MAtk build based balance issues.

[uberwookie]

So, after testing nearly all the damage output skills, Meteor, Chain Lightning, Fireball, Flamethrower, etc, and comparing them to the damage output of a simple melee class with Shadow Clone and Static Touch, it should be noted that MAtk based skills are severely underpowered.

The issue with this is twofold.

1) There is not as much gear that enhances the 'magic' play styles compared to a Physical Attack/HP build.
For a physical character you can concentrate on tank builds, (HP/DEF), damage builds (PAtk/Crit), or skill/buff builds (Static Touch/Summons while you hack n slash with a sword style).

For a mage style characters you concentrate on MAtk, EP, EP Regen, and, as a necessity, HP.

Going through crafting recipes and all the loot I have acquired up until the season hydras... I have 3 pieces of physical gear play style for every piece of magical play style gear, and the magic stuff is stuff I bought almost exclusively, where almost all physical gear can be crafted (and is far superior stat wise).

2) The damage for Magic attacks are roughly equivalent to physical skills when you have the same attack stats, which is not balanced because of how focus for a Magic build character necessitates splitting stats.

To gain an optimal Magic style character you would typically concentrate on ranged attacks, buffs, or summons... right now there is not many buffs (and those that do exist tend towards enhancing melee play) and summons are static based solely on the skill you put into them (and still tend to be better for meleers).

Since summons have no duration and just a reduction in total EP (a limited static pool) there should be gear that makes summons 'cheaper' do more damage, or have more HPs... AFAIK none of these exist. Buffs are currently Haste (more useful for melee than magic), Shield (I haven't been able to determine much usefulness of it to be honest), and lastly, Static Touch... which is a MUST for melee damage builds has almost no advantage to a mage.

In order to make a character that does tons of damage from far away, or to do a consistent little bit while kiting, you need to split your stat boosting gear on Matk, EP, and HP if you have some extra slots, but you sacrifice PAtk, Defense, Crit Change/Damage, and HP. Physical builds, have to just focus on PAtk or Crit chance/bonus, Defense and HP are more or less automatic, but necessary in a passive way.

The problem is, overall with how skills are balanced, this does not work. The lack of Defense and the reliance on the limited pool of EP makes hit and run tactics that do the same damage as physical skills, but without the ability to tank while my EP regens and inferior damage by far.
I d0 1/4th the damage in melee when I use mage gear, have about 2/3rds the HP, and around half the defense.

This means I can get hit about 6-7 times by a hydra boss with mage gear, but about 15 times with melee gear before dying. This is a trade off most games have, but what they also do is boost magic damage to do between 2-5x as much as a melee skill does because mana (or EP in this case) is a limited resource and physical attackers can either passive dodge /and or soak damage better due to superior defense and HP.

Essentially, I suggest MAtk do 2x-5x damage for skills that rely on it, since you have to be constantly kiting or risk getting hit while charging skills to be worth it. Meteor is a good skill, but for it to be good, I have to be standing in a safe spot and charge and aim it and it does not have nearly enough payoff for the risk. I can be in/out with 3 shadow clone strikes in the same time I can do one charged meteor and they will do more damage, and hey, if I get hit while playing a tank, no big deal, I can get hit 10 more times. If I get hit while focusing a meteor, there goes 1/4th my life.

 

[res7less]

I actually agree with that a lot. While I do prefer playing melee classes in most games, I have also tried to go for an ice build and that was by far not as enjoyable as a mage should be. I think one of the biggest problems is the range "advantage". Basically you are supposed to deal high damage at range while sacrificing survivability, but that advantage gets negated since the enemies come right at you and there is no real way to kite them except with frost nova.

So builds, that cannot kite, should be rewarded with high damage, which currently isn't the case. As melee I could focus down a Larvacid even before it starts running away while with Ice Spikes I need to charge 3 times to gold charge to be able to kill it. Furthermore I had a hard time during boss encounters with an ice build, since it apparently sacrifices damage to be able to chill opponents. But since bosses are immune to that, it's partially really difficult to beat some of the usual bosses which were easy peasy as melee. Frost should at least chill Teddy and Freddy during the second Vilya encounter. And things immune to chill effects should take more damage from frost spells or have a higher percentage to crit or something similar.

Furthermore some range bonuses should apply. Something like "the farther the enemy is away when hit by a spell the more damage he receivies". Might even be a talent instead of for example that talent, that increases the damage of the next melee attack after a spell - yes, it is interesting to experiment with, but it isn't really suitable for those who want to be pure mages attacking from a distance.

And the item problem is true as well, most items with good magic benefits are bought in shops and they aren't on the same level as some drops. There should be more stuff especially for energy regeneration.

