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I can agree that some of the skills are mediocre at best (Pursuit i`m looking at you) but, overall, that`s kinda the nature of Card Games
Some Character may have very strong Skills balance by some very weak one... not to mention that there is a fine line between "weak" and "situational"
Take Quick Fire for instance:
50% damage + every other non-marking skill will result into another 35% hit
a couple of Heals and a Lucy skill and we are easily looking at 155% damage for 1 Mana....
Pair it with Azar and we reach silly numbers.
Also, it feels like you are misreading some effects.
Like, Incise:
It doesn`t add 2 flat damage to Eve, it add +25% attack damage
just with the "free" use each turn that`s an extra +75%, making it 163% damage for 1 Mana
Same with Huz, all her stuff scales with Healing Power
and...well..she isn`t a "pure" healer. She can`t really compete with Pressel or Joey, but she can debuff the enemy and restore the Healing Gauge (making healing much more efficient)
That doesn`t mean the game can`t use some tweeks here and there, just maybe not that many.
I mean.... Expert mode is already quite easy as it it
Howdy lad! Thanks for the response; it means a lot to me. As a person who genuinely loves discussing game balance, I do have a few words to share regarding that.
On the topic of the first point, I personally don't believe that we should leave certain options as intentionally weak or overpowered in any video game. To me anyway, game balance is refining a game and the viability of each playstyle so that every option is at least somewhat equally worth considering. If a character is overpowered but has one bad move, then nerf the character overall but give their weaker options some added utility. Likewise, if a character is mostly bad but has a few insane options, then tone down the busted ones and revamp the character's moveset to be more viable as a whole.
Especially with characters like Azar, Huz, and Sizz, I feel like letting a majority of their skills remain as somewhat mediocre, overly situational, and/or simply outclassed is doing the game, these characters, and the players somewhat of a disservice. Not that I'm trying to shape the game to my liking or anything - I just believe that balance and viability control are among a game's most important aspects to get right. Chrono Ark has pretty good balance already, I just find that there's a lot of underpowered skills in need of some buffs - which really hurts the viability and potential of some characters.
Regarding Quick Fire, it's not so much that the skill is unusable as much as it is completely outclassed by Rapid Shot. For one Mana, you get Swiftness, really solid damage, apply the Mark of Silverstein, and it generates a copy of itself. There is little reason for a skill like Quick Fire to exist when Rapid Shot does the same thing, just better in almost every way. Also, Quick Fire only lasts one turn, which makes it hard to capitalize on. It's weak because it is overly situational, in my personal opinion.
I am also sure that upon reworking Sizz & Eve, Incise got nerfed to only add a flat 2 extra damage to Eve's attacks. It's hard to misunderstand the description when it specifically states that Eve's attack gets a +2 damage boost, as of Early Access v1.5b. I know that Incise used to apply a damage multiplier, but it no longer does.
Regarding Huz, I know that she's not meant to be nearly on the same level as Joey or Pressel in terms of healing, but that doesn't mean she couldn't use some balance additions to make her more viable. She is a unique character, but it is much harder to keep a team going with her than it is those two. The Pain damage is more of a deterrent to her playstyle than it is a defining feature of her arsenal, not to mention that most of her healing options are fairly weak at the moment. Also, the concept of critical healing would greatly improve her ability to aid teams, allow her to fulfill a more unique role, and still keep her core playstyle the same.
Finally, I personally believe that now is actually the best time to be thinking about balance. The game is deep into early access, fourteen characters are playable, Expert Mode has been announced to get much harder in the future, and there may be even more areas after the Sanctuary. It is incredibly important for character skills and aspects of their playstyle to be fine-tuned before then, as in my opinion, the game currently encourages using 'the really good characters' like Silverstein, Joey, Lian, and Miss Chain a bit too strongly, hence why I believe the playing field should be slightly more equal.
Of course, this is just all my opinion; feel free to disagree. I just wrote this document because I personally feel that all options should be at least somewhat equally worth using, and that some characters (Azar, Huz, and Sizz in particular) aren't nearly as effective as they should be.
Azar has been overnerfed
Sizz`s healing is... not really "good" or..."healing" most of the time
Huz has too many weird Wound skills
They aren`t limited like Trisha was, but they could do with some buff.
I`m just saying... you are proposing some big changes (or reworks) which aren`t really needed.
