General Class Balance [Feedback]

    Hey!

    This might sound strange, but I'm actually glad that S/R got nerfed — it was the only leather class that could even slightly compete with magical gear (considering that leather had a higher gear tier and more bonuses from cards or fusions — otherwise, there was no competition at all).

    Thanks to this change, now we can start playing other combinations that are just as weak as S/R is now :)

    I hope the sarcasm is clear.

    I’m not capable of achieving your level of “balance.” You’re fixing magical classes — great! And applause to you, because some of them did need adjustments, and I think no one will argue with that.

    But why the nerf to S/R?

    Yes, from the perspective of physical classes, it was a top-tier combo, but compared to the best magical setups, it was merely "good."

    I’d like to get a reasonable explanation for this.

    Saying “everyone played it” — sure, but what else were they supposed to play?

    S/K? R/M? S/P?

    There is no other strong leather-based combo besides S/R. The rest don't exist — they’re useless.

    So yes, I’m all for buffing mages, but why nerf the only playable physical combo in leather gear?

    Hate to sound like a broken record but, was "Increased Poisonous Widow Embrace extra damages to 713% from 450%." implemented as my tool tip looks the same and testing on dummy and in field same results?

    • Official Post
    Quote from cainseriph

    Hate to sound like a broken record but, was "Increased Poisonous Widow Embrace extra damages to 713% from 450%." implemented as my tool tip looks the same and testing on dummy and in field same results?

    Hello,
    the skill has 2 damage numbers, the one in the patchnotes is referring to the second , empowered one.
    Could you check again, and if the issue persists show me a screenshot of your tooltip how it looks for you ?

    Also check if you posses the required amount of natures power.
    (You can DM me here in our forums)


    Greetings

    Will do, note that I am using "Sinister Request" prior to load nature points and I am not 105. My damage output is exactly where it was after the season shift. Its pretty easy test, and I have racked up plenty of xp debt checking. My mage is far lower geared and not only can do Hoto, but last patch changed it to auto enter at the harder settings and I finished it as well aside from insta kill from water vermin. Again I understand most people opt for the (91) route, which leads us trying to do these instances roughly at level alone. Already having to skip several just because the mechanics require at least 2 people. My druid actually replaced a couple level 20 items getting Gorgon parts due to having to solo and terrible drop luck, it rains chain and xbows 0.0. I will try to record a video of the fight, using the same rotation that worked quite well prior. Thank you for your time and effort.

    I need to thank you for changing Power of the Wood Spirit skill according to my suggestion. Before this change, i couldnt apply my dots on mobs beause it was difficult to hit correct mob when we could hit only 6 targets. Now i can apply my dots to other targets easily

    This is how it is supposed to be when you apply all your dots to other targets

    • Official Post

    Greetings Arcadians!


    Today we will (hopefully) drop another magical class balance patch. But before going into details, I'd like to share some of my/our general thoughts about class balance with you guys.


    As you might have noticed already, we started another round of balancing alongside with the current Prestige season start. The idea was to not change a lot of stuff in shorter intervals of time again, but to bring major changes around major milestones, such as Prestige Season start/end and to adjust peaks accordingly afterwards. This way, we have more time to collect viable and consistent data and let the "meta" (if we can even call it like that) evolve. Hopefully our balancing iteration will come to an end soon, so we can give the meta another break to evolve again.


    Right now, our balancing team is in different project stages, as magical classes got major updates already, it's all about fine tuning now. Other designers are at the end of concept phases, others collecting more viable data while the other project is being implemented and tested. All I can say is, when the current (magical) fine tuning is done, you might soon expect another major update to other classes/roles that haven't been touched in a while. But for that please stay patient, it might take a while as designers / devs also have other projects to take care of at the same time and I think you guys can't wait for Origin Awakened to be finally released. ;)


    For today's magical classes update, there are only a few things to say. First of all, there will be a major change to Mage/Druid that is intended to improve the accessibility of the class and generally simplify the more or less clunky gameplay. Green Guardian shall only become a resource like Nature's Power of Druids and skills require this resource to be used, so you no longer have to keep stacks up for max damage. The coming changes are very basic ones and you might have more stacks left than you actually need. This is because we had already planned some further changes but wanted to make sure, the mechanics were as fluent as intended for now.


