Disciple revamp 2.0

[Laiboch]

I know this is a long post, but please take some time to read through it. The Disciple class is over powered and needs some changes, but they need to be changes that both the Dev’s and the players can live with. What I have written here is an option that would balance both worlds.


The biggest issue facing classes in general is balancing content vs class damage. Several systems have been tested some with more promise than others, but each has brought with it issues of their own. The current system that is in place is very close to being both balanced and player friendly, but the random nature of the system brings with in inherent issues. It is sporadic and unreliable for players and has holes in it that can trivialize content. This is not an issue with any one class. This issue exists in most if not all of the classes.

This is my proposal take it as you will.

The Crit system currently in place seems to be causing the Dev staff a lot of issues when it comes to balancing classes out. The crit rate is to high or low, and in both cases the feedback on the issue can be polarized when addressed by the community as a whole. Some players love the way things are and others always want change this is true for any MMO, but over all the general feeling from many classes is that they feel their class has no roll or is underpowered when looking at others. To solve this you need a way to balance abilities with out having to bust out the “Nerf stick”.

Take the current changes to the Disciple class. The crit rate was way too high so rather than reduce it a bit and test to see if it was more balanced the crit rate went from close to 60% to less than 10% over all. One reason it might have been higher than intended was that the off hand bonus might have been unintentionally adding a higher percentage to crits than intended.

This is an example of how you can balance the class with out the need to change the crit system and at the same time make future adjustments easier to manage. You could roll the Disciples crit rate back to where it was and the issue is still resolved.

I will start with the base rule for chains.

Chains should form an inverted pyramid of skills. The smallest group in a chain should be openers the highest group should be finishers. This allows controlled access from group to group. Different finishing attacks can be on different timers to allow for balance with content at any given level.

For example:

Opener: Blessed Wind
Bridge: Falling Petal
Finishing: Concordant Hand, White Lotus Strike

Currently it is the opposite:
Opener: Blessed Wind, Soul Cutter, Void Hand, Knife Hand and Cyclone Kick.
Bridge: Falling Petal, Concordant Hand
Finishing: White Lotus Strike.

The overload in DPS comes from having several abilities that can trigger a bridge with out over writing any other chain they are in the process of using. Take for example Endowment of Life.

A player hits Blessed wind and gets a critical so they follow that with the bridge and finisher, but after that they can continue with the Endowment of Life just by hitting Cyclone kick. Which can also trigger the bridge and finisher and then finally hitting Void Hand producing the Endowment of Life heal.

So the chain goes like this:

BW>FP>WLS>CK>FP>WLS>VH (Endow heal)>FP>WLS

That is one chain that can be pulled off with out running out of endurance.

In this one chain they have actually performed 4 chains at once or a chain with in a chain. This scenario is possible regardless of the crit percentage. As players progress they will boost their Dexterity as much as possible to increase their odds of getting critical attacks and this will cause the above result.

Even if you were to skip the finishing attack because there is a chance it will take longer than the timer for the Endow proc you can still end up with this:

BW>FP>CK>FP>VH>FP

Base damage at lvl 18 was about 320 a hit with FP so you could deal an additional 1280+ damage on top of the damage from the special attacks

This is where the imbalance comes from. It has nothing to do with how much a Disciple crits it come from bridges and finishing attacks not breaking the endow chain and having to many opening attacks that can trigger the bridge.


The second issue is that the Bridge attack and finishing attack have a very low cost as compared to opening attacks.

Falling petal 10 Endurance.
White Lotus Strike 10 endurance.

For 50 Endurance you have just pulled off close to 2K in potential damage, but that’s followed by Cyclone Kick with no Endurance cost then only 20 endurance is used by FP and WL. This allows Endurance to tick back up enabling the player to pull off the last 3 hits in that very long and over powered chain.

So looking at the example above the Endurance cost works like this:

BW>FP>WLS = 50 Endurance (can use all 3 in under 7 seconds)
Cyclone Kick requires no endurance so it rises back to around 70 Endurance.
CK>FP>WLS = 20 Endurance
VH>FP>WLS = 44 Endurance

Endurance regeneration is not the issue in this case. It’s the ability to use other chains with out interrupting the Endow chain. For what ever reason bridges and finishing attacks do not trigger an interrupt for the Endow chain.

If the disciple had a 100 % crit rate and timers were used this would not be an issue. The core issue is not how much they crit or if they crit at all the issue is simply that the bridges and finishing attacks do not have timers and do not interrupt any of the Endow chains.

You can test this and you will see it is balanced and resolves all of your issues from Blessed Wind and the Endow heal to how much damage a disciple dishes out. Roll back the disciple and then do the following:

1) make their weapon crit rate match their hand to hand (This is to prove the point that even with a 60% crit rate reguardless of weapon type the issue is still resolved)

2) Restore the amount healed by both BW and the Endow chain and revert the cost on BW back to 30 Endurance.

