PvE DPS Class Balance

Suggestions
#81

That makes no sense. Why should mages have to play a way harder class, but not do any more damage than the others?? I think that’s absolutely how it should be balanced. The harder you try, and the more work/effort you put in, the better the results are.

EDIT: Of course the top 1% of the hardest class in the game is going to be stronger than the top 1% of the easiest class in the game because it is harder to become one of the top 1% as a mage compared to a shaman, for example. (bugs have nothing to do with skill, so don’t bring up shaman bugs)

#82

The issue is with diminishing returns with increased skill level. Every other DPS class has them, mages don’t. The only solution to balance the classes is to add diminishing returns to mages. The mage class would still be just as challenging and the best mages would still be rewarded by being able to beat other mages but just not by the same degree.

#83

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Mages in that top 1% should do more damage than a top 5% Mage. And I think skill ceiling should dictate top DPS. Right now the highest skill ceiling in the game is the Mage and I think most 1% Rangers would argue we should put in more mechanics to increase their skill ceiling if anything.

However, at the same time we can’t balance a game having 99% of Mages dealing X damage and 1% dealing X+50%. X+10%? Sure I think that’s fine and that makes sense.

In addition to all of this, I am finding out more information about this test and it sounds like the Ranger DPS wasn’t being done with some of the highest-DPS talents so that gap may not be as large as originally reported. (Not their fault due to the fight layout, but again I’m not sure this is a really accurate test if it was done without some of the Ranger talents that could easily add 20-30% more DPS) More data needs to be gathered than just one dungeon run before any decisions would be made, and it may be that the Ranger talents just need some tuneups so the highest-DPS ones can be used in more situations than they are available currently.

#84

There is no limit to the difficulty of any of the classes. There is always room to improve and no one will ever be perfect. The question is about the amount of benefit the classes get from making those improvements.

#85

Every mage in the 99% has the potential to reach where the 1% is currently. Why they haven’t already? I have no idea, but I see no reason to nerf the 1% of mages that have simple worked harder than the other 99%. I honestly don’t get it.

#86

That is called having talent, the right vr headset and the lowest ping Sift. Missing 1 of the 3 and you won’t reach the 5%. No matter how much you try.

The only thing we want to change is having max ranger not be 30% less then max mage but have it max ranger be maybe 10% less then max mage. Sounds more fair and still mages more OP for really trying, right?

#87

Uhhhh I disagree… mage is harder than shaman, scoundrel, and archer. Not to discredit the efforts of the players who main any of these other classes. I take pride in the fact that I have put so much work into the class, and that I am able to achieve such numbers, as do the other top mages in the game to my knowledge, and to say that the top 1% (which is like 5 people) should do 40% less damage is baffling to me.

#88

Well, I think what I’m saying is, the amount of DPS those top 1% Mages are doing right now is higher than intended. But if I nerf the Mage down to where it would make sense for those Top 1% Mages to be in balance with the rest of the game, then no one but a top 1%'er could even play a Mage because anyone else would do really low damage compared to the rest of the DPS classes.

So a better solution (I think) is to balance the game around the top 5% of Mages matching the top DPS of other classes, and then allowing those top 1% Mages to break through that barrier a little bit (since as stated, it is a lot of work and practice), but not to the degree that it’s totally game-breaking.

I hope that helps clarify. My goal here is not to make it so that it’s not worthwhile to put forth effort to become great at the game at any class. But there’s clearly a new “tier” of Mage potential that has been unlocked in Reborn, and we have to take that into account someplace when balancing the game, after all.

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#89

You make it sound like you will be 40% worse then anyone while in fact you will be 10% better then everyone… It is still a number and to be honest the only thing that matters is showing off that you are doing more damage because you so skilled. Not that you are showing off that other classes are useless.

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#90

Where did these numbers come from?

#91

Thanks for that point.
Nerfs to balance classes are an incredible bad idea in general imo. I know no one cares about scoundrels, but we had people working seriously on them for 100s hours, these skills are worth nothing right now, from one day to another they are worthless, even farming solo in the overworld feels lame. There are people quitting that class rn and eventually the game, most of them will not read the epic texts on forums about why and how. Nerfs give you a feeling of randomness, not of skill or any control over classes.
Same with the sudden cd-nerf on warrior shields. Why. Make a few new bosses harder instead, that is way less intrusive…
And the next group mass-quitting, if this nerf-feast goes on, will be the not-so-5%-mages. I fear if everything is scaled around top-guilds then in the long run these will be the only ones left in the game, js.

#92

Metris I am currently testing scoudnel dps. So holding off on that one. But pretty sure scoundrel is one of the strongest for oberworld single mobs bexause of their insane burst damage. But bosses probably not.

1 Like
#93

Scoundrel is super weak now. 10k-17k DPS behind ranger.

