Hybrid love - Phoenix Freeshard

I guess I'll break my suggestions down by class. They're fairly simple but I feel will allow certain classes that are almost entirely unwanted or extremely niche to be accepted in more situations

Warden - my specialty, years upon years of experience maining this class on live, starting in very early 2002

Not gonna suggest shield spec, all I'd actually like to see is minor celerity added to their damage add chant (15% at red) and some style adjustments to make it worth speccing high in weapon.

Thane - tested extensively on phoenix

Make single target nuke 2.5 speed and specialize their hammer line a bit with some love. Higher weaponskill and possibly a dd style at 50 hammer. Maybe casting RAs but that could go too far

Paladin - less experience with this one but will try to be fair

Give them the same 15% celerity on the damage add that I suggested for wardens. Up heal chant by 25-40% and up their damage table. Paladins are supposed to be a hybrid tank but suffers from extremely subpar damage and no ranged support, at least let them do decent damage and allow the heal chant to tick for something notable.

Reaver - I think this class is good as is, feel free to disagree

Friar- played one to 50 on phoenix

No reason to spec high staff, decent but not great heals and no group heal iirc. That pretty much outlines my thoughts

Champion - have not touched this class so I cant offer informative thoughts

Skalds - I consider these guys hybrids, but I haven't played one so I can't offer any thoughts

I tried to be fair and unbiased, some general changes include allowing chant classes, not instrument classes, to run two chants at once. This would be a huge quality of life change for a lot of reasons and would drastically help have more variety in 8 man setups.

Secondly, adjust certain damage tables. There's no reason a thane who is a Viking base class and a paladin who is a fighter base class, should be doing the same or less 1h damage as a warden who is a naturalist. Ignoring bias here because I'm a warden main and advocate, it just doesn't make sense.

Those are my thoughts, I'd like to know yours.

Sat 29 Sep 2018 7:03 AM by Cadebrennus

Well said brother.

Sat 29 Sep 2018 9:09 AM by jelzinga_EU

Beefzerkee wrote: ↑
Sat 29 Sep 2018 6:47 AM
I tried to be fair and unbiased, some general changes include allowing chant classes, not instrument classes, to run two chants at once. This would be a huge quality of life change for a lot of reasons and would drastically help have more variety in 8 man setups.

Secondly, adjust certain damage tables. There's no reason a thane who is a Viking base class and a paladin who is a fighter base class, should be doing the same or less 1h damage as a warden who is a naturalist. Ignoring bias here because I'm a warden main and advocate, it just doesn't make sense.

I completely agree with the latter. Warden, being a Naturalist already offers everything from being a Naturalist: Baseline buffs, some healing and with Nurture-spec they can add resists, PBT and damage-add which are all extremely good to the group. Paladins (and Thanes) offer nothing of that, being a Fighter-class and as such should get greater damage, simply because they're fighters.

But you have to be careful with tweaking, especially with Thanes: Give them more damage and they will compete with Warriors, so I would suggest only a small bit of better melee-damage and focus on their spells mostly, e.g. lower cast-speed, increasing delve and such. For Paladins I would suggest the same: Giving them too much melee-love makes the compete with Arms, so instead focus on Chants.

I've also played a friar and to be fair, they're in a worse spot than wardens. In theory they have much better melee, but it doesn't compete with real melee. And their nurturing (enhance) is simply a lot worse then wardens because most of the buffs do not provide any benefit to the group bar the resist-buffs. Since friars can't do the healing too well currently they're no competition to the cleric-slot and in Albion the groups abilities are much more watered down, so there is simply no spot for them unless you boost their healing and utility to a point where it might take a cleric-spot.

Briefly touched skald and was a bit dissapointed at their songs-line but since they offer Speed5 I doubt there is much more reason needed to grab them for a group..

Sat 29 Sep 2018 4:54 PM by Beefzerkee

That's why I suggested the small changes like I did. A small damage boost to paladins and thanes and thats where that ends. Instead, give paladins the chant love I suggested and wardens the chant love I suggested and give thanes the casting speed adjustment. That way they're able to fire off single target nukes at a faster pace and it wouldnt be overpowered like if they gave the hammer a faster speed.

And the chant love would not only be a huge quality of life change for wardens and paladins but would make them much more wanted for groups and would give variation in group setups. I'm sure with even the 15% minor celerity then hib and alb would see a reason to run tank trains and paladins especially would see a lot more use and they would be a lot more fun to play.

Sat 29 Sep 2018 5:48 PM by Magesty

Reaver- Needs updated Leviathan animation and updated Unquenchable Thirst of Souls animation. Frankly this is game breaking.

