3.17 Spiked Shield & Gilga Changes

[late oracle]

Personally I think the changes from the previous cycle a few months ago didn't feel bad. It had the miss rate change and about a 25% damage reduction. It also has the overall ward reduction, which I didn't necessarily agree with but seems like its possible to affect the damage in that way without touching the ward itself. Again this opened up gearing options that were playable by both sides.

Granted this was all in the context of crit also receiving a nerf, and pre Selenes hands nerf. So in terms of parity it was a little more balanced. But I think current iteration goes too far and I couldn't hear myself out of this issue no matter how I tried. As above with maximal damage gear I'm hitting 130k as a 187 al.

[young river]

I would also like to point out that the Dev is eyeballs deep in trying to get a major content update out the door. So really complex skill redesigns are probably a big ask right now. Whereas if we can focus in on simpler number tweaks, it's probably more realistic to land on something.

[gritty plinth]

Yeah I agree

This is more of a future-looking spitball

But may also be the current iteration? Testing needs to be done if current ward totals are still impacting ss damage

Bc you should dsfinitely not be seeing the same damage at no ward compared to full ward

[pseudo sonnet]

Yeah Odie is going to have to make some tough decisions and a lot of the gilgas are not going to like it but for the game to be fair and balanced a HP/Ward/tanky build shouldn't be even with the damage that a glass cannon build can put out.

[late oracle]

Its not quite that binary when you factor in things like dex, pet block rate, stat passives that other classes have access to. I think ss needed nerfs, yes, but its a matter of how they're done and what play they open up.

[pseudo sonnet]

What damage can you put our with a crit Gursa build in PVP turn 1?

[young river]

I was testing my comparisons all with the same buffs (except the Cataphract turn 1 SS numbers) so i didn't look at just turn 1 damage but I can run that pretty quick if you are interested

[late oracle]

I left my proms hands/bow in storage when I transferred, but fyi changing nothing about my build from the above spiked shield setup I can do 80-90k with crit osmostrike. with no sacrifice to tankiness, would not be an issue to swap in proms hands instead of Selenes. I'm hitting 90% of my ss3 damage with osmostrike using a fully gear for SS build.

[young river]

Rend Epee turn 1 85k, RS 2 180k HS3 135k GS 4 78k

[late oracle]

You have to consider I'm not just building into tank and asking why I can't deal damage, I have 17000 attack stat.

[pseudo sonnet]

What was your SS 1 and 3 damage?

[young river]

In which build exactly?

[pseudo sonnet]

Yeah it stinks when you dont use the most broken skill SS. Thats how other classes feel when not using SS also.

[young river]

The defnesive Ward build, the higher attack BoF build or in the Ursa top attack build?

[pseudo sonnet]

All of them.

[late oracle]

Can you please engage in these discussions without the snark? I'm not using the best build on beta, I'm running consistent damage to the setup that should benefit ss without using ss. I've played crit and ultimastikes builds on beta and live. I'm raiding like an Al 40 heretic and unable to kill anyone at my AL in pvp. I know SS needs nerfs but an 50-70% cut to damage is a non-starter. That's before even engaging in factors like the actual value of ehp, dex, block rate etc.

I'm using a damage maximizing setup assuming the ward threshold is met and it is very low damage

[thin tiger]

Im super interested in testing spiked shield changes. Just waiting for my beta mirror 😃

[young river]

Just turn 1?
Ursa build SS1 is around 140 ish SS3 about 90k ish not much variation
Defensive Cata build 6600 attack SS3 ranges between 0 and 37k SS1 35-52k variation over 5 separate enemies in Beta arena
Offensive BoF SS build SS1 55k-72k Turn 1 SS3 18- 49k same variation parameters as before

Do keep in mind that most people in Beta are not as stacked on gear as live, there are a few decent mirrors but it's mostly just sandboxes

[gritty plinth]

Not killing anyone at your AL? Can you show that

[pseudo sonnet]

Im just trying to prove a point how strong it is currently and why almost all classes are using it. Let me know if you need any help with crit builds. Some different gear will be needed than the normal def ward stuff if you want to do damage.

[gritty plinth]

I'd love to see how gilga is functioning

[young river]

🤦‍♂️

[pseudo sonnet]

Why is that? Do you not keep all your gear?

[gritty plinth]

Nothing from storage fwiw

[young river]

If you mirror you keep what was not in storage but there are waaaaaay more sandboxes that people never even bothered to equip gear on than mirrors with gear

[west verge]

🔒

[late oracle]

I'm hypothesizing unless you have someone on beta with 187 al. But if the high end of a damage build hits for 120k they would only need 60k HP to live. Honestly pretty low for this AL, couple in their stat passives, the loss I'm taking to health/ward to accommodate this damage its a very unlikely win.

[gritty plinth]

Why is turn 1 the only choice here

Are you unable to survive past turn 1 with woo?

[late oracle]

I know its strong and needs a nerf, the point I'm making isn't 'im not the best build anymore' its that 'even with highly optimized gear it is not even a competitive build'

[mint holly]

Anguish raids. I have never even once tried that. I believe, supposedly, they give no extra rewards currently.

Is that true?

[west verge]

[signal heron]

It's true in live, if you were still able to do raids with Anguish on

This is also the Spiked Shield channel 😆

[gritty plinth]

#1369743229297234000

[mint holly]

I was referring to Geppu saying he does anguish raids. But wasn’t sure if it was live or not.

[signal heron]

Much to Odie's disappointment I'm sure, there is still plenty of ORN chat discussion going on

[late oracle]

These comments were related to the beta

[mint holly]

Got ya.

[late oracle]

Understood and much appreciated. Trying to offer a high end gilgas perspective in here.

[signal heron]

Also not to give the wrong idea; I mean disappointment that things still aren't in a good place. Odie I'm sure isn't disappointed that Gilgas are trying to get things fixed

Yeah I don't want to dismiss what you're saying either

I'm saying those concerns are definitely heard

[late oracle]

Its been my experience that woo turn 1 is a good way to lose a fight

[gritty plinth]

Generally I'd agree. What exactly are you theoretically losing to on turn 1

Ss has been the biggest offender of this obviously

[signal heron]

• Rend/Epee
• Horizontal Slash 3
• Quickcast Celestial Arrow
• Magic Chakram
• Verse 4

[late oracle]

I'd say option a) I attack and either win or don't win, whether through crit reprisal, redline etc. or option b) I woo and get nuked in return which removes my stats and ward pool and then I'm back in t1 position with less ward bar

[mint holly]

Oh. I had a good example today. Of me hitting @west verge for 150k with quick cast CA after he WoO. Then I got deleted

[gritty plinth]

(Throwback to my question about whether ss should just be tied to max ward instead of current ward)

[late oracle]

Think this would remove a lot of counterplay

[gritty plinth]

From whose side

[late oracle]

The gilgas opponent

[gritty plinth]

That's already been handled by the nerf, no?

[signal heron]

Right now if I'm taking territory from a SS user with second chance, I can put together a Realmshifter ward annihilation build that essentially erases the opponents' ward bar even if I don't kill them

[gritty plinth]

Should this be restricted to saboteur

[mint holly]

Yeah. I haven’t been able to deal with higher ALs reliably. That 50% damage is horrible.

I’ve had moments when I hit 200k on a 50k hp opponent and the overkill just disappears. I’d love to see that extra damage go into the ward

Basically I cap at twice the opponent’s hp

Anyways. Let’s not derail this into PvP

[gritty plinth]

That's just how damage works - ward tanks for hp, not the other way around

[gritty plinth]

Ignore this, I didn't formulate this right. My only point is that IMO ss should not scale based on the gilga's survivability. This applies to the current functionality of "if gilga is about to die, they deal no damage" and vice versa

[shell quarry]

What's their AL though?

[signal heron]

Nobody at the moment because territory PvP here is currently basically dead 🙃

But I can deal potentially ~350k in ward per hit

[late oracle]

That's more than my t1 ward so sounds like it works. There def are lower al people around who can deal with me

[gritty plinth]

I don't feel like deleting ward is a great counterplay design considering that:

• Saboteur effects are limited
• Only 50% of damage goes to ward on turn 1
• Gilga becomes too strong at full ward and too weak at no ward

Hence why I wish it wasn't designed that way

[late oracle]

You don't necessarily need saboteur you just need hit hard. Its also available on amity

[gritty plinth]

Fair enough

Feels like gameplay that restricts game/class design

[signal heron]

Realmshifter is just best at saboteur, which is fair because we're also the class without an increased chance of surviving a one shot skill

[west verge]

deleting ward is a great tool tough. When I was playing realm in pvp that was my main solution. Sab passive on base realm + amity with extra ward destruction. it completely shuts down 1) gilga stat passive and 2) M2 damage from ward -> SS. Gursa already has less ward and its stat passive isnt included in pvp anyways

auto CA is a different issue on gursa and out of scope for the thread

[late oracle]

The corollary to the 'how hard should a tank hit' is 'how many hits should the dodgy guy in robes take' but we need to recognize these are not binary factors but a complicated web of passives, stat access etc.

[gritty plinth]

Wouldn't that be "how hard can a tank get hit"

Dodge is another form of defense

[late oracle]

That too yeah, its too easy to say its not balanced if x and y the balance is off, if it was that easy odie woukd have a way easier time

[young river]

Realm Assassin is how I used to beat PK back in the day of Critting SS with unlimited M1

Your enemy cannot nuke you if he has no fuel to launch his rocket!

[gritty plinth]

Saboteur is almost a hard counter to gilga

Since it deletes their defense and offense

[young river]

Well it used to be till Ursa CA with CA on the bar and CA on the offhand :p

[shell quarry]

350k would be but the tip of the iceberg for some of these bigger AL players

[signal heron]

You're not really wrong, but a Gilga with 1m ward starts with 500k and after a hit like that would have 150k

Yes, of course there's a certain point where the ward is too much to break through

[young river]

I'd much rather see a Gilga than a realm Dorado on my enemy screen

[sly geode]

There are dozens of us doritos

Dozens!

[pseudo sonnet]

Thats crazy. Realm doesnt have second chance or Auto CA.

[late oracle]

Imo realm d is better in the 60-100 al bracket, afterward gilga clears

[swift lava]

At least I can hit the gilg 😜

[hazy comet]

In BoF, Gilga base / herc, for sure. In areas / wars na

[pseudo sonnet]

You must not be a SS user. I'm so sick of using SS I can't wait for the meta to change.

[shell quarry]

If not using ss, try rs2 or magicchakram. Theres also gear that gives accuracy

[shell quarry]

Ss having flat miss chance is a huge/strong aspect that IMO, doesn't match the rest of the skills in the game from a m1 and m2 value standpoint. It has a much higher m1 of rs1, rs2, and magicchakram.

Flat miss of chakram and rs2 is what? 10%? Rs1 is 20%?

Why ss is only 5% and not larger with such a high M1 value across the board? Its not equitable.

[pseudo sonnet]

I think it went up to 7% according to the patch notes

[late oracle]

Just cs I think

[shell quarry]

So 3% higher then the other flat miss chance skills with a much higher m1?

