Suggestion Class Balance Megathread 2.0

It is time for a balance thread once again! This will include any changes for all classes in the game in anticipation of a second balance update to Annihilation.

Note: I will not be explaining why classes belong in their respective ranks in Annihilation balance here, go to my Tier-list discussion for more information on that. This will solely be used to discuss CHANGES. It is a very long thread, changes are included in blue, and commentary is given in orange.
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Text Tier-list for reference:
SS: Empty
S+: Enchanter / Scout
S: Acrobat / Dasher / Pyro / Thor
A+: Archer / Builder / Immobilizer / Mercenary / Miner / Scorpio / Tinkerer
A: Assassin / Berserker / Defender / Healer / Sniper / Spider / Transporter / Warrior
B+: Alchemist / Iceman / Lumberjack / Spy / Swapper / Wizard
B: Bard / Bloodmage / Handyman / Rift Walker / Robin Hood / Succubus / Vampire
C: Civilian / Engineer / Farmer / Hunter
D: Empty
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Balance Changes:

Acrobat:
"Despite having a great role as being a safe class, the Acrobat has shown too much of an ability to chase as well, even on flat land. The changes that follow are targeted at the double jump ability to dissuade this and make using the double jump a harder decision."

• Double Jump cooldown increased from 10 > 15s
• Double Jump timer added above hotbar, which will display the cooldown.

Alchemist:
"Alchemist has difficulties in taking too much time to brew potions when compared with the boss buff. An extra +3 attack damage just isn't enough to justify use over farming and contesting boss. These changes will allow Alchemist players to get the right ingredients faster, and to prove a viable option for end-game farm."

• Alchemist Tome cooldown decreased from 90 > 70s
• Chance of obtaining Junk Items decreased from 15 > 10%
• Blaze Powder moved to uncommon loot after start of Phase 5.

Archer:
"When compared with other bow classes, the Archer is undoubtedly the best. It has great sustain and extra damage to boot. The amount of safety the spawn bow provides however, can be overwhelming for players to deal with, especially mid-game, where the Archer is intended to fall off. This adjustment to the spawn bow keeps Archer confined to the early-mid game as a sustain class and takes the edge off of its ranged advantage."

• Punch enchantment removed from the spawn bow.

Assassin:
"As a rushing class, it has proven to work in a variety of situations. However, with the amount of counter-play opportunities, the class remains in a good spot."

• No Changes.

Bard:
"Bard got sandwiched by the changes to Healer and Tinkerer in the last update, as the healing given off by Bard is outclassed by Healer, and the buffs it gave to teammates was outclassed by Tinkerer. This rework should define Bard as more of a static buffing class that can play defensively while opening up lots of strategy and team-play."

• Reworked:
  • Each song given by Bard has been upgraded to the second tier of the effect, works for 15 blocks, and now has no cooldown for switching. In exchange, leaving the radius removes the effect from the player. Switching songs or the song ending will also remove the effect. Breaking the Buff Box now has an increased cooldown of 20 seconds, and songs now have a windup time of 2 seconds.

Berserker:
"While very balanced and supportive of many strategies, there is still one quality of life change that would make Berserker players happy."

• Wooden Shovel Added to spawn kit.

Bloodmage:
"Bloodmage is another one of the damaging PvP classes in Annihilation. However, it under-performs for many reasons. The radius of the ability is small and unresponsive, and requires players to be up close. For this rework, Bloodmage will be receiving the Healer treatment, and be given two options when using the Corrupt ability."

• Reworked:
  • Now has a two features. The left-click feature will target all players within 5 blocks of the user, taking away two hearts and giving Wither I for 8 seconds. The right-click feature will now target a single player within 12 blocks. It will grant Wither II and Hunger III for 6 seconds. Both abilities share a cooldown of 45 seconds.

Builder:
"Walls are extremely vital to an Annihilation defense. Currently Builder provides all the tools for making a great defense. Nothing more, nothing less."

• No Changes.

Civilian:
"As the first class people get when starting Annihilation, Civilian is incredibly underwhelming, especially with there being 3 other choices when getting started. The power that Civilian has is a great spawn kit, and these changes add to that as well as allowing new players to get out and explore without any sort of farming or preparation."

• Stone Sword, Stone Shovel, 6 Soulbound Apples, and a Potion of Healing I added to the spawn kit.

Dasher:
"The last changes added to Dasher have successfully brought Dasher into the meta. It has since been performing well. A consistent problem however, is how little the Dasher can be punished for making a mistake with its Blink. These changes will cause Dashers to have to think about when to use their Blink."

