Reikan

One issue doesn't necessarily forbids the care about the others. Berserker, Executioner, Blade Master, Asura, pretty much all the PDPS classes do have a Gap Closer, but the "issue" on these classes is the kiting from targets. We have massive AoE classes on PDPS too, they just aren't as efficient as Mecha / New Arch-Elementalist, but that doesn't mean you can't go PDPS. There were players using Master Fencer/Bard/Blade Acrobat for AoE combos and it did work. Strike is still good on PVP, specially after the AOJ buffs (Yes, the class was heavily buffed towards DPS in PVP but nobody seems to know about it yet). Ranged classes are PDPS too, and a Pierce focused comp can do PVP really well. Best cappers are PDPS, and capping has a fundamental role in PVP. Overall, comparing the usage of PDPS/MDPS, you'd have MDPS classes being used in 2 bosses and in ~30min everyday (During TW) + the GVG times at weekends, against PDPS being used pretty much 100% of the time in PVE. With the new Arch Elementalist, we now have the option to use it for farming, so it did give us a good, refreshing air. Imagine yourself being a Mage player in every other MMORPG. Then you reach VGN, have to build 3+ PDPS classes and play it for 2~3 months straight, just so you can take part in content, in order to gear your desired class that you're going to use for 30~40min per day. Why would you play a game like this, if there are so many others where you can just play your desired class from day 1?

Hello there. My suggestion is to "Polish up" how the items are sort in the Loyalty Shop so we don't need to go through 50+ pages of items searching for that specific material for a craft, and to give clarity to players who are still new to the system. Currently, we have Limited Item, Featured, Consumables, Pets & Mounts, Gear, Boosts, Fashion, Colorful Dye and Upgrade, that amounts to 9 lines of items. My suggestion would be renaming some of them and moving items around to have something similar to this: "Featured" would be Portable Bank/AH, Pet Food, Locus Life, EC / Fishing Rod "Gear" would stay the same "Summon, Mine, Farm and Monster Loot" would replace Consumables/Pets&Mounts/Boosts/Fashion "Upgrade" would be Shattergem, Power/Guard Scrolls (Normal/Prime) We'd have a cleaner, more intuitive store, without blank pages feeling something is amiss. Thanks in advance.

There were many people complaining to me in peer chat about how my topic (Early game as a MDPS main) "ruined" their lives because of Executioner/BM nerfs. In fact, there are like 3 or 4 classes hitting 4M+, while others (Full DPS role!) can't reach 1M, even with setup. The game is balanced around the 4M-hitting classes, so it means whatever you use outside of this 4M is just going to feel garbage. Nerfing the outliers along with the bosses, will give us a more balanced PVE, without ruining the experience of PVPing. One might argue that these classes will be doomed in PVP, but considering that people already avoid using Exec/BM on PVP, I doubt it will change anything. With this single phrase, you resumed the same viewpoint that I have. A scenario where Slash parties are equally strong compared to Fire, Dark, Strike or other party setups with decent combinations of classes, allowing a game with 40 awaken classes to have some kind of variety.

Running as GM. We spend 2 more minutes managing stacks (using the stack skill in frames where we should be targetting creatures) and targetting creatures to aggro with Tornado Wings. The big corridors where mobs are far from each other were simply aggroed by Lightning Web + Knockup + Gravitation Slam, now we only have 2 of them, which creates an empty hole on the loop. It's a small difference, but in the long run, each detail adds up to the completion time. I didn't even mention how the GM Healing is now uneffective at PVE. Using the stack skill, doing 2 dashes and then having to use it again because all your stacks are gone and now you can't really DPS anything... makes you lose even more time. One might argue that GM isn't a running class and I should just swap to Mecha, but the reason why I mention this change was exactly to ask why is only GM the target of such adjustments every time we get new items, and why none of the PDPS classes suffer the same fate.

