Heretic/mystic/rogue balancing

[zaza945]

Currently the mix of heretic/mystic/rogues in a KD is most commonly 2-3 Mystics, 3+ heretics, <2 rogues, where the Mystics are necessary, heretics are OP, and rogues are mostly useless. I think the "TM" personalities should be balanced for more variance between kd set ups.

Some suggestions that keep heretic basically the same with the goal of making rogue a viable personality in kd strat and mystic something other than solely used for MS/chast.

Buff Rogue with one or multiple of these ideas:
(A) unaffected by enemy provs WTs and/or CS
(B) Crime scientists are either instant professors or progress 2/3X faster
(C) increase damage significantly of GA, AW, prop
(D) all ops (or only successful) use 2% stealth

Buff mystic with or or multiple of these ideas:
(A) Move MS to Faery, move all racial spells bonus to mystic from faery
(B) channeling scientists are either instant professors or progress 2/3X faster

Overall I like heretic, but would like to see more variation in strats on rogue/mystic and think these would help.

[Tracer]

It's obvious that these three personalities need some balancing (along with halfling, whos nerf inadvertently hurt rogues).

What if it was easier to generate wizards outside of war, like the old science system, where you could chose to invest a lot of money into it to generate more wizards per tick, but make it expensive to generate them during war or just limit production. At the same time, make assassinate wizards much stronger, like have them kill 1% of total thieves or some flat amount based on some other factor.

It would be a good improvement to both roles imo. Less downtime between wars for mystics, and rogue being an attractive prospect again, instead of just having kds load up on heretics.

[MaximII]

I'll just be happy if we go an age where a certain someone doesnt hate on TM's in general.

[Persain]

(A) Move MS to Faery, move all racial spells bonus to mystic from faery

bad zaza u should know better. Feary rogue becomes way to strong. prop+aw+ms is just way to strong to have on 1 prov

Personally i'd just make prop target-able and boom. Balanced. Rogue can boost def, remove/boost wpa, or remove leets as needed :D

[zaza945]

bad zaza u should know better. Feary rogue becomes way to strong. prop+aw+ms is just way to strong to have on 1 prov

Personally i'd just make prop target-able and boom. Balanced. Rogue can boost def, remove/boost wpa, or remove leets as needed :D

Pft :p

Faery rogue would be strong, but no wpa buff it could ms attackers OK but it losses all racial spells, I don't think it'd be that OP.

Prop target-able is another option that could work, but the randomness of prop does make it unique and fun ;)

[Oswald]

perhaps give Rogue +100% Thievery operation damage and make Propaganda hit troops home and away.

[jmiedema]

Really there is only 1 thing that is needed to balance Mystic/Heretic/Rogue, make Rogue viable again. Heretic and Mystic were only strong this age because they didn't need to worry about rogues, so for instance they could run TD's without Watchtowers and get away with it. If Rogues are as strong as they usually are, they have to be respected, and that moves 10-15% land on Heretics and Mystics to be Watchtowers instead of thieves dens. This in turn lowers their TPA and increases thief losses (granted not much change to heretic). It also allows rogues to do propaganda runs and GA/AW runs more than 24h into the war. This age a rogue would lose 1-2 raw TPA in one average Prop/AW/GA run.. that isn't viable. They need more loss prevention to run Prop/AW/GA.

All that this needs is Double Dens bonus to move from Halfling back to Rogue.

*poof* Balanced.

If I were really nitpicky at what else I think needs to change, I think that the amount of honour you get from successful magic ops and successful thief ops needs to be a bit closer. Getting 3-4 Honour for a NS/prop/AW (and for some reason up to 4-5 for a successful rob the towers) is not balance with Mages getting 20-40 honour on successful MS/LL, etc, especially seeing as there are more auto-fail issues with Thievery compared to magic.

I think slightly increasing honour on Propaganda, AW, GA (rogue only ops) (maybe 33% more honour per op) would be good, alongside 33% less honour gained on all Magic ops.

