Balance report (Current HC) + Suggestions

[Dsawemd]

.

You misread, I said no one would argue that dragoons cannot escape.

 

[JupiterRome]

Yeah I agree but. Its so annoying

blink should be able to be used in combat, just non-pvp sources while in pvp combat should give the last person to hit you the kill. and this has nothing to do with balance, just ELO that everyone seems obsessed about.

 

[LightningCape]

You misread, I said no one would argue that dragoons cannot escape.

This is true but (to me) that's not how it came out in your last message. My mistake.

 

[Dsawemd]

Beguiler thoughts:

Option 1: PlagueBomb only explodes at the end of a timer now, not before. It is now an invincible ticking sheep bomb. This would require landing cc to land most Plaguebombs, instantly creating the space for more tricky cc in the skillset. Unfortunately the play would feel very similar to the root and warm-up play of Wizard.

Option 2: Reduce PlagueBomb damage, increase cc and cc damage ( /skill Beguile could do damage at the end, if it is not dispelled. Stuff like that).

Option 3: Minimalize/Remove PlagueBomb because it makes no sense lore wise, possibly give a changed version to Necro. Beguiler gets an updated skillset that is based around cc and damage that takes place because of cc.

Lets warm the thread up, who also has a class to talk about?

edit: Option FuckYeah: PlagueBomb explodes at the end of a 2 second timer, and is invincible until then (unless killed by Detonate, a new skill that blows it up instantly and applies Plague to anyone hit. Plague is a new skill that causes naseua, blindness, and a 50 dmg/tick DoT. Each time PlagueBomb is cast, the cd is reduced for the next 30 secs by 2 secs, stacking until PlagueBomb can be cast on the global cooldown.

 

[Egorh]

Another Beguiler thought I was having was that having the two ultimate CCs make the class fairly easy to play (Piggify and mass piggify) but I know that these piggify skills are a signiture move to this 'trickster'. So what I was thinking is that we remove mass piggify and give Faux bomb a much better use. Faux bomb would look the same as it is now etc but when it hits it would apply a debuff. We would need to test out how long it should be applied for. new CD on faux bomb etc. A lot of people have mentioned that Faux bomb is the most useless skill in the game atm so I think it should be one of our goals to fix that (two birds one stone)

 

[Dsawemd]

Yes, fix FauxBomb. Takes too much mana to do nothing. I think it has value for lore reasons as part of the PlagueBomb centered beguiler tricky skill set, but no one on the server uses it in a fight.

Should the new plaguebomb that does knockback or slows or applies a DoT or whatever it does going to REPLACE current PlagueBomb, or is Beguiler going to receive nerfs to balance out a new skill being added to the class?

 

[LightningCape]

Making a more comprehensive sum of the suggestions in the form of a more realistic patch note:
Pyromancer-

• No major changes needed

Wizard-

• Lower fireball damage (initial) from 95 to 70
  • The damage of this skills is just nuts being able to kill a class in less than a minute (not a joke) with one skill and kiting is a problem
• Lower blink initial range from 8 to 5 and keep scaling at 0.1 per INT
  • Hard to defend wizard damage by saying they're paper thin and then make it impossible to catch them
• Remove range scaling on Arcaneblast and reduce range to 6 blocks (from 12+scaling)
  • This is wizard's nuke, you can try to run but most people have enough INT to give this skill a 15 block range and deal almost 300 damage. Again, nuts...

Necromancer-

• Lower bonespear damage (initial) from 80 to 70 and if possible reduce its speed
  • Having mastered this class on RPG I can say kiting with this skill is very easy. With around 30-40 INT I can get 140-150 instant dmg

Beguiler-

• Revamp recommend by most balance team members and players. Less damage, more trickery and support

