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Bashing DPS Overhaul
Super excited to see this - thanks to all the folks who worked on this, and looking forward to bashing on some other classes for a while!
Link to the news post: https://www.achaea.com/news/?game=Achaea§ion=announce&number=5329
A few questions from me (and thread can be used for questions from others ofc):
Was tankiness considered? Obviously if all classes do "roughly equal" DPS, then tankier classes are going to have a massive advantage considering they can bash significantly stronger areas than someone with equivalent Might/Arties on other classes, meaning more exp/gold per time despite equal DPS.
Was WP/Endurance drain considered? Some classes range from significant to massive WP/Endurance drain which requires either sub-optimal DPS (using secondary bashing abilities etc) or bashing in bursts instead of continuous hunting. Assuming roughly equal DPS, this gives a massive advantage to classes that do not use significant WP/Endurance while bashing.
A perfect example here would be Int monk, which is not very tanky at all (in pve), and also uses massive amounts of WP. The only good thing about it was the high DPS. If DPS is equal, int monk will be dramatically weaker than other classes as it would have to hunt lower areas, and for limited bursts of time. (noting of course that there are many less extreme examples here than int monk). (for instance with perma megalith, L2 WP regen, and 20 Int, I use up around 50% of my WP every 20 minutes or so, and that's including the fact that i'm regenerating WP during that whole time - without WP arties it'd probably be around 100% in 20 minutes).
At the other end of the spectrum, it seems like Knights are still going to be significantly better bashing classes than anything else, purely because of their enormous resistances and kit, combined with not using virtually any WP/Endurance to hunt. Other previously super strong classes like Priest and Serpent will also remain at the top for the same reasons.
Comments
I can't tell a difference to be honest. Most of these changes at least as far as psion have gone, are nearly imperceptible. Maybe over the span of killing off a few areas i might finish a minute or two earlier?
@Azele Well, that's likely because Psion was barely changed :) - (roughly 3-4% increase would mean exactly what you said, maybe a minute or two per large-ish area max).
It'll be a lot more noticeable for the folks who do 80% the dps they did yesterday, or visa versa.
It would be nice if the post wasn't worded cryptically.
As an example... The post cites an ~11% increase for Shaman... But in reality those numbers don't say jack shit, because after testing it was found out that curse/jinx (the optimal way of bashing) was lowered, while arius/swiftcurse (horrible ways of bashing) were slightly increased (and are still bad).
At least the last time bashing damage was adjusted, it was stated which attacks were changed and in what way. 😐️🤔
Disappearing from Achaea for now. See you, space cowboy.
smileyface#8048 if you wanna chat.
@Mindshell
A little girl in Tasur'ke said you smell bad and are too blunt to figure it out.
noting also battlerage is not equal across all classes. Things like Bulkwark are a pretty huge advantage over classes that don't have passive healing / damage mitigation, also allowing far more gold/exp per for the same DPS (and they appear to be stacked on the classes that already have the most resistances in the first place, generally speaking - like Knights).
Maybe this was considered - and I'm not saying it wasn't. Just asking the question! In principal I believe tankier classes should do less DPS, as they'll naturally be hunting higher level areas or hunting for longer periods of time without being forced to stop and meditate/sleep.
SnB seems to have gotten an upgrade... Anyone think if it'll be viable right now or just a little better than the slow thing it was before? Jesters got some really bad love there...
We were going to post these in a bit, but I'll just hijack this thread instead. A bit about the balancing, and some answers to your questions:
How sturdy a class is and how many survival tools are certainly taken into account. The target dps mentioned in the post is a baseline calculation, after which extra modifiers are applied based on both your class and the attack in question to scale properly. Without class modifiers, the DPS of every class should be within a very small margin of one another as a baseline target (which they very much were not before). Classes with more survival tools and heavier defensive measures might get scaled back some, while heavily resource-intensive and squishier classes might find themselves with a boost. As expected, you'll find most knights at the bottom of the list as far as raw dps is concerned, while squishier classes will end up towards the top.
Now, this all comes with the caveat that classes scale in wildly different ways with different artefacts. Our baseline for bringing classes closer together isn't at the top end. We've settled for balancing around an appropriate stat point, and bringing classes in line for players without any artefacts whatsoever. We're keeping an eye on the high end of things as well, and we'll make tweaks if we feel that certain kits are under- or over-performing, but there are always going to be outliers, and we'd rather those outliers be on the higher end than an issue right out of the gate.
