Rebalancing - Keeper's future - Discussion

[NoGoal]

We are now allowed to talk a bit more of the future changes for all professions. So what does it mean for keepers:

Offense:

• The Fury/Wrath line might be extended. How? That's up to us to propose changes. Do you want more different actions? Different timers? The icon will finally grey out too.
• Access to a new weapon line! Most than likely it will be melee energy.
• Reverse Knockback (pulls your target to you)! No one else will get this.
• Dimach changes.
• Self-centered AoE effects. Not sure about this.
• Offensive capabilities rebalanced to be more in line with other professions. Mainly from the previous points.
• Global idea would be to have keeper offense looking a bit like Martial Artists attacks but with unique keeper-only effects.

Defense:

• Fury/Wrath line extended with defensive versions. Again waiting for your feedback.
• Parry/Riposte working.

Auras:

• More options, versions or .. not sure yet.
• Local cool-downs on auras. Mainly to prevent chain swapping I guess.
• All auras will be instacast.
• It will be easier to swap from one aura to another.

Tanking:

• Quite obscure but the idea would be to give us the ability to play with our team taunts values. I won't say more because it's not clear to me.

So all-in-all , the global idea is to make keepers be a really high defensive profession again. Having options to get attacked (instead of others? do you want this?) and hurt players who get too close or that we pulled . Now feel free to discuss here about it. But if you have an idea that want to be discussed further it would be better to start its own thread and post a link in this one.

Oh and try to leave your personal grudges out of this thread. Do not discuss about players' ideas too much so this thread won't have so many pages.

[NoGoal]

So the first post was from the professional point of view reporting FC stuff. Here's my player view.

I'll split it in 3 parts as I'd really like to have some kind of specializations added to the keeper toolset to fit our 3 main roles Team support (auras/heals), Protector (tank/auras/heals/new stuffs) and Infantry killers (DD/high evade close).

Protector

Shield line
The tanking keeper will want to go with Melee Energy + Shield dual wield.
For this we would need more shields. I was thinking that we could get them when we return the specialization books and a last one from Xan technology.
Spec 1 shield would give 10 aad.
Spec 2 -> 20 aad.
Scheol rewards give 30 and 40 aad.
Spec 3 -> AC, HP and 45 aad.
Spec 4 -> AC, HP and 50 aad.
Xan -> AC, HP and 55 aad.
Nothing major but still decent. The main reason you'll want to use a shield would be for shield only special attacks. These attacks would improve your tanking abilities so I'm seeing AoE taunt, stun and some temp defensive effects.

Sanctifier/Reaper line
I'd like a new whole line of proc nanos who would heal but not do any damage.

Guardian ability
Some new ability that would make us protect someone else from hits. Either to force the opponent to attack us or to get hit instead of him.

Team support

Fury/Wrath line
Currently it only does damage for clan and dmg/lifetap for others. I'd get rid of it. Fury/Wrath/TL7 version would upload several perk actions all locking the same skill and scaling from Attack Rating. I'd see damage, target heal and snare actions.

Auras
Instead of casting auras like we do now we would have to cast 1 long term base buff from each line giving us access to different effects that we could swap without any other req. A bit like LE procs work.

Infantry nemesis

Keeper evasion buffs
We need a TL 7 nano in this line. We used to have the best evade close buff but now other professions got improved versions while we are still stuck with the lvl 185 one. 250 close 70 ddg/duck would be fine.

Reverse Knockback
This will help against kiters but I feel that we need more ways to keep our target close to us.

Anti melee ability
Can't find anything that would reinforce our anti-melee role. Do you have any ideas? Any debuff that could affect mainly infantry professions? Maybe we could lock dimach? :P

Keeper only Fast attack
Keeper's main special is weak. It's only a regular hit. As keepers can get a good amount of fast attack skill (probably the highest) I feel that we should be able to unlock a new special (like advs/shades get backstab). Once we get over 1000 fast attack skill, fast attack would do 1 extra attack. Over 2000, 2 extra attacks. Over 3000 (if that will ever be possible one day), 3 extra attacks.
Like this:
You hit xxxx for 1000 fast attack damage. (regular one)
You hit xxxx for 1000 fast attack damage. (from having more than 1000 fast attack)
You hit xxxx for 1000 fast attack damage. ( > 2000)
You hit xxxx for 1000 fast attack damage. ( > 3000 doubt we'll reach that ever)

[Hacre]

I'll add to this later but the first thing that popped into my head was something I mentioned before, Purify would be great with the proposed changes to it, IF the taunt effect didn't rely on the damn stun landing, since situations where we'd be most concerned about using it, involves mobs that can't be stunned, thus rendering it largely useless.

I'm not sure about centred AOE effects either, unless the range is decent. That seems to be more of a Crat thing to me.

