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A new broken build: Heal-looping stun-locking tanky beast master

 
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3/5/2019 2:33:58   
toannghe1997
Member

Hello all. Since coming back to the game a few weeks back, I have been brain-storming and scouring the forum's encyclopedia in search for power, and power I found...

First of all, I fear that I am not joking with the tittle of this post. This build I discovered is quite broken and "OP", and defenitely will need to be looked into. In short, this build exploits the several advantages of quick-cast items and Healing Seeds spell in order to constantly stay in full health, while having guest and pet dishing out damage. I will now go into details as to how.

As we all know, essence orb is now being widely used as a source of Sp recovering. However, people take care not to active it too much, in fear of losing too much Hp. However, what happens when you keep on recovering Sp via the orb, while casting spells to bring you back to full health? Heal-looping, that's what. It is very much still possible, and I have been able to beat the Wicked King (challenge fight) with it.
Most spells heal a decent amount of Hp and they require either Mp or Sp to cast. Thus, losing Sp by clicking the essence orb and use that amount to heal back up is not viable. And yet, this is not true for the Healing Seeds spell. If a beast master (with high cha) cast the first high level Healing Seeds spell, then spend the next 3 turns casting the lowest level Healing Seeds, then the heal would stack and result in a massive Hp recorvery (my character is lv 150, has 4000 Hp due to having 110 end and I have been able to heal up to 7000 Hp thanks to the spell), which means that before casting the 4th low level Healing Seeds, I can use the essence orb to refill my Sp bar)

Now, this sounds quite broken in its own right, and it's very easy for you to test it yourself. However, it gets even better, because this is the ideal setup to sit back, heal-loop and have Sp guests + pet do the heavy lifting, while LITERALLY Stun-lock the monster to death!!! Here's how:
Shadowfeeder pendant and Love potion, all of us are familiar with them. The build above, it guarantees that your Hp and Sp will always stay afloat, which means that you can now spam the 2 items without restrain. Using the Sol Neko subrace (to make guest and pet bleed+burn), my character, who has 200 str/dex, 110 end, 160 cha and 80 luck has been able to stun-lock virtually any mob monsters and even the majority of bosses (tricky ones that have high stats/too high in level usually make using shadow feeder and love potion too risky. And even then, I could just heal-loop anyway). Yesterday, I fought the Wicked King with the above set-up and was able to constantly heal-loop to full health while my partners whittle his health down to 0.

This build works best for beast masters with decent end, high cha and high luck+dex (to maximize damage output from guest+pet). It is even better if you have gears which can lower status resistance (like the Accordion Shield). I found that stacking around 300 cha (using pie shield, paladin oath and Sol Neko's skill) helps heal up to 7000 hp (I was using the level 110 for the first turn followed by the level 10 Healing Seeds).

In conclusion, I have no doubts that this needs to be looked into due to its nature. Some obvious solutions come to mind, but I fear that I am not as adept in balancing as the majority of our staff/players. Thus, I will only write these down to report the situation to everyone instead. Thank you for reading.
Post #: 1
3/5/2019 2:49:15   
Lord Markov
Member

Honestly not sure what you think you've caught onto. Any meta player can already infinitely stun basically all normal and boss monsters even without END or needing to set up any kind of heal loop whatsoever. Killing a boss within two turns is easily within any decent player's capabilities, why spend 4 turns casting healing seed spells for unnecessary HP? Sounds like you've discovered an inferior meta build that isn't really that broken compared to anything most people use.

< Message edited by Lord Markov -- 3/5/2019 3:04:41 >
AQ  Post #: 2
3/5/2019 2:50:16   
ateras360
Member

Just use FO poemage lol. It hits big
AQ DF MQ  Post #: 3
3/5/2019 3:16:35   
AliceShiki
Helpful!


I'm sorry to break it to you, but heal loops have been easily accessible in the game since long before patch 39.0 became a thing... It became a bit harder after patch 39.0, but nothing Healing Branch by itself couldn't solve.

Stunlocking has since a long time ago discovered to be an absurdly effective strategy too, it's the reason why the Boss Boost and the Freedom Effects exist to begin with.

