[SH] Consider replacing Squig Leap

[zgolec]

Instead of proposing nerfs to more or less balanced class, propose buffs that make SW and WL more WB friendly.

There were many. Kinda ignored.

[Tarantoga]

We're not interested in significant reworks for the melee squig spec. It does its job correctly and causes the salt to flow, a clear indicator of a well done balance change. Squig leap is iconic to the intro cinematic and serves as the single balance point to multiple mobility options on Order. It's not going anywhere.

To bad you give it insane boost/viability in various scenarios while not even consider WL changes [Aza change siwth some tweaks would make thsi clkass wb viable] except maybe for further nerfs...

Try keeping your hands on the keyboard and watch for the red squiggles if you want to communicate effectively.

We have made several adjustments to WL and mSH over the past several months. Keep talking trash though, I'm pretty sure you're on your last warning right?

i agree concerning the msh, rlly like the class as it is as order and destro player. but he is right about the wl as example. nobody likes to take a wl into wb for a reason. isnt there a chance you guys make the classes which cant participate in wb play (wont talk about city at all) a little bit more viable? aza indeed made a good try

i mean, how many wl do play "loner"? why not give loner buffs to the aoe potential of the wl. pets arent good in zerg situations anyways and it wouldnt make it op for solo or smallscale where pet would still be better.

[teiloh]

Instead of proposing nerfs to more or less balanced class, propose buffs that make SW and WL more WB friendly.

Power creep is a major issue in MMOs. In exchange for balancing mSH the rest of the SH class could be streamlined a bit. mSH is not balanced at all - on top of its survivability and utility it has far more mobility than the WL could ever dream of.

Just as one single example, Big Bouncin' was a 13x spec for a reason - it has an 8s CD, does more damage than WL/Marauder equivalents, and costs just over half of what their channels do. It's so strong that when I played mSH I would just use it whenever it was up in place of meleeing someone directly in front of me and got 1-2x more damage out of it.

If we buffed WLs in a similar way it would not be good for the game. The whole thing about Squig Armor is that as an additional mode, it essentially gives Destro 6-7 more abilities. Having mSH stand up on their own as their own MDPS "class", especially as possibly the most WB viable AOE MDPS in the game, would be like giving WL a toggled RDPS mode that makes them a more mobile, more survivable and higher utility Warband RDPS than a Magus. Say they got on top of a big lion and started throwing huge axes or something. Might be cool, but to balance it as a stand-alone RDPS would essentially give Order a "13th class" like the mSH is the "13th class" of Destro.

[TenTonHammer]

Instead of proposing nerfs to more or less balanced class, propose buffs that make SW and WL more WB friendly.

the "balance proposal fourm" is a proverbial graveyard for multiple community suggestions, the devs have said that they wont look at any of them because they have no balance fourm moderators

seeing so many proposals ignored for so long and some devs own questionable opions on balance kills enthusiasm to make proposals

i agree concerning the msh, rlly like the class as it is as order and destro player. but he is right about the wl as example. nobody likes to take a wl into wb for a reason. isnt there a chance you guys make the classes which cant participate in wb play (wont talk about city at all) a little bit more viable? aza indeed made a good try

for some reason the devs decided that while it is completly fine to have classes like marauader who i good at all levels of play, it is also completly ok that certian classes are not viable for every level of play and that people should just accept that and deal with it

[adamthelc]

It sounds like the argument is mSH is good so it should have pounce taken away. Have you seen what a WL or mSW can do after a pounce in smaller scale fights?

I would be fine if all pounces were removed from game, I dont think they need to be, but I would be fine with it. Give WL a morale pounce, give mSW and mSH regular charges. This game wasnt really designed around that type of mobility.

I am not suggesting they change anything, but if you start removing pounces you need to just get rid of them all together. The whole nitpicking which side deserves it and which side doesnt is obnoxious.

[Tarantoga]

Instead of proposing nerfs to more or less balanced class, propose buffs that make SW and WL more WB friendly.

the "balance proposal fourm" is a proverbial graveyard for multiple community suggestions, the devs have said that they wont look at any of them because they have no balance fourm moderators

seeing so many proposals ignored for so long and some devs own questionable opions on balance kills enthusiasm to make proposals

i agree concerning the msh, rlly like the class as it is as order and destro player. but he is right about the wl as example. nobody likes to take a wl into wb for a reason. isnt there a chance you guys make the classes which cant participate in wb play (wont talk about city at all) a little bit more viable? aza indeed made a good try

for some reason the devs decided that while it is completly fine to have classes like marauader who i good at all levels of play, it is also completly ok that certian classes are not viable for every level of play and that people should just accept that and deal with it

well thats very sad... i understand that it it very hard or even impossible to make a perfect balance but it should not be impossible to make all classes just "more" viable for wb play (endgame in case of city siege). rlly hope the devs think about it again. they did a great job with squigg imo. he is viable in every situation

[teiloh]

It sounds like the argument is mSH is good so it should have pounce taken away. Have you seen what a WL or mSW can do after a pounce in smaller scale fights?

