More PvP Rambling's

[Articus]

Hi everyone I just have a few thoughts and Ideas I would like to try and get accross, hopefully in an articulate manner.

The big recent change is what has happened to the Bandage speed timer, not sure what it is 24-(dex/10) or 23-(dex/10). Anyway I understand we had a problem with people attaining Bandage speeds of 0.0seconds with the old system. Which is a BIG problem of course. The shame about the new calculation is if your char build was more of a pure dexxer/melee build it has slowed down most peoples Main way of healing themselves.

Now sure you can reply to this thread and tell everybody out there that "this is a Non skillcap Shard" Incorporate casting and more mana into your PvP char build.

At this point is it inevitable that all the pvper's running around are going to have the same basic STAT composition?
Will everyone become a hybrid mage type char?

Anybody out there who can tell me what is the most dominant build in PvP, in "most situations.....?

I don't think it's going to be a dexxer/melee char.
Definatly not since the recent changes i have mentioned already.

I appreciate any and all commments/feedback.

Let me repeat again my lack of experience for UO PvP, So please post a reply maybe I'll learn something.

[Rival]

I agree with the there being a cap, but honestly i think the cap is a bit slow, i have been killed by a bokuto mage in less than two seconds several times in duels with my current gear. I do think that this will cause me to look into becoming more of a hybrid. All in all insta heals bad 2 sec heals just as bad. :/ The game changes i guess i will be changing with it

[Dleatherus]

mebbe there's a way for a compromise .. ironically it's all us iecm on this one ... agree insta heal is bad, and 2 ia too slow .. could it be tweaked to have 1.25sec at 220 dex or something?

am just curious, how quickly can a mage with 220 int and 4/8 cast greater heals one after the other on himself?

[Deadmau5]

Here are a few reasons why I think the healing was slowed down.  First OSI has a stat cap of 255 I believe compared to Pandora's cap of 335.  These extra stats are easier to place in dex than int/str due to alright high levels of mana and the diminishing returns of str above 100.  Since people will have higher dex than they typically would on an OSI shard bandages play a huge roll for all characters.  There was a bug currently in the scripts that allowed people with high values of dex to bandage faster than 2 seconds which was never intended.  The problem dexxers are running into is that they typically refuse to cast spells at all.  There are countless spells that do not require you to be standing still to cast or have a spell channeling weapon like necro and chiv.  One important spell that would balance out their 2 second bandies is Cleanse by Fire.  With 4/8 casting it casts just as quick as mages can cure and it cures deadly poison and higher.  Like all pvp in this game timing is everything so if you know your bandies are 2 seconds and you are poisoned, before the bandage reaches 2 seconds you can cure yourself and the bandage heals instead.

Another reason why dexxers are held back is because of their weapon choice sometimes.  They need to hit the mage as often as they can so a fast weapon is ideal.  A fast weapon with hit lower defense is better.  And a fast weapon with hit lower defense and hit fireball / magic arrow is the best.  These spells don't do much damage but they have a delay when then weapon hits and when the spells hit thus interrupting the mage in-between your 1.25 second swings.  Hit lower defense drops their defense chance by 45% meaning you hit more.  Dexxers need weapons with bleed's and poisons so the mage has to deal with those before it can go offensive.

I do not want to see dexxers disappear and I do believe that the bandage speed was toned down a little too much however this shard is still growing people are trying new things finding ways that work better than others.  I am sure with some time and maybe different tactics of trying to balance game play without making everyone the same template will be achieved but not something that will occur in just a single publish.  The players on this shard are the beta testers for every publish released.  The developers generally have a good idea at how a change will affect people but they do not know the exact outcome of the change.  I am sure they are ghosting over many dexxers just to see how effective this change was.

[Jar Jar]

Wow, all really good points on the whole bandage thing. You know you have dedicated players when ppl are prepared to change their suits to match whatever changes are brought in. I know the Iecm guys are mainly dexxers so would be hard for them, applause to you guys for taking it like ye have

Personally i reckon speeding the bandages up a tad and capping at 2 seconds would be perfect . Ive seen it work well like that on other servers with similar stats. However its up to kon and giz and they are doing a great job  If the current bandage timer is here to stay then i hope these options will help keep our dexxers dexxing:

* If u can get some serious fire resists i highly recommend using vamp form permanently guys, dexxers shouldnt need to cast mage spells and vamp form gets rid of poison (casted) before your bandies cure them leaving your bandies free to heal you.

* Like Mous said necro and chiv have remove curse/cure and heal spells between em u dont need a spell chan weap to use.

* Art im not sure if this helps but the equation im using for the new bandages is just 245 - dex. Seems to work on script for me to keep it close to fastest speed. Hope it helps ya out.

*Atm spirit speak heals massively and will heal through mortal wound and poisons (although i hope that may change  lol ) so is also a nice healer.

*Concentrate on keeping blessed/potted at all times. If u dont mind using a lot of pots this will help out big time with bandage speed.

* Maybe off topic a tad.. but if the mages a buggin yeh and ye need to get them on the defensive grab a cleaver and gm necro. if u can bleed/dp/strangle a mage its pretty hard for him to get spells out.

