Malkavian posted the following in a thread about nukers dealing less damage.
"who cares how much dmg they do for pve, balance is only really an issue for PvP. And this game was just not designed for 1v1."
I fail to understand how being an overpowered PvE Class has no bearing on PvP. The benefits to being a mage(other than necro) in PvE seem to push you far higher into being able to PvP than a melee fighter can attain right now.
1)You level faster. For most mage classes, downtime is non-existant(SPS, and Necro without Spike). For SPS and SH you have overhit spells to push you farther faster.
2)Better money making ability. Stated plainly, intelligent nukers make big bank hunting. Thier ability to kill fast means they finish quests faster, have a better overall chance at seeing drops in higher level areas and in most cases can step down a level of mobs and 2 shot without the use of BSPS. You can afford better gear faster than a melee character if you know what you are doing and take advantage of quests and drop rates.
3)Over Enchanted weapons do much more for Nukers than Melee. How many 70+ Nukers ran around with +7-10 Homu's for the majority of C3? Matk is heavily effected by the +s on your weapon. Patk is less effected unless we are talking Daggers/Archers.
4)Your tattoo setup is the same for PvE as it is for PvP. +4 wit +4 Int -8 Men +4 Con -4 Str. Find me a nuker with a tatt setup that does not include +Wit and Int. With B2M you can afford to nerf your Men stat, SPS with Mana Recharge at higher levels can solo fine if they are careful, even with -8 Men. Dwarf tattoos are impossible to set up for PvE and PvP at the same time. I can nerf my Damage, HP or Run Speed/Accuracy. If I set up for Damage and Speed/Accuracy, I lose my ability to solo by losing Pdef and HP.
Nukers and to a slightly lesser extent Archers, seem to have few flaws when it comes to PvE and PvP. The few times I see a "sucky" nuker, the fault is not in the character itself, the fault lies with the player not knowing what they are doing(Doom Robes on a Sorc? WHY!).
Im not too upset with my lot in life, I know my character is a meat shield. Im meant to run into the fray and soak up nukes so the DDs behind me can have a few more seconds to get rolling.
So, those are the reasons I feel that PvE Balance is everything to PvP. I feel that it is logically unsound to believe that PvE balance has little or no bearing on PvP. The two are locked together, and you cant seperate them.
this game is ALL pvp. it was deisgned specifically with pvp in mind. there arent any pvp-free servers for carebears and such. everywhere you go you are faced with this.
that being said some classes are naturally better than others in this regard. it is this diversity that makes the game so well designed imo. now hear me out: IF you wanted a fair fight, yu would go ranged vs ranged, melee vs melee, or mage vs mage. in ALL other combinations, the battle is lop-sided. correct? good, now move on. classes were simply disgned to fight similar classes. not opposing ones.
so go ahead and complain about your dwarf not being able to pvp a mage, cos you werent built to do that. so dont try.
as for pve affecting pvp, the two are one and the same. fighting mobs is exactly like fighting pvp. EXACTLY!.
pit your archer vs another archer, betcha youre fighting will be much more arduous than if you ran against a melee mob. betcha a million adenas.
now some will raise the issue about the olympiad. and the hero system. well to put it plainly, you can try all you like, but if you dont end up winning, it is ultimately your own fault.
CantoScav, I agree with most of your post, but you have one huge mistake in there:
3)Over Enchanted weapons do much more for Nukers than Melee.
UGH! Why do people keep saying this when it's blatantly not true?
MAtk affects damage by square roots, so actually nukers get less from overenchanting than people using PAtk (melee or not, you're neglecting archers).
All signs point to the game being designed as a clone of previous PVE games and then having PVP roughly slapped on top of the PVE game.
The game was originally designed with far more concern given to physical damage because originally mobs didn't cast. That's part of the reason the magic damage and casting speed is so messed up, the mages were balanced out to be able to solo effectively with just SPS. They determined that soloing with SPS for most mages at lower levels was slower then for melee so they gave them BSPS before the high level game was even up and running.
Ranged isn't designed to defeat ranged. Mages aren't designed to defeat mages. Some of the classes were designed to kill an even level mob that's most likely dealing melee damage. Tanks weren't designed to kill mobs at higher levels. Healers and Buffers with few exceptions were not designed to kill mobs. The damage taken during a fight suggests that the melee damage dealers were not designed to solo efficiently. Archers and Mages are the only classes properly balanced with the solo PVE game in mind and given a bag of extra skills to make that possible which is exactly what makes them overpowered in PVP.
If all classes lost the same % of HP/MP per fight against a generic equal level mob then the game would be balanced except for the amount of time necessary to kill the mob. Then the next spectrum to be setup would be the risk vs speed ratio to further balance the classes.
If you think this is a balanced game then I am seriously jealous of you. It really is bliss.
pve and pvp has it's differences. Mobs can't upgrade gear, level up, learn new things (until NCSoft plays with them). Also the mobs do the same thing so you generally know what to expect, which isn't entirely true with a player.
