State of class balance (endgame)

[Fryskar]

Disclaimer:
All listed is with endgame stats in mind, so buff food and al 149 skillpoints. Solo play. Targets used, scavangers at everfore keep.

As i haven't seen much talk about the current balance, i decided to test all archetypes a bit. and post my conclusions to them.

Warrior:
28 str with food. 374 physical and 185 magical resistance, 1862 hp and 480 stamina. Open sandwich, Milkshake, beef stew and pumpkin soup or yellow glow soup (for updraft/healing spells).
Both one handed and two handed is very strong, altough i see less reason to use one handed.
Used weapon, battering ram hammer and aurora sword, the aurora sword is a medicore 1h weapon dmg wise.
Damage wise hitting for ~900, crits for 1.1k (2h) or ~400 and crits for ~600 (1h using 2h set) is massive for the quick speed, combined with high hp, resistance, regen and/or life steal is warrior the strongest archetype.
No matter if its a horde of trash that barly even scratches you or minibosses, warrior runs in and bashes it until its dead. Blocking/parrying/doding is quiet optional for anything below miniboss.
The skillpoint distribution is ok, most of the perks can be used by any weapon. Not too much incentive to dip deep into other trees so i've ended up with dessert stromach ontop of updraft and double jump as out of red skills.
The biggest drawback is still durability and flyers. Durability goes down fairly quick, dmg against flyers isn't great.
https://enshrouded-skill-tree.com/?shortCode=673b5b20f5bacb8b5df87abb

Mage:
26 int with food. 185 physical, 374 magical resistance, 1105 hp. Milkshake, meat wrap or stew, yellow glow soup.
Imo spell-mage has never recovered from the fall from grace it had during release. Imo mana leech is a must have, else the pitiful amout of mana you got is burnt up quick. Bloodmagic helps a bit, but due to its 2min cooldown its quiet restricted.
Wandmage is about as good as it always was. Poor range, slow projectiles, decent dmg.

Dmg wise spells vary a lot, its quiet a mess balance wise. Mage is the only archetype which can't get all options to max level. Some like acid blast are capped at lvl 22 (eternal) while others get higher but have no high eternal variant and others get a high as well as eternal variant.


With a crystalwater staff (slight ice dmg)
(effective) Ice bolt 2 hits for ~1.3k and crits for ~2k. On ice wyvern (resisted) it hits for ~700 and crits for ~1.1k.
(resisted) fireball 4 hits for ~800 and crits for~ 1.3k. On sabers (effective) its ~900 hit and ~1.5k crit.
Eternal light burst hits for ~280 and crits for ~320. Only good for large groups.
(no + dmg skill) Shroud meteor hits for ~1.2k and crits for ~1.9k
eternal chain lighting hits for ~1.1k and crits for ~1.9k.
Eternal acid blast hits for ~370, crits for ~700 and ticks for ~ 140.
Lightning channel hits for ~200 and crits for ~300.
Bone channel 2 hits for ~450.

Ice bolt got good utility due to high casting speed, long range, aoe and having a slow effect.

Fireball is raw dmg at long range, slow casting.

Light burst is casted even quicker and pushes enemies back 360° but got poor range. Great combination with mass destruction. Suspected bugged.

Shroud meteor is mostly dmg, but pushes and destroys terrain. Very slow casting, medicore range.

Chain lightning is raw dmg, quickly cast, but short range and no instant aoe.

Acid blast is very slow cast, with poor range, poor hitregistration and lowish dmg, but got aoe.

Lightning channel is very quickly cast at medium range, rather low dmg. Good at fighting off an entire swarm that got too close.

Bone channel is smiliar as lightning channel, but with good dmg.


The skilltree is okish, most stuff can get used in a way. I've picked tank for extra hp and double jump. With some trade offs the 4th food slot can be reached or tank hp picked.

https://enshrouded-skill-tree.com/?shortCode=673933bc0d50485e9622dcaf

Ranger:
29 dex with food, 281 of both resistances, 800 hp, 560 stamina. Stir fried vegetables, open sandwich, chicken soup and milkshake.
Imo backstabber/dagger use isn't really viable solo. Although i haven't found a dagger i like statwise.
Bowranger with an avalanch starter.
The dmg dealt is good, if you can afford it. I've only found 1 eternal arrow, the frost one from the swamp.
An explosive 2 arrow is ~400 regular ~650 on headshot
An poisoned steel arrow hits for ~600 r and ~900hs and quiet the same with regular steel arrows.

