[svn] Balancing solipsists

[supermini]

There's no advantage to a melee Solipsist though. It's not like they do more damage or have better defensive capabilities or crowd control or mobility, they just can't attack at a range. Still, I really like all the different options, and I wish all of the classes had this level of customizability. "Focusing" is boring, basically forcing you to play one way.

I dunno, I guess if you went mindstar mastery for psiblades (possible in SVN without going AM), used dreamforge and dream hammer, it could be good with the global speed boost. I might have to try that.

[SageAcrin]

And really, should solipsists be the best tanks? What about bulwarks or wyrmics? Thematically I think it would make more sense for solipsists to be best at CC while passing the title of best tank to another class.

Actually, this makes sense from a kind of meta standpoint.

Generally speaking, for the general classes of character that aren't Warrior, Mage or Rogue right now(and even Mage to a degree), you have your durable class and then your non-durable class, with the durable class being the physical fighter and the non-durable one being the mage.

Psionic pretty much directly inverses this, though-Mindslayer is a non-durable physical fighter (if you can call it that, and it clearly is meant to be at least somewhat of one) by any standards, and making a less durable mage without making it crumple instantly to everything is nearly impossible. So, instead, you have a mage that has less HP, amazingly, but has more durability in practice.

Solipsists aren't tanks on raw durability, anyhow, though-it's hard to compare them to Bulwark and Wyrmic, which just basically run one skill for their durability and that's that. And a lot of their durability skills are getting cut down to half power or so next version.

Having said all of that, the nature of Psi as HP means that they're going to have a durable earlygame, period, and making a Solipsist that feels "balanced"-that is, one that doesn't feel very durable-in the early game while not being trash later in the game, when the Psi vs HP curve evens out some, strikes me as a lost cause. I'd rather see them be good than see them be horrible, and I like a lot of the unique concepts involved entirely too much to say they should be removed.

So basically, I'm going back to "Let's see how many clear first, after the b43 round of nerfs.". It's much easier to decide how much nerfing something needs when you see how well it works. Clearly, Solipsists-which had something on the order of four or five times as some other fairly solid classes, I believe, in b42-needed some nerfing, and got a fair deal. Let's wait and see how the numbers go before nerfing them more, there's no rush.

[supermini]

So basically, I'm going back to "Let's see how many clear first, after the b43 round of nerfs.". It's much easier to decide how much nerfing something needs when you see how well it works. Clearly, Solipsists-which had something on the order of four or five times as some other fairly solid classes, I believe, in b42-needed some nerfing, and got a fair deal. Let's wait and see how the numbers go before nerfing them more, there's no rush.

I tried one in the svn. It's so easy that I got bored at about level 45.

[ohioastro]

The game benefits from having classes with very distinct approaches. This is not a MMO, where fairness to other players requires you to ensure that all classes have comparable power, and I don't understand the urge to flatten out the classes.

If there are specific combinations that make playing the class uninteresting then it's appropriate to point that out. But simply making it more tedious to play (by lengthening cooldowns for the main early nuke, or sleep, which already has insomnia as a mechanic) is not the proper balancing approach. It'd be more fruitful to look at background issues, such as the strength of saves (what percentage of your mental save do you get to avoid damage), or the size of the psi pool. If you want to make the class a bit more challenging you should go that way.

I think that the third single target sleep is unnecessary- the nightmare + sleep AEs are sufficient, and three similar abilities is too much duplication. I like the feedback tree quite a bit. In my successful run I basically relied on feedback + sleep + the quick nuke and high saves for damage mitigation. When I had an issue with the class, it was that there were some circumstances where I just took a ton of damage and got a lot of statuses without seeing why it was different than the usual cases where nothing stuck.

[micah]

The thing is, being great at both tanking and CC is redundant, since they're both methods of mitigating damage. An example would be when I was doing the Vor Armory. At first I would CC the melee boss while I fought off the mages who were teleporting around. But then I noticed that the boss did hardly any damage to me, since I had forge armor and the spydre robe, so I ended up not even paying attention to him. In some regards, tanking and CC compliment each other to create a robust defense, but at the same time, if you're too good at tanking or too good at CC, it makes the other one much less useful.

As for raw durability, my solipsist has 458 hp and 908 psi. That might not be at the high end of things, but it seems pretty decent. If anything, I think it should be skewed so the ratio is more in favor of psi, giving you a reason to put more points in the first solipsism talent. As it is, if you put too many points in it, you're actually crippling your character. That might be hard to do, though, since different races get a different amount of hp per level.

Considering that solipsists have three talents that cause sleep, I think the cool down is too low. I only used the generic sleep skill, and like I said, it was pretty much always up when I wanted to use it. If the class is changed so there are less sleep talents or their defensive skills are nerfed, the current cool down might be warranted, but as it is, you only need one skill to sleep lock. Insomnia is OK, but 20% resistance is weak. Maybe increase the sleep resistance from insomnia while at the same time increasing the effect of sandman, so you have to throw points in that if you want to sleep lock.

[supermini]

If there are specific combinations that make playing the class uninteresting then it's appropriate to point that out. But simply making it more tedious to play (by lengthening cooldowns for the main early nuke, or sleep, which already has insomnia as a mechanic) is not the proper balancing approach. It'd be more fruitful to look at background issues, such as the strength of saves (what percentage of your mental save do you get to avoid damage), or the size of the psi pool. If you want to make the class a bit more challenging you should go that way.

The 'main nuke', mind sear, is what makes the class blander. It's too good compared to everything else they have in their arsenal that it's almost a no brainer to use when it's off cooldown. By increasing the cd, you are forcing the players to use other spells, making for a more varied gameplay than just mind sear spam which gets old soon.

[Mewtarthio]

I have to agree that Mind Sear is too good. When I play solipsists, I generally go out of my way to not use it. The class has so many interesting features, so it's pretty disappointing that its most effective move is something so plain. Perhaps Mind Sear could be moved back to an NPC-only talent and solipsists given something a bit more interesting to replace it.