How much do you value the different Class ressources ?

[Elric Galad]

When I try to balance abilities between class, I take into account their cost.
Which can be an issue granted that their ressource systems aren't the same.

 

Brilliant gives 1 random spell, 1 martial ressource, 1 wound, 10 focus and 1 phrase per tick.

However, I don't value all these ressource the same.
+10 focus isn't much.
+1 random spell can be brokenly good. 

So how much do you value each ressource ?

 

Here is how I do :

 

Martial ressource points are the "reference currency" for me as it is shared by the most classes (6).

MC get 9 ressources.

SC get 11 ressources.

 

Spell Tier Slots :

 

I use what I call the "Trickster conversion table" (loosely based on Trickster illusion spell cost) :
Tier 1 to 3 are about 1 martial ressource.
Tier 4 to 6 are about 2 martial ressources.
Tier 7 to 9 are about 3 martial ressources.

These are obviously approximation (Trickster even has spells from the same tier that don't have similar cost.)
Some of the devastative Tier 9 spell could easily be valued 4 ressources.
But I think it's not a too bad model.

 

This means that a MC caster has an equivalent 6x1 + 6x2 + 3 = 21 martial class ressources
And a  SC caster has an equivalent 6x1 + 6x2 + 5x3 = 33 martial class ressources

This is much more than martials but :
- Casters have much less passives to choose from (and can't upgrade their abilities)
- Casters have several spell tiers, so their ressource pool isn't as flexible as the other. This also forces them to pick more active abilities to be able to spend all their tier slots.

It also means that SC casters get a significant ressource increase compared to MC.

 

Phrases :

 

Invocation cost varies from 3 to 7 phrases. These abilities worths less than 3 to 7 martial ressources. But Invocations are still very strong spell. They are also often convenient (no friendly fire) and fast to cast.

I tend to count 1.5 phrases = 1 martial ressource.
It means the first tiers Invocations could be worth 2 martial ressources (which I feel accurate) and stuff like Ancient Weapon could be worth 4 martial ressources (which I feel accurate too).

 

Focus :

 

I think Cipher spells are approximately as strong as their "normal casters" counterparts.
10 to 30 focus : about 1 martial ressource.
40 to 60 focus : about 2 martial ressources.
70 to 90 focus : about 3 martial ressources.

Overall, 30 Focus ~1 martial ressource seems a good approximation IMHO.

 

 

Wounds :

 

This one is tedious to evaluate because there are much less active abilities using wounds than for other ressources and I suspect they are poorly balanced. A reason for this poor balance could be that Shattered Pillar is capped at 5 Wounds, so 5 Wounds appears as the max possible for a given ability, artificially capping Wound costs.

But Whispers of the Winds costing 5 vs 3 for Skyward Kick is a bit of a Joke. Twins for 4 wounds seems super low too.

 

I would tend to consider 3 Wounds ~1 Martial Ressource would be a good approximation, bar a couple abilities that "don't cost enough".
1 Martial ressource for Thunderous Blow, Skyward Kick or Torment Reach feels about right.

[NotDumbEnough]

Phrases are worth a lot more than most martial resources IMO, and most invocations are significantly more powerful than druid/priest/wizard spells of the same tier. Her Tears Fell Like Rain and Eld Nary will both end fights with just 1-2 casts which even the most powerful druid/priest/wizard spells are not capable of achieving, except maybe Great Maelstrom, but that has friendly fire and can't be casted over and over without empowering or an outside source of Brilliant.

Cipher spells on the other hand tend to be weaker than the corresponding priest/druid/wizard spells other than for applying mental afflictions, in which case it is superior (e.g. Secret Horrors vs. Divine Terror on a priest).

[Not So Clever Hound]

Very interesting thanks for sharing Elric.

43 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

This means that a MC caster has an equivalent 6x1 + 6x2 + 3 = 21 martial class ressources
And a  SC caster has an equivalent 6x1 + 6x2 + 5x3 = 33 martial class ressources

This is much more than martials but :
- Casters have much less passives to choose from (and can't upgrade their abilities)
- Casters have several spell tiers, so their ressource pool isn't as flexible as the other. This also forces them to pick more active abilities to be able to spend all their tier slots.

