The Current State of Eternias Meta

[Enginseer-42]

The suggestion posted is to make all invulns share a cooldown without rectifying the root cause of the issue at hand. Vitality has not underwent any changes since spires of Agartha, and perhaps even E1.

And yet, spells went from doing 6k on the high end, to 20k.

350 vit is a 43% increase, unlike the roughly 80% increase to spell damage on high power spells.

Further, this is a universal issue.

(Also? As someone who runs 270 vit? There’s combos that will 60% my vit in only 2/3 spells off a single rotation.)

The suggestion that's been settled on is to limit invulns/defensives to 2 on the bar as far as I can see. Having one invuln is a terrible idea obviously because there are spells that'll take 40% if you eat the full combo, yes- though 60% is still something I don't see 2/3 spells doing. No single spell deals 20k HP- some max out at 15k~ theoretically, and that's with massive apped-for power increases.

Or you're fighting Xarxes, but, he's an outlier here.. and is, in fact, the main offender of the 3 invuln stacking meta anyway, so he doesn't even count for the sake of the argument.

- Also, vitality is 272hp per point, not 244hp. It's still a whopping 28% increase, which is more than enough to really push us into a 10 minute round sustain meta.

Possibly the current most famous offender. There have been others doing it very nearly since E4 started. Honestly I don't even feel right calling the dude an offender. He used the tools the system gave us in a way that made Xarxes a strong character and it's not like he sacrificed RP to do it.

[GSM]

I’d also like to point out that even though Xarxes runs 4 invulns, he isn’t one of the main offenders of the invuln stacking problem, per se. Yes, he runs 4 invulns, but his gameplan isn’t to stall you out and outlast you for 10 minutes while healstacking; all of his invulns if chained together don’t last as long as the fucking Summoner invuln at 10 seconds.

He blows you up. And he is damn good with his bar. The tournament proved that, even when literally gimped from 30 RPP and having some of the power he’s been accruing for months OOCly being taken away, he knows his bar better than 90% of most players know theirs.

And if he is only limited to one invuln, his build will be forced to get more aggressive, because if he messes up even slightly, he explodes. Xarxes has 12 perms, has been around for more than nearly every other character currently active with exceptions being in the low single digits, and has earned every single inch of power he’s gotten, but every time he displays how good he is mechanically with what he has been given, he is consistently thrown under the bus.

Every single time I’ve been with this guy and he is allowed to do something, without fail, people bitch about it. He’s a co-lead for my faction, yet he wasn’t allowed to participate in defensive raids twice in a row because of how strong he was. And if he doesn’t run invulns, you will be quickly reminded that the damage output in a usual RPB is so obscenely fucking high that running an invuln is basically necessary at this point.

Also- why would you ever namedrop Death’s Door in a balance sense? That costs 300 Undeath that took months to accrue. He worked for it, and it isn’t even an actual invuln.

Idk, I’m just tired of Xarxes being named and shamed like he’s some great threat to the balance of everything. Probably incoherent, I just woke up.

[RainIsABirb]

A mistake on my part but my point about him being an outlier nonetheless stands. He's the only one I know of that can deal 60, 70% with just 2-3 spells.

[ACuriousGrey]

I feel like people also are forgetting the fact that Xarxes is using both of his masters, grinded 200 undeath (not an easy feat by any means) has shadow (lol, lmao), and ate a Neph (not an easily accessible thing) He's not your run of the mill character by any stretch of the imagination, and he's definitely an outlier, not the mean.

I don't think that it's a very easy thing in the first place to get 2 invulnerabilities without sacrificing something (unless you're a neph), and extremely hard period (if not impossible) for most characters to afford three invulnerabilities and be successful.

In my mind, the real reason he's a "problem" at all is due to the fact that he has a combo that can do 30-40% (or more) of your HP, and has several options to block YOUR 30-40% HP combo. In my mind, the entire problem here is the fact that everyone and their mother has an extremely high damage ability or combo, and so that means one invuln can block 30-40% of your HP. That's why invuln stacking is so effective. He only needs 4 slots to actually kill you, the rest is to survive getting half healthed himself. Not to mention he's just a REALLY good verber.

Edit: Was still writing when GSM made their post, but honestly I agree completely with their points. I've seen a lot of really bad shit said about Xarxes recently purely because he's a strong character that also happens to be an antagonist. What he's doing is both only possible because of a large variety of factors, and even if what he was doing wasn't available to him, he would likely find a way to still make people whine. He's just that good.

[PfizerPfish]

I’d also like to point out that even though Xarxes runs 4 invulns, he isn’t one of the main offenders of the invuln stacking problem, per se. Yes, he runs 4 invulns, but his gameplan isn’t to stall you out and outlast you for 10 minutes while healstacking; all of his invulns if chained together don’t last as long as the fucking Summoner invuln at 10 seconds.

He blows you up. And he is damn good with his bar. The tournament proved that, even when literally gimped from 30 RPP and having some of the power he’s been accruing for months OOCly being taken away, he knows his bar better than 90% of most players know theirs.

And if he is only limited to one invuln, his build will be forced to get more aggressive, because if he messes up even slightly, he explodes. Xarxes has 12 perms, has been around for more than nearly every other character currently active with exceptions being in the low single digits, and has earned every single inch of power he’s gotten, but every time he displays how good he is mechanically with what he has been given, he is consistently thrown under the bus.