Ninja-

• Major direction change recommended. More stealth!
  • Old idea, but would like to bring it back up:
    How to rework ninja:
    • Remove Blitz ( Not only does it not fit ninja [I hate ninjutsu ] it's really loud aka not stealthy)
    • Remove Blind (Will be explained next)
    • Remove the free shurikens from backflip (Skill already has enough utility.)
    • Rework Smoke Bomb: You through a smoke bomb at your feat, blinding nearby enemies.
      • Cooldown: 25 Seconds
      • Duration: 1.5 + 0.035 CHA
      • Stamina: 200
      • Range: 4 block radius
      • Regent: 1 gunpowder
    • MAJOR REWORK: Fade-
      • Fade is now a toggle skill. When toggled it make the user invisible. When active, the users stamina will be drained and his movement will be slowed (Slow I) (This is to prevent them form just using it to get away/chase and to make it more appropriate as if they have to move more carefully) This would allow ninja to constantly go in and out of visability providing a new dynamic to the class.
      • Mana: 25 mana per second.
      • Stamina: 65 Stamina per second ( With this, a ninja wouldn't be able to stealth and regain his stamina mid battle)
      • Cooldown: 5 seconds after you've become visible. You become visible when ever you: Take damage, deal damage, or use any skill (This includes fade which will simply reveal you.)
    • Rework Eviscerate: (Renamed to Assassinate): Same everything, but requires sneak/stealth to use
    • Rework Garrote: OK, IDK what happened here, but when I initially suggested garrote I suggested it as a stun . Now it's just an overall worst skill than kick: (Less damage, Less Silence, Longer Cooldown, Stealth/Sneak requirement.) How I wanted the skill is that when you are sneaking/stealthed you use a string in hand (Doesn't use the string just required in hand) and strangling the target doing damage and stunning them. lol no stun
    • Rework Backstab: Instead of a damage bonus, make it a on-hit effect that you gain when you have used sneak or stealth (Used once and goes away if you get out of sneak/stealth)

Ranger-

• Decrease bass HP from 634 to 600
  • For the amount of armor this class generally wears along with the damage it's far tankier than it needs to be
• Change explosiveshot, Add a regent of 1 gunpowder and remove the fireticks
  • Although the function of this skill is currently vital for rangers it's cheap costs aren't
• Lower Aimedshot damage (initial) from 155 to 125 (OR) fix the bug that allows you to fire arrows while charging this skill
  • You can shot high damage arrows while loading a high damage nuke that almost always ends the fight then and there.

Runeblade-

• No major changes needed

Bard-

• Reduce base HP
  • Number up in the air
• Reduce left click damage
  • Number up in the air

Druid-

• No major changes needed

Cleric-

• No major changes needed

Bloodmage-

• Revamp recommend by most balance team members and players. Less damage and more support. Refocus on original theme

Disciple-

• This thread by @TrueCorruptor summarizes most of me and Malik's idea of fixing disciple attributes which are just all over the place
  • http://herocraftonline.com/main/threads/disciple-stuff.50057/
  • INT- forcepull, forcepush
  • STR- FlyingKick
  • etc
• Remove FistofJin

Shaman-

• Changes regarding mana, CDs, dmg, and heals. @0xNaomi

Paladin-

• No major changes needed

Berserker-

• Change Rupture bleeding from 5 damage every block to 10 damage every block (still 8 secs)
  • I've seen many Berserkers complain about this skill doing next to nothing in terms of damage. After testing/looking at it the skill does seem to be lacking power considering it's not free to use

DreadKnight-

• Re-add Shadowwalk (Not sure if that was the exact skill name)
  • Skill added variability to the class and pretty much every Dreadknight I've spoken says they liked the skill. Damage can be removed if needed for this to be reintroduced but I feel this would benefit the class

Dragoon-

• Jump revamp
  • Jump would function as the current jump out of combat and as a low CD, small dmg lunge during combat
• Reduce left click damage
  • Class hits like a rogue at the current time. even with the jump change the would be needed

That's pretty much it. Added to OP
@Balance Team | @Kainzo

 

[Kainzo]

This is important - im not devaluing it, however, priority #1 is fixing township regions - and its a fucking mess.

