Version 1.10.7 - Balance update (In progress)

[Fiver]

In regards to pet and its mana bar and a possible boost to hunters:
Make all pet tree spells draw mana from the pets mana pool??


Also as a general idea for some balance:
have a formula taking into account relative lvls and apply a dmg minimum.
This will give a boost to those who have less than stellar gear and less lucky with drops.
I know we have some great code people who play this game make it a;

If dmg > 100

Then

what ever great code you guys think would be fair???

[Kyrottimus]

With a little more in-depth consideration, I submit a more detailed suggestion for the upcoming balance update. All the classes need to have their spells/skills revamped and rebalanced on the basis of all sub-classes having the tools accessible to them to face any other sub-class on any terms of battle (no more rock-paper-scissors gameplay, just how you build and play your sub-class).

Example: In an open field, archers and mages eat warriors alive. At a fort/castle/gate door, if any ranged gets caught by a barb/Off-stance Knight's CC they get eaten alive.

This kind of extreme shift depending on class is frustrating. And simply giving warriors more speed/ranged-centric spells and archers/mages more melee-centric spells won't cut it. It's a start, but there's a lot more to rebalancing the subclasses than simply adding more utility for all the spectrums of fights.

I'd like to see some basic efforts in balance brought back in the following direction:

All Classes--
*Make Concentration affect spell focus, spell resistance and critical-hit chance.
*Make Strength affect inventory carry weight and all melee base attack bonus (would include archer and mage melee attacks--to be elaborated upon later in this post)
*Make Intelligence affect mana points and mana-regen rate and mage staff ranged normal damage bonus.
*Make Dexterity affect hit-chance and evade chance and non-magical ranged attack bonus (would include both archer and warrior ranged attacks--to be elaborated upon later in this post).
*Make Constitution affect Hit points, health regen rate and reduction of cc duration (With every 10 const = +1% reduction in cc duration).

This way, every stat for every class has functionality and usefulness.

Warriors--
*Make all single-target spells and self-buffs instant casting, like protect ally, paladin's aid, ripost, fatal strike, shield bash, army of one, defensive support, thirst for blood, fulminating (i.e. the only warrior spells with cast time are areas and auras like deflecting barrier and heroic presence. Shield Wall and Stars Shield would remain instant). Reason being that warriors are too clunky as it is, and until the positioning is improved (dramatically) this would make them a lot more fluid and seamless to play.
*Reduce Defensive Support's speed malus to -10%, it fails enough as it is on level 5.
*Give warriors a "Throw Weapon" option in the Tactics Tree, replacing one of the useless spells there like "Martial Defense" or "Throat Cutter". This is a max of 30m spell where the thrown weapon loses damage dealt over range (100% from just 0-10m, 75% from 11-20m, 50% from 21-30m. Dexterity is used as the base-damage bonus instead of strength for thrown weapons. Once weapon is thrown, that weapon goes on cooldown and cannot be used ("Retreived") until cooldown is over. The level determines cooldown duration (18sec-10sec level's 1-5).

Knights--
*Give Knights spring back, or make Onslaught Knight-only and make it self-affecting.
*Make defensive stance a buff that duration=cd, or if it remains an activatable spell, split the difference and cut the defenses it provides in half and cut damage penalty only to -50%.
*Make offensive stance a buff that duration=cd, or if it remains an activatle spell, split the difference and cut the defense penalty to -50% and damage bonus to +20%.
*Precise Block would be like the Marksman WM spell "Killer Instinct" in that when activated it would lock you in place until duration is over or the spell is deactivated. Put a spell animation above the knight's head in addition to the animation, so if they go out of combat mode or sit down, you can still visually see that the spell is in effect.
*Rename "Steadiness" to "Toughness" and add passive resists to freeze and immobilize with the same +% resist as knock. As any knight knows, even on level 5 it fails more often than not, and with as much as knights are frozen and immob'd and then ignored, it would give a few more opportunities to them to actually do stuff.
*Give Knights a new spell that acts like Precise Block + retaliation called "Reflect Projectile" that works on first-received hit (ranged attacks only, deactivates after 1st hit) redirecting any ranged attack back to attacker. Level of spell determines duration and +% chance of succeeding (even if it doesn't hit the attacker it still acts as a blocked attack).
*Remove Knight WM power "Blessed' and replace it with a burst aura (like shield wall) called "Divine Presence" which acts like an area Divine Intervention (same range/mana cost as level 5 shield wall but with a duration of 15 seconds and a 60 second CD).

