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Gameplay/Class balance-Yes, Another thread & this time it is about Lifesteal
germmaniac
Member Posts: 204 Arc User
To start off, my main characters are GWF and CW. And let me assure you, I love playing both of them. I am not considered great by any means..and my usual excuse (for not topping the DPS charts) is to blame it on lag 
But having played these characters for a while (my GWF has been active since open beta and my CW has close to 200 days of invokes as well), I have noticed a few things that I thought I should list down:
So after that verbose introduction, let me come to the point. I feel that Lifesteal, as a stat is working well. A bit too well. This is probably the stat that has saved my a$$ on numerous occasions and my intention is not to be ungrateful. But I do believe that this Lifesteal may be the root cause of a lot of problems for dungeons. I can easily regain 60% of my health when I hit something with a massive AoE skill like Shard. This eliminates any need for a cleric or a tank OR for me to be worried about the damage I take in dungeons. And therefore, I feel that this stat may need a rework. Possibly have an ICD set up or a cap on how much life I can steal. Or maybe a 1 second stun for myself when I steal and regain more than 50% health.
The intention of this thread is not to start a flame war. I understand that this suggestion will be hated. Heck, I hate it myself when I look back at it :mad: But the point is, to get the game more evenly balanced and for all classes to be more evenly viable for end game content, this may be necessary. Please limit your suggestions/feedback/criticism in a constructive range. Thanks.
Disclaimer: I am not a previous D&D player. I have not played any of previous games (table top or online) and have not read any of the hand books.
But having played these characters for a while (my GWF has been active since open beta and my CW has close to 200 days of invokes as well), I have noticed a few things that I thought I should list down:
- The Devs are struggling, somewhat, with the whole class balance issue. Probably they are short on resources or they have other priorities (This is not a dev bash). But one of the major factors which may be impacting class balance patches is our opinions, right here on the forums. I understand that not all our feedback/whining/complaining makes it into their lists. I bet the DCs and GFs feel short-changed. However, looking at the forums, almost every other post seems to start with a positive note of "Buff this class" and ends up on the negative side with "Nerf all other characters". And unfortunately, a lot of the nerf requests from PVP affect PvE players adversely and vice versa.
- Current dungeon setup is not conducive for rainbow groups (each member of a different class) . I understand this point has been highlighted numerous times. But it just seems easier to roll with 3 CWs and 2 GWFs for a majority of content and just slamming all the add waves without the need for heals or an actual tank. I haven't been to Kessel's retreat yet, but I am not sure if a major change to dungeon mechanics is around the corner. I understand that in some posts, devs have suggested that they do not want to set up gameplay such that a particular class is required. However, without all classes feeling needed, the community might soon get into a single dimensional mode and start rolling out just the FOTM class or the class that is the most OP in that module. This is beginning to get boring. I started with a GWF because I enjoy "In the face, melee" types as my first class for most games. My usual second is a wizard, but that was not the only reason to roll that as my second toon.
- Bugs creep into the code. I work as a programmer (but cannot say I have much exposure to game development). You try to fix something or modify something else and you manage to mess up some working piece of code. We understand that some powers/feats are bugged rendering some classes OP. Eg: GWF Roar seems to not be working as intended. OF course there are dungeon bugs or gameplay bugs apart from this. We understand that the devs are working on this actively (or at least hoping they are).
So after that verbose introduction, let me come to the point. I feel that Lifesteal, as a stat is working well. A bit too well. This is probably the stat that has saved my a$$ on numerous occasions and my intention is not to be ungrateful. But I do believe that this Lifesteal may be the root cause of a lot of problems for dungeons. I can easily regain 60% of my health when I hit something with a massive AoE skill like Shard. This eliminates any need for a cleric or a tank OR for me to be worried about the damage I take in dungeons. And therefore, I feel that this stat may need a rework. Possibly have an ICD set up or a cap on how much life I can steal. Or maybe a 1 second stun for myself when I steal and regain more than 50% health.