If were trying to say, you can hit more often, but not as hard as the other skills with flat miss chance, fine. But the damage needs to be calibrated accordingly

[late oracle]

Yeah I think the miss rate changes were pretty good in prior build

[shell quarry]

Does anyone know what SS and CS miss chance is at currently in beta?

[late oracle]

5 and 7 respectively I believe

[shell quarry]

Okay. 5% miss chance for pvp feels like its too much combined with M1 & M2 values vs other flst miss chance skills. Looking across the game and calibrating it.

You add on rift rouge and your hitting as hard as rs2 (assuming they damage matches right now), pening everything and never missing.

[broken bough]

What is everyone’s thoughts on never having flat miss rates in PvP?

[shell quarry]

Off the top of my head, there would have to be appropriate ways for classes under dexed to build or spec into ways to fight those without (light warrior gear maybe).

Assuming they don't throw statuses (which they should)

Wait - does that include flat hit on statuses?

[late oracle]

I don't think I'd really mind it. Just need the right dex options on the table. I think new apollyon gear is a nice new option.

Curious what other people's dex is in pvp? I think I have a decent amount since I pick a lot of dex gear

[shell quarry]

Yeah, would black dragon armor be the non-event equivalent so peeps wouldn't have fomo?

[half karma]

Well i already miss deities and dorados most of the time anyways 😂

[late oracle]

Its an option but no ward is tough

[last haven]

going against dorados in live, I think there needs to be some options.

[late oracle]

But pumpkin and Polly both have good options

[last haven]

considering even statusing isn't an appropriate counter there.

[late oracle]

What is dorado again standard dex dodge rate + up to 20% more?

[hazy comet]

Flat miss is ideal on low m1 attacks

[last haven]

odie? 👉 👈

[hazy comet]

Not ideal on something like SS

[last haven]

or even low m2 attacks. works fine with sands too

don't think it's appropriate in the shield line, considering the landscape has shifted so far from when it was added. ward regen, and accuracy sources are much more ubiquitous now, and with the cap of m2 coming from ward, it even allows for building into them easier. like rift chest instead of fsc/yeticoat

[late oracle]

Ok make a capped spiked shield a separate move called spiked shield 0, and apply dex options to the other spiked shield 🙂

[haughty turtle]

Sign me up

[swift lava]

As long as I can reliably hit high Dex classes like dorados, sure

[haughty turtle]

There’s a new spec made just for that

[swift lava]

So I have to use a certain spec in order to have a chance at winning certain fights 😐

[haughty turtle]

Y’all act like dorado has a 90% dodge rate

[sly geode]

There's a spec and there is gear

Dorado passive only gives bonus to dex differences. If you out dex the Dorado, there is no dodge bonus

[haughty turtle]

Every other class has a 50% chance to survive turn 1 just from having second chance

If you hit the dorado he just guaranteed dies

[pseudo sonnet]

It did before he fixed the passive that was broken and scaled past 3k dex

[hazy comet]

Dorado is super killable without flat miss

[sly geode]

This is particularly relevant to Diety

[haughty turtle]

Bugs are meant to be fixed

Not really an issue now

[haughty turtle]

I love that the “jack of all trades” just gets to be “master of all trades with extra passives”

[sly geode]

So to Bordo's point, Dorado survivability is locked behind gear, and can be countered both with a spec and the exact same gear most Dorado will be wearing

Id like a spec to remove second chance and base steadfast 2 please

🙂

[half karma]

If a deity gets second chance you now have to penetrate his dex AND his def 😂

[haughty turtle]

You don’t. Because he’ll blow you up before you get the chance

You might even fill his apex bar and give him a free Channelalus as well if it’s Ursa

[half karma]

And just like that the deity gets a 400% bonus dmg or something like that

[haughty turtle]

As soon as people started realizing Chakram also has a fixed miss chance I HoC’d the hell away from Dorado, you just insta lose to Chakram and SS with no counter play besides gambling on parapet and pet block

[half karma]

I remember missing you A TON when i was in an airport i dont remember where

[pseudo sonnet]

Chakram and Rs2 keep realms honest so you cant run all pumpkin and crazy attack stats with BOF spec because you have no def.

[haughty turtle]

6k dex will do that, especially pre-bug fix 😅

[haughty turtle]

Well, you know what the alternative to that is?

[half karma]

Stardew valley

[haughty turtle]

SS

[half karma]

Oh ok

[pseudo sonnet]

SS is going away so its going to be relevant more now.

[haughty turtle]

And if I’m abusing that, I’m doing that on the class with second chance and auto-CA 😅

[pseudo sonnet]

amen! Preach

[hazy comet]

Yep this exactly

Realm mostly unplayable against flat miss

[haughty turtle]

Things don’t really seem to be shaking out Dorado’s way. If I HoC from gilga post patch it’ll probably be to DUrsa. Free temp stats, easily outdexes Dorados, second chance, Channelalus back to 0 turns… what’s the downside?

[pseudo sonnet]

steadfast1 and jack of all trades master of none

[last haven]

your eternal soul

I think my experiences must be pre-bug fix. I remember missing all my realmstrikes against dorados even with rift chest lmao

[haughty turtle]

Is it really master of none though? The base stats are crazy high imo

[pseudo sonnet]

Who passed you in win % bord?

[haughty turtle]

Realmstrikes is a fixed miss chance, dorado wasn’t dodging those even with the bug

[swift lava]

Unstable omnimancy will randomly kill you sometimes

[tawny holly]

Yes but high dodge is much more useful in pve than second chance

And if ss gets nerfed crit will be the best for pvp again. Having to give up oracle in a crit build is a big loss in damage

[gritty plinth]

I dislike it in the context of Dex being tied to both hit rate and dodge rate

Ah shoot sorry for ping

Investing into dex becomes an arms race of kinda just a guaranteed 40% to win

[late oracle]

Suggest: add randuins omen

[gritty plinth]

40% higher chance to dodge, 40% higher chance to hit is a hell of a stat

[onyx tulip]

This Ward Scaling Nerf is really hurting

[pseudo sonnet]

The second SS goes away im HOCing to realm honestly. Im just deity right now for the second chance because everyone is just shooting pew pew SS3

[tawny holly]

I would too if they remove all fixed miss chance from the game. Realm dorito would be an absolute menace

[onyx tulip]

You would think 54 million HP would give more than 40K ward

[pseudo sonnet]

I dont even care about RS2 and chakram you can add some def and zero them because they dont have crazy m1 like SS3

[hazy comet]

Which is why rs2 and chakram are good

And matching the dex of dorado is not hard

[tawny holly]

Depending on the type of dorito you're facing. If the hp is really high then they're using pumpkinless and chakram/rs2 is the play. For the high def ones you can out dex them with your own pumpkinless. This is assuming a post ss meta of course

Without fixed miss chance skills pumpkinless Doritos are scary, with the high HP/dex combo

[hazy comet]

The high def ones typically dont do tons of damage tbf

[shell quarry]

Yup, there are trade offs. What got us into this discussion in the first place 🙂

[pseudo sonnet]

Every class should have trade offs

[fringe mirage]

Why don't gilgas just go g.ursa with 200k+ HP 100k ward with osmostrikes. Pretty hard to kill. At 180 ALs it's a non issue to put crit into it and have that

[hazy comet]

You do know osmostrikes doesnt crit right?

[languid yoke]

Maybe he meant osmostrike?

[fringe mirage]

Yeah osmostrike III never paid attention to them basically having identical names lmao

Go osmostrikes and get 300k hp with no need to crit 🫠

[young river]

300k health Osmostrikes? Casual 2 million damage

[late oracle]

I've seen similar builds and they're legitimately really good

[fringe mirage]

I used to run it every now and then for fun. It was my main build to get bof out of the way. Slap in an hp regen amity and it was great

[unborn spruce]

So the solution for balance is being al180? 🤣

[fringe mirage]

Gilgas in beta at a similar AL are hitting the exact same as I do in live with ultima while they use SS with nearly the same buffs (I actually have t.mag^^^ while they don't and I have with a 40% crit 30% dragon amity) im still a glass cannon they're still a tank.

Im 173 AL compared it to ensseric gilga hits who is actually 10 less AL than I?

It's an alternative build to SS since so many gilgas think it's their only option.

[pseudo sonnet]

I feel like that's okay ish at first in PVE to not hurt the class to much at first but a tank shouldn't hit as high a glass cannon in pvp which I think Odie is doing the right thing with a pvp cap.

[fringe mirage]

^. It was comparing raids. Sure I can stack a million buffs and blue line like zipper loves to do making everyone think he doesn't take 20+ tries to get the hits ppl see with ultima down. In PvP it's more than fair and a 125k hit is still a super killable option in pvp coming from a tank. I preferred if my damage stayed in the range as hard as it was to get it down that low when I ran gilga.

I was using a DB speedcast axe. Not even selene hands

Literally could not lower my hits enough. CA wasn't even enough to kill me with one counter. It took at least 2 - 3 in a row

[visual crescent]

No way u do as good as quad scale

[half karma]

This might be a lategame pve balancing issue, because heretics hit for way more than I do

[visual crescent]

2 turn bpact i hit above 4m

8m with ss3

[half karma]

And beta is addressing that

[visual crescent]

Easy for time saving

[fringe mirage]

They don't in pvp. Sokam and I already posted our live hits and builds.

[visual crescent]

I mean yeah just 1 turn buff then hit

[half karma]

Pvp is being addressed in beta too. My dmg took a big hit

[fringe mirage]

Here's my live hits on a raid. Compare it so ensseric beta who actually has less buffs stacked.

Sure let me build fully into ultima and do a 2 turn, I can hit harder.

I die right at that 45k hit. Gilga will tank it lol

[half karma]

Yes i think thats what being addressed in beta

But its a fact that your dmg is too low for ur AL + class

Despite you having great gear

[fringe mirage]

Well a glass cannon is apparently not supposed to be a glass cannon until you spend 5 minutes buffing 😂 . A gilga still hits high turn 1 for turn 1 in pvp. Pretty much the same as I do in pvp now. It's way more balanced than it was prior at least

Just feels bad to gilgas because ss was so OP for so long

[half karma]

Cant you deal more dmg with sigil flasks and Vesta? 🤔

[late oracle]

The heretics in my kingdom t1 me for 200-400k with 70 less al than me. My max is 130k beta.

[fringe mirage]

Requires way more turns and using tri elemental spells to fill flasks

[half karma]

Oh I thought ara could cast it with his base flask charge

[fringe mirage]

Sokam and I posted lots of t1 live examples already

[gritty plinth]

You can for like, 3 sigils and no extra turn

[gritty plinth]

Would love to see some examples of this lol

[fringe mirage]

Here's sokam and mine are below his. Just a short scroll down

Yeah, I'd love to see it too and see the build thats on for your defense. There's no way 70 less AL is doing that high on turn 1

[late oracle]

And yeah I can stack def for to reduce chakram but scythe still hits me for 200. The point is that current beta I have no way of juicing my SS past 130k range. Again I'm not comparing with my live I'm comparing with current beta.

