Rebalance Combat

[TyBraniff]

Hey Grindeans,

[SPOILERS BELOW] as of 0.700a

This is kinda a suggestion/opinion that me (and my friends I play with) have when it comes to combat. So first ill just come out and say I've played 33 hours now and have the game 100% as of patch 0.700a. Ill give you the backstory, Me and my pal's started playing the game and decided early on to try and spec in in a specific style of fighting, I picked handed, one friend picked 2 handed, and another picked magic. Now for the first part of the game it was pretty well balanced (up to the GUN-D4M fight). But seemingly following that it was apparent that I was having a huge advantage over the other combat styles.

With my fast attack speed, shadow clones, and talent orbs placed right I could dish out significantly more damage than 2H's and magic was out of the question on keeping up.

Now you wont catch me complaining, I love being completely over powered after grinding for hours! However it has sense made my friends contemplate there decisions on wasting their points on anything else. We've grinded to get them enough cash to re-spec and dump everything into 1 Handed but they're kind of upset on the huge difference there is in the fighting styles. The first 2H sword that actually was better than my 1H was the Angel sword you get after beating the ancient mimic. Which my friend (who mind you is a noob) hadn't collected many cards and felt the sword was rather useless (but since I have them all I explained he needed to get grinding!)

tl;dr
1 Handed is completely overpowered compared to 2 handed and magic
By the time you reach Santa Fae, if you've specced into 1 handed, you're an unstoppable killing machine.
You'll kill things as they spawn collecting health faster than they can damage you.
My suggestion is don't weaken 1 handed but rather improve magic and 2 handed by buffing the gear/respecing the spells.

How does everyone else feel?

 

[Ardeof]

tl;dr
1 Handed is completely overpowered compared to 2 handed and magic
By the time you reach Santa Fae, if you've specced into 1 handed, you're an unstoppable killing machine.
You'll kill things as they spawn collecting health faster than they can damage you.
My suggestion is don't weaken 1 handed but rather improve magic and 2 handed by buffing the gear/respecing the spells.

How does everyone else feel?

I've tested a lot of skills and while the patch version of when I tested this is a bit old, it should still be relevant.

Basically the "1 handed is OP" comments are a bit overrated. Early game flamethrower is OP (It's the primary Arcade Run skill) and it doesn't really slow down until Winter. Heroic Slam has the most potential to do huge single target damage. As for clearing, frosty friend can clear certain maps within a second or two.

 

[Teddy]

There will be a rather massive balance pass after we've added the Support skills (which should be our focus when the housing system is finished)! I think it will shake things up quite a bit, buffing most skills and nerfing a few.

 

[TyBraniff]

I've tested a lot of skills and while the patch version of when I tested this is a bit old, it should still be relevant.

Basically the "1 handed is OP" comments are a bit overrated. Early game flamethrower is OP (It's the primary Arcade Run skill) and it doesn't really slow down until Winter. Heroic Slam has the most potential to do huge single target damage. As for clearing, frosty friend can clear certain maps within a second or two.

@Ardeof I'ma be forward, I don't even use skills other than the shadow clones.... like at all..... I'm pretty much foaming at the mouth, run in and down a 7000-8000+ damage before my team can even get a second swing/spell in. Keep in mind I'm literally speced for stacked attack speed and crit chance and crit damage. I am usually the first to die if a battle gets drawn out.

Ill try and get a video, did you use OBS? IDK what's good to record anymore.

There will be a rather massive balance pass after we've added the Support skills (which should be our focus when the housing system is finished)! I think it will shake things up quite a bit, buffing most skills and nerfing a few.

@Teddy Alrighty, we'll be patient and pass the info onto my friends to hold off with the respec. My buds are dying for that house update. haha.

 

[d_nlo]

This is what I found with the current setup:

• Level 28
• ALL Talents Maxed
• ALL Skills Maxed
• No Armor
• No Accessories

(I forgot that the forums were on english. Segundos = Seconds)

Fire Spell: 1543 damage during 05.11 sec. ~282DPS

Spoiler

1-H Skill: 1688 damage during 03.19 sec. ~455DPS

Spoiler

2-H Skill: 2489 damage during 03.04 sec. ~785DPS

Spoiler

1-Hand Combo: 1566 damage during 04.03 sec. ~379DPS

Spoiler

The results will vary because of variables such as: Attack Speed, Crit Rate, Passive Trigger, etc...
But looking at the results of those tests, I might say that the "problem" might be your friends, not 2-H wielding itself nor magic casting.

