Keshan vs Berston

[f0xx]

4 minutes ago, Anume said:

Not all cabal skills at the same cabal rank are equal to each other, nor should they be. This reminds me of a discussion with Trick some time ago. Anyone would take forms over praet styles for example or also the Nexus T skills over the Knights'. Knight weapons also suck compared to Nexus weapons (at least unless you are undead, then they hurt at E rank as hell, before that you can just ignore them).

While you are right on many points, the way I look balance is at the peak of a power.

If a character is a Leader, is the power his cabal probides generally similar to the power other cabals provide?

Take praetorian for example and compared it to Gladiator.

A praetorian at L has a wide array of useful skills (and weapons).

They have the best weapon in the game, second only to living weapons. They have vanguard, autodiasrm (that fires in he middle of the round and overcomes curses), autoheal, crazy buffs in the form of stand ground.

On the other hand Gladiators have some nice things too - Forms (which some of the weapons' forms are super strong) and auto dirt. Pathfinding is useful. Their autodisarm can be blocked with noremove. Stance has some pros and cons. Generally, a gladiator's strenght goes up to T. He doesn't gain much from E and L. And once again, gladiators just can't use consumables, uncluding such that grant protection. This is HUGE. If you are evil/good and fighting the opposite align, that's almost as huge as fighting without aura.

 

[Anume]

I've fought plenty of Knight E / Ls on my past Nexians (Askarran / Purikant / Thulgan). I do not think the Knight E skill is overpowered. If you get disarmed, you can rewield, you just need not to spam. If it gets nexus stuffed, you might as well throw it away bc it's ruined and if you are unlucky, you will not even realize it's happened. The auto disarm is really evil only when you are fighting a sader or god forbid a sader L with a vanguard, else you are fine if you just highlight it.

And their weapon are still inferior to Nexus weapons even at L, as you cannot change the damage noun IMO. I'd take selectable vuln damage over a little healing any time.

At E, I think Nexus and Knight are about equal. At L the Knight used to be a lot more scary bc of insane vanguard hp, which we have reduced a while ago however. So I think both are quite equally balanced now.

This was more about WM - Knight though I think. If we go compare cabal skills, we should probably look at WM - Savant though as that is the hardcoded enemy cabal.

[Anonymous]

@Keshan

I landed a good amount of haymakers on you today true but overall I definitely dont lant 90%. That being said you would still have to majorly mess up for me to kill you and in all our fights I have never come close to killing you.

On the other hand you have killed me twice and in our fights things can very easily turn south for me very quickly.

-Berston

Anonymous poster hash: 3dc47...1b7

[f0xx]

3 minutes ago, Anume said:

If it gets nexus stuffed, you might as well throw it away bc it's ruine

The nexus stuff can be countered though, so it doesn't matter.

The praetorian stuff, if it gets you while you are lagged, you're done most of the time. You mentioned saders, but any heavy hitter that can lag will punish you hard for it.

I'll take the praetorian thing any day over the nexus. If it doesn't have a counter, it's better. MUCH better.

[Trick]

Having just been Reaver Elder, I will GLADLY take Knight Elder over it. Reaver Elder takes some set up and doesn't last very long if you're not working to make it last. And it RARELY lands. Knight Elder lasts for a LONG time and it lands every other round damn near. 

[Unknown Criminal]

Why are you using a polearm vs someone who can autodisarm you... Wear a shield and that battle would have went a lot differently. Also for Keshan, wear a shield to bust his haymaker hand then switch to dual wielding. 

I'm not sure if you can enlarge yourself as a human glad but a giant warrior or zerk should be your most dangerous fights. Autodisarm of a noremove weapon plus a slamlock is gay as hell but you have your own version of it, autodisarm plus a haymaker triplock while executing is just as bad. 

WM forms hit a lot harder then hellstream, yes if you catch someone completely off guard hellstream will <<< them, forms will *** through sanc while hellstream DISMEMBERS. 

Who cares about protection, that's what haymaker is for  

Its hard to give more battle tactics because the majority of fights are decided within the first 2 rounds, failing X skill while your opponent lands his can dictate the rest of the fight. As seen here, that missed haymaker allowed him to completely lock you up, yet if it would have landed and he dirt kicked it could have been game over for him in just a couple rounds. 

[Anonymous]

Keshan never spams vs me.

He easily flees after every haymaker.

Like I said he would have to royally mess up to die to me which has not come close to happening.