It also means that SC casters get a significant ressource increase compared to MC.

It overlaps with your point about passives, but I would also add here the argument about "how useful are you when you have run out of ressources?". Which is also why Casters get a better deal here (as they should), but also why it remains very hard to compete with regenerating ressources classes on fights that truly matter for "normal" Martial classes.

1) SC Caster out of ressources = basically dead weight, so makes sense they get more ressources.

2) MC Caster-Martial or MC Martial-Martial or SC Martial out of ressources = can still rely on nice passives to do something with their weapon (driving flight, persistent distraction, Devoted bonuses, Paladin Aura/stoic steel, Barb carnage etc). Some get a better deal than others of course - I appreciate your work with BPM to correct that by the way.

3) But now let's look at Monk for example (same could be said for Chanter, but Cipher is more balanced IMO).

• Passives that are equal to or better than Martials without ressource regen
• Actives that are equal to or (much) better than Martials without ressource regen
• ... will not run out of ressources

Edited January 3, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Not So Clever Hound]

10 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Her Tears Fell Like Rain and Eld Nary will both end fights with just 1-2 casts which even the most powerful druid/priest/wizard spells are not capable of achieving, except maybe Great Maelstrom, but that has friendly fire and can't be casted over and over without empowering or an outside source of Brilliant.

I agree with you on the first and last part of your argument but I disagree with you here. 2x Symbol of Berath, 2x Wilting Wind or 1x Meteor Shower are on par with non-Empowered killer invocations. And Eld Nary when it gets reflected with still a good amount of bounces remaining = ouch.

Then of course if you mean Empowered with all the Empower abilities, Sacha's, Weyc stuff... yeah they're probably stronger. But it's not really fair to account for those IMO, just because Chanter won the lottery and have free Empower ON TOP of having regenerating ressources.

Edited January 3, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Constentin Lévine]

6 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

... will not run out of ressources

Excepted vanilla Ranger, every martials classes get a way to refound their ressources, particularly Monk (Xoti's shield for Mortification on kill, every abilities and passives for Wounds). I dont think the less ressources they have is a penalty, excepted cipher, casters dont have passives.

[Boeroer]

Eld Nary's Curse and Her Tears Fell Like Rain are good, but (Sasha's aside) imo they are not as good as Great Maelstrom or Meteor Storm even when taking friendly fire into account. And I mean even without boosting their PL into the sky with elemental/storm PL boosts. 

[Elric Galad]

12 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Phrases are worth a lot more than most martial resources IMO, and most invocations are significantly more powerful than druid/priest/wizard spells of the same tier. Her Tears Fell Like Rain and Eld Nary will both end fights with just 1-2 casts which even the most powerful druid/priest/wizard spells are not capable of achieving, except maybe Great Maelstrom, but that has friendly fire and can't be casted over and over without empowering or an outside source of Brilliant.

Ahem, but they worth 6 phrases. Which is 4 martial ressources according to my table. And more or less above anything a caster can do.

12 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Cipher spells on the other hand tend to be weaker than the corresponding priest/druid/wizard spells other than for applying mental afflictions, in which case it is superior (e.g. Secret Horrors vs. Divine Terror on a priest).

Not sure either. There is no better Single Target damages than Disintegrate and Ancestors Memory is extremely potent too. 

What blurs the argument is that many high tiers for Ciphers are... Okayish ? But are they weaker overall, I' m not sure.

The model is just an approximation anyway.

[Boeroer]

1 minute ago, Constentin Lévine said:

casters dont have passives.

? Of course they have. Just not many as most other classes. But I can level up a Wizard by only taking passives and using grimoires for my spell selection.

 

 

 

 

[Not So Clever Hound]

22 minutes ago, Constentin Lévine said:

Excepted vanilla Ranger, every martials classes get a way to refound their ressources, particularly Monk (Xoti's shield for Mortification on kill, every abilities and passives for Wounds). I dont think the less ressources they have is a penalty, excepted cipher, casters dont have passives.

