Suggestion Balance Changes

[Delfofthebla]

I think the idea behind the garotte change with behind requirement was that smoke would need to be used to realistically get it off. So you have the choice - save smoke for an escape, or try and use it aggressively to go for the kill. Obvious wouldnt necessarily work in all cases anyways as quick thinking classes with aoe could pop you out, but i guess thats one form of balance.

We basically had this functionality with Blackjack at the end of Bastion and early haven (I think). Though I may have removed it before Haven.

To explain,
After my first Ninja revamp on Bastion, I re-worked the mechanics of Backstab to be 100% chance. If you were attacking from behind, you were backstabbing. I also "boosted" the sneak version, so that if you were sneaking while backstabbing, you were dealing some major damage. I did this to promote the stealth playstyle. Of course this was how it worked in Bastion too, but now it wasn't based off of RNG.

I hated "big cooldowns", and the number of them that were on Ninja, so I decided to chop Smoke up, and put it as a short CD skill. It would be something used often, either for initiation or for the purpose escaping.

I also wanted to remove the RNG from blackjack, so I made it a static stun. However I wanted to drill home the "stealth" aspect of this skill as well, so I made it to where if you were sneaking or if you were invisible, the stun would last much longer.

My thought was that in a "gank" situation, a ninja would sneak up to a target, blackjack them, and then relentlessly rape the shit out of them during the stun. I also wanted this stun to be usable about once a fight. Maybe twice if it went on long enough. I didn't want Blackjack to be a "big cooldown" that you waited on in order to win a fight. (Like Layhands. Or less drastically, the old MassPiggify).

However, it was still being treated like that. Ninja's would definitely initiate with blackjack / backstab, but once they did their initial "burst", they left. They ran and they kited you in circles until it was off cooldown, and then they went back in. Due to Shuriken and Backflip, it was actually really easy to kite people around. If you tried to catch the Ninja, you couldn't. If you tried to run, he'd kill you. It was an unfortunate situation that I only "half" predicted.

I wanted the Ninja to kite you a little bit, but I didn't want Blackjack to be abused so much. I wasn't counting on the Ninja using smoke every single fight for the single purpose of getting a full duration stun every single time. But because it was "possible", that's how people played it.

Somewhere near the start of Haven, or perhaps right before launch, I took the increased stun out of the equation, and switched it out for more "damage". This created less incentive, and therefore the ninja could not abuse it like he could before. Or so I thought...

Now we had the same god damn situation, except he wasn't being forced to pop Smoke in order to get it off. He still kited around waiting for Blackjack, only now he had to pop one less skill to pull off the combo. Sure, the stun was shorter than on Bastion, but a Ninja with high Charisma could still obtain a similar number.

============

So getting back to Garrote. I never accounted for this skill being on Ninja, and quite frankly, I don't like it. But that's what it has and so that's what we have to work with.

Adding in a "stealth" or "behind the target" mechanic to Garrote, will indeed force them to pop Smoke. It will make the skill an initiation skill, and it will make it a "kite until it and smoke are off cooldown" skill. But let's say the Ninja is forced to use Smoke early. Do you know what you'll be doing now? You'll be chasing the ninja until Smoke is off cooldown again. And once it is, he'll pop Garrote and start his combo all over again.

That is, if Garrote is even useful. If the skill is lackluster in damage / silence duration, this change will do absolutely nothing to his balance other than give him an annoyance factor to one of his less desirable skills, making it less desirable.

 

[JupiterRome]

IF i SEE ANOTHER THING EVEN REMOTELY BUFFING DRUID IM GOING TO SHOOT MYSELF

 

[Dakinara]

IF i SEE ANOTHER THING EVEN REMOTELY BUFFING DRUID IM GOING TO SHOOT MYSELF

wut

 

[Delfofthebla]

Ninja

• Another class that probably needs a better change than this but I think that a small buff will help benefit the class
• Change garrote to be an interrupt but take away the requirement of holding string to use it

Ninja:
An extra interrupt is not what the class needs. Blind, smoke, fade, and kick can all interrupt a warmup targeted on you, and kick is more than enough to handle self targeting warmups (such as heals)
What ninja needs is something to deal with other melee classes besides mindless shuriken spam. My suggestion either goes to add a short stun that does not scale so that we can utilize backstab (either at the end of blitz or perhaps garrote) or possibly buffing the damage on envenom in exchange for slightly less regular left click damage (to combat a warrior's vastly superior armor)

The more I look back on Haven, the more I regret a lot of the decisions I made towards Ninja.

