Feedback Where Balance can be Improved

Hello, I am writing this thread because Drakensang online really is a decently well-made game and I was not able to find a way to directly write feedback to the developers or anyone on the team. If anyone has any way to contact anyone on the DSO team, please do comment below and let me know.
The biggest issue with the game right now I believe is the balance of the new talent system (I know it has been around for a while). A little background about myself first should be a good introduction. First up, I first played DSO back in the days when Sargon was the boss around and Dragan and I stopped playing DSO due to real life preoccupations back around 2015 (sadly I even wasted a bunch of VIP time) and I picked up DSO December 2016 again (If anyone from the old times on forum still remember me, well I am honored). I did drop by once in a while during my hiatus to check up on stuff. I was an end game PVPer (obviously still PVE’d) and is still pretty well known on Tegan (and decently active on forums back in the days too) considering people still greeted me when I was back after the long break. Personally I like helping others design games as well. Most of my letter is about how DSO can be an even more enjoyable game by balancing the skills/talents currently in the system. I play mostly Ranger and Steam Mechanicus (honestly just SM now cause its stupid how much dmg they do, I don’t want to play DK cause honestly DKs were always pretty face roll with quite the OP survivability), but I play all four character classes (In case you’re wondering where the heck I got the time for four, I don’t. I end up paying in order to run multiple characters to skip some gem grind. I don’t live in DSO!). My real life friend also plays Dragonknight and Spellweaver and is back into the game with me. After a while of catching up and playing, I have found that the game balance is not doing as well as it used to be mostly due to characters with stats skewed by the knowledge tree. I have to say currently PVP is receiving a much more negative feedback than before because of several balance factors even though people do PVP because of the daily quests. I will address some of these factors that will hopefully make the game much more interesting and open up better possibilities and create a more balanced game.

Knowledge tree:

Spoiler

Part of the reason why there are people with insane high HP with nearly no offensive stats and other people who practically one shot most people and die within a single poke is because of the knowledge tree system. Although the new knowledge tree is nice, the max level of base stat skills (max hp, dmg, atk speed, travel speed) is too high. Allowing for specialization is a good thing, but the current 25 max level for basic knowledge tree skills is making stats go out of hand and PVP much more imbalanced. An easy fix would be to make the max level of the four basic knowledge tree skills 20. This will allow players to plan more instead of creating characters that are too high in specific stats making the game either one shot kills or nigh unkillable characters unless they meet glass cannons (I know some people still aim to create a balanced character but at the moment, a lot of people simply invest mostly in one stat). Changing max level of knowledge tree basic talents from 25 to 20 will help improve the game overall by a lot. This creates less characters leaning towards one or two stats and brings many people a tiny bit more towards the center in the currently very skewed game.

Removal of Behemoth(50% weapon dmg for 10% lower attack speed):
This point is crucial and the replacement of this knowledge tree talent will bring a significantly positive change to the health of DSO. Those of you guys who only think about their own 4-5k+ base damage characters, if that is all you think about then you already have the reason why the game is deteriorating instead of growing. If all everyone that still bothers playing the game wants is good looking stats and the ability to one shot people, then maybe leaving the game once again (for good this time) would be a wiser choice for me instead of taking my time to do design analysis. Remember back in the days when going over 1k base damage was something? Yeah.
50% weapon dmg for 10% lower attack speed is a large part of the reason why 2 handed weapons work a bit too well these days. With pure raw damage, a simple lower % dmg scaling move like charge or any random high % projectile can easily shave off half the opponents health if not killing them even when players are almost similarly geared. The reason why this works is because a move like charge barely scales of attack speed until you try to chain the next move and a fireball from off screen doesn’t need to be spammed, it just needs to hit once. A 5k average damage with 50% crit rate should not really exist in the game at all. When a player’s damage is around half a person’s health and skill scaling goes past 200%, you know something is wrong. Instead of Behemoth, place the old “stun immunity for 4 seconds shield” in the previous fame tree in the place of behemoth. This is a fair trade off for 10 skill points and removes the issue of ridiculous base damage all in all. This 10 point knowledge benefit will be significant in player diversity as players can have an option of countering multi-stun from DKs or in larger scaled PVP like 5v5/6v6 where the beginning of a stun chain pretty much means death unless you’re a DK with dragon hide immunity.
-Side note: It would also be nice to add in a new row of perks that costs 5 knowledge skill points to unlock. This will differentiate the knowledge tree from honor tree and add in variety, but I know this takes quite the fee on designing and cost (especially when a lot of experience tree skills are already imbalanced.)
-Side note #2: Jewel of Willpower (the jewel for reducing CD) is really not a good gem to implement in the game. Altering the CD of skills up to 30% less makes some classes and skills ridiculous (a prime example would be DKs with dragon hide). If possible, remove the gem and refund everyone for 10 clover per gem (30 for t2 and 90 for t3). People do quit games because of heavily imbalanced things in end game you know?

Experience Tree and class breakdown:
Skill explanations and assumptions:
First, I know that it is impossible for the classes to perform equally well on everything as every class was set to have their own roles (it is nice that skills in DSO are not homogenous). However, certain ones do stand out quite a bit right now. At this point in time, if you are still reading, please note that not everyone has a full royal/sacred gemmed character that can just do about anything they want. Classes all have their main features (like SM having weaker attacks but more powerful turrets and rangers having the mark and kill playstyle(which is now messed up in PVP due to explosive arrows)). While essence system is a core unique feature of the game, it is currently not serving some classes as well as others.
Primary skills: this is kind of like the auto attack of classes. I would say most classes have two to pick from with the exception of spellweavers being three.
Rangers: hunting arrow, death sweep(yeah I bet you forgot this skill even existed)
Dragonknights: Rage Attack, Rageful Swing
Steam Mechanicus: Quick shot, Bomb
Spellweaver: magic missile, ice missile, lightning chain

Rangers:

