NDB
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Below I list my general observations as well as some theory on how I think we should approach certain areas of balance. For this week, I played around 50 1v1 battles right after the update as Focus CH, recently I did a couple 1v1s and 2v2s as Focus BH, throughout the week I played a few 1v1s on a low rank Focus TM and a level 35 Focus CH, and did a few random challenge battles using some other builds. This was enough to get me a fairly solid idea of the current "ecology", although my opinions are likely far from being perfectly complete. Nonetheless, I think it's in the testers' best interest to hear as much as possible about the game since it's not like they're playing hundreds of battles every day on all 6 classes themselves. With that said, feel free to pitch in, and here's my take:
CH - The nerfs to the energy control of BM and TM have allowed CH's stock to rise as expected. After Static Charge was moved to Tech a few weeks ago, the expected outcome was a rise in Focus and Tech builds, but that never came about at the time and after passive came back because the energy steal moves of the classes were still far too controlling and CH doesn't even have any good skills to spend their energy on. However, it can clearly be seen that by nerfing the energy manipulation of moves of the other classes, CH will indirectly become extremely powerful due to the potential of Static Charge, a skill that makes it the only class that can instantly regenerate energy now that Battery has been canned. We're starting to see that now. Focus CH feels really quite good now despite it still being vastly underrated. It can consistently beat the Focus builds of every other class, although it still struggles somewhat against Merc and BH. Without Kartherax, it can also have a bit of trouble against certain Strength/Support builds because it doesn't have an active Resistance shield anymore. But overall, it actually seems great. Not over the top like TLM used to be, but competitive. In essence, passive shields counter Bloodlust classes while a Poison skill counters Reroute classes, and CH has both of these which allows it to be successful.
BH - This class is far overrated from what I've seen. It struggles against TLMs even after they got their Frenzy nerfed due to their high Defense, regular Mercs for the same reason and because Static Smash still outclasses Static Grenade, and now that TM and CH got their Matrixs buffed they're not so easy anymore either. BH vs. BH is a 50/50 game, especially because of Shadow Arts. The only thing BH can convincingly beat is BM, which is sad since BM is arguably the worst class again, and glass tanks. It's not to say BH can't beat any of these classes, but it's not convincing enough that I would guarantee you that the overall win rate isn't going to be that impressive. The root problem, as I've mentioned, is BH's dependance on Smoke. If they can't land that skill well, they've got no other tricks and they lose. The rest of the BH skill tree is simply unviable, at least in the current meta, that they are forced to use Focus, Smoke, and physical weapons. Practically all of the significant buffs and nerfs for BH in recent memory have involved Smoke and we need to move away from that. Leave it alone because its already good, but get innovative with the other skills like Massacre (which has lacked a proper identity ever since it became unusable with actual Strength builds) because the class overall is not that good. For 2v2, BH still seems good.
Merc - Still seems like a very good class, for both 1v1 and 2v2. I would place it and CH at the top of the totem pole currently, for 1v1, and for 2v2 it could be the best (for a while now). Honestly. Static Smash is a great skill, as well as Hybrid Armor. If there's something to nerf in this class, it would be those two, though I'm not necessarily advocating anything specific. I'll just leave it at that since I haven't actually played as one recently.
TLM - The Frenzy nerf has basically rendered this class mediocre. It's in the middle of the totem pole now. Still decent, but doesn't have the potential to be at the top anymore. That's okay, I guess, but I would still argue that Frenzy was nerfed a bit too hard. It's one thing to take away its energy gain, but it's another to also add a heavy cost--the only thing worse than running in place is running backwards. I know we wanted to nerf the class, but Frenzy should still be useable. It is against low defense builds... but maybe Frenzy should have its 10% defense ignore back. And maybe the energy cost per level should be reduced to 10 from 15. If that makes TLM too good again, nerf something else slightly like Toxic Grenade; don't just focus on killing a single skill. In the future, if a class is to be nerfed I would seriously advise against destroying an entire skill but rather spread the damage such that all of the nerfed skills are still completely useable, just not quite as good. The Atom Smasher nerf was a good example of how to do it right. The Frenzy nerf completely dropped the ball.
