Epic Perfect World

Comprehensive class guide for balance

Offline Asator

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Allright, basically the finality of this thread is to organize, identify and try to solve problems regarding unbalance within classes. I'm going to make a list of them, narrow down the players general feeling about them and their opinions on what each class needs to have nerfed, powered-up, modified or fixed.

Please, post constructive criticism.

This way we'll be able to have organized data to balance things out and it'll be easier for Agatio to see.

Assasins

Problems:

- Their damage per hit is too high.
- They shouldn't be allowed to use bows. (Important)
- Critical chance too high.
- Buffs are too powerful.
- Interval too high
- Interval cape overpowers them.

Possible solutions:

- Weakened interval daggers
- Make bows class restricted to Archers. (Important)
- Lower the levels of Tidal Protection and Focused Mind to around Lvl. 5.
- Decrease HP and/or resistances/defense.
- Restric buffs to Lvl. 10 or lower.
- Restrict interval cape so Assasin can't use it.

Archers

Problems:

- Their survivability is too low. (Important)

Possible solutions:

- Increase their resistances/defense. (Important)

Seekers

- They're a balanced class that needs no modifications whatsoever, specially after Morai.

Blademasters

-They're a balanced class that needs no modifications whatsoever.

Barbarians

Problems:

- Their attack output is too high. (Important)

Possible solutions:

- Nerf the attack value of poleaxes. (Important)

General

- Removing soulstones and making more weapons with specific attributes. This would as well give more diversity to classes and allow players to adjust weapons to their playstyle.

- Make armors class restricted, since armors is what gives them the power they have, making each one class specific will allow classes to be balanced better.

- Make Occult Ice class restricted if possible.

- Make better stealth detection potions.

- Give casters their own soulstones to balance them out with physical classes.

(Updated to last page) Take notice this is a list of possible solutions, not all will be implemented. It will depend on if it can be done and what Agatio thinks about it.
Last Edit: June 21, 2012, 03:44 pm by Asator
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If you have any problem, feel free to PM me.



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Offline Salvation

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ASSASSINS:

everyone seems to be bent on nerfing their damage and removing stealth, which if done wrong will ruin sin completely and will piss off ALOT of people that have spent time on making their sin.

I say you actually balance them, not throw them out the window. NERF THE SURVIVABILITY. an ASSASSIN is meant to quickly surprise someone and kill them as quick as they can, because they lack the ability to last very long in a fight. Lower the max lvl of Tidal Protection and Focused mind. Maybe decrease max hp or resistances of sins passively (not talking about a stupidly great ammount)

Archers should have that advantage over sins, the greater survivability in a fight paired with evasion
Bms, barbs also get the advantage of lasting enough time in a fight to easily kill the sin that cannot last

The low survivability should also REINFORCE the "stunlock" and stealth abilities of sins because it would be needed to get the jump on your opponent.

I play sin and i think making them squishier would be alot easier and better for the game than making them underpowered rather than balanced and getting so many players to leave unable to play their favorite class

Offline CENT

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archer- damage dealer defense is fine leave it alone there are many excellent archers here they do great

barb- its a tank leave it at that, they deal too much damage even barbs would agree

bm- pretty good leave it alone

seeker- perfect leave it alone

wizzy veno cleric mystic psy- fairly well done leave them alone, hard to lvl them means many dont play arcane unless they truly enjoy the class.

sin- bows should be class restricted to archers 140+ just like daggers are unavailable to others that is an archer weapon. aps too high damage too high get chi like crazy constant triple spark and stuns.

occult ice- is too much, should be removed it was talked about but never implemented, or make it restricted from bm and sins since they have several usable stuns.


Offline Anima

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Yes it's true bm are a balanced class but some of the other classes are not, bm have some hp and def but the damage is a little low in my opinion. Theoretical i can kill every class in 1v1, but practical whit some classes is a pain. Even so only to change something to become worse better leave everything as is now. Changing something means to anger some players anyway, and whit new tideborn races we never get a balanced game.

