Nerfs/Buffs needed

[tumut]

Basically discuss what you'd like to see in a hypothetical balance patch. I got a ton of shit Id wanna see.

1. Nerf dire thunder to 7 mt, 9 mt is ridiculous and trust me Reinhardt will still be fantastic. But honestly it doesn't even make sense, since legendary tomes are 14, and all brave weapons except dire thunder are half of a legendary's mt. Poor humble Olwen though.

2. Nerf horsies/flier/armor emblem. Just tone the buffs down so they're still solid but not as gross as their current state.

3. Colorless units don't need cancel affinity. This would be weird to implement in as any colorless that have this already would need to regurgitate a Mathilda, but idk is can make it work.

4. Healers. Make them do 25% less damage than 50% less, allow them to inherit more skills, give healers legendary weapons, make their healing assists more useful so they can be viable support units like they should be. Any of these would be great.

5. Give dagger users 1-2 range. Dagger users are overshadowed by the strong archers and this way they can make good use of vantage and have more of a niche. Introducing a brave dagger could also help, or a dagger exclusive movement +1 or acrobat abilities to ignore terrain. 

6. For any weak characters that are pretty awful I'm in favor of buffing. Nothing in particular just a few boosts in BST.

Edited July 25, 2017 by tumut

[Sasori]

I don't think we will be seeing any nerfs or buffs. If I got the bussiness model right the solution is usually just to include new stuff instead. I believe they already tried that with stuff like Wrathfull staff and the anti buff skills.

But if it where up to me i'd buff the anti armour and anti horse stuff. They do little damage and armour units are pretty rare so the weapons themselves being weak makes them unapealing.

I might nerf the bladetomes. From what I read they overshadow every non dire thunder tome at the moment.

[Elieson]

Why not:

 

1. Remove the 1/2 damage handler on Healers. They already can't equip most key A skills and can't run and offensive procs at all, which largely define offense wrt speed as it is, and they really want a B skill that literally anybody else could run, like Lancebreaker or QuickRiposte or something. Give Serra a bone here :(
2. Include another dang unit with Close Counter and Distant Counter, so the other 2/3 of the playerbase can experiment with silly builds
   1. On that regard, how about making every unit recruitable as a 3*, 4* or 5*, so high end units aren't sitting behind basically a pay wall. I'll stomach out my time to grind feathers if I can actually obtain a version of the unit that isn't locked to 5*
   2. Even further, why not make 1* and 2* summonable units a thing
3. And the one I think is not happening at all but would be nice: Halve the Hone/Fortify buffs from +6/+6 to +3/+3, because it's still a C-skill that buffs a unit by 6 points, but allows players the freedom to consider running Hone Atk if they want well, more Atk, etc
   1. Follow it up with making Hones/Fortifies do what they're supposed to do; buff a unit for their next action, not the entirety of their next turn
      1. Rein would still be very relevant but not at his hilarious level
      2. Blade Tomes would still be super threatening

Edited July 25, 2017 by Elieson

[DraceEmpressa]

Gscha games don't nerf units as they are going,they buff some instead but never nerf. 

[thecrimsonflash]

daggers decrease stats, so I wouldn't be too concerned with buffing them, not to mention glacies and similar skills help with any issues that come from attacks not being good enough. though I suppose that staff users tend to easily overshadow all dagger users aswell so there's that.

[Ice Dragon]

4 hours ago, tumut said:

1. Nerf dire thunder to 7 mt, 9 mt is ridiculous and trust me Reinhardt will still be fantastic. But honestly it doesn't even make sense, since legendary tomes are 14, and all brave weapons except dire thunder are half of a legendary's mt. Poor humble Olwen though.

Dire Thunder is effectively "legendary", though, meaning it should have more Atk than a generic Brave tome (if one existed). Furthermore, relative stats in this game are by absolute difference (e.g. -1 or -2) and not by percentage difference (e.g. -10% or -20%).

4 hours ago, tumut said:

3. Colorless units don't need cancel affinity. This would be weird to implement in as any colorless that have this already would need to regurgitate a Mathilda, but idk is can make it work.

Colorless units already have the disadvantage that they cannot have weapon triangle advantage against anything and have triangle disadvantage against a not-uncommon weapon.