So, here's some numbers on the different class bashing strategies as they stand currently. The first column is the strategy in question, followed by the raw dps outputs at a 12 stat base, a 16 stat base ( race spec 15 + trait 16 ), and a 19 stat base ( 16 stat base + elixirs + rare minerals ). For elemental lords and dragon, the 16 stat base is base racial stats, and the 19 stat base is those stats + 3 (again, for elixirs + rare minerals). These dps calculations should take into account class skills, as well as traits like nimble and quick-witted.
Please note that these numbers are only correct as of this posting, and some could potentially (and almost certainly will) change drastically if there are outliers or other balancing factors that need addressing. Rushing to change class or purchase/tradein artefacts based on this information is probably a very bad idea.
The first table is the primary (read: highest raw output) bashing strategy for each class/spec, unartied. We don't expect all of these "primary" strategies to be the go-to for players, they're simply useful for automatically pulling the capability of a class. While things stray further apart when artefacts come into the picture, when unartied most of a class's bashing methods should be very close to one another (with a few obvious or otherwise intentional exceptions). This table, particularly the 16 stat column, is really the core target in our balancing, and where you'll see things line up as they're most intended.
The second table is the primary strategy for each class/spec, same as above, except with all artefacts applicable to the strategy in question. The same stat bases apply, and are boosted accordingly to account for all lvl 3 stat arties.
The last table is just a dump of every bashing strategy in the system at present and where they line up, both with and without artefacts.
If anything stands out as particularly low/high/poorly scaled, feel free to mention it and we'll discuss. For the most part we're happy where things are at, but there may be a few things we've missed or factors we've not considered.
edit: updated ApoDeadeyes numbers post fix
edit: updated for various fixes explained later in the thread
Hey, thanks for the detailed analysis/numbers. I really appreciate the transparency, as well as the work that went into this overhaul.
But these numbers doesn't even match up to the ones we got from abusing the little girl? Also are just using weapons (ie not a class ability) not getting an update? There seemed to be some wonkiness there as I did two tests with my bastard sword and with 21 str I got 1313 damage but prior to getting the Jera I was doing 1411 (might just be Mindshell giving me wrong info)
I noticed stormhammer did the same as prior this change and that incantation was doing the exact same for me while gut was lower by 5 (1007 now compared to 1012 earlier)
This is why we would like to see the feedback from our attacks as it's done. It took rather extensive testing to figure out that priests didn't use strength for literal years
Is the last column in the last table assuming rare minerals and SoW elixir. That would be 19 "base", so I'm assuming it does.
Some questions from me from a first read. Not sure if this is the level of detail you're interested in right now, but will leave them here anyway.
a) Is the attack for Druid numbers maul? If so, why is the druid maul so far below sentinel maul given they're the same attack, the strength values are pegged? Is that based on the bashing advantages of vigour/panacea, because they seem over valued if that's the case. If you're not hunting somewhere way over your head, maintaining vigour/panacea slows you down.
b) Is there a reason that a 1600cr artifact for sentinel (l3 spear) yields such poor hunting dps? Sentinels need to purchase that for optimal pvp, as well as a handaxe (1500cr). This seems to suggest they're being balanced around having to purchase another artifact (l3 knuckles) to avoid a 40% malus to hunting output.
Maul is almost useless in pvp, so I thought this might be similar to broadswords/axes for knights (limited pvp value, higher hunting dps) , but the (art) knight differentials are:
To reiterate, for sentinel
Photo of Thoth after these changes:
But these numbers doesn't even match up to the ones we got from abusing the little girl? Also are just using weapons (ie not a class ability) not getting an update? There seemed to be some wonkiness there as I did two tests with my bastard sword and with 21 str I got 1313 damage but prior to getting the Jera I was doing 1411 (might just be Mindshell giving me wrong info)
The girl the ACC has been using is useful, sure, but it's unreliable (especially when checked second-hand), and was really just a holdover from a time when we didn't have the tools available to us that we do now. The numbers in the tests above should match up exactly alongside what you're seeing in game, as long as you meet the appropriate conditions. They are pulled directly from the attacks in question. Standard weapons and generic attacks should be included in this update as well, though they're absolutely not a primary concern.
I noticed stormhammer did the same as prior this change and that incantation was doing the exact same for me while gut was lower by 5 (1007 now compared to 1012 earlier)
Stormhammer is unchanged. Incantation changes were made but didn't get pushed to live, they'll be up shortly.
