Merian

by Malicia

Back to Common Grounds.

Malicia2009-01-05 07:39:59
Okay. Racial changes have come and gone. Hopefully not. It left things quite wrecked, if you ask me. First off, Viscanti came out big. HELP VISCANTI doesn't lie. Merian remain with glaring level 2 penalties. Elemental runes are cheaper, so it's fiery, lighty pain at every turn. Elfen Lords remain amazing, without any drawbacks. I propose that we remove the merian penalties at the least, as the hope that races will be re-worked anytime soon curls up and dies.

You know races are broken when there are more human chars than any other race. And of course, plenty of specialized viscanti and elfen. Not sure about shadow faelings, nor do I care about them at 2am.

Thanks for reading!
Lorina2009-01-05 07:46:47
Hehe, why do you think I switched from Merian to Human? Squishy little buggers.
Malicia2009-01-05 07:47:28
Same reason why most other merian players went human or other.
Nydekion2009-01-05 07:49:46
I have noticed that merian combatants/serious players have steadily declined since the flattening to stats. Merians really leaned heavily on their int to offset their significant weaknesses. Without the damage, they've really ended up just being a backburner non-viable rp race.
Lorina2009-01-05 07:52:54
Well, I could see lessening the weaknesses. They hurt a lot with what little con they had.
Nydekion2009-01-05 07:55:41
Another possibility that moves along the same line as the concept behind merian is to give them a racial ability that cuts through resistances to a certain degree. Maybe they could hit as if their target had 20% less resist than they actually do?
Unknown2009-01-05 08:43:08
Desitrus made a post on envoys news mentioning that resistances/weaknesses weren't also halved (as they should have), and if that were fixed, it'd certainly help this particular problem a lot.
Celina2009-01-05 08:48:37
You have to keep in mind that Merians have tremendous int so their bard/mage specs are pretty awesome damage wise. With that in mind, I say lower the weaknesses to level 1.
Desitrus2009-01-05 09:00:41
QUOTE (Celina @ Jan 5 2009, 02:48 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
You have to keep in mind that Merians have tremendous int so their bard/mage specs are pretty awesome damage wise. With that in mind, I say lower the weaknesses to level 1.


Terrible actually, yes I did have 22 int, yes staff damage did increase by 80. In Deluge. With fire stripped.

For reference:

CODE
Human

Aqua Transfer Desitrus
  Strength     : 15   Dexterity : 17  Constitution : 17
  Intelligence : 20   Size      : 13  Charisma     : 16

Health : 8949/7458     Endurance : 27565/28175     Power    : 10p       |
| Mana   : 8910/7662     Willpower : 32720/32720     Reserves : 98%       |
| Ego    : 7594/6329     Mindset   : Cautious        Esteem   : 17%    

With Twirl, life blessing, con platter, life rune.

Staff in Deluge against fire pot having Human with trans resilience: 1400 when target isn't surged (8.5k+ hp), 1700 when they were

Exact against Nydekion unsurged: 1480

Merian

Aqua Transfer Desitrus
  Strength     : 11   Dexterity : 12  Constitution : 13
  Intelligence : 22   Size      : 13  Charisma     : 18

| Health : 7189/5991     Endurance : 22115/22115     Power    : 10p       |
| Mana   : 9594/8329     Willpower : 35750/35750     Reserves : 98%       |
| Ego    : 8395/6996     Mindset   : Cautious        Esteem   : 17%       |

Same bonuses, 20% extra damage and 2000 less hp, lawl.

Exact against Nydekion unsurged: 1573


So yeah. I can take piles more damage with way less hp in exchange for 90sh damage. Sign me up.

Oh and the eq was about 4.6 vs 4.3, really awful.

Edit: Oh another fun fact by the way, mage damage scales to hp incredibly well, UNLIKE warrior damage. I only staff Mariello with 3336 hp for 880 or so.

Edit2: My guess would be that warrior damage doesn't "scale" as it should for using one-handed weapons, because whatever scaling happens is applied per hand. Either way, Imperial Merian/Mugwump, awfulbad.
Unknown2009-01-05 09:00:53
QUOTE (Celina @ Jan 5 2009, 03:48 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
You have to keep in mind that Merians have tremendous int so their bard/mage specs are pretty awesome damage wise. With that in mind, I say lower the weaknesses to level 1.


Their low con was balanced by this 'tremendous int', but as Malicia said, when stats got flattened races which relied on one stat being very high (Merian), they lost part of what was making the low con worth it. They lost some of their benefit but retained the weakness they were suffering to have it. Also staff got nerfed.

In a Lusternia world that seems to be geared more and more towards being able to tank damage, being a Merian or a Mugwump just is not worth it, with the low cons and high weaknesses.

I would also like to point out that Imperial Merian is a completely worthless spec for a Guardian. Celestines are about two things: either being fast, or being able to tank long enough to pull off a kill. Int is relatively meaningless to a celestine, combat wise.

In fact I have no idea why mage and guardian share the same race specs. They are not about the same thing at all. Guardian should have a seperate spec that does not boost int, but rather gives them a better equilibrium bonus and more con.
Nydekion2009-01-05 09:27:00
Given the testing, it seems merian need a lot more than just a reduction in vulns to level 1. Either that or something should be done to make high racial intelligence worthwhile to have in a combat race.
Celina2009-01-05 10:12:27
QUOTE (Desitrus @ Jan 5 2009, 04:00 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Terrible actually, yes I did have 22 int, yes staff damage did increase by 80. In Deluge. With fire stripped.

