Feedback request: the April weapons changes.

[Razhak]

Remove parry from all one handed weapons + add the same amount to all shields (and then i mean also remove them from uniques and herons)
This means that one handed + shield = same as now and the shield becomes more important

Then remove a same amount (minus for instance 5) of parry from all 2 handed weapons

Example:

remove 10 parry from all one handed weapons, add 10 parry to all shields (across the field).
Remove 5 parry from all 2 handed weapons, but add nothing.

Numbers above are only for clarifying my calculus, the exact balanced amounts are up for discussion

[Davor]

A conundrum has arrived from above.

Re: sblades. If I down damage on those, that will also affect stab damage. Given how a lot of channelers now have 280+ hps and some of the more active pkers have 300+, as well as other classes rolling higher con/hps, I think it's an understatement when I say that downing stab damage is not a good idea.

I could lower the ob, but they would probably still carve through absers and most rogues already are frequently parried by comboers. I could make the dice roll cover a broader range, like at least one already has, but that could lead to frustratingly low stabs. I can't remove attack either, because then the shortblades in question wouldn't stab.

Given all the above, I think sblades should generally remain as they are.

This makes absolutely no sense. You guys upstairs are talking as if the ONLY WAY to kill a channeler is stab. Wtf? How many channelers actually die to stab vs just running out of hps from a slash. It's probably the exact same amount as a regular char vs a channeler. Yes their HPs are higher so that class needs to be looked at. You can't base a weapon decision on this, that makes absolutely no sense. I think stab should be downed, its bullshit you can get blicked for anything higher than 300 hps, stab is a shitty skill which requires no actual player skill and just a good trigger and luck. Most of the rogues couldn't get any decent kills chasing or leading so they prefer rogues who can just spam roll a command and pray for a kill.

I am a fair and benevolent man though. Up the stab landing %. I dont care if people low wounded and lower get blicked all day but ending a fight from healthy or hurt is horseshit because of a fucked up weapon class and a purely luck and dice roll game mechanic.

Here is how you balance channelers. In the past they were glass cannons: huge damage output and low hps. However now they are too tough and sitll have the same damage output. Decrease the sp/wil you are giving channelers across the board. Let them get 1-2 less weaves per a full SPs pool. It's the quickest fix that I can see, their total damage in a fight will go down but they are still tough.

[pial]

I am a fair and benevolent man though. Up the stab landing %. I dont care if people low wounded and lower get blicked all day but ending a fight from healthy or hurt is horseshit because of a fucked up weapon class and a purely luck and dice roll game mechanic.

I lol'd at the first part of this but I agree with the second part. I'd rather stab land at a higher rate but do less damage. Nothing is more stupid than dying to a 380+ hp stab. I do disagree on the luck comment though, there are definitely people who are much better at getting timed skills off than others, but there are also plenty of shitty pkers getting kills they otherwise never would have gotten.

I also agreed with the channeler comments. Rerolls broke channelers and that's fairly clear at this point. When a lot of these channelers running around only have 70ish hps less than I do that's broken as hell and I have 18 con.

I'd also say berserk warriors, fades, warders broke dodge. Berserk attack should be removed from fades and warders due to them already being handheld enough. They need to earn their kills rather than relying on a worse than luck mechanic (that being a win for free mechanic) when combined with their other bonuses. And before some idiot talks about zerk baiting realize you need numbers to do that which is something lacking!

[Elysia]

From the first post in this thread:

I just want to note again that there is nothing related to weapons changes we can do that will fix dodge or stab.

That means Davor's idea of making channelers glass cannons or upping stab is not something we/I can do. It's the same as with the people who are saying to make flails mendable, with that difference that that particular chance was requested in December. So sure, you can bank on such a coding change. There's simply no telling if or when it will happen. Ifeel doing nothing is an option, so we have to make do with what we can do, even if that means acting within the (severe) limits of the changes we can actually make: changing weapon stats. So please, don't try to balance the whole game in one thread. There have been frequent enough threads full of coding ideas. It's a good thing to be able to vent. But in this thread I'd like to stick with what is actually possible. Please?

Imo it's also not rerolls that broke fcs, but the removal of the female malus (or more accurately, male bonus). Rerolls made the increases possible for existint characters, yes. But the female malus removal removed some maxes, like con. Without the malus removal, fcs would still be within the old stat maxes and rerolls wouldn't have been able to change that.

[Razhak]

I'd also say berserk warriors, fades, warders broke dodge. Berserk attack should be removed from fades and warders due to them already being handheld enough. They need to earn their kills rather than relying on a worse than luck mechanic (that being a win for free mechanic) when combined with their other bonuses. And before some idiot talks about zerk baiting realize you need numbers to do that which is something lacking!

I am going to bite and say it anyhow: zerking is NOT a win for free mechanic. Coming from a spam-charger this is such a wonderfull generalisation.. (pun intended..)

landing a stab sometimes is..
landing a charge sometimes is...
landing that ice spike/zing/fs sometimes is as well.....

