Gameplay balance discussion
 

Although its still very early to discuss this, its been a month and it wouldn't hurt to express our opinion on the characters so far in the game. Let me begin.

Fighters/warriors- somewhat overpowered
The classic meatwall of every game, they have excellent defense power and health. They are tied with clerics as the best soloers. They are also a must for every party especially in Kqs to "tank" the boss monsters and protect the weaker members. In pvp fighters are juggernauts that are capable of beating almost everything. Fighters will butcher clerics in close range and anything that attempts to "kite" the fighter will have hope that his stuns and (later on in the game) his movement speed debuff will not work. Theres not really very much to say about the fighter's weaknesses, while he is only close range, he won't have a hard time chasing most enemies stunning them then finishing them off. His only real weakness is his very poor magic defense.
One thing thats probably overpowered about the fighter is the stun skill. If anyone noticed, the skill stuns almost TOO CONSISTENTLY with no way to shorten it. Any lvl 20 can stun people and bosses 10-20 levels higher than him for atleast 6 seconds-9 if hes trained it. Those 9 seconds a lowly lvl 20 can take away can be crucial...

Clerics- Alright...
Clerics, pretty much the lifeblood of any group, they have great abilities in soloing too do their unlimited supply of heals. Clerics obviously are the support class and are a MUST to any party especially in pvp or KQs. Their party buffs and heals help parties do alot more than what they could do without a cleric. Clerics in the last patch took a large hit to the groin by the nerf bat with the changes to invincibility yet still people claim for them to still be overpowered. In reality clerics really won't have much use at all in any fighting just supporting. They won't serve any purpose beyond support and distractions. Fighters will slaugther with stuns and further destroy any capable damage the cleric can cause with his debuffs. Clerics with natural their low aim will have trouble attacking an archer with high evasion. Fights with mages will probably end in dead lock, if the mage cannot kill the cleric in one barrage due to their large cooldowns and the mage will just run circles around the cleric. While people will claim that the cleric ruins mass pvp, due to thier great party benefits, a party without a cleric is like a ferarri without a 300$ gas tank.

Archers- need a little help.
Ranged attackers really..theres not too much to say else. 9 times out of 10 in mmos their either concidered the most overpowered(RO or L2) or the weakest. Unfortunately for fiesta players its the latter. Given their low hp, mediocre damage, and unreliable evasion archers cannot afford anything more than 1v1 fights for soloing especially when forced to "kite." Their degens in reality are very insignifcant due to low damage and duration and are only noticeable when they are stacked. the attack range difference (if there is one) between the archer's attacks and the mages spells is also insignicant. In parties they are passable as the job of the "puller" can be filled out by other classes...even the fighter. In pvp, the archer struggles. Against fighters the archer better hope the fighter's stun and movement speed debuff don't work. The archer will be able to avoid most of the clerics attacks due to their low aim but most likely will not be able to out damage the healing. If they can withstand the barrage, archers will be able to tank out paper armored mages effective though.
Overall imo they need a boost, ALTHOUGH, some people have been able to show a DEADLY potential of the class even in pvp with different builds... Archer criticals especially.

Mages-alright
Thier pretty self explaintory, low health, low defense, but heavy attack power...the glass cannon. Mages have a rough start off with only a few spells that have long cooldowns. Like the archer they are forced to 1v1 soloing. Later on though the prowess of the mage becomes more..prevalent as the mage receives spells ranging from frost to slow down advancing enemies to powerful nukes, and aoes for crowd control. They are very helpful for party efforts as their high damage is very noticeable and is quite handy against bosses assuming the fighter can tank. In pvp mages are destructive. They are literally the "hard counter" of fighters with high magical damage and frost to slow down their advances for melee. They are also very effective in stoping clerics. They will have signifcant trouble against archers though especially if they get the first attack. Provided that the mage is well protected, they can cause alot of damage in pvp. Have 3 mages together spiking the same target for great results.


Discuss! Remember all of this is subject to change and no one has touched the high level pvp yet where it really matters...

and if anyone thinks i'm kinda bias...well i just called my own class overpowered...

dear lord i wasted 20 minutes on this..

Um...When our guild warred against Noob Repellant, they had 1 person and it was a cleric. It took 5 of us to kill her and that was only after she gave up. D:

Seems kinda stupid to me, but meh...maybe it balances out later on.

I only see one thing wrong with this. Since stuns only have a 50% chance of landing in PvP an only last 8 secs a fighter cant drop a cleric. Me and Andy tested it: stun last 8 secs theres no way a fighter can chew through 1.5-2k Hp in 2 secs. It works like this: at lvl 48 my cleric has 500 defense in full party * from 60% defense bonus*. He also has 1.6k Hp* from Endure buff*keep in mind in pvp you will find most people scrolled so thats 2k Hp easy. Fighter uses stun its a hit or miss situation sometimes it lands sometimes it doesnt faze the target he has 8 secs to kill me depending on my hp he'll get me to half hp an I can seemly just heal it all back with Endure.:cool:

What were the levels of your team in comparison to the cleric?


@teq, Endure hmm... i really didn't faze that in when i thought about the class theres always a way...

I really don't know. She was in her 2X's I believe. x.x

We had a 22 mage, 19 mage, another 2X Cleric, and some other people that I wasn't paying attention to.

We got her down pretty low, but then she would just heal it right back up. D:

I hate how we always get gw'd when all our members are offline. I bet if she was in her high 20's she would have been hard to take down. For you guys.

the mage vs. archer thing from my experience is totally who gets the first shot. if either gets caught off gurad they're good as dead (at least at my current lvl xD).

I wouldnt consider warriors over powered, seeing as they have a hard time with money with soloing

@niion soloing with fighters is extremely cheap during the first 20 levels- the stone prices only begin to actually hurt at 25+ My experience was that i never had trouble soloing.
Compare how easy playing a fighter is in comparison to a archer or a mage... Your damage is much more consistent you can handle more than 1 monster at once, your giving a plethora debuffs and a stun that is effective on boss monsters and players 20 levels above you..

@Destrus it probably is, in most cases both classes seem to cancel each other out. Although i can see a mage having an easier time killing an archer than an archer killing a mage.

Archer: low hp mediocre damage mediore magic defense (even with an spr build) damage based on small damage over time with heavy random crits
VS
Mage: low hp VERY Low physical defense but ugly attack power. Damage based on spamming heavy spells with comsistent damage Also have a high chance to crit which if hes lucky enough to get will anihilate the archer.

The intiative strike would be valuable in this match up.



@Rightclaw
Mages are based on heavy spike attacks with spells. But thier weakness especially in the lower levels in the VERY LONG cool down. In your fight you probably just fired off spells whenever you had the chance giving her the chance to heal during the cooldown times.

Next time i suggest trying to "spike" your damage together. Spiking is literally firing off all your most powerful spells at the same time at the cleric together with the other mage. It requires coordination but it should work.

Stun is only effective in pvp 50% of the time. Soloing with a fighter is expensive you use tons of SP and HP stones and they arent cheap.