[zaza945]

Really there is only 1 thing that is needed to balance Mystic/Heretic/Rogue, make Rogue viable again. Heretic and Mystic were only strong this age because they didn't need to worry about rogues, so for instance they could run TD's without Watchtowers and get away with it. If Rogues are as strong as they usually are, they have to be respected, and that moves 10-15% land on Heretics and Mystics to be Watchtowers instead of thieves dens. This in turn lowers their TPA and increases thief losses (granted not much change to heretic). It also allows rogues to do propaganda runs and GA/AW runs more than 24h into the war. This age a rogue would lose 1-2 raw TPA in one average Prop/AW/GA run.. that isn't viable. They need more loss prevention to run Prop/AW/GA.

All that this needs is Double Dens bonus to move from Halfling back to Rogue.

*poof* Balanced.

If I were really nitpicky at what else I think needs to change, I think that the amount of honour you get from successful magic ops and successful thief ops needs to be a bit closer. Getting 3-4 Honour for a NS/prop/AW (and for some reason up to 4-5 for a successful rob the towers) is not balance with Mages getting 20-40 honour on successful MS/LL, etc, especially seeing as there are more auto-fail issues with Thievery compared to magic.

I think slightly increasing honour on Propaganda, AW, GA (rogue only ops) (maybe 33% more honour per op) would be good, alongside 33% less honour gained on all Magic ops.

I disagree, bringing double dens back by itself would make rogues a little more competitive, but with heretic having 0 losses on fails and +tpa, it's basically a similar buff that heretic already has. If you bring back the double dens and buff prop, then it could make them more viable. Or, move 0 losses on fails from heretic to rogue, but that is a bit too strong on prop/aw/ga.

[Alaska]

Really there is only 1 thing that is needed to balance Mystic/Heretic/Rogue, make Rogue viable again. Heretic and Mystic were only strong this age because they didn't need to worry about rogues, so for instance they could run TD's without Watchtowers and get away with it. If Rogues are as strong as they usually are, they have to be respected, and that moves 10-15% land on Heretics and Mystics to be Watchtowers instead of thieves dens. This in turn lowers their TPA and increases thief losses (granted not much change to heretic). It also allows rogues to do propaganda runs and GA/AW runs more than 24h into the war. This age a rogue would lose 1-2 raw TPA in one average Prop/AW/GA run.. that isn't viable. They need more loss prevention to run Prop/AW/GA.

All that this needs is Double Dens bonus to move from Halfling back to Rogue.

*poof* Balanced.

This.

[Bo To]

All that this needs is Double Dens bonus to move from Halfling back to Rogue.
*poof* Balanced.

Actually it's not. Last couple of ages rogues were extremely strong because they had double tds. What would be balance is -50% thief cost and tog. That way they can sustain tpa not by mechanic bonuses but by prov management.

[zaza945]

Imo the issue is a lot more complicated than rogues being weak due to not having double dens.. Heretic is currently so strong for many reasons, my suggestions were an attempt to build on this age's changes rather than nerf them. Heretic, especially elf heretic, has some many synergies with rest of age changes, ie sapphire dragons being basically useless, new science allowing you to max channeling so early (and heavy attackers maxing ME so early at cost of channeling), elf having +wpa stacking with heretic ect

In order for rogue and mystic to be as useful to heretic it needs significant buffs so mystic isn't a 2-3 mystic "by default" and rogue a sub optimal pick.

[jmiedema]

Actually it's not. Last couple of ages rogues were extremely strong because they had double tds. What would be balance is -50% thief cost and tog. That way they can sustain tpa not by mechanic bonuses but by prov management.

Thief cost and ToG doesnt solve anything. Almost no T/M has the ability to use gc early to mid war for training, and usually early on don't have the pezzie base to make new nerfed ToG worth it. T/M gc goes towards dragons and attacker wages and aiding attackers gc for buildings if they were deep chained. GC goes there almost exclusively, and T/M's doing otherwise are usually considered selfish for training their own prov over the kingdom gc needs. So if a rogue does an average success GA/AW/Prop run similar to this age, and loses 1.5-2 raw TPA just through losses.. it will take a lot of gc and TIME to replenish that to remain viable for mid-war.. What they need is to have - thief losses, and I think the only way to balance that with Propaganda is to have it tied to TD's/Building Efficiency, most decent rogues are starting a war at 70-80%, so even with Maxxed TD's they have quite a few losses, like an unsustainable amount. Once it gets to later war, and their BE rises the losses get lower, making it more sustainable.

If you are worried about it, we can play with how much TD bonus it is.. maybe instead of double dens it is 175% efficiency dens or 150% efficiency dens.

