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Conversely, I can with absolute confidence contribute to the argument/debate regarding the class getting better with less blood. I disagree with this move as it feels somewhat absurd given the volume of blood drain and usage in pve/pvp.
@Zsadist summed it up very well in his previous post that to be caught below 90% would be disastrous to say the least given with blood concentrate on you are using 2% to purify, 2% every 10secs of pvp from whispers, then you have mend 1-2%, trepidation, shadow purify 2% and general upkeep from skills like lifevision, lifescent, etc 1% each in most cases over the course of the fight.
In reality you go through huge volumes in pve/pvp and to assume it is logical to drop your reserves is insane as I have thinblood/blood concentrate/racial reserves and can use 50-60% in a average fight without pushing anything but whispers and base defence skills.
Abhorash says, "Ve'kahi has proved that even bastards can earn their place."
At least Firebomb and Holocaust will be able to kill us better now, though!
But yeah, Sanguine seems to buff Cold, Elec, Asphyx, and Poison by 20% while weakening Fire by 40% over the course of 80% Blood Loss
I'll just say that I agree that further tweaking is more than likely going to happen, which is usually the case with most all revamps I've experienced.. and my super long bullet-point filled ragey post was epic.
(Don't feel obligated to comment. This is a complete tangent to the thread's main purpose and my bad for that as well!)
Edit: Because it's meeeh, I mean. I don't think I can even get my audits that high with Plate/Aura Protection/Orbs. I might have a DPS advantage, but that does me little good in trying to stay alive. This is classic 'grass is greener on the other side'. I've played every lifer class, and bashed with every single one. I also have a Praenomen, and that was by far the best bashing I've done in the entirety of my Aetolian life. Level 80 idle-grinding through Tiyen just because of Affinity? I was in heaven.
In terms of BASHING (not PVP) I think Praenomen are finally feeling what almost EVERY OTHER CLASS IN THE GAME BASHES LIKE. Oh sweet, sweet justice. (Keeding).
Prae lost the survivability and still have hilariously bad dps in comparison to a lot of classes. Tacking on that extra balance cost isn't about inconvenience, it's another side nerf on top of the huge nerf.
Also I can bash quicker, faster, do more damage and take less damage using DECAY which is an EQ skill in Indo than I can in Prae when I'm balance enhancement.
I am personally not a huge basher by any means as vamps are boring to pve with. However, after reading all the responses it would be nice to hear a reply from on high with the silly season nearing an end. Perhaps they can give us an idea of the direction pve could go to appease the pve crowd.
In terms of solutions I suppose an increase in speed for bashing could help, whereby it goes from 3.8 to 3secs.
Abhorash says, "Ve'kahi has proved that even bastards can earn their place."
Also.. the detriment isn't so intense that if you drop to 98% you're going to be getting wtfpwned. I'm not claiming everyone is saying that, but the way the posts are reading it sounds that way.
As PRae, using Potence and Mend regularly, I cleared Xaanhal and only dropped to maybe 96%? Tops? And I am sure I spent a good chunk of time idling too in there. (My blood regen seems to outstrip the potence drain, if 'just' barely.)
96% for clearing a bashing area and Xorani give you about 32% blood back per corpse. Even trade. (I have both Blood REgen and Blood Reserve ratials, Azudim, Lv. 115. Mend doesn't always take 1%)
This is keeping in mind that I could have been VERY lucky that run and crit 50% of the time, or that I may have finished fights in two hits, so take it with a grain of salt and a pinch of luck
Abhorash says, "Ve'kahi has proved that even bastards can earn their place."
In my experience playing Dungeons and Dragons, there was this thing lovingly referred to as a 'feat tax'. I'm not sure how many of you here have played DnD, but there are certain class features that, while good, really are only helpful when you take something alongside them. Ask any non bitter cleric, and they will tell you that they almost always are forced to take selective channeling at level 1, in order to not also heal their enemies when they channel.
