The 4 Principles of Balanced Combat: And my thoughts on PVP R8

My thoughts on PVP R8:

Let me first start by saying that this is a FANTASTIC start to PVP. I love it! It's quick, it makes you think, it's really something special that the devs, the community, and industry should be excited about.

But there are flaws, major flaws. Not just pre-alpha flaws either, these are core design flaws that need to be addressed yesterday or else we'll be doomed to the inevitable results. The fundamental balance of PVP is broken, and the devs know this, but I'm not sure they understand exactly how it's broken.

Sure, some weapons do too much damage. Ok, the rest of the combat and magic tree hasn't been added to the game yet. Right, people don't actually lose anything or die right now. I agree, all of these things are relatively important in their own way. But they still have absolutely nothing to do with what you should be looking at.

The 4 Principles of Balanced Combat: (Key points highlighted in red)

1. A level house begins with a level foundation.

The game of chess is inherently balanced. Each opponent has the same number of pieces and moves just once per turn. Each opponent has the same amount of time to make their moves, and perhaps most importantly, every piece on the board can be taken by any other piece. There's a reason this game has been played for so long, it's a level playing field. Let's see where Pokemon is in about 700 years.

PVP should work the same way. There should be no "best" way to fight, and it's my opinion that there should be no best way to fight at this stage of development. I realize the train has left the station, but what I suggested months ago remains true today. The best way to achieve balance is to keep the game balanced at all time. The game must be DESIGNED with balance in mind. You can't expect to "find it" as development moves on.

What we should do going forward is attempt to balance what we have in the game currently before adding more skills and spells. It is only when we have a balanced foundation of PVP that we should add new layers to the existing house. Else we dread the cost of the leaky pipes and cracked basement months and years from now.

2. Defense is mandatory.

In the real world, playing defense is more natural than playing offense. We are defensive creatures by our nature. We live indoors to protect ourselves from the elements. We maintain protective military and police forces to ensure a level of peace. When someone surprises us or approaches us aggressively, we brace ourselves for conflict without even thinking about it.

Or as legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once said, "Defense is more natural. When a guy steals your wife's purse and runs down the street. You chase after him and tackle him. That's defense!" (Quote paraphrased from memory)

Yet where is the defense in MMO's? It doesn't exist. Most MMO's are designed so that the person that shoots first and shoots most often wins. Even SOTA has begun it's first step into PVP using this formula (though thankfully to a lesser extent).

To play defense you have to be able to prevent or mitigate an attack from happening. This requires what I would call a COUNTER. What's the counter to the root spell? Jumping? That's not a counter, that's a reaction. What's the counter to a fireball spell? Moving out of the way! That's a viable counter (though in the current build it often looks like your a mile away from a fireball only to still get hit).

Every offensive attack should have at least one viable counter that completely prevents or completely mitigates that skill or spell. The results of not doing this can be seen in all MMO's, but right now we're focused on SOTA, and the current build of PVP is severely deficient in this principle. If I cast lighting bolt, it not only does damage (ignoring whatever armor the person is wearing as all magic does) but it also has a chance to stun the player as well. Is there a way to stop being stunned? No. Is there a way to stop having lightning cast on you? No - not directly. Is there a way to counter either of these two effects? No.

Some spells like Douse, will remove spell effects after a player has already been impacted by them, but this is a lot like being bitten by a poisonous snake, and instead of warding off the next incoming blow you're sucking out the poison. Imagine a UFC fight where one guy has a rattle snake thrown at him at the start of the fight, and then is told to suck the poison out while also continuing to battle his opponent. While perhaps entertaining for some, not many people would consider this the height of competitive fairness.

3. Balance happens in the now.

Does a merchant's scale weigh in the present, the future, or the past? Balance is something that happens right now. Something is either balanced now, or it's not balanced now. I can't think of anything where we say with a straight face that something isn't balanced in the moment but it will be balanced later in the week so "right now" it's ok. Can we imagine a merchant weighing a sack of grain right now, seeing that it's significantly lighter than what they paid for and shrugging, saying "well that's ok, I'm sure it will even itself out over time"? No.

Such is the case with PVP. If a player with a giant axe kills you in one swing right now, do you feel any sense of comfort knowing that the player will have to repair his giant axe every time he kills you in one swing? You shouldn't, it doesn't impact the competitive reality of the game, right now. Right now, you should be wondering what the counter for a giant axe is and if it's not in the game, why isn't it?

