I could give a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> about who exploited what and how much, TBH. The all-BiS 18k+GS crowd has pretty much leveraged themselves into a niche wherein they are alone. They are in the Twilight Zone of PVP.
The percentage of devs who will read this well thought-out OP and take it to heart: a full zero percent.
I'm sorry guys, but you are too good at this. Maybe you played your *** off for over a year, maybe you bought your way in or cheated -- who cares? The point is that you are 1% of 1% of 1% of the playerbase, and that is how much pull you realistically have. If you need proof of this, just look back over the history of this game, and what actually happened with balance and so on.
The changes that have occurred over the past year have made no sense to you all in many places because the devs weren't catering to you. They were catering to new players or the bulk of their casuals -- not to you.
Think about it. Why in the world would the devs ignore their most elite and overgeared players in favor of appealing to the non-elite masses? It's almost like this is a business trying to make a metric assload of money or something.
I could give a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> about who exploited what and how much, TBH. The all-BiS 18k+GS crowd has pretty much leveraged themselves into a niche wherein they are alone. They are in the Twilight Zone of PVP.
The percentage of devs who will read this well thought-out OP and take it to heart: a full zero percent.
I'm sorry guys, but you are too good at this. Maybe you played your *** off for over a year, maybe you bought your way in or cheated -- who cares? The point is that you are 1% of 1% of 1% of the playerbase, and that is how much pull you realistically have. If you need proof of this, just look back over the history of this game, and what actually happened with balance and so on.
The changes that have occurred over the past year have made no sense to you all in many places because the devs weren't catering to you. They were catering to new players or the bulk of their casuals -- not to you.
Think about it. Why in the world would the devs ignore their most elite and overgeared players in favor of appealing to the non-elite masses? It's almost like this is a business trying to make a metric assload of money or something.
Because the 1% is over 50% of the income. No ****. Yes, they spend the most money on ZEN because in order to be top level pvper you must have rank 10s and legendary artifacts.
Most of them buy AD from OP aswell.
0
Options
zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
edited August 2014
Moderator Notice: . . . This thread has been cleansed. First, it is against the Rules to discuss forum moderation of the past, present, or future. Secondly, it is never okay to name & shame anyone, for any reason. Lastly, stay on topic and leave the PvP Drama in-game or on other media, as these forums are not the place for such banter. Please read the Rules of Conduct that every user agrees to by the very use of the forum service. We will not stand for users trying to purposely derail threads to get them locked or otherwise moderated, and will instead take action against such users.
. . . Do not reply to this notice, as doing so is not allowed. Instead, contact us via Private Message to discuss forum moderation. Thanks!
Safe travels,
Archmage Zebular of Mystryl PWE Community Moderator
Props to cryptic for finally giving this class some love. However they took the completely wrong direction.
Issues
Shard of Endless Avalanche (On spell mastery) should have never been nerfed, I can understand how the ‘Not spell mastery’ form had certain “Overpowered” implications in PvE, but the PvP Format of this skill was the only thing truly separating a skilled OCW from an unskilled counterpart. Removing this skill and adding the over powered, undodgeable assailing force has turned OCW into a No-Skill-ALL-Spam Encounters-Class in the end game pvp META.
Icy Rays on Tab is an undodgeable CC and Hits like a truck,averagings 15k Crits + Thamu Capstone damage (4k+).
Eye of the Storm: buffed
Storm Spell: 200% Damage increase!?
Ray of frost is currently the strongest at will in the game. It easily does more damage than some encounters, and it also has a stunning CC quality. This ability hits anywhere between 5-10k
Shield is now a fit all purpose for not having to stack defense stats anymore,. However, end game cws average 50k HP and 1.7k Regen regardless. Since GF’s shield can’t block Ray of Frost CC, an endgame CW may be more tanky than an endgame GF
All of these alone might not be such a big deal if they all didn’t play so well together. Consider a GF: Ray of frost + normal Icy rays, + Ice conduit + entangle + chill strike encounter rotation = GF Dies. Full CC lock, end of story. This points to an issue I’ll address later: GF’s shield. Also, endgame DC’s are terribly incapable of surviving against CWs.
Here’s the common End game PvP scenario for a OCW that arrives at another Node with no other OCW to contest it. Everything dies in less then 30 seconds, with that being the absolute most a TR could possibly survive against a cw + any other class in End game PvP.
Suggestions
Scale back DPS by maybe 30-35% on Ray of Frost and Icy Rays, however some more specific alternations might be needed
Bring Back the skill in the class with a fully unnerfed SPELL MASTERY SoEA and stop the button mash.
Let us exist in a world where the person walking around in robes isn’t tankier than a person in leather armor.
Now I do understand that I probably missed a lot of other good things to fix about this class. Other players that face/play an OCW more than I may be able to shed some additional light on the class. As a TR, my game mechanics have become pretty limited: i exist to to die in enemy territory in the realm of end game PvP, but we’ll get to that in more depth later
I agree that the Control Wizard class has become an easy class to play that wont require much skill. They should never have nerfed the Shard of Endless Avalanche on TABB. Now everybody is using the exactly the same encounters and we can just sit back and watch stormspell and assailing do our work for us.
But I don't agree with you about Eye Of The Storm, Icy Rays, Rays Of Frost or the Shield.
I think Eye of the Storm is in a good place right now. At least if you have the skills you can get more out of it by timing stuff correctly and if you don't have the skill, you will do worse. That is a good thing considering how skillless this class has become.
Icy Rays and Ray of Frost is also okay right now. Our damage comes from Spellstorm and that one needs a nerf and by nerfing it, people will have to choose between the Stormspell and Orb of Imposition. I think that maybe they need to give stormspell a big nerf and transfer some of the damage back to some single target encounters. That will also increase the skill needed to play the CW.
I like the Shield the way it is right now. CW has always been the first target in PvP. We are always the first ones to go down and with the Shield, we actually have a chance to survive the first 30 seconds of a fight. Sadly for SW because now they might be the first to be targeted. I'm not sure but maybe GF needs a buff so that they can be a bit more tanky.
"Let us exist in a world where the person walking around in robes isn’t tankier than a person in leather armor."
I don't really see the problem here. Magic beats steel/leather.
Because the 1% is over 50% of the income. No ****. Yes, they spend the most money on ZEN because in order to be top level pvper you must have rank 10s and legendary artifacts.
We did the math in another thread about the ZAX backlog: this game is making at bare minimum 10 thousand dollars a day just from zen purchases going into the ZAX for buying AD. That's not even counting zen purchases for mounts, etc -- this is just the part that is going to ZAX!
The elite-est of the elite PVPers are NOT any kind of appreciable amount of this income, trust me. Be careful that you do not sorely underestimate the full power of the casual/new player zen market. 10 thousand dollars. PER DAY. At MINIMUM.
Knowing this, does it make more sense to you why things happen the way that they do here in Neverwinter? Are the devs REALLY absolute morons who do not understand the simplest things to do with balance?
OR
Is it allllllll about the Benjamins, babay? You decide for yourself.
Sic, You do realise that Icy Rays is the Only Hard hitting Cw Encounter power right now right? You also neglest to state that you can dodge the damage component of Icy Rays but not the Root.
Leave Icy rays alone. Assailing No longer hits as hard as it did, and is in a good place at the moment. Ray of Frost can crit for 5-10 damage yes, over the entirety of its channel. It does not tick for 5-10k on single ticks. That's just silly.
Storm Spell is hitting much to hard and needs a re adjustment (Again), Brining i back down to where it was in Mod 3 I feel would be a great place to start and then balance it from there. Either increase proc chance, or Double its damage. Don't do both.
Your absolutely right Desidus, When making this post I was thinking of the primary at-will used to proc the storm spell, sorry for the confusion!
But Icy rays damage is typically dodged by luck though, you rarely have time to react to a double cast. regardless you still get rooted which as a CW means Death
as a TR depending on the stage of your rotation, means death.
If your a GF, Death
if your a DC, well, death happens regardless
HR even falls victim to those undodgeable roots as well
Which don't get me wrong, 2v1 the 2 should always win cw + any class... However the 1 shouldn't get blown up -and not even be allowed to dodge- before team mates even have time to rotate
Also I want to point out that my criticism's of CW Shield comes from the eyes of a TR, So its PROBABLY inaccurate, But I can't do **** for damage against a purple shield... espically when they have 52k HP and 2k Regen... Not even whirlwind suffice's now.
