Some balance suggestions

Blackfyre20 · December 2016

So I have some ideas that I think would go a long way towards balancing the game.

Proc Sets - So IMO the problem with proc sets is not how much damage each one does, but rather quantity (how often damage is done and how you can combine multiple proc sets on top of one another). I do not have a problem with viper, velidreth, selene, skoria, grothdarr, tremorscale, etc in isolation. So limit players to one proc set at a time. If you equip more than one, one will simply not work. Also fix the bugs that are causing proc sets to overperform further. Viper is still proccing on ranged attacks and on death recaps many proc sets are showing up like they fired twice back to back (not sure if they actually are or if this is a UI issue).

Major Evasion - Basically what major evasion is currently is a 20% damage reduction, whereas the tooltip states that it gives you 20% dodge chance. These are two different things and should be treated as such. How does one "dodge" a DOT tick? Make it so that major evasion gives you a 20% chance to dodge direct damage, not DOTS. (I would consider sweeps direct damage even though it's technically a DOT. I know a lot of players don't like the RNG nature of it but if you take away major evasion then medium armor builds have no defense. Another thing you could do for shuffle is make it so that your dodge chance depends on the number of medium armor pieces you are wearing, maxing out at 20% for 7 pieces. Why should full heavy armor users get the same dodge chance as those in medium?

Eye Of the Storm - Make it blockable and fix it so that it cannot be active while in mist form.

Templar Healing and Purge - I made another thread about this but purge is fine (mostly). There is nothing wrong with a templar being a hard counter to a DK, just like there is nothing wrong with a DK being a hard counter to a sorc. However among the most cancerous things in PVP is the reactive/malubeth wearing, BoL spamming, healbot templar, and one thing that makes them so unkillable in groups is their extended ritual. Make major defile an unpurgable debuff, making it a smart counter to these templars. On that note, take major defile off of incap, the skill does enough for its cost without this debuff. Also malubeth should not stack with major mending.

Other class balance I think the above changes would go a long way toward balancing the game, but obviously there are some specific class changes that need to occur also. Buffing dragons blood, fixing cloak, and adjusting dark deal are some that immediately come to mind. The one I want to mention is dark deal. Take the heal off of this ability. The stamina management it provides is plenty to make the skill useful. Taking the heal off the ability would make a dark dealing stam sorc somewhat vulnerable when using the ability. And don't tell me the ability is fine because it has a cast time and can be interrupted. The cast time is negligible and the only interrupt you'll ever get in is if you're using crushing shock and happen to hit at the right time or if it is used twice in a row and you manage to interrupt the second use.

DeHei · December 2016

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

Templar Healing and Purge - I made another thread about this but purge is fine (mostly). There is nothing wrong with a templar being a hard counter to a DK, just like there is nothing wrong with a DK being a hard counter to a sorc. However among the most cancerous things in PVP is the reactive/malubeth wearing, BoL spamming, healbot templar, and one thing that makes them so unkillable in groups is their extended ritual. Make major defile an unpurgable debuff, making it a smart counter to these templars. On that note, take major defile off of incap, the skill does enough for its cost without this debuff. Also malubeth should not stack with major mending.

Its very easy to kill every Magicka Templar. With Templar you need to play very static to stay like a Tank. This is your biggest strengh but there is your biggest weakness too. 1 Negate from Sorc and your powerful time is over! After negate, just CC that Templar as hard as hell and he is weak like a little child again... You dont have an escape like most other classes. Mist Form for example, but in negate its unusable. I think a sorc is the best counter for Templar..

omgiztim · December 2016

I huess balanced PVP means something else to me.

Balanced PVP to me means that for every skill there is a counter. It seems to me that a lot of people feel balanced means my build should be able to defeat every other type of build.    This should never be the case. There should however, be a counter build to another build.

For example, since launch I have played a Stamblade Archer , High Damage, low survivability. Although I can gank quite well, I prefer small group play or solo frontline zerg.   I will slice you down in a heartbeat from range, but ask me to melee toe to toe, I will die. I have played MMO’s over 30 years of my life and find this to be one of the most balanced games. This is because I am not pigeon holed into one playstyle or “class type”. I have numerous skills, armor and weapons to alter my playstyle and fit the current enemy FOTM. Some of the Meta’s over the years and how I countered them.