Having mechanics like armor and weapon damage in the game are wonderful for the macro economy and immersion. But they're not balancing factors in PVP - no one cares how much the best or most efficient way to kill someone in pvp costs, they only care if they're the ones pulling the trigger. So while I look forward to having weapons and armor decay over time and become damaged in combat, I don't look forward to having that be the answer to why I always lose in PVP. All balance should be considered in the NOW, not the past and not the future. How does it impact players that have the skills, spells, reagents, and items right now? That's where balance comes from.

4. OP stands for Overpowered. Overpowered is not fun.

It's redundant, just like Root, Stun, and secondary effects that cause players to root or stun. They're all over powered. No one's ever effectively made them "fair."

Case in point, tonight I realized that wearing armor was pointless in the current build. Because I can run equally as fast as everyone else, and because focus impacts both magic and combat (a nice touch IMO) there's really no reason to want to get close to someone else and go toe to toe with anything. So I just went naked. I was 100 times more effective being naked and casting root, lightning (chance to stun), discharge (chance to stun), and having a Fire Elemental running around next to me, than I ever was in full armor and shield. Anyone that's played so far will notice that the people winning at PVP are ranged, cloth wearing, fighter mages with roots and stuns. (Again, it's the first build and the point is not to point at flaws in R8 but instead the overall approach to PVP as it relates to the 4 Principles of Balance)

Here's the current build formula for success: Attacking MAGIC ignores armor + Polearms ignore armor + roots and stuns = All your attacks ignore armor and your defenses ignore armor. So the only people that wear armor are chumps.

The point being that Roots and Stuns are inherently unbalanced, especially if you're not going to give someone a way to proactively block or reflect it back on the caster. You also can't effectively weigh the impact of roots and stuns in comparison to attack and defense as on their own a root or a stun doesn't really attack or defend. It just creates a climate where players are recreating typical MMO combat that rewards the person that casts first and most often.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should abandon all roots and all stuns as a solution. But rather we should make the caster pay an acceptable price for immobilizing another player. I have suggested before that the only fair price would be to have the casting player also required to stay immobile while the spell is in effect (thus maintaining the magical link that binds his or her opponent). But I'm sure there are other ways to do this.

In closing, I hope the developers continue to challenge themselves to obtain balance in PVP by recognizing that the 4 Principles of Balanced PVP spring from the above outline, and we are far from that right now.

Again, great job on R8 PVP! It's exciting, but it's also unbalanced foundationally at its core and this can't get fixed by moving numbers around on a spreadsheet or adding more skills and spells. You have to fix the current build so that it gets as close to these 4 principles before moving on further and expanding PVP.

 

A couple of commentaries on your points:
1 & 3 - Those are true, but in part. It's very true that they should keep notes on current issues and try to solve them in the next iterarion but keep in mind that until all the pieces are laid in the board (i.e. until all the skills are implemented) there can't be a real balance. If they tried to balance 100% what we have now (a rather limited and biased set of skills and weapons) any new skill would destroy that. That's counter productuve.

Following your example, if a guy with an Axe insta-kills a light-armored character all the time, obviously that's a balance issue. If in the finished game that light guy can quickly evade the swing and backstab the attacker, that could be balanced. But it's something we don't have now, so we can't know now. The "right now" answer would be to reduce Axe damage but then, when adding the "quick evade and backstab" ability, it's the light character the one who would be OP, so they'd need to rebalance everything again. Keep in mind that I'm not seeing they should ignore what we're seeing now, quite the contrary. Perhaps we are discovering balance issues that they've never ever thought of and need to rethink their plans (I'm betting your 4th point is one of them), that's why it's so important that we keep informing of all these.
What I mean to say here is that, yes, they need to take all the info we're providing now and use it to refine each new step (and I'm betting that's their idea) but, even if they are working on balance, it's very possible that we, as players, won't be unable to truly taste it until everything is finished (and hopefuly only fine-tuning is needes by then). So we can't complain on inbalance issues until everything is finished BUT we MUST inform of them nonetheless.

Also, your comparison with chess is not fully applicable here. In chess both players have the same pieces, so there is only one way to play chess (multiple strategies, but only one way). In SotA we have infinite ways to play: As a mage, as a swordman, mixed builds... and yes, there are wrong ways to play (I doubt a nacked warrior with a deck consisting of only 20 douses will do much). In a game with classes it's easier, as they can compare between classes "a paladin is stronger than a mage, so we have to balance that". In here, witouth classes, cherry-picking skills... They have a very long road ahead to try to balance enverything, but at the end not every combination will possibly be equal.