Rogue is my class though, and I will play it till the end of time, through its ups and downs
Wizards did need a dps boost, every class pretty much ate wizards for lunch except DC, a more responsive teleport, really? So we can run away and still do <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> all for dmg while GWF's and HR's just walk right over us.
That being said, if they toned the dmg down a tad it would be okay. I think people need to realize wizards aren't going to fall over when they sneeze anymore while toss peebles back.
There used to be a moment of latency after a teleport before they could teleport again. Now they can teleport and teleport again immediately. That's what i mean for "more responsive teleport".
@Everyone who believes that these changes will never be amended because of the low population of end game pvp
In my opinion balancing for the worst case scenario is the best way to do things for all levels of pvp and here's my reasons why
1) Players with huge overbearing Gear Scores won't have nearly as high as an edge against under geared patrons as they do now, meaning skill will be a more apparent need in PvP
2) Accidental Kills caused by OP feats and lack of pre-determined planning will be a thing of the past for all scopes of PvP and will hopefully remove the misguided Rock Paper scissors game we have going on right (it's like OCW Playing Rock Paper Scissors with a Crab) and create a more balanced game where all scopes of the 7 classes and all their possible feat combinations have an equal chance to succeed
3) There will be no such thing as a troll comp Party because on any gear level things will be equal
4) It will encourage a great more team gameplay to accomplish goals rather then placing the difference of a PuG PvP game W/L at the hands of 1 person being a carry.
I Understand this is wishful thinking at best, but this is my dream and goal for the game with the creation of this thread.
Okay Sic, so in a nutshell you are calling for gearscore nerf? Put a harsh DR on the power stat? Because that's the only way one of your 18k+ toons is going to walk into a PUG of "normal" people and not completely dominate everything.
I mean forget class balance here at the Twilight Zone level... if you're 18k, you're 18k, man. You win. Congratulations.
I thought you said this thread was for ultrahigh GS PVP only, no mere mortals apply.
The fact that you wrote yourself into a corner and into irrelevance has nothing to do with where your heart is at, man. It's your **** gearscore. I'm sorry, but you are a God. 99.9% of players cannot touch you, and the ones who can are operating at that same weird level where you guys tend to see stuff happen in the fringes of stats boundaries that so-called normal people can't. You're a statistical rarity, and the devs are simply not going to tweak balance around the very end of the bell curve.
My whole point in this thread has been to point that sad fact out. I'm on your side in this, and I think it would be great to have the game balanced out for everyone, no matter what GS/level. But this is a complex system we are dealing with here... there are a LOT of variables. And when you raise some of those varables into stratospheric areas, its going to be hard to account for it all. Hard, or impossible. That's why there are DRs on most stats, and hard caps on some of them.
You know all of this already, I'm sure. No amount of class balancing is going to level the playing field for a new level 60 vs. one of your 18k's.
Everything has been discussed during the testing phase. At least when it comes to CWs, there are 100+ pages of suggestions. All you stated, Sic, has already been said multiple times. And every time the devs were coming up with something that had nothing to do with what has been asked for.
Before the CW got pushed into the role it has now, the following things happened:
1. The overall single target damage and cooldowns have been heavily reduced.
2. AoE damage from the most important AoE spell (Steal Time) has been buffed by 60% and its cooldown reduced.
3. Shard of Endless Avalanche has been nerfed to uselessness (60% base damage nerf). This killed one viable PvP build.
4. The Magic Missile's damage has been heavily reduced (34%), which made it deal about 18% less damage than RoF. Renegade destruction I.
5. Eye of the Storm has been put on 20 sec cooldown with normal activation chance (10% on encounters), which made it completely useless. Renegade destruction II.
6. Phantasmal Destruction has been put on a 40% chance instead of 100%. Renegade Destruction III.
Their solution: Assailant. Let's just all spam Ray of Frost for damage. Internal cooldown, half the effect on players. Ok.
CW was still in a terrible place. At that moment, CW died to practically everything on Preview, even mobs, if he wasn't Oppressor/perma control.
Suggestion from the player base:
- Make crit specific to Renegades. Give them a feat that reduced the internal cooldown to an extent where it has no internal cooldown with the old activation chance. Give those who voluntarily pass on control more damage (any ONLY those).
- Buff Shard on TAB. Let it deal 2 - 3x more damage.
- Increase Magic Missile damage.
What did the devs do with those 3 main suggestions?
1. Buff the EotS for all 3 paragon paths. Damage, crit and control path.
2. Leave the Shard as it is (a level 50 power with a damage of an At-Will). Introduce the buffed Storm Spell (the words "Storm Spell" didn't fall for the last 100 pages of discussion; it came out of nowhere).
3. Buff Magic Missile back by 15%. Which makes it hit less than RoF until now. What's the point of it? RoF at least controls the target.
To be honest, I don't see where this discussion in this thread is going. It's all been there. It's been discussed. The devs didn't care.
Okay Sic, so in a nutshell you are calling for gearscore nerf? Put a harsh DR on the power stat? Because that's the only way one of your 18k+ toons is going to walk into a PUG of "normal" people and not completely dominate everything.
I mean forget class balance here at the Twilight Zone level... if you're 18k, you're 18k, man. You win. Congratulations.
I thought you said this thread was for ultrahigh GS PVP only, no mere mortals apply.
The fact that you wrote yourself into a corner and into irrelevance has nothing to do with where your heart is at, man. It's your **** gearscore. I'm sorry, but you are a God. 99.9% of players cannot touch you, and the ones who can are operating at that same weird level where you guys tend to see stuff happen in the fringes of stats boundaries that so-called normal people can't. You're a statistical rarity, and the devs are simply not going to tweak balance around the very end of the bell curve.
My whole point in this thread has been to point that sad fact out. I'm on your side in this, and I think it would be great to have the game balanced out for everyone, no matter what GS/level. But this is a complex system we are dealing with here... there are a LOT of variables. And when you raise some of those varables into stratospheric areas, its going to be hard to account for it all. Hard, or impossible. That's why there are DRs on most stats, and hard caps on some of them.
You know all of this already, I'm sure. No amount of class balancing is going to level the playing field for a new level 60 vs. one of your 18k's.
No the field will never be COMPLETELY BALANCED However certain things should NEVER occur such as this
My GF with Sub Par gear hit 20k Bull charges and yesterday a 51k NON CRIT Anvil of Doom and he has 2100 Power, 600 crit, 1k Armor Pen and the rest of the stats are invested elsewhere in HP -50k+ for GF- and Regen
This class ^ is not the only one limited to occasions like this
and now imagine how funny these statistics get on higher levels
1 Rotation = death. should not exist
Undodgeable CC should not exist
Classes becoming useless - On all levels, including my own- Should not exist.
No the field will never be COMPLETELY BALANCED However certain things should NEVER occur such as this
My GF with Sub Par gear hit 20k Bull charges and yesterday a 51k NON CRIT Anvil of Doom and he has 2100 Power, 600 crit, 1k Armor Pen and the rest of the stats are invested elsewhere in HP -50k+ for GF- and Regen
This class ^ is not the only one limited to occasions like this
and now imagine how funny these statistics get on higher levels
1 Rotation = death. should not exist
Undodgeable CC should not exist
Classes becoming useless - On all levels, including my own- Should not exist.
IMO, GF was on a good spot before, those 3 classes were the only ones causing a mess. Fixing those 3 OP classes at the time should fix its problems, cryptic just has no idea how to balance things IMO. It needs to be tested how much of an impact balancing an OP class will make before proceeding to the next.
Trickster Rogue is getting so darn pathetic. The only people I can kill are squishies. I'm in a state where I just run around the node while never coming out of stealth... lol. TR is in such a sorry state.
Trickster Rogue is getting so darn pathetic. The only people I can kill are squishies. I'm in a state where I just run around the node while never coming out of stealth... lol. TR is in such a sorry state.
And thats probably another reason why we're PROBABLY going to get nerfed next Module because the dev's will look at at the new players who don't know how to gear or deal with a stealthed target getting roflstomped and take it out on us again.