4 hours ago, tumut said:

5. Give dagger users 1-2 range. Dagger users are overshadowed by the strong archers and this way they can make good use of vantage and have more of a niche. Introducing a brave dagger could also help.

Physically not possible with the current UI. The square the unit ends its turn on would be ambiguous for players that control by swiping.

4 hours ago, tumut said:

6. For any weak characters that are pretty awful I'm in favor of buffing. Nothing in particular just a few boosts in BST.

All units have the exact same total level 1 stats and total growth rates plus or minus the modifiers based on their movement and weapon type and trainee or veteran status. It makes no sense to arbitrarily give characters more stats. Their level-40 stats are the result of their base stats and growths, not the reverse.

 

I don't think a balance patch is needed. I think skills can be used to "fix" most of the balance issues. The issue is only in making them strong enough without being overbearing. For example, Panic Ploy, while strong, has a hit box that the AI has no idea how to use.

Daunt 1/2/3: (C) Foes within 2 squares have their bonuses reduced to +4/+3/+2 in combat if their bonuses are higher.

At level 3, this limits enemies to a maximum of +2/2/2/2 buffs when in range. This is a soft-counter to movement-type buffs and Litrblade without being crippling against most other units and causes units to forgo a buff skill of their own. It will not affect skills that increase stats in combat.

If the effect is too strong, +5/+4/+3 is also strong enough to be relevant.

Shade 1/2/3: (B, Dagger only) When this unit's HP ≥ 75%/50%/25%, foes cannot initiate combat against this unit if at least one other ally without Shade can be attacked by that foe.

This keeps your dagger users alive and able to apply debuffs to the opponent without risk of being killed on enemy phase. Slot B prevents use with Windsweep or Watersweep.

Latona: (Assist, Staff only) Range 1. Restores 5 HP. Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count -2).

Guarantees Heavenly Light or a Balm on every heal. Reduces the cooldown for Miracle to 3. Totally not broken, I swear. On that note:

Fortify: (Assist, Staff only) Range 1. Restores 8 HP. Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count -1).

Heavenly Light now has a cooldown of 1. Balm skills still activate every heal.

Corrosion 1/2/3: (B) When attacked, resolve combat as if the foe suffers -4/-6/-8 Atk after its first attack.

Stacks with Close Defense or Distant Defense. Decreases the effectiveness of player-phase builds somewhat. Taking the B slot means it is not compatible with Weaponbreakers and Quick Riposte.

Edited July 26, 2017 by Ice Dragon

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Nerf the MT of blade tomes. They have the same MT as the generic "silver" lines of tomes (Bolganone, Thoron, rexcalibur), and I don't think cooldown count +1 is a compelling enough nerf. I think the only other "cooldown +1" weapon in the game for non staff users is lightning breath, which is a distant counter weapon that does indeed have 4 less MT than Flametongue+, the "silver" breath attack.

Alternatively, have a cap on the bonus damage you can obtain for blade tomes. Say, 10 extra damage. It'll at least tone down horse emblem more than Nino. Nino did nothing wrong, she was just doing her best.

Edited July 25, 2017 by Gustavos

[XRay]

As others have said, straight up nerfs to specific weapons or characters are not going to happen. Adding stuff to indirectly nerf things is still possible, for example, they can release a skill that disables Brave effects.

I do not see anything that needs nerfing in my opinion.The fact that a predictable AI rather than a player is controlling the enemy is a pretty powerful nerf already.

[Cornguy]

Not sure if it counts as a buff, but I think you should be able to spend feathers/orbs to inherit skills from any unit in your roster, as an alternative to sacrificing the unit. The cost would scale up depending on the rarity of the unit. IE, Swordbreaker 3 would be cheaper to inherit from 4* Abel than it would be from 5* Sully. The cost would stay the same whether you take one or three skills from the unit in question. 

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

I do not see anything that needs nerfing in my opinion.The fact that a predictable AI rather than a player is controlling the enemy is a pretty powerful nerf already.

The thing that most needs nerfing is players. The AI simply can't keep up because it doesn't prioritize positioning at all.

That's one of the things my suggestion for Daunt is for. There's literally no way the AI can mess up positioning for a skill that is always in effect when attacking or when being attacked and might incidentally help when an allied unit is attacking or being attacked. Unlike Panic Ploy, which the AI doesn't know how to make work at all.