I mean, I fucking love GrapplingHook, and I think the Shuriken skill is really cool. But at the same time, the playstyle of Ninja has shifted so drastically from Bastion that I am questioning if it was the right move.

In Bastion, I loved Ninja. I loved instagibbing people before they even knew I was there. I loved running from 8 people, jumping into a cave, and then playing the fade game until they were spread out enough for me to get a kill. I loved smoking out of a bad situation and getting away unscathed.


However, a lot of the reasons for me loving the class was because it was so god damn broken. Not to mention it was super RNG based, so your success was often based on luck.

I wanted to remove the RNG. I wanted to remove the "faceroll". I wanted players to have to "think" about their initiation, and how they played it during a fight. But I also wanted the class to be "Tournament viable", and to do that, I had to think of some crazy stuff. And unfortunately, I think I failed on all fronts other than the RNG and the faceroll (though the faceroll was an issue in Haven, spawned from blackjack and attributes).


============

The funny thing is, after doing all the things I've done, viewing peoples' responses, and after analyzing my own feelings towards the Bastion experience, I've come to a lot of realizations about HC and "balance".

I learned that people get mad(most of the time) when things are nerfed (read: balanced)
I learned that people get mad(sometimes) when things are buffed (read: balanced)
I learned that people like buggy game mechanics, and the act of exploiting those mechanics.
I learned that fixing exploitable game mechanics makes people upset.
I learned that people cry for balance, but when they get it, they are upset they can no longer exploit "OP stuff".

I learned that things are fun because they are overpowered.
But what's important to state, is that things are the most fun when they are situationally overpowered. I'm not talking about "class so and so can win every fight no matter what". No, I'm talking about something a little different.


Take Dragoon back when it had superjump mid Bastion for example. Dragoon as a "combat class", was relatively balanced back then. Perhaps even a little underpowered! You'd never bring it to a teamfight, but as a solo raiding class, it had two very powerful tools.
1) Jump
2) SuperJump

These were simple mobility skills. One for going forwards, one for going upwards. But these skills allowed players to exploit their specific situation in specific environments. If they were outplayed and unsure of their success, they could run away and then try again.

• If the odds were stacked against them, they could retreat to a safe location, survey the situation, and pounce once the odds were in their favor.
• If a target was escaping, they could relentlessly pursue until they achieved victory.
• If a target somehow was in a location out of reach, they could jump to them.

They had the tools to exploit their situation to their advantage. This, my friends, is what makes/made Dragoon "fun". I can say this because I've felt it first hand, and I've spoken to plenty of Dragoons that can tell me they felt the same way.

Of course, if you're on the other side of the fence, it's not so fun. People hate seeing Dragoons get away. They hate being picked off one by one and then seeing the Dragoon escape without a care. They hate the Dragoon.

Players, or perhaps more accurately, PvPers, want to feel powerful. They want to feel like "They are the best". They want to kill someone, and say Get Shit On. But they want to feel like it was due to their own skill (in most cases). They want to believe that they played their class to the best of their ability and that is what caused their victory.

The best classes for this, are the ones that have these "situationally overpowered" skillsets. For me and the Bastion Ninja, it was the backstab and fade mechanics. I felt like I was a god when I killed someone instantly and then proceeded to do the same to 2 other people.

Now, if I was just running around and left click spamming to achieve this result, I would not have felt very good about it. I felt good about it because I was exploiting the Fade and Backstab skills in a manner that was not considered "normal".

But once again, if you look to the other side of the fence, what does my "kill-ee" feel? They're fucking mad. They're mad that they were killed "instantly", and they feel that it was overpowered. I could tell that that's what people felt, and so I tried to rectify the situation.