2-Completely agree here. There are defensive skills, like parry or dodge, that let you... parry or dodge the next attack, so they ARE proactive. The problem, as I stated in another post, is that the cooldowns makes them completely unusable in real combat. Is far more useful to just keel spamming damage than to try to defend yourself. That should be addresed as soon as possible. And definitely there should be some counterspells to avoid magic the same way there is now for weapons.

4-Again I agree. There have been some solutions proposed, like yours (which has a big problem of making roots useles on 1vs1) or the ability to jump before the roots trap you to evade them. Another proposed solution for lighning is a stun cooldown (if you've been stunned, you're immune to stun for a while). The devs need to find a solution that doesn't make the spell/movement useless, maintains the advantages of causing a stun but prevents stun-spamming so that advantage is only a temporal and strategic one, instead of a default fallback.

 

To the OP is there a reference for your principles or are these your original thoughts on the topic? I ask because a lot of it is pretty hard to translate into game development as a whole. Balancing really needs to come into play once all the skill trees are completely flushed out. As mentioned by Kether, adding skills after will throw off the balance.

I also don't think the chess analogy works unless your comparing it to a duel using the same weapon. PvP, like war is full of imbalances this is where tactics and strategy come in. I would agree that the imbalances can not be so great that it makes the latter irrelevant. Often I found myself being jumped on by at least 2 people, so I would keep one stun or rooted the best as I could while I took one down then I used the terrain a lot to my advantage. I won some and lost some but I had fun doing it.

I do think your right on in terms of counters and defense. I have faith that in the end the developers will get it right as this is not their first rodeo so to speak.

I think the major test for this patch was trying to see people's reactions to the deck system. I hate read mixed reviews, for me I ended up liking it a lot more then I thought I would. Once the devs decide this is the system they will keep, they can then focus on completing skill trees, counters, and defenses.

It is up to us Tao make sure we continue to bring up issues and ideas that will help shape the decision making process.

 

@jschoice: Yes these are entirely my own thoughts. But I'm an old man that's had plenty of time to learn these lessons after playing so many horrible games.

As far being able to apply this broad philosophical approach to development, I see no problem with it. It's meant to be a broad philosophical approach, not a step by step instruction guide. When designing the game, the developers should use this to guide them when considering balance. It's like saying "What would {enter your favorite mythological figure here} do to fix this?" It's like a knight's code. It's rules to live by. If you strive to achieve this high ideal in everything you do, than you'll be much closer to obtaining it than if you just randomly do what your gut tells you to do.

This is essentially the same argument people gave me about moving up PVP testing to R8 instead of "first finishing combat". Only now PVP is in full swing and I'm talking about balance and not just starting development. The whole reason to begin PVP now verses "whenever" was so that it was integrated and balanced with the other core systems.

You have to develop the core of your system first and you need all the time you can get to balance. That's why PVP needed added as soon as possible, and that's why the devs need to balance it as soon as possible, because otherwise it doesn't make sense to add more skills and spells to a system that is inherently unbalanced. As I said above, you can't expect to "find" balance, you have to build it in from the ground floor up.

Yes, the "right now" answer MIGHT be to reduce damage. And in that scenario it probably is. The point I was making is that all too often I hear THIS dev team explain balance in terms of the past and the future tense. "Well the guy that uses bludgeons will ruin his hammer if he uses X skill in that way so it's balanced". No, it's not balanced, it comes at a cost. It's just like if I summon a demon and kill your whole guild single handed and then a developer says "it's ok because that reagent costs a fortune!" That's not in the NOW.

Look, what I'm not saying is that there shouldn't be Demons that kill off your whole guild. Just like in Chess there can be pieces on the board that are more powered than other pieces, like the Queen or the Knight. But what we can't do is say to someone that they are a Pawn and they are going to get Pwned because the other guy is a Queen. If that's how we're going to make the game, everyone is just going to try to be the Queen (using the best build or whatever) and there won't be any situations where being a Pawn (using multiple styles because all the builds are good in different situations) is acceptable. This leads into the other principles, specifically the one about having a counter for every offensive attack. What's the counter to a summoned demon? Die until it goes away?

You said something at the end that I thought was telling. I highlighted it in yellow.

