31 replies to this topic

[Njoror]

Hey Knights,

 

I've set up a place where I'll be putting each weekly Knight VCR report for you to view.

 

I will be adding the new reports as they come in here, for you to view and go over. Please use the reports as a way of seeing that all your class worries are being addressed, and to help cultivate discussion in the class forums regarding them.

 

You can access them here.

 

You can access the directory to all class reports here.

[Audn]

I noticed that neither VCR mentioned nothing about reproducing the bug with Shield Charge where your character gets stuck in running animation, to reproduce it:

• Use Shield Boomerang from maximum distance on a mob you're sure to kill with it (e.g. a poring or some low level monster).
• Use Shield Charge immediately after, due to the delay in the boomerang animation, you will be racing with your shield to see who strikes the target first.
• If your boomerang hits and kills the target while you're on charge animation, you will get stuck in running animation.
• If something else kills your target while you're on charge animation, you will get stuck in running animation.
• If your target keeps running and gets out of range while you're charging, you will get stuck in running animation.

These are all the observations that I can make on how to reproduce this Priority A Bug to te Knight class. Also, I'm quite positive this is making other classes with gap closing skills get stuck as well... 

 

and you know what? It sucks.

Edited by Audn, 29 March 2014 - 09:02 AM.

[VanS3n]

I noticed that neither VCR mentioned nothing about reproducing the bug with Shield Charge where your character gets stuck in running animation, to reproduce it:

• Use Shield Boomerang from maximum distance on a mob you're sure to kill with it (e.g. a poring or some low level monster).
• Use Shield Charge immediately after, due to the delay in the boomerang animation, you will be racing with your shield to see who strikes the target first.
• If your boomerang hits and kills the target while you're on charge animation, you will get stuck in running animation.
• If something else kills your target while you're on charge animation, you will get stuck in running animation.
• If your target keeps running and gets out of range while you're charging, you will get stuck in running animation.

These are all the observations that I can make on how to reproduce this Priority A Bug to te Knight class. Also, I'm quite positive this is making other classes with gap closing skills get stuck as well... 

 

and you know what? It sucks.

 

well it does happen to me when my target gets out of range while im charging at it.. especially if it moves quickly from the line of my charge

[Guigui]

very good report. it pretty much summs it up, that osiris shield.... oh god it sucks.... iv pushed my parry rate to its peek, (38%) really? is this a joke.... we have a shield for gods sakes. and that defense... sure im at 75% but so is every other class....  and that miss.... a good idea would be like the pally skill in ro1. sacrifice a % of ones hp to inflict a fixed amount of dmg wich cannot miss. 
 

once again nice report.

Edited by Guigui, 31 March 2014 - 06:34 AM.

[Shinyusuke]

very good report. it pretty much summs it up, that osiris shield.... oh god it sucks.... iv pushed my parry rate to its peek, (38%) really? is this a joke.... we have a shield for gods sakes. and that defense... sure im at 75% but so is every other class.... and that miss.... a good idea would be like the pally skill in ro1. sacrifice a % of ones hp to inflict a fixed amount of dmg wich cannot miss.

once again nice report.

Is not the osiris shield all the ML shields are ridicolus

Edited by Shinyusuke, 01 April 2014 - 03:15 AM.

[Tiduspeco]

Is not the osiris shield all the ML shields are ridicolus

They won't be for much longer

[VanS3n]

hopefully then..

[Shinyusuke]

They won't be for much longer

I hope your sentence came from something you know as VCR because I lost my hopes long time ago i keep playing whit what we have until the day I will be forced to quit

[Tiduspeco]

I hope your sentence came from something you know as VCR because I lost my hopes long time ago i keep playing whit what we have until the day I will be forced to quit

There's going to be a lot changing before May and our shield is on the list

[Shinyusuke]

There's going to be a lot changing before May and our shield is on the list

Is yet 4/2 here so i guess is not an april fool... good :3

[Meconopsis]

I can confirm shields will be changing.

[VanS3n]

well hopefully a lot of the knight players will be around when those alledged changes be implemented

[Shinyusuke]

what about hit?

