BiS or Dead - how meta players are killing PvP. Everything in one.

dracory1

So first off... To clear things out, while writing this topic, I am still frustrated, tired and generally sickened of current state of PvP. If my tone seems aggressive, it should be justified by what I want to explain.

So before we get to items/classes I'll start with kicking: highly discourages new people since they are being kicked for not having good enough equipment - and I even speak of item level range 23-24k.

I'll start off with most popular item, Paladin Sigil. I understand people consider stamina drains a cheat... but this, both in domination and open world PvP puts a clear imbalance in power. Paired with shadowclad enchantment and ridiculously high defense and critical avoidance causes the user to basically become immortal while in the circle. Healing given from it plus resistance allows a person to survive assaults from 3 people built under damage. If also added a superior potion of restoration, it takes less than 6 seconds to get up to full HP in most cases. If it is in a 1v1 situation inside of domination, you can't use any other artifact - save for maybe wheel of elements - just because of the HP imbalance. If the developers themselves said that gear should not affect the skill part of the PvP... why does this do? Were we lied to?

Secondly, aforementioned shadowclad and defense + critical avoidance stacking vs full DPS (power + arp + critical strike): I have tested it with a guild mate... defensive build despite going full DPS was still awfully hard to kill. And that was on Barbarian. Clerics and paladins get up to +10k critical avoidance as their stamina remains high. Many times I saw a cleric stand still and tank powers that would normally hit for 100k, reducing damage to mere 20-30k.

Healers are broken with defensive builds. I'll keep this short: low damage to them, but healing remains. Nearly unkillable in most cases.

And the pinnacle of all: wizard's shield mastery with all above. Jesus. Christ. Please nerf. The massive ranged DPS + freezing + repel + tankier than Leopard 2A7. Let me ask: did you look at the K/D in the leaderboard of the previous season? Ice Knife is very easy to hit for wizards since their at-will power freezes a player for long enough - and for burst type classes like rogue taking Impossible To Catch hurts their DPS and even daily power is not a guaranteed kill whereas wizards don't have that problem.

Currently PvP takes no skill, I'm not going to describe soulforged and unavoidable stuns from paladin, fighter and barbarian, since iirc those are already being solved, all that you need is BiS equipment or you'll either end up with 1 lucky steal kill and 20 deaths or get kicked by BiS only team because you couldn't survive on node or didn't cap because you were dead.

And if you think this is some random pug writing... I've been playing for a long time, I know what I'm talking about. Been in many PvP situations against full DPS in open world PvP - this is fun because this takes more skill than just try to RNG damage through a standing still player. Skill is defined by ability to survive and win under pressure, as far as I can see, standing still is not skill. It's either pay to win or grind the cheese. Full DPS just doesn't work well unless you get hands on Lionheart weapons and critical strike rings from ToMM, otherwise you can only be a support to the meta wizards. Because you won't do damage unless you catch a meta on their mount with a daily.

Neverwinter is supposed to be fun for all but for now it seems like PvP is fun to only chosen few. Last time I've seen the leaderboard it had only 10 pages - during module 15 I saw over 30 even after one reset.

Devs, please hear out and do something to make PvP fun again not just for people using certain builds but for all.

gweddry

First of all, nearly everything in this post is correct. As far as the state of PvP is concerned -- it's been worse, but not by much. There has been a clear downwards trend in PvP health over the past few years, and right now, we are very close to the lowest point.

Kicking is something I've been recently pointing out as well. If we talk minimum effort here, disabling it completely is not ideal, but it is the lesser evil.

In terms of skill -- there used to be a fairly decent skill ceiling back in the days. Unfortunately, with m16, this was reduced greatly, to the point where you basically do stat checks with your opponent.

Gear gap and broken items have always been a part of PvP. Both sigil and shadowclad are broken. Healing in general is overpowered, be it sigil, providence, insignias. Gear gap just gets larger over time and is pretty absurd nowadays.

