I stumbled upon a topic on wizard101 central about balancing pvp. I thought that it nailed 90% of the problems in pvp, and I thought I would post it here, to show KI (again) and the people on these forms. This post was created by Onion Knight over on wizard101 central, and I'll quote it for you.
Onion Knight wrote:
Let's face it: there isn't a single old school player (meaning that they PvP'd when level 50 was the highest you could attain) out there that would say that PvP is at its best right now. During the time when everyone wore the Commander outfit, every school was on somewhat even footing. Yes, Myth, Fire, and Ice were the dominates thanks in part to their damage bubble, but at the same time you would see Storms, Balances, Deaths, and Lifes competing as well. That brings me to my first "suggestion."
Warlord Arena Gear is no longer a good idea. It's the best idea.
Put everyone in the same outfit again. The defensive games of old were where the real strategy lay; not in lucky criticals or spammy attacks. On top of that, school accuracy wouldn't be royally messed over anymore. Life shouldn't be fizzling when Fire, Myth, or Storm (Ice gets 99%, so basically Ice as well) can cast Life spells without fail. Wasn't Life (as well as Balance and Death) designed to be the low damage, high accuracy school? Not since the Waterworks. I know several Lifes that wore pieces of Commander gear just to keep their fizzles down.
Bottom line: Giving everyone the same outfit is not as bad of a hit against individuality as you might think. Ice still has health, Fire/Storm/Myth still have damage, and Life/Balance/Death still have superior accuracy. In fact, this would be much better than the backwards system that the Waterworks dropped on us.
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Even with the same gear, Fire and Myth are still far and away the top dogs. How do you level the playing field without making everyone the same? I'd like to hear your suggestions. Basically, we're looking for simple little tweaks to the lower tier schools that will make a big difference in their game.
The schools being discussed are Life, Balance, Death, and Storm. Particularly Balance and Death, as the other two are team oriented. Life and Storm could stand to be better in 1v1 for sure, but their real strength lies in the team game as I already said.
Life.
>Give Life a 4-pip DoT spell similar to Poison. This solves Life's biggest problem: being easily predicted. >Why is Sanctuary 3 pips? Making it 2 gives Life an even field in the bubble war.
Storm.
>Putting everyone in Warlord gear gives Storm the ability to survive. >Storm needs a DoT just as badly as Life, as a deck of Volcanic Shields shuts it down relatively quickly. Storm Elves are nice and all, but it's time for something that doesn't cost 500 gold per pop. >Give the Storm Elemental the ability to use Storm Elf.
Balance.
>Power Play should be 2 pips. Enough said. >I'll copy a line from my post in firestarter75's thread. "2 pip Hydra. I can think of more than one case where I lost a tournament match from second when I would Hydra straight into a Volcanic Shield. Balance's damage output wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so annoyingly easy to defend. Toss up 3 Volcanics and Balance is shut down. They can try Spectral Minion, but unfortunately the smart player will knock them down immediately with a 4 pip AoE. There is literally nothing Balance can do to stop Volcanic Shield. A simple solution is to implement a 2 pip spell that does Fire, Ice, and Storm damage. It wouldn't have to be much; just a little spell like Link that was designed for PvP. It would make going second a much more fair game for Balance and give them a much needed unique "tool." Death."
>Death would benefit most out of any school from Warlord Gear. Since its bubble is basically unusable when in danger, Death could actually use a Mastery Amulet on a school such as Myth or Fire to attack from, thanks to generic damage given by Warlord gear.
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It's surprising how easy it would be to re-balance PvP. All it would take is a new set of Warlord gear, a few simple edits to existing spells, and one to two new spells.
Thoughts or comments?
-Onion
My notes:
If life got a 4 pip DoT, not only would they no longer be predictable, but wouldn't struggle with shields so much, meaning they wouldn't rely on the myth mastery amulet.
Sanctuary does need to be 2 pips, though the bubble can sometimes hurt life if the opponent is low on health. I think life should get a 2 pip 30% bubble (in between ice and the high damage schools) so they can compete in the bubble war without hurting themselves.
If storm gets a DoT, it would need to be pip expensive like frostbite, and most of the damage needs to be focused on the first hit. If not, then storm would become over powered.
The storm minion should cast storm elf, just make sure it doesn't spam it.
I think power play should be completely changes, it never will benefit the owner as balances pips are already 90%. Someone on the post said it should be +30% damage for your team, and -30% damage for the opponents team. I think that would be overpowered, but if you lowered it to +15% for all friends and -15% to all enemies, then I think it would be fair (and quite useful.)
I agree with the 2 pip hydra all the way, now balance wont rely on shatter.
