Current state of class balancing

[duran3d]

From my experience, the game is not very unbalanced, but pretty decent for a new release.

Currently the strongest classes seem to be the Chosen and the Witch Elf, while the weakest is maybe Shadow Warrior (and his mirror class, Squig Herder).

The majority of tanks in the Destruction side makes them easier to win certain scenarios and sieging situations.

Maybe the introduction of the remaining classes, and a little fixing in the current ones may balance everything up.

What's your opion?

 

[ilaya]

im thinking the whiney kids who dunno how to play a magus properly might just get us a boost soon so give it!

witch hunters are a pain mind

 

[Soazak]

I think it depends what server you're on to who is winning more, and more specifically who is in the scenario/group.

In scenarios I think IB is better than Chosen, but they are not mirror classes anyway (IB = Black guard? Chosen = Kotbs?). I think the BO seems to perform better than the Swordmaster. But overall it's fairly balanced. I think it is good how they have balanced the classes, they are mirrored to each other to prevent whining, but still individual enough to be 'different'.

Tor Anroc on KEP at the moment is dominated by BrightWiz heavy groups, but thats more to do with the fact they are organised guild groups rather than the class distribution I think.

I've not done much of it, but keep seiges seems to be very BW/Sorc dependant, Mythic promised tanks would have a greater role due to collision detection, and to an extent they do with the narrow doors and choke points.

Overall I like the balance, but there will still be whine threads about xxx is OP because they killed me in rvr



Edit: although I do think for DPS Marauder > WL, and i dissagree about Shadow Warriors, they seem to do very good ranged damage. Witch hunter are also pretty hardcore, but drop fairly fast

 

[Jaberwocky]

From my experience, the game is not very unbalanced, but pretty decent for a new release.

Currently the strongest classes seem to be the Chosen and the Witch Elf, while the weakest is maybe Shadow Warrior (and his mirror class, Squig Herder).

The majority of tanks in the Destruction side makes them easier to win certain scenarios and sieging situations.

Maybe the introduction of the remaining classes, and a little fixing in the current ones may balance everything up.

What's your opinion?

I'm currently in later tier 3 (rank 30) as a destruction tank I find the Shadow Warrior to be a very compliment ranged dps'er and quite annoying to tie down due it's stance system and ability to kite, over all it seems a strong class.

I feel the Squig Herder and Magus need a boost.

The only class I would honestly cry "nerf" about is the Bright Mage when dot spec'ed, three stacking dots that burn a fully defensive tank down in seconds.

The Witch elf seems on par with the Witch hunter, both are deadly when let loose, but then my job is to shut them down

But honestly I would wait for end game before making any definite swings with the nerf bat.

 

[Zagzyg]

From my experience, the game is not very unbalanced, but pretty decent for a new release.

Currently the strongest classes seem to be the Chosen and the Witch Elf, while the weakest is maybe Shadow Warrior (and his mirror class, Squig Herder).

The majority of tanks in the Destruction side makes them easier to win certain scenarios and sieging situations.

Maybe the introduction of the remaining classes, and a little fixing in the current ones may balance everything up.

What's your opion?

I think it changes with levels very much, and depends on the server and particular day/night you play.

Hardly seen any Chosen much, some Black Orks at times in PvE, but short of tanks in scenarios generally. Anything on the Elf side, PvE or PvP is screaming for tanks, and short of healers as well.
A lot of sorcerers lately, including me

 

[Manisch Depressiv]

BW/Sorc need some adjustments.

Powering up with a instant AoE spell to 100 while no one is getting hit by it and twoshotting someone is out of line.

 

[Bone_Idle]

I wouldve said some changes need to be made to the BW but now i'm starting to see quite a few sorcs come through the ranks and it seems to even itself out.

The only thing that still seems to get on my wick is knockback... but thats for another thread

 

[Spookie]

I feel the Squig Herder and Magus need a boost

Magus starts to come out swinging in T4. They have some ace spells like an magnet which hoovers everyone up for AoEing. I always bring them to my AoE grinding groups.

Powering up with a instant AoE spell to 100

Which takes AT LEAST 7 seconds including the GCD. It also still has a chance of causing a backlash so you could be on 50% health before the fight begins.

and twoshotting someone is out of line.

My bolts crit for 1.35k (15 points in agony, int stacked gear, 3 second cast). Two of them (if they both crit) hits for 2.7k.

