Dual Wield and Greatweapon balance

[Tklees]

Despite many posters reporting that they believe this particular change would be good, it appears that once Bretin detailed (very diplomatically I might add - well done) in his first post that this was not good balance, Azarael posted immediately that the idea was shelved. (for clarification, these two events may be mutually exclusive, their timing merely coincidental.)

Since Azarael is the lead combat design developer, and since it appears he places a great deal of stock in Bretin's post (again could just be coincidental), perhaps we could get Bretin to propose a solution to the problem.

For reference: the problem is that DW is more advantageous than 2H because it has a passive defensive buff (+10% parry) while the 2H has a passive that is basically useless.

What could we give the 2H passive, that would make it more in-line with DW?

I think maybe addressing the problem with a solution instead of discussing the flaws of another proposed solution, would be advantageous.

Never thought about having a non-troll conversation with you but apparently it happens.

About the solution:
After calculating the AA difference i took a look into the ability damage formula to compare its outcome and the result was that ability damage is equal when using items on the same item lvl.

the formula seems to be as follows:

((str/5)*1,5+mhdps*1,5+ohdps*0,45*1,5)+btt

assuming our character has 1050 str, 2x 60 dps and 1x 87 dps weapons (those are the Lost Vale weapon stats) and an ability with an BTT of 200 you will have the following results:

Dual Wield:
((1050/5)*1,5+60*1,5+60*0,45*1,5)+250=695,5

2-Hand:
((1050/5)*1,5+87*1,5)+250=695,5

As you can see, the result of DW matches 1:1 with its 2-hand equivalent. That means by the original devs items with the same item level should have had 1:1 the same tooltip on both DW and 2h and that's why the weapon dps for weapons on the same lvl is always dw*1,45=2h dps (e.g. 60*1,45=87 or 47*1,45=68,2 for brigands to bring a live RoR example).

The difference from DW and 2h was meant to come from AA and the access to higher tooltip damage abilities such as Crimson Death, Deathblow, Etherdance and tactics which contribute 2h builds e.g. Power Through, Greataxe Mastery and so on.

i assume the original devs never had in mind to separate 2h from DW by more than its passive and the contributed combat type (sustain / burst) via white hits.

Now lets look at the passives and what i said in one of my prior posts in this thread where i said:

If you want to determine the balance of a class, you must consider the following attributes:
- How much offensive potential does the class have?
- How much defensive potential does the class have?
- In what way does the defense restrict the offensive and vice versa (if you’d have a number line, with the numbers 1-10 on the left and right side, which represent your defense resp. offensive, and in the middle a 0, how would it affect the ratio at one side if you’d manipulate the other side?)
Those are general things you have to define before you strive for further deliberations about the balance.

Based on a logical thought 2 hand should deal more damage than dual wield that's why it has an offensive proc while dw has a defensive one - disregarding that some ppl think -10% block seems to be bad -. The only thing which would benefit 2h in a other way than block strike through would be parry strike through. I think i explained quite well, why this isn't the solution for our problem. Giving it a passive proc would be against my logic about restrictions when choosing between offensive and defensive.

To adjust 2-Hand and favor its combat type, I’d PROBABLY suggest changing the ability damage formula for 2h weapons to this:

(((str/5)*1,5+mhdps*1,5+ohdps*0,45*1,5)+btt)*1,05

Basically that results in a 5% damage buff on all abilities if wearing a 2h and fits to what 2h is meant to be. Ofc this number can be adjusted but a change like this would require a PTS and a core of acknowledged people to test its impact in a balanced environment.

If implementing something like this we have to be 100% sure that this balance change is justified and we have to see its full impact on all classes, their abilities in combination with certain tactics. that again would require to have access to all abilities and tactics and a 40/80 char. I can only quote myself at this point and vote to shelve this for now:

First of all I would like to clarify what we are talking about.
A change that is favoring one realm more than the other can be considered a balance change.
Knowing that we have to make sure this change is necessary.
Which will be difficult since this patch buffs 2 archetypes at once. Therefore I would like to leave 2h tanks out for the moment. Whether they need a buff or not should be discussed separately.

