Big Balance Thread - All in One

To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. - Theodor Adorno

talking about balance after Frost Wall is... idiotic.

Im new to pvp scene, maybe you think im not the one who is qualified enough to talk balance, but since im new, im still very enthusiastic about pvp and hungry for further balance. Mulla was explaining that, problems are in HLD so big and so visible that you dont have to think twice before making changes or nerfing skills. So this thread influenced by that idea.

let's be idiots. let's sum every needed balance changes to HLD in one big thread.

I'll start with
Whirling blades
*Its too fast, and it should be slower, designing WHOLE game meta according to races and racers is nonsense.
Lightning Arrow
Remove the Secondary damage, or nerf it. I can hit 8K with one arrow too, that means, LA does not shotgun, its something different than shotgun. the secondary damage has no pvp damage reduction or damage output is higher than initial arrow hit for some weird reason. the secondary damage deals a lot damage.
Ice Shot
Secondary damage problem same as LA
Explosive Arrow
the most important problem of HLD, very high aoe, shotguns, cant be blockable, dodgeable, evadeable. Its no spell, no attack, deals more damage than my 2000ex build with 10ex investment to higher area then anything else. fuses stack on frost wall, to ground... you cant escape anywhere because of 'less duration' buff of warped timepiece. The biggest problem, the biggest cancer of pvp.
[/b]Arctic Breath Chill
Have you ever seen 2H cycloners confess that how OP is? maybe mulla, others? no. cause its OP. just lvl 1 arctic breath with 5-10 damage chills you for very long time. Chill time should be scaled with damage dealt.
Aegis Legacy
I dont know how this can be fixed. Armor values might be reduced for pvp for 20%-30%. Armor is only good for aegis in pvp so nerfing armor would only nerf aegis builds which is fine. one aegis buid with 20K+ armor is x10 times tankier than a 20K ES build.
Frost Wall
Give melee a chance, make them breakable or give melee a skill where they can ignore frost wall and keep attacking. There are more issues about frost wall and we have a big thread about it.
[Tempest Shield]
very high damage output, attacks for 3 times for some weird reason, and one shots me from 5.5k health sometimes. Its broken, not because of the damage, because it deals so much damage for such low investment. the only thing that gives me nightmares in pvp is tempest shield.
[Molten Shell]
10k damage when proc'ed? Are you serious? i dont wanna even talk about it. it should be nerfed.
[arctic breath aoe]
arctic breath + aoe shotguns and deals like 5-6k damage per volley. Not fair, its because of lack of vision of programmer in pvp while programming this skill.

Please recommend & suggest more balance changes for HLD, ill add them too.

You know my tiramisu thread that havent deleted still, but they answered icedeal's question, and if some day they gonna think about making changes about HLD, i want this thread suffice all the feedback they may require.

AB chill is op and I don't use it, same reason why I never used molten shell on my old casters years ago. Will contribute later when I'm not at phone

DoT
They should have their damage reduced by 30-50% in pvp, especially bleed and poison. It's too easy to scale those with tree, gear and crit to unreal levels designed around monster life pool and not players.

Supported Trap and Mines
Reduce or Cancel the dmg buff by supports. You can already stack them and "shotgun" people with a stack. It's strange enought that you can put any ranged attack or spell in a trap, why boost them with a "more" multiplier on top of it. Regular traps are fines.

Crit
It's too easy to stack immense amount of crit and multiplier in this game. Crit pvp dmg and/or chances should be reduced by 15-30% in pvp. Crit reduction mechanisms like deceiver or the cluster on tree should be adjusted around this change.

Animated Guardian in Sarn
An old trick still used today, animated guardian in sarn can be used without limitation as you can recast them as soon as they are dead. There is a few tricks than you can do with thoses but the main one is punishing melee physical dmg users by making the guardian wear Bramblejack to reflect the physical damages and Abyssus, Oro and other items to amplify the damages taken. Most people on shot themself on those.
Another trick is to give them Shackles of the wretched to get frenzy charges on the guardian death.
A simple fix would be that guardian in sarn interact the same way as they do in 1vs1, you can't call them more than once until you leave the area or die.

