Praenomen bashing: please look into it

Alexina

So, I had a discussion with Menelaus and Satomi earlier and now I decided to make a post because Praenomen bashing is too strong. It is quite unbalanced, in fact.

This here is a longer log with numbers and all, in case anyone wants to have a look. I am doing this without a blessing and I am not Powerful statpack, meaning you could potentially gain another 20% damage reduction. I am, however, using ylem orb and epicurean blessing, which together adds up to 10% (or 5%, since most people can get the orb).

Since most people are not interested in reading a boring log of me killing a few Xorani, I'll just post numbers here:

********************************[ Resistances ]********************************
Type           Defences     Miniskills   Armour       A. Total    
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cutting        35%          0%           61%          55%
Blunt          35%          0%           74%          60%
Magic          50%          24%          0%           62%
Fire           50%          24%          0%           62%
Cold           45%          24%          0%           59%
Electric       35%          24%          0%           51%
Poison         35%          24%          0%           51%
Psychic        15%          24%          0%           36%
Asphyxiation   25%          24%          0%           43%
*******************************************************************************

A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Dor mak tinal esha mitae."
Iridescent sapphire light wreathes around a wiry Xorani guard's wooden staff, surging suddenly outward to envelop you, agonizing coils of seething power searing your skin.
Health Lost: 868, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Dor mak tinal esha mitae."
Iridescent sapphire light wreathes around a wiry Xorani guard's wooden staff, surging suddenly outward to envelop you, agonizing coils of seething power searing your skin.
Health Lost: 854, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Dor mak tinal esha mitae."
Iridescent sapphire light wreathes around a wiry Xorani guard's wooden staff, surging suddenly outward to envelop you, agonizing coils of seething power searing your skin.
Health Lost: 889, magical.

A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Seshta mak si'in le tal."
Filling the air with sharp crackling sounds, brilliant sapphire light coils in twisted whorls around a wiry Xorani guard's staff, suddenly flaring out to strike at you like dozens of slender knives.
Health Lost: 1155, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Seshta mak si'in le tal."
Filling the air with sharp crackling sounds, brilliant sapphire light coils in twisted whorls around a wiry Xorani guard's staff, suddenly flaring out to strike at you like dozens of slender knives.
Health Lost: 994, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Seshta mak si'in le tal."
Filling the air with sharp crackling sounds, brilliant sapphire light coils in twisted whorls around a wiry Xorani guard's staff, suddenly flaring out to strike at you like dozens of slender knives.
Health Lost: 1039, magical.

A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Kisklikan'ta shiximal ta."
A wiry Xorani guard spins his staff in a graceful twist, and brilliant sapphire light screams outward, brutally searing through your body.
Health Lost: 1155, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Kisklikan'ta shiximal ta."
A wiry Xorani guard spins his staff in a graceful twist, and brilliant sapphire light screams outward, brutally searing through your body.
Health Lost: 984, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Kisklikan'ta shiximal ta."
A wiry Xorani guard spins his staff in a graceful twist, and brilliant sapphire light screams outward, brutally searing through your body.
Health Lost: 1125, magical.

Now, compare these numbers to when I'm not using blood affinity:

A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Dor mak tinal esha mitae."
Iridescent sapphire light wreathes around a wiry Xorani guard's wooden staff, surging suddenly outward to envelop you, agonizing coils of seething power searing your skin.
Health Lost: 1589, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Dor mak tinal esha mitae."
Iridescent sapphire light wreathes around a wiry Xorani guard's wooden staff, surging suddenly outward to envelop you, agonizing coils of seething power searing your skin.
Health Lost: 1514, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Dor mak tinal esha mitae."
Iridescent sapphire light wreathes around a wiry Xorani guard's wooden staff, surging suddenly outward to envelop you, agonizing coils of seething power searing your skin.
Health Lost: 1611, magical.

A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Seshta mak si'in le tal."
Filling the air with sharp crackling sounds, brilliant sapphire light coils in twisted whorls around a wiry Xorani guard's staff, suddenly flaring out to strike at you like dozens of slender knives.
Health Lost: 1387, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Seshta mak si'in le tal."
Filling the air with sharp crackling sounds, brilliant sapphire light coils in twisted whorls around a wiry Xorani guard's staff, suddenly flaring out to strike at you like dozens of slender knives.
Health Lost: 1522, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Kisklikan'ta shiximal ta."
A wiry Xorani guard spins his staff in a graceful twist, and brilliant sapphire light screams outward, brutally searing through your body.
Health Lost: 1582, magical.


A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Kisklikan'ta shiximal ta."
A wiry Xorani guard spins his staff in a graceful twist, and brilliant sapphire light screams outward, brutally searing through your body.
Health Lost: 1665, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Kisklikan'ta shiximal ta."
A wiry Xorani guard spins his staff in a graceful twist, and brilliant sapphire light screams outward, brutally searing through your body.
Health Lost: 1672, magical.
A wiry Xorani guard chants in a series of hisses and rumbling growls, "Kisklikan'ta shiximal ta."
A wiry Xorani guard spins his staff in a graceful twist, and brilliant sapphire light screams outward, brutally searing through your body.
Health Lost: 1289, magical.

