It's time for a Realm and Class Balance Patch
Every week I am pulling data for my excidio.net/herald page. Since the beginning of this I am seeing a huge unbalance on realms and classes. As they introduced the dynamic under population bonus ingame, the tracing of this has become a lot harder. This is because this system is narrowing the gab on realm points owned a lot, without fixing the underlying problem of realm or class balance.
I have spend many hours in the last days to visualize the data that I have collected with my herald page. The result of this can be viewed at: excidio.net/herald/stats/balance
Some notes to this data:
- it's only counting lvl 50 characters
- the character has to do at least 1 realm point a week to be counted on this
- it's counting the data from the last year, with one data point each week
- stuff is calculated using pure javascript so everyone can look at the source and see what is going on
I invite you to browse this data and get your own opinion on this. Here is what I think this is showing and what is needed to be included in such a balance patch. Feel free to disagree on some or all of it, not saying that I got the perfect answer on all of this.
Realms Balance:
- Hibernia and Midgard are the realms that are performing on a nearly equal level, only on solo kills Hibernia is underperforming
- Albion is almost in all categories under performing in compare to the other realms, only on solo kills it's equal to Midgard.
What I think is needed:
- completely rework the cast debuff trains in albion. their needs to be a competitive debuff train where all casters of a group can join. you need more options to build a cast assist train and this options require the theurgist to be a part of the train and it requires you to have a option for theurg + sorcerer that does not require you to completely miss spec the sorcerer. this may require to move some of the debuff casts to other classes. if you have two casters in a group, there needs to be a debuff option to be competitive to other realms.
- alter bladeturn so that it does not work with "Crocodile's Tears Ring" anymore and stop it from being able to stack with other people bladeturn pulses, because one 6 sec bladeturn is enough. currently you can stack it up to 2 sec which is way to strong.
- move the bladeturn away from wardens and put it on a caster where it belongs too, because a melee only group should not have access to a pulsing blade turn.
- put bladeturn in the baseline so that every group running a bladeturn caster has access to the same level of bladeturn no mater what spec they choice.
- every pet class that can charm a pet should have the option to re summon the last charmed pet again. no more traveling without pets, also this helps alot if your pet is lost in space again because of that ugly pet pathing.
- remove the ability to buff pets because the defense they gain by this is far to powerful and the balance between buffed and unbuffed pets is broken. if you want pet buffs add pet target self buffs to the pet owners, but no more concentration buffs on them.
- summoning and releasing a permanent pet should have a reuse timer for all classes. so that you can not unlimited spam resummon if you pets gets killed or cced. currrently you need more resources to kill or cc a pet then to resummon it, that's not the way it should be.
- the healing part of paladins and heretics need to be reworked. the mana cost on paladins should be % or absolute numbers and not a mixture. and the heretic needs to be a alternative for filling in the paladins role as the needed 3 healer in the group.
- most likely in the combination with debuff trains and bladeturn changes the theurg needs a review as well. the current ice and earth pets should go into base line. the stun pets should be removed. making room for special speced pets, resistance debuffs or what ever.
- reaver and melee heretics need a look too. using a one hand weapon as dps class is horrible. it only works on vamps because of the claw damage and the damage table itself. reavers and melee heretics most likely need dps buffs as huge as switching from 1h to 2h weapons, to make them competitive and real group options.
- healers are performing a bit to well
- cleric and especially friar needs something with impact to do when there is nothing to heal. compare it with supports from other realms which one hurts more if he is standing free in the enemy group? surly not the friar and most likely not the cleric.
- as long as you can not guaranty the animation of the damage reflect shield being played and seen by the enemy, you should remove this ability or at least heavly reduce the value. a ability like this should be placed into group / realm settings that lack healing to prevent damage income and dps spikes. this is surly not the case in midgard at all.
- streamline the cooldown of RR5 abilitys down from 15 to 10 mins for all of them. just does not make sense to have equal powerful abilitys on different timers (for example paladin 15 but shaman 10?). 10 mins is once per fight, 15 mins is in worst case afk... or playing without tools...
- the ml path "Sojourner" is part of every hib group (1x bard) and every mid group (2x healer) but missing badly in albion.
- remove the need of double specing for polearms and twohand in albion, it's a huge disadvantage without any bonus
- classes that require dex + str for their weapons to deal damage are doomed by the increased overcaps. he highest overcap should in that case work for both.
- there should be a healing debuff if you climbed into a keep
and now lets enjoy the party
I have spend many hours in the last days to visualize the data that I have collected with my herald page. The result of this can be viewed at: excidio.net/herald/stats/balance
Some notes to this data:
- it's only counting lvl 50 characters
- the character has to do at least 1 realm point a week to be counted on this
- it's counting the data from the last year, with one data point each week
- stuff is calculated using pure javascript so everyone can look at the source and see what is going on
I invite you to browse this data and get your own opinion on this. Here is what I think this is showing and what is needed to be included in such a balance patch. Feel free to disagree on some or all of it, not saying that I got the perfect answer on all of this.