 

[TyBraniff]

This is what I found with the current setup:

• Level 28
• ALL Talents Maxed
• ALL Skills Maxed
• No Armor
• No Accessories

(I forgot that the forums were on english. Segundos = Seconds)

Fire Spell: 1543 damage during 05.11 sec. ~282DPS

Spoiler

1-H Skill: 1688 damage during 03.19 sec. ~455DPS

Spoiler

2-H Skill: 2489 damage during 03.04 sec. ~785DPS

Spoiler

1-Hand Combo: 1566 damage during 04.03 sec. ~379DPS

Spoiler

The results will vary because of variables such as: Attack Speed, Crit Rate, Passive Trigger, etc...
But looking at the results of those tests, I might say that the "problem" might be your friends, not 2-H wielding itself nor magic casting.

How can you have ALL talents/skills maxed at level 28? Or do you mean the ones you are currently using?
Either way like I said, Ill produce a video here soon as well.

 

[d_nlo]

How can you have ALL talents/skills maxed at level 28?

All of them.
I made a new character for this test.
You can add skillpoints by using the command: /skillpoint (or /skillpoints , I forgot already)
And you can set your level using /setlevel X where X is the target level.
So you don't need to respec in order to test new builds.
But you'll miss out on equips, that's why I didn't include them in the math.
You can, however, duplicate a 100% savefile and test it there.
I believe that the game saves are stored in: %appdata%\secrets of grindea\characters

 

[Ardeof]

For that video I used the original OBS, though the studio version should be fine nowadays since it's officially released. I may have been using Nvenc at that point, since it reduces CPU usage by quite a bit with Nvidia GPUs.

 

[MDK]

I've been playing the game a lot lately and I came here to give some feedback on this very issue. Basic attack builds are the most powerful builds in my opinion. I've tested out a lot of different builds and I can't even get close with other builds. I've played the beta to the end with both 1h and 2h variants.

The 1 hand version uses shadow clones and the 2h version uses berserk. The damage output is pretty similar provided you can get berserk stacks up. I also used silver heroic slam every time I got enough EP. The 1h was obviously a way better build since it was easier to execute and didn't have those nasty negative effects berserk has. Mimic fight was super easy with the 1h build while 2h had issues since you would reset berserk stacks constantly.

(There is also a potential 3rd basic attack build where you get static charge and some hybrid ATK/MATK items, but I need to do more tests to see how well it performs.)

The difference with these 2 builds would also get worse in future content since 2h would suffer more from diminishing returns. Shadow Clones give you a pure 40% damage multiplier (if I did my math correct) while berserk increases your ASPD and crit stats and gives a 20% damage bonus. Both of ASPD and crit are stats you get naturally with gear so the bonus you get from these isn't going to be as good when you get better gear that have more of these stats. You also can't really replace the gear with other stats since you need ASPD to build up your stacks in a decent time. The 20% damage bonus is nice if it multiplies your whole damage output by that much. However if it is added in with other similar damage bonuses it sort of has the same issue as with ASPD and crit. For those how know the terminology shadow close is basically an multiplicative bonus where berserk is additive. Berserk does still do a ton of damage if you can get the stacks and all of those stats do have synergy with each other.

However I feel the main issue is with caster builds. I find melee skill builds also lackluster, but not as much as caster builds. The only caster build I found to be decent was a "zoo" build where I had silver frosty friend and cloud strike and golden summon plant. The DPS in the build wans't anywhere near the basic attack builds, but the player had a lot of freedom to move around while the summons did all of the work even when bosses were out of reach to the player. The plant wand item also made the build a lot stronger.

A pure caster build on the other hand seems very underwhelming and I cant figure out a way to get it even close to what basic attack melee builds can do. The core issue is that there is too many stats you would need to get in order for it to work. If you just get a ton MATK and CSPD sure it does increase your DPS, but then you will just run out of mana in no time. You would have to get a huge amount of EP regen or some other way to generate EP to keep spamming spells. Even if you could spam something like meteor constantly I feel like you would need a ridiculous amount of CSPD and MATK to get close to 1h shadow clone DPS. When you do run out of mana you can only hit enemies with basic attacks that don't benefit from you MATK or CSPD at all.

I don't really have the perfect answer how casters could be fixed, but here are few suggestions that might work.

