SubClass Balance Issues in release 225

First off a WM does not get a vorp or piercing every map unlike the AM. The AM always gets the rod no matter what, and with the extreme AM starting off with 250 adrenaline as soon as they enter the game they are ready to start spamming the rod with the triple at will. It is only by chance that you get those special weapons, so following the analogy that hatter was using about nerfing those weapons, are you proposing to get the rod also by chance, as it is done for every other class?

my experience with the XAM is that even when you run out of adren running is still an option,as you will always have your best weapons,and 2 adren for beam is great.
with a WMs with some luck ,or kindness of someone else you will get some good weapons ,but one death and you lose them all (keeping one if your lucky)
Players will adjust adren usage with the XAM and will use different artifacts as suites their playing style,you don't have to constantly use beam,and you can use weapons
and in all honesty I can spam with the beam as an XAM just like any other weapon using it doesn't require anymore skill than a shock rifle IMHO.
as someone who has spent a large amount of time as an AM lately what worries me most is that I can score consistently in the same range as my WM whom is 200+levels higher
Rod is defiantly part of the problem ,but it is also a needed weapon for AMs (part of the magic feel for me)
I do believe we need to encourage more WMs to play though.The lower level Engis,Medics,Generals,Junkies are encouraging an overly defensive style of play,we're better off if we work together but not "huddle" together
how do we do that give 'em their edge back,pump 'em up !
2 more cents for the mound

I just kinda of feel that the 40% nerf to the rod (uses 40% more adrenaline with the change) is just a bit overboard. I'm with Elite saying that Rod + Triple was overpowered and needed a fix but increasing the actual adrenaline cost by 40% is a bit much. The damage on the rod isn't changing but it will burn the limited adrenaline quickly.

The big difference between the beam and the rod is that the beam actually does more damage and you have more control over the adrenaline usage. Sure 7 for the beam and 6.66 adrenaline for the rod isnt much difference between the two but the rod has capped damage at 10% of a monsters life or 100 damage, whichever is smaller. A beam can kill several monsters in just one or 2 hits, rod will always have to tick 10 times (about 4-5 seconds or so) to kill the same monster giving plenty of other time for someone else to "steal" the kill which the AM loses the surge bonus. Rod when you take out the triple, can't be used in any of the later waves since its more cost effective to triple the weapon you have and kill or use the beam with its higher damage value to have more of a chance to grant the kill, the spree bonus if available, and the surge bonus for the actual kill.

Normal Rod usage hasn't been racking up hundreds of kills, its as elite said the combo of rod+triple where you can basically clear a room of 10 monsters with the combo, get a large spree, and keep a decent amount of adrenaline. You couldn't do that with just the current rod alone as it would have to tick 10 times which by then you would have been well out of adrenaline.

Remember that triple doesnt facter into the rods current adrenaline cost (as least I havent noticed it). With Triple the rod does 3x damage at the cost of 15% of the base damage. If it was doing 60 damage ticks to a gasbag sucking 9 adrenaline per tick, triple would cause 180 damage ticks still sucking 9 adrenaline per tick (as least thats how it seems to be working now, correct me if im wrong.)

Also with triple running, it would only take 4 ticks instead of 10 to kill a monster thus keeping a spree alive much easier thus keeping adrenaline higher with the adrenal bonus on top of the surge bonus. Also the difference between 4 ticks with triple and 10 ticks normally is that anyone can easily steal your low hp monster denying you of the spree bonus and surge bonus that rod is so reliant on having.

If anything needed to be changed besides the trip+rod combo it could have been the damage value on the rod instead of the adrenaline cost. Having a slightly lower damage value on it (8% instead of 10%) would not affect the costs and rod would have to run longer to do the same amount of damage (12-13 ticks to kill a mosnter) but the rod would not consume any more adrenaline then it does now. It wouldnt affect the cost/use ratio since less damage would consume less adrenaline but the factor of time would increase.

The other problem with the base rod usage is that it nullifies the adrenal drip ability costing the AM more adrenaline in the form of lost regen. Without the triple to kill the monsters quickly, it already is costing more then it does when you run it since you lose that ability in which beam doesnt have to worry about. Its got to be stronger the then bolt in terms of having a lower adrenaline cost for the sole reason, the rod cannot kill things fast at all due to the sole limit that its 10% based for most monsters and requiring it to zap 10 times before it kills.

But a 40% increase to the adrenaline cost would prob just kill off any use the rod would have.

Thè-Hättêr wrote:

@szlat
if the issue with Rod is people doing +200 kills in a map?
if so then i a high lvl player can make +200 kills with a vop shock? or a p flak. then should we nerf it?

No, not just because of the number of kills. You have to aim the shock. The rod is unaimed, and is too powerful for something that doesn't have to be aimed.
Anything that isn't aimed that is scoring over 100 kills a map in my opinion is too powerful.

Dracos wrote:

Normal Rod usage hasn't been racking up hundreds of kills,

I do not know this. I know rod+triple and rod+double have.

