Shaman And Warrior

Shaman is not hard, in any way shape or form. You literally just drop a totem, spam aura, uproot every 15 secs to reset totem, and youre literally done. Granted, it's different from the other classes, but once you spend two fucking minutes playing and getting used to it, its the easiest shit ever. If you wanted it to be hard maybe you shouldn't have made the damage so fucking high that three clicks of a mouse can vaporize any mob ever and made the player literally unkillable because totem heal exists. Contrast that to warrior, which is underpowered to the point that its a hundred times harder than shaman- its pure melee with no real means of damaging enemies except getting close as shit, has bad damage, and movement that is so bad that its unplayable without walkspeed. Oh and did i mention that UPPERCUT HAS 10 FUCKING BASE COST? Seriously..,

tldr swap shaman and warrior diff ratings

 

Yeah warrior sucks but i dont think shaman is overpowered considering it has 50% base defense and can get overwhelmed easily by fast mobs

 

Uhhhh

This is not the best way to get your point across but ok.

I do kinda agree with the tldr but not quite.

I think shamans and warriors difficulty ratings should both be put to two as both offer some easy and challenging playstyles, (e.g HPR tank guardian or ETW thrunda god save me)

You're greatly exaggerating everything in this sentence. Totem Doesn't make you unkillable, (with the exception of maybe abso) nor does aura do insane amounts of damage.

Its intended to excel at killing hordes of mobs as it is the cc class but I don't see its damage being too op against things like bosses (a single target enemy with lots of health)

Now I do agree that its dumb that uppercut's base cost is 10 and that it is kind of sad that you need to get up close to the enemy to deal damage and don't have a stun but its honestly not as bad as you make it sound.

also if you're worried about shaman being a bit op and it having high damage then I
can't wait to see your reaction to assassin

 

I don’t think class balance should count as a factor for difficulty. Warrior isn’t difficult to master because it’s a complicated class with a lot of moving parts (I mean it kind of is but all of the various strength and resistance boosts it has don’t matter because war scream overrides all of it), it’s difficult to master because it sucks. That’s not a skill ceiling. That’s a balance issue, and subject to change. Also, to be honest most of the class ratings are pretty inaccurate; if I had to rank all of them out currently I’d put Assassin at three stars, Warrior and Shaman at two stars and Mage and Archer at one star.

Assassin is overall the class with the highest skill ceiling and lowest skill floor; it’s got a multitude of combos and learning to move effectively with vanish can be difficult to master in a fight. Also, every spell has a defined role to play and serves it well enough that they all get used often in combat, and learning when and how to use every spell is crucial to playing assassin well; otherwise you’re better off on a different class.

Warrior also has a high skill combo in the form of uppercut cancelling, but a lot of the moving parts around its spells (like the strength boost from Bash or the resistance boost from charge) don’t get used because War scream’s buffs override them. Because of that, uppercut cancelling and learning to use charge are kind of the only hurdles to mastering Warrior at peak effectiveness. The main reason it’s considered difficult right now is because of balance issues and game design, not because the class is (currently) high skill. That said, it is difficult to know where the line between balance issues and inherent class design is, and it’s entirely possible I’m undervaluing it.

Shaman has a few things you need to learn to use it. The most important is positioning, both yours and your totem. For example, placing a totem between you and a mob will block any and all projectiles from said mob, which is really important to know given that shamans can get shredded insanely quickly, especially by ranged attacks. There’s also techniques you can learn for throwing your totem further, such as uprooting it in midair. But a lot of learning shaman is focused more on positioning and survival; on the offense side there isn’t much to learn (because yeah Aura is pretty braindead to use).

Archer is a pretty simple class to learn. There’s a somewhat high skill combo for it, sure (Escape shift+Bomb arrow with Arrow shield for a large damage burst), but 9 times out of 10 you’re better off just running arrow storm and bomb spam, especially with Nighthawk. It’s pretty basic.

Mage is a very simple class. Pretty much every fight boils down to ice snake, meteor, meteor, meteor. Maybe teleport through some weaker adds to kill them because that’s faster than waiting for meteor to land. Beyond that, some wands are higher skill (lunar spine, warp), but those don’t define the whole class, which is still pretty basic as a whole.

 

Yes, Shaman should be nerfed. The 50% defense doesn't matter when you can stand so far away from the enemies that they can never hit you while constantly using Aura on them.

Otherwise the class is fine, Aura just needs some kind of nerf or change.

 

You do know that aura spell has a max range right? If you are further than like 20 blocks from the totem the game won't let you cast aura at all, this is easily within range of most ranged mobs.

 

Does it have one? I remember testing Shaman and activating Aura from really far away.

Well, if that is the case, Shaman can still always push all enemies away with a single spell, and pull their totem back to heal them.