Offline Delirium

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Read a few of my posts I've already posted? People know what I think and I cba to repeat myself once more. c.c

@ Elly


"MYSTIC:

In my opinion: They are pretty much fine. Only thing that bothers me is them having a physical damage skill with OP damage, pets and plus to that, a low cooldown heal. What the fak is with absorb soul dealing damage through AD/Ironguard? Reduce their attack a bit and it should be fine."

Absorb soul is a tricky skill, it's a non elemental damage attack and it's damage is based offen the oponents defense. In duels AD/Irongaurds will not work however in open PK will be resisted, though expel/psy will will not resist it. It ignores any attack levels (Yours) or def levels (The oponents) buffs do affect the damage but % reduction skills/pots don't affect it, for example Dew of Star/Wingrise, to add it ignores Psy buffs. Uhh, can't remember what else but yeah, it's deadly against venos (Human form) and Psy especially. :3

^Made by me! :P
NOT ALL CLASSES MADE FOR PVP SOME WERE MADE FOR PVE
Mhm. x'D
Assasins:
    return aps to what it was before the interval cape was added... make their buffs cap at lvl 10 (I'd go lower but i'll just say 10 just so the sins wont pms all over this post).

Barbarians:
    nerf their dmg output... shouldn't be too hard because imo they aren't too broken

Seekers:
    i actually think this class is as balanced as you can get. go 1v1 Rance or Camron then come back to me and tell me this class needs a buff

Blademasters:
   again i find this class to be very balanced.. they have a high survive-ability if they remember to marrow and their damage output isn't ridiculousness high (if you take away the interval cape i suggest they get some damage output buff)

Psychics:
    make SoS proc 10% of the times that should make things a lot better (i wouldn't have droped it so low if people weren't buffing themselves with psy buffs to pk on their mains)

Mystics:
    i think people should really REALLY try out mystics more, they'll find this class very strong once they do... (i've had someone 2 shot me on their mystics before).

Venomancers:
    again i find this class to be balanced

Wizards:
    i see people complaining that they're op when the truth is they aren't.... we have one combo that we can use to kill people (fire combo) and if you AD when we try to stun you with mountain seize or Faith when we cast the debuff on you the wizard is just a sitting duck waiting to get killed... (I'm not sure why I'm explaining how to counter me but it's not like its hard to figure it out)

Clerics:
    balanced imo (HA clerics too gewd)

Archers:
    this class needs more defense imo their damage output is fine 

Offline Mirae

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HEAVY ARMOR:
They're supposed to have high hp, be able to damage out caster's full HP in 10 seconds without sparking but to still need some skill (not just apsing) in order to outdamage it. Also, as they have high HP and defense, they shouldn't have equal attacks to casters. So,

BLADEMASTER:

In my opinion: Blademasters are fine. They don't need any boost, nor nerf. They have enough damage to outdamage caster's charm period, but they can't keep the stunlock that way. If they do keep the stunlock, they will not have enough damage to kill by just apsing in between. Against melee's, they can always use spark + antistun sprint cause melee user won't kite.

BARBARIAN:


In my opinion: They're not supposed to have so high attack. They have enough defense to tank a few players attacking at the same time, with 3 defense skills. What actually makes them OP is ability to zerk crit every few seconds. My suggestion is to nerf their crit rate (won't help much with demon tho) and disable using sacred stones (not many of them are using it anyway) since they already have GoF.

SEEKER:


In my opinion: They're fine considering defense. Attack seems a bit low though. Adding another 10% to their attack would've fixed that. They need it because they have low number of stuns and their freeze can be avoided by any kiting class (sage summer sprint/purify/sage bubble of life/distance shrink/leap left/right etc.).

LIGHT ARMOR

They're supposed to deal high physical damage, to be decently squishy. They should be able to kill casters in a few seconds, while also dying to casters in the same time.