That's just it, you can't balance "everything" if you don't take it one step at a time starting with the foundation. If you just add "stuff" and then balance a little and then add more "stuff" then at best you have a little balance and a lot of "stuff". But if you balance from the beginning, and then balance after testing and you don't add more stuff until the first part is balanced, that results in a more pure balance that resembles the game of Chess and not Pokemon.

 

That's the fundamental idea, and with that I agree. However, it is my impression that the skillset is the core of the system. That's why I think they need to get all skills done, even in a rough state, as soon as possible.
After all, most of the issues we're encountering stem from skills: "Stun is too OP", "Defensive skills are useless", etc...
I also agree that "balancing" in terms of cost, reagents and such is not actual balance. Balancing with skills, however, is what we need. So while a "it will cost more" is unaceptable, a "there will be a skill to counter that" is a good answer, as long they implement that skill as soon as posible to actually try. It's also possible, though, to be balancing things without having the complete set, but not the way it's been done now (more on that below).

Again, following your example:

You can now sommon a fire elemental, and it has no counter now. There is a skill planned to dispel creatures, though. That's a good counter against that, but it isn't implemented yet.
Here is when it gets complicated, though. One could think that the best way would be to never add a new skill without its counter, and that is true in part, but not enough. Because we're not balancing skills, we're balancing builds. And we can't balance a "Fire mage" build versus a "Water mage" build without being able to actually create a water mage build.

There is one point on the dev's current thinking that doesn't seem quite right to me, and I think you'll agree: they said they're going to go deeper in the skill trees instead of wider, finishing whole trees instead of adding skills to all of them. I actually think that is bad from a "have time to balance" perspective. You can't balance a fire build on its own, it has to be measured against other builds. Having an incomplete but uniform skill tree IS a good way to have a first impression of balance: if all the trees have only level 1 and 2 skills, you can then use that to balance low level builds. Then add a 3rd tier to ALL trees, and see how it goes... That's feasible and a good way to do things but hacing a random and biased set of skills (again, set of core features) and try to balance that is not only impossible but also counter-productive.

Actually, we've been saying more or less the same, from different points of view. From mine, "skills" are not "stuff" but the foundation of the system. Everything else, money, reagents, repairs... yes, is just stuff, but the skillsets, the builds, are what form the core of this system.
Mind you, that is not always the case. In games with a class system, the foundation are the classes themselves and you can balance at a conceptual level "A Mage has more firepower but less defense, a paladin has lots of defense but is slow, a ranger...". We can't do that here because we don't have a finite number of predefined classes. What we have, however, is a set of skills whose combination defines our character. That's why I said they need to have either all the skills, or at least be adding them in an uniform way (altough it's now late for that). And then, probably, completely replace half of them when things don't work out as planned

This depends a bit on personal taste. We can have a game in which all builds are equal to each other or a game in which some builds are superior to some and inferior to others. An example of the latter is "Rock-paper-scissors". Rock is weak against paper but strong agains scissors. All the options are not equal but the overall result is balanced. In terms of the game it would mean that some builds are better against some enemies than others. I actually prefer that approach, as it adds an strategic layer to know when to fight and when to flee as well as making each build specialized and unique instead of "it doesn't matter what I am, everything is the same". But, as I said it's all a matter of taste.

That doesn't invalidate a point I made: there are indeed "wrong" builds that will be inherently imbalanced (the corner case I said: a deck with only 20 douses, or 20 lights). That's the price of freedom of choice: being able to chose wrong. The balance they should strive for, however, should not be only applicable to "standard" builds, but creativity should be encouraged. That's when it gets complicated, as the line between "that's a balance issue" and "that combination is just useless" has to be drawn somewhere.

In summary: yes, I agree on that they should balance the foundations of combat, but in my opinion the foundations are the skills themselves so the should either put all them in the game and then change them as needed to achieve balance or if adding them in a gradual way do it in a leveled and uniform way between styles, so you can actually balance things instead of trying to match schools with lvl6 skills agains others with only lvl2 ones...

P.S.: I think between you and me we're going to scare people with those wall-of-text, but this is an interesting and very important topic which actually deserves all the elaboration we can type instead of one liners.

 

There is a better board game that can illustrate the benefits of asymetric but balanced combat. That game is Archon and it's been around for quite a while. There's even an android version

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon:_The_Light_and_the_Dark



The light and dark squares can fluctuate in color so the ground advantage can change for your piece. Though each piece is unique and has a different ability , it all balances out somehow.

