Dolloway
06-17-2014, 04:30 PM
Perfect.
No PvP level currently embodies this word. Some people don't even believe that perfection exists. And maybe they're right, maybe perfection doesn't exist. But there's one cap that has come close to being perfect, at least from a PvP balance standpoint.
From Sewers to Blacksmoke Mountain:
How did we get here? Only twenty levels ago, some of us were wearing the finest gems in all of Alterra - and I'm not just talking about the pink gemstone sets. I'm talking about all of the gemstone items.
From a list off the top of my head:
Mega Mage, Fury Fighter, Raid Roach, Enchanted, Fortified, Custom, Sewer Queen, Royal Sewer, Sewer King, Scraper, Lowman, Flusher, Henchman, Bodyguard, Bellows, Gutter, Trapp's, Mastermind..
And let us not forget about those "drainer noobs". I was one of them for the first half of the Sewer cap because all I wanted to do was PvP and didn't have any gold.
So how could such a "Lowman" on the totem pole or a "drainer noob" such as myself do well in PvP without pinks during the first half of this cap?
Because STS (I'll never get used to the idea of calling them "STG") provided its players with a unique system of competing in PvP regardless of what gear you wore. A system where skill mattered foremost and where gear was secondary.
There were individuals who spent countless hours working on builds, strategies, combos, combinations, range, gaining knowledge of game mechanics and what each skill did, etc.
There were many builds one could use. Who could forget about Paaahudd's legendary cyber helm and armor with henchman recurve build? What about Cloakker's bodyguard axe, bellow shield, and royal sewer helm/armor build that he rocked with a crazy face and an outlaw cowboy hat? Does anyone remember Pinoyarcher's pure gutter or trapp set build that he used to kill people in PvP? Obviously on paper, a pure gutter or trapp set's stats are lacking on their own, but it didn't matter. This was a PvP system where pure skill triumphed over wealth.
And what about those enchanted int bears with staves? Yes, even int bears were a viable option during this cap if you possessed the skill.
This was a unique PvP cap because it offered diversity. Seeing someone with the exact same build, combo, and strategy was rare. However, in today's endgame PvP, we've lost this diversity.
We've transitioned to savage bears, savage mages, savage rhinos, savage foxes, swift bears, fiery mages, and swift birds. Of course, there are characters who don't fit one of these descriptions, but it's very rare to see one.
We've become savages.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as everyone isn't a savage. Like in life, there's good and evil, there's black and white, there are movie stars and there are shopping cart pushers. It's perfectly fine to have good and evil, for they balance one another out. Otherwise, as in my first example, if the whole world was evil, we wouldn't know what good was because we would have never experienced a good person. We would not only lack goodness, but lack everything in between.
So why have we become savages?
A savage set simply outclasses other sets in terms of defense, while providing a relatively high amount of damage as well.
I see a great amount of people who say that bears are overpowered, pallies are overpowered, and so forth. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing wrong with bears and there is nothing wrong with pallies. The real problem is the stats on sets and the high amount of damage and debuffs that skills do for all classes, not just bears and pallies.
In order to fully balance the entire game, I think we should work on the foundation of the game from the ground up, starting with lower levels and follow a similar approach to the one seen in Whoisthis's thread:
Reform PL and re-establish class balance (http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?122775-Game-mechanics-and-equipment-a-thread-to-reform-PL-and-re-establish-class-balance)
Because the developers are not willing to do something as complex or something that involves a great amount of code work as seen in Whoisthis's thread and have stated that they are only focusing on rebalancing endgame PvP currently, what I will propose in this thread are solutions that are much more simple and feasible to rebalancing endgame. At least one of these solutions can surely be implemented into the game. So let's begin.
Undoing the "Great Nerf" of 2013:
I'm sure all of us remember when the developers "rebalanced" certain skills in September of last year. Let's take a look at what this "rebalance" update did so that you know what I'm referring to:
Skills that buff or debuff Crit and Dodge have been rebalanced. This includes: Archer Evade, Archer Focus, Archer Root, Enchantress Blessing of Might (Self), Ranger Escape, Ranger Evade, Ranger Hamstring, Ranger Tonic, Warrior Rage, Warrior Taunt Buff.
Vixen Ranger Evade Skill increased to 10 seconds with 15 seconds cooldown.
Rhino Paladin Charge Skill increased from 8m to 12m.
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Important notes for each class:
Archers:
An Archer's Evasion and Focus buffs were reduced from +45 maximum to +28 maximum I believe. In addition to this, an Archer's roots now reduced a significantly less amount of dodge, +28 maximum compared to the +45 dodge maximum they reduced before. These drastic changes were implemented to an Archer's skills because Archers were regarded as the most powerful class at endgame before this "Great Nerf."
Mages:
A Mage's Blessing of Might buff was reduced so that a Mage could no longer reach over 100 crit using int sets anymore. No changes were made to Blessing of Vitality.
Bears:
A Bear's Rage buff was changed from +60 crit +90 dmg, to +26 crit +90 dmg. The Bear's Taunt buff was changed from +14 dodge (28 dodge stacked 2x) to +10 dodge (20 dodge stacked 2x). The Bear's Evade buff was not reduced.
Foxes:
A Fox's Evade buff was changed from a 3 second cooldown to a 15 second cooldown.
Rhinos:
A Rhino's Charge skill was changed from 8m to 12m. No changes were made to buffs.
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The negative consequences of the "Great Nerf of 2013":
An Archer's maximum dodge from buffs was decreased by 17 (from 45 to 28) while a Bear's maximum dodge was decreased by only 8 in comparison.
Before this nerf, Foxes could use their Evade buff to unroot/unfreeze themselves every 3 seconds. After this nerf, a Fox could unroot/unfreeze themselves every 15 seconds.
A Bear's Evade buff was left unchanged, either because it was missed by the developers or it was decided against nerfing.
Skills such as the Fox's Escape and Hamstring and the Archer's Roots were changed, whereas skills that provided an extreme hit debuff such as the Archer's Blind and Bear's Hellscream were left untouched. Other skills that provided excessive debuffs were unchanged as well.
A proposal to undo the "Great Nerf":
The "Great Nerf of 2013" as a whole had a negative impact on PvP. Before the nerf, the buffs and debuffs were scaled in a more organized way. Whereas putting one point into a skill at each rank gave the class somewhat of the same increase each rank before the nerf, buffs and debuffs started to give classes +2 or other various numbers for various classes instead of say +5 or the same increase at higher ranks. The gap between effectivity of skills for each class was made evident by these changes.
A Bear's dodge wasn't nerfed enough. As said previously, I don't know whether a developer missed nerfing the Evade buff (since this update was centered around crit and dodge changes) or whether they just decided against it.
If this nerf was to be done correctly, it should have focused on cutting back on damage, lowering debuffs, lowering dodge, lowering crit, and so forth. Instead, dodge and crit changes were the central focus of this nerf, while debuffs that packed an extreme punch such as -60% hit in the case of Blinding shot or -60% hit in the case of Hellscream were left ignored.
An Archer with say 200% hit can actually be reduced to 80% hit if the Hellscream debuff stacks twice in a fight with a single Bear, or even 50% hit if stomp hits as well. The Archer will most likely not be able to hit much of anything until the debuff times out. In comparison, Blinding Shot can reduce a non-egg Bear's hit from roughly 107% to a measly 47% if it hits once, and -13% if it stacks twice if the bear is fighting more than one bird. Yes, a negative percentage, meaning they have no chance to hit. Not to mention that a recurve has a Blinding proc as well, so theoretically if the Bear is only fighting one Archer, a Bear's hit percent would drop to around 22% if blind and recurve proc both hit, and possibly -3% if the proc stacks. A negative percent. That's insane.
A Mage with an endgame int set should always be able to crit, meaning they should have over 100 crit. Before anyone disagrees with this, do realize that I'm not supporting the high damage at endgame. I believe that damage should be reduced, but Mages should always be able to achieve over 100 crit while buffed with endgame int sets or even dex sets. Notice how I say int sets and not str sets.
While some may believe that it is unfair that a Fox has two 8m dash skills (16m total) whereas a Rhino only has one 12m dash skill after this nerf, take into account that Rhinos have heal, revive, and can tank much better than Foxes can. It is only fitting that Foxes have some strengths and weaknesses, just as Rhinos do. This is one change from this update that should NOT be changed back to what it was before.
So what I'm proposing is that the developers should undo this nerf in order to take one step towards balancing endgame PvP. This does not mean that they should stop here. If they were to stop here, Archers would become the dominant class in endgame PvP again just like before this nerf.
I also cannot stress it enough that developers should change which skill unroots/unfreezes a Fox. Currently this is the Evade skill, which can only be used once every 15 seconds. This was not as big of a deal as it it now because Foxes could use Evade every 3 seconds. Now it's imperative that developers change which skill unroots a Fox, otherwise Foxes will forever be at a disadvantage, compared to other classes who do not have to use a buff in order to free themselves.
So what I propose is that the developers should change the unroot skill to the Fox's Howl, just as an Archer's unroot skill is Avian Scream. If this change were to be implemented into endgame PvP, then a Fox's Evade buff should NOT be nerfed back down to a cooldown time of 3 seconds as well. Obviously the ideal change would be to have a Fox's Evade skill last around 10 seconds (with a cooldown time of 15 seconds) and change a Fox's unroot skill to be Howl. This would make Foxes be more balanced compared to the other classes.
I also think that the Fox and Rhino need more changes than just these alone and that these two classes are unfinished products, with the Rhino being more unfinished than the Fox. However, I am not a Rhino or a Fox expert because I do not actively play them all the time and can only propose basic changes made to these two classes to balance them appropriately so that they can better compete with the original three classes. There are more complex changes that need to be made to these two classes on top of the rest of the changes that I'm going to propose and I urge those who regularly play Rhino and Fox at endgame PvP to suggest more changes to these two classes in this thread. Perhaps there are changes that seem complex but could be easy for the developers to implement.
In addition to this, developers should look into the glitch where a Mage's Mana Shield and Heal do not take effect when you press them. This happens every so often, but it's unfair that a skill doesn't take effect when a player hits it. In this case, the Mage's heal will not actually heal a Mage when the skill is pressed. Likewise, the Mana Shield will not appear around a Mage sometimes if the skill is pressed.
Another glitch that has not been mentioned in a while is the range glitch. This is the glitch where a player is running and another player will gain 1m or so on them and be able to hit them with skills and auto attack but the player running away will not be able to hit the other player, even if the other player is in range as demonstrated by the ability to hit the running player with skills. And no, I'm not talking about when a player is running with a flag in CTF. This glitch will happen in regular fights when it's not supposed to.
With all that being said, I'd like to restate this once again: developers should first and foremost undo the nerf that happened on September 10th 2013, with the exceptions that I discussed in this section in reference to Rhinos and Foxes.
Note: This does NOT mean that this should be the ONLY change done to balance endgame PvP. If endgame PvP were to be entirely balanced in a new update, the developers should combine undoing the "Great Nerf" with one or more of my other solutions that I'm doing to discuss later in this thread. So without further adieu, let's move onto my next proposal.
Capping skills at level 6:
If redoing ranks for skills takes too much effort or code work, the only logical thing to do would be to cap skill ranks at level 6.
While this may be viewed as a problem if there were to ever be a new cap, the likelihood that there will be one is slim to none, considering the 'huge success' that Arcane Legends is.
