Runes of Magic US / AU

The community never agreed on how to balance classes as a whole. The problem is that, you have the 10% of the classes with elite skills that are essentially "click this button to increase your DPS by 200%". The 90% of the classes without elites like that become non viable classes. Some people wanted to change the elites of those non viable classes to have similar elites, while others wanted the OP elites to be nerfed.

Personally, I'm in favor of nerf because it is a much more realistic amount of work to expect from RW : fix 10% of the classes rather than fix 90% of the classes. And it also prevents every classes from becoming the same, where every class has essentially the same elites that are "click this button to superbuff your DPS. Also, when RW buffs classes, you just get classes that are more OP than any before (R/M for example), which means you go into an endless cycle of overbuffing every class again because each time you create a class too powerful and the 90% of the classes become unviable again.

As to people quitting from nerfs as well as other good points that were brought up against nerfs, to that I have no good solution, and in terms of overall class balance, I can only say it another issue with no easy solution .

A good way would be to meet int he middle ofc. However this brings up the issue of Hardmode instances, try running one of the new hardmodes without a single 'op class' in the party. It will be next to impossible... So if nurfs is the fix that's fine, but there would be need to be instance changes as well which also adds more work to RW list... bringing back the idea of just buffing crap classes.

^ That circle of life tho

Likes rtp said, without a single one of the fotms in the party, you are not going to do an endgame instance (to full at least...)

Which leads us to the last thing that can happen... bringing everything up to par. For right now, I think there are certain adjustments needed.

Current PPK FoTMs (not sure if rom as a whole or not):
Tank:
WD/W
K/W

DPS:
R/M
M/W
W/WD
WD/W

If anything, we can, and probably should, come to realize why these combinations are the only ones that are used in endgame. Certain skills that are OP and make them viable.

Knight/Warrior:

Currently:
Authoritative Deterrence


I think that should be changed to:
Cooldown: 3 minutes
Tooltip: Increases damage on target by 15% for 30 seconds
Upgrade: N/A

Why? Because this is the skill that makes every other knight in the game completely worthless to use in an endgame run because of how mechanics are with boss fights (burn or die).

Rogue/Mage:

Currently:
Illusion Blade Dance:


I think that should be changed to:
Cooldown: 5 minutes

Why? It makes this class godly. Less than 5 minutes for this is kinda absurd. Would make r/m a little weaker in PvP, but thats nbd.

WD/W <--- No idea (tank side). I just know you can deal tons of damage while being a tank.
WD/W <--- No idea (as DPS). Not fair of me to judge since this class is alien to me. From what I've read, it has an insane amount of damage and patk buffs to make its attacks so strong. Charged chop having no GCD also attributes to this OPness.
W/WD <--- No idea. Kind of like wd/w i'm assuming but it becomes strong the more warriors there are in party... I think? On its own it is still quite damaging.

M/W:

Gives you matk based on your current str and stam. This has led mages to made a set of alternative gear stacked with stam and str so that they can put on that gear, use the buff, then swap back to standard mage gear. This makes the buff give alllllll that matk from the alternative gear. It does not update the values after the buff is used.

To be honest, I think it should stay this way. After the burn, the mage/warden (mage in general) has nothing going for it. Mage needs a DPS overhaul (second to scout of course ;D)

Non-viable endgame classes that I have knowledge on:

Rogue/scout:

Currently:
Combat Master:


What I think it should be changed to:
THIS SKILL SHOULD BE MAXED AT LEVEL 50 WTF
Critical Strike: Increased by 500 (this number will continually fluctuate. This is because as the game ages, the amount of crit will not mean the same amount of crit % through all levels. A level 1 with 500 crit will have way more crit % than a level 90)
Critical Strike Damage: Increased by 100%

Why? This skill is not as strong as it seems, and this could be the start of r/s seeing some kind of endgame light. The non-crits from this class wouldn't be great, but the crits would be nice to see. I don't feel like changing this skill alone would make it come CLOSE to the current burst DPS of its rogue/mage cousin.

Coerce:


What I think it should be changed to:
THIS SKILL SHOULD BE MAXED AT LEVEL 50 WTF
Summary: Low blow energy reduced by 5. Physical damage increased by 30% (currently it goes past 30% when skilled to 78 or more) when shot is used. Lasts 6 seconds.

Why? Well r/s should have some kind of synergy with its scout side when activating its scout skills. Also, the current meta of endgame means that you'll be doing your strongest towards the last few seconds of the fight. I feel like this buff would make R/S VERY CLOSE to its cousin rogue/mage. I would not say that it would make it stronger, but the sustain (scout is ... or it should be ... some of the best sustain in the game. If scout is a secondary class, that sustain should be brought to the primary class through elite skills.) would beat that of a rogue/mage due to the potential of 30% damage all the time.

