Statpacks - Combat Implications

Saybre

To not derail the Statpack announcement thread, creating this for the numbers + obvious dismay to be voiced.

Also crazy perks that are found (please share!)

I am in the process of making a very interactive spreadsheet for fleshing out Statpack combos, so once the free-period is gone, those who don't have a adaptation/transmutation gem can play with the numbers.

My grief:
My issue with the Templar nerf-stick on this end is that before at x2 Balance and level 2 runes, I could DSK with my maces to get ahead of salve balance for..you know..Bruising. Which in turn was rupture..which was damage kill. Now with damage nerfed AND being slowed to a crawl, the salve balance slow is in no way enough to make that big of a difference.

Since Rupture never got the approval to have a BBT-esque kill (3x Rupture you dead) it was purely just oodles of damage built up to combine with penance...Now we no do paltry amount of damage, AND are much slower.

Also..I just got L3 Strength like 3 weeks ago. Sad diminishing nerf

Daskalos

There's a liaison round coming up, so there is that, however, I will say that it's pretty painful. Retribution seems to work, but all other kill routes (4 that I can think of, in  Templar) are now reduced to one. If that one doesn't work, we're SOL.

Ezalor

Salve route shouldn't be affected at all. Yes you are constricted to L1 balance but salve balance has been slowed down as well, where the net effect is pretty much the same as previous L2 balance. Actually if anything you got a buff to the salve route, since you lost 7% balance but salve balance was slowed by 10%, so effectively a 3% buff.

Alexina

Diminishing returns on artifacts make me feel a bit meh. It's bad when people get two-shotted in combat but at the same time I can't help but feel like artifacts is a wasted investment if you can't use them to pressure peoples' sip/moss balances.

Oleis

Alexina said:

Diminishing returns on artifacts make me feel a bit meh. It's bad when people get two-shotted in combat but at the same time I can't help but feel like artifacts is a wasted investment if you can't use them to pressure peoples' sip/moss balances.

Artifacts still represent a significant advantage. Don't interpret these scaling differences as a nullification of of artifact benefits. As the world fights again and adjusts to these changes, an apparent (but less severe) gap between regular and artifact players will present itself.

Ezalor

As someone who owns +3 strength, artifacts are very much still worth it. You just won't be able to dominate against people with equal defensive artifact investment anymore, and you won't be able to twoshot people without any artifacts, but they are not at all useless.

Belgarion

I have to say, theres a few things I'm seeing missing...Loss of speed means that rebounding is more effective than it used to be, which is a Humongous deal for templars. Second of all, while Rupture is Kinda a salve route, its also a damage route. I used to try full speed maces, but even though the salves were slightly better, I never had any damage built up on them between the ruptures, to actually make it matter....so I moved to a Slightly slower mace, but with more damage, and thats where it was at. With dsk damage down SO much, along with general damage reduction due to swing speed also, but no sip/moss slowing, even though our salves are the same, or Maybe slightly better, the ability to use it as a viable route is much reduced...If Nothing else in the class' offense should be changed, that is our secondary themed route, and its now very very weak

Azton

Since everyone is crying over Templar, when all any of them really did was arti out and autobash people heres a serious thing....


@Oleis or any other admin type of person/liaison (dont think any of them will know)...

Has Lycan rend/hamstring been slowered as im finding it nearly impossible to do lycan combat with enhance balance ..  Or is this on of the things Admins will be looking into?

With salve balance being "* Normal salve balance from 1.00 to 1.10 seconds." and rend/hamstring being slowed down from 2.32? to now being  2..51 .... even with howling anorexia, etc ... it was just really impossible to pull off..

Toz

You slowed down .19s. Salve balance slowed down .2s. Things SHOULD be in more or less the same place, there. Especially since howls are ticking at the same rate, which is actually a minor buff.

Azton

Toz said:

You slowed down .19s. Salve balance slowed down .2s. Things SHOULD be in more or less the same place, there. Especially since howls are ticking at the same rate, which is actually a minor buff.

@toz go test it out or spar a lycan, you'll realise just how slower it is now!

Moirean

I think my biggest meh about this is that we're seeing our entire internal speed thrown out of whack - after PKing a lot, you develop a sort of internal rhythm for balances, and now they are all totally off, which is really disorienting and frustrating. It's like wearing a slipper meant for your left foot on your right - it's not like you can't walk around, it just feels weird and off. I would have preferred a far longer slowdown if one was coming, to tackle the spam issue combat speed has caused, which this hasn't really done anything to fix.

Anyways, I'll get over it and adjust to the new speeds. It's just a while of awkwardness and this is a gripe thread!

Daskalos

I am actually a little surprised that if we're doing a slowdown it wasn't more. I got into a group fight earlier and had the same issues I always have - screen scrolling so fast that I can't put in input.

Oleis

This particular slowdown had nothing to do with combat spam. That change, if it happens, will come at a later date and will be much more comprehensive. This smaller-scale slowdown was a necessary part of removing L2 balance and eq modifiers.

Oleis

Azton said:

@Oleis or any other admin type of person/liaison (dont think any of them will know)...

Has Lycan rend/hamstring been slowered as im finding it nearly impossible to do lycan combat with enhance balance ..  Or is this on of the things Admins will be looking into?

With salve balance being "* Normal salve balance from 1.00 to 1.10 seconds." and rend/hamstring being slowed down from 2.32? to now being  2..51 .... even with howling anorexia, etc ... it was just really impossible to pull off..

I don't think so.

Draiman

I might be missing something here, but I'm pretty sure Lycan's just got boned as far as jaw locks go. You decreased the time it took to writhe with the leveling thing and removed lvl 2 balance. Hanged man and disembowel just got nerfed into the ground too (though I suppose everyone is going to throw a party over hangedman).

