Balance Update 2011 - Stage 1 - Initial Discussion

[no-body]

Originally Posted by DemonMonger

* Concerned a bit about giving barb a skill to slow people down.
As is barbs can basically run down almost any person that is not on horseback.
If barbarians gain a ranged slow skill they will be close to 100% Over Powered.
Can you give barbs another skill instead?

Why ? Did you ever try to catch an archer or mage as barb ?
Without onslaught or horn barb with or without spring, have almost no chance to catch archer (if archer doesn't make a mistake).
Mage that casts meteor on barb, slows him, drains his mana, wins against him (after meteor barb can't use um, slow nullifies spring, draining mana makes barb dmg a laugh, kicks and feints useless).
The only class I can think of, that barb can easily catch is knight, but killing him is another story (block block block block ... :P).
Imo slow spell is good trade-off, otherwise barb should be able to cast onslaught on himself or spring duration should be longer.

I don't understand why almost everyone considers barb an OP class ... playing lvl 56 barb frustrates me more than playing hunter or conjurer, because he fails to kill anyone so often (in PvP and RvR).

Originally Posted by chilko

The ability to combine both skills creates the opportunity for a barbarían, to eliminate its opponent without a chance to get up.

I don't see why this is an issue, imo every class should have at least one tactic to eliminate opponent without receiving much dmg (archers have it, mages also, knights I'm not sure, why not barbs ? :P), and skill points (at lvl 60) should suffice for no more than 2, and at least 1 of such tactics.

[Latan]

i'm really not understanding where these changes are heading.
you (ngd) changed the knock effect giving to the attacker the 100% chance to hit with normals and spells while the target is knocked, then you see that's it's becoming knocking online and what did you do?
1) terror destroied
2) archers with no more knockdown
3) mages with no more knockdown
4) barbarians with 1 less than knights

knockdowns are an essential part of the fight: you can stop a rushing meele, you can stop an enemy who's trying to escape, you can block an enemy combo, you can gain some time to gain more distance, you can assure that your next powerful spell casted while the target is knocked will 100% land...

ok, we have HEAVY issues with knocks atm, but you can't face any balance problem deleting spells and giving copypaste spells (locks without will domain and with a second slow spell will be more vulnerable against archers and more powerfull against meele. archers already have a stun, they really don't need another one to CC chain you forever! now it's really hard to face some classes and this way will be almost impossible).
the REAL issue with knocks is their duration! in a 8 seconds knock, everyone, even buffed, can easy die against 2-3 damage dealers before standing up and with this kind of changes the problem would remain the same: kick/feint (5) = dead

there are many ways to fix the problem instead of deleting al ranged knocks:
1) will domain/ambush: range 20, same casting time/mana cost, duration 1 sec/lvl, CD 40 sec
feint/kick: duration 1 sec/lvl, CD 30 sec.
2) will domain/ambush: range 20, same casting time, 4 sec fixed duration for every lvl, CD: 40 sec, GCD very short or short instead of normal, mana cost that decreases for every level(500/450/400/350/300 will domain) (290/250/210/170/130 ambush) (340/300/260/220/180 feint) (320/280/240/200/160 kick).
3) will domain/ambush: range 20, same casting time, 4 sec fixed duration for every lvl, GCD very short or short instead of normal, CD that decreases every lvl (60/55/50/45/40 ambush and will domain) (50/45/40/35/30 feint and kick).
4) same as above, but with a diversification between kick and feint (maybe one with fixed duration and variable mana and/or CD and the other with a duration that depends from level.
5) areas (thyphoon, rote, terror) with a limited and fixed duration (4 or 5 seconds) but without chance.

we're bored of a luckbased game. player's skills should be rewarded, not player's luck or OP spells

[Llayne]

Why is everyone whining about the duration of rage of the earth? Hardly any barbs even skill it. 90% of the ones that do skill it don't use it worth a dam. Reducing it's duration will ensure that not a single barb skills it. We don't need more skills in the game that no one uses.

[Seher]

Originally Posted by bois

Seher had a concept but I am not too sure if I understood it right. I was thinking that Seher suggested that knock be a static figure eg : 2 seconds for all levels and you add a damage factor which scales with the level of the spell. Added to this, knock works on moving targets alone.

Exactly. This concept would just need much more creativity to make different spell levels useful, but I don't see a problem there. +10..20..30.. dmg/4..5..6..sec duration is boring anyway.

[DogFish]

Comments in Teal.

Class: Warrior (Barbs & Knights)
Kick has the advantage of damage and being "piggybackable". Feint has the advantage of being Range 0, but the disadvantage of being blocked by Divine Intervention.

I would recommend moving Kick to the Vanguard tree and leaving Feint in tactics. Feint is more difficult to chain than kick, since it uses one attack cycle. Leaving Feint in tactics would give a reason for barbarians to use spear, and also keep in line with all classes having a shared knock that can be blocked by Divine Intervention. Barbarians have several spells, (2ximmbolizes, beast attack, rote) that will not be blocked by DI, and moving kick to knights would achieve the same results as your original intentions.

I'm not sure about moving Intimidate to tactics, I will wait for a change on Amun before commenting on it.

Clase: Archer (Hunters and Marksmen)

Clarifying question: Does melee range refer to the range of a sword/hammer, the range of a spear, or neither?

