Parry Balance Discussion

Bleak

Greetings!

We would like to continue the balance discussion about the Parry skill in the current PvP meta. Below are the two solutions that are currently on the table:

• The parry chance for PvP attackers will be reduced by 15%-25%* for defenders that use refinements or have spell skills (Magery, Necromancy, Mysticism, or Spellweaving) that are greater than or equal to 70.0

or

• Players using spell skills (Magery, Necromancy, Mysticism, or Spellweaving) will have their faster casting cap reduced by 1 to 2 points* when their parry skill is greater than or equal to 70.0

*Reduction values subject to change.

The goal for these changes are to provide a balance between hybrid templates vs mage/dex templates and emphasize the differences in template selection. Publish 104 will also allow players to view their last parry chance.

We look forward to your feedback on the proposed changes. If you have any additional suggestions regarding the parry skill we are open to ideas.

Suggestion:

• The parry chance for PvP attackers will be reduced by 15%-25%* for defenders that have over 720.0 total skill points. Determine how much wiggle room for skill points above 720.
• Set a hard modified skill cap and leave the Parry skill alone.

Smoot

keep in mind that the popular begginer template in the game is the sampire, which uses necromancy.  this would be a major change, not just in a pvm setting, but also pvp.  its very hard for a lone sampire to defend a spawn, i would not like to see that be made even harder.

i also wouldnt change anything with refinements.  they already arent that great, not many people use them.  making them even less useful i dont see as a good thing.

i wont comment directly on parry-mage changes because i havent played my parry mage in a pvp setting in quite some time. 

Kalaniim_Viaxus

TLDR - If you make this change it will just result in somebody who min/maxes to death their characters to find the optimal template setup to work around either of the proposed changes so in a week instead of parry mages you have some other template like a herding begger lol

Seeing how the discord pvp changes had had inadvertent changes to the pvm, I would prefer if they just left it alone to be honest because if these changes affect my sampire in any way that is related to pvm I and anybody else who enjoys being a samp may just be quite upset and do something else. As for pvp I could give two craps about that pvp is so broken in this game and there is so many people using illegal programs that unless you have been playing uo nonstop for 20 years or you join them and use programs that remove field graphics or remove trees or other objects weather dynamic or static you basically watch them run around nonstop casting spells without rubberbanding and watch your health bar drop to zero while watching the client tell me You cannot cast that yet. 

Judas

I'm glad to hear this is being explored.  I think that both suggested limitations are reasonable, though it's hard to know which is more favorable without knowing the associated numbers.

However, I do agree with Smoot re: refinements. There's already a fair trade-off inherent to their usage in the +/- of DCI or Resists.  If the goal here is to diversify and create a better balance between non-parry mages and parry-mages, the suggested penalty for refinements will probably cause more problems for the former, since I assume that most parry-mages wear leather (or pieces with the mage armor item property) anyway, so they don't use refinements.

As far as sampires go, this could also be a nice way to create more cooperative game-play, but I assume that the reference to "PvP attackers" means the proposed changes aren't going to affect parrying in a PvM context.

ArielHardy

As a main parrymage my 2 cents.

Don't make sense nerf parry when the main problem is the evasion+block of bushido + parry + mage.

the parrymage (parry wrest mage skills) don't have the dps output a bushidomage, an archer, and dser probably everyother class outdps an parrymage, since its function is a support role, healing and mittigating damage.

It will make the parry mastery near useless, because who will make a parry120 char with wrest without and spell? A wrest dexxer?

Any mage(poison, necro, bushido) can defeat a parrymage without problems, the only builds that have problems against a parrymage is archer and some dexxer builds.

Even good archers can deal against a parrymage, a lot of guys here running unlimited mana (300 combat) hiting comp at 1.25 even cursed,clusmy.

I still think the point that need fix, is the combo of parry+specific scenarios like parry bushido mage, parry mystic mage.

