Which class would you like to see in the Balance Forum?

[peterthepan3]

Morfee beg you stop misinterpreting what I'm saying, mate.

1) Magus isn't supposed to be a sorc DPS. I have acknowledged that. Magus is supposed to be a semi-stationary caster that intertwines dots with burst, who becomes more potent the longer he is allowed to stay in one spot (my personal belief anyway): but this currently doesn't work due to a plethora of reasons that have been mentioned already, including fast TTKs/suicidal nature of standing still in a fast-paced environment.

2) Exceptional players can make any class shine, that doesn't take away from the fact that some classes are underperforming. If you can play very well as a Magus, then imagine how good you'd be as a sorc? Similarly I knew of DPS Zealots on live that would destroy city DBs in aoe spec and scenario charts...would you take a dps zealot over a sorc or a sh for ST group?

3) You're referring to the Age of Overpowered warpforged, where literally every class could kill something in 1-3 GCDs. This server won't have warpforged, and as such ridiculously OP gear won't be there to serve as a bandaid.

4) Magus/Engi have every right to function as a main DPS. Their archetype is Ranged damage. That argument doesn't hold any weight with me whatsoever. There is literally no reason why these two classes shouldn't be as good at PERFORMING THEIR ROLE* (read: not-being-a-sorcerer-but-functioning-equally-well-as-a-ranged-damage-dealer-with-their-respective-talents/skills) as the other RDPS.

5) You have mentioned that the magus/engi bring a lot more to the table than damage. We have a stagger, a disarm that is a 2 second cast for a 3s disarm (more often used as a DPS skill), a melee snare (that makes sense, right?!) and rift - all of which are very good, but this topic is pertaining to non-rift bot magi/engis as they have another two trees. Squig herder brings an aoe snare, an incoming heal debuff, a ranged KB in the form of their pet, a silence... The fact that Magus has a few niche toys to play with that are situational (one of which requires you effectively ridding yourself of your mechanic and 20% damage) does not justify the class not being able to perform the role of main DPS.

6) Your opinion, but I believe balance should center around 6man scale as it will translate BETTER into larger scale than if balance was done on larger numbers and translated into small.

honestly it baffles me as to why anyone would oppose buffing these two classes that have underperformed in every department (other than riftbot which is really, really fun!...) since 2008.

[Jaycub]

Do you mean for 6v6 or for RvR/SCs? Because 1 3 2 with rDPS is totally viable in the latter. In fact I actually prefer rDPS for zerg-busting.

I find it interesting that you mentioned "their knight outplayed..." for 2 reasons:

1) It is easy to outplay other tanks when you play a KotBS. The class is ridiculously easy-mode.

2) KotBS is pretty much mandatory in a 1 3 2. Uncleansable (by Dok) AoE snare, superpunt, on-demand KD, No Escape! make it miles better than SM/IB (for a 1 3 2 group with rDPS that constantly needs to kite). It doesn't matter how much damage the SM can do; he lacks proper CC (which is the reason why so BO/SM were considered UP on live).

I think 1 should be addressed not necessarily by nerfing the KotBs, but by making it harder to play. Change all his passive **** and make it active so the KotBS actually has to play the game in order to buff/debuff, instead of the current situation (as it was on live) where he can be OP just by activating a few auras, guarding someone and then /follow.

2 should be addressed in a different way, giving more CC to the classes who lack it, until finally any tank can be viable in a 1 3 2. But probably not yet, since people seem to consider SM/BO OP. Let's wait until everyone and their mothers are running around with Sov gear, rr80 and then you will see that the extra damage from BO/SM becomes meh against decent enemies, and realize that the thing that makes a tank better than another is CC.

When I talk about tank play I mean, guard swapping, punts, use of morales and tank mechanics like taunt (stop ress etc..) good use of challenge, etc... The vids I watched the other tank virtually never punted him away or did it way too late to matter, they randomly challenged and didn't interrupt resses etc...

BO has an AoE snare uncleasneable by any order healer, so every serious 6v6 everyone on the front line of both sides is snared all the time unless they have immunity. Order tanks don't have morale pump to reliably get to M3 fast enough to use it before a CC or armor debuff and bellow would be better than no escape as an M3, as CC is just a better version of no escape in 6v6 because it can't be broken and you are killing 1 person at a time anyways.

