Bladedancer is dead?

Rogue
105

Block cap without bastion? Rogue unlike sentinel has no support for that.

Is part of the gameplay, you rise your defenses, you rise your offense, you tackle harder content.

The problem is, you can skip rising offense, with more multipliers and minimal support (a few passive nodes/affixes, blessings to round it up) you may get the damage needed for 300-400 corruption, with so many classes and so many skills.

In the video you showed us, you should be also hitting like a wet noodle in exchange, but sure you can deal plenty of damage.

Right now thereā€™s no aspirational content past 200 corruption and T4 bosses, thereā€™s plenty of room in the offense department, and some room in a lesser extent in the defensive department (due to T4 bosses), with all classes.

Right now the game is not balanced, by any metric, but this is not the final product, we expect they take things more seriously at some point with the endgame.

Is a complicated issue, you can fulfill your rogue fantasy easily, you can sacrifice lots of defensive options in trade for more damage, so you have a lethal machine but that can be one-shotted easily. Having the flexibility to turn any character into a tank, does not kill the game per se, what does hurt the game for me is how defenses take over the lightspot in the endgameā€¦

Also, balance for the sake of balance can ruin the fun of the game, and I certainly obsessed with balance, but I acknowledge this fact. I played first season of Torchlight Infinite, and being able to storm through the map and obliterate everything was fun after all.

2 Likes
106

Using the Corsairā€™s Set effect and the Dusk Shroud effect to obtain 100% block chance and 100% Glancing Blow chance

107

I tested my character (rogue) at various levels of corruption, up to 1500 (if I remember correctly).

I did it with a clear goal, to test certain game mechanics at different levels of difficulty.

I can responsibly state that more than half of the mechanics do not work on 1000+ corruption, because of the way the game is made.
What you saw on my video 100% does not work on corruption 1000+
It follows that without understanding where the endgame boundary should be, it makes no sense to discuss balancing individual mechanics (if they just donā€™t work after 20 hours of play).
All the talk about the OP bastion is an empty sound, if it suddenly turns out that the endgame is 2000 corruption.

That is why it is very important to have an idea of the final result.

What you consider a tank is a paper fighter, depending on where it is located.
Unfortunately, the game does not provide other ways to get there (or I did not find them).

Such a concept does not survive.

The video below shows approximately the same level of corruption as in the previous one.
Please note that everything is practically reduced to whether you received damage or not. If so, you are more likely to have died.

I just want to raise the question that the current system of skills and items, combined with game design, does not combine with endgame.

108

I donā€™t understand what is your point. The endgame is not neither 1000 or 2000 corruption, is T4 bosses and 200 corruption, by the time you are able to beat T4 bosses you should be able to navigate in the 200-300 corruption range easily, anything further is only self-imposed challenge, as most of the loot comes from node rewards and maybe grinding dungeons for exalteds.

You have both arena and high corruption with unlimited scaling for those that want to push their build and skills to the limit, but thatā€™s about it.

Yeahā€¦ probably, but fulfils the rogue fantasy, you can go with low defenses, high dodge and high damage if you decide so, but one mistake and if dodge didnā€™t proc, youā€™re dead.

Not sure what you expect from a rogue class in an ARPGā€¦

1 Like
109

Letā€™s say the endgame is T4 bosses and 200-300 corruption, which are achieved quite easily.

In the current online event, I played for 3 days. I have 2-3 normal monoliths left to close. Items from the floor without crafting, no unique items. I used Flurry to attack, and I used shift to quickly move around locations. From passive skills - all for fast running, dex (as a universal stat) a little in the crits and dps. If I had played for 4 days, I would have started the empowered monolith.
At the same time, Iā€™m not some kind of pro gamer.

With an endgame of 300 corruption, I believe that I have already passed 70% of the game.

I began to have doubts. It canā€™t be that a regular player like me. without using any crafting type mechanics, with 10-20% resists, without searching for a powerful loot, completed 70% of the game in 3 days.
Even if not 70%, but say 40% - 3 days, itā€™s not normal. (itā€™s a pity I canā€™t say how much time it is, but itā€™s 11 hours or so).

Having some experience of ARPG games, I believe that the game should have:
Role play
Action.

A year ago, I came across the same thing, and decided to check on my own experience, and where does the game begin that will require using crafting and looking for really powerful items. But, the game is made in such a way that even at 1000+ you cannot understand whether you have reached some limit or not. you can run 2-3 echoes almost with your eyes closed, and then die 50 times for 4.
And the problem is not in the items, but in the strange solutions in game design in my opinion.

Answering your question, whatā€™s the point.
The point is to check the proposed character system in the current difficulty system of the game.

And I have a counter question, if 70% of the game is played conditionally in a week and this is normal, what is the point of balancing something in the game, fixing, patching, etc?

PS: My five-year-old son has two +/-30 level characters in the current event. Despite the fact that he does not know how to read, he chooses items and skills according to the principle of which picture he liked best.

110

I understand that this is not the best example of what I said above.
But this is the 90th mono, 81 characters. Items you can see for yourself.

What is the point of most of the game if it is played even like this?
Obviously I tried to find a point in crafting and/or powerful items with corruption much higher.

In my opinion, this should not be the case, and the problem is not in the Bastion, and not in 12% more damage taken while DW.

111

And Apostacy.

I would assume thatā€™s because the incoming damage is too high for the DR from glancing blow and what block effectiveness a Rogue can get is insufficient to reduce the incoming damage per hit to below what uou can get from life on glancing blow. And I think thatā€™s ok, given corruption is infinitely scaling, eventually even the most tankiest of tanks must fail.