TM - I don't fight many and I haven't played much as one myself. All I can say is that it still desperately needs an overhaul. I want to see Focus, caster, and Strength TMs back again. The class is seriously lacking in the survivability department since it doesn't have a shield or Bloodlust, yet it doesn't have enough firepower to make up for it. And I'm not necessarily advocating for increased power, as the current state of Malf is a bit scary, bolt it really strong, and they have Deadly Aim. We need the class to be more well-rounded, the way TM used to be, which allowed it to have the biggest variety of builds of all classes. In fact, I have a theory. Back in the day when passives were around, Merc had Hybrid Armor and BH had Bloodlust to increase their survivability while TM had neither, just like it is now. The difference was that TM was the only class that could regenerate energy in any way (Reflex Boost doesn't really count), so it could loop heal. Back then, loop healing was an extremely difficult thing to pull off, but a skilled TM could do it and that made up for it not having a defensive passive. Today, since all of the classes can loop heal and manipulate energy and whatnot, TM has lost this specialty and is paying dearly for it. Now, I know a big long term goal is to differentiate all of the classes' overlapping skills, but what if we also did that for Field Medic? What if TM Field Medic either had a 3 turn cooldown or scaled by something like 40 points per level? This could potentially generate a new type of build and play-style due to the dynamic between health points and Reroute. This could revive caster tank builds which are dead due to their inability to actually tank, revive the unique loop-healing strength builds that existed earlier in Omega, and allow for well-rounded Focus build.
BM - Honestly, I think this class may just be a lot better off with Parasite. The skill has been a disaster ever since it was invented and I'm not just saying that to make fun of it. It really hasn't been a good idea and has been the primary reason why BM has been a failure for the vast majority of Omega, not just in terms of win rate but as a functional class. I really mean that. Despite the popularity of the class in this phase, it really hasn't worked and I'm confident that sharp-witted players will agree with me on this. The skill either needs to be completely reinvented or replaced with something meaningful that will take the class in a different direction. Back in Delta, BM was the only class without an energy manipulation skill, yet it did fine because Bloodlust and Deadly Aim were the perfect combo to deal with that: Bloodlust instead of actual healing and Deadly Aim as a zero energy costing pseudo-skill in the form of gun. Somehow that just doesn't work anymore because the energy manipulation skill of the other classes are far more powerful now and Deadly Aim is not as good as it was before. This may be a bold proposal, but what if we replaced Parasite with a zero costing offensive skill? The first step in fixing this class is to admit that it shouldn't be an energy manipulating class. For far too long, the game balance has been influenced by energy manipulation ability. Buffing Parasite is a forceful attempt at buffing the class since it is hard to create synergy with this skill, yet nerfing it to the state it's currently in renders it and the class practically useless. I have a lot of ideas of a zero costing offensive skill, but it could be something like an attack that has damage like Overload or Rain (weakish), but that scales off your highest stat to make it fair for all builds, with a 3 turn cooldown. This would open up a lot of possibilities for builds besides Focus. Otherwise, I have no idea how to balance this class in its current state. Plenty of its skills ought to be buffed like Super Charge, Fireball, and Rain, but I doubt that would solve the root of its problems. Nonetheless, I will suggest that Super Charge either needs an extra effect like increased damage for health cost or a huge hard buff. And maybe if it scaled off something else besides tech (since Focus builds are already fine with just Plasma), that could generate some new builds.
Overall - I hate to do this since it's always controversial, but if I were to rank the classes for 1v1, it'd be Merc and CH at the top, TLM next, then BH and TM, and BM last. TLM might be worse and TM might be better than I thought, respectively, though. That's not to say the latter classes can't get good win rates. A good Focus BH can still wipe the floor with odd builds of the other classes. But when we're comparing the highest possible win rate that can be achieved by the top level builds of each class, these are the relative positions, I'd say. But, like I said last week the class balance isn't a be all end all to solving the game's PvP woes. Ultimately, we just want to have fun, regardless of whether we win or lose or if the classes all have the same win rate. One thing I think will help with that is increasing diversity of and within builds so that every build has more than a few moves that it can make like BH Focus currently suffers from and there is more than one serious build per class.
I'm still waiting on an innovative buff to Dex, the revival of tank/caster builds which are all almost as dead as Dex builds now, as well as the revival/reinvention of Strength and Support builds with distinct strategies. The current Strength and Support builds are hardly viable and/or total spam without any distinct layers of strategy (yes, I'm looking at you Strength Merc and Support TM) even though I see them everywhere. The Support TLM/Mercs, Strength TMs, Support BHs from earlier parts of Omega had so, so much more to offer in terms of playstyle and plasticity. At their peak these builds could actually get very high win rates unlike the ones today, if played skillfully, and not simply because they were blatantly broken like CH Support was a few months ago.
< Message edited by NDB -- 5/9/2019 2:35:52 >
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