New Map Balance

[Egorh]

Some classes are too strong, some too weak and we have not got a chance to have another Balance patch. With the new map I hope that we can get some PvP balance changes implemented.

Paladin

• Strike: Reduce base damage by 10, and 15 on the DOT
  • Or fix the DOT duration so it goes over 15s like it should and not 3s
• Divine Stun: 15s increase on the cooldown

Disciple

• Remove interrupt on Forcepush
• Increase Chakra cooldown to 15s
• Balance out the healing between yourself and allies on FistofJin (right now FistofJin heals more to yourself than allies)
• Reduce Ironfist scaling: 1.5 damage per strength to 0.75 damage per strength
• Resolve the 'stun' issue with Seikuken

Shaman

• Although I know that it needs a rework we don't have enough time for testing and such before the wipe. It needs something and this would probably suffice in the meantime
• Increase range on Firestrike totem by 5 blocks
• Give Force totem another affect (nausea)

Dragoon

• Reduce stamina cost on Impale by 100
• Increase Impale slow duration by 2s (3s -> 5s)
• @0xNaomi is there a way to make Dragondash a more reliable skill. From what I've seen and heard it is not worth using because of how 'buggy' it is

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

Beguiler

• Give MassPiggify a 1s warmup
• Remove Entangle (I honestly do not know why it still has this skill; when it first got it, it was a filler for piggify)
• Increase Piggify CD by 5

Bloodmage

• Make it so the self heal reduction does not apply to Infusion
• Reduce base boil blood damage: Initial 15, DOT, 15
• Increase cooldown on boil blood by 10s (up to 20s)
• Increase cooldown on combust blood by 4s (up to 10s)
• Change Blood Bond to only cost extra mana on skill use
  • Combust Blood: 75 extra mana
  • Siphon Blood: 75 extra mana
  • Boil Blood: 150 extra mana

Berserker

• Resolve 'stun' issue with Whirlwind

Dreadknight

• Change Soulleech heal to heal per tick, instead of healing at the end of the DOT (meaning that if it gets dispelled it still ends up being partially useful)

Cleric

• Reduce duration of Guardian Angel by 1s (3s -> 2s)
• Reduce wisdom scaling on Divine Blessing (I do not have an exact number because I don't have a test server to test stuff on)

Pyromancer

• Fix Doomwave (fires out 2 enderpearls instead of 20)
• Reduce stamina cost of Darkbolt by 100
• Increase the healing reduction of Darkbolt to 50% (from 25%)
• Reduce damage on Darkbolt (do not have the exact numbers due to no test server)
• Reduce stamina cost of Dragons Breath by 50

These are the main classes that I've been hearing about. If there is more, comment.
[USERGROUP=38][USERGROUP=38][USERGROUP=38][USERGROUP=38][USERGROUP=38][USERGROUP=38][USERGROUP=38][USERGROUP=38]@Balance Team[/USERGROUP][/USERGROUP][/USERGROUP][/USERGROUP][/USERGROUP][/USERGROUP][/USERGROUP][/USERGROUP]
@Kainzo

 

[LightningCape]

Pretty sure @Kainzo is going to release his formulas and stuff shortly after release to make the balance team slightly more useful inorder to avoid things like the following:

Dragoon

• Reduce stamina cost on Piercing Strike by 50
• Reduce stamina cost on Impale by 100
• @0xNaomi is there a way to make Dragondash a more reliable skill. From what I've seen and heard it is not worth using because of how 'buggy' it is

I really don't understand all this crying about Dragoon. Some are just upset it's harder to leave a fight mid-fight with jump because stamina reasons. If there were to be stam reductions it should also come with damage reduction. With 2 "pulls" that still allow sprinting and left click Dragoon is pretty strong. If it's simply an issue with dealing with ranged classes just change jump into the dual functioning combat/out of combat lunge skill people have been wanting for ages.

/rant

 

[0xNaomi]

@0xNaomi is there a way to make Dragondash a more reliable skill. From what I've seen and heard it is not worth using because of how 'buggy' it is

Best idea I got would be even buggier to the client (but work more overall, probably)...
ATM is applies velocity toward a player, so I hear.
I'd apply a faster velocity for a moment, teleport the player to the target and then cancel it... no idea if it'd work.

