ArcheRage 4.5: "Legends Return" - Pre-Update Official Discussion Thread

[havockitty]

In terms of raw dps hiram weapons won't be close to higher tier obsidian until epic (5.0), if I recall correctly hiram also can't be tempered until 5.0 as well so even if the t2 hiram is ayanad-equivalent technically speaking, it's really more like delph dps/defense-wise since it can't be tempered.

Where hiram bridges the gap is via the synthesis effects. In 4.5 it is hardly necessary to use much hiram outside of niche pieces if you have decent obsidian gear (even if hiram isn't even nerfed), but people will likely start swapping out niche items that have strong synthesis effects (ex: offhands for melees, right/left hand weps for archers, bows for non archers, flutes for some classes, etc)

I believe this is what the individual that quoted you was implying by this post:


The full-on swapping out the majority of your gear to hiram will be in 5.0 when epic comes out, not 4.5, you have plenty of time to farm and inform yourself of the new patches before obsidian becomes less desirable.

Comparing Divine Radiant T2 Hiram* vs Epic T6 Obsidian (pretty standard gear for people who have played a while and invested a bit): **



*Assuming Hiram is unnerfed and can't be tempered

**These are rough approximations using an archeage calculator and the figures may not be exactly correct

---

Mainhand Weapon discussion

View attachment 10465

Unnerfed Radiant T2 Hiram, even if it is unable to be tempered, could potentially be better than Epic T6 (in terms of mainhand weapon).

It is 14-15% less raw DPS, but offers a single (more effective main stat allocation) as well as a large amount of crit rate and crit bonus (which a lot of weapons don't).

However, in terms of a mainhand weapon, it is convincingly worse than current endgame gear (L T7 / L Erenor) simply due to the DPS gap.

However, as you can see, under our current erenor nerf: once epic t3 hiram mainhand hit (5.0), assuming they can be tempered, it trashes our current endgame setups. I would wager that this is what people who have invested a good amount into their characters via obsidian are really concerned about, not the Divine T2. If epic t3 can't be tempered, it'll probably still be a bit better than say legendary t7 or maybe even legendary erenor, but it'll at least level the playing field and allow people more time to adjust the the coming meta of t2 erenor and higher tiers of hiram.

My proposition is to not nerf hiram in 4.5, but do not allow hiram weapons to be tempered for the forseeable future (new patches), if you decide to allow hiram weapons to be tempered, you'll almost surely need to undo the erenor nerf.


Erenor nerf should be fine to keep until t3 comes out (5.0) if hiram tempering is released.


The stat changes and skill changes of this patch kind of have to go hand in hand, the scaling on almost every damage skill is altered in some way and it wouldn't quite make any sense for them to not make things uniform in this sense.


Is this something that is up to be altered or otherwise changed if there is a good deal of consensus that 4.5 is a relatively miserable patch combat-wise without at least some form of a CC break (in a patch that more or less guts CC breaks entirely), having a universal CC break that grants even just 1 second of immunity allows at least a little bit of counterplay.

My legendary offhands are useless if i compare them to divine hiram :]. I will just feed my 3 lege obsidians T7 into erenor cuz i dont see hiram nerfed by 50% happen. 1 statistic and 2 efects vs 1 stat and 1 efect. hiram 1 obsidian 0. Looks like i will be voting to unnerf erenor cuz i dont see any way of balancing obsidian and hiram and erenor at same time.

 

[Aviendha]

My legendary offhands are useless if i compare them to divine hiram :]. I will just feed my 3 lege obsidians T7 into erenor cuz i dont see hiram nerfed by 50% happen. 1 statistic and 2 efects vs 1 stat and 1 efect. hiram 1 obsidian 0. Looks like i will be voting to unnerf erenor cuz i dont see any way of balancing obsidian and hiram and erenor at same time.

Well ye offhands are maybe a special case, same as my stat stick bow.

 

[Aviendha]

Please don't remove mana decrease that is part of battle focus. I understand pulling the CD reduction but the mana reduction really helps stay sustainable when pve farming

Did you take into account that mana cost for all skills gets lowered?

 

[Thinking]

Please don't remove mana decrease that is part of battle focus. I understand pulling the CD reduction but the mana reduction really helps stay sustainable when pve farming

Look at the buffs to frenzy, 70% mana reduction and double the attack it gives now, this more than makes up for it.