[Meconopsis]

There will be some possible changes to the hit formula, so it will be worked on and available on the 23rd maybe. Shields also gain damage reduction mechanics making the Knight Class specialize in highest defense and damage mitigation.

 

Everything I am saying is subject to change though, so don't take my words for granted.

[D3ATHNOTE]

Hopefully the changes can help knights be more durable. We need to be able to live longer in fights to do more damage over time. I don't mind hitting for less damage as long as I take less damage. Defender is so OP on warriors and having a warrior critical you for 25th when you have 22nd defense sucks haha.

[xLuc]

Uhm, is it just me or we can't open the reports? I try clicking them but nothing happens 

Oh nvm, my account wasn't logged in haha

Edited by xLuc, 04 April 2014 - 06:40 PM.

[Greven79]

oh boy... oh boy.

 

I have to say that those VCR reports are really, really bad and sometimes - at least in case of Deathnote's report - very egocentric, uninformal rant.

I thought the reports would include a breakdown what is broken, what should be addressed first and how to make the knight a distinct and balanced class.

 

For the breakdown . what is broken:

To sum up both VCR reports:

• All classes can have 50%+ defense rate

That's it. That was the only real issue in both reports. There were a few highly subjective statement about Knight preferred value being ATK & DEF amd false statements that both values are about the lowest of all tank classes. Specific skills and possible solutions were already mentioned in the summary (I wonder why it's called a summary). All in all, no line-up, no style, no indifferent presentation of issues. My feedback on the VCR reports -> D grade.

 

So let's get to the only remarkable point - the defense rate:

Although addressed as an issue in the summary section, there is almost no suggestion mentioned how to solve this (other than "fix it"). Thanks to Animalicia & Chaostamer149, we know the formula.

Defense Rate = Defense / ( [0.01*Defense] + [0.35*Level] + 8.7 )

The important facts are:

• 100% is the (unreachable) maximum rate (that's the 0.01 part)
• the %-benefit is dwindling with higher values
• the result is linear level-dependant

This shows that the formula is stupid to begin with. To explain the reason in more detail, let's shift the formula a bit:

75% Defense Rate = 100*3 * (0.35*Level + 8,7) = 105 * Level + 2610
50% Defense Rate = 100   * (0.35*Level + 8,7) = 35 * Level + 870
25% Defense Rate = 100/3 * (0.35*Level + 8,7)
...

With a lvl 70 char:

To achieve 75% defense rate, you need a defense of 9960. Only 105 defense per level are requred to keep it that way

To achieve 50% defense rate, you only need a defense of 3320. Only 35 defense per level are required, to keep it that way.

Also: To drop from 75% to 50%, it would take 190 additional levels without new gear

 

The problems with this formula are:

 

1) It's quite easy to reach the cap, but it takes three times as much defense than to reach 50%.

2.) Because some classes can reach the cap already, there is no more room for improved gear

3.) IWith Osiris gear, it's impossible to get below 30%... that means a useless narrowing of possible ranges

4.) Level get's irrelevant. If there will be lvl 80 gear in the future, it only takes +1050 defense to stay at 75% (350 defense for 50% and mere 116 for 25%)

5.) Defense is irrelevant on lower levels: A level 10 class would require 400 defense to achieve a 25% damage reduction

5.) The result of class-specific boni are hard to calculate, because they depend heavily on the starting value (f.e. Defender = +30% defense value EQUALS 70% => 75% defense rate)

 

What shouldn't stay unmentioned is the simple fact that defense values have already changed in favor for the Knight and the Warrior!!!

• Light armor = Monk, Wizard, Sorcerer, Priest, Soulmaker
• Medium armor = Beastmaster, Rogue, Assassin, Ranger, Crecentia => +50% pre-AoV, but +100% post-AoV in comparison to light armor
• Heavy armor = Warrior, Knight => +100% pre-AoV, but +300% post-AoV in comparison to light armor

Of course the benefit is 'eaten up' by the already high defense values and the declining defense rate benefit... but there is no way for a DPS-Warrior or DPS-Knoght to fall back to the defense rate of other DPS classes.