Rumi's Concoction
yes I said it, this flask did massive dmg to pvp balance once it was introduced. People didn't have to build for block anymore, they just use that flask and burst other players during it's effect. Everyone can use it an gain superiority if their opponent is not using BCR wich created a meta where litteraly everyone is using BCR as their six link. Some players even run 3 or 4 of those.

Thanks for saving me the work of starting a thread like this, though truth be told, I was just going to have everyone else leave comments about what needs to be fixed 'cause I'm not smart enough to figure out what bugs me versus what actually NEEDS fixing.

My real hope is that if they make Frost Wall breakable, that the frost wall takes damage from all sources of damage, other frost walls included, and that they aren't targetable, mostly because it's frustrating when you target shit when you don't mean to. That and it'd be too easy to proliferate elemental effects, gain charges from curses, and totems would probably dick out over it.
I might be over-complicating it though.

Crit
It's too easy to stack immense amount of crit and multiplier in this game. Crit pvp dmg should be reduced by 30-50% in pvp. Crit reduction mechanism like deceiver or the cluster on tree should be adjusted around this change.

I deal only 3.5k damage maximum when i crit with my initial hit arrows. my bow has 259 to 599 damage, and that 599 damage roll, which happens VERY rarely, deals 3500 damage when im able to crit. i tested my dps with xukai/dethklok for very long hours. i have 608 pdps bow, 650 crit multi, 300% increased physical ~ proj damage on tree. insane jewels. my tooltip dps is 127k, i have almost no attack speed from tree. its just raw XXX - XXX damage

Aelinae has 13K+ eva, with 4000 accuracy i have seen rarely im doing crit hits on his char. Enfeeble on the other hand, also ball lightning + blind counters me so hard, that a person who has no relation with this game would understand that there are big punishments for going crit in the game.

why dont you just guys get evasion or strong enfeebles... oh i forgot who needs protection for 3.5k damage only in case when i got extremely lucky? cause you dont. my initial hits are 1.5k - 2k normally. thats pretty managable for every build. on the other hand, you, everyone has right to blame how LA works and how its programmed.



full gear if anybody's wondering how GG it is.

i agree on everything you say about other mechanics.

mostly, traps/mines should be nerfed harshly, like 30% damage reduction.

PvP arenas

these areas which overcrowded with obstacles(the 200IQ inventor of these areas was thinking that they are building a strategical ground like de_dust2 with putting obstacles everywhere i guess)favor, area control spam skills like spark, EA, whispering ice only. you spam an area skill around you behind a wall, and you simply, win.
these areas dramatically punishes every else builds in the game, you cant micro, you cant put a strategical handle to anything at all

[flame dash + cwdt]


initiation is what pvp is all about. punishing initiation is what some builds are for, like firestorm, my LA build, whispering ice, and you give the rest of the builds who try to make their builds around area control a big f*cking punishment. this setup requires no investment at all.

get a leg kaoms, spam EA with cwdt + flame dash. get top 3 in HLD. even a non AI bot can do that.

Frost wall in general is actually not a bad skill in terms of balance. It's the AOE overlap exploitation that comes with it, which of course relates to other skills outside of frost wall. If there was some kind of frostwall downgrade because of skills that abuse this AOE overlap it would not be fair for anyone that actually uses it. In a perfectly balanced game. "Main goal" Casters and ranged characters need defensive mechanics too. Not to mention removing frost wall is futile, considering actual walls will still exist.

Frost wall is not the problem. Here are a list of skills that abuse AOE overlap.

Explosive arrow
Lightning arrow
Firestorm
Icestorm (It's post nerf damage seems to be tailored around the AOE overlap, I do not consider this a problem skill)
Molten strike (Normally in conjunction with discharge, cast on crit, Mjollnir ec...)
Arctic Breath
Fireball (Arctic breath)
Ice shot
Blast rain
Kinetic Blast
Spark (To a lesser extent, considering it is not an AOE but gains function from a wall nonetheless, I do not consider this a problem skill)

Perhaps I missed a few. Not really sure. However, the point still stands. Aoe overlap needs to be removed. Also, the above skills need to be adjusted to compensate. Some to a greater extent than others.

