-Disclaimer- All Class Balancing suggestions and situations are based on top end BiS Gear and Potential of the Class
From the Eyes of a dedicated Pvpier who plays 10 hours a day on average I can safely say that class balance is the worst now then it has been since the initial release of Teneborus.
And unfortunately, it also seems like the released "ELO system" is non-existent or horribly broken
But lets start with the basic's.
First and foremost
Great Weapon Fighter (A.k.a The Class of Second Chances" Lets start off by saying that damage for a 2 handed fighter makes total sense.. But 40% more damage from a capstone? and a bugged Destroyer feat that adds an additional 50% tooltip damage? But that's not the best part yet.
Situation proposal: "Oh so you missed your 10-15K take-down hit, No worries, we'll give it back to you in 3 seconds. OH you also missed your Roar?! No worries 6 seconds and we'll give you back your CC that leaves your victim CC'D long enough to wait 6 seconds for your take-down to be back up! OH I also see your about to miss your 20K+ Damage Indomitable Battle Strike!? NO WORRIES AT ALL! you can just animation cancel it and try again later! By the way friend, you also don't have to worry about stacking offensive stats now. Just stack all defensive and we'll take care of the rest. After all, we're all about second chances here at GWF United!
Roar Glitch Needs to be fixed already
You took away Shocking Execution and put it on IBS
They get all their capstone stacks from Armor and Weapon enchants
I'm still surprised there hasn't been any complaints about take-down having a seemingly infinite range once its casted. the reason for this is because the game registers that it hit you during the beginning of the animation, but the prone dosen't actually come to the very end. therefore if I'm repelled per say, out of the GWF's range, takedown will still hit me when his animation ends.
Maybe a bit dramatic. But that's the state of GWF in a nutshell. It's damage needs to be scaled back by 20% Easy, and its cool-down time with the current damage is a COMPLETE joke, while also having unlimited range closer potential and now a CC break thats up 20% more, as compared to last patch. Seriously? I thought Great Weapon Fighter wasn't OP enough already
Hunter Ranger: At least this class's OP potential is not intended unlike the GWF, and I'll look the other way in regards to negligence because the class is still very young, but someone needs to blow the horn. Natures Blessing is ridiculously OP, even with GWF the way it is now, with both classes at max potential it is IMPOSSIBLE for an HR to die 1v1. Why?
Natures Blessing Adds an additional 20% less healing depression on max stats
Forest Meditation is basically a guaranteed full heal and HR's have the games fastest AP gain
With proper rotation Skill, in a 1v1 an HR can keep his opponent permanently CC'd between Constricting and Dazing shot (which is fair, but not when you have everything else that I listed)
40,000 HP+ and its beyond easy to stack 2k regen
Lone wolf? are you serious, the supposedly "range class" has more base DR in a 1v1 situation then a TR and sometimes even more then the plated GWF and GF
Take a look at an unamed HR on page 1 of the scoreboard K/d 39+ per 1 kill, and only HR's have anything close to that
I currently carry one of the best K/d's in the game on my TR at a 17+ and I have to struggle to keep that (But thats mostly because 50% of my deaths are GWF related, and 90% of whats not GWF related are glitch related)
It's damage is actually pretty balanced if it were possible to kill them, so no complaints there.
Trickster Rogue: Pretty much the martyr of misunderstood Classes, but yes it's rotation is pretty hard to beat for new players. But I can guarantee you, having played rogue since beta, killing even the "Perm stealth's" is a breeze when using the two prior classes.
Path of Blades is ridiculous. It's skilless, and should've never have been replaced by nerfing Impact shot
Impact Shot: I'm still dumbfounded that a TRIPLE Dipping nerf went through, like what? Tenacity nerfing its damage, Then 33% damage nerf, then your seriously going to take 33% damage for every charge I don't have left? Congratulations, my Cloud of steel hits harder now, and you made the class even MORE skilless
Since beta and this is my third time mentioning it
ITC and Shadow Strike glitch NEED TO BE FIXED ALREADY
Example: Great Weapon Fighter uses take-down on me the same time I use ITC, instead of ITC just not going off, it cycles through a cool down, I take the prone, and the ITC affect never goes off
Shadow Strike will do the same thing if you lose target of the person after casting
Shocking Execution Gets 2 kills off of someone with Soulforge, this needs to be amended
Control Wizard: Honestly, Not much to say about this class, at max potential it's a monster in a group fight, and is working pretty well. but with HR and GWF being way over the top CW is extremely Hindered
and seriously, Please fix shard disappearing bug already, every form of CC besides Prone's and Daring's remove the boulder. on top of the fact that any entity on the floor such as thorn ward and Hallowed ground will bug the boulders prone attribute.
And they need to fix it's armor pen already then once armor does infact work, scale back its damage by a small amount
Guardian Fighter: Seriously, so much wasted potential with the way this class is now
Giving GWF the GF paragon path was the biggest mistake in this game.