Spoiler

at the moment rangers are by far the weakest class vs a large group of mobs and the most essence heavy class at the moment. The problem mainly lies in the fact that precision shot does not have a good damage % to essence ratio even when assuming targets are marked (believe me you can easily hit an unmarked target halfway through the shot in a larger group of mobs) and explosive arrow being a horrible AoE skill for its essence cost (250% explosion after talent without being able to be doubled- you can compare this to turrets that are currently way too overpowered or even just dragon fury. Also, changing to a ranger’s 2h weapon (longbow) does not exactly make essence cost more efficient because all you do is lower concentration cost (so you spam more of your high % skills but those skills are already inefficient with essence as previously stated).
Death Sweep: This skill is unused as ever probably partially due to its weird Aoe range. Making Death sweep mark for 6 (PVP: 3.0) makes it more in line with other skills from other classes to create a primary skill. This also opens up a 3 point talent that can potentially be interesting enough for people to maybe pick this unused skill up.
A suggestion: Quick Acting Poison. Death Sweep deals 50% poison damage per second over 2 seconds instead of 35% per second over 3 seconds.
Hunting Trap: There is no reason for a small sized AoE trap to cost 3 essence cost if it only deals 50% damage even if it is poison damage and not physical.
Fixes: Increase hunting trap base damage to 60% and base concentration cost from 33 -> 25 (reason explained soon). Essence cost 3->2
(2 point talent and 3 point talent): It seems like rangers have skills to lower CD, but 10% CD reduction off a 8 second CD skill is really not an ideal way to build variety into skill. Changing the 3 point talent of no concentration cost for hunting trap to the 2 point talent while making a new talent allowing hunting trap to deal 50% more damage as the 3 point talent (60%->90% damage) will allow better play for ranger as they struggle against stronger mobs in a large group.
Net: (5 point talent) adding RNG/luck into skills should be the final resort. A better idea is to half net’s current cool down if it hits a foe or reduce net’s cool down by 1 second for every foe hit (up to 6 or 7).
Deadly Blow: (3 point talent) 5% attack speed for 1 second that stacks for 3 times is not really worth the skill point. This skill is pretty underpowered especially when you consider a ranger using deadly blow continuously is standing still while the class is more about mobility and cannot really tank with its current skills. Furthermore, deadly blow is a single target skill that only hits 160% on marked targets. By increasing the stack time from 1 second to 1.5 second will help rangers throw in a skill or kite better.
A nice mechanic to add: Increase deadly blow damage by 25% (80 -> 100%) or when marked (160% -> 200%) to make deadly blow fit its name and talent as a finisher.
The 5 point passive is only good against weaker low health mobs for sustain which doesn’t really help rangers semi-tank a lot even though its role in game is most likely the pseudo tank when needed. How often will you last hit a marked mob? (compare this with DK’s skill that heals for 20% of their damage they swing). Increase the talent to heal 10% health for a killing blow on a marked target (SW’s magic missile does not have marked condition but will also be buffed later so don’t worry.)
Blade Dance: blade dance while usable in PVP does not serve much of a purpose in larger group PVE and is also relatively high on essence cost. The reason why it does not work well in PVE is because of the way DSO structures its mobility skills. Mobs are already hitting you before you even arrive. Somehow after the new experience skill tree change, rangers have to waste talent points in order to “mark”, taking away a core feature of their existence (combined with explosive arrow leads to the culture of no-mark rangers in PVP- the sadness). By making blade dance mark without the talent and making the 2 point talent “blade dance speed increase by 20%”, the experience tree will create a better selection of skills for rangers.
Blade dance essence cost 3 -> 2
Base damage: 75% -> 80%
Base concentration cost: 40 -> 45 (prevent multiple dance spams and make using a no cool down skill more mindful.
Thicket of Thorns: Right now thicket of thorns does not really warrant a 6 essence cost when it does not even deal any damage to most bosses as they are somehow “immune” (same as ever). This skill doesn’t really hit anyone in PVP. It would be nice to actually buff this skill a bit to allow rangers to do AoE killing better like the other 3 classes (Dwarfs: turrets, DKs Dragon Fury, SWs: high dmg aoe skills and armor break singu). (explosion arrow armor break doesn’t help as much as people would think because it eats up concentration). Therefore, my suggestion is to increase intial magic arrow damage from 25% -> 50%.
(2 point talent) yet another 10% CD reduction does not really make the talent tree interesting. An idea would be to allow initial magic arrow to heal 50% of damage dealt for rangers. This will help ranger as a pseudo tank when they are needed and possibly open up a different route for rangers to build. It will also help rangers in AoE fights (as rangers struggle the most even with the exploding talent from thicket of thorns. Rangers capabilities fall off miserably on higher hp mobs compared to any of the other classes).
Explosive Arrows: Right now this skill has transformed ranger PVP from the intricate “mark” and then “kill” sequence to “shoot-an-arrow-and-hope-it-lands-near-enemy”. While being pretty useless for AoE mob kills when soloing. (can be sort of useful with armor break talent in group kills). A way to fix this is to reverse the way explosive arrow deals damage.
Initial arrow: no longer deals double damage to marked targets.
Explosion: 200% ->150% damage but deals double damage to marked targets.
(3 point talent) explosion damage increased by 20% (instead of 25%).
This will make explosion arrow more useful for damage in proportion to its concentration cost. It also makes rangers match their theme better in PVP as explosion without mark is nerfed even though explosion with mark is buffed. Being reduced to firing a single shot like mages do with fireball right now really makes PVP a whole lot less interesting for rangers and nowhere as skilled. This also promotes attack speed a bit more and creating diverse gameplay as people will want to mark more than they do right now. The current meta of the game leans more towards high base damage over atk speed.
tbh, why the heck did they even decide to introduce such a stupid skill to game?
Overall at the moment, from PW rankings, you can see that rangers are among the slowest class in game to clear dungeons. This exist in the fundamentals of the class and there is no way to get past that with the current skill set. However, this issue should not be ignored as farming slower causes imbalance. One cannot simply dismiss this by saying different classes have their own leaderboard despite the fact that one class farms (gets stronger) slower than another.

Spellweavers:

Spoiler

Magic Missile: (5 point talent)as reasons previously mentioned, it is better to bring up the power of these skills to better match some regenerative abilities of say dragon knights. (10% -> 12% health regained when killing with magic missile). The reason is because magic missile like deadly blow is a single target. Although it has a lower % to enemies when marked (hopefully they implement the mechanic where deadly blow deals 25% more damage to enemies under 33% health), it can be used as a range move.
Teleport: (2 point talent) giving SWs a 25% bonus travel speed for 1s is slightly on the weak side for a 2 point talent. Compare this with SM’s steam conductor that can easily be used a few times in a row even if you factor in the steam cost. Raising this skill to 25% bonus travel speed for 1.5 second would balance things out better and serve SWs a better getaway device.
Chain Lightning: (5 point talent) a skill that requires RNG and can potentially continuously stun is not exactly the best way to promote atk speed builds. The 5 point talent can be changed to “chain lightning can now hit three additional targets instead of two”. This not only eliminates the luck factor and also allows the skill to better clear groups of mobs.
Guardian: Guardian is a powerful skill as it doesn’t really die off easily while dealing 100% base damage which is pretty overwhelming with the current high dmg meta of the game. Nerfing this to 80% base damage would be more justifiable for its short CD of 30s.
Destruction: (5 point talent) I don’t know how giving destruction +50% damage seemed like a good idea in the first place (totaling up to +250% damage after modification). I’m pretty sure plenty of us are fed up with 1 shot lucky destructions here and there. +50% -> +30% (this is still +150% damage mind you. It can still 1 shot but gives more chance for tankier people to react).
Singularity: Swap damage on 3 point talent with armor break effect from singularity (do this so that essence cost makes sense on singularity).
Frozen Sphere: (5 point talent) 66% increase explosion damage -> 55% increase explosion damage.
This brings it more in line with other skills. (+110% ice damage is still a ton) Simply compare this 5 point talent to ranger’s 2 and 3 point talent combined on explosion arrow.