But zerking is not..

If I got zerk in any fight, thats an in-it-for-all-untill-the-end move. Even one more person coming into the fight from the opposite side can screw me over royally. No need for any numbers then +1 for that.

[pial]

There's post after post after post of dodgers getting rekt by berserkers in the ouch that hurt thread. There are many situations that turning on berserk has little to no downside at all (in doors as well as chasing low people), it's incredibly powerful especially in the context of berserk attack on fades and warders being a dodge ruiner. I'm sure the times you've been bitten in the ass by berserk have little to do with being on a dodger which is what my post was in reference to.

[Razhak]

It is about balance.

A dodger getting wrecked by a zerking opponent is a just thing. That is what zerk is for, that is why dodgers should be wary for zerk. If a dodger wants to be in a tickle fight, he/she should fight another dodger. If dodgers dont like getting bashed by zerk people, they should actually play combo..

That people turn on zerk in a door is understandable because you have nothing to lose.. But that is using a skill. You might as well blame a channeler for targetting someone in a door, or a stabber spamming a door open/shut in a door...

As a zerking fade I get wrecked alot of times by skills like channeling and so on as well, but I do not declare those skills as unjust or a "a win for free mechanic" because channelers lose defense while rolling a weave also, and can get bashed then as well and eat pain. I think zerking is actually quite balanced because it really makes you choose when and how you use the skill, and the skill not only gives you a bonus (attack, higher ob) but also gives a malus (not being able to flee, less importantly losing defense).

Similar malus are: stab/charge landing lag, defense loss on weaving, losing sps on failed weaves, etc.

[pial]

I didn't bother reading your response but I will say that zerk on warriors = good and balanced. Zerk attack on fades and warders = bad imbalance.

[Razhak]

To be back on topic, I actually think that weapons and setups should be made more "extreme"

With that I mean:
sure make an axe that has great ob, weight and damage, but give it a downside as well (kill any defense down to zero)
sure make a stave that gives oodles of defense, but make sure it wont give any ob and/or damage
sure make a one handed sword with great defense and good ob, but give it less damage

and so on, and so on.

The big difference between when I was a fade in 2006 and now in 2016 was that things got more and more averaged out, everything is regressing to the mean denominator.

There are no more all-or nothing setups anymore. Nothing deals out tons of damage anymore, or people got more and more hps in the meantime. Basically all absers still only got 400ish hps, but most channies rose to 300+ while in the old days most channies were glad to have 200+ (in other words the glass-cannons are no more).

just as a simple example, if your characters have more avg hps, you should actually increase certain damage outputs, or make it so that tanks become tanks again.

I dont know how to make this balanced or even feasible in any way, but this is what I believe. We are trying to balance everything so much, that we are just having one huge regression to the mean in the past years.

[Davor]

There's post after post after post of dodgers getting rekt by berserkers in the ouch that hurt thread. There are many situations that turning on berserk has little to no downside at all (in doors as well as chasing low people), it's incredibly powerful especially in the context of berserk attack on fades and warders being a dodge ruiner. I'm sure the times you've been bitten in the ass by berserk have little to do with being on a dodger which is what my post was in reference to.

I'm not sure you know what you're saying. A berserk fade will do just as much damage as a berserk master warrior. There is no difference in damage output. I'm also not sure how often fades go berserk but I would say you would want them to go berserk....that's literally how Lykan has died 2-3 times of his last few deaths. Out of my last 4-5 deaths at least 2 were berserk. It's a calculated risk. Dodgers getting destroyed by a berserk character is a risk they have to take and a risk they can easily avoid..flee or don't...or watch your hps when you do get low. Dodge is broken but it's not because of berserk. The only successful way to play it is with a gown and jcuffs.

Warders only get berserk attack when their sedai is on line. There aren't any active warder/AS pairs up north that this is even relevant. The last time I was berserk was smobbing.

I think berserk in general was a low risk maneuver back when fireworks loaded on trees. This has been significantly reduced and I feel more balanced.

Either way I wouldn't care if it was removed it would save me from the temptation to serk.

Back on topic, if we can't change stab % we can still down sblade damage...the change in stab % was just a compromise that really does not even need to happen, stab still lands a fair amount. I think the general consensus is that stab does way too much damage and so does melee sblades. Again, you can balance this by making only one sblade do amazing stab damage and lower the defense and offensive bonus significantly. Then make a spread of other sblades with good pb/ob. This change would seriously affect the way I play one of my main alts.

There are two powerful set ups right now for combo, sblades and long blades. You either need to down these two or up all the others. If we don't want to down sblades then lets start making the other changes that have been suggested for 1h axes, clubs, chains are never getting fixed so we can forget about them, fencing blades need some advantage over sblades (ruby rapier is approximately equal to cc dagger - maybe remove cc dagger and/or down it significantly), spears are fine in my opinion - if you want make a heavier one with slightly less damage (is charge also related to damage?) so it can charge and bash but the charge effect would be lower.