Hope it helps guys. We need our dexxers here on pandora, good to have the variety

[Dleatherus]

from our discussions in vent, which is awesome btw since we can discuss in 1/2 hour what would take days to sort out by typing ... looks like our guys will be becoming hybrids at the very least, leaning towards magery

deadmaus i accept the premise that with 4/8 certain spells can be cast etc etc, but if yer set up for dexxing with dex jewelry to get you to 220 for 2 wec heal speed, highly unlikely it's going to have 4/8 also ... not impossible, just difficult

jerry, i'm not for keeping the cap at 2 secs and bringing up the heal times for lower dex stats for the simple reason this is penalising the dexxer who workeed hard to get to 220 dex, and rewarding those that didn't and have higher str ot int stats and yet still be able to fire off aids ... i'm for shifting ALL the heal times up by 0.5 to 0.75 secs per bandage time level

i highly suggest, if we don't want to see the demise of the 'pure' dexxer, that bandage speeds are increased to 1.25 secs at 220 dex, which is the same time it takes a mage to cast greater heal, or at the very least introduce a 'balanced' deed for weapons in the donation room so pots can be chugged by dexxers wielding 2-handed weapons

one thing i'm not worried about is how this all pans out ...

a problem was seen with zero heal aids and wos (rightfully) fixed ... in my opinion over-fixed, but if that's the case it'll become evident, and it'll be adjusted back a little to encourage the diversity of pvp builds on the server, instead of forcing dexxers to at least become hybrid, and pvp'ers become more or less clones

[pskarren]

imo... I never had a problem with 3 sec bandaid times.. with the right setup it is very hard to be killed. have 170 hps and 70 resist suits.. also if you get ur hp reg up into the 20's its is virtually impossible to get killed in a 1 on 1 fight..


imo bandaids should be capped at 3 secs.. 2 secs is still too fast.. i play a dexxer and a hybrid...

i played dexxer from the days of only way to heal was to cross heal at 3 secs...

[Deadmau5]

I wrote a very simple script for easyuo that measures bandage speed.  It starts a timer once it sees "You begin applying the bandages" and then the timer stops when it sees "You finish applying the bandages".  Now I know that this doesn't factor in personal lag but this is what I got at different dex's:
Dex   Time (seconds)
114   8.2
124   7.8
139   7.1
144   7.0
166   5.7

I didn't have a char with any higher dex to test those values out.  And factoring in rounding / personal lag I would say if those values are off its only by +/- .1

[Dleatherus]

hrmm .. i also think part of my 'problem' with the slower bandage speeds deadmaus, is admittedly my bad lag ... i am frequently at pings of 500+ up to 850 ping ... so fast bandage speeds were one of my few ways of surviving lol, and it's wrong to base speeds upon one person's lousy conn

i do still stick with my proposal that a 220 dexxer should be able to bandage as fast as a 4/8 mage, regardless of lag/ping

[RaWrPwNt]

One of the problems im seeing is that it is capped at 2 seconds. thats great. IF it were actually 2 second heal times. its not, Theres something wrong with the calculations. i have 214 dex, and [mystats says i have a heal time of 2.0 seconds. when infact it takes 6-9 seconds for a heal to actually go off.. i dont think most of us are complaining that 2 seconds is not fast enough. were complainging that theres something wrong with the internal calculations. with 214 dex i should not be getting 6-9 second heals. i worked hard for my suit and all my +dex i strive to be a good dexxer. And to worsen things the mage characters who are NOT effected reply with cry more, or its fair or things along that nature. when infact if the Casting time was dropped from 2/6 to say. 1/4 thats about the impact it took on us pure dexxers. and im sure the whole forums would be flooded with the FC/FCR is TOO slow the dexxers are killing us ! im not saying make it zero sec heals, im all good with the 2 sec heals. Just actually make it 2 sec heals. because its not. the [mystats says it is, But its not 2 sec heals.

[Deadmau5]

I understand that you play with a higher ping and I mentioned that in my post that those times do not accommodate personal lag in them.  But a dexxer with 220 dex using bandies to heal same as a 4/8 speed is not comparable.  Bandages can be applied while running after or away from someone and they do no not require the person to stand still while casting.  Greater heal can be interrupted while bandages can be partially interrupted.  

Maybe the solution to bandages is not slowing them down as much as they were but perhaps making them heal for less then they originally did?

And rawr I don't think any mages have said that the new bandages are fine the way they are.

[Dleatherus]

also rawr i recommend you check your stats when you log on .. this morning i went about my usual hunts and went to put on a bandage and with my 206 dex it took about 7 seconds .. i about choked ... it turns out that even though i was in my dex suit, my dex was at 150

undressing and dressing fixed that and i was back at the *groan* still seemingly lengthy 2 sec heals

hopefully this helps ya

[Domos]

Agreed, bandaids need to be faster cause if you dont have any mana to cast you should have enough dex to compensate for all the things you loose by not having mana. The idea of balance is a big one.
Also, whoever said something about magic arrow weapons for pvp to "interrupt" the caster is a noob, ever heard of "protection"?

[Jar Jar]

Oooh Domos be careful where you point the 'noob' finger mate.

He is right in saying that it interrupts them, cos it does. 99% of mage pvpers do not use protection as it slows casting down WAY too much, make it pretty hard to kill someone with spells when you cast em at fc2... Protection mages are too easy to kill, keep em poisoned and they will spend their whole fight curing at slow speed.

[pskarren]

imo keep band aids  way they are.. and make no cap on ssi.. problem fixed. i wanna see dexers  run around with cleavers hacking each other into little pieces. this takes mages heal away too.just my two cents. unless they pop off minor heals in between hits. their is no effective way to balancing pvp... has not been since pre t2a