feels like thorn and riposte is too strong

[orhalimi 0]

It seems that you will always make more dmg then the enemy (or the same dmg at enemy crit) with thorn + Riposte, and with accuracy the enemy counter himself.
You will also get half damage and its not cost much compare to all these benefits.

it worth to parry+Riposte with thorn all day, more then attacking.
I think changes need to be made. I suggest one or more options:

1. Nerf the thorn by removing the true dmg or sub it a bit (probably wont happen because a lot of players have it and that's what make thorns unique)

2. Give bit more options to deal with thorn. Like the need to pass 9 with accuracy to not get hit by it. or every time the players hit by it there is a higher chance that he wont get hit next time until he avoided it, then this parameter reset again.

3. make the Riposte not be able to return 50% dmg all the time, every turn.  Bit Cooldown or up the SP a bit. 

4. Thorn work different with Riposte (???).

Just want to hear your opinion about it.
Maybe its only my feeling, but a lot of players told me that's the way to go and that they found themselves dealing more and taking less damage with this combo.

too late sorry for the messy post.
Peace,

[Baldur 0]

You are very perceptive. The current forms of Parry (in all variants) and thorns are extremely broken. It's best not to look at the man behind the curtain and just build something you're going to enjoy role-playing :)

[orhalimi 0]

I understand that, but if I want to battle other players it forcing me to use this in order to reach the same level. I don't want to use thorns or heavy armour, so its mean I will never have a chance against these guys.

If no one want to touch it right now, give other valuable options is the way to go. 

[Nikodemus_Blackwood 1]

With those enhancements, yes they are OP. But some work is being made to adjust them. I know I rely on heavy armor and Thorns abit, but as a low level player, that is my best advantage. I can tank some damage because of high MIT, and then if the enemy doesn't roll a Crit, I get to throw damage back at it and hurt it so those behind me have a chance to swing in and take them down with little to no risk of being hurt.

 

But given time, they will probably be re-worked. there has been some murmurs of reworking some things here and there lately including: Rapier sword arts, Thorns, Parry/Riposte, and some other things.

[Takao 0]

Thorns, riposte, and even regen are vastly superior to their opposing build, and the forum mechanics are definitely built in favour of tank characters. When I was on staff, I suggested that parry require a successful BD roll to activate, but that idea was shot down. If you put 115 SP into maximum damage, which would be Rank 5 Dagger, Rank 5 Charge, and we'll say Rank 5 Ferocity for dagger in place of athletics, which would require 32 more SP, and you went up against somebody whose only skills were Parry and Vengeful Riposte (20 SP total), you would lose, and since I like doing theoretical math, here's why:

Attacking Build:
Level 34
34 Energy
136 HP
R5 Dagger
R5 Charge
Ferocity - R5
115 SP Total

+6 Damage Weapon
+36 MIT/+1 Evasion
+1 Accuracy/+2 Evasion

Defending Build:
Level 34
34 Energy
136 HP
Parry
Vengeful Riposte
20 SP Total, 95 SP remaining for whatever they want. Could even be more mitigation.

+6 Damage Weapon
+54 MIT
+14 Thorns/+18 Regen

Attacking Player deals 304(19*16) raw damage. Defending player is parrying. 152 raw damage is mitigated, then 54 more, and for the sake of proving a point we'll say regen activates too because its a 50% chance. The defending player is dealt 80 damage, and is left with 56 HP and 32 Energy.

The attacking player is dealt 152 raw damage, mitigated by 36 to reduced to 116, and then 14 thorns is added. So the attacking player takes 130 damage. They're left with 6 HP and 18 energy.

So the attacking player spends more SP and more energy to deal less damage and take more damage than the defending player, who spends less energy and less SP to do more damage and take less damage. In fact, if the defending player in this scenario replaced their regen with thorns, the attacking player would actually be dead.

My solution would be to remove riposte entirely, because its only causing problems with balancing, and to make parry a ranked skill. Starting at 0%, every rank into parry lets the user mitigate 10% of incoming damage. At Rank 5 it'd be 50%. Given the nature of an infinitely scaling skill that is already more useful than armour skill mitigation, I think that'd be fair.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Takao

[Baldur 0]

I dunno, even with that option you'll always mitigate more damage by using parry that someone who spent every SP point into mitigation. So Parry will always be the most effective SP use for building a defensive character. Thankfully doing a Parry-Riposte combo requires you to use your post action, but currently as you showed they're doing more damage that way than if they had attacked. If somehow parry-riposte didn't take a post action, it would be the most game breaking bug i've ever seen. So getting rid of the riposte (and probably the stun variant) would mean that you're actually making a choice to parry, and sacrificing an attack for survivability.

Thorns has always bothered me as a concent. It's a common mechanic, but as described feels very un-SAO like, and it being unmitigated is okay when the damage values are low, but tier 2 and thorns begins to do more damage than an attack from your weapon, and it never misses, and it's unmitigated, so it's completely unbalanced in its current form.

[orhalimi 0]

I tend to agree with Baldur. Parry shouldn't be a rank skill because you are using your SP and your turn to survive, and I like the fact that you have more choices then just attack ( I will also want to see protecting friend and pre-action in the future). Also parry is not the problem here, and make it harder won't solve the balance issue (thorne...). 
I tend to agree that thorn is not so SAO thematically, but since a lot of people got thorne I can see the problem of removing it right now. I would prefer it will be an extra effect (that doesn't require slot) that deal very low hp, but I believe that without riposte the attacker will have more chance (Takao?)

Takao thanks for the info, it's worse than I thought. Maybe it's time to flood it up?

@Mack @Tristan Delaney
Can you comment on this post? Are you planning to work on it in the future?

Edited April 2, 2016 by orhalimi

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Riposte adjustment is in the works in a patch that's WIP for several changes. Basically VR will be reduced in power.

Thorns is conditional (non crit hit) and I interpret it as instead of mitigating/regenerating the damage, you send it back, though with the recent nerf to it, is in fact lesser version of that.

The reason from recent the defensive enhancements were buffed (but the armor and block skill nerfed) is because unlike damage, they scaled horribly from amazing early game to awful end game. Thus they got changed to be somewhat more flat. Defensive stuff is still inherently a tad better early game due to people at that point lacking R5 weapon and such, but it's at least less of a crazy curve.

[orhalimi 0]

Thanks for the answer Tristan. Riposte adjustment sound great.

For me the problem is not with the thorn, the problem is that I don't see any other good light armour alternative because I don't think evasion can be compared to it.
But the most annoying thing in thorn for me is that if I will take accuracy enchantment I feel like countering myself, because I have more chance to get hit by it T_T 

[Ssendom 0]

Does Dom need to crash test more thoeries?

[Opal 0]

That would depend on your build, Or. Normally tanks take Thorns because they use howl to attract the enemies, so it only makes sense they get hit with those thorns by the tank. If you are not tanking, and not in a solo group, you should be focusing on Accuracy so you can consistently hit your target which is the job of the DPS build. In a party I usually use 2 types of accessories along with my weapon, if you plan on soloing, you might want to pick up those thorns or attempt an Evasion build so you will get hit less often. There are choices out there, some work better than others though.