Report 1643

Special Report #1643
Skillset: Kata Skill: Stealth-Agility
 Org: Aeromancers Status: Completed Dec 2007
Furies' Decision:
Approved in solution 1656
Problem: The 3/8 balance buff available to Stealth monks creates a significant
disparity between the damage, bleeding, bruising and affliction rates of monks
with access to Stealth and those who don't have access. This is something that
will always need to be taken into account when trying to find the "right" rates
at which these specs are balanced against one another. With the monk overhaul,
the ability to use Boosting to get a 13/13 balance for the current form for 2p
presents an interesting choice in combat for monks who want to spend a limited
resource to build their offence faster. However, with a 3/8 balance buff on top
of other balance buff stacking (including the 1/11 rune) Stealth monks are
currently already able to get up to 9 levels (7 fairly easily), making Boosting
a lot less impactful as an option.
Solution #1: Reduce the balance buff to 2/5.
Solution #2: Reduce the balance buff to 2/4.
Solution #3: Remove the balance buff and give this skill something else
 entirely.
Player Comments:
---[Lerad on 3/21 @ 04:01 writes]:
TLDR - Solutions 1 & 2 are unacceptable for the problem described in the problem
statement. The first, and presumably the main problem stated is that there is a
disparity between stealth monks and non-stealth monks due to the stealth agility
buff. This is factual. However, to resolve this problem, both solutions 1 & 2
fail for two reasons. 1) There will still be a disparity after these solutions:
If we add all the defs that a monk can theoretically get (including speed candy,
including astrology, including artifact runes) both stealth and harmony monks
can get to 9 balance buffs. Of course, that is theoretically possible, but
fairly impractical - for both stealth and non-stealth monks. If we only add the
defs that can be "easily gotten" - native to the skillsets, a stealth monk can
get to 7, and non stealth monks 4. Either 2/5 or 3/6 will still result in a
disparity that goes against the problem statement. 2) Neither solutions offer a
replacement effect - if a disparity between stealth and non stealth monks in
terms of balance buffs is unacceptable, removing the stealth buff entirely is
the only real answer - and it must be accompanied with a replacement effect.
Without doing so, this becomes a nerf that does only fail to address the
problem, and only serves to lessen one of Stealth's few advantages while
offering nothing in recompense. This is unacceptable.
---[Lerad on 3/21 @ 04:01 writes]:
Next, the last sentence of the problem statement is unquantifiable - the value
of boosting is situation. Even if we put it to numbers, it also makes no sense:
there is a large difference between a balance buff of 7 and a balance buff of 13
- which is given by Boosting. Specifically, boosting affords an extra 12% extra
speed bonus ON TOP of a stealth monk sitting at 7 levels of speed buffs. There
is still a huge incentive to use Boosting. If the value of 9 is a problem, a
stealth monk also needs to use difficult-to-get buffs to get to 9, which is also
possible for non stealth monks.
---[Lerad on 3/21 @ 04:01 writes]:
Lastly, this was briefly mentioned in the first comment. Even assuming either of
the problems in my previous two comments are valid, a change to address a
disparity that is premised on speed buffs being bad must have a replacement. I
most certainly am not enamoured of speed buffs, having been one of those who
asked for them to be completely eliminated when the overhaul was put in. This
case is yet another example of "We're all better off without it entirely." It's
not a case where Stealth as a skillset, or Agility as an ability, is
overpowered, and thus warrants an unconditional nerf. Any solution that lowers
its values without offering recompense is therefore incomplete, and
unreasonable. I will put it out here that solution 3 is the only solution I will
support anyway, even if solutions 1 and 2 are added with something in the form
of compensation - mostly because of my dislike of speed buffs in general. If
we're going to do something about it, please don't do a half-hearted effort. But
in the absence of any concrete suggestion in Solution 3, it's hardly something I
can sign my name to. If you're not interested in putting in the effort, then
you're just wasting time.
---[Falaeron on 3/27 @ 22:13 writes]:
You are right in that solution 2 won't really solve any problems. It was just a
suggestion made by Wobou so I included it. My ideal solution is to just delete
this ability altogether, but from discussions I've had with you and other
Stealth monk users, you already believe Stealth to be useless (despite the
prevalence of certain skills like Veil in important combat scenarios like wild
nodes). I figured it would be more acceptable to go for a nerf instead. As for
solution 1, I believe there is a big difference. 4/4 is what all monks can
feasibly get to before accounting for the agility rune. With a rune, 5/11 is
possible. The question is how a monk, by themselves, can get that extra point.