Not really, nope
Rapid Shot is ~105% damage +35% from mark (Swifness, x2)
Quick is 50% +35% from mark PLUS +35% every other non-marking skill played in the turn
It breaks even at 2, anything above that is more mana-efficient than Rapid shot
Am I gonna pick it over Rapid shot without Azar or Trisha with Blink Stab? probably not
but in those instances, it`s gonna be the better choice.
again, nope
"normal" Eve attack = 5 damage
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2341232977
"Incised" attack = 9
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2341232889
Oh wow! The translation is inaccurate in this case, then; I do know that Incise got nerfed after some time, but I guess I was wrong about how exactly its damage worked. My bad; I'll be sure to fix that in the document.
Also, I was wondering if you could elaborate upon your point a bit. From a technical standpoint, balance changes are never "needed" but nevertheless, they make games far more playable, fair, and fun. I find it somewhat of a waste that so many characters currently have skills that very few people are going to want to use. This isn't just my opinion, either; I created this document with the feedback of a good few players - such as DeadEnd up there - as well as various members of the English Chrono Ark Discord server.
Balancing is hard work, but it's these kinds of changes that add to a game's replay value, fairness, and overall impacts how players decide who they want to play. Thus, I believe that suggestions like these would enhance Chrono Ark's quality of life and make a lot of people happy.
Hein:
Assault Slash: Intentionally under-valued accuracy/damage ratio because Hein has Madness. Proc Madness once, and this is already one of the best cards in his deck. Accuracy is the cost Hein pays to be able to have easy access to hit-all damage, and is an intentional weakness of his kit. Madness is that good.
Overall I am fine with Hein's current place in the meta.
Trisha:
We've already discussed her. I think Shadow Curtain is one of her better cards, not her worst. The other cards mentioned could use changes, but I think its hard to do so without first nerfing Double Team.
Azar:
Wow. Hard disagree! Armor is percentage-based reduction, not flat reduction, so Azar is not particularly more or less affected by armor than other DPS who do physical damage. Armor penetration is a strong stat that is wisely rare to obtain and usually at a cost (using an otherwise weak skill to reduce armor, wearing a high-rarity equipment, etc), enemy HPs are balanced around the combination of HP+Armor they have. Your changes would make him overpowered by a significant margin.
I think you're too focused on all-in Azar builds. He's strong when played as a supporting DPS, generating "free" damage every turn and sticking to his 1-mana and mana-reducing attacks to support another damage dealer, clearing the way to deal damage without hogging half of the available mana.
Charon:
Dark Barrier is fine. Think of it less as a damage-dealing skill and more as a pre-emptive heal to your Taunter, hurt character, etc. I do take Dark Barrier at a medium rate on Charon, and it performs as I'd expect. Your suggested change would make it her new strongest skill, and Charon doesn't need help even post-nerfs.
Soul Strike is in an awful spot. While I don't like your specific proposal, something in that realm of power is needed to get me to ever consider picking it. I'd play into the flavor of the card more, and start by adding significantly more damage per Soul Thurible stack consumed, no other changes. Make Soul Strike her new hardest hitting burst damage card, but with a significant mana/soul cost attached.
Silverstein:
I mostly agree. Quick Fire could use a little bump, but I'd be content simply with Ignores Taunt, without the rest of your proposed buffs.
Miss Chain, Lian:
They don't fit my preferred playstyle, so I have no strong opinion other than to say that they're decent as-is and I don't particularly take issue with your suggestions.
Also, what the heck, my Lian is now locked from character select? Was that a consequence of only playing beta before 1.5?
Phoenix:
I don't think he should exist as he is now (no experience with him prior to the rework). He changes the rules of the game in ways that are bound to be either overpowered or underpowered. Fundamentally, his passive is impossible to balance in a way that makes Phoenix viable in similar amounts to most team compositions.
Ironheart:
Its a common sentiment that Shock Wave is underpowered, but why? When I run him, Shock Wave is by far the attacking skill I want most, his job is to waveclear during non-boss fights and to support during boss fights. I don't think Shock Wave needs any help at all - run it if your comp can support it, don't if you can't.
I'm of the opinion that his kit doesn't need buffs, and that he could survive nerfing.
Narhan:
Agree that Plant Spite/Trauma are his weakest skills, disagree with your proposals as they're both too strong at current mana costs (also, don't propose flat amounts of damage, make it scale off of a stat - "XX% Attack" rather than "18 Pain damage").
