Hrm, I haven't been following closely, but I'd be surprised to see Eochaid ridiculed. Eochaid is, so far as I know, a top tier combatant from another IRE. However, I am not ashamed to say that when... someone who is definitely NOT Eochaid played defiler for a bit before disappearing, the pain of defiler was burned permanently into my brain. And god, so tanky, too, with no arties. This person was so not Eochaid, that they didn't even think to use blackvines.
As for druid, I will just say that I don't actually play druid, was on the wrong end of one a bit before magick slid into completely obscurity for a good while. They certainly did hurt, but I think they actually did take some nerfs after that. Anyway, I hope that when classes are reviewed, they are always reviewed holistically, both in terms of the class, and that class' role(s) in teams. Also, give druid those blackvines Anyway, I am sure all of this will get discussed at length in classleads. I was just sort of looking for reassurance that the "stats" weren't mean to be taken incredibly seriously, and figured I'd mention that Elrith really is kind of a power player.
Jules is a bit to generous though with her words..
Druid does damage for sure, upfront damage is most likely the better if you have wisp-balance but defiler does higher damage once they get going. That said, I don't push for any druid upgrades and I don't really think they need any, only concern I have with druid is that they are still the only class that's limited to their roots summoned and leaving out a ton of abilities without paying 500 cr, that is something that always annoyed me and I really wish they'd at least put a "summonerfix" on it to make me use abilities once every X if anything. In the ideal world they'd just remove pendant.
I do think Defiler is much tankier than druid and therefore they are very dangerous because of that. If you cannot hinder a defiler you will die (and should of course since it is a damage class) and with the current tankiness they can support their constant onslaught much better than Druid, hence why I think some fixes to that will also make the class different because if you turtle you don't attack you don't do DPS, quite simple. I am not for pushing defiler down to the gutter, that doesn't help anyone, hopefully they'll look at the whole picture of tankiness / damage / utility instead of just shutting down all.
I hope we're not taking these pretty "aggregate" type stats too super seriously. Right? It would strike me as kind of odd. That wasn't the intent, right?
Also, we don't always see that much of Elrith, but Elrith really is the kind of guy, who, if he played even a bit more (we do seem to see a bit more of him lately, which is good), and was even slightly more artied, would be legitimately one of the more terrifying people to ever play.
Well i mean i tend to judge a class by the class not the person. If he was a non heavy artifact player the damage he was pulling out as a druid was a ton.
I understand Elrith is a decent player, but I consider Eochaid a good player as well. All i see is ridicule on her end for the consistent damage she does in pvp.
Consistent damage in group fighting is king. Druid and defiler both do exactly that and do it well. At times it seems this may cloud our minds, considering neither are top priority kills in their circles.
As a reference, I had 15 str, used earthsong (for less sips) but more damage , level 2 quarterstaff and level 2 collar (helps a bit with wisps) so not that bad artied. In terms of tanking in that fighting yesterday I got saved, like everyone else, by reflections and Jules using defend, before that in the first encounter I got demolished by the demonic team. The damage I did was also most of the time with sensitivity (I was the sensitivity bot in the fight), so it might be good to keep in mind when reviewing the logs.
Feel free to judge a class by person in those cases it's obviously a part of the skill-factor. I don't feel bad of saying that Assassin class is good because Kabaal knows what he's doing, otherwise so many others would use the class with more than just puncture / worm choke. I don't feel bad saying that Septus is a good templar and you could most likely strip him of many arties and he would still be good and many many more players. Personal skill is obviously a part of classes. You have timing, how you track afflictions, when to switch between afflictions / damage, when to turtle, when to run, who to target first and so on and so forth.
This is why I never -try- (i of course do at times) to judge things on team-fighting, there is simply so much into the fight that will never happen in a 1 vs 1 and we still need to somewhere base things around that. Like how I had sensitivity while fighting Eochaid a while back which wouldn't really happen in a solo-fight because defiler won't stick afflictions to you, that's 33% difference alone in damage and I missed out a thing which caused me to think the numbers was off when they weren't in that case, that's easily done.
A damage class is supposed to have high damage. An affliction class is supposed to have high affliction rate
A K/D ratio is a function of team size, artifact pressure. A 5v2 situation will almost always go to the team of 5 provided you are matched in artifacts. Their damage will also be higher, as will their K/D ratio.