Realms Balance:
- Hibernia and Midgard are the realms that are performing on a nearly equal level, only on solo kills Hibernia is underperforming
- Albion is almost in all categories under performing in compare to the other realms, only on solo kills it's equal to Midgard.
What I think is needed:
- completely rework the cast debuff trains in albion. their needs to be a competitive debuff train where all casters of a group can join. you need more options to build a cast assist train and this options require the theurgist to be a part of the train and it requires you to have a option for theurg + sorcerer that does not require you to completely miss spec the sorcerer. this may require to move some of the debuff casts to other classes. if you have two casters in a group, there needs to be a debuff option to be competitive to other realms.
- alter bladeturn so that it does not work with "Crocodile's Tears Ring" anymore and stop it from being able to stack with other people bladeturn pulses, because one 6 sec bladeturn is enough. currently you can stack it up to 2 sec which is way to strong.
- move the bladeturn away from wardens and put it on a caster where it belongs too, because a melee only group should not have access to a pulsing blade turn.
- put bladeturn in the baseline so that every group running a bladeturn caster has access to the same level of bladeturn no mater what spec they choice.
- every pet class that can charm a pet should have the option to re summon the last charmed pet again. no more traveling without pets, also this helps alot if your pet is lost in space again because of that ugly pet pathing.
- remove the ability to buff pets because the defense they gain by this is far to powerful and the balance between buffed and unbuffed pets is broken. if you want pet buffs add pet target self buffs to the pet owners, but no more concentration buffs on them.
- summoning and releasing a permanent pet should have a reuse timer for all classes. so that you can not unlimited spam resummon if you pets gets killed or cced. currrently you need more resources to kill or cc a pet then to resummon it, that's not the way it should be.
- the healing part of paladins and heretics need to be reworked. the mana cost on paladins should be % or absolute numbers and not a mixture. and the heretic needs to be a alternative for filling in the paladins role as the needed 3 healer in the group.
- most likely in the combination with debuff trains and bladeturn changes the theurg needs a review as well. the current ice and earth pets should go into base line. the stun pets should be removed. making room for special speced pets, resistance debuffs or what ever.
- reaver and melee heretics need a look too. using a one hand weapon as dps class is horrible. it only works on vamps because of the claw damage and the damage table itself. reavers and melee heretics most likely need dps buffs as huge as switching from 1h to 2h weapons, to make them competitive and real group options.
- healers are performing a bit to well
- cleric and especially friar needs something with impact to do when there is nothing to heal. compare it with supports from other realms which one hurts more if he is standing free in the enemy group? surly not the friar and most likely not the cleric.
- as long as you can not guaranty the animation of the damage reflect shield being played and seen by the enemy, you should remove this ability or at least heavly reduce the value. a ability like this should be placed into group / realm settings that lack healing to prevent damage income and dps spikes. this is surly not the case in midgard at all.
- streamline the cooldown of RR5 abilitys down from 15 to 10 mins for all of them. just does not make sense to have equal powerful abilitys on different timers (for example paladin 15 but shaman 10?). 10 mins is once per fight, 15 mins is in worst case afk... or playing without tools...
- the ml path "Sojourner" is part of every hib group (1x bard) and every mid group (2x healer) but missing badly in albion.
- remove the need of double specing for polearms and twohand in albion, it's a huge disadvantage without any bonus
- classes that require dex + str for their weapons to deal damage are doomed by the increased overcaps. he highest overcap should in that case work for both.
- there should be a healing debuff if you climbed into a keep
and now lets enjoy the party
Vroni / Vanesyra / Rommie
excidio.net - Charplaner / Spellcrafter / Herald - PM me on errors / wishes on this
excidio.net - Charplaner / Spellcrafter / Herald - PM me on errors / wishes on this
Comments
ahm, statistic shows its still pretty balanced!
agree with healer and dmg-shield animation
minstels have sojouner. c4 + ps together are strong for groups. share timer for both spells and make it 5min reuse!
nightshades should get battlesmaster instead of stormlord
agree with the dex+str based weapons overcaps. just raise overcap stats with str+dex
That's not what Midgard would have you believe.
Symfriar (Friar duh)
Symsorc (Double duh)
Sympets (Theurg)
Symmond (Arms)
Some random mids and hibs
I've always said that pet classes should have a "pet recall" spell that is on like a 2-3min timer for when their pets get lost due to pathing issues. Also believe in the buffed pets being too resilient.
