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All balance suggestions in this thread are subjective opinions or complaints submitted by posters in this thread.
To highlight how strong others agree or disagree with these opinions I introduced the following color scheme:
Also, the balance suggestion format is to be interpreted like this (currently reformatting):
Status changes as discussion progresses. Check the update history at the bottom of this post to see which posts have been accounted for.
Read this first! (or at least skim over it)
On the whole the current cast of demigods is quite well balanced. A win is mostly decided by skill and less by the choice of your avatar.
Admittedly some builds seem downright overpowering - immortal Sednas for instance - but even those builds can be cracked ... and they usually have a harder time in other aspects of the game, like getting to the point where they are finally awe-inspiring.
I want to know what the experienced players think about the current state of balance (sorry newbs, but getting trashed by tower rooks and not having a clue how to beat them doesn't make rooks overpowered).
Also, I'm not looking for single-skill complaints - everyone knows by now that QoT's Tribute skill sucks (at level 15 at least) - but rather how the overall performance of a demigod skilling strategy compares to the rest of the game.
For example: Regulus has at least three skilling strategies one can pursue: Snipe, Mines, Angelic Fury.* Clever minelayers are quite feared for their incredible burst damage and can easily dominate careless players but they can be comfortably countered by competent generals. Strong build but not everpowering. * Snipers deliver unexpected kills from a great distance, frustrating many players that fall victim to him. Can't really be countered, but the skill depends on the target having low health in the first place which means that the snipes rely on the performance on your teammates or the carelessness of the opponent. * Angelic Fury - er, I played that in the beginning. Are there good builds out there?
Anyway, Regulus has several main paths he can pursue, several pretty strong ones but not so strong that he can't be beaten without the need of a balance patch. But are some of his skills so weak that they will never get picked at all? If so, how should the change happen?
Please post your opinions and suggestions and I'll do my best to summarize the general consensus (btw, the initial QoT summary is solely my perception of her. Additional opinions welcome).
Lord Erebus
Build Strategies:
Summary:
Balance Suggestions:
Oak
Queen of Thorns
Build strategies:
QoT fares bad with every build against every Demigod. Sure, at the beginning she has great staying power, comparable to tower rooks. But she will barely ever land a kill. Her dps and burst damage are low. Popping into open form for spikes/spike wave/uproot consumes much time. Theoretically a combo of ground spikes, spike wave and mulch could deal heavy burst damage, but the delay between form switching makes that unfeasable.
She has only two feasible ways of playing her: Support and Siege.
Balancing Suggestions:
Regulus
Rook
Sedna
Passive and active self-healing skills can make Sedna nearly immortal. Her Pounce deals good damage and doubles as an interrupt. Silence interrupts, too, and prevents skill usage alltogether for some time in a large area. One of the strongest - if not the strongest - demigods around when played correctly. In fact, her healing builds are so strong that every other build of hers that isn't a variation of that becomes obsolete.
Torch Bearer
Unclean Beast
ITEMS
Update history:
By "These are everyones'" I mean that I gather all opinions and suggestions and put them in the original posts.
And I actually read every single post to find out how these opinions are received by everyone participating in this thread.
And to clearly reflect the diverging opinions I use colors and other font styles.
And I don't see what I did to you to earn that kind of displayed depreciation.
And to Poul & SoFFacet: Peace, guys. I thank you for your contributions but don't get drawn into an argument that doesn't benefit this thread.
All opinions are subjective and it's hard to determine the "truth" about an issue if there's no actual way to measure something. The best we can hope for is to come close.
QoT is one of the two characters without a stun/interupt... Regulus is the other one. Regulus can do enough damage to score a kill before someone escapes (sometimes) and he has Snipe to get those that flee; the Queen has none of these benefits and so she really lacks compared to other Demigods.
I'd like to see Entourage combined into the base "Summon Shambler" ability and a new skill could be placed to take up that space... something with a stun/interupt.
It'd be great if Compost affected the QoT's damage, health regen, or mana regen.
In another week you will have everything in the game listed in this thread. You can't balance by community consensus.
There is only one TRUE over powered component of this game right now:
The BUGGED, unlimited range Horn of Battle.
Fix the bug and limit its range severly.
Levels 2 and 3 of Grace are bad, you shouldn't get them. Level 1 gets you 6.3 which is even with UB and LE and slower than TB and Reg who almost always get Anklet.
If you were paying attention, I explained to you why none of the proposed changes are straight buffs, and also how I myself am not really invested in those changes, I just object to your false claims that Heal cools down too quickly right now.
