Aasimon
12-19-2002, 06:43 PM
Valewalker Team Lead Report (v1.56)
Overview
Being an entirely new class to the RVR game, the valewalker has an interesting niche to occupy. Survival is based completely on a set of buffs, and damage output is varied between melee and magical damage. The delicate balance of frailty and power makes this class a difficult one to balance, but I hope to achieve it with these changes.
===============
General Concerns:
Miss Rate- The reduction in valewalker damage output before the release of shrouded isles had an adverse side effect on the overall melee performance of the class. With a lower weaponskill, Valewalkers are missing up to 20% more against identical opponents than they were before the patch. Some valewalkers are achieving an average of around 50% miss rates with high end equipment and maxed out skills. Seeing as the valewalker has only the scythe as an option for a weapon, and the fact that 2handed weapons are inherently slow, this hurts the melee performance of the class greatly.
Overall Damage output- The Valewalker cannot stand up in any particular area as far as damage output goes. Both low end spellcasting and lackluster melee output, combined with high miss rates, make the overall ability to dish out pain much harder for a valewalker than any other offensive based class. A Valewalker should be balanced more depending on how they decide to spend their specialization points, either on spellcasting or melee. Their overall defensive ability should be, in turn, accomidated to the availability of damage output. There is no one single way to solve this problem, and there are many ways to approach it. Many of these are outlined in the sections below.
===============
Combat Style Issues:
Lack of a "+ to hit" anytime style-
Valewalker's melee damage is almost entirely based off of reactionary styles, without a decent anytime style to use in some situations, Valewalker's melee damage output is severely limited.
Suggested Fixes:
Swap when Sawgrass and Thorny shield are recieved in the valewalker's style line. Remove Parry pre-req from Sawgrass, change it to anytime style. Low +hit bonus, Medium Defense Penalty, High fatigue cost, Low Damage Bonus, with slash debuff. This style would be comparable to the Flexible weapon's "Python" anytime style.
---
Side positional styles- Completing any type of style chain is difficult in RVR, and from a side position it is even more difficult. On top of this, stunning blade, the level 10 side positional style, has no + to hit bonus.
Suggested Fixes:
Change Stunning Blade to a rear positional style.
---
Level 44 style bug- The level 44 style, Damaging Grasp, is documented as having a root effect, but it procs a stun instead. A root is almost useless, seeing as valewalkers will ALWAYS have a damage shield up when executing this style, because the beginning of the chain procs a DS.
Suggested Fixes:
Correct the documentation and leave the style as a stun.
---
ALL procs from style effects should scale with level. At lower levels they border on overpowered, and stay exactly the same through level 50, not creating much of an effect at all.
===============
Spell Casting Issues:
Buffs- The valewalker is wholly and completely dependant on buffs for survival. Buffs consume a large portion of a Valewalker's power pool, and the timer on them makes dealing with rebuffing in RVR a major inconvenience.
Suggested Fixes: Increase timers on self buffs to 20 minutes for the valewalker.
---
DOT Damage- The instacast DOT in the Valewalking spell line is an excellent addition to a valewalker's arsenal. It is supposed to make up for the miss rates of 2 handed weapons, but the damage output is a little low. The damage should truly compensate the loss on a 2 handed weapon for damage output.
Suggested Fixes: Increase the Damage of the DOT up to 100%, based upon other fixes made to miss rates, etc.
---
Castable Snare- The snare is bulky in RVR. Without quickcast, the spell is never used.
Suggested Fixes: Make the snare instacast.
===============
Realm Ability Issues:
Defender of the Vale - Still extremely buggy, with incomplete documentation. Need more info on this RA.
---
Available Realm Abilities - Valewalkers recieve none of the traditional "magical" realm abilities (Wild Power, Mastery of the Art, Mastery of Magery, Wild Arcana, and Mastery of the Arcane, Mystic Crystal Lore and Raging power) given to spellcasting classes, OR First Aid and Ignore Pain. Being both a tank AND caster class, the lack of any of these RAs seems odd.
Suggested Fixes: Allow access to these four realm abilities.
===============
Conclusion:
These suggested changes should benefit the class greatly in the areas it is sufferring. Overall the valewalker is a unique and fun class to play. As we settle in to the RVR game and the influx of new classes mellows down, the overall niche of the class should be reviewed once again.