If this is the case, what I propose for the developers to do is to make it so that players do not gain any new skill points after level 56. This will make it so that players will never be able to cap every single skill and this will provide some diversity, while further balancing each class.
While most players can play decent or well even with poor skill distributions because there is an excessive amount of damage and debuffs in endgame PvP, this proposal will make it so that builds are of utmost significance in PvP again. This will also make it so that order or combination of skills is of paramount importance, rather than the insignificance they have become in the current spam world that endgame PvP has been degraded to.
To put this in perspective:
At rank 9, Hellscream provides a debuff of -60 dmg and -60% hit to anyone within the 12m range. At rank 6, Hellscream provides a debuff of -30 dmg and -30% hit to anyone within the 8m range.
At rank 9, Blinding Shot provides a debuff of -60% hit to a single target. At rank 6, Blinding Shot provides a debuff of -30% hit to a single target.
At rank 9, Nightmare provides a debuff of -60 armor and -21 dodge. At rank 6, Nightmare provides a debuff of -30 armor and -12 dodge.
By lowering skill ranks to cap at level 6, this will further lower the inordinate amount of damage and debuffs in endgame PvP.
No longer will a Bear be able to be debuffed by -60% hit from a Blinding Shot. No longer will Bears have a chance to debuff another Bear by -60% in combat by using Hellscream.
In addition to this, dodge will substantially and appropriately be lowered across all classes.
Use the following link for reference as an example (and of course add the appropriate amount that each skill would rank at level 6):
Skill ranks for Bears (http://pocketlegends.wikia.com/wiki/Warrior)
As one can clearly see, level 6 dodge buffs such as Evade and Taunt would give Bears a significantly less amount than they currently do. While rank 9 dodge buffs currently give Bears 48 dodge combined (+20 for Evade and +28 for taunt stacked 2x), these buffs only give Bears 26 dodge at rank 6 (+12 for Evade and +14 for taunt stacked 2x). That's 22 less dodge.
This would make bears still viable and significantly cut down on the amount of dodge that bears currently rely on. I'm not singling out just bears. Have a look at the other classes as well and see how pivotal it is that all skill caps be lowered, especially for buffs and debuffs.
The importance of having buffs up when in combat would also raise if the skill cap were to be lowered to rank 6. This would significantly lower the amount of players who just rush into battle without buffs and rely on the extreme amount of damage or debuffs or even dodge on their set to either defeat the other player or guide themselves to safety.
As said before, under level 6 capped skills, usage of buffs and cast timing would be imperative to players more than it currently is, especially those players who like to wander off by themselves into a battle and try to out-tank or out-damage everyone even when their buffs are down.
Balanced sets:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg1-1.jpg
The above picture is the stats of each DEX set from levels 56-76 worn by the appropriate PvP cap level, excluding a few sets.
As the above picture shows, we start off with two balanced level 56 sets -- Custom and Raid Roach. However, as we move further and further away from the level 56 cap, the unbalance tends to have more repercussions on the state and quality of PvP.
The unbalance starts at level 61, however small it may seem right now compared to the current endgame unbalance that we have. At the time, most players couldn't foresee the unbalanced scaling that was occurring but as level caps and campaigns came and passed players by, evolution was taking place in various forms. Some players adapted to this transition and some left the game as a result.
As level caps flew by and new sets took the place of others, damage became too high and enough armor wasn't being added to sets to keep up, causing a mismatch. While many believe that level 66 was the first real sign of this unbalance, I'd like to think that the level 71 cap is where this unbalance started to thrive and monumentally deteriorate the quality of PvP.
While armor and damage scaling can be adjusted to balance one another out, debuffs simply cannot keep up with the extreme amounts of "chance values" on sets in order to balance one another out, otherwise we'd have classes who are using class specific sets acting out the role of a tank when they're designed to be a damage dealer while equipping a class specific set or classes using class specific sets acting out the role of a damage dealer when they're designed to be a tank using a class specific set.
As you can see in the stat table above, armor or even health didn't scale correctly to compensate for the high amount of damage, but that's a given. Dex sets became saturated with excessive amounts of crit and hit, and for one level cap (Humania), dodge as well.
The developers simply cannot treat the "chance values" on sets the way they've been doing over the last few campaigns. These values should only be adjusted slightly and should reach a pinnacle so that Archers cannot exceed a certain value using sets. For crit, this value should be around 80 buffed and for dodge, this value shouldn't exceed 40 while buffed. Otherwise, PvP becomes a game of chance, as it was during the Humania cap when every set provided a nonsensical amount of dodge.
To make up for slight cuts in dodge, crit, and hit (the "chance values") after the level 56 cap, developers should have boosted other stats such as damage and armor to make up for this, but scale them so that they provide a harmonious balance. Instead, the developers went in a totally opposite direction and sets soon became saturated with excessive amounts of dodge, hit, and crit, while also being bogged down by unbalance from scaling. All of this has lead to the current endgame cap, a cap that has become unparalleled.
These excessive amounts are further illustrated by the Mage and Bear stat changes:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg2.jpg
As you can see in the INT set stat table, the crit value tripled on sets starting at the level 61 cap (3.5x what it was during level 56). While Mages needed more crit using INT sets compared to level 56, this value was raised too much. Once again, as we move further and further away from the level 56 cap, the unbalance becomes more and more noticeable. The crit value on INT sets at level 76 today is 7.5x what it was during level 56 (from 8 crit at level 56 to 60 crit unbuffed at level 76). In addition to this, hit percentages are raised from roughly 99% to 140%, an increase of 45% hit. These "chance values" should have only slightly increased over the last few various campaigns, rather than being increased by an exceptionally high value and being increased to 7.5x what it once was at a balanced PvP level.
Of course, once again, the damage and armor values are not correctly scaled for INT sets as exemplified by the Mage stat table, but these are values that can be easily adjusted. "Chance values," as I've said previously, cannot be adjusted as easily because they have to be balanced out with debuffs as well and exceptionally high unbuffed values will cause classes who are using class specific sets to play out roles they are not designed to play out.
While Mages gained high crit and hit at level 76 as compared to level 56, Bears gained not only crit but dodge as well. Let's take a look at the other side of the spectrum, the colossal dodge increases:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg1.jpg
As displayed by the above stat table for Bears in STR sets, dodge and crit were raised too much. While the Fury Fighter set had a high amount of dodge, there was a reduction in damage compared to the Fortified set. Vice versa, the Fortified set provided more damage while compensating for that by providing less dodge. Instead of balancing one strength out with a noticeable weakness and creating a harmonious balance, STR sets started to gain too much base crit as you notice in the stat progression beyond level 56.
It is because of this disproportionate increase across the past few level caps that Bears have taken on more of a damage dealing role while equipping their class specific set, both in PvP and PvE. While Bears equipped with class specific sets are supposed to be "tanks" or the "leaders" of a pack, we have Bears in PvP who try to finish off an opponent with relative ease in a matter of seconds by hitting a simple Beckon -----> Stomp -----> SMS combo while buffed. And it works. Not only on squishy classes, but other Bears and tanks alike as well sometimes because of the excessive amount of damage.
We also have Bears who hide in the background of a group and act as anything but a "leader," both in PvP and PvE. While Bears are supposed to be at the forefront of a group, some now let their squishier comrades die or tank in battle only to kill off anything that exists in the aftermath of a battle. For PvE, some Bears will actually let their squishier comrade such as Birds tank while the Bear picks off any remaining mob enemies with a simple "Smash" combo.
Ultimately this has lead to Bears not learning how to effectively make use of crowd control in order to guide their teams to safety simply because it's not needed as much anymore because of these unscaled stats that are centered more on soloing than on teamwork in a battlefield. Of course, we could also partially blame elixirs on this but because this is a PvP discussion and the use of elixirs isn't allowed in PvP, we'll leave them out of this conversation.
So what can be done? What are the developers willing to do?
Hey guys,
Just finished re-reading over lunch.
Trying to find a nice way to say this, but you're biting off too much. We're looking for specific changes, not rebalancing everything or making sweeping changes to how skills work. We all acknowledge that Pocket Legends balance is well, not very balanced. There are huge swings in power in the game. It was the Studios first mobile game and yeah, we've learned from that. That being said, we're not looking to go back and re-do skills from the ground up. Might as well get started on PL2, ya know?
So, can we pull this back to specific, end game things? Like nurf Savage sets by specifically taking X off them.
Thanks!
As illustrated by Sam's reply to Micah's "Balancing the Current Meta" thread, the developers are not looking to make sweeping changes to how skills work. They are, however, willing to rework the stats on endgame sets and the stats for skills, as evident by the "Great Nerf" in September of 2013.
So what I propose is that skills should be capped at rank 6, as said previously. These rank 6 skills should have the same effect that they did BEFORE the skills were rescaled during the "Great Nerf" of 2013. This means, for example, that Archers will be able to achieve +30 crit from Focus, Mages will be able to achieve +60 crit from Blessing of Might, Bears will be able to achieve +30 crit from Rage, and so forth.
So how can this work? Players will not be able to gain anymore skill points after the level of 56. This will make it so that each player has a unique build, but does not cap every skill. I repeat, players will not gain anymore skill points after the level of 56. This will lower debuffs across the board so that players will not be able to hit others with extreme decreases in stats. The damage lost from decreasing rank 9 skills to rank 6 skills will be made up by the damage increase in the new stats that I will show you in this thread.
Mana consumption will be raised to 2x the amount that it was for rank 6 skills BEFORE the rescaling from the "Great Nerf" of 2013. This mana consumption increase to 2x the amount that it was for skills before the "Great Nerf" of 2013 will take effect at LEVEL 71.
Why?
Storyline reason: Harder mobs, harder enemies. You will need 2x the amount of energy (in this case, mana) to defeat them.
PvP mechanics reason: If stats are going to be increased, as I will propose later in this thread, then mana consumption will also have to increase to 2x the amount that it was for rank 6 skills before the "Great Nerf" update. This will take effect at level 71 in order to ensure PvP levels below 71 are not effected by the increase in mana consumption for skills. If level 75 and 76 stats are changed, so will the level 71 sets, which means that level 71 PvP can handle the increase to 2x the mana consumption, just as level 75 and 76 sets will, as I will propose.
So let's take a look at look at the stats for sets that I propose, stats that are much more balanced than the ones we currently have:
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[Note: Treat these stats as if they were the stats of the sets alone with no rings, vanities, or platinum purchasable faces. Do not factor in stats from rings, vanities, or faces that characters may be wearing]
Sharp Wand Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SharpWandSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +400 health and +600 mana]
The Sharp wand set will mirror the Enchanted wand set from the Sewer cap. This set will have it's obvious strengths and weaknesses, just like the other stats for the sets that I will show you.
This set focuses on health and crit, unlike the Fiery wand set's stats. With full buffs, Mages will be able to achieve 81 crit (+60 crit) with the rank 6 Blessing of Might skill, which will make characters using class-specific gear cap out crit in the 70's and 80's. Mages will also be able to achieve 308 armor from a rank 6 Blessing of Vitality (+28 armor, 8 armor for rank 1 and +4 armor for each additional skill point added into this skill).
