Any Class A Discussion On Now Recent Hive Changes

This is a response post to what was going on in THIS thread. I encourage readers to start there, then read this.
This thread is an open commentary on how Hive work for now, and how builds are likely going to work in the future. If you do not know what I am talking about, here is a quick run down of Master Hive items and why they are a hot topic in the Class Building Section:

1. Hive Items were intended to be a special 1 per character item. The game didn't support that when they were first released.
2. After being allowed to use multiple hive builds for so long, many have grown accustomed to a play style that shouldn't be possible.
(Note: Moderators like Selvut have repeatedly backed up the above claims that multiple hive item builds were not intended features of the game, but as of yet can't be stopped in game. Many believe there are plans this will change and mods/ads also allude-to/kinda-state there are some kind of plans this will change. I don't remember any explicit cases where this was stated on the forums, so I am not going to say: "There's definitely a patch with x y z happening". I don't, and no one else does as far as I know. I won't quote anyone saying multiple master hive builds are intended, find the quotes yourselves, as that is a common fact by now.)
3. This is where the title question comes in: What happens when this changes? Everyone wants to know what the changes will be, but all we can do is hypothesize.
Onto my thoughts and a quick response to some posts to start the thread off:
@SPYR0HAWK @CountBurn I was going to try and explain how comparing the two types of equipment is stupid in a detailed post on the thread, but then I was like nah. I wasn't interested in stealing the thread. Here on my own thread though, I gladly will .

If you directly compare any accessory to armor of course you will see the accessories are less powerful. Lets take a look at the Darksteel items. I am using them because they are essentially the same thing, but one is an accessory and one is armor. They are the embodiment of the same item, just in different item slots.
View attachment 126873
As you can see my previous statement holds up looking at every aspect of the two items: the defenses are identical but scaled down for the ring, the requirements are identical but scaled down for the ring, the skill points are very similar but scaled down for the ring (obviously the defense skill bonus is lower on the helmet, but that's more for balancing skill bonuses than the items being less-similar), the health bonuses on the base item and identification are even identical but scaled down for the ring again! I hope that proves my point on the two items being more or less carbon copies just rescaled for different item slots. Then if you look at the hive items (I won't post a picture, look it up yourself) you'll see they are all more or less rainbow when equipped together.

Now I'm going to compare these 2 sets of accessories: https://wynndata.tk/s/LPzfOd and https://wynndata.tk/s/E4lMIP

and these 2 sets of armor: https://wynndata.tk/s/tDN6Xg and https://wynndata.tk/s/VHvODT (it's really hard to make a set of armor that mirrors the hive master stuff out of items that are better than uniques since there are more items that have similar stats to the hive but with extra negatives in the unique rarity. I did my best with legends, since their bonus stats are the most similar. I'll talk about how I feel the build I made does a decent job at representing the hive armor later on in the post anyways).

(Final Note: All of the builds feature a depressing bow so that dam%'s are visible in the stats. Easier for calculations. Don't actually look at the damage outputs on melee or spells, cause none of it is important. Just the dam%'s)

Open the two links in the sets of accessories portion above then read:

The accessories are obviously mirrored version of each other. I had to swap the qualities of the necklace and brace though, as clockwork is the only other accessory short of LI that comes close to the HP bonus afforded from contrast, plus gigabyte is a great emulator for prowess. You'll notice that the hp is down about 1k from the full hive to the not hive accessories. I also didn't use Master to replace Gigabyte since the 'bytes' lack spell % dam, which gigabyte doesn't even cover for fully. It is hard to overstate how much better all of the hive items are than their other late game counterparts, whether it be having 0 requirements, about 25-30% more hp, giving over 10% more dam, and even an additional 750 poison, 4% ws, 20% EXPLODING!, and +30% MORE ELEMENTAL DAM (summing the rainbow %). And fortunately, it *would* make sense for all of the items to be this way *if* the items were a 1/character item.

(Before killing me about the pseudo-hive armor build, try making a 4-piece armor build with almost identical stats to hive yourself. I think I did a decent job with my time being limited and me not liking trying to mimic really powerful items with inferior ones.)

Now the armor is tricky to 100% imitate. Unlike the accessories, which almost have identical but weaker counterparts, the armor does not. Armor in wynncraft isn't supposed to be a game of comparisons and finding "the best of the best". That is why the class builds section exists, there is no defined perfect build. This allows for people to creatively build however they want, albeit with the goal of maximizing bonuses and minimizing weaknesses, though that can be said about all games and ways of building; glass cannons maximize damage, and minimize taking hits by increasing ws and being agile. tanks maximize their toughness and durability, while minimizing their -ws and trying to keep damage consistent. What we see in the 2 builds I linked is that the hive items are almost exactly in-line with their OP-ness compared to the accessories; the hp is about 30% lower, the damage is more scattered but somehow 170% higher (Last minute addtion: The -% on hive when added together as rainbow equals 0 lol, I had a stoopid), the defenses are over 50% lower in some elements, and double the hive in 0thers, but I'd say the spell%, melee%, and mana are relatively consistent. Personally I think the accessories are clearly better than the other accessories, whereas the hive armors are able to be utilized not for their rainbowy aspect, but specializing around only 1 of the items, which is exactly how they are intended to be used; the 1 master hive item a player is allowed to use + the other items in the build that complement its stats and fix its weaknesses. Unfortunately, we are able to see how grossly OP these items are in that the hp, elemental defenses, and mana are all better with the hive build than the not hive build. Even the damage outputs are almost identical when using fire, thunder, or water weapons, which are currently some of the best mage and archer elements (one heck of a correlation with the meta rn if you ask me).