1 Like
#94

I would like to further clarify something. From the results it actually showed 2 things. A new runemage actually deals less damage than a new ranger. A fairly practiced ranger can keep on-par with a fairly practiced runemage. the top 1% of runemages can outdps the top 1% of rangers as the skill scaling for runemages is considerably more linear…

To bring in some of the testing criteria that helped us come to this conclusion:

  1. around 20 boss fight logs were looked at to see what a ‘fairly practiced’ ranger vs ‘fairly practiced’ mage looks like.
  2. Runemages are using triplicity, affinity, runic diversity, selfish streak and lend a hand.
  3. Rangers are not using their ‘min-max’ dps talents, because generally in fights at the moment it is very hard to impossible to retain 30m distance.

The conclusion we came to of course has some opinion as to what we regard as a ‘fairly practiced’ performance as that is a very hard thing to quantify with the limited logs we have available… But general its all in good faith to try and see what the general balance of dps is across classes, why the balance might be off and how it could be adjusted… Nothing to take too seriously… Roughly put there are maybe 3 mages in the game who can just barely hit that 50% margin where there are maybe 15 in the game who can hit a 20% margin and then it starts to even out after that point… The learning from these findings is mainly that, maybe there is a way to give rangers the opportunity to use potential skill cap to increase their damage in some more curviture on damage rather than stopping the damage ceiling it where it is and maybe that, a 30m distance is stopping rangers from using their most effective min-max talents.

I am trying to steer away from suggesting solutions to those problems as I am sure there are many ways to handle it… and its not the biggest problem at the moment.

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#95

Thanks for the clarification. I do think we can add some additional skill ceiling onto Ranger (and even the other DPS classes as well) to allow for increased damage to close the gap a bit.

On the one hand, I see the points that some are making in that, there’s nothing in theory stopping other players from reaching that 1% status with practice, and that’s one of the things that I think makes Orbus cool compared to a tradiitional pancake MMO – the real skill = real DPS increases. And giving more of that feeling to the other DPS classes would be a good idea, I think.

On the other hand, again from a balancing standpoint I think we do at some point have to reach a place where that extra 5% to 1% skill jump isn’t going to break the game. Either that, or we just decide that the skill jump is necessary for doing for example the Hard Mode Raid and balance that toughest end-game content around that DPS output level, I guess. My worry with that is there wouldn’t be enough players at that level to allow multiple groups to even finish that content.

2 Likes
#96

A third arrow would be nice…

3 Likes
#97

I would love to see a greater skill ceiling for rangers. More emphasis on weak points would be an easy way to do it but I would like to see others too.

1 Like
#98

I would like to the ranger get a 3rd arrow slot and some better arrow options. Knock back/interrupt would be top on that list for me. Right now we have to save our high damage hit to use as a interrupt (mostly Minotaur). It seems all other classes (except warrior) can interrupt as often as they want with very little reduction in dps. I will add that the way it is now, I’m working on a mage since that’s the best class for dps in end game/solo grinding. Also the trap is useless, maybe a smoke bomb that lowers agro to anyone the steps into the smoke. That way rangers would Be able to help the group a bit more

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#99

I should really make a video… my shaman does more on every single throw than this so-called ‘insane’ burst dmg :smiley: I saw one context where this was even a problem, and this was pvp, where you had the time to charge up fully, prepare a good card-combo, unload your magazine and reached your goal of killing the opponent. There are plenty of ways to deal with pvp-balances, seperately, though!

Pve is not at all like that. I’m farming with scoundrel since day 1 of the beta. It hardly matters since the patch if I use scoundrel or musky though, for example to farm the reds in wastelands. The musky at least heals up faster. Classes need to be able to do constant dmg against a flow of mobs which they encounter, one after another. Mages and good rangers are easily capable to clear a field of mobs without waiting time, mobs don’t even reach them before they are down; tanks & healers can do same because of their self-healing, shamans can because of the high dps output, they don’t loose health so quickly (they are the trickiest class though, in dense spaces, because totems tend to pull too many).

Scoundrels with their suicide-talent setting (5th talent) were compatible only with doing very high dps. I need a constant flow of crit-shots to build up the buffs and at the same time mobs should not reach me for a longer time like they do now, because I take increased dmg. If you take the dps away with no option (high curves from close-ups…) to get it back, the whole class breaks, and exactly that is what happened.

#100

Also while you’re here any chance you could change how the shaman uses it’s totems. Instead of dropping totems to get orbs to toss which bug out a lot can we have them just spawn on the belt? That way we can actually have mobility, not have to deal with buggy totems and not have to be put in risky situations. The AoE totems could still be thrown out but the orbs have so many issues that this would cut down on a lot of the problems. It would also make them usable in pvp.