Non-Viable classes in general:
S
C
O
U
T
S
P
L
S
B
U
F
F

k/s
k/m <--- (debatable)
k/r
k/s
Why? K/w is the way to go if you are a knight. Thanks to its debuff on the target making the raid do 40%+ more damage on the target... why would you want to be these? Some kind of change could happen if they nerfed the k/w skill. Maybe K/P could add a casting speed buff to party or allies when using urgent heal on a target, or maybe urgent heal could be changed to do damage instead of healing with a buff.
Maybe k/r should actually be that dodge oriented tank and when it dodges, it increases move speed speed and attack speed of the party/raid.
Maybe k/s could.... you get the point. Deterrence makes k/w OP and the go to knight tank. If it was brought down to a manageable level, more skills could be changed to make other knights on its level.

p/m
p/s
p/w
p/wl
p/ch
Honestly I rarely see priests anymore. Most of them are more of the same, with a bit of pros and cons to each. P/K is a god and is ezmodehealer. P/m has a silence and a stun, nothing too great there unless you want to quest. P/r has super fast casts aswell as a purge. P/S has a buff, though if it would stack with all other attack speed buffs it would be useful. P/W isn't a thing and I'm not going to say how it should be fixed cause that's a whole thread. P/wl is pretty awesome as is p/ch, but I have never ever partied with one.

m/k
m/p
m/r
m/d
m/ch
m/wl
These classes are mainly just pointless and I have no idea how to make them better. I hate mana, aswell as magic. Maybe I could ask Magio his thoughts and buff ideas. Some of these classes are purely debuff / buffers, making them okay to just sit in the back, but that means you won't be doing damage. Some classes are balanced around that idea, but I don't feel like having mages as a whole be that pointless is right.

r/k
r/p
r/w
r/d
r/ch
r/wl
Keeping in mind that having a secdary class that brings more defensive measures in hinders DPS output. The tankier you become (tankiness from heals, or defense) the less damage having a secondary that allows you to tank up like that, you will receive. R/P and R/K have horrid endgame dps. R/P has a dodge buff... but evasion and dodge cape override it. It's nice for PvP, but for PvE it's just okay for a tank I presume. The dps on both of these classes is subpar despite what danielwhatever says. The only class I am interested in out of these is the rogue/druid. I will ramble about that now as I have spent quite a lot of time reading its skill and such. Unfortunately I'm your typical human, so I cannot play this class

w/k
w/p
w/r
w/s
w/d
w/ch
w/wl
I dont have expertise with warriors, but I never see them in runs ever. I'm assuming the only viable warrior nowadays is w/wd because of the warden's general skill that increases patk.

d/m
This is basically the only druid I don't think I have EVER seen in the same party as me. Druids are pretty good as a whole, just like priests.

ch/p
ch/m
ch/w
ch/wl
I haven't seen an endgame champion tank or dps in awhile. With that said, the only endgame ones I have ever seen were Ch/r's. I'm not sure why these aren't good. Is it the champion class as a whole? CH/P is here because he gives a great buff, but without that he isn't something that is viable. A buff alt, at most.

wl/p
wl/r
wl/w
wl/ch
Warlock is mainly a party buffer / target debuffer. They all have amazing buffs, but only 2 of them give enough buffs to become a serious buffing character. That's all they will be. I'm not sure if giving such buffs to a class and then allowing it to have great DPS is a good idea or a bad idea.

You're talking about two different mages here. M/wd has the five second flamespam, M/W has the great int buff that people make str/stam gear for.

Quoted from "bleedingblak"

M/WD:

It has a skill that makes it so it can do as many fireballs as you can click in 5 seconds aswell as a skill that gives you matk based on your current str and stam. This has led mages to made a set of alternative gear stacked with stam and str so that they can put on that gear, use the buff, then swap back to standard mage gear. This makes the buff give alllllll that matk from the alternative gear. It does not update the values after the buff is used.

To be honest, I think it should stay this way. After the burn, the mage/warden (mage in general) has nothing going for it. Mage needs a DPS overhaul (second to scout of course ;D)

Rogue/Druid:
Currently:
Hysteric Vengeance:


What I think it should be changed to:
WELL FOR ONE IT SHOULD BE A SKILL THAT IS MAXED AT 50
Summary: A critical strike on the target will increase your physical crit rate by 500. Lasts 10 seconds (can be reapplied no CD) (at level 50)

Why? Because in PvE, you won't be taking hits, your tank will. In PvP, 300 crit when you're attacked? It's kind of meh. Acutally, not even. It's barely a buff or a good skill at that point.