Barbs--
*Give 2h weapons a second gem slot (and 2h Magna weapons a 3rd) and an extra bonus for each special/magical/epic/legendary (to bring them up to par with the gem slots and bonuses of a combination of dual wield weapons). At the same time, reduce the base damage of the offhand weapons so that dual wield weapons combined generally do not produce higher damage of like quality (level/uniqueness) 2h weapon. The idea here is if you want to make hard hits, use 2h weapons, if you want fast stackable DPS, use dual wield. Right now, most barbs use dual wield because at the moment they provide both.
*Increase fulminating duration to 10seconds but reduce +% damage bonus to +30%
*Give barbs a new passive called "Conditioning" that reduces all CC durations -5%/-10%/-15%/-20%/-25% (Levels 1-5).
*Give barbs a new spell called "Parry" that acts like retaliation (goes away after first attack is received) but does not redirect any damage; basically it nullifies whatever 1st attack is received--the barb must be facing the attacker (forward 180 degree arc only). Level determines duration.
*Change "Rend" to bleed mana over time. Like sadistic servants but with a max duration of 15 seconds and no mana returning to the caster, and on level 5 attack damage is only 50%.
*Change "Beast Attack" to always dizzy (if not resisted), reduce duration to same as meteor per level, and reduce damage to +10%/+15%/+20%/+25%/+30% (Levels 1-5).
*Change "Berserk" to an activateable spell like Recharged Arrows, with the total loss of the ability to evade we would also add a -25% spell-resist malus (across all levels).

Archers--
*Make Stunning Fist instant-cast, and reduce duration to 3/4/5/6/7seconds per level.
*Give Archers three new melee attacks all at 1.5m range:
**First of which being "Bow-Strike" (bow's weight in kg + the archer's strength * 1/2/3/4/5 via levels 1-5 as purely blunt damage) that is a passive ability which automatically switches on when the target is 1.5m or closer. Attack speed is tied to the bow's attack speed, and then is cut in half (it's twice as fast). Buffs like Recharged Arrow and the like have no effect on these attacks. Ranged spells can still be utilized within this range.
**Second of which is a new spell called "Arrow Stab", where the archer uses an arrow in the hand as a dagger, causing the damage of the arrows + dex (as integer) and inflicting cannot-attack malus to target for 1-5seconds (levels 1-5).
**Third of which is a new spell called "Bow Trip", where the archer uses his bow to trip his attacker, with a base knock duration of 2/3/4/5/6 seconds (levels 1-5). It functions just like feint, but with shorter durations.
*With these new additional melee abilities, reduce Son of the Wind and Escapist durations both to 4/6/8/10/12seconds (levels 1-5) while simultaneously reducing mana cost and cooldowns slightly. Give Escapist a sound effect.
*Reduce "Maneuver" cooldown to 15seconds longer than duration.
*Reduce "Dual-Shot" cast-time to 0.5seconds, increase cooldown by 10 seconds.

Marksmen--
*Make Strategic Position instant cast.
*Increase "Ignis Scorch" damage by +100 fire per level.
*Remove -hp/-mp malus on recharged arrows while also reducing max +% dmg bonus to +30%, make it reduce the marksman's evade-chance and resist-chance both to -50% (yes, having this on while casting Escapist or SotW would affect them accordingly).
*Remove Marksman WM Power "Fire Arrow" and replace it with "Bolo Arrow" which inflicts immoblization upon a target (acts like Prickling Ivy(5) but with a range of 20m and a duration of 4 seconds).
*Add +5% attack range and +5% attack speed bonuses to existing WM Power "Killer Instinct," and increase mana cost by +100.

Hunter--
With the "Archer" Class changes in mind, and current Hunter WM spells (being fairly practical), I would only really alter Cold Blood to slightly reduce the damage bonus (something like -20% less than current per level; so like +30%/+50%/+70%/+90%/+110%) but increase duration to 12/14/16/18/20 seconds (per level), to account for the fact that right now casting cold blood you burn up to 2 seconds waiting for GCD and attack cycles to clear before attacking (so in essence current Cold Blood is really only effective for ~4 seconds). I would, however, move the Cold blood ability to higher in the tree (trading places with confuse).