Birds and Bears will be able to hit a -30% hit debuff on Mages (using Blindshot for Birds and Hellscream for Bears) which will debuff their hit percent to 76%, which is a reasonable number. In order to avoid being debuffed too much, Mages will once again be encouraged to devote some of their points to dexterity to raise their hit percents, something that has been lost over the various campaigns. Mages will choose whether they want more skill damage by investing their points into int, or whether they will sacrifice some of that skill damage to gain some hit percent.
Mages will gain needed crit in both Sharp and Fiery sets, something that int sets lacked in the Sewer cap in my opinion. However, crit will not be raised to an extreme level, as evident by the stats.
Mages will gain an additional +100 mana over Fiery set to make up for the lack of mana regen.
Sharp Staff Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SharpStaffSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +400 health and +500 mana]
Unlike the Sharp wand set, Mages will only gain +500 mana instead of +600 mana as a set bonus. This is because the Sharp wand set will compensate for the loss in mana and health regen by adding damage, crit, and mana regen, making it a nuke set in PvP, but giving up some defense in the process.
Int Bears and Int Birds will be viable in PvP once again, should they choose to wear this staff set.
Fiery Wand Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/FieryWandSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +400 health and +500 mana]
The Fiery wand set will mirror the Mega Mage set. Mages will roughly have 85 mana regen, should they choose to wear this set. While the Sharp wand set focuses on health and crit, this set will focus on armor and mana regen.
Unlike the Sharp wand set bonus, this set will only gain an additional +500 mana in order to reflect the regen changes between the two sets. The Sharp wand set will have more mana but less mana regen and the Fiery wand set will have more mana regen but less mana to balance both out.
The Fiery wand set will be primarily for Mages, but Rhinos will also be encouraged to try this set out, should they choose to. This set will give Rhinos more than enough mana regen, something that they lack without a set that provides an ample amount of mana regen.
Fiery Staff Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/FieryStaffSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +400 health and +470 mana]
The Fiery staff set will give up some mana and health regen in order to gain damage and armor. Unlike the Sharp staff set, this Fiery staff set will focus on mana regen and armor, while giving up hit percent, health regen, and mana in order to reflect this change.
As a set bonus, the Fiery staff set will only provide +470 mana in order to compensate for the additional +5 armor increase.
Elite Burning Branch Set (decrease equip requirement to 157 INT):
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/FieryBurningBranchSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +400 health and +470 mana]
Equipping the elite Burning Branch will provide players with an additional +5 armor, +5 dmg to the lowest and highest dmg values, and +2 mana regen. No extreme increase will be given to those who equip this item in order to keep level 75 players on par with level 76 users and not overthrow the balance.
The equip requirement will be reduced from 300 INT to 157 INT. 300 INT is a ridiculous requirement to equip a weapon and discourages diversity, since other classes with the exception of Mages won't take the risk of putting 300 of their stat points into INT in order to equip this set. Other classes should be encouraged to try out new sets and this discourages the diversity in PvP.
Flying Recurve Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/FlyingRecurveSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +400 mana]
The Flying recurve set will mirror the Raid Roach set. This Flying set will focus on damage and dps for those who like to give up regen in order to gain an advantage damage-wise.
Under this set, Archers will be able to buff to 185% hit (+30% hit from rank 6 Focus) and 75 crit (+30 from rank 6 Focus). Archers will be able to achieve 37 dodge from this set (+30 dodge from rank 6 Evade) and around 228 armor (+8 (?) from rank 6 Evade).
Archers will gain armor as compared to Sewer sets, something that they somewhat lacked during the 56 cap, but only slightly.
Flying Talon Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg1-5.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +400 mana]
The Flying talon set will once again focus on damage, unlike the Swift talon set. This set will provide a boost in crit over the Flying recurve set in order to make up for the loss in damage. In addition to this, this Flying talon set will provide an additional +54 armor and +2 dodge over the Flying recurve set, effectively making it more of a tank set than the recurve set.
Swift Recurve Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SwiftRecurveSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +400 mana]
The Swift recurve set will mirror the Custom set. This set will focus on crit, armor, and regen, unlike the Flying recurve set. The Swift recurve set will lose damage as compared to the Flying recurve set, but will gain a +5 boost in armor, +33 boost in health regen, +1 boost in hit, +8 boost in mana regen, and +3 boost in crit, rather than focusing on damage.
Dex Mages will be viable once again and be able to use the Swift recurve set, considering the +400 mana set bonus, should they choose to do so. Dex Bears and Dex Foxes may also use this set to be competitive in PvP, if they wish to.
Swift Talon Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg2-1.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +400 mana]
The Swift talon set will provide crit and regen, as compared to the Flying talon set which focuses more on damage. The Swift talon set will give up 1 dodge and roughly 43 damage in order to gain +48 health regen, +2 crit, and +1% hit. While the Flying talon set will be more of a set for those who like to nuke in PvP, this Swift talon set will be more balanced and give up damage in order to reflect the change in stats.
Elite Phoenix Bow Set (decrease equip requirement to 157 DEX):
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SwiftPhoenixSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +400 mana]
Equipping the elite Phoenix bow will provide a similar increase like equipping the elite Burning Branch and the elite Boulder. Equipping the Phoenix bow will provide a stat increase of +1 health regen, +1 mana regen, +5 dmg to the lowest and highest dmg values, and +2 crit. Once again, this small increase in stats will ensure that level 75 players are able to compete with level 76 players in PvP.
Like the Burning Branch, the Phoenix Bow equip requirement will be reduced to 157 DEX to encourage diversity in PvP, for reasons mentioned earlier in this thread.
Beastly Scythe Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/BeastlyScytheSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +200 mana]
The Beastly scythe set will mirror the Fury Fighter set. This Beastly set will focus on regen and dodge, providing more defensive stats than the Savage set.
This set will primarily be for Str Mages and Rhinos. Mages and Rhinos will have an adequate amount of regen but will be forced to give up some damage in order to compensate for this increase. Mages will once again be encouraged to invest points into dex rather than int, which will increase their hit percent, but take away some of their skill damage in order to balance this out.
Beastly Blade Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/BeastlyBladeSet-1.jpg
[Set bonus adds +475 health and +200 mana]
The Beastly blade set will provide users with more regen, dodge, and armor as compared to the Savage blade set. To compensate for the increase in regen and dodge, the Beastly blade set will have a lower amount of damage, crit, and health, making it more of a defensive 2H set.
Savage Scythe Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SavageScytheSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +600 health and +200 mana]
The Savage scythe set will be more of a set for Bears, Archers, and Foxes and perhaps Rhinos, as evident by the lack of mana regen. The Savage scythe set will focus on armor and damage, unlike the Beastly scythe set. There will be a slight increase in health regen as compared to the Beastly scythe set, but a significant decrease in mana regen in order to make up for this gain. There will also be a reduction in dodge, as compared to the Beastly scythe set. The Savage scythe set will also provide users with a +100 increase in health compared to the Beastly scythe set in order to make up for the other losses, similarly to the comparison between the Sharp and Fiery stats.
Under this set, Bears will be able to achieve 45 crit (+30 crit from rank 6 rage), 426-460 dmg (+60 dmg from rank 6 rage), 400 armor (+30 from rank 6 iron blood), and 48 dodge (+12 from evade and +14 from taunt stacked 2x).
If hit with a debuff such as Blinding Shot or Weakness (-30% hit), a Bear's hit percent will have the chance to decrease to 75% hit. This will make it so that Bears will still have the chance to hit something but still miss at times, unlike the current system we have where Bears have no chance to hit something if they are debuffed by -60% hit.
Warbirds will become popular once again by using this set, providing Archers with the needed damage and armor to once again be effective as a Warbird in PvP.
Savage Blade Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SavageBladeSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +200 mana]
The Savage blade set will provide users with a damage, crit, and health regen increase compared to the Beastly blade set, but mana regen, armor and dodge will be taken away in order to compensate for this increase.
Elite Boulder Set (decrease equip requirement to 157 STR):
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SavageBoulderSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +200 mana]
Equipping the elite Boulder will provide a similar increase like the Phoenix bow and Burning Branch increases. As compared to the Savage blade set, equipping the elite Boulder will provide an increase of +2 health regen, +5 dmg to the lowest and highest dmg values, and +5 armor.
Like the Phoenix Bow and the Burning Branch, the equip requirement for the elite Boulder should be changed to 157 STR as well to encourage diversity.
----------
You might think that the regens are too high on these stats, but let's put that into perspective. You've never seen regens as high as these because health and mana pools were never raised and therefore, you didn't need a regen increase. If health and mana pools are going to be raised by roughly 2x the amount that they were, then regens will have to increase as well to compensate for this.
For example, it took roughly 15.5 seconds for a level 56 Bear to regain 700 health while using Fortified set which provided 45 h/s.
If we compare this to the health regen and health pool that I propose the developers use for the Savage set, it will take roughly 16.4 seconds for a Bear to regain 1400 health if they have a health regen of 85 h/s.
Under these stats, set bonuses will roughly provide the following, as noted above depending on the set:
INT Sets: +600 mana, +400 health
DEX Sets: +400 mana, +500 health
STR Sets: +200 mana, +600 health
These set bonuses ensure that there will be balance. For set bonuses for classes wearing class specific sets, Bears will gain the most health and the least amount of mana, which is what they need to be effective. Birds will gain the second most amount of health and the second most amount of mana. Mages will gain the most amount of mana and the least amount of health, which is what they need to be effective.
This won't discourage players who like to wear non-class specific sets either. For example, Mages will still be able to play pally if their hearts desire, but they'll have strengths and weaknesses just like every other class. They'll have a less amount of mana in their mana pool and a reduction in damage but will have a high amount of mana regen and health in order to balance the weaknesses with strengths.
As for everything else, these stats look to be balanced, at least much more balanced than the ones that endgame sets currently provide. Although armor and damage scaling might be a bit off because I don't have the capability to test out these stats in PvP like the developers, everything else looks to be balanced, especially the "chance values" which shouldn't exceed a certain amount as I mentioned earlier.
Not only will this balance PvP, but PvE will be reinvigorated as well considering players will have to farm more pinks because non-crafted pinks will become as valuable as crafted ones. Players will find more initiative to play the Blacksmoke Mountain campaign again and this will lead to a rise in platinum sales, which will also profit the developers.
So let's move on to what else needs to be changed in order to fully balance PvP.
The Founders, The Elite and The Bad Eggs:
You had to know this was going to be mentioned in this thread.
Founder helms, Elite rings, and Fossilized Dragon Eggs.
Let's start off the discussion about Elite rings with a quotation from SamHayne made on 10-17-2012:
Going forward, we plan to continue adding elite level cap vanity rewards. The next one for level 81 (the expansion coming after Blacksmoke Mountain) should be a vanity armor. That way, anyone playing currently can work toward obtaining these legendary rings.
Obviously this post was made before any of the developers knew that Arcane Legends was going to be a large success and thus, shifted their energy into developing new campaign content for Arcane Legends rather than Pocket Legends.
However, there was a post made by SamHayne around the beginning of this year on 1-12-2014 that touched upon the Elite ring situation and making the rings available once again:
We could schedule something like that in, but the larger question is that what we should be doing? It seems like pvp balance is still a main sticking point.
As it currently stands, no one playing currently can work towards obtaining these legendary Elite rings unless they had already acquired an Elite vanity from a previous cap and decided to finally level to level 76.
