28 replies to this topic

[Precrush]

Introduction:
Lighting Magnet plays too big of a role in group pvp, I think we can all agree on that. It distrupts the flow of the battle by starting a pulling fest that is nye on impossible to avoid. It might not be a huge problem if there was say one invoker in each battle, but as we all know that is never the case. This is the first skill that should be addressed in my opinion as it is not only a class balance issue but due to the skills huge relevance a big gameplay issue as well.

I'll present 2 different options here, feel free to come up with your own. But first I'll identify the problems with the skill so we'll all be aware of the context. Skip that part if you don't think it necessary for you.

Issues:
The pulling effect is a very strong asset since it allows not only the invoker himself but also his team mates to stack skills in the same place. This pretty much quarentees successful hits. The quite frankly huge range of the effect doesn't help with this either.

The only real counter to a magnet is another magnet which can prevent the enemy from piling skills on their own magnet. This is probably the biggest reason the skill has such a big role. It can also be possible to work around one magnet, but because of the range of the pulling effect, low cooldown of the skill, quite long duration and the amount of invokers in the game it's very common to see 3-4 magnets running at the same time when a fight is started. There is no way to navigate around that.

What makes working around the skill even harder is the fact that if you don't see who cast it there'll be no way to know if a magnet is going to pull you or not. So in essence, if it's a friendly magnet or not. This is an issue that makes me think the skill in its current form with our current mechanics is simply not fit for pvp.

One way to fight back while being sucked into the magnet would be if one could still effectively cast skills. That isn't the case because the pulling interupts the cast even if you hadn't moved an inch.

A minor and probably the easiest problem to Innofix is the skills visual size. It's just simply too big for no reason, and since it last long it gets quite annoying at times.

As a side note I will mention that I have a feeling aweikening skills weren't originally supposed to be so easily cast. But fixing that system to one that would perhaps add more to the game would be a bit of a bigger task I imagine.

In a nutshell: Low cooldown, long range, long duration, nature of the effect, amount of invokers, no indication to if a magnet is friendly or not, large visual size.

So on to the solutions...

Option A: Rework the skill
Basically nerf every aspect of it so that the skill is about pvp and not the other way around. So higher cooldown (2 minutes?) lower range (cut it to 2/3rds), lower duration (3 seconds at lvl 5?). Change the effect so that it is a simple pulling root effect where people can still fight back or change it so that a player is only pulled say once after which they wont be pulled again. Would also be nice if the amount of targets it pulled was smaller, but that'd effect pve too much. And maybe most importantly add something to fix the friendly/hostile recognition problem.

Option B: Disable the skill in pvp
Some of you might remember that I'm very much against this solution to balance. But if nothing can be done about this skill, especially the recognition thing, I'm quite positive it simply isn't fit for pvp. I miss the days where you had to catch people instead of letting a skill do it for you.

Tl/dr

Lightning magnet has multiple issues and should be nerfed significantly and quickly, or simply disabled in pvp.


What do you think?

Edited by Precrush, 23 June 2017 - 01:35 AM.

[TurtleTuber]

First props to you for coming up with this since your main char? is an invoker.

 

Invoker is pretty much overpowered and has a very big crowd control, noone can deny that.

 

 

 

But this class is broken in different aspects:

 

- you can heal 90% of your hp in less than a second.

- magnet.. yeah, its annoying sometimes but still a nice skill

- freeze hits out of nowhere

 

 

Invoker doesnt have much catching skills and the Invokers PvP  skills are already pretty boring/ onesided. I think if you add a 2 min cooldown or nerf magnet (again) you pretty much cripple this class.

 

I see a bigger problem with the 90% heal in less than a second. One more problem is that people can somehow skip the casting animation of magnet, which allows them pretty much to instant cast it. I think fixing that buggy casting and reducing the max amount of people magnet can pull (from 9 to 5) is enough.

 

Because if you remove magnet all invoker can do is freeze and xshot. If you nerf magnet as hard as you suggested it, invoker would need some other / new skills.