 

[The G-Meister]

I'd disagree with most of this. You've always got to take into account how you kill the enemies, not just raw damage. Melee should be rewarded as you're putting yourself in more danger by being closer to enemies, whereas most magic attacks let you sit back from a moderate distance away from all the fighting, some taking that to the extreme. The few close range magic spells are even better, as they either do a lot of damage if you know what you're handling (Flamethrower) and Ice Nova, while not doing an insane amount of damage, provides a really nice knockback to get your out of a sticky situation.

As I will always refer to in a general balancing post, look at the current "top notch" Arcade build, that people run for highscores with - Flamethrower and Frosty Friend. The snowball tanks the damage while you clean up anything that doesn't attack it. It's a surprisingly easy build to use as well, combined with being really safe, as long as your companion is alive.

Before the Mt. Bloom update, there's actually a load of really good +MATK gear. You've got glasses, a witch hat and if you want to grind for them, Energy bracelets, giving +15, +30 and +25 MATK respectively. The Winter mage hat is even more overpowered, giving you +50 MATK. Combining all these together allows me to rain down Meteors and Earth Spikes from quite a way away and one shot most smaller enemies, doing around 1000 damage per shot - without taking a wince of damage myself.

The thing really with magic skills is you've got a wide variety, and some combinations work better than others. I think I've seen enough of these balancing suggestions now to go and take a step back, look at why the game itself is preventing some skills from being useful and making some overpowered, take a look at some other games and why their skills work well, then come to a final judgement as to why these suggestions come about in the first place. I think it's probably the game's huge variety of situations and huge variety of skills which don't mix too well.

 

[res7less]

The snowball tanks the damage while you clean up anything that doesn't attack it

If one is forced to take Frosty Friend in order to be able to do ranged damage, the problem lies elsewhere, though. Having no one to tank the damage gives the mages the same disadvantage of "putting yourself" into danger as melees have, so there should be some advantages to be able to play without the Frosty Friend. Furthermore, melees are way more efficient at keeping themselves just out of reach of enemies by constantly attacking them - something a mage can't do since he has to charge.

 

[The G-Meister]

They're not - only in Arcade due to the confined space. Hell, even with my ranged build I could pummel things from up close in a confined area if I had to. Also, around half of enemies don't have any stun when you attack them with a sword, making them very complicated to deal with if there's more than one. A halloweed and two scarecrows will make quick work of a swordsman who doesn't know his shield, and also make quick work of his shield as well

 

[Pharphis]

They're not - only in Arcade due to the confined space. Hell, even with my ranged build I could pummel things from up close in a confined area if I had to. Also, around half of enemies don't have any stun when you attack them with a sword, making them very complicated to deal with if there's more than one. A halloweed and two scarecrows will make quick work of a swordsman who doesn't know his shield, and also make quick work of his shield as well

I need to learn to run away when this happens more often than I already do. Even 2 scarecrows can mess things up quickly, especially if even a single ghost is around.

 

[uberwookie]

As I will always refer to in a general balancing post, look at the current "top notch" Arcade build, that people run for highscores with - Flamethrower and Frosty Friend. The snowball tanks the damage while you clean up anything that doesn't attack it. It's a surprisingly easy build to use as well, combined with being really safe, as long as your companion is alive.

No offense, but this is an invalid line of conversation with my points. I am not playing Arcade mode and honestly have no desire to do so. The Frosty Friend is a decent distraction for scrubs in Story Mode, but in most boss fights, he dies in 2-4 hits and is out for the fight. The "don't ever get hit" strategy doesn't work as well when you are confined to small areas and relies on player skill over game balance to make up for the difference in stat balance.

I am not talking strategy here, or which skills to level up, just simple math for the MAtk vs PAtk and the stats that go along with them synergy wise in gear. PAtk Gear also gives HP or CritAtk/Dmg and Def, Mage gear gives MAtk and... sometimes EP Regen or +EP. You have two finite resources as a character to manage, EP and HP, and HP manages itself for Meleers (mostly), You have 6 stats to manage as well, Def, PAtk, MAtk, HP, Crit Hit and Crit Damage. Five of these stats are synergistic. Yes, HP is a stat and a Resource (There is too little +EP gear for it to be considered a stat to concentrate on, honestly). These stats should balance in a way where all 6 are equal to each other and can be swapped out to make play modular, but it isnt. for mage characters you have to focus on MAtk or just be useless.

And to note, almost all RPG games have poor balance for mage type classes, the only one I have seen come close to having a fair balance is Kingdoms of Amalur, but even there it is skewed in the favor of ranged to melee play styles.

A lot of designers figure its ok for early levels to suck for mages then theyre really good late game, but honestly, this is a product of faulty reasoning, someone deciding its too hard to balance them properly within the alotted time. It began, initially with pen and paper D&D, and never has recovered since.