I understand that heal loops are by nature very strong, but it's by no means something unknown or new, staff never addressed it because nuking your opponent to death is easier to do, faster and more effective, there is hardly any reason to use heal loops except for well... Wanting to.

So... Congratulations on finding out something you didn't know, but it's not exactly new by most forum users standards.
AQ  Post #: 4
3/5/2019 3:44:18   
Gross
Member
 

nobody is really afraid to lose health from essence orb cos of purple rain. although it is pretty neat that you managed to make a loop without kindred shield and candy bag. thanks man, i will try it out
Post #: 5
3/5/2019 3:45:40   
gavers
Member
 

Don't be discouraged by the comments. They all seem to be covering the fact they hadn't thought of it.
While not fitting the current meta this healing loop should be decent for fringe strategies for bosses, and doesn't require you to have two rare items.
Post #: 6
3/5/2019 3:46:26   
Aura Knight
Member

This is actually kinda neat. Even though stunlock is superior, replacing stuns with healing sounds fun. I can definitely see myself using this on a END, CHA, and LUK build.
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 7
3/5/2019 3:49:07   
Lineolata
Member
 

The discovery of a new heal loop is legitimately pretty nice, my congratulations on that. However, regarding its balance- equivalent things with the resource-converting miscs and options like Siphon have been tinkered with before without breaking the game, because as some others have phrased more abrasively, the current range of options available means that heal loops are rarely if ever an optimal or even necessary solution to a given issue.
AQ DF  Post #: 8
3/5/2019 6:23:09   
toannghe1997
Member

Actually, the reason I brought this up is because it can do both heal-looping and stun locking at the same time.
During your turn, you can use love potion until it works, which basically prevents the enemy from attacking that turn while you cast healing seeds. Shadowfeeder is a bonus that makes things easier, but not necessary. Rinse and repeat and you will find that the majority of fights can be won without letting the enemy attack even once. This, while indeed is much slower than nuke builds that use double Duna/Poe, is still nevertheless broken in its own right, especially when getting the duo above usually cost much more than this set-up.
Post #: 9
3/5/2019 12:27:17   
afterlifex
Legend-X


Stun lock and EO are known problem children that make everything worse but lets ignore them and focus on your main issue as it's being lost in all the extra details.

quote:

Thus, losing Sp by clicking the essence orb and use that amount to heal back up is not viable. And yet, this is not true for the Healing Seeds spell. If a beast master (with high cha) cast the first high level Healing Seeds spell, then spend the next 3 turns casting the lowest level Healing Seeds, then the heal would stack and result in a massive Hp recorvery (my character is lv 150, has 4000 Hp due to having 110 end and I have been able to heal up to 7000 Hp thanks to the spell), which means that before casting the 4th low level Healing Seeds, I can use the essence orb to refill my Sp bar)


one lvl 150 + two lvl 10 casts is already able to heal 3k and beyond , 3 turns for a full heal (at low cost) is OP yes.
(which is the take away here, it's an issue on it's OWN even before the other already known problem issues of stun and EO)

I would classify this as a (self) interaction bug IMO. Normally lower lvl status effects shouldn't interact with higher lvl versions in such a manner.

This as you have covered plays very well with existing item issues to become worse.


edit
: If I am not missing something, people should keep in mind this is a player side non save based effect. While it does take a few turns to set up it, A) full heals you and B) isn't affected by a monsters save bonus or its stats. This could easily be a go to strategy for monster that can't be stunned etc., while still keeping pet/guests doing other things.

edit: Even on its own starting from 0SP it only requires: start battle(98SP) > 196SP > 294SP > 392SP > 490SP & cast lvl 150 > 98SP & cast lvl 10 > 196SP & cast lvl 10 > 247SP & mass heal > 347SP > 443SP > 541SP & cast lvl 150 > etc.

Once you get past the first 6 or 7 turns you are in a natural unassisted loop all its own. (With a normal monster being theoretically 10 rounds and a normal boss 20 turns length wise).