I still stand by druid doing a lot of damage with and without sensitivity. I think @Gjarrus said it that Defiler has a better finisher than Druid but even the damage chart shows that a druids damage pace is rather good. Which again in groups consistent damage is king.
You said if you cannot hinder a defiler you will die. I mean thats generally true in nearly every single case. As a druid, if you aren't hindered will you not achieve the kill?
Defiler needs nerfed(for a bunch of times already said) i just dont think that nerf is their damage without again looking at druid for the exact reason since this seems to stem soley from group fights.
There are outlier players sure....but in general i dont factor reflection spam into skill especially in the fight yesterday. Personally I feel reflections are a dated feature that is more broken than any class can achieve. That is why people spam them so heavily and yesterday your group had the snowball effect of winning the first two fights to keep the reflection train going.
I did not say you weren't a great pk player, I actually think very highly of your skill. I said what i said because it was thrown that you were a great player thus that is why, well why isn't or hasn't eochaid been given the same luxury?
My post based on being hit by your damage, alvetta damage, and khalim damage as druids in groups.....it hurts a lot.
I didn't want to attempt to mask that Druid does alot of damage, that's why I did state that it does more damage upfront than defiler, much like how you explain it.
The comment about hinder was more about how you as a defiler can tank better / handle affliction better than a druid in my opinion, therefor you can keep offense going better without the need to turtle, that wasn't about the fact that you don't kill as either class if left alone.
So when you look at damage output without looking at how well the class can also take punches, handle afflictions, CC people the numbers will be a bit misguiding? Like glasscannon-classes i.e mage who has one of the absolute highest damage ability in lavablast but they are also one of the most squishy classes there is and a main reason nobody uses them in groups at all nowadays. The whole picture is what I am after.
I dont' claim myself to be any great pk player at all, the druid setup I do is nothing that takes special skill at all either. I try not to complain and whine too much when I die, I mean I try to speak with people about this and that ability as often as I can without being a derp and I think I've done that to Eochaid as well, but I can only answer for myself.
I haven't played Druid in groups since about 2013, but their ability to handle afflictions isn't that bad. It's just done through more active methods (hinder) than Defiler is. I recall a time when people were saying Druid's affliction pressure didn't exist, or wasn't noteworthy... And then Iluv was off to the side locking people left and right with it. Staff being made a one-handed item was a great change for them, when it comes to tanking damage, too.
A lot of people these days (not directed at anyone specific, honestly, just an observation) seem to not want to use half the abilities their class has, before trying to compare their class to another, which makes it a heavily flawed comparison right off the bat. Or they compare two classes that really aren't similar at all.
I haven't played Druid in groups since about 2013, but their ability to handle afflictions isn't that bad. It's just done through more active methods (hinder) than Defiler is. I recall a time when people were saying Druid's affliction pressure didn't exist, or wasn't noteworthy... And then Iluv was off to the side locking people left and right with it. Staff being made a one-handed item was a great change for them, when it comes to tanking damage, too.
A lot of people these days (not directed at anyone specific, honestly, just an observation) seem to not want to use half the abilities their class has, before trying to compare their class to another, which makes it a heavily flawed comparison right off the bat. Or they compare two classes that really aren't similar at all.
I meant how to handle afflictions when it comes to curing not the affliction capability. Druid can use some affliction pressure for sure if they give up their damage. This is with enfeeble and bewilder, in my case I cannot use that AND use the damage route (I can go somewhat hybrid that is less effective than any given) because I didn't pay 500 credits to get access to all skills with the roots, but that's not an excuse I want to hide behind.
I was around when Iluv was a Druid and I am very comfortable saying he didn't lock people outside teams with Druid "left and right", he did have other handy setups that can be used 1 vs 1 though.
In teams you use whatever that does most damage / helps the team the most unless it is a smaller group and you really need to shut someone down who does massive damage, that's not about using more or less abilities than needed, that's more using the abilities doing the best result in terms of winning that fight. I didn't take it as you directed that at me, but that's how I see it. But the discussions have been around team combat mostly and in those cases both defiler / druid, heck most classes, uses but a handful of abilities.
Since it's being twisted some: I want to note that I love druid and don't want to see it changed. Speaking group wise, it offers very consistent damage that is why I said anything to begin with. I just think in terms of group Defiler and Druid output a consistent damage that if you changed one, you certainly would have to look at the other.
