Thoughts on Combat Beta/Rebalance

[GNT Patrick]

Well, I'm not the greatest person to go over DPS/DPM and align the different abilities to feel unique, but also catch up to Necromancy. I'm fairly good with excel given the field I work in, so maybe I'll give it a shot later on down the line. That being said, I want to make a few suggestions and maybe get some opinions from the clan on them.

 

Armour/Weapon Rebalance

One of the reasons OSRS does so well is because they move horizontally instead of vertically. Though some new weapons/armour are distinctly better than others, that does not change the fact that they are in fact, still useful. My brother plays OSRS significantly more than I do and also brings up that it is a clear disadvantage to bring the wrong combat style to some bosses. Indicating that there is a NEED for switching styles when fighting different bosses. Is this legit? Who knows, I don't play OSRS, but I trust his opinion as a long-time player of OSRS. So under this category, I have a few suggestions:

 

T92 - get rid of it. Hear me out now - This was mostly just power creep, which we outlined above as needing to go away. Even during the interview with The RS Guy and a few moderators, they were stating that they want to provide different options at the same level, rather than keep with power creep. I suggest forcing all T92->T95, that will keep it in line with necromancy, and we just keep that there for now. That would include armour and weapons. Elite Tectonic and Elite Dracolich armour should be on part with Rasials' armour, ect. 

T88 - just make it T90 and call it a day - I think it is just port weapons anyways, by the time you get them, you have T90+, make them relevant since you spent so much time working towards them. 

 

Weapon Special Attacks - Some high tier items do not have weapon special attacks, which is inconsistent. My suggestion is to have special attacks for anything T75+, starting with like GWD1 and up. Here are a few suggestions when it comes to it:

