Current state of hld

After evaluating where hld is at the moment given various long over due mechanic changes I've concluded a few things.

1. Explosive arrow is still in need or normalization. Mechanically its a sound skill and I think it should remain this way. Damage wise, a 30-40% less PvP penalty wouldn't kill it, that's where I stand on this one.

2. Bow, traps and mines....look at the damage here. Are you fucking serious? Bow users shouldn't do this much damage with mines/traps. Only builds focused around them should have this type of output. Ranged builds that can 1-2 shot you in multiple ways, have plethora of options, plus destroy flask meta by abusing puncture etc, poor design/balance.... which leads me to 3

3. Critical multipliers, still too high and the reasoning for buffing 1h weapons while nerfing 2h to close the gap made no sense. 2h will rarely be viable in PvP as crit because you can't afford to invest in it when you have no defenses. You will be a glass cannon, 1trick pony crap build. 1h on the other hand benefit from heavily multiplied damage potential, while retaining upwards of 5k+ HP 7k+es and block or acro or both. This isn't a problem for just melee, its a universal one.

800dps 2h weapons have crit potential sure but it's lacking in every area you need to compete as 2h, that's why RT is better. That's fine, I don't want to play crit anyways. It's when you have 500dps 1h weapons/bows designed for crit, that easily get crit chance/multiplier as they travel the tree plus block/acrobatics and respectable life/es pools.

That 500dps weapon with a 300% multiplier is now doing more damage then the 800dps weapon. Plus isn't lacking base damage potential at all. It's not like you're relying 100% on a crit to even produce damage. But...your chance to crit you say? Yes 50% means 50% of the time when you roll that dice you may be stronger or you may do slightly less then that 800dps weapon. 50% is conservative and most people will have near 60% and daggers easily get 80-95%. The multiplier is conservative too, we know 300% is easy to get. 400+++++ is really where everyone's sitting.

Here's where it gets bad though, you can't simply make these weapons weaker. Because there are builds that don't focus on crit that still need to be strong with them. Bows and all 1h weapons minus dagger are often played low crit or RT. While dagger is purposely designed for crit and if you're not crit you're a dumb ass. So why does the dagger need to have such high base damage output? They have the same access to skills and options any other 1 melee does, they don't need it.

So you have to see by now the problem is crit itself. It was nerfed before and it made a good impact on balance. Legacy crit gear keeps it ridiculous but even in current gear it's too strong and creates a huge gap between viable builds. (I have 650%+ multiplier 90% crit chance with bino's and kill people blind folded. 50Ex build...ya)

If you nerfed crit, bows/daggers would still be strong. Casters would still be strong too, they have a lower crit chance naturally and do not need to do 1-2hit kills on people to compete.




Besides that, PvP in hld is fine. Don't cry about molten anymore, we have tons of options. Don't cry about block anymore, resists, freeze chill ignite shock curses whatever...its all fine. If you don't have the answers to these things yet just look harder, they are there. The problems listed above are obvious ones and currently the only ones requiring attention.

Edit: I retract number 4. Block chance reduction should remain a colored gem and not be white. It would create more balance issues then before. Only thing keeping a lot of things in check is the fact they are shackled to a green socket.

Don t know why you say block and molten are fine.

- Block is fine as long as you have a sword, but once you use anything else than a sword it is rip even with bcr if you use cyclone or not legacy kaom. Even with slow hits, you still get rekt by crit casters.

With the new Dodge armor and the buff of block in 2.0, I feel like they should give us block chance and dodge chance reduction for each weapon base.

- molten is ok if you convert but again most casters use molten+block and op crit skills. The time you use a slow hit attack you are dead from crit .

The only solution is to go avatar of fire if you are cyclone because there is no possibility to get 100% elemental conversion with cyclone as much as I know, but avatar is way too high from marauder in the tree.

All in all unless you have 200 ex legacy kaom as a melee, block-molten-crit combo will rekt you to pieces in my opinion.


I agree with you about crit and 2h.
IT is retarded to see 1h having the possibility to get more res, life whatever with shield and seeing 2h having nothing and getting nerfed.

Good Analysis Mulla, i agree with most of it and it pretty much reflect my post on the pvp beta thread on the beta forum.

Hopefully someone will FINALLY take notice and do something.

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lolozori wrote:

Don t know why you say block and molten are fine.

- Block is fine as long as you have a sword, but once you use anything else than a sword it is rip even with bcr if you use cyclone or not legacy kaom. Even with slow hits, you still get rekt by crit casters.

With the new Dodge armor and the buff of block in 2.0, I feel like they should give us block chance and dodge chance reduction for each weapon base.

- molten is ok if you convert but again most casters use molten+block and op crit skills. The time you use a slow hit attack you are dead from crit .

The only solution is to go avatar of fire if you are cyclone because there is no possibility to get 100% elemental conversion with cyclone as much as I know, but avatar is way too high from marauder in the tree.

All in all unless you have 200 ex legacy kaom as a melee, block-molten-crit combo will rekt you to pieces in my opinion.


I agree with you about crit and 2h.
IT is retarded to see 1h having the possibility to get more res, life whatever with shield and seeing 2h having nothing and getting nerfed.

You cant go into PvP as a 2h melee with only cyclone. You need an offhand option or another skill while always considering the possibility you'll need to convert to 100% elemental. Depending on your offhand option you can ignore elemental conversions and just out range it or capitalize on its duration. You don't need legacy kaoms, that extra 1-1.5k life is only saving you if you're a face tanker. Move, regen more and pick your opportunities. I have 9k HP with new kaoms BTW.