Dragonknights:

Spoiler

honestly speaking, axe gives a bit too much crit with crit value being nerfed to a pretty low point of 249 max per stat on items other than weapons. A 20% nerf on base axe crit value should be a nice and easy change.
Rageful Swing: (2 point talent) again adding RNG/luck where it is not needed. Simply change this talent to Rageful Swing generates one additional rage or rageful swing generates one additional rage if it hits more than one target is good enough as DKs take damage to generate rage faster anyways.
Smash: (3 point talent) Tit for Tat is quite weak as the effect only works if you spam smash. Making this skill last 1.5 seconds like the talent on deadly blow would work better for combos and possible plays.
Rage Jump: 125% base damage ->100% base damage. With current stats and 2h/dmg builds DKs can already hit too hard on their pokes. The ones that capitalize this are 2h DKs. Nerfing Rage jump damage would be fine as 1h DKs can still do combos quicker and do not rely on a simple jump to do most of their dmg.
Ground Breaker: (5 point passive) Ground breaker’s 5 point passive is a real killer as it hits fire damage. When almost every DK has it because it hits so hard, you know it needs a nerf when a poke hits harder than smash. 200% fire damage à 160% fire damage. (especially because groundbreaker is only a 10s CD skill).
Iron Brow: Iron brow base damage: 50% -> 60%. Essence cost 2 ->1
With Rage jumps nerf it would be beneficial if this tiny poke deals a bit more damage. A 50%(60% after change if you guys are willing to change) single target skill should not use 2 essence (it doesn’t matter what debuff it creates because debuff does not effect essence cost).
(5 point talent) a no CD iron brow that armor breaks is quite unfair when you luck out and continuously crit. Reducing current CD by half is a better fix.
Charge: a 10s CD skill that pokes for quite a lot despite being easy to land and has the ability to stun. (100% dmg -> 80% dmg) This also serves to nerf the 3 point talent making it more balanced so that the poke doesn't hurt like crazy.
(5 point talent) A no CD charge is quite insane if you compare this skill to the current ranger net that only has 40% chance to activate. It is better to make this skill reduce charge CD by half if charge hits a bleeding foe. Yes, there is bleeding foe combo requirement, but it is far simpler to land charge than to land net with net’s delay (charge is near instantaneous).
Battle Frenzy: Right now battle frenzy is kind of dumb with no CD. Players can simply spam it in banner of war. Adding a short 4s CD will work better.
(5 point talent) the 5 point talent with the +20% bonus hp is quite ridiculous. The best way is for everyone within battle frenzy to heal 12% over 3 seconds (including the DK and yes it stacks with 3 point talent or the 3 point talent can be edited).

Steam Mechanicus:

Spoiler

Steam Mechanicus is a pretty imbalanced class at the moment especially also because of the dmg %/essence cost and the amount of damage it can output easily. I am saying this as a SM user myself that ranked top 100 on PW right after just returning for the last few days of the season while playing other classes. For further proof of this you can check your own data and statistics and refer to things like parallel world speed runs (the first dungeon grimmagstone is a very good indicator. Dwarfs can easily score quick times while other classes like rangers and spellweavers usually fall behind quite a bit).
Mechanical Turret: Mechanical turrets are fast firing turrets that auto track the target. The main issue with this skill is in PVP rather than PVE. The talents are not insanely strong but the turret itself in PVP is quite powerful. A slight change of base damage from 65% of base physical damage -> 60% of base physical damage per shot should do the trick.
Rocket pack: (2 point talent) Giving only dwarfs the ability to jump further is a weird option and some players are restricted by their screen. Since dwarfs only have this mobility skill the two point talent will work well if it is changed to something like: increases armor and resistance by 5% for 2 seconds after using rocket pack.
Tactical Turret: (5 point talent) Right now this talent gives dwarfs too much steam while increasing their area control. A Nerf from 20 -> 15 steam/other resource gain will encourage dwarfs not to spam this as pretty much using the turret is free (30 steam return when turret disassembles when using the knowledge talent as every dwarf is using and 20 more from experience tree). This way, if the dwarf only stays in range for the first bomb, they don’t any free defense from using the 2 point talent.
Machine gun turret and Tesla turret:
Right now these two turrets are doing way too much damage. People use them like fireballs or arrows because they almost instantly deal damage right when it spawns. There is no way to react to these instantaneous skills. Machine gun turrets deals damage like a fireball without the DoT delay. A way to balance this is for these two turrets to make the “start-up” frames for the turrets a bit longer. This will also decrease the insane amount of DPS the turrets can deal out within 10 seconds. This makes players more mindful when they are placing down turrets instead of simply spamming them. The essence cost of these two turrets should also be increased from 8->10 because even considering the damage output over 10 seconds, the damage % to essence cost still beats any other skill of any other class (especially with the huge area of effect both have). Honestly right now for most mobs, all I do is place down one turret to clean a whole screen of mobs.
If you do not understand what I mean, think about it this way. Dwarfs deal way too much damage by putting down 1 turret. Let us assume 1 tesla turret with the 2 point talent = 2200% damage over 10 seconds. If the dwarf has 1 atk speed, it can shoot another 10 quickshots within the time period = 600% damage. A ranger that has 1 attack speed and shoots 10 precision arrows in 10 seconds achieves 3000% damage only. This is assuming the ranger does not have to use a move to mark and has enough concentration to shoot 10 precisions in a row (which is impossible). A DK that uses 10 smashes in a row only adds up to 2400% damage over 10 seconds and this is assuming he gets enough rage from damage taken. Obviously DKs generally have faster attack speed than a SM, but the AoE of the two cannot be compared. The SM can also enjoy the benefit of simply putting down the turret and running around. Turrets generally deal way too much damage for quite little essence (2200% for 8 ess, 10 precision shots take 40 essence). These two turrets are huge damage dealers and the main problem with the class in PVE right now. Truthfully a good nerf would be:
Machine gun turret 175% -> 150% (with talent of 33% bonus damage will make it a perfect 200% too!)
Tesla turret 200% -> 150% (with 10% talent will make tesla turret will be 165%).
Furthermore it would be sensible to make tactical turret fire damage while machine gun turret physical damage. This suits the theme that “bombs” create fire damage and makes more sense as machine gun turrets shoots bullets that count as physical (also fixes balance issue so machine gun turrets don’t get used like a more powerful fireball).
If you actually took your time to read until here, I would like to say I don’t think it is possible to hope for changes to happen exactly as I stated, but please do think about the balance a bit more (and hopefully really reduce knowledge tree’s max stat level as it would seriously make characters less skewed and the game much more enjoyable). I would be honored if most of my points are willing to be looked over and changed. These are my current feedback and keep in mind that I might come up with more should I get a chance to further evaluate the state of the game. This feedback is set to be as objective as possible and looking at the performances of players. As someone who likes the game and plays all 4 classes (along with my friend as well), I just hope classes will become more in line and some less used talents/skills will be looked over and redesigned/changed. Keep in mind I did not just randomly make up my own set of skills and tried to keep drastic changes as little as possible.