[fringe mirage]

Lets see the build and spec? Thought m3 is also high AL

[visual crescent]

Yes the dmg is low

[late oracle]

M3 is 116 I'm 189

[fringe mirage]

Because I'm not buffing 1000x like everyone sees in other screenshots. I compared my hits to ensseric and actually gave myself higher buffs

[late oracle]

Trying to get the AI to scythe me turn 1

[visual crescent]

No idea but my hit in live

The video loading

[fringe mirage]

Trying to get scythe to 1 shot means you could be taking off half your gear 😅 so what's the defensive build lol

You're attacking, not using SS. Looks like gear is off

[half karma]

I think hes trying to make it as if the mage was the player and he was the AI

[fringe mirage]

Ss and you know m3 is dead lol

[half karma]

To see her t1 dmg

[late oracle]

Yeah I know he's dead I'm trying to show HIS turn 1 not mine lol

[visual crescent]

1 buff turn and do as much as double u

[fringe mirage]

A 189 gilga 100% survives that turn 1 from m3

[visual crescent]

That is why ss is insane i use it outside its mainstream class

Which is gilga though

😭

[late oracle]

There is no argument that SS isnt good live, have you played the beta version?

[half karma]

Yes and thats being addressed in beta. Also BeoH + full selenes lute is unbalanced from the get go

[fringe mirage]

My point is still even with the beta version, you survive a glass cannon hit.

[visual crescent]

Nope axe thr way go

Ss3 is op with axe

Lute may be for low al pvp

Since beoh has high pen enough

[fringe mirage]

You immediately counter with a ss1 hitting 125k m3 is dead or second chances

[half karma]

My bad. Celestial anything + selenes is unbalanced whe you give it to a beoH or deiry thats true

[fringe mirage]

Ss1 almost always casts turn 1 on pvp defense. Another reason I didn't slot ss3.

[visual crescent]

Ofc i knew it is like some what eh, so bad in beta

But the day for beta in live is so long

As i see the ele is in patch annoucement for half of year nearly

From jan so uncertainly when it is live

Even somewhat odie try to make crit additive with ninja patch in hera flask patch

[late oracle]

Yeah that's the point I'm making, the beta version doesn't cut it right now. I have to fully juice attack to get 60k less than a heretic with 70% less stats than me. Notably since I'm testing as attacker I'm getting more stats from bastion.

[visual crescent]

But see many complain about downside of m chakram so he force to make crit additive again

[late oracle]

I think crit is fine tbh

[visual crescent]

My view crit additive is somehow many guys cant get used to yet for before ang 2.0 so he try to make more preparation with gear

I dont. Say multiple crit is good but yeah it is in here for a long time like how refinery is to change

[fringe mirage]

Show a real build where you turn 1 ss him and another where you let him hit you fully and then you ss counter back.

[half karma]

Ppl complained about chakram? But its pretty much a tradeoff (dmg for pen) 😐

[fringe mirage]

Until then, I dont buy it. Ill hoc my second mirror and go gilga

[late oracle]

I don't think m3 is on the beta

Of course I beat him live no question

[gritty plinth]

Beta version of gilga can't be full ward/survivability like it used to; so it does probably die to 200-300k turn 1

[half karma]

I thought ppl liked chakram

[fringe mirage]

I need sequencer to even get chakram to pen turn 1 on most ppl

Its zeroed most of the time

[signal heron]

Chakram is great, it kills me plenty 😆
(I am the target audience for dying to Chakram)

[fringe mirage]

Ok if you're showing live you're still refusing to show what your defensive build is for him to hit that high

[late oracle]

Its glassy, but even when I go full tank I get hit 150-200k scythe

[fringe mirage]

And you survive the hit

Counter and kill him

[visual crescent]

I even can zero rend epee

[fringe mirage]

Gilga does NOT die to turn 1 from that hit at your AL

[visual crescent]

But yeah not with ai bot arena

[signal heron]

The convo moves on way too quickly so I can't back read through it all, but something I've been trying to propose is SS3 being more like Realmstrikes or Chakram. Hit big on lower defense targets, but doesn't cut it against higher defense targets.

Then SS2 and SS1 each have higher penetration and a lower multiplier

[late oracle]

Yes I agree

[signal heron]

I think this might've been the original intention from when SS1/2/3 were rebalanced a few years ago, but it didn't quite hit the mark since even SS3 still has an M1 of 2

Probably originally balanced by Warrior classes having a lower attack stat, which ascension, hybrid amities, and other power creep has mostly changed.

[half karma]

I tested to some extent and was under the impression that the beta is trying to revert some of those

[late oracle]

We're there unannounced further changes to gilga on beta? I'm actually hitting considerably higher now

[half karma]

My pvp dmg fell a bunch, but pve didnt take that big of a hit (thankfully)

[signal heron]

Well, 'unannounced' isn't exactly true, let me dig it up

'quietly announced' is closer lol

[mint holly]

Yeah. Me too

[signal heron]

Oh Odie only announced it in the ORN chat

Nvm, unannounced

[half karma]

He's tweaking numbers, nice. Its gonna be a matter of finding that sweet sweet sweetspot

[late oracle]

This is the pvp cap right? Raids feel about the same but I'm hitting a lot higher in pvp

[mint holly]

I thought that was already done to the skills already. Wasn’t it?

[fringe mirage]

This is what i camped on defense and offense.

This is beta also. 111 AL

[mint holly]

3 is supposed to be highest m2 and 1 is supposed to be lowest?

[signal heron]

Yes

[pseudo sonnet]

should be but wasnt in beta iirc

[signal heron]

No, that is literally the case in live and beta

It's just the SS3 still has an M1 of 2, which is really high

SS2 has an M1 of 2.4, SS1 has an M1 of 3

[mint holly]

All too high

With the current calculations

[pseudo sonnet]

What's rs2 m1?

[pseudo sonnet]

Why are people hitting more with ss1 then that's never been the case in live

[late oracle]

The cap I think

You hit the cap easier with the ward usage from ss3

[signal heron]

In that beta iteration all three skills had the same M2 cap, SS3 hit it the earliest

[fringe mirage]

Hey now. There's a turn one you want to stay m1 of 5 😆

[mint holly]

🫢it doesn’t get quad scaling

[fringe mirage]

If that can take out high AL, ss damage output is perfectly fine too still

It could go lower even, but where its at is fine for now

[mint holly]

Disagree. But it’s same old. Anyways can’t nerf all the good physical pen skills. Epee can wait

[fringe mirage]

You don't think ss damage is enough? Lol

[mint holly]

I meant nerfing ss and epee. They need a high pen skill. And epee is far from busted. Has a lot of counter play.

[fringe mirage]

This is my beta 111 AL gilga with a garbage offense. Its literally a quick cast axe and I'm hitting over 100k lol

[late oracle]

Yeah tbh I was going off yesterday's beta numbers, didn't realize there was a change. These don't feel bad.

[pseudo sonnet]

post numbers.@west verge please do the same

[late oracle]

With my Hercules its like
Live- ss1: 500k ss3- infinity
Beta- ss1 - 250k ss3 - 120k

[signal heron]

So the M2 cap looks like it's still in place

[pseudo sonnet]

250k with a high m1 flat miss chance spell from a tank. Not a fan personally.

[fringe mirage]

I think the previous iteration was more balanced

[late oracle]

Fwiw if I switch to a 'tank' setup my damage goes down to about 190k

I think anyone could piece me out in the setup I'm using to hit 250

[pseudo sonnet]

No gilga is going to agree tho so Odie is going to have a tough decision to make. Balance the game or make gilgas op and happy. A tank shouldnt be hitting crit level damage turn 1.

[fringe mirage]

That build on pvp. That's not glass

At all

[fringe mirage]

I'd settle for something in between yesterday's and today, but still too high, I agree

[pseudo sonnet]

A flat hit chance spell should have that m1 or hit for that much turn 1

[fringe mirage]

8k def and 7.3k res pumping out over 100k with a shit build is crazy lol

[fringe mirage]

Yep. I guess I would take it as is now if flat miss is removed from it

Being 7% compared to 10% on the others with much lower m1 is crazy too

[mint holly]

Agree with both. The “tank” part is very important. There’s much more investment from other classes to get to those numbers

And accuracy

And what’s going on with Selene hands?

[late oracle]

I'm still in favor of the flat miss rate removal. I think this is part of the problem, your shit build is pumping out a lot more than I think it should, you'd expect the margins between shit build and nigh perfect build to be a bit different.

[signal heron]

There needs to be some seperation between PvP and PvE balance concerns. Most of the people advocating for nerfing SS damage for PvP aren't the ones who then need to actually play using it for raiding and similar.

[late oracle]

The build I use to get into 200 range has 11k more attack and 6k less defense than the shit build

[fringe mirage]

I'm fine with it staying as it is in live PvE honestly 😂. Idc what people are hitting there. Tone it down for other classes so it's not as viable an option

But then tearing through the new anguish 🤷‍♂️. So ppl care

[late oracle]

Honestly needs to be toned down slightly from live in PvE to not trivialize anguish. A lot of people forgot this is a PvE patch I think.

[fringe mirage]

Yeah, so tone it down some. Tone it down a bit more for others. But pvp tweaking was pretty ok. Remove the flat miss or make it at a minimum 10% like chakram and rs2

Still don't think it should have flat miss though unless the m1 is toned down

[gritty plinth]

(Give gilga a different source of damage)

[signal heron]

This is an Anguish patch, not a Gilga patch

I don't disagree, but this patch is having a hard enough time getting out the door as it is

[gritty plinth]

(Advocate with me for a different future source of damage for gilga)

[unborn spruce]

Completely agree but I guess the point is to make sure we can still do the content equally with the new anguish system so it’s kinda tied too I feel.
I have to go back to testing tonight after work but I’m only AL50 so not sure how pertinent my feedback is for the future

I see lots of people already doing anguish 40-50… and it is like day 4. I was not that lucky to get all the tokens to grind that high in beta anguish.

[fringe mirage]

(They have one)

[late oracle]

This is because there are a lot of tools in beta to make it really quick to just level up if you wanted to, I'm sure testing at any level is appreciated

[unborn spruce]

I was going the long way I guess, trying to kill raid boss, one anguish at a time and trying to drop the gear with the good anguish level etc etc

[fringe mirage]

And it's squishy.

[late oracle]

Give ursa Osmostrike 4

[fringe mirage]

Too much crit but still lol I didnt optimize it by any means

[late oracle]

I think more tools are always welcome for variety/counterplay purposes, but yeah it shouldnt really derail the anguish patch. Like if the ss line was more differentiated like Knight suggested I think thats pretty cool

[gritty plinth]

Does this compete with ss in current beta patch

[late oracle]

No SS is better

[fringe mirage]

In PvE idk. Doubtful. Pvp, yes while being squishy like everyone else

[late oracle]

But again maybe if optimized, I've seen good osmostrike build on live

[gritty plinth]

Ok so that's the part that's still missing after this patch. I'm fine with just a partial nerf to ss now

Then a gilga rebalance sometime in the ""near"" future

The fabled balance patch

[pseudo sonnet]

That’s why I’m a little confused about why he’s making so many changes at once. But I guess game design isn’t quite like scientific theory, where you usually try to adjust just one variable at a time.