My health unbuffed is 4.6k.
----

Now my beef is channeling spells. They should have a chance to backlash as you continue to tick rather than just at the start of the spell. So far, it's too easy to cast your dots then channel the person till their twitching corpse denotes they may well be dead. Otherwise we'll end up getting twatted with the nerfstick harder than we need to be.

 

[Leel]

Which takes AT LEAST 7 seconds including the GCD. It also still has a chance of causing a backlash so you could be on 50% health before the fight begins.

The point is that this spell is insta and you can power up while running to the action from the spawn point, and all you need is some hots and you'll still arrive at where the action is with 100 dhar and 100% health. I think people are starting to realize by now that sorcs and bw's are totally dependent on healers so they can go nuts with nuking. Or at least many healers are realizing this and getting better at topping up their casters so they can go nuts. If the sorc/bw isn't getting any healing, then it's not even performing at half its potential. Let's not talk about those cases. Let's talk about people that know how to play them and have the support that know how to best support their side.

 

[Blondinen]

BW/Sorc need some adjustments.

Powering up with a instant AoE spell to 100 while no one is getting hit by it and twoshotting someone is out of line.

Only thing that can be 2shot with 100 combustion and 2x fireball is people in crappy groups and lowest rank possible, even at lowest rank, if they have a healer in group, its gonna be tough 2 shotting them.

When I go up against a sorc, squig herder, shaman, anything, that is same level or 2-4 levels under me, i wont 2 shot anything. Maybe get them with 2bolts and 2 sears if they receive no healing.

 

[Vintersorg]

BW/Sorc need some adjustments.

Powering up with a instant AoE spell to 100 while no one is getting hit by it and twoshotting someone is out of line.

You know there are such things as armour and resists, do you?
Personnally, I've never been two-shotted. Not even on the most weakly armoured classes with the lowest hp...

 

[Xandax]

Actually - for the intended balance i think the game does it pretty well.
Meaning this isn't a 1vs1 game and when we view the overall state of the combat in RvR and Scenarios (on KAP), it often seems to be decided by class composition.

Yes, Sorcerers and BW can do a lot of damage, but they die easy. Order have a "problem" with too many BW which means not enough tanks/healers to counter the Destruction. So what the BWs do a lot of damage, if it a) doesn't kill anybody and b) you only have to get close to sneeze on them to kill them and c) BWs can't push like tanks can. A BW "rush" is - well funny when standing on the other side.

I don't really think the tanks on Destruction side is too powerful as such - sure they kill me fast, and are a pain to kill, but that fact comes from that tanks are a pain to kill in this game, and there are just many chosen and blocks, compared to IB and SM's. I think chosen are my second most killed class only after marauders which both leads by a large margin down to the others.


So the balance issues on full servers seem to stem from the number of classes in each scenario. Balanced scenarios are incredible fun and swing either way about 50/50 of the ones I've played. Imbalanced (meaning either too many BW, or too many of a specific other class - I've had scenarios where Destruction didn't have a single healer, we wiped them totally) - they usually go the way of the most balanced.

I think balance in this game is quite good, but there is still room for tweaks of output and resists, but it isn't as imbalanced as I see many others claim.
They only cry based on the damage score and tunnelvision away all other factors.

 

[Awarkle]

ye i would agree the game hasnt been balanced around 1vs1 combat and nearly all the scenarios and rvr zones are geared towards group play.

I think we will see class tweaks when more people hit 40 and the end game starts to play itself out more.

 

[dee777]

I hope that EAMythic will give it some time, before they start adjusting things. Group endgame should be the measurement for classbalance. However I hope that the evolving playerskill will be considered as well.

Monday night I played two Nordenwatch scenarios with more or the less the same people (was rather late/early). The setup was rather defensive, a good amount of healers, two chosens and a few magi (is that the plural of magus?). The order group consisted out of 8 (!) BWs, one archmage and sth else I cant remember. The ranks of both sides were kinda similar. When I read the setup before the game starts, I tell my obvious observation via /sc to make sure everyone agrees on what to do. They got one healer and a lot of ranged DPS, so charge the archmages butt and kill the BWs seems like a reasonable approach. I thought we should have a good chance of winning, even tho spike damage of coordinated BWs will do some damage and people will die.