For Monk, exactly: that's my point . For the others... yeah they have a "chance" to recover some ressources but it's far from just standing there and getting your stuff back. Special mention to Corpse Eater who can just eat all the dead bodies around.

My main point is that Monk and Chanters get a much better deal (EDIT: in terms of ressources) than most classes in the game from Day 1 and clearly by design - not because of some weird bug/abuse. EDIT: and this is even more pronounced with Berath challenge on.

Edited January 3, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Not So Clever Hound]

2 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

But I can level up a Wizard by only taking passives and using grimoires for my spell selection.

Or stealing all the spells you need with Grimoire Imprint 

[Not So Clever Hound]

14 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

There is no better Single Target damages than Disintegrate and Ancestors Memory is extremely potent too. 

Well... Death of a 1000 Cuts + Antipathetic field?

[NotDumbEnough]

1 hour ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

My main point is that Monk and Chanters get a much better deal (EDIT: in terms of ressources) than most classes in the game from Day 1 and clearly by design - not because of some weird bug/abuse. EDIT: and this is even more pronounced with Berath challenge on.

The downside for Chanters is that they cannot alpha strike in the same way as Priests/Druids/Wizards or even Ciphers. All of these can use their spells straight out of stealth for disgusting combos, but Chanters only get all their phrases when the enemy sees them.

[NotDumbEnough]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Ahem, but they worth 6 phrases. Which is 4 martial ressources according to my table. And more or less above anything a caster can do.

5 phrases by default, and only 4 on a Skald, which is really really cheap. 

[Not So Clever Hound]

14 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

The downside for Chanters is that they cannot alpha strike in the same way as Priests/Druids/Wizards or even Ciphers. All of these can use their spells straight out of stealth for disgusting combos, but Chanters only get all their phrases when the enemy sees them.

Yeah but you use traps to start or quickly hit Alt twice and you are in stealth while the fight is going on so you can throw hoards  of summons or whatever at the enemy, and do it forever. This might pass as cheese I guess but it’s there. This is why I mentioned Berath challenge which makes it even stronger. 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Elric Galad]

I would be very curious about what you think about Wound Costs 

[NotDumbEnough]

I think wound costs are fine in general but wound generation and SC monk abilities need looking at. Once you have Imagined Pain you generate wounds at a very high rate. Honestly if Imagined Pain simply did not exist and WotW had one less jump I think single class Monk would be much more balanced. Multiclass monks have neither of these and generally feel fine.

[masterty66]

21 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I agree with you on the first and last part of your argument but I disagree with you here. 2x Symbol of Berath, 2x Wilting Wind or 1x Meteor Shower are on par with non-Empowered killer invocations. And Eld Nary when it gets reflected with still a good amount of bounces remaining = ouch.

Then of course if you mean Empowered with all the Empower abilities, Sacha's, Weyc stuff... yeah they're probably stronger. But it's not really fair to account for those IMO, just because Chanter won the lottery and have free Empower ON TOP of having regenerating ressources.

On a recent run I had Tekehu as a Chanter and I had him use Eld Nary a lot. Whenever it got reflected it was hilarious how quickly it would shred my entire party. 

[Not So Clever Hound]

18 minutes ago, masterty66 said:

Whenever it got reflected it was hilarious how quickly it would shred my entire party. 

[Elric Galad]

20 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I think wound costs are fine in general but wound generation and SC monk abilities need looking at. Once you have Imagined Pain you generate wounds at a very high rate. Honestly if Imagined Pain simply did not exist and WotW had one less jump I think single class Monk would be much more balanced. Multiclass monks have neither of these and generally feel fine.

Well, I still find Resonant Touch and WofW cheap for what they do.

I agree that MC are much less an issue, but I still find Dichotomous Soul way above the curve compared to other monk abilties. The reason why it is not broken is only because spamming Summons is useless since you can only have one at a time (whichis rather similar to resonant touch).

WotW is broken, but I still have no clear view about how to fix it.

