Irish's Week One Balance Megathread

[Irishman81]

Since I like using the forums better and want to get the ball rolling on the first round of balance changes (expect finalized changes to be in on Friday) here's a big thread addressing some of the items I think should be addressed after the first week of the map.

*Note* I already have posted a thread for basic Bard changes because the class was basically released in a unfinished state

Useful info based on current config numbers:

Spoiler: Max Hp and Left Click for each Class

Arcanist: 856 & 38.5(manamissile)
Bard: 1055 & 23.11
Chainwarden: 1111 & 36.8
Chronomancer: 800 & 22.5
Disciple: 956 & 28.5
Dragoon: 1009 & 36.5
Druid: 800 & 16.5
Enderbeast: 1310 & 28.5
Hellspawn: 981 & 35
Necromancer: 807 & 16.5
Ninja: 956 & 35.96
Pathfinder: 975 & 30
Pyromancer: 907 & 21.5

Chainwarden:

I think this class has been the source of most of the complaints I've been hearing -- and I agree its in a strong spot, having the second highest max health behind enderbeast, the highest base left click (excluding arcanist but that's on account of manamissile), has a good amount of cc, and even some mobility with grapple -- but don't want to gut it before there's more testing and that's just not a good way to balance stuff. Still, Here are some readjustments that I think will put the class in a better spot.

• Decrease Max health from 1111 -> 1071
• Decrease Base left click by 5 (hear me out)
• Increase Leverage percent increase per hook from 7.5% -> 10%
• Increase Leverage Max percentage increase from 30-> 40%
• Decrease Max distance of Grapple from 25 -> 15
• Increase Cooldown of Grapple from 8 -> 12

Moving power away from straight up left clicking to encouraging utilizing your passive damage increase, also reducing mobility

Hellspawn:

• Decrease base left click by 4
• Increase TheWither Healingreduction per tick from 0.05 -> 0.1 (Max stacks stays at 6)
• Increase Disintegrate Damage per stack removed from 20 -> 25
• Increase Disintegrate Max damage from 80 -> 100
• Increase Darkbolt Healing Reduction from 0.35 -> 0.5

Chronomancer:

• Increase Base health by 50
• Remove reagent of one skill (currently has 3 skills with reagents)
• Decrease base leftclick by 6 (normalize with other casters/healers)

Disciple:

While we are awaiting our fearless leader @Delfofthebla rework of disciple, these tweaks will help disciple feel less shitty

• Decrease Chakra cooldown from 16 -> 13 seconds
• Increase Renewal Healing from 100 -> 140
• Decrease Barrier cooldown from 20 -> 18 seconds

Dragoon:

Played and switched out of the class because it just feels meh, especially considering the added mobility to the game -- slight tweaks to help it out without (hopefully) pushing it to the overpowered state herocraft knows and loves

• Decrease Piercingstrike range from 7 -> 3 blocks
• Decrease Piercingstrike cooldown from 10 -> 8 seconds
• Decrease Impale cooldown from 18 -> 16 seconds
• Increase Impale damage from 40 -> 60
• Decrease Impale stamina cost from 300 -> 250

Druid:

Have not played the class yet so I can't fully speak to how it is currently, just some small number tweaks

• Increase base health by 50
• Decrease Gust cooldown from 14 -> 10

Ninja:

• Increase Sneaking Backstab multiplier from 0.75 -> 1
• Increase non-sneaking backstab multiplier from 0.45 -> 0.5
• Increase shadowkick damage from 35 -> 50

Definitely wanted to look at Enderbeast and Pathfinder as well but don't have as much experience with those, I know @werwew19 @Donal have been playing enderbeast and @Epislen has been playing pathfinder if they wanted to chime in. Overall lot of number changes which I'd love to discuss, let me know what you think and if there's anything I didn't address that should be addressed.

@Delfofthebla @werwew19 @dragonzero39 @Kainzo @Uin @STDs4YouAnd4Me @BalanceTeam???

 

[Delfofthebla]

I agree with much of what's here, but not necessarily the specific numbers.

Chronomancer left click is because he has a sword and is meant to actually "go ham" when he pops temporal echoes. His health is so low because he has Rewind. I haven't really seen or fought many chronomancers atm so I don't know how well they're making use of either of these advantages, but that's the intention. I'll patch the ninja shit through regardless, as I was already thinking of doing the same stuff.

 

[MjrDeath]

Chainwarden level 50 health is an even 1100 though. It is not 1111.