I find Narhan balanced, whereas general opinion is that he's overpowered. My comps running Narhan tend to have a lower winrate than the ~70% I normally have doing full party Expert runs. My guess is that Narhan is inconsistently stronger or weaker based on loot gained during a run, thanks to how his damage skills scale with MHP.
Joey:
Joey doesn't need help, nor is he the best support unless you define "main healer" to be the only part of the support role. He's got strong skills backed by a weak passive ability, putting him in a fine spot particularly for beginners.
Paralyzing Dart: You cannot lower this to 1 mana without also making it worse somehow, it would go from "weak but playable" to "staple skill" and Joey really doesn't need more of those. Remember, bosses in this game can be stunned, and you can time stuns to skip the bulk of a boss' power. This skill being overcosted a bit is intentional.
Smog/Drone: I don't think these need help. Smog does good work in Pain comps, and can pop shields/penetrate armor in non-Pain comps. Drone has no difficulties maxing on damage in the right comps, and is a serviceable AoE heal+minor damage otherwise. Situational skills that are good in some teams, bad in others are fine to have.
I'd like to mention that Joey's single target Pain damage skill is quite strong in the hands of your DPS Carry character(s), so if you get an opportunity to set that up (Archangel Statue, Mirror Image, etc) you should consider doing it. It only seems average because its being backed by Joey's low Attack score.
Sizz:
These buffs are excessive. While I agree that Sizz is not ideal to play a "main healer" role, I would also debate the need to run a "main healer" in the first place. Some comps don't need one, particularly if supplemented with other off-support options such as barriers, Charon's Soul Thurible, etc.
When I do run Sizz, I run her in a style that has low dependency with Eve and I am willing to run multiple copies of Sacrifice. I like her in DPS Carry comps, where she can enable the DPS to hit hard or set up a buffer with Sacrifice, depending on the opening draw. In particular I like her paired with Hein, to set up strong Madness combos.
I see her fitting best in burst comps and in comps where she's a "secondary" healer. Like Azar, her passive grants deceptive amounts of "free" damage, though unlike Azar you're going to have to put her in the right comps to consistently access it.
I think she could use a little help, but I'm not particularly sure where.
Pressel:
I have strong opinions on Pressel as I think she's one of the strongest, if not the strongest character in the current meta, but brought down in winrate due to being the most popular character picked in the starting party (so newer players are playing her more and losing because they're new.)
Holy Light: Comparing this to Healing Vapor is misleading. Holy Light is closer to costing 1 net mana thanks to the mana reduction granted from Prophecy. I think its her second best heal skill in most standard 3-4 member party comps. Yet despite this, because Shining Pillar exists, Holy Light is more of a backup plan for when the game never offers you Shining Pillar.
Shining Pillar: I could make a case for this to be the strongest Common skill in the entire game, and you want to buff it? 2-mana Swiftness that hits reasonably for that mana cost, while also healing the party for a very reasonable amount, that can be played for 3-mana reasonably if you need to.
Okay, sure, you need to target this with Prophecy to get the most out of it, but you get to draw two of the top five cards in your deck with Pressel comps each turn, instead of the top two cards. That's a huge difference!
Shining Pillar is Pressel's best healing skill and best damage-dealing skill in most situations, though if you're going to rely on Pressel as a Main DPS, you will want some amount of First Class to beat out Taunt.
First Class to Heaven: Extremely underrated and doesn't need buffing. To understand why, understand that Shining Pillar is a very strong card and compare the two. Both cards heal the party a significant amount (First Class healing scales, it doesn't always heal 1 HP, and remember that Overheal requires several points of heal per 1 HP), Pillar has the advantage of Swiftness+Mana Discount while First Class has the advantage of Ignores Taunt+270% Damage (Critical with base 180% damage, can be higher with Crit Damage gear).
In the general case, First Class is a mildly worse Shining Pillar with different upsides. But there's no shame in being slightly worse than the best Common skill in the game!
I like the idea of Celestial Wing 1 mana->0 mana. It needs a change to compete with Guardian Angel.
I would suggest a Shining Pillar nerf (170->150% damage seems like a decent starting point), and then see what happens before making further changes. Its hard to get a good read on Pressel's true ability because the data is skewed by her high pick rate.
Huz:
I'm...actually okay with most of those suggestions?
As a side note, I once ran a comp with Huz as my Carry DPS just to see if I could, and I won that run. She can actually put out respectable damage at Swiftness speed if that's something your party needs.