The Camo Hunter Nightblade – I didn’t play Vamp or WW and used Detect Potions and Piercing Mark. To this day I still keep those handy as most nightblades are melee ganking based. However, I did switch to Vamp since they nerfed Camo Hunter.

The Vicious Death Bomber – From range, this was never an issue, but was an issue at flags. So I learned to pop vigor, Shuffle and Block at flags. I also switched to Radiant Magelight to lessen the damage. This skill is great to avoid most ganks as it gives you that moment to heal and dodge to survive the gank.

The Shield Stacking sorcerer - I used Shield Breaker armor and CP system to counter.

The Malubeth/Jesus Beamer – Used Lethal Arrow and Venom arrow. Still prefer these on my bar than Focused Aim and Poison Injection as they are far more useful . However, they do take a little more skill to learn when to apply them.

The Heavy Armor Meta - They may be a Treehugger, Stamsorc, Templar or Leaping Tank, I switched to Spraggan’s Armor Set, Kra’gh helm and Piercing Mark. My arrows slice through them like butter. I still laugh when I see that tank jump in thinking he is so tough and take him out in a few shots or the tree hugger running around in circles as I just stand their shooting him.

Stamina or Magika FOTM – Offset this with double poison Stam or Magika reducer poison with the widowmaker set.

The current Meta is Stam based / Heavy armor. So my set up is follows:

Stamblade Bow/S&B

5 Spraggan

6 Widowmaker

1 Kra’gh

Bow Bar – Offensive Only

Piercing Mark

Lethal Arrow

Venom Arrow

Ambush

Killers Blade

Ballista (Bow Ultimate)

S&B Bar – Defensive

Dark Cloak

Vigor

Shuffle

Radiant Magelight

Charging Maneuver

Shooting Star (Mage Guild Ultimate – use for zerg AOE damage)

Although, I have switched my build several times depending on the FOTM Meta I find this game offers a wide variety of counters and truly is very balance. There will always be FOTM’s and META’s but so long as there is a counter, the game is balanced. Accept that your build can not nor should it be able to defeat every build. L2P your build and group with members who offset your weaknesses.   Enjoy the game!

Blackfyre20 · December 2016

omgiztim wrote: »

I huess balanced PVP means something else to me.

Balanced PVP to me means that for every skill there is a counter...

I totally agree with this, this was kinda my point about purge and wings. Right now though there really aren't counters to stacking proc sets and there are very limited counters to EOTS.

omgiztim · December 2016

EOTS is a good zerg buster. The counter to it is range. It has a high cost so it can not be cast alot. It also has a huge obvious animation so you know it is up.

Proc sets are random. I gave widowmaker, viper and veldeith a try. It ws great when it worked but you give up some other reliable stats for a chance it will work. I think if you just increased the cooldown to 10 seconds most people wouldnt stack them. Range is another good counter to most the sets.

The game really lacks a good range vs melee battlefield. The difference from range and gap closers is too close. Bring gap closing to 15 meters and i think you'd see more divison between range and melee players. Range players would have a slight advantage at first yet still see melee as viable as thy closed in.

Over all though, i think the game is fairly balanced and i love the fact you can adjust your character to fit the need of the FOTM. That is why it keeps changing. People learn to play againt it and then it isnt as powerful as it once was so a new FOTM comes out.

kaithuzar · December 2016

To me, nothing is as cancerous right now as:
stam sorc + max cp + dark deal + black rose, shuffle, if you want add tripots in too
high dmg + dk/templar like survivability + high mobility = the_real_meta

If he/she knows what they're doing it's a total pain to deal with 1v1
Maybe there's only a few ppl in cyro that can play this well, but it's reason I'll request that SOMETHING change next patch...I'm not saying my toon needs to be the best, i'm saying that no one class should have everything & right now imo stam sorc does.