Player Character Balance

[knockcocker]

I have mixed feelings on bladeforged. I don't play my one bladeforged toon much, so the I'm-only-human part of me notices that some of the people with torches and pitchforks screaming for another (the 5th or 6th) round of shiradi nerfs play bladeforged. That said, I still think nerfs are the wrong way to go on this.

If the reconstruct SLA is nerfed I think you'll see only BF Shiradi casters as they'll no longer be viable for
melee classes without upsetting healers. You'd certainly struggle to make a reliable melee focussed solo/BYOH
build without reverting to the juggernaut archetype I think.

[Dalsheel]

Ill repeat myself then and explain to you because you seem to not understand singular syntax inside of a sentence.

"On Other stuff. The BF Reconstruct is one of the few things that keep melee in game IMO. It allows for some survivability as EE mobs punch you in the face for 200-400 hps a hit."

Notice how that is a plural statement. "..one of the few things.." meaning more then one? that "Clear enough" for you?

Versus how you twist it for personal bias. "..only race suitable for a melee build is BF.." a singular inclusive statement.

"When people start thinking that the only race suitable for a melee build is BF it is a clear sign of a race being OP and overshadowing the others in character building options."

If your going to pick apart peoples posts (much lazier then actually building a solid case) and try and twist it to suite your own desires, at least keep it in context or back it up with some facts. Deal?

My 1st reaction after reading this was thinking I would scan this thread for all the posts claiming BF is the only viable melee race at the moment and quote them for you. But, hey, you can do this yourself. 79 pages is a lot

Reminder: This thread is about game balance.

There is no other race that can self-heal like BF do. This is not just a matter of being able to self-heal, but a matter of how much effort one needs to put in to do that. Specifically:
i. Many melee builds can self heal via scrolls and UMD. Requires investing in UMD, stop attacking to pull out your scrolls, risk of getting hit and failing the scroll due to concentration check.
ii. Many builds twist Cocoon. Requires spending a twist slot, therefore trading some other DPS or defensive ability in its place, has a 12sec cool down timer.
iii. Silver flame potions. Requires you to suffer -10 to all ability scores except CON, -10 to all saving throws and reduced movement speed for 30sec.
iv. Monk FoL finisher. Requires 40ki to charge up and activate, 6sec cool down between each use of FoL.

What does BF trade in order to get their Recon SLA? The way I see it, BF characters need to spend 10ap in their racial tree to unlock Improved PA enhancement, 15ap to unlock Power of the Forge. Recon SLA seems like a great way of meeting the AP-spent requirements. Other than that, nothing else is required.

I am not against BF having such an option, but the cool down needs to be, at least, doubled to make up for the ease of access to it.
I do believe that 12sec cool down will not make any of your builds unplayable. You will still be able to be completely self-sufficient, but you may need to be a little less reckless in your playstyle and maybe even focus a bit on defenses as well, like every other race does. I see this as a good thing.

[Ancient]

If the reconstruct SLA is nerfed I think you'll see only BF Shiradi casters as they'll no longer be viable for
melee classes without upsetting healers. You'd certainly struggle to make a reliable melee focussed solo/BYOH
build without reverting to the juggernaut archetype I think.

I agree, and it would be a shame... although I'm in the same boat with robot casters... I play a palemaster shiradi, so taking away reconstruct wouldn't phase me for a second. Again, I think that would be the wrong way to go... In fact, it is a great example of why a heavy handed nerf doesn't result in harmonious balance... Take away robot healing, the self-healing just shifts to palemasters and scrolls.

I have a question for you since you have experience with halfling dragonmarks. What would be a balanced way to make that an SLA? If you make it cost mana, then pure fighters and barbs would lose something. Not costing anything would be pretty overpowered. What would be balanced, regenerating uses?

In addition to switching how the dragonmarks work, I agree with the other posters that it is still to pricey to require a feat. The enhancement point cost is already enough of an opportunity cost.

[knockcocker]

My 1st reaction after reading this was thinking I would scan this thread for all the posts claiming BF is the only viable melee race at the moment and quote them for you. But, hey, you can do this yourself. 79 pages is a lot

Reminder: This thread is about game balance.

There is no other race that can self-heal like BF do. This is not just a matter of being able to self-heal, but a matter of how much effort one needs to put in to do that. Specifically:
i. Many melee builds can self heal via scrolls and UMD. Requires investing in UMD, stop attacking to pull out your scrolls, risk of getting hit and failing the scroll due to concentration check.
ii. Many builds twist Cocoon. Requires spending a twist slot, therefore trading some other DPS or defensive ability in its place, has a 12sec cool down timer.
iii. Silver flame potions. Requires you to suffer -10 to all ability scores except CON, -10 to all saving throws and reduced movement speed for 30sec.
iv. Monk FoL finisher. Requires 40ki to charge up and activate, 6sec cool down between each use of FoL.

