|
Alphaeus -> Poison and Grenades Imbalance (12/13/2016 14:50:43)
|
So, I've noticed that there are several skills out there that deal way too much damage compared to their energy cost, and thus promote easy heal-cycling.
First
Poisons: Look at a poison skill that's maxed or nearly so. It deals a minimum of 30 damage being applied, plus over 400 damage over the course of three turns. These damages are guaranteed because they ignore all defense/resist/buffs/deflect/block. Typical cost for this skill is right around 300-350 mana. The application (min 30) and first turn of damage (around 140) are both guaranteed. Further cure can only come if you waste energy on a heal.
Grenades: In Dex heavy builds, these reach insane levels of damage for stunning low mana costs...esp when you consider the added stun chance. I've seen grenades with over 400 damage and a cost of less than 200 mana.
In my opinion, both of these skills need a serious rework. Whenever you face someone with builds that use these, you are immediately at a disadvantage because they can conserve energy while dealing maximum damage. Poisons, in my opinion, are the ones that have gotten most out of hand.
Most normal attack skills have a relatively high mana cost for high-end damage. But if you look at Poison skills, for example, while they have a moderately high mana cost, this comes with the guarantee that 100% of that damage will be felt, unless the opponent heals. You then end up with a battle like this:
>Get Poisoned
>Heal
>Deal some Damage
>Try to regain energy
>Get poisoned
>Heal
>etc.
Each time, though, you are slightly weaker than the last round, while your opponent conserves energy by sneaking at least around 200 damage (application + first turn of poison) past all of your defenses with each application. The don't need to use any other skills except heals and energy steals to keep you on a downward spiral.
Any skill that can win a battle single-handedly has, in my opinion, gone just a bit too far.
Grenades are indeed an issue as well, but for them it is a remarkably low energy cost that makes them so easy to use. For only slightly more energy than a basic heal you can hurl a grenade -- no other skills can do this much damage for so little cost.
__________________
Solution:
So, there are two options to solve these problems.
First, you can nerf these skills in some way.
Or, you can balance things better to compete with these skills.
Poison, for example, should have some way to counter the effects without wasting a heal. Have one stat (or even Focus) determine poison resistance, reducing poison effects by a certain percentage. This would promote builds designed to counter poison.
Grenades are useful because in the Hunter (mainly BH) class they have an identical base skill with the class's multi. Give this kind of complementary skill benefit to other classes, or switch it on hunters so that one single skill cannot jack up both of their main damage dealing attacks (preferably the balance solution and not the nerfing one).
Obviously I'm creating this thread to see what other people think about the problems/related problems, and how to solve them.
|
|
|
|