I've also always said that they should give reavers and heretics 2-handed flails or something amazing like that. But you're absolutely right their DPS is completely lacking in 8-man and they serve little purpose. I have a rr10 reaver and I don't even want to put him in a group because I would feel bad for the group to be honest :P
Maybe if you insist on changing healer around you need to give Midgard purple resists. On hib/alb you always have red magic resists in every 8man setup and on Midgard the only time you have that is if an aug healer is spec'd 40+ aug which rarely happens. Most healers are tri spec iirc because if you don't run with a set 8-man every night you are most utilized in pugs that way. Most pugs that are scraping to find one healer don't need a full aug healer they want either pac/mend or tri
Is that zerg performance on alb so bad because of the debuff train? Don’t think so.
I do like most of your proposals.
I don’t agree that healers overperform because you have 2 in every mid group, which isn’t the case of any other class in the game.
Interesting to remove bladeturns from wardens, but I would not make it baseline, I feel you need to sacrifice something to get it.
Pets should only be buffable via CL buffs. I would keep the dread lord has fully buffed on creation, just because you need one pet to stick out.
R5 abilities need a review, some are awesome (cleric, theurg, ment, RM) while others are stupid (warlock)
I smell a big Alb bias in your post Vanesyra.
Da fly family - 4501 4502 4503 4504 4506 4508 4509
Da spider family - 441 442 443 444 445 447
Ywain 1 Mid - Carlingford Hib - Tullamore Alb - Dalton
https://divoxutils.com/user-characters
- maulers need a little dps nerf especially the casting once
@Captns
i think you can not call this pretty balanced. the gab is just to huge and just remember, the balance has not change a lot in compare to before they introduced the under population bonus and there it looked much worse because albion did much less rps even in compare to now (like an additional 20-30% gab on this one).
minstrels are a fine class but many people don't want to run one in a group anymore because of the pet pathing and you don't need them any more for speed 5. btw. i still remember the day they turned off purple pet charm with the words: "we have a bug with encounter credits, so we temporary disable purple pet charm"... 5 years ago or so ^^
that battlemaster on NS is a long standing topic i know. but right now if i look at the numbers it looks like steathers are overall performing on a more even level then the rest of the realm. the realm difference on solo kills for example is mostly based on the different classes doing solo stuff. in albion for example you have merc and reaver being strong on that topic and making this the only top spot for albion.
@Armagedden
the design error on healers is as old as daoc itself. there should never have been two slots for healers in midgard groups. the design should be 1x healer + 1x shaman + heal valk / warlock. or you could say that missing 15. class in midgard would have had to fill that role as the 3 support heal / cc class.
but in this state of the game we will most likely never see this altered. but what we would need to see is that the healers are once again forced to spec aug or pac and not this high utility tri spec mix. which brings that class a bit over the top. but well this is a really hard topic because it is the backbone of each midgard group.
@Shoke
sure the organization plays a role too, but i don't think it's that important. the numbers tell us that albion has more death then any other realm. so somehow the albion players are there and fighting but they do not win, especially on larger scales. you can look that up if you look at the difference on deathblows and kills. i don't think that a debuff train is everything that is needed to fix this, but i really think that this is first priority on this one.
i know that you have two healers in each group and even with that in mind the amount of rps per player count on healers is still rank 1 performance.
the problem with bladeturn not being baseline is that it is such a key ability to reduce damage income and avoid slams. you have that currently on a warden that adds this to every group at 6 sec and also on a center of the fight slot. you have that on a theurg with the 6, 8 or 10 sec option and on a runemaster with 6 or 10 (maybe even a 8) sec option. you only get that balanced in my opinion if you put it baseline and away from wardens and make it not stacking. then you can also think about adding it to more then one class per realm if needed. also think about altering the 6, 8 and 10 secs would be possible.
@DaRedANT
i am sure that albion bias thing will come up more often on that topic ^^ but well, if i have to go undercover i still can play my druid or healer
double specing does not offer any bonus to the user. it is a system to punish the user without any clever impact on the game or anything to compensate it. there is simply nothing good about it, but alot bad:
- you have less spec points for other stuff then your counterparts
- you need high rr to make some specs work without suffering from lower damage
- when doing PvE you always do less damage and hit less often because you have to less doublespecing if you face lvl 51+ mobs with a RvR spec
- you do not have access to all proc effects that other realms counterparts have
- you can not switch damage types that are better for a given armor type
- you need +11 in your template (okay currently this should not be a real problem anymore)
- you suffer more from skill debuffs
if there would be something like "oh you have to double spec, because of that you always do 10% more damage, now deal with the penalties" i would say okay. but there is nothing positive on this one, only pain.
