balance.. where art thou?

THANKS For getting the SK's nerfed! We all will remember who it is that screwed all the rest of the SK's!!!

Uh oh Drogbaa, the SK cartel has your number! Better watch out!

It takes good character to demonstrate how your class is so much more incredibly powerful than others that share its role.

he showed how the tank archtype is so much more powerful at tanking than non tanks, that is all he showed. You will notice that there isnt anything done there that the other tanks cannot do. Pallies have the hardest time but that's just because they are required to have a more competent group for agro reasons until they get a couple more tools that allow them to do the same.

This isnt going to get a single class nerfed, its gonna be an all or nothing type nerf if it happens.

We were capable of pulling full etw's + a few more mobs in current content before stances. I can only imagine whats possible now with an ideal group set up for it.

this seems like the perfect time to talk about berserker dps currently

I fully believe the tank archtypes can all tank like this.

You will have to prove to me that each tank archtype can sustain it like this cause I don't believe that

Lots of it is sk epic and mortal coil paired with

Remote Color Concourse Rk. III
Classes: ENC/102
Skill: Divination
Mana: 1356
Target: Target Ring AE
Range: 200', AE Range: 30'
Resist: Magic -20
Reflectable: Yes
Focusable: Yes
Casting: 2s, Recast: 12s, Timer: 3, Rest: 1.5s
Max Targets: 8
1: Stun for 6s up to level 108
Text: Colors converge within your brain.


Tack on all the dps and ae dps help and he only has to survive so much which any tank can just about do. Even if its only 5-10 at a time constantly instead of 15-20 at times because of sk epic.

See what you did there?
Now look at the post title

I am not here to defend any one. Just chimed in that any tank can do this same thing to varying degrees. 10 mobs a time verse 15 or 20 is splitting hairs. Just like single target hard stuff in group stun makes it a joke or warriors in full turtle verse raid stuff. They each have a niche which has been used for gain whenever possible.

Back in TBM it was the same thing only slower before the melee nerf. Pull 90 mobs pop 50 seconds of immune to damage discs and just let 2 melee classes ae it dead before tank stuff faded. Hell even a monk could pull it off if it died faster.

Man, I would not like to eat your porridge!!

He starts out complaining about warriors dps but then shows a video of a SK ? I guess the point is to remove stances period, or reduce their effectiveness. Then a complaint about Enchanters doing ridiculous things but nothing to back that up with except conjecture.

I will say that the content does look trivial, but perhaps next time you will show us a warrior given that seems to be your biggest gripe.

Yes I realize it would have been worse. Thats why I am amused. The movement to change the Harmonious backfired. Sks didnt get the AE lifetap they wanted, but they got the Harmonious nerfed.

I think you have it wrong, one sk, wanted a separate spell, almost all wanted the ae lifetap part taken off because it would have been useless on raids or in any group with mezzing. it didn't backfire at all, the majority got what they wanted, and are thankful for that.

I was actually the one that asked for it to be a separate spell but only as an option if it was the only way they would remove the ae tap portion. Also, doing what is being done in that video is not going to be getting done by anyone other than top geared/aa tanks.

I agree with a lot of the initial points, but I want to show something here as well. Every time Daybrreak and even Sony tries to fix a problem, they get this knee jerk reaction thing and it becomes a nightmare. Take whatever you're going to do to fix it, and then just try doing half or even 1/3 of that. Get some kiind of Dev fixing subtlety aa, I don't care how you view it. Every time you nerf something, you take a class that is heavily on top, and put them at the bottom of the pile and they shouldn't be so far up top, but they also shouldn't be as far down as you put them. So here's my take on it.

-I know this is a complex subject, so I'm trying to set some baseline for it so that we could discuss what seems reasonable and what doesn't. Here are a few considerations.

-ADPS should be slightly stronger than set dps. The reason is that you won't always be in some perfect group to utilize the adps, so if it is valued as much as dps, it will fall flat when soloing or with a pickup group or when that one class just doesn't want to group that day. I think that's reasonable and fair. It's also harder to use because it requires coordination instead of just hitting a burn key. I am legitimately saying that a class that hypothetically was 100% adps should do more for a perfect group by a fair margin than any of the other members if they are more self dps inclined. Group balance and teamwork is a part of the game that should be rewarded moreso than just knowing your class all by itself (which easily should also be rewarded).