    There will also be a major change about Mage/Rogue and its cooldown reduction around Distract or Mage/Warrior about its cast speed and magical attack bonuses. Those classes will of course require some additional fine tuning soon, so don't be worried if those classes perform too well or too bad for now. As you know, it's impossible to predict how classes perform under certain conditions / circumstances, so please be lenient towards our changes.


    Of course there will be one or another soft-rework (such as the Mage/Druid one that hopefully releases today) coming in the future as well, but we try not to mess the entire meta all over again in too short intervals of time, but to listen to your feedback more actively than we did in the past. Also, as I received some feedback about why we don't release everything at once, releasing everything after the other has some major advantages, as you can always focus on one project at a time and (usually) test stuff properly. One huge patch would require much more testing, more things may go wrong and since our team members are working on several projects at the same time, it's not possible anyway. If we had more game testers, we could be able to release faster. ;)


    I hope you now have a better idea of how our balancing workflows work and the thinking behind our releases.


    Best regards

    Wesker &)

    I have a few things to say about todays changes on magical classes


    • Mage/Scout was powerful in some situations. But i dont think it was powerful enough to deserve a nerf.
    • Mage/Warrior will be really weak after these changes. Maybe you should just revert your changes in previous patches. It would be better if you reverted its Rage Mana back to 15% magical damage. And that would be enough.
    • Warlock/Scout is not what we expected, you should have made its Sace's Impatience instant skill without global cooldown.
    • Druid/Rogue's AoE nerf was not fair. It already had weak AoE due to changes on last patches. You should have nerfed its single target damage only. Its Necrotic Wound damage should be reverted back to 484%
    • Warrior/Mage already suffered a lot because of latest nerf on Moon Cleave skill. This was really so much unnecessary.
    • Warlock/Champion's latest change is not a good idea. If you want people play with a magical hammer, you should balance druid/rogue and mage/champion properly.



    Rest of changes are understandable

    shouldn't you try it in inis and test in diffrent situations before start complain about something was not necessary or is needed.


    dont get me wrong i think its a bit to early to write things like you did

    Quote from grknkrdn1299

    I have a few things to say about todays changes on magical classes


    • Mage/Scout was powerful in some situations. But i dont think it was powerful enough to deserve a nerf.
    • Mage/Warrior will be really weak after these changes. Maybe you should just revert your changes in previous patches. It would be better if you reverted its Rage Mana back to 15% magical damage. And that would be enough.
    • Warlock/Scout is not what we expected, you should have made its Sace's Impatience instant skill without global cooldown.
    • Druid/Rogue's AoE nerf was not fair. It already had weak AoE due to changes on last patches. You should have nerfed its single target damage only. Its Necrotic Wound damage should be reverted back to 484%
    • Warrior/Mage already suffered a lot because of latest nerf on Moon Cleave skill. This was really so much unnecessary.
    • Warlock/Champion's latest change is not a good idea. If you want people play with a magical hammer, you should balance druid/rogue and mage/champion properly.



    Rest of changes are understandable

    Ah, I almost thought our guilds would finally play the same game xD


    1. M/S was totally broken in our runs, it dealt like 50% more than other magic classes, I think the nerf wasn't even enough xD

    2. M/W I need to play to see the impact in the next days, but it doesn't look like its killing the class honestly...

    3. Wl/S feels good, better have a 0.5s cast than a GCD, it's a win, dont complain ^^

    4. We had D/R in our group today in 2 grafu runs and his damage looked fine now. Before patch it was just op, now it's actually kind of balanced. The single sustain is really strong but from what I read in patchnotes class notes, it should be like that i guess? :/

    5. W/M was op pre-patch, I played it several times (full dot build with matt 2h sword) and it just shredded through everything while being immortal to anything, even the juggler aoes that oneshotted champions around me xD Deserved nerf imo

    6. Wl/Ch totally broken in everything below Grafu, in Grafu its S-Tier next to M/Ch pre patch... so probably needs like 10% nerf and mdmg into matt changed, then should be fine...


