Season 2 Balance Feedback - Week One

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Qarl wrote:

I thought I'd make a few comments about Firestorm as its a very hot topic here.
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I see what you did there! Firestorm "hot" topic. But I don't think it needs a Nerf he has an awesome build but he is killable. My point was just to show puncture trap is not as op as you seem to think it is.

I think ranged builds with freeze/chill/tc and high damage capabilities need to be looked at before the others, imo melee should be the last balance issue. It only really does good in 1v1, where most of this season is concentrated in blitz/3v3s 1 round events as a melee you really have no time to adapt to anything during rounds. It's pretty much a guess everytime you go into melee range, bringing melee down more than that would just create a pure ranged build meta. Knowing that 80% of builds atm are ranged and make use of slows and curses, i think it's just way too efficient in 3v3s or team match ups. It even makes no sense to play a melee in 3v3s, maps are so small you have no space to go around and gank, sometimes you're even getting hit from the spawn by ranged skills.

Bottom line for my opinion is, find a balance between damage and the amount of perks a ranged build can have, speed, traps/mines, curses, molten shell, the high range, freeze, chill. Even lag MTX is part of it's perks. Take a look at how laggy your game becomes in a 3v3 when you have a firestormer spamming the whole screen with his MTX, that's a huge drawback if we have to deal with lag as well. You cant give ranged builds with so many slowing cc perks that much damage, it just rekts too much for these kind of events where u barely have time to adapt to anything.


If you take a look at all other builds i think heavy strike's damage for melee's is quite justified, besides being a bit better in 1v1s, it sucks in 3v3s due to lack of aoe and toning it down would just give molten strike the upper hand in everyway and it's pretty close to having it anyways. It has it's perks and it's drawbacks, it's a legit skill in everyway imo. It's also very easy to kite when you're stun immune or by using clever use of movement skills.

If the same builds win every events everytime then that means something is not balanced, it's clearly just the fact that ranged builds are soooo dominant at the moment, especially high damage and easy aim ones. The balance concentration should be aimed towards ranged specs, as it's clearly easy to see that it's dominant in every aspect of this season.

That's just how i see it by using a melee spec myself in every event.

I'll start with disqualifying my opinion saying that I'm not a veteran PvP'er (this is the first season I participate in), and that I'm very much a mid-tier player. I'm playing a budget facebreaker build in LLD and havn't really made an effort to make a decent HLD build yet.

Enjoyment. To me, this is what PvP is about. Having fun, being amazed by the innovative (crazy) builds you guys come up with, figuring out ways to beat them, and breaking a few faces along the way. Keep in mind that this is what I base my view (or rather feeling) on LLD balance on.

Balance. Here's the problem. It's just not fun playing bow builds all the time. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm at an unfair disadvantage, I think I stand a fair chance against most builds. But the fact that every other build I play seems to be a puncture trapper; just makes LLD a little bit less enjoyable. I find my self pleasently surprised whenever I'm up against a none bow build. And if (and this seems quite rare) I get to play a self-cast caster; I feel like a boy on christmas morning! The problem is, a bit too often; it's just another puncture trapper.

TLDR. Variety is fun! Homogeneity is dull.

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hauntworld1 wrote:

I think ranged builds with freeze/chill/tc and high damage capabilities need to be looked at before the others, imo melee should be the last balance issue. It only really does good in 1v1, where most of this season is concentrated in blitz/3v3s 1 round events as a melee you really have no time to adapt to anything during rounds. It's pretty much a guess everytime you go into melee range, bringing melee down more than that would just create a pure ranged build meta. Knowing that 80% of builds atm are ranged and make use of slows and curses, i think it's just way too efficient in 3v3s or team match ups. It even makes no sense to play a melee in 3v3s, maps are so small you have no space to go around and gank, sometimes you're even getting hit from the spawn by ranged skills.

Bottom line for my opinion is, find a balance between damage and the amount of perks a ranged build can have, speed, traps/mines, curses, molten shell, the high range, freeze, chill. Even lag MTX is part of it's perks. Take a look at how laggy your game becomes in a 3v3 when you have a firestormer spamming the whole screen with his MTX, that's a huge drawback if we have to deal with lag as well. You cant give ranged builds with so many slowing cc perks that much damage, it just rekts too much for these kind of events where u barely have time to adapt to anything.


If you take a look at all other builds i think heavy strike's damage for melee's is quite justified, besides being a bit better in 1v1s, it sucks in 3v3s due to lack of aoe and toning it down would just give molten strike the upper hand in everyway and it's pretty close to having it anyways. It has it's perks and it's drawbacks, it's a legit skill in everyway imo. It's also very easy to kite when you're stun immune or by using clever use of movement skills.

If the same builds win every events everytime then that means something is not balanced, it's clearly just the fact that ranged builds are soooo dominant at the moment, especially high damage and easy aim ones. The balance concentration should be aimed towards ranged specs, as it's clearly easy to see that it's dominant in every aspect of this season.

That's just how i see it by using a melee spec myself in every event.