[gritty plinth]

Vibes-based balancing is peak game design

Fun > balance

[late oracle]

TBH I don't think this patch initially had any intention to implement PvP changes, that was encouraged by this thread.

[fringe mirage]

This is live with 10 al g.ursa

Yes, I got lucky I know lol

[gritty plinth]

On live I tried out 0al gilga ss3 on arena and killed a lot of people lol

This is very funny, why is Bwubble on RSC Ultima

[fringe mirage]

Maybe trying to show off ultima shenanigans and forgot to take it off. But ultima doesn't even work against most and if it does it's short lived lol

[mint holly]

Back when heretic was getting reworked they were saying that it was an identity patch, not a balance patch. That this would be the balance patch. Now it’s just an anguish patch.

[gritty plinth]

No anguish patch and balance patch are different, I think

[late oracle]

Yeah I think there was a community vote to see what was highest priority and anguish won

[mint holly]

We don’t know lol

[half karma]

Having a balance patch and then an ang patch may make another balance patch needed since ang will change a bunch of stuff

[mint holly]

And spiked shield won this one.

[half karma]

So its better to ang and then balance I think

[mint holly]

It’s just a matter of too much at once I think.

[late oracle]

Yeah I think the original poll wasnt just for the beta people, it was global and on reddit and such

just my recollection though

[fringe mirage]

Balance needs to happen in such a big patch. It's unavoidable. Trying to completely ignore one aspect of the game while it's being affected by the other would be horrible. We would be waiting another yr+ to see changes in pvp

[mint holly]

Yes. That’s how I feel. However…ascensions are also a problem. And anguish is supposed to help with that. (I think?) Both are overdue

Heretic identity was also the last remaining.

So I can understand why it’s so complicated. It’s a lot. And they’re also trying to do all this without breaking the game and pissing people off

Jeez. I’ll never own a gaming studio. Ever. 😂 No matter what

[late oracle]

FWIW I've been saying a while that heretic needs help

[plush plover]

silly question, if ss is going to be nerfed, would it still even be worth playing and trying to build a gilga. or best just to throw my hat in and change classes. ive never come close to the "OP busted to the max" point of SS, fully buffed in raids i hit maybe 1.5m. AL 17 190k~ ward.

[late oracle]

You should play gilga if you think they are cool

[mint holly]

Lol. Always some people that will use a class just cause it’s broken

[gritty plinth]

Heretic sure feels a lot nicer! There may be balance issues with the class still but I think they're relatively minor tbh

Before the rework (2h too) anguish was mostly inaccessible

[plush plover]

i like the class that is why i play it, just kinda feels bad looking at the disc and seeing oh btw we plan on nerfing your main skill because some people can abuse it too far.

[mint holly]

If you liked broken ss then do switch and help out the studio.

[gritty plinth]

It's really not.because some people can.abuse ss too far. It's because it's just too strong

[late oracle]

Then test and give your input, I played gilga even when ss was considered 'weaker' but I like the playstyle of hitting them with a purple bar

[plush plover]

i didnt like summ, i didnt like deity, i didnt like heretic. how is that me playing the broken class?

if im going to be investing my time into continuing leveling a class, would it still be worth using. is it going to be a waste of my time.

[mint holly]

You’re basing your decision off of 1 skill. That’s how. But that’s not here nor there. Just test and decide.

It will. They all do

[late oracle]

Actually can @golden sigil make a skin where a gilga is just wielding the ward bar like a baseball bat?

[half karma]

Ignore high AL players in that matter lol
Gilga will still have the same playstyle, its just getting some tweaks. You wont feel the difference

[mint holly]

They’ll all be worth it in the end. If you like the dynamics, you’ll still love the class

I been heretic since day one. Never changed. Even when it was trash.

[fringe mirage]

Gilga has always been a little rough at the lower ALs. Far better now than it used to be though

Raid gear is easy to get these days so its not a struggle for long if you're missing gear to make it good

[half karma]

Gilgas performance in low ALs is highly tied to cele axe now

[plush plover]

sorry for asking a question. guess i should just shut up and play a spreadsheet, because i obviously only want to play "bis" i couldnt possibly like the class and want to play it but also value my time.

[half karma]

Of course you still need some ward gear

[mint holly]

I already answered you. If you like the class you will still like it after.

But that’s just an opinion. In the end, it’ll be your call

[gritty plinth]

This statement is a little confusing. If you like the class, your time will never be wasted

But yes there are many ongoing efforts to make sure Gilga isn't neutered to the ground

[mint holly]

You’ll be fine man. Studio always on top of things. They don’t let things get out of hand….

[young river]

Some testing data with new caps in Arena 5 hits each, Base Gilga, turn 1 damage only, misses and blocks thrown out. Damage expressed in thousands.
10.3k attack 332.6k ward
SS1 146 159 119 125 164
SS2 121 131 91 12 94
SS3 70 75 66 96 95

8.3k attack 357k ward
SS1 124 89 123 99 94
SS2 95 67 86 80 72
SS3 73 65 61 80 86

6.5k attack 391k ward
SS1 83 74 97 68 71
SS2 48 70 54 79 52
SS3 33 33 19 46 49

6.3k attack 425k ward
SS1 96 70 62 94 84
SS2 50 48 72 71 80
SS3 35 16 13 23 27

[hazy comet]

Great data thanks for sharing with the group. To note, your actual ward when swinging was half this value, correct?

[young river]

Yes, turn 1 so half ward

[mint holly]

Seeing those numbers makes me thing about ss1 vs ss3 after being buffed. Is 3 still best for raiding and stuff?

[young river]

Fwiw I am still not seeing much of a variation between turn 1 and full ward damage with the higher ward builds, so I would assume I am starting at or near m2 cap

[young river]

From what I saw my SS3 raiding is only down about 25% from live

[mint holly]

Random opponents or same?

[young river]

The caps are only in pvp content

[young river]

just 5 random arena opponents

[mint holly]

Got ya.

[gritty plinth]

I assume the damage numbers are in the thousands

[young river]

yes

[hazy comet]

Absolutely agreed. But that is the inherent issue with SS3. It was fine for raiding , but the PVP / tower / ang Dungeon damage was basically Raid damage levels

[west verge]

Every morning, John Orna rises at dawn. Not because he wants to — no, because he must. His solemn duty? Testing Spiked Shield Balance. Day in, day out, he straps on that cursed shield, gets launched across the battlefield like a human Beyblade, and takes notes. For free.

"Still broken," he mutters, as his body slides across the floor in PvP for the 19th time before breakfast.

He’s filed 873 reports. Written 4 novels worth of feedback. Cried in 3 developer Q&As.

Yet every day, the shield spins.
Every day, balance eludes him.
And every day, John Orna returns to his desk, whispering:

"How is it still this overpowered..."

Godspeed, John. We don’t deserve you.

[broken bough]

you are just so interesting

[west verge]

ill be putting this on my wall of Odie comments

[broken bough]

you're going to need a bigger wall soon

[west verge]

are the canadians invading

[young river]

I have been seeing quite a lot of Ontario License plates lately, most all heading North though.

[golden sigil]

this was beautiful, do you have any links to your novels?

[west verge]

you'll have to ask John Orna, i think his tier 3 patreon unlocks them.

along with sweaty gilga sprites

[signal heron]

### Addressing the Spiked Shield balance concerns
- Spiked Shield/Chained Shield rework
- Balanced damage, removing the lategame exponential growth with ascension
- The Attack stat will now be best for scaling damage alongside large Ward pools
- Spiked Shield III now has the most penetration (vs Spiked Shield I/II)
- Increased the effectiveness when used by the later Valor classline members
- Spiked Shield damage is now capped in PvP, similar to other endgame skills
- Steady Hands of Selene: reduced Hybrid bonus and added negative follower action rate

Current iteration

@half karma you asked about this

[trim ruin]

Balanced damage, removing the lategame exponential growth with ascension
This isn't true, in my testing so far. 😕

[late oracle]

What other skills are capped? Ultima?

[signal heron]

I can only provide the patch notes

[signal heron]

Ultima, Ara Vesta

Blood Pact?

[trim ruin]

BP is the only other capped skill in pvp.
There's a few (ultima, av) that have reduced pvp effectiveness (!= cap).

[signal heron]

I assume it's just weird wording from Odie and he meant similar to other endgame skills [having caps/reductions]

[trim ruin]

it's in a similar category. fey unstables with limited m1 in pvp also ig.

[signal heron]

He once tried to add a reduction to Realm Strikes before we told him that Realm Strikes isn't even that good in PvP with it's current M1

I forget which public beta that was

[fringe mirage]

Were the m1 values just changed on ss1 and ss3 to make ss3 be the highest? Or was it a complete change to all m1 values

[trim ruin]

I think all the M1s were changed around. (SS3 > SS2 > SS1 in M1 and M2, with the M2 being capped in pvp).

[fringe mirage]

Ok, just curious. Still not thrilled about the flat miss chance being 7%, but I guess it kind of depends on the new values

[trim ruin]

From a pve perspective -- fixedmiss doesn't matter as much without enemy scaling dex, but the damage reduction seems very small. Way smaller than it would need to be if the hope was for players to use something other than high-ward CS builds in anguished pve.

For pvp, I hope the cap works well. Capping BP was ultimately a pretty good change, in a similar way, a while back.

[pseudo sonnet]

So SS1 has the highest m2 now and has the least M1? Everything got switched?

[gritty plinth]

Blood pact has a cap

[fringe mirage]

Blood pact still dominates in the ai pvp world though idc how much that's argued, I've lived it 😂. With the caps I'm certain I can survive a couple SS probably, from most since I can usually survive at least 1 now, but we'll see how the lower ALs fare

I guess the solution there is more ALs instead of fighting that fight and refusing to gain them since time and time again the vote is uncapped

[sly geode]

I can test CS/SS damage in anguish towers whenever, id prefer to only have to do it one or two more times though

Any idea if the changes are semi settled for now?

[gritty plinth]

Literally no one knows

[fringe mirage]

Strahd said his raiding is only down about 25% from live soo.. it's probably pretty settled or close to it at this point with there being caps in pvp and changes in m1/m2. Only thing I could see getting a change is the flat miss chance which is kind of irrelevant in PvE now. I don't see much changing unless there's some bugs that need to be worked out

[trim ruin]

Raiding is definitely not down 25% 😅 and afaict it's not down more the more ascended you are either.

[fringe mirage]

Then maybe more changes to come 😆

[late oracle]

I think it is, I'm seeing about a 35-40% reduction from live

[west verge]

same

[sly geode]

Sorry gilga friends, its overtuned again

[west verge]

Every day, balance eludes him.

or something idk

[sly geode]

Ultimately it'll come down to how odie wants anguished balance

My opinion is that I shouldn't ever be one tapping mobs at ang 40, but that'll be unpopular im sure

Could also just nerf prom shoulders 🤷‍♂️

[late oracle]

Tbh I think the pvp scalability could be looked at, I deal effectively the same damage whether I'm playing with 0 al or 187. Feel like those AL should have some impact.

