Wardancer revamp

Khizan

Are they going to be strictly sword-and-board or are the sword-and-sword combos going to be a thing still?

I'd really like to get rid of the latter.

Garryn

Both are possible at this time. Not opposed to enforcing the blade+shield approach, though it does restrict versatility quite a bit. We'll see.

Khizan

The problem with allowing both combos is that it makes it really hard to balance our damage pressure.

As a Wardancer, I need my shield to be able to tank physical damage; not only does the 43/43 shield help immensely on its own but I also can't use shield absorb without and absorb is a 20% resistance. When I drop my shield I go from 49% physical resistance to 28% physical resistance. This means that against any class that does significant physical damage, such as a knight, I have to stick with the shield and reduce my damage output and I take a huge risk going all-out damage. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is very problematic.

Specifically, the problem is that the shield defenses don't matter at all versus Mage/Wytch/Summoner/Diabolist/Hunter/Bard/etc because they do no physical damage worth mentioning. Consequently, I get to go sword/sword against them without any penalty at all. This makes it very hard to balance our damage output because we effectively get a huge free damage boost against non-physical classes because the sword does FAR more damage than the shield. Balance our damage around sword/sword and we're neutered when we need the shield to survive. Balance it around sword and board and we get a giant damage boost against the non-physical classes where we never need to wield a shield.

And, in the realm of #firstworldproblems, I really dislike sword+sword+shield being the optimal artifact requirements. If you want to keep sword+sword combos as a thing, just let me wield a sword and shield and make two sword strikes using the same sword. This keeps the versatility while removing the tanking/damage balance problems and reduces the artifact requirement to something more in line with other professions.

Khizan

Some example numbers:

This is cleave strike using a tower shield and a regular sharp+heavy broadsword, the highest damage options available without artifacts:

You chop at yourself with the edge of a tower shield.

Your shield absorbs some of the damage.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damage report: raw damage 64 blunt, physical. Attacker: Khizan

Modifier                                   Value   Result

Armour Resistance (38 reducible)             50%       45

Shield Absorb                                20%       36

Statpack Damage Modifier                     10%       32

Evasion Skill                                10%       29

Strength Modifier                              3       32

Total Resistance                             50%       32

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damage Taken: 32 blunt, physical (raw damage: 64)

Left Hand Balance Taken: 4.13s

A burst of ice covers yourself as you bring a strong broadsword crashing down on you.

Your shield absorbs some of the damage.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damage report: raw damage 113 cutting, physical. Attacker: Khizan

Modifier                                   Value   Result

Armour Resistance (62 reducible)             50%       82

Shield Absorb                                20%       65

Statpack Damage Modifier                     10%       59

Evasion Skill                                10%       53

Strength Modifier                              6       59

Total Resistance                             48%       59

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damage Taken: 59 cutting, physical (raw damage: 113)

Right Hand Balance Taken: 3.42s

The sword does roughly twice the damage of the shield while being notably faster.

That's using a tower shield, though; the banded shield that people are more likely to use looks more like this:

You chop at yourself with the edge of a banded shield.

Your shield absorbs some of the damage.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damage report: raw damage 51 blunt, physical. Attacker: Khizan

Modifier                                   Value   Result

Armour Resistance (31 reducible)             43%       38

Shield Absorb                                20%       30

Statpack Damage Modifier                     10%       27

Evasion Skill                                10%       24

Strength Modifier                              2       27

Total Resistance                             47%       27

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damage Taken: 27 blunt, physical (raw damage: 51)

Getting to roll sword+sword is a huge damage increase with Wardancers as they are now, and IMO it's a significant part of the reason why WD damage is so insane right now; with Team Demonic rolling all casters I get to go sword/sword on them without restriction, and my sword does damn near double my shield's damage.

Aakrin

We should perhaps avoid making classes wildly tanky AND high damage production. This type of constant addition to classes will just lead in an ever cycling damage ramp problem. Perhaps let two weapons be the damage approach, and make sword and board be a different approach. Thus giving the class a damage option, and an option while it needs to tank.

Shou

Isn't that the problem wardancers have right now? One method is 100% damage while being a wet paper bag, while the other can't do anything useful? It'd be a tragedy if they released a brand new class with the same problems as the one it replaced.

Jules

Part of Khizan's post (the part I feel comfortable addressing) is economic, too. When the optimal setup requires two artie weapons, just ugh. I really do feel like I'm being squeezed for every last cent with that and I am glad IRE seems to be moving away from dual-wield as "the way to go". And I am the kind of customer who has easily bought (well) over 10k credits since I woke up and actually started playing. And I have a TON of artifacts (which will never be used) in Achaea too.