ARCHER:

In my opinion: Archers just need defense. Attack is fine with high chance to purge. Another 20% or even 30% defense would help them balance with others.

ASSASSIN


In my opinion: Ok, where should I start. They are supposed to be balanced to archers. Let's compare it now:
Archers have to attack from high range to get their full damage. Sins can go melee.
Sins build chi ridiculously faster. Their aps is 4.0 with windshield/spark and they have 3 chi building skills. Archers have 1.xx aps on bow, and none chi skills.
Sins have many stuns. Archers have 1 stun and 1 freeze.
Sins can go stealth. Archers can too, but they can't move while doing that.
Sins have 25% chance to avoid any damage or 50% chance to avoid negative status effects (That is like having cleric constantly (half)BBing next to you or having cleric purifying you with 50% chance). Archers don't have any defense skills, regardless of 1 spark skill (forgot name >_<) that takes a while to cast and only gives 20% reduction.
Finally, sins can use bows to get purge and have full damage as archers. Archers have significantly reduced attack if they wear fists (compared to sins with daggers).

My suggestion: Make lv140+ bows class locked. Remove sage and demon version of tidal/fm or, even better, make them maximum at level 4 or 5. Remove armor crush stone. Spark cooldown to 15 seconds. Remove demon/sage stealth, or give us advanced awareness pills. Note: I'm not suggesting all of these to be applied. Removing 1 or 2 things would balance I think.

ARCANE ARMOR

WIZARD:

In my opinion: They're fine. They will be a little OP once they get their descent skills, that's why adding purify weapon for this class would really screw melee's up. I suggest not touching them.

VENOMANCER:

In my opinion: Hehe, since I play this class, I will not suggest nerfing them. Although, I have to complain about pet damage. Pet is hiting 300-400 on a players, while mystic pet hits around 1k, and their pets have much more survivability. Also, to be honest, I find a little OP that I can stunlock casters for good 30 seconds if I use stunning blow. My suggestion: Don't touch them. xD

CLERIC:

In my opinion: As said before, they do need more mana for plume shell. They also need purify weapon since they're easier to kill than all other casters. Suggestion: +5000 mana on class locked weapon. Add class locked purify weapon that has higher requirements for magic, since heavy cleric with that weapon would be impossible to kill.

PSYCHIC:

In my opinion: They're OP cause they can switch to white voodoo and still have seal chance. My suggestion: Limit white voodoo to level 1 and leave seal chance same as now, or have seal chance reduced by reducing maximum level of skill to 4 or 5.

MYSTIC:

In my opinion: They are pretty much fine. Only thing that bothers me is them having a physical damage skill with OP damage, pets and plus to that, a low cooldown heal. What the fak is with absorb soul dealing damage through AD/Ironguard? Reduce their attack a bit and it should be fine.

Thank you for reading this essay, I tried putting it in shortest way. Those are my opinions and suggestions. I don't know how much this will be balanced after descent, but I hope agatio can accept some of these suggestions.

I'm not really sure if everything i wrote is true =.= I can't think a lot atm
+1 to the venos pet xD!!

Offline Salvation

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Personally, I think classes should stay as is.

changing things this delicate could cause major problems

Offline Feone

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Yea, a large part of the QQ about classes being OP simply comes from people not knowing how to fight or use their classes. Your average sin will demonspark instantly first chance they get and then run after you trying to APS I mean come on... HURR SIN SMASH RAWR.
I think the very fact that there are so many different people out at west itself is PROOF that classes aren't out of balance, at least not badly. If you look at PWI PK spots theres sins, sins, sins, sins, more sins, a few bm's/barbs and the occasional decked out psy. Also some more sins in stealth and a bunch of seekers since they are pretty good at killing sins.
If you look at pk here theres.. welll.. everything.  So much variance in classes and builds itself is proof that there are a lot of viable builds and classes and not just the current PWI unbalance of assassin or gtfo. The #1 way to tell if something is OP is looking at pk and seeing which classes are most popular (take difficulty of leveling into account as well, people are lazy so arcanes are slightly rarer due to the difficulty leveling them).