and i only said double specing on twohand and polearms, because this is a unique limitation to albion. the DW, CD and LA stuff is the same thing in each realm and this is also pain, but the same pain for every realm and it is limiting the weapon choices and classes spec points are build around this.
excidio.net - Charplaner / Spellcrafter / Herald - PM me on errors / wishes on this
Warden bladeturn IMO is also one of the biggest issues I have seen in 8-man group play. Double bubble is still a thing is it not? (I'm not positive b/c I haven't played hib in a few years but it most definitely was a thing because it was instant recast with wardens and they were the only class that had it instant). If double bubble is still a thing it really destroys, absolutely destroys tank groups which are primarily mid groups. Mid is the realm I would always mostly play in 8man and the 2 biggest downfalls of mid in my experience were not having red resists and also having to fight every hib group with double bubble wiffs with no sacrifice
EU/US has a huge Midgard BG,
EU has a huge Hibernian BG,
US has a huge Albion BG, but is highly casual and less organised since DKoC left compared to the US Midgard BG which is alot more elitest.
The Midgard/Hibernia Solo Zones are 1000% more popular than Folley Lake making the journey for other realms very fast, Albs that camp/freq Trelle and Moy do very successful.
When you take into account balance, you also need to compare an apple for an apple. If an alb 8 man losses to an Hibernian 16 slot. It isnt because of balance or pbt.... If you compare Albion in even settings of 5v5 4v4 8v8 16v16. Albion will nearly _always_ be on top.
heretics/reavers - need more spike dps for group+ combat - that doesnt reply on positional chains. windmill/roundhouse owl/phoenix strike come to mind.
alb can do matter train with sorc/cab/wiz/heretic/mauler/theurg if they choose to. (spirit/heat/body are all also highly effective as well as cold if you choose to debuff for painmancer/ice wizard etc)
pet issues and pet pathing - huge outstanding issue yes. buffing pets is an interesting topic because it also effects PvE.
Then on euro prime you have hero that rolls over everything, so that steongly affects your numbers.
I think that your stats are mainly looking at the larger scale action (zergs) that generate the more significant portion of rps.
Higher skill Alb groups give us a lot more trouble, all other things being equal, than mids do.
Mid groups (usually melee or hybrid) have to actually out play us to beat us, while alb caster grps with a necro(s) and a theurg, or a debuff train, just have a comically easy time wrecking us.
The funny thing is, I know we overperform (i.e. do better than we should) against *some* alb groups (ones without theurgs, necros, or debuff trains), so i acknowledge that alb needs both some love *and* some nerfing (love esp. for the actual melee classes). If necros, theurgs took a hit (and maybe some toning down of cleric rr5 along with theurg) id happily see alb melee get some love.
We get beat by both mids and albs, melee, hybrid and caster setup (were not a top level guild). But the only time the beating seems super cheesy, or there just seems like theres nothing we can do to counter, is against alb caster grps (esp. with theurgs and necros).
Off topic : I wish the hib zerg in US prime would stop zerging once Xyorman logs so we get good fights instead of the jam fest that currently is US prime late (10 to 11 pm est)
double specing and plate armor should not be connected at all and that plate armor thing is also a lot over rated.
plate armor is reducing damage taken / 1.34 while chain is damage taken / 1.27. so plate reduces your damage taken from pure melee attacks by 1.34 / 1.27 ~ 1.055. so 5.5% pure melee damage income. on the other hand a warrior gets for being a warrior a higher damage table, increasing his damage and melee penetration by 23 / 22 = 1.045 which i would already consider stronger as it works on all damage done by you. also the hero's extra life needs the fight to be very very long to get weaker then both of them. so you could already argument that you have he weakest kit and on top of that you are forced to double spec which removes your ability to switch your weapons damage type to the best one for the enemy you face, which is again a damage reduction to yourself, so extra punish on top.
that bladeturn trick is gone for 8 man. but the problem remains on zerg style fights when multiply people with croc ring give you 2 sec bladeturn, which makes melee a waste.
you can spec red resistances as a mid, but you don't do so because it is considered to be weaker. so as i said, you have to force them to spec that high in that line to get red resistances. so make them feel the pain on getting debuff assists on that kind of resistances that hurt and or shift something important to higher levels in that line.