GF needs a complete rework of the shield, my suggestion is a stamina bar like the TR where it drains moderately fast, but recovers at a decent pace to make using the shield more skillful instead of just extra HP
It's still no where near as tanky as a GWF, and the GF has a shield
20% More damage minimum
Devoted Cleric: Seriously, the stuff that has been done to this class has nearly made me quit the game
A cleric can't 1v1 any class on max potential now, which is beyond stupidity.
Without a doubt, clerics should be able to survive against anything 1v1 if they're good. and the only way to do that would be allowing them to heal themselves for more then whats currently possible, and the nerfing of Sunburst's pushback with tenacity made them useless in a 1v1 (even if they can live) because now they can't help their team get points
Now my understanding of each class isn't perfection, so I hope experienced players will further help my case
ELO System
Alright, now I'm truly convinced it either doesn't exist, or it's not even working
Whenever I que solo, I'm stuck either carrying my pugs completely, while demolishing the other team
or I'm stuck demolishing the other team with my pugs destroying them to
I have not yet, had 1 single game where I queued solo and the teams were even
Don't get me wrong, I've had close games, but that's more on account of peoples lack of understanding that they have to stand on the point to win..
If anyone has intelligent and constructive information about any class listed that they can prove with #'s, then PM me over Forum or In-game and I will add it to the class breakdown.
Dude are you serious? So what if us GWFs can kill in 1 rotation (sometimes less) as a MELEE class we need some RANGED attacks. My goodness.. This is terrible
Ditto, I think your HR criticism is a bit over the top but for the most part, pretty bang on. Id nerf Careful attack or at least the dot refreshing bug with GPF. The ranger isnt a full ranged class though so I'd argue for Lone wolf's necessity, but that's just my opinion.
Also Roar bugs Fox Shift the same way as itc!
But ye atm the main issue is the endless dmg stacking feats + bugged feats that give gwfs an over 100% dmg buff on some encounters.
Lets be honest, 15kish Takedowns arent that rare, so we have an Encounter on an 6sec cd which prones + does insane dmg + resets the cd to 3 sec when you miss it.
The only equal skill is Iceknife but thats a daily and hits for less most of the time.
I'm sure everyone would call Iceknife with an 6sec cd ''a bit'' too strong.
I would like to add my complaint about clerics in the PvP campaign. I have made a support class, but now they require double and triple kills and more 1000 npc's....
I feel bad being pushed to kill steal my team.
Overall very good post. Currently Both Sicarius and I are on the top page in the leaderboards and have been trying to get attention from the DEVs over these issues.
GREAT WEAPON FIGHTER:They did announce GWFs getting a damage tone (fixing broken feats) down which will help, and that combined with Roar glitch being fixed eventually, this will help out quite a bit. Id like to see these changes fixed before I make further suggestions but I do think the Capstone should be re-worked to 30 stacks max @ 1% per stack rather than 20 stacks @ 2%. That would IMO bring GWF perfectly inline for PVP, but for PVE - increase target cap and remove Dim Returns on damage on multiple targets and your good.
HUNTER RANGER: Honestly most broken class atm... Its pure stupid, you nailed it above. Honestly the HR shouldnt be as tanky as it is now, I think if they removed the NUMBER of dodges they have, and put an ICD of maybe 1 second on the 4/4 pvp set this would help alot. Id LOVE to see Range spec come back as well - Make the Capstone actually decent again and not some crappy 20 sec CD and only for encounters - we all know Aim Shot was the synergy there... Give it back like a 10 sec CD and works on ANY attack and itll be semi fixed...
Trickster Rogue: This class makes me cry as well, Since the beginning of the game they were WAY too strong in PVP and nerf after nerf TRs have been STILL finding more and more ways to adapt until theres literally nothing left.
Id LOVE to see a combat TR work again. IMO TRs should have dodge LIKE the HR has now, Lashing "stealth" benefit needs to be 50% reduced CD NOT 100% crit, that would help some. Fixing the current SS and ITC would help. Id love to see TRs get out of stealth class features as well so maybe they dont have to hide in stealth 24/7 and do nothing....
GUARDIAN FIGHTER: This class makes me cry too. For starters, I would give GWFs and GFs the same STAT benefits. Currently a GWF gets HP/ARP from Con and Crit/Deflect from DEX. Give those SAME stats to Guardian Fighters and that will help.
THEN, Block needs to be moved to stamina so its a function of TIME NOT DAMAGE/HITS taken. It should be similar to a GWFs Sprint in that you need about 1/5th of the full bar to actually use it, and it lasts like 1 second. Full block = 5 seconds then feated with feats/gear bonuses/STR it gains more.
Those TWO small tweaks would make GFs VERY strong again.
