Just in case you thought it was just berserkers

[Malison]

Read this thread and check out some of the links...

http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=47993223&replies=30

Warriors hitting for 600 or more dmg, not counting crits, versus all sorts of classes.  Unfortunately, you won't see any Albion caster hitting for that much, and w're supposed to kill from range how?  I've also heard reports of Echoic hitting for that much now.  I know she usually hits me for at least 400 or so. I can't see how Skalds can claim how much they suck.

I hope Midgard gets hit by the hardest nerfs since scouts.  I hope they shrivel and die and fail to ever come out of their PKs.  

--a bitter caster

[Zutroy]

I will agree with you to some extent on this Mal; non-PBAE caster performance in roaming 8 man groups is mediocre at best. With RAs (SoS, Group Purge, and MoC are some HUGE ones) casters can be totally devesitating in open-field combat, but generally, they're the first to die and don't make much of an impact on the fight. That's not to say a particularly talented group couldn't make it work, but it's alot more difficult to cause damage once that quickcast is down.

I guess you could see it as a tradeoff. My zerker is totally worthless in keep sieges and standoff fights which casters (especially DoT casters) excell at.

Edit - Add BoF to that RA list too. Hitting a caster for 50 with your most damaging style sucks.

(Edited by Zutroy at 7:03 pm on April 9, 2003)

[Rosslyn]

"Hitting a caster for 50 with your most damaging style sucks."

hehe, true, but unless he just popped MoC off, at least you interrupted him.  You'll eventually win when the score is 50-0 each round.

[Malison]

I think people should never look at RAs when considering balance. They should look at the classes, and what groups each realm can turn out on a day to day basis (not the perfect group some people can run around with)  AFTER that is all done, they should create a balanced RA system, one that gives each character a unique, useful, fun RA, but that doesn't cause the whole realm to go (aww frell BoF, SOS, Group Purge)

But they better not dare touch Alb RAs until they fix realm and population imbalances.

Last night I heard a guy over AS say "I just got hit by a caster for 625 damage, yeah, casters need love"

Yeah, If i were debuffed, critted, mastery of mageried (in case of hib) or bolted with all power relics, i would take that much too from a caster.

That brings up a question i had though, if a wizard starts casting a bolt at me (which i know it is because of his range) can i just enter combat mode  with no target to avoid its effects, or did they fix that and you have to be able to actually hit someone to be considered "im combat"?

[Zutroy]

"I think people should never look at RAs when considering balance"

That would make sense if all unique RAs were basically the same in all 3 realms. But throw in insta-win RA's like SoS, BoF and GP and suddenly you've got a realm that can't compete against any RR3+ groups from the other realms.

"Last night I heard a guy over AS say "I just got hit by a caster for 625 damage, yeah, casters need love""

I have a screenshot of my zerker being base-line heat nuked for 1022 by a chanter (1.5s cast time w/ buffs). Wanna see it?

"That brings up a question i had though, if a wizard starts casting a bolt at me (which i know it is because of his range) can i just enter combat mode  with no target to avoid its effects, or did they fix that and you have to be able to actually hit someone to be considered "im combat"?"

No, you must either be meleeing someone or be within the interrupt timer if a spell/melee hits you. IIRC this works exactly like archer's critshot but the target can be moving while the bolt is shot (although I think it has a greater chance of missing).

[Mchagen]

"But throw in insta-win RA's like SoS, BoF and GP and suddenly you've got a realm that can't compete against any RR3+ groups from the other realms"

Right, every 30 minutes.  You run into trouble more often than once every 30 minutes.  

Stun/insta stun > SOS as well... :/

[Zutroy]

"You run into trouble more often than once every 30 minutes"

But you wouldn't need to use SoS every encounter if the realms were balanced without RAs, no?

[Bolldar Bloodaxe]

You don't need to be in mellee to screw a wizard bolt, almost anything will do it and the moment someone goes to melee mode they gone. Add in misses, blocks and resists and bolts are almost totally useless.

Wizards almost never get the big hits they need to do, even with PBAOE at 50+13 im happy to get 400 damage and don't often get that. Enchanters are a whole different story they can consistenly hit hard due to there debuffs and stuns followed up by nukes. Albion casters dont even begin to compare to that.