Death could use a bubble as well as doom and gloom can hurt more then help at times. A +30% would be ideal.
I think ice would fall behind if all these spells were added, maybe a simple spell to keep ice competitive. -------------------------------------------------------
Honestly, if these changes were implemented, and first turn advantage was fixed, then legend pvp would be nearly flawless.
-Solstice64 All credit goes to Onion Knight. P.S. sorry for any bad grammar, I don't feel like proof-reading my notes.
I completely agree. I'm a life wizard, and I just love the ideas! Whenever I'm in a battle and stack up on blades, they think I'm gonna use Centaur. Which I probably am, due to the course that I'm not level 58 yet, no where close to Forest Lord. And Centaur is practically the only good hitting spell I have until then.
I actually agree with all of these Ideas, They are genius and almost fool proof. the only one I think is iffie is the new balance bubble. balance bubble should be simply one or the other. all the other school bubbles aren't team specific. they can also help (or hurt) both teams. so i think balance should be +25 to all.
Wow. That is my expression. Wow. This does nail nearly all the things wrong in pvp, and a few things wrong in pve, too! For a while, I didn't pvp, simply because I thought they would never be able to fix the system, there was so many things wrong with it. But this works. It really does. I could not find a single thing wrong with this your post OR Onion Knights post! This is like the ultimate solution to everything wrong with the game. I really hope KI implements this idea, because it would not only fix most of the things people don't like about pvp, it would attract more people to the arena! William Crowthistle Legendary Pyromancer 8)
Wow, I was expecting more arguing then support, so thanks guys. Lets try to rub this in KI's face an really make them consider it.
necrospector wrote:
the only one I think is iffie is the new balance bubble. balance bubble should be simply one or the other. all the other school bubbles aren't team specific. they can also help (or hurt) both teams. so i think balance should be +25 to all.
The only reason why I did both was I thought it was an interesting idea, truth is, as long as power play is changed into something useful, then its all fine.
I don't think storm with obtainable 100% attack boosts through ww gear and customized pet should get a low pip trained DoT... And having storm minion bust shields like the fire minion with double the health is a terrible idea. Low pip DoT's have always been a characteristic of the fire school, sacrificing a heavy one hit two pip spell for a damage over time. Low pip DoT is very effective but so is a gargantuan lightning bat. I'm so tired of everyone trying to make all schools the same. The addition of the school amulets made schools like life able to overcome certain weaknesses so i don't see the issue here. Pvp is fine the way it is.
I don't think storm with obtainable 100% attack boosts through ww gear and customized pet should get a low pip trained DoT... And having storm minion bust shields like the fire minion with double the health is a terrible idea. Low pip DoT's have always been a characteristic of the fire school, sacrificing a heavy one hit two pip spell for a damage over time. Low pip DoT is very effective but so is a gargantuan lightning bat. I'm so tired of everyone trying to make all schools the same. The addition of the school amulets made schools like life able to overcome certain weaknesses so i don't see the issue here. Pvp is fine the way it is.
No, storm wouldn't get a low pip DoT. If you read my notes, I said it should get a 5 pip DoT (like frostbite) where most of the damage is focused on the first hit i.e 450+300 over three rounds. Once again, I stated as long as the storm minion doesn't spam storm elf, and only cast it once in awhile, it would be fine.
Pvp isn't fine unless you rely on spammy or gimmicky strategies (which tales the fun away from pvp). Anyways, how could pvp be fine if some schools are forced to spend crowns to succeed while others don't need to? Here is another reason why pvp isn't fine (though most people on these boards ignore this.) Why are Fire, Myth, and (sometimes) Ice, the most commonly seen schools to win tournaments, whereas you almost never see storm and life wizards?
I actually agree with all of these Ideas, They are genius and almost fool proof. the only one I think is iffie is the new balance bubble. balance bubble should be simply one or the other. all the other school bubbles aren't team specific. they can also help (or hurt) both teams. so i think balance should be +25 to all.
As having just made a balance toon this morning, I can confindently say that the brief school description given to you when the game asks you to confirm your choice in the school clearly states "Balance wizards are good at changing the rules of combat."
Although it's my first balance, it's not my first time becoming familiarized with their class, and, a +/- 15% bubble would hit that nail on the head. At the moment I don't see balance really 'changing' the 'rules' of anything other than occasionally being a nuisance, and usually a quick-to-deal with one at that.
I am all for the suggestions from the OP and W1Central's OP, and would love to see the "Balance" school really start to act out its namesake, and not just in PvP.
Kudos for somebody taking some extra initiative! Clearly KI won't.
In my opinion, OnionKnight for Lead KI Consultant xD- we need somebody from the people, to listen to the people, after all.
