Solving Ze Bird Problem

[whisperwalk]

In Endmage PVP rooms there is no question that birds are overpowered. Players know this, so most PVPers are birds, whether CTF and DM. Now lets get to the root of the bird infestation:

Evasion: 45% Dodge, 20s buff
With just 9 points, the fragile glass cannon turns into a tank no one can touch. 45% is better than actual tank buffs such as those possessed by bears and rhinos. For example 48 armor in Stoneskin with 32 second cooldown is a joke. No one would choose armor (partial defence) over dodge (total defence). Seeing that yes birds need to survive PVE i understand why devs put it in. However, the implications for PVP are dire....

Foxes, another high dps class, get a very short evade buff lasting only 3 seconds. Foxes are melee while birds are ranged. Birds get to stay out of trouble (because of range) and then they can continue staying out of trouble when surrounded (because of evade). Evasion is far more broken than it looks. With a single button, birds have a dodge bonus exceeding the whole Savage STR set!

No cooldown on casting multiple skills
There is apparently no cooldown in PL for casting multiple skills. This allows a bird to mash buttons and unload his entire arsenal at once. We are not talking about nibbling bites. We are talking about 100-400 high dmg blows coming in all at once. The result is an opponent dead within 0.5 seconds, only slightly higher than the ping rate of servers. It is so fast that you only see the dmg numbers pop up after u are fallen.

Just like a chess game is worthless if one could win AGAINST BEST PLAY in 2 moves, having super short fights make PVP worthless as well. The "one-shot" phenomena is not restricted to birds but extends also to bears and mages, both can kill before anyone so much as blinks. In a game like DOTA, nuking characters have long cooldowns of 1 minute or more. In PL, the "nukes" have 5 second cooldowns.

Long range without penalty
Birds are built to be long range and they do not suffer any penalty for it. For example, in most games, an archer will start to hit 1 dmg once the opponent has closed the gap. Not so for birds. They get to have long range and they function equally well at short range. Also, melee classes do not get any special consideration for being short-ranged. Foxes continue to suck because nearly all bird skills are strictly superior, while bears only have high dmg as long as rage is still active (it has a long cooldown).

Devs throw one or two "range extenders" for melee classes, and consider the problem solved. Not so.

So my suggestion for a bird nerf is very simple. I have 3 points to make:

1. Evasion should be switched with foxes. Foxes get 20 second and birds get 3.
2. Implement delay before skills can be chained.
3. Birds should be near-useless at melee range. Their dmg should at least be halved or minimums.

[Gragorak]

No cooldown on casting multiple skills
There is apparently no cooldown in PL for casting multiple skills. This allows a bird to mash buttons and unload his entire arsenal at once. We are not talking about nibbling bites. We are talking about 100-400 high dmg blows coming in all at once. The result is an opponent dead within 0.5 seconds, only slightly higher than the ping rate of servers. It is so fast that you only see the dmg numbers pop up after u are fallen.

This isn't actually true. It may look like this when playing with phone/tablet, but that's just because it really takes like 0.5 seconds to cast two skills. While playing with chrome you could theoretically use nine skills in 0.1 seconds, but it isn't possible because sts has implemented the cooldown between using two skills.

But yeah, something must be done for birds in end game, and for dodge (=luck factor) in general in all levels.

[CrimsonTider]

Coming from one of the largest advocates for bears, taking away evasion along with having the lowest armor and health pool in game, would equal an instant death. Is 45+ dodge excessive? Yes. But it can be altered rather than just made completely useless.

And Grag is correct, there is a cooldown of .10 seconds per skill. (I believe this is where it stopped after the 100+ changes.)

[Yich]

While playing with chrome you could theoretically use nine skills in 0.1 seconds

My macro could do it faster. .1? That's an insult.

[whisperwalk]

Coming from one of the largest advocates for bears, taking away evasion along with having the lowest armor and health pool in game, would equal an instant death. Is 45+ dodge excessive? Yes. But it can be altered rather than just made completely useless.

And Grag is correct, there is a cooldown of .10 seconds per skill. (I believe this is where it stopped after the 100+ changes.)

Well, I would challenge this. Birds do not have the "lowest HP pool" that distinction goes to rhinos and mages. Yes, rhinos. So what we are experiencing is a "glass cannon" that is really made of bulletproof glass. People who PVP against birds experience their nigh-unkillability while I still do not feel safe at all wearing full STR gears. Because you see, a single bird skill exceeds all four inventory slots.