With some classes (not all) there IS a different set up to be wanted if you are wanting to do a lot of pvp instead of pve..it depends.
pve and pvp has it's differences. Mobs can't upgrade gear, level up, learn new things (until NCSoft plays with them). Also the mobs do the same thing so you generally know what to expect, which isn't entirely true with a player.
With some classes (not all) there IS a different set up to be wanted if you are wanting to do a lot of pvp instead of pve..it depends.
But who in thier right mind expects mob AI to respond anywhere close to human intelligence.
pve and pvp has it's differences. Mobs can't upgrade gear, level up, learn new things (until NCSoft plays with them). Also the mobs do the same thing so you generally know what to expect, which isn't entirely true with a player.
With some classes (not all) there IS a different set up to be wanted if you are wanting to do a lot of pvp instead of pve..it depends.
But who in thier right mind expects mob AI to respond anywhere close to human intelligence.
Have you seen the quality of some human "intelligence"?
Wrong bekkar. MAtk has less bearing on damage than PAtk. Enchanting a weapon for magic properties has more of an effect (compared to the way magic weapons scale up) than enchanting a physical weapon. It's not about the absolute number, but compare how easy it is to push a mage weapon up a grade boundary to doing the same for a melee weapon. ;)
And yes, the PvE and 1v1 balance is relevant - how someone figures this game could possibly be balanced for PvP when dwarves exist is beyond me. NCSoft has made some attempts to act on this, but they were anything but convincing.
Wrong bekkar. MAtk has less bearing on damage than PAtk. Enchanting a weapon for magic properties has more of an effect (compared to the way magic weapons scale up) than enchanting a physical weapon. It's not about the absolute number, but compare how easy it is to push a mage weapon up a grade boundary to doing the same for a melee weapon. ;)
So close, yet so far ;)
I'm right for the reasons that you think I'm wrong, if you actually check the effect of MAtk at each grade.
You were close when you said "MAtk has less bearing on damage than PAtk"--but then, like many people, you got caught up in the numbers. You said "It's not about the absolute number", but then you proceeded to focus entirely on the number--you mistakenly believe that the grade of a mage's weapon is important. Nope. For mage weapons, going up a grade does very little because MAtk has a progressively smaller benefit with each increase, eventually being far lower than you're recognizing.
I'll give an example, so hopefully people will see what I mean:
Clear Homu: 101MAtk
Homu+9: 101 + 3*3 + 3*6*2 = 146 MAtk
Now, people look at that and say "OMG, that's like an A-grade weapon!" and think that overenchanting helps nukers more. Here's why they're wrong:
(101^.5)/(146^.5) = 0.83
...yeah, that's right. A mid-C mage weapon is only 17% less damaging than the highest A-grade mage weapon. Tell me again how much nukers are benefiting from MAtk...
And that's before masteries, a very important point to consider. Expect it to be more like 10-15% in practice.
PAtk benefits more. No question.
This was done intentionally, since each grade increase goes along with a Power increase that has a pronounced effect on damage. The weapon itself, therefore, can't increase damage by very much or it would quickly add up to solo-raid-boss numbers.
as for pve affecting pvp, the two are one and the same. fighting mobs is exactly like fighting pvp. EXACTLY!.
lol. For melee PvP and PvE are VERY different. effective tat set ups, buffs, what skills they use.....its COMPLETELY different. For mages and archers though, its the same. All they can do is dish out mad damage so that what they do.
Clear Homu: 101MAtk
Homu+9: 101 + 3*3 + 3*6*2 = 146 MAtk
Now, people look at that and say "OMG, that's like an A-grade weapon!" and think that overenchanting helps nukers more. Here's why they're wrong:
(101^.5)/(146^.5) = 0.83
...yeah, that's right. A mid-C mage weapon is only 17% less damaging than the highest A-grade mage weapon. Tell me again how much nukers are benefiting from MAtk...
And that's before masteries, a very important point to consider. Expect it to be more like 10-15% in practice.
PAtk benefits more. No question.
This was done intentionally, since each grade increase goes along with a Power increase that has a pronounced effect on damage. The weapon itself, therefore, can't increase damage by very much or it would quickly add up to solo-raid-boss numbers.
Bekkar,
The math there is great and I understand the start of your argument.
Do you happen to have the p.attk difference and percentage gain achieved by using a +9 weapon of equal crystal value to a Homu?
From what I understand, its harder to enchant a melee weapon past its grade then it is to enchant a mage weapon past its grade.
Mages don't get a huge damage boost from this though other then the fact that they're now casting the spell as though they're of a significantly higher level for the purposes of landing the spell. This is a pretty big deal when its factored in that spell failure means half damage or a worse case scenario 1 damage. The accuracy of a melee character versus a higher level player or mob is unaffected by the p.attk of their weapon.
The actual damage boost from a boost in p.attk due to a better weapon isn't particularly impressive either. On test I upgraded from a Soul Separator to an Angel Slayer on a level 75 Wind Rider and I didn't even notice a damage increase. The difference between dual damascus and dual kesh's was also more mental then anything. I knew I was doing less damage so it bothered me but when I actually upgraded it didn't increase the damage enough to impact where I could hunt.