ELO/LEADERBOARDS: I dont know how you guys come up with games... Yesterday I que with 3 people in the top 10 pages, we go against a full premade and get TWO PUGS that dont even have weapon enchants....
Also, its SUPER lame that you can DROP leaderboard slots from winning. That should NEVER happen. It makes me not even want to que up. I try and que with 2/3 man to make more fair games and go against premades and lose because of PUGS so then I get a full premade together and que and we go against pugs and I drop spots on the board... Its a lose/lose thats really frustrating.
Winning at a worst case should result in ZERO gain or loss in ELO/Leader boards. Losing is the only thing that should make you drop.
We're back at what? 1-2 PVP threads a day. All those that say the system now is better than pre PVP patch, romantics at best, but probably simply ignorant.
-Disclaimer- All Class Balancing suggestions and situations are based on top end BiS Gear and Potential of the Class
Not surprisingly, most of the problems you mention are non-existent or at least only exist in a fairly structured trade-off manner outside of the BiS Gear environment. "Max Potential" of a class in this game translates to "As Broken As Possible".
A destroyer GWF without enchantments, artifacts, or boons dies laughably fast in turn for being able to kill things quickly. HRs in the same situation can't become super-tanky or regenerate like Wolverine. TRs without OP bile-thorn and lightning recovery can't run silly perma builds.
Gear inflation is the reason for the majority of class imbalances, most of which wouldn't exist if enchantment slots and artifacts disappeared over night. As it stands, HR/GWF/TR are just better at taking advantage of brokenly overpowered stats and thus the classes that cannot "explode" from over-gearing (CW/DC/GF) lag behind in terms of balance. But then again, the possibility of being broken is what keeps people swiping their credit card, which is why this game has had this window of opportunity in one form or another since the beginning of it.
I'm fairly confident that if PvP forced people to tone down their stats instead of over-infalting them, not only would we see a drastic increase in class balance, but we would also see a drastic increase in the variety of viable PvP builds within each class. Until then, Rank 10s , triple legendaries, and maxed boons will continue to break balance as they are intended to.
If they balance the game around BiS Gear this problem only gets worse.
--- Ranked matches need to be solo-queue only
Enforce rainbow parties in PvP ---- 10v10 PvP ----
Not surprisingly, most of the problems you mention are non-existent or at least only exist in a fairly structured trade-off manner outside of the BiS Gear environment. "Max Potential" of a class in this game translates to "As Broken As Possible".
A destroyer GWF without enchantments, artifacts, or boons dies laughably fast in turn for being able to kill things quickly. HRs in the same situation can't become super-tanky or regenerate like Wolverine. TRs without OP bile-thorn and lightning recovery can't run silly perma builds.
Gear inflation is the reason for the majority of class imbalances, most of which wouldn't exist if enchantment slots and artifacts disappeared over night. As it stands, HR/GWF/TR are just better at taking advantage of brokenly overpowered stats and thus the classes that cannot "explode" from over-gearing (CW/DC/GF) lag behind in terms of balance. But then again, the possibility of being broken is what keeps people swiping their credit card, which is why this game has had this window of opportunity in one form or another since the beginning of it.
I'm fairly confident that if PvP forced people to tone down their stats instead of over-infalting them, not only would we see a drastic increase in class balance, but we would also see a drastic increase in the variety of viable PvP builds within each class. Until then, Rank 10s , triple legendaries, and maxed boons will continue to break balance as they are intended to.
If they balance the game around BiS Gear this problem only gets worse.
First off sir, Mouz is runnign an 8k GS GWF atm, and landed a 20k Takedown, so it dying laughably fast will never happen, because 1v1, you'll die first!
Second off, you don't need any Recovery, or any INT to run a perm build rotation, So thats false and bilethorn is actually an anti-stealth mechanism so what you said about it is a bit contradictory
Thirdly, there will always be BiS gear so making patches to fix whats not broken is a waste of time.
Forth, I added my disclaimer for a reason, and no one in the PvP community cares about people with no gear
First off sir, Mouz is runnign an 8k GS GWF atm, and landed a 20k Takedown, so it dying laughably fast will never happen, because 1v1, you'll die first!
Second off, you don't need any Recovery, or any INT to run a perm build rotation, So thats false and bilethorn is actually an anti-stealth mechanism so what you said about it is a bit contradictory
Thirdly, there will always be BiS gear so making patches to fix whats not broken is a waste of time.
Forth, I added my disclaimer for a reason, and no one in the PvP community cares about people with no gear
To address your first point, first, gear score means nothing, that's not what I'm talking about. Maybe a GWF can hit for high numbers with barebones gear, but a CW with barebones gear can probably kill a barebones GWF easier than a maxed-out version of the two classes.
