For the Balance Update on July 4th, 2024:

[old needle]

just noticed this. i want to speak with whoever decided this was necessary

[indigo grotto]

dude that hates 5 and 0

this whole thing

was to remove as much

0 and 5 as possible

[old needle]

who tf decided that they wanted to abandon round numbers and just blindly follow their (incredibly detached from reality) stat budget calculator

[indigo grotto]

now all isee is 8 6 and 2

[rough latch]

Only limiting yourself to round numbers is just a bad idea when dealing with this massive of a rework

[oak tangle]

cook

[rough latch]

What's the point

[indigo grotto]

buffs are buffs

[rough latch]

Things need to have higher stats, 5% is overshooting sometimes

[indigo grotto]

1% buffs really were smt

[worn cobalt]

1 3 7 9 are not real numbers

[old needle]

does an extra 2-4% really matter though

[oak tangle]

not really related to balance specifically but can lbottle be changed to behave like alch bag instead of having the number of stacks in the item name pls

[worn cobalt]

only 0 2 4 5 6 and 8

[old needle]

especially considering that it barely scales anymore

[oak tangle]

i cant put lbottle in my loadouts anymore because theres 23 different variants of the item

[rough latch]

would you rather have 0%

[old needle]

maybe

[rough latch]

I think no more round numbers is just something we need to get used to

[old needle]

but blindly following the stat budget calculator that already over or underbudgets a ton of stuff is

not great

[rough latch]

there's basically no reason that standard should've existed in the first place

[rough latch]

This took them an entire year

Are you sure they're just putting in what some formula spits out

[indigo grotto]

day 2 of asking to buff damage situationals

[candid pike]

I Love The Calculator!

[old needle]

looking at an item getting a whole one percent buff? yeah

no human looks at that and consciously decides “yes this 1% will make the difference between balanced or unbalanced”

[rough latch]

it's not just about rebalancing, it's about keeping it the exact same balance

if nothing was done, it would've been a rebalance that made it weaker

if they don't want to change its balance, why not bump up the percentage a tiny amount?

[indigo grotto]

was rageroot even used anywhere?

[rough latch]

it's great for budget cleric/warlock builds

but just budget builds really

[indigo grotto]

i can see that

[old needle]

it was nice for non-cott more damage but i don’t think many people besides me used it

since it has atk% too

i’m probably gonna end up using it once i get sote and can comfortably use estar

[indigo grotto]

rapture is such a cool item

[snow ruin]

I don't give af about LBs

but more graciously I don't think LBs should be the reason a good change isn't made

[slate surge]

my r1 build gains like 0.5-1 damage from regicide 1 it needs a buff

[violet blade]

In all fairness people also spend a lot of mats for those final infusion levels which give around the same amount of damage

[rare night]

At some point Fwap mentioned wanting to put a 19% damage on something and I had to stop him from doing so

[timid grove]

Fine we can put 19.9% on something

[gleaming moth]

13.37%

[rough latch]

double digit prime numbers are not allowed anymore

[little jay]

Pi

[old needle]

this existed before this update i think but either way

[vivid osprey]

atleast armor values are even at .5, right?

[old needle]

for now

[vivid osprey]

imagine a MW gives +0.1 armor

[old needle]

additive defense rework when

[old needle]

they take away 0.7 armor and then give us 0.3 at next masterwork

[void zodiac]

adds up with multiple pieces

[vivid osprey]

would you rather not have it

[old needle]

i already addressed that

[finite shale]

guh.

message delay .??

[steep furnace]

[vocal wadi]

regicide also died in r3

[daring halo]

Are we going to get a balance patch this week or are we going to have to wait till august?

[tight eagle]

Final Thoughts:
Due to the broad scope of these changes, we likely missed something or introduced new bugs to the game. We will roll out a few balance patches outside of our normal monthly cycle to address these issues in the coming weeks.