    Btw about dual wield on wl/ch: I asked GM Daleshy if it's a typo in patchnotes about "2 hammers" but he approved the class will get hammer requirement soon, so will be played with 2 hammers (and I like that!) <3


    But what I don't understand at all about the patch: Where D/B croco buff? It only has 200kk hp and can tank bosses in lower inis, should be able to tank grafu bosses too!

    • Mage/Scout was good, but they should let it stay like this for a while. It is one of a few classes that can compete champions in overall damage.
    • Mage/Warrior's %35 castspeed buff doesnt seem to be a good idea. I mean they could have change it to 15% magical damage again. That skill was supposed to be used in every 30 seconds but we will no longer use it against mobs. I mean we use static field against mobs. So, having permament casting speed bonus will not be good against mobs.
    • Wl/S could have been much better. Yes this change is good, but it could have been better.
    • D/R had very good single target damage and it deserved a nerf on its single target. But i dont think that AoE should suffer again. After last changes d/r has become a single target class. Like i said before, its single target should be nerfed and AoE should be boosted a little bit. And if you are playing in a party where mobs die really fast, you will never be able to deal DoT damage to mobs. Having increased DoT damage will not make a huge difference in my guild runs.
    • If you are able to use your DoT damage on mobs as warrior/mage, that means your party doesnt destroy mobs in 3 seconds ! Warrior/Mage also became a single target class after last changes. Same problem with druid/rogue. And only Moon Cleave is dealing damage to mobs in big pulls in our guild runs. Applying DoT on mobs is not really possible in my guild runs at all. These last changes will be huge nerfs in you play in my guild runs.
    Quote from Idhril

    shouldn't you try it in inis and test in diffrent situations before start complain about something was not necessary or is needed.


    dont get me wrong i think its a bit to early to write things like you did

    I already played these classes before this patch, and some of them were performing worse than before. With these nerfs they will be even worse. I mean everyone knows we dont need %35 permament casting speed for mage/warrior. Some of these changes are really very bad.

    Quote from grknkrdn1299

    Mage/Scout was good, but they should let it stay like this for a while. It is one of a few classes that can compete champions in overall damage.

    M/S was dealing 50-100% more damage of champions in burst, only Champ/Rogue could come kinda "close" to it in single target, but m/s still dealt like 25% more and our Champ isn't a bad player at all...


    Quote from grknkrdn1299

    Wl/S could have been much better. Yes this change is good, but it could have been better.

    Wl/S can easily solo big room worldboss within 1 single phase and it doesn't even need perfect gear for it... if there is a more single target focussed ini coming, it will burn everything I'm sure... in Grafu it also dealt decent damage before patch, just don't do the mistake to use warlock AoEs with higher prio in big pulls, it will suck, better just switch between soul crusher and the cps one...



    Quote from grknkrdn1299

    D/R had very good single target damage and it deserved a nerf on its single target. But i dont think that AoE should suffer again. After last changes d/r has become a single target class. Like i said before, its single target should be nerfed and AoE should be boosted a little bit. And if you are playing in a party where mobs die really fast, you will never be able to deal DoT damage to mobs. Having increased DoT damage will not make a huge difference in my guild runs.

    I mean true, if you add AoE to a single target class, it will be broken bcz it can do everything I guess? If u have too much overdamage in your group, just simply don't play a DoT class? :D This is like u say a Ferrari is bad in a drift race and loses to some Toyota cars, of course it is, but in a drag race it's op xD Why does every class have to be viable in any situation? As mdps you have access to 28-31 (if you count in meme classes) different classes, a lot of them are played with the same weapons or even rolls, so just adapt to your party and u will do good :D


    Quote from grknkrdn1299

    If you are able to use your DoT damage on mobs as warrior/mage, that means your party doesnt destroy mobs in 3 seconds !