 

The monk class suffered the most from these changes. Whereas an Iron Skin put him at the same defense rate as a Rogue pre-AoV and Steel Body clearly ahead of a Warrior, he has no chance whatsoever to compete with a Warrior of Knight post-AoV... even with Iron Skin AND Steel Body, he still can't negate the differences that the Warrior and Knight gor 'for free'.

 

So how to fix it then?

Well, of course you could half the defense values of Osiris gear, modify the formula to have a 75% maximum or make the level more dependant (increase the 0.35 part) instead, but this wouldn't solve the problem completely.

IMO, Ragnarok2 is doomed as long as the defense formula stays the same.

 

what should be addressed first

At least these lists are longer, but quite random, builds up no argumentation-chain and contains no references to possible sources. Mentioned points:

• Fix defense
• Fix attack power
• Fix gear stat boni (preferable Shield)
• Fix Shield Cannon, Concentration and all skills with "Aura".

Fix defense

I've already addressed the defense part, but I want to go into more detail concerning the Shield-

Pre-AoV, the shield alone granted a ~47% bonus in addition to all other gear parts combined.

 

Barbossa - Heavy armor: 710 defense

Barbossa - Shield: 338 defense (+47.6%)

 

Barbossa - Light armor:  355 defense (Monk, Wizard, Sorcerer, Priest, Soulmaker)

 

The Shield alone therefore had almost the same defense as a complete Priest set! However, that made the Warrior - Defender skill balanced. The 30% defense bonus from 5 skill points was still less than what the Knight got 'for free' with the shield... and the monk skills were balanced, because +200% from Steel Body pushed the light armor up to a similar defense. 

 

Right now, it's a bit different

 

Osiris - Heavy armor (Knight w\o Shield): 6885 defense

Osiris - Medium armor (Beastmaster): 3422 defense (5342 with VIT-defense [full Osiris = 960 VIT])

Osiris - Shield: 442 defense

 

In order for the Beastmaster to compensate the lack of defense, he needs an additional 3463 points. A Warrior (with +0 gear) gets about +2060 defense when activating Defender, but that raises his defense rate by mere 5.5% (67.47% => 72.94%). So of course Gravity could fix the shield and increase the bonus back to at least 30% defense, but I honsetly doublt that this would fix the problem at all. (Same with reducing the besastmaster defense bonus through VIT to +1)

 

Fix attack power:

What does Attack Power mean today, if the weapon damage and weapon refinement bonus is worth much more? A Beastmaster with 2742 STR would end up with +520 physical skill effect. On contrast, the +0 spear adds 129X pts instead. That is the reason, why all the skills, no matter if it's Aura Blade or Bear Form are more or less insignificant. On contrast however, ONE skill is excluded and that skill is usually not mentioned in any post or report - Battle Tactics.

 

Due to the fact that the skill increases the critical damage dealt, not just the attack power, it also amplifies the weapon damage - which is the much larger portion. Assuming 250 INT=100% (Osiris Necklace and Earring already grant 173 INT) and a 30 % critical rate (crit. chance), the average damage increase is 30%... and this is equal to +30% ATK AND +30% weapon damage. That suddenly raises the Knight in a not so underwhelming position as is usually stated (at long as it's not compared to the Warrior). So IF you're stating to fix the ATK bonus, just mention to remove/alter the Battle Tactics skill as well (or change it into +0.4|0.8 ATK per INT) because that skill mainly determines the real damage output and is too much a must-have skill.

 

Fix gear stat total:

Well, that would be easy: Exchange Shield WIS with STR and add +120 AGI. Done! - And I really would have expected such a precise suggestion in the VCR report.

Normally, I would say that the argument "Wis = Elemental defense" is just nonsense, because noone would add WIS because of that if it isn't clear at all HOW it will be implemented or WHEN.... but hey, it's Gravity!!!

 

Fix Skills:

The Shield Cannon suggestions are just nonsense. At level 10, the skill already has 20sec cooldown (or less than 10sec with the typical 50%+ Vigor rates). has a higher skill-damage-multiplier and requires less Auras than the Warrior Rage Strike. Hitting multiple times is superior to one strike. With a 30% hit chance, a Warrior would miss with 2 of 3 Rage Strikes. The Knight on contrast, would hit with 1/3 of the Shield Cannons attack, at least dealing SOME damage with each skill use.

