Are the classes extremely imbalanced?

[The Compassionate Leaf]

Granted, I'm already in the tens of hours for playtime, but I haven't extensively experimented with most classes and I haven't even touched a few of them at all.

Doesn't it seem some classes scale up much much MUCH better than others? My experience has been that Sorcerer is an unstoppable force of nature, Shield Maiden is a great melee that scales defensive stats into offense, but the Norseman (besides the best regen I've seen so far) has ABBYSMAL damage.

I was trying to do the 20k hits as the Norseman quest, so I took every Attack Speed, Range, and Area buff I was given. yet still only managed 10k. Before Norseman release, I had similar feelings about the Swordsman (or whatever the first class is called) and Archer.

Am I doing something wrong and should keep experimenting with builds, or is this just an inevitable quirk of an indie?

[Ulyaoth]

Hi,

if you look at characters as stand alone, I would also say there is a very heavy imbalance between them.
But combined with the right abilites, they all come together closer.
There are still some differences, that makes some chars superior, e.g. Archer with her range only.

Considering the "hardest" Achivement is the Agony III Class Mastery, you can do this with all chars and their main weapon. So if you take this mark as balance point, it is possible with everyone with difficulty differences.

I personaly dont mind the imbalance, since every char is fun to pley at their own, but Norseman is one of my favorites, even he is considered the weakest.
Since there is no competition and no Quests completly hard and out of range, it is totaly fine the way it is.

Cheers!

P.S. For "Cold Rage", if you dont got it.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2218750/discussions/0/3816292540680013736/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2218750/discussions/0/3875968032467453264/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2218750/discussions/0/3807284068744610209/

[beautheschmo]

It's a bit of both. Some classes are definitely stronger than others, but some classes really need blessing progress more than others (Swordsman is a strong example of this) and once you start unlocking marks it's a pretty powerful equalizer.

That said, if you thought Archer was bad you were definitely doing something wrong lol, archer is one of the best units at all points of the game.

Norseman is on the weaker end, but he's not super trash (he's like swordsman in that he kinda needs good blessing progress to play smoothly). The 20k hits challenge is definitely one of the most notorious ones though; Mark of the Archer (doubling its tier 4 trait of 0.15 base attacks/sec) makes it much easier and you need to avoid spells; ideally at all but if you do need to take one to survive something low impact that won't take a bunch of kills (I'm partial to flame wave since it can buy space while doing not too much damage)

[MrQun]

Yes, there is an imbalance between the classes. I agree that the Norseman could use a slight damage buff. This is indeed a quick of indie games, at least from my experience. Usually for such games, half o it's playerbase will find the game too hard, and other half too easy. Any nerfs or buffs that indie developers make to their games is usually met with both praise any criticism. I certainly don't envy them.

When you highlight a class you'll notice that they each have their own strengths and it's important to capitalise on those strengths as much as possible.

For example; the Exterminator gains a 5% increase to area every ten levels which applies to abilities as well as his maim weapon. So it's best that you pick abilities that benefits most from area such as Dragon's Breath, Kugelblitz, Arcane Rift and Meteor Strike.

When I started playing the game I too struggled with some of the in game quests/ achievements. But when I got a proper feel for the mechanics, those quests now seem like child's play. If you stick with it, It won't be long before you find the game too easy and that you'l' try and find ways to challenge yourself.

[Moldredd]

In my personal opinion, after almost reaching 200 hours of gameplay (199.8), I got to say, most classes are fun to play with the exception of Shield Maiden which I wish they rework her kit a little bit in order to be more impactful and fun. That being said, it is not until you start going for the high Agony score runs that you realize and get the feel on how strong or weak a class really is:

My personal Ranking would be something like:

Top: Sorceress | Archer
Upper: Exterminator | Cleric
Mid: Warlock | Beast Huntress
Lower: Norseman | Swordsman
Bottom: Shield Maiden

I would say the characters that feel strong right now should not be nerfed, instead buff/rework the weak ones in order to be as fun and in the same league as the current ones.