P.S. for those of you who seriously thinks the game is somehow balanced well, I suggest you quit lying to yourself and maybe try another game. Somehow, many DSO diehard fans refuse to look at reality. No offense really, but try to look at this from another class’s perspective rather than your favorite one. If the game refuses to change even the knowledge tree and dwarf’s turrets, I guess I’ll just continue leaving Rubina in full moon fatal til 10% health then aoe clearing them within the minute with a dwarf or DK. But what fun is it to just play OP classes? Let the rage begin.

btw, for those of you who can't read I just returned to forum you have my pity. I don't have time to look over 2 years of posts nor do I believe your posts are as detailed as mine. For those of you who don't actually read the full post and comment your thoughtless opinions I will simply ignore your baseless comments.

---MERGED---

Sorry, but I copy pasted this from a word doc and some arrows ( -> ) turned into "à" (sorry if I missed fixing any). Oh and sorry for the long thread (only 4650+ words ). If you really don't want to read it but still want to comment here are some main points:

• Knowledge tree fix to create characters with less skewed stats (particularly overly high dmg/hp)
• Removal of Behemoth from knowledge tree and replacement of stun immunity shield (the one that lasts for 4 seconds from old fame tree)
• Balancing some essence cost issues on different characters and some overall talent/skill balance (particularly dwarf's turret being overly powerful. Yeah I'm saying this as a player that just returned recently and easily made it to top 10 on leaderboard).
• Tweaking ranger skill set (especially hoping to bring back the old "mark" and "kill" ranger instead of the "shoot-an-explosion-arrow-and-maybe-it'll-hit-and-kill" ranger) and talent tweaking.
• slightly nerfing dragonknight's strong pokes at the moment.
• Spellweavers? can we not see one shot destructions even on tanks? generally tweaks to other talents.

 

Hi NightWalker ... of course I remember you
About the new skill system... it is clearly broken in PvP.
The only solution I see is to separate PvP and PvE skills

.... ..... ........................

 

I agree with traki here. While I completely understand your point of view being PVP-centric, I can tell you as an only-PVE player that most of the suggested changes would totally kill my spellweaver in PVE and render it obsolete. I understand the glass cannon approach is super annoying in PVP, but it's mandatory in PVE given how powerful the monsters are in the end difficulties and how efficient farming relies on pure damage.

I'm surprised you had no problem with the new Sigri set due to which spellweavers can spam the ice bolt like crazy in PVP and murder pretty much everything.

Ultimately it's the eternal battle between PVP and PVE players each bringing their own suggestion to balancing from one perspective or another. Maybe if Wisdom skills were completely disabled in PVP it would bring back some of the old system. That way, PVE players can use the wisdom tree, and PVP players have their own specialized tree. This would mean players would have to rely exclusively on gear to increase their offense/defense. (PVP players, please don't jump at my throat)

 

yo traki! Good to see that you're still doing well. I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking the new skill system needs a rework and you hit most of my points too! Glad we're on the same page.

You have clearly not read my whole post. Half that was complaining about imbalances in PVE not PVP. PVP was only a side note. By the way, if you think the only way to PVE is have pure raw damage then you are wrong. You can easily run a more balanced build and still do well. "glass cannon" being mandatory for PVE? That was never the case. To be honest if the devs think like you do with the glass cannon approach crap, then this game is beyond saving.

I guess I forgot to mention, I will exclude all evaluation on gear. That is a separate topic and right now skills need changes, quickly (much more so than gear).

 

Most of the points that jumped into my attention were more PVP related - or felt that way, especially knowledge tree related remarks. But yes you are right, there are points there that address PVE too

Glass cannon rather than all around balanced is what is happening right now - or what I see on the forums and in crating. At least what I see on spellweavers and mechanicus; two handed weapons backed up by a gazillion damage boost (and in the case of the spellweaver focus on critical hit rate and critical damage, the dwarf totally ignoring the two). I tried having a "balanced" build like you mentioned, it just didn't perform as well. So right now I am maximizing damage and I notice such build has the most success. Even in solo runs. I can't do certain bosses, but not having to depend on other powerful players so I can actually play is definitely what I like at this point.
For months I tried to stick to my one handed build, and at some point after getting a two handed weapon I decided to give it a shot. The damage throughput increase improved farming so well I never went back to one handed.

As for Dragonknights, I think they are the most well-rounded as you mentioned them. They can still solo it out by going two handed (and somehow manage to get high HP/armor too...), or go single handed full tank in a group, some with minimal amounts of damage in favor of impossibly high defensive stats.

Rangers seem to have drawn the shortest straw and I can't say I like that - they were never my style of play, but I've seen some heavy examples of discrimination (which I totally dislike). All classes should have equal chances because different people like different styles. On the other side, I've also seen amazing rangers performing extremely well and killing everything in their wake. So I guess it's simply more difficult to power them up.

I am not saying the world that came after R155 is better, but I remember the old times when one handed builds with high attack speed dominated, and people were about all aiming for the same approach. At least now PVP vs. PVE I see people using different skills and different approaches and items. Or what I saw in the few PVP matches I was forced to do to get the Golden Clovers.

Take these two cents as what I've noticed in the game. I like it way better than prior to R155, I like the new skill system, and I have a feeling I am not the only person who does so. But since I play for fun and I am no professional player my opinion might not matter that much in this sense.

 

Just an explanation, I liked the post as I appreciate the effort, not necessarily agree with everything being said. will update comment here with my thoughts.

You dont really like spellweavers, do you?))

You are making a fundamental mistake. lets talk about a Skill for a minute. what is a skill and more importantly what are its attributes?

1. ease of use
1a. casting speed
1b. missile speed
1c. something else
2. Essence cost
3. Cooldown
4. Radius

Because of that fact alone, you cannot compare EoA with the Ice Sphere, for instance. or anything with Destruction.