 

[Stirling]

In terms of raw dps hiram weapons won't be close to higher tier obsidian until epic (5.0), if I recall correctly hiram also can't be tempered until 5.0 as well so even if the t2 hiram is ayanad-equivalent technically speaking, it's really more like delph dps/defense-wise since it can't be tempered.

Where hiram bridges the gap is via the synthesis effects. In 4.5 it is hardly necessary to use much hiram outside of niche pieces if you have decent obsidian gear (even if hiram isn't even nerfed), but people will likely start swapping out niche items that have strong synthesis effects (ex: offhands for melees, right/left hand weps for archers, bows for non archers, flutes for some classes, etc)

I believe this is what the individual that quoted you was implying by this post:


The full-on swapping out the majority of your gear to hiram will be in 5.0 when epic comes out, not 4.5, you have plenty of time to farm and inform yourself of the new patches before obsidian becomes less desirable.

Comparing Divine Radiant T2 Hiram* vs Epic T6 Obsidian (pretty standard gear for people who have played a while and invested a bit): **



*Assuming Hiram is unnerfed and can't be tempered

**These are rough approximations using an archeage calculator and the figures may not be exactly correct

---

Mainhand Weapon discussion

View attachment 10465

Unnerfed Radiant T2 Hiram, even if it is unable to be tempered, could potentially be better than Epic T6 (in terms of mainhand weapon).

It is 14-15% less raw DPS, but offers a single (more effective main stat allocation) as well as a large amount of crit rate and crit bonus (which a lot of weapons don't).

However, in terms of a mainhand weapon, it is convincingly worse than current endgame gear (L T7 / L Erenor) simply due to the DPS gap.

However, as you can see, under our current erenor nerf: once epic t3 hiram mainhand hit (5.0), assuming they can be tempered, it trashes our current endgame setups. I would wager that this is what people who have invested a good amount into their characters via obsidian are really concerned about, not the Divine T2. If epic t3 can't be tempered, it'll probably still be a bit better than say legendary t7 or maybe even legendary erenor, but it'll at least level the playing field and allow people more time to adjust the the coming meta of t2 erenor and higher tiers of hiram.

My proposition is to not nerf hiram in 4.5, but do not allow hiram weapons to be tempered for the forseeable future (new patches), if you decide to allow hiram weapons to be tempered, you'll almost surely need to undo the erenor nerf.


Erenor nerf should be fine to keep until t3 comes out (5.0) if hiram tempering is released.


The stat changes and skill changes of this patch kind of have to go hand in hand, the scaling on almost every damage skill is altered in some way and it wouldn't quite make any sense for them to not make things uniform in this sense.


Is this something that is up to be altered or otherwise changed if there is a good deal of consensus that 4.5 is a relatively miserable patch combat-wise without at least some form of a CC break (in a patch that more or less guts CC breaks entirely), having a universal CC break that grants even just 1 second of immunity allows at least a little bit of counterplay.

@Thinking is right even hiram is necessary is to being added, we should just leave it on Max Divine T2 without tempering then I don't think someone will complain afterwards those changes.

 

[Zecen]

There are just some skills and passives that were super useful that get chucked in 4.5 and its sad. Off the top of my head of normal skills i know about refreshment which the 30 minutes of a nice hp boost is nerfed to what, 1 minute? then health lift gets nerfed to around 30 seconds or something, hummingbird ditty is no longer cast time reduction, and u also lose a bunch of cast time reduction passives( a nerf to mages and healers) having to have 2 different skills now, resurg and renewel to combo with mend and antithesis to get the heal bonus, there are a lot of changes
i personally feel like defense tree gets nerfed quite a bit, bears vigor is really nice to give hp boost and what not and they take that away
i HATED the skill changes, its why when i tried retail again i just couldnt get back into it

 

[Thinking]

There are just some skills and passives that were super useful that get chucked in 4.5 and its sad. Off the top of my head of normal skills i know about refreshment which the 30 minutes of a nice hp boost is nerfed to what, 1 minute? then health lift gets nerfed to around 30 seconds or something, hummingbird ditty is no longer cast time reduction, and u also lose a bunch of cast time reduction passives( a nerf to mages and healers) having to have 2 different skills now, resurg and renewel to combo with mend and antithesis to get the heal bonus, there are a lot of changes
i personally feel like defense tree gets nerfed quite a bit, bears vigor is really nice to give hp boost and what not and they take that away
i HATED the skill changes, its why when i tried retail again i just couldnt get back into it

