My Thoughts on Class Rebalancing

Hello fellow DSO players,

In light of the recent changes on the test server, I want to lay out in this post why I believe the developers are taking the game in the wrong direction in terms of class balancing. First of all, in the recent poll set up on this issue, I was surprised that most people voted that rangers are currently the best balanced class, at least in the test server, while the other classes had about equal votes (please correct me here). From my tests on my the test server using endgame characters and PW equipment, I came to the following conclusions:

1. With these changes, Spellweavers really excel in both PvE and PvP and, with the ability to stun bosses, it seems much easier for a SW to solo bosses in PW despite the overall increased difficulty. In terms of PvP, it was difficult to beat a SW with the Q8 set in a 1 v 1 and the increased amount of ice missiles coupled with the powerful frost effect made it seem a bit too overpowered. From my tests, even as an endgame ranger with the EA buff using Q7, I really struggled to not get slowed down, and I found that I couldn't really compete even when I used all my evade skills (adrenaline, dive, blade dance). Recently, the devs even increased the damage of many of the SW's go-to attacks by +10% or so which, coupled with the buff to lightning strikes and the changes to frozen spheres make SWs incredibly strong in PvP on the test server right now. If these changes make their way onto the live servers, I believe that SWs will begin to dominate PvP in almost every way. I propose that the devs either nerf the Q8 set in some way or buff the three other classes' respective sets so that they can compete.

2. Secondly, Dragonknights seem mostly unaffected by the changes apart from a few minor talent changes, such as the changes to the banner of war skill, which I didn't really see as huge nerf as some were claiming. So, overall, DKs seem the same or very similar on the test server. I didn't test the DK out too much so if I wrote anything inconsistent, please let me know.

3. Then, I tried some tests with the Steam Mech class and, again, they have been nerfed but in my opinion the changes have not really ruined the class in a major way; the addition of critical damage for turrets seems to be quite an advantage damage-wise. Furthermore, the addition of HP to turrets did not seem to have a huge negative effect on dwarves' damage output since the turrets actually had quite a considerable amount of HP - more than was originally proposed when the changes were announced almost a year ago. Still, dwarves seem a bit weaker than on the live servers but again, like I said about DKs, the nerfs are not game-changing for the dwarf class; they each have their advantages and disadvantages.

4. Next, I want to talk a bit about the class which I am most worried about right now. From what I've seen and experienced on the test server, rangers seem affected in an incredibly negative way. Firstly, let's not mention the many, many times that the Explosive Arrow had been nerfed - the addition of explosion upon impact, the reduction of the Q7 buff from 3 to 2 seconds, but that is not the worst. As a hybrid tank class, you would expect rangers to have some considerably powerful AoE skills and even HP regeneration (since they are partially a tanking class, right?) but every ranger has to rely on EA right now, test server or live server. Unfortunately, the situation on the test server is much worse; firstly, the devs seem to have made a lot of seemingly minor but considerable nerfs, such as the ones mentioned above and, on top of that, apparently the EA only explodes if it hits a marked enemy (I have yet to test this myself to confirm it). If this is really the case, then this is a huge nerf coupled with all the other negative changes to EA and blade dance. Rangers are in a way forced to use the Q7 set as it seems to be the only decent set right now and now the one powerful skill that rangers had seems to have been completely trashed on the test server. In my opinion, the devs should rework EA to function in a similar way to Frozen Sphere, that is, to always explode wherever the cursor is pointing, and to maybe slightly decrease its speed to balance this out. I really hope this proposition is considered, otherwise rangers will be incredibly weak on the live servers if the devs go through with these changes.

5. Finally, I want to bring attention to so-called "useless skills", which have arisen as a result of the recent changes. For example, the dwarves' steam conductor and dwarf-in-the-box, as well as rangers' death sweep and hunting trap, etc. seem totally useless and need to be reworked to make them viable skills.

In conclusion, SWs are the clear winners in the test server right now while rangers can hardly compete. Therefore, the devs need to make changes accordingly, and I hope they do so soon.
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts and findings, please feedback below

 

Hi there, your thoughts are really good but you may reconsider your ideas.
When did you test all characters on testserver? If you tested the last 2 days, you were unlucky because most skills and talents dont work on testserver right now.

I agree that Ranger are the worst on testserver right now, but to balance that i would simply buff the duration of the q7 buff to 3 seconds again.

Even as a mage, i really get that Q8 is strong in PvP, but it is only strong because the dmg in the arena was way too high. By deactivating the wisdom tree in PvP dmg got cut by about 50% or more, which means Q8 won't be as effective anymore. While the damage suffers from that change, your defense wont except of HP. So Q8 set will be much worse in PvP. Asking for Nerfs wont help anyone here .

Rangers got it wrong if they try to fight a mage with EA. Its just overkill, why dont they use precision shot and scatter shot instead? Much cheaper for the same result.

