PvP - skills/passives balance/rework

Ive made a similar post to the alpha forums but i feel that the things addressed in it should be shared with more people. Ive seen a lot of new pvpers complaining about things as stun/cyclone/tornado shot and others about less used skills and passives. I'll address some of them here, feel free to share your opinions and feedback about the ideas posted here, or your own ideas regarding skills and passives that should be nerfed/buffed/rebalanced/tweaked/removed


Stun : I cant see why there are so many asking for stun nerfs when there are way too many ways to counter it, Chayula/US/Cyclone offer complete stun immunity, Dodge/Block plus block recovery/Heart of Oak/Leo's Stun avoidance mod all offer a solid way to avoid stun. At the moment i cant think of any build that needs that kind of investment as stunners that is countered by so many things. Stun is very fine as it is and certainly in no need of a nerf.

Cyclone : i said it before the pvp update went live that cyclone offers way too much utility for the dmg it provides, and now its mandatory for every melee build. As hissnail also said - and its actually very close to the truth - a 5l heavy strike provides more or less the same dmg output as a non-linked cyclone which is ridiculous. An additional pvp dmg effectiveness should be added for cyclone.

Molten Strike : Dmg output vs melee characters is over the top. Damage-wise it outshines even cyclone, and that says a lot on its own.

Tornado Shot : The nerf on tornado was ok and really made it much easier to play against it. The problem with tornado shot is not the skill itself but i think the +1 arrow corrupted mod on bows/quivers that skyrocket TS dps. A further nerf will certainly be welcomed but not necessary on tornado shot. On the other hand the suggestion from Dissolator is really awesome

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Dissolator wrote:

Maybe this shall be converted to something like "30% chance to shot with additional arrow"? In conversion i mean replace mechanics of how mod works, affecting already crafted ones, not making legacy items

Point Blank : The gem is really, really OP for physical attack traps and should definately be reworked/tweaked. My initial thought was to make it require 31lvl thus completely removing it from LLD but thats kinda harsh. Maybe some dmg rescaling would be ok.

Elemental Equilibrium : EE is a completely un-counterable passive ability, making it strong for builds that can utilize it (specifically summoners and in team matches supporting characters). We can counter curses with curse immunity pots, but EE persists until its duration ends. There are enough ways to tweak EE : making it removable with curse immunity pots (yes i know its not a curse), reduce its duration to 3seconds for pvp, reduced the value from -50% to -30% or something.

Melee trigger gems : The fact that shield builds (including unarmed and 1h weapons) can utilize them all seems like overkill. Add an additional cooldown when using more than one or use the higher cooldown of them (in that case vengeance i think) or add some other kind of restriction. Currently fighting vs shield builds seems impossible, and they can literally afk and still win vs any other melee, thats broken

Minion Instability : Another un-counterable, damage providing ability. I dont know why it hasnt been addressed yet. The dmg provided by the explosion alone is above average, unblockable and undodgable. There is literally nothing you can do when you are melee vs that dmg. On top of that summoners tend to be using spells, curses and elemental equilibrium that synergises way to good with it. The poing i want to highlight about this keystone is the unblockable/undodgeable part of it.

btw you sure block penetration is working as intended or they changed the block formula in somehow for pvp? i made three RT characters each one with different blockpen values(27-42-65) in all cases i haven't noticed any difference against counterattacks, these still trigger same amount of times.

Nice post and I feel the same way on most points. Thanks for sharing.

EE is really easy to counter, htere's no need to always use same gear and be lazy. If you know someone using EE, overcap the resist he's trying to damage you with(i.e fire if you vs an EA with initial hit)

Changig cyclone would destroy 2h in HLD, if there was a way to just adjust it in LLD(which i see it dominates sure) but if it was global all 2handers would be rape as most other skills just aren't good enough with a few exception that pretty much only fits swords

Minion instability is also counterable quite easily. Most people use SRS with that, a simple temp chains , lure most of the skulls away and then attack the caster makes them really vulnerable. ALT use offhand splitarrow chain/arc

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

EE is really easy to counter, htere's no need to always use same gear and be lazy. If you know someone using EE, overcap the resist he's trying to damage you with(i.e fire if you vs an EA with initial hit)

Changig cyclone would destroy 2h in HLD, if there was a way to just adjust it in LLD(which i see it dominates sure) but if it was global all 2handers would be rape as most other skills just aren't good enough with a few exception that pretty much only fits swords

Minion instability is also counterable quite easily. Most people use SRS with that, a simple temp chains , lure most of the skulls away and then attack the caster makes them really vulnerable. ALT use offhand splitarrow chain/arc

Everything is easy to counter if you do this, this n this.