3) Put a 15 second refresh on the Falling petal line.

4)Put a 30 second refresh on White Lotus strike.

5) Make Concordant Hand a Finishing attack with its current refresh. It is way over powered to be a bridge, but as a finishing attack it is right in line.

6) Up the Endurance cost on Falling petal and Concordant hand to 20 endurance. This would up the cost to 60 endurance. From here the player would need to either let their endurance rebuild before using another chain or go to a bond or other heal while their endurance regenerates again promoting balance in healing with out removing the classes ability to be effective.

7) Set it so if you interrupt your Endow chain by using any other ability it resets the chain. This is already done with the Falling Petal> White Lotus so it stands to reason this could be done with the Endow chain as well.

I would be willing to bet that players would be happy with this option. They would feel like they are viable in groups again, Heal and contribute to the group as well as be competent in solo play as well. It would also curb the DPS and power of the class bringing it in line with other classes with out having to change things around in any kind of drastic and devastating way.

[Sick]

Sounds good to me

[Audio]

Two words - Stockholme Syndrome

Ok, joking aside...

The developers need to resolve the internal controversies with what a disciple is supposed to be first and foremost. That would be a good starting point. Can a healer do comparable DPS to an offensive fighter? Is the "holy trinity" to reign supreme again in this generation?

When I first saw the term "3rd generation MMO" being thrown around by Sigil and I read the class description of the DSC at the begining of beta 3 (guild invite) I thought, "wow they really are thinking outside of the box." I'm not so sure anymore.

It seems to me that theres two schools at war here over the DSC. Those who want the old - tanks protect, ranged/casters DPS and healers spam heals - and the progressive minded - the school of hybrids where we combine some of the classes into a new being that is almost self-suffecient.

What I want is a decision here, if the DSC is to fullfil its class description, be bold about and stand up and say "This is what it is," otherwise just make it another energy healer. You do nobody any justice when you give and take away and really, thats what will continue to happen with the class until you decide what we are, what we can do and balance other classes around us.

[Magson]

I much prefer the idea of dependable abilities I can use when I need them (subject to a refresh timer) as opposed the the randomness of abilities that spawn off crits.

[CrimsonEdge]

The developers need to resolve the internal controversies with what a disciple is supposed to be first and foremost. That would be a good starting point. Can a healer do comparable DPS to an offensive fighter?

No, not in melee. This takes the point out of the offensive fighter. Why would anyone in their right mind roll a rogue when a disciple can do just as much damage AND heal like a cleric? Should a healer be able to out damage an arcane caster? No, never. Not even CC based casters. Should they out-melee them? I would say yes, unless it's a BMG for example.

There is only SO MUCH you can do in terms of stuff like this without making the game into a two class ordeal. If ANY healing class out damaged any offensive fighting class then the point of offensive fighters becomes null and void and any "perfect" raid situation would call for more healers.

Why does everyone want to get rid of the differences between classes? What makes each "grouping" different IS the difference between a tank and an offensive fighter. Sure, in a perfect world there will be a sort of octagon thing going on with the possibilities of classes with the game having thousands of class posibilities.

Look at this complex chart.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v118/crimsonedge38/pos.jpg

As you can see, there are litterally infinite possibilites of all the combinations on the various degrees of a "Tank" to an "Offensive fighter". In order to "GET RID" of classes, you'd need a system like UO or AC.

Want to know what sucks about games like that? Once someone finds out the "GOLDEN FORMULA" then everyone is that and there is NO reason to do anything with anyone else that doesn't have the PERFECT character.

Classes are an essential part of a game like this and I would NEVER play an MMO where a healer could out damage or do the SAME damage as an offensive fighter.

[Laiboch]

The core complaints against the Disciple amount to “they do too much damage”.

What I posted above would reduce damage maintain the integrity of chains and finishing attacks while bringing them in line with the other healing classes as far as over all damage. They would still be limited in range and that again is another balancing point.

It also brings back the base identity of the class. Disciples should do more damage in melee than the other healers because they lack range. We are a martial healer that stands toe to toe with our enemy using the flow of combat to heal our group and our selves. The only thing the class lacks at the moment is balance.

Putting timers on bridges and finishing attacks as well as making the Endow chains so they can be interrupted resolves the balance issue. From there smaller changes can be made to help bring out the identity of the class allowing it to shine as its own star and not be out shadowed by the others.

I love the class and really have no desire to play any of the others. I got hooked on it in Beta 3 and none of the other classes really got my attention like the Disciple did. It is a very different and bold look at healers in MMO’s.

To me the solution above represents a way to balance the game while keeping the players happy.

[Audio]

Which would take us back to what we were pre-revamp, chains -> heal tank, energy in emergencies. No DPS whatsoever and soloing 2dot even cons for 5 minutes.

