Stealth vs Detection

aluvitar

Something needs to change here.
It is already stupid that sins can stealth endlessly simply by using a mana potion here and there, they can stealth in water, stealth while flying, stealth while teleporting, need I say more? Oh, yes I do.
While they can do this endlessly the rest of players are given these awesome (not) potions which help us to see them... for 30 seconds and then we have to wait 2 minutes to be able to again? Come on.
Up the duration of espionage potions to the full 2 minutes at the very least, it isnt like we can just go to an npc shop and buy an endless supply anyways.

_Nerox_ - Dreamweaver

and thats why sins are sins, roll one or gtfo QQ

Angel_Spawn - Sanctuary

Stealth is indeed stupid pvp - wise but as far as pve goes it is handy for farming, can`t complain there.

kawaiijen

But here's the real kicker.

Archers have become the new masters of stealth.

A level 105 archer in stealth can't be seen by anyone else besides another 105 non assassin with revelation potions (seeker/mystic skill as well)

But they can see a level 105 sin with the revelation pot where the sin is SoL. b:chuckle

Though I agree stealth has no place in this game.

aluvitar

KawaiiJen wrote: »

But here's the real kicker.

Archers have become the new masters of stealth.

A level 105 archer in stealth can't be seen by anyone else besides another 105 non assassin with revelation potions (seeker/mystic skill as well)

But they can see a level 105 sin with the revelation pot where the sin is SoL. b:chuckle

Though I agree stealth has no place in this game.

I might be wrong here as I am not a master of archers but, isn't their stealth timed at least? I wouldn't mind stealth if it had say a 30 second duration with a 2 minute lockout like the revealation potions have.

kawaiijen

aluvitar wrote: »

I might be wrong here as I am not a master of archers but, isn't their stealth timed at least? I wouldn't mind steal if it had say a 30 second duration with a 2 minute lockout like the revealation potions have.

No the penalty for archer stealth is we can't freely move. Our movement is cut down to 0.1 m/s. However.. We can still freely leap around which has cooldowns. So the drawback is if the archer doesn't have leaps and stealthed you know EXACTLY where they stealthed at and if you pop an AoE there went that.

Astraea - Raging Tide

aluvitar wrote: »

I might be wrong here as I am not a master of archers but, isn't their stealth timed at least? I wouldn't mind stealth if it had say a 30 second duration with a 2 minute lockout like the revealation potions have.

Ataraxia Level 1
Mana 121
Channel 0.8 seconds
Cast 0.6 seconds
Cooldown 120.0 seconds
Weapon Ranged

Requisite Cultivation Aware of Vacuity
Enter a stealth state by becoming one with nature. Increases
Stealth level by 31 points. Costs 50 Mana per second.
Movement speed reduced to 0.1 meters per second.
Blazing Arrow or Spark Burst will cancel the effect.

doesnt look like it, so long as they either have an mp charm or several pots seems like they can stay in stealth whenever, altho they cant move apart from their leaps

_Skai_ - Raging Tide

I'm just glad sins are at a disadvantage for once when against a 105 archer with all Morai skills.

Quilue - Sanctuary

Pretty sure the real kicker of stealth is the 1 spark gained...

krisnda

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

Pretty sure the real kicker of stealth is the 1 spark gained...

Pretty much.

Shayd - Raging Tide

The skill should just have time limit instead of Mana limit, like in A I O N Skill makes you stealth for 40-60 Seconds

Hexalot - Dreamweaver

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

Pretty sure the real kicker of stealth is the 1 spark gained...

No one can convince me that the Developers weren't drunk as skunks that day...

Burnout - Harshlands

SERIOUSLY? Sins have been written out of the equation entirely.

There is a R9 3rd cast 104 +12 sage archer on our server, who does as much damage as R9 sins, from 30+ m away, and who can purge all your buffs and triple spark twice in a row (wait till after expansion, when awaken is usable once per fight). After expansion, she also gets a ranged 5 second stun on a 15 s cooldown that costs no chi. Compare that to sin's headhunt that also lasts 5 secs, but costs 2 sparks, has 30s cooldown, and 4.5 m range as well as a crippling cast time.

Every 30 seconds she gets what is basically a free AD + 15 seconds of CC immunity and -30% damage taken, and every 2 minutes she gets a free shadow escape. Combine this with hp approaching 30k, and insane p. def/m. def, and you basically get a sin on steroids with 30+m range. GL taking less than 30 seconds to kill her, even with multiple R9's.









PS: All this can also be yours for only $20000.

Quilue - Sanctuary

What the hell are you talking about...someone need 3rd cast to "hit as hard as sins" and you call that OP?