What does this balance change really change?
Basically mdps burst receives a buff. The outcome is hard to know at the current lvl cap since choppa/slayer miss an essential tactic and therefore are forced to not take the middle (2h) tree.

Does burst dmg need a buff?
The ttk we have right now is rather short compared to live. We can only imagine what a 2h slayer/choppa is capabable of.

Why is 2h not way worse than dual wield?
Well it is about the difference of burst and sustain dmg. The last is doing more dmg in the long run but does that kill a healed guarded target? Slowly in the best case. ( anything else can only be described as a l2p issue sry)
2h needs! to do less dmg (over time) than dual wield because of its different approach.
High dmg in a short period of time is harder to outheal, riskier, enables plays (like guardkick) and should grant a higher reward (kill). High risk high reward.


Why 2h SEEMS way worse than dual wield?
Dual wield, as a source of sustain dmg, doesnt require as much coordination as 2h does. Also it is more defensive. Ideal for solo players. Since the majority here doesnt have a grp with 2 dps 2 tanks and 2 healers on a regular basis I highly doubt that the impact this change would have on the burst meta (that is to say a meleetrain with wl/sl) can be predicted correctly by them.

I am not saying that 2h has to necessarily stay as it is in the future.
I just want to have fully built 2h slayers and choppas before thinking about a 2h buff.

Any flat damage increase to two handers scares me with the rage mechanic and the way it would scale. It's why the tovl jewelry made it to 100 flat % increases scale badly in this game(by badly I mean are stronger than others). But I like the idea. Slayers will get their look and probably thier nerf(hopefully) and I think it will allow for some changes.

[Scrilian]

Look at what the Archmage and WP mechanics were meant to be. One was a limiter that encouraged switching between attacking and healing spells (or was meant to, but failed) and the other was a limiter which blocked heals until you attacked to refill it.

No, I truly get that for healers, but I can't imagine it the other way around, where there is a downtime, for example, to the relentless slaughter done by DoK (unless you parry all of his attacks) without it overshadowing the WE in the long run or a 2h BG being preferable to a 2h choppa, and how said downtime should be measured?

[Bretin]

Genisaurus was faster :p

Still think it unbalances "mirrors" which is bad enough stuff like melee healing WPs and DoKs

if you would have read my whole post, you should have realized that i did not ask for this buff nor do i want it to be implemented. i was asked to make a suggestion and thats what i did. at the very end of my post i detailed why i would not change anything yet. take yourself 1/10 of the time i spent to write it and read it again and you will probably see what i am talking about.

[Scrilian]

Slayers will get their look and probably thier nerf(hopefully) and I think it will allow for some changes.

Don't nerf me, brah

[Azarael]

No, I truly get that for healers, but I can't imagine it the other way around, where there is a downtime, for example, to the relentless slaughter done by DoK (unless you parry all of his attacks) without it overshadowing the WE in the long run or a 2h BG being preferable to a 2h choppa, and how said downtime should be measured?

In the case of WP/DoK, I believe there should be 3 paths: melee dps with heals only good enough to compensate for the loss of MDPS tools like charge, melee healer and backline / casted healer. DoK as a DPS should be distinct from true DPS but still competitive for some kind of slot in a group.

I really don't want to derail this into another WP/DoK thread though, so I'm dropping it here.