Lets talk about Destruction. you probably dont know that it was a skill with 600% dmg, nerfed later to 500%.
1. it is very pricy
2. it has high cooldown
3. slowest casting speed possible of all skills
4. not even mentioning the bug, when it doesnt deal any damage. well known and very old bug.

So it is used primarily in PVE and mass PVP (5v5 for instance). some also use it in 1v1, but its like trying their luck. not a serious play, to invest 7 points into it.

If you further lower its damage, it will become useless in pve, as by the time you cast destruction, you would cast 2-3 ice spheres and damage more area.

Lets compare ice sphere (IS) with EoA.
1. IS is much slower.
2. IS is much shorter radius.
3. its casting speed cannot be increase with attack speed.

Now, are you really saying that IS should have comparable dmg with the fast casting long range EA?

But tnh, those are minor issues with your proposal.

Removal of behemoth alone will make 2h setups obsolete. and that bonus was always there, for 2h weapons, if you remember the old tree.

But more importantly, such a change will ruin all the effort players put into farming and crafting, tons of time and resources and some money.

That change could only happen when the lvl55 comes.

Now, even with behemoth, any balanced spellweaver will easily smash similar 2h equipped spellweaver, despite all its damage. as balanced build attack*defense is much higher.

Limiting the talent by 20 points will not change anything, as some would just use those 5 points in attack speed, replacing some of the speed items in their build by critical dmg for instance.

But overall, you only address the damage mitigation issue by lowering the damage, while not addressing the immortal builds. without all that damage, it would be impossible to kill good tank in PVP. im not sure you have seen those good tanks in action (thr 2016 crafted ones). you just dont understand how much damage the can sustain. imagine 1h mage without behemoth and 10% less talent bonus trying to kill 30k+ hp, 80/80 block, 80/70 armor/resist tank with 2 rings of life, fullmoon belt, 2 skulls (80+30+40 hp regen) and the gnob weapon? guess that mage will never ever kill him. also because that gnob weapon should have never made it into the game. it adds another dimension of defense for one class.

Your suggestions to change the turrets damage are marginal. they will not address anything. currenlty, dwarf will kill the static item 2 times faster, than an archer/mage with 2x of dwarf's DPI. so its about 4x faster than equal DPI ranger/mage. those 10-20% of less dmg of turrets will not change anything.

What should be done instead?

Now lets go back to what is the skill. It is the ability and expertise. but there are a bunch of skilless skills in this game. to name a few
1. DK's explosion after death, which also slows the players. that skillless skill allows the DK kamikaze builds.
DK's unlimited charges.
2. ranger's EA explosion despite not hitting anyone. just ridiculous noob spamming tool.
3. Mage's ice sphere, wich casting speed independent of attack speed favored by nooby glass cannons.
4. dwarf. overall as a class.

The skills and abilities should enforce player's engagement in a fight and creativity, not a spamming, kamikaze, running from you kind of playstyle.

Dwarf is the only class that can be dealing massive damage on an object without being engaged in a fight. he kills you while running from you/monster. this is a fundamental flaw of the game.

All those turrets should have been a suporting skill, not a primary damage skill. something similar to the mage's guardian. sure dwarfs should have some other skills to compansate the loss of turrets damage, but those new skills should engaging. at least a dwarf should stop for a moment to cast it. not place once and run for 10 seconds (or whatever).

Not even saying the game should not encourage players going for critless setups, like dwarfs do. and it is the easiest setup to craft and reach 10k dmg and much more.

As for mages, I disagree with most of your proposals. i wouldnt use the chain lighting without stun. its just useless in pvp. I dont like the destruction and ice sphere and guardian nerfs either. did you know that guardian doesnt crit? 10 shots in 30 seconds with no crit is all you get.

Anyway. I have a lot more to say, but I really do appreciate your effort of starting this thread.

One way to do the damage mitigation is to remove any offense from the pvp tree, so you cannot add 25% more dmg against players, but use those points on defense.

 

You're pretty much missing the whole point. My whole point was 2 handed weapons and high DPS glass cannon builds are working "too" effectively, resulting in almost everyone running the build. I am saying what I am proposing will NOT ruin the game but instead create a better environment for choice as those who seriously specialize in a 2 handed build will stay while those who cannot actually fit the 2 handed play style will find a new way to survive (balanced build is just one of them).

Btw, the whole part about dmg/essence cost was all about PVE because why the heck would i care about using essence for greens i throw out my bag anyways? Right now PVE is just like PVP because of the points i talked about. I get people are feeling good swinging their big 2 handed stick around, but that isn't the way you create a good game.

Yes, I like the new experience tree system as well, but the knowledge tree is definitely a huge issue for builds currently (both PVE/PVP).

 

Hi NightWalker, welcome back to the game and the forums. I like the general changes you suggest in the beginning of your post, and I like the essence changes you suggested for rangers. A few things you said in the section for rangers are incorrect so I'm going to list them...

Using a long bow does more damage per essence so it simply does use essence more efficiently than a short bow. Also, it is not a two handed weapon.

This skill is already significantly better in melee range than hunting arrow is... it is unused because most people playing a 'ranger' don't want to play a melee character, but it is fine for those of us that do. I don't see a point in making it so much stronger than hunting arrow that the players that prefer to play a "ranged ranger" would feel like they had to use it.

This skill does do damage to bosses. The "immune" that you see pop up is telling you that the boss is immune to the crowd control (slow) that comes with Thicket of Thorns, but even the slow does actually work on most bosses (this is a bug) They tend to get 'stuck' on the thicket so they move slower.

There are too many factors besides the class to take "rangers are among the slowest class to in game to clear dungeons" from the PW rankings... For example, on Agathon vayne(a ranger) is crushing everyone, in every class in the PW. By a lot. Like a lot a lot. He's successful because he is a good player with a strong character and he solos frequently.

Personally, I have never felt even remotely weak vs large groups of mobs... I haven't actually played the other classes much so I can't say with certainty that rangers are just as capable at clearing large groups, but I do feel that way based on my experience playing with other players of different classes.

Also, Blade Dance is an extremely strong skill vs large groups of mobs... There's a lot you can do to avoid the whole "Mobs are already hitting you before you even arrive" thing... I will try to embed a video demonstrating this... I'm not sure if the mods will move my post because of it, but it is relevant to the thread so I will give it a try... Skip to about 1 minute in to see blade dance vs a large group of mobs.



P.S. At the start of the video I didn't realize my tree was still on cooldown from my previous run... Also, this works just as well in lvl 3 but I'm not strong/skilled enough to do it efficiently without using the 500 armor buff. It takes about 5minutes for me to do this same clear on lvl 3 with blues. Same setup but 8 wisdom points out of damage and into health... My point is it is possible to survive lvl 3 while using blade dance this way.