Isn't a better idea in place of set (if over 70 skill = penal) set if ((parry + spell) > 240 then apply the nerf), don't make sense nerf puremages just because some players have a ton of gold to make suits with 100+ skillpoints in jewels

amit

Few things to address:

Evasion should be nerfed/removed from pvp

90 dex will change nothing. Should require 125-150 dex to parry

Keep parry in but instead of parrying all damage you take x amount of damage based on real parry skill and dex (sure throw in real tactics andd weapon skill. Exclude anatomy/eval and wrestling from it)

There is no loss to refining more resists while sacrificing dci, because you're actually harder to hit with 25/30 dci 120 parry 80 dex vs 45 dci 120 parry 80 dex. Refinements should be more accessible to newer players or should only work in PvM.

If I would have to pick between those two options then I would pick the bottom one, But I still think there are better options.

Lastly and off topic: why don't we use statics forum? It has been around for 20 years and has built a huge community throughout then. I just found out about these forums today. Seems counter productive to have two forums for players. Just my two cents. 

Paithan

Bleak said:

Greetings!

We would like to continue the balance discussion about the Parry skill in the current PvP meta. Below are the two solutions that are currently on the table:

• The parry chance for PvP attackers will be reduced for defenders that use refinements or have spell skills (Magery, Necromancy, Mysticism, or Spellweaving) that are greater than or equal to 70.0

or

• Players using spell skills (Magery, Necromancy, Mysticism, or Spellweaving) will have their faster casting capped when their parry skill is greater than or equal to 70.0

The goal for these changes are to provide a balance between hybrid templates vs mage/dex templates and emphasize the differences in template selection. Publish 104 will also allow players to view their last parry chance.

We look forward to your feedback on the proposed changes. If you have any additional suggestions regarding the parry skill we are open to ideas.

Although I think both of these changes are terrible-  Why did you not include the broken 4/6 chiv on the list of spellcasters?  It is the most broken spellcaster in game. If you are going to go through with either of these awful ideas- be sure to add it to ALL casters.  Thanks.

Paithan

Although I think both of these changes are terrible-  Why did you not include the broken 4/6 chiv on the list of spellcasters?  It is the most broken spellcaster in game. If you are going to go through with either of these awful ideas- be sure to add it to ALL casters.  Thanks.


How much is parry reduced if you have refinements/over 70 in scenario A?


What is your fc capped at in scenario B? 


It feels like you guys have not thought this through as per usual.


Also- if you are going to reduce something for a mage for having refinements- what gets reduced on a pure dexer?  Kinda seems weird that one temp can have it with no disadvantage and another can't.

Wentoxxx

Before nerfing anything just ask yourself what is the true problem?

The point is that parry affect pvp in some cases. Also lets see detailed the point how parry affect pvp. For that you have to learn most populat pvp mage build using parry.

Mystic parry mage:

mysticism

focus

parry

magery

eval int

ressist spell

wrest/anatomy

That build is very hard to complete, because it uses 840 or 820 skills, but still possible thanks to lot of items. That build deal a lot of damage especially if combined with shield bash from parry mastery.

Necro parry mage:

magery

eval int

ressist spell

anatomy

parry

spirit speak

and necromancy just 60 skill.

That build use all magic spells and have acces to most usefull pvp spells like corpse skin, evil omen, pain spike and in some cases blood oath. For all that spells 60 necromancy is enough. That build deal same big amount of damage thanks to common necro mage combos.

Bushido Parry Mage

magery

eval int

ressist spell

sword

bushido

parry

60 tactic ( for special moves )

This mage version is extremely good in attack and defence. All spells of magery, nerf strike of bokuno and by that amount of attack it has no penalties in defence even more, it has most strongest defence from all the mage build, because bushido brings extra heal that heals even by interupting thanks to bushido mastery. And that's not all... evasion is another defence spell that allow to negate big amount of damage. That build dont have such huges damage at once as both buildes before, but has best control thanks to nerf strike.

Pure parry mage/Parry scribe mage:

magery

eval int

ressist spell

wrest

parry

medi/incription

This version of parry mage do less damage than all above, but in some tactical group fights can take role of supporter. But playing even this mage version you still can do a lot of damage using shield bash and spell focus sash.

So we have most common mage parry build. All that builds use parry passiv as defence 35% parry by 120 skill. It can be used as well as attack with shield bash.

