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Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
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Author:  TadaceAce [ Sun Apr 05, 2015 12:36 am ]
Post subject:  Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
I'll preface this discussion by saying the essence of the game, for me, is chaining. Chaining the highest level area as quickly and efficiently as possible. In order to chain, you have to accomplish essentially what I call zero net loss. Simply you need to have similar health and secondary resource each new enemy.

Healing
First and foremost, there has to be a net zero health loss. This is accomplished through healing from any source. The problem is, the only classes I find to have even reasonable healing are: Cleric, Shaman, Paladin, Monk, SK (forgive me if I'm forgetting one). Other classes simply do not have enough sources of healing, in my opinion. Life leech is supposed to be the answer but I find it simply does not scale into higher difficulties and to buff it would make it the end all best stat in the game.

The caster heals (Cleric, Shaman) are similarly balanced with leech based heal skills (Monk, SK) and these mechanics should be built on both by modifying current skills and talents. There are plenty of interesting ways to implement it. For example, warrior could have 2-3% of subjugate life returned as health. Life leech will still be there, and it can be a nice addition on top of skill heals.

Secondary Resources
Mana is atrocious. Being net zero mana loss means completely rationing your mana or being a high elf. Even with high end gear you're looking at an additional ~3 mana per second still making it impossible to use spells consistently. Meanwhile, any class relying on a different secondary resource (spirit, technique, fury, etc) no longer has to worry about being able to use their skills off cooldown, but only which order to use them.

It's not that spells are more powerful than melee skills, they share similar cooldowns / effects balances. The solution here would be to either up the efficacy of spells by increasing damage / reducing cooldowns or increasing mana regen. High elves have a base mana regen of 15 per tick which is a good base imo depending on any balance changes you make to spells. It doesn't quite allow for total spamming of spells when they come off cooldown but it allows them to be used within reason while chaining.


So there's that. I know this game is built around EQ mechanics but it just doesn't work for balance in this environment.
Author:  pharmakos [ Sun Apr 05, 2015 12:45 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
balance issues between classes have come up a lot. IMO if all the classes were equally difficult to do well on, then the game would be a bit boring. having classes unbalanced allows for more diversity of gameplay, and allows for cool things like "holy cow, how did that wizard get a 150 chain?!"
Author:  TadaceAce [ Sun Apr 05, 2015 1:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
I agree to an extent. A lot of fun I've had trying each class and unlocking most / all of their skills before deciding if it was a good class.

Each class already has a very different feel and pretty unique mechanics. I think as long as the healing mechanics on each class are mostly unique it will still be fine. Rogue auto attacks could leech based on how much tech they have, mage pets could leech a percentage of their damage, necro lifetap could be reduced to 7s cd, enchanter could use runes, etc. Just need more sustainable healing if the classes are going to be able to chain.
Author:  Maelfyn [ Sun Apr 05, 2015 6:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
When it comes to game design, the more variety you introduce, the more difficult (and improbable) it is to balance. I'm okay with some imbalance, but I don't want any class/talent build to be complete crap. If it's used by 0% of players then I did something wrong (this is something I can measure once server accounts are live). It would be fun to see some kind of unofficial power ranking by players.
Author:  RemoSegrop [ Sun Apr 05, 2015 7:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
I actually doing well with the health leech and it's actually scaling quite well with my bard. The only problem with health (and mana) leech are the fact they are equipment dependable and thus you are limited to the equipment you're wearing... But it's definitely doable specially when combining with thorns, and health per tick.. I do think that some classes suffer from balance issues, but the wide variety of equipment and stats buff you can get make up for it in some way. You just have to know what you're char's looking for and stick to it.. A dual wielding health leeching troll warrior has some nifty health regen ;)
Author:  TadaceAce [ Mon Apr 06, 2015 5:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
I'm bored. Decided I want to brainstorm on ideas on how to give similar survivability to classes that otherwise are lacking. These ideas are based on their mechanics in Nevergrind and classic EQ. The idea is to bring them up to a similar lvl as SK, monk, or Cleric (the 3 I find best).

Step 1, life leech should apply to spells as well as melee. It's unreasonable to make such a powerful mechanics exclusive to physical classes.


Warrior: x% of subjugate damage gained as health. Subjugate is a semi continuous yet unique mechanic to warrior.

Monk: Viper strike, mend, and chakra is a reasonable balance as is.

Rogue: x% damage dealt to enemies suffering from control condition (stun, silence, fear?) gained as health. Fits with the rogues whole control thing and the right rotation makes it semi - continuous.

Paladin: Greater Healing + Lay on Hands is reasonably balanced, perhaps reduce cooldown of great heal a bit for more continuous healing.

Ranger: I need to play ranger. They've got a heal but what about something like x% of offhand (dual wield) damage gained as life. Frankly, 2h > 1h at this point, this would force at least one class to dual wield.

SK: Vampiric Embrace and his tap are more than reasonable.

Bard: Didn't play bard much, hymn of restoration seems "ok" but another small source would be good.

Cleric: Angel and Sup Heal are plenty.

Druid: Not very familiar, seems they should have an additional source of healing than greater healing, perhaps x% from damage shield heals you.

Shaman: Great heal is decent, but needs another source to be on par / similar to cleric (yes cleric is meant to be best healer but it's certainly not suffering in DPS in return). Perhaps x% of poison DoT damage.