The only reason that birds end up lower HP than rhinos is that they purposefully neglect everything to get max DEX - if they wanted to, they can actually tank. But even without trying, the dodge will make them come on top. So what happens is a tank tries so very hard to get some measure of defensiveness only to be blown apart in 0.5 seconds. Meanwhile the bird is able to focus on max damage because they "automatically" get good defence on a silver platter. No need to spend any gold, just lvl up. There is a fundamental failure in game mechanics here.

A fox, being melee, would require the long evasion buff so they do not get auto-killed when blinking into a crowd. Instead we have things backwards - the long range guy gets a super long dodge, the short range guy is blown apart after 3s.

Secondly, bird armor is not very much lower than Savage STR set. Assuming they go full flying, we're not looking at more than 30 armor difference.

So at the minimum, birds require a major nerf in their capabilities. No more dodge hax, and be weak at short range.

EDIT - birds actually have the "second highest" HP in the game, losing only to bears, and tied with foxes. True story.

[Gragorak]

Well, I would challenge this. Birds do not have the "lowest HP pool" that distinction goes to rhinos and mages. Yes, rhinos. So what we are experiencing is a "glass cannon" that is really made of bulletproof glass. People who PVP against birds experience their nigh-unkillability while I still do not feel safe at all wearing full STR gears. Because you see, a single bird skill exceeds all four inventory slots.

Rhinos have two high armor buffs, two decent dodge buffs, high heal with h/s buff and redemption. Rhinos can take more dmg than any other class (at least in lvls 20-61, i dont know about lvl 9 skills). So no need to cry about hp. I read your guide, and it says you have no points in armor buff. Rhinos are made to tank, and that's actually pretty hard without using armor buff.

Secondly, bird armor is not very much lower than Savage STR set. Assuming they go full flying, we're not looking at more than 30 armor difference.

Not true. Elite bow set has 153 armor and savage scythe set has 255 armor (+ defensive set bonus, not sure how much it is).

[utotin]

The main thing that will solve this bird problem is to cut their wings off! By the time they are starting to sing " i believe i can fly, i believe i can touch the sky"! Then the problem is solved!!! Lol. Just teasing... Hope all will be well with all of us.

[Chickenrunnn]

The main problem is about vanity/rings overpowered bonuses.

Whoever has 3 vanity ring + dragon crafted is unbeatable, especialy bears who get over 1000hp and more than 100dodge, and birds damaging over 550 damage with blast itself..

AS for mage, they are a bit underpowered, but still can hit more than 600 damage.


StS needs to cut everyone damage by 2, lower hp regen to avoid unfinishable fights, and reduce dodge to avoid fights mostly based on luck.

[Oskitopee]

In this game, why isn't hp scaled with our lvl? Imagine if in WoW, we had the same hp at lvl 1 and at the cap. Makes no sense. I don't mean for just birds, ALL classes should have hp scaled with lvl. Makes no sense otherwise...

[bramer]

1. Evasion should be switched with foxes. Foxes get 20 second and birds get 3.
2. Implement delay before skills can be chained.
3. Birds should be near-useless at melee range. Their dmg should at least be halved or minimums.

If the devs did something like this the Pve community as a whole would be very mad (myself included) because they (devs) would have just effectively made birds worthless. Just my 2 plat, I don't mean to offend anyone or anything.

This is bramer - signing out

[tHelonestud]

Obviously, you have never played against a dexterity bear.

[whisperwalk]

1. Evasion should be switched with foxes. Foxes get 20 second and birds get 3.
2. Implement delay before skills can be chained.
3. Birds should be near-useless at melee range. Their dmg should at least be halved or minimums.

If the devs did something like this the Pve community as a whole would be very mad (myself included) because they (devs) would have just effectively made birds worthless. Just my 2 plat, I don't mean to offend anyone or anything.

This is bramer - signing out

For all overpowered classes (in any game), any nerf is treated as if it is a mortal danger. But assuredly the sky is not falling, birds are already so good that they have a long way to fall. They can survive major nerfs, i tell u, and still maintain a positive kdr.

The fear is what keeps us from much needed balancing. Birds want to remain op and dont want to sacrifice anything. Any nerf is rejected and watered down until it fails balance. Pointing to bears is useless because they are the no. 2 class. Comparing against no. 2 is setting an unrealistic benchmark; it is fairer to compare against the lowest rank classes.