 

My issues with this topic it is way too wide. it should have beed quite a few separate topics.

The whole idea of everyone deals too much damage is one thing. we call it damage mitigation issue here. it also comes with a subtopic of monsters and bosses have too much hp. and another subtopic of flag runner tanks with 40k hp etc and huge regen.

The Dwarf is whole another topic as well.

And the skill tweaking, I would cover that separately.

Its hard to have a structured discussions using the means of this forum on such a broad list of things.

But again, I appreciate the effort. it is priceless and this conversation should have had started long time ago. and you do a good job on both thr structure and the language.

 

Hey there JabaRune! I really appreciate taking your time reading my thread and writing your post!

First up, I am sorry I didnt make this clear. Longbow is indeed more essence efficient than shortbows because of base dmg/atk speedd difference. I am merely pointing out that when u compare the change from a shortbow to longbow, you don't get as much essence efficiency as swapping from a one handed weapon to a two handed weapon. I know this exists in the fundamentals of the class becuase you can't match a longbow dmg to a 2 handed while still being able to use an offhand weapon.

There are two problems with death sweep. #1 it deals damage over time so it is quite slow and the poison effect doesn't stack. #2 people use deadly blow instead. (well you can add #3 for the awkward aoe range).

I think you're talking about "elite/champion" monsters? I don't think thicket of thorns does anything to bosses like mortis yet. However, I have not been around for a while so I need to test clearly. Last time I shot thicket at any boss didn't result in any damage.....unless the % was too low on high hp boss I didn't notice. Sorry if that was the case then I clearly rest my case against thicket.

PW ranking does not necessarily mean they're fast at running. Unless this guy you're mentioning does get most of his score from time category of leader board. Then again I am talking about the whole range of players that can possibly play a class. One geared guy can of course do a lot.

I am not implying rangers suck atm. I am saying compared to any other class rangers have the worst large scale clear potential. Simply bring your ranger to Grimmagstone fatal, run into ritual circle, run out and wait for a groups of mobs to spawn then run in again. 10 mobs is nothing to a ranger. 20 is only a bit more troublesome. 30 and you'll probably start to see some signs of struggling depending on your gear. Anything past that is probably quite hard. When I run my DK, I jump in and click three buttons and half of 100 dies.

Love the way you use blade dance CD reduction! But first up I think you're decently geared already. Secondly I think I still you get hit at the end of blade dance. To be honest, you have a good build and set up for blade dancing (CD reduction while using thicket, and tree for support tanking). However, outside of most PVE set ups that utilize blade dance the skill overall isn't efficient. If you don't have multiple talents invested (more like all 3 talents) in blade dance, the skill does not really do much. Think about it this way, right now it is a 3 essence cost skill that deals 150% dmg to a line of mobs and leaves a slight opening at the end of the skill. A precision arrow will cover the same straight line and deal 250% damage (assuming both don't have talents invested). However a fully invested blade dance is useful because of its talents. This can also be considered part of the talent imbalance I was talking about. There are multiple instances of this occurring and I am just trying to fix some of it. I do think you did an excellent job of using blade dance though I tried that out before but it is still much more inferior to other classes' aoe clears and the essence cost of 3.... just makes it even sadder.

Yeah, but that is a lot of struggle rangers have to go through (lol pretty much why I think PVP and PVE are both broken). I just play my dwarf, drop 2 turrets and run around. For 16 essence I would've cleared the same mobs you did with all those dance and thorns. I am not saying rangers are unplayable, I am just saying that relative to other classes, I find them weak.

I know this is quite the broad and long range to cover, but they all stem from one single issue. The broken skills/exp/wisdom trees at the moment. I skipped gears, and no mobs don't have too much HP. You can choose not to play fatal. I did know that it is quite the stretch for everyone to read a 4.7k word post, but I want this post to have the full implication of the issues right now behind it. Sorry if it was too long .

Uh... I don't think I ever said not liking spellweavers. I think they're fun to play. If I had to rank my favorite classes it definitely won't be last on the list.

You are making a fundamental mistake. lets talk about a Skill for a minute. what is a skill and more importantly what are its attributes?

1. ease of use
1a. casting speed
1b. missile speed
1c. something else
2. Essence cost
3. Cooldown
4. Radius

Uh, I told you I was here from the very start. I know destruction was once 600%. It is very pricey but you can reduce mana cost with talent. I don't think people use destruction over and over so the high CD is warranted. Slow cast speed? About the same as Shrapnel shot on dwarfs and let me tell you... thats 600% damage over 6 seconds. You simply jump out after 1.

Nope I am not saying it should be exactly the same as EA, I am just saying it should be more in line with EA (keep in mind ice sphere CCs EA doesn't). In the end in PVE ice sphere covers better ground and area than EA. In PVP? EA is stupid and I did propose a change didn't I. Furthermore, I don't want to nerf base destruction, just the talent also to prevent the 1 shot culture. It still covers longer range than ice sphere does. Of course, some moves are just better spammed than others in PVE.

Removal of Behemoth will NOT make 2handed weapons obsolete. You can still hit like a truck. During the times of old tree when there wasn't a dumb skill like behemoth, plenty of people still swing their 2 handers around, just not EVERYONE.

An equally geared balance vs 2 handed spellweaver at endgame can end in 2 hits on either side really. Sometimes one hit from 2 handed is enough. My whole purpose of 20 points is to reduce the "max" stat you can reach with "one" single stat. I would be perfectly fine if they chucked their 5 points into attack speed instead of max damage.

Oh yes I do.... but that is the issue mostly with 80/80 block being possible (which is more gear and mechanic related so I did not mention) and of course the new dumb DK skill that I somehow left out... Whats up wiht the +20% max hp and then regenning 10% hp. lol. By the way reducing skill points by 5 would be 15% less max hp for those tanks.

Oh yes it will... by the way I am talking about a 25% dmg nerf on machine gun turret and making it physical damage which further lowers dmg on players and a 50% nerf on tesla turret. Yeah, dwarfs will still be fast with their turrets, but there is an extra 0.5s or so wasted on the start up of every turret, potentially decreasing dmg because mobs can possibly run out and players will get hit less.

I don't care about PVP talents atm, that is only an issue for group PVP in 5v5 and when the basics are messed up, the PVP tree is less of a concern to me. If I covered PVP talents as well, this post would be even longer and not to mention, it is the basics that are screwed up atm.
I did cover ranger's EA changes and dwarf overall with their turret issue. But yes, turrets are supposed to be overall stronger than many skills while their other attacks (like heavy shot) weaker.