Ambush: Imagine the following situation, an enemy is attacking one of my realm mates, and I am 20 m away. Let's say the enemy is winning. With a melee ranged ambush what can I do to save my ally? Distracting Shot is potentially canceled by my ally. Freeze, if I'm a marksman, may allow the enemy to escape(UM, SOTW, Sanctuary, low profile...). I can try to kill the enemy quickly, but that makes the game more level and item dependent.

Offensively, changing Ambush to a melee range spell would mean that hunters would have no powers to stop a player(no immobilize or freeze). They have Ensnaring Arrow, but an Immobilize, Freeze, or Knock is often much more effective. This puts hunters at a disadvantage compared to every other class.

Your end goal is to balance the tactical situation between warriors and archers. This would tip the balance towards warriors, especially if Intimidate is given to warriors.

I would instead suggest a reduction in duration, or perhaps something like this where the knock effect wears off after a certain amount of damage.

Stunning Fist is melee range making it risky to use against warriors. Stun is likely to be canceled by an ally and "cannot cast" doesn't really help that much against warriors. Stunning Fist is one of the few crowd controls for archers with damage, and thus a counter for Divine Intervention. Stunning Fist is fine in it's current form.

Class: Mages (Warlocks y Conjurer)

Will Domain: See argument for Ambush as to why ranged classes should have ranged knocks. Will domain already has shorter range and much higher mana cost than Feint and Ambush.

I would recommend not changing this power.

Subclass: Masksman
While BoW is extremely annoying, it is a necessity against players who have Divine Intervention. I would instead suggest a reduction in duration.

Winter Stoke is okay because it can help, but also hinder your teams efforts by allowing an enemy to escape. I would recommend an increase in cast time to allow other classes a chance to react and make it harder to chain crowd controls.

[HidraA]

Originally Posted by Ponter

The new ambush should be instant cast, of course.

Best regards!

Archer has allrady 1-1,5 seconds on stop and hit penality or between hits,wile kick can be casted wile runing....
Also if archer or mage is out of mana has penality of hits ,wile warriors dosent have any kind ,they kepp hit wile running.

[DemonMonger]

Originally Posted by no-body

Why ? Did you ever try to catch an archer or mage as barb ?
yes
Without onslaught or horn barb with or without spring, have almost no chance to catch archer (if archer doesn't make a mistake).
This is not true....
Example:

• 1. Barb casts UM and rushes a hunter
  2. hunter casts ensnaring arrow while running from max range
  3. barb closes distance with spring
  4. ensnare wares off (confuse is pointless at this point)
  5. hunter cast mobility + passive to try to gain distance
  6. (due to passive reduction and mobility reduction hunter cant escape)
  7. hunter cast retaliation and braces for knockdown
  8. (as you can see barb already caught the hunter from outside 30 range)
  9. (and fist will no longer prevent basic attacks with new changes)
  10. (with the additional slow attack from barb it will make it so all get captured 100%)
  <end of story>

Mage that casts meteor on barb, slows him, drains his mana, wins against him (after meteor barb can't use um, slow nullifies spring, draining mana makes barb dmg a laugh, kicks and feints useless).
The only class I can think of, that barb can easily catch is knight, but killing him is another story (block block block block ... :P).
Imo slow spell is good trade-off, otherwise barb should be able to cast onslaught on himself or spring duration should be longer.
Slow change things too much for barbs as balance is concerned.

I don't understand why almost everyone considers barb an OP class ... playing lvl 56 barb frustrates me more than playing hunter or conjurer, because he fails to kill anyone so often (in PvP and RvR).
Try a new setup..

I don't see why this is an issue, imo every class should have at least one tactic to eliminate opponent without receiving much dmg (archers have it, mages also, knights I'm not sure, why not barbs ? :P), and skill points (at lvl 60) should suffice for no more than 2, and at least 1 of such tactics.

I agree that every class should have a tactic to eliminate their foes. However, an additional ranged slow skill will not work well with barbs in this game. It was fine with knights because they lost spring.

[Topogigio_BR]

Originally Posted by chilko

 
Clase: 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. siguientes cambios serán introducidos con la intención de revertir la situación mencionada.

[*]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 see a problem here with reducing ambush range, specialy with Defeating Roar and Howl. For this to work you should at least consider making Defeating roar a 6m radious spell. If you reduce archers range and keep barbs range, speed and damage you focus game even more for a warriors side. If the intention is to populate game with warriors i think is ok.

I think stunning fist is an spell that should not be changed, to avoid redundancy, if changed to stun effect (another dist shot) if changed to cannot cast (another BOW).

Originally Posted by chilko

Class: Mages (Warlocks y 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.

So what will be made to locks spell "slow", will be just a redundancy, to have 2 slow spells?

[ironskin]

Stop to nerf hunters plz, we are already too much pissed, if u nerf ambush this is gonna be an huge Fail. So plz do what u want but don't touch hunters, if u can give them back some powers, like much more defense like marksman has or better damage , cause we really suck at it. I wish u aren't gonna touch CCs on hunter, or i'm definitely leaving the game, and like me many more.... so Be careful dear NGD , u have to keep players not to kick them out.... remember that....

[Topogigio_BR]

You shoukd also consider making UM cancels DI and vice-versa.
Should also diminishing barbs regem mana, same way as marks.
Also lowering warriors armour protection and increasing mages at same percentage lets say 10%, would be a good balance