The intention of this thread is not to start a flame war. I understand that this suggestion will be hated. Heck, I hate it myself when I look back at it :mad:
But the point is, to get the game more evenly balanced and for all classes to be more evenly viable for end game content, this may be necessary. Please limit your suggestions/feedback/criticism in a constructive range. Thanks.Disclaimer: I am not a previous D&D player. I have not played any of previous games (table top or online) and have not read any of the hand books.
Post edited by germmaniac on
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If lifesteal gets nerfed, what happens. I'll realistically have to go tanky. Which means terrible dps. Which means longer dungeons, more damage taken from mobs, and yet more need to tank up. A really frustrating vicious circle. Most people DD for loot and take along lower geared players for specific pieces of armor. Because of poor rng drops this means a succession of delves, done as quick as possible. Tanky low dps CWs will slow this process down to a frustrating degree, and also make the option of taking along a low geared team member a lot less desirable, if not impossible. Auction prices for T2 pve armor are already so high as to put off new players, and scarcity of dungeon runs will only push them higher.
ie. Please shh.
Lifesteal is the single most broken mechanic in Neverwinter atm. If lifesteal wasn't that outbalanced, a lot of problems wouldn't be existant (e.g. GWF I-heal-myself-fullDPS-trollololol).
Ask for buffs, not nerfs. Otherwise you will get exactly what you ask for. Gfs need a buff. Dcs need a buff. You see, easy.
My friend.
Buff them, by all means. Never denied that. But no amount of a buff will require DCs and GFs based on current content. Unless of course you are talking about a pure DPS buff for DCs and GFs and not based on their intended role. So after every class is buffed for offense and defense, what then? DCs could just ignore their role as healers and go pure dps. GFs forget about aggro and tanking and just do dps. What is the point of picking a class (apart from being ranged or melee here) when everyone becomes a simple dps beast.
If your point was to buff them in their current role, how would that make DCs/GFs more appealing to parties..with their improved healing abilities or tankiness. Considering there really isnt much content to tank and with super-life steal toons, who would these healing beasts heal?
I did mention that I was not for a "nerf this class" as much as I liked a "buff this class". The idea here was to rework a stat which everyone had, regardless of race or class. Because in its current form, it is granting considerable benefits to a few classes and eliminating the need to include a couple of classes.
. . . /bind X ++HardTargetLock
. . . Where X is the key you want it bound to.
. . . Change to just one + if you want it to work as long as you hold the button down. ++ makes it a toggle.
. . . Also, if the other players are running out of your yellow circle as you cast Bastion Of Health (non divinity) or they run out of your astral shields, then it's no one's fault but themselves for not staying close enough to the healer or their spells. Bastion's pre-yellow circle splat is there to let players know to get in or stay in the circle until it pops. Personally, I rarely use Bastion unless I have divinity for the instant blue circle heal. My other level 60 cleric doesn't even use it at all.
. . . If someone keeps running away from me and needs healing, I'm not going to give chase and leave the rest of the party for someone that doesn't know to stay near enough to the cleric. Sure, I'll kindly tell them to keep closer but I'm not going to put the rest of the party in jeopardy because someone is bounding all over creation.
. . . On my menzo drow cleric (DO), she almost exclusively uses Healing Word, Astral Shield, Sunburst, Soothing Flames, Astral Seal, Hallowed Ground and Flamestrike. My other level 60 Cleric (AC) uses Healing Word, Astral Shield, Exaltation, Blessing of Battle, Astral Seal, Anointed Army, and Hallowed Ground.
. . . I usually always get praise for my healing on both my clerics, as they are both designed to be total healers with minimal damage. I have a third cleric in the works where I'm going to toy around with a more damaging build once he gets to 60.
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I rarely see clerics using Healing Word, Bastions, or Forgemasters. Mine certainly doesn't, except under very certain circumstances. I'd rather they use Divine Glow and High Prophet armor. Debuff them and I won't need as much healing.