I feel everytime you post you disregard the state of pvp and are selfish on protecting something.

It's hard to distinguish sometimes whats directed at lld and hld, lld has a lot more focus right now so I think most changes are around that.

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2i0 wrote:

btw you sure block penetration is working as intended or they changed the block formula in somehow for pvp? i made three RT characters each one with different blockpen values(27-42-65) in all cases i haven't noticed any difference against counterattacks, these still trigger same amount of times.

In general yes block penetration (that also offers dodge penetration) are working as they should.
Regarding trigger though, it depends on several variables. Riposte works on block (general) with 0.8 sec cd and full dmg effectiveness (even going up on leveling it) but it hits only one target, Reckoning works on block (only with shields) with 0.4sec cd and 70%dmg effectiveness (going up on leveling it) and it has AoE and last but not least Vengeance that works 30% of the time you are hit, with 1.2sec cd and 75%dmg effectiveness (going up on leveling it) and has AoE.

Edit :

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Vipermagi wrote:

Reductions are always a multiplier.

As it turns out, block chance reduction is multiplicative so dissregard what i said before about it, and sorry for the mistake, it was an honest one.

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

EE is really easy to counter, htere's no need to always use same gear and be lazy. If you know someone using EE, overcap the resist he's trying to damage you with(i.e fire if you vs an EA with initial hit)

Changig cyclone would destroy 2h in HLD, if there was a way to just adjust it in LLD(which i see it dominates sure) but if it was global all 2handers would be rape as most other skills just aren't good enough with a few exception that pretty much only fits swords

Minion instability is also counterable quite easily. Most people use SRS with that, a simple temp chains , lure most of the skulls away and then attack the caster makes them really vulnerable. ALT use offhand splitarrow chain/arc

EE : you cannot counter it, what you wrote is random ideas how to meta-counter it, guess what though, in order for them to activate the EE they use other spells, changing gear and having less res in some element(s) automatically means that even the triggering spell hurts you more, and even if that was a solid way to counter it, you NEED to know if you opponent has EE, its not like everyone shares his build or everybody knows everyone, or before the fight your opponent will truthfully declare "Hey man, I'm using EE"

Cyclone : Again i think you should read the OP, it is a skill that unlinked provides the same damage output with a 5l heavy strike (which btw has 150%dmg effectiveness), while in the same time providing stun and knockback immunity. If you cant see how this is broken, i cant help you further.

Minion Instability : What you said that could counter them, can (and it is) used by the summoner too so we are back in the original problem. Also notice that in the OP im talking about melee

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terrex wrote:

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

EE is really easy to counter, htere's no need to always use same gear and be lazy. If you know someone using EE, overcap the resist he's trying to damage you with(i.e fire if you vs an EA with initial hit)

Changig cyclone would destroy 2h in HLD, if there was a way to just adjust it in LLD(which i see it dominates sure) but if it was global all 2handers would be rape as most other skills just aren't good enough with a few exception that pretty much only fits swords

Minion instability is also counterable quite easily. Most people use SRS with that, a simple temp chains , lure most of the skulls away and then attack the caster makes them really vulnerable. ALT use offhand splitarrow chain/arc

Everything is easy to counter if you do this, this n this.

I feel everytime you post you disregard the state of pvp and are selfish on protecting something.

It's hard to distinguish sometimes whats directed at lld and hld, lld has a lot more focus right now so I think most changes are around that.

WHat you just wrote did sound more selfish"I dont want to change gear to overcap this 50% so please fix it"

Cyclone is pretty much the only melee skill besides molten strike which also seemed to be asked after a nerf whcih to me would be crazy as those are the only viable melee skills, not just for 2handers but for melee overall. The new Static strike is okish with sword, but else it's meh.

And about changing LLD/HLD, if you were around longer than 2 weeks you'd know GGG stated themselves they can make changes apply to only LLD and vice versa.

EE is counterable, where let's say molten shell isn't except one thing: Avatar of Fire keystone. This destroys a normal melee build which is why people don't want to take it. 1.2 I had it on my duelist, MullaXul is trying it out here and there, but capping 50% of 1 resist is way easier than changing your entire build

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something something

Cyclone : Again i think you should read the OP, it is a skill that unlinked provides the same damage output with a 5l heavy strike (which btw has 150%dmg effectiveness), while in the same time providing stun and knockback immunity. If you cant see how this is broken, i cant help you further.