 

I played that on either my Vic 20 or C64, I can't remember. Loved it!

 

I wrote it for the devs, not casual passers by. I appreciate your input. I hope the developers take the time to consider long walls of text.

 

Its very unbalanced right now I agree.

Also was ganged up on by 2 people one healer one tank, wow so early in the game...of course I lost, we should have another spell
Mass Root..Much like Hold Monster Mass to balance the ganging up affect, anyone agree? don't want to hijack thread ..
But I agree is very unbalanced, I won 1 time out of many.

 

I think "Mass" spells are a great idea to help balance out being ganged up on. I spent the majority of my time last night being spawn camped by the same two idiots.

Of course, there would have to be a way to BALANCE mass spells so that they didn't become the defacto way to play the game and only rewarded people who used them in certain situations. I think getting hit by multiple opponents is a good indicator that MASS spells should be usable against the opponents that hit you only. I haven't quiet "rooted" out the details on that, but that's where my mind is going first.

 

I don't have nearly as much experience as most others, but my limited experience is that stun effects add no value and create a very negative situation for all involved. There is nothing more frustrating, immersion killing, and frankly fun-killing than not being able to move or do anything. In addition, it requires every class/tree/etc... to have an extra 'get out of stun effect' whether it makes sense or not. To me, stuns exist because 'every other game does it'. Rooting I have a similar feeling about, but not as strong.

I recognize the need for ranged folks to be able to create distance, but my view is 'find another way'.

 

I highlighted in yellow a point I thought was a great one. Perhaps instead of creating a single skill or spell for EVERY single offensive skill or spell...an alternative would be to create a set of active defenses that would protect a player based on pre-determined configurations. I would require focus and could be integrated into the skill tree, but the end result would be proactive defense that the game desperately needs.

For example: Maybe there's an active defense for Roots, Stuns and Knockbacks? But if you have this defense turned on, you're going to lose something in return. (not just skill points)

 

@ Baron Drocis Fondorlatos

I join ya in the old man category.....I preferred aged like a fine wine...but old works too. (I enjoy playing League of Legend and smacking down the youngins. They seem to forget the years of experience we have on them). In all those years I beta tested and played just about every MMO made in North America and many Asian MMOs. Nothing held me like my 10 years in UO. Combat was pretty straightforward and fairly balance until gear in the form of artifacts screwed things up.

I like that they are working out combat through PvP. I continue to be confident that there will be counters such has systems to break root/stuns, remove conditions, maybe even a magic reflect spell that sends the damage back to the caster.

Although I tend to play a mage or tank/mage, I do hope the variety of weapons get some love so there truely is variety out there. In terms of magic, I hope your rewarded slightly by mastering one school of magic instead of mixing and matching. It is true that the favored builds are those that allow you to spam stun.

 

Whilst I agree with the general thrust of the OP with regards to philosophies of balance, I think it's a little too early to be talking about it now. What we're seeing here is whether or not combat in general should be structured in a certain way. The classical MMO way is for the player and their opponent to stand toe to toe and trade blows/activated powers until one falls down. So far, Shroud appears to be developing into a more FPS manner (and closer to classic UO), where movement matters just as much as skill juggling. Does that fit with the "Combat Deck" mechanic? In a Card Based game it's two people sat facing each other at a table; the most animated they should get per the rules is a quick tap on their cards. Does that kind of thought and deployment play work when people are haring all over the place in a 3d environment? That's the sort of feedback this first bash at PvP should be looking for, not whether individual cards are over powered or not; is combat itself developing into something that feels like a fun game?

Let me give an illustration of this; Is a "stun" balanced? Well it depends if you believe movement matters or not. In the usual MMO style, not so much, if you can tank through any damage done to you, or blast away from a stationary position regardless. What about in Shroud? Well, if a movement playstyle is going to be dominant, then to involve a "Stun" of any kind needs to be looked at in a more fundamental way; what can you do with the cards in your deck whilst stunned? Should being stunned transfer a bonus of some kind, such as an increased turn up or turn over of healing/shielding cards, in order to balance the Deck Building mechanic with the importance of movement... or balance it negatively, as now they aren't moving they have more time to look at what cards are popping up instead of the environment, so the Deck Building actually turns out to give an unexpected advantage? Or are those so used to Twitch-style FPS based combat going to always have an advantage in that situation because their reactions minimize the time needed to make a decision on a card? What's the actual feel of the game so far?