Whirling blades: i'll admit that WB is effective in open areas (Sarn), however it is also necessary to address the fact that it's not very, or as effective in most 1 v 1 arenas. I think it should better than other movement skills, but to a much smaller degree of variance.

Tempest shield: this is a very strong mechanic because of a few reasons. Mainly, it's because of the static T value it has for pvp damage. It's also defensively oriented but provides automated offense. Anything that removes the player from actually playing the game needs to be under close scrutiny. (CWDT recieved -25% less damage pvp scaling for a reason)
I believe that as tempest shield triggers more, it's T-value needs to dynamically go down in relation to triggers. A form of T-value entropy. I also believe that it should have a lower minimum damage floor, but not to such a low degree that Lori's lantern>tempest shield.

Molten shell: We can't talk about molten shell without also talking about discharge. Per hit, these are your strongest potentially per hit spells in the game. However, they are still under the same pvp damage hardcap rules as everything else. Molten shell has never hit me for more than 5k per hit. Or anyone else for that matter. Although, given a low resistance rating there is room for variance (Cursed shocked EE ect.). I do believe that discharge and molten shell need an entropy based T-value. It maintains power for tactical casts, but loses a lot of power for fast triggers. Also, the real problem gentlemen. Is the Damage over time "DOT". When fire based discharges or molten shells cause an ignite. It seems to do burning damage based on the actual damage not the scaled damage (Also, double intergration...Fire damage=Elemental Damage=Burning damage)(Poison damage and the new updates made this a lot more apparent, however this interaction or flaw per se has always existed in relation to DOT effects. Which leads me to my next point.)

Damage overtime: It does not follow pvp hardcap scaling. As in, there is not a max damage floor per DOT. It is about the same in practice as AOE overlap. As you can bypass the pvp hardcap scaling to potentially deal much higher multiples of damage. Damage overtime needs to be adjusted in conjunction to per hit damage. This is the reason things like puncture, puncture traps (bleed), burning arrow traps, ect are so powerful, and yes even flame dash (This is how you counter grievel/tempest shield, Rlowe, haha). Or even a weapon with a chance to bleed and a high crit multi. This is actually as old as EA and just as bad in a different way. Righteous fire is the only skill to receive special attention to it's DOT damage, however the entire DOT mechanic needs this attention.

Traps: Nothing about traps is fair nor balanced. Next to EA this is the most glaring issue that remains unaddressed. They can stack. Hit for 5k with a comparatively low weapon/investment, and can come in a variety of flavors. Even if they were not able to stack. They would still be an issue, especially for melee based characters. With the introduction of mines, minion fodder are
completely useless as a workaround as well. Mines/traps are completely uneffective vs ranged though. This type of game interaction should not exist.

Crit vs RT debate

Critical hit mechanics should "always" (under any conditions in equal circumstance (Items)) outperform (Dps) non crit. This has more to do with opportunity costs vs item mod investment vs tree investment. also potential counters (Blind, unyielding, deceiver and to a lesser extent enfeeble (Enfeeble doesn't effect crit chance vs players as it says it does. It also has an affect on non crit too))Comparatively, critical hit/multi outperforms noncrit builds in terms of dps currently. This is ok and expected. What is not ok however is the gain in utility and function that indirectly comes with 95% critical chance. Status effects, surgeons flask and an extremely high damage ceiling (Bleed is a huge culprit and poison now too. Considering it takes full advantage of the high crit ceiling (Damage over time vs pvp scaling)). Ever wonder why a low damage hit from say whirling blades would bleed you to death? This is why. Just for the record, if there was a change to crit chance/multi it would also be necessary to adjust the avengers mod on flasks.

In optimal circumstances non crit can potentially hit the hard damage cap numbers per hit (mirrored weapons) with the added benefit of a more solid ehp rating and hard counters to crit via tree and loadout. A few things to consider is this. There are a lot more unoptimal players than optimal ones, and yes going critical chance/multi is a much easier investment/payout. Does that
mean legacy crit based mods are ok? Well, no, but that is an entirely different discussion and frankly not something I care to talk about. If there was a hardcap on crit chance and multi, legacy items would simply save some passive nodes in opportunity costs. People that earned these items deserve to use them. At the moment, critical mechanics are superior in function/dps. Non-crit is superior in opportunity costs/staying power. Our problem is the dps gain and function is >greater than> non-crits staying power and saved points in opportunity costs. I'm just pointing out that the perceived discrepancy is not as large as people make it out to be, but there is a true mathematical advantage at the low end, however it begins to disappear at the high end. As heavy crit multi damage stays on a plateau (Damage on hit, not bleed. Bleed is a problem), non crit eventually starts to catch up without the stipulations of hard critical damage counters.