 

[JupiterRome]

Making a more comprehensive sum of the suggestions in the form of a more realistic patch note:
DreadKnight-

• Re-add Shadowwalk (Not sure if that was the exact skill name)
  • Skill added variability to the class and pretty much every Dreadknight I've spoken says they liked the skill. Damage can be removed if needed for this to be reintroduced but I feel this would benefit the class

@Balance Team | @Kainzo

It was Shadowstep and I think most of these are good but Dk should get harrow added too imo

 

[Egorh]

Beguiler

• A lot of people have been throwing ideas down to make the class more balanced-less of an easy high burst mage, more of a support
• What I have come up with (not all my ideas)
  • Plaguebomb-too much initial damage on a fairly low cooldown (and is easy to hit)
    • Cut the initial damage in half
    • Have a plague dot afterwards that does the remaining damage
  • Piggify/Masspiggify/Entangle
    • Having both piggify and an aoe piggify was always pretty ridiculous. When they got removed for crashing the server entangle got implemented-honestly it is still a very strong class without its piggifies
    • Personally I could see entangle stay, or piggify get reimplemented, but not masspigify.
    • It would be a bit bad to just completely remove a skill from the game without a change that will help accomplish the same thing--just not as effectively (read on)
  • Fauxbomb-most of the community recognizes this as the most useless skill
    • Since Beguiler is suppose to be a trickster, it has two sheep bombs that the enemy can not tell the difference. The problem is no one bothers using Faux bomb because it doesn't actually do anything-it wastes mana
    • The new Faux bomb will be an AOE CC. It could be only a slow. Or slow and blind, slow and nausea.

 

[mikehk]

Beguiler

• A lot of people have been throwing ideas down to make the class more balanced-less of an easy high burst mage, more of a support
• What I have come up with (not all my ideas)
  • Plaguebomb-too much initial damage on a fairly low cooldown (and is easy to hit)
    • Cut the initial damage in half
    • Have a plague dot afterwards that does the remaining damage
  • Piggify/Masspiggify/Entangle
    • Having both piggify and an aoe piggify was always pretty ridiculous. When they got removed for crashing the server entangle got implemented-honestly it is still a very strong class without its piggifies
    • Personally I could see entangle stay, or piggify get reimplemented, but not masspigify.
    • It would be a bit bad to just completely remove a skill from the game without a change that will help accomplish the same thing--just not as effectively (read on)
  • Fauxbomb-most of the community recognizes this as the most useless skill
    • Since Beguiler is suppose to be a trickster, it has two sheep bombs that the enemy can not tell the difference. The problem is no one bothers using Faux bomb because it doesn't actually do anything-it wastes mana
    • The new Faux bomb will be an AOE CC. It could be only a slow. Or slow and blind, slow and nausea.

seems alright, no blind however, unless the duration is lass than 3 seconds which would make the slow near-useless. blind also functions as a silence currently, and most people just remove the blind effect with the addition of optifine void partical removal.

 

[Delfofthebla]

snip~

I'm pretty neutral on most of the changes, but I'd like to make a few comments.

* Berserker Rupture

The skill was meant to counter movement based classes. However, the original iterations of the skill made it very high DPS for regular melee combat, and straight up 100% victory vs. mobility. There was a lot of subtle tweaking before it arrived at where it is now. You're probably right that it needs buffed, but I'll just say it's important to be very careful with those numbers. Also, nerfing dragoon jump essentially cuts half the reason for this skill existing.​

* Ninja Rework

I pretty much disagree in every way possible, as I feel this really destroys the concept of the class, but if it happens, it happens. The only thing I agree with is removing shurikens from Backflip, and maybe the eviscerate change. I tried removing shurikens from backflip before though, and Kainzo wouldn't let me.

