Cord of the Rings May 4th

[Siddharta]

Thats no problem. They can remove good 40% of hunters and rks dps and people still could beat the raid first boss has now been killed in 3.5 minutes.

It doesn't work this way. Fight time (dps) function is not linear. Because there are a lot of other factors depend on DPS. And time also depends on these factors.

[Arnenna]

I'd guess that most of who are contributing to this thread will have maximising our characters and own skills with playing them high on their game objectives. Also, that we actually want a better game rather than just except what's given.

When I hear players talk of the "Toxic" forums I can only think all this is just beyond their understanding. Easier to consider it all toxic than to actual contribute.

The other thing is that many of us have actually thought through and maybe discussed the issues we have and attempts to waylay come from closed minds.

My concern is that SSG have the same mind set of the toxic forums and just don't play enough or have the experience of playing a particular class to assess the situation.


There's a mini in the gameplay forum wanting help to cope with Mordor, a few pointers and they should have the wherewithal to continue rather more easily. I want everyone's playing skills to catch up so it's an easier task to balance classes. I don't want SSG reading that post and thinking that a mini needs a big buff because someone is struggling with content, that others have breezed through. But we're hampered by the decision to take the game into easy mode by Turbine wanting to boost numbers after the HD losses.

However because of the path SSG took with imbuement, essence and stat inflation the difference in power between any 2 level 115s can be huge. Some will have given up the grind and never return to it. Equally some don't have the skill to play to the max and maybe too shy to get help. Just as some don't contribute to the forums as they don't want to seem foolish. Or don't talk in voice chat when there are more assertive players active. Some just play the game differently and are happy with that.

With the grind quite overwhelming for some it means the gap in power will only increase. How the heck can you provide content when you drive this extreme power gap between one player and another. Sev mentioned that because festivals were so liked that they were doing a scaled rift encounter for the summer. I infer numbers increase as players find they can't take the grind, finding it the only thing they can do these days. They haven't made to through Mordor to even get to do dailies, "pushed" into key purchases maybe, felt side-lined perhaps. This year's anniversary for me, it's been all about obtaining essence reclamation scrolls to cope with the monthly new essence to grind. So that's 17 characters that show up in their metrics that "love" the festival. Only thing that kept me awake was multi-boxing the fireworks in different layers and doing them with 7 prompts (and timing a new client instance until after the last client had released the ini file and avoid an ini reset). But for Star-lits and Reclamation scrolls for barter I doubt I'd do them unless there was something new. Only do Anniversary and Summer as it is, because I get enough resources to last the year with just those. I spice up the summer with split screen fishing. I'm sure we all have a way to make it through and avoid our brain cells contemplating mass suicide.

Mac

Those gaps are huge, and they just keep getting bigger and bigger. I needed a few Empos the other day, in a hurry (for a mate), so took my two RK's up to the smiths daily. One is in ok gear, the early Mordor stuff with shadowed essences, but has complete Li's. She just breezed through with her eyes shut, pulling as many mobs as she could keep following, before they give up and return to their spawn points. The other RK is in purple crafted 115 gear with dark essences (drops) and non imbued LI's (she also has very few virtue traits). While it was still very easy to do the dailies, the time difference was crazy.

[siipperi]

Please. Hunter has two decent AoE skills. Rain of arrows for up to 10 targets if you trait 15 ranks into bowmaster to obtain the small crit chances. Split shot, can hit up to 5 targets if fully traited in huntsman. There is also rain of thorns, deep in the yellow tree, but to get that, one of the others has to go if hunter wants to do any decent amount of damage, plus, it's more of a root skill than a damage skill.

You wish champs to have a single target ability pretty close to hunters, and you want guardians to have a damage output pretty close to hunters. Hunter AoE doesn't come anywhere near the AoE of a champ. If you're going to compare stuff, compare it under fair and unbiased scenarios, not just pick and choose.

We are talking about all classes fulfilling more than one role here right? Or not?

2 decent aoe skills? 1 extremely good aoe skill. Thats all what you need. Amount of skills is irrelevant, minstrel has several and sucks major way compared to hunter aoe.