Upgrading a mage's weapon can definitely impact where they can hunt and who they can land spells on... so I would say that the upgrade is used more efficiently by the mage even if it isn't represented by a pure damage increase.
from my understanding ANY over enchanting has a 30% chance to fail, its officially stated on the korean site or something. The only reason you see more OE mage weps than physical weps is simply because there are so many mage rerolls. And with rerollers usually comes the fact that they eBay so they can reroll hence making OE mage weps easier to sell and more lucrative to OE.
from my understanding ANY over enchanting has a 30% chance to fail, its officially stated on the korean site or something. The only reason you see more OE mage weps than physical weps is simply because there are so many mage rerolls. And with rerollers usually comes the fact that they eBay so they can reroll hence making OE mage weps easier to sell and more lucrative to OE.
Rerollers are required to eBay? Most of the rerollers that I have known just got rid of the gear for their main and then picked up top gear for all of their alts... that's what I did. I realized that I didn't need top gear to be a buffer so I got rid of a lot of it.
The reason you see alot of OE mage weapons is because there are alot of mages that want them because it can decrease their BSPS cost as well. If they can use a weapon that costs less to use (or has a readily available supply of BSPS) but they do the same damage they will. It is all about having a high enough m.attk to land the spell.
This is getting really off topic at this point though.
PVE balance is important for PVP. I have stated why above. The classes that have bonuses in PVE also have bonuses in PVP for the exact same reasons.
High DPS at range plus crowd control/snares is an overpowered combination in PVP. Its overpowered in PVE but apparently deemed necessary for them to solo. They even had to recalibrate the 40+ mobs when they released C1 because they weren't tough enough for mages and archers. They even increased the movement speed of all 40+ mobs so that archers at least took a hit occasionally.
Apparently the developers felt sorry for the 40+ mobs but didn't share the same sympathy for the players.
They either need to bring the mages and archers down to the point that they solo as efficiently as any of the melee damage dealers or they need to bump up every other class.
Do you happen to have the p.attk difference and percentage gain achieved by using a +9 weapon of equal crystal value to a Homu?
Sure. I'm not at home, but IIRC the base PAtk increase per + for C-grade one-handed swords is 3. Given that, I can work it out:
Sword of Nightmare (also a 1720C weapon).
Clean PAtk: 139
PAtk at +9: 184
...since it's linear instead of a square root...
139/184 = .75
...so it's 25% less damaging instead of 17%, which implies that (for a +9) overenchanting is 50% more effective on PAtk than on MAtk (25/17, for the math-phobic). This is the point I've been making--overenchanting works better for PAtk than for MAtk. This is because PAtk is a linear progression while MAtk works by square roots, but enchantments give a linear bonus. It makes them preferential.
It also means that, the further you overenchant for MAtk, the less anyone "in the know" cares. Here's why:
Just for fun, we'll +16 them, even though most players don't care about that level of enchantment (I hope!).
Homu+0: 101 MAtk
Homu+16: 188 MAtk
(188^.5)/(101^.5) = 1.36
...36% better...
SoN+0: 139 PAtk
SoN+16: 226 PAtk
226/139 = 1.63
...63% better...
Yeah...at the point your weapon switches to red, the PAtk has benefitted twice as much as the MAtk.
I trust that proves my point adequately. MAtk gains less for each individual +, while PAtk always gains the same amount. Thus, PAtk "high numbers" matter significantly more than MAtk "high numbers".
From what I understand, its harder to enchant a melee weapon past its grade then it is to enchant a mage weapon past its grade.
This is due entirely to the effect that nukers have and weapons do not (people keep saying "melee" but bows go in here too): the Power stat.
The primary way a fighter does more damage is by getting a better weapon. The primary way a nuker does more damage is by gaining new spell levels, not by getting a better weapon! If MAtk scaled the same way PAtk did, the entire magic-damage system would break down.
In short, it's easier to overenchant "to a higher grade" because it's really not going to do the nuker much good. If weapons could go "to a higher grade" just as easily, the results would be sick and wrong.
Mages don't get a huge damage boost from this though other then the fact that they're now casting the spell as though they're of a significantly higher level for the purposes of landing the spell.
Unfortunately this is not true. MAtk doesn't do that, the spell's level/Power does. Ask the next nuking summoner you see if his spells land as reliably as a nuker's, he'll laugh and laugh and get angry and PK you :D
Upgrading a mage's weapon can definitely impact where they can hunt and who they can land spells on... so I would say that the upgrade is used more efficiently by the mage even if it isn't represented by a pure damage increase.
Your opinion is commonly supported, but wrong for the reasons I described (and a couple more, but I'm trying to be a little brief).
Malkavian posted the following in a thread about nukers dealing less damage.
"who cares how much dmg they do for pve, balance is only really an issue for PvP. And this game was just not designed for 1v1."
I fail to understand how being an overpowered PvE Class has no bearing on PvP. The benefits to being a mage(other than necro) in PvE seem to push you far higher into being able to PvP than a melee fighter can attain right now.