By fights mage vs dexxer we have on one side a mage with full potential of spells + some extra ( mystic/necro school or bushido nerf strike ) AND big plus to defence agains meele attack. On the other side we have a dexxer with only damage potential while he hit. Someone has already calculate:

Weapon skill + hci vs Wrestling/Anatomy+Eval skill + dci.  (No Parry)

Weapon hit / Miss

     50% / 50%

Spell hit / Weapon hit + interruption.

    100% / 50%

Weapon skill + hci vs Wrestling/Anatomy+Eval skill + dci & Parry. (0% CF)

Weapon hit / Miss

        32.5% / 67.5%

Spell hit / Weapon hit +  spell interuption

   100%  / 32.5%

Weapon skill + hci vs Wrestling/Anatomy+Eval skill + dci, Parry & Casting Focus (12%)

Spell hit / Weapon-hit / Hit + spell interruption - Dexer vs Parry-mage

 100%   /   32.5 %      /   28.6%

Weapon skill + hci vs Wrestling/Anatomy+Eval skill + dci, Parry & Casting Focus (17%)
Spell-hit / Weapon-hit / Hit + spell interruption - Dexer vs Scribe-parry-mage (17% CF)

100%    /    32.5%      / 26.9%

Also you see that a dexxer hit in average every 3-d hit, but mage hit 100% with spells without loosing its potential in magic schools.

The only defence vs magic schools is resisting spells, but it doesnt bring any chances to negate spell damage as it do parry to mages.

In other words dexxer vs any mage without parry = any balance ( in that case we're talking about )

And dexxer vs parry mage = inbalance, because mage has acces to more defence that it can need. In that case dexxer need then a skill that will do the same, 35% chance to let enemys spells miss. But even if resisting spell would take that role, the pvp would be more complicated. Also better to nerf parry a little, to force mages more skill vs dexxer . The question is how to nerf it without affecting pvm.

The suggested solution with refinements wouldnt bring the right effect, because in mostly cases the problem is parry and not dci increase of refinements.

Another solution is much better to cap fc at 1 and fcr at 4  for Magery, Myst, Necro and Spellweaving if parry is 60 or above.

This nerf hit exactly the mages using parry in pvp and dont affect any pvm. The point is mage cant use shield bash anymore with 59,9 skill, parry rate dropes enorm so it wouldnt worth to use it as mage/myst/necro or arcanist.

Parry will still usefull for dexxer in pvm and dont affect most popular sampire build.

Corpse

PARRY should be hard capped at 25% for mages and dexxers with DCI REFINEMENTS. Or any one with magery and parry  skill above 70 should have a hard cap of 30% Parry chance. there could be a npc that people can remove dci refinements from mage suits just like how you can remove mage armor. also should be able to put mage armor back on. 

PlayerSkillFTW

amit said:

Few things to address:

Evasion should be nerfed/removed from pvp

Evasion has already been nerfed pretty heavily before, when they added the 20 second cooldown to it and made it require GM+ Tact/Anat for it to receive the full 8 second duration.

Wentoxxx said:

Another solution is much better to cap fc at 1 and fcr at 4  for Magery, Myst, Necro and Spellweaving if parry is 60 or above.

I'd exclude Necro from that. There are Wammy templates that utilize Necro and Parry. For example, when my Wammy does Chief Paroxysmus, he has 120 Swords/GM Tact/GM Necro/GM SS/GM Chiv/GM Bush/GM Parry, and i use 2 FC on him for faster Curse Weapon and Corpse Skin casts (less chance of being interrupted). The 70% Hit Life Drain from Vamp Form+Curse Weapon, allows me to take the heaviest hits from Chief Paroxy (120 damage) and heal myself back to full health with a single Double Strike.

Nikard

Suggestion : If any template has more than X total skillpoints in combine parry and resist spells, the effectiveness of both are reduced by X%.

Anticipated results : All pvp templates have a weakness. No impact to traditional classes.

Az_

Would it help to reduce the parry chance if total skill points are over 720 (or slightly higher) , since this would help balance the difference between hybrid templates vs mage/dex templates as Bleak stated?

psycho

Refinements should be removed from game not many bother with it. +-2%resist +2dci etc its just ridicolus, change one armor part of your brittle armor and you have to start looking for the specific refinements allover again, its a dead end. No pvp balance should be based on refinements.

The hard caps from a decade ago is worth keeping and its a reason they were made in first place (Publish 25).