CW is absolutely ridiculous. The strongest class in PvP as well as PvE? Pretty good deal I'd say. A good start would be to nerf shield very hard. That wouldn't even affect PvE at all. Honorable mention to TR with crit flowers, over 200k encounters and over 300k dailies.

bspally

Great story +

***

Both sigil and shadowclad are broken.

kalina311

I have one question and this applies to all classes

what is the average kill to death ratio for your class on page 1 /2/3 ? what about on the last pages??

one pvp pages 1-2-3 .between 1:1 and 6:1 kills to death(maybe with the best weapons) right ?? does that mean a class is over powered if it has a 2 or 3 or 4 one kill to death ratio ?
i think not ... how do kills to death look overall for all classes on the last pages pretty even no ?

heck there is a warlock on page 1 with a higher kill to death ratio then most Cw does that mean warlock is overpowered ?
or under represented

in the old unbalanced pvp days classes ( and the best players in that class ) had like 20 and 40 to 1 kill to death ratios ..
now we get complainants that classes are overpowered with a 2 or 3 to one kills to death ratio lol

why do these Cws on page one have sooo many deaths..just like the other classes if their shield is sooo powerful Riddle me that ?> mostly gear but there still is some skill left in pvp ..


if a class is strong in pvp / pve it does not mean it deserves to be bad/good/buffed /nerfed in the opposite part of the game as some sort of warped justice or a reason for class nerf / balance justification ..

gweddry

KDA doesn't have that much to do with how strong a class is. Apart from many other variables, the player can play for KDA and not for wins. Some players prefer high dps builds to be able to clear fast, others go tanky to survive better. Some players have no issue sacrificing themselves for the win, others will run or avoid the fight in general to get better KDA. Your KDA also depends on who you play against, i.e. which timezone. And so on.

The PvE/PvP thing I said is just that PvE-only players like to complain PvP ruins their classes. In case of CW, the nerf is deserved in both parts of the game, hence no conflict there. Obviously I did not mean to imply that classes strong in one part of the game should be weak in the other.

kalina311

i still think kds is a good average indicator on how a class is doing when you look at all participants at top and bottom of the leaderboard . all play styles considered and averaged out /if players play all styles then there is no choice but to agree and take the average of all the players performance playing that class..other play style metrics are harder to put down on paper

to give an example when tr were over powered even the worst scubbiest tr as the bottom of the leader board still had high kill l to death ratios but lots of selfish losses

devs cant/ shouldnt balance classes based on feelings/ players play styles / not being bis or being bis ... they can only balance them based on the leaderboard data and numbers and how often powers are used/ magnitude and by what classes

dracory1

So in your opinion a cleric with the same K/D ratio as mod 15 rogue is fine? The ratio is so low on wizards exactly because of what I mentioned in first post - try to find me a game where BIS players don't fight for 3+ minutes.
Most of their kills come from killing people without the full defense build. Besides, position on leaderboard is mostly influenced by wins, not kills and deaths. And it's hard to lose if you're basically immortal in a match, unless you can't use your brain.
It takes 1 player difference between a lost and won match.
A good example would be a match where enemy team kicked two players - one with low item level and second who joined afterwards with decent gear but not BIS defense build. Then an immortal wizard joined and guess what? From 800 to 200 we lost 900 to 1000.

kalina311

i dont know who this cleric is but if he is the exception to the rule then it is fine if it is a broken class trend/ feature then cleric dps path may need examining

so if bis fight for 3 mins it is not always cw vs cw is all i am saying .and there are plenty of cws deaths and death for all classes with similar kills per match ratios and kills to death regardless of leaderboard page .so they (cws) are overpowered yet they are dying just like everyone else on average so which is it ?

most of ALL classes kills come from killing people without full defense builds . so what

oh and i have lost tons of matches being an immortal Cw and i can use my brain : D

gonzakotwi

> @kalina311 said:
> heck there is a warlock on page 1 with a higher kill to death ratio then most Cw does that mean warlock is overpowered ?
> or under represented

While i don't share the idea of this post (there will always be an item on each category that will be better than the rest, but what should be done to balance is to bring the rest to that level instead of nerfing) i really don't understand how you Kalina being experienced in pvp and saying such thing and taking into account only k/d. You know well that that mentioned sw is known for gank and ks, not for team playing dom properly (as many others out there also do)
As far as class balance, it was way More balanced on m15, but before balancing some important class bugs need to be addressed (such as unavoidable ccs)

dracory1

"most of ALL classes kills come from killing people without full defense builds . so what"

Are you serious? You mention K/D being low. People in mod 15 had thousands of kills with hundreds of deaths, here it's only like two hundred to under ten. Clearly you are trying to defend a lost cause here. When everyone with low item level leaves PvP what will it be? Under a hundred kills?