 

Aura Armor is already quite good as it is now, because +HP is similar to an additional damage reduction (that knows no cap) because you have to look at the percentual life loss per strike. The only drawback is that you can't see the 5% damage reduction and noone really knows when it's applied. So Gravity could change this at least into a 20% defense bonus instead.

 

how to make the knight a distinct and balanced class

 

There is no whatsoever information about that. Gravity could twitch skills and stats forever, but unless there is a defined goal, it's useless and an infinte process. F.e. should the Knight be good at supporting other group members or should he focus on more power for himselft. Where is the difference in a DPS build vs. a tank build beside taking Aura Armor or not.

 

So my final concusion is - that all the rant and whining might help, but none of the true issues were addressed.

[Shinyusuke]

I agree whit most of the things you said this defence percentage is crazy, and why there isn't in that formula the attack power of the "enemy"? Why they made a system that consider damage calculation and defence calculation not directly related?

Wouldn't be an easier thing also to balance a formula like: Damage = weapon damage+(attack power - defence)*(1-x*(LVa-LVd))? whit  LVa= level of the attacker LVd= level of the defender

 

Why the dodge is a mere number and the parry is a percentage? wouldn't be better if both are percentage and the hit is always 100% less the percentage to dodge or to parry?

example: hit= 100%- dodge rate*(1-x*(LVa-LVd)). Parry would work exactly as now.

 

these 2 formula allow to make gears always even more powerfull without reacing the cap, 2 equalli geared player of the same class will still suffer damage and there wouldn't be discrimination in classes using parry and in the ones using dodge

Edited by Shinyusuke, 06 April 2014 - 01:00 PM.

[Greven79]

I'm not sure if your ideas would work. They combined Hit & Dodge in one formula (that's why you don't see a dodge rate) and it's the biggest mess Gravity ever created.

Noone knows how this is implemented. Guessing from the experienced miss chances above 50% however, there doesn't seems to be a dodge cap.

 

I prefer the (1.07)^level theorem, you usually see in other games. This means that there is a static 7% grow per level to be expected (or any similar percentage). Like the interest of interests, this part of any formula calculates the result. This means is that you don't get better chances with each level up, but you want better gear to avoid a decline / downfall. After 5 levels without any new gear, the 7% would have added to 40%.... after 10 levels, it's already almost 100%. My english isn't good enough to explain it any better, but assuming a starting value of 200 resulting in a 25% crit. chance, you would need a value of 280 five levels later or almost 400 ten level later to achieve the same 25%.

 

If you would give the players only a 5% boost per level, you would achieve an increasing difficulty level. Do this on multiple levels (hitpoints, damage, hit, crit.chances, dodge, parry, etc.) and players would have to choose where to 'suffer less' rather than where to reach the cap.

 

Right now however, Vigor f.e. is strange because - based on the formula - you could get values above 100%. Parry rates & critical rates are also strange, because there is a cap at 50%. However, neither 100% Parry nor 100% Crit. would ruin the game IF the average damage per Strike is far less than the half the HP value of other players-

 

BUT - It's not just the defense formula that makes me sad, it's also the false whining of the knights and their representatives.

 

As already shown in my previous post, the Beastmaster has a much lower defense than the Knight. Of course he COULD choose the Grizzly Form to increase it, of couse he COULD go full-AGI build and spend 275 additional points in VIT and of course he COULD be a lucky guy to get all the Osiris gear filled up with +50 Seedrunes. However, beside all these 'maybe's, a knight still gets the better refinement boni... more than twice as much to be a bit more precise. So whereas some include uncommon stat builds or very unlikely rune values, NOONE and I literally mean NOONE ever mentoned the refinement inbalance in favor for Warriors and Knights. Why? - It wouldn't fit into the concept.

 

There is also no comment about other defensive capabilities, like a 10% armor rune, PvP damage reduction, etc... all of them an equally painful disaster. Although it's unknown how/when it is calculated, if damage reduction would be just added to any existing defense rate and wouldn't work beyond the cap, it's a definite advantage for any class with less defense to start with.