Defense gets lasso, refreshment becomes the only impale immunity (doesn't have a GCD so you can spam it on CD, lasts for 1 minute but has a 30 second cooldown, on top of giving 20% health that scales based on your max hp, not a flat amount). which is absurdly good. The defense abyssal passive also reduces stun and impale duration a further 20%, if you have this and the complete cloth buff, that's 40% less duration on these debuffs.

"Shortcomings" in regards to health are alleviated through the enhancement of grade buffs, you can get almost 8000+ health on a divine buff from having 7/7 divine ayanad armor compared to 4-5k now. Everyone basically gets 1-2 health lifts for free. Health lift gives twice as much hp, lasts for 20 second and only has an 8 second CD, it also stacks with refreshment now plus a 25M -> 30M range.

There isn't even a cast time nerf for vitalism, prayer stacks grant 6% cast time per stack in 4.5 versus 2% right now, on top of this, vitalism gets lowered cooldowns and mana costs, antithesis takes less than half the mana it used to and has no cooldown when freerunner is up. Mend is less than 1/6th of the mana cost and has no CD when pain harvest is up. Mend also automatically applies renewal to everyone it hits when you hit 5 stacks of prayer and sacrifice is activated. Mana barrier also becomes completely braindead as it takes one button in 4.5 (also doesn't consume your stacks) in comparison to having to micromanage stacking a passive.

The combos and skills are quite different sure, but there are really not many true "nerfs" to these classes you mention in 4.5.

 

[Stirling]

So are we getting Tier 2 Hiram(Divine) on 4.5?

 

[Splodge]

"• The guild membership cap has been adjusted and lowered as follows. If a guild is over the cap, all members remain in the guild but new members cannot be added until the guild membership falls under the cap.
◦ Level 1 - 30 Members
◦ Level 2 - 35 Members
◦ Level 3 - 40 Members
◦ Level 4 - 45 Members
◦ Level 5, 6, 7, and 8 - 50 Members"

This was one of the most ridiculous and poorly thought out changes to retail. I am really disappointed in ArcheRage staff for keeping this trash addition. This is so bad for the game.

 

[Shanks]

they haven't kept it, and it was actually a pretty good change. instead of guilds having around 60/40 inactive/actives, guilds were more filled with active players. It's overall a really good change, but the transition to that is kind of cancer, and doesn't exactly need to happen.

 

[Aviendha]

"• The guild membership cap has been adjusted and lowered as follows. If a guild is over the cap, all members remain in the guild but new members cannot be added until the guild membership falls under the cap.
◦ Level 1 - 30 Members
◦ Level 2 - 35 Members
◦ Level 3 - 40 Members
◦ Level 4 - 45 Members
◦ Level 5, 6, 7, and 8 - 50 Members"

This was one of the most ridiculous and poorly thought out changes to retail. I am really disappointed in ArcheRage staff for keeping this trash addition. This is so bad for the game.

Pls read carefully:

 

[Stchieven]

Hello, I would like to make some suggestions to things that I think should be changed for our custom ArcheRage 4.5 update


Part 1: Red Dragon Mount Changes


First off, the amount of red dragon spinal ridges required for the eternal flame scroll should be reduced to 10 from 50, along with the dragon helm reduced to 2 ridges from 5, the dragon saddle reduced to 4 from 10, and the dragon legguards reduced to 2 from 5. The reason I am suggesting these changes is because on live, even with all the red dragon spinal ridges that were in circulation pre-4.5, and with people doing the daily dragon raising quest for a small spinal ridge chance, there was barely enough to support more than a handful of dragons on each server. On ArcheRage, the Red Dragon world boss isn't killed very often. With 4.5 removing spinal ridges from the Red Dragon's drop table, there's no way the server could support even 1 or 2 dragons for a couple months. I think that they should be kept in the drop table. However, even if they are kept in the drop table, that's only 24-36 ridges a week from killing it, and that's if it's killed every spawn. A very small amount of spinal ridges are put into the server from raising a dragon, but not enough to sustain and grow more than a few dragons, even if ridges were kept in the drop table.



