I thought about just putting this into the Class Balance thread, but the discussion there has turned more towards the class stats and AD vs AP. While this will be about combat as a whole for every class, not class specific.


So basically, the point will be to open discussion about the current "meta" of the game, and how the players feel about it. With the latest class balance, CNE has taken a step in the right direction I feel, and helped the "meta" to evolve from "everyone has to autoattack" to allowing the use of skills and still be viable and effective. This is a positive change, but it may have gone too far. Some still want to auto attack, and now that playstyle isnt really effective anymore. Im not sure if they can find a way to balance it out, but we can all hope.


I also want to discuss HP and Speed. Pretty much that defines the stats "meta" now. Basically, Speed is required for everyone, and Health is a close second. Every other stat is "secondary" and only offers minimal benefit. I know the speed change needed to happen a few weeks back, as it wasnt working at all, but again I think CNE has taken it too far. Desert set boots were already useless before, because people had to use green speed boots. Now rings are all useless unless they are speed rings. That also means every single ring in the holiday event was obsolete before the event even launched. This may be my personal opinion, but I dont think it is, someone feel free to correct me, or discuss it in this thread.


So speed needs a rework overall. There is alot of cool jewelry out there, but we arent able to make use of it, because it doesnt have speed main stat. This also has created a large imbalance with some players, because they have blue rings with speed main stats, when they are not available to any other players. As far as I am aware, there is nowhere in the game currently to get a blue speed ring.


Lastly is Health. While not necessarily "broken" in some way, again it is a requirement of the current meta. Not having skill points in "Healthy" pretty much lowers everything you can do in the game from Arena, to HoT, to Heroics. Health is definitely the second most important stat behind speed. Some may argue that you can increase your damage and it would make up for it, but I havent seen any proof of this. You have to have health, just as much as you need speed, and all damage stats come after both. This again is very limiting to what gear you are able to use, and lowers the effectiveness of all gear without these two things.


To sum up, speed and health both need a rework. Even Battle Rating weights speed and health higher than other stats. A green speed ring will give you a much higher battle rating that any other blue ring, even though a blue has a higher combined stat output (with more secondary stat options). This really makes no sense. Even the new epic rings pale in comparison to a lower level green speed ring. I dont think theres anyone who has even bought an epic ring, and thats just sad at this stage in the game. Even once all the other epics are filled, a person would be hard pressed to give up a speed ring for an epic one. Please run a pass over the speed stat, and help to give us more options in the "meta".

I disagree with you there Andaho. There shouldn't be essential skills as you call them (at least not directly at lvl 30). Ideally, anyone could come up with a viable build and enjoy the game after putting some thoughts into it. It's not "fun for a newbie" to be told after 2 days that you have to pool everything into health and speed and whatever flavour of the patch skill to have a chance at defeating HoT content.

There is an issue with difficulty scaling. And the results are these one build meta.

I believe the issues mostly revolve around npc damage. here's my 2 cents:
1) Crits: make them 1.5x damage instead of 2x. Or add a crit damage ammount passive to univ for exemple. That will improve survivability of the player and the companions, make fights a little longer, and mana/rage building will make more sense.
2) Armor: Maybe make it matter a bit more. Again, to avoid those one or two-shots due to crits on you or your companions.
3) Companions: Obviously, make them useful. Allow players to respec them at will or once a week. Give them some sort of synergy with the player.
4) Support skills or secondary effects: Make them more efficient or plain fix them (pretty sure some are broken.


Speed is an entire other matter. It does not require you to spend skill points, just train for it and pray for good rolls on gear. I believe the solution to be, make the other stats matter more.

Keep up the good work CNE. and Merry Christmas.

I am VIP so I alternate between 3 builds. I only use "Healthy" in one of them. That is for just general stuff like if I were doing the in between levels in HoT where I need to absorb a lot of hits from enemies hitting 5k or more each.

The other 2 builds do not use Healthy at all. The build I use to kill the troll does not use Healthy and I spend no shardium in HoT. The build I use climbing the arena does not use Healthy either. People just consider it essential because they don't want to be "squishy" in the arena or want that ridiculously high battle rating number that means nothing.

I have one of those blue speed rings from a chest and andaho said it 's probably the best ring in the game (I hope he's wrong , I want a better one :D). I always had good health too and they were both not useless but not enough until I managed to raise my strength a lot and until the slight boost for warriors. I have equipment that gets me to 448 speed and oliver and eliza were still killing me so yes speed and health are important but not enough only by themselves. I hope we won't see speed and health ruined like other things ._.

Exactly. The game should not be balanced around VIP. It isnt now, and thats a good thing. Making VIP a "requirement" would be the same as adding Pay to Win items in the shop.


With that in mind, if you only had 1 build Defiar, Im willing to bet the one of the 3 you choose to stick with would be the one with Healthy. You may have 2 other builds that are "viable" but they are also "situational", and thats why you have to keep switching them. My point still stands that the game still requires you to have healthy and the fact that you even have one build that still keeps it just proves my point.

shiki, I am likewise remembering the unread books....