Trickster Rogue is getting so darn pathetic. The only people I can kill are squishies. I'm in a state where I just run around the node while never coming out of stealth... lol. TR is in such a sorry state.
I just leveled up my pvp TR char, got 60 and played pvp with whooping 9,2k GS I could kill BI GWF with 17k GS and some Grim Oppressor 13-14k CW. So I don't think TR is that bad, didn't even take GPF or anything from other char. Count, run like idiot, count even more, look at them, predict. Simply adapt. Perma is still good. And 10-59 Executioner TRs with P. Vorpals are not bad either.
And thats probably another reason why we're PROBABLY going to get nerfed next Module because the dev's will look at at the new players who don't know how to gear or deal with a stealthed target getting roflstomped and take it out on us again.
If they "Fix" perma stealth then this class will be worse than DC, it'll even potentially lose to it in 1v1 (I've seen a 12K DC VS a 12K COMBAT rogue... the DC won... I wish I was kidding). The DC was tanking the Rogue's pathetic damage while damaging him very slowly until he finally killed him...
I would gladly give up perma if they gave us our devastating damage back. I mean look at the state of other classes right now... each one has its OP thing, so why not us? I bet they'd be scared if the Lashing Blade rogue was brought back.
I will only comment about these two classes and PVP leaderboards
Guardian Fighter: Issues: - Knights Valor: This power needs to respect line of sight. Right now, when you cast it, it gives your team a buff that is unlimited in range and ignores line of sight. Whats worse is when your out of range and LOS you dont split damage with them, your team splits damage with the ground.... - SOLUTION: I dont like the idea of puttng a RANGE on this, but making it truly LOS will fix it. Right now to deal reflect damage back at someone you have to be within range and LOS for it to work. If you make the range too small this power becomes useless and I really like the value it brings to a group.
- Shield/Block: This does not respect CC immunity and there are SEVERAL things that go through this, the most annoying and frequent is Chill Stacks. It makes a GF have zero chance against a CW, literally zero chance once frozen. Im not talking 1v1s, but real PVP. - SOLUTION: Block should make you 100% CC resist EXCEPT for attacks that HIT you behind you. So if a chill stack was added frontally, it does not apply, if it was added from an attack from behind it would apply.
- Knights Challenge: As much as I love this power, it creates combo "scenarios" that makes it an unavoidable death. For instance a GF in tandem with a CW, Knights Challenge+Anvil = GG.
- -SOLUTION:This power should be a MIX of Knights Valor and ITF. It should give the GF a damage boost of 25% TO the target, however deal 25% less damage to any other target. It should also give ZERO damage buff to the attacker against the GF, however a damage DEBUFF against the GFs teammates by 25%. It should also be toggled like Knights Valor is now, so the uptime could be 100% if chosen. This can be used as both offensive tool and defensive tool.
--Anvil of Doom TO be honest, I LOVE this power because it hits SOOO hard. However, IF you do land it, it deals crazy damage right now... -SOLUTION: Speed up the animation timer, make the character move FORWARD when they attack with it, basically give it a little lunge AT the target. However, I think the damage boost should be UP TO 100% based on the targets missing HP. So it will technically never get to 100% damage boost, but will be more useful to a target at 80% HP than it is now (getting a 20% dmg boost) and less useful than it is now on a target at 30% HP (70% dmg boost) Overall it evens out the damage boost of the encounter. CREATIVE THOUGHT: It would be AWESOME to see a feat for this (maybe tact) that allows you to THROW your "Anvil of Doom" at a target and stun them for 1 second. This would create a VERY unique fun build coupled with the above.
Great Weapon Fighter: Issues:
This class still has some issues. It is not THAT bad, but compared to many others it just feels really un-fun to play (IMO). The reason I say this is a GOOD GWF is FORCED to play the "sprint" game where sprint isnt used as an offensive tool but a way to "cheese" by being CC immune and having boosted DR....
-PROBLEM:without Control abilities, GWFs cant hit any target. Give them too much control abilities and now they "stun/prone" lock you and its not fair. SOLUTION: There is something this game has DRASTICALLY over-seen and its slows. GWFs should be the masters of "slows". The 4/4 Profound has a TAD of this but this is the avenue a GWF should have.
Things like "Not so Fast" should slow targets movement by 50%! This makes it worth using.
a T1 DESTROYER feat should be "Attacks slow your targets movement by 1/2/3/4/5%, Stacks 5 times"
Things like this that allows the MELEE class to get in range and STAY in range.
Takedown: Needs to revert back to a <1 sec prone. I saw once that about .7 sec is the SHORTEST prone timer. Fine, give GWFs the shortest prone time on takedown. Its not the long control they need, its the visual "tell" of their target being prone.
Roar: This ability should "Daze" the target for 1 second (in PVP it shortened to .5 sec due to tenacity etc)
Frontline: The stun here is fine, but I would shorten it IMO - ONLY with the introduction of adding SLOWS!!!!
Now a GWF can get in range and STAY in range without being FORCED to try and shut down/stun lock their target.
-PROBLEM: Sprint is SUPER cheesy. Its what makes me HATE my GWF and HATE wanting to play it. SOLUTION: Remove CC Immunity AND DR on Sprint, but put unstoppable BACK at 25-50% DR. If you want to introduce Sprint mechanics into the game, the Instigator path is perfect for this.
Leaderboard and ELO: PROBLEM: You can and DO OFTEN lose rank on the leaderboards. SOLUTION: I dont even think the solution is to mess with your formula HOWEVER change how games are actually MATCHED UP!!! Horrible MatchUps I get why you did it this way, but it just introduces SO many issues its not even funny..... Low ELO/low GS players match with high ELO high GS players and its VERY frustrating for BOTH parties!!! SOLUTION TO PVP:!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I recall, ELO ratings range from about 20-45ish. When we WERE able to pull up the boards thats what I saw anyways. CREATE BRACKETS!!!! Three should work and the % is the Ideal population that falls into each catagory.
1) Bronze: 20-28 (about 25% of the PVP population fits here) This is mainly causal/PVE players who occasionally PVP.
2) Silver: 28-38 (About 50% of the Population fits here.) This is more serious PVE players and the average PVPer.
3) Gold: 38+ (Top <25%) This is more the elite PVPers...
What this does is NOW ELO wont have this random mishmash where low and high players mix, if you are above 38 in ELO, you get matched against others with 38+ ELO as well, making for a MUCH more fair and balanced matchup. Sure there will be issues, but nothing as frustrating as what we have now.
Id also imagine this would cut down on as much "losing by winning" as we see now. If the MINIMUM ELO player is 38, itll be hard to match against a group whose ELO average is lower than 38 so you shouldnt lose, or lose by THAT much in ELO if you win.
How to solve Multiple people Q in a team?: Based off the HIGHEST ELO player of the Party. If you are ELO 40, and que with 30s, you will go in the 38+ ELO bracket. Basically removes the "boosting" people try to do.
If they "Fix" perma stealth then this class will be worse than DC, it'll even potentially lose to it in 1v1 (I've seen a 12K DC VS a 12K COMBAT rogue... the DC won... I wish I was kidding). The DC was tanking the Rogue's pathetic damage while damaging him very slowly until he finally killed him...
I would gladly give up perma if they gave us our devastating damage back. I mean look at the state of other classes right now... each one has its OP thing, so why not us? I bet they'd be scared if the Lashing Blade rogue was brought back.
Indeed.
Lol I've been running around with LB for the last week or 2, Damage is okay 10k+.... till you face something that has gear.
I will only comment about these two classes and PVP leaderboards
Guardian Fighter: Issues: - Knights Valor: This power needs to respect line of sight. Right now, when you cast it, it gives your team a buff that is unlimited in range and ignores line of sight. Whats worse is when your out of range and LOS you dont split damage with them, your team splits damage with the ground.... - SOLUTION: I dont like the idea of puttng a RANGE on this, but making it truly LOS will fix it. Right now to deal reflect damage back at someone you have to be within range and LOS for it to work. If you make the range too small this power becomes useless and I really like the value it brings to a group.
