Age of Conan

I've heard a lot of people complaining about the power / duration of roots in the game.
Do you think they need a balance pass?
Funcom does have a history of excessively long roots (some are 20 minutes long in AO).

You mean AO snares, not roots, right?

Stun spells are a must for casters, as long as they are well balanced and fair. Duration doesn't matter if the spell is broken the moment the player is struck like in UO. I think this, with a 20 second duration without being struck, is the best way to go. It gives the caster time to either flee the best they can or to think things through. I also believe that there must be at least a 20 second time limit between stun spell casts.

long debuffs do have one upside, they give the players more time to break free or call for help

now although because aoc follows basic pvp rules, not allowing certain classes to break roots could be overkill since those people besides melee (roots caster shouldnt melee a rooted guy tho) and ranged would have no way to defend themselves or break free, however, this does present another awesome bonus, player/player cooperation! if that guy can dispell roots, or this barbarian can break roots, then say a caster who cant break roots without his wand in hand, would need some help getting out of them and could give players a reason to travel together, just an idea

A dev responded to this in a thread during pvp weekend. The problem is that it was a lvl 20 only field. Alot of the classes balance out better at higher levels. Things like the melee classes gettings bows, diffrent class sprints etc. 

The longer root of the demo was an issue, because it was enough time for any demo to kill any other character, that wasnt able to out range dps him once it was caught ONE on ONE. Thing is, its a team game, and the people complaining, were generally those who were fighting the demo 1v1, or when the demo had a partner. If people played as a demo, they would see that once they get in close combat, they are dead, or must run. Running is hard since when you get hit, your run speed debuffs, and alot of other classes have slows and things. Also it has a 25 second cool down, and once someone has been rooted, they gain root immunity for 1 minute after it ends, assuming they don't die while rooted.

Things that counters roots:

1.Stealthing close, then meleeing so that no spells can be cast. Demo with even level, maxed out detection I found to rarely be able to find any other class that was stealthed while using search, even if they were right behind me. But can use a directional mouse placed AoE to force stealther to uncloak. But the placed AoE took 2.5 seconds to cast, leaves you vulnerable if your wrong on where you place it, uses lot of mana.

2. Stay out out of line of sight until close enough to sprint, or use one of the chase skills. The problem with this is that those skills suck stamina, which leave the fighters unable to attack as well. This is an issue of balance for them. Many complained about it, and it should not take ALL stamina, something more like half, or a quarter of max.

3. Out dps the root caster. Rangers do it well, casters can do it well if they land a crit.

4. Root him back!

5. Have teammates! Don't complain when you get killed 1 on 1, when your in a game with 5 team mates, and your out on your own. This is how I got 40+ of my root kills.

I just say its far too early to be asking for balance, when alot of people haven't even gone too far in the game, haven't seen the later skills, and a few cry because they think they should be able to kill anyone, anytime on their own.

Originally posted by Xasapis

You mean AO snares, not roots, right?

well, really there was little difference at the high end of play. a 20minute snare with a -1650 runspeed was effectively a root, unless you were a fixer with over 2k runspeed.

 And to clarify, I'm not asking for balance personally, I was just curious what the community thinks so far.

I am surpised that there are roots..

Its been a while, but there was a game where casters used their magic to deflect physical damage with a casted force field and the melees had the ability to deflect magic with their wepaons. LOL, for some reasons i thought AoC would go a similar way :) My fault, i really got stuck on that idea. Probably because i am going thepriest of  mitra way. Repulses for the win :D

It seemed to me the recast time on a lot of 'em relegated them to panic buttons moreso than something used to start each fight. Actually somewhere in-between. 

The durations on some of them DID seem excessively long, but all and all I believe the recast time inhibits them enough right now.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

 

Originally posted by Xasapis

You mean AO snares, not roots, right?

well, really there was little difference at the high end of play. a 20minute snare with a -1650 runspeed was effectively a root, unless you were a fixer with over 2k runspeed.

 

 And to clarify, I'm not asking for balance personally, I was just curious what the community thinks so far.

dude that animated Sig is creepy as hell i love it. what is it of?? just madly curious lol creeps the crap out of me lol.