-for starters wands should have a ranged basic attack that scales with MATK instead of ATK. So at least when you are out of mana you can do some decent damage.

-Spells need to have better scaling with other stats. Many spells can't even crit. For example once you have casted insect swarm MATK is the only thing that effects how much damage it will do. You can't get the insect to attack faster or crit.

-better MATK multipliers from talents would also be nice. If you get all the ATK talents you can get a 60% bonus if you can maintain status effects on enemies(easy with basic attack build). with Magic you can only get it to 45% if you can keep soulburn up all the time.

-some spells should also have combos like with melee skills. So for example when you cast a silver fireball your next spell will start at the same charge level just like with some melee skills.

-better spell talents in general. For example there could be a 5 point talent where each basic attack hit increase CSPD by 2 per talent point maxing out at 10 x talent level. So at 5 points each basic attack increases CSPD by 10 for a maximum of 50.

Here is how a hypothetical build could work:

You get gear with ASPD, CSPD and MATK. ASPD and CSPD are often bundled together so these is essentially one stat.
Your primary spells are fireball and insect swarm. ASPD will make the burn effect tick faster in fireball and make the insects hit faster as well. So you start off by casting max charge fireball and since it has the "combo" effect you can very quickly follow up with insect swarm. Now you are almost out of mana so you start shooting the enemy with the wand. With the ASPD from your gear and the second wind talent you can generate back mana faster. After 4-5 hits your mana is full again and with the suggested talent your next fireball will cast faster and you repeat the rotation.



If you are not convinced on how good the 1h basic attack build is here is a video. I looked at the footage in premiere and from the begining of the first swing it took me a little over 2 seconds to kill hard mode phaseman. That is approximately the cast time of 1 golden meteor without CSPD bonuses.

Sorry about the super long post. I also don't expect any big balance issues any time soon. I think it's probably better if the devs first finish the story campaign and add most of the items. After that its easier to balance the game once you have all of the pieces.

TLR basic attack builds are super strong. Pure caster builds are very weak.

 

[d_nlo]

I made a few more tests, but that time with all the cards and equips avaliable.
And it was really close.
1h basic attacking got really close to 2h skill in DPS.
BUT.
Since you don't need mana for just auto-attacking, the sustained damage from the basic attacks outdamage the 2h skills in longer fights (or just farming).
Magic casting didn't even came close, and not only that, having your spell being canceled by being hit is a great con for using spells.

I would've put a video on a 4-way comparison, but when I checked the video folder, there was none.
I forgot to start recording.
Also, yeah, OBS is great.

 

[MDK]

To illustrate the difference a bit more. I made a copy of my legitimate 1h melee character who has almost every card in the game (missing 3 last ones) and used the cheat codes from d_nlo:s post to get max level on every single skill and talent. I then equipped the best caster gear I got on the character. I managed to get 377 magic damage 215% cast speed 19% crit and 165% crit damage. I also used gale potion and lvl10 haste to get these stats. Here is the same boss with 2 different "builds"

With the flamethrower It took me 3.5 seconds to kill the boss starting from the beginning of the cast. If you take the cast time away it was a few frames faster than the 1h sword build.

With the second "build" I didn't even bother calculating the time. Took way longer to kill the boss. In a longer fight the range from the spells would be an asset, but you would also have mana problems.

So even after getting every single talent and skill with cheats I can't get casters on the same level. It might be possible for the flamethrower to outDPS the 1h basic attack build if I had just the right amount of mana so that mana burn bonus kicked in immediately and the fight lasted about as long as the whole spell channel. However Flamethrowers channel is interrupted when the player takes damage. It is a hard to use spell and is suppose to be a "high risk high reward" kind of a thing. And as always you would eventually run out of mana in long fights. Oh and the 1h basic attack build also has way more defense from items.

 

[JJ the Tall Guy]

OK. So I have just finished my second playthrough of the game. The first time I just kinda put skill points where I wanted, which was in the 1H weapon skills as well as Meteor/Bugs. I mostly just used the dodging strike with the occasional piercing dash and the rare spirit slash. The playthrough I just finished was a powerful mage build, focusing on meteor, the cloud minion, and I started off with fireball but then switched to the ice spikes, which I preferred because I could hit multiple targets.

Now that the backstory is out of the way, I played through both times on normal difficulty and while, yes, I had better knowledge of the game the second time through, the second time through was FAR easier as the mage than the 1H swordsman. I plan on trying a 2H swordsman run next, just to see how it is playing through the game. Because my first playthrough was a blind run, I might revisit the 1H swordsman again and see how it is with knowledge of the game for a better comparison.