Secondly, make the Dragon mounts permanent and not require an eternal flame scroll every 30 days. Having to reapply an eternal flame scroll every month even if the amount of ridges required is reduced, would take too many ridges out of the server, making it so that other people won’t get a chance at raising a dragon. It’s also not realistic, with or without Red Dragon dropping ridges, the lack of ridges currently in the server, and the insufficient amount of ridges introduced from raising a dragon mount. On live, it was an average of 50k a month just in ridges to maintain a dragon, and that was with a good supply of ridges in the economy. Here it would cost much more as there is and will be much less ridges available, and owning a dragon mount won’t be realistic.



Finally, make it so that players can feed magic amplifier packs into a Dragon Mount 3 times a day. This could be done by making the daily feeding quest give 3 tokens, and make it require one token per magic amplifier that is turned in, with this being repeatable every day. I am suggesting this because on live, the average player had tons of alts, making the feeding process progress with reasonable speed. However, on this server it’s not an option to have more than one account, which would make the feeding process a lot longer.


If the changes that I suggested are made, it would allow more players to have a chance at getting a red dragon mount.



Part 2: Keep World Boss Strength The Same


The 4.5 update increases the attack., regen, and defense, of most world bosses, such as Red dragon, Kraken, Anthalon. On Live servers, this made it much harder to kill bosses, to the point where if bosses such Kraken were contested, it wouldn’t die and would just despawn after the 3 hour timer was up. With the amount of gear most players on this server have, most players won’t have a chance at killing the end game bosses. This may discourage players leading them to not come out to the boss or pvp for the boss. Even the top geared guilds on the server will have a hard time killing bosses.



Part 3: Remove The Invincibility Cooldown


The 4.5 update adds a 15 second universal invincibility cooldown. I think that our custom update should remove this from the game. This change only negatively impacts skilled players that know how to use their gliders,mounts, and abilities effectively. The whole reason people have multiple invincibility items such as ezi glider, ravenspine, invince dash mounts such as the snow lion, ancient deer, the chrome sub, ect, is to allow them to effectively handle the situation at hand. At world bosses such as Kraken and Anthalon, players have to use invincibility skills throughout the fight do to things such as invince Kraken slams or Anthalon lifts. If players are using their one invincibility skill to do this, they may not be able to use it against players during pvp at the world boss, which negatively impacts their chance at winning pvp and killing the world boss.



Part 4: Keep The Old Crime System In Place


Keep the current crime point system in place. The new crime system increases the amount of infmay points earned from murder, larceny, and assault by ten fold, and increaed the amount of jail time. This is too severe, and takes away from the green pirating aspect of the game, along with same faction conflicts between players, families, and guilds. Many players flag on their friends for fun or to mess around. However with the new crime system, poking your friends with your legendary tuna club one too many times for fun will get you sent to jail.




Part 5: Make The Joyride Vault Accessible Across All Characters


This is a quality of life change that I think would be good for the server. Make the joyride vault accessible to all characters on an account. This would make trying out new races and factions more fun, as you wouldn't need to worry about getting all your mounts/pets/gliders ect back, so u can still explore the world of erenor with ease. This would also allow players to do things like transfer their vehicles to do trade runs on the opposite continent. I believe that this change is reasonable, and won't negatively impact the game, and is a great quality of life improvement. We already have a costume chest that can be accessed by all characters on an account. Many players have spent tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of gold, such as myself, on mounts/gliders/pets/vehicles. I think it is unfair that players who have put time and effort into their collections can't use them across all their characters.



Part 6: Other changes

• Keep aggro generation from healing at 0.6. This will make tanking bosses like Kraken and Red Dragon less annoying to do.
• Keep Red Dragon and Kraken despawn timers at 3 hours, instead of 2. This will allow more pvp, and a higher chance that the bosses will die before despawning.
• Keep the quest “The Cursed Towers” as a repeatable quest, not a daily quest.
• Keep the Soldier Rank, Knight Rank, Grandmaster, and General titles in the honor shop
• Make the Battle of Mistmerrow times: 8:00am, 12:00pm, 4:00pm, and 8:00pm.
• Keep Faction Chat in the game.