 

[Egorh]

Added some more changes @Kainzo

 

[Eldrylars]

Pretty sure @Kainzo is going to release his formulas and stuff shortly after release to make the balance team slightly more useful inorder to avoid things like the following:

This has been sorely needed for years. Thank you Kainzo for doing this. It will make it possible to finally be able to give values to skills and skill combinations and start balancing the various classes from a proper starting place.

[quote[I really don't understand all this crying about Dragoon. Some are just upset it's harder to leave a fight mid-fight with jump because stamina reasons. If there were to be stam reductions it should also come with damage reduction. With 2 "pulls" that still allow sprinting and left click Dragoon is pretty strong. If it's simply an issue with dealing with ranged classes just change jump into the dual functioning combat/out of combat lunge skill people have been wanting for ages./rant[/QUOTE]

I think the major complaint is that the replacement skill dragondash is broken and rendomly puts the Dragons somewhere 1-15 blocks past their target.
After that the Stamina balance of the class I am not sure, but if you want to talk stamina balance, lets talk Bard XD 1/3 Stam AND 1/5 mana per song. No ability to twist songs when you eat your entire stam bar in 2 seconds!

EDIT: Yes I know it's not a constructive post on Bard, more of holy shit I did not realize it was increased to that much until yesterday and am still in shock post!

 

[Dsawemd]

After that the Stamina balance of the class I am not sure, but if you want to talk stamina balance, lets talk Bard XD 1/3 Stam AND 1/5 mana per song. No ability to twist songs when you eat your entire stam bar in 2 seconds!

EDIT: Yes I know it's not a constructive post on Bard, more of holy shit I did not realize it was increased to that much until yesterday and am still in shock post!

As long as you use your resource songs on Cooldown, Bard can spam skills. This means that good bards will be able to spam skills.

I know that this is not encouraged, but making a macro to use your resource songs 2-3 in a row times easily keeps you able to spam skills. One of the natural disincentives to creating a long macro is that it locks you into certain skills and prevents you from using the songs you need at a split second notice.

However: If we increase the stamina regain on Battlesong, then everyone will just macro it and suddenly Bard does not have to worry about resource management.

 

[Eldrylars]

As long as you use your resource songs on Cooldown, Bard can spam skills. This means that good bards will be able to spam skills.

I know that this is not encouraged, but making a macro to use your resource songs 2-3 in a row times easily keeps you able to spam skills. One of the natural disincentives to creating a long macro is that it locks you into certain skills and prevents you from using the songs you need at a split second notice.

However: If we increase the stamina regain on Battlesong, then everyone will just macro it and suddenly Bard does not have to worry about resource management.

Oh, I will have to test it again, I did not know battlesong effected the caster. I missed that note(heh heh eh..)
On Bastion Battlesong was party only and did not effect the caster.

 

[Delfofthebla]

Best idea I got would be even buggier to the client (but work more overall, probably)...
ATM is applies velocity toward a player, so I hear.
I'd apply a faster velocity for a moment, teleport the player to the target and then cancel it... no idea if it'd work.

Naomi, do you have access to the source on all our skills?

If so, this is what I recommend.
Take the code for the "jump" on FlyingKick or Lunge (It's the same for both skills) and then apply the code for ForcePush once the "jump" has completed.

I was going to do this myself, but it was very apparent that it would be a huge colossal pain in the ass to test, and I don't even remember the info for logging into the test server box, so I just completely abandoned the idea of even trying.

If it works as I hope, you'll have a skill that "jumps" similar to FlyingKick, but applies a forcepush effect after reaching the target. It will likely still look wonky as hell, but that's the best way to make it "work" while taking nocheat and lag into consideration. However, if the skill is created this way, you're looking at a lot of nested Runnable code, which is...less than desirable. However it is the only way to do it and actually get real results. If you're using the same code I've got for those two skills, it will also make the skill very configurable, which is nice for testing and tweaking the balance / feasibility of the skill. Unfortunately though, it will make the skill convoluted as fuck and pretty much anyone who looks at the config nodes is not going to know what the hell is going on.

Overall, I don't really even like the concept of the skill, and I don't like the idea of having so much runnable code in one skill, but if we want a reliable jump AND a reliable knockback, it's the only way to do it. If you only care about one of those things being reliable, you can take out a good chunk of the runnable code, but then be left with a half functioning skill. Again, not a fan of any of it, but it's what Kainzo wanted to put in, so that's what we'd be working with unless a replacement skill is decided, or if you decide you just don't feel like doing it.