 

[Irishman81]

Chainwarden level 50 health is an even 1100 though. It is not 1111.

My mistake -- I calculated using (base) + (scaling) * (50) instead of 49 because thats how I thought this worked -- I'll update the numbers at some point

 

[Delfofthebla]

I'm going to copy the recent patch notes from the server over here so that we have more context.

Chainwarden maximum HP reduced by 100.
Chainwarden Grapple cooldown increased from from 8 seconds to 16.

Druid fist damage decreased to 9
Druid diamond hoe damage increased to 11

Pathfinder trap root has been increased to 5 seconds.
Pathfinder grapple cooldown increased to 16 seconds
Pathfinder Grapplinghook velocity decreased from 0.75 to 0.7.
Velocity Divider increased from 5.5 to 6.5

Enderbeast Enderbreath should no longer crash the server. (HACKY TEMP FIX)
Enderbeast Lunging bite can now travel vertically when aimed upwards

Ninja shadowkick damage increased from 35 to 50.
Ninja backstab bonus damage scaling increased from 45% to 50%
Ninja backstab (ambush) bonus increased from 75% to 100%

Bard Accented Strikes cooldown increased to 12 seconds.
Bard Manasong cooldown increased to 15 seconds.
Bard Manasong cost decreased to 100. Bard Warsong cooldown increased to 15 seconds.
Bard Healing Chorus cooldown increased to 10 seconds. Bard Manasong duration increased to 10.5 seconds.
Bard Manasong tick per mana increased to 20. Bard Warsong duration increased to 12 seconds.
Bard Melodic Binding duration increased to 8 seconds. Bard Melodic Binding tick period increased to 2 seconds.
Bard Melodic Binding radius increased to 10. Bard Healing Chorus duration increased to 10 seconds.
Bard Healing Chorus tick period increased to 2 seconds

The Port skill now costs 8 slimeballs instead of 16.
The Group Teleport skill now costs 4 slimeballs instead of 16.
The Port skill now allows you to teleport to spawn in addition to the spires.

Necromancer's Skeleton Knight HP was increased to 150 from 100.
Necromancer's Skeleton Knight AI should now prioritize players over monsters. (Unfortunately it will target allies at present. Working on that...)

 

[Delfofthebla]

I'll say that I don't really agree with the Chronomancer left click damage changes, at least not yet. Chronomancer isn't a "melee hybrid" or anything, but it's intended that they do higher left click than other casters so that it's worth "going ham" while Temporal Echoes are up.

Not to mention the fact that we don't have disguise lib right now so the skill is already less beneficial than I had hoped it would be. Have we seen an instance where a chronomancer was abusing left click in a way that we did not approve of?

I have not seen enough of them to really gauge whether or not the health increase is necessary, but rewind is an _extremely_ powerful ability.

And maybe we can remove the slimeballs from TimeLink or something. I saw people complaining about that one.

 

[Delfofthebla]

• Decrease Piercingstrike range from 7 -> 3 blocks
• Decrease Piercingstrike cooldown from 10 -> 8 seconds
• Decrease Impale cooldown from 18 -> 16 seconds
• Increase Impale damage from 40 -> 60
• Decrease Impale stamina cost from 300 -> 250

You don't want _any_ skill at 3 blocks, I assure you. If we're trying to just make it work in melee, 4 is fine.
I think I agree with the Impale stamina cost, and maybe the Impale cooldown, but what's the thought for the rest of those changes? Are you saying that Dragoon damage output is too low?

 

[Delfofthebla]

• Decrease Chakra cooldown from 16 -> 13 seconds
• Increase Renewal Healing from 100 -> 140
• Decrease Barrier cooldown from 20 -> 18 seconds

Let's do this, and then also increase renewal cast distance to like 8-10 blocks or something. It's way too low to be viable right now and I actively hate playing with our town's disciple.

 

[werwew19]

Besides the 50 health gain on druid I think we should consider giving them chain legs or something. They're a little too easy to kill at the moment and I've noticed it's scaring people off the class even though it can pump out some great healing if untouched. The self healing penalties are very punishing so I don't think this is necessarily a ground breaking change if we decide to go down this route.

 

[Delfofthebla]

Besides the 50 health gain on druid I think we should consider giving them chain legs or something. They're a little too easy to kill at the moment and I've noticed it's scaring people off the class even though it can pump out some great healing if untouched.