• Praesul wand/orb - Praesul Barrage 65-70% adrenaline? (First off put it to T95 - but name is whatever you want it to be also how do we have a T92 with no special? HOW?) Hits target with four attacks, one of each style of Nex's minions (Smoke, Shadow, Blood, Ice) each hitting for 100-160% damage and costing 65-70% adrenaline. (Sorta like an omnipower). That would be 130% ability damage per hit, totaling 520% damage. Or really close to omnipower. You could even squish the damage to say - 115-145%, and get a number similar to Necromancy that way I think. It would still average 130% ability damage per hit, but the floor and ceiling would make it more consistent. And since it is similar to omnipower, if omnipower goes up in % due to beta, then do the same here. But it also could hit with all of the basics of each: blood barrage, ice barrage, ext, and instantly put their debuff on/heal you. That would make it a great starter ability in the rotation, but make it cost slightly more than omnipower - say 65-70% instead of 60%. 
• Dragonrider Lance - I'm thinking something like the hurricane ability, but with dragon-breath damage - that would be awesome, or maybe the dragonfire line that is in the fight. Here are both options I thought of:
  • Damage squishing hurricane, something that costs 50% adrenaline, but with no cooldown. This would make it to where you had a nice adrenaline dump ability - 135-160% ability damage for the first hit in a 3x3 area and 110-130% ability damage to the primary target along with a bleed (well a burn) for 5 seconds equal to 20% of the damage dealt to the primary target, but to all targets in the 3x3 area.
  • But more probably, it would be something like the line of purple fire similar to the Vindicta fight. The line would be 3 tiles wide (I think), and lets say 10 tiles long and I would make it burst damage at first, highest amount scaling down. So lets say 18 second duration, 60 second cooldown. Ability damage every 2 ticks, starting at 100% ability damage, and ending at 15% ability damage. Depending on how aggressively you drop off, you could average it out at 15 ticks of damage in that 18 seconds, and have the average anywhere you want. I will just do (100+15)/2)*15 to get the average for now at 862.5% ability damage, though the target would have to remain not-moving for the entire duration. Again, you can more aggressively drop in damage, to where it starts at 100, then 2nd tick is 50%, and drops equally scale down to 15%, which would average to 100% for the first tick and 455 for the remainder, totaling 555% ability damage. Easily changeable. But falls in line with burst damage of melee. 
• Shadow Glaives - Shadow Clone 50% adrenaline 120sec cooldown - Creates a shadow clone of your character (about a surge distance in the direction you face which should put them behind the target) that copies your abilities (not weapon specs) for 21 seconds at 25% of the damage you deal. For no additional adrenaline, you can change places with the clone using the weapon special attack button. Any additional switch would take 15% adrenaline. This would be a crazy interesting concept, where people could theoretically damage cap and burst things down, but also could be used to escalate certain mechanics, like Telos's charge ability. I can just imagine a grico during this, though I feel like the shadow clone wouldn't have perks - maybe. I'm not sure. If it is too crazy, you can decrease the time, or lower the damage%, but I feel like this would be fine, less than death's swiftness anyways, but adds another burst to it. Like this during a death's swiftness would be insanely cool. 
• Elite tetsu katana/wakizashi - (There is no real reason to use these currently - I suggested moving from T88->T90 above) For special attack, something thematic would be cool - either take the tank, which seems like a copout, or the awesome damage approach, but here are both:
  • Tank - 50% damage reduction for 45 seconds on a 120 second cooldown for 45% adrenaline
  • Increases crit damage by 50% for 45 seconds, on a 120 second cooldown, increasing crit damage by 5%(or 2.5% if its too strong) for each piece of tetsu equipment (Capped at 35% for 85% additional crit damage, or 62.5% for reduced version), followed by a dual attack that is similar to snapshot or wild magic in damage. 100-120% ability damage for the first attack (And damage squishing the second attack to match necromancy) 145-165% ability damage. This would make the weapon spec viable, and would also incentivize people to do ports too, which is always good to incentivize playing your game. The crit damage is mitigated by the fact that tetsu armour is tank armour, so that would need calculated, though I'm sure someone would just put tetsu armour on, then swap to whatever they want after weapon spec, which still makes switchscape a thing to people who want it. 
• Elite seasinger kiba/makigai - (There is no real reason to use these currently - I suggested moving from T88->T90 above) Crit damage was the obvious thing to do for tetsu,  plus FSOA already does the crit stuff for magic. I would like to see something more debuff related. Magic is like the jack of all trades kinda style, they have something for everything it seems. But you can never have too many buffs/debuffs. Smoke cloud already increases your damage against the target, so does vulnerability for that matter. I also want to see something thematic, seasinger being water style, something that increases damage to water or water rune spells would be perfect. Duration similar to tetsu, 45 seconds with a 120 second cooldown - For that duration, all water/ice spells slow the target's auto attacks by 33%, since we're on a tick system, 33% makes the most sense. This would not affect most, if not all bosses though. During that duration, all water/ice spells hit all targets within a 6 tile range of the primary target for 50% of the damage of single target spells that hit your primary target. This would be something that would be used for wave clearing for example, or could be used in elite dungeons to help AOE clear mobs down, but it also could be used in boss fights like Arch Glacor or Telos where they summon minions that need dealt with. Reducing damage taken by slowing auto attacks by 33%, and also increasing AOE potential. 

 

Armour

I think Jagex had a good start adding unique abilities to the ranged armour as they did, but I want to expand on that and see what unique specials we can get outside of that. Also - all tank armour should give the same health bonus that Necromancy has - It only make sense, but I won't list that for every armour set. 