1)You level faster. For most mage classes, downtime is non-existant(SPS, and Necro without Spike). For SPS and SH you have overhit spells to push you farther faster.
In principle I think PvE and PvP should both be considered.
But I get to point #1 of OP's post. Downtime is non-existant for SPS? :boggleface:
Melee in a reasonable group, not even an ideal group, can go non-stop all night. SPS spend a lot of time sitting.
I agree with your conclusion and thanks for clearing up how that worked with the m.attk.
I have another question concerning that because I play a warcrier and it seems that there's no bonus other then life drains for going with an m.attk weapon but that's neither here nor there.
So at least I can take overenchanting off the list of things that mages have over all other classes. Not that this shortens the list signficantly but at least we can let that point die...
So as far as PVE balance important to PVP balance goes...
One problem is that most mobs in PVE are still melee mobs. The archer and mage mobs are a distinct minority. Mage mobs weren't even really added until C2.
Has anyone else noticed this?
I avoid wizard and archer mobs because they're inefficient to hunt. They don't drop significantly faster then the melee warrior mobs but they do considerably more damage?
Archers and mages are balanced around being able to solo. They even had to tweak the system so it wasn't too easy for them to solo back in C1 by increasing mob movement speeds.
Tanks, Healers, Buffers and Melee Damage Dealers seem to be designed for group play.
Summoners were solo oriented originally but in reality they function like a mini-party with a melee dd and a personal healer. The summoner essentially gets the same xp that they would have gotten duoing as a healer except they don't have look around for a group. The lack of pet SS was the greatest hinderence to competitiveness up until C4 from what I can tell.
This is all well and good if it was a PVE game. The rules changed as soon as they decided the focus of the game was PVP. As far as I can tell the focus of the game is still PVE because that's what players will be doing with 98% of their time.
If there is no quota on superior classes then classes shouldn't be inherently better then one another. I'd guess the most common reason for selecting an underpowered class is the misleading descriptions of the classes and lack of knowledge about the game. This wouldn't be so bad if the designers were honest about the capabilities of each class. Just looking at the class descriptions on this site is incredibly misleading.
But again... my idea of balance is that 1 = 1, 9 = 9 and 40 = 40 and that personal playstyle preference shouldn't be the major limiting factor to PVP vialibility. Either all classes are solo viable or none of them are solo viable... and that risk and reward should be linked to each class. The fastest levelling/questing/grinding class should not also be the safest class to play.
Malkavian posted the following in a thread about nukers dealing less damage.
"who cares how much dmg they do for pve, balance is only really an issue for PvP. And this game was just not designed for 1v1."
I fail to understand how being an overpowered PvE Class has no bearing on PvP. The benefits to being a mage(other than necro) in PvE seem to push you far higher into being able to PvP than a melee fighter can attain right now.
1)You level faster. For most mage classes, downtime is non-existant(SPS, and Necro without Spike). For SPS and SH you have overhit spells to push you farther faster.
In principle I think PvE and PvP should both be considered.
But I get to point #1 of OP's post. Downtime is non-existant for SPS? :boggleface:
Melee in a reasonable group, not even an ideal group, can go non-stop all night. SPS spend a lot of time sitting.
I want to guess that SPS was the exception to that rule.
You're comparing a melee group to a solo nuker though. Melee groups don't get that much more efficient without a healer or at the very least buffs (like vampiric rage). Those shilien elders though are far more inclined to go duo with a nuker to get much better xp and very minimal downtime. Nukers can duo pretty effectively with just about anyone though because they can control adds with crowd control, help kill the mobs faster, can typically toss a battle heal in an extreme emergency and typically have their lvl 1 buffs which sometimes still help a little bit. Why would the nuker want to drag an anchor around with them though in such a fashion other then just feeling kinda lazy?
Alright, there has been alot of stuff said here...might have died now. But since I started this in another thread (next time you start one with quotes by me, pm me please :P) I would like to clarify and add a bit here.
who cares how much dmg they do for pve, balance is only really an issue for PvP. And this game was just not designed for 1v1.
Ok first, I will say that spamming pots(greater attack/cast speeds) bsps/ss , but only self buffs I can exp a melee to 40 faster than a nuker. With heal pots I can go all day in a necro on a melee. The kiting having to be done in Necro's by nukers is ridiculous and so I mostly hunt with mine out of them, and the downtime really I think equals everything out. Now you would say, but most have a recharger...well if you give the nuker a recharger you have to give the melee a healer, and still the rate of kills and exp ratio in Necros for me with buffs on a melee is about equal to the rate of exp on my nuker outside of the necros (counting walk time to mobs, and mp regen time, even btm'ing takes downtime).
In the end, this game was not designed for 1v1, in PvP or PvE. And I think we all can agree that the best exp is usally in a balanced group, as I am almost positive this game was designed to be played.
Now all this being said you honestly took my quote a bit in the wrong way (and I apologize it was a quick thought I had while bored in class). To expand the original statement: Who cares about how fast they can exp when there is so much imbalance in PvP as it is now. When 1v1 style a 40 sorc can "pwn" a 52+ SK there is something odd...especially when the game is supposed to be level based as you say. But that is a whole other can of worms.
