Info Item Team Update Thread - Latest Updates, Rebalance Changelogs & More - Update 28/6

I'm gonna put it simply here, Stratisformis is too powerful, it's damage is too high, agility is too forgiving, and the ws is the icing on the air archer cake.
Let me start with explaining why the damage is too high, typically what we see in strati builds 10/4s mr 13k average bombs and 129 intelligence. https://wynndata.tk/s/6VzOiL I'm using a newer build for example here but this fits the criteria. Now this build and most strati builds damage is to the watchful eye, ridiculously high. Most builds with high damage like this have some sort of weakness to balance them, in this case it would be the negative defenses or Stratisformis's negative health, however it seems to hardly matter because of one little thing, Agility.

Agility is overpowered, everyone knows it, being able to dodge 100% of all types of damage completely blows defense out of the water, on a class like archer with very bad defense, agility is really your only chance at survival. To put it into perspective Dizver has 100k arrow storms, Stratisformis has 60k, but Strati has the agility to get in close enough to use it. And before I hear "Well you're gonna get one shot when agility fails to proc" Let me just explain to you, Archer is tanky enough that with no defense investment it can take a hit from mostly every mob/boss in the game give or take cybel, and that's all you really need, as long as you can take one hit, you can always get back to full health, this isn't just an agility problem either, this is a combination of agility with Walkspeed.

On top of the substantial damage output, you can gain with strati, on top of access to the skillpoint with the strongest synergy with Archer, you have walkspeed, which is probably the best part. Walkspeed was severely underestimated when balancing Stratisformis, It can be used offensively with arrowshield to infinitely stun targets, it can also be used to close in on arrowstorm, or it can be used defensively to dodge nearly every spell in the game. Walkspeed has such incredible unity with archer and agility that it makes all endgame content almost a joke. If you still believe that negative defenses or the negative health matter on Stratisformis you've not seen how bulky an archer with agility and Walkspeed is.

Talking about Stratisformis is for sure gonna fuel a pointless flame war so I'm just gonna address some counterpoints I typically see when asking for a Stratisformis nerf.

"Stratisformis wasn't good until air support like Unravel, and Sagittarius were created/buffed."
This is correct, Air support is what really broke the camels back for Stratiformis, but I don't think Air support should be nerfed because Stratisformis can abuse them for insane damage output. We need to balance Stratisformis in mind of the support. If we nerfed Air support because of Strati it would only hurt every Air build in the game on top of Strati.

"The negative health is hard to build around."
Well I gave an example of a build with 10k hp so people aren't having that hard of a time building around it. and even if it was, being below 10k hp hardly matters with the ws and agility you'll gain using Stratisformis. This also applies for negative defenses.

"Agility is overpowered not Stratisformis, when agility gets nerfed it will fall in line"
Maybe, but agility hasn't been nerfed, and the item team can't touch agility, in this case I think the best option would be to nerf Stratisformis, atleast until agility was reworked, which is something they can do.

Now I understand certain mythics will always outperform others; but I believe, and I think a lot of the community can support me on this one, that Stratisformis outperforms too much, it's better than other mythic bows by a significant margin, the gap between it and the other mythics is massive. Something it has needs to go. It's damage, it's walkspeed, perhaps even it's req should be higher. It needs to be tweaked until we the community can deem it balanced.

tl;dr Nerf strati

 

I largely agree except about Agility nerf. Agility doesn't need a nerf, Defense needs a buff, or at least needs to be even between classes.

 

I completly agree with your point with that, defense is garbage in comparison to agility, where as you see with agility you get a truck ton of walk speed which you can utilise to outrun your enemies and although you can occasionally have inconsistent dodging, you can also have a lot of life saving moments that you would never get with defense especially concerning a common trait of defense is negative walk speed causing you to get swarmed very easily. I do however disagree that defense needs to be equal across all classes because archer was made to be a glass cannon it has the highest damage of all classes by a long shot and should thus come at the consequence of being very easy to kill, essentially meaning that all class stats would have to be created equal to become truly balanced which I find hard to visualise and would probably reduce the diversity and strengths with each class

 

Thank you for writing a proper feedback through the appropriate channel. Strati is a very touchy subject that the IMs had and will continue to have debates and make changes surrounding it. Opinions change, for us, and for the community.

One thing we always say within the IMs is that, balance is as subjective as it is objective. Therefore, we don't just look at numbers and "baselines" and call it balanced, but we factor in various feedbacks and user experiences, as well as circumstances surrounding usage of certain items and ingredients. Therefore, it is exactly why proper feedbacks are so important to our job, and it certainly will be taken seriously, as all feedbacks do.

