Tryna pull a sneaky & buff the HP rings, all in the name of consistency, eh??
powercreep intensifies
Tiered Rings Rebalance
Sansisgood
#63
ubhp and ubmp dont need to be nerfed. especially now that the game has gotten a lot harder due to the disgusting vital combat update. we do not need further nerfs to survivability.
Nameness
#65
I hardly even notice a difference as I was already dodging in the first place, I’m starting to think you just suck at this game and blame the devs taking away your gamebreaking abilities on your inability to learn or improve, the vital combat update is in my opinion, the best thing DECA has done for this game because you can no longer just outheal every attack, you actually have to play
I think we do, rings are meant to provide a helpful amount of stats of our choice, but they weren’t meant to outdo armor in terms of survivability, yet an unb hp out does ALL robes in the saftey they add and even competes with tiered leather armor in endgame situations, while unb def doesn’t even match up with old tops robe.
The solution should be to nerf unb hp as the game is still too easy in its current state, but the playerbase is mainly full of people who relied on pets like a crutch to make up for their complete lack of skill allowing them to do dungeons way past their skill level and now that pets have been nerfed and dodging is required, the mere thought of DECA continuing to fix parts of the game that have been broken for far too long causes them to wet their beds at night, so you don’t really see much suggestions for nerfing those rings, as because even if the suggestion is from someone who genuinely plays the game, they want to be positively received still to make the stat disparity between the rings more clearly known as an issue, so they suggest buffing the other rings.
Sansisgood
#66
instead of nerfing ubhp, why dont we just buff the other tiered rings to be as good as them. and yes, I am a bad player but who cares
Nameness
#67
Because that would be too much.
All the other 6 unb rings are already good rings in their own right, they’ve just been totally overshadowed by unb hp due to the hugely uneven stat increase. Instead of making a good thing broken, make a broken thing just good, that’s how your supposed to fix things
Oijfdpofds
#68
I feel like this is a good time to jump in since things evolved this way.
@Nameness
I disagree that them offering +10 is good enough (I’m not sure if this is what you’re referring to, or buffing beyond +20, but if it is referring to the +10, then the rest I’m about to say applies.) Even if UBHP were to be cut in half, it wouldn’t take away the fact that UT rings still vastly surpass these rings. I do feel like a buff to +20 on rainbows is a needed thing as I have mentioned many times that other rings already offer above that value in total stats.
UBHP tho, is really overpowered. When I made that post stating the Effectiveness of the buffed UBDEF (+20) vs the slightly buffed UBHP (+200) it seemed alright. Then I started thinking a bit… Then it came to me that 10 shots is a LOT. UBDEF would be more effective than it is now, that’s granted but it wasn’t gonna be near as useful as I thought it would be. I realized this when I was doing some MBC and Voids and just taking 3 hits in quick succession was already putting me in danger. 5+ hits, let alone 10+ hits would be 100% death so UBDEF would be as useless as ever.
Remember that this kind of bullet hell style of game is what all these reworks are aiming for instead of just insta-kill shotguns aimed at the nearest player or safespotting and exploiting the garbage design of some dungeons.
So it got me thinking… to make UBDEF and UBHP have the same effectiveness at 5 shots, there are 2 options:
Either it would require UBDEF to 2x its value again, which would grant a stupid amount of +40 DEF and would require the other rings to follow, giving unthinkable amounts of stats;
OR
HP is cut in half to make it the same effectiveness at 5 shots. This way, the conversion rate of rainbow stats to MP/HP would be 1:5 instead of 1:10 and it would match Life/Mana pots and Mana/Life exaltations.
It’s worth mentioning that the amount of HP given by all sources currently is kind of insane. +180 from 1 ring is a lot and all other equipment sources are balanced around this. This would mean that ALL HP/MP SOURCES IN THE GAME would have to be cut in half, save for a few.
It’s interesting that items like tinctures and effusions already follow this pattern.
Tinctures of Life/Mana offer 75 HP/MP and when divided by 5, totals 15, which is exactly the same as all the other Stat Tinctures. Same goes for Effusions but instead of 75 its 150 which totals 30, same as others.