@tald
you really should take a close look at the data. i am not saying that the zerg warface does not have any impact on this, what i am saying is that it is more or less a result of the balance itself. people tent to not do things that does not work. and in my view, defending or attacking a keep with equal player quality on both sides and equal numbers makes albion loose, because you do not have that rush or make them stop stuff that you would need to do so. for example heretic rezz is gone, high stacking heretic damage is gone, no pulsing pbae, no thane range, no animist pets, no ae stun, no baseline stun on casters and much more (i don't wanna discuss this stuff here, just some examples on what i think makes other realms great in that spot).
when you look at your zerg overview. you have 2x mid, 1x hib and 1x alb. so if that would be the reason for this. then you would expect mid on top, and both alb and hib on bottom nearly equal to each other as they both only have 1x time zone zerg. but that is not the case. why is albion under performing with the same amount of big zergs?
your point on DKoC is not working well, because that data has not changed much for years now. so even before they left the stats where the same. keep in mind that stuff is taken from the last year.
and to that apple topic, just look at the data. you get a good idea on how good a realm or a player is doing on that topics if you just compare deathblows, kills, solo kills and deaths and break that down to the player counts. you really get alot out of that between the lines.
no you can't run any good debuff option in albion.
- first thing to say about that is that you need one debuff and everyone has to be able to join on that single debuff to be competitive. debuffing two damage types is not competitive, it is a waste and has always been. the short version on why it is: you loose one nuke on the debuffer because he is casting the second debuff instead of nuking, you loose a half debuff nuke because the assisting person on the second debuff is nuking once on a target without debuffs. this makes the window to kill someone a lot longer and the spike damage a lot lower. that is not competitive at all in compare to setups nuking on a single debuff.
- second think. you need specs that work while maintaining a debuff train. a 48 body speced matter debuffing sorc is holy crap if you compare the utility to a standard sorc. a matter nuking heretic is crap because you skip everything the class is designed for and press the matter nuke instead. a cabalist debuffing something else then body is double debuffing and bad too. so nothing on that topic works as it used to work in other realms, hell they even have two different trains per realm they could run that work better then the one in albion.
you could make pet buffs only work in pve zones. that would remove that problem from the table.
@Shoke
you need to have an enemy in order to do rps in this game. the biggest zerg does not do any rps if there is nobody to fight with. the numbers of death tell you that albion is out there. but the number of kills and deathblows tell you that they just don't win.
@Flowerpought
the problem is that it is hard to tell if you lose because someone just playing better then you or if you loose because your realm or group setup is generally under performing over all or against that specific group setup.
i already said that i would remove stun pets on theurgs as i really think they are unbalanced when chain stuning. but overall i would say that theurgs are on some topics under performing for years now. i know many will hate me for this ^^ but well. the problem is that you can not deal damage, you can't assist in a debuff train and your pets are easier to be cleared then ever before while also doing zero damage. years ago you had thornweed field on everyone that could get it to fight theurg pets, today even a pure melee group in hib has so much abilites to clear them that you very rarely see that thornweed field anymore. this shows how this has shifted over the years. but still if you don't handle the theurgist correctly then it will overwhelm you and make it feel like it being OP, but you just did not handle the theurg at all in that situations.
the necromancer is a funny one. the stats i posted still include some weeks from before the nerfs i think. so it is a bit overrated on the stats. but still it is the only alb class that is really competitive to the other realms counterparts. i would say that it is well balanced as it is now (the nerfs back then where needed, because it was over the top before). at least that is what i am reading from the numbers. people just don't expect a albion class being on the same level.
you can not turn down the cleric rr5. you play in a realm with only two real healing classes. if you reduce the escape tool of one of them you can just close the realm. and btw why is that evil and you have stuff like druid rr5, healer rr5 and sojourner on bard on healers? all make you in one or the other way immune to damage or death so why that hate on cleric rr5 and i would also say theurg rr5.
what you wanna say with "scales on the stats page"?
excidio.net - Charplaner / Spellcrafter / Herald - PM me on errors / wishes on this
What I can say is that it is much less organized than the mid zerg, that runs a voice chat, a zerg MA, follows commands, etc. while the alb zerg (rescu or Terriana) usually sits in a keep for 1-1.5 hours, comes out to run in circles with no objective in mind, goes back into a keep, comes out again to wipe on the mid zerg then logs.
They should have designed midgard to function with classes that wouldnt be released for 4 years... and in the states that wouldnt be around for YEARS later....
Dex/str weapons are fine. Make better templates.
It's a combination of both the players not wanting to put in any effort and the realm underperforming compared to the other realms.
when they first released the game they had more classes in mind then they finished for classic. you can see this by looking on the way they gave the IDs to the classes. sure they released WL and Valk years later, but that was exactly the point i was making. they missed that one class and this was leading to healers being what they are nowadays.
there is only one thing that is dumb and this is making points without making points...
and what is the point on running a reaver or melee heretic (or even a none cast heretic) in a group? it does not matter how much interrupt or stuff they have if they can't kill fast enough. you would not take a vamp, mauler, necro or what ever into a group if it would under perform on that topic like heretics and reavers do.
and finally your comment on str/dex weapons just shows me that you are not really interested in a discussion or aren't able to understand such a basic problem.
excidio.net - Charplaner / Spellcrafter / Herald - PM me on errors / wishes on this
That just made me laugh. I guess you would need to explain your version of elitist. The mid bg goes up, everyone and anyone who plays in mid is welcome to join. I am not seeing the correlation.