And dont even offer the ability to create a DSC on a PVP server.

[Laiboch]

It wouldn’t take them back to where they were. With what I have posted they would do a little less damage than we were doing before the last change, but still more than beta 3. An over all lose of about 15-20% is much better than the 60% we have lost at this point.

Restore the melee damage we were doing before they nerfed the crit %, but space out our chains so we do a bit less damage over all. You would still have a nice solid 3 part chain every 30 seconds and a good solid 2 part chain every 15 seconds. This would be a noted improvement in damage over beta 3.

At level 18 you would have an option to hit for an additional 300-500 (depending on if the abiltiy crits) damage every 15 seconds would be a dramatic increase in our damage. Melee and normal crits as well as other abilities would balance things out to where we did more damage and still have good endurance in combat.

If they change Concordant Hand to a finishing move you would have the potential of doing an additional 300-500 damage as well as heal your group very nicely every 60 seconds. If it is left as a bridge you would still have the same option you do now, but with a 15 second timer on your other bridge.

At level 22 you would have the potential for even more damage, but be more in balance with the content. I would be willing to bet you could still solo 3 dots, but it would be a bit slower and not as economic as fighting 2 dots which you could still kill, but just a little slower than we are taking them down now. A 30-45 second fight solo is a lot better than what we have now with a 1 min + fight.


If your weapon skill is maxed right now using only the base chains you have you are doing about what we did before revamp. If they put the crit rate back to where it was with the timers on the abilities we will do the same melee damage we were before, but the bridges and finishers would be spaced out to balance the class a bit more in PVE.

Honestly it’s a win – win situation for players and Dev’s

[CrimsonEdge]

Maybe I'm missing the point of a healing class...

But it is to heal right?

[swerv]

Yep so why did they nerf our heals directly (Endowment went from healing 700 to just 400 for me) and indirectly (raising endurance costs plus crit less so I can't use group heal, which is already on a 1 min timer and not being able to use endowment as often which we now need to do because it heals for such a lower amount) aswell?

[Laiboch]

I guess we should sit and med and stand up and cast a heal here and there..

This is the same issue as in beta 3 Disciple has been moved by the reduction to a backup healer.

I would like to see Sigil test the idea I posted and see how the numbers come out.

[mlp071]

I guess we should sit and med and stand up and cast a heal here and there..

Now that sounds like realistic view of disc:cool:

[Dulen]

Those are some of the worst ideas ever. Total knee-jerk, instant gratification thinking.

We were severely broken and were fixed. That simple.

Once our HoTs, Bonds and End issues are resolved we will be exactly where we should be. With the only exception of maybe a slight increase to the H2H crit rate.

Putting refresh timers on our finishers completely negates "Clarity". Which so happens to be one of our best abilities. Currently if we want to do burst DPS we can, If we want to go into conservative mode we can, etc.

Anyone complaining about crit rates or thinks that's a single defining part of our class needs to go re-roll a monk or something. We're healers.

I am a 28 DSC. Obviously I had to rethink my combat technique but even with the broken END costs I am doing just fine. You people need to use your heads and try different fight strategies before crying bloody murder. If this super leet DSC 2.0 revamp that you suggested goes live, you sir will have borked our class more than any nerf I've seen to date.

28 DCS - Florendyl

[Laiboch]

Those are some of the worst ideas ever. Total knee-jerk, instant gratification thinking.

No it’s a balanced system. Fair and even to every class if implemented. I would love to see your proposal. I have been converting rules from games for years including the rules that were adopted for the Sabbat for MET. You are right I know nothing about class balance or how to set abilities in a group setting, but as you proposed something so much better….

We were severely broken and were fixed. That simple.

No Disciples were broken on one end of the spectrum now they are broken on the other, two wrongs does not equal a right. Over all on a class by class basis the same core issue exists. PVE balance is broken. These were the same issues we addressed in Beta 3. The class could still take on 3 dot mobs with low DPS the fight just took for ever. The Intent behind the revamp was to bring the disciple in balance with the other classes and make it a desired class.

Playing through Beta 3 for most Disciples was an exercise in endurance. You could sit and watch someone 2 levels lower than you kill the same mob you were fighting in half the time. We didn’t die often, but a lot of players started saying the Disciple was the best class to play if you had a couple hours to kill and didn’t mind taking a few hours to kill a couple mobs. After the change we are back at square 1. I participated in every focus group I could get in and several of us spent days giving detailed feedback to the Dev’s on this and other issues. I am glad you have reached a level of enlightenment above the beta testers and the Dev’s. Perhaps you should put in your resume.

The key requests for the class were:
Up DPS to bring them in line with the other healing classes. At the point this was asked for even the arguably broken shaman did an average of 3 times the DPS.

