Patch Notes 23/10/2020

[Cptkud]

Tested out the Squig pet buff on my rSH, not worth it. Still much more viable to run around with "All By Meself." Wonder what the WLs pet numbers look like :/

[Skald]

Imagine there's longer more detailed conversations, or even arguments, about what to do with each balance change and it wasn't a simple whimsical swapping of some data. We don't need to have those hard conversations with a hundred more people on the forums, you guys are doing just fine talking to each other.

Also imagine giving a long-form explanation, as requested, to have a single point cherry-picked, misrepresented, so you can ask for it to be reverted, ignoring all other context of the post. I'm sure that's going to generate a desire to post long-form reasoning for balance changes in the future right?

Wait, your argument against long form reasoning for balance changes is because different people respond to different parts of a long list of topics?

But since you made the assertion, what did I misrepresent here;
-snipping big image-

Just to be clear because keyboard warriors LOVE to misrepresent my words taken out of context:

-Natherul wanted to nerf Runefang
-I was opposed to nerfing Runefang because Runefang was very heavily in knight's class identity
-Natherul was adamant on nerfing Runefang, and not giving Chosens an equal nerf - because Chosen was 'in a bad spot' according to him.
-I made the point of, "Well, if you're nerfing Runefang to the same scaling as Daemonclaw, why not mirror them instead as Knight and Chosen are in a similar spot in terms of damage?" which lead to, "No; Knights are too OP and need tuned down."
-There was a 3 hour back and forth about nerfing Runefang and such; eventually, we decided on Mighty Soul as baseline, and the Chosen Mirror of Daemonclaw having Str/WS and Knight having Ini/WP.

In hindsight, I really would have liked this:
-Revert the Mighty Soul tactic changes, revert the knight elemental damage ability changes
-Restore Chosen's old defensive tactic (10% reduced chance to be crit tactic? I think it was)
-Mirror old Runefang with Daemonclaw, but in different trees like they were before (Chosen Daemonclaw in 2h tree, Knight MS in Utility tree, Runefang Baseline, Chosen MS-like ability removed)

Thank you for a very detailed explanation - that confirms most of the suspicions. I'd just like to add an explanation as to why I think Runefang was in the game in the first place and why it was a bad idea to remove it:

"It's 720 FREE STATS" - it seems like quite a lot, when judged in isolation. However, when you actually take a look at the class as a whole, it's a different story.

1. Knight was, even back then, a tank class with the lowest DPS potential, that much hasn't been disuputed. The Path of Conquest, an alleged DPS tree, offers very little in the way of offense. And most importantly, outside of M1, the knights have no way to debuff their primary damage source (physical). Now that's an important part, as Chosen have that capability from the get go - they primarily (even without Discordant Winds tactic) deal spiritual damage.

Why's that important? Because spiritual damage can only reach a ~40% mitigation at best - and far less with the Discordant Instability (resistance aura) applied (and it's always on, without player input). On the other hand, physical damage reduction reaches much higher levels - it can go past 100% (Naturally with 75% cap in actual combat, since that's the most mitigation you can have; but the more you have, the bigger your safety cushion is). On top of that, dealing mostly spiritual damage means you don't have to focus on both Strength and Weapon Skill, you can just stack Strength, which frees your build options. Let's also keep in mind that armour stacking has been the meta of this server for a long time too (that's what most healers will do, for example), that everyone has an armour potion on at all the times and finally that with the introduction of Sovereign, the armour rates have gone up even further.

Now of course Precision Strike ignores 25% of the armour and there's a Weapon Skill which also has an armour penetration component. Most 2H Knights will probably reach around ~400 WS, which translates to roughly 30% armour penetration. Even with that in mind, knights typically have to go up against significantly bigger mitigation values than the Chosen.

To sum it up - Runefang provided the Knights the only means of improving their armour penetration (aside from M1 - 240 WS is roughly ~16% added armour penetration). That, combined with the extra strength, allowed the Knights to roughly reach the Chosen levels of damage. Now, mind you, as I've mentioned above, it still was the worst among the tanks.

2.Chosen have access to Suppression (which is a core ability), a staggering 25% bonus to parry for 15 seconds, with a 10 second cooldown (which means it has potential 100% uptime, unless it's blocked/parried). Knights have no way to boost their parry, outside of the Coordination tactic. But it's for shield users only and requires a tactic slot (and it's 15%, not 25%).

Runefang provided 240 WS, which translated to roughly 8% parry, now it's gone, which means that the Greatsword Knight has no means of improving their defences (which makes them the only 2H tank with that problem).

3. I believe that Runefang had initiative on it because Chosen had access to Flawless Armor tactic (10% reduction in being critically hit).

4. To summarize - I believe none of the above factors were taken into account when that nerf was depolyed and that Runefang was judged in isolation, at least by Natherul, that is. The only way the knights could overcome the abovementioned shortcomings was through stat stacking - which I believe was why Runefang was included in the original design of the class. I also believe that people are overestimating the value of these stat increases - I'd very much rather have access to effects like BO's You Wot?! (10% more damage, 30% more armour and resistances and a 15% increase in defences) than 720 stats, for example.