As far as garrote is concerned, it was a skill thrown together in about 3 seconds to shut people up about blackjack. There was no balance considerations made for the skill, and I creating it while I was waiting in queue for a moba. However, I suggest keeping it a silence rather than a stun. Stuns piss people off, and have a lot of balance issues for left-click based classes. If it needs a buff, buff it, but I'd advise against using another stun, unless you wish to see the blackjack rage come back.
​

* Dragoon Jump

The rework you mentioned is the least destructive I've seen out of all the suggestions, but I still disagree with it.
​

* Beguiler Revamp

Haven't read any details of the revamp itself, but it's probably a good idea to rework it at this point. Most of the die-hard fans of the old Beguiler are inactive, and it's probably a good time to do it.
​

* Necromancer BoneSpear

I don't know who sped it up, but there was a reason it was so slow. It needed to function as a "projectile". It was not ever meant to be as fast as it is now. I personally just suggest reducing it's speed to what it was before, and leaving the rest of it alone.​

----
Whatever happens, happens, but just thought I'd lay down my inactive 2 cents.

 

[Sirdemonic3]

I'm pretty neutral on most of the changes, but I'd like to make a few comments.

​

* Necromancer BoneSpear

I don't know who sped it up, but there was a reason it was so low. It needed to function as a "projectile". It was not ever meant to be as fast as it is now. I personally just suggest reducing it's speed to what it was before, and leaving the rest of it alone.​

----
Whatever happens, happens, but just thought I'd lay down my inactive 2 cents.

my god and savior of the necro class

 

[LightningCape]

I'm pretty neutral on most of the changes, but I'd like to make a few comments.

* Berserker Rupture

The skill was meant to counter movement based classes. However, the original iterations of the skill made it very high DPS for regular melee combat, and straight up 100% victory vs. mobility. There was a lot of subtle tweaking before it arrived at where it is now. You're probably right that it needs buffed, but I'll just say it's important to be very careful with those numbers. Also, nerfing dragoon jump essentially cuts half the reason for this skill existing.​

* Ninja Rework

I pretty much disagree in every way possible, as I feel this really destroys the concept of the class, but if it happens, it happens. The only thing I agree with is removing shurikens from Backflip, and maybe the eviscerate change. I tried removing shurikens from backflip before though, and Kainzo wouldn't let me.

As far as garrote is concerned, it was a skill thrown together in about 3 seconds to shut people up about blackjack. There was no balance considerations made for the skill, and I creating it while I was waiting in queue for a moba. However, I suggest keeping it a silence rather than a stun. Stuns piss people off, and have a lot of balance issues for left-click based classes. If it needs a buff, buff it, but I'd advise against using another stun, unless you wish to see the blackjack rage come back.
​

* Dragoon Jump

The rework you mentioned is the least destructive I've seen out of all the suggestions, but I still disagree with it.
​

* Beguiler Revamp

Haven't read any details of the revamp itself, but it's probably a good idea to rework it at this point. Most of the die-hard fans of the old Beguiler are inactive, and it's probably a good time to do it.
​

* Necromancer BoneSpear

I don't know who sped it up, but there was a reason it was so slow. It needed to function as a "projectile". It was not ever meant to be as fast as it is now. I personally just suggest reducing it's speed to what it was before, and leaving the rest of it alone.​

----
Whatever happens, happens, but just thought I'd lay down my inactive 2 cents.

Kinda pasted in the idea from an earlier thread for Ninja. Didn't notice re-adding a stun. Not interested in that. But I will ask how you think it will "destroy the concept of the class".

Would also like to know why you disagree with the jump change. It's not even a nerf it would literally have the same function just out of combat.

 

[Delfofthebla]

Kinda pasted in the idea from an earlier thread for Ninja. Didn't notice re-adding a stun. Not interested in that. But I will ask how you think it will "destroy the concept of the class".

Would also like to know why you disagree with the jump change. It's not even a nerf it would literally have the same function just out of combat.

* Ninja

The notion that ninja is supposed to be 100% about stealth is not something I agree with. Indeed, a Ninja should be stealth focused, but they are by no means supposed to be the type of class that is invisible at all times, or a class that is "worthless" without stealth. I have struggled with finding the right median myself, but I think I like where they are at as far as the stealth is concerned.

The core concept that should be driven is that they are a sword wielding opportunist with a wide variety of tools at their disposal. Shuriken, smoke bombs, grappling hooks, throwing daggers, a bow--these types of things should be available to them. They are not extremely durable, and therefore should use these tools to capitalize on weaknesses, or create opportunities for success. Something as simple as grabbing dirt and tossing it into their opponents eyes should not be overlooked either.