Second point, I'm not a rogue expert so disregard the recovery comment. Again what I'm talking about is gear inflation (including weapon/armor enchants), I doubt a perma-based rogue would kill so well without his bilethorn. Match a barebones rogue with a barebones CW/GF and I'm sure the CW/GF would do a lot better than the maxed out version of themselves. I made this chart with some high end editing software and tons of data collection to help explain my point. (JK its a obviously a rough estimation made with MSP)
I don't know what your third point is actually arguing. I'm saying that BiS gear is meant to break things($ incentive in a f2p game), some classes become more broken than others, hence BiS class imbalances. I'm not suggesting balancing the game around naked characters, but balancing the game around people in Rank 10s is just as useless to the game as a whole, if not more so. What you're doing at that point is trying to make all the classes break in a scaled and equal fashion the more broken stats it gets. It's incredibly backwards to approach balance this way.
Forth point, class balance and competitive balance in general won't happen until gear is also balanced. Fairness is the basis for competitive gaming and you might be surprised how many respectable PvPers would prefer fairness across the board as opposed to gross discrepancies in balance (via gear and class). Expanding fairness across a broader portion of the population by leveling out gear/stats (because we all know even the difference between 7>8 or 9>10 is enormous) might actually have an amazingly positive impact on the PvP community (which despite what you believe is not entirely comprised of people with BiS gear).
Edit : clarity/spelling
--- Ranked matches need to be solo-queue only
Enforce rainbow parties in PvP ---- 10v10 PvP ----
To address your first point, first, gear score means nothing, that's not what I'm talking about. Maybe a GWF can hit for high numbers with barebones gear, but a CW with barebones gear can probably kill a barebones GWF easier than a maxed-out version of the two classes.
Second point, I'm not a rogue expert so disregard the recovery comment. Again what I'm talking about is gear inflation (including weapon/armor enchants), I doubt a perma-based rogue would kill so well without his bilethorn. Match a barebones rogue with a barebones CW/GF and I'm sure the CW/GF would do a lot better than the maxed out version of themselves. I made this chart with some high end editing software and tons of data collection to help explain my point. (JK its a obviously a rough estimation made with MSP)
I don't know what your third point is actually arguing. I'm saying that BiS gear is meant to break things($ incentive in a f2p game), some classes become more broken than others, hence BiS class imbalances. I'm not suggesting balancing the game around naked characters, but balancing the game around people in Rank 10s is just as useless to the game as a whole, if not more so. What you're doing at that point is trying to make all the classes break in a scaled and equal fashion the more broken stats it gets. It's incredibly backwards to approach balance this way.
Forth point, class balance won't happen until gear is also balanced. Fairness is the basis for competitive gaming and you might be surprised how many respectable PvPers would prefer fairness across the board as opposed to gross discrepancies in balance (via gear and class). Expanding fairness across a broader portion of the population by leveling out gear/stats (because we all know even the difference between 7>8 or 9>10 is enormous) might actually have an amazingly positive impact on the PvP community (which despite what you believe is not entirely comprised of people with BiS gear).
Although I agree with much of what you say, I feel balancing classes from the git go and making everything even to even with no gear is a huge task in itself, then to further re-edit every gear piece so it doesn't break that balance is an even bigger task, so lets set realistic goals
Adjusting max potential to be balanced will help because all the gear is basically the same when your talking about the best possible build you can use, only the degree of the gear and how strong it is at its defined task changes.
The main reason I speak of Best potential and BiS gear, is because at the end of the day, should this game ever have a tournament, take a guess at which gear is going to be used.
Tbh, the most balanced point in this games history was before the tenacity patch, all they really had to do was nerf regen slightly and scale down the (wow shocker, GWF was op then too) GWF damage by a moderate amount while also buffing GF, and the class vs class balance would've been very equal
While also fixing all of the countless bugs involved in every class
In terms of 1v1 with BiS gear and potential the current balance ranges at this
HR>GWF>TR>CW>GF>DC
GF only beating DC because he can knock the dc off the point
however in terms of 2v2
DC + GWF is pretty unbeatable which is nice to see the lowest on the totem pole make a huge impact in a 2v2 scenario
My only defense for TR is that a combat TR sounds like just another GWF. TR's stealthy features sets it apart from every other class. I really don't think you can nerf the stealth qualities without destroying the class and turning it into another drone i.e wanna be gwf or a wanna be HR
'
Bottom line is though, if you implement the changes I proposed along with the ideas of other experienced people. I guarantee you will see a much better balance
HR is in a really good spot right now 1v1, but where that matters- node contesting- I think a TR is still more effective against 2 or more people (as long as they aren't 2 GFs like that video...).
CW+any DPS is really good against an HR because you can't dodge icy roots and HRs have no CC-immunity skill.
So an HR holding a node vs. a TR holding a node- they're both good at it, HR is probably better 1v1 and TR is better 2+v1 (although TR is still good 1v1- also TR has the advantage of being able to stealth at hyper speed to the point).