Balance out the chains because they gave the class a bit to much endurance to the point they could at one point heal a single target indefinitely with out ever running out of endurance.

Give the class a clear identity. According to the Dev’s the disciple Identity was an Endurance based healer that used their combat chains as their first line of healing. With the current change in how much the Endow heal lands for added to the cost in endurance, Jin and time it is very sub par and nothing like what the Dev’s themselves stated the vision for the class is.

Once our HoTs, Bonds and End issues are resolved we will be exactly where we should be. With the only exception of maybe a slight increase to the H2H crit rate.

We have been waiting for those issues to be resolved from the launch of Beta 3. Here we are in Beta 6 and the issues are still not resolved. How long should players have to wait to have a working combat system?

How is a broken Crit system that prevents the use of key skills except in a 9 in 100 chance not broken? Clarity in and of its self does not Fix or resolve anything. Perhaps if you were in Beta you might understand the level of frustration for many of us. Especally when the Dev's stated over and over they would not reduce the Disciple to another Energy based healer.

Putting refresh timers on our finishers completely negates "Clarity". Which so happens to be one of our best abilities. Currently if we want to do burst DPS we can, If we want to go into conservative mode we can, etc.

Removing clarity would not be a bad thing if the rest of the system was balanced. As I said before this is not just an issue with Disciples it is effecting most classes in one way or another.

Clarity does not resolve the issue of class balance either. The Disciple is meant to be a Melee healer. They are intended to be in the middle of a fight not sitting back hoping they have enough Energy to cast a heal, and not relegated to the role of a back up healer, which is what we are going to end up being.

Our bonds are broken and even the HOT is sub par with a Clerics Hot heal of the same level. The limitations on bonds give them limited tactical use even when they were working “better” than they are now back in beta 3.

I would take my Beta 3 Disciple with their base abilities and not only do more damage but heal better than you do now. Even with the “mystery proc” they were a better DPS class and far more balanced than they are now and at that time they were the LOWEST DPS in the game.

Soul cutter landed for about 190-210 and had a working De-agro

BW landed for 80's but was a good heal. The balancing point was it did low damage, but was a decent heal. It also had a 12 second timer and was far more balanced.

BOTS and VH had very cool effects and were better in many ways than many of the "revamp" abilities that are in now. You could drain some endurance and use small direct heal that landed for about 230 on average and healed your target for about 65% of the damage done.

Bonds had no duration and were energy based.

With some pacing of your abilities you could actually maintain an even level of healing while you had your instant with its refresh to throw in as a patch heal. If you had to go to Energy based heals you ate through energy in a hurry. Bringing a nice balance. Yes you could use Energy heals, but they were not as efficient.


The Dev’s clearly stated that they did not want healers to be relegated to the roll of sitting in the back of the group launching heals. With the reduction in effect to the endow heal as well as blessed wind it is more economical for a disciple to do just that. Sit back and heal. Sigil promised this would never happen, but here we sit back at the beginning of Beta 3 only with lower DPS.

I do not think the Disciple should be the highest DPS class, but they should be the highest Melee DPS of the healers and that damage should be on par with the over all damage any of the healing classes can put out.

Its funny how quick people are to judge, but how hard it is for them to put an idea with more options and balance on the table.

Anyone complaining about crit rates or thinks that's a single defining part of our class needs to go re-roll a monk or something. We're healers.

Yes we are Chain healers. The Disciple was not intended to be an energy based healer like the Cleric. It was meant to use Chains for the majority of their front line healing. The crit rate nerf combined with the reduction in Blessed Wind and the Endow has a dramatic effect on how the class is played and how it heals. The Disciple now heals almost exactly like a cleric. Yes we can pop clarity once every 30 seconds to boost that, but at the same time it also crippled our ability to use chain heals as an effective part of combat in a group. With the groups I play in a 420 heal that takes a minimum of 6 seconds 3 Jin and 70 endurance is not worth the cost. The Endow heal was by no means free, and between BW and the Endow it allowed the disciple to heal as well as other healers. Even as it was before I would still through in patch heals with my fast cast to keep up with damage.

What was broken was the ability to use multiple chains at once. You could toss in FP in the middle of the Endow with out interrupting it allowing the class to do a disproportionate amount of damage while still maintaining a even level of healing.

I am a 28 DSC. Obviously I had to rethink my combat technique but even with the broken END costs I am doing just fine. You people need to use your heads and try different fight strategies before crying bloody murder. If this super leet DSC 2.0 revamp that you suggested goes live, you sir will have borked our class more than any nerf I've seen to date.

28 DCS – Florendyl

Yes, and I am sure you are having a great time taking twice as long as any other class to fight a mob. I am sure Its nice to play cleric with half the AC and only 3 buffs. Its great to have your core abilities sill not working properly from beta 3 to beta 6.