Mage--
*New Melee attacks added to Staff Mastery Tree.
**A new ability "Staff Strike" is added, being the mage's Staff's weight in kg + Strength * 1/2/3/4/5 (per level) that is a passive ability which automatically switches on when the target is 1.5m or closer. Attack speed is tied to the staff's attack speed directly.
**A new spell called "Disarm Foe" is added, the mage uses his staff to knock the opponent's weapon from their hands and puts that weapon on a cooldown. The opponent must wait for the cooldown to end or switch to another weapon to attack or cast a spell. This attack does not cause damage and its duration is 2/4/6/8/10 seconds (level 1-5).
**The Ice, Lightning and Fire magnifications are combined into a single buff, though duration is decreased to 45 seconds and cooldown is 60 seconds. Mana cost is increased by +150 per level (based on the mana cost of just one of the other magnification buff).

Warlock--
*New Warlock Spell "Return Projectile" which is a self-buff that has duration of 5/10/15/20/25seconds (levels 1-5) that grants 33% chance (per attack) to return any ranged normal attack to attacker with 50% of that attack inflicted.
*Warlock WM spell "Mass Prickling Ivy" has mana cost reduced to 400 mana and duration increased to 6 seconds.

Conjuror--
With the "Mage" Class changes in mind, and current Conjuror WM spells (being fairly practical), remaining Conjuror abilities remain unchanged.

[Raindance]

Hello NGD,

It's been over a week, I understand that it's the weekend now, but can we see some beginning changes you've acknowledged thus far?

Like I said, it's the weekend, but I'm sure we'd all like to see the first list of changes by at least Monday. Considering how much this thread grew, I think it's better not to let the suggestions get too large that you won't be able to keep track of anything. It's better to have less work to do.

[TryHarder]

Originally Posted by Raindance

Hello NGD,

It's been over a week, I understand that it's the weekend now, but can we see some beginning changes you've acknowledged thus far?

Like I said, it's the weekend, but I'm sure we'd all like to see the first list of changes by at least Monday. Considering how much this thread grew, I think it's better not to let the suggestions get too large that you won't be able to keep track of anything. It's better to have less work to do.

Don't forget RA's

[schachteana]

Originally Posted by Raindance

Hello NGD,

It's been over a week, I understand that it's the weekend now, but can we see some beginning changes you've acknowledged thus far?

Like I said, it's the weekend, but I'm sure we'd all like to see the first list of changes by at least Monday. Considering how much this thread grew, I think it's better not to let the suggestions get too large that you won't be able to keep track of anything. It's better to have less work to do.

All those insults, accusations and "do this, do that"-imperatives are bad enough for this forum (I wonder who started that sh*t), but please don't also start demanding stuff like that, this is even impertinent imo. I know you'd like to have feedback so you had to write less, but I guess ngd rather wants to have many short opinions instead of few long ones. I also wouldn't fancy redoing this thread :P
sorry for OT, also won't comment on this anymore, you may delete this post if you want

[ice_zero_cool]

Problem:
One thing that comes to mind in regard to barbs (the biggest imbalance with barbs, if you ask me) is that they can deal one hell of a dmg (what theyre supposed to do) and still tank insane amounts of dmg (what they really shouldnt).

Solution:
Revert berserk back to its old self, making it reduce armor points.
Old one was -100% AP, maybe make new one (at least) -50%*, so barbs still get their dmg bonus, but dont get it "for free" (honestly, who cares about -100% evade chance?!). Maybe the (heavy) armour penalty could also be compensated by adding a few percents to attack speed.

*Depending on spell level:
Dmg: +10% +20% +30% +40% +50%
AS: +01% +02% +03% +04% +05%
AP: -50% -60% -70% -80% -90%

[Kimahri_Ronso]

Some of my thoughts regarding classes.
WARNING: Quite a long post, maybe my longest so far .

Locks:

-Arcane devotion needs a longer duration, I want it to have 120 sec at least, Cool down follows, so 120 sec too. It's really annoying to recast it every 60 sec....

-Energy barrier needs some rework IMO, as it already was suggested before 1000 damage is a joke on lvl5

- Wind wall needs to be improved, locks need a spell against ranged barbs.

- I wouldn't touch MOD, it was nerfed once already.

- Darkness needs a shorter duration, 12 -14 -16 - 18 - 20 sec / level is more than enough. Cool down and mana cost needs to be lowered of course.

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Conjus:

See at locks Arcane devotion and Energy barrier ^^

- Mass resurrection needs a change to be more reliable.

- Heal ally and heal self needs to be raised IMO, its just impossible to keep someone healed when a barb is hitting on her.

