I know lots of people have been whining for Erebus to get nerfed lately, and this has been done. But statistics don't really lie, at least not ones this simple. Erebus is middle of the field in the pantheon. If her were truly as overpowered as all the whiners have been saying, he'd be higher up, if not on the top. That is all there is to it.
So the patch came through to placate people who were getting raped by him. Sure, I agree he's obnoxious and powerful (in my opinion he should be an assasin, and swap places with TB, but that's beside the point) but not OP, or he'd be higher up in k/d ratio.
If anything needs to be changed, it's the demigods on the bottom who should be getting a buff. The only safe thing right now to say is that Queen of Thorns needs a buff. She's been on the bottom since release, and by a wider margin than any other demigod. That is statistics, and that is the answer. Nerfing a mid-range demigod makes no sense whatsoever.
some times you lose because of your teams mistakes or because they make a hard poush at the end from having no def
A bit offtopic I suppose. where does one go to see patch notes? the ones I saw said nothing about balance changes...
Which means changing the power of skills internally... putting us back at square one...
Oh, and si1foo, the match was him on one team, me on the other, and 3 AI. It was a bit of a clusterfuck early on. Mostly just me running around capping flags, him taking back flags, and me capping them again. It was once I got giants that it got interesting. It was basicly me doing suicide runs through his base, trying to cap his portals. Got them a few times too. And then I got to see a pissed off rook sitting in front of a portal. Once he started pushing back though, my team managed to get through, and I got Ashkandor. Although the Asscandy wasn't that influential, it only ended up chipping the last 8k off the citadel(that was the only time I ever actually touched the enemy citadel). Although I did manage to pull off a completely badass move when the two rooks came bearing down on my ass at the end, teleporting to the other side of the citadel the moment before they started to attack me, and finished it off before they could get to the other side.
Great match, fun the whole way through. Lots of hilarious deaths on my part though.
who really cares about the erebus topic everyone already know about it and this is like the 8th one i have seen talking about it
If you read the thread, you would know that it's not really about Erebus.
i do read the topic i was talking to anonymos my bad though i should have put his quote in
Don't pretend we didn't read the other thread where this argument was shut down the first time you said it.
You are comparing an assassin with 2 forms and tons of offensive/defensive skills with a one-dimensional general who has 5 passive skills, and only one good offensive skill and a defensive skill that's weak and costs too much. I don't want to play TB, if I wanted to play your favorite demigod, I would be playing him. And I would still be here standing on a soapbox asking GPG and SD why they are nerfing (costing more and being less effective isnt' a "tweak") a rather average demigod after only a month of the game being gold. And really, you're not talking balance vs overpowered, because if he needed to be balanced he would be a top or bottom demi. On the same page, if he was overpowered everyone would rule with him regardless of skill (and no matter what you say, that's not the case).
As it stands, your points about bite being over-used just don't support a nerf of his only real skill. I'm not saying it's to be ignored, because it would be _awesome_ to have better quality skills and more build possibilities with erebus, but nerfing bite is just going to make his already weak skill base even weaker. You say nobody has offered any counter points, well I really just don't think your statements need any when you can't offer up supporting arguments that would actually make me see your point or even agree with you.
You claim that this nerf will make bite not be picked everytime, but you are kidding yourself. Not only will it still be his best and only half decent skill, but it will still be the first pick of every erebus. Fact of the matter is that it's his only offensive skill. So not only does your point not make sense, not relate to the debate at hand, but it's also wrong.
I also disagree with you about the current statistics being garbage. Seems convenient for your argument that they would be, but you actually didn't make one point about how or why they shouldn't be taken into account. Making arguments without supporting them with facts and details is one step away from "o,mg teh cumpnee shud du dis stuff rite awaze".
Erebus isn't supposed to be SO OFFENSIVE (no pun intended) against other Demigods, if that were the case he should be a Assassin not a General. As a General his job is to, as much as the other Generals, cause the battle to go in their favor by caving in the enemies base/creep destruction, not specializing in DG killing. Sure, each General DG CAN hurt other Demigods as a Defense, but I don't think the developers were thinking of a Erebus who was only running around the map killing enemy DGS like hes an assassin.