We lost both games 500 - ~150. Noone charged at all (except for me in my squishy DoK when I tried to pull the chosens with me) in both games. Not even when the BWs had us camped (twice) into spawnpoint. I cant recall a game I died more often, so it seems that DoKs (maybe only charging DoKs) arent considered heal material, because they can keep themseves up. A misconception I like and encountered numerous times when hacking at WPs with other classes BTW.

Anyway, I am sure that some of the destruction players will have learned in hindsight that standing there and getting toasted is not the best option against BWs with no healer backup. At least I hope so.

Bottom line is, give it a good amount more time. Let people play at 40 for a few weeks. Than consider adjustments. Please.

 

[Heta]

I just pray for it not to turn out like wow where people think all classes should be able to solo all other classes

its group play its about!

 

[Zagzyg]

My bolts crit for 1.35k (15 points in agony, int stacked gear, 3 second cast). Two of them (if they both crit) hits for 2.7k.

My health unbuffed is 4.6k.
----

At my level (12 or 13) and 100 dark focus, my regular nuke is over 200, and regularly crit for 400+, best I've seen is just over 600.
My health is 1650, which as far as I know is the lowest of all the classes.

If I was extremely lucky, and got 3 of the super crits in a row, and didn't kill myself with the backlash, I could theoretically 3 shot another caster or a lower level if I was +3 to the bolstered level.

The comment about being dependant on healers is very true. If there's a healer around who'll regularly HoT me, my damage output goes way up. If there's not, I have a pretty limited time at 100 dark focus before I'm limping away or kill myself.

 

[Jaberwocky]

Magus starts to come out swinging in T4. They have some ace spells like an magnet which hoovers everyone up for AoEing. I always bring them to my AoE grinding groups.

Oh I agree, I'm in the later part of tier 3 atm and I jump for joy when I see a Magus in the group, but getting to that point is an up hill struggle which leads to relatively few Magus players past tier 1. This combined with the relative under preformance of the squig herder tends to limit the amout of ranged dps on the Destruction side.

 

[Iorlas]

Balance seems pretty good at this stage of the game i reckon,there's always going to be some people shouting nerf this class or nerf somthing.With the shear numbers of BW and WH and the SW thrown in when playing a tank i seem to spend more time rooted/snared/slowed than anything else.Juggernaught helps but it's on a 60s cooldown and the snares etc are just spamed so how about an immunity timer.
ps.all can be cast or shot on the run aswell.

 

[dee777]

Juggernaught helps but it's on a 60s cooldown and the snares etc are just spamed so how about an immunity timer.

Couldnt agree more. Chain-whatever-CC should be prevented IMO.

 

[Calaen]

I play a witch elf.

And I said in the other thread about stuff, I feel I have a pretty decent class. But then I try and play to the classes abilities. I hit the back line and stragglers, I will have a go at anything I see that is solo. whether I am in a group or not my role is the same, hit shit as hard as I can and be sensible enough to know when to pull out to increase my chances of surviving.

I win lots, lose lots and find any class can f**k me up based on them fighting on their terms.

Yeah I can kill their clothies, but if the witch hunters do there own job right they are killing mine.

Dont want any changes to my class other than the fix on fleet footed. The variety of options available for all classed to spec means that from one class to the next things are totally different asking for a change because you died to x,y or z is tosh.

I had a chat with one of my guildies last night he was saying he had problems killing warrior priests so just avoided them, I had 3 1v1's last night and won them all.

The whole point of the abilities is that everyone can choose something that makes their class their own. This means that some people out there are going to spec to make suer they have no problems fighting against your own class.

 

[Memph1s]

I love how you guys whine about agony/boombolt sorcs since the fact is that agony is the worst dps specc there is for a sorc =) boombolt takes to long cast compared to it's damage, it doesnt adjust at all to the bunos crit from dark magic like other skills does =) so if you think a agony sorc is bad, just wait =) you guys has much to learn.

 

[Robin the Brave]

If anything Sorcs and Wizards need a buff, while they dominate lower tiers they are outdamaged by marauders and witch elves in tier4.

Worst balancing issue atm? Magus/Engineer aoe pull in attack thing, what the hell is that shit about, suck everyone in + aoe root then aoe spam and everyone insta dies, totally stupid and has to be removed now.

From SW PoV sorcs hit me for 800 - 1400 once every 3 sec (if you stand in range and dont interupt/kill them)

Marauders hit me for 1100~ every 1.5 sec + 300-350 what seems twice every second and their "come here" attack + knockdown is just lol

Witch elves kill me almost instantly in melee and if i try and root and move away i kill myself..

heavy tanks hit me for 800 a hit and are impossible to kill,

I have the same health and armour as a pure caster, only i do less damage and have a shorter range, but atleast i look cool, right.