What exactly does it mean to "hit as hard as sins" anyway? Watch the Purple_Eyes vs Bait video where jade sins hit somewhere between 1k - 2k on each other no crit.

In every instance, endgame archer proves to be the weakest class, because everyone gets so much hp and defense fully equipped with buffs and archers mostly have auto attacks to kill people with. Fight a x3 buffed wiz as archer and you find you're only trying to live until Purge procs, during which they can try to kill you at anytime because archer mdef is never actually that good with 1 mdef buff available.

I don't know what is "insane" pdef and mdef in your eyes...Archers still have the worst defenses lol....14k pdef and 10k mdef fully buffed with a +12 Cube pdef neck and 3rd cast belt, use other orns as you like, but it's never going to match up to a heavy or even caster.

On the other hand a 3rd cast wizard can be 10k pdef and 20k mdef self buffed with the same ornaments, (again not including rings or shards yet) and you think 3rd cast archers have "insane" pdef and mdef.

Ever seen what 3rd cast R9 is like for casters? 20k+ hp fully buffed, 23k pattack and purify. Purify weapons haha what a joke. I can probably play with a foot and not die.

U_Sasuke - Sanctuary

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

What the hell are you talking about...someone need 3rd cast to "hit as hard as sins" and you call that OP?

What exactly does it mean to "hit as hard as sins" anyway? Watch the Purple_Eyes vs Bait video where jade sins hit somewhere between 1k - 2k on each other no crit.

In every instance, endgame archer proves to be the weakest class, because everyone gets so much hp and defense fully equipped with buffs and archers mostly have auto attacks to kill people with. Fight a x3 buffed wiz as archer and you find you're only trying to live until Purge procs, during which they can try to kill you at anytime because archer mdef is never actually that good with 1 mdef buff available.

I don't know what is "insane" pdef and mdef in your eyes...Archers still have the worst defenses lol....probably 14k pdef and 10k mdef fully buffed with a +12 Cube pdef neck, use other orns as you like, but it's never going to match up to a heavy or even caster.

On the other hand a 3rd cast wizard can be 10k pdef self buffed with a +12 pdef neck, and you think 3rd cast archers have "insane" pdef and mdef.

Ever seen what 3rd cast R9 is like for casters? 20k+ hp fully buffed, 23k pattack and purify. Purify weapons haha what a joke. I can probably play with a foot and not die.

WHAT! if i said i got 11.3k phy def right now self'd b:shutup

Quilue - Sanctuary

Just with neck, r9 belt, and no shards? Probably Demon Stone Barrier. I neglected to include the Demon version so Burnout doesn't have excuses

U_Sasuke - Sanctuary

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

Just with neck, r9 belt, and no shards? Probably Demon Stone Barrier. I neglected to include the Demon version so Burnout doesn't have excuses

it's ok harshland mages shltty anyway b:laugh

Burnout - Harshlands

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

What the hell are you talking about...someone need 3rd cast to "hit as hard as sins" and you call that OP?

What exactly does it mean to "hit as hard as sins" anyway? Watch the Purple_Eyes vs Bait video where jade sins hit somewhere between 1k - 2k on each other no crit.

In every instance, endgame archer proves to be the weakest class, because everyone gets so much hp and defense fully equipped with buffs and archers mostly have auto attacks to kill people with. Fight a x3 buffed wiz as archer and you find you're only trying to live until Purge procs, during which they can try to kill you at anytime because archer mdef is never actually that good with 1 mdef buff available.

I don't know what is "insane" pdef and mdef in your eyes...Archers still have the worst defenses lol....14k pdef and 10k mdef fully buffed with a +12 Cube pdef neck and 3rd cast belt, use other orns as you like, but it's never going to match up to a heavy or even caster.

On the other hand a 3rd cast wizard can be 10k pdef and 20k mdef self buffed with the same ornaments, (again not including rings or shards yet) and you think 3rd cast archers have "insane" pdef and mdef.

Ever seen what 3rd cast R9 is like for casters? 20k+ hp fully buffed, 23k pattack and purify. Purify weapons haha what a joke. I can probably play with a foot and not die.

I never understood why everyone includes the self buff as if it was part of our innate armor. It's a skill that serves as one of our survival abilities - and only one caster in the game actually gets this buff - wizards. Mystics get an inferior version of this buff (by as much as 60% less), while clerics, psychics, and venomancers in caster form have to deal with base phy. def.

