User talk:NuclearVII/Skill Balance And Revamps

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Pre-Exile

I'm revitalizing this. Some of the stuff is outdated, but 90% of it all remains valid. Funny, eh? -- NUKLEAR IIV 18:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Morphy's Magical Opinion

Guess it's about time I'd say something about this.

• Seeking Blade and others: I don't know, I doubt this will make these skills used. You're also introducing 3 energy costs here, something that currently isn't in the game. I generally don't suggest new mechanics unless there isn't any other way and to be honest, I think there probably is such a way.
• Hamstring: This skill needs a buff, so yeah. Looks fine.
• Body Blow: This skill is practically Executioner's Strike but with one less adrenaline right now, which is kind of lame. About the nerf, I'm not too sure. This opens the way to Cracked Armor for Warriors, but I kind of like the necessity of running it on midliners as it promotes team-play.
• Shield of Deflection: I think the problem with this skill is its extremely short cast time. Guardian's 1 second cast time makes sure you have to spend time casting it, which requires more observativeness and makes it interruptable. If I were to buff this skill, I'd make sure it has at least 3/4 second cast time.
• Flare and others: These skills are pretty stupid, I wouldn't want to introduce a new mechanic just to buff them to still-worthless level.
• Stoning: Strong skill. Buffing this skill to this level might be dangerous. Of course, Earth Magic needs a buff so this new version is fine, I guess.
• Ward Against Melee: The metagame is on the verge of explosion, so a defensive skill would be welcome. I like it.
• Gale: Sure, why not.
• Searing Flames: A 3 second conditional Deep Wound with 15 second recharge won't ever be used. Besides that, I'm pretty sure we both agree that ranged Deep Wound is very dangerous for balance.
• Aura of Restoration: I assume the regeneration is health regeneration? Idk, seems pretty powerful to me.

I'll continue this later. Dark Morphon 13:16, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Whee, lists.

• Seeking Blade and others: Yes they are..
• Hamstring: Thanks.
• Body Blow: Having CA on midliners and BB on melee is both 1) not done and 2) completely unreliable.
• Shield of Deflection: SoD always had a short cast, that's what makes it elite and quite powerful.
• Flare and others: Right now, flarespam keeps you busy, let's you do warrior DPS from range, and eats away at your energy. With my change, it would still keep you busy, still let you do Warrior DPS from range, but without wasting your energy away. It's more of a PvE change, really.
• Stoning: See Gale. Esp. Old gale.
• Searing Flames: Beh, I know. This list is pretty old, and I haven't had a chance of reworking it fully.
• Aura of Restoration: Not really. you'll be down to about 30 energy most of the time, so it's pretty weak compared to, say Mystic Regen.

Pls continue. NuVII 19:25, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• Concerning the entire 3 energy thing, it's probably easily done and all, it's just that I don't like adding things to PvP that didn't use to be there. Of course, that's purely flavor. If it's good for balance, why not. I would rather look for something else, but that's me.
• Concerning Body Blow: Yeah, that's a problem. Maybe the effect with Cracked Armor should be buffed while the effect without it should be nerfed? On the other hand, its viability would still be dubious with a change like that and would potentially promote gimmicky builds like Chest Thumper does. Meh, on second thought, I like your idea better.
• Shield of Deflection: True, but that's also what makes it so hard to balance. I still think a longer cast time might be a good idea.
• Flare and others: Go on ahead, I don't really have any problems with it. Then again, I don't really care about PvE but whatever.
• Stoning: The damage makes this skill give quite some bar compression when compared to Gale. But yeah, it's fine when comparing the two I spose, especially because Gale knocks down for three seconds once again.
• Aura of Restoration: We'd have to see it in action to be sure.

And now for the other skills:

• Wail of Doom: While I personally think this skill isn't as powerful as it seems because of some practical issues, the function is still broken. The old version had a pretty bad recharge and all but it gets very powerful very easily when buffed. It also stops adrenaline gain for like 20 seconds which is a major pain in the arse for Warriors. I tried working around that by making it a Hex on my balance page but it's simply not ideal. Overly defensive elites are also asking for stale games.
• Parasitic Bond: I assume you changed your opinion about this one as you recently told me that my function would be bad because it's still promoting Hex stacking. Prob is, this version does that more than mine because of the superior duration. Unless I'm missing something essential here, of course.
• Faintheartedness: While this would be an active Hex, it would also never be used. Compare to Blinding Flash, which has a 4 second recharge and stops melee/spikes about just as well. I think making Faintheartedness comparable to Blurred Vision (as I did in my changes) would be better as it's still usable, just not as overpowered.
• Insidious Parasite: Sort of like Ineptitude but aimed at healing party members? Me likey.
• Minion Mastery and Verata's Sacrifice: I presume this is aimed at PvE? I have no problems with it.
• Escape: It already has been nerfed, but I think I like your nerf better. At any rate, this skill isn't an issue anymore.
• Shadow Steps: I think we've gone in-dept about this enough in the earlier discussion.
• Shattering Assault: This skill is ridiculous and doesn't really fit in the role I would give to Assassins. I quite agree it should be nerfed.
• Weapon Spells: These are quite hard to balance. Giving them counters isn't an option as it would either result in the counters being too niche to be useful or (if you add this counter to Enchantment removers) simply make them equilevant to Enchantments, removing the entire point of having something like a Weapon Spell. It's probably best to let the mechanic stay the same (after all, irremovability is balance-able) and make very precise changes to the Weapon Spells themselves, however hard that is.
• Paragon stacking: I don't know, only allowing one Paragon to a team seems... Aesthetically unpleasing. I mean, it fixes stuff, it's just that disallowing certain team set-ups (this also includes 2 Paragons) is not something I'd like to do.
• Scythes: I'd prefer the first option because it could give Dervishes the potential role of being a frontline Condition spreader.
• Pious Assault: While Burning is a bit... Odd to add to an Attack Skill it'll probably work out well.
• Rending Touch: Interesting. I would like that skill.
• I think Paragons, Ritualists and Dervishes are broken because they do not have a niche, balanced role to perform in like the core professions and the Assassin (potentially) do.
• Concerning broken PvE shit in general: Meh. The only thing that fixing broken shit would do in PvE is forcing PUGs to run non-overpowered skill. If you want a challenge right now, you can just take crappy skills, no-one forces you not to do so, except for if you want to play with PUGs which is extremely boring anyway. PvE balance is overrated.