 

The similar thing happens with the offensive capabilites of a Knight. Some mention the inbalance of a 250% Bash vs. 350 Raging Blow (monk), but they simply ignore the fact that Battle Tactics is VASTLY supperior to ANY monk damage amplifier.... or that the monk finisher - Guillotine Fist has a starting cooldown of 60sec, not 20sec like the Shield Cannon... or that the Knight has a higher hit rate than the monk or beastmaster.

 

So it seems, there is no real attempt for balance, just a 'make your wish' game.

 

If you read the reports of the Knight, you usually hear something like "The knight ought to be superior in attack power and defense".

To me, this sounds like the wish for being strictly superior... dealing more damage and receiving less damage.

But I usually don't hear any statements about where the Knight ought to suck.

 

Instead, when I read Deathnote's report with his statements about "being able to hold of 10 enemies in WoE", the first thing that sprang into my mind was... glad the developers fixed that! So instead of just trolling, I will make some skill changes, etc. as well:

 

General description:

To me, a Knight ought to be the caring defender, a loyal guardsman or watchman. He doesn't focus much on strength or damage, but rather on vitality and staying alive. Beyond his own health, he cares much about the ones who are around him.... These men and women, he refers to as brothers... are equally important to win a battle and together they form an impenetrable shield wall that can overcome even much more powerful threats.

 

His primary weakness ought to be slowing effects due to the lack of speed, but also minion attacks (Falcon or Aqua).

 

Summary:

Right now,, classes have blurred into a meaningless grey. There is no need for tanks, no need for ranged attackers and a fewer and fewer demand for support characters. High defense values diminished the differences between defensive and offensive oriented classes, finally resulting in only a few valid builds per class. There is simply no need for a short-term damage reduction, if defense is already quite high. There is no need for offensive auras either, if the benefit gets crippled by the fact that weapon damage and weapon upgrades which make up more than 66% of the total damage stay unaffected by those auras (unlike pre-AoV).

 

For the same reason - the weapon being the main source of the class damage - any differences here cause the biggest discussion about inbalances. Although it wouldn't make sense to give all classes the same weapon damage, extreme caution has to be taken.

 

Beside these more or less class unspecifc issues, the knight also suffers from the fact that most of the skills don't create a unique or situational benefit. That doesn't mean that these skills are bad, just no 'wow!' skills either. Skills that are effected are Concentration or Aura Blade. In addition, I recommend to redefine the Shield Boomerang and other related 'slow / stun / knockdown' skills.

 

High Priority Fixes:

Before any knight-specific skills are changed, please consider a rebalance of dodge/hit formula, resulting in a minimum hit chance of at least.60%... independantly of level or opposing hit values. The second highest priority ought to be the defense rate. My suggestion - as seen above - is to highly reduce the defense boni of Osiris and to change the formula into something more like this:

Defense Rate = Defense / ( [Defense/75] + [Level/2] )

This isn't a long term solution, but at least it could solve a few issues. First of all, the same defense values would result in a lower defense rate. The 75% cap can't be reached and due to the adjusted level-scale, lower level characters would have higher defense rates. F.e. before this change, a level 25 character would need a defense of 580 to reach 25% defense rate, which is lowered to 470 with this change.

 

Skill-based Fixes:

 

Aura Heal: This skill should be more or less exactly like the Beastmaster skill - Survival => healing up to 30% HP and healing 20% for all nearby teammembers. Exact values and radius might be lower.

Optional: It could also restore SP or cause a Restoration effect with a lower trigger chance.

 

The reason behind It? The Knight ought to be the an inspiring leader that encourages those around him. A good way to represent this is a healing effect. Other than the current implementation however, the damage shouldn't be determined by the physical damage, because the Knight might value VIT more than STR (see description). On contrast, the Beastmaster SHOULD be a self-centric class that might deserve a constant regeneration, similar - or even twice as good at lvl 10 - as the Wizard Water Emblem, representing some sort of Werewolf / Werebear regeneration.

 

Shield Charge: Should causing the opponent to be knocked down.

