Proposal: Remove PB from the bash landing calculation

[Jestin]

I haven't seriously played a rogue since 2001, jestin was mastered and faded as a 19 14 19 abser or something like that

[reil]

Noted but I still vote demorting Jestin to rogue.

[Yaerin]

Removing PB from bash calculation would take combo weapons from "less bash" to "no bash" on dodge. Don't want PK in combo to end up looking even worse than this. Guessing that their DB is something like 154, I had a 15% chance of landing and would have a 0% chance of landing with a brass hilted if PB was out of equation. It would only be a 3% chance on 140 DB. People need to be able to hit each other, and I don't think they should be required to have rare weapons in order for that to happen.

There's probably ways to rebalance without PB, but it would be a massive project for imms. I just don't think it's going to affect the more pressing balance issue of melee dmg getting calculated wrong, which is really what makes abs feel bad.

[isabel]

Offended on behalf of abs mainers

I don't see the problem though

Abs was always about quick and easy fun on the game, while still being effective in pk

Combo was for leaders and people who wanted to rack up tps and average players who didn't want to die

Why are we trying to equate combo and abs? It's not about being equally effective. It's a personality choice. I will still always pick abs over combo because combo gets ultra boring for me, just as for many players abs gets ultra boring.

Each setup allows you to do something different.

Dodge is Mozart
Combo is Bob Dylan
Abs is Taylor Swift

[Asandra]

Bringing Taylor Swift to a gun fight could end badly.

ABS vs ABS is great PK, when there's others around it quickly bites the dust. Haven't seen ABS players in days...

Why I recommend removing PB from the bash equation is to hamper combo and thus give ABS (weapons) an edge and making it worthwhile. Someone smarter than me can do some calculations but perhaps removing 1db per basic dodge item and adding some ob to the weapons should fix the unbashability while still giving ABS a fun boost.

Instead of dodgers going "woohoo target the abser" they should go "oh no the abser is going to bash me!"

Anything that "ups" absorption equipment also improves combo.

[isabel]

In fairness
I do not know the new balance of anything

I think abs was always weaker and briefly was made stronger more recent years

But for the longest time ever abs was always a bad version of combo

[Kryyg]

Simply not true. Even if I was 18 15 19. I’d still go combo and be way ahead of an abser. I know this because I did it.

Maybe if the abser is also you. But let's pretend 18 15 19 is intrinsically worse in combo than 19 18 19 or 18 19 19 and there's some sacrifice in defense being made there and you're going to get your ass shredded easily by 2+ people. Besides, I'm not suggesting we *only* balance with stats.

No one mains an an abser and most of you never did because combo and dodge became so plentiful there is a generation of players who never played abs. Everyone fades a rogue.

Stop projecting, most people have mained and mastered more absers than you've played characters. Probably because they've played something besides fade and combo attacking melee weapon paired with Kajin-baiting in the two decades. smdh.

I do agree the balance isn’t terrible in today’s game. The problem with making everything so plentiful is that rare combo weapons aren’t actually rare anymore. They have become the standard. Which is fine but rare abs weapons are not significantly better and by nature will never be more plentiful because no one is going to craft them. If the cost is similar. Everyone will get combo weapons. It just makes sense. You will survive longer and enjoy it longer. Probably kill more too.

Just make abs craftable weapons cheaper then or just rebalance regular abs weapons to perform like current craftable abs weapons. I personally don't want to up the survivability on anything (dodge/abs/combo) or turn any weapons into tickle sticks. I'd rather up normal abs weapons and let the advantage of abs be that it's the one set up you can grab basics, a weapon, and a vial and still be pretty competitive.

I agree. Rogue con should be capped at 16.

I'm glad we agree and I'm sure we also agree that we simply must demort Jestin back to rogue in this scenario.

Wah Wah Wah. Played 19 19 19 since Seanchan easy mode was implemented then rogues and wolf brothers. I guess I could stop using mob support but I do try to continue to PK since I’m usually low and play outnumbered. I know those two things aren’t your style and if you did get low you popularized the spam quaff all potions - starting with the tinful. Sorry. Lolol. That was too good.

I think there needs to be a balance of survivability and offensive capacity is all I’m saying. As far as I can tell, in my vast experience, nothing has changed to make abs more viable in the last 20 years. And % was upped but combo weapons were concurrently upped.

[Yaerin]

Anything that "ups" absorption equipment also improves combo.

Not relative to each other, if you're talking about fixing mitigation. Taking 10 damage instead of 14 is a lot more valuable than taking 14 damage instead of 18. And a reliable formula for the damage means that combo absorption can be adjusted down if necessary.

[reil]

play outnumbered. I know those two things aren’t your style

Yet here I am arguing 2 v 1 -- not even sure who's on the Kryyg account right now, probably the both of you. I assume every coherent sentence is Jestin and everything else is Kryyg.