Btw, one of the deadliest things i find when RvRing is the other realm dots. A single one can kill me quite often if healers are out of range or snoozy or i dont have one.

BTW MOC is useless vs stun delivered in any of its types ie melee, poison or cast. Also negated by mez of course. And unless you have a good blocker with you you can die quicker than you can cast.

[Malison]

zutroy, please do post that screenshot.  How the hell can a caster hit for 1000 with a nuke that does cap damage of 537? If crits are limited to 50% tops, he'd have to have hit for nearly 700 damage? With a baseline nuke?  Unless it was a light enchanter hitting you, and you were debuffed by a mana enchanter, which makes this possible (light enchanters cap out at 617)

I just dont see how a single mage class could ever hit for that much against a guy with resist buffs, which is assumed to be the norm in rvr.

And as i stated before, RAs should be balanced and not overpowering, there shouldn't be realm abilites like BoF that turn the entire tide of battle.  Clasesses and Realms should have been balanced before and after the implementation of the RA system.  That didn't happen though, so I'm happy with the one's we got (as a realm. Juggernaught just sucks)

We'd also need to reduce the cost of a lot of these RAs, since 14 points for any unique, non-balance altering ability is just insane

Bolldar, in RvR, the only way i'll ever kill a caster with just dots is if i crit one, or i get my second dot off.  With resists, my dot hits for 90 a tick, for 6 ticks. My baseline will do the same, 90 a tick for 5 ticks = 990 damge total. So yeah, I'll kill a caster with my main form of attack, if he has no major hp buffs, and doesnt have 20% matter resist, and i get to cast on him twice, and he has no heals.  I also have to live for 30 secconds after that in order to get credit for the kill.  

Last night we were at Bleedmer and Cirand had a warrior or shadowblade beating on her (not sure which) I landed 2 dots and about 5 or 6 lifetaps, and the guy didn't die.  He also wasn't getting healed.  He killed cirand and then chased me down and killed me in 2 hits.  I just don't know how I can be expected to compete in RvR against something like that.  I didn't sign up to play this class as a support character, but it became very apparent that was all a cabalist is good for, laying down nearsight and aoe disease. yay.

[Rosslyn]

"there shouldn't be realm abilites like BoF that turn the entire tide of battle."

I totally disagree with this argument (and that's not a personal stab at you, I feel this way about all forms of this argument in general).  People always call this Albion's "I win" button, when in reality all it does is greatly reduce MELEE damage for a short period of time.  It doesn't have CC capabilities to disrupt the other group, it doesn't prevent them from healing or doing anything else to support themselves, and it sure as hell doesn't do anything against magic attacks.  Furthermore, even though the melee damage is almost negligible when BoF is running, casters are still interrupted!  Okay, so the zerker (or whoever) no longer drops the cleric in three hits.  Either way, the cleric still isn't healing while being attacked.  All these people on the other side have to do is either A.) stop wasting their (sometimes unlimited) endurance while BoF is up and wait it out  B.)  use one of their myriad CC spells to hold the group still until BoF wears off (assuming SoS isn't used/available, and the minstrel can't kick it off if he's CC'd to begin with)  C.)  For Pete's sake, nuke the Albs!   Having a melee character bitch about BoF being an "I Win" button is about the same as the same character bitching because when they stood right next to the PBAoE caster w/ MoC up, he wasn't interrupted and they died to his spells.  Well, duhhhh.  It's called recognizing the situation and reacting to it.  IMHO, Perfect Recovery is just as good as BoF.  Here's why:  Alb group runs into Mid group, attackers /assist and take out (for instance) the runey (or a healer) while he empties a good chunk of his power bar on them as they close.  During this time, of course, the Mid group is doing it's own thing, and has probably taken out any cloth-wearers in the Alb group.  The Alb group changes targets, and suddenly the runey/healer/whoever died is standing behind them with full life/power and lets them have it with whatever they've got.