Oh, so you've looked at every single game in my history, huh? My friends and I tried out several DGs and made up our minds pretty quickly about which ones seemed good and bad. If our experiences had later pointed out that we were wrong, we would have switched, and if Sedna gets nerfed to hell I'll have no qualms playing a different DG. I have plenty of experience playing with/against all DGs to know whats overpowered and whats not, and I can confidently say that there is nothing except minions/horn right now that is catastrophically bad. Everything else will be fine if left alone, though improvable to some minor extent.
Pantheon and Pug games mean nothing, you don't learn anything from operating as your own little island in a sea of noobs. The best way to learn is to play premade, and against other premades - which I would guess compared to other premades, I have done quite a bit of. Your opinions reflect that you just don't play at a high level very often. Thus far in this thread you've claimed that Sedna's heal cools down too fast, non-horn-LE is OP, Sedna is fast (fastest, even!), and Sedna has no mana problems. This doesn't bode well for your credibility.
Again, Sedna's yetis need some love: Jetpacks and chainsaws would do just fine.
Even the one suggestion I made (about form changing) is not necessary for enjoying the game. I don't feel it's "needed for balance" but rather something that I would personally change were this game to follow my vision. I don't expect it to happen, and honestly I don't care. I'm still going to have fun playing the game.
In the end, if this thread is fun to ponder and maintain, have at it. If you feel you're doing a great service to the game and/or developers, I'd argue against it.
FYI, Sedna with +15% move = 6.9 speed.
UB with +10% move = 6.93
So, no, Sedna doesn't get to crown herself fastest DG.
No it wouldn't. Let's not start talking out of our ass. All of the horn's behavior is scripted and thus easily accesible.
UBs Acclimation should be nerfed
And PLEASE GPG/SD READ THIS THREAD PLEASE!!!!
Aroddo, I respect what you are trying to do here and the work you've put into it, but the signal to noise ratio has gotten too low.
For starters, I've spelled out exactly why people think Erebus minions are too powerful, it's the horn:
http://forums.demigodthegame.com/358907/get;2297738
Erebus minion skills do not need to be tweaked, messed with, buffed or nerfed. Mist is fine. You cannot mist indefinitely in 99.9% of legitimate, high-level games. Bat swarm range is fine, Erebus is not a high DPS character.
The number of changes you have listed for Oak makes me want to switch over to the dark side and just start insulting people. The only possible thing I could agree with is Last Stand not functioning on buildings.
I agree with QoT shamblers skills being WAY too skill point expensive. I agree tribute is garbage. I ONLY agree with the form switching time suggestion because almost EVERY game of Demigod is laggy. If every game ran lag free I would say leave it alone.
Regulus' Deadeye is a stupid, worthless skill. His mines are fine, even mentioning them reduces the credibility of this entire thread.
Rook: 5.5 speed, seriously? Why? Why do you have to change something by 1.8%? Once again, signal to noise. Enabling structural transfer to heal buildings would be an interesting game mechanic to experiment with and would be easy to implement. Making it uninteruptible is counter-intuitive to every other high cast time skill in the game.
Sedna: the only thing that could use some work is the Yetis. They are garbage and second rate compared to every other skill in her arsenal. The solution is not to make her other skills crappier. Sedna needs no other tweaks at this time.
Torchy: don't mess with circle of fire. I don't have a problem with fixing being able to auto attack while on the move in fire mode.
Unclean Beast: don't touch spit. I can't say I disagree with the urge to nerf him slightly, however, if only because winning teams at high-levels of play always have a beast. He's just too good to not have. I'm not sure any of us know the right way to go about doing it. This problem might be better solved by simply having a few more Demigods to choose from (i.e., the two new ones supposedly in the works may offer another DPS hose / damage tank).
Items: the only two things I agree with is that the HoL is too expensive (alternatively, it's virtually worthless and not really pertinent now that it's been relegated to the artifact shop) and that the Horn of Battle needs to be fixed. Leave treads, locks and blood alone (especially Heaven's Wrath - which screws your team mate over laning on his side with it, btw).
He's making an exhaustive list. Remember, you opinion isn't the only one, nor should you be the decider in how valid your own opinion is. That would make everyone assume their own opinion is the most important, and not particularly conducive to good discussion.
If someone is arguing that they think that Rooks speed is just a little too slow, and it makes him inordinantly effective in combat, then the way to show this person they are wrong isn'tsimply by attacking their proposed change, but rather to give details as to why his speed is justified to be what it is.
