LA nerf plus other changes otw

[Zoidmeister]

http://www.camelotherald.com/more/837.php


The purpose of this note is to give you, the Camelot Community, a sense of what we're working on in the near future. Right now there's a lot of confusion and uncertainty about our priorities, and I want to take a moment to lay out our schedule for the next couple of weeks.

First, we know that we did a round of enhancements to Albion, and we never announced our next step, which everyone assumed would be moving on to Hibernia. When we didn't, there was a lot of consternation and concern for that Realm. So, just to make sure that there isn't any more confusion, here's a list of the ongoing tweaks and fixes we're working on for 1.62:

- Assessing why Valewalker performance in RvR is substandard and taking appropriate measures.

- Assessing why Animist performance in RvR in substandard and taking appropriate measures.

- Addressing Midgard's Left Axe style/endurance regeneration combination, which leads to Berserkers and Shadowzerks doing more damage than they would normally be able to.
- Fixing some bugs with some Celtic Dual and Dual Wield combat styles to make them do commensurate damage as other tanks.

- Making Triple Wield more effective and usable more often.

- Making Dirty Tricks more effective and usable more often.

- A run-through of general Hibernian class issues, with tweaks and fixes as appropriate, similar to the Albion tweaks we did a few months ago.

- Opening up some race/class combinations in Hibernia.

- Of course, addressing any other bug fixes and issues that crop up.

Status on Housing: we are getting ready to take Housing into beta on Pendragon next week. We've been working very hard on this, and think we have a great, flexible, housing system that players who want to have their own space in the game will love.

We're also gearing up to getting free mid-level characters to those accounts that have a level 50 character. I'm going to be vague on this until we have a more definite plan in place but suffice it to say that it will be as least as robust as Mark described many months ago in a State of the Game letter.

Finally, we're going to be making a major announcement about our RvR enhancement plan in a few weeks via a press release. Suffice it to say, we know that the endgame of Camelot is all about RvR and we have a plan for focusing on and improving it as such.


That start at level 20 option they talked about a year ago they are talking about again.

[Bulor]

hrrrm i don't like.... i might have to sell my account early before this type of nerf.

it's not like LA + end regen does more damage, we are just able to use more style attacks.. gawh, the other realms act as if they don't have end regen themselves.. blah i'm done with daoc, that just way to upsetting..

oki i'm back, just to whore a lil mroe with my caster.. then i'm done lol

[revumbra]

Coming from Albion and now in Midgard, i hate to bust your bubble but LA needed to be looked at.
LA had more bonuses and good things than it had draw backs to comparison styles of other realms.
That being said, wtf is the midgard love in RAs?

I think Mythic should hold off on a midgard nerf patch until they toss in the midgard new useful RA patch.

K/Oo

[Zoidmeister]

Hang in there Brail. Also agreed on Oobs points ... SB Shadow Run is a joke compared to Infiltrator Vanish etc.

The free mid level character is what I was waiting for since they first talked about it some 1+ years ago. I have no idea why they delayed it so much since it could add so much more fun to the game and help through the boring 1-20'ish levels.

[Mikeydee]

woohoo, more patching to make the realms exactly the same....or i mean balanced

[Candide]

I have to agree, LA is a bit overpowered. And it is BECAUSE they tried to make the realms the same thanks to whiners that it is more of an issue, with end regen.

Mids overall seem to have the strongest classes for sure. yes there are exceptions but over all, they have the fewest classes, and thus each class has more abilities than say any one alb class.

[Twystyd]

they have the fewest classes

This is a fact you do not see posted by the VN retards. I especially catch a laugh when they speak of Mid healers being overpowered. They may actually have an argument if we had more then two classes with the capability to heal. I wonder if people will actually fire up their thanes again .

[revumbra]

Hmmm Law is right.
One of the big issues in midgard is healing classes.
Since the healer has 2 jobs instead of one, midgard suffers from classes that can heal substantially.

Albion = 2 real healers (friar, cleric)
Hibernia = 3 real healers (bard, warden, druid)
Midgard = 2 real healers (healer, shaman)

Albion
Friar - melee healer/buffer
Cleric - pure healer/buffer

Hibernia
Bard - primary CC healer/buffer and speed class
Warden - Bubble boy with melee healer/buffer
Druid - pure healer/buffer

Midgard
Healer - pure healer primary CC
Shaman - casting healer/buffer


So what it comes down to is Midgard needs another healing class pure and simple.
Or make changes to the way the Healer class is done.

Back to the discussion at hand though, LA is overpowered in current form in comparison to any weapon styles.

K/Oo

[Zoidmeister]

Another mid healing class wouldn't help since no one wants to play healing classes.

What would help is if a midgard class had the faith heal ability that a pally has

Good place to put this is a skald or thane.

[Kaldz]

LA was always a bit crazy for damage, but it wasn't so much of a problem when they could only get 3-4 styles out before ooe. Now they can sprint and DF/SS their way through enemies all day.

Hitting for what 2h tanks hit for, at ~3.3 speed, is a bit much.


I also agree though, mid has a lot of problems that need addressing.
Our primary healer is our primary CC, so you rarely have a healer who can heal as well as a cleric or druid. This also results in a lack of spirit/body/energy resist buffs.

Our unique RA's are poor at best. Ichor is good, PR is "ok" (although PR'ing someone and having another resser overwrite it isn't fun). Nothing compared to GP, BAoD, BoF, SOS, TWF, Vanish, etc.