Fury/Wrath need to be able to continue to work as perk testers, so no cooldown if they don't execute, like they do now.

The proposed changes to the Holy Mark line need some serious addressing too. Losing a decent debuff and having the durations considerably reduced seems a sweeping across the board move rather than something tailored to Keepers. Our fights are already slow, even if Holy Mark lands. The proposed changes are going to turn the line into little other than a crappy version of a 10 perk spending Acrobat line that adds HP.

[hokutonoken]

wouldn't mind some Melee energy buffs like the 2hd edge buffs. Want to try some new look and change and go Melee engergy for kicks

[NoGoal]

What I'd like to know is your opinion about how you'd like HM to be instead. Feel free to get in any direction. I feel like the perks are a bit too redundant and could be improved with other effects.

Could be like:
1st perk action: evade close debuff
2nd perk action: add all def buff
3rd perk action: orbital strike
4th perk action: Improved CH
5th perk action: remove all debuffs

All the time I'm stuck with reporting my own opinion but I'd like to report yours too.

[Hacre]

What I'd like to know is your opinion about how you'd like HM to be instead. Feel free to get in any direction. I feel like the perks are a bit too redundant and could be improved with other effects.

Could be like:
1st perk action: evade close debuff
2nd perk action: add all def buff
3rd perk action: orbital strike
4th perk action: Improved CH
5th perk action: remove all debuffs

All the time I'm stuck with reporting my own opinion but I'd like to report yours too.

I've mentioned it in other threads including the Keeper thread I started. They need a lower check, lower than the 90 or 95% check they were given in the PDFs, the duration should stay and the debuffs boosted slightly. AAD has gone up, HP has gone up, looking at the perk docs the CiB perks are going to be available more often and Acrobat perks were made available to Advies in a chain fashion while our debuffs, again, remained as they were.

I don't mind the current execution time, what I do expect however, when I pop Insight and string up those three perks, when they're all running I expect the offence that they should have enabled to put my target into serious trouble. As it stands right now, they either still don't land or the professions they land on can just soak up our offence.

[Dancingrage]

I'm all for ME love for keepers but I hope we get some of that ME love too!

[McKnuckleSamwich]

What I'd like to know is your opinion about how you'd like HM to be instead. Feel free to get in any direction. I feel like the perks are a bit too redundant and could be improved with other effects.

Could be like:
1st perk action: evade close debuff
2nd perk action: add all def buff
3rd perk action: orbital strike
4th perk action: Improved CH
5th perk action: remove all debuffs

All the time I'm stuck with reporting my own opinion but I'd like to report yours too.

3rd perk: I'm not sure what an orbital strike perk does, but, it sounds like an AOE attack.

I could see keepers gaining an AOE attack, where you plunge yourself into the fray and launch a massive spinning sword move, where everyone in a 5m radius is damaged. If it were implemented, I could see it as a low-medium damage dot, like 1000dmg/sec, for 5 seconds (500 pvp). Should have a 2 second self stun after the move to recover from dizziness.

4th perk: Improved CH, again, I'm not sure what the objective of this is, but, if it's not available to TL5 toons, due to level req's, I'd suggest that it is switched with the 3rd perk action.

Afaik, if a TL5 keeper is perked into HM, the ability to use coon suffers severly, I'd assume that if perked into HM then coon is nonexsistant, meaning, there needs to be another heal. I'm not convinced it needs to be huge, or a CH, but, If it were giving about 1500 every 65s I could see it as being reasonable. Ofc, it could scale up to be a larger heal for TL6-7.


I've given the subject some thought, and, recently I've come to some new observations:

Perked into 7 coon, 6 blessing, 4 reaver, 9 Conc, 9 CoHi, 1 crusade, 3 atrox sec. I'm well equipped to deal with most profs in most situations. Balance is not too far off, however, I'm better equipped than 99.5% of other keepers at TL5, which should be taken into account.

Therefore, what an average keeper might need to be more competitive is:

1. Slightly better lay on hands (800hp with 6 perks in line, 30s recharge vs 45)
2. Curing touch should not change to scale off BD, what would be a far better solution, is to add heal efficiency to the line. maybe 5% total gained, with 1% gain on perk 2,4,6,8,10.
3. Devotional armour could use a boost in duration. I'd like to see DA lasting 30 seconds instead of 18 with 6 perks in the line.
4. I'd like to see the evade buff from 195 moved to 165 level req, and a new slightly stronger one added for 195 req.
5. I'd like to see wrath gaining something usuable and useful for combat.
6. A TL5 keeper can NOT use HM. using HM as a primary defence (other than coon), is a death wish. I'd like to see some serious changes to HM to make it an OPTION that we CAN use.