For seekers... yea the average player would need an attack blessbox, their skills are limited to spark and run after the target.. HURR SEEKER SMASH. For most of the I'd say learn to play and then come back because you'll find your class to be quite powerfull.

The one thing I'd like to see removed is Occult Ice, the simple fact that it stacks with regular stuns & takes no timing whatsoever to stunlock with is kinda OP. This and some of the wizzy morai skills, but we'll see when all that stuff comes out I guess.
Yea, a large part of the QQ about classes being OP simply comes from people not knowing how to fight or use their classes. Your average sin will demonspark instantly first chance they get and then run after you trying to APS I mean come on... HURR SIN SMASH RAWR.
I think the very fact that there are so many different people out at west itself is PROOF that classes aren't out of balance, at least not badly. If you look at PWI PK spots theres sins, sins, sins, sins, more sins, a few bm's/barbs and the occasional decked out psy. Also some more sins in stealth and a bunch of seekers since they are pretty good at killing sins.
If you look at pk here theres.. welll.. everything.  So much variance in classes and builds itself is proof that there are a lot of viable builds and classes and not just the current PWI unbalance of assassin or gtfo. The #1 way to tell if something is OP is looking at pk and seeing which classes are most popular (take difficulty of leveling into account as well, people are lazy so arcanes are slightly rarer due to the difficulty leveling them).

For seekers... yea the average player would need an attack blessbox, their skills are limited to spark and run after the target.. HURR SEEKER SMASH. For most of the I'd say learn to play and then come back because you'll find your class to be quite powerfull.

The one thing I'd like to see removed is Occult Ice, the simple fact that it stacks with regular stuns & takes no timing whatsoever to stunlock with is kinda OP. This and some of the wizzy morai skills, but we'll see when all that stuff comes out I guess.

the thing is people don't want to work on their timing or baiting peoples skills or any of that...... they all want to spark occult ice and auto attack people

Offline Ninja

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On the note of seekers I am just saying what I have observed, there are 3-4 great pvp seeker, and 3-4 great pve seekers, the rest struggle, the fact that the few that are exceptional at thier class still can be taken down by an average player shows that  they do need a small boost, an exceptional player who really knows thier class should be able to beat most players who do not understand their class nearly as well. Like an exceptional sin hardly dies to an average psychic.

(On all classes) A lot of it you guys are right, its people not trying to learn how thier class works or effective combos, which obviously means that we have to look for the errors in balance, and not just something many inexperienced people are asking about.

I have been sitting at west quite often when I have nothing to attend to and watch the pkers to see how different players pk, different combos, the lot, so that when it comes to balancing them I can get as unbias view as possible. I have also played and pked each class (Not to say im good), so I have some idea of how each works.
Ex-GM

Thanks Syringe for the pic & JuJuBeez for the awesome sig!
On the note of seekers I am just saying what I have observed, there are 3-4 great pvp seeker, and 3-4 great pve seekers, the rest struggle, the fact that the few that are exceptional at thier class still can be taken down by an average player shows that  they do need a small boost, an exceptional player who really knows thier class should be able to beat most players who do not understand their class nearly as well. Like an exceptional sin hardly dies to an average psychic.

(On all classes) A lot of it you guys are right, its people not trying to learn how thier class works or effective combos, which obviously means that we have to look for the errors in balance, and not just something many inexperienced people are asking about.

