Let's Talk About Class Balance!

[Robhawk]

How many years you want to discuss this over and over... A good start would be nerfing the elondrian gun -> HAHAHA !!!

[chorba69]

Yeah lol. Whats the point of these threads when you change nothing?

[Spellcheck]

Yeah lol. Whats the point of these threads when you change nothing?

Lol Ikr, so much for all these suggestions -_-. And the Mods or Devs will comment on this thread saying they will do it but in a month or two... Nothing has changed.

[Alhuntrazeck]

Yes, let's talk about class balance...

-Warriors' bulwark shouldn't have a mage's skill as a 100% occurrence on charging. That's just dumb. Warriors with bulwark now have 5 skills...To balance this, either remove the freaking curse proc, or drastically reduce its occurrence to, say, 10%? Or change the proc to an armor debuff to make up for the bulwark's lower damage...say, -15%.
I literally 3 hit myself using fire ice light vs a bulwarker. He didn't do anything - and didn't have a pet on to boot. Is that class balance?

-Fix mages. I'm sure most of us PvP mages are not looking forward to more damage to be like rogues. Instead, a decent HP and armor boost should be good. What I don't get is, why do rogues have more damage than mages, as well as more HP and armor? Tradeoffs, anyone?

For this, I'd suggest a 20% armor boost for all allies on heal. This would ensure mages don't get 1 hit immediately after healing which sort of defeats the purpose of healing, no?

Another useful buff would be a slight increase in base armor for mages.

-Make rogues have their pet dmg% added in CTF. I shudder to think of their damage with a pet damage % also being factored in - but what's fair's fair.

-Give mages a stun immunity skill like the other classes do. If it was made as an upgrade to shield, but lasts about, say 10s, it would be fine - considering the fact that warriors have stun immunity for 15s and rogues 5s (8s actually, but its glitched). The immunity should begin once shield is cast and should last even till after shield is broken if it should work well imo.

Something not many people understand is, CTF is a team game and the class balance was designed with that in mind. So, with these 4 changes, the classes should be pretty much balanced. Mages and warriors shouldn't aim to be rogues; support, healing etc are equally important.

[Alhuntrazeck]

In a class balance discussion, there are a number of questions that, imo, get to the heart of the matter.

• How do we measure PvP class balance?
• What is the ideal PvP class balance?
• What is the current PvP class balance?
• If there is an imbalance what is the best way to achieve the right balance?

Equivalent Exchange

Interwoven in every game, and in reality itself, is the concept of equivalent exchange. It's easy enough to understand. You don't get something for nothing, you gotta pay for it in some way. You have to give something to get something in return, etc. Arcane Legends is no exception. If you want a particular pet for your character you have to pay for it, either through plat, gold, opening locked crates, farming, spending time begging, etc. Getting from level 40 to 41 means working through 10 levels worth of experience.

When considering the ideal PvP class balance it's important to apply equivalent exchange because if you don't you automatically create a situation where one class reaps the benefits that another class should receive. Iow, one class ends up paying for another class' benefits. Balance is a synonym for equivalent exchange.

Measure of Success

PvP is a zero sum game, making it easy to measure overall balance by comparing the kill per death ratio (KDR) of each class. The total number of all kills is always equal to the total number of all deaths. There are other ways to measure PvP success like peer recognition, flags, games won, assisted kills, etc, but that's not where the 'real money' is.

Ideal Balance

If Arcane Legends had only one class it would take 100% of kills and 100% of deaths. If arcane legends had only two classes and they were exactly equal except in name, each class would take 50% of kills and 50% of deaths. Arcane Legends has three classes. If the three classes were exactly equal except in name, each class would take 33.33% of kills and 33.33% of deaths.

Thankfully, the three classes are not equal since that would be boring and pointless. Each class has a strength which it (supposedly) pays for by its weakness.

IMHO, this is what class balance should look like with three classes:

Ideal Class Balance
	Kills	Percent	Deaths	Percent
Rogue	Highest	38.33%	Highest	38.33%
Sorcerer	Average	33.33%	Average	33.33%
Warrior	Lowest	28.33%	Lowest	28.33%

• Class KDR should ALWAYS be 1:1.
• Equivalent exchange occurs:
  
  • Rogues pay for 5% more kills with 5% more deaths
  • Sorcerers stay average
  • Warriors pay for 5% fewer deaths with 5% fewer kills
  
  
• No more than 10% variance between highest and lowest total number of kills and deaths. Too much variance means PvP becomes boring, unnatural, and prone to excessive dramazzzzz.
• A better than average KDR actually means something!
• Individual players are more challenged. They must now use skill, superior gear, better team coordination, etc, rather than rely on inequity.