Poison Antibodies:


What i think it should be changed to:
This is the stupidest of a stupid skill to give a r/d. Poison is not even a debuff you should be concerned about when being attacked by another rogue. Complete change of this "skill" is needed.
Summary: When using antidote, casting recover on a target will increase its magical attack and physical attack by 10% + 500 aswell as increasing physical attack speed by 10% and reducing casting speed by 10%.
Cooldown: 2 minutes.

Why? poison doesn't even matter. being poisoned (i'm assuming its anti rogue poison) is the least of your worries. This change would make antidote (druid general skill) proc this skill automatically and put it on a 2 minute cooldown. This would bring r/d DPS up a bit, but nowhere near close to currenty Rogue/mage, and not close to the "new" rogue/scout I envision.

Poison Shroud:


What I think it should be changed to:
I think this should be bread and butter DPS for the r/d. Unfortunately, it does 'poison damage'. Meaning that it does a flat number all the time that doesn't crit, or do damage. I'm bad at giving %dps to skills so just work with me here.

Summary: Poison shroud inflicts 640.5% mainhand weapon DPS + 1400 points of poison damage every other second on most targets within a range of 70 for 12.0 seconds. For each bleeding or grevious wound caused by rogue skills, this attack will deal extra damage.

Why? I think this adds much uniqueness to rogue/druid. Druid is a very... nature oriented class. Spewing mother nature's wrath over an area, mixed in with some poison from the rogue side, shows what this class really sounds like to me. This wouldn't bring r/d to the point of r/m or r/s, but I feel like it could be very close to them at this point. Keep in mind that I do not think that runewaker can actually code this skill to crit on procs. Also, yes. This is basically a SECOND WOUND ATTACK EXCEPT ALL THE TIME. If I thought they could, I would scale down the damage.

Killin' Time:


What I would change it to:
There is an elite skill that makes this buff worthwhile, but currently ITS NOT MAXED AT 50. WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TP AS IT IS HOLY GOD.
At 50: Increases the critical strike rate by 1500 aswell as critical damage by 15%.

Why? All buffs in rom need to be capped at 50 at this point. Most of them should also have a % aswell as a flat number. The % will let it always be viable endgame. Problem with percents is that lowbies won't be able to take advantage of it most of the time. That is why there should always be a flat number. That helps lowbies out, aswell as endgamers, but not like the % will.

Slaughter Blessing:


What I would change it to:
Again, like killin' time, this should be maxed at 50.
At 50: Immediately restores you and your party member's HP by 10% + 300 HP. Also increase physical and magical attack by 5%.

Why? Mainly just for the cap. Again, we don't have enough TP as it is.

Malicious Intent Release:


What I would change it to:
This skill basically makes killin' time better, but reduces how good it should be.
Summary: Your Killin' Time will not be limited in the times it can be used. Killin' time lasts 20s and cooldown is changed to 3 minutes.

Why? Its a great skill, not too great, but good enough to now have a decent buff cooldown time.

@Borella. TY. I'm an idiot. I've changed it.

Wd/W = Feral Leader (+50% damage Inflicted)
Wd/S = Secret Agreement + Morale Boost (Approximately +35% damage boost)

This is the reason no other Warden combos are viable. Give us a comparable damage boost skill and you would see them in runs more often.

I don't think there is any way to fairly balance classes. For example, if you make scouts have the same dps as rogues, you instantly make scouts OP by virtue of their greater range. I also think it's unfair to make people's toons suddenly become obsolete because of some surprise nerf or buff to another class. However, some elites such as Illusion Blade Dance and Feral Leader definitely need to be either nerfed or have much longer cooldowns and other skills such as Blood Arrow need to be much less prohibitive to use.

An indirect way to try to balance classes is to modify boss fights. AoE damage should be much greater so that melee dps can't just stack 6 dex/patk or str/patk and still survive. If melee are forced to put some stams or defense on their gear, then their patk and dps will come down as a result and be closer to ranged dps. Also healing power could be nerfed as well to force everyone to equip more stams.

Few random suggestions:

1. Rogue throw and combo throw - why are these based on mainhand weapon dps? This makes no sense at all. It should just be projectile damage. This will lower R/M dps.

2. Warden charged chop should have a global cooldown but then wardens might do nothing but spam charged chop, except for tanking. This might make wardens obsolete.

