Acolyte top 50 mastery distribution
44 Warlocks
6 Necromancer
0 Lich (Although there is HC representation)
Rogue top 50 mastery distribution
43 Falconry
5 Marksmen
2 Bladedancer
Mage top 50 mastery distribution
46 Runemaster
2 Sorcerer
2 Spellblade
Primalist
25 Druid
19 Shaman
6 Beastmaster
Sentinel
41 Paladin
9 Void Knight
0 Forge Guard (Although there is HC representation)
Placements assume the followingâŚ
Acolyte specializations; Warlock primarily but also Necromancer are both superior to all others by an order of magnitude due to exceptional damage and absurd ward generation. Lich has representation in the Hardcore ladder but isnât on the softcore ladder.
Rogue specialization for Falconer is far superior to the non-Acolyte classes. Bladedancer and Marksmen are able to place in the 200-300 wave category which is similar to the non-Acolyte classes.
Mage, Primalist and Sentinel have relatively similar power averaging under wave 200 for the top 50 (within the class) and between 300-400 for the top 3.
Mage seems like it is the most popular class regardless of power. Despite nerfs, the Runemaster still feels like it outperforms the other mage specializations due to the build diversity and synergy with how Runic Invocation works which allows it to keep up with Sentinel and Primalist.
Primalist split mainly between Druid and Shaman with Beastmaster lagging behind. This class feels like it has the most diversity within its mastery potential.
Sentinel Specs heavily leaning on Paladin with Void Knights nearby. Forge Guards arenât in the softcore ladder but do exist in the hardcore ladder.
On a separate note, the 4 player leaderboards seem to have a varied distribution of all 4 classes.
I find this information interesting even if I find the endless arena boring as heck and feel like it needs a serious rework.
You assume Warlock & Falconer are superior to other specs without mentioning that they are also new.
Long term players who have played Early Access for a while now only recently have access to those 2 classes (and Runemaster to some degree) so they are more likely to play those specs. Those same long term players are generally more experienced in pushing leaderboards as well.
Comparing the 3rd to 50th rank, Iâld say the distribution is fairly decent, so I think if you take those things into account, itâs fairly ok atm.
Beastmaster & Forge Guard are bigger things imho, but I think thatâs also due to the fact they are âhybridâ melee/minion specs and in need of some love.
This is actually even more proof that they are so strong. The older specs have had time to cook, optimize and get much better. Meanwhile these newer specs are so strong out-of-the-box that its possible they havenât even touched their potential. (so they could be a lot stronger than they already are)
No, itâs probably more of a âall the top streamers are playing the new thingâ.
Not saying they are perfectly balanced, but you canât ignore the fact that those with a ton of experience already are gravitating towards these classes in the cycle vs a new player would basicly would pick a random class and hit mid-range positions.
Spellblade is more in the melee/spellproc category, and doesnât suffer from defensive issues as much as the other 2, but it is far more limiting to make a single type melee-only spellblade due to its options. It could definitely use a melee->spell dmg conversion in its passives/mastery to scale up the damage. BM/FG simply lack the defensive options as they need both personal & minion defensives, unlike Necro. BM comes a bit closer, but relies on a lot of buffs triggering from player abilities, so again, limiting build options causes a lower success rate in Arena
Ward mechanics are the issue⌠Falconers for example, can utilize the âward gained when you create a shadowâ to generate ~300 ward with each shadow⌠Smoke bomb then creates 1 shadow per second⌠Dive bombs inside the smoke bomb increase the smoke bomb duration by 40% of base⌠with enough cdr, this can allow smoke bomb to last infinitely⌠This also theoretically allows for infinite instances of smoke bomb, each creating 1 shadow per secondâŚ
The only weakness is it takes awhile to ramp up. You canât just walk into an instance with infinite ward, but if you can survive long enough, it ramps incredibly hard.
If EHG simply makes it so you canât stack smoke bomb instances (previous instance is canceled when a new one is created), Falconer is fixed.
I think both are decent, its just runemaster has more build possibilities due to how invocation works. You can use defensive ones, lightning ones, fire/lightning ones, triple element onesâŚthis one skill enables so many different kinds of builds.
The game is extremely poorly made, the design of the mobs with tons of AOE damage on the first attack (exactly the same flaw as D3) literally kills any possibility of a meele build. I find it hilarious that a Lock without armor tanks 30x more than a beastmaster with 3 aspects 75%+ all res, 70%+ armor, 60%+ dodge and another 3 reductions of 30% of the build. anything kills you, the animations are slow and buggy, many times you click to exit and the slow animation kills you. This game just isnât the worst arpg on the market because there is Diablo 4
and Iâm not even going to talk about the AI of the minions
Pretty much everyone and their mom are playing these 5 masteries:
Warlock
Falconer
Necromancer.
Runemaster
Paladin
Then a small % for the remaining 10 each spread out. like .05-2% each or some crap. The above 5 just have several times the DPS and several times the EHP. Extremely OP. Balance the game please, only basically having 5 classes each Season/Cycle is bad.
Well theyâre fixing Falconer soon, although I do wish they fixed nomnom Veil as well, Warlock feels balanced without it, if slightly strong due to its synergies.
Ward is a very strong thing and may need a revision, especially the mechanics where it scales off of other stats like % of Life. I donât have a broad solution to it, outside maybe removing Armor to work on it, like Endurance for LowLife already is? That would certainly make high-Ward builds take a hit without impacting a lot of hybrid builds. You could then tweak it more in classes like Sentinel/Paladin to balance the flat gains out.