[pseudo sonnet]

How much are you hitting turn 1 with the current updates?

[graceful moon]

Are the rewards worth it? Seems like way too much time drain just to get a little more shards squeezed daily

[sly geode]

If i had all my gear on the beta I could go faster, but im working with slightly limited set ups

Im also under ascended for ang 40

[junior imp]

There's be a middle ground here, might still be overturned for PvE.

Glad the PvP part is toned down (hopefully appropriately so) now. If we just need to tweak the PvE numbers, that should be relatively easy for Odie. Bring down either M1 or M2, or ward scaling etc

[late oracle]

80-100k ss1
140-160k ss3

[sly geode]

For sure

Im not trying to make it unusable, but its head and shoulders above anything else i can put together for towers

Everything else realistically caps out around 25. Current SS/CS probably takes me to 45 with time being the only limiting factor

[graceful moon]

Yeah, I agree to that, but I mean, let's say I can run a 20-25 like a breeze. and ang 40-45 require optimal setup/ascension levels plus still time commitment.

[sly geode]

Yeah, if 20-25 was a breeze id agree

Its a breeze with CS, everything else is a struggle

[graceful moon]

i agree that we need more variety 🙂

[sly geode]

And the first few levels of shackles CS feels like the only option at all, because having 10 ALs or whatever at ang 10 is rough. Need the ward to not die,, and we all know about the damage

Non realm classes might feel different, but the lack of dex makes me very squishy

So its really CS all the way down

[pseudo sonnet]

Thanks for sharing. You are hitting 140k at 0al's? Thats high. Id say that needs some scaling if its the same at your AL's.

[late oracle]

Yeah its definitely an issue at al0

Way too much

[pseudo sonnet]

This going away from SS1 having high m1 and low m2 and SS3 having low m1 and high m2 is interesting. Now gilgas dont even need to think! Just hit SS3

[graceful moon]

so riftrogue head with pumpkinless/beguiled x boots?

[late oracle]

What do you mean now

[half karma]

Damn, enemies dont even hit dorados

Thats a tank 2.0

[late oracle]

Beta 0al does like 80% more than on live
Beta 187 Al does like 80% less than on live

[sly geode]

Spiked shield 3 having higher pen is definitely really odd to me.

Current beta build gave me a bunch of damage for free even against high def enemies

[half karma]

If im playing warrior i dont wanna think. Leave that to those mage nerds

[sly geode]

Pumpkinless is still very much the go to for dorado, head piece varies a lot

[late oracle]

We don't like to discuss avoidance in here.

[half karma]

I see club. I see head. I connect them both. Done

[half karma]

Damn the scaling removal really weighs

[pseudo sonnet]

You are right nothing changed! lol

[trim ruin]

candles 🙂
https://discordapp.com/channels/448527960056791051/1369695388432334878/1370136900534407275

[fringe mirage]

So the prom shoulders theory that came around months ago has come true? Lol. No need for the selene hands, just jump to prom shoulders

[graceful moon]

i agree to a certain point and disagree as well.
look how they can buff realm/hera through upgrading skills and class passives without touching ss/cs

[sly geode]

None of those changes are really buffs that move the anguish needle. I thnk I can make realmshift work in really cool ways, but calling them buffs is a stretch

none of those changes moved the anguish towers needle ~at all

[graceful moon]

thats another issue, i meant you can buff smh without touching others

also not saying ss/cs should be nerfed as well. arguing just to argue kek

[young river]

The latest version is more like 7.5 mill to 6.5 mill in raids

[west verge]

Is CS weaker than all other SS skills now?

[young river]

At least on training cactus it doesn't appear weaker than ss1

[half karma]

Just tested it here and its dealing less dmg than ss1 for me

[pseudo sonnet]

Did we decide SS doesn't need flat miss chance since it's got way better m1 then rs and chakram and Ang 2.0 doesn't have Dex scaling?

I also feel like it's unfair to heretics and beo's who actually need to build dex to hit people in pvp.

[hazy comet]

That has my vote

[shell quarry]

Agreed

@west verge, what is shield bash (warden spec skill) looking like with your Als in beta?

[mint holly]

Not just pvp.

[restive phoenix]

Agreed. There is no situation where a tank should out damage a glass cannon with a near guaranteed chance to hit.

My Dorado feels so helpless and such a waste coming up against SS

[young river]

Just as an aside, glass cannon SS builds are way better than tank SS builds now

So, I am not agreed that we need to change the fixed miss rate atm. I'd like to see how it plays out on live for awhile. It's really hard to get good pvp data on Beta

[fringe mirage]

Thing is gilgas don't die to glass cannon hits. Not even an 80 AL gilga usually. They immediately ss1 back if they are wise enough to slot it. Ss1 is almost always cast turn 1 even over WoO. It's one of the reasons I would not slot ss3. That counter kills a glass cannon immediately

[young river]

From your comment, I am going to guess you haven't done extensive testing? I highly doubt anyone will be using SS1 now once they have levelled to SS2, then Ss3 etc

And the SS3 damage in a traditional high ward defensive build is not going to be killing anyone that invests in decent defense

Which reinforces my point of why we should not be too hasty in adding more changes right now. I think people need time to see how this has changed things in a broader setting.

[fringe mirage]

Not in beta, no. Historically and as it is now in live yes. But your turn 1 90k ss is still killing a glass cannon

[young river]

You are not hitting a turn 1 190k SS in Beta right now unless maybe you are on a 17 attack build

[late oracle]

Tbh, I would prefer to remove the fixed miss rate and juice the attack scaling a bit. In the latest version, I'm able to hit the cap relatively easily, and the difference between me having 10k attack and 18k attack is negligible. So incentivized to go alot more tanky

[fringe mirage]

Turn 1 90k. Not 190k

[young river]

That would require 11-12k probably

[late oracle]

This might be a high al problem, but not too sure since I'm hitting good numbers in ascensionless play

[young river]

I won't say ward doesn't matter for SS in pvp anymore but after a marginal amount it really doesn't

[fringe mirage]

I will survive a turn 1 ss now simply because I'm 173 AL and I'm 66k hp 44k ward on the build. Most glass cannons will not survive a counter

[young river]

So, if you want to hit big damage, you are now sacrificing ward in pvp content

And honestly I have no idea what the new m1 values are now, I know SS1 is lowest and SS3 is highest

And I know there is an M2 cap in pvp that seems pretty low

But other than that, no one has mathed it out that I've seen

[young river]

That may be an option, though honestly I think people would dislike that mroe since I can build a super dexy Ursa build that hits 4x as hard now.

[late oracle]

Yeah, I could see that, but at least you have to itemize dex and are likely weaker.

[young river]

Pumpkinless, Beguiled Polly Y

[thin tiger]

I am stoked to test some ss numbers and put some pve data

Hyperon gear looks real good rn too

[late oracle]

I just made a build with 130k HP on my herc and 440k ward and I easily hit the damage cap evne after taking a hit. Since attack seems a bit undervalued I don't see any reason to stack it after a certain threshold.

[thin tiger]

Live or beta?

[late oracle]

Beta

[thin tiger]

Al?

[late oracle]

187

[thin tiger]

180 right?

Yeah so. You should probably hit cap without anguish on?

[late oracle]

This is PvP so no anguish, but I do hit the cap pretty easily, then I'm encouraged to just spec full tank from there it seems

[young river]

At Al 94, I only lost about a millionish on raid damage witht he exact same build, I haven't tried tinkering yet to see if there is an ideal balance of attack/ward

[thin tiger]

Gotcha. I am stocked to get my hands on a beta mirror to do some better testing. Looks like only losing a milli is ok right? For pve?

[restive phoenix]

Sure that may be the case, however it's not really my point. Tank SS builds should never be better than full glass cannon builds. It's fundamentally wrong

[young river]

And I am saying they aren't?

Really, the new iteration of SS has turned everything you know about it (for pvp purposes especially) on it's head. All I can say is go test it

[fringe mirage]

Pvp is hard to test without testing it against someone else's mirror directly that is built on pvp. Arena gives the same results at 0 AL vs leaving AL active from my tests there. Cactus, but I've heard Arena is what is usually done for testing 🤷‍♂️

[young river]

Exactly why I'd like to let people experience it on live before calling for more changes. It's not the same skill line it was before

[fringe mirage]

Oh. I can do some reliable tests in beta actually. HoC'ed my old heretic mirror to gilga. Only 111 AL in the beta with the gilga and 173 on my heretic. Ill try it out

[young river]

I know people have a lot of beef with how the skill has been, even I had beef with it and it's been my bread and butter since 2021 in at least 3 different variations witht he 4th in testing.

I can do some Territory fights vs another one of my mirrors and show some videos I suppose

[late oracle]

What I'm seeing is there is little to no difference in damage from me running a fully juiced Hybrid attack BoF build with 480k ward vs full HP/Armor tank 370k ward build with a tank amity. Leads me to believe A) the early scaling is a little too fast and the high end scaling caps too low. Ideally the gear and strategic choices should make more of a difference, but not sure if the direction is to put gilga to more of a full tank character

[fringe mirage]

I'm still convinced pvp is buggy on beta lol. My old heretic mirror at 154 AL has the same build as my 173 mirror. It zeros my 173 chakram out turn 1. When the 173 AL holds the settlement the 154 AL is not zeroed out turn 1

[young river]

This videos is vs my unascended mirror with only 5500 defense

And that is in my balanced Stat/Ward tanky build that only has 6500 attack

[young river]

21k attack, nice, highest I can get is 17

[west verge]

This one’s funny

[young river]

That's my glass cannon Ursa SS build with almost 17k attack and only 31k ward

That's an 10.5k attack build with 332k ward

Anyhow, just to give you some base Settlement metrics that aren't overpowered enserric :p

[west verge]

[young river]

I really need to GF my Ornate Arisen Pumpkinless Armor now I guess, or maybe the Beguiled Polly Y rogue chest I just got

[west verge]

Beg Y gear is great

Keep farming if you don’t have a set yet

[young river]

I am, when I get time, unfortunately it's not much 😐

[hazy comet]

This with flat miss basically means no counterplay 😂

EHP has to be 235k which im sure is doable as gursa at your ALs but still

[west verge]

I do think defensive AI is pretty much non threatening at this point. Even tho I do enjoy those screenshots of 182626727372822828382 spiked shield damage nearly any AL can take territory from defensive AI with a competent build.

[young river]

You are not doing that in a tanky build though

[west verge]

The build
I am hitting has a lot of defensive stats

[young river]

I meant the build you are hitting with, I mean 21k attack is not casual

HS3 Crit probably isn't that far off that in damage

[west verge]

Sorry I’m referring to pictures of my defensive AI hitting for 1.8million

[young river]

in beta?