3. Scout blood arrow needs the hp reduction eliminated and range greatly increased.

4. All healing skills nerfed to force everyone to pay more attention to their hp.

5. Warrior rage needs to be eliminated and turned into focus or mana.

A warrior with mana... I can just feel the chains around me tighten as I get stun locked

Quoted from "Rougetopriest"

A good way would be to meet int he middle ofc. However this brings up the issue of Hardmode instances, try running one of the new hardmodes without a single 'op class' in the party. It will be next to impossible... So if nurfs is the fix that's fine, but there would be need to be instance changes as well which also adds more work to RW list... bringing back the idea of just buffing crap classes.

^ That circle of life tho

Is there actually no strat, or just that nobody cares about the strat?
Also, I'd argue that M/Wl is viable in HM, because 30% less Pdef/Mdef is insane. I've seen it make the difference between dying on B1 in GoHH vs clearing the instance.

That's the point. Scouts shouldn't be TOP dps. They are exchanging their dps for their survivability (which is ranged). My idea for scouts is the following:

GENERAL ADJUSTMENTS
Take shot off of GCD (or have it be enabled like autoshot)
Allow raids to be equipped into bow/xbow
Increase range of all skils by 100% (that means double). Or increase range of all skills by 100 (if 100% is too OP)
Increase DPS of all skills by 100%
SKILL: Concentration > Max 50. At max > For 60 seconds, focus regen speed is increased by 100% and physical attack speed is increased by 50%.
SKILL: Frost Arrow > Keep original status, add "When wind arrow is used, ranged physical damage is increased by 10% for 20s. Cannot be used for another 60 seconds.
SKILL: Detection > Keep original status, increase range to 250.
SKILL: Eagles Eyes > Max at 50. At max > Increases physical crit rate by 500 and physical critical damage by 10%.
SKILL: Target Area > Max at 50. At max > Increase accuracy by 5%, increases crit rate by 300. A critical strike will apply an additional 5% dex, stackable up to 5 times.
SKILL: Blood Arrow > Max at 50. At max > Every 2 seconds you lose 10% HP. Physical ranged damage is increased by 35%. Lasts 30 seconds.
SKILL: Speed Shotting > Max at 50. At max > Increases attack speed of bows and xbows by 40%. Also increases their damage by 15%.
SKILL: Swiftness > Max at 50. At max > Permanently increases dexterity by (current dexterity + 300) x 10% + 300.
SKILL: Wrist Attack ( > Damage on target is increased by 10%. Target damage also reduced by 10%. Lasts 10 seconds. CD: 1 minute
Set-SKILL: Archer's Glory > Lowers movement speed by 65%. Increases range of all skills by 200. Increases attack speed by 20%. Increases ranged weapon damage by 10%. Lasts 20 seconds. CD: 6 minutes

I have no idea of the implications this would bring to DPS. It seems like it would be way too OP, but I feel like this would keep them top dogs in the 'sustained' category.

I also agree 100% with healing. It's too easy to fill someone's health bar up. The thing is, healing can only be nerfed once boss mechanics are changed. That means having bosses enrage timers made longer, having the boss to hit for less, at a lower rate. Having ludicrous ideas like a stacking DoT's that are incleansable after only 10 seconds into the fight. Huge % aoe's that happen second after second...

You're right in the sense that stacking patk should not be a thing. DPS should have to have survivable gear on during fights. Problem is that endgamers have adapted to the burn or die strat because runewaker started developing bosses to be like that.

Remember HoTo first? Tank had to get boss, other people had to kite adds, etc. Belathis has been the one of the best instances in recent times, but we also need to keep in mind that Hall of Earth hasn't been cleared ONCE on the NA servers. So complaining about the level of difficulty with instances shouldn't be happening.

@Rui "Is there actually no strat, or just that nobody cares about the strat?"

There are strats, but its more of avoid strat and continue to DPS as to kill it within buff times. Basically you have 15s to kill the boss, or you can do strat and spend a minute doing the boss. The only strats in pillars i know of (besides last) just lead to you dying because of failwaker mechanics.

At some point runewaker just gonna have to poop out an instance that makes all blue quest gear wearers the ability to farm it to get level 90 purple gear so that everyone can just finally catch up for basically free.

Offtopic: Isn't it time to implement an NPC that will just level up gear to +6, or even +12 for 5m/10m gold per piece? That seems like a logical gold sink. It's becoming such a standard to plus stuff, this should be told to runewaker or something. It's the +16 jewels (and the inevitable +20 jewels) that are expensive.