Against a BIS GWF though either class is in trouble.
Also, while what you're saying may be true for top potential, TRs still have an advantage of being effective throughout the spectrum of gear thanks to stealth (assuming they know where the enemy node is- some don't seem to).
When top of the line premades replace their node contesting TR with an HR, then I'll believe they're overall better.
By far, TR's tab ability is the strongest in the game, but people often forget We have nothing to go with that tab ability instead of a **** ton of survival which "Btw guys" you know how you beat a PoB tr? you turn around, you walk straight, he'll never catch you and kill you
Although I agree with much of what you say, I feel balancing classes from the git go and making everything even to even with no gear is a huge task in itself, then to further re-edit every gear piece so it doesn't break that balance is an even bigger task, so lets set realistic goals
That's simply balancing itemization between the classes, something that this game has done terribly for a long time. If this step were done properly many of the balance issues and fixes you propsoe (which are indeed spot on) would not be necessary. Having said that, class balance is a very real problem with this game and hindsight doesn't do us much good.
My issue with the suggestions, like almost every balance suggestion on the forums, is that they are essentially band-aids for problems that root much deeper. Reducing GWF damage by 20% seems like a perfect fix, but how they would go about that would negatively impact both PvE and lesser-geared players, so it simply cannot happen (and like you said , we want realistic goals). The problems causing class imbalance are mostly inherent problems that simply cannot be changed (Unstoppable, 6 Dodges, Stealth + Immunity, Ability Score imbalances, etc.) These problems get worse and worse as gear gets better and better. A year from now maybe Rank 12s are available, we all have 6 artifact slots, Tier 5 Gear, 7 sets of boons, its not going to matter if they reduced GWF damage by 20% or toned down HR dmg resistance.
The only hope I see for PvP class balance is stripping gear down significantly with something like a hardcore mode. Everyone has raw stats like at the beginning of my chart. Either that or they just keep adding new broken classes until the under-powered ones wash away. If things keep going like they seem to be, a Roar fix here and a GF buff there (2 years later) isn't gonna do ****.
--- Ranked matches need to be solo-queue only
Enforce rainbow parties in PvP ---- 10v10 PvP ----
Clerics need to have a dps spec because of all the healing depression and hindered self heal. Gwf need both damage and damage resistance nerf, hrs have to many issues with them making them overpowered and trs are just fine. They need more options in other specs so the class can be fun and not so boring. cw needs better controls and gf need their buffs to be a tab ability.
Thats just great. Now we can all just roll GWFs and be done with it. Even with all of the healing from that bugged set, an doing a 1v1 vs a equally geared gwf was 50/50 at best. Now it looks like the advantage is given right back to the GWF. They should just call Domination, "GWF pwns you, **** off".
yup, i agree with this thread almost completely, it lists many of the main bugs/broken class mechanics. About the HR, IMHO to adjust this class without nerfing everything, you could just limit the class ability of switching between melee/ranged (Ex can switch only if 2/3 encounters are up, or applying cool-downs to it or some other better ideas xD)
Fix so that the GWF dosent get destroyer stacks from every plaguefire tick, but an actually hit, and you are taking a huge step in the right dirrection.
Also, Siccarius and Liquid, you are both ****ing <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
[10:10] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Vlad deals 33316 (40245) Physical Damage to you with Indomitable Battle Strike.
I'm done with this, a good bye from a "full tank" DC.
Holy **** batman. The highest IBS I've seen on my full tank DC was 22k mitigated from 35k. Remember good ol'days when sentinel GWFs were hitting me for 8k critical IBS's...
M6 almost drains your soul given how boring it is. (c) joocycuzzzzzz
you probly were debuffed and had like 5% hp so the Executioner style feat did kick in, means u would die anyway
Debuffed yeah, 5% hp not. And I have played many times against Vlad to know what kind of damage he is capable of, as are other GWF.
Even non-debuff, threatning rush itself, a spammable gap closer at will does 5-7k damage on me, which goes from 15 to 20% of my HP a hit. Whatever it may be, 33k is not something we should deal it. Neither 30k, 25k or 20k. These numbers are much higher than Module 2 pre-tenacity, and one of the big differences now is that I have Healing Depression to deal with.
If there's an encounter that damages for 10-30k, I should be able to heal for that amount, no?
I'll even make a video to show these crazy numbers, but with 60% of the game's PVP population being GWF all you need to do is go into a PVP yourself.
By far, TR's tab ability is the strongest in the game, but people often forget We have nothing to go with that tab ability instead of a **** ton of survival which "Btw guys" you know how you beat a PoB tr? you turn around, you walk straight, he'll never catch you and kill you
Tr's have 0 "viable" burst damage
I bet if you asked TRs if they could have unstoppable instead they'd take it!