The idea then of "power versus power" is too soon; you're talking about balancing pieces before you've even decided if it's chess or basketball you'll be playing in the end. So I'd suggest people keep their feedback more fundamental and simple for now.

 

The design has to incorporate the fundamentals of what we wish to achieve. It's not possible to "find balance" as we go. You have to build it stone by stone from the ground floor up. If you just "make a house" without a blueprint and some idea of what you're trying to get at, you're not going to have a very good house. For our purposes, just throwing stuns and roots into the game because they're cool is not following a principle that will achieve balance. I'm not saying the devs did this, but I'm saying the game plays like they did.

Likewise, the game plays as if counters weren't thought of at all. So I suggest now is the ONLY time where this feedback might help. Because to continue down this same path into R9 will lead us only one more month into development into a game that CAN'T be balanced.

 

I just mentioned something like this in the chat... let the magic side of the house have specific counters for their opposite school, and spells that support their own, but for the rest of the world, how about a combat skill school called Tactics, wherein rest non-skill specific CC's, stuns and knockbacks, as well as counters to the same?

 

The above is just another way of saying what I am; you don't know yet what kind of house you're actually building.

But your argument for providing a counter-balance to stun doesn't fit that statement, because you don't know yet if Stun is an element in the house design that has an enormous influence or not. You need to provide an argument for that first. It would look something like this;

1.) Combat is fluid (with regards to physical movement)
2.) Fluidity provides a consider advantage over non-fluidity
3.) Stun creates non-fluidity
4.) The effect of Stun needs thus needs a counter balance.

You are presently arguing for 3 and 4, but just assuming 1 and 2; which are themselves the product of a final blueprint, that we don't yet have for certain, and one without which the conclusion in 4 does not follow. Where there is no balance issue, you do not need a counter-balance, even if Stun limits movement by it's definition; so No. 3, despite what it may first appear, is a value-neutral comment without 1 and 2.

So you need to prove the prior conclusions first. It's entirely possible that a full on Tank or Healing class can just turtle down and be completely untouched by the negative effects of not moving around, if the Deck Mechanic provides a way to always use, or just cycle through heals etc fast enough to heal through said damage. Remember "playing a deck" requires no movement inherently, it's set up before combat, based upon a selection made from long term skill spending. In Shroud then, is it a game where fluidity is essential when decks are played?

What about directional attacks; Does Stun prevent turning on the spot? If it doesn't, there's a much lesser negative consequence to it in turn... you can just keep turning on the spot so as not to present your back to directional damage.

What I'm pointing out is that, useful in terms of wider gaming history your argument may be, it's largely useless from the point of designing this specific house here and now. You're just theory-crafting general conclusions but not proving or checking their validity before the actual walls start going up. If I were designing the game, I'd need to have more specific feedback on what exactly the issue with Stun in Shroud was.

 

Aron, you make a solid point about Stun possibly being a horrible mechanic in my eyes but not the developers eyes. They may very well intend for the game to be very frantic and spammy. If that's the case, then perhaps stun is working as intended.

Personally I find that style of play and game design to be mindless and stupid. But some people really like it. Some people really enjoy spamming the same spell combination over and over again while running around all over the place in a desperate attempt to out damage your opponent. I don't though, and so I can safely say that if the developers are trying to create a better version of balanced combat they'll have to follow what I outlined above.

Again, there's a reason that Pokemon isn't Chess and Chess is balanced. Because Chess isn't Pokemon. If the devs want to create a non-balanced Pokemon type game, by all means just keep adding unbalanced "cards" into an already unbalanced game.

 

I've been having great success as a two handed blunt weapon wielder and offset of sword and shield/rend setup. The problem right now is that there are no diminishing returns and global cooldowns on locked skills are WAY OFF. Knights whatever that releases stun/knockdown is on 1 sec cooldown when locked in slot. Rend has no cooldown. Root is 10 secs. All sword skills are <2 sec cd when locked. The DR needs to be looked at for stun/snare/root/knockdown for sure. As in.. there is no DR.

 

Stun Effects are a problem. Rend is OP, Fire in general is OP.

Casters beat Tanks one on one almost all the time.

However they're not good against 2 fighters that chase them. then its different.

Ranged is just sooooooo messed up right now. When this was being tested, did anyone use a bow or crossbow ?

I can't understand how you can win with ranged and epic leather I tried it so many times and it was very useless.

So yeah.. needs some serious balancing all around.