Now I'm sure we all know there are a lot of community grievances surrounding strati buff. Why aren't the IMs do anything about it, the answer is very simple and has been addressed in the past, I've written a post about this and other related issues a few pages back if anyone is interested in knowing why their feedbacks aren't being processed immediately. Your post is also the first formal and proper feedback in the proper place listing all the necessary analysis we need to make a proper case around it, so that is very much appreciated. Well done.

One thing to note, as also pointed out in the post, strati change and other popular demands also popularly attracts flames. Whispers and flames in any discord server, forum or in-game chat certainly do grab our attention from time to time, but also have the potential to land itself in the wrong way. If a group of people saying a certain thing should get changed and agreeing with each other while flaming the IMs, that does not count for making a proper feedback even if an IM is at the conversation, I'm sure that is very reasonable and fair to understand. While bolding the "we the community" is a very impressive ending statement, the true impressiveness of your post come from actually making the post here, showing everyone that this IS the proper way to do things, and your opinions WILL be valued. Balance isn't made by the IMs alone, nor does it made by the community alone, it is made by the two working together and only by doing it together in a cooperative relationship can everyone truly benefits. Everyone have the potential to contribute to the balance as much as the IMs do.

I can't stress this enough and anyone would be incorrect for thinking otherwise: The most important thing for this two-way communication to work is to make proper constructive feedback with a positive attitude on this thread, that would make it quicker to our proper to-do list and ultimately giving we the community what we all want, a proper, balanced game for everyone (if the suggestion is appropriate).

 

Now that Ruby/Amethyst are base 1 all skill points, are they going to get a secondary ID like the rest of the morph pieces?

 

"I am fortunate to give you an affirmative answer to the question you seek answer for, sir"

 

Indubitably

 

Well no, but actually yes.

 

how about yea? i use it after using ye to much

 

Taken out of context, fake news!

 

accurate representation of how debates happen in the item team #pokethesecondfish

 

Maybe it's just me, but Earth/Thunder doesn't actually seem that much stronger than other elements, despite ostensibly being a glass cannon playstyle. It's glassy, sure, but it isn't particularly "cannon-y". Event Horizon has all that health bonus but can't actually take advantage of it for higher damage, since (outside of Tesla) there aren't any items that sacrifice health in exchange for high damages or other bonuses that are usable with Earth/Thunder - or even damage boosters in general. Steamjet Walkers, Cinderchain, Spectre, etc. all exist for many other elemental combinations, and single element always has the Sanctuaries if nothing else. But even though it's an offensively oriented playstyle, the closest Earth/Thunder has to a really strong damage booster is Beetle Aegis (and the Earth/Thunder weapons aren't particularly high-damage either).

(I'm talking about spell boosts, because melee boosts are mostly useless - I may dislike the tierstack meta's limitations, but it exists for a reason)

 

Tbh part of that is just that intelligence is so powerful. We already have really good spell items for earth thunder, like Brainwash, but the lack of intelligence makes spell spamming, and by extension dpsing, more difficult

 

It's not too challenging to get good Int while also meeting the reqs of Earth/Thunder items (Blue Mask + Event Horizon :P) but even then, the damage output just isn't what you would expect for a build with next to no Def/Agi.

For anyone wondering about the viability of high health with no Def/Agi, well, one need only consult YYGAMER.

 

Yeah, but at the same time the most powerful spell armor for earth thunder (brainwash) completely shreds your intelligence, and most other earth thunder items don’t have mana regen, meaning that spell spam is much more difficult as you have to rely on mana steal, which is notoriously unreliable. Unlike with intelligence builds, you kinda have to choose between good intelligence or decent mana regen.

For example, compare Aquarius to Cardiac Arrest. While Cardiac has 11% more spell damage, Aquarius has a whopping 7 mana regen, meaning it gets to use it’s spell damage boost more often.

And all of this isn’t mentioning the fact that Strength and Dexterity don’t stack, meaning you’re not getting the any benefit from stength 2/3 times, or the fact that both Dexterity and strength just add a +100% to your % spell and melee damages instead of actually doubling damage, which means that the more spell damage you have the less effective the crit is at boosting damage

 

Just a suggestion, would it be possible for you to add the date of the latest changelogs to the title somewhere so it's easier to know when to click on the thread to get updated?

(Basically, I'm asking if y'all could make the title like uh

Item Team Update Thread - Latest Updates, Rebalance Changelog And More - 4/10

or something)

just a thought

 

Good idea bruh

 

Actually, strength and dexterity do stack. I believe that the only time when it didn't stack was before the Gavel update.

I just tested this with an unpowdered rainmaker and no other damage boosts to make sure it works (constant 3-3 neutral base dmg)

Note that the rainmaker has 122 raw melee, meaning 122 damage will be added on top of the base.

0 str/100 dex - 125 per hit, 128 crit
100 str/100 dex - 126 per hit, 129 crit