You must really like being forced to play over and over with the same people by queuing through private chat que requests. How many Gauntigrym games did you have? I remember being able to play it in mod 16, now it's pretty much dead.

treentbail21

Cws are way too tanky they just die alot because they think they can fight a whole team and just do stupid fights if they used their brains more they could go nearly flawless but they are going into silly engagements. Thats why barbarians know whats up weve been getting wrecked for like 15 mods by one shots so we know what to avoid now since almost no one can one shot us but we are still being semi smart about what we do.

kalina311

i still think this thread is filled with contradictions

i know damm well the warlock and page one and why he is there

"Cws are way too tanky they just die alot because they think they can fight a whole team and just do stupid fights if they used their brains more they could go nearly flawless but they are going into silly engagements"

so here someone says they die alot cause they are picking bad fights and then we get other people in the thread saying they are too tanky...

dracory1#6808 said:

"most of ALL classes kills come from killing people without full defense builds . so what"



Are you serious? You mention K/D being low. People in mod 15 had thousands of kills with hundreds of deaths, here it's only like two hundred to under ten. Clearly you are trying to defend a lost cause here. When everyone with low item level leaves PvP what will it be? Under a hundred kills?



You must really like being forced to play over and over with the same people by queuing through private chat que requests. How many Gauntigrym games did you have? I remember being able to play it in mod 16, now it's pretty much dead.

I only said that cause you made it kook like cws kills were cause of low defense builds/. when it applies to all classes getting lucky kills tho .no its not fun playing the same people over and over..

do you realize how many pvp item nerf threads i made and stayed on top of over the years till most of them were adjusted for pvp . I am the champion of nerfing broken stuff in pvp

kalina311

gonzakotwi said:

> @kalina311 said:

> heck there is a warlock on page 1 with a higher kill to death ratio then most Cw does that mean warlock is overpowered ?

> or under represented



While i don't share the idea of this post (there will always be an item on each category that will be better than the rest, but what should be done to balance is to bring the rest to that level instead of nerfing) i really don't understand how you Kalina being experienced in pvp and saying such thing and taking into account only k/d. You know well that that mentioned sw is known for gank and ks, not for team playing dom properly (as many others out there also do)

As far as class balance, it was way More balanced on m15, but before balancing some important class bugs need to be addressed (such as unavoidable ccs)

clearly i sneakily mentioned the warlock on page one to provoke a reaction because he has been harrsing me in the e forums )in an other wise dead thread and it worked guys : D :
be happy i am one of the only dedicated pvp posters left .no hampster its dead no hampster sigil /shadows clad and overhealing items are still broken

no hampster kills to death is not the only measure of balance ..i was just putting something out for discussion and debate if not this would have been another dead thread

dracory1

Good for you, but my point still stands.

-doing numbers-

Alright. Since you need to match that defense, averaging with 25% damage reduction from defense and 20% damage resistance on shadowclad, against a ranged character a wizard would take only up to around 56.5% of damage if they had ToMM rings, 54.7% with one more -3% reduction item and 53.1% with 2 -3% reduction items.

47.9% with paladin sigil and ToMM rings and 45.1% with all mentioned against ranged.
51% against melee and 47.9% with all mentioned on paladin sigil.

Means that even rogues with 100k power won't be able to do more than around 150k on a critical strike - if they even have enough to have luck factor involved - and 270k with Shocking Execution.

Then again, shield most likely means... let's say even 1/4 of HP so around +80k. There is also 10% damage reduction from spell mastery. That gives a wizard around 440k HP (360k+80k). And against a melee rogue, even if they hit Shocking Execution, I can bet that they won't hit anything more. This is one or the other and even I can avoid sudden attack from a flash attack of a Whisperknife due to sounds giving everything out. I have killed a BIS wizard only once in solo while in domination match - by catching them on a mount with Hateful Knives.

I will run numbers later.

Edit: forgot to add spell mastery on shield and potential overload ward.