Overview
Being an entirely new class to the RVR game, the valewalker has an interesting niche to occupy. Survival is based completely on a set of buffs, and damage output is varied between melee and magical damage. The delicate balance of frailty and power makes this class a difficult one to balance, but I hope to achieve it with these changes.
===============
General Concerns:
Miss Rate- The reduction in valewalker damage output before the release of shrouded isles had an adverse side effect on the overall melee performance of the class. With a lower weaponskill, Valewalkers are missing up to 20% more against identical opponents than they were before the patch. Some valewalkers are achieving an average of around 50% miss rates with high end equipment and maxed out skills. Seeing as the valewalker has only the scythe as an option for a weapon, and the fact that 2handed weapons are inherently slow, this hurts the melee performance of the class greatly.
Overall Damage output- The Valewalker cannot stand up in any particular area as far as damage output goes. Both low end spellcasting and lackluster melee output, combined with high miss rates, make the overall ability to dish out pain much harder for a valewalker than any other offensive based class. A Valewalker should be balanced more depending on how they decide to spend their specialization points, either on spellcasting or melee. Their overall defensive ability should be, in turn, accomidated to the availability of damage output. There is no one single way to solve this problem, and there are many ways to approach it. Many of these are outlined in the sections below.
===============
Combat Style Issues:
Lack of a "+ to hit" anytime style-
Valewalker's melee damage is almost entirely based off of reactionary styles, without a decent anytime style to use in some situations, Valewalker's melee damage output is severely limited.
Suggested Fixes:
Swap when Sawgrass and Thorny shield are recieved in the valewalker's style line. Remove Parry pre-req from Sawgrass, change it to anytime style. Low +hit bonus, Medium Defense Penalty, High fatigue cost, Low Damage Bonus, with slash debuff. This style would be comparable to the Flexible weapon's "Python" anytime style.
---
Side positional styles- Completing any type of style chain is difficult in RVR, and from a side position it is even more difficult. On top of this, stunning blade, the level 10 side positional style, has no + to hit bonus.
Suggested Fixes:
Change Stunning Blade to a rear positional style.
---
Level 44 style bug- The level 44 style, Damaging Grasp, is documented as having a root effect, but it procs a stun instead. A root is almost useless, seeing as valewalkers will ALWAYS have a damage shield up when executing this style, because the beginning of the chain procs a DS.
Suggested Fixes:
Correct the documentation and leave the style as a stun.
---
ALL procs from style effects should scale with level. At lower levels they border on overpowered, and stay exactly the same through level 50, not creating much of an effect at all.
===============
Spell Casting Issues:
Buffs- The valewalker is wholly and completely dependant on buffs for survival. Buffs consume a large portion of a Valewalker's power pool, and the timer on them makes dealing with rebuffing in RVR a major inconvenience.
Suggested Fixes: Increase timers on self buffs to 20 minutes for the valewalker.
---
DOT Damage- The instacast DOT in the Valewalking spell line is an excellent addition to a valewalker's arsenal. It is supposed to make up for the miss rates of 2 handed weapons, but the damage output is a little low. The damage should truly compensate the loss on a 2 handed weapon for damage output.
Suggested Fixes: Increase the Damage of the DOT up to 100%, based upon other fixes made to miss rates, etc.
---
Castable Snare- The snare is bulky in RVR. Without quickcast, the spell is never used.
Suggested Fixes: Make the snare instacast.
===============
Realm Ability Issues:
Defender of the Vale - Still extremely buggy, with incomplete documentation. Need more info on this RA.
---
Available Realm Abilities - Valewalkers recieve none of the traditional "magical" realm abilities (Wild Power, Mastery of the Art, Mastery of Magery, Wild Arcana, and Mastery of the Arcane, Mystic Crystal Lore and Raging power) given to spellcasting classes, OR First Aid and Ignore Pain. Being both a tank AND caster class, the lack of any of these RAs seems odd.
Suggested Fixes: Allow access to these four realm abilities.
===============
Conclusion:
These suggested changes should benefit the class greatly in the areas it is sufferring. Overall the valewalker is a unique and fun class to play. As we settle in to the RVR game and the influx of new classes mellows down, the overall niche of the class should be reviewed once again.