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Marksmen:

-Recharged arrows needs a change, lower the mana drain per shot and remove the hp drain.

- Winter stroke needs the range 30.

- SOTW (Son of the wind) needs to be more reliable for a last spell in a spell tree, make it 100% but lower its duration, cool down and the mana cost.

- Give back old Escapist with movement speed.

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Hunters:

- See at Marksmen SOTW and Escapist ^^

- Confuse: Why not making confuse this way.... It'd disable all self buffs but one, so all class could use one buff, buff means frenzy or caution for barbs, caution stays for knight, energy barrier / wind wall for conju / lock (too bad if you don't have it skilled ), and acrobatic, evasive tactics or strategic position for hunters / marksmen.
On the other hand it would disable all non-damaging offensive skills ( and conju heals of course! ) such as ambush, distracting shot, slow, hinder, howl, deafening roar etc. We could keep its current duration, mana cost and cool down.

- Replace Camouflage corpse with the old skill "Track ally", I'm pretty sure its more useful than that .

- Revive pet needs to be moved lower in the pet tree so it can be used earlier, also, hunters don't need so many tame skills but one.

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Barbarians:

- IMO Unstoppable Madness is fine as it, far more reliable than SOTW ATM.

- Lower fulminating's damage but just by a bit.

- Deafening Roar's duration seem to be too long, make it last for 10 sec maximum.

- Defensive support's speed malus needs to be looked at, it should change with every level IMO, on lvl 5 should be ONLY -25%.
5-25% - lvl 1 -lvl 5.

- Give Mind Squasher to knights only.

- Barbs need some kind of retaliation-like skill too IMO against ranged attacks, so they don't have to hug trees and rocks all time.
Maybe replace threat with a new skill, "Retaliated skin" that returns or lowers the range received damage for a short time ( like 5 seconds ) for some sacrificed attack power.... Just a thought.
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Knights:

- See at barbarian Defensive support ^^

- Knights need some kind of speed boost ( just like mages by the way ) a charge-like attack that grants them temporally speed bonus.
"Shield charge" : The knight gains 10-15% speed bonus by a charged rush for 5 seconds. She can't use any other skill when performing this rush and losing all of her block chance for the duration of the spell. Any offensive attack cancels the effect. Replace Rigorous Preparation with it.

- Shield bush and Protect Ally needs to be instant.

- Precise block needs a change, either fix the bugs connected to it, or modify it .

- Mind squasher has to be reworked too, there were many suggestion about it so I won't try to go into it deeper, raising its cool down and lowering its mana cost seems to be the best solution maybe.. for now.

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For the long terms I'd say only this, shared spell trees have to go. All subclass needs her own skills, make them unique and diverse, also sort out useless spells and replace /rework them so they will be skilled and used again. There was a thread about it somewhere I'm sure, but I can't find it now.... If someone finds it, please post it .

Oh, and remove resists please!! Let spells like SOTW do the resists!

[xayne]

I just hope you keep in mind this time around that balance doesn't have to mean to nerfs. I would take a look at the skills that no one is using and replace them with something people will use or just boost the hell out of them.

Basically nerfing people's favorite skills will make them unhappy, but adding new skills or buffing ones that aren't used will make them happy. It's your choice which path to take here. The old balance model in this game has always been to nerf, and I hope that NGD can finally see by looking at other games that nerfs aren't the only way to go about balance.

[kowocki]

Before changing any spells we must first consider solving the basic problems:

random generator (resist, evades)

armor calculator

way how jewellery damage bonus is added in the formula


It was multiple times mentioned on this forum by people more familiar with games and programing than me.

If you start changing spells with broken/unreliable armor system and evades/resists guess what will you get?


Good example for marksman: recharged arrows-> after "nerf" this spell hadicap low lvls both in grind and war.

why it was nerfed?

cause the way how it become ridicullous when ppl used this spell with set of two boss rings and amulet

[xayne]

Originally Posted by Zina Pallas

TL;DR

My list:
- darkness duration must be shorter (20sec at lvl5)
- MoD duration should be shorter
- roar should have smaller duration (or longer cd)
- howl's range should be removed
- remove or nerf fulmi
- make UM 100%
- locks should have much more damage, DoT dmg calculation should depend on intelligence (suggested many times)
- Mindsquasher needs some nerf, this is a good suggestion
- paladin's aid should give a bit more hp (350-450 or something)
- wm knight self-heal should be replaced with something more useful

So basically nerf other classes and boost mine?