- Shield/Block: This does not respect CC immunity and there are SEVERAL things that go through this, the most annoying and frequent is Chill Stacks. It makes a GF have zero chance against a CW, literally zero chance once frozen. Im not talking 1v1s, but real PVP. - SOLUTION: Block should make you 100% CC resist EXCEPT for attacks that HIT you behind you. So if a chill stack was added frontally, it does not apply, if it was added from an attack from behind it would apply.
- Knights Challenge: As much as I love this power, it creates combo "scenarios" that makes it an unavoidable death. For instance a GF in tandem with a CW, Knights Challenge+Anvil = GG.
- -SOLUTION:This power should be a MIX of Knights Valor and ITF. It should give the GF a damage boost of 25% TO the target, however deal 25% less damage to any other target. It should also give ZERO damage buff to the attacker against the GF, however a damage DEBUFF against the GFs teammates by 25%. It should also be toggled like Knights Valor is now, so the uptime could be 100% if chosen. This can be used as both offensive tool and defensive tool.
--Anvil of Doom TO be honest, I LOVE this power because it hits SOOO hard. However, IF you do land it, it deals crazy damage right now... -SOLUTION: Speed up the animation timer, make the character move FORWARD when they attack with it, basically give it a little lunge AT the target. However, I think the damage boost should be UP TO 100% based on the targets missing HP. So it will technically never get to 100% damage boost, but will be more useful to a target at 80% HP than it is now (getting a 20% dmg boost) and less useful than it is now on a target at 30% HP (70% dmg boost) Overall it evens out the damage boost of the encounter. CREATIVE THOUGHT: It would be AWESOME to see a feat for this (maybe tact) that allows you to THROW your "Anvil of Doom" at a target and stun them for 1 second. This would create a VERY unique fun build coupled with the above.
Great Weapon Fighter: Issues:
This class still has some issues. It is not THAT bad, but compared to many others it just feels really un-fun to play (IMO). The reason I say this is a GOOD GWF is FORCED to play the "sprint" game where sprint isnt used as an offensive tool but a way to "cheese" by being CC immune and having boosted DR....
-PROBLEM:without Control abilities, GWFs cant hit any target. Give them too much control abilities and now they "stun/prone" lock you and its not fair. SOLUTION: There is something this game has DRASTICALLY over-seen and its slows. GWFs should be the masters of "slows". The 4/4 Profound has a TAD of this but this is the avenue a GWF should have.
Things like "Not so Fast" should slow targets movement by 50%! This makes it worth using.
a T1 DESTROYER feat should be "Attacks slow your targets movement by 1/2/3/4/5%, Stacks 5 times"
Things like this that allows the MELEE class to get in range and STAY in range.
Takedown: Needs to revert back to a <1 sec prone. I saw once that about .7 sec is the SHORTEST prone timer. Fine, give GWFs the shortest prone time on takedown. Its not the long control they need, its the visual "tell" of their target being prone.
Roar: This ability should "Daze" the target for 1 second (in PVP it shortened to .5 sec due to tenacity etc)
Frontline: The stun here is fine, but I would shorten it IMO - ONLY with the introduction of adding SLOWS!!!!
Now a GWF can get in range and STAY in range without being FORCED to try and shut down/stun lock their target.
-PROBLEM: Sprint is SUPER cheesy. Its what makes me HATE my GWF and HATE wanting to play it. SOLUTION: Remove CC Immunity AND DR on Sprint, but put unstoppable BACK at 25-50% DR. If you want to introduce Sprint mechanics into the game, the Instigator path is perfect for this.
Leaderboard and ELO: PROBLEM: You can and DO OFTEN lose rank on the leaderboards. SOLUTION: I dont even think the solution is to mess with your formula HOWEVER change how games are actually MATCHED UP!!! Horrible MatchUps I get why you did it this way, but it just introduces SO many issues its not even funny..... Low ELO/low GS players match with high ELO high GS players and its VERY frustrating for BOTH parties!!! SOLUTION TO PVP:!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I recall, ELO ratings range from about 20-45ish. When we WERE able to pull up the boards thats what I saw anyways. CREATE BRACKETS!!!! Three should work and the % is the Ideal population that falls into each catagory.
1) Bronze: 20-28 (about 25% of the PVP population fits here) This is mainly causal/PVE players who occasionally PVP.
2) Silver: 28-38 (About 50% of the Population fits here.) This is more serious PVE players and the average PVPer.
3) Gold: 38+ (Top <25%) This is more the elite PVPers...
What this does is NOW ELO wont have this random mishmash where low and high players mix, if you are above 38 in ELO, you get matched against others with 38+ ELO as well, making for a MUCH more fair and balanced matchup. Sure there will be issues, but nothing as frustrating as what we have now.
Id also imagine this would cut down on as much "losing by winning" as we see now. If the MINIMUM ELO player is 38, itll be hard to match against a group whose ELO average is lower than 38 so you shouldnt lose, or lose by THAT much in ELO if you win.
How to solve Multiple people Q in a team?: Based off the HIGHEST ELO player of the Party. If you are ELO 40, and que with 30s, you will go in the 38+ ELO bracket. Basically removes the "boosting" people try to do.
Well said! And this person would know the most about GF, and certainly knows a lot more then me in terms of GWF
Shield stamina doesn't drop in the GUI visibly now for other players making it extremely hard to judge when to use encounters.
Please tell me, of all the classes why is it that the GF is the only one that should be expected to let the whole world know how it is doing with regards to its stamina? You have to guess when to use your encounter against a GF? Boo hoo. GFs have to do that against every single opponent.
PSA: You don't need to grind Spinward Rise for your Elemental artifact main hand if you have some AD lying around. You can craft it via the Tyranny of Dragon's campaign screen.
Leaderboard and ELO: PROBLEM: You can and DO OFTEN lose rank on the leaderboards. SOLUTION: I dont even think the solution is to mess with your formula HOWEVER change how games are actually MATCHED UP!!! Horrible MatchUps I get why you did it this way, but it just introduces SO many issues its not even funny..... Low ELO/low GS players match with high ELO high GS players and its VERY frustrating for BOTH parties!!! SOLUTION TO PVP:!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I recall, ELO ratings range from about 20-45ish. When we WERE able to pull up the boards thats what I saw anyways. CREATE BRACKETS!!!! Three should work and the % is the Ideal population that falls into each catagory.
1) Bronze: 20-28 (about 25% of the PVP population fits here) This is mainly causal/PVE players who occasionally PVP.
2) Silver: 28-38 (About 50% of the Population fits here.) This is more serious PVE players and the average PVPer.
3) Gold: 38+ (Top <25%) This is more the elite PVPers...
Good idea, but I'm afraid this will introduce 3 new problems:
1. Even longer queue times than they already are (if I recall correctly, people were crying and begging for imbalanced matches because the queue times were too long at one point)
2. Inability for SOME premades to face each other in an organized match (for various reasons. Fun, practice, competition etc etc)
3. Matching up against the same players over and over and over and over again
As you can see, these all stem from the fact that this game's population, especially those with adequate skills/gear who are queueing for PVP is rapidly declining and isn't growing at all.
Please tell me, of all the classes why is it that the GF is the only one that should be expected to let the whole world know how it is doing with regards to its stamina? You have to guess when to use your encounter against a GF? Boo hoo. GFs have to do that against every single opponent.
This may be true however that defense is trumped by these reasons IMO
1) a GF shield can vary anywhere between 15-30 Seconds depending on choices, where as all other classes -side hr- have a standard and you can easily count the dodges
2) its a BUG, not intended.
3) Depending on visuals/ race chosen (in regards to small races) and armor enchant can sometimes obstruct vision to the point where it becomes un-clear whether or not the GF might actually be blocking
4) not like it matters anyways, if you play your GF well, you basically always have stamina up -which really ISNT an issue IMO-
"Ray of frost is currently the strongest at will in the game. It easily does more damage than some encounters, and it also has a stunning CC quality. This ability hits anywhere between 5-10k"
Nah, this is not true.
Storm Spell hit for a lot. RoF is low dps itself. CW DPS is FINE, it just needs to be moved from SS/Assailant procs to Shard to take skill into account. That is all.
Also I don't appreciate the desire to FURTHER nerf the HR. Playing Combat is already not fun. Royal Guard is the only fun factor in there.
Remove that and what will remain?
