Solving Ze Bird Problem

[Edwin Sim]

Erm? I was owned by isopure

[aav5224]

Just level up if he is beating u

[Edwin Sim]

I'm 76-_- it goes back to the rings again..... Gold ring +three piece

[Oskitopee]

I lost interest in pvp because it is completely luck. I mean, I'm a new player and all but one thing i've seen is that dodge is everything. What's the point of pvp if all it is is a competition based solely on luck? I just don't get it anymore...

[Fao]

This is exactly why I never got into PvP...

[tHelonestud]

With just 9 points, the fragile glass cannon turns into a tank no one can touch. 45% is better than actual tank buffs such as those possessed by [1]bears and [2]rhinos.
[3] Birds should be near-useless at melee range. Their dmg should at least be halved or minimums.

[1] I am not sure where you got your facts but bears gain 48% dodge from buffs. Third grade math maybe... 48 > 45 ... not to mention the bears armour buffs and health pool.
[2] Please never refer to a class with the smallest health pool as a tank again
[3] So with your new range balance rule, let's pair a bird against:
a bear - if beckon lands they do less than 50% normal damage, as well as coming into the range of crushing blow further decreasing their damage.
a fox - when ever the fox charges or pulls successfully, the birds damage is less than halved as well as becoming vulnerable to all of the foxes heavy damaging skills.
a rhino - when a rhino charges the bird loses over half its damage, while being stunned.
It would honestly make much more sense if the bird's damage was decreased at far distances when the opponents can't touch him, once the low armour bird gets in their range that's when damage is needed most.

[whisperwalk]

[1] I am not sure where you got your facts but bears gain 48% dodge from buffs. Third grade math maybe... 48 > 45 ... not to mention the bears armour buffs and health pool.
[2] Please never refer to a class with the smallest health pool as a tank again
[3] So with your new range balance rule, let's pair a bird against:
a bear - if beckon lands they do less than 50% normal damage, as well as coming into the range of crushing blow further decreasing their damage.
a fox - when ever the fox charges or pulls successfully, the birds damage is less than halved as well as becoming vulnerable to all of the foxes heavy damaging skills.
a rhino - when a rhino charges the bird loses over half its damage, while being stunned.
It would honestly make much more sense if the bird's damage was decreased at far distances when the opponents can't touch him, once the low armour bird gets in their range that's when damage is needed most.

1) A bear does NOT gain 48% dodge from buffs, they gain 18% from evade and 14% from taunt. Two skills total 32% dodge, and losing to a single bird skill. Your third grade math. Birds have a defensive skill exceeding the skill of actual defensive classes. Is that not overpowered? AND they're not even in the tanking business. Birds are devastating due to their high damage output. Does the game need them to also be untouchable?

2) You can call it whatever you want, but rhinos ARE tanks in PVE due to summon skill, double heal, and high armor. They are not "true" tanks like bears but they mimic the function of a tank. Rhinos can't tank at one-hit-kill bosses or PVP due to damage being absurd high, but they play like tanks everywhere else. Otherwise, how do you explain the rhino's collection of pure defensive skills?

However, it is true that rhinos should get at least 100 more hp to be on par with birds. 400 hp is just devs getting carried away.

3) A bird that deals less damage at long range is a novel idea, but would result in contortions during PVE. Instead of taking down enemies from a distance (like a good ranged player), the bird is forced to go near the mobs (to avoid 50% penalty), and kiting be damned. It just doesn't feel like a bird anymore. As for PVP pairings, a bird has various 12m skills to weaken the enemy to sub-50% health, a knockback skill, and roots. The melee penalty can be sidestepped easily by running 1m out of range. A good bird should never be standing still anyway.

I'm picturing the melee penalty to only apply at dagger range, not the sword range of bears.

[bramer]

1) A bear does NOT gain 48% dodge from buffs, they gain 18% from evade and 14% from taunt. Two skills total 32% dodge, and losing to a single bird skill. Your third grade math. Birds have a defensive skill exceeding the skill of actual defensive classes. Is that not overpowered? AND they're not even in the tanking business. Birds are devastating due to their high damage output. Does the game need them to also be untouchable?

2) You can call it whatever you want, but rhinos ARE tanks in PVE due to summon skill, double heal, and high armor. They are not "true" tanks like bears but they mimic the function of a tank. Rhinos can't tank at one-hit-kill bosses or PVP due to damage being absurd high, but they play like tanks everywhere else. Otherwise, how do you explain the rhino's collection of pure defensive skills?

However, it is true that rhinos should get at least 100 more hp to be on par with birds. 400 hp is just devs getting carried away.