Long story short, I found that the 1H build is good for lots of hits with slightly less damage, while the mage build was good for dealing large amounts of damage in single punches, obviously the mage build will vary depending on your spells, but the spells that I used dealt a lot of damage in a single hit.

One more thing: it's a game. It's here for your enjoyment. You don't have to have the perfect meta build and all the cards to beat the game. Play however you want to play and enjoy the game.

 

[d_nlo]

One more thing: it's a game. It's here for your enjoyment. You don't have to have the perfect meta build and all the cards to beat the game. Play however you want to play and enjoy the game.

But finding the perfect meta build is fun!
Look at those theoretical damage formulas / builds!

I have no idea if my calculations are right, but it is fun doing it anyway.

 

[JJ the Tall Guy]

But finding the perfect meta build is fun!
Look at those theoretical damage formulas / builds!
View attachment 2219
I have no idea if my calculations are right, but it is fun doing it anyway.

If you enjoy it, I'm glad you are enjoying it. More power to you. I enjoy playing stuff that feels good rather than if it gives me the most DPS. I enjoy the added challenge of not playing the perfect meta builds because it keeps me interested in the game.

 

[MDK]

If you enjoy it, I'm glad you are enjoying it. More power to you. I enjoy playing stuff that feels good rather than if it gives me the most DPS. I enjoy the added challenge of not playing the perfect meta builds because it keeps me interested in the game.

I think it's important to remember that in this thread we are talking about balancing the game. While I love minmaxing in ARPG:s and you like a more casual style it's not really the point here.

It's true that if you play the game more casually you might not even notice these imbalances, but others might. If you read the first post it wasn't a case of calculating the optimal build. They just decided everyone try different styles and since there were clear balancing issue it severally effected their enjoyment of the game.

When it comes to actually balancing the game wouldn't it be smart to do so by looking closely at the meta builds and all the numbers and variables? You can't nerf or buff something if you don't know if it's under- or overpowered.

Without going too much in to specifics I think a few small steps could potentially balance the game a lot.

-nerf basic attack damage slightly.

-buff skill and spell damage slightly and add some more scaling options with other stats like ASPD, crit and EP reg.

-tweak talents a bit to improve skill and spell casting. Maybe nerf one or 2 basic attack talents very slightly.

-make crit better. Since it starts from 150% damage it's a rather weak stat. Items with crit also tend to have a fairly low amounts of it compared to other stats. Maybe start with 180-190% and increase the amount you get from items. also add some synergy to crit. For example higher change of status effects on critical hits. Maybe even a talent that does something after critical hits.

one example of a talent tweak could be to make mana burn increase damage when you are over 50% of overall mana. So if you choose to go with a pure caster build without pets or other skills that block mana you would have the bonus most of the time. It would also make MaxEP a more compelling stat.

The shadow clone 1h build would still be really good and now it would also be more interesting. One thing that annoyed me about the build was that even when I tried to incorporate a melee skill to the build it didn't make it any better. It didn't matter if I used spirit slash since spamming basic attack was better. With the changes you could actually use a melee skill to improve damage even if the focus would be in basic attacks.

 

[d_nlo]

Critical hits are almost not worth going for.
I mean, you get so little return for the 3 levels upgrade for crit damage.
The 15% Crit Chance increase is good tho.
But again, ain't worth to select items just for the crit, instead of raising your base damage.

Also, after some tests on BEASTMODE.
1h basic attacks dominate.
Enemies have way more health, so you'll have to cast skills multiple times in order to kill enemies and bosses, so, running out of EP is common, with reduces 2h skill DPS by a lot.
Magic spells are even weaker on beastmode, like, don't use it. at all.

Magic spells are good for Arcade Mode, tho.

 

[Ardeof]

I'm puzzled by how someone can say auto attack builds are OP when I have a video showing the differences in damage on a fairly high HP boss. Of course you can argue something like Winter would be a better example, but that's not easily accessible.

 

[d_nlo]

I'm puzzled by how someone can say auto attack builds are OP when I have a video showing the differences in damage on a fairly high HP boss. Of course you can argue something like Winter would be a better example, but that's not easily accessible.

Equipment, cards and bosses also make a difference.