With solution 1, Stealth monks will not have to worry about it as the 2/5 will
cover it. Harmony monks will have to look at one of the other options, but one
of them is still pretty readily available, if a bit expensive, which is in the
balance candy. There is certainly still a disparity here, but it's not something
that cannot be accounted for. This all said, I will be changing solution 2 to
make it a 2/4 buff instead.
---[Falaeron on 3/27 @ 22:23 writes]:
Here is the thing about buffs in the x/y system - not everyone will be able to,
or need to, use every single one of these buffs in their class skills to reach
the potential maximums. What having these skills does is it 1) provides those
who aren't quite as min-maxed with a baseline amount to be buffed with, and 2)
provides those who are min-maxed with more options. This is due to the basic
concept of opportunity costs - if I don't need to worry about getting that last
point to reach 13/13 because I have a skill, I can make a sacrifice to this
particular buff with another effect and bring up another number instead. For
example, if I can reach 13/13 to electric buff because of my class/city skills
then I will not have to worry about using a curio effect to give me more
electric buff. Instead, I can set my curio buff to another damage type I might
use some of instead, like cold. Indeed, if you think that nerfing a skill like
this to not be useful for the outliers is "unacceptable", then we should look at
every other skill with buffs under x/y system out there and making sure that
those with the skill will always be better off than those without.
---[Falaeron on 3/27 @ 22:30 writes]:
Agility is, in my opinion, overpowered. You may disagree, but this is the
opinion I hold and as a result, I feel that an unconditional nerf is not only
warranted, but is entirely necessary. When we are balancing skills and looking
at potential nerfs, we don't need to consider any compensation if the overall
kit is already considered to be above the "bar" of what is "balanced", i.e.
"overpowered". If nerfing a particular skill will not bring the overall kit
below this bar then there is no compensation required. In this case, I believe
that Stealth will still be fine without the buff from Agility and Stealth monks
in general will still be above this bar. I suggested solution 3 because I do
understand that Stealth's power is concentrated in a few skills and felt that
this is a good opportunity to give Stealth a boost in the form of some utility
or other measure that doesn't affect game balance. Stealth isn't a skill that I
personally use so I don't really know what kind of skills Stealth users want to
use, hence me making solution 3 so that other envoys can throw in ideas. If you
don't want to participate in this process that is fine too - I am perfectly fine
with just going with my personal preferred solution; deleting this skill
entirely.
---[Falaeron on 3/27 @ 22:41 writes]:
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I think it is disingenuous to consider
astrology buffs. Not only are astrology buffs not always mechanically available
as buffs, but astrologers themselves are not always available. We are
considering what Stealth monks can get all the time vs what Harmony monks can
get all the time, so bringing up astrology doesn't really stack up. Also, on
boosting, there is a difference in opportunity cost when it comes to the use of
Boosting at various "resting" levels of balance buffs. Power could be used for
other things, so all of this needs to be weighed up. Taking some very rough
numbers, Let's say we're comparing even a 3.0s "resting" balance time for one
monk vs 2.9s for another monk and Boosting would take them to 2.6s. The first
monk would save 0.4s for 2p while the second would save 0.3s for 2p. Of course
there is still an incentive for both to use Boosting and in a vacuum this is
fine, but power is a finite resource so the monks would need to consider the
opportunity costs again. For the first monk, the opportunity cost of not using
Boosting is simply higher than the opportunity cost of the second monk not using
Boosting.
---[Wobou on 3/28 @ 07:37 writes]:
I personally think that /8 is too high for any permanent balance buff (astro,
stealth, or otherwise) but I also think that stealth would be lacking in combat
tools compared to harmony if the balance bonus was reduced to something like
2/4. I think the ideal bandaid until we can come up with a good active combat
skill for stealth would be to make agility a 3/6 bonus. That's still potent and
still allows a higher cap than most in the game can hit easily but reduces the
distance between the outliers and the baseline. I would be for making this same
change to any other long lasting buff that's /7 or greater as well.
---[Demartel on 3/28 @ 13:26 writes]:
My idea for Solution 3: Remove balance buff completely. Have it instead remove
all hasty messages on movement for 30 seconds - 1 minute after activation. So
the stealth user can use it to escape quickly, chase target quickly, get into
and out of an spot quickly... break stealth completely in some unforeseen way,
quickly.