Shieldbash60 GF ~ Iron Vanguard19.0k Overpowered60 CW~ Thaumaturge14.5k ==========================================
~ GF Buffs were great we are much better, please fix the bugs now... Thank you!
Debuffed yeah, 5% hp not. And I have played many times against Vlad to know what kind of damage he is capable of, as are other GWF.
Even non-debuff, threatning rush itself, a spammable gap closer at will does 5-7k damage on me, which goes from 15 to 20% of my HP a hit. Whatever it may be, 33k is not something we should deal it. Neither 30k, 25k or 20k. These numbers are much higher than Module 2 pre-tenacity, and one of the big differences now is that I have Healing Depression to deal with.
If there's an encounter that damages for 10-30k, I should be able to heal for that amount, no?
I'll even make a video to show these crazy numbers, but with 60% of the game's PVP population being GWF all you need to do is go into a PVP yourself.
NO at will should do that much damage, my Threatening rush and Cleaves with 8k+ power do 1300 damage! The GWFs should maybe do twice that!
Shieldbash60 GF ~ Iron Vanguard19.0k Overpowered60 CW~ Thaumaturge14.5k ==========================================
~ GF Buffs were great we are much better, please fix the bugs now... Thank you!
Comments
Jk. Very well done and I agree with most parts
But ye atm the main issue is the endless dmg stacking feats + bugged feats that give gwfs an over 100% dmg buff on some encounters.
Lets be honest, 15kish Takedowns arent that rare, so we have an Encounter on an 6sec cd which prones + does insane dmg + resets the cd to 3 sec when you miss it.
The only equal skill is Iceknife but thats a daily and hits for less most of the time.
I'm sure everyone would call Iceknife with an 6sec cd ''a bit'' too strong.
I feel bad being pushed to kill steal my team.
GREAT WEAPON FIGHTER:They did announce GWFs getting a damage tone (fixing broken feats) down which will help, and that combined with Roar glitch being fixed eventually, this will help out quite a bit. Id like to see these changes fixed before I make further suggestions but I do think the Capstone should be re-worked to 30 stacks max @ 1% per stack rather than 20 stacks @ 2%. That would IMO bring GWF perfectly inline for PVP, but for PVE - increase target cap and remove Dim Returns on damage on multiple targets and your good.
HUNTER RANGER: Honestly most broken class atm... Its pure stupid, you nailed it above. Honestly the HR shouldnt be as tanky as it is now, I think if they removed the NUMBER of dodges they have, and put an ICD of maybe 1 second on the 4/4 pvp set this would help alot. Id LOVE to see Range spec come back as well - Make the Capstone actually decent again and not some crappy 20 sec CD and only for encounters - we all know Aim Shot was the synergy there... Give it back like a 10 sec CD and works on ANY attack and itll be semi fixed...
Trickster Rogue: This class makes me cry as well, Since the beginning of the game they were WAY too strong in PVP and nerf after nerf TRs have been STILL finding more and more ways to adapt until theres literally nothing left.
Id LOVE to see a combat TR work again. IMO TRs should have dodge LIKE the HR has now, Lashing "stealth" benefit needs to be 50% reduced CD NOT 100% crit, that would help some. Fixing the current SS and ITC would help. Id love to see TRs get out of stealth class features as well so maybe they dont have to hide in stealth 24/7 and do nothing....
GUARDIAN FIGHTER: This class makes me cry too. For starters, I would give GWFs and GFs the same STAT benefits. Currently a GWF gets HP/ARP from Con and Crit/Deflect from DEX. Give those SAME stats to Guardian Fighters and that will help.
THEN, Block needs to be moved to stamina so its a function of TIME NOT DAMAGE/HITS taken. It should be similar to a GWFs Sprint in that you need about 1/5th of the full bar to actually use it, and it lasts like 1 second. Full block = 5 seconds then feated with feats/gear bonuses/STR it gains more.
Those TWO small tweaks would make GFs VERY strong again.
ELO/LEADERBOARDS: I dont know how you guys come up with games... Yesterday I que with 3 people in the top 10 pages, we go against a full premade and get TWO PUGS that dont even have weapon enchants....
Also, its SUPER lame that you can DROP leaderboard slots from winning. That should NEVER happen. It makes me not even want to que up. I try and que with 2/3 man to make more fair games and go against premades and lose because of PUGS so then I get a full premade together and que and we go against pugs and I drop spots on the board... Its a lose/lose thats really frustrating.
Winning at a worst case should result in ZERO gain or loss in ELO/Leader boards. Losing is the only thing that should make you drop.
We're back at what? 1-2 PVP threads a day. All those that say the system now is better than pre PVP patch, romantics at best, but probably simply ignorant.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?681451-HR-quot-Meditation-quot-heals-HRs-to-full-HP&p=8073621&viewfull=1#post8073621
Not surprisingly, most of the problems you mention are non-existent or at least only exist in a fairly structured trade-off manner outside of the BiS Gear environment. "Max Potential" of a class in this game translates to "As Broken As Possible".