When I tried the same thing without cards and with just the basic equipment, the results were:
2H Skill > 1H Skill > 1H Basic Attacks > Magic Spell

But, when using the best equipment of the game and trying against another boss that allows you to just keep hitting it non-stop, the results were:
2H Skill > 1H Basic Attacks > 1H Skill > Magic Spell

And then again, when using the best equips, all the cards, AND Beast Mode ON, the consistent attacks of the 1H Basic Attacks did outdamage every other build, and went:
1H Basic Attack > 2H Skill > 1H Skill > Magic Spell

I'll post a video on exaclty that later.

So, in short, 2H Skill is great for burst damage on low HP monsters and bosses that have brief momments of invulnerability, so you'll have time to recharge your EP.
1H Basic Attacks are great for longer fights, with bosses that allow you to hit it multiple times before becoming invulnerable.

 

[Ardeof]

Equipment, cards and bosses also make a difference.

When I tried the same thing without cards and with just the basic equipment, the results were:
2H Skill > 1H Skill > 1H Basic Attacks > Magic Spell

But, when using the best equipment of the game and trying against another boss that allows you to just keep hitting it non-stop, the results were:
2H Skill > 1H Basic Attacks > 1H Skill > Magic Spell

And then again, when using the best equips, all the cards, AND Beast Mode ON, the consistent attacks of the 1H Basic Attacks did outdamage every other build, and went:
1H Basic Attack > 2H Skill > 1H Skill > Magic Spell

I'll post a video on exaclty that later.

So, in short, 2H Skill is great for burst damage on low HP monsters and bosses that have brief momments of invulnerability, so you'll have time to recharge your EP.
1H Basic Attacks are great for longer fights, with bosses that allow you to hit it multiple times before becoming invulnerable.

That was pretty much endgame gear at the time. Other than the lumberjack axe which I don't count, because it's kind of OP. I've tested auto atk with clone and maxed stats and every time it's just decent avg. damage. You don't get enough time on a boss to make use of the possible tiny extra dps it might do when skills run out of mana. Winter you do one~three skills and then he goes off doing his thing again. Might be room to fit a couple more etc.

If I were to summarize it:
2H is by far and beyond the boss killer choice at the moment. It's easy to see why. Heroic Slam is the reliable boss slapper. Titan's Throw is secret OP (If done right it can do more damage than Heroic slam, and has way longer range). Whirlslash is also good, but the extra charges can be a bit of a noob trap where you get stuck spinning 2 winning.

1H is okay overall, things like the piercing dash or spirit slash are nice. Clone can work too. Blade flurry does good damage as well, but kind of short ranged.

Ice Magic: Frosty Friend is quite the beast, though it'd be nice if it just had more overall health/health regen instead of having to hide so often. Ice Spike is okay, but not the greatest. Ice Nova is... well, kind of like meteor... not sure why it's there. The ground effects don't really work as one would hope, and there's much stronger spells out there lol.

Earth: Plants are pretty OP, but not broken kind of OP. The ranged ones especially make the game kind of easy. Bugs are funny to build up, but it's a very niche skill. The ground pounder or whatever that skill is can do some great damage. However the heavy delay and tiny AoE makes it an inferior choice.

Air: Static Strike is kind of neat. A nice side skill for someone considering going hybrid with some of those atk/matk weapons. Chain lightning seems to be more based on killing mobs than doing big numbers. Cloud strike is... well.. kind of like frosty friend except you don't have to worry about it dying.

Fire: Fireball is pretty good, but it isn't flamethrower. Same can be said about Meteor. Meteor could work great as a map clearer if it was a lot larger, or it could have some kind of scatter/blast effect. Or perhaps just a stronger ground effect, then the player could work around that. Flamethrower is of course king of the skills early game at the moment. It has great mob clearing, great mobility, and more than likely more damage than Heroic Slam. Of course as the game goes on and monsters start having more HP, flamethrower is likely to fall off quite heavily where other skills might pick up because of their scaling.

 

[MDK]

I've tested auto atk with clone and maxed stats and every time it's just decent avg. damage.

What kind of gear and talents did you use? To me there nothing average about 1h basic attack damage with the right gear, build and cards. In my opinion it scales incredibly well. I quickly tested heroic slam with my cheat character and it does do a ridiculous amount of damage comparable to the 1h shadow clone build.

So I'm kinda questioning your 1h clone build if you only consider the damage average. For example if you didn't stack ASPD at all in your 1h build you will pretty much do just half the damage. ASPD should go over 200 with gear, haste and potion.