-In consideration of healing, tanking, and dps, there are two kinds of class that can do two things at once, one is sort of a switch hitter, and the other is one a natural. A switch hitter is like an enchanter tanking. That class can do it. But in doing so, they aren't nuking or dotting as much, they have to sacrifice some of what they can do to pull it off. I get that tanks may have to switch to a shield and that's a fair point to bring up, but their current position in tanking is advantageous in a lot of ways: if they have a great healer, they can use a 2hander or offensive stance and take a bit more damage, leveraging the healer to do more dps. If an enchanter has a great healer and just stops casting runes to dot, why not have a wizard tank =P. I would say when doing 2 tasks at once, a natural will do more of them overall than a switch hitter. So with this all said

-Some dps classes can switch hit, and in weaker content, can tank naturally. That's great for the 105 rogue that wants to do gribbles missions, but I"ll leave that lower level benefit out of this since the tanks can now tank those to a much greater effect as well. So none of the dps classes are really naturals here. The closest would be a monk? But right now a warrior can outtank and outdps a monk lol. So can SK's, so can probably paladins.
The hit for being a natural should be a bit higher than the hit for being a switch hitter. To make this short I'll only cover this view in terms of dps.

Say we were in a perfect world where we're all clones with the exact same (and extremely high) mental capabilities and experiences, and all the toons are max aa'ed, max raid gear, max utility gear.. max everything.

if berserker deals 100k dps as a straight dps class with no utility or side roles. (100K is a nice, flat number..)
-rogues should deal about 90k dps, and maybe get just slightly more adps? Their ability to pull is a nice utility even though it's fairly slow. Plus they get SOS2 now along with hate modifiers, a self evac, increased run speed, and they can assassinate from range with throwing items for slightly increased range dps.
-Wizards should deal about 90k dps in this same sort of instance, or 95k dps if you remove manaburn's adps attributes (I don't want to hear the "it's not adps" crap, you know what it is). All their dps is ranged, they can get mana back much more easily than a berserker can get stamina back, and they get ae tlc and ports (a minor utility, but still definitely a utility. I've seen people use teleport bind well and shave lots of time off of tasks. That all by itself couild make a wizard doing 50k dps much more important than a berserker dealing 100k dps in the right circumstances - same with rogue's shroud of stealth). And then there's manaburn..... Maybe wizards should be closer to 85k dps, but then make manaburn something more useful for general groups? I mean it seems like just a raid level utility atm, but in this hypothetical case, you'd easily rather have 8 wizards than 8 rogues!

-Monks should deal about 85-88k dps in this sort of example. Their pulling ability is just better than rogues, and they get mend which can be really nice, and should make them a more stable class. Nowadays with some events I see monks just go down because most of their defensive abilities are activated. Maybe if this sort of blueprint were followed, every 5 minutes they'd get a sort of mend rune, similar to DI?

Rangers and Beastlords should be around 82-85k in this hypothetical example. They both get some good ADPS (but maybe fix group bestial alignment so that the form can be blocked without blocking the whole thing). Beastlords dicho is great, rangers group guardian is great. The beastlord pet can be nice, and Blusterbolt can be even nicer (or less nice if mobs can't be rooted, but when it works it is clearly the superior choice) Both classes can heal, which should also be factored in, but if you put them closer to the 80k range, maybe make more of the healing a natural thing instead of a switch to healing thing. They also get ADPS buffs, and I don't want to force the balance so far out that you only ever want 1 beastlord for ferocity becuase berserkers are so much better, but again it's something to factor in a bit.

Mages should be about 85k dps as well here. They get pets. They get Call of Hero, they can summon things that are useful, They end up as this knight situation class where they're either the most powerful in the game omg nerf them omg omgomg or they're terrible. Just put them at about this range.Maybe give them the ability to assign things like /pet protect group, and when a person gets on aggro, the pet taunts that mob, but don't give that same ability to others. They really do need something from what I've seen, and it's probably to be boosted to the level of dps that rangers/beastlords get.