 

Also i would suggest to increase invokers skill power so people dont xshot 24/7.

 

 

 

[TurtleTuber]

well i think magnet is a necessary skill for invoker in pvp. and im saying this without having an invoker as main. yes the class i overpowered in BSQ and PvP but that is not the magnets fault.

 

If you decrease tick rate  it wont have any big use (many people with bad internet, like me, are able to simply walk out of magnet if the BSQ is laggy). The radius seems to be okay too. Sometimes you get pulled over the half map but i think the problem for this are lags. 

 

What bothers me way more is the tankyness of Invoker. Heals: ok. Thats Invoker, we have to live with that. But they should get balanced too. Healing more than 50% at once is pretty gamebreaking since many Invoker just lag out of magnets and other groundlocks thanks to their bad internet and are going to heal all of the hard dealt damage up afterwards.

 

Back to the topic: Invoker has only one catching skill (freeze). Witch Curse is no real catch and wraith of heaven isnt a catching skill either. Magnet is pretty okay, but still easy to avoid.

 

I think 1 and a half catching skill are fair for Invoker since they are able to heal and deal really good dmg in PvP. If you remove magnet they only have freeze and this would be pretty bad. Every class should have a bit more than 1 way to catch.

 

 

EDIT: sry for double post, but i didnt notice that the other posts got removed

Edited by TurtleTuber, 23 June 2017 - 04:56 AM.

[TurtleTuber]

even im aware of Invokers opness i think that Magnet is a good and tactical skill which is needed, Invokers skill pool already got decreased alot.

 

Edit by Popcorn: Removed answer to removed posts.

 

 

EDIT: omg sry for triple post

Edited by TurtleTuber, 23 June 2017 - 05:06 AM.

[Precrush]

I may have posted this in the wrong section. You should not think about this as a class balance issue. It's an overall gameplay issue that lessens the game. Pvp shouldn't be about one skill, that's why it has to go

Invokers will be fine without this skill or with it significantly nerfed, trust me. We will still have heals, a good freeze, stun, debuff and the 2nd highest ele dmg output in the game.

[TurtleTuber]

Well, but pvp is not about 1 skill. Magnets are avoidable and escapeable. Do you want to rely on one skill (freeze) only?

[Vossel]

you can also cancel part of the animations with spamming the hotkey where you have the skill on.

I totally agree with your options of changing the skill, especially the one pull idea.

To achive this it can be done the same thing as with those elemental debuffs.

Whenever you get pulled by whoevers magnet you get a "buff" which prevents from getting pulled again for like 10 seconds from any other magnet

[Precrush]

Well, but pvp is not about 1 skill. Magnets are avoidable and escapeable. Do you want to rely on one skill (freeze) only?

When any bsq with more than a few players has say 4 invokers it is about nothing but magnets. Even with just a few of them most fights are dictated by how good of the magnet is. In ew it ain't that bad because you can jump away.

The skill is badly designed and ruins so much of what makes pvp fun when people rely on it as much as they do. I'll happily rely on the rest of the classes assets if it means no more of the magnet fest.

[Coolsam]

A number of classes can escape and even counter magnet;

 

Sorcerer; Oh just grin if you see one of these. Blizzards ruin the positioning and even counter-catch the Invoker and his team. Fire Symbol messes up all skill animations.

Archers; Chain combos with enough mastery can escape magnet. X>Z+Left/Right can actually perform multiple dashes needed to escape pull range.

Savages; Moonwalk then move away. You get a free extra 2 seconds of movement with invincibility.

Ninja; Perfect Strike.

Summoner; Golgon stun, Rolling Stone with Energy Circulation level 3 or 4, some movement during x-spam trick may still work despite caps on good pc's.

Invoker; Blink works about 60% of the time if you time it well, you could also just x-spam out of it. Or just throw your own and freeze them, drop a quagmire, and then try to escape or damage them.

Twin; Well timed weaving.

 

Only Warriors really struggle and you can argue Dragoons can use shoulder tackle to dash out of it or just counter with hammer crushes and crosscuts/spear jabs as their animations cause at least one flinch/stun before pull cancels it.