[west verge]

Generally speaking my “tank” build which is really pre nerf Selene hands + full ward does

Not beta

This is what live damage looks like for me

[young river]

So what's your overall feeling of the skill revamp at this point?

[west verge]

Full ward in live no CD

[restive phoenix]

Not really, my 9999999 Dex Dorado still gets 1 tapped by the mega tank. Gilg can have max defense, max ward and max damage sure whatever, but to completely negate all Dex is stupid. They can't have it all

[young river]

If you don't want to go test it you could have just said that.

[west verge]

I do think this thread has some exclusive myopia towards tippy top end game and 1% PvP

Balance is all around that

That said give the way the caps seem to be working I hope gilgas earlier/mid are impacted positively?

[restive phoenix]

[west verge]

I’m not sure it works that way scaling wise tho. i.e it’s easy to hit the ware cap now

Does that bring low AL Gilga damage up?

[young river]

At least in my experience in pvp it all hinges on attack values now

Ward is a minimal player

[west verge]

Right.

[young river]

It's going to make Swash or BoF almost mandatory for low asc Gilga I'd say

[west verge]

Admittedly this means that Gilga must use swash now

It’s your only option to scale attack meaningfully

[young river]

Yep

[west verge]

It also means you must have swash gear

[young river]

I have a 0 Asc Gilga with almost the same gear, Iguess I could go do some hits

[west verge]

I think I can say, outside of damage/balance concerns, this reduces the impact ward has on Gilga towards being “one who uses ward most effectively” in both offensive or defensive situations

Now it’s just a generic attack class with a passive that doesn’t impact your SS damage as much

In one of those screens or videos I basically had no ward but similar damage

[young river]

Yeah ward really doesn't matter once you have enough to be past teh m2 cap

[west verge]

Which is great in PvP I guess, because taking those hits means I’m not a wet noodle

Presumably in pve as well

[young river]

100k ward or a million, no difference

[late oracle]

Yeah, tbh using myself and Enserric aren't great reference points. But generally agree with your point above that its not great to negate a classes primary stat. From a holistic point of view, a lot of people think 'If I have the perfect strategy I should be able to win most times" but at some point AL and gearing do come into play and I think should come into play. I think any of these 3 factors should be able to nudge winrate to an extent but the question is how much. Current system still negates dex as a stat while also negating a lot of Gilga's primary stat (ward)

[west verge]

I think my actual feeling is this is convoluted way to bend backwards to balance a skill when the real culprit is multiplicative ward

But that isn’t getting changed

[young river]

You mean the base ward itself or the scaling on the M2 value of SS?

[west verge]

I would like to test losing fixed miss chance in beta to see how it feels

[west verge]

M2 scaling on the skill would be fine if 1) it wasn’t a quadratic skill 2) fey surtr wasn’t a rounding error Frankenstein chest piece

[restive phoenix]

It certainly feels hopeless dumping all my time into grinding ALs for a class that seems completely useless against this current meta. Perhapse people will tell me just to HoC to the sweat class but like you clearly agree, that shouldn't be the solution

[young river]

I know he did reduce this but I am not sure how much

[west verge]

Well yeah it’s capped

[young river]

Or the exact method used

[west verge]

It’s a line drawn in the sand

[young river]

No I meant even in pve

the pvp is the cap

[restive phoenix]

As the kids are saying these days - Dex is a myth

[west verge]

You said reduce though. That doesn’t sound like it’s formula was changed beyond introducing a reduction beyond a certain point

Anyways pve is probably fine

[half karma]

At 77 AL my dmg in pvp (in a full atk, no def build) was cut in about 55% i think

Gursa

[west verge]

Yeah that sounds about right

Which is fine if you were doing multiples over your opponents hp already

That said it means hp + fat ward (50% absorption) is more impactful.

The 1 shot meta is nerfed for everyone now

Which is one of the goals of reducing SS effectiveness

That said, if this shipped today, I don’t think I’d ever be doing PvP on base Gilga or gherc

[half karma]

I dont care much for pvp but i can see other mid AL gilgas may have trouble working around that. Being hit and having less ward means your dmg will be very low. Gilga is a class that peaks in t1 and falls off as battle goes on

Base gilga and herc are even worse since being hit means less dmg and less stats yeah

[west verge]

Fixed miss chance probably still needs to be removed or maybe reduced? But it’s less of a problem for me, I can get 7k+ dexterity on a pvp build

[half karma]

I think I may be a better representative of gilgas community (as a player) because i have good items but im not supercharged like you guys heheh

[half karma]

I think fixed miss opens up variety, but having it not fixed makes us choose between a high dex, low survivability build and low dex, better survivability build

For me. Those are the builds i have access to right now

Variety is good, but it may be a bit too safe as is with fixed miss

Though i remember missing dorados and deities a lot even with fixed miss

Nowadays I mostly fight summoners and beos

[sly geode]

The problem with fixed miss chance is it's basically 1 amity or 1 gear piece away from becoming always hit

Which in PvE is maybe an interesting choice, but in PvP is problematic

[fringe mirage]

Didn't run extensive tests min/maxing to the new changes on gilga in the beta, but running at 111 AL against my 173 AL it is a huge improvement from what it was. I can still one shot the glass cannon build, but tank builds have way more viability now it seems which is nice. You don't need to be a complete glass cannon when on defense in the ai world, but idk if we could get the damage to kill off a tank. It would certainly stall longer if nothing else

Squishy vs tank build didn't seem to change my turn 1 dmg much against the glass cannon though

Maybe thats due to bristles bringing my attack down on the squishier ss build

[pseudo sonnet]

Imo I think thats good. Glass cannon gilga to do big dmg. Not tank doing big dmg.

[pseudo sonnet]

If I could ever get into the beta I can hoc and stop around different al's and do tests.

[young river]

Yeah this was what I was saying earlier, it's much easier to build big dex when you don't have to worry at all about ward

In my opinion now as far as counterplay it's much the same as you'd go against a Deity Ursa BoF build @hazy comet maybe you have some more thoughts on this?

I need to go test out some Ursa strikes now I guess

[hazy comet]

You cant dodge ss3

So you can only try to tank a hit with HP/Def

I dont consider any status cheese beyond turn 1 or all the protect shenanigans part of 'counterplay'

I think skills being able to 1 shot is normal, but not simultaneously being able to one shot tanks and high dex targets consistently

Thats just not balanced

[fringe mirage]

Does anyone know the m1 and m2 values? Or did odie not disclose them to ORN

[hazy comet]

Rs2/chakram cant one shot a high def target so they are balanced in a sense. Counterplay exists

[hazy comet]

They exist but have changed a bunch so can't remember what they are at atm

[fringe mirage]

If ensseric wants to try to one shot my tank heretic build on beta we can do that. No way I could produce enough damage to kill him in return, but just for survival sake

Since we're close in AL

Well maybe I could. I would need to play around with it a lot though which I don't have time for atm, but just to see how it does against a fragile class

[young river]

If Enserric can't one shot you, ain't many who could 😄

[hazy comet]

Not a bad test

[west verge]

@fringe mirage

whats your stat screen look like

this is whats my other mirror is running. on warden + 15% territory amity.

golems + barrier 2 + DC

this is actually what my turn one SS1 damage looks like in live against a similarly tanky build.

aaru armor version

[pseudo sonnet]

That's some crazy m1 that it's not getting zeroed which I'm okay with if flat miss goes away

[west verge]

its also 31,000 attack multiplied by w/e this m1 is...2.5?

but yeah, if flat miss goes away then we can just run dex against each other

also off the top of my head, the tankiest gear doesnt tend to have very high dex values

[fringe mirage]

Im also missing a lot of the tanky new gear - I could be tankier if I had it

[hazy comet]

To be clear are you advocating that flat miss stays or gets removed?

[west verge]

yeah thats roughly near what my mirror has so experience would be similar

i think there are options either way.

[shell quarry]

Stat charts @fringe mirage

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H1Fa-J8DgF-5rkupEbOW90cREhmr6xukn_jGstjEfmo/htmlview#

[fringe mirage]

Thanks, but this doesn't have beta changes. M1 and m2s were all changed

[shell quarry]

Oh sorry - thought you just meant current in live. MB!

[west verge]

in inspiration of that chatgpt summary of Higsby's diety analysis in the other thread, I've asked our friend Claude to take all 2710 messages in this thread and come up with some additional balance ideas. but first, a summary.

im a big fan of this one:

[echo bone]

I would much rather see the skill deal 1/10 if used by another class than it be "exclusive" personally

[gritty plinth]

Whoa did someone suggest the different shield variants?

I kinda mentioned making ss give ward back and have low damage (as a sustain tool instead of damage) but not this whole differentiation

[west verge]

dunno. likely out of scope for this patch but i think that is a neat idea. We sort of already had variants (s1 high pen low damage) (s3 lower pen high damage)

Geppu did mention this though, about having SS skills have variations to what they do

[half karma]

I do see my ward getting drained way faster now with CS. What happened?

[west verge]

like proc temp buffs, debuffs, or provoke

[west verge]

if it hits twice it was always a large drain on ward

havent heard about anything additional

[half karma]

I know about that 😂
I mean it feels it drains more in beta (?)

I might be mistaken though, or i switched something and didnt realise it

[sly geode]

I anecdotally felt it was draining more ward than usual when I was testing it yesterday

So there might have been a change

[fringe mirage]

No worries, I was actually looking for that link a little before you sent it lol

[pseudo sonnet]

Deity Al 120 beta server SS3

Bof spec rend and hs3 damage damage pretty much

Why go glass cannon if I hit more with ss3 and I'm a tank.

I wonder the amount of damage beoh can put out

[echo bone]

SS3 vs V4

[pseudo sonnet]

Why are you not using a lute with ss3?

[echo bone]

Realizing Wrong shield too 😅

My builds on beta are a bit of mess rn lol, gimme a min

[pseudo sonnet]

If only you had Stu G or what ever it is for 15% more damage.

There is no reason for beoh to not use SS3 even hitting that much because flat hit chance and you are still a tank.

Let me see it optimized tho I know you can do it!

[late oracle]

Suggest: adding a spiked shield to your loadout starts your ward at 50%

[pseudo sonnet]

Or SS3 can only be used on Gilga classes.

I'm really trying to help balance this deity and beoh use ss3 way more effectively than Gilga imo

[late oracle]

Yeah I'm pro gilga restriction tbh, just too much of a nightmare to balance around so many different starting conditions

[echo bone]

SS3

V4

(AL99)

[mint holly]

Jeez. Still broken. That’s rough

[pseudo sonnet]

One you are a tank with flat miss the other one you will miss all the time and are so glassy

[half karma]

Damn. I think SS shouldnt be equippable by non valor then

[mint holly]

That would be a first. Wonder what kind of problems that will bring with time.

[thin tiger]

I think flat miss was dropped this beta right?

[mint holly]

But it’s really tough seeing another way. Other classes can just use it better.