As far as Blitz is concerned, I believe it is only really there because the Ninja in FF11 had it, but I didn't play FF11 so don't quote me on that. Regardless, it is there for lore purposes, believe it or not. The Ninja is often associated with magic in Japanese folktales and video games. It may seem weird to you, but it's not unusual for the Ninja to have a type of spell like that. Typically they use deceptive, transforming, or lightning based magic.

The Ninja is not a Thief, and he is not an Assassin, though he may have traits for both. I do not agree with removing Blind or Blitz, as it would remove lore and Utility. I do not agree with forcing Eviscerate to only be usable in stealth, as that limits their damage potential for normal combat, and puts a larger emphasis on stealth than necessary. I do not agree to making fade function as perma-invis for the same reason. I also think that it would be very unviable, due to the stamina drain. Garrote is in a wonky place however, and I agree it should be changed.​

* Dragoon

If it was "literally" the same function, you wouldn't be recommending the change at all, am I right? Jump is used for a lot more than just lunging at an opponent. It's use to scale small hills quickly, create gaps between you and your opponent, and gain ground when they are too far away. And of course, the one you care about, it's useful for running away. The amount of crying people do in regards to this is just flat out hilarious. I've never agreed with the community on this one, and likely never will.

The skill is so amazing because it has so many uses, and allows you to outperform and outplay most opponents. It's just...fun. Adding a forced target to this skill would remove a lot of the adaptability, and thus, make it less fun. Indeed, it can be aggravating to have every Dragoon that you are "winning against" run away from you, but there are other ways to handle that.

Such as:

* Buffing Rupture (already suggested by you)
* Buffing Web (I technically already did this by increasing it's size, but it's possible you could buff it further.)
* Lowering base stamina regen for Dragoon
* Increasing stamina cost for Jump
* Rasing stamina cost for other dragoon skills (This prevents them from having stamina to jump away if they are actually fighting you)
* Adding other skills to more classes to either root, slow, or otherwise counter mobility.

​

And other than that, I just plain don't like the suggestion. I rage a little every time I see people crying their brains out and asking for stuff they don't fully understand. (The no GTP in Combat is an example of something else I would never have liked to see the light of day.)

The fact of the matter is, people see stuff like this, and they just get mad. They don't care about the integrity of the class, or even the idea of possible benefits for it existing. There's no suggestions of adding counterplay, or even suggestions of how to fix the problem without removing it all-together. They just want to be sure that it never happens to them again, and so that's what they suggest. "Prevent Skill A in combat. Remove Skill B from Class C. Class D did this-and-that and I died. Fix it!"

I'm just not a fan of complying to the communities' ignorant suggestions based off of random complaints. If there's merit to a complaint, I'd rather find my own way, or ignore it entirely.​

 

[mikehk]

delf raises some good points about dragoon, and I was thinking that I agree with either raising the stamina cost, or another alternative. what if dragoons couldn't use jump midair? this would cut the flying and running dragoons problem with the superjump/jump combo. I say raise the cost to 400, and disable it's use while midair. if they're scaling walls, they still have superjump. also as said earlier, it'd be nice for the cd on superjump to function similiar to EP's, increase in combat while staying relatively short out of combat. they can still run with these changes, but not quite as easily.

 

[LightningCape]

Fair enough on the ninja part. Perhaps there are different ways to change the class. The main issue we saw is that apart from smoke and fade there's nothing too stealthy about ninja atm. Even if it's not meant to be all stealth adding a little bit more cant hurt can it?

*
* Dragoon

If it was "literally" the same function, you wouldn't be recommending the change at all, am I right? Jump is used for a lot more than just lunging at an opponent. It's use to scale small hills quickly, create gaps between you and your opponent, and gain ground when they are too far away. And of course, the one you care about, it's useful for running away. The amount of crying people do in regards to this is just flat out hilarious. I've never agreed with the community on this one, and likely never will.
​

Yes it would literally have the same function, again just out of combat. We're recommending these changes for a few reasons. If you're happy to use for the description of ninja then why not use Dragoon's? A warrior the leaps into battle and uses thier amazing agility to close gaps. The suggested change doesn't affect that at all. Want to jump into combat? Do it with the current jump. Got your opponent on the run? Close the gap with a skill that has almost the same look as jump but costs less stamina and does some damage.