This is why we would like to see the feedback from our attacks as it's done. It took rather extensive testing to figure out that priests didn't use strength for literal years
See the note above about unreliable testing, in addition to having to rely on ACC members to do that testing and disseminate that information as they saw fit. The tools we have on hand make catching this sort of thing far, far easier. In fact, if you look very closely at the tables above, you might spot a very similar issue!
I'm not particularly for or against allowing this sort of testing either way, and that sort of decision is above my paygrade, but if we do go back to this sort of thing for players (ACC or otherwise), it'll need to be something far more reliable and built for the purpose, rather than a tacked-on half measure.
@Lyrin We are aware of the issue with Sentinel spear scaling and it will be fixed up in the next couple of days.
Thanks! To reiterate the gratitude of others, it's great you guys are sharing this data - makes it easier to find and report anomalies.
If anyone has a table of balance times for these attacks handy, it'd be nice. I'd like to run some sims.
Overall I'm a little confused as to how the dps margins are so huge. My original post here was calling for dps to consider things like tankiness, sustain, and utility - and it seems like it was - but it almost feels a bit random. Like why does serpent (above average tankiness, high sustain, high utility) have the highest DPS, while Bard (low tankiness, high sustain, mid utility) have 2/3 the dps? Seems a little arbitrary to me...
Also NGL these numbers for unartied vs artied dragon bashing are a bit problematic. Gut is really, really bad (3% increase for 2500cr) but Incant is obviously a problem as you're looking at 2.1% DPS increase for 5,100cr (int, collar, aldar).
Thanks for all your work on this, P.
Standouts:
ApoDeadeyes 141 174 194
(art) 200 232 247
ApoDecay 224 278 309
(art) 359 416 442
I can appreciate the Staffcast/Warp/Iron/Decay/etc cloning patch, but we should make Deadeyes the standard. Swap these - Apostate is a balance PVP class. Like Alchemist, tough to tell a novice "Hey, 100cr if you want to swap between bash or pk."
Do we want to address balance vs eq for Alchemist?
BMSword 217 272 305
(art) 344 403 434
Is the baseline Arash? Sanya should be this baseline with Arash boosting near top end, since the class is bottom tier damage resist with no PVE health actives. I've said let's open Sternum strike to deal 25% of current Drawslash damage and make Bind Shin relevant, since it has no place in competitive PVP.
Druid 211 265 297
(art) 304 356 384
SentMaul 223 279 313
(art) 319 375 404
SentSpear 222 222 222
(art) 238 238 238
Does Druid not use Maul? What happened here? Is Thrust not the standard Sentinel attack? I assume this is a typo.
SNBBTower 206 258 290
(art) 267 314 338
SNBBroad 204 256 286
(art) 267 313 337
SNBLong 202 253 283
(art) 257 302 325
SNBTower 205 257 287
(art) 258 303 327
Assume anything non-Tower is buckler/SoA? In which case best DR is best DPS. We want that?
Oh maybe I misunderstood this table? Is the 323->330 full artied vs full artied + consumables?
Like why does serpent (above average tankiness, high sustain, high utility) have the highest DPS, while Bard (low tankiness, high sustain, mid utility) have 2/3 the dps? Seems a little arbitrary to me...
Fucking yep. Bard was already middle of the pack DPS, and it got lowered? Fucking what.
You can say Mindshell's stuff was unreliable testing if you like, but his numbers still showed adequate comparisons and Bard was not even in the top 1/4. Whereas classes that were apparently got buffed even more?
I don't like agreeing with Shecks, but it really does seem like most of these changes were 100% arbitrary.
Disappearing from Achaea for now. See you, space cowboy.
smileyface#8048 if you wanna chat.
I appreciate making this info public finally.
I’m going to echo the sentiment that serpent still being so much better than everything else is really frustrating. Priest took a huge hit and now caps out 142 dps lower than serpent for me. So why would I ever use priest (or Paladin or elord or tfang dragon) over it?
I guess I’m confused on what the intention is here. I thought this would bring more classes to center which means making more classes viable in general. This seemingly has done the opposite, making serpent once again the unquestionably best option since nothing else even comes close to the dps except Arash BM, which should arguably be the absolute best in the game.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
@Phaestus could I ask a question about your 3rd table? I think I'm misunderstanding what is accounted for in the (art) rows.
