[X] My Assistant

For the most part, I usually hit mobs that doesn't have stun on them so that its reduced damage you receives, and you get the added bonus that I can kill all the mobs fast (which translate to less turns per round).

Really... Even without perma-stun, mace still work fine in reducing (massive amount of) damage you will take. I didn't see how this has been changed at all.
Oh, and you'll be grateful about the change once you can play at higher difficulty. It's much easier than before. Although the change seems to have a side-effect of making lower difficulty a bit tougher.

Oh yeah, it still works, and it's more powerful than it used to be, since even if you hit un-stunned mobs, you can still splash damage to stunned mobs with domino strikes.

The real change to reducing damage is the removal of perma-stun.

And I'm not really complaining about how maces have become bad, quite the contrary.
What I am objecting to is how good maces have become, so that it has become the dominating 2-handed weapon that has made the other 2-handers far less valuable and viable.
And I simply realize that either maces must be nerfed or the other weapons buffed, in order to restore balance.

And that the old way maces worked was more in balance with the other 2-H and that I would have preferred a much smaller buff, like 100% hit chance to stunned mobs, instead of that which was done, which no doubt made maces way more powerful but also changed their role a bit.
Try to think of it like that. That the damage bonus to stunned targets will continue to be nerfed until maces are on equal footing with the other 2-h weapons. And what would you consider to be an even balance so that people should once more start picking estocs and longswords as often as they pick maces?
10% bonus damage? 20%?
And how you'd feel about this much smaller damage bonus, balanced by the loss of the perma-stun.
100% hit chance to stunned mobs is far less powerful than the current damage bonus, but is one that I consider would make it more on par with the other 2-H. And even such a small bonus that you could bring back perma-stun.
Then you would have a mace that would be buffed compared to it's original, but still not the dominating 2-h weapon.

That and I liked the good old days when I could actually have a chance of buying a good etheral mace of balance/slaughter with high stun chance without paying an astronomically high price for it since I have to compete in auction against players that are lvl 250+

This post has been edited by Randommember: Sep 24 2011, 22:55

I guess mace is still the best overall in the 2H weapon category.
Perhaps giant's resistance to crushing should be nerfed a little as well.

This post has been edited by MidNightPass: Sep 24 2011, 23:49

Hi,

Does the "Overcharge Boost" really help in the melee attacks? I'm more of a 2H player (Mace / Scythe / Longsword).

Should I invest my APs into the "Overcharge Boost" Abilities Tank?

The info provided under EHWiki doesn't help much...

This post has been edited by GeForce310: Sep 25 2011, 00:02

Players gain a percentage bonus to melee damage equal to one third of their current Overcharge level.

I believe this is still accurate.

And how you'd feel about ...

Here's my opinion...

• - Perma-stun is stupid. And no matter how much mace is nerfed in the future, it won't be back.

• - At the moment, it's difficult to make a non-mace weapons to be as good as mace since mobs attack damage is too high.
-- Remove damage bonus from mace entirely might actually make the whole things balanced, but that would means melee power as a whole will be lower.
-- Buffing bleed weapon so that it match the performance of other weapon is not easy. Bleed weapon have too many inherent flaws (can you guess what it is?), simply increased their bleed damage and expect it to be balance will not work.
-- Pierce weapon is easier to balance. However, because of high damage the mobs can dish out, the buff would need to be very large, to the point of making it almost broken... Otherwise people would just stick to mace.

• - If stun do not increase damage, it would make non-2H fighting style extremely underpower (it is already not that popular).

Perhaps giant's resistance to crushing should be nerfed a little as well.

No...

This post has been edited by buktore: Sep 25 2011, 00:08

No...

Well, this is because the mace got nerfed.
Are you using niten now?

I played several Arena challenges without realizing that maces got nerfed.
50% nerf sounds like a lot but with everything stunned it makes little difference if you have to hit 1 or 2 times more.

I played several Arena challenges without realizing that maces got nerfed.
50% nerf sounds like a lot but with everything stunned it makes little difference if you have to hit 1 or 2 times more.

It's just the giants... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

@ MidNightPass

Still using the same mace. Yes, it's slower (took more turns to kill thing). But the speed improvement made this pretty much irrelevant in the real world.

