Most of the time when somebody makes a suggestion for a change or screams for a nerf it directly translates to "I have just been killed by this, please fix". I want to make the point that I love the game as it is, I love it when stuff stands out and I prefer being forced to adjust rather than seeing something nerfed.
However, a lot of things are constantly being brought up and people perceive great frustration over them mostly because there is just a sheer lack of counterplay options. Sometimes, something is just "dumb" and could benefit from change even without being too strong or too weak. I was thinking about some of these, and this is a suggestion forum after all.
Vanish
People are asking for vanish nerfs because they're frustrated over losing kills. People view it as a "scrub button" just to frustrate somebody. I think it's just wasted potential.
It didn't occur to me until I talked with decent stealther players about it and they told me they don't even take it, declaring it a "waste of points, adding nothing to a fight" and to "just take the death and run again". In a sense, that makes it a stupid ability.
I think the disarming superstealth really dumbs it down. It doesn't add anything to the assassins level of play and playing against it boils down to "If he doesn't want to die, I will just have to hold it".
My suggestion: keep the DoT purge, remove the disarming superstealth. This makes it being usable as an escape if the player is smart about his timing and movement while adding more complexity to the level of play an assassin can perform. Combat maneuvers like a double PA are exciting and it also helps the Shadowblade with its 2hand PA gimmick to differentiate itself more from the other stealthers, and class diversity is always a big plus in my book.
Here's the problems with it: Many people are considering assassins to be overtuned in the current state of phoenix. This is without a doubt a buff to their combat abilities. I still believe it's worth looking into, being too strong is still better than being boring.
Speed of Sound
A constant topic, nobody seems satisfied with this. I'm a big fan of SoS as an engagement and disengagement tool, it helps combat positional disadvantages for both tank and caster groups and rewards coordinated teamplay which is what daoc is all about, but as people are getting high RR we're getting to see more and more of what high rank SoS durations do to an ongoing fight and there's really an elephant in the room here and that's healers being untouchable.
There's really not much more to it than that. Having a healer running around being immune to CC and generally not caring about anything for the entire duration of a fight seems really off. When I saw it for the first time I thought to myself "What the hell is this, no way that's an intended strategy, I'm sure they'll address this" but it's starting to feel a little overdue. I am myself starting to grow worried if the lack of action or statement means that it actually is the intended strategy.
My suggestion: SoS breaks on any action taken, removing the exception rule for healing.
The main issue is the lack of counterplay. You can't even pop your own SoS to combat it. OF SoS had no counterplay either, but it was part of a bigger picture where every realm had their own set of super strong abilities. NF SoS never behaved like this thanks to convoker ML4 which we lack.
Bard Amnesia
Bard instant amnesia is great, it's a unique interruption tool and I strongly disagree with all the calls for nerfs. However, I do think there is a problem with how it affects movement around the map coming mostly from the lack of convoker ML4 and everyone having easy access to permanent speed6.
I only realized how big of a deal it is when we repeatedly failed speedbreaking enemies with casted amnesia. It's really difficult even with such a fast 2300 range cast to catch people that are moving directly away from you at speed6, and when we did our amnesia casting class ended up at such an awkward position that it gave us a distinct disadvantage at the moments of engagement.
It opens up this really awkward meta where you cannot navigate around hibernia groups, and only hibernia groups, without getting engaged completely on their terms. If you know it's coming you can't pop convoker ML4 to turn it into an unattractive chase. If you properly navigate around alb/mid groups you can view numbers and decide if you want to deal with it as long as you play the spacing game correctly, you don't have that option against bards and it turns such a simple thing as moving around the map with speed6 heavily into hibernias favour which is what I believe causing most of the frustration for the players.
My suggestion: Make instant amnesia cause immediate speedbreak for the casting bard, but not the target. This doesn't entirely remove the engagement advantage of hibernia, doesn't affect the bards interruption abilities but makes them share the awkward "falling behind" aspect with other realms using amnesia for speedbreak chases.
Nearsight
This isn't really an issue but I still want to make a suggestion here. Nearsight is supposed to be extremely strong by design. Even a lower level nearsight can be enough to essentially remove a class from a fight until it is taken care of, but taking care of it is so awkward. From my understanding, getting the "better" nearsight heal is much easier for midgard healers than their specbuff skilling counterparts. Only when I saw a cleric actually trying to get the 6 second cast off in a fight is when it struck me to how... stupid it is.
My suggestion: One possible change I personally would really enjoy is to simply give the friar, and only the friar, additional access to a NS heal. Friar players are in need of love and albion seems to have the hardest time with this mechanic.
Shaman Endurance
Again this is not a pressing matter, but I am very confident that a slight and simple QoL improvement to how shaman endurance works would cause nothing but happiness to every single shaman player on the server. Right now, it feels like an oversight and shamans are opting out of even buffing it, instead putting the entire group on endurance draught duty. I always felt like mythic wanted shaman endurance to be the best by design, making it unconditional and "just there" compared to their bard/paladin counterparts which need to be actively sustained, but it is actually the worst by far. The main annoyance comes from the very short range, especially at endu4 with its 1000 range, also adding the negative side effect of making builds with less than 42 aug less attractive. This feels especially off when considering how the paladin endurance radius got a range treatment on Phoenix.
My suggestion: Make it a timed groupwide buff, similar to resists. Like a resist buff it should drop when leaving the party. Alternatively, increase the range to that of the other realms at 2000. I'm certain it would not affect realm balance, seeing how midgard already functions on potions even with shamans and would simply improve QoL.