I would be fine if all pounces were removed from game, I dont think they need to be, but I would be fine with it. Give WL a morale pounce, give mSW and mSH regular charges. This game wasnt really designed around that type of mobility.

I am not suggesting they change anything, but if you start removing pounces you need to just get rid of them all together. The whole nitpicking which side deserves it and which side doesnt is obnoxious.

That's not the argument. I listed a four point argument in the OP. For one, Squig Leap is too strong on mSH and mSH are just too strong, period.

I don't get why whenever Order has a thing, it becomes "a thing" that now "all sides" must have. No one is making the same argument, for example, for run speed boosts which Destro monopolizes. Nor are there too many arguments for balancing Destro advantages in:

Outgoing heal debuffs
Incoming heal debuffs
Cooldown increasers
Cooldown decreasers
Morale builders
Morale drains
AOE Synergy
Armor debuffs
Interrupts
Detaunts
AP Damage
AOE DPS
Knockdowns
Pulls
Punts

In fact, right now the push seems to be now to take the axe to Order tank Morales. 240 to 3 stats for 30s for KOTBS was nerfed because it's too many stats, but Chosen +5000-7000 incoming healing power was approved as balanced because it's well-received in feedback. In the same post a nerf to the 5s Ironbreaker damage immunity is proposed because immunity is just something people are uncomfortable with apparently ... even though a Chosen getting +5000-7000 incoming heal power is essentially unkillable as long as there are HoTs ticking on him. Basically, whenever Order has "a thing" it's bad, and must be nerfed or given to Destro. Imo, there's a reason why Destro is overpop and that overpopulation reflects on the forums and feedback as well.

So lets argue for Order like some have argued for Destro. Lets come up with a tidy name for something in the game: damage reflection. So Destro here is clearly superior: AOE Baneshield (thankfully it doesn't hit for 1000-1500 anymore), Marauder M4s (Forked Aggression, Lashing Power), 2 Misdirection Classes (Magus + Sorc).

This is what happens: without further elaboration into the effects, DPS, impacts on the game of these abilities, we just simply demand it because "the other side has it and it's not fair." No one seemed to discuss just how exactly Pounce and Wings of Heaven were somehow game changers other than that "they're Order unique and therefore Destro must have it too, but the Destro version will be placed in a way that optimizes class, group and warband synergy."

When Pounce was WL exclusive it gave one Order class the ability to jump on someone, repeatedly, and do burst damage. From what I saw from years of stats, it made no appreciable difference in realm pop, average city/scen wins, etc. Everyone knew that you could just keep running and Pounce would not catch you, and a detaunt (another thing Destro is superior at, but we'll get back to that later) or guard or challenge means that that burst isn't killing you and now the WL has to Pounce right out or die.

That's not true of mSH, who are game-changers no matter where they are, as explained in my OP.

[wargrimnir]

I have stated that WHEN we do balance, we certainly look at relevant balance proposals. However, we are not currently doing much in the way of balance as we have other priorities.

When I chime in on posts like this, it's not to have a friendly debate with anyone. It's to let people know that we do read these posts, and often times we already have a predisposition to a suggestion. Squig pounce is working as intended, and the class is doing pretty much what we expected. The fact that some people don't like it is not a negative in this case, and it has been tweaked in the past already.

I would also recommend to people that are letting their emotions get a bit tight to relax a little. When we get back around to a balance cycle, we're going to get yelled at all the same by the other guys who hate we're making changes. I don't expect to see mild harassment that we ignore suggestions or jabs about ex-devs doing it better. That's very disrespectful. Expecting someone responsible for changes to read that crap and be inspired to work on your ideas is silly.

[teiloh]

I have stated that WHEN we do balance, we certainly look at relevant balance proposals. However, we are not currently doing much in the way of balance as we have other priorities.

When I chime in on posts like this, it's not to have a friendly debate with anyone. It's to let people know that we do read these posts, and often times we already have a predisposition to a suggestion. Squig pounce is working as intended, and the class is doing pretty much what we expected. The fact that some people don't like it is not a negative in this case, and it has been tweaked in the past already.