[grave locust]

oh nice

was reading some of the discussion earlier about healing

yeah wish the healing system in this game was better

not fond of saturation or the lack of consequence damage can have

i'm glad they finally rolled out this update though. It's going to be much healthier for the game overall

situational damage enchantments can now actually be treated as less budget than their potential situational damage

i feel like if anything the impact this update has over balancing is as much if not more than the impact it has on gameplay

i imagine things being more streamlined and true to what they are would make designing abilities and items easier in the future

all in all this update is a big step in the right direction for me

[slow nymph]

Im gonna be honest i feel like some classes were definitely impacted more than others, so the actual gameplay effects vary heavily, but I can see future balancing being much different due to this update

i mean i run etherealstack as warrior in r3 and if anything I might've been seeing MORE damage than before

i doubt it was just the extra 2.5% final added to weapon mastery, and since stacking a ton of damage is supposed to be nerfed i dont know if the buffs to items like crown and darkstar really just 100% offset the scaling changes or what

but if i was seeing more it was marginal

like im talking maybe 5-10 damage increase max, and thats only sometimes

[little jay]

Meanwhile, my Sanguine Tendon volley post-nerf does approximately 40-50% of its pre-nerf damage. Also, Eagle Eye now seemingly adds...only 10-15 damage? Anyway, I think the majority of the changes were good overall. (And I admit that Sanguine Tendon volley was decently busted)

(Oops, I think I ping replied)

[tight spire]

theres no way this meme i made 7 months ago is still floating around

[rough latch]

it's going to resurface every time new mw releases

[violet tide]

(if they nerf items before-hand)

[little jay]

No, they will have to change the items in the meme to have 1 more masterwork star!

[ancient iris]

We need monarch back

[modern ingot]

its pinned. the monumenta shadow government is shooting itself in the foot

[ancient iris]

Dude can we ban eddie

This pregnant emoji lowkey weird and thr implications are wild and varied

[merry bane]

we tried

he divides by mitosis

you can't get rid of him

[ancient iris]

On skibidi?

[merry bane]

by the rizzler

[tribal dagger]

It means what it means

[tight spire]

oh god

[golden lagoon]

just ignore him, all he does is be a nuisance

[ancient iris]

I agree man

How could someone be like that in a public space that's wild

[snow ruin]

The humid air was all expelled into the atmosphere after smashing this greenhouse so effectively

[sly juniper]

Dang we were so close to having a nice even number

It is me, the OP

I have read every single message in this thread and am here to issue my decrees three

[robust sorrel]

thats what they want you to think

[inner thistle]

spy who’s the dude in your pfp

looks smart and old and white and i think i know him

what are you thobking me for he just looks familiar and philosopherish

is that martin luther

off to google

it IS i’m so smart

when did nick show up

[sly juniper]

I'm glad most everyone agreed with the reasons why we did this rework to damage, and since most people are waiting for additional balance changes and/or bug fixes to make additional comments I'll set that aside for now. Here's some thoughts on frequent points brought up in the thread:

1. Boreas Mattock: If possible we (the balance team) try to avoid making items legacy. Seeing as there was a new item to take its place, that's why we opted to item replace Boreas. Hopefully everyone who wanted an infusion refund was able to get one from the moderator team - big thanks from us since we forgot to set those up. For those annoyed at the removal of an R2 item for R3 balance, we're going to lift the item lock for R2 items in R3 soon™️ and this gets us one step closer to doing so.
2. Pickaxe Balance: As previously stated, we know about the bad state of pickaxes right now but we're unwilling to make widespread/systematic changes to them currently. Any work we do to make pickaxes better before 1.20.5 will be moot once we get the Mining Speed attribute. I encourage everyone to patiently wait while the archwizards of server operations do the monumental task of upgrading all of our systems to newer versions (which will probably include a complete rewrite of how items are created/stored/modified).
3. The state of injectors/healing/saturation/etc.: Healing is a complex topic. As it currently stands, the decisions of yesteryear have powerscaled us into the metaphorical stratosphere of absurd mob damage and absurd player survivability. There is a certain appeal to how fast the game plays and the short TTK of both mobs and players, but frankly things are way past the barrier of reason in high level content and the only way back down to earth is going to take a lot of time/effort to retune how we think about mob damage and player healing values. There are a lot of things we'd like to do balance side and maybe this will be one of our next long-term projects (no promises).