Yes red champ should absolutely be up there with hunter. Considering all factors that this game has champ doing even 10% more dps than hunter would mean in reality hunter is superior ST dps class. You need debuff traited warden to make any kind of melee class to work, so sacrificing one dps slot just for extra debuffer, while rk and hunter gets their debuffing for free with lm. Also I have never said guardian be up there. Even on this thread I said classes should be within 40-50% from each others which means worst dps specced classes on that spectrum would not be competitive dps classes.

This is reason why devs will continue listening people who know metaplay of this game on matters they want help (might not want it on all matters). spamming skills on random do not matter on dps balancing they are aiming for. On balancing like this They want to know perfect rotation outputs and balance classes after these. Rest is just about how advanced class is supposed to be. They have done it like this before this and they continue doing it like this, since that is only way to reach proper balance. They cant balance classes after random guy using melee skills as ranged class or using skill every 3 seconds pace. Such leads just major disbalance in this game.

It doesn't work this way. Fight time (dps) function is not linear. Because there are a lot of other factors depend on DPS. And time also depends on these factors.

On this case it would. Hunter would still reach over 65k dps with such nerf.

Guardian is not a dps class either, but, there you go, you want it to be. I have an LM if I want to play debuffs, I have a guard if I want to play tank, I have a champ if I want to deal massive AoE and I have a hunter for dps. That's how it should be.

@ the team. If you remove 40% of dps from hunters and RK's, and open that can of worms, be ready for what crawls out, is all I can say. Be ready to be asked for 40% nerf to guard's tanking ability, champs AoE ability, minstrels heal ability etc. If you're thinking of taking guard etc up, then do that, or if you're thinking of taking hunter/rk down, do that. You shouldn't do both.

It was just example how much there is room to nerf classes in order raid to be still beatable. But absolutely. Minstrel totally should receive good 40% nerf to their hps, even bigger to be honest. Guard taunts should absolutely be nerffed as well. 3s forced taunt on fray, 5s on engage and multiplier lowered to 1.5x and threat multiplier of skills rised. Same kind of pass for all tank classes.

[Macdui]

Those gaps are huge, and they just keep getting bigger and bigger. I needed a few Empos the other day, in a hurry (for a mate), so took my two RK's up to the smiths daily. One is in ok gear, the early Mordor stuff with shadowed essences, but has complete Li's. She just breezed through with her eyes shut, pulling as many mobs as she could keep following, before they give up and return to their spawn points. The other RK is in purple crafted 115 gear with dark essences (drops) and non imbued LI's (she also has very few virtue traits). While it was still very easy to do the dailies, the time difference was crazy.

See, you are a nice person and still have mates in the game. I'm a grumpy old man and all my friends left with Rohan and Helm's Deep. The last couple with the death of the Bowmaster.

So I have 400+ Smith's tokens on several characters and no storage problem with stacks of 10 scrolls to worry about and pay for slots to store. And fully aware that SSG could just negate my efforts and drop empowerments from that barter npc at any time. Just like the Gorgoroth Starlit Crystal and Gorgoroth Empowerment Scroll if they wanted to finally get rid of their detractors and concentrate on the "fans"

Mac

[Siddharta]

On this case it would. Hunter would still reach over 65k dps with such nerf.

Even if the fight will stay doable (but i bet after raw 40% nerf for hunters and rks first boss fight (at least) will become not doable for the most groups)
The only strategy = current speedkill strat where you need to cash out one healer to another DPS and stack some classes. This will cause a lot of problems as with such a huge nerf people will start dying at some point.
Also there will be no spot for some classes.

I can't call it 'balanced'

[siipperi]

Even if the fight will stay doable (but i bet after raw 40% nerf for hunters and rks first boss fight (at least) will become not doable for the most groups)
The only strategy = current speedkill strat where you need to cash out one healer to another DPS and stack some classes. This will cause a lot of problems as with such a huge nerf people will start dying at some point.
Also there will be no spot for some classes.

I can't call it 'balanced'

I never said it would be balanced but that there is room to nerf classes extremely hash way if they like to, of course it wont happen since this is SSG and they dont want to piss off anyone..

