How to compare builds

[Bargeld]

This is a spinoff from the bardsong thread since it seems that people actually like to stay on topic. The point of straying begain around the time I mentioned something about ab + ac = some value. The CBC spreadsheet has some calculations already built into it to compare and tally up an ECL based on multiclass combos, but I haven't found it to be helpful or even remotely accurate. Instead I threw out the idea of just adding ab and ac and starting from there. As you will see, maybe a raw ab + ac isn't a good measurement, but some other formula like 3*ab + 2*ac.

That starting point would really only be accurate when comparing 2 toons with the same abilities. Toons with different feats, buffs, saves, etc. tend to throw that method out of alignment. But you can still start at that point and move up or down from there, subjectively. In other words, if a pure fighter gets only their tokens and has no other real powerful abilities, then they should be top of the line when it comes to the ab + ac thing. Basically it would show that the pure fighter has nothing but melee capability, so it's ab/ac combo score should be the highest of all classes. If you have a tenser mage meleer it's overall ab/ac score should not be as high since it has the potential to use scrolls, dispel, and many other abilities. But in comparison, if you can max a dex fighter out at 80 ab/70 ac with books, how is having a 60 ab/90 ac mage build balanced? Or even a 65 ab/75 ac shifter form with a bigger weapon, epic dodge and spells? This is the direction I was going when making a comparison, don't look at it from a set number standpoint, but as classes and combos get tweaked, so do these balances.

I have submitted suggestions for improvements in balance. Some of these require improvements for some classes and nerfs for others. The biggest problem that I recognized was that I did not have enough knowledge of the inner workings of the classes and combos of my enemies. This is a problem in and of itself because no one wants to share their builds. When someone thinks they've stumbled onto some OP secret combo, they tend to keep it to themselves. They hide it from the devs and even from PvP in fears that all their hard work will get nerfed (which is probably true). And since it usually involves a build that is faction specific, it is even more motivation to hide it. Well I come from a faction that has none of those builds. I have an assassin PRC and there are no scret ways to make an assassin. It hides and it kills stuff with 1 hit. It's fun, but it will never survive in a straight fight nor ever have a combined ab/ac of 150. All of my secret combos are available to at least one other faction.

So now we move on to the pure bard discussion with regards to balance. Since bards are available everywhere, any nerf or boost to them is impartial to all factions. It may or may not be balanced, but only due to it's comparison with all the things I mentioned previously. Balance is not really based on where a toon can be built, but moreso where it cannot be built. If you have a class available to all, then a nerf is a nerf to all and it only changes the build's subjective power compared to other toons overall.

Personally, I might make an effort to making a formula that will calculate that overall ECL, but probably not. I love running the numbers, but honestly, it's far too in-depth with regards to all the combos available, and as mentioned, I surely don't know enough about all of the other builds in the other factions.

One last thing that really makes me think is that there is even another level on top of this all. Sure we can try to make our toons the best we can and balance them all from whatever baseline is subjectively fair, but as soon as someone starts building for multi-boxing, it screws it all up again. My personal thought is that if people really want to multi-box, make em pay for multiple internet connections too. Single IPs for all relic warfare would surely level some of the playing field for those of us who build for ourselves or build to rely on a team (a real team with real players). Building a toon to max out their 20 ab cap with the help of a bard and cleric is a good idea, but for most of us it means we run around with +13 ab until we have a real team online. Always having that extra +7 (and other stuff) is just not a fair way to play one player vs one player.

[Daral0085]

Since bards are available everywhere, any nerf or boost to them is impartial to all factions.

Ehhh, kindof but not really. Even with builds that are available to all factions (bard, cleric, pure fighter), nerfing or empowering these builds will have a relative effect on the strength of different factions due to the availability, or lack thereof, of other builds in the faction.

A great example is the much-feared shifter. One could nerf pure fighters to imbecility, but that would have only a minimal effect on TC because as far as I've seen, we barely rely on pure fighters. Not to say we don't build em, but they're hardly our core melee build; we use shifters for our melee tanks maybe 70% of the time, and then fighters/barbs/WMs the rest of the time.