Interesting, being ranged but also having high mobility, very high DMG output and a mega shit ton of defense/offense and utility options is strong vs melee? Could of swore I read that somewhere before...hmm where was that........oh ya, I wrote it many times. Welcome to melee haunt, now you see the game properly.

Rank 3 EU ladder 1v1, rank 1 bow user EU ladder 1v1.

I don't use cc in my spec, and I only use puncture traps against spell casters, because of the lack of armour they have, running tabula +1 gems. Puncture traps are completely fine. Melee builds has armour and evasion + dodge etc. Melee splash on whirling blades + cyclone. Puncture traps are only good in top 10 ladder against spell casters. Because of their lack of evasion and armour + dodge and ondars guile.
Qarl, if you nerf puncture traps. You will make spell casters even stronger. It's allready balanced. And if you speak with the top spell casters too, they also think its balanced.


I don't use puncture shots or tornado shots either :P

So don't count me in as a puncture trapper that is OP. I use other abilites against melee and other bow users...

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hauntworld1 wrote:

I think ranged builds with freeze/chill/tc and high damage capabilities need to be looked at before the others, imo melee should be the last balance issue. It only really does good in 1v1, where most of this season is concentrated in blitz/3v3s 1 round events as a melee you really have no time to adapt to anything during rounds. It's pretty much a guess everytime you go into melee range, bringing melee down more than that would just create a pure ranged build meta. Knowing that 80% of builds atm are ranged and make use of slows and curses, i think it's just way too efficient in 3v3s or team match ups. It even makes no sense to play a melee in 3v3s, maps are so small you have no space to go around and gank, sometimes you're even getting hit from the spawn by ranged skills.

Bottom line for my opinion is, find a balance between damage and the amount of perks a ranged build can have, speed, traps/mines, curses, molten shell, the high range, freeze, chill. Even lag MTX is part of it's perks. Take a look at how laggy your game becomes in a 3v3 when you have a firestormer spamming the whole screen with his MTX, that's a huge drawback if we have to deal with lag as well. You cant give ranged builds with so many slowing cc perks that much damage, it just rekts too much for these kind of events where u barely have time to adapt to anything.


If you take a look at all other builds i think heavy strike's damage for melee's is quite justified, besides being a bit better in 1v1s, it sucks in 3v3s due to lack of aoe and toning it down would just give molten strike the upper hand in everyway and it's pretty close to having it anyways. It has it's perks and it's drawbacks, it's a legit skill in everyway imo. It's also very easy to kite when you're stun immune or by using clever use of movement skills.

If the same builds win every events everytime then that means something is not balanced, it's clearly just the fact that ranged builds are soooo dominant at the moment, especially high damage and easy aim ones. The balance concentration should be aimed towards ranged specs, as it's clearly easy to see that it's dominant in every aspect of this season.

That's just how i see it by using a melee spec myself in every event.

Spoken like a mid tier melee.

Elemental equalibrium isn't too strong, penetration is. I discussed this in my elemental post. With the talk of EE nerfs I'd suggest this. The EE mechanic is a very well designed one, its IMO balanced. I'd like to see EE kept on the tree as it is but make penetration gems act like socketed EE to their respective element.

Example..

Fire penetration -50 resist not max but % resist + 25 to cold/light. This would be so much more balanced then the current penetration mechanic and with the abundance of multi element damage sources floating around make it a gem you have to think about before just slapping it onto your shit. Unlike penetration now which is waaay too good and is bis gem for any elemental set up.

Tweak the values as needed

This would be IMO a much better approach to penetration. Its something you can legitimately defend against and is a better layer of depth to PvP then just slashing ppls resists in half and saying "fuck you, deal with it".


I'd also like to add traps are in a good spot right now. Another Nerf to trap and mine support wouldn't hurt but with the well deserved cc nerf to 2.5s you as a melee should have options on hand to kill traps within this time frame and capitalize on the situation. If you do not....you're not playing right.

Another thing puncture and tornado shot self shot, damage is fine even with super high crit in hld. Even puncture in trap form is so much more manageable now, asking for more nerfs to it just means you don't like working for wins. Little ground clearing, smart movement and flask management = good duels, real duels.


Not to mention simply fixing penetration would bring elemental DMG traps back to realistic DMG levels. Thus likely requiring no further nerfs to trap/mine. In lld molten,static,molten shell, etc etc along with damn near all of the biggest balance issues in hld would magically not be as bad wout penetration how it is now. I've tested melee with and wout penetration, spells with and without, EA with and without. All of these things will still be viable, some may need their pvp values in needed a tad but all are still good. As for penetration and how it effects pvm....give me a break, you barely even need a 5l let alone penetration to tear shit up in pvm.

If you keep just nerfing PvP DMG effectiveness of problem elemental skills you will only keep making ones that aren't using penetration weaker and forcing the gem as a must have link to stay competitive. When really by just tweaking this mechanic it would clear up tons of crap. Penetration and/or shotgunning that's the elemental skill balance collapse point. Add the multiplied crit damage output you'll have 9.5 out of 10 times as a elemental user and bam...you're so far in the depths of fucked up balance land you can't see where you're going.