Arcane armor is absolutely the worst armor in the game, and the only reason people think otherwise is they look at wizards who get an (admittedly a very amazing) 120% self p. def buff. But no other arcane class actually gets this much bonus save for venos in fox form (who aren't really casters in that form anyway...they become purgers/debuffers).

Our magic also gives us a pretty significant amount of m. def. Around 4k? I think it's somewhat fair considering archers get crit and evasion on their primary damage stat, while casters get some m. def (which isn't really what casters are worried about anyway). Archers also get an extra 3 defense levels on their armor over casters, which protects against both phy and magic, in return for not getting a +300 res add on their armor.

Give archers this same 120% p. def self buff, and light armor doesn't look so bad anymore. Again, it's the skill of a single class and the m. res that 450 pts in magic gives out of 5 caster classes that you're talking about.

The other fact is that this buff is not reliable - in TW it is easily purged off, and archers get a default purge on their weapon as well that- when it works - makes casters deal with 6k+ crits (or if we're talking 3 rd cast, 10k+ crits) every .8-1.2 secs.

Astraea - Raging Tide

Burnout - Harshlands wrote: »

I never understood why everyone includes the self buff as if it was part of our innate armor. It's a skill that serves as one of our survival abilities - and only one caster in the game actually gets this buff - wizards. Mystics get an inferior version of this buff (by as much as 60% less), while clerics, psychics, and venomancers in caster form have to deal with base phy. def.

Arcane armor is absolutely the worst armor in the game, and the only reason people think otherwise is they look at wizards who get an (admittedly a very amazing) 120% self p. def buff. But no other arcane class actually gets this much bonus save for venos in fox form (who aren't really casters in that form anyway...they become purgers/debuffers).

Give archers this same 120% p. def self buff, and light armor doesn't look so bad anymore. Again, it's the skill of a single class out of 5 caster classes that you're talking about.

The other fact is that this buff is not reliable - in TW it is easily purged off, and archers get a default purge on their weapon as well that- when it works - makes casters deal with 6k+ crits (or if we're talking 3 rd cast, 10k+ crits) every .8-1.2 secs.

wiz with ~4k pdef gets 120% buff (stone barrier) + 60% buff ( cleric buff) + 60-90% buff (bm lv10-11)
archer with same 4k pdef gets 60% buff (cleric buff) + 60-90% buff (bm lv10-11)

Burnout - Harshlands

Astraea - Raging Tide wrote: »

AA can get as much base pdef as an LA if they dont sacrifice defences for -chan

Ok, prove to me with pwcalc that a generic caster class has as much base p. def as a generic LA class assuming same orns, belts, and cape/helm. I just don't see how this is possible unless you assume the LA class isn't using p. def orns.

...you can't, unless you try to include class specific buffs to the wizard while excluding all the skills an archer or sin has.

Using class-specific skills to cherry pick arguments to support an idea that also affects multiple other classes doesn't prove anything. If I wanted to do that, I could say that archers can just wings of grace whenever they feel threatened and get an automatic -30% reduction in both phy and magic, but you don't see this in just the character sheets when you press C.

KissAndKill - Dreamweaver

Burnout - Harshlands wrote: »

SERIOUSLY? Sins have been written out of the equation entirely.

There is a R9 3rd cast 104 +12 sage archer on our server, who does as much damage as R9 sins, from 30+ m away, and who can purge all your buffs and triple spark twice in a row (wait till after expansion, when awaken is usable once per fight). After expansion, she also gets a ranged 5 second stun on a 15 s cooldown that costs no chi. Compare that to sin's headhunt that also lasts 5 secs, but costs 2 sparks, has 30s cooldown, and 4.5 m range as well as a crippling cast time.

Every 30 seconds she gets what is basically a free AD + 15 seconds of CC immunity and -30% damage taken, and every 2 minutes she gets a free shadow escape. Combine this with hp approaching 30k, and insane p. def/m. def, and you basically get a sin on steroids with 30+m range. GL taking less than 30 seconds to kill her, even with multiple R9's.









PS: All this can also be yours for only $20000.

g16 > r9 3rd, at least in terms of Psychics and Wizards.

truekossy

It's already been proven even without wiz specific defense that light armor is statistically the WORST armor type in the game. I don't have the time to search around for the math but just check around the archer section. Hell, ther's already been a thread that showed an Arcane archer with better defense than one in equivalent LA though it cut into damage.

Burnout - Harshlands

truekossy wrote: »

It's already been proven even without wiz specific defense that light armor is statistically the WORST armor type in the game. I don't have the time to search around for the math but just check around the archer section. Hell, ther's already been a thread that showed an Arcane archer with better defense than one in equivalent LA though it cut into damage.