While inside a Totem, melee mobs have zero chances against Shaman, in any situations. Shaman can Haul over them or trap them in the middle while having a big regen buff and a decently large damage buff.

 

For reference when I use these terms, I call levels 1-36 early game (Hashr being the transition to mid game), levels 36-68 being mid game (CoW being the transition to late game), 68-90 late game (there really is no transition here except for FF I guess), and 90+ being endgame.

Spoiler: Shaman

I can agree Shaman is not hard in most of the late game and the majority of the endgame, but in the early-mid game, it is. Aura doesn't even get prison until level 56, y'know, the thing that makes Aura as strong as it is aside from range. Aura is only as good as people make it seem for this stage in the game for either A. grinding (which makes sense, considering it's the CC class) or B. if you went out of your way to either find or buy items that give you mr out the wazoo, which most players, mainly new ones obviously, won't have the resources or knowledge to do at such low levels. Totem is also way harder to manage because uproot doesn't reset the counter until level 66. Also, it has mediocre sustain, as the totem heal isn't honestly that much (and Shaman actively discourages using pots because it removes your totem) because 50% base defense isn't exactly something you can ignore. Most things will one-two shot you or in some way burst you down at a scary rate, and then you have to wait to heal back said damage unless you want to lose your totem by using a hp pot.

That exact same reason but flipped is why I can agree it's not that hard in some of the late game and the vast majority of the endgame, because you have such easy access to mana sustain of all sources, along with your healing potential being tremendously increased and uproot resetting the totem timer regardless of if you actually hit the totem (I still haven't gotten a definitive answer as to if this is a bug or not). CoW, being a bridge boss between mid-late game, is basically a Shaman's test to see if they have the mana sustain to maintain constant totem/aura prison uptime. If they do, then it's laughably easy, and probably will meme on most other bosses with exceptions like Bob's fourth phase. If not, then it is one of Shaman's hardest counters, and you will most likely continue to struggle to maintain totem/aura until you get better gear.

Messing up your aura timings no longer matters unless you're using a glass cannony build because you can easily trap the mob again. Even with my cursed SALPINX GANG build, which has -6/4s mr and bad mana sustain when fighting single enemies because it's superfast mana steal on Shaman, I don't fear running out of mana and dying because I know that I can just go run off somewhere with totem and just sit there and heal back all my hp/regain my mana (with a secondary in this case, ofc). After that, I can just go back to cascading white particles across the screen, with obvious exceptions like if I let a Wretch get to The Eye and decide to be cocky and not actively kill the minions while it's going off.

Spoiler: Warrior

While I do agree that Warrior is relatively hard in the endgame, it is by far the easiest class to use throughout the entire rest of the game, save for probably Archer after level 21 (bomb arrow). Why? Base defense. Since elemental damage is pretty much nonexistent until the endgame with few exceptions, Warrior can easily face tank pretty much anything without having to fear death. The only true exceptions are enemies that do such high damage that face tanking is not viable, like Rymek Luke (and the vast majority of players aren't going to be fighting him on their first playthrough). Do you need pots to accomplish this? Generally, yes. Is this game balanced around you using pots? With the exception of Shaman, yes. I'm not going to pretend like it's not.

But I digress. The reason why Warrior sucks compared to all other classes in the end game is because elemental damage seemingly out of the blue becomes a major player, with few exceptions like Wybel. Now, Warrior lost the one good thing it had above every other class, its base defense, since all classes can easily deal with elemental damage with investment into the defense skill point. My point may seem a bit weird here, but what I'm trying to get at is that Warrior didn't even need to invest in defense just because its base defense was that strong (although you obviously could and just make it even easier), but now they do. Warrior's spells don't work well together and even melee is only moderately good compared to the other classes. Tanks also really just aren't needed throughout most of the game for co-op due to how the game works right now (heavily favoring range and dps, both of which Warrior lacks). It is hard in the sense that it is poorly balanced for the endgame, thus indirectly making it a harder class to use.

So, I would say that their difficulty rating should actually stay the same. I know that sounds contradictory, but you have to keep in mind that those "difficulty" labels are directed towards new players, not you and I, or pretty much anyone else talking on this thread thus far. Shaman is a hard class to use in the early-mid game, where newer players are still trying to get their footing and decide on what they want to use, because of mainly it's defense and managing your totem. Warrior is incredibly user friendly, even more so than that of Mage, for new players because it is just a face tanker. I could see Shaman being lowered to two stars just because it becomes so much easier in the late-end game, though.

The only one that I would say that needs to be changed is Assassin to three stars, because the difficulty curve for using it is higher than any other class, although it starts out only moderately difficult to use thanks to spin attack being the best base spell to start out with. Archer I could also see being lowered to 1 star, but it's actually pretty surprising the amount of new players that complain about Archer taking too much damage, despite having range and damage any mob in the game would envy. I know I have said Mage honestly isn't much of a "noob friendly" class, but in hindsight, it still is because the class itself doesn't exactly have that many techs (most of its techs actually come from melee and teleport) and is pretty straight forward in how to use it.