And what did I do? I took the fun out of the class! No longer could you "instagib" people. No longer could you stand your own against an unfavorable situation. Sure, I added some cool stuff like GrapplingHook, DeathMark, and Shurikens to replace it. And Sure, I reduced the smoke cooldown to help players retain "control", but it all changed the whole playstyle of the class. It changed the "feel". It's not the same, and probably never will be again.


I made a lot of class revamps while I was around.
Ranger (once)
Bloodmage (once)
Pyromancer (twice)
Runeblade (twice)
Bard (once + half assed revert + once more) <----Sorry.
Paladin (once, but no balance testing was performed) <--- Time constraints, Sorry.
Dreadknight (once, but it was lackluster) <--- Time constraints, Sorry.
Berserker (once: built from the ground up)
Disciple (like three fucking times and I'm only barely fine with it now)
Druid (once)
Necromancer (once)
And finally, the Ninja (once)

I can stand by most of those, regardless of their "balance" states. The Bard stuff I regret messing with at all, but there's really not much I could have done in the situation I was in. I was given a workload far higher than I was capable of filling, and I ended up piling more on top of it, As far as "making stuff happen" and "keeping things fresh" though, I feel like I succeeded.

While initially I was just trying to make cool stuff, I eventually got to a point to where I wanted to drive home that "situationally overpowered" feeling without being too "over the top". I wanted Runeblades to flicker in and out to psych opponents while they unleashed a flurry of damage.

I wanted Berserker to win a fight by only a few short seconds, and have them live with 1HP. I wanted the Berserker to also provide some nice counters to the mobility classes via Rupture.

I wanted the Bloodmage to feel like a "useful support" without having to conform to the standard support playstyle.

I wanted Pyro to be an interesting take on a "melee spellcaster", while also providing an opportunity for some crazy mobility / escapes in specific situations.

But at the end of the day, I feel I failed the most with Ninja. I wanted to retain the feeling of assassination without making his victims feel like it was a broken class. I wanted to provide it with an array of utility that would allow it to address many types of situations in different manners. I wanted it to promote stealth and thoughtful play. And I tried very hard to do this. But I failed.

I do not feel like there is any thought being used, and the stealth is used less as a "stealth" mechanic, but a mid-combat damage avoider tool. I did not want this. Others may not feel the same as I, but I think the general consensus is that Ninja isn't "Bad", but it doesn't quite feel right either.


And so now, all you have are the broken pieces, and I couldn't tell you what to do with them.

 

[Dakinara]

heh i like the current ninja, it has a very interesting set of abilities and the backstab mechanics are nice. It can kite well but so can like half the classes in the game... dont be so dissapoint delf!

 

[Delfofthebla]

MasspPiggify: Lets say the Beguiler has 10 charisma in their build. Then another 15 from splendor (the majority of beguilers use it most of the time because it only costs 5 gold). With 25 charisma masspiggify lasts 2.375s (information off of wiki). An AOE CC that interrupts, silences, and stuns until they are hit is a very powerful spell. Giving some 'counterplay' to Beguiler is what it needs (atm there is no real way to play against it)

Soulleech: Personally I think that it would be fine either way. The main goal I had in mind was making it so dispelling soulleech does not completely ruin Dreadknight's only 'sustain'

Edit: Included the other option to Dreaknight's soulleech in my main post

Oh, and on the note of these "party buffs", those were never even remotely considered to be "viable" (from a balance perspective) with our current setup. As far as I'm concerned, each attribute point is far too valuable for anything to be balanced once it reaches 40+.

The nice thing about it before was that if you had 40 of a certain attribute, you were sacrificing so much other stuff. Now that the level cap is 70, and there are party buffs on top of that, it's not unreasonable to have attributes reach 50-70 without much trouble.


That scares the shit out of me. I haven't even played since the lvl 70 update, but I couldn't possibly imagine what things are like right now for people stacking attributes that high.