The Disciple is an in combat MELEE healer. You are supposed to be up front and in the think of it or you are not playing your class and should switch to something more your play style. Simply because the over all impression of a healer has been the class sitting on its arse half the fight and standing only to heal does not mean that the Disciple has to fit that mold to do their job correctly.

The Disciple is a martial healer, who utilizes harmony and balance to heal allies. It shares a fighting style similar to that of Monks incorporating a mixture of Jin, Endurance, and Energy to perform attacks, bolster the party, weaken the enemy, and heal allies.

The Disciple needs to be balanced because before the change they did to much damage, but to reduce them to a cleric with a sword / H2H etc removes the need for the class. Clerics are better at using Energy based heals and their abilities are geared towards this. They can strike and opponent and rebuild their Energy pool. Disciples build Jin which is used to fuel their special attacks and their Chains. These chains are the core of the class.

To quote Elrar from the Beta boards.

Preserve the Disciples chains (don’t fix it if it isn’t broke)
Increase DPS to bring them in line with other healers.
Add to the classes feel and role in the game.

Shoula – Beta 3 – live 28 Disciple (ya crappy DPS and all)
Haruko – Beta PVP 22 Disciple (before and after the Revamp non beta buffed)
Chyler – Beta PVP 35 Disciple.
Chyler – Live PVP FFA 19 Disciple.

Maybe if you had seen where the class was and where it is now you would understand.

[Shawnsan]

I am going to posit again that if the +heal buffs really worked the halving of the endurance heals wouldn't hurt nearly as much.

[Laiboch]

I agree, but the point is the abilities were broken and they didn’t bother to fix the broken issues before they created more.

If they need more time just set the class back to where it was in Beta 4. It had better DPS than in Beta 3 and their bonds actually worked. I would rather have a system that worked enough to play on par with others than wait anther 6 months like in Beta.

[Shawnsan]

I agree, but the point is the abilities were broken and they didn’t bother to fix the broken issues before they created more.

If they need more time just set the class back to where it was in Beta 4. It had better DPS than in Beta 3 and their bonds actually worked. I would rather have a system that worked enough to play on par with others than wait anther 6 months like in Beta.

Which is what causes people to have complete turn arounds in faith.

As I believe I saw stated elsewhere.

I won't be playing my disciple anymore at all.

The things that are keeping me from playing are as follows:

1) close to 1/3 of all our abilities aren't working.
2) a good portion of the abilities that ARE working, are only working at half effect if that. Having buffs that work on crits is fine and all, but since they only last for 5 minutes I can't possibly buff all 6 members of my party with them. Based on damage parser logs posted by others at 1 crit every minute I would need 6 minutes to buff the whole party. And then I would need to start over again. Hell I couldn't buff a RAID doing that as I can't even do the party. So thinking long term the current +Heal Buffs need to to last at LEAST 30minutes.
3) The disciple bonds are a lovely concept and I think they should stay.. there is a big HOWEVER here. They too need longer duration AND Disciples need to be able to generate JIN without FIRST being in combat. Give them Meditate so they can build jin in between pulls. Other casters get to fire and forget buffs for an hour at a time and there debuffs AREN'T tied to needing anything other than energy.
OR

3alt) This is an or statement to 3 above. They could leave the Jin based debuffs alone but they need to be approximately 2x as powerful as they are now for them to even be noticeable.

[Laiboch]

I stated this in a different thread, and ill put it here.

The issue isn’t that disciples, clerics, shamans or BM are unbalanced. The issue is the Dot system is unbalanced.

Healers are balanced against 4-5 dot mobs and are setup to be able to heal against the damage those mobs deal out. Take a lvl 24 2 dot mob it hits for 130’s take the same level 4 dot mob and it will hit for 500’s.

If you set up a healer to be able to heal against a mob that hits for 500 a pop how can you be surprised when they can solo mobs that hit for 250’s??

Sigil your Dot system is b-r-o-k-e-n.

Why are you making players pay (pardon the pun) for your game balance issues? We told you this would happen in Beta dozens of times and you said we were wrong. We asked you to clearly put each dot as a target group again you said it wasn’t needed.

Now you have hundreds (Thousands?) of players who are not having fun because the dot system is fundamentally flawed just like your combat system using crits as your balancing factor.

[CrimsonEdge]

I stated this in a different thread, and ill put it here.

The issue isn’t that disciples, clerics, shamans or BM are unbalanced. The issue is the Dot system is unbalanced.

Healers are balanced against 4-5 dot mobs and are setup to be able to heal against the damage those mobs deal out. Take a lvl 24 2 dot mob it hits for 130’s take the same level 4 dot mob and it will hit for 500’s.

If you set up a healer to be able to heal against a mob that hits for 500 a pop how can you be surprised when they can solo mobs that hit for 250’s??

Sigil your Dot system is b-r-o-k-e-n.