[nyy]

Originally posted by MeVII:

So is the extra "0" to the clerics damage not a oversight then?
2000? Compared to the archer and fighters x00?

Compared to the archer and fighter when I unlocked the cleric I just strolled to the 1st boss and put em down like nothing.

Fun - so dont get me wrong, but, unexpected from a design choice standpoint.

It's a boss killer, but bosses arent your problem on Agony difficulty. With a properly built Archer you crit for 1000+ on an "unlimited" amount of targets, whereas a fully maxed out Cleric has its 8k crits split between targets. It doesn't have particularly great Traits either, nor are Fragile and Afflication all THAT good compared to what other classes sport. Personally, I am pretty hesitant to consider it better than the Beast Huntress or even the Warlock, so I am not sure how accurate that tier list above really is. Crit + Frost/Lighting are just too overpowered, and both those classes are way better at exploiting all of these.

And Cleric has the worst crit stats in the whole game, no worthwhile effect, the second worst range (and increasing range/area only makes you main attack worse) and the worst movement speed. If that character didnt have high single target burst it'd be completely pointless.

[Vyss A'lare]

Originally posted by Moldredd:

In my personal opinion, after almost reaching 200 hours of gameplay (199.8), I got to say, most classes are fun to play with the exception of Shield Maiden which I wish they rework her kit a little bit in order to be more impactful and fun. That being said, it is not until you start going for the high Agony score runs that you realize and get the feel of how strong or weak a class really is:

My personal Ranking would be something like:

Top Tier: Sorceress | Archer
Upper: Exterminator | Cleric
Mid: Warlock | Beast Huntress
Lower: Norseman | Swordsman
Bottom: Shield Maiden

I would say the characters that feel strong right now should not be nerfed, instead buff/rework the weak ones in order to be as fun and in the same league as the current ones.

I was gonna reply that shield maiden is great but then I tried sorc again. Shield maiden is almost like playing sorc without a default weapon. It's so flippin bad it's kinda crazy. That said, stacking block seems broken and with shield maiden I can typically just stand in piles of mobs while my actual damage skills do all the work. Sadly the sorc can do the same thing pretty much while absolutely blasting with chain lightning.

[The Compassionate Leaf]

Hey, guys

I've play a lot more since I posted this thread and read through the replies.

What I'm mostly seeing is basically yes, the classes are definitely imbalanced, but come relatively close once scaled into their full builds.

I can pretty much agree with that. After playing a bunch more, I've noticed they might have buffed the Archer since the last time I tried it, cuz it feels much better now. The biggest discrepancy at the moment is definitely between Ranged and Melee. Someone mentioned Shield Maiden is almost like Sorcerer without a main weapon, and I can definitely see where they're coming from lol.

Personally, I think what the devs meant to do is have the Melee classes have better defense/survivability in exchange for reduced offense. In my opinion though, it doesn't really pan out that way, cuz this is definitely a situation where "the best defense is a good offense" really applies. It also probably poses a huge design challenge cuz defense traits being too good in this game runs the risk of it being too overpowered. You can still mess up and die with "overpowered" offense, but an overpowered defense basically means you're invincible.

Other than that, it's good to know other people seem to have similar experiences to me, finding the Sorcerer and Archer pretty busted lol

[unknown829]

Anyone else been crashing their comp with Archer builds? I had an insane build the other day with Transfix/Phantom/Ring and used doubling potions for multistrike on regular melee build. Think I was doing 30 projectiles a second essentially?

[Ulyaoth]

Originally posted by nyy:

Archer you crit for 1000+ on an "unlimited" amount of targets, whereas a fully maxed out Cleric has its 8k crits split between targets. It doesn't have particularly great Traits either, nor are Fragile and Afflication all THAT good compared to what other classes sport.