[old needle]

wait, there were meant to be refunds? i assumed that the reason there weren't refunds was because you decided having a ton of Winter's Bountys on the market was better than having hundreds of Eldrask frags hit the market at the same time

[merry bane]

thank you for cooking as always

there's a couple things i didn't like about July 4th patch, mainly stuff like FoL and situational damage enchants being in a VERY poor spot currently but that's all to come in due time after this has some days to simmer

[thin sorrel]

infusions

[merry bane]

overall I'm a big fan though

[tribal dagger]

Spy misspoke, he means Boreas/Bounty infusion refunds

[old needle]

oh i see

[sly juniper]

Edited post for clarity ^

[merry bane]

(mostly stamina)

stamina is in a very bad state currently 💀

[cyan relic]

What's wrong with stamina, currently it's a situational dmg that doesnt overshadow actual %dmg

unless you're talking about stamina-items

[merry bane]

both

you have to get hit quite a few times for stamina to even reach its full potential and while it used to be amazing it is uh

No longer multiplicative

[candid pike]

Take damage for an additive damage increase…
Tragic

[merry bane]

stamina items as a result are in an absolute state of disrepair

[cyan relic]

I mean on paper it seems fine, if anything its actual budget value in items is reduced a lot more (🕊️ for belt of the tyrant)

[candid pike]

But yeah Stamina seems pretty pretty eh, would probably be better to just build damage instead methinks

[merry bane]

yeah current day belt of the tyrant is probably close to snatching norvigut skewer's old title of most understatted item

not quite there, but close

[tribal dagger]

Yeah, all of the situational damages are kind of in a bad place imo

[candid pike]

First Strike…

[merry bane]

[sly juniper]

We'll do more item changes as soon as Fwap's job stops sucking up all of his time

[merry bane]

just let Eddie do all of it
surely this will not have disastrous consequences

[cyan relic]

Esp regicide haw haw haw

[merry bane]

oh god regicide

that shit already takes up an immense amount of item budget

and now it's not even multiplicative

[candid pike]

Regicide…
Abyssal…?
Trivium…

[merry bane]

[tribal dagger]

Point blank and sniper and smite and other base damage increases were unchanged

[merry bane]

PB/Sniper are base damage increases

[cyan relic]

Bow dmg are + flat yeah

[candid pike]

Oh yeah

Nevermind them then

Anyways The Nightmare’s Warden amiright?

[old needle]

situational damage being additive to gear damage is kind of unintuitive ngl

[merry bane]

abyssal could probably stay as is multiplicatively tbh

it's so rare to activate it's probably fine

you're already suffering greatly in half of it's use cases

[candid pike]

But VoidBlast

What about

The Fragile Fishing Combat Meta?

[merry bane]

[vivid osprey]

Okay but if you read every message, which one was your favorite?

[merry bane]

surely one day we'll get those other fishing combat difficulties

surely...

[vivid osprey]

It'll be the same day ATR releases.

[merry bane]

omg next Thursday?

[vivid osprey]

Here's hoping!

[old needle]

here's coping

[sly juniper]

I probably shouldn't say which ones made me laugh the most

[vivid osprey]

Because they werent intended to make someone laugh?

[old needle]

its this isnt it

[clever thistle]

Have try build with winter bounty, it seems have good combine with pink epic, but chest and leg option doesn't look appeal enough

As probably only one armor scout that doesn't use steel aparteus, I can't say winter bounty is a item I want use over eternity

https://ohthemisery-psi.vercel.app/builder/m=None&o=Flintcatcher's Edge&h=Winter's Bounty&c=Bound Spirit's Tunic&l=Cannonball Chains&b=The Father's Path&charm=None

(due to how I play I aim for high melee prot which is another reason I don't like this helemt compare to my build rn)

[merry bane]

you can get really freaky with winters bounty

https://ohthemisery.vercel.app/builder/m=Firecoral Lance&o=Dryadic Temptation&h=Winter's Bounty&c=The Decaying God&l=Frost Knight's Greaves&b=Sketched Bark of the Gateway Tree&charm=None

r2 hybrid steadwind scout

with DRYADIC TEMPTATION USAGE

atk speed leaves some things to be desired tho

[clever thistle]

Yeah I have no experience with melee part

[high linden]

Harmony's end...