I have played all realms and found the hardest realm to put together a good group is in Alb. However, a good Alb group should be able to mop the floor with any Mid group open field. Period. Hibs will give a little more of a fight, but Alb should come out on top (again, depending on the players). Each realm does well in certain areas of fighting.
Each realm has it's pros and cons, just like each class, has it's pros and cons. But you have brought up some interesting thoughts.
and to that apple topic, just look at the data. you get a good idea on how good a realm or a player is doing on that topics if you just compare deathblows, kills, solo kills and deaths and break that down to the player counts. you really get alot out of that between the lines.
But it doesn't. You keep saying that healers out preform, but no where in that data do you see how many realm points healers are getting for actual healing (and for that matter, rezing, which gives out a fair chunk of rps). Our mend/aug healer in group, heals our group in excess, on a slow night, 100k+ to up to 500k. Can you break the data down to eliminate the healing rps? Those numbers are going to skew the data and if every mid group is running 2 healers, that data is going to reflect that, unless you can remove it to give more raw numbers.
Re: Theurg - what should we be doing to shut down the theurg with our melee group that we're not already doing? I'd be down with theurg's being able to do damage, but right now (at least at rr5) we have no way of shutting down a group with a theurg reliably. Tell me how we'd do this. I'm fine with Theurg's being able to be more useful damage wise, I think that would be necessary once their pets get toned down (including not being able to chain stun like you say). Would also like to see them get some more utility to make up for not being able to shut down an entire group's support indefinitely ("just keep rezzing the theurg, deadhead doesn't matter!").
Re: Necro - it seems far better than the other realms' counterparts, at least painworking spec. I want the other melee classes (actual ones) to be on the same level, right now I acknowledge (I already said this, you didn't respond to it) that alb melee need a boost.
Re: being better than us. You're wrong, that's my point lol. I CAN tell if they're playing better than us or not. And sometimes we get beat by alb grps with theurgs and necros where they're playing better than us, or have a more balanced comp. But often groups that AREN'T playing better than us and where our comp is set to match theirs still beat us without playing particularly well.
I make plenty of temps with str/dex and have no problems what so ever. again melee tics are just trash they arent a real group spec. Reavers dont get groups because minstrels are way better in the same role. and Minstrels dont get groups because theurg/sorc can cover the interupts. Vamp mauler and necro are in a different role than what reavers should be. Reavers would be like a skald/valk get in interupt you arent there for any kind of damage.
Thuerg are the only Primary DPS class in the game that dead head has zero effect on. And with egg style rezzes more available than ever, this has made that class very unbalanced. Some alternatives to tweak the class like:
-If the Theurg dies all his pets die instantly
-Cant cast pets when res sic
-1.5x the casting speed of pets
-half the duration of the pets
That would be on the theurg as a whole as options
For the chain stunning pets, I understand the stun in playable and viable, could we maybe put in a 5-10 stun immunity from those pets when they hit, just like any other immunity.
For Necro's
The insta snare should not over ride an existing SoS or eld R5. Period. If SoS is poped, then the necro hits the snare, you should still move freely. This, is currently garbage.
don't make the error to just look at rps gained. look at stuff like kills per death or kills per player and you see the good performance on the healers. also keep in mind that not only healers can heal and rezz and gain rps from doing so, each supporter does this, which even makes that value comparable.
@Flowerpought
theurgs: i don't know in which group with which players you run to give you advice what exactly you could change. i just can tell you that the biggest difference in my opinion between "normal" and "irc" groups is how well they handle the theurg. if you loose to that groups you have the feeling on the theurg that nothing you did was impactfull. but on the other hand if you win, you think that you just did it, but in reality it never was the theurg alown. it's the group task to stop them from clearing the pets and at some point just overwhelm them.
necro: oh i just did not mentioned it because i agree that the other alb melees need a buff. however on the necro i don't see the difference between necros, vamps, savages, maulers. maybe they all are a bit to strong, but that's really hard to tell which one has the upper hand. expect maybe some mainly caster mauler things that look broken to me, but had mentioned that before already.
i can not say much to that "being better topic". as i had to look at that kind of fights to get a clue why you loose or win.