[Siddharta]

I never said it would be balanced but that there is room to nerf classes extremely hash way if they like to, of course it wont happen since this is SSG and they dont want to piss off anyone..

Sure there's definitely a spot for nerf, but for what reason?
I mean every class need some minor or major fixes for better\more balanced gameplay and this is what must be done, but i think content balancing overall is better than nerfing .

[siipperi]

Sure there's definitely a spot for nerf, but for what reason?
I mean every class need some minor or major fixes for better\more balanced gameplay and this is what must be done, but i think content balancing overall is better than nerfing .

Buffing classes usually has such negative effect on many aspects of the game like old instances, old leveling experience, pvp, current landscape, just to name a few. Neither of us can say hunter leveling is very interesting. Non critical hits one shotting mobs is simply not fun and destroying pvp and old content is not what we need.

Thats why there always should be compromises. Nerf top, buff bottom. They claimed on dev streams they have done rebalancing for all levels (most focus on max)but I dont believe that at all. Im willing to bet leveling experience is even duller after these changes. They have extremely poor track record on such things and until otherwise proven that stays as what to expect. Just Buffing is extremely short sighted way of thinking.

[Siddharta]

Thats why there always should be compromises. Nerf top, buff bottom. They claimed on dev streams they have done rebalancing for all levels (most focus on max)but I dont believe that at all. Im willing to bet leveling experience is even duller after these changes. They have extremely poor track record on such things and until otherwise proven that stays as what to expect. Just Buffing is extremely short sighted way of thinking.

Ok will see on beta! (i've heard it may be this week)
Bullroarer forums going to be very fun lol

[BotLike]

So you would require for every landscape player to know every detail about their spec like a raider? Landscape has not become face roll through better gear to me.

No.

As long as there is a decent bug fix pass and nerf on key skills , i am happy.

Barrage simply needs a nerf. *shrug*
Tactical relic runes are way too strong as well. So is bolster our courage , so is guardian force taunts.

They are so strong that everything else is thrown on the trash bin.

A hunter can do landscape spamming only 2 skills , a guardian can keep boss aggro by spamming 1 key , a minstrel can heal by spamming 1 key.
The tactical relic runes are insanely powerful and while i realise they were introduced in an effort to balance RK and hunter in group content and give minstrel some form of heal scaling , now is the time to nerf them to the physical rune's standards , and use this update to bring those 2 classes closer together in a more healthy way.

Other than the above , they need to tweak some debuffs to make all classes decent in group content.
Maybe add/change a couple of skills to debuff partial avoidances , physical mitigation debuffs etc.

As mentioned above , melee classes need to have higher damage output in general than ranged ones , because of common sense and ranged friendly mechanics.
And when i say higher , if they have no intention of changing the debuffs skills available in game , it would require a great melee boost.

[Wolf2x]

The problem is that everyone; both player base and the devs, loves to focus so much on DPS. When people discuss about nerfing or buffing a class, its always the DPS that needs to be changed.

DPS DPS DPS DPS.

The ultimate goal is to make a raid environment where each class is equally desired, and the class strengths are adjusted to actually make it hard to complete t2c content, and somewhat easier for t1 content right?

We can all agree that the t2c content is now very easy to do at a certain level, but is DPS really the only reason for that?

What about the heals that makes tank survival faceroll even with 1 healer? (Which can be only done by a specific class, by the way, unlike DPS which has 2 competent classes)

What about the debuffs that makes DPS as over the top as it is?

What about the tanking abilities? None of these stuff I listed used to be as easy as it is right now, including DPS of course.

Just my 2 cents, I do want Hunters and RKs to be nerfed to allow some other classes to actually participate (and to make the raids harder than it is right now), but make no mistake DPS is far from the only issue in this current raiding scene..

[Joedangod]

Just my 2 cents, I do want Hunters and RKs to be nerfed to allow some other classes to actually participate (and to make the raids harder than it is right now), but make no mistake DPS is far from the only issue in this current raiding scene..

Don't think anyone has suggested that DPS is the only issue. The only reason it gets mentioned more than anything else is because it's the easiest thing to measure and also the most common role among traitlines.

