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

[von1958]

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

[Torin_Ironfist]

This update is awesome for knights. +1 NGD

For those who don't see it, knarb!

[Arafails]

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'

[Ulti19]

Originally Posted by Torin_Ironfist

This update is awesome for knights. +1 NGD

For those who don't see it, knarb!

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 ^^

[Zas_]

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.

[Gideon_Slack]

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.

[bois]

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

[Torin_Ironfist]

Originally Posted by Ulti19

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.

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.

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.

[Topogigio_BR]

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.

[Ulti19]

Originally Posted by Torin_Ironfist

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.

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.