Are these good PvPers? Or are they newer players that want to support? I know that in the past most of our healers weren't as skilled as the main pvpers, which made balance a _real_ pain in the ass when somebody that had actual skill picked up the class.

They have a lot of tools (Knockback, Overgrowth, GiftOfEir) to protect themselves. I just want to make sure we're not basing balance decisions off of a few less experienced players.

 

[Look_Out]

Chainwarden:

I think this class has been the source of most of the complaints I've been hearing -- and I agree its in a strong spot, having the second highest max health behind enderbeast, the highest base left click (excluding arcanist but that's on account of manamissile), has a good amount of cc, and even some mobility with grapple -- but don't want to gut it before there's more testing and that's just not a good way to balance stuff. Still, Here are some readjustments that I think will put the class in a better spot.

• Decrease Max health from 1111 -> 1071
• Decrease Base left click by 5 (hear me out)
• Increase Leverage percent increase per hook from 7.5% -> 10%
• Increase Leverage Max percentage increase from 30-> 40%
• Decrease Max distance of Grapple from 25 -> 15
• Increase Cooldown of Grapple from 8 -> 12

So chainwarden has 1k hp at 50 now, i agree with everything u got there. I have something to add tho.

Increase the time Lockup Hooks are connected to targets. from 6 seconds to 10 seconds.

cause its a pain in the ass to actually hook multiple people in a teamfight.

 

[werwew19]

Are these good PvPers? Or are they newer players that want to support? I know that in the past most of our healers weren't as skilled as the main pvpers, which made balance a _real_ pain in the ass when somebody that had actual skill picked up the class.

They have a lot of tools (Knockback, Overgrowth, GiftOfEir) to protect themselves. I just want to make sure we're not basing balance decisions off of a few less experienced players.

This is from a pvp perspective I've fought with an experienced druid and against them finally because we had the only leveled druid for the longest time. I've noticed myself killing druids very easily regardless of the invuln and gust. However I don't think I've seen druids utilizing overgrowth as a defensive tool so I wouldn't be surprised if we hold out on jumping the gun to buff up their armor a bit waiting to see if druid's start adapting to their kits better.

 

[werwew19]

I'm a little slow when it comes to physics based shit so I don't wanna ballpark numbers that end up looking ridiculous.

But for Enderbeast I think a necessary change is increasing the distance of the breath projectile. It's way too easy to CC yourself with form breath to the point where I feel it's way too dangerous for me to risk using.

projectile-velocity: 20.0
projectile-gravity: 14.7045

Those are the current numbers up above for reference.

Right now human form is worth staying in much more than form so I'd like to see us retune the class so it's worth going into form more rather than sitting in human form most of the time.

Here's a change I had in mind I'd like to hear thoughts on this.

Remove access to Endercrystal in human form (Lose 10 HPS).
Reduce CD of Harden Scales from 20 -> 15.

I think this can preserve the current defense of the class as much as possible and at the same time give you much more reason to go into form. This overall in my eyes would be a nerf to the spec due to pillar kiting with the heal getting yanked.

 

[Delfofthebla]

I think it's time for me to start writing my own thoughts here for changes rather than just making them, and I'll be swapping off necro to avoid any "Delfmancer" comments, but I'll just say this. Necro feels very weak.

Nightmare and Famine feel like powerful tools.
When being attacked, BoneSpear is a decent defensive tool.
Plague, when you're lucky to get it off, definitely feels powerful.

However...
While their skeletons are difficult to kill in 1v1s, they die almost instantly in any teamfight. Without skeletons, the Necro's damage output is insanely low, and even with them, it can be on the lower side of things. Especially if compared to Arcanist, ChainWarden, or Hellspawn.

Plague cast range is really rough. It was reduced during the beta to prevent "kite and run" strategies, but ultimately, it's not feasible in teamfights. I can almost never get it off without putting myself in immense danger. I tend to do it anyways, but this typically draws focus from the other team, and due to necro's only mobility skill relying on

BoneSpear can knock people back during a chase which effectively makes them a hindrance to their team.
Summons block vanilla projectiles from allies (Arrows, Fireballs, ChaosOrbs) and it can be frustrating for the Necro's team.
The time it costs to summon all 3 skeletons is high (4.5 seconds of warmup + 16 seconds of cooldown time). When they die almost instantly, it can feel really bad.