Not wanting to single out all you said in the topic, but you were totally reasonable so I don't see a point to reply to your other statements. I agree with them 100%. I took this part out just to point that I'm one of these players that enjoy testing things, and as soon as I stepped back into the game, I tested a lot of things around from my own old geared MDPS classes and a lot has changed. Time spent doing Palaces went 2 mins higher just from the nerfs/reworks. Of course, they were meant to balance the fact that we have more DMG provenient from new gears, but why doesn't that happen on PDPS classes? I understand if it's from a PVP powercreep factor, but we should at least get the PVE DMG back from some source. Back when I was active playing on my guild, we often used Dark and Fire parties for PVE, just for sake of testing and having fun. It was still not optimal compared to PDPS, but they were at least capable of doing the content, which is not happening anymore because the MDPS classes are just "forced" into content instead of being adjusted into it. That's why this topic was made in the first place.

Gravity Manipulator is one of the highest issues on MDPS classes because it was always considered a "burst class" and every single rework of it is just going around Feather of Lightness/Darkness. It wouldn't be such of a hassle to balance the MDPS classes if the Gravity had other resources. For me, being both a PVP and a PVE player, I wouldn't care if the "jump and feather" mechanic was taken out entirely. There are other ways of adding a "Gravity" theme in the class, such as the gravity fields/spheres we have to deal with, in the Magician Awaken Quest. Another point to be considered: Lowering the high raw numbers will just hurt the PVE even further, considering the PDPS classes have +DMG Dealt built in their kits, and that affects the autoattacks too, while in the MDPS classes, all the DMG is dealt by skills, so making them "equal" wouldn't have the same effect

I'll try to reply to everything in a concise way. 1) The reason why I mention "past experiences" is exactly to discredit this kind of argument such as "In Playeden everyone went"... Well, playeden is gone, this is EEVGN and magic classes are used in 5% of the PVE content of the game. Great. 2) I didn't mention other MDPS's to avoid the topic being too long, since I wanted to consider general usability of each class in a daily routine experience. I didn't want to delve into Fire-Oriented parties with Kage, Dragon Emperor, Mecha and DT, nor into Darkness parties with Equilibrian, Darkness blade etc. It's too much stuff to talk about when it all comes down to: Magic classes, even when properly combined, are inferior to Physical Classes in PVE. Period. 3) You can solo bosses on a lot of classes if you kite right, but you'll always be 200% slower (or more) if you were just using any of the lifesteal PDPS classes and pressing 1-2-3. We don't have a Magic Counterpart for that. 4) I agree that Executioner and Blade Master do too much DMG, but have you thought about how -Slash exists in late game items? No other resistance can be broken as much as Slash resist. Maybe Dark, but the classes that synergize with Dark have far inferior DMG to the ones with Slash. Think about it for a moment. 5) I don't mind about Berserker, but it would be good to have a MDPS version of it. Demon Tamer used to be capable of soloing stuff with a nice regen buff, but it was changed into an (Healthier, I agree) invulnerability frame, which made soloing bosses very hard due to high cooldowns. 6) About the Suggestions. I had a couple of them in mind when creating the topic, but I didn't want to just throw them before having some input from other people. Doing so would devalue a bit of the topic potential, so i'll just try to point out nice things to have around: Daily Routine of Dungeons (Palace of Dreams and such): Pretty much any AoE Magic class could fit here, but it would be nice if our standard Mage (AKA Arch-Elementalist) took part into this routine. Giving it simpler, shorter combos without the need to stack so much, would turn it into a "Magic Blade Acrobat". Hydra Spells could be the Magic Counterpart to "Double Damage Sword Dance" that BA has access in two skills. Druid could be good for the potential of hitting without having to stop running, but it would need some kind of 1v1 potential to clear bosses faster. Boss-Soloing: This one is a bit tricky, since Lifesteal on Ranged Classes tend to be problematic on PVP, and the goal of the Topic is affecting only the PVE routine of Magic Classes. Thinking about it for a long time, I decided to suggest another rework to Gravity Manipulator, one which is not Burst-Related: - Gravity manipulator could create small Blackholes that persist on place and deal constant DMG, pretty much like a Totem but without % DMG. With a somewhat low DMG potential, and being able to be stacked, it would boost a lot of the class potential to solo bosses, without hurting the PVP, since people could just walk out of the skill zones. - Tornado Wings is a skill that's outclassed by Feather of Darkness/Lightness, since its only purpose is "having a source of AoE" but now, feathers are already AoE with the Glyph. Could change it into the suggested skill above. - Soloing bosses as GM would be as easy as "placing the black holes and dashing around to heal". Running: We have Mecha for that, but as said before, even though Mecha is a MDPS, it's not a traditional magic class. Possible runners would be Demon Tamer (I was able to run camp with it, Descending Death could be adjusted for that with a lower cooldown + lifesteal + debuff immunity - such as Demonfire), Druid (if the DOT was % such as Totem or BK). The running change isn't much needed, but would be fun to have diversity here aswell. I'm sorry for the long reply, but the topic means a lot to me and my friends, since it affects directly the fun we have on the root of our activity in the game.