My final verdict: Neither the accessories or the armor are better than the other set, but both sets completely trump (insert president meme here) items outside of the master hive section. I'd say they are the most powerful items in the game, both individually and even more so when combined with themselves (ie multi-hive builds). It makes sense for them to individually be the strongest in the game since they offer builds a huge late game buff, especially when trying to solo end-game content, but multiple of them are game breaking, and herein lies the current problem with wynncraft that is going to (more or less) blow open once it is fixed:
How will people respond to double (or more) hive being unobtainable? and, Will items currently being balanced around the current state of the game (like prowess-gaea-attack tier builds) be changed? I am more interested in the second question. The item team has done a great job of being in touch with the community and working to rebalance lots of items, but once hypothetical changes occur, what will the response be from the team and the community?

EDIT: The fix has come! Multi-Hive builds are no more!
still tho \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Please discuss the above wall of text below.

 

i think most of the hive items are ok
however, idk if this is biased at all, but i think the hive dagger should get buffed a bit. while it may be worth choosing the other weapons, i can't say the same for the hive dagger.

 

I never said that accessories should be compared to armor. I actually meant comparing a build using just accessories and a build using just the armor doesn't make sense.

 

I kinda agree. I'd say super fast would be good, but the damage is similar to other high level items. It shouldn't be too much higher if it is at all changed IMO.

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yea I pointed that out too and did exactly the opposite because I saw what you meant. (I agreed and did gud )

 

booooommmmmpppperrrrrriiiiinnnnoooo

 

Bumperino The hive change is coming!:

 

I never thought about this untill i saw selvuts post, but with the changes coming will it also be so you cant use an armor/accessory with a weapon?

 

Wow, when I read this thread I thought it was made after the Hive announcements, not before. Huh.

Since Hive weapons are in the same category as the armor and accessories, yes, weapons will be affected.

Though, if choosing a weapon means not being able to use the armor and accessories, then I wouldn't be surprised if the Hive weapons were buffed again to the point of contending with Mythics in terms of raw power, with the cost of no access of wearable Hive items in your build.

 

If they didnt want people to use multiple Hive items in one build they could just make them Set Items with negative Set bonuses when putting one more than one.

 

Selvut considered something like this during Gavel's development, but Salted nixed the idea IIRC.

Yay 4000th post.

 

I don’t get why people, including Selvut, are getting so triggered over people using multiple Hive items. First thing is that in most builds that use double or triple Hive, there isn’t that much of a difference between using a legendary, such as in the Spring build shown above. Sure you might do a little extra damage or have a little extra health, but gameplay wise, it doesn’t seem to have that much affect on gameplay, which brings me to my second point. The only thing you could do with an “OP” build is just either solo Qira or LI for the upteenth time. If PvP wasn’t fundamentally broken, or there were other game modes in the post game like multiplayer guild wars, then I’d be against multiple Hive. But since the only thing you can do is just do the Hive or LI AGAIN, there isn’t any harm towards other players. Since melee was fixed, the days of players soloing Qira in 30 seconds are over. I haven’t seen any build besides a Cata build with like 5 Hive that could solo Qira in less than a minute. Which brings me to my third point that, if people need 5 Hive items just to solo Qira in less than a minute, just let them do it. They had to level up 5 classs just to have that build, so they are still putting in time and work into the game. Again, they aren’t affecting anyone else, and they already beaten Qira 5 times before then, so why not just let them?

 

because multi hive wasnt an intended feature

 

Ok, so what? If it doesn’t affect other players, and you need to do the Hive 5 times just to have an effect on gameplay, then what’s so bad?

 

That's the point.

"Unintended" is too brief a summary to explain it.

 

Then why?

 

As I said, Hive Armor would overshadow regular armor without this.

But with this mechanic, Hive Gear can be a good bit stronger than other gear without overshadowing them.

Did you read the quote? The quote was my entire point.

 

players with more time in the game get a pure advantage over players that don't. It wasn't intended. You are ignoring the facts: It wasn't intended and

I literally detailed exactly why in my post:

"I'd say they are the most powerful items in the game, both individually and even more so when combined with themselves (ie multi-hive builds)."
and:

 

First of all, players that put more time and you know, play the game should get better at the game than people who don’t.

I did, that’s why I acknowledged that Hive is technically better to use, but it doesn’t make that much a gameplay difference when you are only using 2 or 3 Hive.

That still doesn’t mitigate the fact that it doesn’t affect other players or that if people are willing to put that much work into it they should be able to solo Qira.

 

Yes, but you're missing the point still: it was unintended. If anyone were to move all of their hive items onto 1 character for a build, they'd be consolidating all their power, which wasn't ever the goal because it is inherently unbalanced to combine hive items.

You can solo Qira without multi-hive lol
I'd be surprised if someone was unable to solo qira in a multi-hive build.

 

That’s my point; if there are no real gameplay advantages even though Hive is technically better, then what’s the point of changing it? Your second paragraph further suppprts my argument. If you can solo Qira with or without any mutli-Hive armor, what’s the difference then? All you keep doing is restating that it’s unbalanced. How is it unfair if it doesn’t affect any other players? No one has answered that question yet except for “it’s not as intended,” which brings it back to why it’s not intended, which then brings it to why is it not balanced. I’ve already stated multiple times how it’s balanced because A) It doesn’t affect other players B) You can still solo Qira just fine without them and C) In order to get extremely OP, you have to do the Hive 5 times, which is way too much work just to do that.