3) A bird that deals less damage at long range is a novel idea, but would result in contortions during PVE. Instead of taking down enemies from a distance (like a good ranged player), the bird is forced to go near the mobs (to avoid 50% penalty), and kiting be damned. It just doesn't feel like a bird anymore. As for PVP pairings, a bird has various 12m skills to weaken the enemy to sub-50% health, a knockback skill, and roots. The melee penalty can be sidestepped easily by running 1m out of range. A good bird should never be standing still anyway.

I'm picturing the melee penalty to only apply at dagger range, not the sword range of bears.

This is bramer - signing out

[tHelonestud]

1) A bear does NOT gain 48% dodge from buffs, they gain 18% from evade and 14% from taunt. Two skills total 32% dodge, and losing to a single bird skill. Your third grade math. Birds have a defensive skill exceeding the skill of actual defensive classes. Is that not overpowered? AND they're not even in the tanking business. Birds are devastating due to their high damage output. Does the game need them to also be untouchable?

Actually, bears do. Yes, it is two skills, but when you take into account that taunt can be stacked twice, it gives bears a constant 28 dodge buff, not 20 seconds, constant. Then you can add on the bear's much higher armour buff and offensive buff.

2) You can call it whatever you want, but rhinos ARE tanks in PVE due to summon skill, double heal, and high armor. They are not "true" tanks like bears but they mimic the function of a tank. Rhinos can't tank at one-hit-kill bosses or PVP due to damage being absurd high, but they play like tanks everywhere else. Otherwise, how do you explain the rhino's collection of pure defensive skills?

Rhinos have 1 purely defensive skill, stone skin.
The majority of their skills benefit the party they are in:
-Reincarnate: gives minimal buff to entire party in range as well as allowing dead party member to revive near the party.
-Restore: Heals all party member within 8 meters, nice self regen buff, but a party heal in PL is a support skill.
-Brute Force: Minimal party buff of 5 armour, minimal self dodge buff.
-Divine Aura: increases mana regen.
-Summon: A taunt(we will count as half a tank skill), main benefit, however, is an area dodge debuff making pulls much easier for bears.
-Guardian: Negates any negative effects on nearby party members, has decent defensive buff as well.
-Vital Force: Party damage buff along with a self hit buff and minimal critical buff.
After you knock these buffs and party skills out, it's left with 4 short ranged attack skills, two of which seem to be designed for a tank, to use to maintain aggro I guess. The other two are just general aoe damage skills with minor 3 second debuffs.

3) A bird that deals less damage at long range is a novel idea, but would result in contortions during PVE. Instead of taking down enemies from a distance (like a good ranged player), the bird is forced to go near the mobs (to avoid 50% penalty), and kiting be damned. It just doesn't feel like a bird anymore. As for PVP pairings, a bird has various 12m skills to weaken the enemy to sub-50% health, a knockback skill, and roots. The melee penalty can be sidestepped easily by running 1m out of range. A good bird should never be standing still anyway.

I'm picturing the melee penalty to only apply at dagger range, not the sword range of bears.

With a good tank(bear please) in PvE birds do not really need to stay at far ranges, in fact to maximize damage they should be coming into around 8 meter range to land cruel blast, which is the first point where a bear could hit after a missed/dodged beckon or hellscream(rank 9). So 9-12 meter would be the minimized damage zone.
If you want to kill a birds damage at 3 or 4 meters, you better increase hit chance on avian scream and repulse shot.

[CrimsonTider]

Actually, bears do. Yes, it is two skills, but when you take into account that taunt can be stacked twice, it gives bears a constant 28 dodge buff, not 20 seconds, constant. Then you can add on the bear's much higher armour buff and offensive buff.

Worded perfectly.

[whisperwalk]

Actually, bears do. Yes, it is two skills, but when you take into account that taunt can be stacked twice, it gives bears a constant 28 dodge buff, not 20 seconds, constant. Then you can add on the bear's much higher armour buff and offensive buff.



Rhinos have 1 purely defensive skill, stone skin.
The majority of their skills benefit the party they are in:
-Reincarnate: gives minimal buff to entire party in range as well as allowing dead party member to revive near the party.
-Restore: Heals all party member within 8 meters, nice self regen buff, but a party heal in PL is a support skill.
-Brute Force: Minimal party buff of 5 armour, minimal self dodge buff.
-Divine Aura: increases mana regen.
-Summon: A taunt(we will count as half a tank skill), main benefit, however, is an area dodge debuff making pulls much easier for bears.
-Guardian: Negates any negative effects on nearby party members, has decent defensive buff as well.
-Vital Force: Party damage buff along with a self hit buff and minimal critical buff.
After you knock these buffs and party skills out, it's left with 4 short ranged attack skills, two of which seem to be designed for a tank, to use to maintain aggro I guess. The other two are just general aoe damage skills with minor 3 second debuffs.