[Wolf2x]

Don't think anyone has suggested that DPS is the only issue. The only reason it gets mentioned more than anything else is because it's the easiest thing to measure and also the most common role among traitlines.

That makes sense yeah, I just find it ironic that everyone who are worried so much about class imbalance (that includes me) almost never talk about the roles that are the most lopsided between classes.

And please, for the love of god SSG, stop giving out more trait points. It shouldn't even be as much as it is right now. The classes can almost have 2 full trait lines at the same time, its embarrassing.

[Hejazia.Arkenstone]

And please, for the love of god SSG, stop giving out more trait points. It shouldn't even be as much as it is right now. The classes can almost have 2 full trait lines at the same time, its embarrassing.

I'd give it a few years and we will have enough trait points to equip all of the traits, which defeats the purpose of trait trees to begin with. I've heard about setup flexibility but this is ridiculous.

[Macdui]

We are all assuming that everyone has got all their trait points. This gets many into choice traits in another tree so in the case of the blue hunter you can run around spamming AOE when you have the crit reset and you have the crit stat to go with that. It was the first thing I did when there were enough points to make it reasonable, had it planned for when the new content provided more points. Likewise on other classes I had builds in mind waiting for those new points to be available.

For some classes these hybrids have brought too much power for SSG's liking, note the Guard Bleeder that was seen as the DPS King and how they hacked that about. I'd guess that there are a few other hybrids that have powers, without a zonflux to demo, that SSG just don't know about. I'd hazard they don't know the AE spam hunter build.

Compare with a level 115 hunter with 70 trait points who asserts that hunter AE is ####, who are SSG to believe?

We might all have that hybrid that works for us and no telling if the changes will negate that build as traits are moved and skill potencies changes. We might find a blanket 3 point cost in another tree is the outcome. I'm more reasonable (at least I think so), given time to except stuff and get used to it so would appreciate some dev input before coding.


Mac

[Hejazia.Arkenstone]

We are all assuming that everyone has got all their trait points. This gets many into choice traits in another tree so in the case of the blue hunter you can run around spamming AOE when you have the crit reset and you have the crit stat to go with that. It was the first thing I did when there were enough points to make it reasonable, had it planned for when the new content provided more points. Likewise on other classes I had builds in mind waiting for those new points to be available.

For some classes these hybrids have brought too much power for SSG's liking, note the Guard Bleeder that was seen as the DPS King and how they hacked that about. I'd guess that there are a few other hybrids that have powers, without a zonflux to demo, that SSG just don't know about. I'd hazard they don't know the AE spam hunter build.

Compare with a level 115 hunter with 70 trait points who asserts that hunter AE is ####, who are SSG to believe?

We might all have that hybrid that works for us and no telling if the changes will negate that build as traits are moved and skill potencies changes. We might find a blanket 3 point cost in another tree is the outcome. I'm more reasonable (at least I think so), given time to except stuff and get used to it so would appreciate some dev input before coding.

Mac

That is a very weak argument. What is wrong with assuming that most players actually do the game's content? If you do the quests in each zone and follow the epic line, you will likely have all of the trait points. If a developer were to assume what you said, "not everyone has got all their trait points", and then just adds 5 points in a new zone, imagine how ridiculous that would be.

Almost all classes have traits in all 3 lines that are viable in any situation. Every update that introduces more trait points opens up new possibilities as to where people will spend those points. If you add 2 more trait points to the 89 that we have, it will be possible to have 5/5 Bodkin Arrows as a blue-line hunter without giving up anything important. Part of class balancing is also looking at trait trees and adjusting traits.

As for the guardian analogy that you made, at the time the problem was that redline guardian had too much survivability, not that the DPS was too high. (e.g. Zonflux was famous for posting videos of his red guard soloing 6-man instances on-level, which is ridiculous) The developer's solution at the time was to nerf the heals and keep redline guard damage at the same level, then many people QQed about the nerf and moved to other classes (Zonflux included, he started to main a warden). Guardian DPS fell even farther when the level cap was increased from 105 to 115.