- CW's ray of frost is not ok. The stacks do not remove like they used to. It doesn't matter if they damage can be dodged but the root can't because it does so much damage that when it does root, it is 2 spells then it is GG... ITS NOT OK. I know a lot of cw's hated the skill involved with shard, so you love button mashing like GWF's last mod, but your state in this game is not ok. Especially with all the broken Glyphs.
- The post after you said WM is ok, and don't nerf HR's anymore. But EVERY SINGLE HR IS NOT USING THE BOW. That is a problem. You heal more than every other class on your team combined. Oh you die now when it's 2v1? I'm so sorry, but good Hr's really don't unless it is a CW using Ray of Frost lol....
There's little more than anecdotal evidence and bad data from shoddy matchmaking to rely on for balance decisions. You can't band-aid gross incompetent design by rotating classes in and out of fotm status every couple of months.
Matchmaking is a long-term problem they've chosen to ignore. Instead, resources and dev-hours are wasted on cherrypicking class squabbles, which isn't even a short-term solution. You pick trash up, put it right back down in a new spot, and people are still going to be complaining about the smell.
Agreed on most of your points as presented. And here is what I mean by that - you present situational scenarios that happen rarely. A GF hitting anyone with KC/BC/AoD is purely situational. Every class bar none has either cc or dodge ability, so in a 5x5 if someone fails to pay attention to his surroundings and fails to see the GF focusing him, then said someone should hit the dirt plain and simple. There is a huge difference between what a class can potentially do and what actually happens. Here is a a little insider info from a GF's perspective - I used KC extensively in Mod 3, currently I dont. PVP in Mod 4 gives very little if any window of opportunity to use KC. Why ? Because there is way too much ranged cc thrown around and if a KC using GF is caught in cc he can kiss hie metal plated bottom goodbye right then and there.
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
-PROBLEM: Sprint is SUPER cheesy. Its what makes me HATE my GWF and HATE wanting to play it.
SOLUTION: Remove CC Immunity AND DR on Sprint, but put unstoppable BACK at 25-50% DR. If you want to introduce Sprint mechanics into the game, the Instigator path is perfect for this.
No, if you are a good player you use sprint to kite melee while you kill range class.
GWF should always target range class first as it is easy for GWF to kite melee class, even kiting another GWF.
I will only comment about these two classes and PVP leaderboards
Guardian Fighter: Issues: - Knights Valor: This power needs to respect line of sight. Right now, when you cast it, it gives your team a buff that is unlimited in range and ignores line of sight. Whats worse is when your out of range and LOS you dont split damage with them, your team splits damage with the ground.... - SOLUTION: I dont like the idea of puttng a RANGE on this, but making it truly LOS will fix it. Right now to deal reflect damage back at someone you have to be within range and LOS for it to work. If you make the range too small this power becomes useless and I really like the value it brings to a group.
- Shield/Block: This does not respect CC immunity and there are SEVERAL things that go through this, the most annoying and frequent is Chill Stacks. It makes a GF have zero chance against a CW, literally zero chance once frozen. Im not talking 1v1s, but real PVP. - SOLUTION: Block should make you 100% CC resist EXCEPT for attacks that HIT you behind you. So if a chill stack was added frontally, it does not apply, if it was added from an attack from behind it would apply.
- Knights Challenge: As much as I love this power, it creates combo "scenarios" that makes it an unavoidable death. For instance a GF in tandem with a CW, Knights Challenge+Anvil = GG.
- -SOLUTION:This power should be a MIX of Knights Valor and ITF. It should give the GF a damage boost of 25% TO the target, however deal 25% less damage to any other target. It should also give ZERO damage buff to the attacker against the GF, however a damage DEBUFF against the GFs teammates by 25%. It should also be toggled like Knights Valor is now, so the uptime could be 100% if chosen. This can be used as both offensive tool and defensive tool.
--Anvil of Doom TO be honest, I LOVE this power because it hits SOOO hard. However, IF you do land it, it deals crazy damage right now... -SOLUTION: Speed up the animation timer, make the character move FORWARD when they attack with it, basically give it a little lunge AT the target. However, I think the damage boost should be UP TO 100% based on the targets missing HP. So it will technically never get to 100% damage boost, but will be more useful to a target at 80% HP than it is now (getting a 20% dmg boost) and less useful than it is now on a target at 30% HP (70% dmg boost) Overall it evens out the damage boost of the encounter. CREATIVE THOUGHT: It would be AWESOME to see a feat for this (maybe tact) that allows you to THROW your "Anvil of Doom" at a target and stun them for 1 second. This would create a VERY unique fun build coupled with the above.
Great Weapon Fighter: Issues:
This class still has some issues. It is not THAT bad, but compared to many others it just feels really un-fun to play (IMO). The reason I say this is a GOOD GWF is FORCED to play the "sprint" game where sprint isnt used as an offensive tool but a way to "cheese" by being CC immune and having boosted DR....
-PROBLEM:without Control abilities, GWFs cant hit any target. Give them too much control abilities and now they "stun/prone" lock you and its not fair. SOLUTION: There is something this game has DRASTICALLY over-seen and its slows. GWFs should be the masters of "slows". The 4/4 Profound has a TAD of this but this is the avenue a GWF should have.
Things like "Not so Fast" should slow targets movement by 50%! This makes it worth using.
a T1 DESTROYER feat should be "Attacks slow your targets movement by 1/2/3/4/5%, Stacks 5 times"
Things like this that allows the MELEE class to get in range and STAY in range.
Takedown: Needs to revert back to a <1 sec prone. I saw once that about .7 sec is the SHORTEST prone timer. Fine, give GWFs the shortest prone time on takedown. Its not the long control they need, its the visual "tell" of their target being prone.
Roar: This ability should "Daze" the target for 1 second (in PVP it shortened to .5 sec due to tenacity etc)
Frontline: The stun here is fine, but I would shorten it IMO - ONLY with the introduction of adding SLOWS!!!!
Now a GWF can get in range and STAY in range without being FORCED to try and shut down/stun lock their target.
-PROBLEM: Sprint is SUPER cheesy. Its what makes me HATE my GWF and HATE wanting to play it. SOLUTION: Remove CC Immunity AND DR on Sprint, but put unstoppable BACK at 25-50% DR. If you want to introduce Sprint mechanics into the game, the Instigator path is perfect for this.
Leaderboard and ELO: PROBLEM: You can and DO OFTEN lose rank on the leaderboards. SOLUTION: I dont even think the solution is to mess with your formula HOWEVER change how games are actually MATCHED UP!!! Horrible MatchUps I get why you did it this way, but it just introduces SO many issues its not even funny..... Low ELO/low GS players match with high ELO high GS players and its VERY frustrating for BOTH parties!!! SOLUTION TO PVP:!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I recall, ELO ratings range from about 20-45ish. When we WERE able to pull up the boards thats what I saw anyways. CREATE BRACKETS!!!! Three should work and the % is the Ideal population that falls into each catagory.
1) Bronze: 20-28 (about 25% of the PVP population fits here) This is mainly causal/PVE players who occasionally PVP.
2) Silver: 28-38 (About 50% of the Population fits here.) This is more serious PVE players and the average PVPer.
3) Gold: 38+ (Top <25%) This is more the elite PVPers...
What this does is NOW ELO wont have this random mishmash where low and high players mix, if you are above 38 in ELO, you get matched against others with 38+ ELO as well, making for a MUCH more fair and balanced matchup. Sure there will be issues, but nothing as frustrating as what we have now.
Id also imagine this would cut down on as much "losing by winning" as we see now. If the MINIMUM ELO player is 38, itll be hard to match against a group whose ELO average is lower than 38 so you shouldnt lose, or lose by THAT much in ELO if you win.
How to solve Multiple people Q in a team?: Based off the HIGHEST ELO player of the Party. If you are ELO 40, and que with 30s, you will go in the 38+ ELO bracket. Basically removes the "boosting" people try to do.
Awesome that you have the time to think and write so much about the game and my two classes. However the things you outlined so in-depth in your post are simply just you. Do you get it bro, the changes you see as "right and balanced" are just your preferences and lemme tell you right now they are not everybody else's cup of tea.
