Figure it's about time I post here. I've been doin other stuff, and I've been feeling a bit lazy as well, so sorry about that.
First I'd like to reply to a couple of the comments from the previous thread.
Eldrylars said:
Is a lot of the conversation regarding balance done in TS? I have not had time to get in TS and chat for a couples weeks but I am watching the conversations here daily and it seems like there is a lot of conversation that is happening elsewhere.
Indeed, a lot of the re-balance discussion is being done in Teamspeak. I prefer this over the typical forum post option, as talking amongst ourselves as we playtest things allows us to get our points across much more easily, and also allows us to freely tweak things based on everyone's input. Overall, I think using Teamspeak has been a
very good move for the balance of Herocraft.
However, due to us not really scheduling these things, and having them happen naturally, that has left a portion of the balance team out of the loop, which isn't a good thing. Because of this, I'd personally like to see us have some sort of scheduled time where we can get on TS and discuss things. Let me know what the rest of you think about that.
warmachineexp said:
Yea that huge rework of Bloodmage came as a giant surprise to me along with other changes made.
It might of been a bit hasty of me to push the Bloodmage stuff through. It was all done within a 10 hour timeframe and nothing other than my own experimentation. Kainzo mentioned to me once before that if the Bloodmage concept wasn't lining up with his vision of how it should be, he wanted it changed. I did not think it was holding up to the desired concept, so I had already been planning to rework it for a while. But on the night before the update, I felt a bit impulsive and decided to go to town on it. This is why there were so many changes with so little notice, and for that, I do apologize. I will refrain from doing such things so close to the release date of an update in the future.
I do want to mention though, I
still do not think the Bloodmage is matching the desired concept. It still feels a bit incomplete. However, it's close--and I'm liking it. For this next revamp, I'm intending to rework several abilities, or the entire class as a whole, to ensure that it fulfills the role Kainzo meant for it to fill. Expect those changes to hit Test sometime within the next week or so.
Yoiyo said:
So, I may have jumped the gun a little on the Disciple forcepush/forcepull mana costs. While I still believe Disciple is one of the stronger classes on HC, perhaps the cost increases were a bit excessive. I think toning these back down a bit isn't a bad idea.
However, I disagree with your opinion on Dragoon Tremor. I feel as though the class really doesn't bring that much to a teamfight, and tremor, their only real teamfighting ability, was really weak at what it did. I still haven't gotten to gauge it's strengths since the update, but I really don't think there is a need to revert the changes. We may need to tone down their health pools however..
Yoiyo said:
Runes can still only be applied while holding a weapon. They can be
activated without one, but they cannot be applied without a sword in-hand.
I will agree that the IceRune cooldown is probably a bit too low now. Bumping it back up to 10 seconds should be fine. I was doing a lot of experimenting with the ability (which didn't turn out so well) and to be honest, I did not mean to keep the cooldown that low.
-------
About the mana changes...
I'd like to first state that most of these changes are relatively moot--the class has a very similar "mana situation" as it did before. Previously, it had very high costing abilities, a very moderate sized pool, and a
very high mana regeneration rate. This was not normal for Herocraft classes, and it was done this way to do my lack of familiarity with other class mana pools, ability costs, and rate of use. Now that I have had time to playtest Runeblade on live, and I have had more experience with the other class configuration files, I see the issue with the Runeblade's mana costs/pool size. With these changes, it was actually more of a
nerf than anything else. He no longer has a near-infinite supply of mana. Just like the other casters, it is very easy for him to run low, and once he does--he stays there.
Yes, I made a few of the higher costing runes much cheaper as well, but that was to bring them closer to the same level with each other. Previously, it was far too punishing to use your silence and slow. They already do far less damage than Toxic and Fire, and I believe that to be an adequate trade-off. Keeping very high mana costs on these skills is, in my opinion, overkill.
With these new changes, I'd like to point out that the Runeblade still has a good deal of mana issues. Unlike a rogue, he cannot fight forever. His mana pool also does not equate to the same level of damage / utility like a caster's does. Each of his runes are really
really really weak abilities that do almost
nothing to the target. The damage, the silence, the slows, all of these things have very low numbers and durations in comparison to other classes. Because of this, you have to spam them at a pretty rapid rate in order to effectively do anything to your target. Because of this, they need to have low costs, and relatively low cooldowns. Overall, runes are really weak abilities, and I don't think they deserve they high mana costs you're suggesting.
----
I'd like to take a moment to go over the Runeblade Rune situation
A Samurai's abilities deal far more damage than a Runeblade's Runes.
A Dragoon's abilities deal a bit more damage than Runeblade's Runes.
A Ninja's envenom and damaging abilities deal far more damage than Runeblade's Toxicity Rune.
A Ninja's silence lasts longer than a Runeblade's Void Rune.
Both the Ninja and Samurai deal far more left-click damage than the Runeblade.
A Wizard's Blink goes 7 blocks farther than a Runeblade's Blink.
A Wizard's Blink cooldown is 4 seconds shorter than a Runeblade's Blink.
A Wizard's Blink does not cost as much mana as a Runeblade's Blink does.
A Wizard's Blink does not prevent the Wizard from sprinting, like Runeblade's Blink does.
And be it Wizard, Pyromancer, Beguiler, or Necromancer, ALL of their abilities deal far more damage than a Runeblade's runes--be it fire, ice, toxic, or void. Most of these abilities have shorter cooldowns to boot.
And don't give me that crap about how Runeblade skills pierce armor, because literally ALL abilities pierce armor right now, and have for a few months.
As a side note, I'd like to mention that Runes cannot be applied as fast as other abilities can be activated, due the global cooldown being
shorter than the cooldown of Rune application.
Overall, Runes are weak. The Runeblade is weak. He's a jack of all trades, master of nothing. A low armor, medium health, medium damage class with small utility. I have lowered the strengths of things that I believed to be too powerful, but as a result, the class is now lacking.
--------------
This is why I do not see your reasoning behind wanting to lower some of the strengths of the class--it doesn't have that many, and the few that it does have, aren't even that strong. I personally put forth tens upon tens of hours attempting to perfect his balance, so that it would not be too powerful upon the release of the update. I believe I have done so, and I think I went overkill in some ways. However, you seem to disagree. I of course, am not perfect, and thus could be in the wrong here, but I just don't follow your reasoning behind some of your suggestions.
I'm gonna go off on a limb here and say that you have not played the class, or fought anyone other than me as the class. While you aren't necessarily required to do so in order to provide balance input, I personally believe that when determining the balance of certain classes, you need to have a good view of how it is to play
as the class, in addition to how it is to play against it. In terms of the Runeblade, he is simply too new and too underplayed for everyone to have a perfect view of his class balance.
For this reason, I'd really like to see you playtest it for a bit. Preferrably on live, but the test server would be enough.
After doing so, I'd really like to hear your genuine opinion of the mana costs, cooldowns, damage numbers, and durations.
[DOUBLEPOST=1369460280][/DOUBLEPOST]Mind you, I've only tested it with melee classes.