Not Pretty

Now that we know what class balance should be, what is it actually like right now?

I looked at the CTF and TDM leaderboards earlier today and did ye olde manual data entry into a spreadsheet. First, the raw number of kills:

PvP Leaderboard CTF Kills
	Total	Percent
All	2,979,151	100.00%
Rogue	1,397,172	46.90%
Sorcerer	783,541	26.30%
Warrior	798,438	26.80%

PvP Leaderboard TDM Kills
	Total	Percent
All	1,843,232	100.00%
Rogue	898,673	48.76%
Sorcerer	519,434	28.18%
Warrior	425,125	23.06%

PvP Leaderboard Combined Kills
	Total	Percent
All	4,822,383	100.00%
Rogue	2,295,845	47.61%
Sorcerer	1,302,975	27.02%
Warrior	1,223,563	25.37%

The most remarkable stat is that the top 25 CTF sorcerers actually have fewer kills than the top 25 CTF warriors. o.0
The second most noteworthy stat is Rogues basically take half of all kills in PvP.

So what IS the the class balance right now?? WELLLL... We don't know the number of deaths for each of the leaderboard players (Hey Devs, how about a quick SQL script and u can post the results here? Plssssss!). I could painstakingly poll in game each player on the leaderboard.... uh, on second thought, no.

However, we can make an educated guess because we know a few facts:

• The deaths distribution will somewhat reflect the the kills distribution, i.e. because the kills are not balanced deaths are unlikely to be balanced.
• There is almost uniform agreement from every PvP player that mages receive the most number of deaths.

I think this is the most likely scenario:

Current Class Balance
	Kills	Percent	Deaths	Percent*
		100.00%		100.00%
Rogue	Highest	47.61%	Higher	37.00%
Sorcerer	Lower	27.02%	Highest	40.00%
Warrior	Lowest	25.37%	Lowest	23.00%

*guestimate

And again:

Ideal Class Balance
	Kills	Percent	Deaths	Percent
Rogue	Highest	38.33%	Highest	38.33%
Sorcerer	Average	33.33%	Average	33.33%
Warrior	Lowest	28.33%	Lowest	28.33%

The Kicker

Class Imbalance
	Kills	%Error	Deaths	%Error
Rogue	inflated	9.27%	deflated	1.33%
Sorcerer	deflated	6.31%	inflated	6.67%
Warrior	deflated	2.96%	deflated	5.33%

Assuming assumptions are correct, we now know:

• Rogue kills are inflated by 9.27%
• Rogue deaths are deflated by 1.33%
• Sorcerer kills are deflated by 6.31%
• Sorcerer deaths are inflated by 6.67%
• Warrior kills are deflated by 2.96%
• Warrior deaths are deflated by 5.33%

The Road Somewhat Less Traveled

It's really up to STS to investigate this matter further. They have all the information that could truly shed light on the current state of class balance. Individual class KDR should be 1:1 and if it isn't there's an imbalance problem. I'm 99.9% confident that there is a clear anti-mage/pro-rogue/pro-warrior bias in the current class balance scheme.

Everyone has their opinion on how to fix the imbalance, but as Remiem pointed out in chatbox, developers rightly fear the bane of unintended consequences. Looking at the current imbalance scheme it's difficult to tease out exactly which button(s) to press to correct the imbalance. Even if the developers find the right button, pushing it might cause an uproar. Best intentions and all that lol. That being said...

REMEMBER PvP started being awful for Sorcerers when stun immunity was introduced. Pets made it even worse for sorcerers. Then it became clear Rogues did too much damage and Warriors did too little so they were nerfed/buffed. It feels like developers thought the matter had been laid to rest, but now that is much less certain.

My suggestion on how to fix the imbalance? From a PR perspective it's better to buff than to nerf so a sorcerer buff of some kind seems the best option, all things considered.

The leaderboards are pretty fine IMO. The rogues are meant to be the damage dealing class, so its only natural they get the most amount of kills.

They also die a fair bit, btw. One of the best rogues I know has ~20k deaths (if I remember right) and is #1 on the LB, so...

[Kingofninjas]

Warriors
No changes required, except maybe adjust (reduce) the curse rate on bulwark.

Mages
Personally, I think this talk about about being 1 combo breaking their shield and killing them is not true, except maybe if a ring rouge attacks. But then if we are going to compare a ring rogue, we should compare to a ring mage. In this scenario, I am pretty sure the ring rogue would not be able to 1 hit through the shield. That being said, mages are still definately too fragile. Once the shield drops, it is rare for a mage to survive if there is still a rouge alive. My solution would be to increase armour AND strength by 20%, and maybe provide a 1.5 second damage immunity once shield drops, giving them time to charge a counter attack and protecting them from being killed by an uncharged combo.

