Ok, now before I start my feedback on how the skill was rebalanced, I’m first stating the rebalancing measures that went into the skill factor as stated by the STAFF in the developers blog post “Combat System Changes Dossier Pt. 3” [Link].
According to their graphic
we can see that the main factors that were taken into consideration for rebalancing the skill values were split into 5 different categories:
“Basic”, “number of (possible)targets”, “time”, “casting” and “others”.
Armed with this I can now analyze Merkabah throughly.
Let’s take a look at the Basic category first.
- The factor increases with both Rank and Circle
The 1st factor, Rank, is an easy one to cover, as its Rank 7 that introduces Merkabah to the game. This should net Merkabah a high base factor.
Similarly ranked skills are
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Decatose (Pardoner), Incineration (Plague Doctor),
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Evocation/Desmodus (Sorcerer),Corpse Tower (Necromancer), Mastema/Dark Theurge/Pole of Agony(Warlock), Blood Bath/Bone Pointing/Blood Sucking/Ngadhundi (Featherfoot),
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Divine Machine Arrow (Fletcher),Wild Shot (Schwarzer Reiter), Sonic Strike (Falconer), Cannon Shot/Shootdown/Siegeburst/Cannon Blast (Cannoneer), Covering Fire/Headshot/Snipe/Butt Stroke/Penetration Shot/Bayonet Thrust (Musketeer),
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Pistol Shot (Corsair), Deadly Combo (Squire), Zornhau/Redel/Zucken (Doppelsoeldner), Attaque Composee (Fencer), Dragon Tooth/Serpentine/Dragon Soar/Gae Bolg (Dragoon)
As we see, there are lots of skills here with a potentially high modifier due to their “Rank”-ing.
Let’s come to the Circle. This is a bit tricky as Merkabah is a Circle 1-only skill that gets a little enhanced with Circle 2 attributes. However, let’s just take note of Circle 1 skills which are bolded out in the prior list for the 2nd factor.
Here Merkabah won’t really get anything for being a Circle 1 skill, but I’d still consider a favorable treatment due to it only having 5 maximum skillevels(which is really rare for Circle 1 skills).
Next let’s look at the Number of targets-category.
It increases the factor with shorter range, so this factor is half-out for Merkabah (as it can be short- and long-ranged since its ground targeted).
Another increase is for the lower number of targets/AoE ratio.
Here, Merkabah gets full marks as it only has a basic, non-increased AoE-ratio for the explosion damage.
Next, let’s look at the “Time” category.
The first one, increases with longer attack durations, is really tricky again, as the skill takes considerably longer to damage enemies when the Circle 2 attribute to reduce the traveling speed is active,
but with the basic value, the skill takes approximately 3-5 seconds (depending on the traveling distance)to deliver its damage.
This means again a high factor value due to the first 2/3 of this time, no damage at all is delivered(it’s waiting time).
The second one, increases with longer CD times, is a no-brainer, as Merkabah has one of the highest CD times an attack skill can have with 45 seconds. Again recieving a high factor here.
The 3rd one, increases in channeling skills, doesn’t apply here, as Merkabah isn’t a channeling, but a basic cast skill.
Next, let’s look at the Casting-category.
1st, increases with longer cast times, is gaining some higher factor here, as it’s ~1 second interruptable casttime (the database says 0,6 seconds, but 1 second CD ingame ticks faster than casting Merkabah) that has to be overcome to invoke the skill.
2nd, increases for skills where the character cannot move while casting,
also nets Merkabah an increased factor, as you can’t move while casting and 1 additional second after the skill is invoked.
3rd, increases in skills where being attacked cancels the skill, is hard to interpret.
If canceling means ends the skill/send it on CD without doing anything, Merkabah gets nothing here,
but if canceling means ending the cast without invoking the skill, Merkabah gets another increased factor here.
Last but not least, let’s look at the Others-category.
1st, decreases with better additional skill effects.
Merkabah has no additional skill effects, with all possible effects stemming from attributes. This means 0 decreasing factor for Merkabah here.
2nd, increases with more difficult skill casting conditions.
Merkabah is basically the incorporation of this one.