On top of that, he was doing that PLUS he could have minions following him around, such as two healing minions which really ups his tankability/health plus that bite? Plus minions? If you really want your old Bite back they should take his minions away and move him over the the assassin side and makeup a new general hero.
.
Combined with mist and bat swarm he can dodge long range abilties. (all but penitence can be mist dodged) While at the same time counter any range advantages. So bite is already better but combined with his other abilties he becomes far, far too strong.
You said erebus only needs mana for bite. (see above) After recently facing a half-decent erebus as oak i'm actually kind of worried the nerf isn't bad enough.. He can still elminate any tactic of statving him of bite targets by using bat swarm.Wait, I thought you were saying the nerf was good? I guess we're in agreement now. horay!
For mana issue it only exists till about level 3-4 depending on match as the priority for both is to get rid of mana problems, so they're both going to want to get Vlemish and Plenor. (Or just Vlemish)
Stopped the comparison after the mana one, hence the lack of - at the start of each point. It was meant as an add-on idea that not only is bite better then fireball but when combined with his other abilties it becomes even better. Mist is barely any mana when used to dodge, and bat swarm has a longish cooldown. I can actually survive on just Vlemish if i'm careful with Erebus, while TB can't since he simply CAN NOT stand toe-to-toe with any demi-god. His lack of armour and hp means they always win.
As for saying the nerf wasn't bad enough, you don't need to be smart. From the overall tone of my post I think we both know I meant it may not be harsh / severe enough.
That would be nice, if it were true; but rather this seems to be one of his weak areas; which is a problem.
Edit* and Xinoxlx, check the post I made a while back about comparing abilities between demigods; It carries no weight, nor does it add force to an argument, it just does not work.
As a player my job is to, as much as I want to, play the game the way I want to play it. Where are you getting this crap about "it's his job to..." stuff? Just because you have an opinion about the play style of a character does not mean that it's A) mandated onto other players, and B ) does not mean it's correct. You guys are hilarious, take one look at his skill set and tell me what he designed for if not fighting. Plus everyone acts like, "go do this instead of killing demigods" idunno what game you guys are playing but they try to kill me. It's not my fault you charge into combat early in the game and then lose to a well prepared player. FRACK! go practice ppl.
In your opinion...
A demigod can be internally fine (QoT) but externally terrible. Erebus is both internally wrong and externally too strong. Means that you need to compare him both internally and externally to show people just whats wrong.
Xinoxlx:
If they both had the same items Erebus would (obviously) still have a smaller mana pool.
you are still comparing them!
barely any mana compared to what? you are forced into staying in mist form for at least 3 seconds, which is 450 mana. Thats not "barely any mana" if it was 450/2000.
its cooldown has nothing to do with its mana cost, unless you are talking mana/s, which we weren't.
So everyone but TB is overpowered?
The point is: Most of what you say is based upon subjective experiences.
The point of this thread is: subjective opinions don't matter [when it comes to balance].
My opinions, and your opinions count for the exact same thing: nothing. The only difference is that I don't use opinions to justify my arguments.
In addition, BeardKing lays out the reasons why comparing X skill/demigod to Y skill/demigod is not effective in being objective.
I am aware that he [BeardKing] already told you to read this in his response, but from your response, It seemed as though you did not.
Sorry, I was just busting your chops
While i am decidedly on the fence about the erebus changes i found this thread quite interesting to read because most people in here have presented decent arguments.
However, i desperately want to caution those people proping up their statistical arguments on supposedly accurate pantheon tracking. Anyone with basic knowledge of statistics and probability knows that their data needs to be sound before you can even think of drawing out trends or conclusions from it. As such i do not believe pantheon statistic tracking is working very well at all. Taking a quick peek at random and top players on the pantheon ladder, i notice immediately that many of them have very few recorded games. Most would match anyone's description of very casual gamers.