Why are you making players pay (pardon the pun) for your game balance issues? We told you this would happen in Beta dozens of times and you said we were wrong. We asked you to clearly put each dot as a target group again you said it wasn’t needed.

Now you have hundreds (Thousands?) of players who are not having fun because the dot system is fundamentally flawed just like your combat system using crits as your balancing factor.

I disagree. It isn't the dot system that is broken, but the offensive and defensive capabilities that the classes are offered AS WELL as the ability to move while casting AND the ability to cast through 3-4 mobs hitting you.

[Laiboch]

I disagree. It isn't the dot system that is broken, but the offensive and defensive capabilities that the classes are offered AS WELL as the ability to move while casting AND the ability to cast through 3-4 mobs hitting you.

Think about this Crimson.

Taking Damage movement and all that out of the equation you come down to a 6 dot system with very blurry lines from one to the next. I do get interrupted by incoming mob hits all the time when using spells. Stuns and other abilities affect all casters as well.

1-3 are all set to be soloable content. 1 is an under con. 3 are intended to be a tough but manageable solo fight if you are ready for it.

This blurs a bit now at the next level.

3-5 dot mobs are very common spreads in group area’s. Group content can consist of any combination of these mobs. Take CIS for example the quest area is populated by 3-5 dot mobs including some quest spawns that are 5 dot, but under con as compared to other 5 dots in the area.

The difference in DPS and hit points a 4-5 dot mob has compared to a 2-3 dot mob is very notable. 3 dot mobs hit a bit harder than 2 dot mobs but not as hard as 4 and 5 dot mobs.

All healing classes are geared to heal their PDT (Primary defensive target) against the incoming damage done by a 4-5 dot mob and even if every class had the exact same DPS healers geared to heal against 4-5 dot mobs would be able to win against 3 dot mobs.

This brings it to a base issue with the game mechanics and no clear definition of “This is a solo mob”, “This is a small group mob” etc.

Let’s go a step further.

During beta 3 it was acknowledged that the Disciple was the lowest DPS class in the game. Period there was no debate about it. Their healing ability was set around 4-5 dot mobs just like the Cleric, BM and shaman all of whom did noticeably more damage than the Disciple. The Disciple with its near pathetic DPS could fight 3 dot mobs in a war of attrition.

If solo content is meant to be 2-3 dot mobs and your DPS is geared there, but healing is geared against 4-5 dot mobs you will be able to solo content many other classes simply cannot because your heals are designed against much tougher content. That and steady DPS will bring this end result every time.

More to make my point. I can use Auto attack and add in BW here and there even in its current state and being almost worthless toss in a few heals to cover the gap and still solo 3 dot mobs. This is because my heal spells are setup to fight against mobs that put out 50-80% more DPS than the 3 dot mobs.

3 dot mobs my level hit for around 200 or a bit less 4 dot mobs hit for 250+ and 5 dot mobs hit for 350’s for example. Healers are setup to heal against 350 hits but fight mobs that for 100 or more below that. That is a game mechanics issue.

This is a game balance issue not a class issue. It won’t matter how much you tune, tweak or nerf healers damage if the content is not balanced. If Sigil looks at the base issue - their dot system - they will be able to fix the issue much faster and with out causing the same level of annoyance for their paying player base.

[Hokonoso]

I know this is a long post, but please take some time to read through it. The Disciple class is over powered and needs some changes, but they need to be changes that both the Dev’s and the players can live with. What I have written here is an option that would balance both worlds.


The biggest issue facing classes in general is balancing content vs class damage. Several systems have been tested some with more promise than others, but each has brought with it issues of their own. The current system that is in place is very close to being both balanced and player friendly, but the random nature of the system brings with in inherent issues. It is sporadic and unreliable for players and has holes in it that can trivialize content. This is not an issue with any one class. This issue exists in most if not all of the classes.

This is my proposal take it as you will.

The Crit system currently in place seems to be causing the Dev staff a lot of issues when it comes to balancing classes out. The crit rate is to high or low, and in both cases the feedback on the issue can be polarized when addressed by the community as a whole. Some players love the way things are and others always want change this is true for any MMO, but over all the general feeling from many classes is that they feel their class has no roll or is underpowered when looking at others. To solve this you need a way to balance abilities with out having to bust out the “Nerf stick”.

Take the current changes to the Disciple class. The crit rate was way too high so rather than reduce it a bit and test to see if it was more balanced the crit rate went from close to 60% to less than 10% over all. One reason it might have been higher than intended was that the off hand bonus might have been unintentionally adding a higher percentage to crits than intended.

This is an example of how you can balance the class with out the need to change the crit system and at the same time make future adjustments easier to manage. You could roll the Disciples crit rate back to where it was and the issue is still resolved.

I will start with the base rule for chains.