Rogues
No complaints here.

All in all, I think the HP and armour really need to be balanced with the damage so end game clashes do not remain a race to which rouge can 1 hit the other first or an endless spamming of samaels and praying that you do not get stunned yourself.

[Gensin]

I literally can 1v1 a mage and win easily a mage with samael or singe, I just wait and stun while his on his shield, then when its off eat his heart out, mages need alot of nerfing by alot i mean more than this forums can carry threads.

[Hue]

I've been seeing a lot of talk lately about class balance in Arcane Legends. Mostly about our favorite little blue dudes, the Sorcerers, but I'd love to gauge everyone's response to class balance in general so that I have clear suggestions to send back to the devs.

So! Let's discuss.

Please comment below with your feedback and suggestions on how we might improve class balance. And, let's keep in mind that BALANCE is the key word here. I know that everyone wants to be able to just own everyone in PvP, but that's not what balance is about. Each class should have their own strengths and weaknesses, and not feel either over or under powered.

Also, I know this is a hot topic and people can get fired up over something they are so passionate about. Please keep this discussion friendly, constructive and straight forward. This isn't the place to bash the game, other players or STS. This is the place for discussion about how we can make the game more fun for everyone.

Ready, set go!

If your going to attempt balance, then you need to consider the rich and the poor. Big plat spenders are obviously going to get their hands on rarest of gear, and of course with that come best of stats. Where the non-plat spenders are left high and dry.

If you want to balance PvP, everyone needs be of equal gear & pets. It can be a point system dedicated to PvP gear which you can buy in turn everyone can obtain through some sort of farming activity, or w/e the case may be, and everyone has a fair shot.

The stats given from said PvP, need to be balanced along with damage done, we already know rogues are able to crit quite high amounts, through juggernaut and armor some reaching 2.5k-3k+ which is half of most warriors health. In balancing the damage done by all classes this then focuses more on actual roles in PvP, Tanks being meat shields, rogues being dps, and mages for the stun/aoe.

A good example to look at is World of Warcraft at around the 60 level bracket, health isn't OP neither is the damage dealt, DPS doing 200's -500, and the crits coming in at 800-1k MAX, just food for thought.

[Instanthumor]

I disagree with everyone asking to buff armor value by a percentage. That'll make durable passive worthless and Gale upgrade less effective. Instead, should add 33% STR buff. As a mage now, I have 150 STR. After the buff, I would have 200 STR. Not a HUGE increase, but something that will help balance classes more (in this case, survivability for mages).

[Hue]

I disagree with everyone asking to buff armor value by a percentage. That'll make durable passive worthless and Gale upgrade less effective. Instead, should add 33% STR buff. As a mage now, I have 150 STR. After the buff, I would have 200 STR. Not a HUGE increase, but something that will help balance classes more (in this case, survivability for mages).

As I said, its a waste of time buffing/nerfing skills. PvP will never be balanced unless you address gear & pets, followed by damage reduction, then skill tweaks.

[MoloToha]

I think that the easiest way to achieve balance in PvP is to fix aimed shot crit damage calculation bug and make mages more durable by buffing arcane shield or just buffing their str and/or armor. Also either reduce bulwark curse effect or make this curse happen with not 100% probability. At least, it should solve major class balance problems.

[kinzmet]

@ Wyldstorm
You forgot one of the variables in leaderboard for it to be the basis of balance. And that is population, There are only a handful of pvp sorcs in all levels compare to vast numbers of rogues and warriors which causes the very unbalanced leaderboard your discussing.

To the balancing problem:
The only under-balanced class here is the sorcerers.

I've been seeing a lot of talk lately about class balance in Arcane Legends. Mostly about our favorite little blue dudes, the Sorcerers, but I'd love to gauge everyone's response to class balance in general so that I have clear suggestions to send back to the devs.

Sorcerers:
- Vastly Increased Heal<<<<<< This alone will tip the scale for just a bit, we will need the other buffs as stated below
- Shield should grant stun immunity & a slight armor buff. I would suggest a 25% armor bonus when utilizing shield.
- If not willing to grant shield an armor buff, increase the damage that shield can take by 1-2k more damage. Sometimes, all a sorcerer needs is 1-2 more seconds to kill a class. This can provide that easily!
Warriors:
- Their skills are fine, they do not need a greater buff.
- In light of new buffs to rogues or sorcerers, some sort of enhanced survivability buff should be given. I am not suggesting anything TOO powerful, but just enough to keep them competitive.