The expenditure of adena on potions is significant to even attempt that and it requires top notch gear.
I'm not really sure about being able to get a fighter to 40 in one day even in a necro using potions. The xp just doesn't seem to come in that quick.
A fighter will normally have to sit and rest far more often then a mage and you're using heal pots to negate that weakness. The cost of the healpots and the greater cost of ss vs bsps should more then make up for any additional time that the mage ends up sitting.
Balanced groups are not that great of XP. I play a warcrier and I'll just let you know that is pretty much why I hate playing because warcriers can't get small groups and large group xp is not that impressive. It can get 20% per 4-5 hour hunting block in a full group in CoW at level 57. Its extremely slow.
Levels should mean something if they're going to be universal.
As it stands though a nuker level is easier to typically easier, cheaper and faster to achieve then a nuker level. A nuker will be more powerful then any other class except perhaps archer of even level.
All classes should be able to solo and have skills to facilitate this... the quickness with which the class kills should be directly related to how risky the class is to play.
High DPS classes should be riskier then low DPS classes.
Low DPS classes should have ways of controlling a fight that don't do damage.
I was talking money and top gear aside. As in this is a reroll funded by top A grade sales.
also wasn't talking super big groups, like a nuker, tank, healer..kind of group.
Edit: and sure, in a perfect world everyone could solo easily/effectively..but class's are hardly balanced in any ways atm, and I would rather see some more balance in PvP than in pve.
Nukers that have their own buffers can level faster than any class in the game. Nukers without buffer and without a recharger are not good in groups because they run out of MP too quick. Many people have these buffers and avoid the downfalls of being a nuker.
This is why NC gives so much strength to nukers, because those who play just a nuker level very slow and aren't that great i group other than being a sleeper.
They really should balance this game for PVP first, and PVE second. Right now, it's balanced for PVE and completely broken for PVP in favor of ranged classes.
The Olymiad was balanced on the PTS so there's something else that's broken and that's the power of ranged classes with fully buffed parties. A simple solution woyuld be to remove BSPS and lower MP costs of spells by a lot. This fixes the overpowered PVE of nukers with buffers the overpowered nukers in PVP.
Secondly, to balance archers in PVP they need to add a buff that reduces the affectiveness of crit damage. Archers simply crit players for way too much damage. Where is the buff to lower crit damage? They should add that feature to the useless Invigor buff.
They really should balance this game for PVP first, and PVE second. Right now, it's balanced for PVE and completely broken for PVP in favor of ranged classes.
As a melee I find it actually great to XP in places with a lot of nukers. Places like ToI 9, ToI 11, Heart of the Lair, etc. have many magic casting mobs who give lots of XP and die fast. And being an SwS magic casting mobs aren't much of a problem at all. In the heart of the lair I actually resist most aqua blasts from the mobs resulting in less than 100 damage typically, and VR quickly takes care of that HP loss. In the heart of the lair we usually have a Destroyer tank, a class notorious for low mdef but he tanks there VERY well, better than most true tanks I have played with. On ToI 11 a party consisting of SwS, BD, Bishop/SE, WC and all Gladiators absolutely destroys that place with NO rest at all, even the spawn rate is excellent for one group up there, however 2 groups up there messes things up. I (SwS) can tank there fine but its better to have a Gladiator tank so SwS doesn't get all their MP drained from aggroing the shamans. If you have a SE instead of a Bishop a SwS and BD can keep 3 dances and 3 songs comfortably (without an SE to recharge enemies can drain too much MP to keep up 3 songs). Dance of Fire, Song of Wind, Dance of Fury, Song of Hunter, Dance of Warrior, and Song of Warding make a group of Gladiators VERY dangerous and efficient up there. Healers typically never have to heal and are just there to purify. There is no need for crowd control at all up there either (truly all it does is slow your kill speed down), VR on Gladiators is amazing. Melee have the distinct advantage of def and HP over ranged classes so they can charge into mobs with little fear most of the time and thus kill faster. Archer or nuker groups gotta use MP on crowd control or pull carefully for the most part in dungeon XP spots. Places like Imperial Tomb yields excellent XP for melee as well with the advantage of sacred attack buffs. Archers at Imperial Tomb, in my experience, miss mobs a lot and thus not very consistant. I was in a archer party there and I ended up taking aggro a lot simply because my hits were much more consistant in landing thus giving me greater DPS than even archers. There are places where melee XP just as fast as ranged, even if the melee group is large. In a place with nice spawn rates (Lair, ToI, Imperial Tomb, etc.) large melee parties are great because they are nonstop
About lowering crit damage, just have DE fighters use power break on enemy archers. Also as of C3 shield block critical attacks with a greater rate than normal attacks. Shields are THE best tool vs. archers, combined with EE buffs they help TREMENDOUSLY.