Dracos wrote:

....With Triple the rod does 3x damage at the cost of 15% of the base damage. If it was doing 60 damage ticks to a gasbag sucking 9 adrenaline per tick, triple would cause 180 damage ticks still sucking 9 adrenaline per tick (as least thats how it seems to be working now, correct me if im wrong.)

The triple in invasion only provides double damage. So the rod+double does the same damage as rod+triple.

Dracos wrote:

If anything needed to be changed besides the trip+rod combo it could have been the damage value on the rod instead of the adrenaline cost. Having a slightly lower damage value on it (8% instead of 10%) would not affect the costs and rod would have to run longer to do the same amount of damage (12-13 ticks to kill a mosnter) but the rod would not consume any more adrenaline then it does now. It wouldnt affect the cost/use ratio since less damage would consume less adrenaline but the factor of time would increase.

...and so we would still get the same kills (apart from other people stealing the kills), just delayed by an initial 2 secs. Sure each kill takes longer, but you still get the kill.

Dracos wrote:

Its got to be stronger the then bolt in terms of having a lower adrenaline cost for the sole reason, the rod cannot kill things fast at all due to the sole limit that its 10% based for most monsters and requiring it to zap 10 times before it kills.

But to be able kill say 4 monsters in 5 secs is very powerful. It makes it as powerful as a flak with an aimbot.

one thing you gotta keep in mind with sentinels is the number of players on and the level of those players and their play-style. webghost typically will sit in the back of someone's base and use a lucky weapon and/or shoot out of the base since he cannot survive well by himself. alot of times a low level player will do similar. if I have a sentinel outside my base with all the players hiding in my base not near my sent, of COURSE its going to get alot of kills. also as a near 200 level engi, if I'm last monsters got some crazy damage reduction. if I dont have a piercing the only weapons I can use against those monsters is my light sent (or rod if I happen to get one). using a light sent to get my kills when I am the only one alive is the only feasible option in such a circumstance.

If you think that's what the rod needs then ok. I just feel that the rod in its base form right now will go from semi-useful to more useless based on napkin math due to how much adrenaline it will drain. Won't know more until the release but I think bolt would be even more useful the the rod (and thats saying a lot) since you don't cut off the adrenal drip ability with bolt and the bolt can actually kill a monster better then rod due to its set damage and non percentile.

Is it possible to have adrenal drip continue to work thru having the rod turned on then. At least that would offset the increased cost of it by a little since it costs 1 adrenaline per sec and prevents the 1 adrenaline per sec from Drip so a total cost of 2 adrenaline per sec while its on.

Also, for the multiple monsters on attack, remember that the AM's are the most fragile and having multiple monsters attacking you due to the rod hitting them and taking 5+ seconds to kill leads the AM to possible take damage which AM's have a hard time replenishing compared to other classes. More of a glass cannon scenario.

I just thought I would bring up the fact that the general subclass maxes out its core abilities around level 115 which is my current level. The only 2 things I have not bought are loaded engineer levels 1-5 which is 25 points and construction health bonus levels 1-3 which is 12 points. I have the points to buy these skills, I even have in excess; I currently bought ultima instead of loaded engineer until the bug is fixed. But my point here is about the general subclass maxing out its primaries at this level. Is this the way it was meant? My medic didnt nearly max out its core abilities until reaching 200+, and the engineer was the same. The only class that actually peaked out pretty quick was the AM, which was around the 120's, and I still think that class maxes out too soon. This makes the general the quickest one to max out, and although this is true, it is not as strong as a class at that level should be. Sure early on it racks points fairly quickly but after 100+ it reaches its limit. Maybe there should be a 10 level gap between the purchase of class skills in the general class, to reduce the strength of low level generals. For example when you start off at level 5 and you choose the general, you can only buy the skills of one class until you reach level 15 then you can buy the skills of a second class, and 25 would be the third and 35 would be the 4th. This would not make the class weaker just halt a bit the excess strength at a low level. Also perhaps more perks from each class should be added, IMHO something is needed for the higher levels(100+). Just my over all opinion on this class, hope it helps.

Thanks for the feedback. A lot of abilities increase in cost the more levels you buy. Because the General class only buys the first few levels, it ends up getting a cheap deal each time.

It would be possible to have different costs for the General class, just so they spend more points, but that seems a bit unfair rarely.

Limiting how early they can buy multiple "Loaded ...." abilities and hence mixing classes is a possiblity. However, you couldn't really fix the order, so it gets a bit more complicated.

There are a couple of extra skills for the General class for enhancing defense sentinels that are not live yet. They have a total cost of 100 points.

So the question to throw back at you is what are they missing? Does it just need more of each class? - but we have to be careful to keep it below the hybrids in each class. Is one class particularly under-powered i.e. can you play as a LW or as an AM or as a Medic or as an Eng? Does it need some Loaded Monsters?