Rogues:
- Their skills are also fine, they do not need a buff or a nerf.
- Pet damage boost should be fixed for this class. It is not granting the damage boost of any pet, making a lot of pet happiness features unable to be used.

These suggestions are suggested under the assumption that most of them will be implemented. Otherwise, the logic ladder falls apart.

May I add, since sorcerers in general is given the lowest health and armor what do they get in return? Nothing!
-I would suggest to buff the sorcerers health and/or armor.
-Make the heal-over-time of the Re-growth be like the Ticks on warrior's Horn of Renew or rogues' Combat Medic packs Good Medicine.

[Bomm]

Warriors: WARRIORS NEED TO GET FASTER!
The cooldown is to slow, it must get faster and the health skill must get faster too becouse sometimes when i am low on health ( in pvp or pve) and i start too use the health skill i get killed ( for example in pvp while i start too use health skill get killed by rouges arrows becouse the skill is to slow.!!!

- New skill for pvp like axt throw
- And a little bit more Hp / armor

MAGES:
- A bit more hp and armor

ROUGES: ARE TO OP!!!
-lower armor / hp
- And lower dmg


The real problem is that warriors are to slow ! They have more hp and armor then rouges but the more hps are usles when rouges and mages are more faster and have mutch more dmg. Warriors need long too kill someone in 1 vs1 becouse of the low dmg and slow cooldowns. So they get first killed bevor they can kill.

[Spellcheck]

Warriors: WARRIORS NEED TO GET FASTER!
The cooldown is to slow, it must get faster and the health skill must get faster too becouse sometimes when i am low on health ( in pvp or pve) and i start too use the health skill i get killed ( for example in pvp while i start too use health skill get killed by rouges arrows becouse the skill is to slow.!!!

- New skill for pvp like axt throw

- And a little bit more Hp / armor

MAGES:
- A bit more hp and armor

ROUGES: ARE TO OP!!!
-lower armor / hp
- And lower dmg


The real problem is that warriors are to slow ! They have more hp and armor then rouges but the more hps are usles when rouges and mages are more faster and have mutch more dmg. Warriors need long too kill someone in 1 vs1 becouse of the low dmg and slow cooldowns. So they get first killed bevor they can kill.

In twink levels 1-21, the Warriors do more damage than the Mages. Mages don't have much more damage and warriors are faster than the Mages because they have Skyward Smash. And Mages have Gale but who uses that in pvp besides flagging?

It takes a decent war not too long to kill mages but some time to kill rogues.

IMO warriors need to get nerfed and mages need to get buffed a LOT!

[chorba69]

A question to the devs.
A lot has been suggested. Not only in this thread, but also in threads in General Discussion etc.
What I, and I'm sure the rest of community would like to know, is: Are you guys going to change something this time to balance the classes in PvP, or everything will stay on words like every time?
I'm sorry but, I dont really see a point of these threads where you ask for people's opinions. There was a similar thread last season too, but what has changed? Nothing really. Mages still dont have any chances in PvP.
Tbh, yes I play a mage, but, I did not enter any pvp room for a long time. Why? Just because there's no chance. Legendary warrior can kill a mythic mage without problems. And a mage? Guess what, mage cant kill a myth warrior. Expecially now when you nerfed the gun and when Bulwark.. Yes you know about the curse..
I dont see a point. Mage has a Curse >SKILL< and a warrior's weapon procs Curse 10x stronger than mages skill, and has shorter cooldown.
C'mon tell me, where is logic?
In this game people should have fun. Yes pvp and pve. Mages dont have fun in pvp. Sorry, they dont.

Once again, long story short. Devs, are gonna change anything or not? And yeah, if you change your mind and listen to the player's opinions this time, when are those changes going to happen? Hopefully not 2016.
Thanks

[Bomm]

In twink levels 1-21, the Warriors do more damage than the Mages. Mages don't have much more damage and warriors are faster than the Mages because they have Skyward Smash. And Mages have Gale but who uses that in pvp besides flagging?

It takes a decent war not too long to kill mages but some time to kill rogues.

IMO warriors need to get nerfed and mages need to get buffed a LOT!

I talk about Endgame pvp ..
At Endgame warrs sucks!