Melee have the distinct advantage of def and HP over ranged classes so they can charge into mobs with little fear most of the time and thus kill faster.
this is a very harsh myth
what good is 200% hp and 30% pdef when mages have 1000% the damage output and super crowd control?
its the mages that will nuke the crap outa a group of 9 mobs a melee group will go in and pull 1 or 2 back to safely kill
e.g average melee pulls 6 mobs got UD? nope time to bsoe
mage pulls 6 mobs got cloud sleep? nope use normal sleep
got life drain? got slow? able to 2 hit mobs?
Tank=character with high health, high defense, low damage output
Nuker=DD=Damage Dealer, High damage output, lower health, lower defense
Now Idealy and the way I think the dev's wanted it to be played was with a tank, DD's, healer kind of group. Not A mage group, Not a melee group, A mixed group. That being said I don't really think mages should have gotten as much crowd control as they did..should have left sleeps, Anchors, and roots for only the healer variety (OL,WC,SE,EE,Bishop,Prophets,etc.) As those just lead to lame pvp imo. Sleep>Nuke>Sleep>Nuke>Repeat until dead is hardly an accomplishment. Nor is Anchor>Nuke>Nuke>Nuke>Dead.
this is a very harsh myth
what good is 200% hp and 30% pdef when mages have 1000% the damage output and super crowd control?
e.g average melee pulls 6 mobs got UD? nope time to bsoe
mage pulls 6 mobs got cloud sleep? nope use normal sleep
got life drain? got slow? able to 2 hit mobs?
Thats simply not true. I'll run into ToI 11 with a Gladiator/Tyrant/Destroyer party and grab half the **** floor and not even be concerned whatsoever. With VR and the consistant and fast damage classes like glads and tyrants do they gain HP just as fast as they lose it and the healer can pick up the slack if needed. In case you didn't read what I posted the healer only used MP to purify really, I NEVER saw his MP dip below half during a 2-3 hour party, it probably didn't even reach 75%, lol. Defense and HP DOES make XPing faster because there is no downtime at all and you don't need to pace yourselves that much, the extra HP just makes it safe to grab more mobs. I agree crowd control is powerful in PvE but it makes the game SOOO boring and they are still spending MP sleeping that they could spend dropping mobs faster. A heavy melee party has no need for crowd control because they can take the hits and gain most, if not all, that HP back from Vamperic Rage.
Only ******* BSoE, REAL melee who didn't [censored] up and go -CON and PL set can take hits. If they are taking too much they just stop swinging and the aggro will switch.
The balance just seems to go full cirlce. The one thing I have recognized is that melees have to choose what the want to specialize in, pve or pvp. Ranged do not, they can choose both with little cost. This I think is the central problem.
People talk about mages being the over balanced class pvp but the option to nerf them exists in game. Con tats, a health weapon, btb, song of vitality, elemental resistance stacked with all those elemental resitances a sws doesn't use and of course m barrier and mental shield and why not a con boosting sleep/hold resist armor? Most people, hell even some tanks choose pure offensive tats, armor and buffs. While the benefits are obvious pve, the drawbacks are well exploited by mages in pvp... can you blame them?
I think mages should be forced to make the dame significant pve sacrifices melee do for pvp benefits. Mage tats should be reconsidered, their ability to mess with STR should be revoked, they should at least have to choose between Con and Dex, tats were designed to be tradeoffs not flat out gains.
On the other hand there is really no in game defence for a fully buffed archer. (the dot at the end was a period)
This has lead me to the conclusion that they do in fact need a beating with the nerf stick and I propose this:
Give prophets and a few other buffer classes that arrow deflection buff knights get so everyone can get it. While I like the idea of a crit resistence buff, that would nerf daggers yet again and they don't need that crap. I rather like the idea of a minum range for criting, once a melee is too close the field all of a sudden evens up no? If the archer kites he can finish him, but it removes him from the fight area and chokes his ability to kill soft targets when a melee is closing on him.
Bless the shield helps deflect arrows alot. I play an OL, and was soloing the Timak orc archers near Oren to get my 40+amulets. And I have to say with the OL bless the shield buff they hit for 1 damage fairly often...melee too. And yeah I did it w/o a shield at first (couldn't find the one I wanted for sale) and I used drain ALOT more to keep my HP up, now with a shield going against archers I use a drain maybe every 3. And I am in robes :)
All classes arent suited for using a shield. Seen a WL with a shield? Or a Dagger user? How about a Gladiator?
Lots of classes will only suffer from using a shield(their dmg or other abilities will be hindered) so shield is not really something that balances things out. As it is now, Destroyers, Gladiators, Tyrants, Warlords and daggers all suffer from using a shield. They also have lower pdef than the tank classes, and 3 out of the 7 classes are _slow_ with no abilities to slow their enemies. Give dual wielders and classes that use _huge_ weapons the ability to block arrows with weapons.
My sword is bigger than a dwarf. It covers more than any shield ingame, so why cant I use it to block an arrow?
One thing in PVE ****** me alot, and thats the mob stuns. They land almost as well as sleep with bsps on a target with no jewels or buffs. HEY HELLOOO, even players dont stun other players as well, why do the mobs then stun +con destroyers in doom that are popping 55 CON? This is yet again that favors the ranged classes, since almost all stunning mobs are melee mobs and thus never get to use their stun on the ranged classes. While they may very well butcher a whole melee party if the aoe stun happens to hit all and they just happen to spam it. Or a few of the mobs do the stun in conjunction.
