Balance; Discuss.
First off, apologies for the massive essay that (some of) you are about to read, I have spent a lot of time talking on these forums to arrive at what I currently think, is the most suited solution for imbalance (although I’m sure after you all tear it to shreds I’ll change my mind :-p).
DISCLAIMER
All figures are best estimates based on my (meagre) experience and data collected both in-game and on these forums. Please read the following post carefully and post constructive replies.
With stat based skill progression on the horizon the balance is set to shift (hopefully for the best) and there is great concern over hybrids becoming too weak. With weaker skills, would a hybrid then become too weak to contend without a boost in other areas, for example if skills became stronger for an INT specced enchantress, wouldn’t they 1 hit kill a STR enchantress too easily?
The current system is very stiff, as level and damage climb the simple boost (1HP/MP per 2STR/INT) would be very difficult to correlate with the increase in damage and skill use; given that not everyone will choose to allocate the same amount of STR/INT, the difference between each build type becomes more noticeable.
If STR and INT provided a boost (definitely not as strong) to hit%, a STR/INT spec would then be able to land blows, but still suffer a loss of dodge and crit (something which should be saved for a DEX spec aimed at DPS).
By level 100, 495 attribute points spent into STR/INT would yield 247.5 HP/MP, so a warrior with all points into STR would be around 550 HP, when you consider current damage that will quickly be outweighed.
Giving health and mana per level is a simple way of giving HP the boost that people have been asking for. However with both so high to begin with it’s easy to soak up as much damage as you need to at low levels, PvE is not a challenge and PvP is drawn out too long. Mana is similar to health; however it enforces the necessity for a fixed cost on all skills, allowing a skill to be maxed as soon as points are available with no concern for mana cost, resulting in the possibility for very high skill impact at lower levels. STR/INT should also have a greater effect on regen to correlate with the increase, ideally at level 100 you would want to regenerate at the same rate (as a percentage). Imagine that the warrior and enchanter are exactly opposite in health and mana as they are with the current system, the base values I used for calculation are:
Warrior – 154HP – 3H/s +11HP/level (full regen in 50s)
Archer – 112HP – 1.8H/s +8HP/level (full regen in 60s)
Ench – 98HP – 1.4H/s +7HP/level (full regen in 70s)
By level 40 & 100 their base would be:
Warrior – 583HP – 11.66H/s & 1243HP – 24.86H/s
Archer – 424HP – 7.06H/s & 904HP – 15.06H/s
Ench – 371HP – 5.3H/s & 771HP – 11.01H/s
Then with whatever was placed into STR/INT individual class specialisation would add a greater difference, the following are examples of maxed (+195 = 97.5HP & +495 = 247.5):
Ursan – 680.5HP & 1490.5HP
Archer – 521.5HP & 1151.5HP
Ench – 568.5HP & 1038.5HP
If each stat then governed skills individually, as opposed to a whole class, each spec could still have the means to enact their play style. There are already skill types that appear for more than one class, both warriors and archers have Evasion and Restore, the enchantress can also boost evade, all classes have skills of a typical archetype, I could go on but the similarities are obvious, there’s only a few things each class cannot do. A STR enchantress would still need some useful spells, Drain Life or Blessing of Vitality for example.
If you drew out a plan of how the stats and skills tie in, you’ve basically got a very messy skill tree, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was actually what was being cooked up by STS.
From the examples above, the warrior would have much larger HP, a STR spec would need to yield high damage from attack skills as well as the armour boost from Iron Blood, Crushing Blow would help fight against high dodge and Beckon would assist vs. ranged targets. A DEX spec would boost Evasion and Rage, allowing for a more dodge/DPS style of play. INT would lead to emphasis on the Restore skill as well as probably having some link to Iron Blood for defense.
The archer stays as it is, balanced nicely in the middle. STR archers would need something like Thorn Root, Break Armour and maybe Blinding Shot, DEX would hold strength in very high burst DPS and INT would take advantage of Restore and perhaps some secondary impact on attack skill damage.
The enchantress would finally have a substantial amount of MP and M/s needed for prolonged PvP. As mentioned a STR enchantress could use Drain Life and Blessing of Vitality, one of the debuffs, possibly Weakness in order to stand a chance against high evades. A DEX enchantress would need Blessing of Might and probably a debuff like Nightmare to stand any chance, and an INT enchantress would have the better nukes/heal but less focus on the buffs/debuffs.
This would be much easier to manage in a skill tree system as certain specs have no good skills to take advantage of, INT warriors, INT archers and DEX enchantresses being the worst.
If any of it doesn’t make sense or needs clarifying, let me know
I certainly understand the need for it. I worry, though, that my paladin (Furrawn) will become a pallid weakling with no magic. Will the skill set stay with the body type once the conversion happnens? Am I going to log onto PL on July 5th and find my beloved Furrawn now has the skill set of a bear- which I don't want? She does have int- about 70- but obviously strength is the mainstay. 
Originally Posted by bmc85uk
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