I have been sitting at west quite often when I have nothing to attend to and watch the pkers to see how different players pk, different combos, the lot, so that when it comes to balancing them I can get as unbias view as possible. I have also played and pked each class (Not to say im good), so I have some idea of how each works.

wait wait wait.... so just to follow your way of thinking.... if someone is just an average player and wants to be an exceptional player he should just ask for his class to get a buff? (lolwut)

ok there's a reason why Rance is the top seeker on the server... he put the time into learning and perfecting his play style on his seeker... if seekers want to be as good as him then they should also work hard on perfecting their own play style not bitch and whine about their class being underpowered....

now then the other side of this argument would be then how do you determine what classes are overpowered. simple its the ones that require no time or effort to get good on (i.e psy and sins)... the fact is i can log on a 150 sin and literally button smash the crap out of triple spark and occult ice and be able to kill 75% of the people pking (i have logged on peekaboo and tested this theory and 3/4 people did die). the same thing goes to psychics i have a 150 psy that i have spend little to no time working on perfecting my timing on it yet its more effective in group pks and 1v1s than my wizard who i have spend hours trying different combos and getting the timing on all the skills on.

Offline Elly

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@Delirium

I read a thread on pw forums and it seems that soul absorb is a wood damage skill that deals 0 damage skill and has a single physical damage DOT after that. Altho, it still goes through nullify poison or expel, so how am I supposed to defend myself other than Ironguard/AD (which doesn't work sometimes also) when I'm down to 5-10k hp against a mystic. Problem with that skill on this server is that it's supposed to have 5 sec channeling, with mystic channel skill and channel reduce on this server, it's just hax.

Elly - 150 Sage venomancer
Decipher - 150 Demon mystic

[22:32:11] Chad: the name rev
[22:32:13] Chad: is foul language

Offline Ninja

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  • The god of all stalkers! :D
wait wait wait.... so just to follow your way of thinking.... if someone is just an average player and wants to be an exceptional player he should just ask for his class to get a buff? (lolwut)

ok there's a reason why Rance is the top seeker on the server... he put the time into learning and perfecting his play style on his seeker... if seekers want to be as good as him then they should also work hard on perfecting their own play style not bitch and whine about their class being underpowered....

now then the other side of this argument would be then how do you determine what classes are overpowered. simple its the ones that require no time or effort to get good on (i.e psy and sins)... the fact is i can log on a 150 sin and literally button smash the crap out of triple spark and occult ice and be able to kill 75% of the people pking (i have logged on peekaboo and tested this theory and 3/4 people did die). the same thing goes to psychics i have a 150 psy that i have spend little to no time working on perfecting my timing on it yet its more effective in group pks and 1v1s than my wizard who i have spend hours trying different combos and getting the timing on all the skills on.

The end part just proved my point. The average sin or psy can take down a great player without trouble, adding the buff would mean that it would take a better sin or psy to take down a great player, and force the average to get better at thier class.

Nerfing skills while it is probably the better thing, is impractical, given removing content will cause so many complaints compaired to adding content to balance. Hence the buff, bring each class up abit to counter the fact that there is little we can do without mass complaints to sins or psys.

Also as said in the other forum (I will close it and post a link to this one), bms are a balance point, but they are a touch better than seekers, so seekers need a small boost.
Ex-GM

Thanks Syringe for the pic & JuJuBeez for the awesome sig!
The end part just proved my point. The average sin or psy can take down a great player without trouble, adding the buff would mean that it would take a better sin or psy to take down a great player, and force the average to get better at thier class.

Nerfing skills while it is probably the better thing, is impractical, given removing content will cause so many complaints compaired to adding content to balance. Hence the buff, bring each class up abit to counter the fact that there is little we can do without mass complaints to sins or psys.

Also as said in the other forum (I will close it and post a link to this one), bms are a balance point, but they are a touch better than seekers, so seekers need a small boost.

no bms do not have anything better than a seeker..... seekers can pretty much counter anyone with quid pro quo.... i think everyone in this game uses debuff before killing someone, all a seeker has to do is quid pro quo when they start hitting him with the debuffs and he should win. i don't understand how you can say a BM has it better than a seeker