Niten is, on average, not faster than my mace, and I take shitload of damage using it. I haven't try estoc yet. But I don't really think that it would be any faster than mace to make it worth using; it might actually be slower...

This post has been edited by buktore: Sep 25 2011, 00:35

@ MidNightPass

Still using the same mace. Yes, it's slower (took more turns to kill thing). But the speed improvement made this pretty much irrelevant in the real world.

Niten is, on average, not faster than my mace, and I take shitload of damage using it. I haven't try estoc yet. But I don't really thing that it would be faster than mace to make it worth using; it might actually be slower...

I am just wondering...would it be worthwhile to pick up an estoc again with protection and SS.

Or you can just become a mage and start facemelting away... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Or you can just become a mage and start facemelting away... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

I think the chance of this happening is very slim (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Or you can just become a mage and start facemelting away... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Oh... And I was wondering why mage is rather ... "quiet" for quite a while now. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)


Maybe I'll try estoc later today. I don't really have high hopes about it, though.

I believe this is still accurate.

So basically, the more AP I invest into the Overcharge Boost, the more damage I deal out to the monsters everytime, right?

So basically, the more AP I invest into the Overcharge Boost, the more damage I deal out to the monsters everytime, right?

Correct. But the damage boost isn't significant at your level.

Correct. But the damage boost isn't significant at your level.

Thanks, guess I'll keep my APs in reserve for the more important spells coming up then.
Just curious though, when/at which level onwards do the damage boost become more significant?

Thanks, guess I'll keep my APs in reserve for the more important spells coming up then.
Just curious though, when/at which level onwards do the damage boost become more significant?

You will probably do a reset by that time.
Assuming you are a melee player, I think you must buff OC when you get heartseeker (LV170). You might feel like doing it before that though.

This post has been edited by MidNightPass: Sep 25 2011, 01:12

Hi,

Does the "Overcharge Boost" really help in the melee attacks? I'm more of a 2H player (Mace / Scythe / Longsword).

Should I invest my APs into the "Overcharge Boost" Abilities Tank?

The info provided under EHWiki doesn't help much...

It does. I'd not invest any AP in it until lvl120-150, though.




As for the melee styles...
As a melee-only player I can comment on current situation:
Maces: are FotM at the moment, even after nerf. The reason is simple, as a melee you can NOT lolfarm IWBTH arenas for awesome exp without a mace, period. There is no way to do this. No way. No, there isnt any. No, you cannot do that. No, it is impossible. You'll simply get wiped out within few turns, over and out. Even with Spirit Shield. Or, in case you'll be lucky, you'll burn an ENORMOUS amount of spirit and will be wiped out by a round or two. Lower difficulty enemies are going down very fast aswell. As for the lowbies - they're getting oneshotted without SS so they would definitely take mace over anything else (not to mention that they'd take mage over anything melee-ish IMO)
Estocs: I used an Eth estoc up to 0.6 patch and it was good. I was not able to compare myself to a mage but still I was pretty happy with it. Estocs used to provide us "static" damage as they completely bypassed enemies' shield rating. Now this reduction percentage is far not as good as it used to be so we cannot rely on estocs anymore if we want to kill stuff as fast as we want even at the cost of taking all the damage from non-stunned enemies.
Bleed-based weapons (scythe/katana/longsword): This is what I used since I found out about this game. I liked the unique concept of "true damage" of these bleed ticks very much. Unfortunately, right now a bleeder weapon is only viable for lvl1-100 characters, as the higher level characters will eventually get a hold on yet_another_awesome_mace.