Excellent response! I really appreciate the feedback. If you use Discord at all, I plan on updating this document to reflect new ideas and feedback from players. Would love to finetune it with you! Otherwise though, I'll tone down some of the buff suggestions and approach certain characters a bit differently.
I hope everyone enjoys the changes! I personally believe the document is looking better than ever before now.
after that, it`s a matter of tweeks and personal taste.
It doesn`t really matter if Shining Pillar does 150 or 170% damage
what matters is it NOT doing 400%, that would make Pressel significantly stronger and break the balance
it also somehow mattered if it did just 50% as it would make it a "dead" skill
(Dead skills are only a problem if they reach a "critical" mass)
That doesn`t mean some of the truly awful skills couldn`t use an upgrade, you could replace Pursuit or Biotic field with a blank "better luck next time" and it would pretty much be the same
but not everyone should be Chain, Hein, or Silverstain "level of balance" as it adds to the diversity and, at the end of the day, it's a choice of the Developer
Also, don`t take it the wrong way, but some of the suggestions are plain weird and feel like they have been presented by someone who didn`t play much.
Like Azar`s "armor problem" as explained by Xuande
Incise.. i mean.. literally, all it takes is playing Sizz to notice that
Some of the suggestion for Huz... for one, Life Barrier is extremely good, just not as a "direct" form of healing
I do use Discord a little, but prefer to use it only when I have to, for reasons I'd rather not go into. So thanks, but I'm good replying here currently.
First of all, you need to plan the whole run before picking characters. Like Khor said, quick fire is better than rapid shot if you have Azar. For me, it is like I want to build this run centered around "quick fire", so I picked Silverstein and Huz at start, pick as many "quick fire" and "carrot and stick" as possible, get Sizz as third party member and build her as secondary DPS/Support. If I'm lucky enough, get Azar for the fourth member.( if not, that's ok, those trio can already do the job). And you will see a very strong combination. Same goes for "Phoenix's Kick" so Phoenix+Miss Chain, "Soul Stigma" so Charon+Huz+Hein, "Shield Bash" so Iron Heart+Joey, "Chemical Weapon" so Joey+Azar. In all, there is no actual bad skills or bad character, only skills and characters that not fit in your current build. I will still talk about every character from here.
Hein
I agree that only blood reflux is the only awkward skill, but the biggest problem isn't with the lost health. It is kinda like Huz's Life Barrier, not being an actual healing skill, but for supporting or combo with other skills like Merciless Explosion, Bloody Revenge or Charon's Soul Stigma, it would be actually worse if Hein only lose half of the restored health. A few patches before it could transfer the targeted ally's pain debuff to himself, which could work very well with Huz, but it get reverted because I guess if you don't use it with Huz it would just make Hein die faster. My suggestion is to add "heal 15% of dealt damage" effect to the "Thirsty"( just like the equipment berserker's blood).
Trisha
I think she could use some basic stat buff. The main spot for her as DPS is to use her crit stat and crit damage amplify equipment. But she gets regular crit growth as other characters at 1% per level, it could be better if it's 2% or 3% per level.
Azar
I guess he is totally fine. Because he was too strong in 1.5 beta 0, he get nerfed several times, but still good enough in current version. The Sword of Infinity was 1 mana but nerfed only one patch afterwards, so I guess I don't need to explain why it shouldn't be changed from 2→1. (a hint, it is not a rare skill) It is ok to buff the damage of Hollowed Flash a little bit, but what's the point of Crescent Slash if the Hollowed Flash have the same cost as it? It has a around 280% maximum damage, so never being a weak skill. And as Xuande pointed it out before, armor doesn't being particularly unfair to Azar. There are some bosses that might be a bit harder for Azar, but never absolutely, you can always deal with them with your wit. Like Joker, if there are no joker's cards in hand and you are quite healthy, it is a advisable to let Azar takes the cuff because Hollowed Sword get discarded automatically and relieve his stun.
Charon
The Dark Barrier is never a weak skill. Let me take a example, if a 1-cost skill does 100% damage, do you believe that a 2-cost skill should do 200% damage? The answer is no because overload exist and you only get limited cards in your hand, this is especially true in late game when you crave for more cards rather than more mana. You know what will happen if all cards in the deck are Dark Barrier? And I have to remind that Dark Barrier has also been nerfed in 1.5 beta 1. For Soul Strike, that's kind of awkward too. 3 cost for
320% maximum damage is one of the strongest offensive skill, the problem is with the Soul Thurible, she needs more skills to get Soul Thurible charge other than the pitiful Absorb Soul. There are still one more skill and one more rare skill coming for her so you can wait for it.
