New Veno/Barb Form Bugs

yep my books are in the bank till fixed QQ veno

While this may look like a bug at first, I firmly believe that the full-power attacks for Sage were actually intended by wanmei, despite their terrible implementation of it.

The intent of the True Form Intensified skills, I think, was was to bring them in line with each other so as to use them as a single base to build a new skill set in the future via Panda form. The skills would then diverge again in Sage/Demon Panda Form/TFI, which is indeed the case (20 chi in Sage vs. crit reduction in Demon).

The issue arose in how the balancing was done. Rather than examining the merits of the original Sage/Demon True Forms, the devs sought to improve them by removing the inherent limitations of the skills as they had appeared since the Lv1 version. Further evidence of this can be seen with the Veno's new fox forms, as both versions no longer have the MP drain (which again, is not a bug). The only problem with this approach is that Demon True Form's lack of attack damage reduction was its only selling point, so applying this upgrade did nothing for Demon while Sage got buffed. So, while both Veno forms and Sage TFI are just fine, Demon TFI got shafted by comparison.

Therefore, Demon TFI should have received an additional benefit (unless you want to debate whether 20 chi < crit reduction, but that could go on forever). Although many options would work for this purpose, the easiest way to do this would be to bring the HP up to 40% and speed up to 90% for Demon TFI, thus acheiving parity with the Sage version. Every other skill in the game with Sage/Demon benefits has the same base stats before applying those benefits, and TFI should be no exception.

I play a Sage barb rather than a Demon barb, but I have no wish to see Demon barbs get shafted for this.

Raid_War - Heavens Tear wrote: »

No offense but it couldnt come as a huge surprise Sage Barb skill changed into what it did.

It was in the early translated version of the chinese update and it was in the decription of the skill in our update. Its not a bug.

Demon barbs got other advantages sage barbs dont. So using this single skill as reason is rubbish.

Sage barbs did the job before, now they just do it abit better.
Demon barbs did the job before, now they just do less dmg compared to the sage.

The game is changing - change with it

Naw, some of us gamers actually want game balance, not lopsided bennies.

"Some" being the key word.

Kiszmet - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I'm not so certain it was intended, if so that is a huge parity difference between sage and demon forms. Demon pandas don't get the same HP and speed increase as sage pandas (not to mention armor which doesn't show up in the stats). This means that sage pandas got a humungous boon while demons got very little. In fact I would dare say the HP increase + Speed + Armor + weapon damage vs. the other forms both veno and barb is almost game breaking. Not to mention I have heard rumors (yes, I know, rumors) that both human and tiger skill sets can be used in panda form. If so it would explain why I never see barbs leave panda form in pvp. I'll have to watch in NW and TW to see if one of them uses a panda Armageddon f:shock I know you said this should be changed so that demons get the same benefits as sage but without demon/sage panda skills to back it up, another concern I brought forward, why would a barb ever go demon?

One wonders why barbs would go demon at all, aps builds notwithstanding. :P But as with any class, both cultis still have their redeeming skills and I'm sure there are any number of reasons someone would choose to go demon. Hell, that 50-chi-per-cast for the HP buff alone would be reason enough for some people, provided you can spare a few herb pots to turn into chi-building.

As far as intent and why it was done... knowing wanmei, I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone said "hey, we need to add panda form! let's start by removing all the negative qualities from tiger and fox form!" And then, y'know, sorta forgetting that Demon tiger form had that as its selling point. Half-hearted jobs like that are quite common in this game, after all. :-/ I see that as being far more likely than removing the negative qualities by accident; given how much of a cut-and-paste job the TFI skills had to be in the first place, they'd pretty much have to remove those elements of the skill deliberately.

I think we both agree that the demon version needs to be balanced, though. I would've put this thread in myself last night if I'd had the time.

Kiszmet - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Fox forms are also a bit loopy. I think the forms are benefiting from their intended stat increases though they don't show up on the char. sheet. But it's hard to be certain without the actual numbers displaying and the skill descriptions being copy pasted versions of the old sage/demon form has me worried that the new forms (or old but more powerful forms) were never intended to receive an additional bonus, also making the whole point of buying/questing for the new form completely pointless. +35chi? Oh boy, I don't need to use pet heal anymore... (not to mention 5 tails makes for a far more noticeable target in pvp than standard fox)

I don't have an endgame veno so I can't comment on this personally... but the venos were probably designed as such:

Sage: Pdef buff, accuracy buff, no MP decrease, additional pdef
Demon: Pdef buff, accuracy buff, no MP decrease, temporary speed buff

Then the sage form would get the extra chi and the demon form would get... whatever the demon form gets (I'm not familiar with it). Either way, there's no way the "no MP decrease" part would be there if it weren't deliberate.

