect “Cannot attack” will be replaced either by “Stun” or “cannot cast” (please let us know what you think)

We already have a Stun effect "Distracting Shot". Doesn´t make sense to have a second one that only works at close range?!!
And Dizziness is nearly useless against Barbarians at close range, but will
annoy Warlocks even more. And Warlocks are weak in my (and other peoples) opinion. I really don´t think "Stunning Fist" is imbalanced at all, and i think it is an interesting and different spell too. Don´t change it!

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.

Another Slow spell?! Lame...

Apart from that:

On the one hand this will slow enemies to the extreme. Not very funny.

On the other hand mages cannot knock down a Warrior (especially a Barbarian) in front of the door. This is a REAL PROBLEM. A defending warrior has nothing to be afraid of. If he is low on hit points he can go in. He even can switch in and out at fort battles all the time (without necessity of any team play or preparation :\).As a result, the attacker will have too kill everyone extremely fast (before someone gets in again) , or try to open the door immediately.
Both is now (low cast speed on warlock) only possible with barbarian class.
The best class too play (or abuse) "in and out" is barbarian too.
Even further you can´t prevent AE spamming reasonably effective anymore.
The best class to spam AEs is of course barbarian
Overall the defender has a huge advantage.

Besides: The conjurer has to stand among the melee fighters. Slowing isn´t as effective to protect him in front of the door.

And finally: "Will domain" was the ONLY spell that was faster to cast for Warlocks than the CCs of Archers/Marksmen. Slow doesn´t help at all here...

A big NO.

Burst of Wind: damage will be removed.

This was my opinion:
"In my opinion the problem for mages isn´t range, but very slow (CC) cast time. Also i don´t like uber-range locks.
This would be my solution (i have posted this before, but because everything
repeats itself anyway, i can also recapitulate my thoughts).

Post patch warlock (copied from another thread, more suitable here):

Marksman has more range, faster CCs with more range too, is faster on the run and has much more defense. Warlock has more and better area effects, maybe slightly more dmg. However, Warlock cannot do anything useful, while under dizziness. There is no ST (+ Fire Ball, Crystal Blast) rush anymore. On the battlement, attacking archers have more range, in front of the door, he will be knocked out (in the true sense of the word). He cannot use beetle swarm anymore on fort defending barbs.

To balance it, Warlocks CCs should be faster to cast than marks, but slower than CCs of melee classes. ST should "work" again. That would be already sufficient, to give him a noticeable role in fort battles. Marksman would be stronger long range, melee fighter stronger close range, and warlock strongest medium range.

Now, only against melee classes in the fields, the warlock is still quite strong.
Maybe in very large battles because of area effects he is at least useful, but barbs have better AEs."

Summarized: LONGER CAST TIME please. Maybe maximal range of 35

"Divine Intervention" or No "Divine Intervention" shouldn´t be the question

Mana regen: slightly reduced during combat (we’ll add feedback on GUI while “in combat” status)

Unsure.
I think it can stay as it is now.

[bois]

You could make Strategic Position similar to wind wall specifications.

[Raindance]

Originally Posted by bois

You could make Strategic Position similar to wind wall specifications.

Or simply swap their current values.

[Pwnography]

What i'd like to see done to marksmen(and archers in general):
1. Range reduced to what it was - Imo it was more fun when archers(marksmen especially) didn't have and instant way to win vs any other class(maintaining their huge range)
2. Mana regen for marksmen reduced - I like this idea. As it is right now marksmen can use Recharged arrows without worring about the mana they lose from using it.
3. Recharged arrows to be changed back to +% damage bonus instead of just +% Weapon damage bonus - with the range range and mana regen reduced this would be needed to encourage people to still use their marksmen.

Basically I want marksmen returned to the way they were before the last balance update. While I might be alone in saying this, I thought they were much more fun before the range increase etc.

Removing damage from BoW seems like a good idea and i don't believe it will hinder marksmen too much.

Will domain is fine as it is, I don't see any reason to change it, but maybe then spell replacing it will work alright.

I think hunters need to be changed. Head of the pack is really missed by hunters in fort wars as it provided a huge damage bonus to them. However if it was re introduced i believe Cold blood would need a small nerf.

I like the changes to warriors and I don't think barbs will benefit as much with the slow as they did with 2 knocks.

[Minorian]

Nothing about confuse?

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Fighting_Irish

3. Recharged arrows to be changed back to +% damage bonus instead of just +% Weapon damage bonus - with the range range and mana regen reduced this would be needed to encourage people to still use their marksmen.

No, this would once again add to the fact that marksmen can only play with boss jewelry/good gear.