Also no clue where you are getting your forms damage numbers. Most damage I ever did with a mace smash  was a MASSACRES through sanc/protection and that was hitting a vuln.

I admit polearm was a bad idea. I was trying it since I got a lucky spin on my monk wheel for prot good.

Usually I do use the shield but again if I get lag locked he can disarm it easily and keep bashing me.

Shield is my best bet vs giants usually. But it's lame as hell that I need to use a shield vs good/evil mages just to keep the damage reduction on par with them.

Haymaker also does not remove "protection" or it's equivalent against my toughest vendettas. So your claiming I don't need protection is kinda silly.

-Berston

Anonymous poster hash: 3dc47...1b7

[Fridge]

2 hours ago, f0xx said:

How can one post even contain so much misinformation....

Temporums have some abilities that are directly aimed at disabling and weakening gladiators from fighting. Reverse time and temporal storm are BRUTAL. Temporal storm on its own is one of the best abilities in the game.

Their cabal items are quite nice too.

Gladiators on the other hand have undispellable stance which costs a ton of mana to actiavate and drops when you go to sleep so you can't use your superior regen.

I was just giving my opinion. There has to be a reason why Savant is basically always empty, right? 

I've found that the best way to defeat a mage/communer is to significantly out damage them. Having burst damage from forms and being able to nullify dispel magic for the most part are pretty significant contributors to being able to do that. 

Auto dirt also plays a huge part as you get the advantage of blinding classes without blind fighting without having to commit to the 2 round lag. 

I'm not saying that Savant is completely underpowered, just that the match up seems to be weighted towards gladiators. 

[Anonymous]

Yeah that praet E thing is a bit much

 

koal 

Anonymous poster hash: bf9aa...9e4

[Trick]

Its not that the whole skill needs removed or changed, it just needs to happen less often. You find yourself sitting and waiting to flee instead of entering commands because it procs SO MUCH. 

[Lloth]

49 minutes ago, Fireman said:

Its not that the whole skill needs removed or changed, it just needs to happen less often. 

Oh, the irony is fun

[Trick]

27 minutes ago, Lloth said:

Oh, the irony is fun

What's that supposed to mean?

[Lloth]

It's a joke.

You said you don't think it needs a change, while suggesting a change (lower chance/rate) in the same sentence.

[Trick]

I meant not a complete overhaul change lol

[Unknown Criminal]

6 hours ago, Anonymous said:

Keshan never spams vs me.

He easily flees after every haymaker.

Like I said he would have to royally mess up to die to me which has not come close to happening.

Also no clue where you are getting your forms damage numbers. Most damage I ever did with a mace smash  was a MASSACRES through sanc/protection and that was hitting a vuln.

I admit polearm was a bad idea. I was trying it since I got a lucky spin on my monk wheel for prot good.

Usually I do use the shield but again if I get lag locked he can disarm it easily and keep bashing me.

Shield is my best bet vs giants usually. But it's lame as hell that I need to use a shield vs good/evil mages just to keep the damage reduction on par with them.

Haymaker also does not remove "protection" or it's equivalent against my toughest vendettas. So your claiming I don't need protection is kinda silly.

-Berston

Anonymous poster hash: 3dc47...1b7

I played Horneka and Hoofka, and aside from purposely condeathing Hoofka vs Irant with the purpose of learning how to fight that class , Horneka had like 2 PK deaths. 1 was vs Kotrags bugged out push murder spam and the other was vs Irant when I didn't have my standard and couldn't stop the trip lock as a glad. 

Aside from 'play fight challenges' in the ford nobody could touch me, I smashed everyone. My forms damage numbers came from what I was doing to people and haymaker 'should' be able to dispel protection. My basic stats before rage were 55 hr 75 dr, after rage I hit triple digits.

As for Keshan fleeing every time a haymaker lands, save it. Let him dirt = 2 round lag, once he dirts haymaker. He is in for 2 rounds of pain if it lands, if it doesn't you should be dual wielding or using a shield. If duel wielding then trigger a double grip when disarmed to get your two handed into play, else flee and reset. I'm not saying you haven't tried this, it's just what I would do. 

The problem with what was done to you was the zero lag to Keshan for removing a cursed weapon, that skill and others like it IMO need to be activated like forms. 