Out of these three untradable and no longer obtainable items, Elite rings hinder PvP balance the most simply because they provide the most significant boost to stats. Let's take a look at what a 3 piece Elite ring provides:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg1-3.jpg
Now let's take a look at the stats on the best non-elite ring in the game:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg1-4.jpg
As you can see, not even 130-200m can buy you better stats than the Elite ring. You could make a case that the Black Dragon ring is better than the three piece ring, but a 55 health and 10 armor advantage over the Black Dragon ring is vital, especially for Non-STR characters.
Does it make a difference? Is a player with an Elite ring better suited for survival in PvP than a player without an Elite ring? The answer is yes.
I myself have one level 76 Archer with an Elite ring and one without an Elite ring. Likewise, I have a level 76 Mage with an Elite ring and one without an Elite ring. I can confirm that not having an Elite ring makes players (especially Non-STR) more squishy than they already are in PvP.
For example, a Mage equipped with an Elite ring who has 455 health may be able to withstand an attack that deals out 420 damage in PvP. Another player without an Elite ring who has 412 health may be killed from this attack simply because they do not possess the same amount of health as the player with the Elite ring.
The gap in stats between endgame players who have played longer and players who started around 1.5 years ago up until now is evident. Newer players who only have one elite vanity will never be able to obtain these rings because the chance that a new elite level cap will be released again is slim to none.
So, to answer SamHayne's question: yes, you should make Elite rings available once again. PvP balance is a main sticking point and making Elite rings available once again would further close this gap between players who have obtained three Elite vanities and players who have only obtained one Elite vanity but have played this game for roughly 18 months (1.5 years) and were never able to obtain more than one Elite vanity.
The fact that players who have been around longer have advantages in stats and can use these advantages in PvP zones is a ridiculous concept, considering these advantages will never be able to be obtained again. It would be different if these advantages only applied to PvE zones, but these advantages apply to PvP zones and cause a further rip in the balance of the game.
Achieving the Elite level cap should have rewarded you with what it originally was supposed to reward you with: an item on its own that has better stats than the current "best" endgame pink helm, armor, or shield but is useless in PvP.
For example, the Customized/Fortified/Enchanted Crowns of Persistence (the crafted helms that the Fallen Prince originally gave players who achieved the level of 56 during the Sewer cap) had better stats than the Custom, Enchanted, and Fortified pink helms that could be looted from the various Sewer campaign levels. However, equipping a Custom, Enchanted, or Fortified set would yield better stats than equipping this Elite cap reward helm that had stats (Crown of Persistence) because of its set bonus. For example, on its own, the Customized Crown of Persistence had a few armor points (9?) more than a pink Custom cap. However, when using the pink Custom cap with a pink Custom armor and Custom bow, this set bonus far outweighed the increase in stats than if you equipped the Customized CoP with the Custom armor and the Custom bow.
This is how the Elite level cap reward system should have been. Instead, starting at level 61, these Elite level cap rewards were made into vanities and when equipped, they provided a bonus in stats. It is because of this choice to implement such a reward system into the game that is no longer available that PvP has become further unbalanced.
So what I suggest, as far as Elite rings go, is that the developers should make a quest so that players can once again obtain these Elite rings. This quest should be no easy task, however. This quest should be equally hard or even more tedious than obtaining Elite vanities was for previous level caps.
Perhaps the developers could make a quest similar to the Ichor quest, where players would have to kill the boss in the Forgotten Forest and obtain 10,000+ Ichors to obtain a two piece ring. If they wanted to obtain the three piece ring, they'd have to obtain an additional 10,000+ Ichors in the Forgotten Forest, which bare in mind, does not allow players to use health or mana pots, making the quest even more grueling.
Perhaps the developers could make a quest similar to the Yeti quest in Frozen Nightmare/Lost Expedition, where if a player or a team of players can kill 100,000 enemies in Blacksmoke, they will receive a two piece ring. If they kill an additional 100,000 enemies, they will receive the three piece ring.
Either way, something needs to be done about the Elite ring dilemma. If the developers aren't willing to implement such a system to make the rings available once again, I suggest that they make the Elite rings equipable ONLY in PvE zones.
As for the Fossilized Dragon Eggs, only about 376 were given out in the game. The stats on these Eggs outweigh the stats on the pink level 75 shields. The dodge and armor on these Eggs allows this shield to trump the Swift wing, the hit percent and dodge on these Eggs allows this shield to trump the Savage buckler, and the hit percent, dodge and armor allows this shield to trump the Fiery eye.
So what I propose, in addition to changing the stats on sets to what I previously unveiled earlier in this thread, is to make these Eggs resemble the increases that the Customized, Fortified, and Enchanted Crowns of Persistence gave over the pink Custom, Fortified, and Enchanted helms during the level 56 cap. By this, I mean that the Fossilized Dragon Eggs as an item on its own should give roughly +9 more armor over the Swift, Fiery, and Savage shields after the changes are implemented in the game.
In order to do this, the Fossilized Dragon Eggs will have to become class-specific. For Archers, the Fossilized Dragon Eggs will resemble the stats of the Swift wing with an additional +9 armor. For Mages, the Fossilized Dragon Eggs will resemble the stats of the Fiery eye with an additional +9 armor. For Bears, the Fossilized Dragon Eggs will resemble the stats of the Savage buckler with an additional +9 armor.
Equipping these Fossilized Dragon Eggs will NOT yield a set bonus anymore, but these Fossilized Dragon Eggs will have better stats on their own compared to the pink level 75 shields. This means that the set bonus acquired from the level 75 set will yield better stats than equipping the Fossilized Dragon Egg because of the stat increase from the set bonuses that I provided earlier in this thread. This would easily solve the Fossilized Dragon Egg dilemma.
If the developers are unwilling to implement this into the game, I propose that they make these Fossilized Dragon Eggs equipable ONLY in PvE zones.
Moving on, I'll discuss a more touchy subject: Founder helms. The developers should not have given out a statted vanity for players who played Pocket Legends for the first month. While I do think that these "founders" should have been given something for playing the game since the beginning, they should not have been given a vanity that provides stats and causes unbalance in PvP, no matter how slight that unbalance is.
The developers originally made it so that both the Guardian of Alterra shield and the Shield of Gratitude provided players with around +10-20 armor in PvP. This decision was later reversed after it was discovered what kind of unbalance this caused (especially in lower level PvP) and so, both shields became vanities without stats.
A similar change should have been made to Founder helms, but considering how long the developers have gone without changing this, I don't see them ever doing it because it would probably cause an uproar. If nothing else, I propose for the developers to make these Founder helms equipable only in PvE zones so that PvP truly is a balanced zone where prowess overcomes extra stats in a game.
Fortunately for endgame players, although the developers will likely never change these statted Founder helms, they provide the least increase in stats compared to the other two unobtainable items that I've already mentioned in this section. However, these Founder helms provide stats that become more of a deciding factor in fights at lower PvP levels. Because this is an endgame PvP discussion, I will leave it at that and move on to my next proposal.
From a PvE Perspective:
It's no doubt that these changes would impact PvE play. So in addition to the PvP changes suggested in this thread, PvE changes are simply a must as well.
This is not to say that the Blacksmoke campaign should be nerfed as severely as the Nuri Hallow campaign was nerfed when everyone suggested that the developers make this campaign less taxing and stressful. This campaign became watered down way too much and simply became easier to run through than the Sewer cap. After the Nuri Hallow campaign nerf, the only real mobs that posed a threat to players were the skeletons and zombies in Haunted Symphony that had a chance to do a "Gravestone" combo on a player.
Speaking of mob combos, this is a feature of the game that we've lost over the various campaigns. I don't think we've had mobs that perform combos with one another since the 61 level cap, but I may be wrong. Either way, we've significantly cut down on this feature in the game. Instead of mobs acting together to perform combos such as "Gravestone" as in the Nuri Hallow campaign, or "Poison Blast" and "Fractured" as seen in the Balefort Sewer campaign, we have mobs who no longer perform combos off of one another's debuffs.
Is it coincidental that mob teamwork has deteriorated just like PvE teamwork has for players? We've seen a transition from teamwork to soloing in both aspects. Mobs now thrive more on their solo acts than their teamwork with one another. Rather than implement a PvE system where mobs produce big waves of damage when they combo off of one another's debuffs, thus providing a smaller window to be severely damaged, we've reverted back to a system where single enemies can produce large waves of damage in single attacks.
For example, a ranged mob enemy of a Blacksmoke level has the ability to not only produce an auto attack that highly damages an enemy, this ranged enemy also has the ability to debuff an enemy -2 h/s and -2 m/s every time the debuff hits. If multiple ranged enemies are present, one's h/s and m/s levels may reach zero or negative levels from the constant debuff of -2 h/s and -2 m/s from their quick ranged attacks. A melee enemy has the chance to not only debuff constantly at a rate of -2 h/s and -2 m/s for every attack, but an additional -5 h/s, -5 m/s and -5 armor roughly every four or five hits. Also factor in the fact that the mobs each have an average of 12,000 health.
If we look back at the campaigns before us such as the Balefort Sewer one, the mobs have an average of 2,000 health. Considering the fact that our damage has only roughly increased by 2x as much as it was 20 levels ago, it seems a little unjust that the endgame mobs have six times as much health than they did twenty levels ago, but we only have roughly 2x as much damage and not enough regen or armor to compete as well as we once did with PvE mobs. Add into the fact that the current Blacksmoke mobs produce large waves of damage per single attack and have debuffs that cut a player's regens to zero in the blink of an eye, forcing them to spam health and mana pots to survive.
Not to mention the fact that characters aren't allowed to use any health or mana pots in the elite Red Dragon Slayer level for level 76's and have mana regens that simply cannot compete with the massive mana regen debuffs (especially Archers), forcing their regens to drop to zero. After this happens, a player becomes virtually useless to the team until their mana regenerates after the debuff goes away.
PvE simply has become much more of an arduous task and because of this, there are players who view PvE as more of a bore or a monotonous task rather than the source of joy it once was. While not every player feels this way, most will agree that endgame PvE needs a change because the mobs have exponentially become too powerful and our current gear cannot compete with mobs the way we should be able to compete with them.
So what I'm proposing, along with the stat changes to gear that I've already displayed in this thread which will help players rightfully compete in not only PvP but PvE as well, is to either make the regen debuffs from the current Blacksmoke mobs less frequent or get rid of this debuff altogether.
What I mean by this is that a ranged mob debuffs an enemy by -2 h/s and -2 m/s every time that it hits, so this debuff would be much less frequent. Perhaps this debuff will only debuff the player -2 h/s and -2 m/s every third ranged attack or every fourth attack. This change would provide players with more reasonable mobs to compete with, rather than the constant flow of debuffs that single enemies can stack with others in this current state.
Perhaps mobs shouldn't be given the ability to stack a regen debuff on top of another, thus limiting the amount one player can be debuffed. Perhaps this debuff should be limited to say -5 h/s and -5 m/s or even -10 h/s and -10 m/s, so long as there is a limit to which a player can be debuffed by.
Either way, an adjustment to the current mob difficulty in Blacksmoke Mountain is in order. If the developers are unwilling to adjust the difficulty, then stat changes for gears such as the ones I've already unveiled earlier in this thread or similar stat changes are even more necessary, especially those that raise the regens and health/mana pools on stats.
If these PvE changes are implemented into the game along with the PvP changes that I've already mentioned, then players will once again be able to fairly compete with adversaries not only in campaign levels but on the PvP field as well, just as they once did at the level 56 cap.