The chariots have by nature only 1 HP and get instantly destroyed when hit. On top of that, the chariots draw aggro of enemies and remain in one place for 2-3 seconds before moving, making it extremely hard to even deal damage with this skill unless the Kabbalists already got the aggro of all monsters around him…
Maximum increase factor here, no other skill in TOS has casting conditions as hard as Merkabah.
3rd, for multihit skills, increase when the target can escape,
Also truer than true for Merkabah. Monsters can move out of the area of effect (explosion AoE), chase a certain chariot,thus missing the explosion or destroy the chariot to evade the attack. Maximum factor here.
4th, considers the price of consumed items, holds not true as Merkabah doesn’t require any items to be used.
So, let’s calculate how many conditions in favor of a better skill factor (from 0 to +++ for very high) Merkabah has got according to this statement:
Basic category: ++ (Rank 7 skill), + (Circle 1 skill)
Number of targets category: 0 (short range), ++ (AoE ratio)
Time category: ++ (longer attack duration), +++ (longer CD time), 0 (channeling time)
Casting category: + (longer casting time), ++ (cannot move while casting), + (getting attacked cancels the skillcasting)
Other category: 0 (additional skill effects), +++ (difficult skill casting conditions), ++ (target can escape multihit damage), 0 (item cost)
Total score: 19/39
Merkabah specs: base%= {275 + ([Skill Level] - 1) × 15.1} × Skill Level + Skill Level × 100;
CD time 45 seconds
Maximum damage at level 5 = 2175%
To compare e.g. Plague Doctors Incineration with it, we get a rating of:
Basic category: ++ (Rank 7 skill), + (Circle 1 skill)
Number of targets category: ++ (short range), + (AoE ratio)
Time category: + (longer attack duration), + (longer CD time), 0 (channeling time)
Casting category: + (longer casting time), + (cannot move while casting), 0 (getting attacked cancels the skill)
Other category: - (additional skill effects), + (difficult skill casting conditions), + (target can escape multihit damage), 0 (item cost)
Total score 11/39
Incineration specs (I believe it was already buffed but I’ll use the tos-ktest.neet.tv-values anyway):
base% = {98 + ([Skill Level] - 1) × 5.4} × [25 + bonus {extra duration for every debuff on the target}]
CD time 16 seconds;
Max damage at level 5 [ignoring the possible bonus duration]= 2975%
Question : Why does a skill with ± the same base specs as Merkabah, easier skill conditions and only ~1/3 of the CD time still have higher base% if the Combat System Changes Dossier Pt. 3 states that skills with more restrictions should have higher skill factors than those with less?
Was Merkabah really just forgotten to be rebalanced, as most Cleric skills feature more possible damage after rebalancing with easier casting conditions and lower risks to lose possible damage output, even at lower Ranks?
Dievdirbys e.g. can output 4500% within 51 seconds with Carve Attack level 5!!! and 11850% every 50 seconds with 2 Owl Statues [level 10].
Paladin deals 3420% within 45 seconds with level 5 Smite,
Monk deals 4710% damage with level 5 Double Punch [if he punches 1 time every 3 seconds for 45 seconds],
Druid C1 can deal 4975% damage with a simple level 5 Carnivory (with only 30 seconds CD time), Sadhus Possession level 5 deals up to 3507% in 20 seconds, Mikos Gohei deals 2664% in 8 seconds, heck even Priests Exorcise has 4650%[10 seconds]-6882%[15 seconds duration] every 36 seconds…
Squires Deadly Combo level 5 deals 4735% in 39 seconds, and Alchemists Alchemistic Missile level 5 even 5200% every 18 seconds, just to add some other numbers from seemingly support-Classes and see them in relation.
If it’s hard to properly rebalance Merkabah, I have a solution:
Move Merkabah from Kabbalist C1 to Kabbalist C2 and increase the skill value accordingly, to around 500%base + ~100 x skillevel % so that the skill deals around 5000% total damage at level 5.
This still wouldn’t suffice to cover the huge difference in damage to similar ranked skills or the simple fact that Kabbalist still has only one damage skill, but it would be a start into the right direction…