This is easy enough to prove. I did 2 pwcalcs, with 300 str, dex, and magic to keep stat variables constant (the only variable we are testing is that of LA vs AA, not stats). (did pwi disable links on forums?)

Archer with LA: http://pwcalc.com/bdfb06dc7ed2e7dc

Archer with AA: http://pwcalc.com/8173aa128d3758a4

LA total defense: 15144 Total hp: 15916 Total defense lvl: 30

AA total defense: 16050 Total hp: 13419 Total defense lvl: 27

---

The LA has 900 less resistances, but an extra 2497 HP and 3 defense levels (which reduces both phy. and magic damage).

Seems like mostly a wash to me. In fact, I would say the LA comes out slightly ahead due to the extra 2500 hp and 3 defense levels.

Narcillatrix - Dreamweaver

At least be happy sins don't get a nasty bonus damage dealt while attacking from stealth, like how it is in another pwe game with stealth enabled chars. >.>;;

Burnout - Harshlands

Narcillatrix - Dreamweaver wrote: »

At least be happy sins don't get a nasty bonus damage dealt while attacking from stealth, like how it is in another pwe game with stealth enabled chars. >.>;;

*cough* double spark in stealth that you can't do anything about and can't see coming *cough*

Narcillatrix - Dreamweaver

Burnout - Harshlands wrote: »

*cough* double spark in stealth that you can't do anything about and can't see coming *cough*

Still, it would add an extra damage to that spark. At least they don't get a DEFAULT damage bonus that's there no matter what while in stealth. It'd be like if they DID get said bonus damage, if they spark and attack from stealth they would get about 5x that attack spark power added onto it, JUST because they attacked from stealth.

Quilue - Sanctuary

Burnout - Harshlands wrote: »

I never understood why everyone includes the self buff as if it was part of our innate armor. It's a skill that serves as one of our survival abilities - and only one caster in the game actually gets this buff - wizards.

I used self buff of Wizards because I am looking at a scenario where the Wizard gets purged of the 2 other pdef buffs and has decided to self buff himself, insinuating that a purged Wizard can quickly become better off than an archer in terms of wiz pdef vs archer mdef. Clerics can obviously self buff and a Veno can go fox in the same situation. Other classes have their own protection skills too, and you're talking about Venos like fox form is a disadvantage or something...

Mystics get an inferior version of this buff (by as much as 60% less), while clerics, psychics, and venomancers in caster form have to deal with base phy. def.

Arcane armor is absolutely the worst armor in the game, and the only reason people think otherwise is they look at wizards who get an (admittedly a very amazing) 120% self p. def buff. But no other arcane class actually gets this much bonus save for venos in fox form (who aren't really casters in that form anyway...they become purgers/debuffers).

How about the simple fact that phys classes get 1 party mdef buff while casters get 2 party pdef buffs? That's already good enough and more than bridges the gap. Yes arcane armor is bad, but a lot of defense comes from ornaments and buffs anyway. With LA, you spend an extra 50 stat points either getting ***** by physical damage or ***** by magic damage.

Our magic also gives us a pretty significant amount of m. def. Around 4k? I think it's somewhat fair considering archers get crit and evasion on their primary damage stat, while casters get some m. def (which isn't really what casters are worried about anyway). Archers also get an extra 3 defense levels on their armor over casters, which protects against both phy and magic, in return for not getting a +300 res add on their armor.

Give archers this same 120% p. def self buff, and light armor doesn't look so bad anymore. Again, it's the skill of a single class and the m. res that 450 pts in magic gives out of 5 caster classes that you're talking about.

The other fact is that this buff is not reliable - in TW it is easily purged off, and archers get a default purge on their weapon as well that- when it works - makes casters deal with 6k+ crits (or if we're talking 3 rd cast, 10k+ crits) every .8-1.2 secs.

What are you talking about? When a regular caster crit works it hits 8k+ too, or 16k+ if 3rd cast, and that happens more often than Purge. God forbid an archer finally doesn't have to deal with triple pdef buffs and gets to kill an armor class they're supposed to kill. If archers can't purge and kill casters, then what else do they kill? Heavies?

Are we here to compare pdefs? Because wizards use physical damage or something? You should compare pdef that casters can get versus mdef that physical classes can get, and then talk about who is better defended or whatever. All in all, the point is that 3rd cast archer is not any more OP than 3rd cast casters...

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973

Burnout - Harshlands wrote: »

This is easy enough to prove. I did 2 pwcalcs, with 300 str, dex, and magic to keep stat variables constant (the only variable we are testing is that of LA vs AA, not stats). (did pwi disable links on forums?)