I was around when Iluv was a Druid and I am very comfortable saying he didn't lock people outside teams with Druid "left and right", he did have other handy setups that can be used 1 vs 1 though.
I dunno. Wouldn't say Kabaal's bad by any stretch, either.
Also you can't really separate the two. Handling afflictions via brute force offence, is a very valid tactic for a number of classes. Runeguard and Outrider springs to mind, as classes that don't really have aff curing. (not counting fitness, since it's a single, known cure unlike say... Cadmus, or Therapeutics).
That said, I'm the same as Tyden: Not saying the class is OP or UP, I think it's fine for the most part. I'm not sure why Druid has to pay 500cr when Defiler gets their similar thing for free, though. Seems like an awful money-grab. Wish I could play Druid/Bard without moving, and without buying mirrors.
Echoing sentiments, I really think Druid is sorta a healthier Defiler. Druid's aff route is only reaallly scary because it has a single-combo softlock. It's ~1 aps (E: Axe is .8 normal combo, 1.2 with wisp, then toxicrain ticks. Qstaff is .66, .99 with wisp ) with no impatience and a narrow aff pool on 2/3 of the combo. Spruce up Defiler aff route a bit and tone down entropy/bellow/the agreed weirdness, then it gets close.
Re affs - Druid also has might and glowing wisp. Can't really understate how valuable fitness is, even as an active.
I put in a nerf for the jester costume! (Classlead 707)
Not the solution that I would have used.
The Jester costume was added in order to balance ranged bombs, things like pet delivery of shard bombs. I would change the costume to 100% negate bombs arriving from other rooms (thrown, dropped from the sky, or delivered), but make it ineffective against bombs dropped on the ground or given to someone in room.
That would still give bombs a purpose, but it wouldn't be a ridiculous one like it was pre-costume.
You grabbed my hand and we fell into it Like a daydream.. or a fever
The image of Eochaid blurs, fading to a green nebula as she vanishes to the up.
As you leave the room, the blackvines on the ground lash out after you, entangling you and piercing your skin painfully.
I trust that the reasonable consensus is, effectively, nuke blackvines? As per my report, they should crumble entirely the moment the defiler walks out of the room.
I trust that the reasonable consensus is, effectively, nuke blackvines? As per my report, they should crumble entirely the moment the defiler walks out of the room.
I never thought they were that bad personally... ...Then there was that teamffa where I couldn't follow up on locks, because they just tumble into them and I get entangled trying to follow... I dunno why they're not just like piety etc, to be honest. I dunno about them 'crumbling' but something should be done to make them not effective if they aren't in the room they were summoned in.
Going to share a log of being jumped today while hunting. My character successfully was able to cast 50 reflections while he entered in what Imperian standard is called "turtling" to avoid death/whatever. I truly hope something is done about not only reflections but the reflection artifact. The way these powerful reflections are and the fact with the artifact that reduces faith you can cast 40 with 100% faith is just so silly.
I'm sure plenty of these have been shared over the years, but no way should my character have lived through this. Completely unacceptable form of PK, and the largest balance issue Imperian has. This mixed with the sacrifice in the log just let me keep using faith, another item that should be adjusted per classlead 774.
Edit:
This log is up until the point I decided to attack when my character had numbers to fight back. This highlights the issue, then on top of that, after my characters group had "won" my character was back up to 63% faith which means he had enough for 20 more reflections due to snowballing.
I have two ideas for rituals, either it needs a CD to just prevent multicast (the easy way out), if on a 5 min CD it is once per encounter, basically. Or it has to change from not making attacks miss while reflections has its internal CD.
Not sure what would work out best though.. But yes, that is more or less what you face in combat at the moment.
Classlead 774 should just be like everything else on combat, make it 5 min from aggresive on offering.
@Naruj none of those suggestions would change wands though. The 5 min on reflection rituals is on that alone. The "attacks doesn't" miss never happens against a single reflection only against multiple ones.