So going back to the barbs... by this model it would seem almost like the answer is to retroactively give lv89 Demon True Form a different benefit than no attack reduction, seeing as they'd both apply that when upgraded to TFI. But given how reluctant wanmei is to touch the old code rather than just stapling new content onto it, I wouldn't hold my breath for that. :P So a flat 90% HP / 40% speed for both Sage and Demon TFI seems fair to me and would be relatively to implement.

EDIT:

bluestuffzzz wrote:

While I agree with a large portion of your argument, I can't help but believe that it wasn't intentional. It was merely a side-effect of poor management of the content update, and was merely over looked. But who really knows, ya know? You could be right, I could be right, we could both be wrong. No information was really given as to why the sage form get's that extra bonus VS the demon form. Sloppy programming and over-looking the main advantage seems to be the easiest answer, to me.

Yeah, this was the impetus for my argument of intent. I'm normally the kind of guy who looks at a benefit and thinks "well THAT sure as hell wasn't intentional." But after watching these devs for four years, I like to think I know at least a little bit about how they work (even though they've changed dev teams at least twice by now, I bet). Sloppy coding tends to result in missing or buggy features, rather than removal of a specific sub-portion of a feature that was already present when copied over. They even modified the skill description to remove the text about the attack damage reduction. I don't see how that could be anything but deliberate.

My problem is with the barb forms I am a demon barb and have been one for 3 years.
the fact of the matter is the sages new true form does full damage 40% max hp and 90% movement speed on top of this there Axe and Hammer Mastery does 100% weapon damage and Shapeshifting Intensity is 120% phy deff. The demon barb true form hes full damage 30% max hp and 80% movement speed. The demon barb Axe and Hammer Mastery does 75% weapon damage and Shapeshifting Intensity is 80% phy deff. When you look back at the first sage true form there is a 50% less weapon damage so because the demon barbs have less phy def in true form and there Axe and Hammer Mastery is only 75% vs 100% they got full damage. Since the sage barb have doing full damage in true form they been holding agrrow better. So what I think they should do is let the sage barbs keep there full damage in true form but give the demon true form 50% more weapon damage. This would balance the barbs back out and help them all hold agrrow better makeing squad runs much better!

Or we could simply deal with it and move on with our lives. The les demon barbs there is the more unique we get.

Maelael - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Naw, some of us gamers actually want game balance, not lopsided bennies.

"Some" being the key word.

With the release of Nirvana gear, rank gear and higher refines more easily obtainable the pros that went with the sage cultivation became reduced compared to the pros of the demon path, this has been covered many times in the barbarian subforum where demon barb players have pointed out with detailed explanations why choosing demon is better with how the game has developed. I would not consider that "balance", there might have been a sense of it much earlier in the game but that was over two years ago.

As things stand I believe the cultivation paths for barbarians need to be rebalanced, to reflect changes in the game and the impact newer gears have. It would not at all surprise me if that's what led to the damage reduction being removed, to give sage more base attack while demon still retain the benefits of crit adds, like it is for sage and demon with other classes.

Kiszmet - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I don't know if simply changing the demon barb boon is a good idea, it will give people even less incentive to go demon barb then there is now. Where I will admit some of the demon skills have nice adds, they are overshadowed by just how powerful the panda form has made sage barbs. If you are correct and the skill change was intended then they need to release the new skills to us ASAP so there is a point to being a demon barb again, I don't remember what the demon barb skill was supposed to be but I remember it was supposed to be pretty nice. The sage was supposed to give +40 def levels or something but it has been a long time since I've looked at that information.

This would be the best solution as PWE has never been good about going back and changing the old coding, they can't even get the new coding right half the time. Giving demon barbs a new boon might help but what to give them? And what limit would be placed on it so they don't break things even further? Increased attack rate might make them happy but I can already see APS panda and kitty barbs ><. Increased critical chance is already given on their weapon skill. Increased evasion? Barb evasion is so low I don't think it would make much of a difference. Increased att levels maybe, depending on the new skill. Either way give what take, something needs to be done and the problem needs to be addressed by someone so we know what to expect.

From what I heard (which admittedly, was secondhand word-of-mouth that I never bothered to research because we're nowhere near getting it yet), the panda form for both cultis is supposed to get a temporary buff that gives the def level +40 and some kind of massive accuracy boost, like 400% or something. While assuredly useful in PVP, I don't see this skill massively unbalancing sage/demon on its own.

On reflection, we should probably treat the barbs and the venos a bit differently in this case... because with the venos, neither culti got shafted because both sage and demon benefits were able to carry over to their respective Intensified forms. Not so for barbs. So yeah, you could make the case for reducing the sage weapon damage again, but that would be problematic because it'd be reverting an already-deliberate change, and we know how hard it is to get wanmei to do that. Buffing something else to fix an accidental oversight (in this case, buffing demon HP and speed) would be more up their alley.