Give stunning mobs a ranged sleep that they cast if they're getting dmg from a range. Sleeped nuker/archer= chainstunned melee. Let them feel some pain for exping too.
The fact that a class can run on PvP tats without ruining itself for PvE, in fact improving for PvE, is more than enough to make it overpowered in PvP - after all, PvE is the de facto standard mode of play, and thus gearing for it is the most natural.
All they really need to do is make the -9 MEN really, really hurt. Make them cut MP regeneration not by a few measly points but by something like half, turn a mage with -9 MEN into something with less MDef than an equivalent level fighter (just as a -CON fighter will find himself with less HP than a similar-level mage).
Then, maybe then, all these debates about whether or not valid PvP builds exist for melees might make sense.
The only classes that can gear themselves for PvP and PvE at the same time are nukers (because their tattoos are broken), healers (because of their restrictive choice in tattoos), and summoners (because their PvE performance is only minimally influenced by tattoos as of C4) - all mage types.
It's simple, nukers and archers are way too overpowerred in PVP and PVP is why most of us play the game. This needs fixing.
When was the last time your PVP group counted the number of Destroyers or Warlords or Galdiators or Tyrants or Temple knights or Shil Knights or daggers or Paladins or Dark Avengers and said, "look out! they that many of this class".
No, it's always, "they have 6 archers and 4 mages. We have 5 archers and 3 mages. We cant win". The above fodder is ignored because they are nearly meaningless in PVP compared to ranged DDs.
Just as a note i died 2 times today by hunting stuning "melee" mobs.Lost 8% but since i made today 40% from them i dont mind :p (i also need so MUCH sp its actually helping me<.<)
You're getting stunned by a mob when you have 900 range and all the spells to deal with the mob in less than a few seconds? O.o You must seriously be undergeared or had some freaky spawn accident where the mobs spawned next to you O.o
had some freaky spawn accident where the mobs spawned next to you O.o
Happend 2 times today.Also those things are "special" the Orc shamans that morph in tigers<.<Lose 1 nuke-then lose target and then try killing it in 2 shots while it runs.Not to mention those tigers have LONG social range.90% of the first strike is stun.Also crit chance+crit power passives.But 13k XP is too much to miss :p
Also even if a fighter has "spawn accident" its no biggie-but for a nuker....
Yea, those tigers seem to have a nasty social range. One time I decided to "pet" the kitty only to find 5 others running from the other side of the **** pit to me lol.
Clanny SH used to do CDL there but sometimes he managed to get himself killed. I once ninjad up there with a lvl 5 dwarf and brezzed the **** bugger ^^
Nah im not talking about the pit-i got some space there atleast-but where i hunt its like a dungeon<.<
Also crit power and crit chance+stun make a mob a mass murderer.Not to mention the ****ed archers near Ceme with the stun attack (good thing that atleast they didnt have crit passives).I had to spam GMHP or i would die easy there.
I think stun mobs are ok-at higher lvls EVERY first attack is stun and they take half your HP till it wear off (then they stun again<.<).
Its funny though that a Sorc with +4 CON has only 1 CON less than a DE fighter X.X (too bad i dont have the symbol T.T)
Only ******* BSoE, REAL melee who didn't [censored] up and go -CON and PL set can take hits. If they are taking too much they just stop swinging and the aggro will switch.
sure if you have a zerg it doesnt matter how many mobs you pull
dont know what lvl you are but come to my area go +con get a health weapon and gimp your kill speed some more
then take 10 hits from the mobs if you dont have +5 maj i guarantee you die
of course 5 mobs can hit you 10 times in about what? 5 seconds?
And the M.atk is not linear like the P.atk but is square rooted.The more +++ you got on that weapon the less effective each ones get (and the chance to blow it up increase)
The M.atk of the USER is getteing square rooted before it calculates the dmg.Not the M.atk of the weapon.
Also i got from 110 M.atk homu+3 to SoV+3 with 131.The increase was around 110 M.atk (my stat).My demon set gives 106 M.atk.Also the diff between SoM+0 and SoV+3 is AGAIN 21 base M.atk.This means if i drop my set and take a SoM ill get the same M.atk as now :(
Oh and my set gives me 110 damage-to a total of around 1.5k
sure if you have a zerg it doesnt matter how many mobs you pull
dont know what lvl you are but come to my area go +con get a health weapon and gimp your kill speed some more
then take 10 hits from the mobs if you dont have +5 maj i guarantee you die
of course 5 mobs can hit you 10 times in about what? 5 seconds?
Who the hell said anything about a zerg? im talking about a 9 man group here. I'm not saying go +CON, I'm saying DON'T go -CON. Melee can take MANY HITS, saying melee cannot take more than 5 just shows that you are too low lvl to know or are just ignorant of facts. I'm lvl 76 BTW and typically roll with lvl 65+ melee, lvl 60 pretty much being the cut-off point. I'm assuming you have never seen a heavy melee party go do their thing. At higher lvls melee gain quite a bit too. Just looking at attack skills some Gladiator skills get 5x as powerful by lvl 75. Nukes get like 2x as powerful from 40-75 but of course there are other factors as well but its something I feel should not be ignored.