This would mean all UT rings in the game with HP/MP would have those values reduced to half, along with Tiered.
T0 -> +5 HP/MP
T1 -> +10 HP/MP
T2 -> +20 HP/MP
T3 -> +35 HP/MP
T4 -> +55 HP/MP
T5 -> +75 HP/MP
T6 -> +100 HP/MP
T7 -> +125 HP/MP
Omni: +40 HP/MP.
Esben’s Wedding Ring: +30 HP/MP.
Crown: +55 HP.
Gemstone: +55 MP.
etc…
Tiered Abilities:
T6: +10 HP/MP
T7: +20 HP/MP
T8: +30 HP/MP
Now I know some of you are already shaking in your seats just reading through this but it would make the HP granted (and MP for that matter) much more smooth instead of being such a disproportional boost as we have now. You would have to rely even less on HP and heals and instead dodging more as they wouldnt be able to absorb 1 or 2 endgame shots by themselves anymore.
It goes without saying that this much more reduced boost to your stat would most likely make o3 and some other endgame dungeons receive some nerfs to their shots given that a lot of them are balanced around players with top gear and 800-1000 HP. This makes someone wanting to use a T6 ring other than HP extremely harder to survive because you have ~20% less HP than everyone else.
I feel would be healthy in the long term. Stuff would be even more based on skill rather than equipment which is always a good thing and would even out the difficulty, only giving a slight edge to those wearing HP-based sets but not an overwhelming one, again, encouraging other stuff instead of only HP.
Of course I know that this kind of thing is a very controversial topic and that a ton of people would complain about it so that’s why I suggested this idea. It would be a good first step headed in that direction and later it could be decided if HP/MP would be receiving nerfs or not.
Nameness
#69
Definitely agree with the latter half of that but as for the former I just have two things to say, you should definitely remember that a majority of the harder to dodge bullets do less damage than the easy to dodge ones, so while yes overly damaging attacks exists, ten shots isn’t too absurd. Furthermore unb def increases combat trigger damage by 5 where as HP gives none, that means you can effectively take shots that deal 15 more damage than what you could normally take and still be in the safe.
Taking vc into account, saying 1 def has to take 10 shots in order to be worth 10 hp is no longer an accurate estimation
Oijfdpofds
#70
Consider this:
You go to Oryx’s Sanctuary. You have 2 options to choose from to give your archer (using archer cuz less DEF than melees so Combat Trigger is more pronounced):
Your archer uses Hydra, granting 17 + 25 base DEF which equals 42 total. Combat Trigger: 32.
non-buffed UBDEF (+10 DEF);
buffed & halved UBHP (+100 HP).
Let’s say you choose UBDEF.
Your HP is 700 and your DEF is 52; Combat Trigger: 35.
Dammah hits you with this bullet (Lowest Damage shot from Dammah that doesn’t pierce through armor or give you Armor Broken):
You take 68 damage. You are put in Combat. Since this is the lowest damage bullet, any other bullet will put you in Combat too.
If you want to factor this one in:
Then you take 48 damage from the first hit and assuming you’re not hit again for the duration of the AB, you are still put In Combat either way.
Result: Combat Trigger - useless.
Now you continue battling Dammah, you’re on his final phase and he hits you with:
5 of these fireballs manage to hit you, each dealing 180-52 = 128
128*5 = 640. HP left: 60.
If you take 6, you die. Your HP is now: -68.
Since for UBDEF to be more effective requires 10+ shots. It serves no purpose.
Now, you wear the +100 HP UBHP. He hits you with the same 5 shots. Your DEF is 42. 180-42 = 138
138*5 = 690. HP left: 110.
If you take 6, you die. Your HP is now: -28.
Even in the extremely unlikely scenario that you take 5 of those shots in quick succession, you’re still better off using HP, even if it’s 100 HP.
You can see it’s no use, UBHP will win. This isn’t even taking into account all the Armor Break-inflicting shots + Armor Piercing shots that go around, completely nullifying the use of DEF in its entirety.