You hate the new Sprint gameplay ? Why, Id say it works just fine as it currently is. As a GWF Destroyer in PVP you have to manoeuvre and strike smart/run smart. Its not just mindless running around ( I've caught and killed many GWFs who seem to think just sprinting around will win the game for them ). You know what skill is ? Everybody throws the word around these forums but few actually define it. Here is some skill - you outmanoeuvre a dodging class and land your IBS at the spot their dodge will end before it ends and they fall. See, I didnt even need to cc them for that and its possible thanks to Sprint. Sure I give up one damage encounter to slot BF but hey, this type of gameplay is much more fair and fun than what we were last mod.
GF - I cant beleive people complain about the burst that KC can provide. Where were you expert GFs using KC in Mod 3 ? Oh wait, you didnt even play your GF in Mod 3 did you? Why - because it wasnt OP. Please stay away from class defining abilities. I actually created my first alt in Mod 3 and it was a GF and I used KC and laughed at people who said the GF was worthless in PVP. However, currently KC is not a go-to skill. In fact ever since Mod 4 went live I havent seen it used in a Dom, I havent used it myself either. In PVE however I love KCing the dragons. What this tells you is that for some reason KC is not viable in current PVP. The GF gets focused way too much these days to risk a KC, besides there is one good counter to it and its called awareness. Anvil of Doom does too much ? Really ? If you slot AoD it only comes into play after a certain chunk of enemy HP is missing - it still occupies a slot tho and I laugh when GFs use it on my toons while full on health. It tickles. If a GF wants to slot a finishing type of move and occupy one of his slots I say let him. The one fix GFs need is to have 100% cc immunity while blocking, thats it.
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
You can actually get a very good idea how every other class is doing with regards to stamina. Just count the number of dodges they use. CWs get three, TRs and DCs two. Of course, that doesn't account for lots of other factors. But if you pay attention, you'll generally know when another class is running low on stamina.
Yes, if you are 1v1ing that CW/TR/HR/GWF/SW from the start. But what happens when I arrive at a chaotic node fight, how do I know who to ''pick on''? How do I know who cannot dodge me so I am certain my rotation will land without the target being able to dodge? On the other hand, you can arrive at a node, look at the GFs little bar and immediately know the state of his defense.
I'm sorry, but there is no way to defend the fact that only the GF allows his enemies to see the state of his CC immunity/stamina. That bar needs to be deleted.
ProTip - Don't facetank the man in plate armour wielding a shield (unless you have one of those BS guard-piercing CC powers). How do you think I fight another GF? I most certainly do not stand in his face and derp around by attacking his guard. I dance with him and try and turn him around. Every other class has superior mobility so get behind the GF.
PSA: You don't need to grind Spinward Rise for your Elemental artifact main hand if you have some AD lying around. You can craft it via the Tyranny of Dragon's campaign screen.
Comments
The percentage of devs who will read this well thought-out OP and take it to heart: a full zero percent.
I'm sorry guys, but you are too good at this. Maybe you played your *** off for over a year, maybe you bought your way in or cheated -- who cares? The point is that you are 1% of 1% of 1% of the playerbase, and that is how much pull you realistically have. If you need proof of this, just look back over the history of this game, and what actually happened with balance and so on.
The changes that have occurred over the past year have made no sense to you all in many places because the devs weren't catering to you. They were catering to new players or the bulk of their casuals -- not to you.
Think about it. Why in the world would the devs ignore their most elite and overgeared players in favor of appealing to the non-elite masses? It's almost like this is a business trying to make a metric assload of money or something.
Because the 1% is over 50% of the income. No ****. Yes, they spend the most money on ZEN because in order to be top level pvper you must have rank 10s and legendary artifacts.
Most of them buy AD from OP aswell.
. . . This thread has been cleansed. First, it is against the Rules to discuss forum moderation of the past, present, or future. Secondly, it is never okay to name & shame anyone, for any reason. Lastly, stay on topic and leave the PvP Drama in-game or on other media, as these forums are not the place for such banter. Please read the Rules of Conduct that every user agrees to by the very use of the forum service. We will not stand for users trying to purposely derail threads to get them locked or otherwise moderated, and will instead take action against such users.
. . . Do not reply to this notice, as doing so is not allowed. Instead, contact us via Private Message to discuss forum moderation. Thanks!
Safe travels,
Archmage Zebular of Mystryl
PWE Community Moderator
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
I agree that the Control Wizard class has become an easy class to play that wont require much skill. They should never have nerfed the Shard of Endless Avalanche on TABB. Now everybody is using the exactly the same encounters and we can just sit back and watch stormspell and assailing do our work for us.
But I don't agree with you about Eye Of The Storm, Icy Rays, Rays Of Frost or the Shield.
I think Eye of the Storm is in a good place right now. At least if you have the skills you can get more out of it by timing stuff correctly and if you don't have the skill, you will do worse. That is a good thing considering how skillless this class has become.
Icy Rays and Ray of Frost is also okay right now. Our damage comes from Spellstorm and that one needs a nerf and by nerfing it, people will have to choose between the Stormspell and Orb of Imposition. I think that maybe they need to give stormspell a big nerf and transfer some of the damage back to some single target encounters. That will also increase the skill needed to play the CW.
I like the Shield the way it is right now. CW has always been the first target in PvP. We are always the first ones to go down and with the Shield, we actually have a chance to survive the first 30 seconds of a fight. Sadly for SW because now they might be the first to be targeted. I'm not sure but maybe GF needs a buff so that they can be a bit more tanky.
"Let us exist in a world where the person walking around in robes isn’t tankier than a person in leather armor."
I don't really see the problem here. Magic beats steel/leather.
We did the math in another thread about the ZAX backlog: this game is making at bare minimum 10 thousand dollars a day just from zen purchases going into the ZAX for buying AD. That's not even counting zen purchases for mounts, etc -- this is just the part that is going to ZAX!
The elite-est of the elite PVPers are NOT any kind of appreciable amount of this income, trust me. Be careful that you do not sorely underestimate the full power of the casual/new player zen market. 10 thousand dollars. PER DAY. At MINIMUM.
Knowing this, does it make more sense to you why things happen the way that they do here in Neverwinter? Are the devs REALLY absolute morons who do not understand the simplest things to do with balance?
OR
Is it allllllll about the Benjamins, babay? You decide for yourself.
Your absolutely right Desidus, When making this post I was thinking of the primary at-will used to proc the storm spell, sorry for the confusion!
But Icy rays damage is typically dodged by luck though, you rarely have time to react to a double cast. regardless you still get rooted which as a CW means Death
as a TR depending on the stage of your rotation, means death.
If your a GF, Death
if your a DC, well, death happens regardless
HR even falls victim to those undodgeable roots as well
Which don't get me wrong, 2v1 the 2 should always win cw + any class... However the 1 shouldn't get blown up -and not even be allowed to dodge- before team mates even have time to rotate
Also I want to point out that my criticism's of CW Shield comes from the eyes of a TR, So its PROBABLY inaccurate, But I can't do **** for damage against a purple shield... espically when they have 52k HP and 2k Regen... Not even whirlwind suffice's now.
Rogue is my class though, and I will play it till the end of time, through its ups and downs
that being said i'll ammend the OP
There used to be a moment of latency after a teleport before they could teleport again. Now they can teleport and teleport again immediately. That's what i mean for "more responsive teleport".
In my opinion balancing for the worst case scenario is the best way to do things for all levels of pvp and here's my reasons why
1) Players with huge overbearing Gear Scores won't have nearly as high as an edge against under geared patrons as they do now, meaning skill will be a more apparent need in PvP
2) Accidental Kills caused by OP feats and lack of pre-determined planning will be a thing of the past for all scopes of PvP and will hopefully remove the misguided Rock Paper scissors game we have going on right (it's like OCW Playing Rock Paper Scissors with a Crab) and create a more balanced game where all scopes of the 7 classes and all their possible feat combinations have an equal chance to succeed
3) There will be no such thing as a troll comp Party because on any gear level things will be equal
4) It will encourage a great more team gameplay to accomplish goals rather then placing the difference of a PuG PvP game W/L at the hands of 1 person being a carry.
I Understand this is wishful thinking at best, but this is my dream and goal for the game with the creation of this thread.