For reference:

CODE
Human

Aqua Transfer Desitrus
  Strength     : 15   Dexterity : 17  Constitution : 17
  Intelligence : 20   Size      : 13  Charisma     : 16

Health : 8949/7458     Endurance : 27565/28175     Power    : 10p       |
| Mana   : 8910/7662     Willpower : 32720/32720     Reserves : 98%       |
| Ego    : 7594/6329     Mindset   : Cautious        Esteem   : 17%    

With Twirl, life blessing, con platter, life rune.

Staff in Deluge against fire pot having Human with trans resilience: 1400 when target isn't surged (8.5k+ hp), 1700 when they were

Exact against Nydekion unsurged: 1480

Merian

Aqua Transfer Desitrus
  Strength     : 11   Dexterity : 12  Constitution : 13
  Intelligence : 22   Size      : 13  Charisma     : 18

| Health : 7189/5991     Endurance : 22115/22115     Power    : 10p       |
| Mana   : 9594/8329     Willpower : 35750/35750     Reserves : 98%       |
| Ego    : 8395/6996     Mindset   : Cautious        Esteem   : 17%       |

Same bonuses, 20% extra damage and 2000 less hp, lawl.

Exact against Nydekion unsurged: 1573


So yeah. I can take piles more damage with way less hp in exchange for 90sh damage. Sign me up.

Oh and the eq was about 4.6 vs 4.3, really awful.

Edit: Oh another fun fact by the way, mage damage scales to hp incredibly well, UNLIKE warrior damage. I only staff Mariello with 3336 hp for 880 or so.

Edit2: My guess would be that warrior damage doesn't "scale" as it should for using one-handed weapons, because whatever scaling happens is applied per hand. Either way, Imperial Merian/Mugwump, awfulbad.


While I'm not disagreeing with Merians being pretty crappy, your testing is a bit misleading. You have to step outside of demi-land. We all know damage scaling lowers drastically after 19 or 20. The difference between 18 merian base and 15 viscanti base, however, is going to be very noticeable.

If level one weakness to both won't work, then at least level one on one element. Warrior/bard spec seem to have pretty decent stats. Viscanti are pretty freaking awesome, but they do have weaknesses (low dex, horrible sip penalty) and they are very noticeable.

Also: better gains for high int would be great.
Krellan2009-01-05 10:46:03
This would also make races that are exclusively viable such as tae'dae even less viable. I wouldn't mind another look at racials really either.
Shryke2009-01-05 11:09:05
Being here distinctly before and after the racial changes I can say with fair confidence that races should probably be looked at. Specifically racial speed and disadvantages.

Most important races to review are unsurprisingly the races who previously paid for their speed in low stats:
Faeling
Merian
Mugwump
Aslaran

An alternate solution that I sort of fancy is curving hp like they did for damage. The problem is this makes racial resistances more important.

As has been demonstrated, system wide revamps only cause new unforseen problems. So we should probably justtweak those four races.
Veyrzhul2009-01-05 14:34:46
Agreed, Imperial Merian is an awful racial spec. As a Celestine, I'd much rather go with Merian Lord.

Also:

QUOTE
Edit: Oh another fun fact by the way, mage damage scales to hp incredibly well, UNLIKE warrior damage. I only staff Mariello with 3336 hp for 880 or so.


I don't understand why damage scaling to hp happens at all. What's the point of having high hps if attacks do more damage to you just because you have those many hps? Might as well have all people have the same hps then.
I'm a tad biased, of course, playing a high con race, but I wouldn't change my view on this if I played a faeling.
Shiri2009-01-05 14:41:50
QUOTE (Veyrzhul @ Jan 5 2009, 02:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I don't understand why damage scaling to hp happens at all. What's the point of having high hps if attacks do more damage to you just because you have those many hps? Might as well have all people have the same hps then.
I'm a tad biased, of course, playing a high con race, but I wouldn't change my view on this if I played a faeling.

Because healing (most noticeably, sipping) is also heavily percentage-based, so without scaling you would either be one-shotting faelings (to make an impact on a warrior) or letting a warrior tank you forever and only have to sip every 4 staffpoints or so (to avoid blasting faelings quicker than it's possible to handle.)
Veyrzhul2009-01-05 15:05:56
QUOTE
Because healing (most noticeably, sipping) is also heavily percentage-based, so without scaling you would either be one-shotting faelings (to make an impact on a warrior) or letting a warrior tank you forever and only have to sip every 4 staffpoints or so (to avoid blasting faelings quicker than it's possible to handle.)


Yes, but scaling is still a weird way to solve this problem. I assume that the scaling isn't done proportionally, so having more hps, even though you take more damage, still lets you take more of a beating. It just seems awkward to have it work that way when you could just lower the hp impact constitution has and remove any scaling of damage to hps at all and thus make things less complicated.
Aison2009-01-05 15:10:36
It would be nice if Merians were a little sturdier. Exchanging some of that int and cha for con would not be out of the question, considering the only decent spec for Merian is paladin, and they have no need of int or cha. Bard/guardian/mage merian specs are insanely horrible. You have to choose human or something else more worthwhile if you're going to be involved in fighting at all, and can't have roleplay and combat prowness with the merian race, which is a huge shame because I know I and others would enjoy roleplaying as Merians.
Shiri2009-01-05 15:12:12
QUOTE (Veyrzhul @ Jan 5 2009, 03:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Yes, but scaling is still a weird way to solve this problem. I assume that the scaling isn't done proportionally, so having more hps, even though you take more damage, still lets you take more of a beating. It just seems awkward to have it work that way when you could just lower the hp impact constitution has and remove any scaling of damage to hps at all and thus make things less complicated.

Maybe! That might be more convincing if you can do some maths for the admins, but I dunno.
Kiradawea2009-01-05 15:13:05
Will furrikin get something beyond nerfs this time around?