[gritty plinth]

Feels like class-locked spells are completely fine

[thin tiger]

Its been that was for years 😅

The other classes use ss better

[gritty plinth]

Apex spells work that way, as do flasks

[mint holly]

It was put back. Pretty sure

[thin tiger]

F

(As a gilga main I feel that way)

[mint holly]

Those are made specifically for classes. Both kind of new. Eventually someone will want to lock ultima. And verse. And realmstrikes. And such. That’s what I mean

[thin tiger]

I gotta get some anguish testing going with the new mirror on beta. But man SS

[late oracle]

There are a few skills that are basically class limited, summons, beo calls, realmshift

[echo bone]

I've said it before but I'm personally very against class locked spells, would rather see it get -90% Dmg being used by non-gilga classes than completely locked out of it

[gritty plinth]

Why

[half karma]

A 90% malus is pretty much locking it. Like summoning and calls

[mint holly]

Yeah. I agree. Idk about 90 though. lol. But for sure 50-75% straight damage reduction. That would still be pretty high numbers.

[echo bone]

Yes but then the option is still there for those of us who just want to have fun with silly builds sometimes

(90% was just a random number, I wasn't actually being serious with it)

[gritty plinth]

That's just hardly relevant tbh. Silly builds should not hinder balance

[echo bone]

No, but balance shouldn't hinder fun

[pseudo sonnet]

Is SS fun right now?

[mint holly]

Tbf, 90% isn’t THAT far off. lol. 90% of 400k is still 40k

[echo bone]

I didn't say it was???

[mint holly]

With a couple more ALs, if it keeps the no miss…

[half karma]

How many ppl would even use this (like summoning) to make it worth it?

Not even summoners like summons lol

[echo bone]

More than if it was completely locked?

[gritty plinth]

But why is this a hill worth dying on

[late oracle]

Give the 2-turn version to non valor

They don't have big shield muscles

[mint holly]

Give em 3

[half karma]

In any way, what matters is that SS should be unviable to non valor, otherwise everyone will be "valorlike"

[mint holly]

2 turn for 1 and 2. And 3 turn for 3. They have the defenses. Well, deity does

[echo bone]

One option completely locks everyone except Gilga out of it, the other option does the same but let's people who want to still have fun with it, same way everything else like summons, Ara Vestaga, calls, etc all work??

[mint holly]

Vestaga is weird. It’s either bugged, or has the lowest m1 ever

[echo bone]

It requires sigils to deal decent Dmg

[gritty plinth]

Not everything else but I understand what you're saying. IMO the balancing act is not worth it

[gritty plinth]

I would much rather an option like this

[half karma]

Im not against it, but even with that huge extra debuff its still VERY MUCH viable, even meta still

Make it fixed 50 accuracy idk

[gritty plinth]

-90% to make it unusable? Hardly worth discussing, doesn't matter if you lock it or not. Adding an extra turn so people would have to build it around it? Fun choice

[echo bone]

I said "-90%" as a random number, not a serious number

Which I said earlier

[gritty plinth]

Any serious number would require balancing

And that balance is hard to reach clearly

[echo bone]

What I'm saying is if we're just gonna lock all classes out of it, why not instead just give it some insane reduction where it's basically unusable for non Gilgas, then you guys get your PvP of no one besides Gilgas using SS and PvE people can still at least attempt silly things with it

The "-90%" was just the first to pop into my mind as that's what it is when non-summoners use summons

Now do I think either of these options are the best choice? No. But if I had to pick one or the other why not pick the one that gives the same results but adheres to more people?

[gritty plinth]

The only reason I would actively dislike this option is if it resulted in a difficult to balance skill and caused additional problems later on

IMO spiked shield skills are inherently imbalanced, and are so tied to gilga things that balancing around other classes is just not worthwhile

That's unlike Ultima which is just a high mag high pen skill

[trim ruin]

Is it people's opinion that SS isn't also busted on Gilga? Not just focusing on pvp but considering pve as well.
Lock it to gilga if you must, but even gilgas should want to consider using any other skill.

[gritty plinth]

Imagine if other classes had access to apex skills and could use them without charging apex. How much of a reduction in effectiveness would they need

It's not a great analogy but the point is that ss is very directly tied to the stuff gilga cares about

[trim ruin]

I'm not sure, but I think it's a better game if there was a little more mixing. And certainly "attack stat" and "ward" are not unique to Gilga at all 😅

If ward regen was extremely limited and only gilga really got access to it, then maybe that would be something that 'ties' it to Gilga.

In terms of game design, it does certainly feel like we went from "most builds want parts of most class skills" -> "every class has its own special skills and is balanced in a vacuum/no mixing allowed".

[gritty plinth]

Other classes are "supposed to" have a primary focus on other things

Crit, dex, avidity, flask charge, apex, summon stats, etc etc

[signal heron]

Collateral damage?

[gritty plinth]

Ward+attack is gilga's primary focus. But ss on other classes made everyone want those

[trim ruin]

It wasn't from SS 😅

Realm beo and deity all wanted attack to use attacks.
And everyone, every class wants ward, to not die.

[signal heron]

Gilga explicitely shifted away from being the SS one-trick pony, or at least that was the intent with CD

Gilga didn't get CD because it was bad, it got it because it was good... at only one thing

[gritty plinth]

Wanting a stat is not the same as making it the primary focus of your build

[trim ruin]

I think some of the gripe is that the best ward items also just have generally good stats anyway. If people were going out of their way to maximize ward at the cost of atk/dex/res/dex then that would be different. Currently it's just like "I build for maximum survival, equip a celaxe with selenehands, and now my CS is nutso insane against all enemies in the game".

[gritty plinth]

Well yes, and to your earlier point ss is also busted on gilga. Hence the overall nerf

I just think to balance usage on other classes requires jumping though a lot of hoops

SS was designed with gilga in mind (I imagine). Half starting ward, no bastille, the "only" class that focused primarily on ward

[trim ruin]

It certainly makes it easier for NF to balance SS in a vacuum with only-gilga to consider.
As before -- I think it's a thinner, worse game for it, but if that's the way they need to go then alright I guess.

[gritty plinth]

Is ss gameplay really that engaging/fun that losing it on other classes would be detrimental?

[trim ruin]

from day1 when gilga was added, back in 2020, it was mostly used on gilga and deity.

They've gone back and forth on how much non-gilga should be penalized for it.

[trim ruin]

idk gilgas can't get enough of it 😛 so I'm sure it's not so bad

[gritty plinth]

Gilgas don't have many options 😂

I'm sure the fantasy is great, but other classes shouldn't also share the core gilga fantasy IMO

It should be bad on other classes

Exceptions to classes like Dorado I guess; and maybe that's enough of a reason to not lock it

[sly geode]

Nobody that plays dorado wants to be locked to the CS meta

We'd much rather have a thief style chained skill we spammed instead

[half karma]

Also its not like all classes have a bunch of competitive choices. Apart from ss I see verse 4 for beoH, Ultima and scythe for mages, rend/epee for melee glass cannons. Ang2.0 may shift things up a bit in pve, which im e looking forward to

[sly geode]

It doesn't currently, which is my biggest gripe

It actually sets diversity back, because everything ends at spam spiked shield skills, or lower your anguish

At least in live I can use ymir/gandring or meme with AV2/3 and selene hands

Maluses hit all those options really hard, while SS/CS just stroll along, immune to the effects of pretty much every single malus

[signal heron]

Windtamer Shield + Selene Hands

That is a meme that survives the maluses

[fringe mirage]

Just make ss use up mass amounts of ward where you can still regen it fast in anguish content but not so much outside of it. Or multi turn - weren't they multi turn for a short while?

[echo bone]

Haven't really found much success with Windtamer shield yet personally

[fringe mirage]

Want to 1 turn it? Speed cast axe or lute

Makes ppl have to ditch selene hands if they want to be quick. I have to ditch prom hands if I want to 1 turn ultima

Do the same thing to verse. Doesn't make sense having ss1/2/3 all 1 turn or verse 1/2/3/4 all 1 turn

[west verge]

I support this

Or to just “warrior” classes (credit Geppu)

[hazy comet]

I like the 2 turn ss3 but i realize gilgas will never be on board

Or use enough ward that you cant cast consecutive turns or something

[restive phoenix]

I like the idea of just removing the flat miss chance

[gritty plinth]

You could make it 1 turn for gilgas, 2 turns for nongilgas

[hazy comet]

Or that ^

Would work too for sure

[west verge]

Support

[haughty turtle]

My only issue with restricting it is that classes like Dorado basically only have CS to clear anguish content like dungeons, towers etc. The bigger problem there is probably the lack of alternatives, but seeing a restriction put into place without buffing an alternative would put those classes in a very weird place

[visual crescent]

Dorado can av too but yeah selene hands in nerf mood soon

[pseudo sonnet]

Are the two handed builds not viable for that? Maybe they can be buffed to be on par. Imo a 2h should be strong since it requires 2 hands.

[haughty turtle]

For Ang 1.0 they are, not really for Ang 2.0

[pseudo sonnet]

Holy... why is gursa doing so much damage at 0 al...

[polar sentinel]

why is gursa dealing so low damage at 149 AL

[echo bone]

I can do more with dragon dmg stacking/bulwark than with a FSC 👀

[polar sentinel]

Might be better to test on targets with actual defense and without double arcane damage amities? (atleast in terms of pvp)

ah nvm we're doing elemental stacking i guess

[pseudo sonnet]

Why? This can't be done in pvp? With all the elements I can't get anywhere close to this in pvp with crits

[echo bone]

Here's an actual test without element stacking

[pseudo sonnet]

Send your build

[echo bone]

element stacking (or just elements in general) is very unreliable in pvp no?

[polar sentinel]

Both the m1 and m2 are being changed so we should definitely test on both fronts

[pseudo sonnet]

That's why I'm asking Yoshi why it can't be used.

[polar sentinel]

3 prom feet 2 lyncus paws elementless axe has been my go to pvp axe on live

[echo bone]

Most people don't use elements/element stacking in pvp, so why would we use it as a base line for testing?
Hence why in actual testing yesterday I didn't use the drag one I just sent above because it's unrealistic

[pseudo sonnet]

What is that build? Let's make your build a little more juiced (hybrid Amity, Selene hands) before you post damage numbers so you don't lead people that your al is so weak with the new changes...

[polar sentinel]

It makes sense to test double elemental in raids, but even then you might wanna test on a Fey Chimera instead of the training cactus

[pseudo sonnet]

Are you serious? I use it all the time

[polar sentinel]

That's my current build on live in pvp, i use it all the time

eh scratch that, live has avalon leggings instead of pumpkinless

[echo bone]

I assume you must not have any local Heretic's around you then?

[signal heron]

Does anyone think there's possibly a bug with elemental stacking?

Given that it's supposed to be nerfed this update?