Only possible because of the current max dmg you can obtain. Refer back to knowledge tree basic skill max level reduction of 5 and removal of behemoth. If max damage of 5k dmg DKs are nerfed by 1k while they add more to atk speed/hp/travel speed, do you think they explode as well? Probably not right. Well of course the DK explosion does need a bigger delay.

While I agree with you on this point that turrets should be support, I would be changing the whole class if I were to write about it. Hence, I took the stance of making turrets the primary skill, but nerfing them. Some nerf is better than none! Critless set up is honestly only possible because of turrets. Yeah dwarfs totally need a fix.

lol you're a mage aren't you. And no that does not fix PVP tree. That just means 5v5 tanks will have it good as you personally previously pointed out. You know what the best way to fix honor tree is? Leave only the support orbs and bonus honor badges intact. This allows some support healing in 5v5 (which is nice gameplay for group pvp) and the bonus honor badges will reward higher pvp rank players to buy more green items for this crafting 2.0 ...... Remove damage mitigation and bonus damage so that players will be on more equal grounds!

Sorry for the equally length reply guys!

 

Removing behemoth alone makes it whole different game. so you are redesigning it all, and since you are, it is also a good time to redesign everything weird - the pvp tree, the dwarf, the healing dk. otherwise it makes no sense.

In terms of dmg you
1. remove behemoth
2. remove 5 points from dmg%
3. nerf some dmg skills

That will cut damage output in half. But at the same time you only
1. remove 5 points from hp talent.

Healing DK-tank would be a clear winner of such a change. one that uses no essenses in pve, and one that would easily hold the flag in ctf and survive till the 1v1 timer.

Anyway, that should and could only happen with a major redesign of all classes, trees and some crazy items.

btw, behemoth was there in pre r155 game. it wasnt 50%, but 40% more dmg of 2handed weapons or something like that. by removing it completely, you will favor one single class-type - longbow ranger. while all other classes are losing tons of damage, ranger will only use a fraction of it, as its '2handed power' is spread between a longbow and a quiver.

I will need to run my simulator, but I think 2handed will be obsolete. without behemoth, offhand with lots of crit and lets say 100% crit dmg has much more to offer, especially with the upcoming offhand gems (9-12-15% critical damage on top of whatever base crit dmg is)

Edit. my oldest char is DK and this is why I messed with the behemoth. DKs have had the 40% more dmg on 2h weapons talent.

Also, the cap was 30 on experience, so we were getting 30% more dmg. thats quite reasonable, that we have 25 points to invest into damage after r155 with the cap 50.

Completely disagree. this cant be true mathematically, unless we talk about complete noobs with no defense at all. 'Survivability' is a product of defense and attack. balanced build beats glass canon easily. 2h's double damage goes against huge block, while the 1h's damage goes against none. and at a higher speed. and with 5 more slots for defensive gems. you cannot easily compensate loss of 80/70 block and lots of armor with more raw dmg.

And trust me, I have done this many times in either role. and Im glass canon champion with rare stats (over 30k dps on green), no chance against solid 1h builds.

...

Ps. yes, I am a mage, and a DK to a lesser extend.
Pps. the post isnt long for me, for folks like Baragain and perhaps few other individuals, but we are still a minority. even though we can come up with some ideas, I still doubt any of them will make it into Dev ears.

 

You can "survive" without playing 2 handed, especially if you can get a good critical damage % book and high increased weapon damage % weapon. All this is now possible via the new crafting system, which allows you to practically customize the enchantments on your items.

1. I ended up picking this playstyle because the current status quo favors this kind of build. Not because it "feels good" but because it is efficient. In PVP I did notice that there are players who favor one hand weapons - that's because players are using fireball instead of frozen sphere there, plus they can use an orb defensively. Good PVP players go with this approach. Lazy players like me who don't care about PVP just use their PVE setup to do the few PVP matches I need.

2. Whatever adjustments you will make, people will always figure the game up at some point. Look at any game. Regardless of how much variance you give players, games are like puzzles. At some point, they will find some best strategies that work in the game. And you can think here at MMORPGs or other kinds of games.

(Short example)
A very good explanation was given at some point by Mark Rosewater, head design on Magic the Gathering. I don't exactly remember his words, but he did mention the need of the game to reinvent itself while keeping its core (those things people love about the game) alive. If you don't know much about MTG, the Standard format is everchanging, 4 times a year new cards being added to the came, and once a year older cards disappear from the format. This means that players always need to adjust to the changing environment. But it usually takes a few weeks before the top decks (strategies) are identified, and then people simply play those strategies with small variations. If rotations (cards appearing and disappearing from the format) did not happen, the game would become extremely repetitive from a point onward.
(End short example)

3. Offering diversity
Now going back to Drakensang, indeed, I don't think it favors more than one build, but that's because it doesn't offer variance.
The solution is not to cripple players who have already existing viable builds, but to open up the possibility of new builds. This way, it makes figuring out the game much more difficult.
- A good means of achieving this in MMOs is to add gear that provides diversity. The uniques in Drakensang are... well... quite stale. I know the reason they powered up legendaries was because people were complaining uniques were too rare so achieving those top builds was very difficult. And I totally get that - if people don't feel in control, it sucks. I love what craft 2.0 did with that - give us more control and less to the RNG gods. But the remaining uniques offer nothing interesting - so people don't care about them anymore!
- The Sigrissmar set for instance is an amazing example and I applaud the design team for coming up with it - it encourages to use specific abilities, hence opens up variance. This should probably happen with many more sets that push players in different directions, without forcing them to choose one as being "the best". (the fact that it's overpowered in PVP is another issue...)
- Another problem with uniques is that they are still very rare, and the reason for that, whatever the Drakensang team is saying, it's not that "they need to feel special". Or if that's the case, it's bogus. The real problem is that there are so few viable uniques right now in the game if they dropped too often people would just get their end build really fast and that's that. There's no real variance. But with variance, people get the option to play with lots of combinations of gear, which makes the game much more interesting. But of course, those builds need to be viable.
- Even with many possible builds, indeed at some point the game will again be figured out. The top builds will arise. This is why new content is important, and the game needs to continue reinventing itself.
- I just don't think that simply by pushing numbers here and there we are going to achieve that - you change the numbers, you shift the current two handed build to possibly the one handed build again. And that's that...

4. Did I mention the only class that can tank at this point is the Dragonknight? Where's the variance there? You have three classes whose end goal is damage output, and one which MAY choose the option of tanking.