I'm getting a lot of this from the points brought forward by individuals. Satomi herself pointed out that the blood drain was marginal for her, due to having both blood regen and blood capacity. There is a fair bit of anecdotal fallacy here, because In her situation, the changes aren't particularly egregious. Now, because clarity is often necessary, this doesn't mean that Satomi is incorrect, or that I'm saying her points are invalid. I'm sure the class changes will be a lot less of a pain were everyone 115 and had both blood racial perks. However, while racial passives should make the class a little bit nicer, they do not invalidate concerns that arise without them present (I'm not picking on you Satomi, you just mentioned both passives, so you're a prime example). I am a level 88 human vampire, as such I have access to the increased blood pool passive. This passive means I can throw out more blood abilities before feeling the percentile drain on my reserves. Now, I'm pretty sure Aetloia implemented stat packs as a way to break away from making any one race more prevalent in certain classes. I know before stat packs Achaea was predominantly Rajamalan solely because of the increased balance recovery. Pushing forward a change that requires people actively seeking out specific racial passives in order to enjoyably play a class will ultimately be taking a step backwards in the racial front. Now I'm sure someone will swing in and say "But Talfinel you silly goat, at level 100 you get the ability to choose your racial passives, so it really doesn't matter!". To these individuals, my reply will simply be to point to the top of my post and allow them to read again. Classes and features should ideally be balanced around all levels, and no class should be pressured more than the others to reach 100+. While classes shouldn't become broken with too many stats, they should conversely not be heavily disadvantaged by not having racial passives.
Now that I've addressed that, I'd like to also take a look at the feeding comments. Yes, vamps can feed on a corpse in order to replenish blood levels. As it has been explained to me, the blood acquired from the corpse usually correlates the the amount of essence that the corpse is worth. Beyond that, feeding takes 4.5-5 seconds of balance. Without the racial regen passive, your blood reserves will never increase without either feeding or I believe we still have a way to gift blood to another player. While bashing it's arguably a minor inconvenience to have to maintain upwards of 90% blood reserves. Some individuals can feed once after an area and be perfectly fine, while other people have to feed three times throughout hunting. What this adds to bashing is tedium and a tax to essence for those who are particularly focused on their Divines. Most players will only experience the bleeding/healing reduction system when they receive bleeding damage. Bleeding alone is often marginal and the only similar scenario I can offer is imagine having the choice to either take short naps throughout bashing to regenerate blood reserves, or simply deal with 5-10% (or higher) recovery penalties. A few folks have also told me that even a 10% reduction in kidney/analeptic/regen is barely worth noticing. I'd like to point out that there is an artifact that only increases potion recovery by 10%.. and it goes for roughly $169, so clearly 10% isn't insignificant.
I personally don't believe the largest offense comes from having to offer a corpse while bashing, because you're already out there hunting. The largest annoyance comes from the fact that unless you have the blood regen passive, you are now required to go out and hunt. Every time I log in, I do what the majority of Aetolians do, and put up my defenses. Some of my defenses require blood to apply. The two that jump out at me right this very second are ward and fortify, each taking approximately 1% of my blood reserves to apply (There may be others, but I strictly remember the numbers and info behind these two, so they are getting mentioned). Just putting on these two defenses alone is enough to lower my healing by 1% across the board. What if I'm just logging in to check some house stuff and help out some thralls? No other class suffers innate penalties to their healing for logging in and throwing up their class defenses.
-Talf, apparently holder of the D.
Most classes get penalities for putting up defenses but only in the way of losing spark, essence, etc none that efforts ones audit which I believe the point most people are having.
Also not having arties @Riluo and without grimstim pills takes around 5/6 hits to kill an Xorani which most likely will make me mend, plus potence draining blood and clot etc. it all adds up in blood drain, granted its not every corpse you kill but to keep above 90% blood its an annoyance and personally ID perfer not to have annoy bashing as I love bashing.
Because if the first is right, then Prae should be tweaked down. There are other classes that struggle in that area before reaching level 99. Why shouldn't this go for all classes considering it's recommended for level 99?
If the second is right, then welcome down to the level of some other classes trying to bash there. It's really not easy for some classes.