I would also recommend to people that are letting their emotions get a bit tight to relax a little. When we get back around to a balance cycle, we're going to get yelled at all the same by the other guys who hate we're making changes. I don't expect to see mild harassment that we ignore suggestions or jabs about ex-devs doing it better. That's very disrespectful. Expecting someone responsible for changes to read that crap and be inspired to work on your ideas is silly.

Hi wargrimnir,

Thanks for all the effort you guys are putting into the game. I want to state that this isn't a "I hate x class so nerf it" post, but observations from someone who played SH (including mSH when I felt like it) to a high rank and did well (usually 1+ million damage with 50+ DBs in city instances. That was with UF though) With the hundreds of abilities and tactics there are in the game, perfect balance will probably not be achievable, but I thought I should bring up the mSH issue because I perceive it as being extremely unhealthy for the game.

I would argue that the mSH has a huge and overbearing impact on not just Warbands but also in scen and small scale with their utility, CC, damage, survivability and mobility. It was stated that from a mobility perspective Pounce gave Order an advantage, but in reality the SH was the game's most effectively mobile class (with two speed boosts and a self-punt). Squig Leap makes an already extremely mobile class even more so. It's hard to argue that Destro does not have a clear mobility advantage now, Wings of Heaven notwithstanding (no SH/Shaman would trade their speed tactic for this). I could suggest that it be given to AMs and SWs but I don't think this would be 1. good for the game 2. feel right in terms of class identity 3. be well-received by Destro, of course.

From what I've seen, and you guys probably have the tools to better tell, Destro has had a much higher population with the exception of some odd NA hours. This leads to more wins and more ORvR rewards which leads to more power in a spiral. The mSH is, imo, both a cause and compounding factor for the cycle of defeats/population imbalance we're seeing, a trend we've seen progress more or less from release in 2008 to server shut down.

So I want to argue strongly that the mSH was, in fact, extremely strong even before any changes from Live, and now it is so strong as to be a serious realm balance issue. I rolled Order specifically because I always play the underdog/underpop realm and weaker/undervalued classes (my live mains were pre-buff WH/AM/SW/SH/Magus/BG if you remember how those classes were laughed at). Just want to say it's not so much a personal thing against Squig Herders, it's a realm balance/game health issue from my perspective.

[adamthelc]

It sounds like the argument is mSH is good so it should have pounce taken away. Have you seen what a WL or mSW can do after a pounce in smaller scale fights?

I would be fine if all pounces were removed from game, I dont think they need to be, but I would be fine with it. Give WL a morale pounce, give mSW and mSH regular charges. This game wasnt really designed around that type of mobility.

I am not suggesting they change anything, but if you start removing pounces you need to just get rid of them all together. The whole nitpicking which side deserves it and which side doesnt is obnoxious.

That's not the argument. I listed a four point argument in the OP. For one, Squig Leap is too strong on mSH and mSH are just too strong, period.

I don't get why whenever Order has a thing, it becomes "a thing" that now "all sides" must have. No one is making the same argument, for example, for run speed boosts which Destro monopolizes. Nor are there too many arguments for balancing Destro advantages in:

Outgoing heal debuffs
Incoming heal debuffs
Cooldown increasers
Cooldown decreasers
Morale builders
Morale drains
AOE Synergy
Armor debuffs
Interrupts
Detaunts
AP Damage
AOE DPS
Knockdowns
Pulls
Punts

So lets argue for Order like some have argued for Destro. Lets come up with a tidy name for something in the game: damage reflection. So Destro here is clearly superior: AOE Baneshield (thankfully it doesn't hit for 1000-1500 anymore), Marauder M4s (Forked Aggression, Lashing Power), 2 Misdirection Classes (Magus + Sorc).

This is what happens: without further elaboration into the effects, DPS, impacts on the game of these abilities, we just simply demand it because "the other side has it and it's not fair." No one seemed to discuss just how exactly Pounce and Wings of Heaven were somehow game changers other than that "they're Order unique and therefore Destro must have it too, but the Destro version will be placed in a way that optimizes class, group and warband synergy."

When Pounce was WL exclusive it gave one Order class the ability to jump on someone, repeatedly, and do burst damage. From what I saw from years of stats, it made no appreciable difference in realm pop, average city/scen wins, etc. Everyone knew that you could just keep running and Pounce would not catch you, and a detaunt (another thing Destro is superior at, but we'll get back to that later) or guard or challenge means that that burst isn't killing you and now the WL has to Pounce right out or die.

That's not true of mSH, who are game-changers no matter where they are, as explained in my OP.

Dude all pounces are good. You can keep rambling on about how the SH is worse, but it's just subjective whining.