Every single time I’ve been with this guy and he is allowed to do something, without fail, people bitch about it. He’s a co-lead for my faction, yet he wasn’t allowed to participate in defensive raids twice in a row because of how strong he was. And if he doesn’t run invulns, you will be quickly reminded that the damage output in a usual RPB is so obscenely fucking high that running an invuln is basically necessary at this point.

Also- why would you ever namedrop Death’s Door in a balance sense? That costs 300 Undeath that took months to accrue. He worked for it, and it isn’t even an actual invuln.

Idk, I’m just tired of Xarxes being named and shamed like he’s some great threat to the balance of everything. Probably incoherent, I just woke up.

Xarxes as a character is so strong that he can openly walk into enemy territory knowing that there won't be anyone able to do anything about it. He's done that the last two days, as a matter of fact. It's common sense that a character of that power would be denied permission to partake in a defensive raid, because he's quite literally a guaranteed +1 to your side. That isn't fun for anyone but the side that claims him. Furthermore, as someone who came very close to beating him in the tournament when he was arguably at his weakest, I can confidently say that the problem that people see with his build are the several invulnerabilities that he runs.

You mentioned that he has perms, or that he's very squishy and can be blown up easily, and that may be true! However, the fact that he has the bar that he has completely negates the IC consequences of bearing those injuries, making them irrelevant in this conversation. His build is very, very oppressing because he can dish out his incredible damage, and then kite you using invulns and move speed, and then repeat another high damage combo.

He doesn't need to outlast you, because he'll obliterate you in two, maybe three rotations at most. My character had 250 vit when fighting a nerfed Xarxes, and while the battle was really fun, it doesn't take away from the fact that he would've lost if he didn't have 2-3 invulnerabilities to cycle through. And P.S... you can't say that Summoning invul lasts longer than his combined invulns as a valid argumentative point, because Xarxes will likely never have to chain them one after the other. He can use an invuln, kite, use another one, and who knows? By that point, his rotation might be back up with an invul to spare.

He's a great guy, and he plays his character well, but to not mention him as the pinnacle of invuln abuse screams of bias.

[uncatastrophic]

characters with sigs (sometimes multiple sigs) are not exactly the most normal measure of game balance

[Mald]

And if he is only limited to one invuln, his build will be forced to get more aggressive, because if he messes up even slightly, he explodes. Xarxes has 12 perms, has been around for more than nearly every other character currently active with exceptions being in the low single digits, and has earned every single inch of power he’s gotten, but every time he displays how good he is mechanically with what he has been given, he is consistently thrown under the bus.

I'm too lazy to go to the specific spot I want to respond to, but hearing the mechanically good with what he built thing really brought something up into my mind. This is probably going to be a hot-take of sorts.

A lot of people lose to certain people who are just good verbers and aren't completely build carried, and they end up getting mad about losing and complain about the trees that the good verber is using rather then just giving the verber their props for just being good and knowing how to use their build/ play around people that 'counter' them. Sometimes they fight people with 20+ levels on them and like 1-2 sigs over them with straight uniques and wonder why they lost and got destroyed  2-0 with 60% hp each round.

Most fights later on at around 220 rpl end up being close fights that solely depend on how well the users time/land their skills no matter what build, with few exceptions. Most of the people that make it to 220 have a really good understanding of their build.

This is how I feel about some of the balance complaints i've been seeing. Sometimes it feels like a "I lost to my op so they need to be nerfed." more then a "X is negative for the current state of the game and should be nerfed."

Rant aside-

Right now, the Skarnfel Antags are currently lacking, and Xarxes isn't even that active when out patrolling nor does he really do anything crazy aside from when he participates in public events, a right that all players share. Now I would be delusional if I said I thought he was beatable(I did get close to taking a round off of him like once or twice), but with the way he is narratively in my eyes, he's someone that shouldn't be, he's literally a peak E4 character just like Jokul and the imperfects. I feel like he'd needs a chainverb or a jokul 2.0 to reasonably take him down.

Would be lame if some random 15-16 year old pulled up and killed Xarxes who has been hyped up to be as dangerous as lyseroth IC at times (yes he has you cant tell me he hasn't)

Xarxes is an outlier in the invul argument, and he's also apart of the good verber/peak e4 character thing.  I feel like the invul issues are more directed to the sustain/dr builds that cycle 8k+ healing rotation while being invul for most of it.

Without the sigs/Aether/Gear aka a normal Fae, he wouldn't be scary or at least as scary, and if you give xarxes build without those to another player I doubt they'd find immediate success.

Nerf Cinderella

[PfizerPfish]

characters with sigs (sometimes multiple sigs) are not exactly the most normal measure of game balance

It's difficult to neglect those characters in a conversation about game balance when they oft are the most influential individuals in the game. No character, regardless of their talent and efforts, should be unbeatable.

[Cloutio2x]

This is so unserious lol… I’m in the camp of having more than one invulnerability is kinda weird, but fuck that shit. Lower power smash cd. It had its damage lowered and the cd should be reduced to balance that. Do I expect this change? No. Do I care? Not really. I just see a lot of people looking and I need the balance gods to throw a nigga a bone (I forget if I’m allowed to say that in the ooc threads anymore)

[Eulogy]

can "he only has 4 invulns" really be read with a straight face like get real