Mod mode. If you aren't trying to actively add to the topic you shouldn't be posting. Off hand comments and unconstructive talk has no place in the GBI. Just because there are other options in game does not take way from there being a potential issue. ~afterlifex

< Message edited by afterlifex -- 3/5/2019 17:08:40 >
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 10
3/5/2019 13:10:23   
rogerdooo
Member
 

Thanks tonnageh1997..
I've been having fun with this tactic.I'm using level 135 seeds cha 360 luk 250 end 100 but only seem to get about 800 heal on my third cast of seeds .Is that about right.How are you getting a single heal of 7000.

Thanks
AQ  Post #: 11
3/5/2019 16:31:31   
Caecus
Member
 

I'm inclined to agree that this is an issue. I fall on the side of ALX here, the problem is primarily the fact that the lower level spell can stack with and supplement the top level one. This is usually not allowed for other statuses so it should be a relatively easy fix. Good find!
Post #: 12
3/5/2019 23:31:06   
Kaelin
Member

There are lots of ways to set up heal loops even with conventional items, so methods that are overly-efficient will make them especially overpowering.

To make a long story short, in order to make heal loops not effective most of the time, we more or less have to make damage and other effects better than healing most of the time. In a sense this should be the correct behavior -- no spell or item should be the player's best option most of the time, and healing is no exception. We've had trouble asserting and enforcing this goal in the past because of negative feedback when moving in this direction, but it should make for a better game if we do so.
AQ  Post #: 13
3/6/2019 5:33:03   
toannghe1997
Member

@rogerdooo
That's strange. Did you correctly cast the first seed with the highest available level or did you cast 3 seeds with the lowest level? I just tested it again and even at my usual 160 cha, I still managed to heal over 4000 Hp
The order of my casting is (lv110) Healing Seeds -> (lv10) x3. Even with just 3 casts of (lv110) -> (lv10)x2 still heal me for over 1000 Hp.
Post #: 14
3/6/2019 6:06:20   
Kajimaru
Member

would be neat for heal spells to be useful tho ._.
AQ  Post #: 15
3/6/2019 15:45:30   
Kaelin
Member

The idea is that I want healing spells to be useful but not "always useful." For comparison, consider a level-appropriate Light spell. Assume the enemy has wheel resistances and is Dark aligned. Its worst element is Light (130), and the spell is "useful" against this monster. If the monster is Earth/Water aligned, then the opposite element (Wind/Energy) will be 130, and Light will only be 115. A Light spell is still fairly useful in this situation (will hit at 88% efficiency), but you'd prefer to hit the monster's greatest weakness instead for 100% efficiency. The disparity grows as you move further along the wheel, and using a Light spell becomes a worse idea. The spell's good, but it's only supposed to your most effective choice in certain situations.

Healing should have these sorts of trade-offs as well. If you're fighting a slow-damaging tank, then healing might buy a player three or four extra turns to do damage, and it'll be a better use of MP/SP than investing in a damage spell. If you're instead fighting an annihilator, then the healing might buy you just a turn, and it'll be worse than just hitting for more damage and shortening the battle. If you're in a middle-of-the-road situation, healing should do alright, but it should probably be a little inferior to at least one other option (kind of like hitting an Earth (115 Light) or Ice (100 Light) monster with a Light attack) -- unless you're combining it with lesser stunlocking or some other technique that hits a monster's weakness and that synergizes with healing. Players' expectations for how healing works is thrown off a bit, because they tend to look at it as a "get out of jail" free card that they only use in hard battles rather that against certain types of monsters, and I want to force you to be more creative when standing up to Power 3+ (and especially Power 4+) monsters so they're as challenging as advertised.

< Message edited by Kaelin -- 3/6/2019 22:18:31 >
AQ  Post #: 16
3/7/2019 7:14:54   
rogerdooo
Member
 

@tonnaghe1997

Thanks for the advice.It works just as you said.Esp good when dumping a full sp bar on MOAP spell and then regenning the HP. Very satisfying.I've added this to my tactical armoury as a key style of playing.

Thanks for the tips,I think its a fun discovery you got there.

Happy hunting.
AQ  Post #: 17
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