I also don't think higher tier gear is going to change the dynamics much unless the sov set bonuses are that game changing. And the devs have already stated they do not want to balance the game around gear, so I doubt they are going to allow certain bonuses to stick around if the class is "only good" or reaches it's full potential because of a proc or additional ability.

[Morf]

I think what most of us are asking for is for every class to perform well, or have multiples niches in all scales and environments of the game. Not for the game to revolve around 6v6.

That is fair enough but you stand the risk of making engi/magus completely broken if you make them as viable for a 6v6 setting as a sorc/bw is as they dont just bring damage to the fight.

Again...classes are different, some perform better in different environments, what ppl are asking for is better damage/burst on magus, they shouldnt get this.

[peterthepan3]

I think what most of us are asking for is for every class to perform well, or have multiples niches in all scales and environments of the game. Not for the game to revolve around 6v6.

That is fair enough but you stand the risk of making engi/magus completely broken if you make them as viable for a 6v6 setting as a sorc/bw is as they dont just bring damage to the fight.

Again...classes are different, some perform better in different environments, what ppl are asking for is better damage/burst on magus, they shouldnt get this.

Essentially what you're saying is that a magus/engineer shouldn't be viable for a 6man...?

People are asking to make the class viable in small-scale, be that in whatever shape or size it is. And can you enlighten me as to what department the Magus/Engi 'perform better' in than any of the other DPS - riftbot aside?

[roadkillrobin]

The two classes that performs the worst in both small scale and large scale is Shaman and Archmage if you ask me.

[Penril]

I think purely in terms of performance adjustments (rather than playstyle changes like engi/mag not being a pullbot) Black Guard needs some real buffs. Zealot and WE need small tweaks

Imho, 2H BG needs some real buffs. But not SnB. Spammable outgoing HD makes it a nightmare for RP (he cant cleanse BGs). If a Order tank swaps guard to the healer, you can punt him away (in several situations, you can completely remove him from the fight). Add a 5sec KD on the healer and it is gg.

The usual argument i read on the forum for BO>>>> BG is that 1) BO does insane damage, and 2) BG needs to catch the RP and any decent RP will always be able to easily kite the BG. Well then, the BO will do ZERO damage to the RP since he won't be able to catch him as well, right?

The BO true strengths come from an uncleansable, spammable AoE snare (awesome for leveling the field against KotBS/IB AoE curse snares) and having all of their debuffs being uncleansable by the WP. Which begs the question: Is BO really the best Destro tank as so many people claim, or is it a matter of WP/Dok making some classes look UP? There is a similar situation with healers and rDPS, where AM/Shaman are unable to cleanse BW/Sorc, and Magus/Eng constantly get all their dots AoE cleansed.

Add to this the fact that there are very, very few good BGs in the server and... yeah.

Don't get me wrong: i'm not asking for a BO/SM buff. I think no tank needs a buff. It's KotBS we should be looking at. Similar situation with mDPS (Mara, Slayer) and healers (Dok, WP). Engi/Magus could use a little love though.

[Jaycub]

@morf

That's why I wish people would talk more about the overarching changes to class balance first. The sticky in the balance forums list it as a step that come before singular class balance so the devs do plan on tackling that first (or so it seems anyways).

You are right that engineer/magus shouldn't just get pure damage to compensate, it would be a boring homogenization of the RDPS archetype. Magus/Engineer originally functioned pretty well, and were really dependent upon CC and were hit by a truck with the CC change patch, then the devs come some patches later and slap on a 20% increased damage buff like they actually did something to fix the class lmao.

[peterthepan3]

The two classes that performs the worst in both small scale and large scale is Shaman and Archmage if you ask me.

I agree with that. Both of these classes should have some love.

[sanii]

Magus isn't designed to be the main dps (atleast st dps)

The whole point of these threads is to point out how terrible the actual design is...

Based on your logic i could also say that shaman isn't designed to heal cuz his healing/sustain/utility sucks compared to other healers and that we should cater the "design" idea of a hybrid , which clearly doesn't work.

[grumcajs]

playes should stop arguing about magus CC. except for rift there is no CC worth to speak about.

5 sec aoe root that have a chance to break on dmg - 30sec immunity to roots and knockback
3 sec stagger that breaks on dmg- 30 sec immunity to any hard CC (not to mention even when its insta cast, it still deliver the dmg and the effect after another gcd or something)
3 sec aoe kd based on static pet - 30 sec immunity to any hard CC (require the pet, so even when u use resumon you just wait another gcd to setup the kd)

no reason to talk about short knockback or disarm