The skilltree is quiet messy, there is plenty of stuff i don't care about but have to take to open the path. I've dipped into tank for survivability due to lack of regen.
Durability is quiet as much an issue as is for warrior.

Biggest drawback is the enormous cost if you want to use high quality arrows. Steel arrows per 50 cost 10 twigs, 2 steel bars and 5 feathers.
Explosive 2 per 25 cost 5 feathers, 25 flint arrows (50 cost 10 twigs, 10 flintstone) and 5 blackpowder (1 crafted per, total 35 nitrate* 5 sulfur, 2 coal powder)
*Nitrate 5 crafted per, total 35 sand, 35 salt, 7 wood acid, 7 alchemical base (1 crafted per, total 7 shroud liquid, 7 mycelium, 7 water, 7 shroud spores).
Shroud arrows are a cheaper and somewhat weaker alternative to explosive 2 arrows.

Dagger ranger with sandstorm swiftblades dmg isn't great, hitting for meager ~200 on the front and ~400 on a backstab.
It suffers all the drawbacks from melee and got none of the benefits. Probably best if used in co-op.



Conclusion:
I'd rate them warrior>mage>ranger. Its somewhat clode, warrior outmatches the other class in terms of needs (no extra needs) and ease of play. Mage profits from easily accessable aoe and is quiet a bit ahead due to having better access to eternal spells and beeing able to heal up quickly.
Broken down to types i'd rate it 2H warrior>staff mage>1h warrior>wand mage>=bow ranger>>dagger ranger.

Also the ring of frost should get moved to a questchest, i deleted countless of those as i farmed weapons.

[Fryskar]

Originally posted by Mr. Fibble:

If wands had a longer range they'd risk being too strong, as a mid range option they work just fine. Projectile speed is on the slow side but it does track its target unlike staff based spells or arrows so speeding it up risks a wand becoming too good.

While you can focus purely on a "class" the skill tree is open so folk can, if they want, experiment and find what works for them. It's not a competitive game that requires number crunching and cult of meta nonsense.

Different areas do require different spells if you want to avoid the reduced damage from resistance to that type. Mob of enemies coming at you with a handy corridor behind, retreat while slowing with ice and drop an acid barf onto the floor. AB was stupidly strong early on to the point where 1 or 2 casts could nuke the wispwyvern so a nerf was inevitable, now it is more situational but that just requires some awareness of where you are, whats coming to chew your face off and what options that situation provides.

Wands are quiet decent, but a bit more range would be great as you can target enemies further than you can reach them with.

I consider the game as having 3 classes or archetypes and each 2 subclasses. To me going hybrid and mixing it more even appears quiet bad as often you gain little for the costs.

You can bring all spells with you all the time if you want to never need to use an ineffective spell against resistant enemies, but even if it gets resisted a spell might be better to use as an alternative.
About acid blast, i know how OP it used to be, now its simply worthless. It takes more time than almost any other spell, has less range, a broken hitbox and usually ends up still dealing less dmg than most other spells. Simply opting for any other aoe spell besides meteor is quiet always just a superior option.

[Fryskar]

Originally posted by Arkhne:

Originally posted by Fryskar:

Just tested it lightburst.
It can kill shroud stuff if sufficient stacked. It doesn't work on the skeletons in the mountain hollow halls, even repeated crits deal too few dmg to kill them.
For scavangers there are usually too few to stack them up enough, you rather have to spam it and kill them in smaller groups.

Also tested the bone channel, its likely the strongest single target spell mage got.

At least you gave it a try. I found that Hollow Halls had enough enemies to make Light Burst pretty good on the damage front, better than Scavengers which I normally use Ice Bolt and then clean up with melee (or stun with Light Burst and then finish up with melee), but that's not a thing a pure mage would do.

With the northern mountains it is quiet risky to stack them as the two knights can just kill you fairly quick if they catch you with their jump attack. It doesn't always happen, but they can hit you midjump.

I'll also have to say that i suspect the spell beeing bugged as it looked like dealing multiple times its own dmg, as in 190(LB)+190(LB)+52(MD)+52(MD) popping up on an enemy. It deals good dmg if you can stack a larger group but its far mor risky than just casting a fireball from range as opener and using ice if they get too close.