@Tyden Lyre is strange, when barrier hit the dust -I- think they wanted to provide a powerful defensive tool but yet not as strong as old barrier was. However, once you start fighting people with it as an aff class that really works on momentum you soon figure out how strong it really is. 2.75 eq on shield? 1.9 eq with diadem on hammer + shard research. I cannot really figure out what else it could be though and there are no classleads on this
Edit: There is only one concern for me and that's if you change all these things and trying to even stay alive for 2 rounds in teams are suddenly more or less hopeless, even further if you lack either of the two mentioned things.
It's important that there be some ability to turtle up effectively, otherwise an advantage in numbers becomes too powerful.
Reflection ritual pushes this too far, but if all these changes happen at once, it will likely just mean the bigger, more damage-focused teams end up winning by default - It removes the possibility of outplaying them if you make it too hard to go on the defensive. Additionally, some classes rely on that ability to turtle to have any hope of usefulness in teams, because they're fragile enough that they simply melt if they don't.
Comments
As for druid, I will just say that I don't actually play druid, was on the wrong end of one a bit before magick slid into completely obscurity for a good while. They certainly did hurt, but I think they actually did take some nerfs after that. Anyway, I hope that when classes are reviewed, they are always reviewed holistically, both in terms of the class, and that class' role(s) in teams. Also, give druid those blackvines
Druid does damage for sure, upfront damage is most likely the better if you have wisp-balance but defiler does higher damage once they get going. That said, I don't push for any druid upgrades and I don't really think they need any, only concern I have with druid is that they are still the only class that's limited to their roots summoned and leaving out a ton of abilities without paying 500 cr, that is something that always annoyed me and I really wish they'd at least put a "summonerfix" on it to make me use abilities once every X if anything. In the ideal world they'd just remove pendant.
I do think Defiler is much tankier than druid and therefore they are very dangerous because of that. If you cannot hinder a defiler you will die (and should of course since it is a damage class) and with the current tankiness they can support their constant onslaught much better than Druid, hence why I think some fixes to that will also make the class different because if you turtle you don't attack you don't do DPS, quite simple. I am not for pushing defiler down to the gutter, that doesn't help anyone, hopefully they'll look at the whole picture of tankiness / damage / utility instead of just shutting down all.
Feel free to judge a class by person in those cases it's obviously a part of the skill-factor. I don't feel bad of saying that Assassin class is good because Kabaal knows what he's doing, otherwise so many others would use the class with more than just puncture / worm choke. I don't feel bad saying that Septus is a good templar and you could most likely strip him of many arties and he would still be good and many many more players. Personal skill is obviously a part of classes. You have timing, how you track afflictions, when to switch between afflictions / damage, when to turtle, when to run, who to target first and so on and so forth.
This is why I never -try- (i of course do at times) to judge things on team-fighting, there is simply so much into the fight that will never happen in a 1 vs 1 and we still need to somewhere base things around that. Like how I had sensitivity while fighting Eochaid a while back which wouldn't really happen in a solo-fight because defiler won't stick afflictions to you, that's 33% difference alone in damage and I missed out a thing which caused me to think the numbers was off when they weren't in that case, that's easily done.
I still stand by druid doing a lot of damage with and without sensitivity. I think @Gjarrus said it that Defiler has a better finisher than Druid but even the damage chart shows that a druids damage pace is rather good. Which again in groups consistent damage is king.
You said if you cannot hinder a defiler you will die. I mean thats generally true in nearly every single case. As a druid, if you aren't hindered will you not achieve the kill?
Defiler needs nerfed(for a bunch of times already said) i just dont think that nerf is their damage without again looking at druid for the exact reason since this seems to stem soley from group fights.
There are outlier players sure....but in general i dont factor reflection spam into skill especially in the fight yesterday. Personally I feel reflections are a dated feature that is more broken than any class can achieve. That is why people spam them so heavily and yesterday your group had the snowball effect of winning the first two fights to keep the reflection train going.
I did not say you weren't a great pk player, I actually think very highly of your skill. I said what i said because it was thrown that you were a great player thus that is why, well why isn't or hasn't eochaid been given the same luxury?
My post based on being hit by your damage, alvetta damage, and khalim damage as druids in groups.....it hurts a lot.
The comment about hinder was more about how you as a defiler can tank better / handle affliction better than a druid in my opinion, therefor you can keep offense going better without the need to turtle, that wasn't about the fact that you don't kill as either class if left alone.