Noting my own page, i do a quick search of my account and immediately note that my supposed win loss ratio on all games is 3W/0L. This strikes me as odd because i apparently also have a 12 game winning streak. I've also apparently not played in any pantheon games even though i can assure you that is incorrect. Well actually i played no games according to the stats in the original pantheon tournament but managed to still pull out just over 1k experience. Further, i've played many custom and pantheon games recently with a mix of unclean beast and regulas but according to the stat tracking i have not even touched these characters.
Some may wonder if it's just my statistics that are messed up. Well i checked with about 5 different friends who play and they all report similar problems with all their stat tracking. I've even checked random people's pages and their stats seem way out of whack as well. I've also noticed certain individuals with questionable records which can easily be explained by using certain game settings and playing with bots creating games with small turn around times. If i were to make these easy to win games 1v5 computers and their stats are being tracked online all of those demigods that have lost due to me essentially rigging the match would get down ranked on their overall win percentage. You'd be surprised at how many people over a small random sample size seem to be using this to farm favor which can lead to huge descrepencies in data.
The short version here is that basing your statistical arguments on data that appears to be flawed to such a degree is a very unsound practice.
But Vlemish and Plenor don't just increase your mana pool now do they? If erebus has less mana, MP/5 requires less time to restore him to full mana. So he may not have lasting power in mana but remember erebus' mana gets turned into health with bite. Fireball does not do the same for only a slight increase in straight damage compared to bite.
Oops forgot a word. Guess could change the arguement though that erebus' abilties actually synergize with each other with their uses, while TB only gets that synergy with ice form.
For the damage it can used to avoid ie 1650 from a UB's spit or 1050-1350 from a fireball... that's barely any mana.
My bad, didn't clarify that due to a longish cooldown MP/5 has time to counter it's high mana cost. In addition smart use of bat swarm can earn you more kills. justifying the mana cost. Although that can be said of many abilties.
Incomplete idea expressed here. TB needs the mana more due to him needing to cast more to kill someone then erebus as he he needs to avoid getting hit much more then any other demigod. So he indirectly needs to cast more due to auto-attack not being a viable option compared to other demi's. TB's main damage is his skills.
You're probably right about this just being opinions but really what else do we have to use? Pantheon stats aren't useful as they're taken from matches where only four different demi-gods can be on each side. They're not pitted vs all eight demi-gods but simply vs four others. So then if we have nothing to use as evidence why was it nerfed? Experience and cross demigod comparisons are the only places we can get information from.
Yes context is important as although mulch seems good that data also fails to show you require a shambler in that exact spot and the required 1-2 second animation before the damage actually happens. So for those that didn't realize it, yes context is important but, fireball is used as the only other instant melee attack is Foul grasp. That can't be compared as beyond both of them leeching health and being instant their uses are entirely different. Fireball isn't instant nor melee range, so why use it? Well it's very mana effcient much like bite and it's use is much the same as bite, damage. It's also a staple for man TB builds as is bite.
So really skill comparisons can't be use as the only justification but given what we have to use as evidence there isn't much else.
Demigod vs Demigod comparisons don't work as it's a team game, but matches won't work as you can't guarentee everyone is equal in skill. So really how can you make a balance arguement whithout using skill comparisons?
I can't think of any way you can make a good arguement without comparisons.
EDIT: As a side psychological little note. People get Avatars. It makes it much easier to recall what you posted since you can associte the memory of reading it with the avatar. It also makes it easier to find previous posts as you're looking for a picture rather then words.
You make a good point, that some or all of the pantheon statistics may be flawed, especially those you specificly referenced. However, the complete argument here is not just "use the pantheon statistics to make balance changes". It is just "use statistics (or other objective evidence) to make changes". Simply, if the pantheon statistics are not reliable, that does not prove that anyone needs to be nerfed or buffed, it only proves that decisions should be made only after there are reliable sources for data. What I am most worried about here is not that a demigod was nerfed, its the seemingly lack of time and evidence needed to justify it. There were plenty of threads asking for an erebus nerf, but there are threads about this for every other demigod as well. BeardKing said precisely:
Also, I'll respond to Xinoxlx, because this ties in well.