If you posted stuff that is similar to what i posted it doesn't mean that i cant give my opinion as well, and most of your suggestions are based off your HLD experience. I'm giving mine uppon LLD S2 where most events are blitz 1 round 1v1 or 3v3. It would be different if it was another type of meta. But for now S2 will most likely only be focused on blitz events with only 1 round.

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Lordsidro wrote:

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hauntworld1 wrote:

I think ranged builds with freeze/chill/tc and high damage capabilities need to be looked at before the others, imo melee should be the last balance issue. It only really does good in 1v1, where most of this season is concentrated in blitz/3v3s 1 round events as a melee you really have no time to adapt to anything during rounds. It's pretty much a guess everytime you go into melee range, bringing melee down more than that would just create a pure ranged build meta. Knowing that 80% of builds atm are ranged and make use of slows and curses, i think it's just way too efficient in 3v3s or team match ups. It even makes no sense to play a melee in 3v3s, maps are so small you have no space to go around and gank, sometimes you're even getting hit from the spawn by ranged skills.

Bottom line for my opinion is, find a balance between damage and the amount of perks a ranged build can have, speed, traps/mines, curses, molten shell, the high range, freeze, chill. Even lag MTX is part of it's perks. Take a look at how laggy your game becomes in a 3v3 when you have a firestormer spamming the whole screen with his MTX, that's a huge drawback if we have to deal with lag as well. You cant give ranged builds with so many slowing cc perks that much damage, it just rekts too much for these kind of events where u barely have time to adapt to anything.


If you take a look at all other builds i think heavy strike's damage for melee's is quite justified, besides being a bit better in 1v1s, it sucks in 3v3s due to lack of aoe and toning it down would just give molten strike the upper hand in everyway and it's pretty close to having it anyways. It has it's perks and it's drawbacks, it's a legit skill in everyway imo. It's also very easy to kite when you're stun immune or by using clever use of movement skills.

If the same builds win every events everytime then that means something is not balanced, it's clearly just the fact that ranged builds are soooo dominant at the moment, especially high damage and easy aim ones. The balance concentration should be aimed towards ranged specs, as it's clearly easy to see that it's dominant in every aspect of this season.

That's just how i see it by using a melee spec myself in every event.

Spoken like a mid tier melee.

Its funny that you actually wrote that when you're the guy that created duplicate threads with saying how bad your build has become and telling people not to try the build since you're not rekting everyone anymore.

That was spoken like a low tier caster that thinks everything is deserved to him, im actually curious as to what your quote even fucking means. It was simply my opinion about playing melee in season two, what does this have to do with player tiers ?

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hauntworld1 wrote:

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Lordsidro wrote:

"

hauntworld1 wrote:

I think ranged builds with freeze/chill/tc and high damage capabilities need to be looked at before the others, imo melee should be the last balance issue. It only really does good in 1v1, where most of this season is concentrated in blitz/3v3s 1 round events as a melee you really have no time to adapt to anything during rounds. It's pretty much a guess everytime you go into melee range, bringing melee down more than that would just create a pure ranged build meta. Knowing that 80% of builds atm are ranged and make use of slows and curses, i think it's just way too efficient in 3v3s or team match ups. It even makes no sense to play a melee in 3v3s, maps are so small you have no space to go around and gank, sometimes you're even getting hit from the spawn by ranged skills.

Bottom line for my opinion is, find a balance between damage and the amount of perks a ranged build can have, speed, traps/mines, curses, molten shell, the high range, freeze, chill. Even lag MTX is part of it's perks. Take a look at how laggy your game becomes in a 3v3 when you have a firestormer spamming the whole screen with his MTX, that's a huge drawback if we have to deal with lag as well. You cant give ranged builds with so many slowing cc perks that much damage, it just rekts too much for these kind of events where u barely have time to adapt to anything.


If you take a look at all other builds i think heavy strike's damage for melee's is quite justified, besides being a bit better in 1v1s, it sucks in 3v3s due to lack of aoe and toning it down would just give molten strike the upper hand in everyway and it's pretty close to having it anyways. It has it's perks and it's drawbacks, it's a legit skill in everyway imo. It's also very easy to kite when you're stun immune or by using clever use of movement skills.

If the same builds win every events everytime then that means something is not balanced, it's clearly just the fact that ranged builds are soooo dominant at the moment, especially high damage and easy aim ones. The balance concentration should be aimed towards ranged specs, as it's clearly easy to see that it's dominant in every aspect of this season.

That's just how i see it by using a melee spec myself in every event.

Spoken like a mid tier melee.

Its funny that you actually wrote that when you're the guy that created duplicate threads with saying how bad your build has become and telling people not to try the build since you're not rekting everyone anymore.

That was spoken like a low tier caster that thinks everything is deserved to him, im actually curious as to what your quote even fucking means. It was simply my opinion about playing melee in season two, what does this have to do with player tiers ?

He's still playing the trapper and it does hugh damage, not sure what made him saying its not viable anymore. Dont want others to play the build?