However, since AO/RK can only build pure fighters (note the sarcasm), nerfing pure fighters would put an end to AO/RK as a factional alliance altogether.

It's true that all factions have equal availability of certain builds, but the effect of boosting or nerfing those builds depends on how much different factions use them. Racial availability also makes a difference, as e.g. NC/TC cannot build a githyanki pure fighter, so once again nerfing fighter has less of an effect on NC/TC because we don't have access to at least one of the top-end pure fighter classes.

Bards are a different story, but one coud make similar arguments based on racial availability. E.g. RK cannot build githzerai pure bards, so nerfing pure bard hurts RK less than it hurts other factions. And so forth.

[LinuxPup]

Nerfs, empowering, or tweaks should not be based on the current user base. In other words, just because TC has few pure fighters doesn't mean that will always be the case, or that we should assume that... guilds occasionally move from one faction to another too.

[Daral0085]

My argument isn't based on the current number of pure fighters, that's actually the result of my argument, which I am using as an illustration.

Namely, TC gets other, very strong melee builds that are in many scenarios better than a pure fighter (can get higher AC or epic dodge for instance), such that as a faction there is less dependence on pure fighters. The fact that we currently use fewer pure fighters is simply the result of us optimizing builds.

Also, like I said, the lack of Githyanki eliminates some strong pure fighter builds. Though obviously one can make very good pure fighters in TC, I think the lack of Gith does give some comparative advantage to other factions in the pure fighter arena. This just shows that universal classes don't operate in a vacuum. Clerical domains function similarly, in that clerics are available to all, but few domains are universally available.

Of course, as one strengthens the universal classes like fighter, cleric, bard, those classes will be more and more prevalent in all 6 factions, which will have the effect of leveling the playing field. E.g. if pure fighters get a 100 AC bonus, then basically every char from then on will be a pure fighter. At that point, since everyone will use them, it becomes balanced. However, if pure fighters get nerfed to 0 AC, nobody will use them, and it exposes factional PrC or class imbalances, with the fighter-dependent factions hurting and the other factions gaining.

Of course, what makes a lot of this so very complicated is that no faction can truly be called pure fighter-dependent, but that just means it's a matter of degree, which I have exaggerated to make the distinctions clearer. While it may require more subtlety, the underlying dynamics remain.

[Alkapwn]

I agree with pup 100%.
You can't really compare factions vs builds 1 for 1 to begin with. There's alot of great builds no one is playing and some pretty crappy ones alot of people are playing well.

It's all about team play in pvp and pvm that makes a build great.

Just remember :

You all suck

[Rufio]

I actually think things are pretty balanced right now as far as overall builds go. There are a few minor tweaks i would make to some abilities (like the pure fighter kd token. that thing might as well not even have a save the way most pure fighters function right now, I would take the 1d20 roll off the fighter's discipline score that sets the discipline check at the very least), but I have been playing around lately with trying to get the highest possible ab and ac numbers, and let me tell you, you'll realize that you can't claim 60 ab 80 ac shifters are overpowered. I'll be honest, i don't want to give away any build secrets, but self-buffed AB+AC over 145 has become a standard benchmark for my melee builds lately, and this can be done with some pretty minimal cheese, no faction-specific prc classes, and not too many books (no +4 books for sure) if built well. These are not even all dexer builds, it is doable to hit these numbers with str based builds, granted it is more difficult and some sacrifices have to be made for the increased damage.

These builds are being done with all different sorts of classes, there isn't a single class that I have been finding to consistently produce these builds either. There are some specific techniques I like to use, but the classes can vary depending on the needs of the build.

Hehe, and I actually agree a lot with alka's comments too.