Using shikudo as an example, (i think) the only artifacts that affect damage output are strength and staff. If you're just looking at staff arties v.s. no staff arties (because variation in strength is in a different column), why would the difference between 12 str shikudo be 43% (328/229) if the level 3 staff is only 20%
I'm not particularly for or against allowing this sort of testing either way, and that sort of decision is above my paygrade, but if we do go back to this sort of thing for players (ACC or otherwise), it'll need to be something far more reliable and built for the purpose, rather than a tacked-on half measure.
I would absolutely love if I could do like AB ELEMENTALISM STAFF and then in the extra information see what base damage I'd do right now (ie arties calculated in) with whatever weapon I have in hand if it's viable (such as for garrote, smite or slaughter) and see the modified balance regain after traits and other relevant arties
But even then the ability to just attack a practice dummy with absolutely no resistance and get told 'you did x damage' would also be nice (why did we stop getting battlerage from attacking them anyway? They were nice to test battlerage rotations on)
edit: and why the big disparacy between gut and incanation? I spent 5100 on boosting up my magic damage but people can get away with spending just 2500 for boosting up gut and add easier to get strength bonuses and that's the better option for bashing? Outside the 'oh your arms are just fubar' cases
Ooh, nvm. Your post described that the stat columns take into account non-artefact sources of strength (spec, trait etc). So I guess the difference between art and normal rows for my shikudo example would include both +3 str and staff.
Is there a good reason as to why Serpent STILL has almost +100dps at max artie conpared to pretty much every class when it’s one of the safest, versatile classes for bashing? Resistall+ scalemail+fast balance+evade, not to mention further tankiness with cape. I just don’t see the logic at all. Why such an enormous disparity?
Awesome changes. Glad to see movement in this department.
One thing I see, similar to Apostate, Arius seems a bit lackluster given the requirement to spec as quick-witted. Completely neutering your pvp should probably come with more of a buff. Inlcuding monk for comparison of something that isnt neutering out.
vs
Are the DW numbers assuming the use of the Hunting tree buffs in Terminus? If so, that's a bit problematic as it precludes use of pretty essential tools in solo/group combat (Mainaas defense, Tooros damage, Litany, bahar lightning, etc.). No PK-ing DW would want to bash in it if so, assuming they had access to elemental lord / dragon instead.
Can we get Sentinel axe hunting "returning" looked at too? :)
Still wanting to know the justification behind the Bard numbers.
Unartied (as in, no SoA either) it's without question the squishiest class in the game. Even Pariah is tankier than it (yet Pariah has higher damage than it). 2hander is similar despite being significantly tankier than it. Even SnB isn't too far behind it, despite being even more tankier than 2hander. Shaman is definitely tankier than Bard is, and it's also higher.
Won't even talk about artied. At that level, it's not even a "well discrepancies happen!" the gaps get even larger %-wise. You say tankiness played a factor in determining numbers... So why in the fuck is Bard so low, and Serpent so ridiculously high?
Disappearing from Achaea for now. See you, space cowboy.
smileyface#8048 if you wanna chat.
Bard has free shield strip and Dwinnu (which are situationals, at best)....
But 2h is about 1% lower than Bard.. but has way more survivability in almost every single occasion.
The hell.
I think there a few outliers, but overall pretty happy with most of these changes! And really glad to see a good chunk of time put into balancing them.
Looking from the perspective of a fully artied individual, I think some of the discrepancy between the lowest and highest at max arties could be adjusted, maybe by making the diminishing returns less stringent.
All the Knights, really, and Priest and of course Bard. They are quite inline at the unartied level, but anything to bring them closer at the max artied level where tankiness is less relevant would be great.
Bard just needs to be looked at, its not very tanky without harmonics/heartsfury and putting those up for bashing each room is such a huge dps loss it should cover its own downside really.
Deadeyes bashing is really off compared to decay, which I can understand a small difference because of aldar diadem - but that feels like a noobie trap in wait. It would be fantastic if it was closer in line.
Also Airlord and Waterlord seem oddly low, they should probably be above Earth at a minimum and likely tied or close to Firelord.
Edit: Oh yeah, and Serpent dex scaling really should have a cap if it continues to reduce garrote balance. It seems pretty imbalanced that rare minerals + SoW is a 100 dps boost to serpent but a much more reasonable 20-30 dps boost for most other classes.