The M.atk of the USER is getteing square rooted before it calculates the dmg.Not the M.atk of the weapon.
Also i got from 110 M.atk homu+3 to SoV+3 with 131.The increase was around 110 M.atk (my stat).My demon set gives 106 M.atk.Also the diff between SoM+0 and SoV+3 is AGAIN 21 base M.atk.This means if i drop my set and take a SoM ill get the same M.atk as now :(
Oh and my set gives me 110 damage-to a total of around 1.5k
He is correct. You never actually see these numbers on an in-game panel. You must calculate your damage to realize this. Comparing the matk stats with patk stats just doesn't work, the square root is in the DAMAGE equation, not the STAT equation.
Who the hell said anything about a zerg? im talking about a 9 man group here. I'm not saying go +CON, I'm saying DON'T go -CON. Melee can take MANY HITS, saying melee cannot take more than 5 just shows that you are too low lvl to know or are just ignorant of facts. I'm lvl 76 BTW and typically roll with lvl 65+ melee, lvl 60 pretty much being the cut-off point. I'm assuming you have never seen a heavy melee party go do their thing. At higher lvls melee gain quite a bit too. Just looking at attack skills some Gladiator skills get 5x as powerful by lvl 75. Nukes get like 2x as powerful from 40-75 but of course there are other factors as well but its something I feel should not be ignored.
wrote up a big thingie but accidently deleted it so ill keep this simple
have trouble finding a mob that takes off 5% of your hp per hit?
i have a high lvl sps that used to party with a glad so tell me which one soloed bat groups better in bs
go waaaaaay back 1 page and realize im trying to disprove the fact that melee can pull tons of agro and survive
you seem to be saying that a melee group can pull 20 mobs and have a better chance of surviving than a mage group
go waaaaaay back 1 page and realize im trying to disprove the fact that melee can pull tons of agro and survive
you seem to be saying that a melee group can pull 20 mobs and have a better chance of surviving than a mage group
In a way, yea. As i said, our healers hardly have to heal in some groups. And mages using MP to sleep mobs instead of killing them can slow down kill speed. Of course they have to sleep them to survive. But with VR, heals, and CoL if you are using a WC melee survive well. If a melee party truly wants they can have the Bishop or WC sleep mobs as well, but usually its just not needed. Especially in groups of Gladiators, the damage mobs do will span on all members. One member is typically not gonna keep all the aggro all the time, mobs ping-pong a lot in pure DD melee groups. And its not like most melee classes don't have any crowd control either, stun works. It doesn't last terribly long but neither do the mobs :).
They do but your P.atk is just as important.But since M.atk is square rooted spell power has alot more effect on the dmg a nuker does.In my case 15% M.atk increase is giving me only 8% damage.But when i get new skills (and weapon mastery) ill get alot stronger :)
Taraza, the resulting damage is absolutely irrelevant.
The fact remains that overenchanting a mage weapon will push its comparitive crystal value higher than OEing a melee weapon, thus making OE on mage weapons more efficient.
Whether or not melee weapons show better improvement per crystal value than a mage weapon is a different story (they do).
Mage weapons do not improve as strongly as melee weapons because the skills provide the brunt of the damage growth - another very big advantage for mages, by the way, as it makes them less gear dependant.
Mage weapons do not improve as strongly as melee weapons because the skills provide the brunt of the damage growth - another very big advantage for mages, by the way, as it makes them less gear dependant.
Yup exactly what i wanted to say :p
Mage weapons are so costly because we need only a weapon to hunt-we are even less dependant of sets than of weapons.
Which is a problem somewhat.
But ive seen what an archer with a forest bow can do<.<
Mage weapons do not improve as strongly as melee weapons because the skills provide the brunt of the damage growth - another very big advantage for mages, by the way, as it makes them less gear dependant.
Yup exactly what i wanted to say :p
Mage weapons are so costly because we need only a weapon to hunt-we are even less dependant of sets than of weapons.
Which is a problem somewhat.
But ive seen what an archer with a forest bow can do<.<
Yeah...a red attacked me once (when i was lvl 57) and he was doing 600+ dmg to me with a compbow...**** high lvl archers...oh wait i'm one :p
Yeah archers sux-oh wait you are one :confused:
Doesnt matter.Their skills give them too much P.Atk alone-no need for high end weapon.I heard that if you delevel more than 10 lvl you lose skills.Is it true?
overenchanting a mage weapon will push its comparitive crystal value higher than OEing a melee weapon, thus making OE on mage weapons more efficient.
...
Mage weapons do not improve as strongly as melee weapons
I know you understand how it works, Maline, and I'm not disagreeing with your idea...but you have to admit that saying "overenchanting is more efficient for mages, despite the fact that they gain much less out of it" is going to confuse people. :p