[Bargeld]

Given your PRC and other base classes available to you (and TC), I still think there are more combos available to reach that 145. I mean it does make sense that the faction with 2 melee PRCs have more melee options. It makes me consider mages as the alternative. OK so SL/MA gets mages and sorcs (so do AO/RK). But there just isn't enough survivability with mages atm to really put em up against armies of meleers. The same with sneakers... the spotters will always win. There are spotters out there that can easily claim 'I can spot any sneaker'. That's pretty raw when those same factions have the plethora of melee builds too. The Shadow Legion implies sneakers, the PRC implies it and there are a ton of combos out there that could attain really good sneaks. But no matter how high they go, the spotter always goes higher and everyone else has them. I see it as a rock scissor paper kind of thing: melee mage sneaky (mind you that AAs have just recently entered this mix and I don't think we've really had a chance to clearly factor them into it all; for the time being i'd lump em in with melee).

And be honest, if each faction had to pick its' 'best' melee combos (top 2 or 3) how many would include a PRC (that no one else has access to)?

On a good note, 145 is a good baseline number for a top tier meleer, imo. But that should be a pretty bare-bones build, easily dispelled and/or crap saves - not many other abilities like spotting involved.

[Daral0085]

And be honest, if each faction had to pick its' 'best' melee combos (top 2 or 3) how many would include a PRC (that no one else has access to)?

Well since you're excluding sneakers from "melee", you're correct that assassin would be more or less excluded. I've never looked at building DwDs, so no comments there, but I'm certain there are very strong melee builds with RDD, PM, Shifter, CoT, and PDK. So every factional alliance gets a very strong melee PrC.

Of course, one has to look beyond the PrCs to see what base classes are available for mixing with those PrCs. Then also the generic PrCs aren't universally available; NC/TC don't get blackguard, SL doesn't get HS, AO doesn't have SD. Both of these factors greatly influence the ability of different factions to build meleers (well... except for the lack of SDs in AO, as an SD is by your definition not melee).

On a different note, I honestly never thought I'd hear someone say that HiPSers are .... well, it's not exactly clear what you're saying, but you seem to think that HiPSers are underpowered or too weak or something. Very odd.

[Amoenotep]

everyone gets WM...and thats a mean little PrC melee

[BlkMamba]

I actually think things are pretty balanced right now as far as overall builds go. There are a few minor tweaks i would make to some abilities (like the pure fighter kd token.

How about epic dodge, blinding speed, 80 ac 60ab dlbe wpn str based damage with shield dr applied
some immune to crit/sneak , others with x4 or such crit called balance? yet you complain about the fighter token
guess what, its not, and fighter tokens have quite a timer on them
your abilities dont

also, anyone can make pure fighters, anyone in any faction

[Eldaquen]

Spells, special abilities, subrace features are not all counted in AC and AB. Concealment for example, using Hips vs a non spotter build, epic dodge, crippling strike, access to hell ball or greater ruin. Those are all things that do not factor into an AC + AB comparison and without consideration would lead to a misconception of imbalance or balance. The devs work diligently to balance the server. But I do not believe they are looking for an Utopia of balance. To achieve true balance, imo that would entail having only 1 class and only 1 race, which is not Aetheria.

I would suggest a different calcuation to determine if there is or is not balance. For example perhaps a timer comparison: one build vs another with a goal that the pvp should last x minutes. If one build slays the other in statistically significant deviation form the standard then... there is an imbalance.

Example to help illustrate:

Pure fighter vs pure barbarian: standard set for battle to last 1 minute. After 100 battles, each battle should last 1 minute and if the resulting times are within 1 standard deviation of standard then able to consider in balance. If the fighter slays the barbarian in under 20 secs in a majority of these hypothetical battles then there is an imbalance. If the times fall within 1 standard deviation (whatever that maybe) even if 1 comes out on top more than the other but not statistically significant then there is balance. Variations will persist due to lag, biowares random number mechinism, someone has better hardware, better connection or variation in human reactions.

[Eldaquen]

If Aetheria were to become a Utopia of balance then multi boxing would also need to go. For it is not balance for 1 person to control 3 when their opponent only has access to 1.