Edit: Another reason I think the JoyRide Vault changes should be added is because a player's other characters can access their land and chests already along with the costume vault, so why not allow access to the JoyRide Vault.

 

[Thinking]

Something I'd like to open discussion on from the get go: the cost of t3 lunagems.

**CONDENSED**

Creating an example to illustrate this thought:

Let's assume I have to push the 7 T2 Earthglow Gems in my Chest and the 5 T2 Earthglow Gems in my Boots to T3 in 4.5:

1. In order to farm the amount of prestige necessary to upgrade (not even start new gems from scratch if you had old honor gems), you would need 600 superior earthglow lunarite (18,000 prestiage). If you farmed 100 prestige a day, which is a generous figure, this would take 180 days to gather since the only reliable source of earth lunarite is the prestige shop.

2. If you were one of the more unfortunate players, and you had to start your 7 chest gems from scratch since you had old honor gems and then also upgrade your boots gems from T2 to T3, you'd need 740 superior earthglow lunarite (22,200 prestige) = 222 days, or about 7.5 months worth of farming 100 prestige a day.

3. If you were a new player and had to make a new set of boots and chest gems (let's assume you could manage to fully gem your pants with the kyrios badge 353 toughness gems), you'd need 840 superior earthglow lunarite (25,200 prestige) = 252 days, or about 8.4 months of farming 100 prestige a day.

---

Farming the gems for 2 pieces of gear (let alone the rest of a entire set: other armor, weapons, bow flute, undergarments...) through natural means taking half of a year or more, even in a conservative scenario such as the first I mentioned, is absurd.

 

[Shanks]

Creating an example to illustrate this thought:

Let's assume I have to push the 7 T2 Earthglow Gems in my Chest and the 5 T2 Earthglow Gems in my Boots to T3 in 4.5:

1. In order to farm the amount of prestige necessary to upgrade (not even start new gems from scratch if you had old honor gems), you would need 600 superior earthglow lunarite (18,000 prestiage). If you farmed 100 prestige a day, which is a generous figure, this would take 180 days to gather since the only reliable source of earth lunarite is the prestige shop.

2. If you were one of the more unfortunate players, and you had to start your 7 chest gems from scratch since you had old honor gems and then also upgrade your boots gems from T2 to T3, you'd need 740 superior earthglow lunarite (22,200 prestige) = 222 days, or about 7.5 months worth of farming 100 prestige a day.

3. If you were a new player and had to make a new set of boots and chest gems (let's assume you could manage to fully gem your pants with the kyrios badge 353 toughness gems), you'd need 840 superior earthglow lunarite (25,200 prestige) = 252 days, or about 8.4 months of farming 100 prestige a day.

---

Farming the gems for 2 pieces of gear (let alone the rest of a entire set: other armor, weapons, bow flute, undergarments...) through natural means taking half of a year or more, even in a conservative scenario such as the first I mentioned, is absurd.

And also, on live they had alts so stuff like this was a lot easier

 

[Vapewave]

This change only negatively impacts skilled players that know how to use their gliders,mounts, and abilities effectively.

It's laughable that you think spamming invuln mechanics makes you a skilled player. This argument is total bunk.

 

[Vampiris]

Discussion like the ravenspine wings that almost all the players ask for you dind't put in the game!? And you put in the game and ruined the small scale pvp. ?

 

[Sjinderson]

Discussion like the ravenspine wings that almost all the players ask for you dind't put in the game!? And you put in the game and ruined the small scale pvp. ?

There was no discussion on will it be added.
The discussion was how to change it because it is getting added. where the majority said make it a skill and the rest shorten the cooldown.
Ravenspine invice is a seperate skill so people gave what they asked for.

 

[Vampiris]

There was no discussion on will it be added.
The discussion was how to change it because it is getting added. where the majority said make it a skill and the rest shorten the cooldown.
Ravenspine invice is a seperate skill so people gave what they asked for.

Ok, that "thing" ruined small scale pvp, my choice is to fight dudes that when are almost dead use the wings to get heals and come back to combat our they run to nuia, or waste 15K gold on the same "thing" is the item people call P2W. I read somewhere people complain about it, i thought it was a discussion or it look liked.

 

[Vampiris]

I'd like to know if the hiram gonna get some kind of nerf like the erenor.

 

[Vampiris]

That's a valid argument if it required skill.

Macros now is called skills?