With a good tank(bear please) in PvE birds do not really need to stay at far ranges, in fact to maximize damage they should be coming into around 8 meter range to land cruel blast, which is the first point where a bear could hit after a missed/dodged beckon or hellscream(rank 9). So 9-12 meter would be the minimized damage zone.
If you want to kill a birds damage at 3 or 4 meters, you better increase hit chance on avian scream and repulse shot.

I dont think you play a rhino, because the 'support' you are talking about is a joke. Jist because something is 'beneficial' doesnt make it a support skill. Given that the 'benefits' are so small, and DEFENSIVE in nature, it is correct to call them pure defensive skills'

Guardian is a 40 armor, 10 dodge TANKING buff with a redundant (see restore) dispel effect on party. Just because it has this extremely situational effect, doesnt suddenly make it a support skill. Guardian has a very long cooldown making it absent when u need it for dispelling.

Brute force with 5 armor "support" - HAHA. Beneficial to party my ***. It is a TANKING skill - for 10 dodge.

Any rhino that puts points into divine aura should be SHOT. So, just forget about it.

Rhino has multiple layers of tanking skills, such as stoneskin, guardian, and brute force. Heal and redemption let them stay alive so that they can tank longer. (Not tank skills, but helpful for tanking).

On balance, Rhino has 5 tank skills (brute force, guardian, stoneskin, summon), 3 support skills (restore, reincarnate, vital force), and 4 attack skills (charge, rhino might, redemption, holy tempest). Therefore, it is more of a tank than a supporter.

And no, i dont think birds need more dmg anywhere bcos they are already landing 1-sec kills. We're trying to nerf birds, after all, and the whole point of a nerf is to make them weaker, not redistribute advantages from one area into another. Its a feature not a bug.

Your whole thesis that nerfs would make birds completely unplayable is based on exageration. Birds will still be very good at pvp, i tell u.

[tHelonestud]

I dont think you play a rhino, because the 'support' you are talking about is a joke.

Any skill with an effect on your team is, whether you like it or not, the definition of a support skill. Now for these tanking skills...
sure, stone skin increases armor
oh wait blessing of vitality increases armour more; mages must be real tanks
guardian does add some more defense...for 8 seconds. I have much better ways to spend skill points.
so brute force is a worthless party buff. I will actually agree with you on this, and it's a reasonable self buff since it does not cancel out vital force, which is much more beneficial to you and your party.
That puts the rhino at 5 party/support skills, which is more than mages.

We're trying to nerf birds, after all, and the whole point of a nerf is to make them weaker, not redistribute advantages from one area into another.

you are the only one saying they need nerfed. Bears and strength mages are just as overpowered because the real problem is not with any class, it is the ridiculously buffed dodge stat.

Its a feature not a bug.

No idea what feature you are talking about. Nerfing? I am not sure that is considered a feature in any way. Really confused on this statement.

Your whole thesis that nerfs would make birds completely unplayable is based on exageration. Birds will still be very good at pvp, i tell u.

Please quote me ever saying this.

[Gragorak]

1) A bear does NOT gain 48% dodge from buffs, they gain 18% from evade and 14% from taunt.

Taunt stacks.

[whisperwalk]

Taunt stacks.

Now you're relying on three (!) bear skills to get a miserly 3% advantage over a single bird skill. Quite a stretch, isn't it? A fair comparison would be one skill vs one skill...which is what I pictured when I said evasion was better than actual tank buffs. Evasion is, as a single skill, better than ANY tank buffs possessed by actual tanks. But activating all tank buffs against one single skill...then pointing out the SUM of EVERYTHING beats Evasion by 3%, therefore Evasion is OK...I don't see your logic.

Bears I know don't even max their taunt.

[CrimsonTider]

Bears I know don't even max their taunt.

This made me shed a tear.

[Battlegrinder]

I don't know all that much about PvP, but just from what I've seen in PvE, I'm inclined to support Whisperwalk on this one. PvE as any class other than Archer (and maybe Rangers, I haven't seen too many of them at my level) has a bad habit of turning into "ArchersvE, while the other classes try to get in a few kills on the side". My main is a Mage (ie, the class intended to be able wipe out lots of mobs at once), and Archers still out-kill me. If they have Elixirs, its a struggle to even keep up with them, let alone get any kills.