I mean forget class balance here at the Twilight Zone level... if you're 18k, you're 18k, man. You win. Congratulations.
I thought you said this thread was for ultrahigh GS PVP only, no mere mortals apply.
The fact that you wrote yourself into a corner and into irrelevance has nothing to do with where your heart is at, man. It's your **** gearscore. I'm sorry, but you are a God. 99.9% of players cannot touch you, and the ones who can are operating at that same weird level where you guys tend to see stuff happen in the fringes of stats boundaries that so-called normal people can't. You're a statistical rarity, and the devs are simply not going to tweak balance around the very end of the bell curve.
My whole point in this thread has been to point that sad fact out. I'm on your side in this, and I think it would be great to have the game balanced out for everyone, no matter what GS/level. But this is a complex system we are dealing with here... there are a LOT of variables. And when you raise some of those varables into stratospheric areas, its going to be hard to account for it all. Hard, or impossible. That's why there are DRs on most stats, and hard caps on some of them.
You know all of this already, I'm sure. No amount of class balancing is going to level the playing field for a new level 60 vs. one of your 18k's.
This.
Everything has been discussed during the testing phase. At least when it comes to CWs, there are 100+ pages of suggestions. All you stated, Sic, has already been said multiple times. And every time the devs were coming up with something that had nothing to do with what has been asked for.
Before the CW got pushed into the role it has now, the following things happened:
1. The overall single target damage and cooldowns have been heavily reduced.
2. AoE damage from the most important AoE spell (Steal Time) has been buffed by 60% and its cooldown reduced.
3. Shard of Endless Avalanche has been nerfed to uselessness (60% base damage nerf). This killed one viable PvP build.
4. The Magic Missile's damage has been heavily reduced (34%), which made it deal about 18% less damage than RoF. Renegade destruction I.
5. Eye of the Storm has been put on 20 sec cooldown with normal activation chance (10% on encounters), which made it completely useless. Renegade destruction II.
6. Phantasmal Destruction has been put on a 40% chance instead of 100%. Renegade Destruction III.
Their solution: Assailant. Let's just all spam Ray of Frost for damage. Internal cooldown, half the effect on players. Ok.
CW was still in a terrible place. At that moment, CW died to practically everything on Preview, even mobs, if he wasn't Oppressor/perma control.
Suggestion from the player base:
- Make crit specific to Renegades. Give them a feat that reduced the internal cooldown to an extent where it has no internal cooldown with the old activation chance. Give those who voluntarily pass on control more damage (any ONLY those).
- Buff Shard on TAB. Let it deal 2 - 3x more damage.
- Increase Magic Missile damage.
What did the devs do with those 3 main suggestions?
1. Buff the EotS for all 3 paragon paths. Damage, crit and control path.
2. Leave the Shard as it is (a level 50 power with a damage of an At-Will). Introduce the buffed Storm Spell (the words "Storm Spell" didn't fall for the last 100 pages of discussion; it came out of nowhere).
3. Buff Magic Missile back by 15%. Which makes it hit less than RoF until now. What's the point of it? RoF at least controls the target.
To be honest, I don't see where this discussion in this thread is going. It's all been there. It's been discussed. The devs didn't care.
As for the other classes, I agree with Sicarius.
No the field will never be COMPLETELY BALANCED However certain things should NEVER occur such as this
My GF with Sub Par gear hit 20k Bull charges and yesterday a 51k NON CRIT Anvil of Doom and he has 2100 Power, 600 crit, 1k Armor Pen and the rest of the stats are invested elsewhere in HP -50k+ for GF- and Regen
This class ^ is not the only one limited to occasions like this
and now imagine how funny these statistics get on higher levels
1 Rotation = death. should not exist
Undodgeable CC should not exist
Classes becoming useless - On all levels, including my own- Should not exist.
IMO, GF was on a good spot before, those 3 classes were the only ones causing a mess. Fixing those 3 OP classes at the time should fix its problems, cryptic just has no idea how to balance things IMO. It needs to be tested how much of an impact balancing an OP class will make before proceeding to the next.
Trickster Rogue is getting so darn pathetic. The only people I can kill are squishies. I'm in a state where I just run around the node while never coming out of stealth... lol. TR is in such a sorry state.
And thats probably another reason why we're PROBABLY going to get nerfed next Module because the dev's will look at at the new players who don't know how to gear or deal with a stealthed target getting roflstomped and take it out on us again.
I just leveled up my pvp TR char, got 60 and played pvp with whooping 9,2k GS I could kill BI GWF with 17k GS and some Grim Oppressor 13-14k CW. So I don't think TR is that bad, didn't even take GPF or anything from other char. Count, run like idiot, count even more, look at them, predict. Simply adapt. Perma is still good. And 10-59 Executioner TRs with P. Vorpals are not bad either.
If they "Fix" perma stealth then this class will be worse than DC, it'll even potentially lose to it in 1v1 (I've seen a 12K DC VS a 12K COMBAT rogue... the DC won... I wish I was kidding). The DC was tanking the Rogue's pathetic damage while damaging him very slowly until he finally killed him...
I would gladly give up perma if they gave us our devastating damage back. I mean look at the state of other classes right now... each one has its OP thing, so why not us? I bet they'd be scared if the Lashing Blade rogue was brought back.
I will only comment about these two classes and PVP leaderboards
Guardian Fighter:
Issues:
- Knights Valor: This power needs to respect line of sight. Right now, when you cast it, it gives your team a buff that is unlimited in range and ignores line of sight. Whats worse is when your out of range and LOS you dont split damage with them, your team splits damage with the ground....
- SOLUTION: I dont like the idea of puttng a RANGE on this, but making it truly LOS will fix it. Right now to deal reflect damage back at someone you have to be within range and LOS for it to work. If you make the range too small this power becomes useless and I really like the value it brings to a group.
- Shield/Block: This does not respect CC immunity and there are SEVERAL things that go through this, the most annoying and frequent is Chill Stacks. It makes a GF have zero chance against a CW, literally zero chance once frozen. Im not talking 1v1s, but real PVP.
- SOLUTION: Block should make you 100% CC resist EXCEPT for attacks that HIT you behind you. So if a chill stack was added frontally, it does not apply, if it was added from an attack from behind it would apply.
- Knights Challenge: As much as I love this power, it creates combo "scenarios" that makes it an unavoidable death. For instance a GF in tandem with a CW, Knights Challenge+Anvil = GG.
- -SOLUTION:This power should be a MIX of Knights Valor and ITF. It should give the GF a damage boost of 25% TO the target, however deal 25% less damage to any other target. It should also give ZERO damage buff to the attacker against the GF, however a damage DEBUFF against the GFs teammates by 25%. It should also be toggled like Knights Valor is now, so the uptime could be 100% if chosen. This can be used as both offensive tool and defensive tool.
--Anvil of Doom TO be honest, I LOVE this power because it hits SOOO hard. However, IF you do land it, it deals crazy damage right now...
-SOLUTION: Speed up the animation timer, make the character move FORWARD when they attack with it, basically give it a little lunge AT the target. However, I think the damage boost should be UP TO 100% based on the targets missing HP. So it will technically never get to 100% damage boost, but will be more useful to a target at 80% HP than it is now (getting a 20% dmg boost) and less useful than it is now on a target at 30% HP (70% dmg boost) Overall it evens out the damage boost of the encounter.
CREATIVE THOUGHT: It would be AWESOME to see a feat for this (maybe tact) that allows you to THROW your "Anvil of Doom" at a target and stun them for 1 second. This would create a VERY unique fun build coupled with the above.
Great Weapon Fighter:
Issues:
This class still has some issues. It is not THAT bad, but compared to many others it just feels really un-fun to play (IMO). The reason I say this is a GOOD GWF is FORCED to play the "sprint" game where sprint isnt used as an offensive tool but a way to "cheese" by being CC immune and having boosted DR....
-PROBLEM:without Control abilities, GWFs cant hit any target. Give them too much control abilities and now they "stun/prone" lock you and its not fair.
SOLUTION: There is something this game has DRASTICALLY over-seen and its slows. GWFs should be the masters of "slows". The 4/4 Profound has a TAD of this but this is the avenue a GWF should have.