 

[Egorh]

Oh, and on the note of these "party buffs", those were never even remotely considered to be "viable" (from a balance perspective) with our current setup. As far as I'm concerned, each attribute point is far too valuable for anything to be balanced once it reaches 40+.

The nice thing about it before was that if you had 40 of a certain attribute, you were sacrificing so much other stuff. Now that the level cap is 70, and there are party buffs on top of that, it's not unreasonable to have attributes reach 50-70 without much trouble.


That scares the shit out of me. I haven't even played since the lvl 70 update, but I couldn't possibly imagine what things are like right now for people stacking attributes that high.

Lvl 70 is not in yet, only mentioned to come

 

[Delfofthebla]

Lvl 70 is not in yet, only mentioned to come

Ah, I see. Still though...those buffs!

 

[Ahrall]

Okay here we go. I played ninja for the entirety of my stay on Dragon and I loved it. Took a break during Bastion and came back on Haven. Played ninja for 90% of my stay on Haven and hated it at first (cuz I was a scrub) then got good and loved it again. Here on Aegis I am playing ninja, and while I do play all the other classes for the spotlight videos and their inevitable revamps. I. Play. Ninja.

And I can say Mr Delf Sir that ninja does promote very thoughtful play, you have to. Or you will get smeared on the floor like a lost soul. When you play ninja you have to look at what your enemy is doing and say "what can I do to counter that?"

When I get entangled I look to the chat and say "are they warming up bolt? Ok I have to blind them. Blind is out of range? Ok I have to smoke to avoid the damage"
If I do not do this I am dead. If I am running at a necromancer and he turns around to throw a spell at me I smoke so he cannot place his DoTs on me, and step to the side so bonespear does not remove me from stealth.
I look at what my enemy is doing, and I use my utility to prevent it.

But then I fight melee classes, classes that were designed to left click my face into the dust with no thought involved and I ask myself? What can I do to counter that? What can I do to stop a dreadknight from smacking me with his axe, or a disciple from using chakra to negate that damage I just did with eviscerate? Nothing
I have tried to out dps them with envenom thinking the burst from eviscerate/blitz would swing the fight in my favor, and I die horribly.
Backflip away when you get disarmed, but then they are still going to out dps me when my sword comes back
Blitz/eviscerate then kite until they are off cooldown again? It kinda works, but this would take three full rotations to kill someone which equals out to over a minute and a half of catch-me-if-you-can and the classes that cant catch me while I am kiting can heal back up to full before I go in for another eviscerate
Kiting with shurikens is fun and all, but the spread of the damn things makes it an impractical tactic if you get too far away meaning you have to stay fairly close to your target which defeats the entire purpose of kiting in the first place

So yes you do need thoughtful play, but the sad reality is that a large percentage of classes in the game don't give you an opportunity to use thoughtful play.


Is the class stealthy? Absolutely not. A three second stealth that is broken on damage from smoke, and a stealth that only works if you are out in the wilderness during the middle of the night does not make the class "stealthy"
Smoke is fun, and it is a "stealthy" skill, but 3 seconds of easily broken stealth every 30 seconds does not make a class "stealthy" and while fade is fun you can only use it in unlit caves and the wilderness at night, making it a skill that you will not cast in 80% of your battles. Sneak is sneak, it makes you stealthy out of combat but even then, only if your enemy can't see you in the first place.


So what can we do with the pieces of ninja that we have, and make them into a class that is fun for everyone? First we need keep in mind that Kainzo does not want the ninja to be "magical" so no teleports, etc
I know the community is still terrified of the idea of ninja having a stun but I have said it many times, make blitz a stun. It doesn't have to be a long stun. It doesn't have to scale with charisma, but make blitz stun. It is a fairly difficult skill to land due to its warmup and short range so it wont be divine-stun-roflcopter-easy-mode. It will be a way for ninjas to get behind someone and backstab.
For the stealth side of things I am going to point to Guild Wars 2's thief. A class that fulfilled the "rogue/ninja" archetype without a skill that you "push 5 to go invisible until you attack." There is a skill over there called Cloak and Dagger. Hit an enemy with it, 3 seconds of stealth. Short (6 seconds) cooldown. It was a great offensive move that gave thieves the playstyle of dipping in and out of stealth to land backstabs, but was completely useless for escaping (no target to Cloak and Dagger = no stealth for you) If we replaced the utterly-useless garrote with a skill like this, it could make the class far more stealthy, allow ninja's to have a reliable way to land backstabs (with counterplay for the ninja's victims) without making it easy mode to escape.