First off I could not agree more that all bubbles should cost two pips. Why should the two worst bubbles cost the most? An idea I had to address the problem of life and death bubbles sometimes hurting more than helping is to make all bubbles only affect the casting team. Not only would it help life and death but it would add a new dimension to the bubble wars. Now if fire was fighting fire they could still have a bubble war. Imagine how this would change team pvp. I also agree that life needs a four or six pip dot, and think death needs a new, non x pip, minion.
I don't think storm with obtainable 100% attack boosts through ww gear and customized pet should get a low pip trained DoT... And having storm minion bust shields like the fire minion with double the health is a terrible idea. Low pip DoT's have always been a characteristic of the fire school, sacrificing a heavy one hit two pip spell for a damage over time. Low pip DoT is very effective but so is a gargantuan lightning bat. I'm so tired of everyone trying to make all schools the same. The addition of the school amulets made schools like life able to overcome certain weaknesses so i don't see the issue here. Pvp is fine the way it is.
No, storm wouldn't get a low pip DoT. If you read my notes, I said it should get a 5 pip DoT (like frostbite) where most of the damage is focused on the first hit i.e 450+300 over three rounds. Once again, I stated as long as the storm minion doesn't spam storm elf, and only cast it once in awhile, it would be fine.
Pvp isn't fine unless you rely on spammy or gimmicky strategies (which tales the fun away from pvp). Anyways, how could pvp be fine if some schools are forced to spend crowns to succeed while others don't need to? Here is another reason why pvp isn't fine (though most people on these boards ignore this.) Why are Fire, Myth, and (sometimes) Ice, the most commonly seen schools to win tournaments, whereas you almost never see storm and life wizards?
-Solstice64
Solstice64 wrote:
travisAk wrote:
I don't think storm with obtainable 100% attack boosts through ww gear and customized pet should get a low pip trained DoT... And having storm minion bust shields like the fire minion with double the health is a terrible idea. Low pip DoT's have always been a characteristic of the fire school, sacrificing a heavy one hit two pip spell for a damage over time. Low pip DoT is very effective but so is a gargantuan lightning bat. I'm so tired of everyone trying to make all schools the same. The addition of the school amulets made schools like life able to overcome certain weaknesses so i don't see the issue here. Pvp is fine the way it is.
No, storm wouldn't get a low pip DoT. If you read my notes, I said it should get a 5 pip DoT (like frostbite) where most of the damage is focused on the first hit i.e 450+300 over three rounds. Once again, I stated as long as the storm minion doesn't spam storm elf, and only cast it once in awhile, it would be fine.
Pvp isn't fine unless you rely on spammy or gimmicky strategies (which tales the fun away from pvp). Anyways, how could pvp be fine if some schools are forced to spend crowns to succeed while others don't need to? Here is another reason why pvp isn't fine (though most people on these boards ignore this.) Why are Fire, Myth, and (sometimes) Ice, the most commonly seen schools to win tournaments, whereas you almost never see storm and life wizards?
-Solstice64
It's a ripple effect. One spell addition could very well alter the dynamics of the game on many levels. It's easy to say "hey this school should get a new spell" but then why wouldn't every school get a new spell under the character development at the same level? What would all those spells be and how would that change or impact pvp? One little change could balance 1vs1 for tournament level play but how would it affect group pvp at moderate experience? These are just some of the questions that have to be asked before we thump the drum and demand for these kind of things. PvP can be considered a delicate ecosystem if you think about it, all I'm trying to point out is that adding something can have a far greater impact than what we would expect.
As much as I don't like the critical system (which seems to be something many tournament players want removed from pvp) it is the direction KI wants the game to go in. Universal gear without critical would make schools with high health like ice incredibly deadly in the right hands, as the school mastery amulets provide weak hitting schools with pip affordable heavy attacks. As you well know there is no pendant that gives a big health boots and it would be suicide for low health schools to use if they existed.
I do like some of your ideas solstice but I believe onions post is biased towards legendary 1vs1 tournament level pvp and does not represent pvp as a whole. (meaning all levels and experience)
Some schools are better in group pvp and others are better in solo, also school strength varies according to level. Another thing nobody considers about bubbles is blade percentage. Fire blade is 30% and bubble is 25%, also fire gets a 25% trainable trap. Now the death blade is an extra 10% at 40%, that and traps are better, if you think about death using feint (70%) as a trainable spell it seems highly unbalanced to give them a trainable attack bubble that is greater than fire. Some of these ideas have been though out but not really considered when taking the balance of all schools in pvp.