This change would not stop:​

• Gaining ground.
  • Jump to the fight, stay in it. Simple as that.
• Closing gaps
  • See above

*

The skill is so amazing because it has so many uses, and allows you to outperform and outplay most opponents. It's just...fun. Adding a forced target to this skill would remove a lot of the adaptability, and thus, make it less fun. Indeed, it can be aggravating to have every Dragoon that you are "winning against" run away from you, but there are other ways to handle that.

​

And the "fun" argument again. Maybe I just don't get it but I don't see this as viable seeing as how the term "fun" is so objective. One could even argue that someone might find this change fun. Do people complain as much as with jump escapes than they do with ninja smoke? No. Reason is ninjas aren't tanky and left click for less.

Blackjack was "fun" for some ninjas and some even used that argument to suggest keeping it. Did we keep it? No. Why? Simple, it wasn't balanced. No one is stopping Dragoon mobility. You wanna jump around hills, across the map, and up over bases? Go right ahead. Nothing
is stopping you now and nothing would stop you if this change was implemented. You'd just have to do it without a whole town of derps chasing after you.

*

And other than that, I just plain don't like the suggestion. I rage a little every time I see people crying their brains out and asking for stuff they don't fully understand. (The no GTP in Combat is an example of something else I would never have liked to see the light of day.)

The fact of the matter is, people see stuff like this, and they just get mad. They don't care about the integrity of the class, or even the idea of possible benefits for it existing. There's no suggestions of adding counterplay, or even suggestions of how to fix the problem without removing it all-together. They just want to be sure that it never happens to them again, and so that's what they suggest. "Prevent Skill A in combat. Remove Skill B from Class C. Class D did this-and-that and I died. Fix it!"

I'm just not a fan of complying to the communities' ignorant suggestions based off of random complaints. If there's merit to a complaint, I'd rather find my own way, or ignore it entirely.​

Same with this. The GTP thing. You want to summon an army to gank a town? No problem. You want to get people to spawn for a profit? Be my guest. Having a wizard sitting in an undercity on the other side of the map ready to gtp people out of a 8v8 for example. That shouldn't be allowed.

I'm not saying there aren't some people who cry for no reason. There are. That's not how we balance. If there's an imbalance it needs to be fixed. Atm on live a wizard can literally kill someone in less than 30 seconds with 1 skill. That seem fair? No. So we're suggesting a change for that too.

 

[Egorh]

I definitely agree with the idea of increasing the cooldown of a mobility skill when it is used in combat. It helps solve the issue without really changing the way the skill works, or its potency. For example, if a dragoon is fighting with someone but wants to run away, it can still scale that hill but it won't be able to spam jump to just get away leaving the chaser with no chance of catching them.

But I think we need to put more thought into this change if we were to implement it with blink. What do the wizards want, a small range-shorter cooldown blink, or the distance stays as is but an increased cooldown while in combat. We would need to gather multiple opinions for this because none of us have really put play time into wizard (I think) to make this decision.

For the GTP change...it was needed. Sure, there was probably other ways of dealing with multiple GTPs in a single fight but imo not allowing players in combat to be GTPd made the most sense. The skill is meant for regouping before you charge in, or for round 2, not in the middle of a fight. Another route we could have taken would have been to only allow players to be GTPd every 5 minutes. This would allow you to take advantage of one wizards whole skill set but prevent the other wizards in your party from GTPing.

 

[Sirdemonic3]

ive played alot of wizard and i think after our last nerfs to them its fine

 

[Egorh]

ive played alot of wizard and i think after our last nerfs to them its fine

I think there damage is in a good spot. The only change I think is needed that involves a damaging skill is the range on arcane blast (you can't really run from it unless you have a mobility skill)