ECT

Dynamic pvp damage scaling needs to be implemented. Right now it's around 5k. This is one shot potential against people with low ehp, but at the same time simply not enough against full tanks. AOE overlap, DOT exploitation and trap stacking can of course kill them, but if these exploits are removed, of course other changes need to be made to accommodate this.

Some of the new skills are too powerful to be certain. All the people that are abusing them however are not very good. I do believe that once the league ends this problem will fix itself. Blade vortex, blast rain ect is a train wreck waiting to happen, no point to even discuss it.

Also, and lastly. It's not like people don't know a lot of the problems with pvp. Some do it unknowingly. Some do it intentionally and pretend there isn't a problem. All the while people would rather stay politically correct than openly call other players/problems out, because they would look hypocritical at best. Perhaps, if the 5 people that constantly haunt the pvp forum started being real, then maybe player based choice will prevail in light of exploitable mechanics. Explosive arrow is a choice. So is frostwall. So it crit/bleed/DOT, traps, tempest shield ect. Things like reputation....good/bad/don't care....really don't matter. All people can do is simply observe and come to their own conclusions. If your openly exploiting mechanics what else is there to expect.

Do you think that people care what your items/pvprank is when your just another EA/trap/AOE whatever build? No. In fact most people just wait until the game slaps them on the wrist just to later watch them leave POE. Or at the very best notice they no longer exist after a while/if at all.
Remember all of those pre 2.0 shotgunners? I don't either, but I do remember beating them and others that beat them without it.

"

Critical hit mechanics should "always" (under any conditions in equal circumstance (Items)) outperform (Dps) non crit. This has more to do with opportunity costs vs item mod investment vs tree investment. also potential counters (Blind, unyielding, deceiver and to a lesser extent enfeeble (Enfeeble doesn't effect crit chance vs players as it says it does. It also has an affect on non crit too))Comparatively, critical hit/multi outperforms noncrit builds in terms of dps currently. This is ok and expected. What is not ok however is the gain in utility and function that indirectly comes with 95% critical chance. Status effects, surgeons flask and an extremely high damage ceiling (Bleed is a huge culprit and poison now too. Considering it takes full advantage of the high crit ceiling (Damage over time vs pvp scaling)). Ever wonder why a low damage hit from say whirling blades would bleed you to death? This is why. Just for the record, if there was a change to crit chance/multi it would also be necessary to adjust the avengers mod on flasks.

very well written, but i gotta add that in pvp 65+ crit chance is almost impossible to get. you can get, but your character would have 4k life. i agree with the rest. secondary damage, bleed, poison occured by crit is totally OP, the crit itself is okay in this meta.

"

ShinFuuma wrote:

Remember all of those pre 2.0 shotgunners? I don't either, but I do remember beating them and others that beat them without it.

I was a shotgunner pre-2.0 :*( Granted it was with Ice Spear, not something like Arctic Breath or Freezing Pulse (that was for pve), but I still had plenty of fun with it, got some kills where I could, and that was over 3k ES ago and 7-second freezes ago. But it was being abused by some other players, like Ranggey or whatever his name was; CoC flicker + Ice Spear + GMP. Was pretty nasty. But the removal of shotgun definitely steered me away from any sort of projectile spells, and turned me towards something much less obnoxious and difficult to use.

It is called Ice Storm.

Wow Rup, chilled out bro.

Don't start going all crazy about demonstrating how crit is hard to achieve or whatever just because I said it's too easy to stack (wich is true, I have 78%/71% crit chances on my ST/Bleed with 430% multiplier). It wasn't even directed against you but against crit in general including myself. I'm not saying it should be lowered by 50% I said it should be BETWEEN 50% (extreme value) and 30% or maybe lower.

Fixed my post