Dwarfs were just buffed in my opinion, the new dwarf after r208 offers a rather more offensive playstyle. Many dwarfs are just complaining while they dont get that they were actually buffed. They just lose 20 steam if a turret gets destroyed, if the take the talent in the wisdom tree. They even dont realise that thy spam their auto attack which gives steam back. Dwarf is just more skillful to play now, not the usual "place turrets and go make a sandwich" anymore.

DK's did got nerfed, but this nerfs are mostly for soloplay, as it is right now, 2hand dk is the best solo farming class. Complaining about that they do less damage now, but it never came in mind that they do really good damage now.

To sum it up, i think all the nerfs and buff will force us to play more in groups, which isnt a bad thing in my opinion.

 

In theory that sounds great until you look for a group and see that there are only a couple of players on:

 

You can't collect feedback unless you are representing BP

The reduction of Q7 set's buff is not related to the skills and the balancing. Balancing should be revolving around skills not around sets. Sets should be adjusted to skills not vice versa.
Currently on TS the EA explosion is not working at all ... there is no explosion on marked and unmarked enemies. It is a bug.
The explosion occurs on impact and if hits marked target it breaks armor.
There is no need EA to be working like Frozen Sphere ... especially after the nerfing in the past and taking out the explosion on end of the range. If EA is using same mechanics as Frozen Sphere it would be most useless skill in the game. You would rely on your pointer location ... BUT ... unlike FS which has wide path as highway and goes through all targets on its way ... EA is wide as needle and is not passing through multiple targets and it is relying on precision. In that case you are getting EA skill that is useless because it can almost never hit a target unless the target is almost static so you can hover the pointer over the target and auto fire.
Rangers have almost no crowd control at all ... taking away cooldowns of skills is a big nerf since you can't control and you can't escape from the danger on time. Unlike DKs , rangers don't have self buffing skills (like hardened armor or similar) therefore they must react fast or they die. The new 5 points talent of Dive is the most stupid talent that has ever made in this game. Who in a right mind is using a marking on evasive skill? It actually suits my play style because i am always jumping in crowded places ... but i am using traps. I would never use the new 5 points talent on Dive.

Hunting Trap is everything but useless skill ... it is one of my main skills and it is working good.

Q7 set buff has got nothing to do with rebalancing. It is a buff from a set. If OP, items/sets and their buffs should be reworked ... but not skills. Skill should be working in same way for every item ... you don't rebalance the game with sets but with skills. If you make the game's balance rely on sets you will have to rebalance the game every time there is new set in the game.
When you are building a house you don't start by polishing the chimney but you start with the foundation and the construction. All other things can be added or removed at any time after the house is finished ... but they must be made in such way so the foundation and the core would support the entire structure without crumbling down.

People are having wrong perception of the changes.
Removing the wisdom from PvP will lead to many changes in the PvP concept. 2H builds won't be reliable at all in the arena. But that doesn't mean you can't be one-shot killed anymore. It means almost everyone will have to play 1H build.
since everyone would rely only and only on gear, crafting, gems/runes. 2H builds now are effective for most of the players only because they rely on the unreal amount of travel speed they are getting from the knowledge tree. almost every 2H player is not using points for HP but for travel speed. When the wisdom is not working in the arena you will rely mainly on your boots and travel speed runes in order to get travel speed. That makes you by default very slow so your 2H build would be reliable. You can still one-hit kill players ... but if you are lucky to kill them before you are dead.
I went to official arena on TS and I got killed in one shot by a shortbow. Not to mention I have all royal gems and all Supreme runes on my TS SW. Excluding cheaters ... how many players are having those on live server? almost no one.

 

I tested them out when the two traders in Kingshill first appeared...

The way I imagined it was that EA always exploded at the end of its range, but unlike FS, it would travel at a much higher velocity.

...because you are using Emilia pauldrons...

Yes, you are right that Q7 set has very little to do with class balancing and perhaps I shouldn’t have put it in this post.
However, it still feels really biased towards SWs and against RAs when SWs can infinitely spam ice missiles for free while RAs only get 2 seconds and not even 3...
I was proposing that the devs make all PW sets equally as powerful as Q8 set for SWs in that case...

 

Test them in boss fights, in infernal mods mostly in solo.
Seriusly, it's hard to kill a boss only with a tesla and autoattack.
My turrets weren't lasting more than 1 hit, I had to re-deploy them EVERY single special attack (and most of the times also normal attacks because the stupid bosses kept hitting my "old position" where I deployed my turrets even when I moved from that position since two hours).
I spend 9/10 of my time with autoattack just refill some steam and I'm lucky if I'm able to cast more than 1 turret @ time.
The best strategy I found against stupid boss like Grimmag was to intentionally cast a Mech turret IN FRONT of him so my Mech turret was shielding my MG turrets (and that lasts only untill he decide to drop 2000 metheors one after another so at least one of those 2000 metheors will inveitably drop on my MG turrets... that, FYI, won't tank a single special attack in inf 1... I haven't tested Inf3... but there's no need loking at what happens in lower mods).

Obviusly on live server it won't be so hard because I got a lot more ASPD and cost reduction but... if this is the new path... guys it's gonna be hard... and I like hard things but this is way too much.