So when you look at damage output without looking at how well the class can also take punches, handle afflictions, CC people the numbers will be a bit misguiding? Like glasscannon-classes i.e mage who has one of the absolute highest damage ability in lavablast but they are also one of the most squishy classes there is and a main reason nobody uses them in groups at all nowadays. The whole picture is what I am after.
I dont' claim myself to be any great pk player at all, the druid setup I do is nothing that takes special skill at all either. I try not to complain and whine too much when I die, I mean I try to speak with people about this and that ability as often as I can without being a derp and I think I've done that to Eochaid as well, but I can only answer for myself.
I was around when Iluv was a Druid and I am very comfortable saying he didn't lock people outside teams with Druid "left and right", he did have other handy setups that can be used 1 vs 1 though.
In teams you use whatever that does most damage / helps the team the most unless it is a smaller group and you really need to shut someone down who does massive damage, that's not about using more or less abilities than needed, that's more using the abilities doing the best result in terms of winning that fight. I didn't take it as you directed that at me, but that's how I see it. But the discussions have been around team combat mostly and in those cases both defiler / druid, heck most classes, uses but a handful of abilities.
Echoing sentiments, I really think Druid is sorta a healthier Defiler. Druid's aff route is only reaallly scary because it has a single-combo softlock. It's ~1 aps (E: Axe is .8 normal combo, 1.2 with wisp, then toxicrain ticks. Qstaff is .66, .99 with wisp ) with no impatience and a narrow aff pool on 2/3 of the combo. Spruce up Defiler aff route a bit and tone down entropy/bellow/the agreed weirdness, then it gets close.
Re affs - Druid also has might and glowing wisp. Can't really understate how valuable fitness is, even as an active.
Rough sudocode:
affslist = attacker affs; if affslist is empty { //show message that nothing happens and return } else { //Show message for attack hitting if attack hits a reflection, return. Otherwise... aff = RANDOM_ELEMENT(afflist) affliction_give(target, aff) }Costumes.
Many of the effects are too good to pass up, no matter what you do.
BUT THEY BLOCK ALL THE BODY CLOTHING UNDERNEATH.
Nerf now so I'm not tempted to wear them ever again.
(But srsly thinking of suggesting some_description's price get dropped or allowing a per-item hide cheaper than a customization).
Which other ones are problematic? Abomination HOOK?
(may vanish for periods of time)
The Jester costume was added in order to balance ranged bombs, things like pet delivery of shard bombs. I would change the costume to 100% negate bombs arriving from other rooms (thrown, dropped from the sky, or delivered), but make it ineffective against bombs dropped on the ground or given to someone in room.
That would still give bombs a purpose, but it wouldn't be a ridiculous one like it was pre-costume.
Like a daydream.. or a fever
I trust that the reasonable consensus is, effectively, nuke blackvines? As per my report, they should crumble entirely the moment the defiler walks out of the room.
...Then there was that teamffa where I couldn't follow up on locks, because they just tumble into them and I get entangled trying to follow... I dunno why they're not just like piety etc, to be honest. I dunno about them 'crumbling' but something should be done to make them not effective if they aren't in the room they were summoned in.
Can AB files also be updated to most recent effects. I know a few of the AB files haven’t been updated with the last round of classleads.
Or it has to change from not making attacks miss while reflections has its internal CD.
Not sure what would work out best though.. But yes, that is more or less what you face in combat at the moment.
Classlead 774 should just be like everything else on combat, make it 5 min from aggresive on offering.
Like a daydream.. or a fever
@Tyden Lyre is strange, when barrier hit the dust -I- think they wanted to provide a powerful defensive tool but yet not as strong as old barrier was. However, once you start fighting people with it as an aff class that really works on momentum you soon figure out how strong it really is. 2.75 eq on shield? 1.9 eq with diadem on hammer + shard research. I cannot really figure out what else it could be though and there are no classleads on this
Edit: There is only one concern for me and that's if you change all these things and trying to even stay alive for 2 rounds in teams are suddenly more or less hopeless, even further if you lack either of the two mentioned things.
Reflection ritual pushes this too far, but if all these changes happen at once, it will likely just mean the bigger, more damage-focused teams end up winning by default - It removes the possibility of outplaying them if you make it too hard to go on the defensive. Additionally, some classes rely on that ability to turtle to have any hope of usefulness in teams, because they're fragile enough that they simply melt if they don't.