Silverstein
Just as told before, Quick Fire could be very strong if you build around it, or it is called "situational". The biggest problem is that it is not easily accessible, so makes it could be used as fixed might help with it.
Miss Chain
I kinda agree on this one, 2-cost to get a skill with 2 cost reduced, it is just exchange 25% health for burnnn effect. Totally not worth it.
Lian
Reprisal as I said above. The only thing that need to be changed might be its translation.
Phoenix
I like how Phoenix's Kick is designed, if it get changed like that, it is just another boring offensive skill without any need to consider before use. If you want to build around it, then get as many as you can. If you don't want, just don't take it. As simple as other skills that is not fit into current build. Scratch and Nibble offers other ways to sustain health if there are not many breads, but EUoB is so powerful these situations are usually out of my consideration. I agree on the changes on Blazing Regeneration,Leer andFace Slap, but I still won't take them because Once meh.
Iron Heart
No need to buff Shock Wave because shield build+Shock Wave&Shield Bash have been OP for several versions. Though it has been severely nerfed now, Iron Heart get a new skill called Shield Charge! Other skills' changes are ok.
Narhan
I think he is a bit overrated. I have no opinion on Plant Spite or Trauma buff because Narhan isn't the kind of defensive character that can benefit much from taunting enemy, Lian , Phoenix and Iron Heart get more armor, Miss Chain can count attack, but Narhan just don't have any of it. So I guess it might be a better approach to buff the Plant Spite from this perspective. Trauma might be better focused on debuff enemy, like with +10% chance receive crit.
Joey
The Paralyzing Dart and Self Destructing Healing Drone won't need further buff. Paralyzing Dart get the highest stun chance and being swift, the SDHD could deal 50 damage in total at late game with some AOE healing for only 2 cost and swift. And having 10 buffs in total isn't hard at all, you can eat a herb at camp fire and instantly you get 4 buff in total at next stage, use a Healing Vapor then plus some characters own buff or buff from equipment easily surplus 10. And you can get Biotic Field which is very useful in my opinion. The SDHD is as powerful as Shining Pillar in my opinion and you just need to build Joey's healing power for it.
Sizz
She used to be OP as a support DPS, the Eve could deal some insane damage combo with other characters like Azar. Eve, Help was 1 cost with swiftness before, but obviously get nerfed. You may not treated it as a healing skill, but improve its healing power is totally understandable. I guess incise used to buff more damage than it does now, but that's because of the nerf of Sizz's basic attack. Sacrifice is already good enough, and there are some chances that Sizz could resist can't use Eve. For healing skills buff, I actually don't have too much complain, but most of time running Sizz as the only healer is enough.
Pressel
As Xuande said above, Pressel is by far the strongest character, and use Pressel as DPS is kinda already popular before the 1.5 rework, so no need to buff First Class to Heaven. I agree that the Celestial Wing could be buffed. Basically you will always want a Recycle if you choose it.
Huz
That's the only character I personally believe being underpowered. Though I like choosing she a lot, but seems she has the lowest win rate among all characters. I personally believe her biggest problem is that she never being a good DPS (I tried it one time with a Rod of Faith Preserve, though it is a successful run, I think she does a lot worse than Pressel&Joey&Sizz with a Rod of Faith) but having too less healing skill. She only have three skill that can directly healing, the other two being more like supporting skill (Carrot and Stick, Life Barrier). So it's less likely you will get wanted skill combination. She can combo with many characters, but if there aren't combo, she is pretty weak herself. Being the only character able to overheal with non-rare skills and healing wounds&passive can save your run many times. But yeah, I guess she is the one need most stat buff, the healing wounds effect of Life Barrier could be changed to the same level as Whip of Love or Carrot and Stick, and many of her attack skills could see buffs.
The reason is as simple as: the Dev liked it that way
And then there is stuff like Incise... which ended up bugging me WAY more than it should (
I mean, c`mon!! it was a group effort.. and no one actually even stumbled upon incise on Sizz???!!!
and here the reason is again a simple: check your math
I can`t really go into the details of that.. more than I already did with Quick Shot and Incise
and overall I agree
Azar could use some buff
Sizz some better healing
Huz either less or better Wound skill support
- Added Iscander's suggestion for Blood Reflux
- Corrected Lian's skill 'Reprisal'
- Azar: Crescent Slash given 'Swiftness' so it has an edge over Hollowed Flash at 2 Mana
- Removed the durability buff to Charon's 'Dark Barrier'
- Buff to Ironheart's 'Shock Wave' has been removed
- Nerfed suggestion to Paralyzing Dart; applies two stacks of 33% armor debuff --> 20%
- Removed damage buff to Self-destructing Healing Drone (I left the other buff suggestion in because the skill still has bad performance in the early-game and the mid-game; this just makes it easier to capitalize on.)