A destroyer GWF without enchantments, artifacts, or boons dies laughably fast in turn for being able to kill things quickly. HRs in the same situation can't become super-tanky or regenerate like Wolverine. TRs without OP bile-thorn and lightning recovery can't run silly perma builds.
Gear inflation is the reason for the majority of class imbalances, most of which wouldn't exist if enchantment slots and artifacts disappeared over night. As it stands, HR/GWF/TR are just better at taking advantage of brokenly overpowered stats and thus the classes that cannot "explode" from over-gearing (CW/DC/GF) lag behind in terms of balance. But then again, the possibility of being broken is what keeps people swiping their credit card, which is why this game has had this window of opportunity in one form or another since the beginning of it.
I'm fairly confident that if PvP forced people to tone down their stats instead of over-infalting them, not only would we see a drastic increase in class balance, but we would also see a drastic increase in the variety of viable PvP builds within each class. Until then, Rank 10s , triple legendaries, and maxed boons will continue to break balance as they are intended to.
If they balance the game around BiS Gear this problem only gets worse.
Enforce rainbow parties in PvP ---- 10v10 PvP ----
First off sir, Mouz is runnign an 8k GS GWF atm, and landed a 20k Takedown, so it dying laughably fast will never happen, because 1v1, you'll die first!
Second off, you don't need any Recovery, or any INT to run a perm build rotation, So thats false and bilethorn is actually an anti-stealth mechanism so what you said about it is a bit contradictory
Thirdly, there will always be BiS gear so making patches to fix whats not broken is a waste of time.
Forth, I added my disclaimer for a reason, and no one in the PvP community cares about people with no gear
To address your first point, first, gear score means nothing, that's not what I'm talking about. Maybe a GWF can hit for high numbers with barebones gear, but a CW with barebones gear can probably kill a barebones GWF easier than a maxed-out version of the two classes.
Second point, I'm not a rogue expert so disregard the recovery comment. Again what I'm talking about is gear inflation (including weapon/armor enchants), I doubt a perma-based rogue would kill so well without his bilethorn. Match a barebones rogue with a barebones CW/GF and I'm sure the CW/GF would do a lot better than the maxed out version of themselves. I made this chart with some high end editing software and tons of data collection to help explain my point. (JK its a obviously a rough estimation made with MSP)
http://i.imgur.com/TQEnWAw.png
I don't know what your third point is actually arguing. I'm saying that BiS gear is meant to break things($ incentive in a f2p game), some classes become more broken than others, hence BiS class imbalances. I'm not suggesting balancing the game around naked characters, but balancing the game around people in Rank 10s is just as useless to the game as a whole, if not more so. What you're doing at that point is trying to make all the classes break in a scaled and equal fashion the more broken stats it gets. It's incredibly backwards to approach balance this way.
Forth point, class balance and competitive balance in general won't happen until gear is also balanced. Fairness is the basis for competitive gaming and you might be surprised how many respectable PvPers would prefer fairness across the board as opposed to gross discrepancies in balance (via gear and class). Expanding fairness across a broader portion of the population by leveling out gear/stats (because we all know even the difference between 7>8 or 9>10 is enormous) might actually have an amazingly positive impact on the PvP community (which despite what you believe is not entirely comprised of people with BiS gear).
Edit : clarity/spelling
Enforce rainbow parties in PvP ---- 10v10 PvP ----
Although I agree with much of what you say, I feel balancing classes from the git go and making everything even to even with no gear is a huge task in itself, then to further re-edit every gear piece so it doesn't break that balance is an even bigger task, so lets set realistic goals
Adjusting max potential to be balanced will help because all the gear is basically the same when your talking about the best possible build you can use, only the degree of the gear and how strong it is at its defined task changes.
The main reason I speak of Best potential and BiS gear, is because at the end of the day, should this game ever have a tournament, take a guess at which gear is going to be used.
Tbh, the most balanced point in this games history was before the tenacity patch, all they really had to do was nerf regen slightly and scale down the (wow shocker, GWF was op then too) GWF damage by a moderate amount while also buffing GF, and the class vs class balance would've been very equal
While also fixing all of the countless bugs involved in every class
In terms of 1v1 with BiS gear and potential the current balance ranges at this
HR>GWF>TR>CW>GF>DC
GF only beating DC because he can knock the dc off the point
however in terms of 2v2
DC + GWF is pretty unbeatable which is nice to see the lowest on the totem pole make a huge impact in a 2v2 scenario
My only defense for TR is that a combat TR sounds like just another GWF. TR's stealthy features sets it apart from every other class. I really don't think you can nerf the stealth qualities without destroying the class and turning it into another drone i.e wanna be gwf or a wanna be HR
'
Bottom line is though, if you implement the changes I proposed along with the ideas of other experienced people. I guarantee you will see a much better balance
CW+any DPS is really good against an HR because you can't dodge icy roots and HRs have no CC-immunity skill.