[Legion84]

Shorten the perks in Blessing & HM from 10 > 5 acrobat is better and only reqs 4 and is alot more bang for buck, Then keepers can invest in SD! to resist snares and roots, cause our NR sucks and proffessions that can cast them sort of movement reduction nano's will spam at will till it lands!

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I made a thread about wrath/fury with some different options like up to 3 stackable 35 second -15 AAD/AAO debuffs on target with each successive wrath, or a nano drain, or a heal drain+health recovery.

I'd like to see rebalance on the scale (dmg) on wrath if nothing else I feel that with 1.8-2k AR wrath should definitly be hitting for more than 1k it's currently a pig.

An AoE perk that does dmg around you would be nice, especially if we have (as I proposed before as well) a "peace" action, which removes agg from those around us, or cancels their attacks.

Peace+reverse knockback+AOE low check dmg would be awesome.

[NoGoal]

Holy Mark stuff

My example didn't mean anything that's why you didn't get it :P I just want keepers to give me some ideas which you almost did below.

Therefore, what an average keeper might need to be more competitive is:

1. Slightly better lay on hands (800hp with 6 perks in line, 30s recharge vs 45)
2. Curing touch should not change to scale off BD, what would be a far better solution, is to add heal efficiency to the line. maybe 5% total gained, with 1% gain on perk 2,4,6,8,10.
3. Devotional armour could use a boost in duration. I'd like to see DA lasting 30 seconds instead of 18 with 6 perks in the line.
4. I'd like to see the evade buff from 195 moved to 165 level req, and a new slightly stronger one added for 195 req.
5. I'd like to see wrath gaining something usuable and useful for combat.
6. A TL5 keeper can NOT use HM. using HM as a primary defence (other than coon), is a death wish. I'd like to see some serious changes to HM to make it an OPTION that we CAN use.

1 & 2) Heal perks have to scale from something so they will improve with the future content. That's one of the reason why keepers are a lot weaker now than what they used to be. I wanted heal perks to scale with max HP. i.e.: Lay on Hands = 10% of max HP and Curing Touch = 40% of max HP. Something like that. They went with body dev instead..
3) Yeah maybe duration shouldn't be affected by the number of perks. Only the amount of reflects. Or the other way around. Both scaling is a bit too much.
4) It's locked to 185. Current line is fine I'd just add a endgame one. Not like the difference between the last 2 is huge.
5) That's in the OP!
6) How? :P

Shorten the perks in Blessing & HM from 10 > 5 acrobat is better and only reqs 4 and is alot more bang for buck, Then keepers can invest in SD! to resist snares and roots, cause our NR sucks and proffessions that can cast them sort of movement reduction nano's will spam at will till it lands!

Balancing all perk lines with acrobat would make the game unplayable. Reducing the number of perks is very unlikely to happen. From what I read you didn't see this.

PS: edited 2nd post, go read it!

[Hacre]

I like the fast attack thing you posted NoGoal.

As for anti melee, the various general fixes suggested/gripes made about our toolset as a whole would go a long way here. More evade-clsc, HM being boosted instead of nerfed (as currently proposed), LoH and CT being % max HP based instead of based off body dev (HP is a good defence against pretty much all melee classes, our heals should scale off that given there's a plethora of Max HP adding stuff compared to +Bodydev stuff) and of course the ability to actually land a higher damage output.

I think the best solution to my latter point there is letting us keep current Reaver as is and combining it with Street Samurai and canning the newly proposed nerfed Reaver from our group line.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

@ nogoal: how would I change HM

Good question. I will first provide a very simple breakdown.

Coccoon is obviously a defensive oriented perk line: It function to mitigate damage done to the person by use of absorbs, and a very small (250hp) heal.

Damage migitation using coccoon: about 5600 I think every 2 minutes, could be more if diff dmg types. Lets say 7000, since often people do have diff dmg types.

Ok, coon with 7 perks gives 7000 dmg mitigation every 2 minutes, provided an alpha is unloaded into it. I always use my coon at the beginning of fights so that it's efficacy is almost always 100%.

Now, Looking at HM, we see that the modifiers for the line offer evades, which, makes me think first and foremost that it is a defensive line. Now, With 7 perks lin the line I think I gain 55 dodge range, and maybe 80 evades.

Considering that MOST of the damage that keepers sustain is through specials, (arguable, of course, but, lets just make this assumption for now), and the hardest hitting specials are 100% to hit, the evades make only a marginal difference. Lets say, that over a 2 minute period, of being attacked by a twinked enforcer, that almost all of my HP is expended. Thats 14k, plus about 2k for HD, 2k for layon hands, and 2.4k for CT, and 7k for coon. that is about 27.5k HP.

Using 7 perks in HM, that same fight lasts only about 1:30 seconds, and, I obviously don't have coccoon, so, thats 14k hp+2k HD, 2k lay on hands+2.4k CT=20.4k.