Archer with LA: http://pwcalc.com/bdfb06dc7ed2e7dc

Archer with AA: http://pwcalc.com/8173aa128d3758a4

LA total defense: 15144 Total hp: 15916 Total defense lvl: 30

AA total defense: 16050 Total hp: 13419 Total defense lvl: 27

---

The LA has 900 less resistances, but an extra 2497 HP and 3 defense levels (which reduces both phy. and magic damage).

Seems like mostly a wash to me. In fact, I would say the LA comes out slightly ahead due to the extra 2500 hp and 3 defense levels.

It's a good comparison but the AA requires 50 str while the LA requires 100 str. This gives an AA user 50 stat points of flexibility over an LA user. Naturally they could allocate these extra points into VIT which would help close that gap.

Really these 50 wasted stat points are the biggest problem with LA. The other bit of shoddy defense comes not really from the armor but that Dex gives a very bad defensive bonus. High PDef is good. High MRes is good. High evasion is ****.

Burnout - Harshlands

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

What are you talking about? When a regular caster crit works it hits 8k+ too, or 16k+ if 3rd cast, and that happens more often than Purge. God forbid an archer finally doesn't have to deal with triple pdef buffs and gets to kill an armor class they're supposed to kill. If archers can't purge and kill casters, then what else do they kill? Heavies?

Are we here to compare pdefs? Because wizards use physical damage or something? You should compare pdef that casters can get versus mdef that physical classes can get, and then talk about who is better defended or whatever. All in all, the point is that 3rd cast archer is not any more OP than 3rd cast casters...

The point i'm trying to make is that you're using class-specific defensive skills to say that AA is superior to LA, and then not taking into account archer and sin defensive skills like Wings of grace, Ataraxia, and stun immunities (yes cc immunity is often 10x more valuable than a 100% p. def buff).

In reality an archer with phy orns and BM/cleric buffs actually get a similar p. def to arcanes, due to the way these buffs work. (360% of a small number is still a small number). Yes, they'll have low m. def, but archers can definitely choose to be relatively tanky to phy damage when compared to AA.

In a typical arranged duel vs a good archer w/ equal gears (w/ 100 skills), I have to get through Wings of Grace, Absolute Domain, 1 triple spark + awaken, multiple 3.5 s stuns, and typically 1 more wings of Grace to even think about killing the archer, all while hoping that I don't accidently blow my sutra or ult for nothing. In that time, purge typically happens, in which case I'm forced to distance shrink away and spend 2.5 seconds casting stone barrier. God help me if the archer holy paths and stuns me during that time.

In any case, yes it's true casters can hit as hard and harder than archers, but this is balanced by the fact that we take at least 2 seconds to do any damage, get interrupted 1-2 times per fight, and it's insanely obvious when we're about to hit you with something really hard.

Pressa - Heavens Tear

K so without using Rank anything except bow because this is what other classes would have access to I made two very similar builds One pure arcane stats and gems tweaked to get the maximum out of damage and defenses.

Despite arcane having a higher attack level by nearly 20 points I tried to balance the gear so they would be very similar and still be capable of being the archer they need to be.

http://pwcalc.com/1352fb153771056e

This one has slightly lower attack by 700 or so and a slightly lower crit rate, as well as a hugely lower HP. This is due to light armors refining for HP better however the defenses with a little tweaking met the light armor in the middle. I actually had to shard a **** ton of magic def shards into BOTH gears so their defense went up. This coulda been tweaked further by ignoring damage but as damage AND decent defense were what I was going for this is it.
Oh yes and also twice the mp of a normal archer so yeah thats good too I guess.


This is the Light armor
http://pwcalc.com/ec5996e0b37a5847

With a few tweaks to the gems he could have a better pdef but thats the best mdef he is going to get with light armor.
This archer has better everything compared to the AA one save the mp capacity and a very slight decrease in defenses due to minute differences in gear. But he has more HP, more attack, more accuracy, more evasion and more crit. The attack balances out with the attack levels to some degree but the rest of the stuff is priceless.

Over all I'd say if you really want an archer that is resistant to magic attacks stick with LA cause it really does work better then AA

now back to the original topic stealth is sorta OPish lol

_Ghoul_ - Lost City

they should make all party buff are self buffed only.

in a way i be so happy no more BUFF plz from a sin/bm.

as a barb i can totally understand the whole hp buff boost i get and i also remember back in the old day when the game was hard to do we really needed to have party buffs.

but noways it is just to much and many any dd tankish


and no more party buff would make the game more reallistically

dd is sopused to be sqeshy and tank are sopused to be tankish