So Mr. @Delfofthebla Sir. The class is not broken, it just has a few holes that need to be patched up before it can sail on open water again. Ninja can already outsmart a caster if he pays attention (super fun) Let us think of a way we can out-think those pesky warriors instead of a simple +10 damage hotfix, because outsmarting the slow and sluggish samurai is what ninja is about.

 

[JupiterRome]

wut

Saw maliks suggestion on first page, True y u nk include Druid nerf? It's not entirely balances fault but they way they went around merging Druid was ermm horrible. I don't intend to go Druid when I get back due to it being insanely easy and not very fun, my ire is around 130 - 150 damage and my soothe is like 110 or something I honestly wish someone who played Druid was on balance because I feel they would nerf it, No idea what people mean when they say Druids underpowered simply cuz cleric gas better heals Druid has might and I personally have never run out of mana as a Druid. I think many players quit due to balance not being HCs #1 priority and believe that every thing should be put on hold for a month or so and the balance team combined with kainzo ( and delf? ) should establish every classes role and pros/cons then go and test out every class and try to get everything balanced then do a massive patch

 

[JupiterRome]

Just Gunnar add here, I find ninja having same left cluck damage as dragoon (from wiki) which is 58 with diamond

 

[Egorh]

Saw maliks suggestion on first page, True y u nk include Druid nerf? It's not entirely balances fault but they way they went around merging Druid was ermm horrible. I don't intend to go Druid when I get back due to it being insanely easy and not very fun, my ire is around 130 - 150 damage and my soothe is like 110 or something I honestly wish someone who played Druid was on balance because I feel they would nerf it, No idea what people mean when they say Druids underpowered simply cuz cleric gas better heals Druid has might and I personally have never run out of mana as a Druid. I think many players quit due to balance not being HCs #1 priority and believe that every thing should be put on hold for a month or so and the balance team combined with kainzo ( and delf? ) should establish every classes role and pros/cons then go and test out every class and try to get everything balanced then do a massive patch

In my opinions Druid needs a rework. It is going to be impossible to break the cycle of 'run around in circles while you heal and kite with ire/bolt' with small number changes. Kainzo gave Ire a warmup, that did practically nothing.

 

[JupiterRome]

In my opinions Druid needs a rework. It is going to be impossible to break the cycle of 'run around in circles while you heal and
kite with ire/bolt' with small number changes. Kainzo gave Ire a warmup, that did practically nothing.

Well one thing that for sure needs a change is ores damage, I say maybe gear cleric towards group heals and Druid towards single target stronger heals but tbh I think the self heal de buff needs to be increased.

 

[Delfofthebla]

Okay here we go. I played ninja for the entirety of my stay on Dragon and I loved it. Took a break during Bastion and came back on Haven. Played ninja for 90% of my stay on Haven and hated it at first (cuz I was a scrub) then got good and loved it again. Here on Aegis I am playing ninja, and while I do play all the other classes for the spotlight videos and their inevitable revamps. I. Play. Ninja.

And I can say Mr Delf Sir that ninja does promote very thoughtful play, you have to. Or you will get smeared on the floor like a lost soul. When you play ninja you have to look at what your enemy is doing and say "what can I do to counter that?"

When I get entangled I look to the chat and say "are they warming up bolt? Ok I have to blind them. Blind is out of range? Ok I have to smoke to avoid the damage"
If I do not do this I am dead. If I am running at a necromancer and he turns around to throw a spell at me I smoke so he cannot place his DoTs on me, and step to the side so bonespear does not remove me from stealth.
I look at what my enemy is doing, and I use my utility to prevent it.