First you people wanted bolt to be gone, now legend gear? Come on people who cares if you lose a lot from this new update or something like that. You have to adapt to this, yes i know its hard but there's something called strategy. Lastly i seen a warlord lvl 28 defeat a legend that was low ranked, anything is possible so dont complain about the gear
First you people wanted bolt to be gone, now legend gear? Come on people who cares if you lose a lot from this new update or something like that. You have to adapt to this, yes i know its hard but there's something called strategy. Lastly i seen a warlord lvl 28 defeat a legend that was low ranked, anything is possible so dont complain about the gear
"....anything is possible..."
it's a sad day when player vs. player is determined more by chance, than skill. Oh wait...thats every day.
I don't think storm with obtainable 100% attack boosts through ww gear and customized pet should get a low pip trained DoT... And having storm minion bust shields like the fire minion with double the health is a terrible idea. Low pip DoT's have always been a characteristic of the fire school, sacrificing a heavy one hit two pip spell for a damage over time. Low pip DoT is very effective but so is a gargantuan lightning bat. I'm so tired of everyone trying to make all schools the same. The addition of the school amulets made schools like life able to overcome certain weaknesses so i don't see the issue here. Pvp is fine the way it is.
No, storm wouldn't get a low pip DoT. If you read my notes, I said it should get a 5 pip DoT (like frostbite) where most of the damage is focused on the first hit i.e 450+300 over three rounds. Once again, I stated as long as the storm minion doesn't spam storm elf, and only cast it once in awhile, it would be fine.
Pvp isn't fine unless you rely on spammy or gimmicky strategies (which tales the fun away from pvp). Anyways, how could pvp be fine if some schools are forced to spend crowns to succeed while others don't need to? Here is another reason why pvp isn't fine (though most people on these boards ignore this.) Why are Fire, Myth, and (sometimes) Ice, the most commonly seen schools to win tournaments, whereas you almost never see storm and life wizards?
-Solstice64
Solstice64 wrote:
travisAk wrote:
I don't think storm with obtainable 100% attack boosts through ww gear and customized pet should get a low pip trained DoT... And having storm minion bust shields like the fire minion with double the health is a terrible idea. Low pip DoT's have always been a characteristic of the fire school, sacrificing a heavy one hit two pip spell for a damage over time. Low pip DoT is very effective but so is a gargantuan lightning bat. I'm so tired of everyone trying to make all schools the same. The addition of the school amulets made schools like life able to overcome certain weaknesses so i don't see the issue here. Pvp is fine the way it is.
No, storm wouldn't get a low pip DoT. If you read my notes, I said it should get a 5 pip DoT (like frostbite) where most of the damage is focused on the first hit i.e 450+300 over three rounds. Once again, I stated as long as the storm minion doesn't spam storm elf, and only cast it once in awhile, it would be fine.
Pvp isn't fine unless you rely on spammy or gimmicky strategies (which tales the fun away from pvp). Anyways, how could pvp be fine if some schools are forced to spend crowns to succeed while others don't need to? Here is another reason why pvp isn't fine (though most people on these boards ignore this.) Why are Fire, Myth, and (sometimes) Ice, the most commonly seen schools to win tournaments, whereas you almost never see storm and life wizards?
-Solstice64
It's a ripple effect. One spell addition could very well alter the dynamics of the game on many levels. It's easy to say "hey this school should get a new spell" but then why wouldn't every school get a new spell under the character development at the same level? What would all those spells be and how would that change or impact pvp? One little change could balance 1vs1 for tournament level play but how would it affect group pvp at moderate experience? These are just some of the questions that have to be asked before we thump the drum and demand for these kind of things. PvP can be considered a delicate ecosystem if you think about it, all I'm trying to point out is that adding something can have a far greater impact than what we would expect.
As much as I don't like the critical system (which seems to be something many tournament players want removed from pvp) it is the direction KI wants the game to go in. Universal gear without critical would make schools with high health like ice incredibly deadly in the right hands, as the school mastery amulets provide weak hitting schools with pip affordable heavy attacks. As you well know there is no pendant that gives a big health boots and it would be suicide for low health schools to use if they existed.
I do like some of your ideas solstice but I believe onions post is biased towards legendary 1vs1 tournament level pvp and does not represent pvp as a whole. (meaning all levels and experience)
Some schools are better in group pvp and others are better in solo, also school strength varies according to level. Another thing nobody considers about bubbles is blade percentage. Fire blade is 30% and bubble is 25%, also fire gets a 25% trainable trap. Now the death blade is an extra 10% at 40%, that and traps are better, if you think about death using feint (70%) as a trainable spell it seems highly unbalanced to give them a trainable attack bubble that is greater than fire. Some of these ideas have been though out but not really considered when taking the balance of all schools in pvp.