I'll take this part out to give you a complete answer about what I have in mind. If someone mains, say, Asura. They can use their same gears with many classes that can be used pretty much anywhere in PVE. Trials, World Bosses, Farming dungeons (Blade Acrobat, Rifleteer/Reaver etc), the list goes on. Basically, the person can effectively play as their main group of classes for the entire day while being productive and effective. Now we talk about the MDPS mains. They can do Palace on Druid/GM, but they'll take 2 extra minutes due to Gimmicks or lesser DMG. Soloing world bosses won't happen. Trials? If you play DT as a %DMG bot, maybe, but most of the people don't care about any MDPS classes. MDPS mains will have a very strict range of activities to do while being effective. No matter how much Gravity Manipulator can "burst" if you set up with your party, a Slash party will simply have access to -150 Slash RES and everyone in the party will contribute with high DMG (Executioner, Assassin, Berserker, Blade Master - They all have high DPS output), while it doesn't happen on MDPS setups. Pretty much only the GM will be "hitting big numbers" (still lower than BM, of course), while all the others will be just the GM supports. It will only end up in a really slower run, even if you do be able to finish the content with magic classes. The idea here isn't forcing MDPS back into top tier PVE, but allowing MDPS mains to actually do something in their own classes while they play the daily routine of the game, without being punished for chosing a "weaker" group of classes.

Hello there, it's me, Sirocco. I'm writing this topic to approach a subject that has been discussed with friends for a long, long time, even before I had to stop playing, and coming back after a year I still see the issue has not been touched. The PVE aspect of the game (which, for now, has been the "only" feature offered for at least 80% of the community) has its balance completely weighted towards Physical classes. Early game it's advised to level up as Engineer, Knight, or anything in that line. People who level up as Mages or Clerics usually level up slower due to Cast speed issues. Luminary doesn't suffer a lot from that, but it's still far behind in comparison to Physical classes, and it's still not a traditional magic class. But it gets worse when you reach the Breakthrough Point. Berserker, Blood Knight, all of the PDPS classes are far superior to Magic Classes, except maybe for Mecha, which isn't really a traditional Magic class. All of the Physical Mainstream classes have access to fast clears and some sort of sustain, while our only Magic classes that can compare are the heavily nerfed* Gravity Manipulator (nerfed due to PVP), and the Druid (who is stuck behind a DOT mechanic, and has far lower DMG compared to PDPS classes) *The nerfs on GM affects its efficiency in PVE far more than in PVP. While other classes can just hit and heal, GM has to keep track of stacks and lose DPS time in order to heal. In the long run, GM is just gimmicking around while other classes have 3x its efficiency. Even Druid is better for PVE. Why is this an issue? I'll explain: It turns down most of the people who enjoy playing traditional mages. People have to build up entire setups of Physical classes in order to reach a certain point where MDPS are used, and most of the time, they're still gated to use their classes only in certain scenarios where gimmicks were made to force MDPS classes. People don't use these classes on PVE because they're optimal, they just use because the game forces it to be used, otherwise you can't surpass the challenge. I know that we can, now, separate PVE and PVP status in the same gears, is it possible to be done in skills too? Maybe with a +PVE DMG dealt on some Magical Classes, they'd be more appealing to new players, and we would have more chances of keeping the new players around. I tried to convince a group of friends to play with me since I came back, but they all quit when they saw how much MDPS classes struggle early-on. This "vengeful"* attitude from the staff isn't going to help the game growing. *The speech of "Magic classes were at the top for a long time, let the PDPS shine" That's now how balance works, you shouldn't just ignore half of the class roster because in the past, the game wasn't properly balanced. Thanks in advance.