However, a lot of things are constantly being brought up and people perceive great frustration over them mostly because there is just a sheer lack of counterplay options. Sometimes, something is just "dumb" and could benefit from change even without being too strong or too weak. I was thinking about some of these, and this is a suggestion forum after all.
Vanish
People are asking for vanish nerfs because they're frustrated over losing kills. People view it as a "scrub button" just to frustrate somebody. I think it's just wasted potential.
It didn't occur to me until I talked with decent stealther players about it and they told me they don't even take it, declaring it a "waste of points, adding nothing to a fight" and to "just take the death and run again". In a sense, that makes it a stupid ability.
I think the disarming superstealth really dumbs it down. It doesn't add anything to the assassins level of play and playing against it boils down to "If he doesn't want to die, I will just have to hold it".
My suggestion: keep the DoT purge, remove the disarming superstealth. This makes it being usable as an escape if the player is smart about his timing and movement while adding more complexity to the level of play an assassin can perform. Combat maneuvers like a double PA are exciting and it also helps the Shadowblade with its 2hand PA gimmick to differentiate itself more from the other stealthers, and class diversity is always a big plus in my book.
Here's the problems with it: Many people are considering assassins to be overtuned in the current state of phoenix. This is without a doubt a buff to their combat abilities. I still believe it's worth looking into, being too strong is still better than being boring.
Speed of Sound
A constant topic, nobody seems satisfied with this. I'm a big fan of SoS as an engagement and disengagement tool, it helps combat positional disadvantages for both tank and caster groups and rewards coordinated teamplay which is what daoc is all about, but as people are getting high RR we're getting to see more and more of what high rank SoS durations do to an ongoing fight and there's really an elephant in the room here and that's healers being untouchable.
There's really not much more to it than that. Having a healer running around being immune to CC and generally not caring about anything for the entire duration of a fight seems really off. When I saw it for the first time I thought to myself "What the hell is this, no way that's an intended strategy, I'm sure they'll address this" but it's starting to feel a little overdue. I am myself starting to grow worried if the lack of action or statement means that it actually is the intended strategy.
My suggestion: SoS breaks on any action taken, removing the exception rule for healing.
The main issue is the lack of counterplay. You can't even pop your own SoS to combat it. OF SoS had no counterplay either, but it was part of a bigger picture where every realm had their own set of super strong abilities. NF SoS never behaved like this thanks to convoker ML4 which we lack.
Bard Amnesia
Bard instant amnesia is great, it's a unique interruption tool and I strongly disagree with all the calls for nerfs. However, I do think there is a problem with how it affects movement around the map coming mostly from the lack of convoker ML4 and everyone having easy access to permanent speed6.
I only realized how big of a deal it is when we repeatedly failed speedbreaking enemies with casted amnesia. It's really difficult even with such a fast 2300 range cast to catch people that are moving directly away from you at speed6, and when we did our amnesia casting class ended up at such an awkward position that it gave us a distinct disadvantage at the moments of engagement.
It opens up this really awkward meta where you cannot navigate around hibernia groups, and only hibernia groups, without getting engaged completely on their terms. If you know it's coming you can't pop convoker ML4 to turn it into an unattractive chase. If you properly navigate around alb/mid groups you can view numbers and decide if you want to deal with it as long as you play the spacing game correctly, you don't have that option against bards and it turns such a simple thing as moving around the map with speed6 heavily into hibernias favour which is what I believe causing most of the frustration for the players.
My suggestion: Make instant amnesia cause immediate speedbreak for the casting bard, but not the target. This doesn't entirely remove the engagement advantage of hibernia, doesn't affect the bards interruption abilities but makes them share the awkward "falling behind" aspect with other realms using amnesia for speedbreak chases.
Nearsight
This isn't really an issue but I still want to make a suggestion here. Nearsight is supposed to be extremely strong by design. Even a lower level nearsight can be enough to essentially remove a class from a fight until it is taken care of, but taking care of it is so awkward. From my understanding, getting the "better" nearsight heal is much easier for midgard healers than their specbuff skilling counterparts. Only when I saw a cleric actually trying to get the 6 second cast off in a fight is when it struck me to how... stupid it is.
My suggestion: One possible change I personally would really enjoy is to simply give the friar, and only the friar, additional access to a NS heal. Friar players are in need of love and albion seems to have the hardest time with this mechanic.
Shaman Endurance
Again this is not a pressing matter, but I am very confident that a slight and simple QoL improvement to how shaman endurance works would cause nothing but happiness to every single shaman player on the server. Right now, it feels like an oversight and shamans are opting out of even buffing it, instead putting the entire group on endurance draught duty. I always felt like mythic wanted shaman endurance to be the best by design, making it unconditional and "just there" compared to their bard/paladin counterparts which need to be actively sustained, but it is actually the worst by far. The main annoyance comes from the very short range, especially at endu4 with its 1000 range, also adding the negative side effect of making builds with less than 42 aug less attractive. This feels especially off when considering how the paladin endurance radius got a range treatment on Phoenix.
My suggestion: Make it a timed groupwide buff, similar to resists. Like a resist buff it should drop when leaving the party. Alternatively, increase the range to that of the other realms at 2000. I'm certain it would not affect realm balance, seeing how midgard already functions on potions even with shamans and would simply improve QoL.
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