Thus, I would prefer if this the difficulty rating looked something more like this:
Hard: Assassin/Shaman (shaman is debatable)
Medium: Shaman/Archer (both are debatable)
Easy: Mage/Warrior/Archer (archer is debatable)

 

the 50% base defense is an eh but it isn't that effective when you have thousands of free hpr from totem. Aura prison kills fast mobs, and if things get too bad you can just haul.

then just place your totem closer to those mobs

yeah it was exaggerated to get a point across, but I stand by what I said about shaman for the most part; from my experience shaman aura instakills everything almost. Assassin cant aoe damage that well and gets overwhelmed 100x easier than shaman... yes its damage is stupid high and heavy melee exists but...

well to a new player/earlygame warrior is easiest, but putting warrior so easy could also be pretty eh down the line when the player tries to do hard bosses on warrior. In the end, a class with different mechanics isn't necessarily harder cough shaman, it just has a slightly high learning curve that once you figure out it becomes so. fucking. easy. warrior on the other hand seems easy at first then gets yeeted on harder bosses

 

Imo Shaman is nowhere near as strong as you make it out to be.

 

in my experience, its strong as hell. Maybe others think differently but shamans ability to trap mobs then unleash shittons of damage on them while staying 20 blocks away is unparalleled.

 

Isn't that how a learning curve works though? You've just stated yourself that Shaman has a slightly high learning curve, implying that it at the very least is somewhat difficult to learn, but easy to master when you describe it as "so fucking easy". This furthers my point that a Shaman will be intimidating and harder for newer players to use, which to me is more important when considering the difficulty rating put in the class menu and the help page, with the exception of Assassin because it has just that high of a skill ceiling. That also doesn't truly disprove my points in regards to aura trap and uproot totem reset, as you seem to be focusing a lot on the power of aura trap

despite it being absent for 55 levels and not being able to even permanently keep totem up until level 66.

I agree that Warrior can seem easy at first, and that's because it is, but it honestly still doesn't become that hard down the line as both you and I have exaggerated. In fact, Warrior, hilariously enough, gets even easier as the game goes on until you reach the end game, because as you progress you get more access to items with things like lifesteal and mobs are still doing mainly neutral damage. The only true times Warrior will struggle is, again, such high damage mobs to the point where face tanking isn't viable or the endgame without investment in defense.

 

I think if shaman's totem aura (not the spell, just the effect range) was reduced by a couple of blocks, it would make it fairly balanced.

 

I'd argue that shaman may be the strongest class (a matter that is entirely a different subject), but it's by no means the easiest to play. Warrior is simple (ignoring uppercanceling, which is a meta strategy that no new player will use, ever). You use bash, you use uppercut. There is no order you need to use, there is no combo to pull off, there's bash and there's uppercut. You probably also will use melee. Your damage isn't stellar, but it's enough to beat the game just fine.

Shaman might have better damage and heals, but the necessity of managing a totem, your mana, your placement and enemies is a lot harder than "spam one or two spells" like warrior can do. Warrior doesn't need to worry about nearly as much because they take much less damage and have spells that don't require setup to cast. If you run out of mana, melee and tank for a bit while it regen. Try tanking as shaman without mana to cast a totem. I dare you. Warrior is definitely the weakest class at endgame; don't get me wrong, it's not some powerhouse that you can use to easily beat everything - but it's not the hardest to play by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Honestly I don't think that warrior is anywhere near as bad as many people make it out to be. Once you get your hands on some warrior mythics (which should be easy considering that most are fairly cheap) it isn't that bad. Tcrack and Idol do more than enough dps, while being able to tank pretty well. You can also cheese all in-game content with guardian and apoc, AND warrior is insanely easy to use since it doesn't require you to memorize combos. Most of its gameplay seems to consist of Uppercut canceling and spamming charge to stay on top of enemies. I also don't think that Shaman is anywhere near the strongest class in the game. It has really good damage against hoards of enemies, but once you get into the only somewhat difficult content in the game (LI, EO) Shaman doesn't excel. It may be that I've become desensitized to high damage from abusing Cata and Nighthawk, but when I used Sunstar Shaman didn't feel like it had that high dps. Also the totem healing isn't anywhere near enough to make you fully invincible.

 

Uppercut canceling isn't even possible if you dont have int as one of the elements in your build

 

idk how anyone could think that shaman is better than archer/assassin, let alone be the best in the game

 

Well, if the difficulty rating is based off how hard it is earlygame/for a new player, then I can understand how things are. I guess I thought about lategame/bosses too much without taking other stuff into account and I just felt like making a rant lol.

still though uppercut's base cost is too high, that is undisputed fact