Cursed weapons are a false sense of security these days where 3 classes can instantly remove them as well as cabal skills and some strength weakening abilities, these classes are heavily played specificially for this purpose. Cleave zerks, disarm warriors, ninjas, blademasters, even if not many of them the ones that play are very active and prominent. 

Anyhow, I'm not a fan of auto skills that dictate battle without strategy, I have a huge beef with the syndicate blinding as well, lol. 

[English lad]

12 hours ago, Anume said:

Not all cabal skills at the same cabal rank are equal to each other, nor should they be. This reminds me of a discussion with Trick some time ago. Anyone would take forms over praet styles for example or also the Nexus T skills over the Knights'. Knight weapons also suck compared to Nexus weapons (at least unless you are undead, then they hurt at E rank as hell, before that you can just ignore them).

While I don't agree with F0xx that serks can only haymaker, he's got it right that normal class skills should not be compared to cabal skills, esp. concerning landing rate. 

While I agree with this in principal - i do think some thought should be put into better leveling out some cabals.  Knight is probably the biggest one.  At Trusted in Praet you pretty much suck compared to your opponents at Trusted - then at Elder you are a god.

Realistically I think we should be looking to make cabals roughly even out at Trusted - not the same - just roughly equivalent.  Trusted is where most players will spend their time.  Yes there are some people who will get elder in a month every time, but that isn't the experience for most people.

[f0xx]

5 hours ago, Unknown Criminal said:

I played Horneka and Hoofka, and aside from purposely condeathing Hoofka vs Irant with the purpose of learning how to fight that class , Hornecka had like 2 PK deaths. 1 was vs Kotrags bugged out push murder spam

You died way more times against the "bugged out push murder spam"

But you're cool bro.

[Unknown Criminal]

22 minutes ago, f0xx said:

You died way more times against the "bugged out push murder spam"

But you're cool bro.

Once per character, both at V level. I had to see what you did twice because I didn't log it the first time. So yeah, waaaay more times, my bad  

[Anonymous]

I find renown can work against me sometimes. When I am in ironarm stance and if I can hit bladerush I can stun them long enough to hit pinwheel. Though the amount of times renown has triggered that disarm right before, negating that stun allowing people to flee before eating that damage. 

I cry every time

-Ivesianna

Anonymous poster hash: 0b15a...f0e

[Pali]

5 hours ago, English lad said:

Realistically I think we should be looking to make cabals roughly even out at Trusted - not the same - just roughly equivalent.

I’d love to agree - the “usual” powers that most players can expect to achieve without above-average effort should, ideally, even out.

 

The problem, of course, is that this is incredibly difficult to achieve: whether in broad or specific terms “balance” is near-impossible both to define and create.  Should a paladin be able to stand against an evil melee, or should they generally need to use attrition tactics? Which is the appropriate “balanced” result, and how many rounds of combat should the paladin be able to handle, against and with what eq sets?  How can cabals that are designed to allow a broad variety of combos possibly be given abilities that assist each combo equally against all possible enemies, and how can the effectiveness of those abilities across all possible combos be judged against the abilities of other cabals as they affect other combos in other situations?

 

Simply put, perfect balance in a game like this one will never exist and can never be achieved.  That the game is as well balanced as it is is something of a minor miracle.  But how can we possibly give Knight’s ranks abilities that equally benefit a warrior and an invoker against Nexians of every class just as well as they do neutral melee Warmasters?  This is too much to ask even in far simpler games with a general rock-paper-scissors setup.

 

We should certainly discuss issues we see and have the game evolve over time, but the game is a lot more fun and a lot less aggravating if you can accept that it isn’t and won’t ever be perfect - and it doesn’t need to be.

[Kyzarius]

On 5/26/2018 at 6:12 PM, Fridge said:

I was just giving my opinion. There has to be a reason why Savant is basically always empty, right? 

 

Melee have a scale-able offense, casters do not and are currently stuck.  They hit a peak, and don't scale any more.  While melees are walking around with huge hit/dam, HP, AND saves.  Though I understand this is being addressed with gear re-balancing.  That is why Savant is basically empty.  Savant vs WM is the quintessential measuring stick for melee vs caster, so of course the gear and scaling imbalance currently plaguing the mud would be evident in their participation.

 

Maybe when work slows down over the next few months I will roll another psi and go temporum.   Qclasses....The last bastion of caster potency. 

[miskahn]

Having played an Elder Knight, personally I didn’t have the luck your talking of when fighting, And it wouldn’t proc as much.