[Junkhead]

wait armour emblem is a thing

That's just asking to get fried.

 

EDIT: The suggestions are actually pretty sound.

Edited July 26, 2017 by Soul~!

[XRay]

58 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The thing that most needs nerfing is players. The AI simply can't keep up because it doesn't prioritize positioning at all.

That's one of the things my suggestion for Daunt is for. There's literally no way the AI can mess up positioning for a skill that is always in effect when attacking or when being attacked and might incidentally help when an allied unit is attacking or being attacked. Unlike Panic Ploy, which the AI doesn't know how to make work at all.

What about releasing AI only skills that only affect defense teams? Embla's Ward is a pretty fun AI only skill, but that is obviously not going to work for Arena. They could release:
Dragon Skin (halves all damage)
Counter (if the unit is alive, any damage received is also dealt back to the attacker immediately)
Rightful God (Special always active)
Limit Breaker (all stats +10)
Rally Spectrum (adjacent allies receive +7/+7/+7/+7 buff at the start of each turn)
Warp (teleport to any allied units)
Replicate (creates an extra copy of the unit)
Wings (allows unit to pass over certain terrain)
Horse (unit has three range)

Counter will severely nerf player's Blade mages that cannot OHKO high HP enemies. For added challenge, Wings and Horse has no restrictions and do not have flier or cavalry weaknesses, and Horse does not affect a unit's ability to traverse forests (and water and mountains for fliers). For Replicate, the original and clone does not have to share HP.

Edited July 26, 2017 by XRay

[NekoKnight]

4 hours ago, tumut said:

2. Nerf horsies/flier/armor emblem. Just tone the buffs down so they're still solid but not as gross as their current state.

Armor Emblem needs all the help it can get to be viable and fliers are fairly limited by being locked to melee sans S!Camilla. The reason why Horse Emblem is so deadly has more to do with Dire Thunder and Blade tomes being OP.

4 hours ago, tumut said:

 

3. Colorless units don't need cancel affinity. This would be weird to implement in as any colorless that have this already would need to regurgitate a Mathilda, but idk is can make it work.

Cancel Affinity let's them counter TA Raven Tomes that hard counter them. It's a very specific counter to what was once a very common build. CA is a nerf TA Raven needed, in my opinion.

4 hours ago, Elieson said:

Include another dang unit with Close Counter and Distant Counter, so the other 2/3 of the playerbase can experiment with silly builds

As much as it would be nice to have CC/DC on certain units, I think the game is better for not having a high distribution on those skills. The ability to counter units normally you could not completely changes the way they (and the game as a whole) function. I think it better for units to have weaknesses (ranges they can't counter) that can be exploited.

----------------

Anyway, some changes I'd recommend with the mindset that things can only be added.

-Wrathful Staff added as a Sacred Seal.

-Brave Defender (B-Slot): When attacked with a weapon with consecutive attacks, negate the second attack.

-Daunt (as described by Ice Dragon)

Make higher attack armor killers. It might be appropriate to make a better version of Silver weapons as few characters can really benefit from the extra might at the expense of other abilities.

 

[Ice Dragon]

7 minutes ago, XRay said:

What about releasing AI only skills that only affect defense teams? Embla's Ward is a pretty fun AI only skill, but that is obviously not going to work for Arena. They could release:
Dragon Skin (halves all damage)
Counter (if the unit is alive, any damage received is also dealt back to the attacker immediately)
Rightful God (Special always active)
Wings (allows unit to pass over certain terrain)
Horse (unit has three range)

Counter will severely nerf player's Blade mages that cannot OHKO high HP enemies. For added challenge, Wings and Horse has no restrictions and do not have flier or cavalry weaknesses, and Horse does not affect a unit's ability to traverse forests (and water and mountains for fliers).

The problem with most of those is there's very little counter-play that works against them.

An opponent with Daunt, for example, would essentially have an advantage of 2-4 points of stats over your own, which can be overcome, and you can still even the odds by bringing your own unit with Daunt. However, while the opponent is on the field, it limits your ability to simply bulldoze through the opponent with Litrblade and buffed units.

The counter to Dragon Skin is "do more damage". The counter to Counter is "one-kit kill". The counter to Rightful God is "Desperation Brave weapon". Those are not particularly interesting ways to deal with those skills and are simply "do you have x character or y build", which is boring and limits team diversity.