If you want to do anything to parry the logical step would be to expand the max potential from 80dex to 125.  Mages with high str and int will have a hard time reaching 120dex ontop without sacreficing something else.

I rather believe in a balance tweak for Bushido in PvP. Bushido + parry is too powerfull.

But also the splinter weapons with dexters bleed and deathstrike should have another nerf, or else the mages will suffer alot with the suggested parry nerf. Mages can hardly pull of a big spell due to interuption as it is now. Add more items with Casting Focus, increase the cap from 12 to 20.

Tim

If you limit the change to PvP I couldn't care less.
If you can't and PvM is affected then my feeling is if a player choses to spend the skill and dext. points on Parry than why shouldn't he/she get the benefit.

The amount of extra skill points you can pick up from items or refinements is different issue and should at least be looked at with out capping skills effects.

Max_Blackoak

I don't really like either of Bleak's suggestions but if I had to pick between the two I would vote for no. 2 - fc and fcr cap reduction.

Much rather I believe that Az_'s suggestion would better adress the problem: target templates that use drastically more than 720 skill points with the nerf because (as Wentoxxx pointed out) those are what cause the most imbalance.

My reasoning is based on Siege Perilous, where we luckily don't have those 800+ skill point templates in PvP because people can hardly maintain the suits necessary for that. Parry is much more balanced on Siege compared to prodo because you have to sacrifice a lot more and I really wouldn't like to see the diversity of templates on Siege reduced by a nerf.

Mervyn

Yeah let’s make the game even more complicated...

ArielHardy

Would it help to reduce the parry chance if total skill points are over 720 (or slightly higher) , since this would help balance the difference between hybrid templates vs mage/dex templates as Bleak stated?

Best solution. agreed.

CovenantX

# 1 or # 2 huh...

1) We need to know what the parry chances are reduced to.

2) We need to know what the new caps on Fc & Fcr would be.

 # 2 - would be pretty damn crippling if it's a penalty to both Fc & Fcr, but mages shouldn't get the best possible defense & the best possible offense at the same time -which is what they have right now.

Mervyn

Any chance you can make it so that you don’t need a degree in quantum game mechanics to compete in pvp?

Paithan

CovenantX said:

# 1 or # 2 huh...

1) We need to know what the parry chances are reduced to.

2) We need to know what the new caps on Fc & Fcr would be.

 # 2 - would be pretty damn crippling if it's a penalty to both Fc & Fcr, but mages shouldn't get the best possible defense & the best possible offense at the same time -which is what they have right now.

That's a pretty ridiculous statement that parry mages have the best offense and defense in the game.  Parry mages with wrestle/anat give up the offense of using a wep.  Weps are by far the most powerful offense/DPS in the game.  Splintering is the most powerful special in game.  They lose both of these.  Defense wise- evasion and chiv are both more powerful and i'd argue 4 second band aids are too.  Parry mages have a good mix of both offense and defense- but they lack any good damage to actually kill any decent mage or dexer.  

Lynk

Don't lower the casting due to parry... that is just dumb.  If you want to lower the parry chance for casters I don't have a huge problem with it depending how much you're lowering it (30% max parry chance is OK with me), but you have to nerf evasion somehow.  Evasion nerf options:

1.) Make it a longer cast
2.) Double the cool down
3.) decrease the evasion chance
4.) change evasion so that it just applies normal parry chances to magic dmg for the window 

hunter11

Ya parry is only a problem for archers melee dexxers have no problem splinter helps for them but a pure archer not much of a chance against wrestle parry with being able to spam disarm 

hunter11

nerf parry add bush parry pop evasion even better than parry by itself 

CovenantX

Paithan said:

CovenantX said:

# 1 or # 2 huh...

1) We need to know what the parry chances are reduced to.

2) We need to know what the new caps on Fc & Fcr would be.

 # 2 - would be pretty damn crippling if it's a penalty to both Fc & Fcr, but mages shouldn't get the best possible defense & the best possible offense at the same time -which is what they have right now.