Now, lets compare the DPM: in fight 1 it's about 27.5k*2/2m=27.5k dpm
In fight 2 it's 20.4k*2/1.5m = 27.2k dpm

So, the difference is actual evaded hits is: (1-27.2/27.5)*100=1.1%

Hence, The benefit of the modifiers as a defensive bonus actually yeilds a NET benefit over no extra evades of 1.1%, 1.1% of damage is mitigated thorugh not-landed hits.

So, now, lets look at how much dmg is mitigated by cooccoon every 2 minutes.

It takes 2 minutes for an enforcer to drop my HP using all defences, as discussed before, thats 27.5k HP. So, (7000HP/27.5HP)*100%/2m = 12.7% damage mitigation.

So, CURRENTLY, the Net benefit of using coccoon over HM is: 12.7%-1.1%= 11.6% BETTER damage mitigation.

So. By my calculations, offering perhaps an 10-12% Reflect modifier on the HM line would provide a similar amount of damage mitigation.

The only problem, is how would that affect keepers in end game when HM AND coon are perked?

[Legion84]

Balancing all perk lines with acrobat would make the game unplayable. Reducing the number of perks is very unlikely to happen. From what I read you didn't see this.

PS: edited 2nd post, go read it!

I was only talking in terms of keeper perks! to spend 5 perks in hm and blessing each 10 perks total so we can use 10 perks elsewhere.. such as SD! i wasn't talking about all proffessions alternetives to acrobat personally i think that's a reasonable ransom :P

[NoGoal]

So. By my calculations, offering perhaps an 10-12% Reflect modifier on the HM line would provide a similar amount of damage mitigation.

Such calculations make little sense. 1 more evade could also mean being unperkable and thus reduce the damage taken by a lot.

Keep in mind that the new action (Mark of the Pious) will give 160 aad with 7 perks in the HM line. I will try to get it closer to the CiB perk action tho. Available with 1 perk and scaling up to 1k with HM 10. So we would have a counter to MR.

[NoGoal]

Looks like they will add an action so keepers can counter MR. Will it be a perk or something else ? I don't know..

[haavarst]

Offense:

• The Fury/Wrath line might be extended. How? That's up to us to propose changes. Do you want more different actions? Different timers? The icon will finally grey out too.
  Effect of a major dmg perk
• Access to a new weapon line! Most than likely it will be melee energy.
  Love the idea. This would open up a lot of new possible setups for the future.
• Reverse Knockback (pulls your target to you)! No one else will get this.
  And now we have a chanse to kill it maby
• Dimach changes.
  Yes please! Maby its ok to have a scale and timer equal to MA but with the same heal effect as today?
• Self-centered AoE effects. Not sure about this.
  Me neighter
• Offensive capabilities rebalanced to be more in line with other professions. Mainly from the previous points.
  By opening up melee energy, adding huge perk dmg attack on Fury/Wrath and some up-to-date weapon skill buffs and off/def auras with merged SS+Stronger Reaverlooking 2he/ME perkline we are getting there.
• Global idea would be to have keeper offense looking a bit like Martial Artists attacks but with unique keeper-only effects.
  Love this idea<3

Defense:

• Fury/Wrath line extended with defensive versions. Again waiting for your feedback.
  Something similar but with a heal... what would have been more interesting is a semi short duration target protect special that you use on a nearby friendly that reflects dmg done to your friend on to you. I read something about this at doc forum
• Parry/Riposte working.
  Applause

Really nice to see some feedback Thank you Nogoal and all working on this!

[Mercs]

Bravo m8, u are a hero to our profession keep up the good work.
Not sure if it's been said somewhere, but any news on what will become of dimach?
Personally I'm leaning toward keeping it as is with a 5 minute recharge. But an attack would not be unwelcome. And what about nanoskill requirement on our top auras?

[Parranoid1]

can any1 see the reverse knockback being used to pluck the opposing sides docs out of thier blobs and into your own :P that could be a fun/devistating tactic

[NoGoal]

Effect of a major dmg perk

But that's already what fury/wrath does. Even if it could be higher hence the TL7 version I'm asking for :P Your second idea with reflects could work too I'll keep it on my list.

Not sure if it's been said somewhere, but any news on what will become of dimach?And what about nanoskill requirement on our top auras?

Nothing has been said yet. Maybe they'll rework dimach on all (melee) professions or change the recharge from ours... We'll see.

What I'd like to get is 2 (or more) dimach attacks. One that does dmg and the other one healing. Both locking each other and reduced recharge.

And what about nanoskill requirement on our top auras?

All I can say is that it will be easier to swap from one to another. Can't tell how.

can any1 see the reverse knockback being used to pluck the opposing sides docs out of thier blobs and into your own :P that could be a fun/devistating tactic

Depends of the range but yeah keepers could be callers for melee at wars with this :P