What does BF trade in order to get their Recon SLA? The way I see it, BF characters need to spend 10ap in their racial tree to unlock Improved PA enhancement, 15ap to unlock Power of the Forge. Recon SLA seems like a great way of meeting the AP-spent requirements. Other than that, nothing else is required.

I am not against BF having such an option, but the cool down needs to be, at least, doubled to make up for the ease of access to it.
I do believe that 12sec cool down will not make any of your builds unplayable. You will still be able to be completely self-sufficient, but you may need to be a little less reckless in your playstyle and maybe even focus a bit on defenses as well, like every other race does. I see this as a good thing.

Other races also start out at 100% healing amp and have more flexibility through items and enhancements to increase that
further. This is a downside which you are ignoring in your evaluations. It's pretty tough to make up -55% healing amp; there
are far fewer sources of repair amp in the game. In any case, I want what I paid for.

[Dalsheel]

Other races also start out at 100% healing amp and have more flexibility through items and enhancements to increase that
further. This is a downside which you are ignoring in your evaluations. It's pretty tough to make up -55% healing amp; there
are far fewer sources of repair amp in the game. In any case, I want what I paid for.

You start with 100% repair amp, I don't see your issue with healing amp.

[Ancient]

What does BF trade in order to get their Recon SLA? The way I see it, BF characters need to spend 10ap in their racial tree to unlock Improved PA enhancement, 15ap to unlock Power of the Forge. Recon SLA seems like a great way of meeting the AP-spent requirements. Other than that, nothing else is required.

I haven't played my bladeforged in a while, but if "nothing else is required" and the recon sla no longer uses spell points then this must be changed back at once!

Or were you just on a soap box overstating the issue again?

[Vanhooger]

Other races also start out at 100% healing amp and have more flexibility through items and enhancements to increase that
further. This is a downside which you are ignoring in your evaluations. It's pretty tough to make up -55% healing amp; there
are far fewer sources of repair amp in the game. In any case, I want what I paid for.

That's true, but bladeforged are also immune to energy drain/hold, and that is a lot on EE. So they pretty much ignore Will save...and if you go cetus build you ignore Reflex save as well, and you have an unstoppable(quicken) one click full health repair. Looks like it's very balanced.

[knockcocker]

You start with 100% repair amp, I don't see your issue with healing amp.

Which is why I question your judgement in this discussion.

How many arcane healers are there? (if you said more than 0 then you are wrong).

Without the reconstruct SLA what healing options do BF have?. This is the crux of the issue. If
you remove it or nerf it too hard then you've killed the race (just like WF) as a melee option. Not
to mention the many people who you've upset by baiting and switching.

[Ungood]

If your going to pick apart peoples posts (much lazier then actually building a solid case) and try and twist it to suite your own desires, at least keep it in context or back it up with some facts. Deal?

This here is the "forums" that kind of polite discussion and case building.. will never happen.

[Hawkwier]

For my 2p worth…

Seems to me, after wading through loads of the posts here, the there is an essence of balance that needs to be addressed:

Inclusivity Vs exclusivity, for players and their toons.

Happens throughout the game, but arguably aimed at endgame EE where it’s most felt.

I'm going to go on the hypothesis that the devs feel that the balance has shifted far too much toward exclusivity, given we are seeing only a limited amount of viable builds at top-end content, driving this dev-led thread.

I think commercially, it also makes sense not to be too exclusive. Though there does have to be a balance struck to ensure there is a meaningful goal for powerful toons to aim for. ALL powerful toons – not a subset.

In that context, if the devs do want to move toward a more inclusive game, then there are several things they should be looking at, pretty much all covered in some sense above.

I’m a relatively casual player, and have capped out all the EDs on only one toon, my 1st, my barb. I freely accept he'll struggle in EE, which is no biggie for me (It only occasionally P's me off when there’s a bit of gear I can’t get to because I won’t live long enough to ever see it!) as I play to enjoy the game.

That said, it would be nice to feel just exposed/uncomfortable in there (rather than despairing! LOL), without feeling you need to roll a completely new toon to get to that. I do think that it’s disappointing to spend so much time getting a toon to 28, only to find they can’t really play effectively – I’m sure many others will also feel like that.