That's a pretty ridiculous statement that parry mages have the best offense and defense in the game.  Parry mages with wrestle/anat give up the offense of using a wep.  Weps are by far the most powerful offense/DPS in the game.  Splintering is the most powerful special in game.  They lose both of these.  Defense wise- evasion and chiv are both more powerful and i'd argue 4 second band aids are too.  Parry mages have a good mix of both offense and defense- but they lack any good damage to actually kill any decent mage or dexer.  

   Mages typically do have much higher offense & defense than dexers do.

  4/6 chivalry is the only thing that exceeds the recovery (healing) over any other template, but they lack the offense to kill anyone.  

 

That being said, I'm glad they're going the skill vs skill route to adjust parry, I don't see a reason to add all the casting skills to it though, Chivalry is debatable...  but Necro, Mysticism, or Spellweaving?   Those skills aren't really useful as standalone skills, they basically need to be combined with magery for them to be viable.

They support Magery very well (and all of those skills would be paired with Magery (maybe Chivalry) anyway) so just adding Magery to the list reducing parry would cover everything that's better than it should be without unnecessarily dragging unused templates down with it.

Side note:  some people posting here are against this because it would affect their 'sampire' (pvm) templates. (Necromancy &/Chivalry + parry) etc etc.

Parry just allows mages to get so many more spells off, regardless if the spell is offensive or defensive It's strong enough to where dexers might as well not even log in unless they have a group to gank with...  if a parry-mage plays defensive against any type of dexer, they'll never die.

Mages can compete with anything they want regardless if Parry is part of their template or not, one vs one or otherwise.

I also think it's pretty funny that you guys claim "evasion" is overpowered though.

I mean, the only thing that's changed with evasion came with global loot.....  that would be Mages can now use it with little to no sacrifice same deal with parry.

if parry chances are reduced w/Magery+Parry it should carry over to Evasion chances as a result of it.   (Magery & Chivalry perhaps? probably for the best)

We'll have to see what other options come about,  I'm not really a fan of the Fc/Fcr penalty  But, I will definitely go with it if that's the only option for a reasonable balance between mages & dexers in pvp.  Parry has been broken long enough.

the Refinement thing doesn't really make sense, it should be skill-only imo, but if it is based on refinements, there has to be away to remove refinements from Armor added Which there should be anyway.

ezikel

• Players using spell skills (Magery, Necromancy, Mysticism, or Spellweaving) will have their faster casting capped when their parry skill is greater than or equal to 70.0 its the worst things you can do and its going to kill all the parry caster template,.
• The parry chance for PvP attackers will be reduced for defenders make more sense and if its for everyone .its not parry and caster school the problem its parry.
  
• dont touch refinements ,if you raise resist you lose dci and if you raise  dci you lose resist.
• if you going to nerf parry ,remove it from the restriction list for pure mage
•  you have to nerf evasion somehow and 4/6 chiv

Wentoxxx

Parry and Mage shouldnt exist in one char without any penalties, it brings inbalance. If a mage want to take parry for 35% more parry chance he has to sacrifice his magical potential and cap of 1 fc and 4 fcr is the good sacrifice. Regarding evasion, just make duration depending from parry, 1 sec per 20 parry skill and 1 sec bonus for GM parry. So sampire wouldnt affect, because nearly everyone use 120 parry and this are 7 sec evasion. If a mage take 59,9 parry without getting penalty of 1 fc and 4 fcr cap, he'll get just only 2 sec evasion and this is rly nothing comparing to currently situation.

Cazador

Both are not good. Granted we ALL know some half assed fix will go in where u guys just nerf something because you refuse to try and balance it, for some reason you guys prefer the bandaid and forget about it process.

Why not change parry into a damage reduction formula, and change evasion to not work if magery, mysticism, or spellweaving at greater than 70(with or without skill increase).
Requirements 
(spells casting school mage,Myst,spellweaving -70)
95 dex
———————
1% Damage Evasion per 10 points parry
3% Damage Absorbtion per 10 point parry.
so at 120 Parry + 95 dex you have a 12% chance to evade(parry) the attack completely and have a 36% absorption. Which means an Armor Ignore would do 22-23 damage. 

Paithan

CovenantX said:

   Mages typically do have much higher offense & defense than dexers do.

  4/6 chivalry is the only thing that exceeds the recovery (healing) over any other template, but they lack the offense to kill anyone.  

