Since the developers still seem to have trouble with balancing Kabbalist vs Plague Doctor and continue to increase the damage capabilities of Plague Doctor while leaving Kabbalist with impractical buffs, here comes my feedback to analyze both Classes’ damage skills and offer a solution how to even out the harsh imbalance between those two Classes for the sake of equality in the damage category.
First of all, let’s look at how both Classes damage skills are designed:
Plague Doctor has 2 damage skills,
Incineration
and Plague Vapors/Black Death Steam
Both skills act as debuffs that deal damage over time, and every single hit is affected by Blessing and additional damage sources(e.g. elemental attribute attack), which makes both skills ridicuously strong over time.
There are two downsides,however, which are
- mobs can resist the debuffs (in the case of Incineration they will resist 100% if the target has no other debuff applied)
- the initial AoE is pretty small (which is solved by Pandemic with the PD C2/C3 attributes)
Now let’s look at the possible damage:
Incineration deals 1 hit of {98 + ([Skill Level] - 1) × 5.4}% damage every 0,4 seconds over 10 seconds with 16 seconds CD time. At Plague Doctor C3 there is a new attribute which allows you to increase the tick frequency by 25% to 0,3 seconds per tick (i.e. a 25% damage increase).
This means the lowest possible raw damage at level 1[i.e. without the damage increase attribute] is 98%x(10/0,4)= 2450%, while the highest possible damage at level 16 is 179%x(10/0,3)=5907%.
This excludes the possibility of boosting its damage with Agni Necklace (+50% skill factor per tick) or the bonus damage when cast on Black Death Steam/Plague Vapors (20% bonus damage per tick) or boosting its skill duration by stacking debuffs (every debuff on the target increases the duration of Incineration by 0,5 seconds) or by using Pardoners Discern Evil, as these things are optional.
Next let’s look at Black Death Steams damage.
Black Death Steam/Plague Vapors deals 1 hit of {111 + ([Skill Level] - 1) × 7.8}% damage every 0,5 seconds over 15 seconds, has 2 overheat charges and 38 seconds CD time.
At Plague Doctor C3 there is a new attribute which allows you to increase the tick frequency by 20% to 0,4 seconds per tick (i.e. a 20% damage increase).
This means the lowest possible raw damage at level 1[i.e. without the damage increase attribute] is
111%x(15/0,5)=3330% per overheat charge, while the highest possible damage at level 11 is 189%x(15/0,4)=6993% per overheat charge.
After looking at Plague Doctor, let’s look now at Kabbalist.
Kabbalist features only 1 damage skill, which is called Merkabah
and maxed at level 5.
Merkabah is a skill with interruptible casttime that summons several chariots[number = skilllevel] onto the map, which quickly move to a target location to explode and deal damage. Every chariot also features an aura which deals 100% damage on contact [the damage is only dealt once unless the monster leaves and reenters the AoE].
The skill duration is ~ 4 seconds, but at Kabbalist Circle 2 there is a new attribute,
Merkabah: Reduced Movement Speed, which prolongs the traveling time to around 20-22 seconds; the CD time of the skill is 35 seconds.
Now let’s look at the possible damage:
Merkabah deals {skilllevel x [275 + ([Skill Level] - 1) × 15.1] + 100x skilllevel}% damage.
This means the lowest possible raw damage at level 1[i.e. without the damage increase attribute] is 275x1+100x1=375%, while the highest possible damage at level 6 is 350x6+100x6=2700%.
To balance both Classes out, let’s first take a look at how the damage is dealt:
Plague Doctors skills deal its damage over time with a skill duration of 10-15 seconds.
Both damage skills are AoE based debuff skills which can be spread with the help of attributes and Pandemic, giving them a huge AoE capability.