---[Demartel on 3/28 @ 13:31 writes]:
Ultimately I don't feel monks need an extra balance buff. They certainly are not
scraping the bottom of the barrel in combat due to a lack of speed. While my
above solution may overlap ghostwalk, I also don't feel it would make ghostwalk
obsolete. They both have uses.
---[Falaeron on 3/28 @ 17:48 writes]:
I agree that without this balance buff they wouldn't have as many good direct
combat bonuses as Harmony monks, but I think this is really underselling the
utility that Stealth provides. Even without considering the prime suspects that
always get brought up in Veil/Masquerade/Deepcover, there are also skills like
Evade which is is of the few ways you can escape a perfectfifth and Waylay which
can be used to set up even better fortress ambushes.
---[Falaeron on 3/28 @ 17:49 writes]:
Meant to say "Evade, which is one of the few ways you can escape a
perfectfifth". I also like Demartel's idea.
---[Shedrin on 3/28 @ 19:27 writes]:
I don't think we should remove celerity. That can lead to awkward situations
like crossing the Basin in literally an instant. (infact this occured with a bug
years ago and was funny for a bit, but shouldn't be a thing otherwise).
---[Lerad on 3/29 @ 06:48 writes]:
For solution 1, if you're saying that a stealth monk having a 2/5 buff is
acceptable because a harmony monk can buy the arti to make up for it, then, what
about stealth monks who buy the arti? There's still a disparity that can't be
accounted for. So, no, your rationale for solution 1 is entirely illogical. For
solution 2, you don't have to put up airs. If you just want to delete it, just
say delete it without giving compensation, instead of being facetious in your
solutions. I am, naturally, 100%, fully opposed to deleting it without a
replacement effect, regardless of what kind of phrasing you want to use.
Regarding astrology - I said very clearly, that it is a theoretical accounting
of all speed buffs in the game. I also said that it "is theoretically possible,
but fairly impractical" - and then showed very clearly what we should be
considering: "the defs that can be "easily gotten" - native to the skillsets". I
am, in fact, explicitly discounting astrology buffs as something we should
consider when looking at the rationale of nerfing this ability based on speed
differences: because if we counted it in, then there's zero reason to even
change it - and I fully support replacing it. If there's anything "disingenious"
about this, it is trying to make it out that I'm counting astrology buffs to
justify not changing things when I've stated the contrary multiple times.
---[Lerad on 3/29 @ 06:48 writes]:
Next, regarding stealth being overpowered. I'm sorry if you think that current
stealth is comparable to harmony in terms of combat because of
veil/masquerade/deepcover. As a matter of fact, both veil and deepcover are no
longer stealth-only abilities, and are available via artifacts. Yes, they are
limited, but the fact remains that the abilities are available to non-stealth
users. As an additional kicker, a stealth user with those artifacts get
literally no additional advantage - the artifacts don't even give an additional
boost to the stealth user. So even in terms of utility, stealth is not even
comparable to harmony, since a harmony user can get a boost from those
artifacts, but a stealth user can't. Stealth is, in both combat as well as non-
combat utility, underpowered, and needs a buff - and don't worry, I most
certainly intend on buffing stealth, as I have consistently been doing through
several reports. Back to Agility specifically: If speed buffs are unacceptable,
sure, remove it. But a removal without a replacement is unacceptable. I
mentioned that I will prefer an effect that has some kind of impact on combat
over a utility one, but any replacement effect would be better than none.
Lastly, evade does not allow you to escape a perfectfifth. That is, however, a
perfect idea for an agility replacement. Thanks, I'll take it into consideration
when I make my own report.
---[Lerad on 3/29 @ 06:48 writes]:
If you can't come up with a replacement because you "don't know what kind of
skills Stealth users want", that's fine. You can leave it to people who do, like
me. Or you could also leave it to people who are willing to try, like Demartel.
Or you could also just make a half-hearted effort and waste time. Doesn't change
the fact that none of your solutions as they stand are ones I can support as
they stand.
---[Shuyin on 3/31 @ 01:28 writes]:
Stealth is a skillset comparable to Night where it has very niche uses, but its
niche uses are super powerful. I agree that Stealth still has great utility even
if agility were nerfed, but I agree that it could use a bit more sprucing up due
to many of its skills becoming artifacts, truss being nerfed, and so forth. No
problem with super celerity. Also evade doesn't beat pfifth.
---[Malarious on 4/18 @ 03:28 writes]:
More utility, less to brute offense. In keeping with "bad guys go offense",
lower the number. 1 or 2 is fine.
---[Shuyin on 4/18 @ 04:11 writes]:
Fine with reduction regardless.