Regarding the Bear Dodge issue, it seems to me that game mechanics outpaced class design. I'm working on leveling up a bear, and so far (level 33) I've found that being able to take hits is working out ok, even without mage/paladin support and with very few points in dodge skills. Even in Mount Fang, my STR mage has been doing well with armor, a few extra hit points, and liberal use of the heal spell. From what I've heard from various forums, the dodge vs armor system falls apart in Blacksmoke, and mobs just do too much damage for tanks to simply soak it up. If that's true, then hopefully the next expansion will either revert to the previous system, or retool Bears and Paladins so they can actually tank effectively.

Finally, whats with the negativity when Whisperwalk mentioned that many players he knows don't put a lot of points into taunt? That seems like a perfectly valid choice, since it frees up skill points for use in other, perhaps more useful skills like crushing blow, beckon, rage, ect.

[tHelonestud]

I don't know all that much about PvP, but just from what I've seen in PvE, I'm inclined to support Whisperwalk on this one. PvE as any class other than Archer (and maybe Rangers, I haven't seen too many of them at my level) has a bad habit of turning into "ArchersvE, while the other classes try to get in a few kills on the side". My main is a Mage (ie, the class intended to be able wipe out lots of mobs at once), and Archers still out-kill me. If they have Elixirs, its a struggle to even keep up with them, let alone get any kills.

Successful PvE is not simply getting more kills. It should be based on clearing levels with your team as fast as you can. The archer is the primary damage class, bears are meant to take damage and keep enemies from dealing damage, mages put out a lot of aoe damage as well as keeping the team alive, rhino and foxes are designed to laugh at for being weak. If you want to talk about soloing, nothing is easier than a bear, largest health pool, armour, damage buff, and dodge at endgame. Not to mention the massive area debuff from hellscream.

[CrimsonTider]

Successful PvE is not simply getting more kills. It should be based on clearing levels with your team as fast as you can. The archer is the primary damage class, bears are meant to take damage and keep enemies from dealing damage, mages put out a lot of aoe damage as well as keeping the team alive, rhino and foxes are designed to laugh at for being weak. If you want to talk about soloing, nothing is easier than a bear, largest health pool, armour, damage buff, and dodge at endgame. Not to mention the massive area debuff from hellscream.

Exactly. When I see new bears with more kills and less deaths than my 2.5 year old bear, I laugh. I have never been caught up in kills as I have always understood my role (which was clouded with the introduction of stationary bosses during Nuri's.): Control the crowd, take damage, and stay ahead of the group. And trust me Battle when I say that as your bear gets into AO3 and beyond, if you can't dodge, you will get stunned so much that your crowd control will be entirely ineffective.

[tHelonestud]

the introduction of stationary bosses during Nuri's.):

so annoying

[Battlegrinder]

Successful PvE is not simply getting more kills. It should be based on clearing levels with your team as fast as you can. The archer is the primary damage class, bears are meant to take damage and keep enemies from dealing damage, mages put out a lot of aoe damage as well as keeping the team alive, rhino and foxes are designed to laugh at for being weak. If you want to talk about soloing, nothing is easier than a bear, largest health pool, armour, damage buff, and dodge at endgame. Not to mention the massive area debuff from hellscream.

I know that PvE ins't only about the kills, and that bears aren't meant for damage dealing, but I'd still like to be able to get some kills during a run instead of having to sit ack and watch archers kill everything. The main problem I have with archers is that do so much single target damage, and deal it out so quickly, that other classes (even ones like Mage which are designed to take down lots of mobs) have trouble getting any kills at all.

Exactly. When I see new bears with more kills and less deaths than my 2.5 year old bear, I laugh. I have never been caught up in kills as I have always understood my role (which was clouded with the introduction of stationary bosses during Nuri's.): Control the crowd, take damage, and stay ahead of the group. And trust me Battle when I say that as your bear gets into AO3 and beyond, if you can't dodge, you will get stunned so much that your crowd control will be entirely ineffective.

I normally don't mind having less kills, but I do mind having only about 1/8 the kills of an Archer at my level. I'm wanting to get the various achievements for PvE kills, but its really hard to do that when archers are running around killing every mob with two or three attacks. I've had to resort to timing my attacks during their skill cooldowns and in between combos, so that I have at least a chance of getting in the fatal blow. It doesn't help that archers always seem to switch over to whatever mob I've been fighting and stealing the kill. I hate it when I finally grind a targets health down to the point where its just about dead, then someone else fires a volley of arrows into it before I can finish it off.

Thanks for the info about AO3. I didn't have much of an issue with stun damage during my first run through, but maybe that's because I was using a Mage instead of one of the STR classes.