Daskalos

I wish we could have done the statpack change and the balance change separately. It's hard to judge whether the new hindrances in combat (3 of 4 Templar routes going away, Monks 3 BBT instakill timer issues, passive healing and tankiness across the board getting a boost) are related to the statpacks or the new classes. As a min-maxer with artifacts, I'm theoretically at the new 'max speed' that combat is based around, but I'm a lot tankier now with -more- health because I can effectively min-max what I need and let artifacts handle the dex enough to bring me up to 12 so I don't get the penalty.

Irruel

Draiman said:

I might be missing something here, but I'm pretty sure Lycan's just got boned as far as jaw locks go. You decreased the time it took to writhe with the leveling thing and removed lvl 2 balance. Hanged man and disembowel just got nerfed into the ground too (though I suppose everyone is going to throw a party over hangedman).

Little problems like that will be easy to fix though. If the writhe time drops below the balance time, then the balance time on jawlock will need to be reduced.

Regarding tankiness - I more and more feel that powerful shouldn't have 14 con. I shouldn't be able to hit max strength without any tradeoff.
Powerful +1str, +bal, +blunt
and two more to spend on resists

I think it needs 12 con, like muscular. I don't know where those points could be spread to balance that out and keep it distinctly different to muscular, but as it stands it is strong AND defensive, and unique because of that.

Azton

Irruel said:

Draiman said:

I might be missing something here, but I'm pretty sure Lycan's just got boned as far as jaw locks go. You decreased the time it took to writhe with the leveling thing and removed lvl 2 balance. Hanged man and disembowel just got nerfed into the ground too (though I suppose everyone is going to throw a party over hangedman).

Little problems like that will be easy to fix though. If the writhe time drops below the balance time, then the balance time on jawlock will need to be reduced.

To get a jawlock off you need to get breaks off and its kind of REALLLLLLY Hard at the moment! So you'll never see the jawlock til something happens with rend/hamstring!

Xiuhcoatl

Just going to point out the massive nerf to all damage classes that just rolled out. 

Also going to point out that timesphere is most likely going to get removed from the game pretty soon. As it's currently broken.

Also channels got a buff. Shatter spam here I come. And for a while, retardation got a buff. Then again, I don't think anyone besides me wrote up a complete curing system for retardation, so it doesn't really matter that nobody is going to update their systems for a week? Maybe I'll finally manage to pull of a brand kill on someone who has a torc of telepathy without even needing retardation. 

LOLJK RETARDATION4LIFE

Toz

@Azton: I watched Kelliara mangle someone in the arena right after the statpack changes. Like, utterly wrecked them - it's still possible. You're slower, but the thing you're against is slower too, so nothing has changed there - in fact, with howls being 'sped up' (yes that's not accurate, but it's the easiest way to say it) and getting tankier because of the changes? You got a buff.

Xiuhcoatl

Upon messing around in carnifex and indorani. 

Carnifex feels pretty much the same. However it is weaker do to a much slower start up and doing less damage. Also because the start is slower the rebound buff feels worse than anything. Even when you start slashing at 1.5 seconds, you're not doing enough damage to kill anything with actual defenses. That's only using polearms. Which you can't cheese wrench someone anymore. 

Other news, Indorani just had their only means of hindering nerfed twice over, because of the past nerf to not stacking web+hangedman and then the longer hangedman fling time+shorter writhe out time due to enhancements. Hopefully this will be a reason for the class to get many of the buffs they need. 

Moirean

Indo got a kinda buff, through ent's speeding up (relatively-speaking), but their damage options are pretty dead, due to the split between int/dex. Indo in general are pretty bad off and really have been ever since affliction_view and aeon nerf, but at least they aren't Cabalists.

Azton

Xiuhcoatl said:

Other news, Indorani just had their only means of hindering nerfed twice over, because of the past nerf to not stacking web+hangedman and then the longer hangedman fling time+shorter writhe out time due to enhancements. Hopefully this will be a reason for the class to get many of the buffs they need. 

and yet only 54 people.. guessing most of them dont pk.. have that enhancement and how many of them would really pick writhing? as not everyone of them do combat!

Luminary seem to be a weird class to pick for, do you go dex or wise since both are doable now as before it as mainly wise for combat ... and dex needed more skill toward it ... 

Macavity

actually I can see even bashers taking the writhe option as well, so that they can get out of the mob impalement.  Unless it does not help with that, but I do not see any reason for it not to.

Draiman

Everyone who PK's will get 110 pretty fast now. 10% decreased writhe time? Yes please.

Toz

You need like level 1000000. Because you also need that 10% hp boost to make up for your hp malus with +balance.

Macavity

that malus is not done with just one augmetic...you need to get all 3 of them for the total of 6% and that still leaves the 1% from the 7% malus.  To be honest I would go with the writhe first and then work on the others, but that is my personal opinion

Toz

7% bonus to speed, 6% hp malus.

* Enhancing your speed stat will decrease your max health and mana by 6%.

I thought it was giving 10% because I read the web thing - point stands! Need level 10000000. I counted.

Moirean

Who even gives writhes anymore in PK? I'm halfway serious - with hangman nerf, you're better off just stacking affs and damage in a team situation and 1v1 writhes have been fairly useless for a while now, unless they are set up to basically be kills.

Macavity

actually to get all the augmetics you need to gain 13 points which turns out to be 130 levels beyond 100 because you get a point at 110, so you really only need level 230 to get all of them.  to get bashing!!  heh

Ezalor

Level 230 you say? @Alexina will have that by Christmas.