Originally Posted by
Yelsha
The reason they nerfed Cianna's stuns is because of the addition of Herja. Using a full LB set, Cianna would have the ability to stun nearly every round if she had the stun rate she did before, making her much better than Shayd in terms of both damage (Ambush can out damage Shayd's attack given it hits nearly every time) and stun rate (ambush wouldn't miss, and had better stun-chance than Shayd pre-patch). Mainly, using Herja and Cianna with full LB set using old stun rates would let you perma-stun someone in PVP, which could throw off a lot of otherwise possible builds with the new heroes. They also had to reduce Shayd's stun rate slightly, to compensate for the fact there are two new mages that can stun, including an AOE stun mage and a tank stun mage that most people will not have for at least half a year.
However, when they made these changes, they only considered gameplay and balance at the highest levels (where most players have at least two or three heroes using full LB gear). They did not think of the ramifications this change would have to people who do not have full LB gear. As a consequence, people who have not moved onto LB bosses are now stuck at Lascivius. And without LB sets and a sub slot, it does not make sense to use Herja. Furthermore, these people do not have access to the advanced stun mages. As a result, they will find Lascivius to be a major roadblock/obstacle, and will be stuck for weeks before progressing to LB bosses. Many of these players will quit, depopulating their servers and causing more players to quit.
To solve this issue, I do not believing raising stun rates for Shayd and Cianna to be a viable solution. This is because this will again unbalance gameplay at the highest levels. With prepatch stun rates, nobody will want to try the nifty AOE new AOE heroes, PVP lineups will only include 3 of the 5 stunners now available and Herja. Battles will be determined by who goes first and who gets more stuns in. The simplest solution would be to reduce Lascivius's magic damage. If his damage was halved, or his hit rating was reduced (making him more easily dodged), then players will have more rounds to do enough damage to kill him. I think this is the best solution.
Another possible solution would be to completely rework heroics in order to make defense actually worth something. Due to the importance of heroics and the uselessness of defense in heroics, nearly all top players neglect defense and only pump attack. This takes a lot of the depth out of the gameplay. Instead of people taking the time to carefully analyze and calculate how to best distribute their resource, the game at the middle to higher levels is all about absorbing as much coins/credits/gems as possible to pump into weapons, attack talents, and vengeance runes. This is why a lot of people get bored.. at the higher levels, continuing to build power is a repetitive, brainless process. Repeat the same tasks over and over every day to increase your resources (WB, Lab, Sails, GW, etc) so you can pump more resources into your attack.
On a side note, this is the formation I use to beat Lascivius about 25% of the time at 14.5mil power (beat him within 5 tries last night and this morning). Level 8 Nimbleness is used on every hero except Adam, Rhize uses Resistance and Dextrousness as well. Otherwise all offensive runes on all heroes.
X Main Adam
X X Rhize
X Shayd Blood
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