Sat 29 Sep 2018 6:24 PM by Beefzerkee

Lol i cant tell if you're being serious or not

Sun 30 Sep 2018 4:16 AM by rubaduck

I like Wardens, so don't get me wrong, but they are more or less a one trick pony right now. 49 Nurt 42 reg 10 blade for side snare all across the board with little to no variation. Adding a 15% celerity might be an interesting idea to give hibernia more incentive to run more then just 5 nat 3 melee groups but it won't change the variation much.

Paladins are the result of a trainwreck in the game, they've always been. Paladins wants damage, but they don't want to play armsmen and some of their chants are underwhelming or just outright useless. I am afraid this class needs to be under the lense and reworked hard for it to make sense. I agree on focusing on the chants. It is the paladins flagship, it's their selling point, it is the one difference they have on paper from armsmen. I have made some suggestions before without anyone giving any feedback on them so I guess they're not interesting at all, but I'll bite and mention them again. The heal chant is laughable that it either has to be boosted by quite a lot, or just reworked all together. I thought reworking it to a campfire tick might be a selling point, just limit it so that paladins can't heal power to himself and only his team and make it workable in combat. The endurance chant is what it is, there are alternatives, but they are on all the other realms too so it kind of is redundant like it is on all the other realms. The armor chant is straight up redundant, it doesn't stack with the cleric spec AF so from a group perspective it is a waste of a button and I have no idea how to make this spell useful without hurting the paladin or the cleric. Removing spec AF from cleric will not help, groups will just use charges like the other realms and it won't make paladins group friendly just by doing so. The resistances should be combined, three together, maybe adjust the values to not make it go overboard. A heal spec would not hurt them either, but as I said, the paladin players wants damage, but don't want to play armsman.

I kind of have the impression that reavers are where they should be too. They are seen in groups, and they have kill potential. They can also interrupt like a b-word.

Thanes I have no experience with, and I really have no idea how to make them better.

Same goes with champions, they are great duelers and can solo quite well, but there's nothing a champ can do that a BM can't do better in groups. It is an unfortunate thing because I believe they could be a great tool for groups if they were on par but I have no idea how to do that in a creative way.

I feel friars are like wardens, just with less healing power and utility and more offense. Balancing this out might be the way to go. Just don't add the group endo reduction buff and heal styles.

Valewalkers are pretty neato. They do a lot damage, have a great complexity and brings great utility to melee groups in hibernia. I like it as it is, is what I'm trying to say agree or disagree if you want.

Sun 30 Sep 2018 8:06 AM by schreon

rubaduck wrote: ↑
Sun 30 Sep 2018 4:16 AM
Paladins are the result of a trainwreck in the game, they've always been. Paladins wants damage, but they don't want to play armsmen and some of their chants are underwhelming or just outright useless. I am afraid this class needs to be under the lense and reworked hard for it to make sense. I agree on focusing on the chants. It is the paladins flagship, it's their selling point, it is the one difference they have on paper from armsmen. I have made some suggestions before without anyone giving any feedback on them so I guess they're not interesting at all, but I'll bite and mention them again. The heal chant is laughable that it either has to be boosted by quite a lot, or just reworked all together. I thought reworking it to a campfire tick might be a selling point, just limit it so that paladins can't heal power to himself and only his team and make it workable in combat. The endurance chant is what it is, there are alternatives, but they are on all the other realms too so it kind of is redundant like it is on all the other realms. The armor chant is straight up redundant, it doesn't stack with the cleric spec AF so from a group perspective it is a waste of a button and I have no idea how to make this spell useful without hurting the paladin or the cleric. Removing spec AF from cleric will not help, groups will just use charges like the other realms and it won't make paladins group friendly just by doing so. The resistances should be combined, three together, maybe adjust the values to not make it go overboard. A heal spec would not hurt them either, but as I said, the paladin players wants damage, but don't want to play armsman.

I agree. I think adjusting the delve values of the chants is the right way to go. Most people seem to be alienated by ideas involving adding completely new skills to classes. This also would hurt the "classic flair". The only way to make the spec AF song useful is to make it stronger than the cleric buff or the charge; or to make it much weaker but stack with all other spec AFs.

rubaduck wrote: ↑
Sun 30 Sep 2018 4:16 AM
I kind of have the impression that reavers are where they should be too. They are seen in groups, and they have kill potential. They can also interrupt like a b-word.

Agreed. I see them frequently in RvR, solo as well as in groups, I believe they are fine, but maybe some reaver players have suggestions for fine-tuning

rubaduck wrote: ↑
Sun 30 Sep 2018 4:16 AM
Thanes I have no experience with, and I really have no idea how to make them better.

Dito, however I like the ideas floating around of giving them caster RAs.

rubaduck wrote: ↑
Sun 30 Sep 2018 4:16 AM
Same goes with champions, they are great duelers and can solo quite well, but there's nothing a champ can do that a BM can't do better in groups. It is an unfortunate thing because I believe they could be a great tool for groups if they were on par but I have no idea how to do that in a creative way.