Chains should form an inverted pyramid of skills. The smallest group in a chain should be openers the highest group should be finishers. This allows controlled access from group to group. Different finishing attacks can be on different timers to allow for balance with content at any given level.

For example:

Opener: Blessed Wind
Bridge: Falling Petal
Finishing: Concordant Hand, White Lotus Strike

Currently it is the opposite:
Opener: Blessed Wind, Soul Cutter, Void Hand, Knife Hand and Cyclone Kick.
Bridge: Falling Petal, Concordant Hand
Finishing: White Lotus Strike.

The overload in DPS comes from having several abilities that can trigger a bridge with out over writing any other chain they are in the process of using. Take for example Endowment of Life.

A player hits Blessed wind and gets a critical so they follow that with the bridge and finisher, but after that they can continue with the Endowment of Life just by hitting Cyclone kick. Which can also trigger the bridge and finisher and then finally hitting Void Hand producing the Endowment of Life heal.

So the chain goes like this:

BW>FP>WLS>CK>FP>WLS>VH (Endow heal)>FP>WLS

That is one chain that can be pulled off with out running out of endurance.

In this one chain they have actually performed 4 chains at once or a chain with in a chain. This scenario is possible regardless of the crit percentage. As players progress they will boost their Dexterity as much as possible to increase their odds of getting critical attacks and this will cause the above result.

Even if you were to skip the finishing attack because there is a chance it will take longer than the timer for the Endow proc you can still end up with this:

BW>FP>CK>FP>VH>FP

Base damage at lvl 18 was about 320 a hit with FP so you could deal an additional 1280+ damage on top of the damage from the special attacks

This is where the imbalance comes from. It has nothing to do with how much a Disciple crits it come from bridges and finishing attacks not breaking the endow chain and having to many opening attacks that can trigger the bridge.


The second issue is that the Bridge attack and finishing attack have a very low cost as compared to opening attacks.

Falling petal 10 Endurance.
White Lotus Strike 10 endurance.

For 50 Endurance you have just pulled off close to 2K in potential damage, but that’s followed by Cyclone Kick with no Endurance cost then only 20 endurance is used by FP and WL. This allows Endurance to tick back up enabling the player to pull off the last 3 hits in that very long and over powered chain.

So looking at the example above the Endurance cost works like this:

BW>FP>WLS = 50 Endurance (can use all 3 in under 7 seconds)
Cyclone Kick requires no endurance so it rises back to around 70 Endurance.
CK>FP>WLS = 20 Endurance
VH>FP>WLS = 44 Endurance

Endurance regeneration is not the issue in this case. It’s the ability to use other chains with out interrupting the Endow chain. For what ever reason bridges and finishing attacks do not trigger an interrupt for the Endow chain.

If the disciple had a 100 % crit rate and timers were used this would not be an issue. The core issue is not how much they crit or if they crit at all the issue is simply that the bridges and finishing attacks do not have timers and do not interrupt any of the Endow chains.

You can test this and you will see it is balanced and resolves all of your issues from Blessed Wind and the Endow heal to how much damage a disciple dishes out. Roll back the disciple and then do the following:

1) make their weapon crit rate match their hand to hand (This is to prove the point that even with a 60% crit rate reguardless of weapon type the issue is still resolved)

2) Restore the amount healed by both BW and the Endow chain and revert the cost on BW back to 30 Endurance.

3) Put a 15 second refresh on the Falling petal line.

4)Put a 30 second refresh on White Lotus strike.

5) Make Concordant Hand a Finishing attack with its current refresh. It is way over powered to be a bridge, but as a finishing attack it is right in line.

6) Up the Endurance cost on Falling petal and Concordant hand to 20 endurance. This would up the cost to 60 endurance. From here the player would need to either let their endurance rebuild before using another chain or go to a bond or other heal while their endurance regenerates again promoting balance in healing with out removing the classes ability to be effective.

7) Set it so if you interrupt your Endow chain by using any other ability it resets the chain. This is already done with the Falling Petal> White Lotus so it stands to reason this could be done with the Endow chain as well.

I would be willing to bet that players would be happy with this option. They would feel like they are viable in groups again, Heal and contribute to the group as well as be competent in solo play as well. It would also curb the DPS and power of the class bringing it in line with other classes with out having to change things around in any kind of drastic and devastating way.

better solution, give us everything we had before but put us in light armor so we cant solo 4 dots, there our group ability = same, and our soloability = lowered, problem solved everyone is happy.

[Molitoth]

I had this in another thread that didn't get much attention, so I'll repost it here to see what you guys think.


Step 1 - Roll back to pre nerf
Step 2 - Fix BW to heal targets
Step 3 - Reduce crit chance from 60% to around 35%
Step 4 - Drastically Increase the Energy cost on all Energy based heals

*Step 4 would allow us to focus more on offensive HoT healing rather then the typical stand back and use your mana heals. This would be a major nerf to our Energy pool, but they would only be used for emergencies, forcing us to melee HoT heal the MT in the group.