Forced to use 1.6 atk speed swords smh

[slow nymph]

wait boreas got sacked?

wtf

[tight eagle]

this shows the boreas playerbase

[slow nymph]

rip to the handful of people who actually used it i guess

[slow nymph]

fr

i mean i had my differences with it as an earthshaker user but i didnt hate it. I feel like it was relatively well balanced and was an option people who wanted speed could take if they made a build with no CoC work

[violet tide]

they log on and wonder why they are suddenly mining spawners with helmet

[slow nymph]

wha

did it get replaced by a fucking helmet

[tight eagle]

I'd just trust the process
with 1.20.5 coming TM probably will have a plan for a more thorough pick balancing
and we will never be able to see the full picture until it's out

[sly juniper]

Being able to increase spawner mining speeds by 1 tick at a time without doing stupid crap like going from Eff 0 Gold -> Eff 2 Diamond -> Eff 1 Gold -> Eff 3 Iron -> Eff 2 Gold is going to be such a breath of fresh air

Using only R1 pick materals (wood, stone, gold) our choice of semi-reasonable mining speeds for spawners are 50, 25, 22, 17, 13, 11, or 9 tick break speeds

[old needle]

are we gonna get some real masterworks for pureshard 🙏 🙏

[sly juniper]

Maybe we could actually increase mining speed with MW levels but it would have to be only once or twice in the whole chain

[old needle]

i think theres already one or two items that get efficiency on masterwork but its not a huge difference

[sly juniper]

Yeah if it's going from no efficiency to 1 or from 1 to 2 it's almost always placebo

Rounding and a stupid formula my beloathed

[old needle]

also whats the reason behind only using those materials in r1? is it just durability in r1 being lower than r3

[sly juniper]

CTM tradition really

[main moss]

pre-nerf skysplitter had +1 efficiency at mw4 iirc

but it was definitely too strong at efficiency 3 diamond

[old needle]

did it? i bought it like day 2 and i swear it was 2 -> 2

[violet tide]

It was effi 3 for a month

[main moss]

#change-logs message

[violet tide]

Before tm struck down on pickaxes because they didn't like cz speedrunners

[old needle]

that was way after

[old needle]

huh, interesting

[violet tide]

Wait darkstar pauldron used to have shielding instead of steadfast

[oak tangle]

and inadvertedly buffed it because everyone just started using the op heal 15% pick instead

[violet tide]

Isn't it just flat 1.5 hearts heal

[old needle]

for most people thats 15%

[oak tangle]

yeah i just think of it as 15%, in reality i guess its even more op than that because people use -hp pieces usually

[high linden]

Poise pureshard adze melee scout

Real

[tough radish]

i’m really surprised that pureshard doesn’t gain a level of sapper through masterwork

[tough radish]

harbingers:

[violet tide]

Nerf it to sapper 2

And gain +1 lvl from mw 4

[tough radish]

+1 level from mw2 or mw3 seems fair

then you don’t have the awkward mw1 and mw2 armor/agi split

[violet tide]

I would like to see level of unbreaking instead

[tough radish]

so
base: sapper 2
mw1: .5 armor .5 agi
mw2: 1 armor 1 agi
mw3: sapper 3
mw4: 1.5 armor 1.5 agi

[plush ice]

Unbreaking would be an extra addition, since on its own it doesn't justify a masterwork level

[ancient iris]

just wanted to put this here cuz it fits more

but like idk i think volley charms need a buff cuz fully dedicated everything to volley cant even 1 tap most elites which i dont think is fair

not to mention it would still be a 22s cooldown cuz its sanguine tendon with no cdr on any of the volley charms

[outer phoenix]

Maybe predator strike should be the elite killer instead of "the entire room for 20 blocks has been vaporized"

[ancient iris]

yeah but im sayin if im maxing it it should be able to do that at least

[outer phoenix]

Disagree

[ancient iris]

and in the first place it doesnt hit breakpoints that matter in comparison to not putting anything into it at all

actually

i may have gotten an idea hold the phone

[snow ruin]

So deserved lol

[ancient iris]

ok i put my smarty pants on and didnt dedicate everything but still dedicated half my charm power to volley and i still basically hit the same break points as dedicating all of it

so thats something

[outer phoenix]

Maybe you can change your build so the charms matter

[ancient iris]

ok i found an even neater trick but instead of mindlessly casting volley as ssoon as i see elite i shoot elite into 300 hp threshold THEN volley and with sanguine it can still pierce into the dread like before. i can get value on the elite and dread in one volley like before

hip hip HURRAY!