No PvP level currently embodies this word. Some people don't even believe that perfection exists. And maybe they're right, maybe perfection doesn't exist. But there's one cap that has come close to being perfect, at least from a PvP balance standpoint.
From Sewers to Blacksmoke Mountain:
How did we get here? Only twenty levels ago, some of us were wearing the finest gems in all of Alterra - and I'm not just talking about the pink gemstone sets. I'm talking about all of the gemstone items.
From a list off the top of my head:
Mega Mage, Fury Fighter, Raid Roach, Enchanted, Fortified, Custom, Sewer Queen, Royal Sewer, Sewer King, Scraper, Lowman, Flusher, Henchman, Bodyguard, Bellows, Gutter, Trapp's, Mastermind..
And let us not forget about those "drainer noobs". I was one of them for the first half of the Sewer cap because all I wanted to do was PvP and didn't have any gold.
So how could such a "Lowman" on the totem pole or a "drainer noob" such as myself do well in PvP without pinks during the first half of this cap?
Because STS (I'll never get used to the idea of calling them "STG") provided its players with a unique system of competing in PvP regardless of what gear you wore. A system where skill mattered foremost and where gear was secondary.
There were individuals who spent countless hours working on builds, strategies, combos, combinations, range, gaining knowledge of game mechanics and what each skill did, etc.
There were many builds one could use. Who could forget about Paaahudd's legendary cyber helm and armor with henchman recurve build? What about Cloakker's bodyguard axe, bellow shield, and royal sewer helm/armor build that he rocked with a crazy face and an outlaw cowboy hat? Does anyone remember Pinoyarcher's pure gutter or trapp set build that he used to kill people in PvP? Obviously on paper, a pure gutter or trapp set's stats are lacking on their own, but it didn't matter. This was a PvP system where pure skill triumphed over wealth.
And what about those enchanted int bears with staves? Yes, even int bears were a viable option during this cap if you possessed the skill.
This was a unique PvP cap because it offered diversity. Seeing someone with the exact same build, combo, and strategy was rare. However, in today's endgame PvP, we've lost this diversity.
We've transitioned to savage bears, savage mages, savage rhinos, savage foxes, swift bears, fiery mages, and swift birds. Of course, there are characters who don't fit one of these descriptions, but it's very rare to see one.
We've become savages.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as everyone isn't a savage. Like in life, there's good and evil, there's black and white, there are movie stars and there are shopping cart pushers. It's perfectly fine to have good and evil, for they balance one another out. Otherwise, as in my first example, if the whole world was evil, we wouldn't know what good was because we would have never experienced a good person. We would not only lack goodness, but lack everything in between.
So why have we become savages?
A savage set simply outclasses other sets in terms of defense, while providing a relatively high amount of damage as well.
I see a great amount of people who say that bears are overpowered, pallies are overpowered, and so forth. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing wrong with bears and there is nothing wrong with pallies. The real problem is the stats on sets and the high amount of damage and debuffs that skills do for all classes, not just bears and pallies.
In order to fully balance the entire game, I think we should work on the foundation of the game from the ground up, starting with lower levels and follow a similar approach to the one seen in Whoisthis's thread:
Reform PL and re-establish class balance (http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?122775-Game-mechanics-and-equipment-a-thread-to-reform-PL-and-re-establish-class-balance)
Because the developers are not willing to do something as complex or something that involves a great amount of code work as seen in Whoisthis's thread and have stated that they are only focusing on rebalancing endgame PvP currently, what I will propose in this thread are solutions that are much more simple and feasible to rebalancing endgame. At least one of these solutions can surely be implemented into the game. So let's begin.
Undoing the "Great Nerf" of 2013:
I'm sure all of us remember when the developers "rebalanced" certain skills in September of last year. Let's take a look at what this "rebalance" update did so that you know what I'm referring to:
Skills that buff or debuff Crit and Dodge have been rebalanced. This includes: Archer Evade, Archer Focus, Archer Root, Enchantress Blessing of Might (Self), Ranger Escape, Ranger Evade, Ranger Hamstring, Ranger Tonic, Warrior Rage, Warrior Taunt Buff.
Vixen Ranger Evade Skill increased to 10 seconds with 15 seconds cooldown.
Rhino Paladin Charge Skill increased from 8m to 12m.
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Important notes for each class:
Archers:
An Archer's Evasion and Focus buffs were reduced from +45 maximum to +28 maximum I believe. In addition to this, an Archer's roots now reduced a significantly less amount of dodge, +28 maximum compared to the +45 dodge maximum they reduced before. These drastic changes were implemented to an Archer's skills because Archers were regarded as the most powerful class at endgame before this "Great Nerf."
Mages:
A Mage's Blessing of Might buff was reduced so that a Mage could no longer reach over 100 crit using int sets anymore. No changes were made to Blessing of Vitality.
Bears:
A Bear's Rage buff was changed from +60 crit +90 dmg, to +26 crit +90 dmg. The Bear's Taunt buff was changed from +14 dodge (28 dodge stacked 2x) to +10 dodge (20 dodge stacked 2x). The Bear's Evade buff was not reduced.
Foxes:
A Fox's Evade buff was changed from a 3 second cooldown to a 15 second cooldown.
Rhinos:
A Rhino's Charge skill was changed from 8m to 12m. No changes were made to buffs.
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The negative consequences of the "Great Nerf of 2013":
An Archer's maximum dodge from buffs was decreased by 17 (from 45 to 28) while a Bear's maximum dodge was decreased by only 8 in comparison.
Before this nerf, Foxes could use their Evade buff to unroot/unfreeze themselves every 3 seconds. After this nerf, a Fox could unroot/unfreeze themselves every 15 seconds.
A Bear's Evade buff was left unchanged, either because it was missed by the developers or it was decided against nerfing.
Skills such as the Fox's Escape and Hamstring and the Archer's Roots were changed, whereas skills that provided an extreme hit debuff such as the Archer's Blind and Bear's Hellscream were left untouched. Other skills that provided excessive debuffs were unchanged as well.
A proposal to undo the "Great Nerf":
The "Great Nerf of 2013" as a whole had a negative impact on PvP. Before the nerf, the buffs and debuffs were scaled in a more organized way. Whereas putting one point into a skill at each rank gave the class somewhat of the same increase each rank before the nerf, buffs and debuffs started to give classes +2 or other various numbers for various classes instead of say +5 or the same increase at higher ranks. The gap between effectivity of skills for each class was made evident by these changes.
A Bear's dodge wasn't nerfed enough. As said previously, I don't know whether a developer missed nerfing the Evade buff (since this update was centered around crit and dodge changes) or whether they just decided against it.
If this nerf was to be done correctly, it should have focused on cutting back on damage, lowering debuffs, lowering dodge, lowering crit, and so forth. Instead, dodge and crit changes were the central focus of this nerf, while debuffs that packed an extreme punch such as -60% hit in the case of Blinding shot or -60% hit in the case of Hellscream were left ignored.
An Archer with say 200% hit can actually be reduced to 80% hit if the Hellscream debuff stacks twice in a fight with a single Bear, or even 50% hit if stomp hits as well. The Archer will most likely not be able to hit much of anything until the debuff times out. In comparison, Blinding Shot can reduce a non-egg Bear's hit from roughly 107% to a measly 47% if it hits once, and -13% if it stacks twice if the bear is fighting more than one bird. Yes, a negative percentage, meaning they have no chance to hit. Not to mention that a recurve has a Blinding proc as well, so theoretically if the Bear is only fighting one Archer, a Bear's hit percent would drop to around 22% if blind and recurve proc both hit, and possibly -3% if the proc stacks. A negative percent. That's insane.
A Mage with an endgame int set should always be able to crit, meaning they should have over 100 crit. Before anyone disagrees with this, do realize that I'm not supporting the high damage at endgame. I believe that damage should be reduced, but Mages should always be able to achieve over 100 crit while buffed with endgame int sets or even dex sets. Notice how I say int sets and not str sets.
While some may believe that it is unfair that a Fox has two 8m dash skills (16m total) whereas a Rhino only has one 12m dash skill after this nerf, take into account that Rhinos have heal, revive, and can tank much better than Foxes can. It is only fitting that Foxes have some strengths and weaknesses, just as Rhinos do. This is one change from this update that should NOT be changed back to what it was before.
So what I'm proposing is that the developers should undo this nerf in order to take one step towards balancing endgame PvP. This does not mean that they should stop here. If they were to stop here, Archers would become the dominant class in endgame PvP again just like before this nerf.
I also cannot stress it enough that developers should change which skill unroots/unfreezes a Fox. Currently this is the Evade skill, which can only be used once every 15 seconds. This was not as big of a deal as it it now because Foxes could use Evade every 3 seconds. Now it's imperative that developers change which skill unroots a Fox, otherwise Foxes will forever be at a disadvantage, compared to other classes who do not have to use a buff in order to free themselves.
So what I propose is that the developers should change the unroot skill to the Fox's Howl, just as an Archer's unroot skill is Avian Scream. If this change were to be implemented into endgame PvP, then a Fox's Evade buff should NOT be nerfed back down to a cooldown time of 3 seconds as well. Obviously the ideal change would be to have a Fox's Evade skill last around 10 seconds (with a cooldown time of 15 seconds) and change a Fox's unroot skill to be Howl. This would make Foxes be more balanced compared to the other classes.
I also think that the Fox and Rhino need more changes than just these alone and that these two classes are unfinished products, with the Rhino being more unfinished than the Fox. However, I am not a Rhino or a Fox expert because I do not actively play them all the time and can only propose basic changes made to these two classes to balance them appropriately so that they can better compete with the original three classes. There are more complex changes that need to be made to these two classes on top of the rest of the changes that I'm going to propose and I urge those who regularly play Rhino and Fox at endgame PvP to suggest more changes to these two classes in this thread. Perhaps there are changes that seem complex but could be easy for the developers to implement.
In addition to this, developers should look into the glitch where a Mage's Mana Shield and Heal do not take effect when you press them. This happens every so often, but it's unfair that a skill doesn't take effect when a player hits it. In this case, the Mage's heal will not actually heal a Mage when the skill is pressed. Likewise, the Mana Shield will not appear around a Mage sometimes if the skill is pressed.
Another glitch that has not been mentioned in a while is the range glitch. This is the glitch where a player is running and another player will gain 1m or so on them and be able to hit them with skills and auto attack but the player running away will not be able to hit the other player, even if the other player is in range as demonstrated by the ability to hit the running player with skills. And no, I'm not talking about when a player is running with a flag in CTF. This glitch will happen in regular fights when it's not supposed to.
With all that being said, I'd like to restate this once again: developers should first and foremost undo the nerf that happened on September 10th 2013, with the exceptions that I discussed in this section in reference to Rhinos and Foxes.
Note: This does NOT mean that this should be the ONLY change done to balance endgame PvP. If endgame PvP were to be entirely balanced in a new update, the developers should combine undoing the "Great Nerf" with one or more of my other solutions that I'm doing to discuss later in this thread. So without further adieu, let's move onto my next proposal.
Capping skills at level 6:
If redoing ranks for skills takes too much effort or code work, the only logical thing to do would be to cap skill ranks at level 6.
While this may be viewed as a problem if there were to ever be a new cap, the likelihood that there will be one is slim to none, considering the 'huge success' that Arcane Legends is.