Shield Bash: Should causing the opponent to be Slowed or even be Confused

Shield Boomerang: Should hit less enemies, but should cause stun rather than a slowing effect

Boomerang Mastery: Decreased trigger chance to avoid stun locks

 

The idea behind it: The Shield Boomerang should offer the Knight a second option beside Shield Charge to get into close combat range. The slowing effect is nice, but ineffective against faster enemies. The speed malus would just negate the speed bonus for your enemy. The knight's responsibility also includes to protect inferior teammembers, Most likely, they get in trouble, if they are surrounded by multiple enemies. Therefore the Shield Boomerang can be used to give them the opportunity to rebreath or to retreat. Used offensively, a formation of several knight could create a form of Phalanx, where well-coordinated sequences of Shield Boomerangs can still lock a cluttered group of enemies, maybe even negating the 'no-movement' disadvantage of Grand Cross.

 

Once the Knight is in close combat range, repetetive Shield Bashes can ensure that the opponent can't run away... or at least, won't be faster than you. A knockdown or stun makes less sense on this skill, because it would only give you 3sec to hit your opponent, before he runs away again.

 

Shield Fortress: This skill is already great, but it would be cool, if it would grant 100% parry (= 50% damage blocked) instead AND if it could also grant some sort of secondary resistance... most preferrably immunity to knockdown.

 

Aura Shield / Concentration / Battle Order: I don't like the idea of a third Aura beside Aura Blade and Aura Armor, but the Aura Shield might replace the Concentration as it is now - a short duration skill that can be recasted to achieve a 'permanental' effect. Concentration should replace Battle Order and create a Knight-specific party buff, preferrable Parry and/or Hit. Battle Order could be a targetable short-term damage reduction, similar to the Priest's Angelus or Assumptio.

 

How to make the Knight unique and balanced:

The Knight should allow for either a main-tank or a combat-oriented support character role. He isn't a top-rank damage dealer, but instead focusses on guiding role. PvE fights with a knight aren't fast, but one of the most 'secure' victories. As a main tank, he rather prefers to create a higher threat than just pure damage, blocking most of the damage in return. If he isn't the main tank, he can't compete with damage dealers, but more like a heavily-armored support character. Thanks to a group healing skill AND other group-protective skills, he might be close to replace a secondary healer as well.

 

Players will want to play a Knight together with other players of their kind to form a phalanx - an unstoppable moving shieldwall. Damage will be prevented or be healed by nearby commrades, fast opponents locked by throwing shields and Mages by a sudden outburst of speed & damage. The best example would be similar to the famous "all-BM-raid", but with more protective skills as well.

Edited by Greven79, 06 April 2014 - 05:27 PM.

[Shinyusuke]

I read mistakenly better if i autocensore myself....

Long life battle tactis

Edited by Shinyusuke, 07 April 2014 - 08:01 AM.

[xLuc]

 

BUT - It's not just the defense formula that makes me sad, it's also the false whining of the knights and their representatives.

 

 

I don't know if that is actually true. Most knights I seen, in fact, and including me, ask for the overpowered classes to come back to what they used to be, not the contrary.

I won't deny that knights are still strong, but they just fade when compared to these overbuffed classes.

 

As for changing BT into a raw damage modifier, why not? If putting INT instead of STR is a better option, of course. That would skip us the pain of having to stack up AGI to make BT viable and just give space to INT/STR or INT/VIT builds.

 

Edit: I don't remember in which of your posts I saw the BT suggestion >_< I'm sure it's inside one of these walls of text haha.

Edited by xLuc, 07 April 2014 - 06:39 AM.

[Tiduspeco]

oh boy... oh boy.

 

I have to say that those VCR reports are really, really bad and sometimes - at least in case of Deathnote's report - very egocentric, uninformal rant.

I thought the reports would include a breakdown what is broken, what should be addressed first and how to make the knight a distinct and balanced class.

 

For the breakdown . what is broken:

To sum up both VCR reports:

• All classes can have 50%+ defense rate

That's it. That was the only real issue in both reports. There were a few highly subjective statement about Knight preferred value being ATK & DEF amd false statements that both values are about the lowest of all tank classes. Specific skills and possible solutions were already mentioned in the summary (I wonder why it's called a summary). All in all, no line-up, no style, no indifferent presentation of issues. My feedback on the VCR reports -> D grade.