HR's have been complained about on the forums so much that it seems people got bored complaining about them, TRs suddenly aren't UP in PVE and aren't OP in PVP, and Roar has been complained about so much that people are now complaining about lifesteal.
Lifesteal, a stat not overpowered in the least. Let's look at the two PVE classes of focus, the GWF and the CW. Neither of these classes, or any class for that matter, require lifesteal in order to complete any dungeon in the game even without a DC. And the only boss in the game where lifesteal would be recommended for a CW would be Valindra.
Know your place everyone. CWs on the back along with the rangers, plink plink whizz. Gfs up the front, shield up. Gwfs zigging and zagging and trs, well, who knows where they'll be. It's a game. If wizards wanna tank, let em tank. If dcs wanna dps, give them the means to do so.
Give people options, not straitjackets.
And that is because you dont need healing. Because you get most of your heals from Life steal. My point exactly.
Without lifesteal, they would require a lot of pots or stacking a lot of regen. Something they could still continue if lifesteal was reworked, wouldnt it?
So what you are saying is..give everything to everyone. Why not give people unlimited feat points so that you can have the best of all builds? It isnt a straightjacket. It is a choice, that you make when you select a class or a build or a race. That you get some pros and cons with that choice. All pros would be no fun, too. And having made a choice based on how you would like to play the game should not be a handicap or make you feel (much) less wanted in the game.
I get what you're saying... but you NEED to make this more clear...
CLERICS ARE NOT IN THE UNWANTED GROUP...
The Cleric Buffs are a 30% plus DPS gain for that party...
I wish you guys would stop assuming clerics are only heal bots... They do more than that. And a 2cw/2gwf/dc group is FAR superior to.... a 3cw/2gwf group....
That needs to be clarified...
EDIT: To have a DC in that kind of party is like bringing along an extra CW AND GWF... its that good, they are the ones who give you all that damage. So... when you bring a DC... don't look at him like dead weight, he's responsible for so much of your damage he's like bringing along another two of you.
Here's the thing with this: The CW can also debuff(Go into a t2.5 dungeon with elitists, WITHOUT full HV. Tell me how many insults you get... likewise for a DC not running High Prophet). If it was purely about dps and debuffs, the HR would ALSO wouldn't be a letdown, wouldn't he? Theyre capable of debuffs, excellent aoe dps, even self sustain with tons of lifesteal, right? The DC ends up, despite all his debuffing and healing, lacking in the damage area more often than not. And people want SPEED in dungeon delves. Who wants one run that can take an hour, when stacking the fastest classes can let you run multiple?
Elitist types in this game MAY care that youre helping them. But ive honestly heard "omg! your damage is SOOO low! youre dragging us down" statements MORE than "thanks for helping with our dps dc".
Well their loss for being stupid.
The DC does SO MUCH DAMAGE in that kind of group its not even funny with their assorted combat buffs.
My Shards will crit around 22,000 on a mob that's not Debuffed... throw in that Cleric and its 32,000 crits... add my debuffs and its through the roof.
I can only imagine what the GWFs are doing on Boss Mobs with theirs and mine on the boss mobs, but I know their claims of 100k Crits are not an exaggeration when you run the 2CW/2GWF/DC party.
Its that good. Its like taking along another GWF and CW combined when you bring that DC in that kind of party, and that's no exaggeration.
We as CWs and GWF cannot do that kind of massive damage without that Cleric.
Er no, that's not what I was saying, that was you picking up the wrong ball and running for the wrong goal entirely. I said give people options for their builds, giving them options as how to play their characters, viable options. Rather than the cookie cutter roles we have already, and one's you seem to be further promoting by helping cement everyone in place by a) increasing everyones' interdependence on fixed abilities between classes, and b) as a knock on effect, making sure by default that everyone has to stick rigidly to those classes primary roles, and no other.
In short, boring.