THAT has some serious utility.  It's hard enough to kill people w/o killing them twice, not to mention they get two full bars of power to use.  It's also worth mentioning that you can PR people regardless of whether they've been killed by melee or magic :biggrin:

[Malison]

I agree, there are lots and lots of good options for dealing with BoF and SoS.  Its not as good as the other side claims, but i'll say this, its damn useful.  Its let me survive an encounter to be healed.  The fact is, we shouldn't need it, but that's really part of my argument. This game shouldn't require BoF to be up for me to stay alive for 30 seconds.  The point was, balance the realms first, then you can balance the realm abilites next, and boy do those realm abilites need balancing..right after mids aoe stun, insta mez and overall damage.

BTW, here's a neat link on style damage:

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

[Zutroy]

I lost my web space so I'd need someone to host it. Or I can send it to you over AIM if you want Mal. It's possible he critted with the debuff also.

Using the arguement that casters/healers still get interrupted only works if you're assuming the alb tanks are just standing around. By the time BoF wears off, the alb group should have at least 2 or 3 of the other group's support classes dead (if not the entire group). Bringing more casters is pointless because guess who's the first to die when BoF/SoS gets popped?

I don't see how you can say PR = BoF. You're talking about an ability that affects an entire group vs. one that's single target. It rezzes 1 person without rez sickness (they have no buffs though) and gives them full power/end/life. It still costs the healer normal rez power and has a 30 minute recycle timer. The only time I've ever seen a healer use this with some success is when doing "drive-by" rezzes; group member falls behind and gets picked off by the zerg, you double back, PR them, then run like hell.

[Rosslyn]

"By the time BoF wears off, the alb group should have at least 2 or 3 of the other group's support classes dead (if not the entire group). Bringing more casters is pointless because guess who's the first to die when BoF/SoS gets popped?"

I understand what you're saying, but I think you may have missed the central point of my statement, which is that BoF isn't an offensive ability.  It doesn't inherently allow people to do anything more than they otherwise would be able to do (aside from stay alive), and if the Mids in this case kept up the attack, the casters/healers couldn't do anything and the tanks would/should be held down by enough stun/mez/root to outlast the BoF.  As far as SoS is concerned, if the Albs use that it completely discounts the "2 or 3 of the other group's support classes dead" argument because you can't attack when SoS is running (which, coincidentally, only lasts as long as BoF, and not as long as some forms of CC).

As a side note, my point about PR is that it can be a pseudo-offensive ability because it essentially adds a 9th member to a group when it's used, and I don't think the fresh powerbar and no rez sickness should really be underestimated.  It probably shouldn't be 14 pts though, that's a little ridiculous.

(Edited by Rosslyn at 3:17 pm on April 11, 2003)

[Malison]

Hey Zutroy, do you still play on MLF? What's the RvR like over there? Did you get in a good guild?

Sorry, I completely forgot about a crit debuff, If got you down to -50% MR, he might have been able to hit for that much. I was under the impression that your damage cap was static, ie 537 was the tops unless you had mastery of magery or a crit.  So much of the game mechanics are obscured from us.  

Hell, I'd be happy if they just said "no one can go over 500 dmg ever 2 seconds, period, no way"  Tanks stop complaining about casters overnuking, casters get a chance to live.

Ah so many dreams I have

[Zutroy]

"It doesn't inherently allow people to do anything more than they otherwise would be able to do (aside from stay alive)"

Considering you can't deal damage while dead (unless you're a DoT caster) the result of you being alive for longer is you do more damage (something you wouldn't otherwise have been able to do without it). I mean it's like saying it's the bullet that kills people, not the person that pulled the trigger.

AFAIK you can attack, cast, and whatever while SoS is running. Only time you can't is if you get hit with either stun or mez before or during the time in which it's running. Pure tanks have access to purge for 4 realm points and can get determination 3 (60% CC reduction) for 6 more points. That brings insta CC down to about a 5 second duration and the longest castable CC to around 15 seconds max if you have capped resists. How long was the duration on BoF and SoS again?

We can argue the usefulness of PR all day (it's a very situational RA) but my main point about it is that it's no where near as effective as BoF in a normal fight. That's not to say it's totally worthless, but considering it costs just as much as BoF and 4 points more than hib's Group Purge it doesn't come close to matching the power of those abilities.