I actually made one recently. I believe there is one thing that could be done that does not alter solo play at all but makes them much more useful in groups: Lower the cooldown on his debuffs. The debuffs are the main reason why you would want to pick up a champion instead of a hero/bm. However, only debuffing 1 target every 20 seconds is not enough utility in the context of a group. Considering the caster debuffs being on a 5 second cooldown, lowering the champion debuff cooldown to something between 5-10 seconds sounds reasonable.

rubaduck wrote: ↑
Sun 30 Sep 2018 4:16 AM
I feel friars are like wardens, just with less healing power and utility and more offense. Balancing this out might be the way to go. Just don't add the group endo reduction buff and heal styles.

Valewalkers are pretty neato. They do a lot damage, have a great complexity and brings great utility to melee groups in hibernia. I like it as it is, is what I'm trying to say agree or disagree if you want.

Agree. One nice little boost for Valewalkers would be to either increase the Disease proc chance; or to give them access to casteable disease.

Sun 30 Sep 2018 9:58 AM by lolmatron

to make wardens more interesting just add Shield specc, without adding more skillpoints.
If you want guard/slam/etc you have to sacrifice somethign to get it. cant have all the good toys from all speccs, need to choose IMHO!

other than that, some minor tweaks shouldnt hurt on other hybrids such as thanes and paladins... considering the pot spam paladins are essentially not needed.

OR one thing to balance out the classes more towards classic would be the removal of high-end buff pots and regens.
make the best pots equal to like the blue buff range (24-34, pom/end3 etc). Most hybrid classes are "balanced" around them having buffs when compared to non-buff clases.

Sun 30 Sep 2018 11:04 AM by schreon

lolmatron wrote: ↑
Sun 30 Sep 2018 9:58 AM
to make wardens more interesting just add Shield specc, without adding more skillpoints.
If you want guard/slam/etc you have to sacrifice somethign to get it. cant have all the good toys from all speccs, need to choose IMHO!

other than that, some minor tweaks shouldnt hurt on other hybrids such as thanes and paladins... considering the pot spam paladins are essentially not needed.

Agreed. Warden has a place as a healer in meta setups, so I have not been worried too much about that class to be honest. However, diversity won't hurt and I think that suggestion would deliver just that: If you want slam, resists and heal, you will have to sacrifice healing power and/or downgrade to yellow resists/PBT.

lolmatron wrote: ↑
Sun 30 Sep 2018 9:58 AM
OR one thing to balance out the classes more towards classic would be the removal of high-end buff pots and regens.
make the best pots equal to like the blue buff range (24-34, pom/end3 etc). Most hybrid classes are "balanced" around them having buffs when compared to non-buff clases.

The problem is, downgrading to blue endu does not fix the problem. People already can permasprint with blue endu. And melees can still upgrade their Long Wind and Tireless for a few RA points and still not pick up paladins. I am sure high RR groups would rather sacrifice 3-6 RA points on their melees than replacing a merc or arms with a paladin.

What you might consider though is making the specline self- as well as pet-buffs stronger than highest level concentration buffs, so they are even useful in a group setting. For example, Hunters' self-d/q would grant 100 d/q instead of only 75 on maximum; the yellow version would grant the same value as the current maximum does, and so forth.

Mon 1 Oct 2018 4:43 AM by teiloh

schreon wrote: ↑
Sun 30 Sep 2018 8:06 AM

Main issue with the Champ debuff is that they quadruple against buffs. With MoA you can drop someone's con by multiple hundreds of points. Perhaps they could change the damage types to Energy (rarer resist) and raise the range on them to 1250 from 1000 or let them interrupt, but they are really powerful in that they can essentially cut someone's cast time by a third or drop their hp instantly by 600-800ish

Mon 1 Oct 2018 8:00 PM by Beefzerkee

All pretty good suggestions, I'd like to point out though that on the topic of wardens, it doesn't make much sense to me to give wardens shield spec and not 1.8x points, you'd have almost nothing after picking up slam and even blue pbt. Wardens (and Paladins for that matter) could do with having 15% celerity tacked onto their damage add and being allowed to run two chants at once. That would give them a lot more options for what to run and they would be much more useful in tank groups (Paladins especially)

Friars in theory are great melee'rs but I don't personally find them that effective and the staff styles don't really make sense to me, some seem super redundant, that may just be an L2P issue, I'm not entirely sure. Decent healers though, but the group HoT costs a metric ass ton of power.

Thanes need their casted nuke to be set at 2.5 speed. Even if that's all that happens, that'd be a great quality of life change for them. Perhaps give them casting RA's too because if their melee was boosted, you'd be outing warriors I think. I'm not sure if they have a casted energy debuff at this time, I haven't looked. That could also be an option though, and it would open mids up to running caster groups since Runie damage is energy iirc.