I feel a lot of good discussion is lost in threads like these (I'm quotting Shadow, but I don't mean to single him out) because we are arguing with a string of basicaly 'Yeah huhs' and "Nuh Uhs". Perhaps if we identify a few main areas of discussion we should segregate them out into their own threads, and attempt to address them one at a time. That should increase the... signal strength at least in those wave lengths .
Apart from the thing about "rather silly" recommended changes I can totally agree with the post. There's practically nothing to add.
Just for emphasis:
guys remember is a suggestions thread! if you dont like peoples suggestions it doesnt mean you have to start flaming them. lol.
oh and btw, the reason several of my suggestions are very small changes is because i dont want to see anything get too nerfed like HoL!
It's not opinion. It's empirical observation after close to 500 online games, MANY of them played at the highest levels available right now.
Yeah man, I do understand that sentiment.
Too many nerfs and changes overall for one of the most balanced games I've seen in a long time. If you look at the history of many games where devs caved in to all the crybabies screaming "NERF" and such X is OP the games' quality has taken a nose dive.
Only 2 things that should get high priority I agree with that should be looked at by the devs:
Sedna healing wind/priest
Horn of Battle
Changes that would be lower priority:
Sednas Yetis: would provide another viable build option
Debateable TB firing while moving: There hasn't been any definitive word from the devs if this is working as intended.
Just my 2 cents.
Oh, there is no flaming here. I am at the Heroes of Newerth forums occasionally. There's flaming even when you say 'hello'.
And regarding small suggestions: I feel oblieged to list them, but I rather disaprove of actually implementing "slight changes" when the to-be-changed skill isn't actually in need of fixing. If the skill is just "slightly" above or below average then I can live with it.
Meanwhile some of my opinions:
Can stay completely unchanged, Last Stand included. I'll probably change my mind when my citadel suddenly collapses under the assault of three level 8 Oaks with horn of battle and Last Stand 1.
I think QoT simply needs too much skill points for every single build she has. She actually needs fewer skill levels.
Reg doesn't need any change. But:
This is one of the best balance Demigods. He really doesn't need change. But because the idea of using Structural Transfer to heal fixed defenses is cool, I support that suggestion.
Her Yetis suck when compared to every other skill she has. The most original change in my opinion was to give all Yetis splash damage. Wild swings for free instead of a level 15 skill. Maybe with a chance modifier like 25%/50%/75%/100%.
Everything else can stay like it is. Fix the High Priest bug, though.
I agree to the auto attack issue. Rest is fine.
Beast is strong, pure and simple. He doesn't need to be made stronger.
Items
Hehe, I started using Horn of Battle very early, simply to slaughter the smug Torch Bearers that so delight in toasting my spirits. Horn came quite as a surprise. I agree with the range nerf.
yes theres all that but how about some clan support we are all tending are own here waiting too battle another clan. we are already pretty organized and just waiting for some challenges.
[link removed by moderator -- recruit in appropriate threads]
Quoting Poul, reply 12 Torch Bearer I don't think time of switching form should be reduced. It will be too easly to use 2 AoE skills and still use some other skills meantime.
I don't think time of switching form should be reduced. It will be too easly to use 2 AoE skills and still use some other skills meantime.
I also don't think the time should be reduced. right now it's just thats it too fast to switch to ice and to slow to switch to fire.
maybe change the switch time of both to something in between the two?
I liked the idea of having skills reduce the cast time of switching forms. maybe have each aura decrease the time it takes to shift to her matching form (lvl 1 - slower then ice, lvl 2 - like ice right now, lvl - 3 instant or very fast, no aura - same as fire) this could lead to interesting hybrid builds that might take both auras
of course then you'll have to remove aura duration when switching between fire/ice form completely to prevent a double aura exploit.
Erebus: Pretty much fine as is... he offers good balance and gives a choice between going for minions or just straight up Bite/Bat damage. I personally would like to see the casting time of his stun decreased (by half a second even) so that it can be used more as an interrupt. Decreasing the stun time of surrounding units by a second or two in return would be fair. But that's spoken as an Erebus player so it wouldn't necessarily be "balancing"
QoT: Needs an interrupt/stun. Any interrupt/stun. Get rid of any upgrade line except Shield and Ground spikes and replace it with something that interrupts/stuns and people would play her more. Or add the interrupt/stun ability to something she already uses like Spike Wave. She is incapable of killing in large part because people can run away anytime she starts doing serious damage. Her speed is so slow there's no point in her chasing people. I mean seriously... why did they make her the only character who has no interrupt?
Regulus also has no interrupt. Secondly, not all characters should have all different types of skills. That's what makes them different! If interrupts are a vital part of the game, then it would be more likely to say that is a flaw of the game system, than a simple oversight on their part for not giving her one.
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