If I was mistaken, then I'll hush and apologize. I've never played a Vampire ever. Just know of other classes.
@Satomi I know! I was so sad when testing and it came out to be false.
No, my argument had nothing to do with Bloodlevels, which was the main discussion at this particular time, but still on general balance between classes. I just don't want to see someone complaining that bashing Xaanhal has suddenly become a pain in the ass at (lets say) level 85, when other classes have been struggling there for a good while (or since it was opened) at level 94 or above.
But last year You could bash Xaanhal around the 85thish circle but with trans minis etc because of Affinity but with miasma and OLD resillent statpack.
Most Classes need tweaks up and down, but seems like Prae bashing got a big nerf (or personally an annoying nerf, as no corpse to dissect or, offer). Like Potence not drains blood, it was much better when it just drained Willpower. I Would also say it effects combat too but I've yet to test it 1v1 unless it was just using someone as a test dummy.
Or Shaman, I'm told they have decent damage with high tankability (Meltas so I'm not sure how reliable that information is). Should we nerf them to the point of Syssin where they are super fucking squishy and deal out shit-for-dick damage?
Or lets take it a step further and go PVP. Shamans and Cabal are one of the few classes that are able to completely IGNORE mental/specific based afflictions when no other class can. Should those two classes get their ignore skills removed just because Prae/Shapeshifter/(insert class here) doesn't?
PVE needs to be balanced for EVERYONE, REGARDLESS of your class. But like I said in my previous post, there is a balance to be had for it. You either get high tankability + moderate damage or moderate tankability + high damage. Pre-revamp Praenomen had high tankability + slow/meh damage (We'll take Satomi's 939 damage @ 2.92s = 321 DPS). Praenomen needed the Affinity (in my opinion) to combat the fact that they had maluses across the board just for being a vampire and give a reason as to why we hit for shit. Now, they did remove the blanket maluses, but instead placed maluses on low blood levels. And after fighting Kheoss at 30% blood yesterday, let me fucking tell you, that shit hurts. Post-revamp Praenomen can barely tank any of the three areas mentioned in my Statistical post on page 5 without having to kite/shield spam. Yes, do other classes have it hard, sure. But thats why you find ways to balance yourselves.
My point is, you can't just say "Yay, you're just as crappy as us now because your tankability was removed. WOO!!" because that is not how things should work. Its why the admins allow us to put in liaison reports. To augment and HELP our classes with whatever we deem is necessary. If you think your class should do abit more damage... math it out and submit a liaison report. If you think you should get a skill to boost your tankability... think of something, math it out, explain it, and submit a liaison report. We, as players, get a lot of leeway from admins. These forums, on top of liaisons, let the admins hear what we have to complain/recommend. Use the resources available to you to help out your class(es). If you don't feel like doing it yourself, ask/inform a liaison about it and maybe they'll look into it. Our class is only ever as good as we make it.
Secondly @Teani, it's just a bit frustrating because you're both cherry picking bits of information as well as admitting that you are going on pure hearsay. Before the changes, I was around 80-85, and after being shown the area I tried Xaanhal exactly once, because it was an absolute pain in the rear. I'd comment more about the specifics, but I don't feel comfortable without the exact numbers in front of me, and I did not log it. Now, I'm not entirely sure what buffs the Prae that swam through Xaanhal with ease was running, but by everyone's heresay and opinions my class was so broken that the mobs there should have been an utter breeze with marginal prep (Which they were not).
The argument of "I believe you are on par with me in one regard, so therefor the changes must be entirely balanced." Is what I was referring to with damage. If we follow that sort of logic, then by all means we should be pulling for singular attacks and reduced damage to pull all classes in line with Prae. But as I said before, we don't because that is a silly way to consider balance. Certain classes will be a little better than others in specific situations. In general, classes will typically favor damage, survivability, or meet somewhere in the middle. So I hope you can see why it is a little frustrating when there is a rather large field of interconnected issues, and someone glances at a small corner before saying "It's K".