 

That being said, I'm glad they're going the skill vs skill route to adjust parry, I don't see a reason to add all the casting skills to it though, Chivalry is debatable...  but Necro, Mysticism, or Spellweaving?   Those skills aren't really useful as standalone skills, they basically need to be combined with magery for them to be viable.

They support Magery very well (and all of those skills would be paired with Magery (maybe Chivalry) anyway) so just adding Magery to the list reducing parry would cover everything that's better than it should be without unnecessarily dragging unused templates down with it.

Side note:  some people posting here are against this because it would affect their 'sampire' (pvm) templates. (Necromancy &/Chivalry + parry) etc etc.

Parry just allows mages to get so many more spells off, regardless if the spell is offensive or defensive It's strong enough to where dexers might as well not even log in unless they have a group to gank with...  if a parry-mage plays defensive against any type of dexer, they'll never die.

Mages can compete with anything they want regardless if Parry is part of their template or not, one vs one or otherwise.

I also think it's pretty funny that you guys claim "evasion" is overpowered though.

I mean, the only thing that's changed with evasion came with global loot.....  that would be Mages can now use it with little to no sacrifice same deal with parry.

if parry chances are reduced w/Magery+Parry it should carry over to Evasion chances as a result of it.   (Magery & Chivalry perhaps? probably for the best)

We'll have to see what other options come about,  I'm not really a fan of the Fc/Fcr penalty  But, I will definitely go with it if that's the only option for a reasonable balance between mages & dexers in pvp.  Parry has been broken long enough.

the Refinement thing doesn't really make sense, it should be skill-only imo, but if it is based on refinements, there has to be away to remove refinements from Armor added Which there should be anyway.

Parry mages do not have more offense and defense then dexers. They have way less DPS and both their offense and defense can be interrupted.  If they are going to put something ridiculous in with casting classes- it should affect ALL classes.  Why does a dexer get to use parry and necro/chiv/etc with no punishment but a mage cant? 

 Makes no sense.  No "pure" skills are useful anymore as stand alone skills.  

This game is about balance.  You can have high offensive chars that can kill fast but have a lot of limitations/ you can have high defensive chars that are impossible to kill but cant kill anyone/ and you can have hybrid temps that have a mix of both.


Dexers do not have it rough with splintering wep.  They hit parry mages a lot and only need to string together a good 4 or so hits with splinter to kill someone.  The only class that I think has the short end of the stick right now is archers.


I would love to see you go up against good dexers one v one without parry. You would get eaten alive.

Evasion is overpowered.  That is why literally everyone uses it when group fighting.  The 12 second cool down on 8 seconds of evading 60% of spells?  That is a joke.


The only thing I can agree with you on is the refinements.

Paithan

ezikel said:

• Players using spell skills (Magery, Necromancy, Mysticism, or Spellweaving) will have their faster casting capped when their parry skill is greater than or equal to 70.0 its the worst things you can do and its going to kill all the parry caster template,.
• The parry chance for PvP attackers will be reduced for defenders make more sense and if its for everyone .its not parry and caster school the problem its parry.
  
• dont touch refinements ,if you raise resist you lose dci and if you raise  dci you lose resist.
• if you going to nerf parry ,remove it from the restriction list for pure mage
•  you have to nerf evasion somehow and 4/6 chiv

I agree with everything said here.

Evasion especially.

4/6- remove curse is by far the biggest issue.  Low mana cost, fast cast, and removing EVERYTHING is a huge issue.

Paithan

Cazador said:

Both are not good. Granted we ALL know some half assed fix will go in where u guys just nerf something because you refuse to try and balance it, for some reason you guys prefer the bandaid and forget about it process.

Why not change parry into a damage reduction formula, and change evasion to not work if magery, mysticism, or spellweaving at greater than 70(with or without skill increase).
Requirements 
(spells casting school mage,Myst,spellweaving -70)
95 dex
———————
1% Damage Evasion per 10 points parry
3% Damage Absorbtion per 10 point parry.
so at 120 Parry + 95 dex you have a 12% chance to evade(parry) the attack completely and have a 36% absorption. Which means an Armor Ignore would do 22-23 damage. 

Why would dexers only get to use the most overpowered spell in the game (especially VS mages)?  

That is a really bad idea.