Hello there. One of the main issues with every bag suggestion lies on "how much people on lower resolutions can handle" So, I'm here to suggest something different than "more slots". What if, instead of more slots, Bags gave us more tabs? We have the tabs just for "highlighting" the different kinds of items, which, even though it's a cool feature, it isn't really needed as much as more room. With the tabs being added in game, we could have bigger bags because the extra slots would be fit into these different tabs. This suggestion was taken inspired by Diablo III bag system. We could just rename "All, Potions etc" into "Backpack 1, 2, 3..." We also have the same amount of extra tabs as we have for extra bags: That's it, thanks in advance. ~Sirocco.

This is another worrisome point. Do you have any ideas to avoid turtling in arenas? I'm sorry for not contributing as much as I would like, but i've been away for almost 1 year due to real life issues so I can't really give precise opinions on current state of the game. I hope everything works out, I want to come back as soon as possible. Love your work on Awaken server.

I expected your answer to be exactly like this, and I agree about the work. This is why I know it's not practical, i'm just pointing out stuff. The reason why 3v3s were sucessful in the classic era is because normal classes didn't add 823732849 debuffs on their combos. Nowadays, Reaver itself can force atrocities as Holy Sage and GK cleansing skills. 3v3 is super imbalanced in Awaken era because of debuffs, since you can't react if you're permanently root or knocked down, and you won't count on a pair of GK/HS to back you up every arena. No matter how many good suggestions pop there, it will always end up being into artifical stuff such as "More HP" or "Less DMG taken" inside arenas, in a false hope of allowing people to wait until the CC chain is over so they can actually play the game.

Hello, it's me, Sirocco. Long time without coming here. I know i'll get a lot of backfire for what I'm about to write here, but I feel that I must single this out: The reason why PVP is so hard to balance in Awaken classes isn't related to the DMG they deal, but the amount of different buffs and debuffs they apply. It's pretty much impossible to balance all PVP modes without tinkering on the class buffs/debuffs. What seems balanced for TWs and GvGs with multiple Holy Sages and Glacier Knights (and the 10+ cleanse everytime) can't work properly in 3v3 or 10v10. The only solution I ever saw regarding this issue is simple to understand, but very exhausting to execute: Change how the entire system works. I've made a couple of suggestions in the spoiler below. It's an idea of how a different buff system would work, giving priority to stuff that really matters and making it easier to balance stuff outside of +DMG or -DMG. I know this isn't a class balancing thread, but in my humble opinion, without the correct management of how CC works, we're stuck forever into playing the same 10+ cleansing classes or spamming Reaver/Conjurer regardless of PVP scale. Forcing 2 classes in a 3v3 PVP, in a game with 40 Awaken classes + Mimic is ridiculous. Any further development of my suggestion is appreciated, since i'm not a game developer, but a player giving incomplete suggestions. PS: Someone mentioned how some items are toxic to the balance issue, such as Frozen in Time and Smoke Bombs. I agree, it makes a bit harder to balance classes because you must take the possible usage of items into account.

Good suggestions, I like the hidden equipment thing.