[Viktery]

I had this in another thread that didn't get much attention, so I'll repost it here to see what you guys think.


Step 1 - Roll back to pre nerf
Step 2 - Fix BW to heal targets
Step 3 - Reduce crit chance from 60% to around 35%
Step 4 - Drastically Increase the Energy cost on all Energy based heals

*Step 4 would allow us to focus more on offensive HoT healing rather then the typical stand back and use your mana heals. This would be a major nerf to our Energy pool, but they would only be used for emergencies, forcing us to melee HoT heal the MT in the group.

Its a bad idea to mess with Energy Costs. IMHO.
We already have enough problems with Endurance, adding Energy to the problem will just make it a real problem.

Shaman, Blood Mage and other spell casters are more energy based, DSCs are specifically not.

Why would they roll back to pre-nerf??
60% critical Rate was BROKEN on DSCs...they arent going back.

Honestly STOP ASKING FOR IT.... its not gonna happen. And it shouldnt happen.

[Molitoth]

Why would they roll back to pre-nerf??
60% critical Rate was BROKEN on DSCs...they arent going back.

Read step 3 again.

You basically missed the vision of my idea, so before you are so anxious to post your little witty reply proving how truely awesome you are at playing the new style of disciple, take a moment to understand it.

I can play the new style just fine also, but I really don't think it is how the Disciple was intended to work, and it was deffintly portrayed that way.

[Laiboch]

better solution, give us everything we had before but put us in light armor so we cant solo 4 dots, there our group ability = same, and our soloability = lowered, problem solved everyone is happy.

This does not resolve anything.

Let me explain why. This is not a Disciple class issue. This is a game mechanics issue.

If you are intended to solo 2 dot mobs and thus your DPS is geared to fight those mobs in around 30-40 seconds which is where in Beta 3-5 Dev’s stated is their target time for classes to go through a single fight, but your Healing ability is tuned for a fight against 4-5 dot mobs this imbalance will continue regardless of the crit rate.

Now you have a situation where if you nerf their healing to much they will no longer be a viable class in groups fighting 4-5 dot mobs. So you have to find a way to balance content first then tune classes to that content.

There are a lot of quick fixes that can be tried, but the Dot system as it is according to Glip the Gnome does not work. As long as the current lack of balance and clear definition is allowed to continue by the devs there will be nerf after nerf until suddenly someone at Sigil scratches their head and says.. “hey guys… I think the problem is that we never clearly defined group and solo content in a way that makes it truly playable.”

It’s simple Gear DPS to 2 dot mobs. Gear Healing at 3 dot mobs. Then take the average DPS of a 3 man group and a 6 man group and base mob hit points around the desired duration of the fight instead of using massive DPS arc’s to create 100% of the challenge. Yes you can up the DPS but use a clear scale of progression.

Will healers sill be able to fight a 3 dot mob. The answer will be yes, but the time involved makes using them as XP unpractical.

[Niko]

Fighting 3 DoT or higher mobs already takes a very long time. Generally I can't kill 4 DoTs since the nerf unless they are 4 or 5 levels below me and it takes a very long time. 3 Dots also take a long time though they aren't so risky and I can take one that is around my level. It's probably about the same exp time to kill. If they nerf our heals anymore they will be pretty sad. Other healers already have more variety of heals/buffs with the differnce being they all use their energy pool.

[Laiboch]

Fighting 3 DoT or higher mobs already takes a very long time. Generally I can't kill 4 DoTs since the nerf unless they are 4 or 5 levels below me and it takes a very long time. 3 Dots also take a long time though they aren't so risky and I can take one that is around my level. It's probably about the same exp time to kill. If they nerf our heals anymore they will be pretty sad. Other healers already have more variety of heals/buffs with the differnce being they all use their energy pool.

Its good 3 dot fights take longer, but the issue is that for the disciple in any event fights are dramatically slower and key abilities are not accessible except in a very unbalanced and haphazard system.

People have posted how clarity seems to resolve the issue, but the reason why is because it’s on a controlled timer. It removed critical attacks from the equation all together. If anything people posting stating that Clarity fixes everything prove my point on the use of timers over a per attack random percentage opening an ability.

The Crit nerf and healing nerf did not fix the issue with Disciples being able to solo 3 dot mobs all day long it simply slowed the class down below every other class in the game when it comes to time invested to gain levels.

Fact: Using a random per attack percentage creates imbalance issues. Especially when they are needed to access abilities needed in groups.

Fact: Clarity works because it uses a Timer and bypasses the Crit system altogether. By removing the crit system it gives the player a measure of control over what they do with balance being created by the timer and a player having to wait for a given amount of time before using the ability again.