Valewalker

As I read through threads like this one I often like to think about what the people writing these suggestions are like in real life. How do they navigate their day to day? If they were sitting next to me at the bar would I notice them? As I stare at the bar top and spin my half-finished pint around on its coaster would I hear them mouth breathing next to me, completely oblivious to the world around them? Or perhaps what I experience so often here is a selective ignorance, and the utter lack of cognitive depth only applies to certain aspects of their life. Maybe they are more like the people I see every day on my commute; they move through the world and navigate their life with the best intentions, but as soon as their brain settles on Dark Age of Camelot it begins to smooth out. Their thought processes slow to an ambling pace and their salivary glands kick into overdrive.

It may be best to picture an anthropomorphized horse. One that can type and play DAoC with its hooves (explains a lot, Hibs). It can play well enough to add on fights and "troll" in advice chat, but it is still a horse with many of the same limitations. Why of all animals would they be a horse, you might be wondering? It's because you'd have to have fucking blinders on to make a suggestion like adding the Conflagration chain from live to Phoenix.

Is the game state here anywhere near what it was on live when conflagration was added? No, it's not. Health pools are much lower and almost all of the classes are fairly close to their 1.65 power level and have mostly the abilities and limitations they had at that time. It's 1920, we're at the racetrack with our shitty Hudson Super Sixes just trying to have a good time, and blinders here wants to teleport his 2018 Bugatti from the future to take a big dump on all of us.

Did Mythic (EA, whatever) make intelligent design decisions around the time period they altered VW styles? No, they did not. They tried modify a bunch of sports cars with a thirty thousand pound excavator. Instead of, I don't know, approaching things with nuance they did the exact opposite and haphazardly handed out arbitrary, high damage proc styles to every hybrid they could. They ignored class design and subtlety and instead said: "Fuck it, let's make every hybrid more like Reavers. Valkyries are under performing? Should we maybe improve their unique spear line and make interesting changes that reflect the design and lore of the class? Nah, give them a 50 back style in sword with a Leviathan proc on it. Do it to Thanes, too."

Now, as with almost everything Mythic ended up changing throughout the course of the game's life they had the right idea. It's just their execution of that idea, with the possible exception of NF, was often laughable and barely thought out. It's like they were suffering from some Olympian curse and had ability to see all the things wrong with the game, but when they attempted to enact change all they could muster were plodding movements and swirling thoughts.

When looking at making balance changes to a given class it is important to first establish the role that class plays in the game as a whole. A significant population on these forums often seeks to fit every single class into the "8man" box, and literally every one of their suggestions focus on that and eschews all other facets of the game. Obviously this is an issue because, when it comes to melee especially, the most specialized classes are going to perform the best in 8v8. Period. Outside of specific set ups you don't really want a hybrid that is sorta good at melee and sorta good at casting/healing. You want a durable bastard who is going to get in there and do the most melee DPS as consistently as possible. So what you'll find people suggesting is ways to make a class like the VW "outclass" something like a BM or Hero at a role they simply do better by design.

Now, I do think a game with better overall design would have mechanics in place that encourage class inclusion instead of redundancy and exclusivity, but we are dealing with DAoC from 2001, and you have to consider all changes made in a scope that includes solo, small man, and zerg gameplay.

So, with the Valewalker we are looking at a class that can perform very well in solo and small man, but largely relies on cheesing out positional styles to do so. Thematically it is a hybrid caster/fighter that relies on big, slow 2H scythes and POSITIONAL styles (read: not strong anytimes/frontals). Right off the bat DD proc styles that encourage use of the fastest available weapons don't make sense for the class. It is glaringly obvious, but alas, Mythic made it a core component. 3+ chain styles don't make sense either as, again, we are dealing with a class designed to use slow weapons and burdened with lowish weaponskill. Blizzard blade should be changed to a two style chain and the DD (such unfortunate design) should be reduced in value accordingly to something like 40-50% strength. Conflagration shouldn't be a fourth in chain after evade. That makes no sense and gives the VW no reason to spec that far. It should probably be a follow up to the back style with something that doesn't encourage spamming at max swing speed like a champion weapon style AF debuff. The evade and parry chain should be reworked to employ similar effects that aren't rewarded by swing speed like debuffs and damage adds.

Unfortunately we are working with such a flawed canvas that a total style revamp would be needed to give the class any level of coherency. It boggles my mind that Mythic chose to lean on DD procs instead of growth rates or effects that you can scale properly. Effects that encourage the user to use those slow weapons and not spam the same side chain over and over again. You can still have the cool, appealing spell effects and the satisfaction of a powerful style that make people want to buy expansions, you just need to be rid of the cancerous DD aspect of it.

The Arborial line is also a mess in the same way that the Friar's Enhance spec line and the Reaver's SR line are. Like the Friar you have to spec into it to even be able to play the class at all (less of an "issue" here as the VW has literally no other spec options) and like the Reaver it is filled with unsatisfying and rather lame spells (why doesn't the Reaver instant DoT steal life? Why is the proc buff so pathetically weak? Why does Leviathan even exist?). I don't really understand why power was never shifted over to Arborial and Soul Rending respectively, or why those lines weren't at least made to feel more dynamic. Again, fixing this properly would require a real overhaul, and perhaps even an addition spell line. The little spreadheal LT Mythic added was a step in the right direction for sure, but still fairly misguided.

Hopefully the devs evaluate the class's performance and determine if it is in fact in need of improvement (remember, it doesn't need to be included in 8mans to be a viable class). If they do determine it is under performing in some way and prefer a hands off style approach they make granular changes to the Scythe line. Improve the to hit chance if it is a problem, increase a few growth rates. Ideally for Valewalker players a more hands on approach would be taken and we'd see the whole style tree altered to give it at least some level of coherency rather than a lazily slapped-on DD proc-fueled power spike. Once the changes are made they can see how they take effect and stay willing to further alter things quickly and dynamically until the class is in a good place again.