[masterty66]

4 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

It actually took me a second to figure out what was happening the first few times it did. I would have a battle well in hand and then suddenly one by one my party would start exploding and I was like what in the world is doing that? And then I realized it was reflected Eld Nary 

[Elric Galad]

20 minutes ago, masterty66 said:

It actually took me a second to figure out what was happening the first few times it did. I would have a battle well in hand and then suddenly one by one my party would start exploding and I was like what in the world is doing that? And then I realized it was reflected Eld Nary 

Consider what happens when you go SC Skald, cast Upgraded Eld Nary + Sasha Empowered Eld Nary + Eld Nary + Eld Nary all 4 in a row.

And then reflection happens.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Not So Clever Hound]

16 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

And then reflection happens.

A sh!tstorm? Time to "reflect" on your choices.

To be fair, it also sucks when you play solo and when your empowered Concelhaut's Crushing Doom gets reflected. Slow, painful, shameful death.  

[thelee]

interesting post. i don't think i've ever really tried to quantify how i or the game value resources, but i have an intuitive sense of what resources "ought" to be. i think you're probably right in terms of how the game values it, but in terms of "ought" (since the topic of balancing is brough tup):

i think of costs more intuitively where 1 martial resource = "cantrip/plentiful", 2 martial resource = "sparing and powerful", 3 martial resource = "rare and encounter-changing." i call them cantrips because by mid game encounters, just using 1-cost martial abilities pretty much last you the encounter for regular (non-spammy) use, like frenzy, disciplined barrage, barbarian yell, crippling strike. 2 martial resources eat up your resources twice as fast and suffer from significant opportunity cost as a result, so they should be used sparingly but should have major impact. 3 martial resources should be very very powerful to be worth the cost.

so, i guess my equivalency probably views tiers 1-3 as "ought" to be 1, and then 4-9 as "ought" to be 2, and only special exceptions for 3. in this respect i find a lot of abilities stupidly overcosted (barbarian blow doesn't seem like a powerful-enough ability, paladin light of pure zeal at 5 lolwtf*, barbarian's robust at 3 not worth it until you can bring the cost down, rogue ring the bell doesn't earn its 2, the imbue: missiles at 2, etc.) there are occasional undercosted abilities, especially with how one upgrades martial abilities (if i paid 3 for dazing shout i'd probably still be happy). this also effects how casters compare and their resource equivalency - most of their spells i would consider to be equivalent to 2, with exceptions for a few spells at 3 (some tier 8/9 spells).

i don't know if that really adds much to the discussion, but just my .02

 

* i think the game designers also tried for consideration to consider uses/encounter, and is the only reason i can think of that ability being so expensive, so that you're limited to twice/encounter. but unlike poe's per-encounter abilities, there's a huge opportunity cost, so in practice it just seems like a lot to give up.

[Not So Clever Hound]

I've been thinking about this post more and I think that to be able to truly compare the value of non-renewable martial/caster resources vs. renewable ressources classes, you should factor in some kind of cost per second scale because the supply and demand isn't always the same. Where it gets dicey is that value is dynamic for non-renewables (it goes up the more the fight goes on) while it is more or less stable for renewables with a steady flow of resources.

 

Let me take an example: in a party, we have a Trickster/Devoted and a Helwalker/Troubadour (2 popular classes):

 

Let's consider a short encounter lasting 20s:

• Our Swashbuckler will have 9 Guile and 9 Discipline available at start. Our Cantor will have 6 Phrases at start, build up about 6 Phrases over the course of the encounter, have 9 Mortifications at start, 5 Wounds, and build another 6+ Wounds depending on what they does (dance of death, MotS, getting hit...).
• The Swashbuckler can decide to spend all their resources however they want right from the beginning, and this is important as many fights are front-loaded and you want to turn the tide in your favor quickly before the enemy does - by having the flexibility to use high-impact abilities at the right moment.
• The Cantor will have a starting pool and build up resources over time so they will have less flexibility on when and how they can spend their resources, which might result in wasted time and/or resources. However, they also Chant from start to finish on top of "doing stuff", and each Wound they possess gives them a buff.

=> All in all, they seem relatively on an equal footing in terms of resources value vs. cost.