But then I fight melee classes, classes that were designed to left click my face into the dust with no thought involved and I ask myself? What can I do to counter that? What can I do to stop a dreadknight from smacking me with his axe, or a disciple from using chakra to negate that damage I just did with eviscerate? Nothing
I have tried to out dps them with envenom thinking the burst from eviscerate/blitz would swing the fight in my favor, and I die horribly.
Backflip away when you get disarmed, but then they are still going to out dps me when my sword comes back
Blitz/eviscerate then kite until they are off cooldown again? It kinda works, but this would take three full rotations to kill someone which equals out to over a minute and a half of catch-me-if-you-can and the classes that cant catch me while I am kiting can heal back up to full before I go in for another eviscerate
Kiting with shurikens is fun and all, but the spread of the damn things makes it an impractical tactic if you get too far away meaning you have to stay fairly close to your target which defeats the entire purpose of kiting in the first place

So yes you do need thoughtful play, but the sad reality is that a large percentage of classes in the game don't give you an opportunity to use thoughtful play.


Is the class stealthy? Absolutely not. A three second stealth that is broken on damage from smoke, and a stealth that only works if you are out in the wilderness during the middle of the night does not make the class "stealthy"
Smoke is fun, and it is a "stealthy" skill, but 3 seconds of easily broken stealth every 30 seconds does not make a class "stealthy" and while fade is fun you can only use it in unlit caves and the wilderness at night, making it a skill that you will not cast in 80% of your battles. Sneak is sneak, it makes you stealthy out of combat but even then, only if your enemy can't see you in the first place.


So what can we do with the pieces of ninja that we have, and make them into a class that is fun for everyone? First we need keep in mind that Kainzo does not want the ninja to be "magical" so no teleports, etc
I know the community is still terrified of the idea of ninja having a stun but I have said it many times, make blitz a stun. It doesn't have to be a long stun. It doesn't have to scale with charisma, but make blitz stun. It is a fairly difficult skill to land due to its warmup and short range so it wont be divine-stun-roflcopter-easy-mode. It will be a way for ninjas to get behind someone and backstab.
For the stealth side of things I am going to point to Guild Wars 2's thief. A class that fulfilled the "rogue/ninja" archetype without a skill that you "push 5 to go invisible until you attack." There is a skill over there called Cloak and Dagger. Hit an enemy with it, 3 seconds of stealth. Short (6 seconds) cooldown. It was a great offensive move that gave thieves the playstyle of dipping in and out of stealth to land backstabs, but was completely useless for escaping (no target to Cloak and Dagger = no stealth for you) If we replaced the utterly-useless garrote with a skill like this, it could make the class far more stealthy, allow ninja's to have a reliable way to land backstabs (with counterplay for the ninja's victims) without making it easy mode to escape.

So Mr. @Delfofthebla Sir. The class is not broken, it just has a few holes that need to be patched up before it can sail on open water again. Ninja can already outsmart a caster if he pays attention (super fun) Let us think of a way we can out-think those pesky warriors instead of a simple +10 damage hotfix, because outsmarting the slow and sluggish samurai is what ninja is about.

Thanks for the comments. Gave me somewhat of an idea of how things work. On the note of Smoke only being 3 seconds...I coulda sworn it was 5 last time I touched it.

Either way, if you are having such an experience against casters then perhaps I did do something right. Warriors have always been an issue, and I can't say I have any ideas for how that would be fixed right now however.

The cloak n dagger thing is definitely an idea for stealth, but I feel like it would be too similar to Runeblade's "Flicker", so I'd prefer to avoid that if possible.

 

[JupiterRome]

Tbh I think all stuns should be removed due to how op they are (divine stunning is like a free 3 hearts ish, Great Combustion makes pyro burst very easy to land and the burst us very very very heavy on damage, Trazil said it can 1 shot him, it gets me very low as a Druid but ifk if it would 1 shot or just get you low)

Edit - changed 1 shit to 1 shot

 

[JupiterRome]

Double podt

 

[Delfofthebla]

Tbh I think all stuns should be removed due to how op they are (divine stunning is like a free 3 hearts ish, Great Combustion makes pyro burst very easy to land and the burst us very very very heavy on damage, Trazil said it can 1 shot him, it gets me very low as a Druid but ifk if it would 1 shot or just get you low)

Edit - changed 1 shit to 1 shot

Stuns are a mechanic that both I, as well as Kainzo, would like to have on the server. I will definitely agree that it is wonky as hell as far as the server actually "stuns" you, but it works...for the most part.