The survey indicates where the perceived weaker classes lie, and there have been numerous threads on how to fix Barbs, Pally's, etc., and the devs only need look at those to get a sense of what needs to be done. I won’t bore folks with regurgitation of those details here, but clearly there are number of areas DR, healing pots, that just haven’t’ kept pace with power creep we’ve experienced over time, and have impacted on some classes more than others, reducing that inclusivity balance.

I will say this though: A while ago I dropped a couple of barb levels for 1 Ranger & 1 Fighter, specifically to pick up Fury-shots. To make me change back, there either needs to be big nerf to ranged fury - which would be disappointing on a build that struggles survivability-wise in any case (not just Monkchers that use this), OR, something that makes the pure capstone Vs multiclassing opportunity-cost, a worthwhile consideration - now to compete with Fury-shot, we are probably talking something like an added “Ultimate Cleave” attack equivalent to, say, Lay Waste.

I only use this specific above as an example of the consideration – i.e. 1 potential nerf Vs 1 potential buff choice - the devs probably need to make. These are the kinds of choices facing devs across all the capstones if they want to make pure classes considered as an option Vs multi-classing.

The other thing that needs to happen to rebalance things, inclusivity-wise, is for EE content to be made easier in terms of comparative difficulty to EN/EH/EE: Mob damage, HP, and save increments, should be on a linear 1:+2:+3, or at least exponential 1:+2:+4 scale, more than that is just lazy development IMO. That change needs to happen in conjunction with any nerf/buff class choices.

Finally, in a separate but related consideration, the solo Vs group balance issue needs to be addressed. There should be consideration given to whether the game should continue to promote solo play at the expense of team interaction and inter-reliability. I’d suggest though that is left to later in the day, as rebalancing the other considerations will evolve a different toon landscape against which any such considerations can then be made.

Of course, if my hypothesis is wrong, and there is no intent to move toward increasing inclusivity at the expense of exclusivity, then don’t change anything.

[knockcocker]

That's true, but bladeforged are also immune to energy drain/hold, and that is a lot on EE. So they pretty much ignore Will save...and if you go cetus build you ignore Reflex save as well, and you have an unstoppable(quicken) one click full health repair. Looks like it's very balanced.

Immunity to energy drain is achievable by any race either through ED, enhancements or itemization. Both robot races need to be
bought (if you're premium), BF need to be bought by everyone. They should have some advantages over FTP races.
WF used to be immune to poison and disease too...

Immunity to being held is also available via FoM - spell, item, clickie, enhancements.

So essentially we're just talking about some convenience over FTP races.

The original Cetus build was human. The reflex save point has absolutely nothing to do with BF at all unless you wanted to
highlight their -2 to starting dex?. BF melee works because of the SLA; hit it too hard and it doesn't work at all.

My SLA doesn't repair me to full unless I crit.

[Eth]

What would your ranger CSW hit for if the race was BF?

I just put the numbers out there. Draw your own conclusions.

If I went BF I wouldn't bother with CSW if that isn't obvious enough for you and I would spend my free AP, item slots and feats for more DPS.

[knockcocker]

I just put the numbers out there. Draw your own conclusions.

If I went BF I wouldn't bother with CSW if that isn't obvious enough for you and I would spend my free AP, item slots and feats for more DPS.

Not sure what the hostility is for? - unless I've misunderstood something?

My entire point is that nobody would bother with CSW in this scenario - it's just too hard to make
it effective. If you didn't have access to a repair SLA would you even consider going BF on a melee
centric character?

[Dalsheel]

Without the reconstruct SLA what healing options do BF have?. This is the crux of the issue. If
you remove it or nerf it too hard then you've killed the race (just like WF) as a melee option. Not
to mention the many people who you've upset by bating and switching.

You won't find any post of mine saying remove it or make it useless

Would you consider changing it to 12sec cool down as being "too hard nerf"?
I certainly don't, and the reasoning behind my opinion is in my previous post.

[Vanhooger]

Immunity to energy drain is achievable by any race either through ED, enhancements or itemization. Both robot races need to be
bought (if you're premium), BF need to be bought by everyone. They should have some advantages over FTP races.
WF used to be immune to poison and disease too...

Immunity to being held is also available via FoM - spell, item, clickie, enhancements.

So essentially we're just talking about some convenience over FTP races.

The original Cetus build was human. The reflex save point has absolutely nothing to do with BF at all unless you wanted to
highlight their -2 to starting dex?. BF melee works because of the SLA; hit it too hard and it doesn't work at all.

My SLA doesn't repair me to full unless I crit.

I understand your point, they should have some advantage, but this way is very unbalanced. It's also true you can get same immunity on other races, but it's not the same as having them all the time and you don't have to worry about em, or use some precious equip slot to have them, like von boots. Recon sla if you're maxing out repair and slot a 138 repair augment with repair system Enhancements t3, will completely heal you unless you have 1k hit points or more. I was pointing out the Cetus build, cos if you doing it in the right way with a bunch of PL, it's pretty much unkillable on most of the content. This thread is about balance so....