If this is the case, what I propose for the developers to do is to make it so that players do not gain any new skill points after level 56. This will make it so that players will never be able to cap every single skill and this will provide some diversity, while further balancing each class.
While most players can play decent or well even with poor skill distributions because there is an excessive amount of damage and debuffs in endgame PvP, this proposal will make it so that builds are of utmost significance in PvP again. This will also make it so that order or combination of skills is of paramount importance, rather than the insignificance they have become in the current spam world that endgame PvP has been degraded to.
To put this in perspective:
At rank 9, Hellscream provides a debuff of -60 dmg and -60% hit to anyone within the 12m range. At rank 6, Hellscream provides a debuff of -30 dmg and -30% hit to anyone within the 8m range.
At rank 9, Blinding Shot provides a debuff of -60% hit to a single target. At rank 6, Blinding Shot provides a debuff of -30% hit to a single target.
At rank 9, Nightmare provides a debuff of -60 armor and -21 dodge. At rank 6, Nightmare provides a debuff of -30 armor and -12 dodge.
By lowering skill ranks to cap at level 6, this will further lower the inordinate amount of damage and debuffs in endgame PvP.
No longer will a Bear be able to be debuffed by -60% hit from a Blinding Shot. No longer will Bears have a chance to debuff another Bear by -60% in combat by using Hellscream.
In addition to this, dodge will substantially and appropriately be lowered across all classes.
Use the following link for reference as an example (and of course add the appropriate amount that each skill would rank at level 6):
Skill ranks for Bears (http://pocketlegends.wikia.com/wiki/Warrior)
As one can clearly see, level 6 dodge buffs such as Evade and Taunt would give Bears a significantly less amount than they currently do. While rank 9 dodge buffs currently give Bears 48 dodge combined (+20 for Evade and +28 for taunt stacked 2x), these buffs only give Bears 26 dodge at rank 6 (+12 for Evade and +14 for taunt stacked 2x). That's 22 less dodge.
This would make bears still viable and significantly cut down on the amount of dodge that bears currently rely on. I'm not singling out just bears. Have a look at the other classes as well and see how pivotal it is that all skill caps be lowered, especially for buffs and debuffs.
The importance of having buffs up when in combat would also raise if the skill cap were to be lowered to rank 6. This would significantly lower the amount of players who just rush into battle without buffs and rely on the extreme amount of damage or debuffs or even dodge on their set to either defeat the other player or guide themselves to safety.
As said before, under level 6 capped skills, usage of buffs and cast timing would be imperative to players more than it currently is, especially those players who like to wander off by themselves into a battle and try to out-tank or out-damage everyone even when their buffs are down.
Balanced sets:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg1-1.jpg
The above picture is the stats of each DEX set from levels 56-76 worn by the appropriate PvP cap level, excluding a few sets.
As the above picture shows, we start off with two balanced level 56 sets -- Custom and Raid Roach. However, as we move further and further away from the level 56 cap, the unbalance tends to have more repercussions on the state and quality of PvP.
The unbalance starts at level 61, however small it may seem right now compared to the current endgame unbalance that we have. At the time, most players couldn't foresee the unbalanced scaling that was occurring but as level caps and campaigns came and passed players by, evolution was taking place in various forms. Some players adapted to this transition and some left the game as a result.
As level caps flew by and new sets took the place of others, damage became too high and enough armor wasn't being added to sets to keep up, causing a mismatch. While many believe that level 66 was the first real sign of this unbalance, I'd like to think that the level 71 cap is where this unbalance started to thrive and monumentally deteriorate the quality of PvP.
While armor and damage scaling can be adjusted to balance one another out, debuffs simply cannot keep up with the extreme amounts of "chance values" on sets in order to balance one another out, otherwise we'd have classes who are using class specific sets acting out the role of a tank when they're designed to be a damage dealer while equipping a class specific set or classes using class specific sets acting out the role of a damage dealer when they're designed to be a tank using a class specific set.
As you can see in the stat table above, armor or even health didn't scale correctly to compensate for the high amount of damage, but that's a given. Dex sets became saturated with excessive amounts of crit and hit, and for one level cap (Humania), dodge as well.
The developers simply cannot treat the "chance values" on sets the way they've been doing over the last few campaigns. These values should only be adjusted slightly and should reach a pinnacle so that Archers cannot exceed a certain value using sets. For crit, this value should be around 80 buffed and for dodge, this value shouldn't exceed 40 while buffed. Otherwise, PvP becomes a game of chance, as it was during the Humania cap when every set provided a nonsensical amount of dodge.
To make up for slight cuts in dodge, crit, and hit (the "chance values") after the level 56 cap, developers should have boosted other stats such as damage and armor to make up for this, but scale them so that they provide a harmonious balance. Instead, the developers went in a totally opposite direction and sets soon became saturated with excessive amounts of dodge, hit, and crit, while also being bogged down by unbalance from scaling. All of this has lead to the current endgame cap, a cap that has become unparalleled.
These excessive amounts are further illustrated by the Mage and Bear stat changes:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg2.jpg
As you can see in the INT set stat table, the crit value tripled on sets starting at the level 61 cap (3.5x what it was during level 56). While Mages needed more crit using INT sets compared to level 56, this value was raised too much. Once again, as we move further and further away from the level 56 cap, the unbalance becomes more and more noticeable. The crit value on INT sets at level 76 today is 7.5x what it was during level 56 (from 8 crit at level 56 to 60 crit unbuffed at level 76). In addition to this, hit percentages are raised from roughly 99% to 140%, an increase of 45% hit. These "chance values" should have only slightly increased over the last few various campaigns, rather than being increased by an exceptionally high value and being increased to 7.5x what it once was at a balanced PvP level.
Of course, once again, the damage and armor values are not correctly scaled for INT sets as exemplified by the Mage stat table, but these are values that can be easily adjusted. "Chance values," as I've said previously, cannot be adjusted as easily because they have to be balanced out with debuffs as well and exceptionally high unbuffed values will cause classes who are using class specific sets to play out roles they are not designed to play out.
While Mages gained high crit and hit at level 76 as compared to level 56, Bears gained not only crit but dodge as well. Let's take a look at the other side of the spectrum, the colossal dodge increases:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg1.jpg
As displayed by the above stat table for Bears in STR sets, dodge and crit were raised too much. While the Fury Fighter set had a high amount of dodge, there was a reduction in damage compared to the Fortified set. Vice versa, the Fortified set provided more damage while compensating for that by providing less dodge. Instead of balancing one strength out with a noticeable weakness and creating a harmonious balance, STR sets started to gain too much base crit as you notice in the stat progression beyond level 56.
It is because of this disproportionate increase across the past few level caps that Bears have taken on more of a damage dealing role while equipping their class specific set, both in PvP and PvE. While Bears equipped with class specific sets are supposed to be "tanks" or the "leaders" of a pack, we have Bears in PvP who try to finish off an opponent with relative ease in a matter of seconds by hitting a simple Beckon -----> Stomp -----> SMS combo while buffed. And it works. Not only on squishy classes, but other Bears and tanks alike as well sometimes because of the excessive amount of damage.
We also have Bears who hide in the background of a group and act as anything but a "leader," both in PvP and PvE. While Bears are supposed to be at the forefront of a group, some now let their squishier comrades die or tank in battle only to kill off anything that exists in the aftermath of a battle. For PvE, some Bears will actually let their squishier comrade such as Birds tank while the Bear picks off any remaining mob enemies with a simple "Smash" combo.
Ultimately this has lead to Bears not learning how to effectively make use of crowd control in order to guide their teams to safety simply because it's not needed as much anymore because of these unscaled stats that are centered more on soloing than on teamwork in a battlefield. Of course, we could also partially blame elixirs on this but because this is a PvP discussion and the use of elixirs isn't allowed in PvP, we'll leave them out of this conversation.
So what can be done? What are the developers willing to do?
Hey guys,
Just finished re-reading over lunch.
Trying to find a nice way to say this, but you're biting off too much. We're looking for specific changes, not rebalancing everything or making sweeping changes to how skills work. We all acknowledge that Pocket Legends balance is well, not very balanced. There are huge swings in power in the game. It was the Studios first mobile game and yeah, we've learned from that. That being said, we're not looking to go back and re-do skills from the ground up. Might as well get started on PL2, ya know?
So, can we pull this back to specific, end game things? Like nurf Savage sets by specifically taking X off them.
Thanks!
As illustrated by Sam's reply to Micah's "Balancing the Current Meta" thread, the developers are not looking to make sweeping changes to how skills work. They are, however, willing to rework the stats on endgame sets and the stats for skills, as evident by the "Great Nerf" in September of 2013.
So what I propose is that skills should be capped at rank 6, as said previously. These rank 6 skills should have the same effect that they did BEFORE the skills were rescaled during the "Great Nerf" of 2013. This means, for example, that Archers will be able to achieve +30 crit from Focus, Mages will be able to achieve +60 crit from Blessing of Might, Bears will be able to achieve +30 crit from Rage, and so forth.
So how can this work? Players will not be able to gain anymore skill points after the level of 56. This will make it so that each player has a unique build, but does not cap every skill. I repeat, players will not gain anymore skill points after the level of 56. This will lower debuffs across the board so that players will not be able to hit others with extreme decreases in stats. The damage lost from decreasing rank 9 skills to rank 6 skills will be made up by the damage increase in the new stats that I will show you in this thread.
Mana consumption will be raised to 2x the amount that it was for rank 6 skills BEFORE the rescaling from the "Great Nerf" of 2013. This mana consumption increase to 2x the amount that it was for skills before the "Great Nerf" of 2013 will take effect at LEVEL 71.
Why?
Storyline reason: Harder mobs, harder enemies. You will need 2x the amount of energy (in this case, mana) to defeat them.
PvP mechanics reason: If stats are going to be increased, as I will propose later in this thread, then mana consumption will also have to increase to 2x the amount that it was for rank 6 skills before the "Great Nerf" update. This will take effect at level 71 in order to ensure PvP levels below 71 are not effected by the increase in mana consumption for skills. If level 75 and 76 stats are changed, so will the level 71 sets, which means that level 71 PvP can handle the increase to 2x the mana consumption, just as level 75 and 76 sets will, as I will propose.
So let's take a look at look at the stats for sets that I propose, stats that are much more balanced than the ones we currently have:
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[Note: Treat these stats as if they were the stats of the sets alone with no rings, vanities, or platinum purchasable faces. Do not factor in stats from rings, vanities, or faces that characters may be wearing]
Sharp Wand Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SharpWandSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +400 health and +600 mana]
The Sharp wand set will mirror the Enchanted wand set from the Sewer cap. This set will have it's obvious strengths and weaknesses, just like the other stats for the sets that I will show you.
This set focuses on health and crit, unlike the Fiery wand set's stats. With full buffs, Mages will be able to achieve 81 crit (+60 crit) with the rank 6 Blessing of Might skill, which will make characters using class-specific gear cap out crit in the 70's and 80's. Mages will also be able to achieve 308 armor from a rank 6 Blessing of Vitality (+28 armor, 8 armor for rank 1 and +4 armor for each additional skill point added into this skill).
Birds and Bears will be able to hit a -30% hit debuff on Mages (using Blindshot for Birds and Hellscream for Bears) which will debuff their hit percent to 76%, which is a reasonable number. In order to avoid being debuffed too much, Mages will once again be encouraged to devote some of their points to dexterity to raise their hit percents, something that has been lost over the various campaigns. Mages will choose whether they want more skill damage by investing their points into int, or whether they will sacrifice some of that skill damage to gain some hit percent.