The way KI can solve this is by making it easier to get critical block. It is very easy to get critical, but not very easy to get critical block without giving up a different robe/wand,etc. that could help you better in a different way. Now here is an example. I have 72% fire resist, and 43% fire boost. There are other robes that would help me critical more, but I would have to give up my boost and resist. I would give up the boost for critical, but not the fire resist. I am very proud of it, and the only way to make it easier to defeat Storm wizards in pvp (not counting storm shield spamming.) would be to either: 1. Give up my resist and boost for higher critical block stats that only MIGHT work. 2.Give up my resist for higher critical stats that have even less chance of working. Now I don't think that's fair. We need an easier way to get critical block, period. Now in case you think I am one of those people who is just whining, I have not yet tried using storm shield spamming, and I am not saying Storm is too powerful. I am just saying we need an easier way to get critical block. I was just using Storm as an example. William Crowthistle Legendary Pyromancer 8)
Just in case those from central were wondering who I am, it's Eric the thief. Travis, I can tell that your intentions are good and that you don't want to see PvP messed up even further, but you have to understand that tournament play ultimately determines balance. Allow me to explain. I for one am a avid balance player, currently a tier 2 school according to the tipsy turvy tournaments on central. While ranking up my balance to the commander/warlord threshold, I had little to no difficulty defeating the vast majority of opponents I faced (downrankers included). However, whenever I hopped into a central tournament I was creamed by a fire/myth who knew their stuff. I'm not making the claim that I'm a bad duelist, or that all fire/myth duelists win almost all the time--the point I'm trying to make is that it is in the end impossible to balance anything but tournament play, because ranked is full of many different duelists all with many different skill levels. In the end tournament play is what shapes the metagame (the game as it is to the community, created by the most respected players) and when you shoot to balance PvP, what you should balance is the metagame. That way, whenever players are on equal footing nothing but strategy factors in to who wins.
Also, your team play comment is only somewhat accurate. It is true that storm and life have distinct roles to play in 4v4 due to their very efficient aoe spells. However, the schools are, and most likely always will be, on even ground in 2v2 and 3v3. This is because all school tools have some purpose in these match sizes, as opposed to 1v1 or 4v4 where they need to be as effective as possible or affect as many people as possible. Eric
travisAk wrote:
Solstice64 wrote:
travisAk wrote:
I don't think storm with obtainable 100% attack boosts through ww gear and customized pet should get a low pip trained DoT... And having storm minion bust shields like the fire minion with double the health is a terrible idea. Low pip DoT's have always been a characteristic of the fire school, sacrificing a heavy one hit two pip spell for a damage over time. Low pip DoT is very effective but so is a gargantuan lightning bat. I'm so tired of everyone trying to make all schools the same. The addition of the school amulets made schools like life able to overcome certain weaknesses so i don't see the issue here. Pvp is fine the way it is.
No, storm wouldn't get a low pip DoT. If you read my notes, I said it should get a 5 pip DoT (like frostbite) where most of the damage is focused on the first hit i.e 450+300 over three rounds. Once again, I stated as long as the storm minion doesn't spam storm elf, and only cast it once in awhile, it would be fine.
Pvp isn't fine unless you rely on spammy or gimmicky strategies (which tales the fun away from pvp). Anyways, how could pvp be fine if some schools are forced to spend crowns to succeed while others don't need to? Here is another reason why pvp isn't fine (though most people on these boards ignore this.) Why are Fire, Myth, and (sometimes) Ice, the most commonly seen schools to win tournaments, whereas you almost never see storm and life wizards?
-Solstice64
Solstice64 wrote:
travisAk wrote:
I don't think storm with obtainable 100% attack boosts through ww gear and customized pet should get a low pip trained DoT... And having storm minion bust shields like the fire minion with double the health is a terrible idea. Low pip DoT's have always been a characteristic of the fire school, sacrificing a heavy one hit two pip spell for a damage over time. Low pip DoT is very effective but so is a gargantuan lightning bat. I'm so tired of everyone trying to make all schools the same. The addition of the school amulets made schools like life able to overcome certain weaknesses so i don't see the issue here. Pvp is fine the way it is.
No, storm wouldn't get a low pip DoT. If you read my notes, I said it should get a 5 pip DoT (like frostbite) where most of the damage is focused on the first hit i.e 450+300 over three rounds. Once again, I stated as long as the storm minion doesn't spam storm elf, and only cast it once in awhile, it would be fine.
