Arcane Blade tweaks

[SageAcrin]

I am pleased to note that I have to actually suggest possible nerfs for Arcane Blade, and not buffs.

Mostly, dualwield/high hits builds seem to be getting out of hand, and are overly centralizing builds/producing apparently ridiculous potential damage output.

My thoughts for this:

-Remove Battle Tactics.

People really like the weapon trees, from what I've seen, but Battle Tactics is synergizing too well with dualwield. It's causing overly central Dualwield/Battle Tactics/no infusion slots and other categories, or no other categories, builds to be optimal.

It's a shame to see it go, but people like the weapon trees more than Battle Tactics on them, from what I've seen. And one or the other has to go-Jinsediaoying posted a shot of Flurry GWF with Earthen Missiles doing 12000 damage at endgame. The build is hard to get going, but nothing should have that kind of payoff, no matter how hard it is to get going.

-Make it so that spells can only proc once per turn, per spell, through Arcane Combat.

This fixes several problems. First off, it obviously keeps spell procs on dualwielding more under control.

Secondly, and honestly as importantly, it keeps people from just 5ing one spell because it's optimal damage. Now, spreading spell points around produces better damage on some high hit builds, but not others. This is less linear and more interesting.

-Cap Arcane Combat proc chance at 100%.

Dualwield halves the rate...which means that, if you get it over 100%, dualwielding is now the best option in all circumstances, again. Jinse also reported being able to get 130% rate with very high cunning(and a catpoint, I think?).

Hopefully this will keep them under control while still leaving them with the (rather refreshing) ability to actually get a decent amount of clears. It's apparently not a major problem yet, but it might easily be in the future, or when enemies use Arcane Combat.

[supermini]

I was a part of that discussion on IRC, so yeah, I agree with what Acrin says.

[SageAcrin]

Yeah, I should mention that this was the ideas from a discussion with supermini/myself/jinsediaoying(who posted the 12k damage picture and how he got it)/edge2054(With other people giving input, of course.).

To the best of my knowledge, all four of us agreed on this as a good current solution.

[edge2054]

Yeah, I also agree.

Here's an image from the combat log in question.

http://i.imgur.com/frxSiDq.png

The 12k was just the first set of attacks. It looks like 20k was done in a single game turn.

[SageAcrin]

I'm not actually sure how the rest of that damage works.

One of the extra hits appears to be from Corrupted Strength(a Blight hit of the same damage as the normal physicals, followed by a lot of Earthen Missiles procs), but I'm not sure.

Doesn't matter. Even if the character wasn't a normal AB, but instead an Adventurer, it does display enough of the theoretical possibilities to be worrisome, especially when you remember that non-legit combos can be a problem on enemies.

The real damage there is very clearly GWF/Stone/Flurry getting eight hits and a ridiculous pile of Earthen Missiles hits, and while it may take extreme stats to reach, it's obviously not so far out of reach as to be impossible.

[Hachem_Muche]

I missed the IRC discussion, but I mostly agree with these suggestions, particularly limiting Arcane Combat to one proc per turn.

Greater weapon focus is the real problem in the battle-tactics tree as it's an obvious example of too much multiplicative compounding. It's pretty easy to get over a 50% proc chance by end game. That's basically a 50% increase in all damage for one talent, and is way too good. The fact that it works on almost everything, including counterstrikes, repostes, etc. gets way out of hand quickly. The movement bonus on Step up is also too high (like getting a free controlled phase door every time you kill something), especially if you killed something defensively.

Rather than eliminating the tree, however, I would suggest nerfing it. Reduce the chance for greater weapon focus to trigger by about half, to keep it strictly inferior to the primary weapon mastery talents. And reduce Step up's movement bonus to 500% and prevent it from triggering from defensive attacks - so that it can't give you a free attack if you kill something when it's not your turn.

[SageAcrin]

Remember, it's an unlockable tree-it has to be stronger than your current options, lest you not unlock the tree. A category point can simply improve your current options instead.

GWF and Step Up are based on that, and by and large, I haven't seen people considering them overpowered in the classes that get them, outside of Arcane Blade.

Physical classes have to have something good. No different from Archmage being able to add a daze to all of their lightning damage/resist all of their fire damage and causing it to half pierce resists(Lategame, often as powerful as a 50%, or even doubling, damage bonus to that specific damage), and that's one of the weaker synergies in mage classes. Gravity Well 50% buffs all the damage in the same tree and doesn't require any scaling, while Corruptors...well Corruptors get a bunch of stuff to wreck people.

You get the idea. It's not terribly unusual, particularly in unlocked trees, to have a few very good skills. It's part of class design.

I wouldn't really necessarily object to GWF getting some kind of nerf, but I don't think it needs a major one.

Step Up definitely doesn't, though-it's a great skill offensively and defensively, but the requirement of having to kill an enemy is moderately steep for a mobility skill.

You can use it to escape after killing someone, but many times, you will be up against a single powerful enemy, so it can't actually serve as a replacement for normal mobility options at all-lest you be unable to run from single powerful enemies, or approach them effectively. Attempting to use it as a replacement will get you killed. Looked at from this angle, it's arguably useless, though I find the flexibility of getting additional mobility without a cooldown issue to be quite good.

[Hachem_Muche]

As and unlocked tree it should be better than the "free" trees. But compared to the other unlockable trees, it shouldn't be so good as to be an automatic pick. This looks that at this point.

[SageAcrin]

That's actually debatable as well.

There's multiple-probably a majority, even-trees that function like that, either due to lack of options or due to the fact that the role of the tree fits the classes that get them so well.