Umm, didn't you just say healer being the dps and CW being the tank?? So if its not giving them everything, you mean to not give DCs healing abilities and to not give CWs CC? Still wrong ball? Or if this is indeed what you are saying, then why call a cleric a cleric or a Control Wizard a control wiz. Might as well go for a classless game, in that case.
If there is a certain style of gameplay you prefer, you pick an appropriate class for it. You like tanking, you pick a tank class. If you pick the CW and people expect you to CC and not try to be the tank, it isn't their fault. It is your failure to understand your role in the group.
I agree with what you are saying. I have had way more smoother runs with a cleric in party than without. Unfortunately, the mentality of the majority is to look at the Slayer and Paingiver charts. The cleric usually features at the bottom there. They do not realize that the cleric is responsible for a lot of their awesome damage in addition to their survivability. They just feel that they pwn and the DC sucks.
But fact remains, there really isnt much of tankable content once most toons get to a good GS of around 13k+. After that, the cleric is just replaced by Lifesteal. Considering HRs and CWs can also stack debuffs, lifesteal isnt helping a DC or a tanks case much.
Pff. At this rate I'll be lucky if I have enough power left to light a cigarette with my shard explosion. Nerfwinter online, and it's loyal followers. Oh sorry, 'balancers'.
I agree and disagree with the OP in a respect. The way I agree is AoE lifesteal is nuts. I posted this fact elsewhere:
1) Some games have a penalty on Lifesteal for attacks that hit multiple targets.
The reason they have a penalty is obvious. You can't balance a percentage wise gain of damage as life for classes that dump powerful large AE attacks against classes that dump single target damage down (TR) unless you lower the lifesteal on the AE attack.
I also point out something else,
2) One game learned that Life on Hit is easier to balance than percentage Lifesteal, and they phased out lifesteal in favor of Life on Hit.
Why? First for those that don't know the term, Life on Hit is when you get a set value of life back when you hit a target. For example a flat 100 hp back for doing damage to a target regardless of the amount of damage you do. The reason this would be easier to balance is Lifesteal synergizes with DPS, but Life on Hit works for high dps and low dps the same. Life on Hit is much more predictable. For example, if this game had been built on Life on Hit then a low DPS and a high DPS GF would both get the same life back on their abilities with the same Life on Hit. It makes DPS into less of a magic stat. It also makes it easier for devs to tune content since Life on Hit has less variance with player builds (it doesn't vary with AoE DPS).
I wouldn't have posted either, but I think both could benefit this game's PvE balance immensely.
Very nice insights
Well maybe, just maybe, there are clerics whose purpose in game is not just to enlarge your epeen. The fact that cw or gwf paternalistically allow dcs to come along with them (given that dc wears HP and use just debuff skills) doesn't give dcs all this gratification. Maybe, just maybe we want harder dungeons where you cw and gwf can't just group and destroy mobs after mobs. As it is now, IT IS NOT FUNNY AT ALL. And also, we are not needed.
+1
reading this kind of post gives hope that not all the people on this forum are myopic and self-centered
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I FAIL to see how Buffing the group vs Healing the group is somehow "different".
Can you please explain to me the "epeen" difference?
Because I'm not seeing it. Also... "allow"? What do you mean "allow" DCs to come along? Why in the hell would we NOT take a DC in party when they are increasing the entire party Damage by such an enormous amount you can't DO it that kind of damage without them?
Seems to me... that's a purpose... and a reason for being in that party.
What... would you rather be some kind of damager? I'm afraid that's not the strong point of the Cleric. Even in the REAL game.
More importantly.. HOW exactly does this make Clerics "unwanted". They are just as popular in groups now as they were in lower levels when healing was their strong suit.
Net result.... NO CHANGE...
. . . Actually, in Paper & Pencil, certain clerical roles can deal a great amount of damage, like Battle Clerics.
. . . As for the rest, I have no comment as I don't share the opinion you quoted.
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Yeah pretty much,
Healing keeps them alive.... buffing makes them stronger...
Its why the CW/GWF meta always includes a Cleric, because they can't do that kind of damage without one.