Pvp isn't fine unless you rely on spammy or gimmicky strategies (which tales the fun away from pvp). Anyways, how could pvp be fine if some schools are forced to spend crowns to succeed while others don't need to? Here is another reason why pvp isn't fine (though most people on these boards ignore this.) Why are Fire, Myth, and (sometimes) Ice, the most commonly seen schools to win tournaments, whereas you almost never see storm and life wizards?
-Solstice64
It's a ripple effect. One spell addition could very well alter the dynamics of the game on many levels. It's easy to say "hey this school should get a new spell" but then why wouldn't every school get a new spell under the character development at the same level? What would all those spells be and how would that change or impact pvp? One little change could balance 1vs1 for tournament level play but how would it affect group pvp at moderate experience? These are just some of the questions that have to be asked before we thump the drum and demand for these kind of things. PvP can be considered a delicate ecosystem if you think about it, all I'm trying to point out is that adding something can have a far greater impact than what we would expect.
As much as I don't like the critical system (which seems to be something many tournament players want removed from pvp) it is the direction KI wants the game to go in. Universal gear without critical would make schools with high health like ice incredibly deadly in the right hands, as the school mastery amulets provide weak hitting schools with pip affordable heavy attacks. As you well know there is no pendant that gives a big health boots and it would be suicide for low health schools to use if they existed.
I do like some of your ideas solstice but I believe onions post is biased towards legendary 1vs1 tournament level pvp and does not represent pvp as a whole. (meaning all levels and experience)
Some schools are better in group pvp and others are better in solo, also school strength varies according to level. Another thing nobody considers about bubbles is blade percentage. Fire blade is 30% and bubble is 25%, also fire gets a 25% trainable trap. Now the death blade is an extra 10% at 40%, that and traps are better, if you think about death using feint (70%) as a trainable spell it seems highly unbalanced to give them a trainable attack bubble that is greater than fire. Some of these ideas have been though out but not really considered when taking the balance of all schools in pvp.
It's a ripple effect. One spell addition could very well alter the dynamics of the game on many levels. It's easy to say "hey this school should get a new spell" but then why wouldn't every school get a new spell under the character development at the same level? What would all those spells be and how would that change or impact pvp? One little change could balance 1vs1 for tournament level play but how would it affect group pvp at moderate experience? These are just some of the questions that have to be asked before we thump the drum and demand for these kind of things. PvP can be considered a delicate ecosystem if you think about it, all I'm trying to point out is that adding something can have a far greater impact than what we would expect.
As much as I don't like the critical system (which seems to be something many tournament players want removed from pvp) it is the direction KI wants the game to go in. Universal gear without critical would make schools with high health like ice incredibly deadly in the right hands, as the school mastery amulets provide weak hitting schools with pip affordable heavy attacks. As you well know there is no pendant that gives a big health boots and it would be suicide for low health schools to use if they existed.
I do like some of your ideas solstice but I believe onions post is biased towards legendary 1vs1 tournament level pvp and does not represent pvp as a whole. (meaning all levels and experience)
Some schools are better in group pvp and others are better in solo, also school strength varies according to level. Another thing nobody considers about bubbles is blade percentage. Fire blade is 30% and bubble is 25%, also fire gets a 25% trainable trap. Now the death blade is an extra 10% at 40%, that and traps are better, if you think about death using feint (70%) as a trainable spell it seems highly unbalanced to give them a trainable attack bubble that is greater than fire. Some of these ideas have been though out but not really considered when taking the balance of all schools in pvp.
I'm in no mood to reply to any of this, I will put some effort though. If you dont mind, we will look at how these spells effect group pvp.
Life's DoT may be used to deal some damage, but that's about it due to the fact that most people don't shield life as they spend most of their time healing.
A 2 pip sanctuary might cause problems, but life wont use it very much due to how it effects both teams.
Storms DoT wont even be used if its 5 pips, way to expensive for a one target spell when they could use their pips on the dreaded tempest.
Powerplay being 2 pips will do nothing, if you take my notes and change it, then it will give balance a needed boost in group pvp. People would rather have a storm then a balance, maybe with this spell, that would change.
2 pip hydra would only clear shields off of one person, the only time I would use this would be on a life, though I would rather cast shatter.
Life and deaths bubble would allow all life and all death teams to be able to compete against other all schools teams.
Anything with a minion wouldn't effect group play at all, how many of those minion do you see cast?
Though this is based on legend 1v1, any of the new spells would only be gotten at high levels, its only the upgrades the would effect low level pvp.
Balance and death are slightly better in group pvp due to the fact that they can pair up with the over powered schools. Life and Storm however, do get a nice boost in group pvp, though it still isn't fair how ice gets the best of both worlds, whereas storm and life don't.