I doubt the community wants the Aetheria to change so there is no variety in building options. Nor see people leave because they can not multi box.

[Rufio]

Mamba, you realize that shifters can't do ANYTHING while shifted other than attack in melee, drink potions, and do whatever special ability they have? Some forms don't even get special abilities, and most other abilities are very minor, like the kobold and dire tiger blood frenzy. The ab and ac numbers they get are nothing that other builds can't get, the things you are complaining about are the benefits that shifters get to offset the drawbacks.

some pvp duel examples using my kobold shifter, none of these came durring raids, I'm sure there have been little mini-duels in raids besides these, but they don't really count. Those are still very situational:

in duels vs cyclone pwned, sebastian won once and lost once

in duels vs balmung pwned, sebastian won once and lost once

in duels vs bontot pwned, sebastian won once and lost once

in duels vs Banshee gods, sebastian won twice and lost once

in duels vs Gein DD, sebastian lost once.

in duels vs Gold (TSS) (a dragon build, this build is available in AO without the fear aura, but with a party friendly hellball), sebastian lost twice and won once (mining claims otherwise, but I had gold near death at the server reset )

So, I'm actually losing more than winning. Shifters should probably be improved! (well, not really, but they don't need a nerf)

I like to think my kobold is a good comparison to other builds. He doesn't have epic dodge like Mr Crow, but does have considerably more AB and the best gear on the server.

[Bargeld]

Daral: I never mentioned SDs at all. But if you want my opinion on them, they will never be a top tier melee'r: ab + ac. Then the rest of the considerations i mentioned (please note those elda, i have not forgotten about how other abilities factor in, read from the beginning). There have been some real melee SDs out there (shishio is the first i think of) but there are others. Put em up against even a moderately skilled spotter and they turn to putty usually. Not all classes are meant to fight toe to toe and SD is a sore thumb that stands out in that regard. Do they need improvement? Nope. You can whack the heck out of people with 45 ab when you're sneaking (with a few exceptions). Will they win every battle? Nope.

Also, I'm not really trying to make formula to live by here. Like I said it's way too complex to figure out the hard numbers (like the ECL in CBC failing horribly). The statistical approach is interesting, but it relies too much on player skill for your tests. But it does raise a good point. Not all players can play every toon well. Someone might get good at an SD but when they grab that WM with ki strike and imp exp, they might die because they aren't used to standing still and trusting the shield and ac. This is why we have diversity. It really isn't about raw numbers, but when you DO approach it from the raw numbers, it can definately point out shortcomings of one build vs another. And it can definately point out when one is OP (overpowered *cough*).

As far as shifters... you gloss over the 'whatever special ability they get' part. Isn't that what shifters are about. Strategizing your abilities for the best in any given situation? That's where player skill lies. If your shifter has 9 forms available to it and 3 of those have a 'special ability' should the other 6 all be really powerful meleers? There should be differences in them and my point in all of this is that a shifter should not have a form that is equal to a top tier fighter. Not when you have the option to drop unlimited ice storms or inflict 50% physical vulnerabilities with the same toon! This is the struggle that the devs have and I feel their pain (literally). But seriously, you are all really defensive about your factional toons and aren't really looking at what the rest of us have in comparison.

And we've only discussed melee so far... ab + ac. I have yet to get to the cleric vs mage thing. Although it was mentioned at one point about domains and how that changes flavor. Thats a load of bullfarb. 80% of clerics are probably trick/travel. I would bet that 15% probably have trick OR travel + war.

Rufio, everyone knows that the scythe is a lucky numbers game, hit the crits and you win... meaning your small sample set isn't reliable. And i have to laugh how you beat the pure bard 2 to one, before it was nerfed. And you also compare one shifter melee to a different shifter melee. That shouldn't be an even battle anyway.

[Daral0085]

and aren't really looking at what the rest of us have in comparison.

Not true, I've seen plenty of builds thrown around in our forums for other factions. Mining posted one in an earlier thread and got thoroughly rebuked for it in private, , so you won't be seeing any more, but they still exist.