[Bretin]

Any flat damage increase to two handers scares me with the rage mechanic and the way it would scale. It's why the tovl jewelry made it to 100 flat % increases scale badly in this game(by badly I mean are stronger than others). But I like the idea. Slayers will get their look and probably thier nerf(hopefully) and I think it will allow for some changes.

fits to the end of my post when i said i would not implement it yet. Due to the lack of lvls, gear, renown ranks, abilities, tactics and morals we don't know how a change will affect the TTK in T4 nor how good/bad certain classes will perform on their 2h build compared to live. before we had the def meta, there was a time when 2h choppa/slayer were superior than their DW equivalent and it might become the same here (we don't know yet).

assuming to have the 87 dps weapon, 1050 str and a 250 TT the numbers would be like this

before or in general for DW:
w/o rage: (((1050/5)*1,5+87*1,5)+250)=695,5
full rage: (((1050/5)*1,5+87*1,5)+250)*1,5=1043,25

after:
w/o rage: (((1050/5)*1,5+87*1,5)+250)*1,05=730,27
full rage: ((((1050/5)*1,5+87*1,5)+250))*(1+0,05+0,5)=1078,03

if you now calculate the difference you will end up with a 3,33% dmg increase at full rage (if not calculating flanking) and 5% w/o rage.

What exactly do you mean with:

It's why the tovl jewelry made it to 100 flat % increases scale badly in this game(by badly I mean are stronger than others).

In the example above you would get roughly 50 more tooltip damage for giving up defense/utility. but until we don't have the chance to test it properly i'm against my own suggestion and want to leave it as it is. the meta game of RoR is already different than the one you had in WAR and we should really see where we're going to. i would rather prefer to see some nerfs/buffs to certain classes before changing something which is as complex as this and involves 2 archetypes, 8 classes and favors one realm more than the other.

[Penril]

i would rather prefer to see some nerfs/buffs to certain classes before changing something which is as complex as this and involves 2 archetypes, 8 classes and favors one realm more than the other.

I'm really interesded in seeing which classes you think need a buff/nerf (no trolling, no flame attempt). Maybe on a different thread.

[Bretin]

i would rather prefer to see some nerfs/buffs to certain classes before changing something which is as complex as this and involves 2 archetypes, 8 classes and favors one realm more than the other.

I'm really interesded in seeing which classes you think need a buff/nerf (no trolling, no flame attempt). Maybe on a different thread.

not sure tbh since we cant test the endgame yet. it is hard to say because a lot of things will be different to our live experience once we have 40/80. but i am almost sure about marauder in terms of nerf and melee wp in terms of buffs, he clearly needs a healdebuff to be a viable replacement for the slayer but thats something which has to be discussed and tested in another topic

[Landaren]

Two handers used to greatly effect ability damage at release of the game.

Warpriest could literally out dps a WH/WE for like the first 3 months of the game.

Two handers were super dangerous. Now they are just ok, little extra white damage to spike with. Pretty sad

[loopgru]

After reading through this 20(!) page novel, some thoughts:

Re: 10% parry strikethrough:

- For Choppa / Slayer, I don't think it would push 2H to a point of balance with DW due to a lack of parry, proc frequency, and crit frequency, but it would be a welcome iterative improvement.

- For WL, this seems straightforward- if a baseline change to 2H helps the game but leaves them overpowered, make the baseline change and tweak the WL base stats to balance back to where it was.

- For 2H WP, this would be nice but a very small drop in a very leaky bucket.

- For tanks, while nice, I don't see this mattering a hill of beans.

On 2H Tanks:

In WAR, tanks by virtue of being tanks lack the necessary tools to really shine as damage dealers- you don't see them with any of the other nice little tools of murderin' that dedicated mDPS have- detaunts, effective gap closers, CC immunity, etc. So even if their burst damage were massively overtuned, they'd still be in a position to plod into enemy ranks as giant targets taking everything on the chin while taking substantially more damage than a medium armored mDPS.

I love the giant armored greatweapon motif as much as anyone, and I would dearly love to see it viable here, but I just don't see that changing here without a much more substantial (and risky, from a balance of perspective, and resource-intensive to design & implement) overhaul.

Edit:

An idea. Generally if someone is swinging a 2H instead of DW it's because they want to see Big Numbers. So instead of a minor tweak to strikethrough, how about a tweak to crit damage multipliers? Emphasizes the risk-vs-reward that the playstyle grants and- in my mind, anyway- makes thematic sense. Big weapons hit harder.