Mages will gain needed crit in both Sharp and Fiery sets, something that int sets lacked in the Sewer cap in my opinion. However, crit will not be raised to an extreme level, as evident by the stats.
Mages will gain an additional +100 mana over Fiery set to make up for the lack of mana regen.
Sharp Staff Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SharpStaffSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +400 health and +500 mana]
Unlike the Sharp wand set, Mages will only gain +500 mana instead of +600 mana as a set bonus. This is because the Sharp wand set will compensate for the loss in mana and health regen by adding damage, crit, and mana regen, making it a nuke set in PvP, but giving up some defense in the process.
Int Bears and Int Birds will be viable in PvP once again, should they choose to wear this staff set.
Fiery Wand Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/FieryWandSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +400 health and +500 mana]
The Fiery wand set will mirror the Mega Mage set. Mages will roughly have 85 mana regen, should they choose to wear this set. While the Sharp wand set focuses on health and crit, this set will focus on armor and mana regen.
Unlike the Sharp wand set bonus, this set will only gain an additional +500 mana in order to reflect the regen changes between the two sets. The Sharp wand set will have more mana but less mana regen and the Fiery wand set will have more mana regen but less mana to balance both out.
The Fiery wand set will be primarily for Mages, but Rhinos will also be encouraged to try this set out, should they choose to. This set will give Rhinos more than enough mana regen, something that they lack without a set that provides an ample amount of mana regen.
Fiery Staff Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/FieryStaffSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +400 health and +470 mana]
The Fiery staff set will give up some mana and health regen in order to gain damage and armor. Unlike the Sharp staff set, this Fiery staff set will focus on mana regen and armor, while giving up hit percent, health regen, and mana in order to reflect this change.
As a set bonus, the Fiery staff set will only provide +470 mana in order to compensate for the additional +5 armor increase.
Elite Burning Branch Set (decrease equip requirement to 157 INT):
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/FieryBurningBranchSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +400 health and +470 mana]
Equipping the elite Burning Branch will provide players with an additional +5 armor, +5 dmg to the lowest and highest dmg values, and +2 mana regen. No extreme increase will be given to those who equip this item in order to keep level 75 players on par with level 76 users and not overthrow the balance.
The equip requirement will be reduced from 300 INT to 157 INT. 300 INT is a ridiculous requirement to equip a weapon and discourages diversity, since other classes with the exception of Mages won't take the risk of putting 300 of their stat points into INT in order to equip this set. Other classes should be encouraged to try out new sets and this discourages the diversity in PvP.
Flying Recurve Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/FlyingRecurveSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +400 mana]
The Flying recurve set will mirror the Raid Roach set. This Flying set will focus on damage and dps for those who like to give up regen in order to gain an advantage damage-wise.
Under this set, Archers will be able to buff to 185% hit (+30% hit from rank 6 Focus) and 75 crit (+30 from rank 6 Focus). Archers will be able to achieve 37 dodge from this set (+30 dodge from rank 6 Evade) and around 228 armor (+8 (?) from rank 6 Evade).
Archers will gain armor as compared to Sewer sets, something that they somewhat lacked during the 56 cap, but only slightly.
Flying Talon Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg1-5.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +400 mana]
The Flying talon set will once again focus on damage, unlike the Swift talon set. This set will provide a boost in crit over the Flying recurve set in order to make up for the loss in damage. In addition to this, this Flying talon set will provide an additional +54 armor and +2 dodge over the Flying recurve set, effectively making it more of a tank set than the recurve set.
Swift Recurve Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SwiftRecurveSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +400 mana]
The Swift recurve set will mirror the Custom set. This set will focus on crit, armor, and regen, unlike the Flying recurve set. The Swift recurve set will lose damage as compared to the Flying recurve set, but will gain a +5 boost in armor, +33 boost in health regen, +1 boost in hit, +8 boost in mana regen, and +3 boost in crit, rather than focusing on damage.
Dex Mages will be viable once again and be able to use the Swift recurve set, considering the +400 mana set bonus, should they choose to do so. Dex Bears and Dex Foxes may also use this set to be competitive in PvP, if they wish to.
Swift Talon Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg2-1.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +400 mana]
The Swift talon set will provide crit and regen, as compared to the Flying talon set which focuses more on damage. The Swift talon set will give up 1 dodge and roughly 43 damage in order to gain +48 health regen, +2 crit, and +1% hit. While the Flying talon set will be more of a set for those who like to nuke in PvP, this Swift talon set will be more balanced and give up damage in order to reflect the change in stats.
Elite Phoenix Bow Set (decrease equip requirement to 157 DEX):
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SwiftPhoenixSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +400 mana]
Equipping the elite Phoenix bow will provide a similar increase like equipping the elite Burning Branch and the elite Boulder. Equipping the Phoenix bow will provide a stat increase of +1 health regen, +1 mana regen, +5 dmg to the lowest and highest dmg values, and +2 crit. Once again, this small increase in stats will ensure that level 75 players are able to compete with level 76 players in PvP.
Like the Burning Branch, the Phoenix Bow equip requirement will be reduced to 157 DEX to encourage diversity in PvP, for reasons mentioned earlier in this thread.
Beastly Scythe Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/BeastlyScytheSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +200 mana]
The Beastly scythe set will mirror the Fury Fighter set. This Beastly set will focus on regen and dodge, providing more defensive stats than the Savage set.
This set will primarily be for Str Mages and Rhinos. Mages and Rhinos will have an adequate amount of regen but will be forced to give up some damage in order to compensate for this increase. Mages will once again be encouraged to invest points into dex rather than int, which will increase their hit percent, but take away some of their skill damage in order to balance this out.
Beastly Blade Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/BeastlyBladeSet-1.jpg
[Set bonus adds +475 health and +200 mana]
The Beastly blade set will provide users with more regen, dodge, and armor as compared to the Savage blade set. To compensate for the increase in regen and dodge, the Beastly blade set will have a lower amount of damage, crit, and health, making it more of a defensive 2H set.
Savage Scythe Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SavageScytheSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +600 health and +200 mana]
The Savage scythe set will be more of a set for Bears, Archers, and Foxes and perhaps Rhinos, as evident by the lack of mana regen. The Savage scythe set will focus on armor and damage, unlike the Beastly scythe set. There will be a slight increase in health regen as compared to the Beastly scythe set, but a significant decrease in mana regen in order to make up for this gain. There will also be a reduction in dodge, as compared to the Beastly scythe set. The Savage scythe set will also provide users with a +100 increase in health compared to the Beastly scythe set in order to make up for the other losses, similarly to the comparison between the Sharp and Fiery stats.
Under this set, Bears will be able to achieve 45 crit (+30 crit from rank 6 rage), 426-460 dmg (+60 dmg from rank 6 rage), 400 armor (+30 from rank 6 iron blood), and 48 dodge (+12 from evade and +14 from taunt stacked 2x).
If hit with a debuff such as Blinding Shot or Weakness (-30% hit), a Bear's hit percent will have the chance to decrease to 75% hit. This will make it so that Bears will still have the chance to hit something but still miss at times, unlike the current system we have where Bears have no chance to hit something if they are debuffed by -60% hit.
Warbirds will become popular once again by using this set, providing Archers with the needed damage and armor to once again be effective as a Warbird in PvP.
Savage Blade Set:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SavageBladeSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +200 mana]
The Savage blade set will provide users with a damage, crit, and health regen increase compared to the Beastly blade set, but mana regen, armor and dodge will be taken away in order to compensate for this increase.
Elite Boulder Set (decrease equip requirement to 157 STR):
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/SavageBoulderSet.jpg
[Set bonus adds +500 health and +200 mana]
Equipping the elite Boulder will provide a similar increase like the Phoenix bow and Burning Branch increases. As compared to the Savage blade set, equipping the elite Boulder will provide an increase of +2 health regen, +5 dmg to the lowest and highest dmg values, and +5 armor.
Like the Phoenix Bow and the Burning Branch, the equip requirement for the elite Boulder should be changed to 157 STR as well to encourage diversity.
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You might think that the regens are too high on these stats, but let's put that into perspective. You've never seen regens as high as these because health and mana pools were never raised and therefore, you didn't need a regen increase. If health and mana pools are going to be raised by roughly 2x the amount that they were, then regens will have to increase as well to compensate for this.
For example, it took roughly 15.5 seconds for a level 56 Bear to regain 700 health while using Fortified set which provided 45 h/s.
If we compare this to the health regen and health pool that I propose the developers use for the Savage set, it will take roughly 16.4 seconds for a Bear to regain 1400 health if they have a health regen of 85 h/s.
Under these stats, set bonuses will roughly provide the following, as noted above depending on the set:
INT Sets: +600 mana, +400 health
DEX Sets: +400 mana, +500 health
STR Sets: +200 mana, +600 health
These set bonuses ensure that there will be balance. For set bonuses for classes wearing class specific sets, Bears will gain the most health and the least amount of mana, which is what they need to be effective. Birds will gain the second most amount of health and the second most amount of mana. Mages will gain the most amount of mana and the least amount of health, which is what they need to be effective.
This won't discourage players who like to wear non-class specific sets either. For example, Mages will still be able to play pally if their hearts desire, but they'll have strengths and weaknesses just like every other class. They'll have a less amount of mana in their mana pool and a reduction in damage but will have a high amount of mana regen and health in order to balance the weaknesses with strengths.
As for everything else, these stats look to be balanced, at least much more balanced than the ones that endgame sets currently provide. Although armor and damage scaling might be a bit off because I don't have the capability to test out these stats in PvP like the developers, everything else looks to be balanced, especially the "chance values" which shouldn't exceed a certain amount as I mentioned earlier.
Not only will this balance PvP, but PvE will be reinvigorated as well considering players will have to farm more pinks because non-crafted pinks will become as valuable as crafted ones. Players will find more initiative to play the Blacksmoke Mountain campaign again and this will lead to a rise in platinum sales, which will also profit the developers.
So let's move on to what else needs to be changed in order to fully balance PvP.
The Founders, The Elite and The Bad Eggs:
You had to know this was going to be mentioned in this thread.
Founder helms, Elite rings, and Fossilized Dragon Eggs.
Let's start off the discussion about Elite rings with a quotation from SamHayne made on 10-17-2012:
Going forward, we plan to continue adding elite level cap vanity rewards. The next one for level 81 (the expansion coming after Blacksmoke Mountain) should be a vanity armor. That way, anyone playing currently can work toward obtaining these legendary rings.
Obviously this post was made before any of the developers knew that Arcane Legends was going to be a large success and thus, shifted their energy into developing new campaign content for Arcane Legends rather than Pocket Legends.
However, there was a post made by SamHayne around the beginning of this year on 1-12-2014 that touched upon the Elite ring situation and making the rings available once again:
We could schedule something like that in, but the larger question is that what we should be doing? It seems like pvp balance is still a main sticking point.
As it currently stands, no one playing currently can work towards obtaining these legendary Elite rings unless they had already acquired an Elite vanity from a previous cap and decided to finally level to level 76.