    It's the same with Wl/Wd, if u have too much burst power in your raid, play it on %mele weapon mdmg and the dmg will be decent, however it's a dot class so don't expect it to compete with drift cars :D This is what I like most about magic classes, u can always pick the one class that fits perfectly to your raid and the ini, so you can always be one of the best dps in a raid :D


    Quote from grknkrdn1299
    Quote from Idhril

    shouldn't you try it in inis and test in diffrent situations before start complain about something was not necessary or is needed.


    dont get me wrong i think its a bit to early to write things like you did

    I already played these classes before this patch, and some of them were performing worse than before. With these nerfs they will be even worse. I mean everyone knows we dont need %35 permament casting speed for mage/warrior. Some of these changes are really very bad.

    M/W was op if you had a good patt buff and if u had additional support for it, like resource generators, it just was insane. I never felt the class that much in Grafu, but I'm only having 80k buff, so I think with 85k+ u will do much better there... And if you had read the patchnotes, they said that there is some content coming up that adds another decent buff to buffgear, so probably huge gear upgrade, so stop complaining about a decent class that will become more decent soon xD

    Quote from Zyrex
    Quote from grknkrdn1299

    Mage/Scout was good, but they should let it stay like this for a while. It is one of a few classes that can compete champions in overall damage.

    M/S was dealing 50-100% more damage of champions in burst, only Champ/Rogue could come kinda "close" to it in single target, but m/s still dealt like 25% more and our Champ isn't a bad player at all...

    Damn, buff Champ.

    Quote from Zyrex
    Quote from grknkrdn1299

    Mage/Scout was good, but they should let it stay like this for a while. It is one of a few classes that can compete champions in overall damage.

    M/S was dealing 50-100% more damage of champions in burst, only Champ/Rogue could come kinda "close" to it in single target, but m/s still dealt like 25% more and our Champ isn't a bad player at all...

    50-100% more damage than champions ? We are literally playing in a different universe :D

    Quote from Zyrex
    Quote from grknkrdn1299


    Btw about dual wield on wl/ch: I asked GM Daleshy if it's a typo in patchnotes about "2 hammers" but he approved the class will get hammer requirement soon, so will be played with 2 hammers (and I like that!) <3

    To play various mdps classes I am already required to have (tiered or high clean tiered):
    - Gloves: Dark dmg gloves, fire/water/earth/etc, offtank gloves (for some people)
    - Mainhand: Staff (different corruptions for DoT, Dmg and M/W), Wand, Tambourine
    - Offhand: Hex Shield, Talisman, Dagger, Hammer (I love this is getting more uses), Xbow

    Please don't make me make a second hammer (either with a soft requirement of boosted dmg on 1h hammer, or explicitly not supporting wand), and let me keep using my wand and 1 1H hammer. Requiring 2 hammers on the class just makes it even harder for players to try all the amazing content CoA has to offer, and evaluate classes against each other fairly.

    • Official Post

    Greetings!


    First of all, please always be aware that different raid setups might give entirely different results of certain classes. I'm sure a Mage/Scout for example can deal a lot of damage under the correct circumstances, but please try not to exaggerate when you discuss with other players.


    We all have the same goal: to improve the game in either way. The fact that you are posting your experiences shows me that you are all pursuing this goal as well. I appreciate the input from all of you, but please be fair and tolerant to each other, so we can create an objective / factual basis for discussions. &)

    Quote from grknkrdn1299

    I have a few things to say about todays changes on magical classes


    • Mage/Scout was powerful in some situations. But i dont think it was powerful enough to deserve a nerf.
    • Mage/Warrior will be really weak after these changes. Maybe you should just revert your changes in previous patches. It would be better if you reverted its Rage Mana back to 15% magical damage. And that would be enough.
    • Warlock/Scout is not what we expected, you should have made its Sace's Impatience instant skill without global cooldown.
    • Druid/Rogue's AoE nerf was not fair. It already had weak AoE due to changes on last patches. You should have nerfed its single target damage only. Its Necrotic Wound damage should be reverted back to 484%
    • Warrior/Mage already suffered a lot because of latest nerf on Moon Cleave skill. This was really so much unnecessary.
    • Warlock/Champion's latest change is not a good idea. If you want people play with a magical hammer, you should balance druid/rogue and mage/champion properly.