Now, what could be done about these?
First, do NOT, EVER, start suggesting with the word "nerf". You just dont.
If, in any case, one of the game aspects becomes a niche for everyone other gaming aspects are to be buffed to be competible to the Favor Of The Month one. That is my opinion.
Second, we cannot compare mages and melees. These classes are just THAT much different from each other. The only way to "balance" them is to make another one be as easy as the former. And that is very, VERY hard to implement without breaking the game completely or "overbuffing" one of them.
(By the way, I'd suggest nerfing the Normal and Hard enemies damage by at least 1/2 and 1/3. Low levels suffer from oneshots indeed. It is just not right so that EVERY round with 6 enemies is a 50/50 chance of dying lottery for them. Low difficulty must be "slow and steady" in my opinion. If a lowbie wants to risk and level-up himself a bit faster and he goes for Heroic+, well, he HAS to be Heroic and he literally confirms that he takes the risk of being owned.)
So, what could be done with melee class weapons:
Maces: DEY R FIEN.
No, I am serious. I miss that +100% damage bonus, right, but this is just how it should be. Right now a good Eth mace allows the user to wipe out any challenge even on higher difficulty given that he has enough manapots. Compared to mages who wipe out masses with the first turn, it IS okay.
Estocs: 80% of mobs amplify more damage from Stunned (even the 50% version of it) than from Armor pen proc. And Estoc weapon does not actually prevent YOU from being hit. So, as we can see, estocs are pretty useless unless you're sure you're fighting an enemy with 80% melee mitigation so you need to cut it at least by half.
How can we fix/balance that? I guess the only way to make a good estoc to be on par with a good mace is to bring back the 100% Armor pen. Otherwise Estoc class will be still inferior to Mace. Given that most enemies have less than 50% mitigation, Estoc provides less than 33% damage bonus given the "best" case, and even lower damage bonus if the target is less armored, while mace slaps the enemy with constant 50%.
Bleed-based: The most interesting in my opinion.
Bleeders are the weapons with lowest strike damage. They have no damage amplification nor they have any resistance/mitigation piercing mechanics. Instead of that bleeder weapons give us flat True damage ticks. Which are low compared to other classes and which are based on ENEMY action speed, which is even worse.
What could be done?
Honestly, this seems to be illogical. I slice someone so they bleed. I slice them again so they... bleed for the same damage. Wrooooooooong~
First idea is to make these ticks based on OUR action speed. So if there is a Scythe in my hand and I am twice as fast as the enemy, he will suffer from two ticks. Duration will be lowered accordingly. This change might be a good START, as it is still bad for those who are SLOWER than enemies. Also I guess it would be very hard to implement code-wise. AND it would still be a very small DPS output and it will not get bleeders to be on par with maces.
Second idea is to make the bleeds stack. IMO this one is a must, its the only logical concept.
And then there are two ways to do so.
- The new bleed proc might stack with the previous once AND prolong it. So if I hit someone with my weapon and the enemy is now affected by my bleed ticking for 500 dmg for 5 turns, then I poke him again and the bleed procs again so the enemy would take 1000 damage ticks for 5 turns. The pros of this way: trash mobs would not be very much affected by this as they die too fast, while bosses and legendaries DO last long enough for this to take effect. Compared to current mace mechanics such re-worked bleeder will still be inferior up until 15-25 turns when the bleed will be stacked approximately five times. Yes, we still risk dropping the DoT if we're unlucky with proc or crit chances, but we dont want bleeders to be overbuffed, right? In this case a very lucky dude with a very good crit-wise gear (Shadowdancer/Power-Balance) and the maxed bleeder Scythe will be able to stack the DoT up to immense numbers on a target that Just Refuses To Die. Still the risk of DoT falling down...
- Or, the bleeder proc might stack with previous one but it would NOT prolong its duration. For example, I poked an enemy and now he's bleeding for 500 damage for 5 turns. Then I poke him again and now he's bleeding for 1000 damage for 4 turns and 500 damage a turn after that. So literally I offer something like Warrior "deep wounds" concept from WoW game, as it seems to be the most logical one. This one seems even more logical than the first one but there are two problems: this version of buff is still not very much. If you're not using a max-bleed Scythe weapon with awesome stats then you by far will not profit from this as much as you'd profit from the Mace. Also this would be pretty hard code-wise aswell.

Phew.
Comments, anyone?

If the bleed is stacked, there must be a limit of stacks. At max, you are talking about a few Ks of damage per turn.

Phew.

Read all of it. Good post.

The idea for stacking/prolonging bleed damage is very interesting. I would really like to see something like this happening.

Edit: Btw, which mace are you using right now? The ethereal one from the auction?

This post has been edited by roadgray: Sep 25 2011, 01:31