So an HR holding a node vs. a TR holding a node- they're both good at it, HR is probably better 1v1 and TR is better 2+v1 (although TR is still good 1v1- also TR has the advantage of being able to stealth at hyper speed to the point).
Against a BIS GWF though either class is in trouble.
Also, while what you're saying may be true for top potential, TRs still have an advantage of being effective throughout the spectrum of gear thanks to stealth (assuming they know where the enemy node is- some don't seem to).
When top of the line premades replace their node contesting TR with an HR, then I'll believe they're overall better.
By far, TR's tab ability is the strongest in the game, but people often forget We have nothing to go with that tab ability instead of a **** ton of survival which "Btw guys" you know how you beat a PoB tr? you turn around, you walk straight, he'll never catch you and kill you
Tr's have 0 "viable" burst damage
That's simply balancing itemization between the classes, something that this game has done terribly for a long time. If this step were done properly many of the balance issues and fixes you propsoe (which are indeed spot on) would not be necessary. Having said that, class balance is a very real problem with this game and hindsight doesn't do us much good.
My issue with the suggestions, like almost every balance suggestion on the forums, is that they are essentially band-aids for problems that root much deeper. Reducing GWF damage by 20% seems like a perfect fix, but how they would go about that would negatively impact both PvE and lesser-geared players, so it simply cannot happen (and like you said , we want realistic goals). The problems causing class imbalance are mostly inherent problems that simply cannot be changed (Unstoppable, 6 Dodges, Stealth + Immunity, Ability Score imbalances, etc.) These problems get worse and worse as gear gets better and better. A year from now maybe Rank 12s are available, we all have 6 artifact slots, Tier 5 Gear, 7 sets of boons, its not going to matter if they reduced GWF damage by 20% or toned down HR dmg resistance.
The only hope I see for PvP class balance is stripping gear down significantly with something like a hardcore mode. Everyone has raw stats like at the beginning of my chart. Either that or they just keep adding new broken classes until the under-powered ones wash away. If things keep going like they seem to be, a Roar fix here and a GF buff there (2 years later) isn't gonna do ****.
Enforce rainbow parties in PvP ---- 10v10 PvP ----
Thats just great. Now we can all just roll GWFs and be done with it. Even with all of the healing from that bugged set, an doing a 1v1 vs a equally geared gwf was 50/50 at best. Now it looks like the advantage is given right back to the GWF. They should just call Domination, "GWF pwns you, **** off".
Jugger Conq GF
....
This has been dragging on for months.
TR OP? Immediate nerf.
HR OP? Immediate nerf.
GWF OP?
Sure let's just make them MORE OP, then even MORE OP, and then nerf the only contenders and leave GWF alone.
Wanna bet GWF will get a buff with the next "nerf"?
Steel and Magic
Also, Siccarius and Liquid, you are both ****ing <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
I'm done with this, a good bye from a "full tank" DC.
#1 Enemy Team PvP Devoted Cleric
Best rapper 2014
Alpha female
Holy **** batman. The highest IBS I've seen on my full tank DC was 22k mitigated from 35k. Remember good ol'days when sentinel GWFs were hitting me for 8k critical IBS's...
Debuffed yeah, 5% hp not. And I have played many times against Vlad to know what kind of damage he is capable of, as are other GWF.
Even non-debuff, threatning rush itself, a spammable gap closer at will does 5-7k damage on me, which goes from 15 to 20% of my HP a hit. Whatever it may be, 33k is not something we should deal it. Neither 30k, 25k or 20k. These numbers are much higher than Module 2 pre-tenacity, and one of the big differences now is that I have Healing Depression to deal with.
If there's an encounter that damages for 10-30k, I should be able to heal for that amount, no?
I'll even make a video to show these crazy numbers, but with 60% of the game's PVP population being GWF all you need to do is go into a PVP yourself.
#1 Enemy Team PvP Devoted Cleric
Best rapper 2014
Alpha female
I bet if you asked TRs if they could have unstoppable instead they'd take it!
Overpowered 60 CW ~ Thaumaturge 14.5k
==========================================
~ GF Buffs were great we are much better, please fix the bugs now... Thank you!
NO at will should do that much damage, my Threatening rush and Cleaves with 8k+ power do 1300 damage! The GWFs should maybe do twice that!
Overpowered 60 CW ~ Thaumaturge 14.5k
==========================================
~ GF Buffs were great we are much better, please fix the bugs now... Thank you!
I don't know why the Devs are continuing to allow this?
Overpowered 60 CW ~ Thaumaturge 14.5k
==========================================
~ GF Buffs were great we are much better, please fix the bugs now... Thank you!
please you can't be serious.