End line, partially I agree with you that having two handed builds everywhere is irritating. However, I think Drakensang environment is far too static right now, and regardless of how much "balance" will be done, without new real content to encourage new builds we will run into the same situation we are now rather quick

 

EA is the only skill that allow rangers to kill SW and SM in the way they play nowadays. All play nooby. As a non pvper i can say SW kills players by spamming fireballs and the experienced ones use destruction too , we dont even need to see them, just from the start of the fight.1 hit all rangers are dead (even with 80% block , 48% resist , 61% armor and 23% speed boots). SMs just drops that bunch of resources ahead and start running , the ranger that goes to them are also dead since SM have huge dmg in all of their skills. So since the ranged classes can kill the others far away , EA fits well to what was given to SWs and SMs.

I wont go into the whole text since i know everyone will defend itself. Long story , lots of threads.

But i have a sw that i play sometimes , and now i have a different point of view. Cooldowns of sws are really huge.
At this point , a ranger have a lot of advantages and today i noticed well on pvp.
After dying like 4/5 times for a strong sw in Tegan , i changed all my gear , increased all my defensive stats and guess : my noob ranger won!Why? my cooldowns are shorter, and every 18 secs i can refil my concentration.

Now short point on dks: can kill them. Even when they are 2h. but they are the only class , where we always feel we are really having a fight, because they have to show themselves instead of killing us from the dark.

 

Perhaps you got me wrong. i dont care about EA, its damage, its armor break or anything besides one little thing - it should only explode when it hit someone. otherwise, it is a junk play. often invisible to opponent, especially in 5v5. player respawns, goes through the base hall, and dies because a second ago some ranger hit the air with EA.

This is fundamental concept - you have to hit a person to kill him. other than that, do whatever you want with EA.

 

Rocket pack: (2 point talent) Giving only dwarfs the ability to jump further is a weird option and some players are restricted by their screen. Since dwarfs only have this mobility skill the two point talent will work well if it is changed to something like: increases armor and resistance by 5% for 2 seconds after using rocket pack.
Yeah why not put like 150% increse speed for this snail ability, yeah it's good in events where you want to avoid making the entire map but in pvp ? if an end player (normal player with speed) mage catches me or somebody with speed ? they will kill me when i still fly because this skilli is slower than the normal walk.
And also think that this skill "help" us to free from stuns ? i mean i will be stunned in the next second anyway if (in other game than 1 vs1) i don't have somebody to back me .

 

Since everyone complains about SM,EDIT

In pve solo
very good since q1q3q4q7q8 boss are/almost stand still,SM can easily deal serious dmg,but pretty much the same with other class against q2 boss.

In pvp
1.1v1:doing ok.Nasty playstyle against archtype(run & heal),hardcore style against dk(stand inside tesla).Cant do nothing to dk who won't fight inside tesla because apart from quick shot and mechanic turrent,there is only heavy shot that can deal some dmg.But honestly even 80 year old player can doge that crap skill.And they recover more hp than quick shot and mechanic turrent deal, ending up tedius "strip battle" after 3min.

I feel the same,the stun breaks of other classes are life saver but everytime i jump makes me feel the doom is ahead(the hell i would step out of tesla XD)

2.3v3:got slaughtered,cant do nothing,team work score:0

3.5v5:lousy if go with offensive,very hard to kill with turrent because players are always moving,only heavy shot from dark side can make a kill.It seems that the value of offensive SM in 5v5 is to kill flag deffense dk.On the other hand,defensive SM is quite fun,much like tank, a little fragile though yet more recovery.

4.6v6:doing ok.Pretty good destroy tower/bomb/car.

Maybe i don't play enough to make a convincing conclusion,even though SM is very powerful in pve but i don't like a little bit of the pvp part except flag carrying SM.Nerfing the tower can weaken the pve part,but how can SM pvp?Heavy shot?NOOOOOOOOOOOO.
If turrents become supportive,SM is gonna have a new dmg skill and go crit build,pretty much like the Ranger/Mage.Thinking of a archertype with crazy recovery makes me laugh.Wonder how the community goes insane

 

SM has two big issues: they can't really pin monsters down on their turrets, and they can't tank. This makes them quite difficult to solo especially on high difficulties. As a SW I do not have this problem - I can easily and efficiently solo fatal Q3 without having to worry about not having a group. So I would say if you wanna solo it out, you might find it more difficult as a SM (I guess unless you are a very good mechanicus? Feel free to contradict me here people)

The issue in a group is that the SM most often renders SWs obsolete. A very good DK and 4 SMs surpass the efficiency of any other group (from what I could figure). In that formation, the DK simply aggros everything on himself, letting the SMs slaughter the mobs.
On bosses it's even worse... if the boss stays still, the SM does not need a tank and can handle it on their own (I can think here of Grimmag & Sigri for instance). However, a SW can't do it either anyway. Plus he/she loses all his advantages on end bosses, mainly because any skill other than damage output skill and teleport is rendered useless - and even the damage output is not something jaw-dropping.
- Freezing does not work on bosses so say bye-bye to Frost Breath and Frost Nova.
- Singularity does not perform armor break...
- Not even the guardian can perform a taunt. (yet the DK taunt works on everything... talk about balance)
- Frozen Sphere is okay-ish but does not compare with the damage output of the SM turret against a boss - no mobs, little mana regen.

So yes, I see groups prioritizing DKs and SMs to any other class for this reason. Which is silly really... but that's the reason why I solo it out big time... and it's working fine. I am still struggling with Sigri fatal but I've seen other SWs being able to do it so I'm sure I'll be able to handle him too at some point.

 

2H SM can do a lot even with moving monsters and bosses if you line up your machine guns properly. Soloing full PW q3 fatal is not impossible with blues if your 2H is good, especially if you have gear that also boosts your survivability. I use the black warlord + dragonsilver + sparks sets with my 2H as it also gets me high hp and armor and taking down fatal heredur solo with blues is a piece of cake.

Only boss that is problematic is Mortis.

 

And that is where I absolutely have no problem with skilled SMs being able to do that. Because it does take a decent degree of skill to be able to do that. Versus just slamming some turrets on the ground on a stationary target.
I bet a very strong SW or RG would be able to do that too. I noticed Heredur is quite slow and predictable so if you have decent damage you can solo him out. Can't say the same for Herald which still kicks my tush in spite of having gazillions of damage (though I haven't done him plenty of time, so I blame this on my skill).
Very nice point Nova, thanks for mentioning it!
I'm curious what about Khalys, with her annoying clones launching homing missiles that kill my SW instantaneously.

 

It feels like SM soloing fatal PWs is faster than SW.Even tho SM is not good at stun,it has unlimited taunt & nuclear mechine gun XD .In fact, if SM has enough dmg and be able take a few hit(8000-9000hp),doesn't even need to taunt（or dodge XD）.SW needs to keep distant from the melee combat mobs which slows down the killing.