Also, let us not forget that the wep damage reduction for normal/sage true form really isn't that much. My barb uses a TT99 +3 wep (what? he's built for aggro control, not damage :P) and I really only saw ~10% damage reduction in original tiger form. Even on a r9s3+12 wep, you only lose about 1-2k raw weapon damage which doesn't translate to very much of a difference.

Kiszmet - Heavens Tear wrote: »

All barbs being sage vit build would be the opposite of unique, someone needs to buy a dictionary or learn to use one of the online ones. I love demon barbs, I think they provide the party with overall greater benefits than sage barbs, but many of my demon barb friends want to quit their barbs due to the lack of communication on this issue.

I'd prefer all sage vit build barbs to all demon aps barbs... ijs :P

Are the new Untamed forms incomplete as well? We were told that each form will be gaining a new buff as well. Barbs gaining a +Def lvl buff, and Venos gaining a antistun speed buff.


Any info on if that's coming?

I've been playing this game for nearly a year and have seen many dif builds and playing styles. When choosing my toons I looked at my playing style and how i wanted the toons to react. I have numerous toons, but have been working on a barb. When i seen this new update for the TFI I was a little excited for the new form. After doing all my research and talk with players i decided months ago when i started the barb that I wanted to go demon. This was because of the boosts from the skills and the full damage from true form when i got the demon skill, although the sage extra atk was tempting. My barb is only lvl 85, and i'm glad i haven't tried to push it to 89 to go demon. Right now I feel like i can't really play it to lvl because of this issue that has come up. I have friends with both sage and demon barbs that are over 100. The demon ones are still the same only can be in panda form for a new look. The sage ones are a little dif now....stronger than ever and i've also seen them use their 2ft skill in panda form.... glitch maybe? if not..why didn't demon get that ability also. I've been saving and getting the demon skills as I grow so when i got to the lvl I could learn them....now I'm putting barb on back burner and going to play other toons. This issue needs to addressed so people like me can either keep building their toons or switch to another game that actually cares about some of the issues that comes up. And I for one don't want to see the hp increase the same... the demon has an advantage by having the lower increase if they run a charm. They have a 10% extra margin before they tic charm during a battle when they switch forms.

Magnanimous_ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I, and many more, are still waiting for an answer from the PWI team f:despise

Knownase - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Any info on if that's coming?

Maelael - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Any comment from the GMs yet? Even if it is being considered?

See here:

v4liance wrote: »

Remember: Just because we haven't replied to a thread yet doesn't mean we haven't seen it.

A little patience, maybe?

Kiszmet - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The mystic skills actually got different abilities. 95% Exp saved vs. 100% Hp upon rezzing, both are good benefits in different situations, also AOE buff isn't a huge deal, so you have to hit the button a few more times than a sage. Whoop. It's usually cast before combat so nothing is really lost strategically. The point being presented here is if the sage res got 95% Exp save AND 100%Hp while also being AOE and the demon just got the 100% HP on rez. I guarantee you there would have been an uproar about that.

Just because something didn't effect you doesn't mean it's an illegitimate complaint. However, calling others out because they are voicing their complaints over issues that don't concern you is a textbook example of a true to form whiner.

Major facedesk at your post. I'm glad I don't have to run into you on my server.

My face @ your post

Azura - Lost City wrote: »

My face at Cutie_Belle - Sanctuary:

The case you gave doesn't even compare. In the 1st place your example only brings the difference between the same skill in different cultivations. Our complaint is about how the devs broke the good balance there used to be between both paths for the untamed. Each has its pros and cons, but both well good in the end.

Another stupid one.

Ok I'll note it for you so it's extremely easy to understand.


●Resurrect (Sage)
Protects the target and provides resurrection after death.
Protection lasts for 30 minutes. EXP loss is reduced by
88% and they recover 50% of their HP.

EXP loss is reduced by 95%.


○Resurrect (Demon)
Protects the target and provides resurrection after death.
Protection lasts for 30 minutes. EXP loss is reduced by
88% and they recover 50% of their HP.

Recovers 100% HP upon reviving.


Mass Resurrection (Morai, any culti)
Casts an enchantment on all party members within 15 meters,
providing them protection from death for 30 minutes.
The EXP loss of revived party members is reduced by 95%.
HP and MP of revived party members is recovered by 50%.



As you can see a DEMON mystic with mass rez can use the same skill as a SAGE mystic for 95% xp reduction making it the same sort of situation as barbs right now, so yes it does compare. I don't see any QQ about it, it's accepted.

Sage vs Demon, some skills are going to be better for one cultivation path than another. Demon barbs still have very nice skill perks and combos. Stop whining because the other kid got candy and you didn't.