• Tectonic/elite tectonic armour - This is where I would do something unique! Tectonic would increase the abilities of Ancient Magick spells by a scaling amount equal to the number of pieces, while adding a slight increase to auto attack damage. The auto attack damage can be taken off, though my goal for this is to also increase Magic's damage to meet where everyone else is at in their damage on the beta. It seems ranged and melee are pretty strong, but magic is consistent. If balanced without, we can take them off - but this should bring them up to the level. 
  • 1 piece: 30% increase the duration and % of ability, 2.5% increase to auto attack damage. i.e: blood barrage heals by 5% normally, and now heals for 6.5%. Smoke barrage reduces target hit chance by 5% for 10 seconds, now increases to 6.5% for 13 seconds. 5% increase to auto attack damage,  (strong 1 piece to allow for customization of armour. i.e: 1 piece tectonic, 3 piece cryptbloom, 1 piece cinderbanes)
  • 2 piece: 45% increase to duration and % of ability.
  • 3 piece: 60% increase to duration, 75% increase to ability, 7.5% increase to auto attack damage. (incentives using all 3 pieces)
• Malevolent armour - Find an item to add to this to make it an "Elite" armour similar to Tectonic/Sirenic. To keep it in line with the others, the new item would also need a patch. Call it something cool like "Blood Essence" or something like that. Add it to either ED4/ED3 to keep it consistent, or maybe as a drop to the new boss Zemouregal & Vorkath, to increase the value of going back to them. It would have to be consistent like the others, so like 1-5 gained per kills(if it is from Vorkath, if its ED3/4, match ED1/2 style), costing the same amount of "Blood Essence" or whatever it will be called, as Ancient Scales to Sirenic. Again, we're going for unique here. Malevolent amour seems evil, and I have two ideas for this, both of which increase with the number of pieces. I also want to theme this to 2H weapons specifically. 
  • 1st idea: While wielding a 2H weapon, drains the strength/attack stat of targets while in combat like the prayer ability, scaling up to 18%. This whole amour gives the "Vampire Lord" vibes, so I think something like this would be thematic to that, but simple.
    • 1 piece: up to 6% (adding to your own)
    • 2 pieces: up to 12% (adding to your own)
    • 3 pieces: up to 18% (adding to your own)
  • 2nd idea: While wielding a 2H weapon, Hurricane and Meteor Strike have their cooldown reduced by a scaling %, and also do a bleed ability. (again Vampire Lord vibes). Not super complicated forsure, and honestly, its pretty cool.
    • 1 piece: 20% cooldown reduction - bleed is equal to 15% of the damage from either ability
    • 2 pieces: 30% cooldown reduction - bleed is equal to 22.5% of the damage from either ability
    • 3 pieces: 50% cooldown reduction - bleed is equal to 35% of the damage from either ability
• Trimmed Masterwork/Custom-fit Trimmed Masterwork - First and foremost, push this to T95, like I mentioned above, just get rid of T92, make it T95. Also, this armour gets outclassed so hard by the new Vestment set, wherein Vestment is basically used everywhere. Here is my general recommendation - keep the damage reduction/bleed (maybe dial the bleed back a bit, or say it cuts 10% off top or something to make it better), but keep it in there nonetheless. What I want to see added is some damage, why stop damage mitigation as a bleed? why not say that this drains defense at the same time? Think about it, say it drains defense like the prayer - scaling to 18% with a full set lets say. This is how I'd break it down:
  • 1 piece - current damage reduction value + drains defense of target by up to 6% (adding to your own)
  • 2 pieces - current damage reduction value + drains defense of target by up to 12% (adding to your own)
  • 3 pieces - current damage reduction value + drains defense of target by up to 18% (adding to your own)
  • 4 pieces - current damage reduction value + drains defense of target by up to 18% (adding to your own) + 10% of mitigated damage removed from bleed (only on custom fit)
  • 5 pieces - current damage reduction value + drains defense of target by up to 18% (adding to your own) + 20% of mitigated damage removed from bleed (only on custom fit)

 

Now these are just a few ideas to throw out there to bring things more in line. But I would love to hear everyone's ideas on this subject. I'm posting this while starting work, so I'll go back in and add my updates a bit later to a few other ideas I had. 

 

Edited January 15 by GNT Patrick

[GNT Patrick]

Well I changed a few things and made it into a reddit conversation (Had to actually make an account lol) but this way someone might see it and get inspired. 

[Hess]

If I had enough rs content knowledge, i'd provide feedback  

[GNT Patrick]

Well - I reposted it since there are mods talking about amour abilities and weapon abilities. Figure its better than nothing lol. Let's get some upvotes so that hopefully someone sees it and gets good ideas.

 

Edited April 2 by GNT Patrick