Necro: Reduce tap to 7 seconds cooldown. Pet taking some damage is secondary form of survivability.

Enchanter: x% of spell damage creates a rune of absorbtion on enchanter. Only 1 rune active, stronger runes overwrite old rune. Pet, as bad as it is, still great for mitigation.

Magician: Reduce reclaim elements to 7 seconds. Pet secondary. Also has mana shield but not reliable. Could also do x% pet damage restored as life but then everyone would be required to dump talent points into pet.

Wizard: Haven't played it. Make x% (>100%?) life leech apply to spells for wizard?


I played pretty much every class to 20 (exceptions noted), I've apparently got too much spare time. I find the majority of the classes unplayable unless you only do 1-2 chains at a time or farm a significantly lower area. These are some suggestions that could balance that. As a standard, these could be the 20 point talent bonus for the classes initial spam skill. This way they get this bonus right around the time the game introduces new mechanics at 20+.
Author:  SeismicRend [ Sun Apr 12, 2015 10:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
Quote:
Even with high end gear you're looking at an additional ~3 mana per second still making it impossible to use spells consistently.


I haven't noticed the cost of spells increasing as you level. Wouldn't that make resource regen retain its value for sustaining no matter the level?

Regarding Bards: Their healing is off the charts. Their song, Dissention, heals you per enemy hit giving you an on-demand complete heal if you're fighting many opponents. It's a great class for swarming. With the charmed pet taking hits, I pull 4 additional mobs and let the AoE damage song whittle them down while I'm invincible through my healing. It's a fun high risk/high reward approach.

Regarding Rogues: I think it's a great design for rogues to give them no hp regen. They have a ton of control to stun-lock mobs and mirage strike to absorb the occasional hit that gets through. If I actually get hit as a rogue it's because I messed up. It would be counter to their design to let them go toe-to-toe with opponents through hp regen/leech.

Regarding Enchanters: They receive a Rune spell to absorb the occasional hit.

Regarding Paladins: I think their sustain is in a good place. They have a lot of stuns that let them prevent mobs from hitting them. Their Greater Heal is costly and cannot be used much. I think the high cost of it is good design as it lets the paladin keep trucking along if they miss the stun but doesn't let them rely on it as a sustainable strategy. Overall I feel the Paladin is an excellently designed class.
Author:  TadaceAce [ Mon Apr 13, 2015 12:10 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
Mana leech being fixed is a big step forward with mana. Mana is now sustainable on classes that aren't highly dependent on it. I'm guessing classes like mage, necro, wiz who are mana dependent without heavy physical attacks still won't be remotely sustainable but I haven't played them to high enough lvl to tell. Druid is the closest I've done to a high level and he uses very minimal mana and at high levels slowly depletes his huge mana pool.

Bards: Can't comment here as I didn't play bard to a high enough lvl, might have to try it.

Rogues: I'd think as the boss fights get longer (Hell bosses take ~2 minutes?) rogues just won't have a chance. You can only control the boss so much and once they start casting spells for a fifth of your life its not going to last.

Enchanter: Didn't play enough but unless that rune absorbs ~500 and is on a quick cooldown (<10s) it's not going to do much.

Paladins: I find paladins just need reworked in general. They are inferior to cleric in every way (DPS, tanking, healing, chaining) except they get lay hands which just doesn't make up for it.

In my experience, my original post doesn't just apply to chaining, endgame bosses have so much hp that some sustainable healing is really required to finish hell. Maybe I'll man up, give my rogue two chromaspikes and see if he can get through hell.
Author:  SeismicRend [ Mon Apr 13, 2015 2:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
I play the Paladin by focusing on a rotation to keep the mobs permanently stun-locked.

Rebuke to counter attack with Repudiate
Vengeance to interrupt the next attack
Smite for 3.5s stun
Rebuke when stun wears off to counter attack
Holy Might for 4.5s stun
Cycle from the top.

I weave the other abilities in as needed to that rotation. I find the timing requirement of the attacks to be fun and a uniquely different style of combat from the other classes. My biggest complaint would be the low damage the class deals. It certainly has no trouble sustaining though.
Author:  TadaceAce [ Mon Apr 13, 2015 4:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
And what do you do on the bosses that pop with a buddy? Also rebuke is only melee attacks if I recall?

Cool strat though, I love paladins I hope that there is a way to make them work.
Author:  SeismicRend [ Mon Apr 13, 2015 5:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
TadaceAce wrote:
And what do you do on the bosses that pop with a buddy? Also rebuke is only melee attacks if I recall?


Root adds to prevent them from attacking while keeping the stun-lock focus on the boss. Rebuke works on spells too, just have to time it later compared to melee to give the spell time to travel to you so you can bat it back. Vengeance however can't be used to stop spellcasting so you do have that hole in the rotation. I agree though, they run into serious trouble when fighting more than one spellcaster.
Author:  TadaceAce [ Mon Apr 13, 2015 5:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
Root is bad in this game.. just bad. Unless you root a mob who happens to have no spells (few and far between it seems), when you root them they just spam spells and the damage they deal just increased 300%. Spell damage in general by enemies needs to be looked at but root just exaggerates the issue.
Author:  Maelfyn [ Mon Apr 13, 2015 5:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Balance discussion: healing and secondary resources.
I lol'd hard. I will say, yes, Root can be a real bad idea on a caster. On the bright side it does make them super predictable for setups like Frost Nova > Silence with Wizard.
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