[BotLike]

As for the guardian analogy that you made, at the time the problem was that redline guardian had too much survivability, not that the DPS was too high.

This is correct , but it didn't stop the dev at the time to say that guard did more AOE dps than champion on certain scenarios.
It was so ridiculous that i lost all faith and started to realise Turbine ( and now SSG ) were clueless about classes in end-game.
I got certain when they tried to patch it and broke it further , that was the final straw really.

I wonder if anything changed since then , since this time , every class will feel the answer to that in their bones. : D

[Macdui]

That is a very weak argument. What is wrong with assuming that most players actually do the game's content? If you do the quests in each zone and follow the epic line, you will likely have all of the trait points. If a developer were to assume what you said, "not everyone has got all their trait points", and then just adds 5 points in a new zone, imagine how ridiculous that would be.

Almost all classes have traits in all 3 lines that are viable in any situation. Every update that introduces more trait points opens up new possibilities as to where people will spend those points. If you add 2 more trait points to the 89 that we have, it will be possible to have 5/5 Bodkin Arrows as a blue-line hunter without giving up anything important. Part of class balancing is also looking at trait trees and adjusting traits.

As for the guardian analogy that you made, at the time the problem was that redline guardian had too much survivability, not that the DPS was too high. (e.g. Zonflux was famous for posting videos of his red guard soloing 6-man instances on-level, which is ridiculous) The developer's solution at the time was to nerf the heals and keep redline guard damage at the same level, then many people QQed about the nerf and moved to other classes (Zonflux included, he started to main a warden). Guardian DPS fell even farther when the level cap was increased from 105 to 115.

Who's to know that a poster on these forums just hasn't got the points to make that powerful build that others have and are using to make their assertions. Why would anyone think adding 5 point in a new zone would be at all productive? As to character reaching 115 without the points, we have that ridiculous valar system, BBs that many can't manage or refuse to do. Players who don't have tomes at 18+ in their main stat, slack at the virtues, haven't noticed the new LI runes and are using those from the ultimate package, lol. Have you not seen the calls for Warg pens levelling. These are peeps lacking content purchases so may not even have all point available to them. We also have people taking time away from the game and rush to the end game when they come back and maybe miss the points or frankly too busy to go back and get the points they have missed. Some have more interesting things to do in game than go back to Ringo Vail and figure out how to get a trait point or the Westernmet to find some quest they dropped from the full quest log years ago. SSG don't make it easy. Or they could just not be very good playing lotro.

As to the guardian it was all about survivability in particular environment that had enough weaker opponents to provide more heals than the incoming damage. It was unfortunate that the dev came up with the term "Kings of DPS" and is why many gave up and left in disgust. But we were just playing at it, the wardens did that stuff with no difficulty, wasn't even worth a video. But we didn't just go in stand in front of the mobs and fight, we had to duck and dive, kite and wait on CDs, tweak builds and LIs for the encounter, push the limits of our class and instil back some of the fun we were denied in the complete destruction of our tank gameplay with that travesty of a threat mechanic.

I would agree that at least the huntsman hunter still has decisions to make regarding bodkin arrows and it would be like that bleeder guard they worried about and screwed up, if the hunter got those additional points. What other power builds are on the horizon for other classes? I hope they are thinking about the possibilities. If they would share a little we might see if they are on the right track or just a "Oh hell, buff them to keep them happy" approach.


Mac

[Hejazia.Arkenstone]

This is correct , but it didn't stop the dev at the time to say that guard did more AOE dps than champion on certain scenarios.
It was so ridiculous that i lost all faith and started to realise Turbine ( and now SSG ) were clueless about classes in end-game.
I got certain when they tried to patch it and broke it further , that was the final straw really.

I wonder if anything changed since then , since this time , every class will feel the answer to that in their bones. : D

Actually yeah, I totally forgot about that but thanks for reminding me haha.

Just blatantly inaccurate comments from the developer, saying that guardian AoE was outdpsing champion AoE..... and they claimed to have "tested it" when it is just a matter of reading tooltips and realizing that 1 champion AoE was 5x or more than any guardian AoE at the time.