    Rest of changes are understandable

    Thank you for your feedback, we have looked into the classes in detail and prepared some adjustments for one or another of these.


    From what I observed, most of the classes perform better than you expected, Mage/Scout didn't feel much of the nerf in most cases, same for Warrior/Mage. Perhaps some of them need more fine tuning in the near future, but we have to collect more viable data before. If you could share your results with Mage/Warrior, it will be much appreciated, as we lack some data there.

    Quote from Zyrex

    It's the same with Wl/Wd, if u have too much burst power in your raid, play it on %mele weapon mdmg and the dmg will be decent, however it's a dot class so don't expect it to compete with drift cars :D This is what I like most about magic classes, u can always pick the one class that fits perfectly to your raid and the ini, so you can always be one of the best dps in a raid :D

    This is actually the way those classes are designed for. You can decide between DoT build (full magical attack and damage over time) or go for damage in order to boost your burst/initial damage potential. Both ways perform entirely different from what I've seen so far.

    Quote from Ravinous

    Please don't make me make a second hammer (either with a soft requirement of boosted dmg on 1h hammer, or explicitly not supporting wand), and let me keep using my wand and 1 1H hammer. Requiring 2 hammers on the class just makes it even harder for players to try all the amazing content CoA has to offer, and evaluate classes against each other fairly.

    Warlock/Champion was indeed originally intended to wear two one-handed hammers at the same time. As you guys correctly noticed, the patchnotes already featured this detail in our GD notes. I wanted to slightly foreshadow our intentions but give you some time to prepare for this change. As magical hammers have slightly less magical damage, you can keep playing it with a wand, but Ethereal Hammerfall will get a requirement for a hammer in your main hand soon. This way you can decide between slightly more overall damage and using the Ethereal Hammerfall skill in order to boost your burst power.


    However, we will observe how all of these changes will work out in the long run and nothing is set in stone forever. I would appreciate more of your feedback, as it shows a wide variety of viewpoints. This does not only apply to magical classes, I'm sure our physical designers appreciate further feedback as well.


    Best regards

    Wesker &)

    Hello Wesker, i will share my latest experiences about some magical classes :

    • Someone from my guild played mage/warrior. And his damage of static field was suprisingly very low. I saw he dealt 18m static field maximum. And his overall damage wasnt higher than others. I dont think this is an acceptable damage for mage/warrior. But of course this is just what i saw from scrut. If someone had a better experience, i would like to see it.
    • Yesterday i played Druid/Rogue, its single target damage was still surprisingly high even after latest nerf. But i cant say same thing about its AoE damage and DoT damage. My AoE and DoT was really low compared to previous runs before latest changes.
    • I can say same thing about Warrior/Mage as well. Its single target damage is very high after latest changes. Can you consider to nerf its single target damage and boost AoE damage ?
    • Warlock/Champion has become really powerful. I have not played it but when i swap from staff to wand + hammer, my damage increases from 160k to 210k. Allowing it to use wand + hammer is really a huge damage boost. My friend's damage with warlock/champion was very good with when he used wand + hammer instead 2-h staff.

    Hello Wesker, can you check Corrosive Poison (ID:494024) skill's DoT value again ? In recent patch notes it was said its DoT value was increased. Yet i have very low DoT damage with that skill. Before patch i dealt 8m DoT maximum. Now i am dealing 4m DoT damage maximum. Are you sure you didnt reduce its value instead increasing ?

    I understand that the original intent for Warlock/Champion was dual one-handed hammers, and while that concept is unique, I think it may present some practical issues in the long run. Once the class is no longer overtuned, I suspect its popularity will drop off significantly due to the high investment barrier — especially since the second 1H hammer only benefits a single class. That makes gearing more expensive and balancing more difficult, particularly if these weapons don’t get the same attention or tiering priority as more commonly used options.


    This approach also seems to go against the goal of making more classes viable for a broader player base. Players can already get comparable magic damage from a single staff, which is half the investment cost and usable on many more classes. Unless dual hammers are tuned to be significantly more rewarding — for example, two hammers at a lower tier equaling one higher-tier staff — it’s hard to justify the added effort and expense. Even then, you’re looking at investing the same resources to play one class versus many.