Edit 2: So I did run the numbers. With just defense reduction that I gave, a normal hit at 80k power deals only 50k max on assassinate, with 62.5k from behind! Shocking execution - up to 120k without critically striking. Is there anything else that I should mention? Because once a wizard's HP gets to 50% pop goes the sigil and battle potion.

kalina311

yes wards and slayers of X class also contribute to the problems / solution

also the many buffs potions food items etc

and what if a smart player is using class slayers with the guild boons ..yes i know that might be the only way to actually penetrate and do damage ,,conversely some players are using ward of x class.. which bring people damage down to negligible levels ..

now the truth ..
I agree with the thread and was playing devils advocate ...
currently my cw is one of 2 on the pc leaderboards with 0 deaths but more kills then the other guy .. ..i have been slowly tweaking my build to add more damage if the match or situation warrants it so i can clear people ..in 17 mods i have never been so tanky and usually dont even need the sigil i mostly use that to help other teamembers as well as a holy avenger rank 14

in order to go full offensive i would have to change all my insignia to power crti armor pen and that can get expensive.
some cws converted over nicely from pve cause they had all the damage mounts and toys / storyteller journal and wepons ..etc

in a losing match or when i/ people see the match is lopsided most people will go out full defensive mode and maybe change a ring or boon or 2 in the match depending how it is going


I will renew and try to make a new thread for the devs about current broken items/ there is also a direct channel in discord for the pvp dev whom i have messaged a few times and got responses most notably and recently in my cc resist in pvp thread

kalina311

wait is piercing damage not working like it used to and ignoring defenses and cutting thru armor
on Tr and Rangers . .should they not being doing more damage to counter defensive builds?

another post for debate ..

lemollen

There is no more piercing damage. Ppl had asked for its removal.

dracory1

Thanks for agreement and yes, unfortunately piercing damage was removed, bringing ranger and rogue down a lot. Hurts a lot to see assassinate not do even 10% of damage because of shield and go on 15s cooldown. Basically, a rogue to kill must be in a group fight and catch someone off guard because currently if you don't use smoke bomb on nodes, you are most likely to get kicked as well. And that's not a damage encounter. By using impossible to catch for defense the entire DPS is practically based on damage from assassinate and very rarely daily power. People complain about damage from it being high, but what else to do in a meta match?

kalina311

dare i say this but peicring may need to make a come back as well as giving tanks thier extra hitpoints back
and reducing incomming healing from the pally artifact further . maybe then rock paper scissors can be restored
and no need to touch cw shield cause they can be countered with piecing damage classes ..tanks can then soak more of thier damage up too .. fair for all.. and ranger /tr class (maybe immune to prircing damage from each other . ) still squishy but more lethal to tanks and cws

you should not be able to build an omni class that does not have a class that it is weak against / can counter it / be a threat to it

dracory1

Glad that we are coming to a point of understanding, but piercing damage would only solve problem for rangers and rogues. What about fighters/barbarians?

trgluestickz

dracory1#6808 said:

Thanks for agreement and yes, unfortunately piercing damage was removed, bringing ranger and rogue down a lot. Hurts a lot to see assassinate not do even 10% of damage because of shield and go on 15s cooldown. Basically, a rogue to kill must be in a group fight and catch someone off guard because currently if you don't use smoke bomb on nodes, you are most likely to get kicked as well. And that's not a damage encounter. By using impossible to catch for defense the entire DPS is practically based on damage from assassinate and very rarely daily power. People complain about damage from it being high, but what else to do in a meta match?

Some of this discription of rogue isn't accurate. Who kicks rogues for not using smokebomb? That's a new one lol. Also, rogue can kill 1vs1 just fine, even with smoke bomb equipped. Against some classes like ranger and paladin, smokebomb actually seems to be the most effective option in a 1vs1. For wizard, you'd swap to dazing strike or ITC for best effect but can improvise with smokebomb. Also, assassinate is a big source of rogue damage but we also get big hits from gloaming cut, duelist's flurry, and deft strike.

It is accurate to say rogue usually loses some of their damage by slotting a non dps encounter power and that wizard shield does give wizard the upperhand over rogue.