But you're right twink warrs are hard

[Kreasadriii]

Sorcerers:
- Vastly Increased Heal
- Shield should grant stun immunity & a slight armor buff. I would suggest a 25% armor bonus when utilizing shield.
- If not willing to grant shield an armor buff, increase the damage that shield can take by 1-2k more damage. Sometimes, all a sorcerer needs is 1-2 more seconds to kill a class. This can provide that easily!
Warriors:
- Their skills are fine, they do not need a greater buff.
- In light of new buffs to rogues or sorcerers, some sort of enhanced survivability buff should be given. I am not suggesting anything TOO powerful, but just enough to keep them competitive.

Rogues:
- Their skills are also fine, they do not need a buff or a nerf.
- Pet damage boost should be fixed for this class. It is not granting the damage boost of any pet, making a lot of pet happiness features unable to be used.

These suggestions are suggested under the assumption that most of them will be implemented. Otherwise, the logic ladder falls apart.

What I bold is I really really like it.
Yes, what must mage do when use shield than get a long stunt -_-
And the shield? is was 2 secs invulnerable, after 2 secs. 1 aimed critical could break the shield or bosses like abomination will hit mage easily.

I hope this supposed mean as competitive that warrior can also participate on timed run too. Give them space.

[Energizeric]

Honestly, class balance is the main reason I got bored and decided to stop playing. From seasons 2-4, sorcerers were very competitive and I was able to compete if I had decent gear. Starting in season 5, unless you are insanely rich and can afford items that cost 50m+, you have no chance if you are a sorcerer. And even if you have all the top gear, you cannot compete against warriors or rogues that also have top gear. Yet warriors with legendary gear and no mythic or arcane items can still compete just fine.

I realize STS has tried to adjust class balance through gear by releasing this very good Elondrian Rifle. And yes, it does help a ton and makes me MORE competitive, but it's just not enough, and it only helps those few players who happen to own one.

For a true sense of class balance, you have to go to lower twink levels. Play at level 10 and try to be a sorcerer and then you will really understand. I have the best possible gear at level 10. All 5 items are the best discontinued items that exist for a sorcerer, and all of them have full grand gems. Yet I struggle to maintain a 1:1 KDR in PvP. Top geared level 10 warriors and rogues can beat me easily without much effort. In fact, even with all my top gear, I cannot take down a top geared warrior even if he just stands there and heals and doesn't fight back.

So the solution is not to buff certain gear. The solution has to involve buffing either our damage in PvP, or perhaps buffing one or more of our attack skills. But DON'T go overboard here or else the balance will tip too far the other way. I'd try testing such a buff at lower levels like level 8 or 10 with toons that have all top gear and see if you can create good balance between classes there. Then if it works, I'd try the same settings at level 20, 30, and then at end game. Any issues that exist at higher levels can be solved by adjustments in weapon stats. That is my suggestion. If sorcerers were able to compete, I may even start playing again.

One more suggestion.... It's too late for this season, but I suggest that the level 45/46 helms & armor give large increases in armor and health compared to level 40/41 helms and armor, and the level 45/46 weapons should only give a very small increase in damage compared to level 40/41 weapons. PvP at end game has become a sequence of being one-hit over and over. Only warriors can survive more than 1-2 hits, so whoever lands the first hit wins and there is little strategy there. Please do something to lengthen the battles next season. The PvE dungeons for level 45/46 could also be balanced towards this sort of change as well by having the level 45/46 elite bosses and mobs hit much harder, but only have slightly more health and armor than level 40/41 elite bosses and mobs.

[Markus Reynaldus]

Wow! alot of complains regarding the bulwark proc that, according to some, made the pvp climate unbalanced for sorcerers. Let me take you guys back to the Elondrian Event that made this weapon appear in the hands of warriors. During this time the proc rate is also 100% successful isnt it??? but no one dared to use this weapon as much in pvp because we all know that the stats isnt at par and the skill charging time took weeks when it first came out.

No one complained about the proc....

Then here comes the Test server to try out the planar update and the upcoming bulwark changes, no complains regarding the bulwark proc in there too.. ( i guess everyone is busy asking for arcane rings to devs that they didnt even notice the changes made in bulwark ) Some folks even call it Bulweak for crying out loud.

Now here comes the final changes for Bulwark, this somehow made the odds for the warrior on pvp on equal footing as rogues and mages that can easily kite warriors before in pvp. For the love of whoever is up in the heavens, stop complaining already, Play your classess even better and wiser to face the current changes that the Devs put in the table for us. Bulwark proc may have 100% success but it takes a long time to charge, usually for a second proc a warrior is sitting right in the middle waiting to chargem while getting bombarded on all sides and " Its hard to aim ". All bulwark user will attest to that.

[ColdBlahd]

For Rogue: Shadow Storm Shot should instant kill a player in PvP.