You are right! Right now we are forced to use flawed and faulty arguments to justify balancing. That means, we should wait to balance things until sound arguments can be made!!! I get the impression that while we are on the opposite side of the fence with the specific issue of erebus being too powerfull, we can agree that it is too early to make a clear decision about how to fix it, what needs to be fixed, and actually fix things, which is what GPG and Stardock already did. Seriously, its only been 3 weeks.
The trouble I see with most complaints about this scenario is that they seem to assume that the data sources actually being used by the internal balance teams are going to be made public - which is why so many people keep deferring to Pantheon stats which, as has been said, aren't very accurate.
That flawed Pantheon stats and forum heresay are all 'we' have isn't an automatic indication that that's what GPG is using to make these decisions. As far as I've seen, we have no idea what it is they're basing the change on but I was hope it's something a bit more intricate than who happens to be at the top of the ladder on a given day.
I'm with you on that one. As i said i'm not really on any side here. I'm just cautioning those who condemn the devs for making decisions in a "rash" manner with not enough evidence to support the changes and then argue that based on data Erebus (or anyone for that matter) is fine. You either accept the data or you do not. If you feel it's not fresh or accurate enough you should not then make an argument based on it in an attempt to further a point.
Note: Uses of "you" are not directed at Dakinson except the first one of course.
Not true at all. On Exile three minutes into the game Erebus already had one of my towers down before I even scratched one of his.
Sure, you can play it any way you want to play it. But Erebus, and the others intended roles, is not to outright kill other DG's with impunity without being a bit more creative then say, playing as the Unclean Beast, instead everyone I have played against have played Erebus as if he is a Assassin ment to kill other players. And I don't go charge into battle early, usually its the other way around, Erebus comes running into MY base at level 3 and still kills me within my towers but makes sure to bite me then im dead and easily coast back out of my base, which, at those levels no DG can really pull off without dying besides Erebus.
It should require a bit more creativness for a General class DG to kill another, especially a Assassin class DG such as the Rook. Instead he steamrolls them....and somehow I dont' think that was the intended role of that DG.
Thing is, Erebus is more like a hybrid assassin/general. Also, he's horrible at base destruction(the worst in the game at it), and his creap killing abilities suck, as his only AoE should be used for utility purposes above use as an actual AoE. Erebus is the DG killer General. That's just the way he is. Just like Rook is the pusher/breaker Assassin, and Torch Bearer's the harvest assassin.
Yeah but you still tore me up with Erebus as far as base D goes, I hardely scratched your base, sure I took down the first tower line I think but still heh....
Well, I didn't tear up your base. The giants did. I just gave the last push that broke your citadel. And even then, I had Asscandy. Remember, Erebus has no attack skills that actually work on towers(bite can't be used on towers), and his normal attack is quite... lacking. Minions help, but it doesn't change the fact that he's the worst breaker in the game.
Only reason why I ended up winning my first Pantheon match(me and a UB against 2 rooks), which just happened to be a Fortress match (yes, 2 rooks in a Fortress... wonderful), was because I was able to hold the Rooks back until we got giants(which is quite hard when you remember that you don't get as many flags). I managed to break a fortress, but it took way too long, and way too many tries.
iv played erebus before any patch and he was easymode compared to the others, so something had to be done.
This entire thread is a refutation of this comment.
That being said, Erebus has been nerfed, but this thread has never really been about him, it’s been about how to best go about balancing the game. I fear the never ending balance treadmill, and I will be waiting with bated breath in the hopes that this does not become the case.
[/thread closed]
My patience is at a razor's edge for this thread. So I'm going to just throw this out to the slobbering masses of retards commenting here.
Despite the fact that the statistics aren't prefect, they even out. Everyone is getting poorly recorded wins/losses, not just erebus. People CLEARLY don't understand how statistics work. Everything evens out with errors.
Fucking duh.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