The answer can never be "let make thieves more trainable". The only way i could possible see that work is if thieves were trainable via spec credits, but even then it only works for attacker hybrid rogues because T/M rogues don't hit provinces in-range enough for solid credits.


This question of purchasability vs sustainability is not a new concept.. it has been around for attackers for a while. There is a reason why attacker provinces run hospitals in war instead of banks/Armouries, retraining takes time and it takes money.. both commodities that are not very available mid-war. The only way retraining ability works in in wars that go 5+ days.. which is not a very high % of wars.. This is why undeads are so good every age, and clerics are always a good choice. asset (troops/thieves/wizards) sustainability is king when it comes to average war lengths.

@Zaza - Rogue losses vs heretic losses isn't an issue. The reason the balance works is because Rogues get "more losses" but have more damaging ops, and ability to get thieves via Propaganda. Heretics only use large thief amounts for a select few ops. Rogues use them for most of the ops they do, so in order to have it balanced, rogue can never have something like -100% thief losses. They need it tied to a building and/or BE so it can be balanced (and so it is open to counterplay, such as a mystic Tornadoing to lower TD % )

TL;DR - I still stand by increasing Thief Den Efficiency on Rogue, even if it means not being full "Double Dens".

[Bo To]

As I said - prov management. You don't start a war with 2-3 peasants/acre and you don't fund 15M dragon with the income of 5 provs.

This age my KD has won 4/5 wars and we haven't sent even one dragon. The cost is too high even to fund it with stocked gold at the beginning.

Attackers sustain army hard because they don't have the wpa to protect their peasants. A rogue should have decent mod wpa to protect his peasants and thus his income.

[jmiedema]

As I said - prov management. You don't start a war with 2-3 peasants/acre and you don't fund 15M dragon with the income of 5 provs.

This age my KD has won 4/5 wars and we haven't sent even one dragon. The cost is too high even to fund it with stocked gold at the beginning.

Attackers sustain army hard because they don't have the wpa to protect their peasants. A rogue should have decent mod wpa to protect his peasants and thus his income.

I do understand prov management and T/M Management, as I am in leadership in one of the more renowned warring kingdoms on the server (Freeakstyle), most of the time managing T/M operations (In a kingdom pretty widely known for their use of, and dominance with, a Faery Wall/TM Core).

"You don't start a war with 2-3 peasants/acre"
You're right, more like 0.5-1 with 115% overpop

"you don't fund 15M dragon with the income of 5 provs"
You're right, we fund substantially more than that with 5 provs, and provide 15-20 provs with wages to attack every 12h and provide chained provs with hundreds of thousands of gc so they can build all their incoming acres so they release less. Even when we had halflings (a race that traditionally has had 250gc thieves) you usually don't have financial liberty to train thieves until at least 2 days into the war, and with training time that is at least 2.5 days until you can see those affects. If a Rogue (Age 69) uses all their stealth during that period they are down 2.5-4 raw TPA in that time, and their op success rate has plummeted, opening them up even to be op'd by heretics.

250gc thieves has rarely been used as a bonus that has a large direct benefit IN WAR. It has always been a war preparation/Econ bonus more than anything. Thieves are already 350gc in EowCF so I really don't see $250 gc thieves and ToG making Rogues good. Not to mention that to add those onto Rogue you would have to remove something. I would imagine if your suggestion is used, that Rogue would be substantially more trash then it already is this age.


"Attackers sustain army hard because they don't have the wpa to protect their peasants."
Attackers sustain army because they know keeping high military numbers (particularly offense) helps keep you relevant day 3-5 into the war (where most wars end). A rogue doesn't have the wpa to protect their peasants either against a decent dedicated mage or heaven forbid a chained attacker with massive wpa...

"This age my KD has won 4/5 wars and we haven't sent even one dragon. The cost is too high even to fund it with stocked gold at the beginning"
We won 4/4 wars and funded many dragons, and funded many wages, and funded many buildings for attackers, and military for chained attackers. All things that are usually more relevant in a war then dedicating gc for T/M thieves. If you change Rogues to be a "repurchasability" based balance, they will be dead for sure. No decent kingdom will run them. It will be much the same as this age where it pertains to T/M Personality balance.

[JohnnyReid]

jmiedema speaketh truth!