They are also very strong, as you state. In bastion there were only two stuns. Blackjack (RNG low duration) and DivineStun (Warmup decent duration).

However in Bastion they were about 5x as strong due to the Invuln Timer Reset mechanic for skills. (If you don't know what it is/was, it basically allowed you to get 1-2 extra "left clicks" in every time you did damage to a target with either a DoT or instant cast skill. Basically, a Ninja or Samurai could literally kill someone in 1 second if they were DivineStunned.)

They are still very strong, even with that bug fixed. Which is why they should be kept at relatively low durations. However, because somebody thought it was a bright idea to add a Charisma buff to the game, those durations have shot through the fucking roof in every teamfight. A normal Pyro would not be able to instantly kill you in the span of one GreatCombustion, but with the power of a Charisma buff? I could totally see it happening. A 1.5 second stun suddenly becomes a 3.5 second stun. Fun!


Either the base amount, or the scaling value of all stun abilities should probably be reduced to accommodate the charisma buff. Oh and Paladin should probably be deleted while you're in there.

 

[Dakinara]

Saw maliks suggestion on first page, True y u nk include Druid nerf? It's not entirely balances fault but they way they went around merging Druid was ermm horrible. I don't intend to go Druid when I get back due to it being insanely easy and not very fun, my ire is around 130 - 150 damage and my soothe is like 110 or something I honestly wish someone who played Druid was on balance because I feel they would nerf it, No idea what people mean when they say Druids underpowered simply cuz cleric gas better heals Druid has might and I personally have never run out of mana as a Druid. I think many players quit due to balance not being HCs #1 priority and believe that every thing should be put on hold for a month or so and the balance team combined with kainzo ( and delf? ) should establish every classes role and pros/cons then go and test out every class and try to get everything balanced then do a massive patch

this is not something limited to only druid though - many classes can do the exact same thing in practice, just slightly different mechanics. bloodmage, bard, heck even disciple / paladin / cleric in practice with push / knockback swords between heal ups. ninja can avoid melee range pretty well with backflip, bow and shurikan use, ranger with a punch bow, wizard, necro and beguiler through control abilities and ranged projectiles... i dont see kiting as a druid specific issue.

Cleric is definitely better in a full group than druid, but in small skirmishes (2-3 players) i would call it a wash. Replenish is very strong on druid and only thing i would consider obviously very powerful in small fights. But once a bard gets involved, it hardly matters, bard mana regen will compensate for any issues cleric has with mana.

all that said, id be fine with additional self healing nerf and a nerf to aoe heals if single target heals got much better in terms of simplicity of use and probably a buff in output for some of the heals when used on others.

 

[malikdanab]

I will defintly get some hate from this, but I'd rather paladin lose CC and in return gain some mort support. In my mind this is how the warriors should work:

• Paladin-There to take damage and and heal/reduce damage of allies
• Dreadknight-A more damaging warrior/mage that excelles in weakining its oppenets rather than strenthening itself/allies (My dream not its reality)
• Berserker-A strange case where the mentality of "don't focus the tank" is completely ignored due its higy damage output. While it isn't the tankiness, it ability to draw attention and bring the hurt make it a valuable class
• Dragoon-FUCK IT....In all serriousnes, dragoon is a more tanky rogue. While it can't tank it ability to control the battlefiled, whether its pushing/pulling/slowing targets or stayin on them with its mobility, it doesn't allow enemies to attack its squshies because they have to deal with the goon first.

This isn't really a balance post, but what the roles should be IMO.
PS fuck spelling I'm on a phone :/

 

[malikdanab]

Fuck phones...Nerf ZO?