Even though death has bigger boosts, fire still is more powerful in pvp, giving death a group bubble may even that out. Dont agree with Fire being more powerful? I'll link you to this thread.
-Solstice64 P.S. I don't like the critical system either, but the reason why KI wont change it is because it requires more effort then benefit (their benefit, not ours.)
First you people wanted bolt to be gone, now legend gear? Come on people who cares if you lose a lot from this new update or something like that. You have to adapt to this, yes i know its hard but there's something called strategy. Lastly i seen a warlord lvl 28 defeat a legend that was low ranked, anything is possible so dont complain about the gear
Dang, now I have to double post because I forgot about this.
I am not trying to remove legend gear, just trying to get warlord gear. Also, bolt would become unfair from the Celestia update (with unstoppable and higher gear accuracy.)
I beat legends on my level 35, and I am not complaining at all. Its common knowledge that pvp isn't balanced, and I thought this post fixed almost everything in legend 1v1.
as storm I don't really want DoT cards (that is a fire thing not a storm thing), and I'm as old school as they come and think how PvP plays now is way better than it was in the past though I'd still remove dispels and beguile from both PvP and the rest of the game
your top dog PvP schools are nothing to me, my non top dog characters would kill them easily enough... the schools seem balanced enough and the arena gear for the most part does not hold up against the best non-arena gear, sure those in arena gear are harder to kill but they also do far less damage while in such gear
as storm I don't really want DoT cards (that is a fire thing not a storm thing), and I'm as old school as they come and think how PvP plays now is way better than it was in the past though I'd still remove dispels and beguile from both PvP and the rest of the game
your top dog PvP schools are nothing to me, my non top dog characters would kill them easily enough... the schools seem balanced enough and the arena gear for the most part does not hold up against the best non-arena gear, sure those in arena gear are harder to kill but they also do far less damage while in such gear
Do you 1v1, as this is focused around 1v1. Dispels and beguile are mostly used in group pvp, so I am guessing you don't 1v1 much. I find when I pvp on a weaker school, to succeed, I am forced to use out of school spells like shatter and feint. Now, fire can get to warlord with terrible training points, I don't see a balance there.
In group pvp, the weaker schools are at a similar level with fire and myth. Its life and storm that take a nice leap. Compared to pre-celestia dueling, I find that 1v1 is more about luck (I'm looking at you critical) and coming up with gimmicky strategies (i.e. max feints, shatter, then judge.)
All those ideas are seriously biased. It is just people whose schools already dominate the arena, wanting to have more power. The OP obviously has something against fire and ice, and just doesn't know how to overcome DoTs. If KI just keeps trying to make the schools like all other schools, it just won't be fun anymore. Plus the OP just thinks it is fine to give 4 schools new spells or complete revisions of a purposely put weak point of the school so that those 4 schools can be dominant in PvP. I'm ice and to be honest, if you can't beat an ice that is your problem. Ice is very easy to beat so is fire. I think is no secret that solistice has always wanted storm to have a DoT but I have to disagree. The fun in PvP is the uniqueness of every school. When they got to 60 level cap they tried to make this uniqueness much smaller. So now people don't play PvP. And for what reason so that a handful of players can make sure their schools can win in PvP? Enough with complaints if you ask me, if you want to use DoTs make a fire or an ice. It is just like why every school doesn't have a heal because healing spells are unique to the life school. It just doesn't make sense.
All those ideas are seriously biased. It is just people whose schools already dominate the arena, wanting to have more power. The OP obviously has something against fire and ice, and just doesn't know how to overcome DoTs. If KI just keeps trying to make the schools like all other schools, it just won't be fun anymore. Plus the OP just thinks it is fine to give 4 schools new spells or complete revisions of a purposely put weak point of the school so that those 4 schools can be dominant in PvP. I'm ice and to be honest, if you can't beat an ice that is your problem. Ice is very easy to beat so is fire. I think is no secret that solistice has always wanted storm to have a DoT but I have to disagree. The fun in PvP is the uniqueness of every school. When they got to 60 level cap they tried to make this uniqueness much smaller. So now people don't play PvP. And for what reason so that a handful of players can make sure their schools can win in PvP? Enough with complaints if you ask me, if you want to use DoTs make a fire or an ice. It is just like why every school doesn't have a heal because healing spells are unique to the life school. It just doesn't make sense.
Actually, your opinion is seriously biased. You talk as if Balance, storm, life, and death are the top schools in pvp, and as if ice and fire are the weakest. If what you say is true, then how come fire, myth, and ice are the most commonly seen schools to win tournaments, whereas life and storm are almost never seen. If this isn't enough for you, I'd like you to link you to this thread. Its how people would rate the power of schools in legendary 1v1, and as you can see, about 80% of the people agree with me (you can ignore the poll as that only places one school.)