Also my opinion on piercing damage is that it isn't needed and shouldn't be brought back.

dracory1

There are people who already have a mindset that all rogue should do is to drop smoke bomb or even use staff of flowers instead of wheel/sigil. I've been kicked from a winning match by a meta team who couldn't cap 1 node in 4 while I was babysitting immortal cleric at home node with comments to instead stop dying and use smoke bomb. Also, rangers and paladins are practically bottom tier of PvP at the moment with 2 exceptions for rangers who I can still kill. Dazing strike has laughable damage, the only thing it does is giving advantage over dazed people which in domination is not enough. Deft Strike, Wicked Reminder and Lashing Blade are all easy to avoid, Duellist's Flurry and Gloaming Cut as well. So far I'm not being hit by any of those in 1v1 situations around 80% of times.

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kalina311

..lancer/barbie is that you on a new account : D previous post

dracory1

Oh I have seen more people get kicked for actually trying than standing still. I do not agree that DPS should be a complete glass cannon but they should not be so tanky that they are practically immortal.

As for stats given, this build is based on pure luck. I have been running something similar and still found myself deal little to no damage to wizards/clerics , even when arp matched defense and had over 40k-20k more crit than crit avoidance on enemy. Defense build still most likely has armor penetration to neglect glass cannon little defense. And if glass cannon is the way to go, unavoidable stuns and unavoidable damage from one cleric power better get fixed. Can't imagine fighting against rangers with their bursts faster than Pucci with Made in Heaven and wizards with crowd control on at-will since in most cases that makes them nearly unavoidable just as well. Yes, I am looking at you hold + ice knife.

Edit because I sent it in early accidentally: I can see this kind of balance come only by doing one thing: Returning stamina regen to normal, giving tanks their HP back and icreasing DPS offensive stats by a significant amount and tanks' defensive stats just as well, giving more reasons to have them build under their class. As for healers, higher critical avoidance, defense, critical strike and power to make their formula work.

trgluestickz

dracory1#6808 said:

There are people who already have a mindset that all rogue should do is to drop smoke bomb or even use staff of flowers instead of wheel/sigil. I've been kicked from a winning match by a meta team who couldn't cap 1 node in 4 while I was babysitting immortal cleric at home node with comments to instead stop dying and use smoke bomb. Also, rangers and paladins are practically bottom tier of PvP at the moment with 2 exceptions for rangers who I can still kill. Dazing strike has laughable damage, the only thing it does is giving advantage over dazed people which in domination is not enough. Deft Strike, Wicked Reminder and Lashing Blade are all easy to avoid, Duellist's Flurry and Gloaming Cut as well. So far I'm not being hit by any of those in 1v1 situations around 80% of times.

I don't agree on rangers being bottom tier, they are only slightly weaker than rogue in 1vs1. In terms of how useful a ranger is in a match, its about the same as rogue or maybe even a little bit better.
Paladin I do agree is near the bottom or at the bottom.

As for our other damaging attacks being "easy to avoid" assassinate isn't harder to avoid than the others you mentioned like lashing blade so I'm not sure what your point is. I also don't find it it particularly hard to land my other attacks in 1vs1s. I do end up using more gloaming cut than duelist's flurry this mod but I still use both fairly often.

Dazing strike is a very versatile power and can do a lot more for you than just grant CA.
It has one of the fastest cast times in the game, a very short cooldown, and the daze from it lasts a whopping 4 seconds.
The damage from dazing strike, while not as high as pure dps powers like lashing blade, is good enough to work with when combined with our other damaging powers.
-
That 4 second daze has no radius for your opponent to walk out of. This makes it much easier to hit with shocking execution against classes with dodges such as wizard and cleric, I get a much higher daily kill success rate when I do this and don't need to use hateful knives as often. You can do the same thing for landing big encounters like assassinate.
-
Dazing strike also is the best choice vs fighter since its got a short cooldown and is fast enough to stop enemies mid attack, allowing you to take full advantage of one of fighter's most important vulnerability windows and is also good for self defense. The daze from it also has a chance to break through tank shields and sometimes other immunity frames thanks to an old bug.

dracory1

Weird, for me dazing strike often gave out a sound of hitting the target but the target actually dodges it. Had this issue many times even from stealth cone. Especially against one certain wizard where even with ++hardtargetlock my powers seemed to miss in general with him dodging out after hit audio played. Not a ping issue, I have 100-120 ping normally, they are from the same time zone as well, so ping should be similar.

Might be useful against wizards and clerics - if it works, but I really don't need it against barbarians, fighters or rangers.