Things like "Not so Fast" should slow targets movement by 50%! This makes it worth using.
a T1 DESTROYER feat should be "Attacks slow your targets movement by 1/2/3/4/5%, Stacks 5 times"
Things like this that allows the MELEE class to get in range and STAY in range.
Takedown: Needs to revert back to a <1 sec prone. I saw once that about .7 sec is the SHORTEST prone timer. Fine, give GWFs the shortest prone time on takedown. Its not the long control they need, its the visual "tell" of their target being prone.
Roar: This ability should "Daze" the target for 1 second (in PVP it shortened to .5 sec due to tenacity etc)
Frontline: The stun here is fine, but I would shorten it IMO - ONLY with the introduction of adding SLOWS!!!!
Now a GWF can get in range and STAY in range without being FORCED to try and shut down/stun lock their target.
-PROBLEM: Sprint is SUPER cheesy. Its what makes me HATE my GWF and HATE wanting to play it.
SOLUTION: Remove CC Immunity AND DR on Sprint, but put unstoppable BACK at 25-50% DR. If you want to introduce Sprint mechanics into the game, the Instigator path is perfect for this.
Leaderboard and ELO:
PROBLEM: You can and DO OFTEN lose rank on the leaderboards.
SOLUTION: I dont even think the solution is to mess with your formula HOWEVER change how games are actually MATCHED UP!!!
Horrible MatchUps I get why you did it this way, but it just introduces SO many issues its not even funny..... Low ELO/low GS players match with high ELO high GS players and its VERY frustrating for BOTH parties!!!
SOLUTION TO PVP:!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I recall, ELO ratings range from about 20-45ish. When we WERE able to pull up the boards thats what I saw anyways.
CREATE BRACKETS!!!! Three should work and the % is the Ideal population that falls into each catagory.
1) Bronze: 20-28 (about 25% of the PVP population fits here) This is mainly causal/PVE players who occasionally PVP.
2) Silver: 28-38 (About 50% of the Population fits here.) This is more serious PVE players and the average PVPer.
3) Gold: 38+ (Top <25%) This is more the elite PVPers...
What this does is NOW ELO wont have this random mishmash where low and high players mix, if you are above 38 in ELO, you get matched against others with 38+ ELO as well, making for a MUCH more fair and balanced matchup. Sure there will be issues, but nothing as frustrating as what we have now.
Id also imagine this would cut down on as much "losing by winning" as we see now. If the MINIMUM ELO player is 38, itll be hard to match against a group whose ELO average is lower than 38 so you shouldnt lose, or lose by THAT much in ELO if you win.
How to solve Multiple people Q in a team?: Based off the HIGHEST ELO player of the Party. If you are ELO 40, and que with 30s, you will go in the 38+ ELO bracket. Basically removes the "boosting" people try to do.
Indeed.
Lol I've been running around with LB for the last week or 2, Damage is okay 10k+.... till you face something that has gear.
Well said! And this person would know the most about GF, and certainly knows a lot more then me in terms of GWF
Please tell me, of all the classes why is it that the GF is the only one that should be expected to let the whole world know how it is doing with regards to its stamina? You have to guess when to use your encounter against a GF? Boo hoo. GFs have to do that against every single opponent.
Good idea, but I'm afraid this will introduce 3 new problems:
1. Even longer queue times than they already are (if I recall correctly, people were crying and begging for imbalanced matches because the queue times were too long at one point)
2. Inability for SOME premades to face each other in an organized match (for various reasons. Fun, practice, competition etc etc)
3. Matching up against the same players over and over and over and over again
As you can see, these all stem from the fact that this game's population, especially those with adequate skills/gear who are queueing for PVP is rapidly declining and isn't growing at all.
This may be true however that defense is trumped by these reasons IMO
1) a GF shield can vary anywhere between 15-30 Seconds depending on choices, where as all other classes -side hr- have a standard and you can easily count the dodges
2) its a BUG, not intended.
3) Depending on visuals/ race chosen (in regards to small races) and armor enchant can sometimes obstruct vision to the point where it becomes un-clear whether or not the GF might actually be blocking
4) not like it matters anyways, if you play your GF well, you basically always have stamina up -which really ISNT an issue IMO-
- CW's ray of frost is not ok. The stacks do not remove like they used to. It doesn't matter if they damage can be dodged but the root can't because it does so much damage that when it does root, it is 2 spells then it is GG... ITS NOT OK. I know a lot of cw's hated the skill involved with shard, so you love button mashing like GWF's last mod, but your state in this game is not ok. Especially with all the broken Glyphs.
- The post after you said WM is ok, and don't nerf HR's anymore. But EVERY SINGLE HR IS NOT USING THE BOW. That is a problem. You heal more than every other class on your team combined. Oh you die now when it's 2v1? I'm so sorry, but good Hr's really don't unless it is a CW using Ray of Frost lol....
- Everything else aside, those are my two points.
There's little more than anecdotal evidence and bad data from shoddy matchmaking to rely on for balance decisions. You can't band-aid gross incompetent design by rotating classes in and out of fotm status every couple of months.
Matchmaking is a long-term problem they've chosen to ignore. Instead, resources and dev-hours are wasted on cherrypicking class squabbles, which isn't even a short-term solution. You pick trash up, put it right back down in a new spot, and people are still going to be complaining about the smell.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
SOLUTION: Remove CC Immunity AND DR on Sprint, but put unstoppable BACK at 25-50% DR. If you want to introduce Sprint mechanics into the game, the Instigator path is perfect for this.
No, if you are a good player you use sprint to kite melee while you kill range class.
GWF should always target range class first as it is easy for GWF to kite melee class, even kiting another GWF.
Awesome that you have the time to think and write so much about the game and my two classes. However the things you outlined so in-depth in your post are simply just you. Do you get it bro, the changes you see as "right and balanced" are just your preferences and lemme tell you right now they are not everybody else's cup of tea.
You hate the new Sprint gameplay ? Why, Id say it works just fine as it currently is. As a GWF Destroyer in PVP you have to manoeuvre and strike smart/run smart. Its not just mindless running around ( I've caught and killed many GWFs who seem to think just sprinting around will win the game for them ). You know what skill is ? Everybody throws the word around these forums but few actually define it. Here is some skill - you outmanoeuvre a dodging class and land your IBS at the spot their dodge will end before it ends and they fall. See, I didnt even need to cc them for that and its possible thanks to Sprint. Sure I give up one damage encounter to slot BF but hey, this type of gameplay is much more fair and fun than what we were last mod.
GF - I cant beleive people complain about the burst that KC can provide. Where were you expert GFs using KC in Mod 3 ? Oh wait, you didnt even play your GF in Mod 3 did you? Why - because it wasnt OP. Please stay away from class defining abilities. I actually created my first alt in Mod 3 and it was a GF and I used KC and laughed at people who said the GF was worthless in PVP. However, currently KC is not a go-to skill. In fact ever since Mod 4 went live I havent seen it used in a Dom, I havent used it myself either. In PVE however I love KCing the dragons. What this tells you is that for some reason KC is not viable in current PVP. The GF gets focused way too much these days to risk a KC, besides there is one good counter to it and its called awareness. Anvil of Doom does too much ? Really ? If you slot AoD it only comes into play after a certain chunk of enemy HP is missing - it still occupies a slot tho and I laugh when GFs use it on my toons while full on health. It tickles. If a GF wants to slot a finishing type of move and occupy one of his slots I say let him. The one fix GFs need is to have 100% cc immunity while blocking, thats it.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
Yes, if you are 1v1ing that CW/TR/HR/GWF/SW from the start. But what happens when I arrive at a chaotic node fight, how do I know who to ''pick on''? How do I know who cannot dodge me so I am certain my rotation will land without the target being able to dodge? On the other hand, you can arrive at a node, look at the GFs little bar and immediately know the state of his defense.
I'm sorry, but there is no way to defend the fact that only the GF allows his enemies to see the state of his CC immunity/stamina. That bar needs to be deleted.
ProTip - Don't facetank the man in plate armour wielding a shield (unless you have one of those BS guard-piercing CC powers). How do you think I fight another GF? I most certainly do not stand in his face and derp around by attacking his guard. I dance with him and try and turn him around. Every other class has superior mobility so get behind the GF.