I found this extremely funny. "I think its no secret that solstice has always wanted storm to have a DoT, but I disagree."
Its only since reading Onions post that I though storm should have a DoT. I used to think storm was an extremely powerful school in 1v1, and if it got a DoT, it would become OP. I used to think that the weakest schools in pvp was balance (my original wizard) and life (this is obvious.) Wanna know why I think storm is weak now? Its because I made myself no longer biased towards storm. Here is the thing about making yourself not biased in any one of your opinion, and its extremely hard, admitting your wrong. If you don't want to favor your original school over the others, you may have to admit that you getting to warlord wasn't much of an accomplishment (I had to do this with my ice.) (NOTE: I am not saying you are bad at pvp, I am just saying how to not become biased, whether you are or not.)
You talk about how making the schools more similar makes the game less fun. I think that more similar schools would be a very good trade off for a balanced pvp. Basically, I would enjoy a balanced arena more then I would an unbalanced one with more difference between schools.
-Solstice64 P.S. No offense intended. If you are insulted by my whole biased part, please notify me so I can edit it out.
as storm I don't really want DoT cards (that is a fire thing not a storm thing), and I'm as old school as they come and think how PvP plays now is way better than it was in the past though I'd still remove dispels and beguile from both PvP and the rest of the game
your top dog PvP schools are nothing to me, my non top dog characters would kill them easily enough... the schools seem balanced enough and the arena gear for the most part does not hold up against the best non-arena gear, sure those in arena gear are harder to kill but they also do far less damage while in such gear
Do you 1v1, as this is focused around 1v1. Dispels and beguile are mostly used in group pvp, so I am guessing you don't 1v1 much. I find when I pvp on a weaker school, to succeed, I am forced to use out of school spells like shatter and feint. Now, fire can get to warlord with terrible training points, I don't see a balance there.
In group pvp, the weaker schools are at a similar level with fire and myth. Its life and storm that take a nice leap. Compared to pre-celestia dueling, I find that 1v1 is more about luck (I'm looking at you critical) and coming up with gimmicky strategies (i.e. max feints, shatter, then judge.)
-Solstice64
I normally play 4v4 as you said, but I do that cause nothing else is half as challenging. In 1v1 play my storm just goes with one and two pip cards with strongs on them (this really messes up those that want to shield against storm) and if I struggle to do damage I turn to insane bolt. Needless to say my storm only seems to ever lose in 1v1 PvP when its insane bolt goes wrong but then again I'd rather defeat myself than have someone else do it.
I normally play 4v4 as you said, but I do that cause nothing else is half as challenging. In 1v1 play my storm just goes with one and two pip cards with strongs on them (this really messes up those that want to shield against storm) and if I struggle to do damage I turn to insane bolt. Needless to say my storm only seems to ever lose in 1v1 PvP when its insane bolt goes wrong but then again I'd rather defeat myself than have someone else do it.
Honestly, I would need to be more familiar with storm pvp to be able to accurately come up with a come back, so I am just going to ask you some questions. (These questions all refer to 1v1.)
What is your storm wizards rank? At lower ranks, storms need for a DoT is much less.
Have you ever competed in a tournament? Tourneys are the ultimate test as you tend to fight people at a higher skill level, not people ranked up through group play or anything else you would consider lack of skill.
What schools do you do well against and what schools trouble you? When fighting certain schools, storms need for a DoT may seem non-existent.
Do you use storm elf?
What out of schools spells do you use? (training points or treasures.)
Do you think storm doesn't need a DoT due to the lack of need in 1v1, or group play?
I am curious why a storm wizard doesn't think a DoT for themselves is a good idea. You mostly doing group pvp is a great answer, but you then state that you also 1v1.
JakeComet wrote: "--the point I'm trying to make is that it is in the end impossible to balance anything but tournament play, because ranked is full of many different duelists all with many different skill levels. In the end tournament play is what shapes the metagame (the game as it is to the community, created by the most respected players) and when you shoot to balance PvP, what you should balance is the metagame. That way, whenever players are on equal footing nothing but strategy factors in to who wins. "
JakeComet,
I agree with this completey, there is no question at all, this is the correct persepective to have, and to try to attain.
As a side note, I have tried to read every post that you have written over on Central. Your Balance "No Pressure" guide is the best that I have ever read. I have followed you guide in every way with my Balance, and have done well so far. Thanks for the guide, it was simply outstanding.
Joe, Joseph LionHunter, Ice, Balance, Storm, Death, with Life and Myth on the way.