Enchanters (and to be fair to some degree maybe monks too) should have their dps tuned to how useful their actual utilities are in an expansion. Not just some singular enchanter zone in an expansion. The whole thing. I don't want to hear "but look at how you NEED an enchanter (or bard) to mez the four shrubberies in evantil", unless it's a majority of the expansion so that the crowd control/pulling based classes aren't practically relegated to one zone if they want to really matter, they have to be fairly high dps. Luckily at this point rangers can help very well with CC, so can shaman, druids, bards, and monks can pull and rogues can pull (although I would say rogue pulling is a bit worse), so I am glad that there is little to no reason daybreak can't make zones that honestly require some crowd control or good pulling again. You're primed to go, so go for it. Currently enc aren't bad to have in droga, or chardok, or kor sha's lab.I haven't seen many situations where you *NEED* a great cc or puller since a good tank covers that same base just as well here, so I'd say make enchanters deal 80k. If cc was absolutely huge in a level that would never happen, then they should be down at 60k, but given reality, in a situation where CC becomes more prominent, I'd say to put them down closer to 70k if they are straight dps'ing.

-Warriors can't heal like paladins or pull like sk's, so they should be able to do a bit more damage than those classes. In general, warriors at 75k seems good as they are always dealing some damage, even if they are going as far towards tanking as they can. Maybe if they are full on tanking, they should be closer to 50k dps, or in some extreme circumstance maybe 45k.

-SK's can pull, but that area is already covered by a lot of people. They do get a lot of self heals through lifetaps and the sk epic is great, and is even adps due to the increase in accuracy. But due to paladin heals being very good, I would say the sk should be about 70k, and paladins should be closer to 65k, but then still higher on undead mobs. I don't know what to tell you, I'm sorry? They provide a lot of stability if played well.

I don't want to say too much about the healers much in this regard, but I will say that if they are dps'ing, they usually aren't healing. So if that remains true, they should be able to put up some reasonably high numbers when dps'ing. That way you don't get too few healers in the game due to them not really mattering past the first. Clerics have a bit less adps than shaman/druids, but good utility in terms of giving mana to people. If clerics that were straight up trying to dps and not heal were pulling 70k dps, I don't think many people would really complain. Oh no, now all raid forces are more likely to have enough clerics... Due to the added utility, maybe put druids and shaman closer to 65k dps. I know this is the bottom end of my spectrum, but I'll add in that the classes seem a lot closer together in what I am describing than they currently are. I think it's more fun when everyone's actions have a clear impact on the game, and can be more easily seen.

With all that said, I think bards should either be bumped up to around 65-70k (which is a bit low on my spectrum, but much higher than they currently seem to be - remember a full on berserker in this hypothetical situation was 100k). They have so much utility and adps here.increased run speed, fade, mez, songs to increase ac, songs to increase healing, songs for melee adps, songs for caster adps, apds thorugh aa's like quicktime and fierce eye, a solid adps epic. If you want them to be higher, then they should get a sort of switch ability, maybe an aa called drum solo where whatever song they play instead of doing what it normally does nukes the mob for a fair amount and using that puts them closer to 80k, but then they lose their ability to mez, sing group songs, etc.. for 5 minutes. Either make it impossible to remove, or make it so if they do click it off, the reuse is 5 minutes.

I realize the whole situation is much more complex than this, but this is what my gut tells me.

I'll reiterate though that subtlety is the key here. If someone from daybreak reads this, whatever you plan to do, even if it seems reasonable right now, just to half of that. You may be surprised by the increased balance that the results yield.

.

This is what happens when bad players cry about trash mobs being to tough in beta.

I agree the tanks can do it to varying degrees, but the fact that SKs can do it a lot more efficiently and effectively means that balance isn't there. I was able to kill around 10 mobs at a time if I had the right things up on my warrior with only a merc healer and my box sham spot healing while with my rogue friend. Obviously with a more ideal group I'd be able to tank more, but I would need downtime until the necessary discs are back up. SKs have so much self healing and when they get the 7k rune proc weapon they'll be virtually impossible to kill in group situations. If I don't have the right things up on large pulls it can get ugly pretty fast, at least in not optimal group situations.

And what 50 seconds of immune to damage do tanks get? Warriors can go fortitude (24 seconds with BP) then flash which is anywhere from 7-10 seconds. I don't have anything else that will extend my immunity for another 15-20 seconds like you are stating.

Why pets need nerfing again!

Note:
1. Warriors have no pants on
2. Paladins ran out of sparkles
3. NERF PETS!

I'm still wondering how a warrior can sustain 350k DPS and would love to see a parse of it.