This is just too much and I've been trying to bring this to attention for some time. No other class has this kind of damage mitigation in addition to top-end audits. Blood mend heals for like 25% of max health at 1.0 equilibrium usage, although is limited by an internal cooldown. Vampires, as far as bashing goes, are far too tanky. Ideally, just make blood affinity not affect damage received from mobs. Also, it might be a good idea to look into the inherent vampire resists/fire vuln. Personally, I'd like to see them go, but there might be combat implications beyond my understanding so someone with more PK experience might be able to comment on that.

Moirean

Even without affinity, you are taking less damage than I do in powerful. -_-

Xavin

I don't know. I feel like vampires are rather low on the bashing dps side of things, and it's important to keep in mind that while frenzy scales to str, it is one of the abilities in the game that scales the least. So while they are tanky as heck, they're pumping out lower end damage against mobs.

That said, I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not.

Lin

That's not gonna matter a whole lot with endgame crit rate. You can bash indefinitely if your'e only taking 800-1000 hits, it doesn't matter how piddly your attack is.

Alexina

Apart from normal bashing, there's another type of mob combat where praenomen in particular has a huge advantage (insane audit, blood affinity, blood mend, and blood purify), namely honours mobs. While this is nothing that affects most people playing the game, there should be somewhat of a level field both when bashing and when attempting some of the more powerful mobs in the game.

I just feel that Praenomen are too defensively powerful when bashing. No other class even comes close, which is sort of my issue. You could reduce blood affinity to only reduce incoming damage by 10% (or even make it not work vs mobs at all) and the class would still be more defensive than pretty much all other classes.

Ezalor

Yes please to just removing all the vampire resist bonuses/maluses. It's a largely flavour thing that makes holocausts and firebombs do 3k damage in combat which suuuuuuuuuucks.

Also the high audit is balanced out by the sip malus. As mentioned, frenzy is probably the worst bashing skill in the game. Affinity alone does put the class on a whole other level from other classes in terms of tanky bashing though (and as is no one else even comes close).  

Angwe

...Holos only do 3k to you?

Toz

At trans miniskills, if I took 3k a pop from a holo I'd be mildly upset.

Rammus

Are you sapivi? Because I feel reasonably tanky as an unartied insidiae praenomen but nothing out of control.

Ezalor

Yeah, in PvP the tankiness isn't unreasonable since you cannot really use affinity. It's bashing that affinity puts it over the top.

And @Angwe if you're taking anywhere near 3k from holos with trans Thermology then I'll eat my foot!

Mephistoles

Lin said:

That's not gonna matter a whole lot with endgame crit rate. You can bash indefinitely if your'e only taking 800-1000 hits, it doesn't matter how piddly your attack is.

That's not actually the case.  Lets do some side by side comparison

A praenomen with the experienced statpack is going to be bashing at 17 strength and using the red mist defense, and without any artifacts the frenzy should be doing about 1003 damage ever 3.5 seconds, giving us a dps of 286.57.

A templar with the experienced statpack, who decides to use purity to get that same 17 strength, and uses the red mist defense as well, with a  Damage: 133  Speed: 131 bastard sword and a double sacrifice empowerment will get two hits of 759 and two hits of 274 damage every 3.34 seconds.  This results in a dps of 618.56

The templar may not be quite as tanky, but it doesn't have to tank for as long.

I would personally prefer to play the templar and do more high risk/reward bashing at a much faster rate than to safely hunt as the praenomen.  It's probably worth noting that in Alexina's log she's doing 1955 damage every 3.5 seconds.  This is with level three knuckles and what I'm guessing 20 or 21 strength, and maybe even with a level three hunting boon.

This is a dps of 558.57 for Alexina, meaning that with over 4000 credits in artifacts, her dps is actually lower than the dps that a templar can reach without buying any artifacts at all.  Does this mean either is overpowered in terms of bashing? Not necessarily, but it would be good to see how well someone without all those artifacts can do in the same spot, and how long it takes them to clear the locations compared to something like a templar.

Lin

I understand your point, @Mephistoles, and it's a pretty well-thought out one, but the subject isn't really bashing efficiency or speed. It's a matter of tankability reaching a threshold where Praenomen are perceived to have an unfair advantage in tricky situations (see: honors mobs, or the to-be-released raids).

Surely you've returned to an old bashing ground and realized you could tank mobs without having to stick or really eat too much kidney? At 800 damage you're absolutely going to see that in Xaanhal, for instance. That's what I mean about tanking indefinitely.

Mephistoles

Lin said:

I understand your point, @Mephistoles, and it's a pretty well-thought out one, but the subject isn't really bashing efficiency or speed. It's a matter of tankability reaching a threshold where Praenomen are perceived to have an unfair advantage in tricky situations (see: honors mobs, or the to-be-released raids).