 

Dwarfs got nerfed too hard in the latest patch. They were strong, but not for such a big nerf.

 

I have never used those pauldrons and I have no intention of using them in future.
I am using Khalys' pauldrons.

 

Check this out, it’s insane.
And yes, it is on the test server, uploaded a week ago or so.

Don’t get me wrong by the way, I still sympathise with dwarves and think they shouldn’t have been nerfed so much...

 

Trakilaki,if you use Emilia's pauldors combined with the Wisdom talent adding 50% of your damage to all enemies you hit stunned, they are extremely useful.

Also , can someone explain to me what the new Pyromania does?(I dont have a SW on the TS.

 

I don’t quite understand, which wisdom talent are you referring to?

 

Them turrets should have max 40-50% dmg imo...if a turret will do with crits per tick as much as a mage does with a frozen sphere or a ranger does with one EA (which requires half of their resource bar), then this is not a balance lol.

 

THAT IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE, those damages are because heredur had a bug, my dwarf 23k damage, 100k + buff from q7 hit 142k per second of damage in test server to heredur boos, of course it's a lot of damage for 23k of damage in a dwarf , I was in agreement with the redducion of damages, in fact there were many errors in heredur for that very reason it got those damages, for example q1 grinmag the blow of the automatic turret was 35k + q7 buff 58k per second, an acceptable damage to have 23k of dmg using critical impact.



Now with 50% damage reduction in suppression fire, my dwarf 23k damage hits 16k and with buff of q7 25-28k in q3heredur and q1grinmag 10k and with q7 buf 20k ...

It's too little, I invite you to try the test server today, not yesterday or last week, that those videos are no longer possible, and as I said today the dwarfs in normal server paste 100k-140k per second, now the reduction of (- 50% suppression fire) it will not be possible to reach even that, even if we use critical impact / critical damage.


My proposal is to leave the suppression fire in 70% damage, to not make the dwarf too weak, we are stronger without criticism in the normal server than using critical in the last update of - 50% dmg

 

I agree to your statement but the big problem is that Q7 Set right now, is a requirement for all classes right now, only mages have a bit of a choice. Unfortunately, there's no way around Q7 Set. If they want to balance the game on skills as you said, they need to take a closer look on all classes.

Just an example:

We want to balance the ranger so we dont change any skills or talent as it is on live servers right now. Just slightly buff the wolves or trees.
And make explosive arrow cheaper and cut the damage by 50%. So you can use it more often and the dmg loss so its not op.
In my eyes, this would be a balanced ranger, who ist forced to use Q7 set.

the issue here is that this way of balancing may sound ideal in general, but in this game its not. try and tell the rangers that their EA will lose a ton of dmg and will be much cheaper, but now q7 set is an option, not a requirement. I am pretty sure they will disagree

Thats the way, BP is going right now, they dont want to upset us anymore, so they do balancing just to please us instead of doing it to make this game great.

 

Agreed, the devs should make other sets (especially Q8) a viable choice for rangers, dwarves and dragonknights, not just mages.
Also, the fact that literally every single mage on the test server right now is “abusing” the ice missile spam should tell the devs that it is simply too OP for mages...

 

Dwarfs Q8 Set is by far the strongest in PvE and bossfights.
Mages's Q8 is just viable for getting some skillless kills in PvP.
Only DK and Ranger have sets that are not that great.
They serve a purpose but they cant compare to mage and dwarf

 

Can you see it?It's the first time I upload an image on the forum.Anyway I'm talking about hunting trap's last talent,which stuns the enemy and combined with the low cooldown from Emilia's pauldors,that 50% damage can be caused all the time.

 

Q7 Set for Ranger should be reworked by not using Explosive Arrow, but Presicion Shot instead, for example: When you hit enemies with Net for the next 3 seconds your damage is increased for 150% and Precision Shot stuns marked Enemies for 1s (PVP: 0.5s), or something like that.

You know you did a wrong choice (as developer) when people start to build their characters around a specific Set and not taking count on other choices. The sad thing is to read people asking in a Balancing Class thread (this or any other official one) that Balancing Ranger requieres a rework of one set and nothing more.

I mean, Explosive Arrow is a powerful attack without receiving any buff despite all the nerfs it has suffered, while Precision Shot is the Ranger's long forgotten main attack, re-balancing represents a great opportunity to revive this skill.

Herald Set + 3 Witch Seeker + 2 Twin Queens + Dragan has become the same thing as Witch Seeker + DragonSilver + Yachak was in the past (pre R155) and sincerily I'm tired of this combination on EVERY build shown in the "Show your Stats" thread.

 

Are you talking about yourself, because while you're talking about a class balance, your suggestion is to rework of q7 set!

 

Yes, to avoid abuse of Explosive Arrow on PVP and PVE, to avoid everyone build their carachters around this Set, not giving a chance to use another. How many Rangers do you see with 3/4 parts of Bloodrune? Q4 set? I bet 2 or 3. That is what I'm trying to say.