@Dyn_Nothgrim
so you go for 127str + 127dex as easy as you go for 127 str only and that without lowering anything else? then i really wanna see the templates you build! the thing i am talking about here is that you have to drop something for this and you get what kind of reward for it? that you deal lesser damage because you did not make it to 127 on both of them? or that you have lesser hp? does not sound good and the gab is getting bigger then it was before 127 cap.
but who is telling us which class is for which role? is it you? is it me? i can remember times where reavers where dps classes. i can remember where heretics where the slam bots in the backline that ticked away the enemies. i also can remember the time where necros did not had a melee spec. so who is telling? what would it be in your opinion that would make a group pick one of them if not damage?
@Staticc
sorry to say this, but that's just crazy, bad and wrong. in what scenario a theurg is a primary dps class? it's a interrupt support and you compare it with something it isn't. and it's wrong to say that there are no drawbacks on being dead as a theurg. you can't pet with no mana, you can't pulsing bt for your group without recasting it. as every caster you have to get back up your shields which again costs mana and so on. and finally there is that one ability to summon pets that is not effected? but there are so many other abilities out there on other supporters AND dps classes that have no drawback from being dead. so what's the point?
@GlissZewks
you expect them to tell you everything? i have played with many of them over the years to tell you that this is not the case. and when talking about game knowledge the information flow in that cases was not going in the direction you might think it was... there is a difference between playing a class good and understanding the overall picture or the mechanics behind. only thing interesting for this topic is in which realm you see them playing and which classes they run. i would say 65% hib, 25% mid and 10% alb? and i surly think they believe that cast mauler and vamp is underpowered...
excidio.net - Charplaner / Spellcrafter / Herald - PM me on errors / wishes on this
This, to me, kinda sums up everything. While I personally think there are some OP classes and some homogenization on the low<solo/mall> and high <more than 3fg v fg or zerg if you will> ends of fighting, it's more about building your group to win fights and when necessary, adjusting as needed. Ultimately, sometimes ya just lose, that is the way the game is set up....though highly anecdotal, this same debate <more centered around 8 mans> took place years ago, and still goes on through the years, basically saying <insert your realm here> couldn't or can't fairly compete because of XYZ, but I think we have seen folks swap realms and compete fine...personal preferences aside, if you set up your group and work together <basically play what is needed>, you can compete fine. Frankly I think it is easier now than it has ever been <to compete>.
On a separate note, zergs only swing the balance in RP's slightly, as the majority of RP's comes from quest completion more than kills <at least it certainly appears that way>.
Air Theurg has a 209.7 delve DD, that is (while admittedly slightly) technically higher than Ment and eld single target spec DD's..... But no, they aren't a dps class......
I have not made any error. You are stating that healers do so well overall. I have stated that your stats can not remove those rps gained from heals/rezes. You then state that others have that as well. It does not make that more comparable. I have given you that our healer does between 100k and 500k a night in heals, that gives a substantial amount of rps from just healing, nothing else. This will also skew your numbers for the kills per death and kills per player. Will it not? The numbers are just that, numbers and you can twist them and turn them into what you want.
Theurs are definitely a dps class.
I think we need a hand of god realm ability. 30 minute timer, you get to smite someone, one shot, one kill
https://divoxutils.com/users/user_2ZTPHy8tjVF9LWMgujSZfCY9Mos/characters
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a dps class is one that has the ability to put out good damage in a short amount of time. having a dd does not make you a dps class, or do you consider for example a cleric a dps class? for being a dps class you need a dd, you need that in best case 51 total in that line to get rid of variation, in best case you need a int buff to work with your class and most important, you need a debuff to nuke on. because without that debuff you do everything but no dps... nobody every feared the dps from sorc + theurg only group (and as i said before that is one of the big problems). and if you add a cabalist into that group then you fear sorc + caba, but not the theurg's dps. and last time i checked, a theurg that nukes can't pet at the same time. having a high wind spec does not give you 6er bt, good haste debuffs or pets other then stun.
if a theurg gets out a pet every 2 seconds this just tells me that you do not interrupt and put pressure on him. you should not be able to win that, because you just play bad in that case. it's like letting a debuff nuker standing free for all the fight... you should not win that too... also letting a theurg recover from death, just shows me that you are unable to handle it and or do not understand how to piss him of. as i said, that's the big difference between so called irc groups and common players.
@Jak
so global warming are just numbers too? that's a good argument... start asking yourself why the numbers between realms and classes are not even then? why are there differences? why have some classes higher numbers?
a friar has that healing numbers too. why the other numbers do not match too? why shouldn't we able to compare that then?
make any arguments that are based on something that can be proven or no discussion is possible and i am not going to spend my time on answering that then. i told you to look on that stats and that numbers and you are just answer in trump style... ignore numbers...
@kedelin
well the stats on mercs look okay to me, they would look a lot better if they wouldn't do so much solo stuff (in compare to other light tanks) and they would look much better if they wouldn't be in the under performing realm.
the problem with mercs is the way group slots work in albion right now. you have 4 supporters: cleric friar sorc theurg and then a celerity bot, a fulltank bot, a necro for high dps and well a merc for banelords? or something else that you rate higher. so the space is more limited.