You do know that there's an icon when you're under EE, right? There's no way they'd hide if theyre EE or not.

And heavy strike < cyclone tooltip means literally nothing. Comparing tooltips with different skills is dumb in PvE as well, though dumber in PvP as there are formulas for each skill. On a side not in HLD Heavystrike>Cyclone

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

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terrex wrote:

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

EE is really easy to counter, htere's no need to always use same gear and be lazy. If you know someone using EE, overcap the resist he's trying to damage you with(i.e fire if you vs an EA with initial hit)

Changig cyclone would destroy 2h in HLD, if there was a way to just adjust it in LLD(which i see it dominates sure) but if it was global all 2handers would be rape as most other skills just aren't good enough with a few exception that pretty much only fits swords

Minion instability is also counterable quite easily. Most people use SRS with that, a simple temp chains , lure most of the skulls away and then attack the caster makes them really vulnerable. ALT use offhand splitarrow chain/arc

Everything is easy to counter if you do this, this n this.

I feel everytime you post you disregard the state of pvp and are selfish on protecting something.

It's hard to distinguish sometimes whats directed at lld and hld, lld has a lot more focus right now so I think most changes are around that.

WHat you just wrote did sound more selfish"I dont want to change gear to overcap this 50% so please fix it"

Cyclone is pretty much the only melee skill besides molten strike which also seemed to be asked after a nerf whcih to me would be crazy as those are the only viable melee skills, not just for 2handers but for melee overall. The new Static strike is okish with sword, but else it's meh.

And about changing LLD/HLD, if you were around longer than 2 weeks you'd know GGG stated themselves they can make changes apply to only LLD and vice versa.

EE is counterable, where let's say molten shell isn't except one thing: Avatar of Fire keystone. This destroys a normal melee build which is why people don't want to take it. 1.2 I had it on my duelist, MullaXul is trying it out here and there, but capping 50% of 1 resist is way easier than changing your entire build

I never said they couldn't do changes to one and not the either. There is just a lot of feedback and some is towards hld and lld, most events are lld so nearly all my feedback is lld. Cyclone and Molten are the only viable skills because mechanically they are extremely advantageous, of course people are going to use them. This is something that needs to be addressed to allow more builds and options, why is that so hard for you to understand?

You replied to me as if I even commented specifically towards EE lol, I have fought 1 person that used it and it didn't poses a lot of trouble.

I get that you are a very experienced and knowledgeable pvper but with the current state I dont think many new players will last long in the perm league pvp.


I do fight other builds that aren't cyclone / nado / molten / traps but it isn't as common. I am testing a bunch of other bow skill setups aside from nado but still nado reigns supreme. Being able to hit behind walls and objects, the shotgun and stun effect are very strong. Barrage has come close but some matchups are an autoloss because you generally need to be close.

I do not blame people for using the stronger melee setups it is just frustrating to fight a lot of the time. I know what counters them but I do not really want to play a trapper much. I do win vs some people that I can stunlock or catch them before they start cycloning, sometimes with a trap when they are low running away, but anyone I feel with similar gear has crushed me.

I would like to think I have a very good idea on LLD balance and I have to say you are on point in almost everything.

Cyclone and molten deal too much damage. Molten is mostly broken though because of phys to light gem. The interaction between molten and that support gem is just way too good.

I feel like bows have been nerfed enough for now. They dont dominate any of the top spots anymore just because melee counters them. Further nerf to bow users wouldnt be wise I think. They are in relatively good spot atm.

EE is crazy and Im surprised more people havent taken advantage of it. It definately needs some kind of reduction in LLD.

Minion instability isnt a factor at all in LLD tbh. It can be played around with all good chars.

Melee trigger gems seem to be in a good spot as well. They really arent as good as people think. Definately viable but not imbalanced even if you deliberately try to abuse them.

Nothing against you Tommie, but I also think Cyclone is way too strong and fast now, even in HLD.
You know you can kill 10k ES in arround 2 or 3 seconds. A 1H char without insane block and/or Aegis with, lets say 4-5k life isnt able to fight cyclone in melee range. Only chance is to stay out of cyclone and fight with Lightning Strike for example, else you are dead in a wink.
A check at the HLD EU 1v1 ladder shows this easy.