Kabbalists Merkabah is a skill with initial burst potential (but quite weak as its damage is applied too fast and thus bugs often,dealing less damage than it should deal), but the Circle 2 decreased movement speed attribute and the holy property additional damage attribute “Divine Protection” turn it into something similar to how Plague Doctors skills work, a damage over time skill with additional damage boost. Its AoE capability is limited as it seems to be affected by your AoE attack ratio, giving the explosions a usual 3-10 monsters threshold affected by it(most commonly are 7 medium sized monsters,similar to Astral Body Exlosion e.g.).
Thus, it’s the easiest option to improve the Kabbalist damage by making it more similar to how Plague Doctors Plague Vapors/Black Death Steam works, i.e. improving both its initial damage potential and its damage over time potential.
To make both skills stand on equal footing, it would be best to increase Merkabahs skill level to 10[and maybe move it to Circle 2 as Circle 1 Merkabah is basically useless], to give it a solid base and the Kabbalist an actual option to use his left-over skillpoints at Circle 3.
The new Merkabah’s highest possible damage with these changes would be the following:
426x11+100x11= 5786%.
The new Merkabah should feature a second row of chariots from the 7th chariot onwards, as the maximum number of possible chariots with the use of Divine Might and a monster gem would be 12, thus making the skill more convenient to program.
Also, by doing this, the possible conflict of having a 100%+ uptime Divine Protection buff and bugs resulting from the map and the chariots position can be avoided.
To add to this, introduce a new attribute for Kabbalist Circle 3 which makes the Aura effect of the chariots hit the enemies beside it every 0,5 seconds while they are inside the AoE of the Aura.
It follows the Decreased Movement Speed attribute nicely and make the skill a more consistent source of damage, similarly to how Black Death Steam/Plague Vapors works{I’ve already made a suggestion about a DoT-attribute}.
This would result in a flat damage boost (as the additional damage is not affected by the Merkabah: Enhance attribute) which boosts the damage of the skill by 4000-4500% if the Merkabah: Reduced Movement Speed attribute is active.
The final damage would be something like ~9200%% over 22 seconds every 35 seconds, which is similar to the output of Black Death Steam (2x 6993% = ~14000% every 38 seconds).
If we talk about raw damage, Merkabah might have a little advantage since you can’t poison a mob twice with Black Death Steam;
however, if we consider the fact that only ~ half of Merkabahs damage is actually affected by its enhancement attribute, if we add the enhancement attribute, both skills come pretty close to each other { 4686*1,5= 7029% for Merkabah, 10489% for Black Death Steam(per overheat), which results in ~ 11500% for Merkabah[(7029%+4500%)/35 = ~328% DPS] and ~ 21000% for Black Death Steam[(10489%x2)/53= ~395% DPS (if we consider waiting 15 seconds after using Black Death Steam and use the second overheat after the first debuff ran out, i.e. 2 overheats per 53 seconds)]} with Black Death Steam still being a little stronger[+ having 30% bonus damage from Velnia Monkey cards which isn’t calculated in either].
That way both Classes would deal ~ comparable damage while Plague Doctor still deals more damage due to the fact that Plague Doctor has 2 damage skills while Kabbalist only has one.
It would solve the problem which most Kabbalist builds face,though :
i.e. the complete lack of damage suitable for Ranks 7-9 on the higher-Ranked Class Kabbalist, and allow it to participate actively in challenge mode and ET.
Short abstract for those who got lost inbetween:
To improve Kabbalists viability at Rank 7 in comparison with Plague Doctor, Merkabah needs a damage boost similar to the way Plague Doctor got his damage.
This is achieved in 2 steps:
- increase the maximum skilllevel of Merkabah to 10
-
add a Kabbalist C3 attribute which adds more DoT to Merkabah, similar to the enhancement attributes of Plague Doctor C3 to Incineration and Black Death Steam;
this attribute deals continuous damage[100% matk] every 0,5 seconds to the monsters standing inside the Aura of Merkabah (instead of the current 100% once on entering the Aura)
The result is that Merkabah deals similar damage to one overheat of Black Death Steam, thus being a viable source of damage for Rank 8-9 content.