I agree with most of your points. But I think you have to take gears into account. If a person can one shot u using puncture without bleeding, then this guy must have insane gears, probably all mirrored. I use puncture because I have glyph but I wouldn't even consider it if I just have a regular 5L bow. Without high phys dmg gear, puncture is crap even if u put in a trap/mine. That's why we have LLD, where build budgets are much more similar. In HLD it's hard to balance because there will be ppl with 1000ex+ full mirrored gears. And they deserve to be strong.

Now EA is an exception because it's super cheap and op.

Agreed, this is pretty much what I wrote on the 2.0 beta pvp feedback thread. Aside from mine/trap one shot and crit damage, ea can be "soft countered" by high regen, hp pool and fortify. Recently, I start using when facing ea. With 300% fire res (LOL), decent regen, fortify buff and right choice of curse, I can laugh at dem eaers while they desperately trying to kill me.

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Jimicui wrote:

Agreed, this is pretty much what I wrote on the 2.0 beta pvp feedback thread. Aside from mine/trap one shot and crit damage, ea can be "soft countered" by high regen, hp pool and fortify. Recently, I start using

when facing ea. With 300% fire res (LOL), decent regen, fortify buff and right choice of curse, I can laugh at dem eaers while they desperately trying to kill me.

Ya that's a point I argued a few times, EA's strengths lie partly in - resistance from EE and cursing. Unlike other powerful abilities it does have a counter to it but you're left gimped pretty hard. 1h melee and casters have the best tool set to deal with EA while using RoF to mitigate ignite and stack resists but they get fucked ez due to lower life/lack of es regen or wall damage. Which is honestly where it becomes a problem, the walls. Stand alone I feel EA is at a pretty good place but wall damage is insane. Mechanically I don't want to see the skill changed, I like the uniqueness of using walls and player sticking to reset timers and create constant bombardment. Why I think a reasonable damage reduction in PvP is the best approach to balancing this skill. If you use it properly and pepper players+walls and create constant harassment even with a proper damage reduction it will be viable 100%. Other option is to butcher it mechanically and make it not work on walls and instead only stick to players...I feel that is shitty.

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lbj1026 wrote:

I agree with most of your points. But I think you have to take gears into account. If a person can one shot u using puncture without bleeding, then this guy must have insane gears, probably all mirrored. I use puncture because I have glyph but I wouldn't even consider it if I just have a regular 5L bow. Without high phys dmg gear, puncture is crap even if u put in a trap/mine. That's why we have LLD, where build budgets are much more similar. In HLD it's hard to balance because there will be ppl with 1000ex+ full mirrored gears. And they deserve to be strong.

Now EA is an exception because it's super cheap and op.

Crit puncture even with a 15-20EX 6L Lioneye's or Chin sol will fuck a player up. Trust me I've played all of these builds in "budget" gear seeing just how powerful they are in a real world situation. It's very viable, you may not insta kill a better player before bleed even runs its course but its enough to beat anyone. 500+ crit multipliers and the basic concept of how the skill works + being ranged + having many MORE multiplier supports is just insult to injury when you're talking mirrored bows. Bow's shouldn't even have 500+ base damage imo but that's another topic that isn't worth debating if crit multiplier was tweaked.

Mines and traps are just augmented heavily by the above. Plus have their own MORE damage multipliers ramping damage through the roof and can be used in conjunction with your main skill. Mines and traps shouldn't be doing the damage they do unless you're dedicated to them and its your main attack...then its warranted because you have cooldowns, spacing and an actual strategy required to win most of the time. To be able to just slap down 1hit kill invisible mines/traps while you spray people for 1-2hits yourself is an issue. I know how to deal with any match up in this game and standing there sweeping the floor so you can freely move in on someone while they attack you for ridiculous amounts of damage is not balanced. Puncture and cursing is also the fastest way to destroy someones entire flask set up in 1 round or less leaving them almost entirely useless for the rest of the rounds.

It should play like this..

You have a bow, you have puncture or any other attack...you're ranged and keeping your spacing and firing at the target doing respectable damage. You throw out a few traps/mines that DO NOT have the power to 1hit kill someone with 9k+++ life/es, they are instead truly there for utility and to keep the other player from being reckless and just face smashing into you over and over and over til they win.

Currently it works like this...

"repeat first few lines"...you throw out a few traps/mines, other guy is either stupid and just lets it roll and gets 1shot free. Or other guy tries to sweep the floor while getting shot at, subsequently losing almost all of their flasks and/or dying. While clearing the floor, the bow user re traps/re mines and process repeats til they fuck up and you close the distance. You then hit them a few times...since they are 2h and have 7k+life and mega regen you likely don't kill them on your first or even 2nd attempt...by now you're starved out and basically a sitting duck til you lose.

If you're losing with a 300+dps bow in this game, you're ass cheeks...all there is to it.

To be honest, the whole concept of beeing able to support a skill (ranged attack or spell) with trap/mines is just plain retarded. I'm sur it was one of those ideas someone thought it was cool in CB but no one used except for boss and pvp abuse.

Seriously you take an abomination like Glyph Mark, who is hand's down the best weapon in the game, you add the physical dmg more multiplier, you add the trap multiplier, you add the point blank multiplier and now you can even add the new trap/mine support multiplier. Thats FOUR freaking "more dmg support", what kind of other setup can ramp that many damage in the game. And on top of that you can add Crit multiplier, Hatred, HoA and Ming's Heart to get even more added damage.

I dare anyone to defend this, saying it's balanced. As Mulla said, trap should be either your main attack (like fire trap who are also doing insane crit dmg butthat's another topic) or utility but not a brainless one hit kill mechanism. Should I also add that you can't see the damn thing and those are ranged.

I don't use traps/mines other than beartrap cause they're unfair and op. You can be strong without them, which I've tried to prove. You won't oneshot but honestly ego wants to? Sounds like a boring match on both ends