    Also, if Ethereal Hammerfall ends up requiring a hammer specifically in the main hand, players will likely do weapon swaps with Lua to get around it — creating a growing gap between Combat Engine users and those playing manually or with Kitty. You could try to mitigate that by adding a cooldown to weapon swapping, but maybe it’s worth asking if the class design really needs to be that restrictive in the first place?


    In general, MDPS already require a wider range of high-tier weapons (staff, wand, tambourine, magical shield, talisman, hammer, dagger, xbow) and armor pieces (3 different dps-oriented glove sets for different elemental damage). It would be great if rebalances helped make these classes more accessible instead of adding more barriers to entry.


    PS: Summarized / organized thoughts with AI; I promise I took a while to think about and respond to this. :D

    • Official Post
    Quote from Ravinous

    I understand that the original intent for Warlock/Champion was dual one-handed hammers, and while that concept is unique, I think it may present some practical issues in the long run. (...)

    Greetings!


    Thank you for your thoughts and I fully agree with you. The goal should be to make classes more accessible and not to push it into a niche. Ethereal Hammer will therefore require an offhand hammer, but in favor of my initial idea of a dual hammer wielder, I will probably add a small amount of magical hammer damage so that wielding two hammers might grant ~5% bonus or something. This way, players can keep using their wand and hammers, but if you really want to squeeze out the last drop of damage, you can use two hammers. ;)


    Best regards

    Wesker &)

    why on earth would u do that, the class already overperforms over any class u can think of and when i say Any, i mean ANY not just warlock vs warlock or warlock vs mage, literally any class, either give staff a bonus or nerf the hammer + wand this is sad good class ruined with some 2 hammer bs, it can literally be abused, with a decent weapon swap function (which most lua players already have implemented).. please consider not putting any bonus on dual hammers and nerfing wand and hammer somehow, dont get me wrong its very unique and nice idea for warlock champ, but in a long run it will definetly end up being one of those classes that when people build mdps gear they will just play that 1 class, for example like warrior rogue before the nerfs.

    • Official Post
    Quote from Flacko

    why on earth would u do that, the class already overperforms over any class u can think of and when i say Any, i mean ANY not just warlock vs warlock or warlock vs mage, literally any class, either give staff a bonus or nerf the hammer + wand this is sad good class ruined with some 2 hammer bs, it can literally be abused, with a decent weapon swap function (which most lua players already have implemented).. please consider not putting any bonus on dual hammers and nerfing wand and hammer somehow, dont get me wrong its very unique and nice idea for warlock champ, but in a long run it will definetly end up being one of those classes that when people build mdps gear they will just play that 1 class, for example like warrior rogue before the nerfs.

    My bad, I should have been more specific on this one. The class will be drastically nerfed in general within the next magical class patch, of course. I think I already got a pretty good overview of it's true potential. The mentioned hammer buff will not result into more damage for the class, but just to enable a viable gameplay option with two hammers that will be more or less equivalent to wand and hammer.


    Best regards

    Wesker &)

    Quote from Flacko

    why on earth would u do that, the class already overperforms over any class u can think of and when i say Any, i mean ANY not just warlock vs warlock or warlock vs mage, literally any class, either give staff a bonus or nerf the hammer + wand this is sad good class ruined with some 2 hammer bs, it can literally be abused, with a decent weapon swap function (which most lua players already have implemented).. please consider not putting any bonus on dual hammers and nerfing wand and hammer somehow, dont get me wrong its very unique and nice idea for warlock champ, but in a long run it will definetly end up being one of those classes that when people build mdps gear they will just play that 1 class, for example like warrior rogue before the nerfs.

    It sounds like the weapon swapping won't be necessary because Etheral Hammerfall would require an offhand hammer, so there's not any benefit to weapon swapping. I actually think that the idea of ~5% less damage if you use Wand + 1H hammer vs 2x 1H hammer is perfectly fine -- it should be enough to still allow someone to test the class with 1x 1H hammer and see if they want to invest further (once balancing is mostly complete on the class).