I am in fact pairing it with assassinate very often, but efficiency is still too low. I prefer mindgaming enemy to have their stamina reduced instead, swapping only for mentioned dazing + shocking combo mid battle when my AP recharges to full (which is painfully slow). As for gloaming cut and flurry... they hit. Immortals. Everyone else seems to avoid both as much as encounter powers. Fast classes like ranger simply stay out of melee range too often to get hit by both.

With how much I go against people in IWP, it might be why I miss so much, since there most of the times I am alone in fights and everyone knows how encounters from a rogue hurt there. In domination it's simply crowd unawareness that lets me hit most since I try keeping to teammates unless I have to babysit someone on home node. Either way, a rogue won't hit me with a gloaming cut nor duellist's flurry (or most encounters in general) in the open unless cryptic decides to not show smoke bomb (similarly to frost breath of Tiamat that many players fall prey to).

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dracory1

Sigil and shadowclad didn't help on a glass cannon build? Hmm I wonder why... /s

Again. Currently it's clerics and wizards that are the meta. I have no problems fighting against other classes. Hell, I can ditch shadowclad in favor of elven battle when there is no cleric or wizard involved in the match.

Let me remind you that matches are also 5v5, one meta in a group of pugs won't carry a match. If you haven't read the topic, you might want to re-read it because I gave plenty of reasons to highly disapprove of defense builds.

trgluestickz

dracory1#6808 said:

Weird, for me dazing strike often gave out a sound of hitting the target but the target actually dodges it. Had this issue many times even from stealth cone. Especially against one certain wizard where even with ++hardtargetlock my powers seemed to miss in general with him dodging out after hit audio played. Not a ping issue, I have 100-120 ping normally, they are from the same time zone as well, so ping should be similar.

Might be useful against wizards and clerics - if it works, but I really don't need it against barbarians, fighters or rangers.

I am in fact pairing it with assassinate very often, but efficiency is still too low. I prefer mindgaming enemy to have their stamina reduced instead, swapping only for mentioned dazing + shocking combo mid battle when my AP recharges to full (which is painfully slow). As for gloaming cut and flurry... they hit. Immortals. Everyone else seems to avoid both as much as encounter powers. Fast classes like ranger simply stay out of melee range too often to get hit by both.

With how much I go against people in IWP, it might be why I miss so much, since there most of the times I am alone in fights and everyone knows how encounters from a rogue hurt there. In domination it's simply crowd unawareness that lets me hit most since I try keeping to teammates unless I have to babysit someone on home node. Either way, a rogue won't hit me with a gloaming cut nor duellist's flurry (or most encounters in general) in the open unless cryptic decides to not show smoke bomb (similarly to frost breath of Tiamat that many players fall prey to).

I dunno if this is the same issue, but I do have some weird problems with cleric dodges, only for cleric though and it isn't limited to dazing strike. Its like the animation for the cleric dodge is slightly delayed so it looks like they haven't moved yet when in reality they already dodged. Its like they have a mini time warp lol.

If no actual dodge happened, its likely an issue with position stability or standing too close to the target. If you dodge too soon before or after using an attack, that can also cause bad hits and misses. There is also a common bug where sometimes attacks hit and go on cooldown but deal no damage.

As for the possible issues with too many missed attacks, I miss too but likely have a better success rate for some attacks. Funnily enough, assassinate is the attack I miss the most often with. I often try to use the weaving trick with it by mistake or simply press the button too soon instead of making sure I'm in range first. If you aren't familiar with weaving, learning that might help, its most useful for landing duelist's flurry but I use it a little bit for other stuff too. I included directions on how to do the weaving trick in my old mod 16 rogue guide, if you go to the section "labeled moving like a pro", its in there:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vT7Ham5YzPgI9C8rYi1KDYDZmRGUPPqXSiFNdtG-vKgUsP-bKSEEa_NY6BZ0DDpkKz4hjmNiGX-RT27/pub

dracory1

I know weaving well enough, figured it out long time ago on my own, just never knew the name. Also something I found out in your guide when I shortly looked over it:

"You are removed from stealth if you hit a foe with an encounter power"

Should reword to:

"You are removed from stealth whenever you use an encounter power"

The rest of the line is fine. This actually gave me the idea of further balance to give rogues +10k to critical strike in stealth. It would balance out with clerics getting up to +10k to critical avoidance based on stamina.