Let me point out that evasion used to be even more op. It was nerfed to what it is and is STILL overpowered. So we can't settle for baby steps. When almost everyone in pvp is a bird, and they all one shot each other, we have a serious problem. A problem that can only be cured by drastic measures.

Birds dont deserve dodge because they are not tanks. So, all the clamour for retaining evasion is simply greed talking.

[bramer]

True, but I was mostly talking about the halving close-range damage part because I play with a dagger most of the time, get my point?

This is bramer - signing out

[OverkillED]

I've got an idea for birds. When an enemy gets close to them, it automatically switches to a weaker dagger (that every bird will have by default - just an idea) and certain skills could not be used. When the distance between the bird and the enemy is 4m+, it automatically switches to a bow and all skills are able to be used. I think this'll make foxes less useless.

I also agree with whisperwalk on switching the bird and fox buffs. Foxes are rendered useless and once their 3 second buff is up, they die. Birds have the advantage of range and foxes do not.

[XghostzX]

STS ruined the system the minute they changed the UI and stats on gear when Humania came out. They're not going to cut anything out - they're going to play it "low" and make the next cap gear even more OP. I wouldn't be surprised if the level 75 gear is more OP than the level 80 gear.

[Caiahar]

How about....making BOTH fox and bird evasion lowered down to 10 sec. If birds evasion was 3 sec, then ppl in PVE wouldn't be happy, like me.

[whisperwalk]

Rhinos are made to tank, and that's actually pretty hard without using armor buff.

I have re-specced my rhino at least 4 times and experienced both armored and un-armored versions. It does not make a difference.

At endgame, bird crits land for 400+ damage, exceeding the entire starting HP of a rhino. And due to skill chaining, the alleged tank will be dead in very few seconds. So, I have to really question the usefulness of Stoneskin. It might help in low level PVP but what's the point of that? The endgame is where it matters.

In any case, Stoneskin is leagues and leagues weaker than Evasion, which has longer duration, shorter cooldown, and better protection. I'm not saying that rhinos should have Evasion; it would be out of flavor. However, 1 dodge is better than 1 armor, a fact completely ignored by devs who made Evasion 45 dodge and Stoneskin 48 armor. The equation is closer to 1 dodge being worth 3 armor, so Stoneskin should be actually 135 armor (it's only active 35% of the time, so it might as well be big, rather than marginal improvement. You can look at the bear's Rage skill as a template). Even reduced to 100 armor, that would be an actual "tank buff". As for the current Stoneskin, I call it weaksauce. And given that the bird is basically a collection of very good skills, and no weaksauce; where is the place for Stoneskin in a Rhino?

In PVE Stoneskin is even worse, because it is only 35% of the time. When it comes to defence, there is no middle ground - either you need the 48 armor to stay alive, or you don't. Since a rhino isn't dying in the 65% of time that Stoneskin is offline, I can only conclude that the 48 armor is unneeded. The Savage set brings mob damage to near minimum even without Daily Blessings. It doesn't even save health pots because Rhino can heal. And any extra armor after the armor cap is useless.

[Edwin Sim]

I think it's the savage set that's way too op with the dodge and armor, my bird loss to a savage bear, why? Because it's too lucked based! The bear has way to much dodge and what about me( pure dex, elite bow set) only 10dodge without buffs, savage has 50+ dodge without buffs. Sts has to balance the sets and return dodge to dex sets.

[whisperwalk]

I think it's the savage set that's way too op with the dodge and armor, my bird loss to a savage bear, why? Because it's too lucked based! The bear has way to much dodge and what about me( pure dex, elite bow set) only 10dodge without buffs, savage has 50+ dodge without buffs. Sts has to balance the sets and return dodge to dex sets.

Wayyy off base. Savage is 28% dodge, not 50, and even the 160 str bonus adds only 4% dodge. Evasion is 45% dodge, doesnt cost 4m, and doesnt occupy 4 inventory slots. Which one is overpowered here?

If you lost to a bear, that's too bad, but plenty of birds can kill bears so turn off the hyperbole. Obviously, a character with above 1k hp and +90 att buff will always give trouble. Doesnt change the fact that birds are overpowered and need a nerf.

[aav5224]

Just level up if he is beating u