Quoted from "ruisen2000"

Quoted from "Rougetopriest"

A good way would be to meet int he middle ofc. However this brings up the issue of Hardmode instances, try running one of the new hardmodes without a single 'op class' in the party. It will be next to impossible... So if nurfs is the fix that's fine, but there would be need to be instance changes as well which also adds more work to RW list... bringing back the idea of just buffing crap classes.

^ That circle of life tho

Is there actually no strat, or just that nobody cares about the strat?

Many bosses do have a strat yes, and some have simply not been figured out. But some have been looked at time and time again, and there is just no way around dying after X amount of time.

What if warriors had 200 rage and it was always just at 100 (could go below 100 obviously). They are always 100% angry, but when they start hitting shit, they just get 100% angrier.

I was literally just chatting with someone about that, and came to sort of the same conclusion, where warriors should have to build for rage higher than 50, but rage auto-fills to 50 if it falls below, so basically it has both aspects of focus and the current rage system. But allows them to always be at 50 rage if it is needed.

Quoted from "Rougetopriest"

I was literally just chatting with someone about that, and came to sort of the same conclusion, where warriors should have to build for rage higher than 50, but rage auto-fills to 50 if it falls below, so basically it has both aspects of focus and the current rage system. But allows them to always be at 50 rage if it is needed.

I think that's a good compromise.

Not sure if this would make them any good dps though. It's been too long since I've seen any kind of warrior in an endgame party except for w/wd.

makes critting easier on bosses

helpful for those having trouble with older content

and i guess next level of shell stats for people to use

otherwise basically agree, couple more numbers under my picture, waitin for something to do

Quoted from "radeon"

5. Warrior rage needs to be eliminated and turned into focus or mana.

The rage system is one of the biggest reasons why I didn't stick with Warrior/Warden and instead switched to the Warden side back when I mained that class. Rage really sucks and the W/Wd combo has one of the more difficult rotations I've seen while playing this game.

The problem with the high level instances is the cost in real wold money to be able to run them. The reason that people want a new level cap is that they want to be able to at least have something they are reasonably able to do. It costs hundreds or even more in cash to get the gear to run the newest instances. or the ability to spend hundreds of hours grinding lower level instances The gear necessary is beyond the ability of most people who play the game to acquire either through running the instance (unless you have one of the groups who are willing to dead head you through). Or spending tons of money.
Earlier in this post someone said that only 5 or 10 percent of people who play this game can even attempt to do high level instances. That is a vast over estimation. High level instances are a treat to the people who can spend hundreds in cash or hours to play and have little or nothing to do with the other 99 percent of the people who play this game. The gear that the people get in these instances rarely even appears in the AH anymore.
People love this game and want to PLAY it but are getting bored with it. Siege is fun but lag problems cause a lot of trouble . New levels and content are great and give people something to PLAY . That is why people want them. Unless they create a super easy mode for instances with reasonable drops they will remain just something given to people who are willing to WORK at it by spending unlimited time or money on the game as a reward for their dedication. They are just not a part of the game for the the vast majority of people who PLAY this game. This is a game not a job it should not be very hard WORK . The key words here are WORK and PLAY. When a game ceases to be PLAY it is no longer a game it becomes WORK and a job.

although giving w a better rage system would be a worthy life improvement it would have little effect in pve i feel the thing is during burn phase you can use pretty much all your skills without much worry for your rage bar(not having to spend time getting rage for berserk would be nice though). Outside of burn phase though the time you need to wait to use a skill even when hitting a target is much higher then for any other ressources starting from 0... hoh wait the other ressources start maxed out and not at 0 sorry warriors.
i feel like one of the recuring theme across the different op classes is that they have something that allows them to get hits in more then once per second. wd/w and w/wd cc or r/m enchanted throw for instance. so maybe adding some kind of mechanic where a skill hit many times under certain circonstances is the way to make some of the lesser combos viable.

the problem is there is 2 valuable things a player can farm: gear and stats although some of the good gear is from mems, shells or crafted, most of it comes from hm instances or proof of myth that can be run only by 1 guild on most servers.
if you look at stats it is a similar story, if you are not in the select group of people that can run stuff you have no choice but to use a mix a shell and bag stats. having a mix of bag stats and shells is not an issue as it is good enough to run endgame. the real problem been that once the average player is done with his minigames there is no valuable occupation to spend time on.

anyways all that to say that i'm hoping next level cap they make it so there is a point to playing more then 1h(siege) + the time it takes to do minis for players that arent in an endgame guild.