Surely you've returned to an old bashing ground and realized you could tank mobs without having to stick or really eat too much kidney? At 800 damage you're absolutely going to see that in Xaanhal, for instance. That's what I mean about tanking indefinitely.

The point about the honours mobs is one that I did not really think about, and you put it well.  That said, general bashing, discounting the honours mobs and raids, is definitely a balance between dps and tankability.  With their low dps I'm generally okay with praenomen being tankier than most other classes.

A simply fix could just be to disable affinity in the yet to be released raids, or let honors mobs do damage through affinity.  There aren't really that many of them.  

You're right about tanking indefinitely, but as I see it, that's kind of a tradeoff they have.  I would much rather do double their dps and be a lot less tanky so my bashing doesn't take as long.  Those numbers are quite low for the damage taken, especially without a blessing, so maybe affinity should be reduced a little bit, but the mob dps for frenzy is the lowest in the entire game, and I feel like the class has to make up for that somewhere.

Moirean

First, your dps numbers are off, as you aren't taking into account crits and overkill. I decided to code in an overkill tracker (partially to decide if buying the artifact will be worth it). Unabashedly showing it off:

.:*~*:.C.:*~*:.R.:*~*:.I.:*~*:.T.:*~*:.S.:*~*:.

.

* Hits ............................903 100% *

. Normal ..........................447 49.50% .

* Critical ........................209 23.15% *

. Staggering .......................115 12.74% .

* Crushing .........................60 6.64% *

. Mutilating .......................40 4.43% .

* Annihilating .....................32 3.54% *

 .

* Total hits: 903

. Total criticals: 456

* Crit percentage: 50.50%

.

* Average hit value: 5629

. Average of 1608.29 damage per second.

*

. Overkills: 96

* Wasted overkills: 12

. Overkill uptime: 88.00%

*

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

(so pretty! as a side note, anyone on CMUD who is using my crit tracker, I'm going to go edit my post in the CMUD script section with a new version, there was an error with CMUD not liking overkill)

With crits and overkill, damage by itself is not the straight DPS that you are making it out to be.  Most mobs tend to be 1-2 shot with a good crit, even if you are putting out low damage, and you can usually get a chain of several overkill crits to clear out several mobs in a row.

However, overkill ONLY fires for crits, so that means unless you crit, you are likely going to have wasted damage. If the mob only has 500 health left, it doesn't matter if you hit for 800 or 1600, only 500 damage is needed and used.

IMHO, tankiness carries a decent amount of weight here for normal bashing - someone tanky is going to have a higher overkill uptime, as they can just plow through stuff without having to move or heal, which leads to chains of mobs being 1-shot. Hitting faster or harder is a waste if you are not able to capitalize on overkills.

Alexina

Tankiness is far better than damage if you are going for a high experience/hour ratio. Being able to kill mobs in the Volcano, Tiyen, or Xaanhal without dying will give lots and lots of experience. And if there is a disparity between vampire DPS and vampire tankiness, why not just increase damage when you remove blood affinity from bashing?

Tza

Without actively playing a vampire atm, I do think @Ezalor has a point. Every time I had a character with a sip malus, it sucked balls. It was especially something that you still noticed even at high levels (unless you were artifacted up your toes probably... but I never was.)

With the statpacks, does any class/race even still have a sip malus except vampires? And -if- vampires are the only ones left with sip malus, why not just ditch that and then balance the audit around a normal sip? Imo, that would make things much easier.

Illikaal

Agreed. 

And yeah @Mephistoles. This isn't LoL, so bashing clear times don't really mean anything. Critical hits just completely negate that, since you can land so many of them with fair regularity. Any player in their right mind would take high audits + slightly slower bashing over low audits and high clear times. Having a low audit restricts the areas that you can bash in to begin with, ergo not being able to hunt 80% of the volcano, and most Templars can't even handle Xaanhal on their own anymore. 

Daskalos

Why arn't you guys Sapivi? Extra health, sip malus gone, the shorter stun on frenzy isn't really a disadvantage because of diminishing returns to begin with. And the Str\Minion malus isn't that big of a deal since you guys are a really good aff class.

 

Ezalor

Daskalos said:

Why arn't you guys Sapivi? Extra health, sip malus gone, the shorter stun on frenzy isn't really a disadvantage because of diminishing returns to begin with. And the Str\Minion malus isn't that big of a deal since you guys are a really good aff class.

 

Ghast attacks at 3 seconds in Insidiae and 4 seconds in Sapivi. For most Praenomen the strategy is truelock and it's very hard to accomplish without the ghast, ghast paralyzes at 33% chance already and truelocks depend on a fortunate tick of paralysis so that extra 1 second per attack is huge.

Xavin

What Ezalor said. In general, Sapivi is regarded as the PvE specialization, Insidiae the PvP specialization and that other one doesn't really get used. Likewise, it is rare to see a praenomen that is just base.