- Removed Mana reduction on 'Eve, Help!'
- Nerfed Incise suggestion - base damage further reduced from 80% --> 75%. (Incise is mostly fine right now, but the actual attack itself does so little that a small Pain debuff like Bleeding would go a long way, I feel. Would also give it some risk/reward properties in fights such as the Pharos Leader, as currently Incise is somewhat of a get out of jail free card in that fight.)
- Sacrifice suggestion has been further nerfed; one Eve stack now generates 125% damage with two stacks now generating 155% damage. Party barrier has also been lowered from 16 to 15. (It's not an unusable skill, but from my and DeadEnd's experience, it's rarely worth picking and needs more of a kick to be effective.)
- Removed buff for Pressel's 'First Class to Heaven'
- Ninja Edit: Also altered Soul Strike; removed Swiftness suggestion, Mana cost lowered from 4 --> 3, damage modifiers slightly increased (by 10% each).
- Ninja Edit #2: Dark Barrier buffs completely removed.
Some further thoughts below:
- The thing about Quick Shot is that in an overwhelming majority of situations, it is completely inferior to Rapid Shot. It's not that Quick Shot can't work; on the contrary, I acknowledge that certain compositions synergize really well with some of these skills. But when an entire skill's viability revolves around an incredibly specific build, it becomes underpowered and in my personal opinion, should be buffed. I hope this helps others understand my design philosophy a bit further; I feel a lot of the worse skills in Chrono Ark could use some more time in the oven not because they can never work, but because making them work isn't often worth the effort unless you design your entire party around it. Don't get me wrong; synergy is a great and important aspect of designing characters and skills, but no skill should be overly-reliant on being ran in this specific way every time to be allowed to function properly. Thus, I've chosen to keep the section on Quick Shot mostly unedited; it's only a minor buff anyway and gives a much-needed edge to it.
- Respectfully disagree with Phoenix Kick being fine right now. It's the reasoning I have for Quick Shot; if you don't go out of your way to design your team around the skill from early on, it's incredibly outclassed and under-performs badly. On the opposite end of the spectrum, it can even be borderline overpowered if you really want to make it that strong. This uneven distribution between 'either useless or actually rather insane' is why I currently dislike Phoenix Kick as a skill. Furthermore, my suggestion not only makes it more viable, but also gives some much-needed additional use to Efficient Use of Bread in battle, keeping the skill unique and not feeling like just another generic attack.
- Regarding Khor's post, I think Biotic Field is fine as is. Permanent buffs and debuffs always make for some of the best skills; just look at Dark Blessing if you want an example of that.
- I've also downplayed the Azar 'armor problem' a lot since earlier revisions; I still think that having his Hollow Swords ignore 50% of an enemy's armor would go a long way in optimizing his chip damage, but at the end of the day, it's just one of many proposals on something we can almost all agree on; Azar really needs some buffs.
- I actually agree with Xuande to a certain extent; what I'm asking for is not necessarily 'perfect' balance though, since that's virtually unobtainable and - let's be honest - completely unrealistic for a game to have. Rather than focusing on trying to make everything 'perfectly balanced,' my design philosophy is that all options and/or playstyles should be given the chance to be viable. Skills shouldn't be 'deadweight unless you run it this exact way', nor should certain characters be doomed to be run as secondary attackers/healers forever - looking at you, Sizz/Huz/Azar. I ask that everyone here understands that every one of us views balance from a different perspective - and that's completely okay. Take Khor - as long as nothing is 'deadweight' or 'overpowered', he is satisfied and there is nothing wrong with that. I don't find my suggestions as 'nitpicky' or 'useless' because I believe in the power of even minor tweaks; even tiny adjustments to seemingly nonessential parameters can go a long way to make a game more playable, plausible, fair, and fun. That, to me, is what game balance is all about.
Major Edit - Did some more updating regarding feedback; altered even more suggestions and completely revamped Azar's section. Hope that you all find these new suggestions as very interesting! I personally feel that the document is in a wonderful, complete spot right now.