Your arguments are well formatted and I agree with your opinions, great job there buddy. ... I only wish people would just stop wanting to min-max on a classic server, though. I played with questionable gears for most of my time in Aeria server back in Cap 60, and it didn't hurt my experience. PVP was still fun and I was still efficient on PVE (this game is really easy when it comes to PVE, no need to min-max for that).

It's not the game fault that other guilds are smaller. If we were to change the game based on guilds, Jordan would be sitting here and waiting for the next drama to see who is switching sides for the next GvGs Outnumbered? Go recruit more people. Invite friends to help. Quit your guild and give up. There are tons of options. I played on AwakenVGN with a 10 member guild and went to every single TW, having to fight MoneyTeam with 30+ and other guilds. We never bothered asking for "balance" or whatever change in forums, we just went in and played the game. Totems aren't RNG if you cover all the spawning spots and coordinate, and I don't think it should be changed based on how guilds are sorted out.

1) Totems aren't random and they have fixed spawn points. It's up to the guilds that want control over them to spread around possible spawn points in the correct timers if they want to abuse it as a strategy. 2) I guess you just want to show off on kills? Besides, kill count isn't a reliable power meter. I can always ask a friend to keep logging alts on guilds that are on the other side for free kills. Specially worse if the kills are counted multiple times in the same character. Might not be an issue if it doesn't affect TW results, but would be funny to see a guy with 600+ kills in the scoreboard because he and a friend were bored with the current TW.

Oh, I get it now, sorry. Bad habit of reading quick and not paying full attention to context. Still, Purple weapons only have more ATK because they can reach higher ATK % bonuses. If both weapons are at the same % (let's say ALL weapons are 100%), Golden ones will stil maintain a higher ATK while still having the bonus effects. @Topic Honestly, I'd just leave the game as it is. The server just launched and people are already wanting min-maxed characters in every role of their party. Everyone wants 120% staves and whatnot. That's not how classic experience was, most of the game had people sitting at +6 weapons or low percentage +10 ones. This is not awaken server, it's not meant for min-max with ease.

Purple weapons can have MAX 160%, they don't appear with less than 101%. Also, purple weapons don't have the effect, so a 100% Magic Skeleton is still better than any purple weapon at 160% due to the special effect. Not that it's important, but Purple weapons break too often aswell due to half durability.

You can't use any kind of mount in a normal dungeon, only on battle maps. Also, if you want faster stuff, maybe you could hop in the Awaken VGN server. The purpose of a classic server is a slower progression, not min-max like the Awaken one.

Depends on how much gold you can farm per hour in the dungeons. People can still have multiple characters with the same gears (archive system) to do multiple dungeons, but it's time consuming and depending on situation, not worth it. Just a matter of balance.

If a top guild didn't win today due to RNG, it will give them motivation to be in full force tomorrow, instead of going "full force for the first 3 territories and then going AFK" or "going for the sake of stomping". Also, if you have the ability to keep a 33% rate everyday, it's virtually impossible to miss at least 3 territories every week. Today, if a big guild has 3 territories and I have 5 competent cappers, I can "follow their wind" and win with PVE ONLY. People will still call that bullshit and think it's unfair. Why don't we change it that either you have top points or no one wins? Or maybe remove territory caps because a big guild deserves all 10 territories? This argument can follow on as long as there are 2 sides of the coin.

Once everyone wants to be in the top, it gives less room for people who want to build something. EEClassic will start now, but people who reach the server late will have to fight a bunch of 30+ dudes with gears, and win against that. Whoever wants to build a guild will have to stick to PVE only until they have roughly equal numbers and gears or maybe more. Until then, it's dead PVP. That's what happens in EEAwaken (Even with increased rates that makes reaching "the top" easier), hence why most of the TWs are stompfests with 1 or 2 guilds hopping in there. I agree with the % for the sake of having smaller guilds with dudes taking part on it, and being happy with their guild names being shout at the world. It helps them grow, and helps the server too.

PTSD from having to do this back when there was no single player mode for dungeons. Real nightmare days. Nice suggestion though.

Hell yes, we don't have Anuran pets in the game after all those years