Okay, with that out of the way:

I think there needs to be a balance of survivability and offensive capacity is all I’m saying. As far as I can tell, in my vast experience, nothing has changed to make abs more viable in the last 20 years. And % was upped but combo weapons were concurrently upped.

Nothing has changed to make abs more viable in the last 20 years? Off the top of my head:

- Weapons OB being upped across the board has primarily benefited absers with the least amount of downside to them. It mostly sucks for combo and dodge. Good thing imo, let 'em (Rig) weep.

- Most top-end abs weapons do way more than the previous ceiling of 6d6 for them -- they often do roughly the damage that herons did forever. A lot is made for combo, but of the top 14 weapons that do 22+ damage on average, 10 of them are abs iirc. The others are combo weapons like the super scary saw axe as well as the 'head for the hills' finely axe, and not to mention the 'people totally use this' gold warspear thing.

- Murgoz

- ABS decay rate change

- Warrior OB

- Warrior mitigation (super noticeable against patrols and cities -- primarily an abs bonus, but works well for human combo warriors too)

- Trolloc survival (absers make the most out of this)

- 21 str trollocs via teas

- We've tried 87% max abs (turns out, that was over the top and dumb)

I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton. If any of this sounds like I'm arguing against abs, I'm not. I just don't think there needs to be balance edged towards survivability any more than this game is by virtue of literally 95% of the pbase being 10 year veterans, 94% with maps, and 75% with scripts and all that other bullshit to play the game for them. I think abs needs to be able to kill anything and everything to balance the fact that it dies a lot, short of berserk attack because berserk attack is idiotic on any character, but particularly stattable ones. People somehow have the memory of goldfish, but it was like, firetrucking, yesterday that everyone and their aunt were whining about getting bashed and dying "with their super rare dodge set, you guys, I swear it was hard to get".

To do those things, I think it's much better to make things like spam-fleeing have more consequence than what's offered by our 16+ wil world where maps tell you where you are before you're even there instead of obsessing over the (pretty decent) weapons balance. Oh and firetrucking acknowledge and fix the issue with rank damage and abs -- that is clearly not working as intended and splitting hairs about the mechanism of what's fucked up when the more important thing is anything the end user can see and hate is silly.

PS - speaking strictly to someone I recognize as a peer, if you're killing 1-2 people before dying in abs, that is strictly a you issue. Make an effort to play abs more and play to the strengths and weaknesses instead of treating every character like you're on your 290 defense 75% abs fade and I promise you that ratio will get much better even playing aggressively.

edit - Here's a thought -- how about we make half-tick HP regen based on a worn-weight threshold? Then down weight on combo gear and slightly down the db/pb on them to compensate for the lower weight?!

[Kryyg]

Weapon OB being upped across the board with total defense also being upped across the board. Combo weapons also hit just as much OB as abs weapons so I don't even know what you're talking about here.

Abs weapons damage ceiling was upped....along with combo weapons. It's like you're intentionally ignoring everyone else's post. A firetrucking finely axe does 5d8 damage and a claymore does 7d5. The finely axe is 15+ lbs? In my opinion bashes just as well as a claymore in every situation. Claymore weighs more. Top end rare combo versus top end abs rares? Both similar again.

Murgoz abs? Great. Heavy combo was introduced and gold abs are more common than riveted combo. Morions, gleaming boots. Ornate shirts. Everything got upped.

Abs decay rate change. Who cares. Gear is so common you can refresh your kit without mending every PK session.

Warrior OB. Ok. Agree. They finally got something. But a warrior can also be 19 19 18 and play combo so again doesn't really come into our discussion.

Warrior mitigation. Agree. The only class that has some benefit playing abs. But again, warrior. Warriors don't lead. This was clearly a buff to smobers.

I say go back to 87% abs, was that really the problem or was it 87% abs with insane mitigation that was previously placed.

You may be forgetting a ton but played experience trumps all these data points.

In the end I'm just arguing for funsies. I think it stands that abs is still terrible.

As to your PS, that was obviously just relative numbers. I could play like the average player and get 100 kills playing abs. I fully concede my play style of constantly playing low and just playing til I die is not suited to playing abs (for now!).

I agree in part on survivability since everyone is a script turd but absers still get screwed - even the most veteran, it doesn't matter how good you are.

The half tick idea has merit.

I think the most fair idea would be to have combo gear max at 55-66% max absorption and combo weapons max at 10-15PB. Full heavy combo right now maxes at 77? 76? You can get 260-300 defense depending on your weapon? Full abs maxes at 83%? You can get 0 defense and the same OB and bash% as your combo counterpart? Seems pretty fubar. Now lets say we implemented lower stats. even you if you made combo stats 18 17 18, in a full kit you would still get 270-280 defense? with 76 abs? Would make some difference I think but not significant enough. Worthwhile to try capping everyone.