Balance - A couple problematic (overpowered) skills

[Trashbag]

At first I wasn't using Razor Strop on the rogue, but then I did and realized that with caltrops it triggers on every hit and makes for a very strong aoe combination. Razor Strop in general is kind of overpowered, maybe it scales too high with strength?

Another skill that is probably, if I could guess, the worst offender in the game is the mage skill Grand Conjuror. Arcane Barrage is the best mage spell in the game because of it. Coupled with 30% crit mana refunds, an improved focus potion, meditate for a turn and you're dealing several hundred damage in an aoe. You can kill bosses on turn 2 or 3 with this combination and it's all a bunch of low level skills and items.

Hard has been a cake walk, mostly thanks to the mage dealing an absurd amount of damage by turn 2 or 3.

[Parallaxe]

Hello.

the "mage" is op right now. Not only because of the skills you mentioned but because you can perform strong attacks without the use of "action points".

To balance this they have to ad opportunity cost to spells. Everything else makes the game totally unbalanced towards the other classes.

[Grymm]

Strop + Storm of Blades is pretty insane, the Strop bonus damage basically doubles the damage of each hit (3 hits per attack with sword).

If you really want to have fun with it, pick up the Crit bonus for swords (with the Oppportunity cost refund, and attack timer reset). Each hit (3 with sword) has a 40% chance to crit. For bonus insanity, use an Elven Shard crafted sword (off hand with dual wield) for a +100% crit (after critting).

Whether this is overpowered or not is probably debatable, the Last Breath at this point, with gear will insta kill people ~70 HP regardless of armor (Armor cripples the Strop / Storm combo) but does cost 2 O.

The priest Stance (put on a warrior with Stance share) might be overpowered as well, free +1 Spell points to everyone in the party is pretty big. Coupled with a Bard with instrument + spellsong, gets 3 (1+2) Spell points per turn and +50% Int to everyone around the bard.

A properly geared / planned out party can stomp the hell out of things on normal difficulty, but isn't that the point? At the least its pretty common in any Rpg.

[rasabt]

Originally posted by Grymm:

A properly geared / planned out party can stomp the hell out of things on normal difficulty, but isn't that the point? At the least its pretty common in any Rpg.

this.

i don't realy see the purpose of this discussion? someone dominating the leaderboards?
on the top of my head i can probably call out 3-4 other pretty op setups...so what's the endgame of this thread? make a hardcap for damage per turn?

[TreK]

I find the bard song rhyme of duo (with shofar horn offhand) which gives skills no cooldown if you are at drunk 7, which you can get with 2 elven wine, which complement strop and storm of blades a lot. Then you add the acidic wand on a mage that rends/removes armor, and some passives that gives you + opportunity (lyric of legends, trow, commander passive, sword crit, -1, opportunity on moving boots) makes you able to spam 6-8 or more storm of blades across the whole battlefield (no cd on moving either). Usually you win on round 2. Also considering you have stealth on party passive means you will not even be hit before you oneshot the enemies.

And since when you use song of rhymes with drunk 7, the song itself gets no cooldown so it will be up for next round as well, making this damage cycle never ending.

[Lordofriva]

You guys have to get a Vanguard Fighter with Dual Wielding a two-handed Sword and a high Strength off-hand weapon, choose a Einarr Human additionally and get ready to Rock.

With last breath you can one Shot a lot of enemies and you can cut a good chunk of the big guys out of the fight as well. Also 50% of the Time you only pay one opportunity for it... and with 40% you can cast it again.... and again.... and again.

The Einarr Human increases this even more, which synergises extremely well with Guardian as it triggers for every damage they guard.

if you addiionally have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of mages with the build already mentioned you basically cant loose.

[Trashbag]

Originally posted by rasabt:

Originally posted by Grymm:

A properly geared / planned out party can stomp the hell out of things on normal difficulty, but isn't that the point? At the least its pretty common in any Rpg.

this.

i don't realy see the purpose of this discussion? someone dominating the leaderboards?
on the top of my head i can probably call out 3-4 other pretty op setups...so what's the endgame of this thread? make a hardcap for damage per turn?

I never said normal, I said hard. Easy and Normal difficulties are irrelevant when you're talking about balance because the point is to just enjoy the game. Hard is there to offer some sort of challenge, and currently there isn't much of a challenge. Should you really be able to kill a boss on turn 2? Razor Strop is a bit easier to stop because it's on a class that has low int and the mentioned storm of blades has a low strength ratio so it's hindered by armor. Whereas the mage has extremely high int and is never really at a risk of dying before powering up, which only takes 1 turn. Spells bypass Opportunity completely, which isn't necessarily bad, but the mage's potential for damage far exceeds every other class and requires very little to setup. 'Impossible' fights aren't impossible, they just take a bit longer usually because you have to tear through armor before blowing up the enemy in a single turn because Master Conjuror deals physical damage.

Isn't the cleric stance only +1 spell points for the user?

[rasabt]

you remember BG2 and how a singel mage can roflstomp the whole game?
or Pillars where a Chanter can still solo everything?
if you get the mechanics and find your way through them it should kinda work like that. or you will start nerfing one skill after another...or do some weird hardcap for damage.
perhaps hard needs some buffing of enemies i give you that. but there are currently bigger fish to fry...and i still don't see anyone dominating the leaderboards...kinda your own decision if you use op-combos or not...cause most likly they will always exist.

[Grondel the 10/10]

when u face 8 enemys with 100+- armor and 700ish HP u will no longer call any of that overpowered. ull consider it needed! (im playing on hard though)

[Trashbag]

Originally posted by rasabt:

kinda your own decision if you use op-combos or not...cause most likly they will always exist.

The problem is then I have to make a decision to not use a spell that I actually want to use, or just not use it as much in a turn. Arcane Barrage is nice for breaking focus because its cheap and hits every tile. Conjuror probably just needs to have its AoE removed and it would be fine, that way its only a single target killer instead of a single target killer while also killing everything else at the same time.