Overall, I feel I missed the mark on the design as far as PvP is concerned, and there are _some_ things I can fix through code, but I'd love to hear everyone elses input on numbers that can be changed to improve the class feeling for other players

 

[keffalump]

While the self healing debuffs on druid definitely feel rough, I don't think druid needs to be looked at for buffs at the moment. I don't consider myself to be a top pvper, but I would hardly consider myself inexperienced (I've been on herocraft since zeal and played minecraft since alpha). In the few teamfights I had before swapping off druid, it felt impactful but vulnerable. I believe druid is 100% viable at the moment with proper communication and coordination.

 

[Irishman81]

I used to play druid a ton in old herocraft, and I know people were surprised I wasn't playing it here - I tested out druid during the beta to try to get a feel for what was going on. Obviously, we've tried to steer clear of healer classes being the go to pick for winning teamfights, and have tried to avoid having the situation of *if the other party has a cleric they win* -- however, based on testing healer classes in addition to feedback from my townmates and other players on the server, I definitely have come to the understanding that it doesn't feel like healers are even close to as impactful as before -- with the addition of multiple anti-healing skills, the fixing of self healing reduction, and finally the reduction in healing classes as a whole, I definitely agree with the statement that it is a damage game right now with not as much emphasis on healing.

Balancing healing classes is one of the hardest things to do, if not the hardest. That being said, I definitely feel like our support classes could use some love in the straight up healing numbers/cooldowns -- It is my opinion that with the combination of having low max health, several anti-healing skills, and most of all the addition of reductive self healing, that healers should be more effective in fights. I don't have specific numbers other than what I laid out for disciple (because that class is garbage) - but I think with the low amount of healer classes, they could use some love.

 

[werwew19]

I used to play druid a ton in old herocraft, and I know people were surprised I wasn't playing it here - I tested out druid during the beta to try to get a feel for what was going on. Obviously, we've tried to steer clear of healer classes being the go to pick for winning teamfights, and have tried to avoid having the situation of *if the other party has a cleric they win* -- however, based on testing healer classes in addition to feedback from my townmates and other players on the server, I definitely have come to the understanding that it doesn't feel like healers are even close to as impactful as before -- with the addition of multiple anti-healing skills, the fixing of self healing reduction, and finally the reduction in healing classes as a whole, I definitely agree with the statement that it is a damage game right now with not as much emphasis on healing.

Balancing healing classes is one of the hardest things to do, if not the hardest. That being said, I definitely feel like our support classes could use some love in the straight up healing numbers/cooldowns -- It is my opinion that with the combination of having low max health, several anti-healing skills, and most of all the addition of reductive self healing, that healers should be more effective in fights. I don't have specific numbers other than what I laid out for disciple (because that class is garbage) - but I think with the low amount of healer classes, they could use some love.

Eh honestly I disagree with this sentiment. We've been the only town consistently running with a master druid and they can pump out some great heals. It's kept us alive and won us a few fights now and we've been desperately trying to recruit druid players they can pump out some serious numbers to allies even though they themselves are pretty easily killable.

 

[jrr5556]

I agree healing is weird atm but druid is in a really good spot at the moment.

Dragoon, I played it for a few days and it just felt weird. It's only use is for chasing people down or assisting peeling with tremor. If you increase its left click damage then it just becomes the class that kills whatever you want and then run away.

Chainwarden, I agree, make it focus more on its skills then left click output.

Ninja change is good, need more reward for backstabs.

Disciple, yeah I guess, tick.

I went arcanist today hearing about all the rage, are there no changes to reduce this class's damage output?

 

[Look_Out]

Could just increase cd on arcanist

 

[Delfofthebla]

I agree healing is weird atm but druid is in a really good spot at the moment.

Dragoon, I played it for a few days and it just felt weird. It's only use is for chasing people down or assisting peeling with tremor. If you increase its left click damage then it just becomes the class that kills whatever you want and then run away.

Chainwarden, I agree, make it focus more on its skills then left click output.

Ninja change is good, need more reward for backstabs.

Disciple, yeah I guess, tick.

I went arcanist today hearing about all the rage, are there no changes to reduce this class's damage output?

Could just increase cd on arcanist

Last night I did several changes from this thread, and fixed a few others.
Here's some stuff not mentioned in this thread that I did:

Bolt damage reduced to 120 from 125.
ChainLightning damage was reduced to 110 from 140.
ChainLightning now deals 10% less damage with each jump.

Leverage no longer gives damage bonuses for chains on the ground. Only players will add to it now.