@Pigleto
i am fine with two healers. i wished it never had become that way, but forced altering that now would not be good. but you still can raise the question if the kit on the healers is not a bit to strong. never said the answer to this is easy, or that i know exactly what to do there. i am just saying that the numbers look to me as there would be a little nerf needed.
excidio.net - Charplaner / Spellcrafter / Herald - PM me on errors / wishes on this
Edit - cause it just not worth the effort.
Been saying it for a while it’s partly the reason I ain’t been playing to be honest my accounts are open but it just ain’t fun anymore especially for an alb tank group.
The problem is alb is now more of a specialist 8 man realm you can only run certain types of groups and be able to compete.
For making random pug or even Zerg groups alb just dosent have the utility of the other realms.
Lot of alb players have left the game because of it personally for me alb changed for the worse after the patch that destroyed beno and crauch and bled and removed the towers.
A lot of toons on both realms we could kill before that patch became very hard to kill not sure if it was ablatives or healing or what but something definetly changed for the worse.
Hoping we get some changes in next patch.
I don’t agree that irc players are the best and only source for taking this game forward.
The problem with the leet players is they tend to get anal about microscopic class balance issues and they are slowly taking the fun out the game.
Sometimes you need overpowered classes on all realms they just need to be balanced in numbers.
Not all players are uber players and sometimes people who maybe aren’t as clued up on the game as others need a toon that that they can hit one button and just blow **** up.
So me alb just ain’t fun anymore it really isn’t.
Make alb great again bring the fun back .
I doubt that is going to happen, recall the earlier thread where healers wanted access to a DPS line without giving anything up? Does that sound like people approaching a discussion rationally and logically looking at data?
Okay so your position on Theurgs, is that they can not cast DD's if they have pets out. Can anyone else confirm this? Because I am 99.99999999% sure that is plan old false.
Also, Theurg do not have access to a Cold Spec DD in the same spec line as earth pets, which a Sorc can debuff for.
And a base line matter DD, which the sorc can debuff for.
Now I get that this would be an unusal primary CC Spec sorc, but still achievable with a lower % Debuff, not optimal, but still able to do this....
Think hard about those 3 points, they have access to 3 different damage type DD's, 2 spec, 1 baseline, 1 of the spec DD's is in the line that is traditionally spec'ed, also A Necro can debuff that damage type.
But your position is that they are not a DPS class?
#ALRIGHTYTHEN
I'm sorry that Alb has access to more classes with heals they can spec into than the other 2 realms, and with the more recent changes have more access to tank groups than ever before, that must really suck.
The fact that people choose not to do that is a community problem, not a game problem. There are so many variations of different group combo's for alb now its halarious:
Cleric/friar/pally/sorc/theurg/necro/merc/arms
Cleric/friar/sorc/theurg/cabby/cabby/wiz/sorc
cleric/friar/pally/sorc/tic/cabby/merc/merc
etc.
Group needs Cleric/friar/sorc and fill 5 more and have it make sense. 2/3 tank or caster heavy, more accesible than ever on alb.
That's a true point. Really as long as you have a cleric/friar/sorc you can hybridize, go caster heavy, or tank train.
https://www.granks.com/daoc/signature/char/e7I0A3ruDmc.jpg
https://www.granks.com/daoc/signature/char/IY0C9fELOGQ.jpg
If we need to look at something - it's the ungodly amount of CC in this game and what does and does not share immunity timers and which of those may be broken.
Fix things have have recently been broken! FZ, PS are 2 off the top of my head.
A compiled list of broken, bugged recent changes or issues would likely be more constructive.
Is it time for more podcasts? I hope not. Those who graciously gave their time and opinions and collected information and suggestions from their realm - nothing appeared to have come from them except for a road to balance that diverged so far to the left many were blindsided.
And I have to still disagree with BS - balance is not stale nor is it boring
- it's challenging players to go toe to toe in a fair fight depending on how you and your group play your classes vs your opponents. In no way did I say mirror.
Theurgs... need a cap on their pets. I love my theurg but ...ya.
Zerg leaders - do we still have a Knight program? If yes, why is there an EU Alb issue?
Why is the majority of the action on US ET Prime Time?
If your group cannot compete 8v8 then you should seriously look at your group composition and how they spec, RA etc. If you want to compete - you spec and play to win - if not, then do not complain when you are looking at a release button.
I love gaming with my friends but you do not bring a PVE spec toon in buff gear out to rvr and expect to win. (When a certain friend reads this he's gonna rofl) haha had to say it and don't forget to take off your buff gear!