[Vossel]

the problem of escaping it is that there are mostly not only a magnet.

Lots of times there is already a blizzard when you get pulled in the magnet and you get frozen by it, or by the invoker.

Also if there is a magnet people will use the opportunity to spam their skills in to cancel you from escaping and locking you in there and keep damaging you.

[TurtleTuber]

Happens regardless where you get trapped. To get spammed by skills you dont need to be inside of the magnet. If you find yourself in a blizzard, net, freeze the same thing will happen to you.

Magnet is fine as it is in my opinion since you can avoid it and you can escape it.

[Precrush]

Cmon now. When there's just a blizzard nothing pulls you in it from a far. And then keeps pulling for 10 secs. And then after 6 secs theres a new one.

Sure it can be avoided but I don't know if you've noticed that maps in this game are quite small. So going past a lightning magnet is in many narrow places impossible. It's way too limiting in a game that's supposed to be about free flowing combat.

And again, maybe the biggest problem is that if you don't want to get pulled into these you have to often avoid every single one of them, even ones your own team has set up.

And ye there are ways to get away from it. That is if there's no follow up on the magnet already. A lot of the ways take time you don't have or are up to chance. And if you get out of one you might as well get pulled in another with a bit of bad luck.


I mean obviously you can avoid it and get away from it, imagine if you couldn't. That doesn't mean that the skill is ok, well designed or good for the game in any way.

Edited by Precrush, 24 June 2017 - 02:02 AM.

[TurtleTuber]

well but for me it makes no sense to nerf a skill because of worst case scenarios like: its placed at a small path, you walked into it, you messed up to escape, people are starting spamming skills on you, you cant escape anymore.

 

As you described here magnet isnt the problem, the fact that you get spammed once you are in magnet is the problem. But you will get spammed regardless where you are trapped in. The only problem is that people who try to rescue you dont know the range of magnet and get pulled inside too. But you cant give magnet the fault for it. Might be nice to add a circle below, so you can see when you are out of the range of getting pulled since this is pretty unclear.

 

I mean we all know how it runs. Magnet gets casted (sometimes with skipped animation and that really needs to get fixed ) , 1 guy with flags walks into it, team tries to rescue flagholder but underestimates the magnets pull range, they get pulled into it too, meanwhile flagholder didnt escape magnet once he got pulled in because he doesnt know how to time skills.

 

For everyone whos inside magnet: press left or right arrow, wait until magnet tries to pull you back, use your escaping skill. Examples were given at coolsams list.

 

I imagine if you time it well skills for warrior like: shouldertackle (dragoon), or whirlwind (overlord) will help you out.

 

Edited by TurtleTuber, 24 June 2017 - 02:20 AM.

[5143121023173906760]

For everyone whos inside magnet: press left or right arrow, wait until magnet tries to pull you back, use your escaping skill. Examples were given at coolsams list.

Even a flinch will prevent you from getting outside of the magnet.

Do you want to rely on one skill (freeze) only?

As far as I know they have some spells that block movements so they don't only have one skill to catch.
Also I've seen magnet used more often as a way to wait for the others lock skills to cooldown so they can lock people for a non-limited time.


In my opinion, the magnet should be nerfed by the same reasons we got AS and MS caps : It's alright, but it does unintended effects (for those who lag) and makes the game harder to balance if it remains unchanged.
Also for those who think that Smart shot was stupid because of the fact that the missiles were homing, I think that having the enemy pulled in front of you is even more stupid.

[TurtleTuber]

As far as I know they have some spells that block movements so they don't only have one skill to catch.
 

 

the skill is quagmire. it works like blizzard. you place it at the ground and wait till someone steps over it. i dont know what you mean with catching skill since its no catch and it doesnt catch. you can still move afterwards 

Edited by TurtleTuber, 24 June 2017 - 03:22 AM.