[XRay]

8 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The problem with most of those is there's very little counter-play that works against them.

An opponent with Daunt, for example, would essentially have an advantage of 2-4 points of stats over your own, which can be overcome, and you can still even the odds by bringing your own unit with Daunt. However, while the opponent is on the field, it limits your ability to simply bulldoze through the opponent with Litrblade and buffed units.

The counter to Dragon Skin is "do more damage". The counter to Counter is "one-kit kill". The counter to Rightful God is "Desperation Brave weapon". Those are not particularly interesting ways to deal with those skills and are simply "do you have x character or y build", which is boring and limits team diversity.

But Daunt is not enough to nerf players though. The only reason enemies in Lunatic+ in Awakening are capable of standing toe to toe against the best players is because they have access to those over powered skills. And once the player hits stat caps, even those skills are not enough to stop players.

Edited July 26, 2017 by XRay

[Omegaprism]

I'm still salty that Astra, my favorite of the classic proc skills, is the most tepid of the bunch. I would really love it if, since changing existing skills is not allowed, they added a new proc that scaled off of speed. No fancy frills, just a speed analogue to the Glowing Ember, Chilling Wind, and Dragon Gaze lines. It would help make all those characters whose sole good stat is speed (such as poor Navarre, Lon'qu, and Rebecca) a little bit easier to build.

[XRay]

15 minutes ago, Omegaprism said:

I'm still salty that Astra, my favorite of the classic proc skills, is the most tepid of the bunch. I would really love it if, since changing existing skills is not allowed, they added a new proc that scaled off of speed. No fancy frills, just a speed analogue to the Glowing Ember, Chilling Wind, and Dragon Gaze lines. It would help make all those characters whose sole good stat is speed (such as poor Navarre, Lon'qu, and Rebecca) a little bit easier to build.

Have you thought of any good names for them? I could only think of boring names like Lightning Bolt, Momentum, Sonic Boom, Speed of Light, and Velocity.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

2 hours ago, Soul~! said:

wait armour emblem is a thing

That's just asking to get fried.

You just put Distant Counter and Ward Armor on everything, then Quick Riposte or Wary Fighter depending on which Armor, and watch things do 1 damage to you, then explode as you hit them with Bonfire.

[NekoKnight]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Have you thought of any good names for them? I could only think of boring names like Lightning Bolt, Momentum, Sonic Boom, Speed of Light, and Velocity.

Going by the naming theme of the Def/Res variants, "Boosting Gale/Huricane/Ventus"

I suppose if they wanted a non-dragon themed Attack version, they could do "Tumbling Stone/Landslide/Terra"

Edited July 26, 2017 by NekoKnight

[Omegaprism]

2 hours ago, XRay said:

Have you thought of any good names for them? I could only think of boring names like Lightning Bolt, Momentum, Sonic Boom, Speed of Light, and Velocity.

Hmmm... Maybe something like Haze (basic skill)/Mirage (big damage)/Dancing Lights (lower cooldown)?

[Johann]

Daylight/Sol/Noontime should all be 1 charge lower than what they have.

Escutcheon, Holy Cowl, etc should either be made to reduce enemy's attack or boost unit's defense/resistance.

[Junkhead]

12 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

You just put Distant Counter and Ward Armor on everything, then Quick Riposte or Wary Fighter depending on which Armor, and watch things do 1 damage to you, then explode as you hit them with Bonfire.

And why is everybody (aka fucking nobody) talking about this?

[NekoKnight]

27 minutes ago, Soul~! said:

And why is everybody (aka fucking nobody) talking about this?

Maybe a lack of DC to put on everything.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

33 minutes ago, Soul~! said:

And why is everybody (aka fucking nobody) talking about this?

It's rather expensive compared to Horse Emblem, and it locks you into being mostly Enemy Phase, since mobility issues make it a bit tricky to incorporate Player Phase play, even though Brave Lance Effie is absolutely ridiculous with Armor buffs. Not exactly everyone's cup of tea to compared to the easy-to-use Horse Emblem.

[Junkhead]

4 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

Maybe a lack of DC to put on everything.

I'm aware of that part; I just decide to go with it since everybody is okay with theorycrafting there asses off

of wait let's 10+ Ryoma so 50 Spd is viable