The other realms arent really CC'able now anyway. Albs have a mezz chant, and clerics normally have a decent body buff. Hibs alllllllllllllllways have resist buffs, along with group purge and BAoD.


neway end of essay, I spend more time talking about this game than I do playing it. Goodnight.

[killets]

hehe.. i hate to be a party pooper, but LA does do more damage than any non-CS styles in the game.

almost double.

Well, here's a brief history of Left Axe, and how it became "uber":

At release date, Left Axe was designed very different than CD/DW, and was much more reliable. It started by halving the base damage of both weapons, with the theory that unstyled damage would be equal to a single weapon swing, and styled damage would be similar (note that the "haste" effect of using a slow mainhand and a fast offhand was deliberate design - it was discussed many times by various devs in late beta/early release). Originally, you started with a 50% penalty to base damage, which would increase by .5% per spec in Left Axe.

1.38 (December 11, 2001): - The percent chance to hit with your second weapon when dual wielding has been increased (thus increasing the aggregate DPS for dual wielders). Likewise, the damages for left axe have been increased.

In 1.38, base damage was increased to 65% from 50%. This was a nice little damage boost, but not a lot - Berserkers still generally had some problems, and SZ's weren't really heard of. Some 'zerks complained, and this was watched.

Eventually, the "combat style strike team" hit the table, and the proverbial dog doodoo hit the fan in 1.50:

1.50 - - All Left Axe styles which grow in damage as you train further in left axe have the amount they grow doubled. This is to balance out the fact that left axe damage is cut in half (because two weapons hit every round).

At this same time, the Doublefrost style was changed (end cost reduced, growth rate modified). What's interesting to note here are the key parts in the above sentence: the fact that growth rates are doubled to offset the fact that base damage is halved. This is where the problem with Left Axe really started - because base damage isn't halved, it's decreased by 35%, and decreased by .5% less per spec level. They made this change assuming a 50% base reduction in damage when in reality a player with only 40 spec LA sees a mere 15% reduction in damage.

Current growth rates of Left Axe compared to normal style lines show that they are still indeed doubled. Typical style lines have taunts with a growth rate of .6 - LA Snowblind is 1.2. Typical style lines have low level anytime styles with growth rates of .4 - LA Ravager is .7. Typical style lines have chains off low level styles with growth rates of .65-.7 - LA's Atrophy is 1.3. Some style lines have mid level anytime styles with growth rates between .6-.7 - LA's Doublefrost is 1.4. It goes on and on - comparing styles in the Left Axe line, they almost all have double the growth rates of similar styles in other lines.

Double the growth rate to offset a reduction of a very small effective % loss of base damage. Chew on that.

Most of us were already aware of this (I'm only bringing it back up again due to the recent hoopla about Firor's comment on LA), and the details on it are also in other discussions here. We all note there are some styles in other lines which are quite powerful, but the across the board doubling of LA is too much. These are the facts - LA was modified to bring it into line in such a way that resulted in it being made overpowered. If it's brought into line properly, the line will still be immensely powerful, without being overpowered.

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In Comparison to DW/CD:

While the right hand is 65% + Spec/2, the left hand hits for the same damage. Thus the damage that the player is actually doing is 130% + Spec, relative to a 1Handed weapon.

Dual Wielders do 100% with their main hand and swing their offhand only 25% + Spec * 3/4. Thus they do 125% + Spec * 3/4 damage. Its roughly equal to that of LA's unstyled damage.

Ignoring the fact that Left Axe styles do double the damage of any other styles in the game, unstyled damage wise, left axe users are already doing 180% base damage compared to 1-h users. DW/CD are doing 160% base damage compared to 1-h users. In contrast, 2-h users are only doing 125% base damage compared to 1-h users.

Now lets go into why Left Axe styles totally fux0red up the numbers:

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Here's a primer on what Growth Rates are:

http://home.nc.rr.com/obsidianguard/wyrd/Styles.htm

And here are known growth rates for given styles:

http://home.nc.rr.com/obsidianguard/wyrd/Albion.htm
http://home.nc.rr.com/obsidianguard/wyrd/Hibernia.htm
http://home.nc.rr.com/obsidianguard/wyrd/Midgard.htm


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Of particular note, notice the growth rates on Left Axe, versus Celtic Dual and Dual Wield.

A couple major disparities. 1) Dual Wield's best anytime style , Misty Gloom (that doesn't have a defensive penalty / is not a taunt), has a .44 growth rate.
2) Left Axe's best anytime style is which has no defensive penalty is Doublefrost, which has a growth rate of 1.46. More than 3 times as powerful.
3) Almost all Left Axe growth rates are over 1.00. This means that using a Left Axe style will at the very least add double your non-styled damage, and at the most, add pretty much triple your non-styled damage. There aren't many styles in the entire game that can do this.. much less all the styles in an entire line, which is left axe.

Those are the major reasons why Left Axe will have to undoubtedly be nerfed.

[Mosthula]

LA Is overpowered. Hate to break it to everyone. Dont go screaming the house is burning down till you see what they do. And yes I have 44 LA. Soulblade powah! Zoid's post is 100% correct about growth rate of the LA styles vs other styles. Read it and the attached links then you might see the light.

[killets]

i'm killets! not zoid.