Ok so, you might say I picked a bit of an extreme example (Oryx’s Sanctuary) so I’ll pick another endgame dungeon that isn’t as endgame as O3.
Fungal Cavern:
Worm Mother:
The Nest:
Soldiers:
Larvae:
At first it seems kinda useful in The Nest but nest has a bit of the insta-kill shotgun bullshit that is not very bullet hell and is kind of annoying due to the bees’ speed. You might say its good for the larvae but then there’s the problem that they fire like 4 shots each and swarm you, so if you get hit by these hoping for UBDEF to save you, not only do you have a ton of shotguns coming your way from these guys (and maybe even some soldiers) but you get inflicted by paralyze, immobilizing you, pet stasis and armor broken, nullifying the use of UBDEF and again, making UBHP far superior.
Lost Halls:
Crusade:
Golems:
Grotto:
MBD:
MBC:
Troom:
I didn’t include every enemy in the dungeons but feel free to look up the rest if you want. The main gist of endgame content is either 100+ damage bullets that don’t pierce armor; 75+ damage bullets that do pierce armor; or both. In every room you either find an Armor Break inflicting shot, or a 100+ damaging shot or some random shot that pierces through armor and deals like 75 or more. In the case of Oryx soldiers, they shoot like 6 shot shotguns that even using UBDEF, will be worse than if you just use the Nerfed UBHP. If you take 2 of the shotguns, which would actually make UBDEF superior since its above 10 shots, you die.
All of these will get you In Combat one way or the other. If you manage to lower them enough with your DEF so that your Combat Trigger serves some purpose, here comes the Armor Piercing bullet that deals enough to put a character with 200 DEF in combat.
UBDEF has no place in endgame content and doesn’t even stand a chance against a current Superior HP Ring (+100 HP). With an increase to 2x what it currently is along with halved HP, it would actually start being useful.
I wanna help make UBDEF viable in every part of the game, not just earlier content, so it has to be useful in endgame dungeons and fact of the matter is that it’s not. And no one uses UBDEF because of that. Not just UBDEF by the way, every other UB ring. And I don’t know if I have to say this again but some UT and ST rings already surpass current UB rings easily. Not only providing nearly the same amount OR the same amount as a UB ring but also have other useful stats paired with them.
Would you use a Ring that provides +10 VIT that drops from Cult; Shatters, both endgame dungeons or a ring that provides +9 VIT, +3 ATT, +50 HP (+25) that drops from Davy Jones’ Locker, fairly easy dungeon to come across and complete? Not to mention 0.4 seconds of IC reduction is not even worth sacrificing 100 HP for.
I think I don’t even have to say anything to show you how vastly Underpowered UB rings are.
Nameness
#72
This assumes
A. That viability in 5 specific dungeons is required for it to be visible at all
And B. A rather common, unsoulbound ring, should be as strong as a semirare UT ring
Both assumptions are false, UT rings should definitely out class tiered rings, and always will because a spread of a few stats tends to be better than a heavy focus on one stat, and Fungal/Hive/Sanctuary/Halls/Shatters doesn’t make up the whole game and things shouldn’t be balanced around everything being viable in those 5 dungeons, there should be items intended for endgame play, and items intended for midgame play, that is ubhp and ubdef respectively. This pattern of balance is seen in weapons, armors, and abilities of same value (for instance, dblade can really speed up farming in the godlands and would be well paired with ubdef to keep out of combat, while swords like Colo have a much longer range and is generally safer to use while still high damage and should be paired with ubhp because of the higher shot damage of endgame dungeons)
Oijfdpofds
#73
In this case, viability with an Unbound ring other than HP in endgame dungeons does mean viability everywhere else because endgame dungeons are just how few shots you can manage to get hit by. If a UBDEF manages to be successful in an endgame dungeon it means it will be most certainly useful everywhere else.