Or any suggestions as to what sort of new skills might be appropriate for a totally mixed character?

in my opinion of the general, there is less WM than anything. example:

general loaded medic 2 compaired to medic loaded medic 3
general loaded engi 5 to engi loaded engi 15
drip 3 am and gen
leech 3 am and gen
general loaded weapons 1 to WM loaded weapons 5
general vamp 2 to general vamp 10
General adv DB 2 to WM adv DB 10
general adv DR 2 to medic adv DR 10

with such a low vamp, a general cannot really rely on vamp to keep their health up. also, while I understand not wanting to give general many if any offensive artifacts, having only 2 for the hybrid loaded artifacts seems like a waste. I find myself with full adren all the time because I dont have things I would spend it on unless I get in trouble

Well the general class misses at my point of view loaded monsters lv 6, monster points lv 6, intelligence lv 3, monster health lv 3 = 72 points

just my 2 cents

About sentinels damage nerfing.

This my score using my linkgun, hellbender and a light sent, the score is pretty good

the score is around 3500, it doesnt show in the pic.

But as you can see the sentinel score doesnt exceed the 100 kills, so if a sent specialist gets thier primary weapon nerfed ( sentinels ) how they will be competitive agaits berserkers or AM ??? their linkgun is nerfed, their sents nerfed, they cant heal themselves, Its kinda disappointing playing as a engineer in the next build.

I say no to nerfing sentinels, they are good the way they are.

RoadKill v3.4 wrote:

my experience with the XAM is that even when you run out of adren running is still an option,as you will always have your best weapons,and 2 adren for beam is great.

2 adren for beam = 14 base damage... sure as anything, I ain't gonna be killing a titan, queen or warlord quickly that way. Much less a group of them. And given how fragile AM/XAM is... they will likely be killing me rather quickly, as experience has shown me.

RoadKill v3.4 wrote:

with a WMs with some luck ,or kindness of someone else you will get some good weapons ,but one death and you lose them all (keeping one if your lucky)
Players will adjust adren usage with the XAM and will use different artifacts as suites their playing style,you don't have to constantly use beam,and you can use weapons

Doing half the damage on weapons and running out of ammo... even a slow fire weapon like the flak is all but useless for any real use. And if it is a later wave and I happen to have been killed and do come back, even with all that adren, there is no way I am going to be able to pick up more than a weapon or two.

RoadKill v3.4 wrote:

and in all honesty I can spam with the beam as an XAM just like any other weapon using it doesn't require anymore skill than a shock rifle IMHO.
as someone who has spent a large amount of time as an AM lately what worries me most is that I can score consistently in the same range as my WM whom is 200+levels higher

OK... What levels are we talking about?? And are we talking about XP or kill points??? Realistically speaking, once we hit some key level for a class, we **will** generally score about the same regardless of class, if we have found a good match for our playing style.

As for spamming... given a fire rate of 0.7 for a shock (which is press and hold for repeat fire) vs. 0.5 for a beam (which is press, release, wait and press again)... it truly does not surprise me that you can spam just as effectively. And yes, if you are good at distance shots with the shock, lightning, or sniper (especially if you do not zoom the scope on the latter two), you will be good with the bolt. One reason I have very small crosshairs for these weapons (a trick I learned from friends I played with who also played on the pro-tour, as in making $$ for playing, servers).

And I still want to see what the fire rate for the turrets, esp. the energy turret are. I will lay odds that even with minimal linking, a decent level player with weapon speed can do massive damage/second.

RoadKill v3.4 wrote:

Rod is defiantly part of the problem ,but it is also a needed weapon for AMs (part of the magic feel for me)

I do not think that the rod, in and of itself is the problem. First, what is the range (another good factor all weapons/attack artifacts really should have listed) for the rod, against say a shock?? Then we need to consider that as I have pointed out before, in waves with the "larger" monsters, the rod tends to self-limit, as we do so much damage with a normal mix of players on the server, that we do not get kills, and generally run out of adren fairly quickly. Yes, some folks like Elite **somehow** manage to avoid this at times, but... The problem is probably the combination of rod/DD or rod/triple, which also suffers the same problem to some degree or another.

I will suggest again, if you want to lessen things a bit, try creating a variable range on the rod, which is less behind you than in front of you. I would not mind it too much if a rod had a range of say 100 units in front, and only 10 behind me, with directly to my left/right say 55. I would probably end up killing fewer bunnies behind me unknowingly and getting nailed by the blast.

RoadKill v3.4 wrote:

I do believe we need to encourage more WMs to play though.The lower level Engis,Medics,Generals,Junkies are encouraging an overly defensive style of play,we're better off if we work together but not "huddle" together
how do we do that give 'em their edge back,pump 'em up !
2 more cents for the mound

I would have to think about this a bit. There does seem to be some tendency to create a base and try to work from there. But is it because fewer WMs play? Or is it because that is what the classes as a whole have done towards our playing style?? You may be inferring a correlation which does not truly exist (though on some maps, half the engies may be running scorpions around the map). Engis and Medics are from all I have seen encouraged to do this sort of thing. Generals... well, I have seen a number of folks play fairly aggressively with this class. AMs... well, even as fragile as they are, some of us do play rather aggressively with them, rather than sit in a base and try to rack up xp running a sphere. Yes, some maps, some waves, I can be fairly defensive... but it is generally because I am concerned about adren levels for the current and upcoming waves. But as I said, I am not so sure it is because we have fewer WMs playing.