Out of these three untradable and no longer obtainable items, Elite rings hinder PvP balance the most simply because they provide the most significant boost to stats. Let's take a look at what a 3 piece Elite ring provides:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg1-3.jpg
Now let's take a look at the stats on the best non-elite ring in the game:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n539/exitlude/imagejpg1-4.jpg
As you can see, not even 130-200m can buy you better stats than the Elite ring. You could make a case that the Black Dragon ring is better than the three piece ring, but a 55 health and 10 armor advantage over the Black Dragon ring is vital, especially for Non-STR characters.
Does it make a difference? Is a player with an Elite ring better suited for survival in PvP than a player without an Elite ring? The answer is yes.
I myself have one level 76 Archer with an Elite ring and one without an Elite ring. Likewise, I have a level 76 Mage with an Elite ring and one without an Elite ring. I can confirm that not having an Elite ring makes players (especially Non-STR) more squishy than they already are in PvP.
For example, a Mage equipped with an Elite ring who has 455 health may be able to withstand an attack that deals out 420 damage in PvP. Another player without an Elite ring who has 412 health may be killed from this attack simply because they do not possess the same amount of health as the player with the Elite ring.
The gap in stats between endgame players who have played longer and players who started around 1.5 years ago up until now is evident. Newer players who only have one elite vanity will never be able to obtain these rings because the chance that a new elite level cap will be released again is slim to none.
So, to answer SamHayne's question: yes, you should make Elite rings available once again. PvP balance is a main sticking point and making Elite rings available once again would further close this gap between players who have obtained three Elite vanities and players who have only obtained one Elite vanity but have played this game for roughly 18 months (1.5 years) and were never able to obtain more than one Elite vanity.
The fact that players who have been around longer have advantages in stats and can use these advantages in PvP zones is a ridiculous concept, considering these advantages will never be able to be obtained again. It would be different if these advantages only applied to PvE zones, but these advantages apply to PvP zones and cause a further rip in the balance of the game.
Achieving the Elite level cap should have rewarded you with what it originally was supposed to reward you with: an item on its own that has better stats than the current "best" endgame pink helm, armor, or shield but is useless in PvP.
For example, the Customized/Fortified/Enchanted Crowns of Persistence (the crafted helms that the Fallen Prince originally gave players who achieved the level of 56 during the Sewer cap) had better stats than the Custom, Enchanted, and Fortified pink helms that could be looted from the various Sewer campaign levels. However, equipping a Custom, Enchanted, or Fortified set would yield better stats than equipping this Elite cap reward helm that had stats (Crown of Persistence) because of its set bonus. For example, on its own, the Customized Crown of Persistence had a few armor points (9?) more than a pink Custom cap. However, when using the pink Custom cap with a pink Custom armor and Custom bow, this set bonus far outweighed the increase in stats than if you equipped the Customized CoP with the Custom armor and the Custom bow.
This is how the Elite level cap reward system should have been. Instead, starting at level 61, these Elite level cap rewards were made into vanities and when equipped, they provided a bonus in stats. It is because of this choice to implement such a reward system into the game that is no longer available that PvP has become further unbalanced.
So what I suggest, as far as Elite rings go, is that the developers should make a quest so that players can once again obtain these Elite rings. This quest should be no easy task, however. This quest should be equally hard or even more tedious than obtaining Elite vanities was for previous level caps.
Perhaps the developers could make a quest similar to the Ichor quest, where players would have to kill the boss in the Forgotten Forest and obtain 10,000+ Ichors to obtain a two piece ring. If they wanted to obtain the three piece ring, they'd have to obtain an additional 10,000+ Ichors in the Forgotten Forest, which bare in mind, does not allow players to use health or mana pots, making the quest even more grueling.
Perhaps the developers could make a quest similar to the Yeti quest in Frozen Nightmare/Lost Expedition, where if a player or a team of players can kill 100,000 enemies in Blacksmoke, they will receive a two piece ring. If they kill an additional 100,000 enemies, they will receive the three piece ring.
Either way, something needs to be done about the Elite ring dilemma. If the developers aren't willing to implement such a system to make the rings available once again, I suggest that they make the Elite rings equipable ONLY in PvE zones.
As for the Fossilized Dragon Eggs, only about 376 were given out in the game. The stats on these Eggs outweigh the stats on the pink level 75 shields. The dodge and armor on these Eggs allows this shield to trump the Swift wing, the hit percent and dodge on these Eggs allows this shield to trump the Savage buckler, and the hit percent, dodge and armor allows this shield to trump the Fiery eye.
So what I propose, in addition to changing the stats on sets to what I previously unveiled earlier in this thread, is to make these Eggs resemble the increases that the Customized, Fortified, and Enchanted Crowns of Persistence gave over the pink Custom, Fortified, and Enchanted helms during the level 56 cap. By this, I mean that the Fossilized Dragon Eggs as an item on its own should give roughly +9 more armor over the Swift, Fiery, and Savage shields after the changes are implemented in the game.
In order to do this, the Fossilized Dragon Eggs will have to become class-specific. For Archers, the Fossilized Dragon Eggs will resemble the stats of the Swift wing with an additional +9 armor. For Mages, the Fossilized Dragon Eggs will resemble the stats of the Fiery eye with an additional +9 armor. For Bears, the Fossilized Dragon Eggs will resemble the stats of the Savage buckler with an additional +9 armor.
Equipping these Fossilized Dragon Eggs will NOT yield a set bonus anymore, but these Fossilized Dragon Eggs will have better stats on their own compared to the pink level 75 shields. This means that the set bonus acquired from the level 75 set will yield better stats than equipping the Fossilized Dragon Egg because of the stat increase from the set bonuses that I provided earlier in this thread. This would easily solve the Fossilized Dragon Egg dilemma.
If the developers are unwilling to implement this into the game, I propose that they make these Fossilized Dragon Eggs equipable ONLY in PvE zones.
Moving on, I'll discuss a more touchy subject: Founder helms. The developers should not have given out a statted vanity for players who played Pocket Legends for the first month. While I do think that these "founders" should have been given something for playing the game since the beginning, they should not have been given a vanity that provides stats and causes unbalance in PvP, no matter how slight that unbalance is.
The developers originally made it so that both the Guardian of Alterra shield and the Shield of Gratitude provided players with around +10-20 armor in PvP. This decision was later reversed after it was discovered what kind of unbalance this caused (especially in lower level PvP) and so, both shields became vanities without stats.
A similar change should have been made to Founder helms, but considering how long the developers have gone without changing this, I don't see them ever doing it because it would probably cause an uproar. If nothing else, I propose for the developers to make these Founder helms equipable only in PvE zones so that PvP truly is a balanced zone where prowess overcomes extra stats in a game.
Fortunately for endgame players, although the developers will likely never change these statted Founder helms, they provide the least increase in stats compared to the other two unobtainable items that I've already mentioned in this section. However, these Founder helms provide stats that become more of a deciding factor in fights at lower PvP levels. Because this is an endgame PvP discussion, I will leave it at that and move on to my next proposal.
From a PvE Perspective:
It's no doubt that these changes would impact PvE play. So in addition to the PvP changes suggested in this thread, PvE changes are simply a must as well.
This is not to say that the Blacksmoke campaign should be nerfed as severely as the Nuri Hallow campaign was nerfed when everyone suggested that the developers make this campaign less taxing and stressful. This campaign became watered down way too much and simply became easier to run through than the Sewer cap. After the Nuri Hallow campaign nerf, the only real mobs that posed a threat to players were the skeletons and zombies in Haunted Symphony that had a chance to do a "Gravestone" combo on a player.
Speaking of mob combos, this is a feature of the game that we've lost over the various campaigns. I don't think we've had mobs that perform combos with one another since the 61 level cap, but I may be wrong. Either way, we've significantly cut down on this feature in the game. Instead of mobs acting together to perform combos such as "Gravestone" as in the Nuri Hallow campaign, or "Poison Blast" and "Fractured" as seen in the Balefort Sewer campaign, we have mobs who no longer perform combos off of one another's debuffs.
Is it coincidental that mob teamwork has deteriorated just like PvE teamwork has for players? We've seen a transition from teamwork to soloing in both aspects. Mobs now thrive more on their solo acts than their teamwork with one another. Rather than implement a PvE system where mobs produce big waves of damage when they combo off of one another's debuffs, thus providing a smaller window to be severely damaged, we've reverted back to a system where single enemies can produce large waves of damage in single attacks.
For example, a ranged mob enemy of a Blacksmoke level has the ability to not only produce an auto attack that highly damages an enemy, this ranged enemy also has the ability to debuff an enemy -2 h/s and -2 m/s every time the debuff hits. If multiple ranged enemies are present, one's h/s and m/s levels may reach zero or negative levels from the constant debuff of -2 h/s and -2 m/s from their quick ranged attacks. A melee enemy has the chance to not only debuff constantly at a rate of -2 h/s and -2 m/s for every attack, but an additional -5 h/s, -5 m/s and -5 armor roughly every four or five hits. Also factor in the fact that the mobs each have an average of 12,000 health.
If we look back at the campaigns before us such as the Balefort Sewer one, the mobs have an average of 2,000 health. Considering the fact that our damage has only roughly increased by 2x as much as it was 20 levels ago, it seems a little unjust that the endgame mobs have six times as much health than they did twenty levels ago, but we only have roughly 2x as much damage and not enough regen or armor to compete as well as we once did with PvE mobs. Add into the fact that the current Blacksmoke mobs produce large waves of damage per single attack and have debuffs that cut a player's regens to zero in the blink of an eye, forcing them to spam health and mana pots to survive.
Not to mention the fact that characters aren't allowed to use any health or mana pots in the elite Red Dragon Slayer level for level 76's and have mana regens that simply cannot compete with the massive mana regen debuffs (especially Archers), forcing their regens to drop to zero. After this happens, a player becomes virtually useless to the team until their mana regenerates after the debuff goes away.
PvE simply has become much more of an arduous task and because of this, there are players who view PvE as more of a bore or a monotonous task rather than the source of joy it once was. While not every player feels this way, most will agree that endgame PvE needs a change because the mobs have exponentially become too powerful and our current gear cannot compete with mobs the way we should be able to compete with them.
So what I'm proposing, along with the stat changes to gear that I've already displayed in this thread which will help players rightfully compete in not only PvP but PvE as well, is to either make the regen debuffs from the current Blacksmoke mobs less frequent or get rid of this debuff altogether.
What I mean by this is that a ranged mob debuffs an enemy by -2 h/s and -2 m/s every time that it hits, so this debuff would be much less frequent. Perhaps this debuff will only debuff the player -2 h/s and -2 m/s every third ranged attack or every fourth attack. This change would provide players with more reasonable mobs to compete with, rather than the constant flow of debuffs that single enemies can stack with others in this current state.
Perhaps mobs shouldn't be given the ability to stack a regen debuff on top of another, thus limiting the amount one player can be debuffed. Perhaps this debuff should be limited to say -5 h/s and -5 m/s or even -10 h/s and -10 m/s, so long as there is a limit to which a player can be debuffed by.
Either way, an adjustment to the current mob difficulty in Blacksmoke Mountain is in order. If the developers are unwilling to adjust the difficulty, then stat changes for gears such as the ones I've already unveiled earlier in this thread or similar stat changes are even more necessary, especially those that raise the regens and health/mana pools on stats.
If these PvE changes are implemented into the game along with the PvP changes that I've already mentioned, then players will once again be able to fairly compete with adversaries not only in campaign levels but on the PvP field as well, just as they once did at the level 56 cap.