You may missed out on alot of potential with Cleric, although his lack of range makes him weaker compared to archer. Don't underestimate Fragile especially with high damage, since the scaling is broken.

Originally posted by The Compassionate Leaf:

You can still mess up and die with "overpowered" offense, but an overpowered defense basically means you're invincible.

This is exactly what can happen.
With Shield Maiden you can become invincible (Lord excluded) and just run through everything,
Norseman and Swordsman is the same, with a Scars of Toil build, where you have to bump into enemies to drain your hp down to keep up the damage bonus.


I am not a huge fan of Tier Lists in general.
Just by those few posts here one can tell it is more of taste question.
Looking at Main Weapon Builds alone, this would be easy with Archer on first place and Norseman on last.
But as soons as Abilites come into the mix, the differences are jumping around like crazy.

[nyy]

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

Originally posted by nyy:

Archer you crit for 1000+ on an "unlimited" amount of targets, whereas a fully maxed out Cleric has its 8k crits split between targets. It doesn't have particularly great Traits either, nor are Fragile and Afflication all THAT good compared to what other classes sport.

You may missed out on alot of potential with Cleric, although his lack of range makes him weaker compared to archer. Don't underestimate Fragile especially with high damage, since the scaling is broken.

I don't see how this is relevant. At high Agony you require AoE burst potential to grind up the meter. Clerics simply not particularly good at spreading Electricity/Frost to instantly burst down packs. Personally, I don't think that a melee class can even be better than a ranged class in this game. At least not in "end game". There's just something incredibly broken about Archer, Sorc, Warlock and Beast Huntress being able to apply status effects to off screened mobs and blow them up before you even see them. Especially since this can result in mobs being blown up that are stuck on terrain.

I am not even saying that Cleric is bad, but simply that

• bad range
  
• bad movement speed
  
• the spread mechanic disincentivizing the increase in area and range

create a lot of slightly weird dynamics between abilities, too. Many abilities rely on movement speed, yet yours sucks. Many abilities benefit from additional area/range, yet you dont simply want to spam base abilities to increase them because of the aforrementioned effect doing so would have. In high Agony you won't have to compromise, you can just max out everything. But the fact that those base issues exist already makes you "worse" at utilizing them. Because no matter how many movement speed talents you'll get, you'll always be slower.

Getting Agony 5 with Cleric works the same way it does with all other classes right now: You pick the busted Sorc/Archer mark and have abilities blow up the screen. But I don't think that has much to do "with the class" cause that's basically how everybody gets Agony 5 right now. It's not an interesting playstyle cause it makes all classes feel pretty much the exact same. It's like playing a Hailstorm build. You just auto-attack while the Hailstorm collect mobs in its vortex. It feels the same no matter who runs it.

[Ulyaoth]

Originally posted by nyy:

Sry, i missed that the only relevance comes from reaching Agony V.
Not my taste...

[Moldredd]

Originally posted by nyy:

Getting Agony 5 with Cleric works the same way it does with all other classes right now: You pick the busted Sorc/Archer mark and have abilities blow up the screen. But I don't think that has much to do "with the class" cause that's basically how everybody gets Agony 5 right now. It's not an interesting playstyle cause it makes all classes feel pretty much the exact same. It's like playing a Hailstorm build. You just auto-attack while the Hailstorm collect mobs in its vortex. It feels the same no matter who runs it.

I have to agree, this is the sole reason why I'm dedicating my time in getting Agony 5 with all classes on their own, without any marks, on all halls, in order to get a feel on how well they perform like I mentioned before, and/or to avoid making the same generic builds that "just work" without worrying about synergies and/or abusing unbalanced abilities/items etc.

In short crafting builds that make sense for the most part. At least for me.

As for the part of how classes reach agony 5, I think it only applies in halls 3 and 4 as reaching agony 5 in the first two are quite doable without exploiting. Although, you probably are referring to the Frozen Depths hall in particular. In that case, please disregard.