I already said this before in another thread, but what is put here is not the full report. The reports here are just the summaries (the first page) My report alone is 3 pages long. D3ATHNOTE's is probably 3-4 pages as well.

[Greven79]

I already said this before in another thread, but what is put here is not the full report. The reports here are just the summaries (the first page) My report alone is 3 pages long. D3ATHNOTE's is probably 3-4 pages as well.

 

Well, then I don't know who shortened the summary or made them so egocentric.. But I apologize, if I were unnecessarily disappointed.

 

 

I don't know if that is actually true. Most knights I seen, in fact, and including me, ask for the overpowered classes to come back to what they used to be, not the contrary.

I won't deny that knights are still strong, but they just fade when compared to these overbuffed classes.

 

As for changing BT into a raw damage modifier, why not? If putting INT instead of STR is a better option, of course. That would skip us the pain of having to stack up AGI to make BT viable and just give space to INT/STR or INT/VIT builds.

 

Edit: I don't remember in which of your posts I saw the BT suggestion >_< I'm sure it's inside one of these walls of text haha.

 

Well, if you look at classes with level < 49 pre-AoV, there wasn't such a thing like overpowered classes. Early Colo gear (before you had access to similar gear from dungeons) and 3-socketed costumes were a much more severe issue. The latter f.e. could increase the crit. chance to abnormal rates, so a decrease was more than necessary.

 

Kick Battle Tactics and a Beastmasters, Warriors and Monks were equally powerful tanks. And to balance them in colo, only a few cooldown and DoT damage fixes would have been necessary.

 

But even back then, both the Warior and the Knight had a better stand... thanks to Battle Tactics. Even my 'casual' Warrior without +10 runes or a full set of the newest costumes could create a better average damage increase with that 2-point skill than any other existing level 5 skill. So that one was never balanced.

 

Right now, it's possible to achieve a +200% critical damage bonus (depending on the homing bonus).... Is that balanced? Does the 10% ATK bonus from Aura Blade stand a chance against it? Or would there be a valid build without BT? - Nope! So why don't I see any balancing comments about this skill? It's neither in the Warrior report, nor in the one about Knights. So how can there be any discussion about a Knight being underpowered, if he has access to a skill that is by far the most broken skill in-game?

 

So which classes do you mean are 'over-buffed' right now? The Defender skill f.e. is still the same as it was pre-AoV... and the same is true for most other skills of any class.

What I see is a broken system, not necessarily broken classes. Fix dodge-&-parry and give the Knight shield the 'good-old' 47% defense bonus and Defender isn't an issue.

 

For me it's not only about bringing the old power-level back and I don't want to discuss about Knights being the only legitimite main-tank again. IF the game ought to get more balanced, the formulas need to be redesigned, the defense rate reduced and the class-specific bonuses removed. Only thereafter, it makes sense to talk about whether or not a class or a skill should be improved... and this includes fixing the defense value of the Knight back to 'the old level'.

Edited by Greven79, 08 April 2014 - 06:33 PM.

[xLuc]

I don't talk precise numbers cuz well.. but I kinda have some experiences from playing the game and this is more or less assured:

 

I am basically a 4X crit knight with 33% crit rate and I lost every threat race against evenly geared Beastmasters and Monks (non BT users) on the long term.

The critical is overwhelming but the raw damage is so poor it stinks.

While we relay on the hits to crit to build a nice damage, these 2 classes seem to hit so hard all the time that, well, "eat your BT crits, bro".

 

On the long run, tho, with unlimited sources of INT and AGI/crit, it would become fairly game breaking indeed. Not now tho (unless we're talking warriors XD)

[Shinyusuke]

Are you kidding right? Since every knight is forced to use battle tactis doesn't means it's overpowered, are you playing this game? There is no way for a knight to compete whit any other class in threat generation also using battle tactis and since we have a 300% threat modifier this means that our damage also whit BT is less than 1/3 of other classes and you want nerf BT?