If someone wants to say ā€œendgame is 2,000 corruptionā€, good for them, but using it as an argument to say that bastion isnā€™t op feels like its just moving the goalposts.

I think its fair to ask or discuss how much corruption counts as ā€œendgameā€ and where mechanics should be balanced around but i doubt that would be 2k corruption. And even if it was, someone could just come up with an even better mousetrap build that can breeze through 2k corruption but struggles with 3k (or whatever). Would it then be reasonable for them to complain that whatever defensive mechanics theyā€™re abusing using are unbalanced and everything needs to be rebalanced around 3k as ā€œendgameā€? Where would it end?

Yes, *there is no external limit, corruption being uncapped means that you are able to push as far as you and your build are able.

Possibly, would you mind opening another thread to discuss them separately?

112

First off, I donā€™t really agree with EnuwEpochā€™s extreme view on what endgame is.
But I think @Ninakoru made a statements under a wrong assumption.

The last bolded part is important.

Corruption does scale the chance of rare echo rewards (such as Idols, Exalted Items, the timeline exclusive specific Unique/Set Items and most importantly Vessels (of Chaos + Memory).
:warning: So it is not a purely ā€œself-imposed challengeā€

What is considered endgame is very subjective. For me 100-300 is non-min-maxing endgame.
This is still the range were you want to get the basic affixes that you need ready.

300-600 corruption is the range I personally would call the endgame, with min maxing every affix and also throwing in a couple of decently crafted legendaries.

113

I hope bladedancer is not dead because it is the only one i dont give up (i am lvl 100), with paladin that i ressurect last month (i think i test it level 50 and dont play it for years).

My game folder is may 2019 and when bladedancer was released i play it level 86 i think, 20 level above all other characters. Then the patch nerf my gameplay, always running and using synch strike and shadow cascade, so i stop the game for months.
Now i play SS+UB+puncture i am not running all the time but it is fun. I can attack from distance for more safetyā€¦
I think another nerf of my gameplay would be a defenitely stop for me,.
Only looking for the multiplayer mode. Not sure it will save my interest for long.

PS : What is the interest to keep having 3 spinning blades when i cast umbral blades after synch strike if only one can it the same target ?

1 Like
114

Yeah, I can see that, but on empowered you know you better have the gear a bit more tuned to avoid the difficulty jump taking over, youā€™re already taking quite some damage in that video.

The endgame progression is a bit too short compared to say, PoE, but is something that at some point the devs have to give it a second pass. We all have seen how streamers beat all the content under 2-3 days of intense play.

Yes, youā€™re totally right about this, I didnā€™t take it into account as I donā€™t feel the extra risk/tedious (avoiding nodes) makes up for the better node rarity and vessel chances, past 300 corruption. If you can clear 500 corruption with the same effort than other build can clear 250, then, yeah, you have an advantage.

So, I would say, a highly tuned build can climb 100-150 more corruption than the same build with worse gear and blessings, that, to me, aside of beating T4 bosses, is what is left you to do in current endgame.

115

Itā€™s not, itā€™s just the OP complaining 'cause Bladestorms got a nerf.

Clear/AoE.

116

I thought that was the case in PoE as well. Theyā€™re certainly in maps in a few hours.

117

Yes, this is a point a bunch of us have been raising for a long time now. The game runs out of things very quickly if you know what youā€™re doing.

1 Like
118

Yep, well you could compare PoE SSF to current LE, trade PoE is another beast. You could be perfectly farming for weeks to get your gear ready for ubers.

119

Itā€™s not even that, the game runs out of things very quickly, but that at first you donā€™t have an urgent need for gear, and then the available gear no longer plays a role.
The same applies to a large part of the skills and abilities.

120

The point about skills, while true for the msot part atm, is kind of irrelevant, the game isnā€™t balanced. Once the devs actually try and balance stuff, then theres room to look at their balance of the game, and see what it does and doesnā€™t improve.

Currently the lack of balance in skills makes some stuff worse, but itā€™s not really applicable to any real criticism, because that is something that isnā€™t done yet. Either whenever we get a balance pass/culmination of a lot of small balance things, or when 1.0 comes out, is when balance as it impacts the game becomes something to worry about.

121

Arenā€™t you confused by the large number of passive skills that give flat values of hp, dmg, word, etc?

Iā€™m not talking about balance right now. Iā€™m talking about the concept.
Well, for example:
(dex +1 health +5 )
((melee p dmg +2 dodge +20 then hit)
(Bleed chance +5 poison chance +5)

And there are many more like him.
I understand that 10 hp at a maximum of 150 is not bad, but, as practice shows, it is not critical. And at 3,500 hp? How can this be balanced for different stages of the game?
I am very confused by this concept.

I repeat once again, at the start these 10 hp are not critical, and at the end they are not important. Half of the passive skills are stubs.

For some reason I like the game, but itā€™s like a suitcase without a handle, and itā€™s a pity to part with it, and itā€™s inconvenient to carry.

122

I mean, no, I have over 1k hours in teh game, so Iā€™m pretty use to how passive trees work. But also every game I play, I go in from a min max/efficiency angle, so seeing numbers like that, i just have a lot of gaming experience for how i look at them.

But Iā€™m not really sure what youā€™re trying to say with that post.

1 Like
123

What ā€™ s the point of such a video if you canā€™t kill the boss of that mono in that kind of gear? Normal monos is like white maps in PoE and my character in PoE can do white maps with sh*tty gear no problem. Justā€¦ for what??? :smiley:

124

Can the absence of 5 pieces of gear be considered bad gear?
I made the video below as an example of how good the bastion is compared to a regular gear, it also confirms the minimal influence of the gear on the boss battle.

If you think that rouge OP, then hereā€™s a video from Lizard IRL