 

Now let's consider a 60s fight:

• The Swashbuckler will have the same 9/9 pool so they will have to be a lot more considerate in how they spend resources, probably use them more sparingly on truly critical abilities i.e. each resource's value will comparatively go up.
• The Cantor will have the same starting pool as before, the same Chanting lasting the entire fight and they can steadily generate about 20 Phrases and 20+ Wounds, going on with their routine and adapting their spending as the fight goes on. Overall they won't have to use more or less sparingly their resources, just arbitrate on what is the most effective usage.

=> The more a fight goes on, the higher the value per resource goes up for the Swashbuckler and the value is stable for the Cantor.

 

Of course trying to figure out the conversion rates between resources for each fight duration would be insanely complicated. But it poses the question of: on what average fight duration/difficulty should the game be based on for balancing out resource value between classes? I feel like this was balanced based on short/easy fights, while the harder/longer fights that truly matter give a clear edge to renewable resource classes.

It should be noted that Tactician, Blood Mage and Cipher are a bit more complex cases in terms of resource value linearity, Cipher being the most complex/interesting case:  because of Scion vs. Soulblade vs. Ascendant vs. Beguiler each have an interesting quirk and because of Ancestor's Memory. In particular Ascendant might have a weird U-shaped value curve with multiple U's over the course of a long fight. But overall I think Cipher is more balanced and closest to non-renewable classes in terms of average value/cost of abilities. Monks and Chanters got a really, really sweet deal on fights that truly matter, especially when you start factoring in special equipment (Sasha's, Weyc stuff, Least Unstable Coil, Blightheart / Ajamuut, Hylea's talons, Mortars...).

Edited January 5, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Elric Galad]

15 hours ago, thelee said:

interesting post. i don't think i've ever really tried to quantify how i or the game value resources, but i have an intuitive sense of what resources "ought" to be. i think you're probably right in terms of how the game values it, but in terms of "ought" (since the topic of balancing is brough tup):

i think of costs more intuitively where 1 martial resource = "cantrip/plentiful", 2 martial resource = "sparing and powerful", 3 martial resource = "rare and encounter-changing." i call them cantrips because by mid game encounters, just using 1-cost martial abilities pretty much last you the encounter for regular (non-spammy) use, like frenzy, disciplined barrage, barbarian yell, crippling strike. 2 martial resources eat up your resources twice as fast and suffer from significant opportunity cost as a result, so they should be used sparingly but should have major impact. 3 martial resources should be very very powerful to be worth the cost.

so, i guess my equivalency probably views tiers 1-3 as "ought" to be 1, and then 4-9 as "ought" to be 2, and only special exceptions for 3. in this respect i find a lot of abilities stupidly overcosted (barbarian blow doesn't seem like a powerful-enough ability, paladin light of pure zeal at 5 lolwtf*, barbarian's robust at 3 not worth it until you can bring the cost down, rogue ring the bell doesn't earn its 2, the imbue: missiles at 2, etc.) there are occasional undercosted abilities, especially with how one upgrades martial abilities (if i paid 3 for dazing shout i'd probably still be happy). this also effects how casters compare and their resource equivalency - most of their spells i would consider to be equivalent to 2, with exceptions for a few spells at 3 (some tier 8/9 spells).

i don't know if that really adds much to the discussion, but just my .02

 

* i think the game designers also tried for consideration to consider uses/encounter, and is the only reason i can think of that ability being so expensive, so that you're limited to twice/encounter. but unlike poe's per-encounter abilities, there's a huge opportunity cost, so in practice it just seems like a lot to give up.

The thing is that, for casters, the Tier of an ability is correlated with the ressource it costs.

There can be a Tier 9 fighter ability that costs 1, but all Tier 9 Wizard ability are going to cost you a Tier 9 cast. So you usually want all spells of the same Tier to have equivalent level of power.

I agree that they probably considered uses/encounter for martial ability, which resulted in overcosted abilities. Taking as few active as possible (with just a bit of versatibility) and as much passive as possible is kind of optimal. Which results in a much more dire need of balanced for the 8 classes that share common pool of ressource.

Barbarian is such an extreme case where basically everything is overcosted bar Frenzy and Shouts that are so so cheap for what they do when double upgraded