Besides, you taking 5 shots in earlier game with your powerless stats can be just as deadly as taking 5 shots in an endgame dungeon with your 8/8 so this would not just fit in endgame but it would complement mid and early game too. There are 6 tiers of rings afterall. Early game has the same problem where HP rings easily outclass all the others. Even in godlands UBDEF isnt useful if you dont purposefully facetank stuff (which in your scenario is explained, although rather niche).
Unsoulbound or not, doesn’t make much sense that a ring that drops from Endgame dungeons is considered “midgame” or useful in the midgame only. You can just as easily get an Acrop or T12 staff, none of which are outclassed by other semirare UT/ST stuff. Id even pick tradeable Tiered apparel over many endgame whites (except rings, ofc).
If something is useful in midgame or non-endgame scenarios only, then it shouldn’t drop from an endgame dungeon. Makes little sense design-wise that 6/8 rings that drop in an endgame dungeon serve no purpose at all because they are so useless they are outclassed by semirare UT/ST rings that drop in far easier stuff.
For endgame you should have rings that are endgame and useful in endgame (Unbound);
For midgame you should have rings that are midgame and useful in midgame (Superior-Exalted);
For earlygame you should have rings that are earlygame and useful in earlygame (Minor-Greater).
For a def ring to be useful in the godlands, then it should be a Paramount DEF ring that we should be talking about, not Unbound.
And as you can see:
…it would offer enough to be a viable ring for godlands, being a midgame ring as it is.
Nothing says that UT rings should outclass Tiered rings either. You don’t see it in Weapons, Armors or Abilities. It doesn’t make sense that this piece of tiered equipment is so heavily different from the others.
You saying that a spread will always tend to be better than a heavy focus is just product of being used to how rings are currently structured. If they were made to be a useful condensed focus of all the stats in UT rings, they would be a useful ring, while giving UT rings space to be special by being more spread out and specialized versions.
UT items were always referred to as specialized or “niche” items because of their usefulness in certain scenarios, while Tiered equipment has uses in a wide array of situations because they’re supposed to be more generally useful. It’s also the reason why Tiered Equipment has multiple drop locations while UTs don’t. But for Rings you see the inverse. Tiered are the “niche” or only useful here and there, while UT rings reign over them completely.
XBookwyrmX
#74
The thing that kind of makes me glaze over superior/inferior gear arguments in general is the rarity of items. Yes, this piece of gear may be superior to that one, but that’s assuming you own either in the first place.
There’s some useful UT/ST gear in the mid-game, but I feel that the great irony of the situation is that there are many players that will grind endgame dungeons for endgame gear… to help them survive those same endgame dungeons? There’s always chances for error, but if you’re at the point of regularly completing said dungeons, fancy gear is trivial when whatever you have is working.
With that, I’m not discrediting the whole UB ring fallacy, but I’m totally going to wear one if I haven’t anything else to wear, especially offensive UB rings.
Oijfdpofds
#75
Yeah thats one of the reasons why I mentioned nerfing drop rates for UB rings to match other WC gear drop rates if they get buffed. Not that it’s bad on their own but they feel a lot more common than the WC tops in the same dungeon (Shatters for example, you more commonly find UB rings than other tops, at least in my experience). If they were to be matched with other WC gear there couldn’t be the argument of being too common since all other WC tops compete with UT variants of the same level.
As for the second paragraph…
Well, thats just how the game goes I guess… Why do O3 for loot if getting the same loot means you’re able to pass it with lower equipment? This goes for anything really.
I guess the small advantage that it awards you is enough to use it. There’s also exaltations now, which require you to do a dungeon multiple times so it makes sense wanting to have a better chance at surviving so that you don’t have to redo another 8/8 to grind for them again.
Tomatokil
#77
It’s funny because generally UTs are specialized weapons, rather than general weapons (obv there are restrictions to this “rule” but that’s how UTs generally were, ie DBOW vs T12 bow or DBlade vs Tiered swords). However, with rings, it seems like the UT rings are the generalized items (since they are a spread of stats) whereas tiered rings are specialized (pop off in HP, MP, etc etc).
Interesting post, don’t have much to add. Just said something I thought was interesting.