[Popcorn]

After reading over all these posts and since I play Invoker myself (and I know how Magnet works and even though I don't PvP I can imagine how it is used in PvP) I personally have to agree to the majority here that something with the skill is not quite right. However since I do not made the final decisions I will bring that up to the team within the next days. Thanks to everyone for the feedback and the respectful and clean discussion.

 

 

[TurtleTuber]

well lets hope you guys will find a good solution. just to remember: slowing down the tick rate will make it useless. lowering the radius and the max targets a bit seems to be the better solution.

Edited by TurtleTuber, 24 June 2017 - 06:26 AM.

[Precrush]

Now you're not being consistant with your message though TurtleTuber. You've said a few times now that it can be escaped which is true. That means the tick rate isn't even that important since the first pull is really what counts. Of course since it can't be easily escaped the rest of the pulls are also good, but even if it pulled a player just once or twice during its duration or say once every 1-2 seconds, it wouldn't be useless.

Nerfing this skill to the point where it's useless is quite hard because the pull is just so useful.

Edit: Anyway I hope something done and that something would stop this skill from having such a big impact in pvp. We'll see

Edited by Precrush, 24 June 2017 - 07:16 AM.

[TurtleTuber]

if you slow down the tick rate you can get out with just walking to the side if you got 400 ms

[Precrush]

Does it matter if players get out by just walking instead of using chain combos if that's what makes the skill alright in your mind? Either way once you get pulled in and there happens to be that freeze, spark rock or say tesla coil meeting you then you ain't getting out anytime soon.

What I'm saying is that the effect is so good that the skill can be nerfed and changed a lot and it'll still find its place as a strategic tool.

Edited by Precrush, 24 June 2017 - 07:23 AM.

[TurtleTuber]

if you can get out just be walking to the site whats the matter of casting a magnet at all then?

 

if the tick rate is too slow you can just jump through and ignore that skill.

Edited by TurtleTuber, 24 June 2017 - 07:42 AM.

[Vossel]

if you cant walk out alone, the whirlwind of the overlord wont help either, since it has your movementspeed.

Before the AS/ms caps overlord had a chance to escape it consitant as well, either with high attackspeed and the chaincombo slide or the ms, but since those caps the overlord has neither the required MS for it nor the attackspeed to pull the chaincombo off in time before the pull resets you.

but to talk about it in general, do you want the magnet only be escapeable if you have certain gear(movementspeed/attackspeed)? I dont want something like gear dependence to be able to escape a skill.

it is totally fine that the skill pulls you to a point, but it is not okay that it keeps you there for so long and "flinches" you everytime it pulls again.

Even if you get kept there at least remove the "flinch" on the following pulls so you can actually cast skills that dont have super armor and dont get canceled almost on an instant

[TurtleTuber]

removing the flinch (so you can cast skills) but keeping the pull sounds like a good and fair idea. i dont know about whirlwind tbh, but there are still other skills like overlords awakening one which also adds superarmor. so timed right you can get out with this one also.

 

im not against nerfing or improving a skill, but coming around the corner and suggesting to completely disable a skill or nerfing it to a point where it becomes completely useless sounds a bit too harsh.

Edited by TurtleTuber, 24 June 2017 - 07:48 AM.

[Precrush]

I'm happier with it gone rather than staying relevant to any bigger degree. That's my opinion.

[nighty007]

tfw even Invoker mains thinks Magnet is to strong ;P

Sorry for bad english tried my best

Playing alot Emporia and BSQ by myself ..
and Magnet pretty much rules everything.

It have way to much Impact on pretty much all fights, BSQ is all about "who places the first magnet in the first fight" and you dont even know, if its a magnet from your or enemy team. And pretty much everything has been said already, cooldown is way to low, the duration of it way to long and yeah.. the range is kinda weird actually.

And well, Magnet is the skill who created the Island Camping in Emporia/EW and im sure all agree that these kind of fights are boring. Atleast for me even my guild is only focused on bsq/EW.

Well, everything has been said already and i seen Popcorn agreed already with the spell being to strong, but i had to write out what i think because i was thinking about making a post about the skill too but nvm now :'D

 

Edited by nighty007, 24 June 2017 - 08:21 AM.