That's all, I guess. Dark Morphon 08:32, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, sorry for the late response. Anywaay, onto your points:

• Shield of Deflection: Eh, SoD meta was pretty good. There was a great deal of buildwarsing that came with it, I remember running two copies of corrupt, but it wasn't so bad. Especially with offensive power creep, it wasn't that bad at all.
• Stoning: That, and air is awesome. Then again, earth also has wards and grasping. I'm beginning to doubt this a little, though I'm a firm believer that the old gale+this=better meta.
• Aura of Restoration: Indeed. Though this will be broken on a MB bar, like MR was. Old list is old.

And now for the other skills:

• Wail of Doom: Yeah, hex doesn't really work. I mean, 4 seconds? The old version was pretty powerful, and I actually remember running two copies of it (I'm pro shitter, btw) just to annoy and lock SP assassins. The only reason it didn't see wide play was due to the fact that there were many better, stronger options. While checking to see if a skill is in the meta or not is a good gauge of it's potency, it doesn't always apply.
• Parasitic Bond: You're not. Old list is old.
• Faintheartedness: That's a good place to start off on, but you have to keep in mind that water doesn't offer that much stacking ability. Blurred is super, but you can't cover it with 3 hexes. That's why it pays to have a weaker Faintheartedness.
• Insidious Parasite: This was the first step of turning curses into offensive prots, tbh.
• Minion Mastery and Verata's Sacrifice: They are, though at the time, AotL wasn't the beast it is today.
• Escape: I know. Old list is old.
• Weapon Spells: I know, that's why there is the big ass disclaimer there. You can probably balance weapon spells, though I can't theorycraft my way out of it.
• Paragon stacking: Paragon's are a nasty bunch. They stack so damn well, that's why paraway was undefeated until the battery of nerfs (I'm still advocating that a 6 paragon team would roll any other gimmick, but that's theorycraftan). I don't know, either you balance the skills individually, or take the easy road. This was mainly written from Izzy, a man who usually prefered the latter.
• I think Paragons, Ritualists and Dervishes are broken: Well, you see, you can argue that, or you can argue that they fill too many niches at the same time. Consider, for example, a typical Paragon bar, with, say, Soldiers. You got your autoattack pressure, ranged DW, party-wide support (which may or may not include condition removal and healing) and a solid, warrior-class armor (I once ran a cruel spear bar with gale. The carbon copy of the Shock Axe, 'cept it had range and partwide healing). A warrior (or a monk) simply can't cram that much into his or her bar (that is, of course, if you aren't brave and don't run hammer bash on a monk or WoH on a warrior). The same goes for the dervish: You got spiking, nigh-invulnerability, huge, huge pressure. It is doesn't really take much skill to rollface and win.

PvE balance is a pretty big deal, it's 50% of the game and 90% of the community. Now, you can argue that PvE balance was never taken seriously, but Shadow Form meta and scfarmers disagree. NuVII 14:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Let's see...

• Shield of Deflection: I spose.
• Stoning: Yeah, I think the return of Gale would be a good thing as well. However, it seems Stoning is kinda outdoing Mind Shock. Possibly give Mind Shock a 3 second knock-down as well? Might be powercreepish, though...
• I remember Jette making a suggestion for this skill that kinda looked like an attribute-lowering version of Power Block, could that possibly be a good idea?
• Parasitic Bond: Ok.
• Faintheartedness: Can it be a possibility to combine a bit of my idea (weakening defenses) and yours (offensive prots)? It would make it an interesting line, at the very least.
• Weapon Spells: Usually I try to apply strategies that worked in other skills to skills such as these ones. In this case, Preparations come closest. Still, very hard to balance a whole kind of Spells around that.
• Paragon stacking: In that case, this easy solution is probably the best.
• Dervishes and the like: Tis like you say, too scattered to be both useful and balanced. I'd agree that would have to change first.
• PvE balance: I just wonder whether balancing PvE will really make it any more fun to play. The AI is way too sucky to be really a challenge at any rate. Dark Morphon 17:12, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It's hilarious

when you consider SoD is more powerful when spec becomes lesser. Pika Fan 08:38, 30 October 2009 (UTC)