Off the top of my head: Guardian(Sun Paladin), Circles(Anorithil), Bloodthirst(Berserker), Advanced Golemancy(Alchemist), any synergistic tree to your build, with fairly cleancut decisions(Archmage), Shades(Necromancer), one or both of Ambush or Temporal, depending on your build(Shadowblade), Shadowflame(Corruptor. Torment has an argument here too.), Dream Forge, probably(Solipsist)...

Well, there's probably more no-brainers like this. It's just how the game's built. Optimally, every class would have enough trees that suit common/only builds to be not no-brainers, but that's something in the future and that would take a ton of coding. Many of them don't have the same flashy impact that GWF does, but GWF at the same time is a fairly weak skill early in the game.

Perhaps, if a nerf was needed for GWF, it would be more about attacking its curve. It isn't particularly reliably good at lower levels, both due to not being necessarily at 5 and due to lacking Dexterity. Making it not run off a specific stat would make it more like the rest of the tree(which also does not).

A flat rate 5%+5% per Talent Level(Hardcap at 40%, which could only appear with category pumping or at very high levels on enemies) bonus could help that out somewhat. That makes it closer to 35% at cap with 1.3 talent level, which seems quite reasonable.

This is what I mean about not necessarily objecting to a nerf.

Edit:

Another interesting quirk would be to leave it as it current is for rate, but instead of having it double individual strikes, have it actually attempt to use the same technique(basic attack or skill) again.

Then you have it also cost the same amount of resource the original technique cost. This would make it a damage and resource cost bonus, and would make it much more unstable for damage output. This would make it, indeed, a linear bonus for bump attacks, but would make it a stamina guzzler when used with skills-where it currently shines strongest.

[jinsediaoying]

yeah, I agree with the tweak ideas.
And notice that Elender only takes 26 Earth Missiles in one turn, so he actually died before my attack is fully done.

[Hachem_Muche]

It's not a question of weather it works well with the class, but how much a class build suffers by selecting another tree instead. The other issue is that the tree is great for all melee classes, and so can be totally overpowered for randbosses and other npcs.

it would be more about attacking its curve. It isn't particularly reliably good at lower levels, both due to not being necessarily at 5 and due to lacking Dexterity.

This was my thought as well, but I feel that this is a 'dexy' kind of skill, and that it should retain its dependence on dexterity. Adjusting the curve is easy, just pick lower and upper and limits and decide what kind of progression you want to go with. I'd suggest a lower limit of 10% and an upper of 50%.

[Torokasi]

Strongly against nerfing GWF, as it's only problematic on Arcane Blade and only now that the weapon trees have been added to the class as well (GWF alone wasn't broken on Arcane Blade). Both Bulwark and Marauder get good use of the skill and would both be heavily hit by any nerf to it - I'm basically positive my Marauder clear would've been a bust without the skill, and it's highly likely my Bulwark run would have as well. Bulwarks need it to get actual lategame damage going considering their horrific bump damage at endgame, and Marauder is entirely about killing fast due to having jack for non-physical defenses ever. Weakening either is a pretty nasty blow to both classes.

Also strongly against nerfing Step Up - again, very good and useful skill that is limited on Bulwark and Marauder, but not on Arcane Blade. And Arcane Blade -already has escape options-, so I can't buy it being overpowered on them there.

Also if we're looking at nerfing huge damage setups, please look at disease Corruptor/Catalepsy. But since that's basically been given the slide, I guess... if you can get AB far enough to initiate massive smashes, congrats, enjoy.

Remove the weapon trees, or just remove battle tactics from AB, if this is a serious issue. Nerfing a shared tree feels like a really nasty move.

EDIT: also limit Arcane Combat in the ways Sage suggested in the OP, as a start at least.

[SageAcrin]

I...must admit that I can't see much a Marauder has going for them over a Rogue, right now, besides GWF.

It's not as extreme with Bulwark vs Sun Paladin, but it's still very much iffy. I generally prefer Sun Paladin as it is.

Yeah, okay. I can't really agree with nerfing a skill those two classes rely on so much without first buffing them(or buffing them at the same time) in some other way.

Thinking on, now that you mention it, I heard SA's ToME thread touting Marauder as gameworst class right now. If that's really so(and it might be), then even a moderate nerf doesn't seem warranted.

[edge2054]

Strongly against nerfing GWF, as it's only problematic on Arcane Blade and only now that the weapon trees have been added to the class as well (GWF alone wasn't broken on Arcane Blade). Both Bulwark and Marauder get good use of the skill and would both be heavily hit by any nerf to it - I'm basically positive my Marauder clear would've been a bust without the skill, and it's highly likely my Bulwark run would have as well. Bulwarks need it to get actual lategame damage going considering their horrific bump damage at endgame, and Marauder is entirely about killing fast due to having jack for non-physical defenses ever. Weakening either is a pretty nasty blow to both classes.

Also strongly against nerfing Step Up - again, very good and useful skill that is limited on Bulwark and Marauder, but not on Arcane Blade. And Arcane Blade -already has escape options-, so I can't buy it being overpowered on them there.

I agree with the above. GWF alone isn't the issue. The issue is GWF + Flurry (and to a lesser degree assault) + spell procs + arcane destruction procs. Removing the tree from Arcane Blades is the easiest fix. Also Bulwarks don't get much that to me feels unique to them. I know marauders also get this tree but the tree was built for Bulwarks and every time we give it to a new class I feel that's one less thing Bulwarks have going for them. (Otherwise I would have given Battle Tactics to Brawlers a long time ago).

[laru]

On the other side of things, I think that the 2h option could use a little beef up. The problem is that Two Handed Maiming only has one good skill - Stunning Blow - the other 3 are practically useless. Other weapon trees have stuns + much more. And AB already has a very good stunning skill, unlocked. The most logical thing would be to make Sunder Arms and Sunder Weapons respective effects better so it would actually be worth using them, and change the 4th skill to something even remotely useful to any class.