Iniar

Shou said:

Isn't that the problem wardancers have right now? One method is 100% damage while being a wet paper bag, while the other can't do anything useful? It'd be a tragedy if they released a brand new class with the same problems as the one it replaced.

You think wardancers are wet paper bags...

Khizan

Without the shield Wardancer physical defenses consist of: scalemail.

Shou

@iniar khizan does not define the entire wardancer class. Khizan is tanky. Wardancer is not.

Iniar

Khizan said:

Without the shield Wardancer physical defenses consist of: scalemail.

Without the shield, Mage physical defenses consists of: stoneskin.

Khizan

Right, and you see exactly as many Mages fighting as you do Wardancers: There's Aakrin(sometimes) for Mages and there's Khizan(sometimes) for Wardancers.

This is because fighting as one is not practical unless you're wearing 7.5 kilocredits in tanking artifacts. 

Khizan

For those of you not in the beta, as of right now it looks like..

1. Berserkers are going to lose envenomable shields and thusly lose the two-toxin-attack DSL-style offense. Shield toxins will be replaced with different moves with different effects, none of which are known to us now because Garryn hasn't designed them yet.
2. Warchants now take balance, but can be done off balance.
3. Combos are now sword+board restricted, no more dualsword style.
4. Balances work similar to predator balances and do not use arm balances. Sword -> Shield -> Warchant, all taking one balance.
5. Shield speed/damage are now constant across all shield types, with artifact shields providing +10/15/20% damage like artifact weapons do.

Any testing of substance has to wait until Garryn finishes up with point #1, which is a fairly major departure from the Wardancer model. This is happening because Berserker v1.0 was universally panned by the beta testers for a variety of reasons ranging from "Doesn't feel Berserkery enough" to "Boring combat, is just another variety of DSL+Flare" to "This is exactly like wardancer, just traded kicks for shouts".

So, really, the whole point of this report is that there is not much to report right now. I was going to post the AB files, but the upcoming shield changes have already obsoleted them all so I'm not going to waste time on it.

Aakrin

Are Berserkers really going to get double return out of artifact shields? Getting a 1600 credit free weapon is pretty awesome.

Shouldn't there be something like 'Shield paint' or something that can be added/removed from a shield to provide the 10/15/20% damage increase?

Edit: Its a weird situation. With the change for knights to remove two weapons required, it lowers the cost on artifacts for them. Wardancer would be required to get two. But, the shield IS offering both offense and defense. Either they're getting free weapon upgrades, or free defense upgrades. Not sure where the middle ground is.

Khizan

Berserkers are effectively dual-wielders; in addition to the shield they're also going to have to buy a sword. Far from getting a 'free' weapon, Berserkers are actually penalized by the requirement to get both an artifact shield and an artifact sword to artifact their offense up, because the artifact shield provides very minimal tanking benefits over the non-artifact shields.

In fact, the L1/L2 shields are worse shields than the non-artifact shields that Berserkers are capable of wielding; Berserkers wield shields as if they have +2 strength, so any athletic Berserker can wield the 25/25 kite and an Athletic Berserker with +1 strength is capable of wielding the 35/35 Tower. With stats of 20/20 and 30/30, any Berserker who uses an L1 or L2 shield is paying for the damage with a loss of tankiness. Really, I guess when you look at it the big problem isn't "Berserkers get a free offensive artifact", it's that Berserkers have to pay for two offensive artifacts and one of them can have a tanking penalty attached.

EDIT: Seriously, the tanking upgrades offered by the artifact shields are marginal enough that I don't think getting double-value out of the shield is a particular problem, especially not when the shield is a secondary weapon and the Berserker already has to buy a sword. 

Also, the way it is now, artifact shields are already a massive offensive upgrade sitting on a potential defensive upgrade/downgrade, so the status quo with Berserkers isn't really changing. 

Iniar

That aside, it's also important to note that forcing a sword-shield combo (or even a sword-sword combo) means berserker is doubly susceptible to metrazol than your average knight. Even inane things like butisol-benzene can easily become a pain to deal with. There's a reason DSL moved from requiring two weapons in both hands to a single blade.

Khizan

There are reasons, but metrazol susceptibility was not one of them. :P

The primary reason was the dual-wield tax that they had on artifacts, and the secondary reason was that wielding a shield would give knights some badly needed tanking upgrades. I do not believe that metrazol susceptibility was ever even mentioned in the classleads. 

Iniar

Right!