and thats on skibid

[ancient iris]

nope

i will exclusively take all my damage from charms and have good ehp

[violet tide]

then you shouldn't be complaining about your dmg

[ancient iris]

ok i will

stop

[violet tide]

if you can't hit your breaking points then maybe consider swapping some pieces for dmg

[snow ruin]

Or at least stop using such an authoritative tone while essentially spitballing

[ancient iris]

bro its text

what tone

[snow ruin]

It's the prime reason you aren't taken seriously often in regards to game balance

[ancient iris]

ok

[merry bane]

(and because you play scout)

all scouts deserve death

[violet tide]

don't you play scout

[merry flame]

lesser sharpshooter gives +2 at 12 stacks

greater sharpshooter gives +4 at 12 stacks

[merry bane]

i am free of my chains

[little jay]

The irony

[little jay]

From my experience playing with a 235% projectile damage build (not accounting for infusions), I dealt ~290 damage when using Volley with Sanguine Tendon, Eagle Eye, 8 sharpshooter stacks, and Fruit of Life (enhanced by Nihilo Core). I mostly agree with the additive damage changes, but something in me now wishes Sanguine Tendon was just a 1* charm that gives only +1 Volley Pierce. 290 damage with all the buffs (and mob debuffs) doesn't feel great. The main reason I still am probably going to continue to use Sanguine Tendon is because of its +1 Volley Pierce

This being said, 290 damage is still a lot (even though it isn't 600), being enough to handle most circumstances well. Whether the changes are looked upon positively or negatively, 600 damage was definitely excessive for an ability normally meant to clear crowds

[merry bane]

i could go for a sanguine tendon change like that

maybe 2cp though

a piercing volley into a crowd is strong

[gleaming moth]

piercing volley offers double the damage potential, right?

[violet tide]

maybe they should make volley u nerf volley dmg a bit and instead increase the base skill dmg

[tight eagle]

From other classes’ aoe burst like alch aa
I feel like being able to 1 shot normal mobs is the right place to be in
Well at least imo
Although volley cd is longer

[little jay]

It could be 1* for +1 volley piercing but -20% volley damage

[little jay]

I personally never used volley u. I never really understood why people evaluate it so high

People don't usually need to hit mobs in a 360

[violet tide]

fucking 360 aoe nuke

[little jay]

^

[gleaming moth]

depends on if you're running through the mobs or fighting first

[little jay]

Even when you do rush, the mobs don't usually surround you

[merry bane]

neither do i

i see it as a widening of the forward radius

and nothing behind me matters

[tight eagle]

It’s still useful at times
Like when you want to shoot a diagonal line
That’s pretty situational though

[merry bane]

if there's something behind me thats just a bonus

[ancient iris]

not on the same mob but more aoe i guess

it has the neat trick to hit a dread after killing an elite

or any pinata type mob

[gleaming moth]

yea, mean total across mobs, double on a single mob would be especially oof

[little jay]

In my opinion, if Alchemist gets (essentially) a nuke every 8s (if using Brine's Gambit), Scout should deserve a shot at a similar attack in a cone-like area every 15s. The two definitely are quite different, but they generally seem to serve the same purpose (from my experience playing both Alchemist and Scout)

[ancient iris]

i think volley damage charms should just be buffed across the board

[tribal dagger]

1 charm power +1 volley pierce sounds incredibly broken

[ancient iris]

like tendon could go from 80% -> 100%

or 90%

just something

[tight eagle]

ik and 200 is all you need

[little jay]

Yeah no, I kind of am realizing that. It'd need like -10% or -20% damage to balance it out

[merry bane]

of course more projectiles are going beside and behind me

but i ignore those for the most part

[violet tide]

volley dealing like 5 times more dmg than frost nova with effectively the same aoe capability and shorter cooldown

[merry bane]

frost nova has other issues

like being frost nova

[violet tide]

pls buff frost nova 😭

[little jay]

To be fair, I don't really know why the 360-degree upgrade exists. It feels like it removes the whole idea of at least having to aim in a direction to optimize the amount of targets hit

[sly juniper]

Alright gamers I'm gonna close this thread since it has run its course and was effectively gameplay discussion 2 even before my comments up here. If anyone has specific and actionable feedback to give on specific changes with respect to Additive, start a new thread 🫡