If it being a core tactic is a problem, then have it replace Efficient Swings (11-pointer in the Path of Conquest), which nobody uses anyway. It would also mean it wouldn't be easily attainable for shield users and that it wouldn't be possible to dip into other trees too much.

In closing, I hope that the team at least considers reverting that change.

[Berzar]

I can appreciate the explanation given as to why these changes were implemented. I can't comment on the Knight/Chosen change too much, but I can on the Lion/Squig changes.

I would just like to point out that the White Lion benefits from a 50% critical damage tactic, a pet that is both tougher/deals more base damage, and two-handed weapon auto-attacks. These are all things that the Squig Herder does not have. Mirroring the Pounce/Squig Leap change because of the burst potential of the leap doesn't feel quite right to me.

Even with the increased pet stats buff, that will be far more noticeable on the White Lion pet, as it already has higher damage, bigger hits, and bigger crits from the critical damage tactic.

Perhaps the change for the White Lion is a net positive, time and testing will tell. Though I can't help but feel like the effort and time spent theorycrafting and coding these changes were with the White Lion in mind, and then thrown at the Melee Squig in the name of equality.

[Kenshiken]

Tested out the Squig pet buff on my rSH, not worth it. Still much more viable to run around with "All By Meself." Wonder what the WLs pet numbers look like :/

Lame aswell. It's straight up harsh nerf. Let's not even talk about "Loner" WL tactic.
I will be happy to read that I'm wrong.

[sogeou]

I can appreciate the explanation given as to why these changes were implemented. I can't comment on the Knight/Chosen change too much, but I can on the Lion/Squig changes.

I would just like to point out that the White Lion benefits from a 50% critical damage tactic, a pet that is both tougher/deals more base damage, and two-handed weapon auto-attacks. These are all things that the Squig Herder does not have. Mirroring the Pounce/Squig Leap change because of the burst potential of the leap doesn't feel quite right to me.

Even with the increased pet stats buff, that will be far more noticeable on the White Lion pet, as it already has higher damage, bigger hits, and bigger crits from the critical damage tactic.

Perhaps the change for the White Lion is a net positive, time and testing will tell. Though I can't help but feel like the effort and time spent theorycrafting and coding these changes were with the White Lion in mind, and then thrown at the Melee Squig in the name of equality.

While the mSH might not have the same auto attack damage they do get faster auto attacks. They also don't need the crit tactic as their melee move base damage is almost double that of the WH with some moves. Example Get em is double that of CS from the WL.

mSH is on the same level of burst as the WL. You should have both as well, go do dps test with preloading your attacks such as bad gas, drop that , then pounce in KD, get em.

Both hit up to 30+ times in a 10 second window and their DPS / burst is very close to each other. I have both above rr75+ 10k kills. I find both classes very strong, but find my SH better due to 75% movement buff, better defensive tools, self heal, aoe punt, self kb, aoe snare....... etc etc etc.

Both Pounces should do some damage, even if it was 200-300 that is fine.

[Berzar]

One of the reason given for the change was mainly pointed at the burst potential of the classes. Stating that a two handed weapon auto-attack that can hit for 1500-2000 is equal to a 1 handed attack that will hit for 200-400 because it is "faster" is simply irrelevant when it comes to a burst damage discussion. The critical damage tactic also applies to the Lion pet, giving the pet higher crits as well.

I do have both classes, and I dont think many will debate who is the higher single target dps class of the two.

The classes are different, adjusting both based on the potential of one is not something that makes sense to me. My two cents on the matter.

[sogeou]

One of the reason given for the change was mainly pointed at the burst potential of the classes. Stating that a two handed weapon auto-attack that can hit for 1500-2000 is equal to a 1 handed attack that will hit for 200-400 because it is "faster" is simply irrelevant when it comes to a burst damage discussion. The critical damage tactic also applies to the Lion pet, giving the pet higher crits as well.

I do have both classes, and I dont think many will debate who is the higher single target dps class of the two.

The classes are different, adjusting both based on the potential of one is not something that makes sense to me. My two cents on the matter.

Do your own test with numbers. Eye balling things is not the best way to do it.
Same bonus damage, matching RR points everything is the same doing clips of 20's damage pulls. WL / mSH damage is pretty close. On my mSH I have killed people in 2-3 seconds, same on WL. Biggest issue with SH is lack of a speed tactic for the pet. mSH seems to crit more often, but that can be because of order not running FS.

[Berzar]

Well, I guess there you have it. Two cherry picked screen grabs of a twenty second window of time. Case closed, moving on.

[Jastojan]

Somehow I do not believe you Soge, that you can kill enemy players (even lowbies) in 2-3 sec. as mSH. I agree that SH is lacking of burst as melee (rSH is even worse - my main).
I noticed that you are very (I mean VERY) sensitive on almost every WL post here on the forum.
I wrote it many many times that I do not like nerfs (in any form) and WL is not exception. I would like to see you enjoy playing your WL, but somehow I do not understand why do you have to boycott every single attempt of the other players when they pointed out that their class is underperforming against WL? WL is top example of melee DPS with awesome burst so it makes sense to point on WL when it comes to dmg burst when comparing. You do not need to feel aggrieved...

[Tankbeardz]

Well, I guess there you have it. Two cherry picked screen grabs of a twenty second window of time. Case closed, moving on.

This feels like old school Zarbix.