[knockcocker]

You won't find any post of mine saying remove it or make it useless

Useless is highly subjective.

Would you consider changing it to 12sec cool down as being "too hard nerf"?

Yes.

[Eth]

Not sure what the hostility is for? - unless I've misunderstood something?

My entire point is that nobody would bother with CSW in this scenario - it's just too hard to make
it effective. If you didn't have access to a repair SLA would you even consider going BF on a melee
centric character?

It's not about removing it but balancing it. See my example.
My fleshie character has to make a much bigger investment to get a more expensive and less effective healing spell.

This is not balanced.

[knockcocker]

I understand your point, they should have some advantage, but this way is very unbalanced. It's also true you can get same immunity on other races, but it's not the same as having them all the time and you don't have to worry about em, or use some precious equip slot to have them, like von boots. Recon sla if you're maxing out repair and slot a 138 repair augment with repair system Enhancements t3, will completely heal you unless you have 1k hit points or more. I was pointing out the Cetus build, cos if you doing it in the right way with a bunch of PL, it's pretty much unkillable on most of the content. This thread is about balance so....

Cetus is indeed a powerful build as is Zeus. Primarily because of the self-healing. If you take that away,
or nerf it so it's sub-optimal will they remain as powerful? Personally, I don't think so.

I just think it's pretty shady to sell the race for as long as they have then suddenly decide the Reconstruct
SLA is OP.

[zwiebelring]

My 1st reaction after reading this was thinking I would scan this thread for all the posts claiming BF is the only viable melee race at the moment and quote them for you. But, hey, you can do this yourself. 79 pages is a lot

Reminder: This thread is about game balance.

There is no other race that can self-heal like BF do. This is not just a matter of being able to self-heal, but a matter of how much effort one needs to put in to do that. Specifically:
i. Many melee builds can self heal via scrolls and UMD. Requires investing in UMD, stop attacking to pull out your scrolls, risk of getting hit and failing the scroll due to concentration check.
ii. Many builds twist Cocoon. Requires spending a twist slot, therefore trading some other DPS or defensive ability in its place, has a 12sec cool down timer.
iii. Silver flame potions. Requires you to suffer -10 to all ability scores except CON, -10 to all saving throws and reduced movement speed for 30sec.
iv. Monk FoL finisher. Requires 40ki to charge up and activate, 6sec cool down between each use of FoL.

What does BF trade in order to get their Recon SLA? The way I see it, BF characters need to spend 10ap in their racial tree to unlock Improved PA enhancement, 15ap to unlock Power of the Forge. Recon SLA seems like a great way of meeting the AP-spent requirements. Other than that, nothing else is required.

I am not against BF having such an option, but the cool down needs to be, at least, doubled to make up for the ease of access to it.
I do believe that 12sec cool down will not make any of your builds unplayable. You will still be able to be completely self-sufficient, but you may need to be a little less reckless in your playstyle and maybe even focus a bit on defenses as well, like every other race does. I see this as a good thing.

Nerf epic elite mob stats so the other options besides recon SLA become viable again, as in the time you need to scroll heal or heal over time is sufficient enough to keep your Ftr or Bar alive while brawling away. Right now, recon SLA is the only good option since it takes no time. Either destroy the pay to play race for any build besides Juggernaut or caster or make regular self healing options more viable.

But narrowing down all balance issues to the BF race is wrong. It is not only one factor to be adjusted. What about destinies? Before epic destinies you had a balance, since lvl. 20 was end of the road, so the balance gap had a restriction. With destinies that gap opened up more. Reconstruct fixes this a littlebit but narrows your endgame choices too much. The problem is not Reconstruct alone. Everybody, who claimed more self sufficiency by players for endgame payed its part the current state of the game.

[knockcocker]

It's not about removing it but balancing it. See my example.
My fleshie character has to make a much bigger investment to get a more expensive and less effective healing spell.

This is not balanced.

Right. But he can also be healed effectively by others. BF cannot. This is one the major
points of what I'm arguing. BF have to have self healing this good because there isn't
any other option currently - no arcane is going to heal you and if you think it's a challenge
getting healing amp on a fleshie, what would it be like on a BF?.

In any case, how many TP does an Elven Ranger (for example) cost?

I didn't decide to sell PTW races, Turbine did. It should be no surprise that people will
be angry if these abilities are changed retroactively. Of course after sales have probably
slowed a little...

What would you propose as an alternative?