I can't test at the moment, but someone should really check to see if elemental stacking is bugged

You should be seeing much lower damage than live from stacking the same element

[echo bone]

Uhhhh

Live vs Beta

Both with nothing but bulwark/double 30% drags (dmg was not high enough without weapons, is not actually bugged it seems, better test further down)

(will do up a bug report there now 👍)

[polar sentinel]

selene hands axe + hybrid amity

[pseudo sonnet]

People play heretic? I only need elements for Al whales on gursa really where they have like 140k hp

[pseudo sonnet]

What's the bug damage looks the same

[polar sentinel]

Stacking multiple elements should stack additively instead of multiplicative

beta should hit lower

[echo bone]

one of my only other locals is a forever heretic, and if I forget to take element off my weapon it's nearly impossible to win lol

[pseudo sonnet]

Now we wait till that gets fixed and test again.

[echo bone]

Huh, seems it's not actually bugged? I think my damage was just too low without weapons to make a difference, but here's comparing double 30% / Bulwark / double epee

(my main is ~6ALs higher but shouldn't make that much a difference)

[pseudo sonnet]

This is hybrid damage 0 als gursa

[polar sentinel]

That's a cactus, it has a whopping 450 defense

also, are we talking pvp? no ward turns?

[pseudo sonnet]

What do most bofs wear? Nothing

[polar sentinel]

like okay sure we can discuss balance just on boosting damage to the max screenshots

yeah that would be what swashing is

[restive phoenix]

Why does the tank do more damage than the swash?

[polar sentinel]

but is that gonna make a good result?

[polar sentinel]

Why are we testing against swash builds (cactus), what's the comparision looking like vs tank builds

[late oracle]

I do think spiked shield floor has been super high since the change.

Like the differential between 0 al and 190 Al was minimal

[pseudo sonnet]

In pvp it obviously hits less because of the pvp changes but I'm still one shoting everyone as a tank at 0 als.

[late oracle]

Yeah I think the cap doesn't affect the early levels as much. Compared to the field its actually way better at 0al. Would prefer a lower floor but better scaling, would encourage building more att.

[pseudo sonnet]

Not huge numbers but enough to one shot everyone as a tank

[half karma]

Thats 0AL gursa?

I think those may be extremely ill equipped sandboxes going against your BiS build

Judging by no skin + no pets + no amities

[pseudo sonnet]

How else can I test

[fringe mirage]

Can test against me on beta if you want. I won't kill you, but can see how it does against a 173 AL heretic. We all know that's equivalent to like 50 AL on every other class

[pseudo sonnet]

Do you have a kingdom?

[half karma]

Idk i dont have a solution, im just pointing out things to make your judgement better

To strengthen your argument

[fringe mirage]

Yeah i did create one just to test against my 111 AL gilga. Let me see what it is

Mirror of _Wrecked_ (1)'s Kingdom

[pseudo sonnet]

What faction?

[fringe mirage]

Storm

It's not completely min/maxed since def/res became so irrelevant I kind of ditched the build but still 18.4k def/19.8k res with warden. Ideally I'd switch to cataphract for a kingdom war or challenge purposes

[hazy comet]

Yeah pve vs pvp damage are different to my knowledge in Beta atm. @polar sentinel correct me if im wrong

[polar sentinel]

I dont know about that

[hazy comet]

Or is it solely an m1 thing?

[polar sentinel]

I'm not sure

[hazy comet]

Same boat then 😅 i checked out of the ss3 stuff last week too much number changing

Maybe strahd knows

[pseudo sonnet]

Yeah cactus is pve (I feel like that's a ton of damage and prob still the only way to do anguish 2.0) why I posted me one shooting in pvp also at 0 als.

[young river]

About the PVP cap? It looks to be an M2 cap on the ward multiplier, which causes an issue as basically it's no more effective for a Gilgamesh to use as damage between turn 1 and full ward is negligible For PVP purposes, there's no advantage in use for a Gilgamesh over any other class atm.

[polar sentinel]

Wildland fire pants

[young river]

Not sure why my wildland fire pants link copied in there randomly

[polar sentinel]

Beta doesnt currently display a difference for power values

[young river]

I'm just going off my testing values

Anyway back to trying to source pants

[polar sentinel]

Why do you need fire pants

uh nvm ill do dm's

[hazy comet]

Yeah definitely feels that way which probably isnt right

[thin tiger]

Seems like the discussion got a bit tangled. There are two main issues addressed:

1: seems like people want SS to not be such a dominant option on non gilga classes.

2: How effective should ss skills be?

[fringe mirage]

That doesn't really resolve the issue of being an absolute tank while hitting hard which is kind of what started this topic

[pseudo sonnet]

I like the PVP cap but I feel like its to strong at 0als. I have not seen many numbers at higher AL's but ill HOC from deity to gilga when I get a chance and I wont hold the damage back so we get some real numbers.

Higher ALs don’t need to build for maximum efficiency because their ALs already provide a strong baseline. You only need around 200k damage to kill someone in PvP, so you can afford to optimize for status immunity, defense, and other survivability factors instead.

[young river]

I am pretty sure it's not going to be possible to hit 200k at 0 AL in pvp (without buffing) as I don't think it's possible to get attack value high enough. However with some BoF based builds I have seen over 200k hits on ungeared sandboxes once you start getting over 18k attack. That being said if you can you can get your attack value that high at 0 AL, you will likely be able to hit that hard on people with no defense.

Maybe using elemental multipliers with slightly lower attack levels if the person isn't resistant or immune. However, I do feel it important to say that building new damage 'norms" around what a very small percentage of players are capable of hitting is not wise.

[fringe mirage]

Odie should just re implement it. 1 turn for ss and does anyone even use ss2? Turn ss2 into what ss3 is and make it 2 turn (or ss2/3 both 2 turn) so ppl need to choose to go for a speed cast axe/lute for a chance to turn 1 it or go with OP adorns and 2 turn it

I ran a speedcast axe as gilga so I could 1 turn DB

[young river]

I was fine with SS3 being 2 turns provided it uses the m2 value from ward on the turn you use it and not the turn it triggers.

[fringe mirage]

That keeps the damage issue though lol

[hazy comet]

But its 2 turns and you're exposed

[young river]

Well no other multiturn skill loses damage by being hit during the wait turns

[fringe mirage]

Or I guess that could be split in pvp/pve. Idk

Yeah, fair point

[young river]

If you use ultima, even if you have 1 hp and 0 ward lef it's still going to hit just as hard.

[fringe mirage]

Make verse 4 3 turn 😆

Yeah I see your point. Thats fair. Still gives an opportunity to get killed

[hazy comet]

Yeah theres at least counterplay. Swing big in between the turn it charges up

But what PvE implications does that have

[young river]

Or previously I'd have said Counterattack...but that seems to be getting the nerf

[hazy comet]

Counterattack is awful

[young river]

Well for Raiding, more likely DC falls off, for CS horde builds, I can't see them even being viable for Gilgamesh as you'd be in such a ward glut you'd be impotent after a couple rounds

[late oracle]

I think counterattack is okay if used for its original intent: countering multi turn spells. As a spam tool I think its pretty awful.

[fringe mirage]

If ss1 stayed 1 turn it could still be used to kill off any stragglers left from CS. I don't think CS needs to be multi turn

[pseudo sonnet]

People that use ultima and rend daggers are exposed also and they are not tanks with tons of ward

[hazy comet]

True I guess I meant more for non raiding

[pseudo sonnet]

Ultima strikes and ultima are two turns

[hazy comet]

Theres a lot to unpack as always -

• Keep CS relevant but not clear meta for dungeons/towers (better for gilga when using this)
• keep raiding ss3 viable/meta for gilga
• not let high ward builds outdamage glass alternatives in all content, for all classes

Would be the goals

[polar sentinel]

if you add cs to be viable for gilga i agree

[young river]

I really don't see a problem with SS3 being a good raiding Meta for Gilgamesh

[hazy comet]

The problem is balancing that with everything else

Sorry if i worded that confusing

How do we accomplish all 3 bullets in 1 change set

[young river]

Personally, I think it's pretty close now, though I am not sure how we handle the issue with Gilgamesh getting no advantage over other classes in pvp without restricting it more somehow. Adjusting the m2 derived from ward isn't going to matter much since it's capped fairly low atm

[junior imp]

I think a good perspective might be: Is this iteration better than live?

If the answer is yes, then it may be good to go for now, and have it be live for a while before tweaking further.
The reality of a lot of these things is that everyone has different ideas, and wants different things. It'll never be perfect, but it's a live service game. It's been adjusted before, and isn't about to be ignored forever if it continues to be an issue :)

[young river]

My opinion is yes, except for the aforementioned hiccup.

[hazy comet]

I would also agree. Better than live except for the no advantage for gilga over other classes.

[pseudo sonnet]

Its better but its still OP for PVE and very strong for low AL's

[hazy comet]

As long as we have it under a microscope for a couple months to monitor

[sly geode]

Ignoring PvP, cause that ain't my jam

If it goes live now we are all CS/SS meta slaves again

Its head and shoulders above everything else
It has no maluaes that directly affect it
And it doesn't even need an anguish weapon to function at anguish 40

It goes directly against what ang 2.0 is supposed to be, and i really can't see a single argument for letting it go live right now with zero alternatives for high anguish pushing

[hazy comet]

To answer Dangy Its 'better ' than live, but I definitely agree with this take

[sly geode]

It isnt

[trim ruin]

My base GSA CS went from 130k in live to 120k in current beta.
I'm fairly certain that's only due to selenehands being changed, not CS/SS itself.

Technically yes a change for the better, but still busted in pve and the ~only real consideration for pve (especially anguished pve). Overall I'd still qualify it as a big problem worth fixing now instead of later.

[hazy comet]

49AL realmD current beta

[sly geode]

Im not going to call a near negligible nerf in damage but a buff via static miss chance and anguish gear "better"

[junior imp]

I think my fear resides in the opportunity this has to continue to derail a larger live launch.
If we feel like this just needs one more minor number tweak, that's very different to the proposals I'm seeing about reworking it entirely again

Ultimately, I'd hate for this change to either delay Anguish, or be separated out for a revist at another time

[sly geode]

Then leave it alone and give us alternatives

For reasons ill never agree with or understand, we still dont have a readily available alternative to CS and we've been asking for one for 2+ years

[hazy comet]

Bwubble you hit ang25+ on Towers in Beta right? And CS is by far the best way to get through?

[sly geode]

Its not the best way

It quickly becomes the only way

[late oracle]

Tbh, spiked shield balance aside if only one play style can complete anguish at higher end, I think we have to start considering tuning anguish down (in addition to shield changes)

[trim ruin]

afaict, CS is the only way. You must build defensively in high anguish, and while you're doing that you should use the one skill that vastly outdamages all other skills while building defensively. Which also happens to dodge most maluses, and apparently also cannot be nerfed.

[sly geode]

I feel like im going to have to keep screaming this from the heavens

it doesn't have a single malus that affects it

The crit malus comes out the gate swinging with a ~6% chance and ~8% damage debuff

Which is huge

[junior imp]

I'd rather us remain as civil as possible, and leave the potential patronising alone if we can. We get it, and hear it, and things are never as simple as each individual person desires. It's good that things are being tried at all - this has gone through a lot of reworks historically, and heaps in this beta alone. No one has agreed so far, it's not straight forward I promise