Atm the cc is like WoW totally retarded can be chain lockdowned by 50 different abilities and nothing breaks on damage.

 

[`mongoose]

I play a shammy.

we ran into a Tank heavy organised group in a scenario last night and they annhilated us. I realised them how in earlier tiers when there were loads of dest tanks why people moaned about destructions heavy tanks.

The game works well - if you neglect one aspect of the group to overload on others you do have to be very very good to pull it off imo. We simply didn't have enough tanks in our 10 man group and as a result we got steamrollered.

The balance seems good to me - teams of assisting BW are evil however. I've seen the dots they put out nuke people with solid resists town in seconds even with me healing.

I know in my guild we've been discussing ways of minimising the danger of the dots and alot of it is due to how we use our abilities to counter them.

It's very easy when you lose horribly to sit and say "OMFG OVERPOWERED!!111" but i think upon reflection there's lots of opportunities to minimise or counter these builds and abilities if you know what to do.

It's all experience imo. I think we won't know what game balance is like until we've got a good month of gametime behind us with lvl 40's and reasonable realm ranks. Once people start getting lvl 40 and rr 60 ish I would imagine weaknesses and strengths will be documented ad infinatum.

I have to say the open world rvr of late on karak hirn has been pretty epic. I've gotta give kudos out to order for bringing it each and every night

M

 

[aika]

shadow warriors mirror is marauder, squid herder is the mirror of white lion - distorted mirrors i know

 

[Tallen]

shadow warriors mirror is marauder, squid herder is the mirror of white lion - distorted mirrors i know

Surely not.

Marauder is melee DPS, its mirror must be the White Lion.

Squig Herder is ranged DPS, its mirror must be the Shadow Warrior.

Regardless of pets, this is their basic archetype.

 

[Umilard]

I think the balance is currently abit in destructions favor.

The reason is that order doesn't have as good meleedps. The lack of a true maraudermirror is the biggest issue, while our "main meleedps" white lion is a good class if played well it's not as powerful as a marauder. I also have a feeling the WE is somewhat better than WH. However, i'm still low level so i'm not giving a final judgement there.

Some people will probably say "Well, you have more BW" but i don't think that's a really good argument, as a RP i die ALOT more from melee than ranged dps simple becouse ranged dps is easier to avoid by just moving outside of their range / hiding behind something.

Basicly, what's needed is that the classes that were dropped for the release gets added. Do that and all that is needed is small tweaks and we have super balance..

 

[dee777]

Basicly, what's needed is that the classes that were dropped for the release gets added. Do that and all that is needed is small tweaks and we have super balance..

I dont want to discuss the question if the game is balanced as is or not, so I ll just assume a flawed balance for now.

Why do you think that two mirrored melee DPS classes with a yet unknown special mechanic and completely unknown abilities and masteries will create "super balance"?

Or do you put more faith in an order chosen and a destruction ironbreaker?

 

[Manisch Depressiv]

Which takes AT LEAST 7 seconds including the GCD. It also still has a chance of causing a backlash so you could be on 50% health before the fight begins.

Are you serious with this comment?

At start, I am far away in scenarios and in open RvR from my enemies, when I finally meet an enemy I am on 100 and most likely I get healed. So the 7 seconds have no impact.

When heals are available a Sorc/BW can nuke on 100 almost all the time.

 

[Manisch Depressiv]

The point is that this spell is insta and you can power up while running to the action from the spawn point, and all you need is some hots and you'll still arrive at where the action is with 100 dhar and 100% health. I think people are starting to realize by now that sorcs and bw's are totally dependent on healers so they can go nuts with nuking. Or at least many healers are realizing this and getting better at topping up their casters so they can go nuts. If the sorc/bw isn't getting any healing, then it's not even performing at half its potential. Let's not talk about those cases. Let's talk about people that know how to play them and have the support that know how to best support their side.

That's what I meant!

 

[aika]

who uses bolts anyways xD ignite,boiling blood, detonate, ae bolt (you're now at around 100 combustion) - run in - ae root - scorched earth - detonate -scorched earth- scorched earth - run back to healer - rinse and repeat on tight spot scenarios (like the dwarf t2 one)