• Blinks cooldown increased from 5 > 8s

Defender:
"Guardian's Pearl is a great ability since it allows defender to fight attackers twice, and it scales to late-game decently well. While working against lower-leveled rushers, it is in a perfect spot given the few classes that outclass it later on."

• No Changes.

Enchanter:
"Enchanter has had the highest utility and the quickest progression from early to late-game out of all the classes for the longest time. Furthermore, it is also one of the safest classes despite the dangers of mining in Annihilation. These changes hope to target Enchanter's ability to be safe at all times, and allow for the Intensifier to play a larger role in the use of the kit while adding a skill wall."

• Reworked:
  • Gaining double experience will now occur on a 50% chance as Enchanter. However, the Intensifier ability will add a 50% chance for double experience to yourself and allies around you in a 10 block radius for 15 seconds. Cooldown 60 seconds.
  • Dropping to 2 HP will cause particles to emit from your body and for the next 10 seconds, you will be able to sustain three more hits at the cost of 5 Levels each. If you do not have 5 Levels to spare, the shield will cancel early. Cooldown 60 seconds. You will be able to check the Intensifier for the timer.
  • All other mechanics remain the same.

Engineer:
"Engineers have had a rough ride for the last few years. No longer is the class able to confirm explosions to support a team with enough consistency to be viable over any other rushing or support class. These changes aim to target the overall kit of Engineer and make it better in general."

• Bunker Buster windup time reduced from 7 > 4s
• Bunker Buster explosion radius increased from 5 > 9
• Martyrdom damage increased from 1 > 2

Farmer:
"Farmer is interesting, as the concept is to keep teammates fed providing the Saturation buff to them. Unfortunately, food isn't an issue in Annihilation so these adjustments will help Farmer support teammates better than just giving them their morsels."

• Reworked:
  • Feast will grant Resistance on top of the hunger refill it already has to players within a 6 block radius. This Resistance effect will last 6s after the use of Feast. Cooldown increased to 45 seconds to reflect this.
  • If Feast is used on a player who is missing hunger, then their bellies will fill up, granting them Resistance II for 6s, then as they digest, Resistance I for 6s after the initial duration. This bonus does not apply to the user.
  • Items obtained by destroying crops have been adjusted to a 20% chance to spawn for every full grown crop destroyed.

Handyman:
"Handyman is meant to be a high risk / high reward rushing class. Its Efficiency wooden pickaxe that it spawns with allows for additional nexus damage in a leather rush, but not the ability to farm iron ore to progress. Furthermore, the numbers are not in the favor of Handyman to rush early over Miner, as Miner has a higher amount of damage output than Handyman, while being less RNG reliant to be worth it. These changes seek to fine tune those numbers in Handyman's favor."

• Efficiency level of the spawn pickaxe increased to Efficiency II.
• Nexus Heal chance increased from 20/15/10/7 > 30/24/18/12

Healer:
"Whilst Healer has reached a balanced state in Annihilation with the last update, this small tweak is targeted as a quality of life change to help Healer players find the right players to heal."

• The health of allies will now be displayed when holding the Bloodbag.

Hunter:
"As a kit that doesn't do well killing, supporting, defending, or farming, a change is due to help define the class in a role. This take on Hunter places it on a Support / Defensive role and gives it extra tools to make it more of a threat."

• Reworked:
  • New Trap: Spikes - Does 5 damage points to an enemy player upon activation.
  • New Trap: Poison Darts - Causes 4 points of Poison damage and Hunger III for 4 seconds.
  • Traps can now be resized to fit any combination of blocks within a 3x3 range. Each trap now shows particles for the Hunter to view only. Left-clicking a trap without using the lasso will delete the trap from that specific block. Right-clicking the trap deletes it and reduces the cooldown of that trap by 30 seconds. Duration remains 180s and Cooldown remains 60s for all traps.
  • Spikes, Poison Darts, and Decay now slightly knock players back when activated, effectively slowing their movement and hindering their ability to immediately escape.

Iceman:
"While the Freeze ability adds tons of viability to water-based maps, the Iceman continues to lack power in general combat, as its Slowness passive doesn't work often enough. This change will return a bit of power to the Iceman during combat situations."

• Slowness chance increased from 5 > 15%

Immobilizer:
"Immobilizer has been effective in defense situations and have stalled games very well in many situations. One problem is that the user can stand next to a nexus with very little counter-play available to rushers. This targeted adjustment will force Immobilizers to watch their positioning if they choose to position themselves near a nexus while still giving teammates time to react should a rusher be caught in the Immobilize.

• Mining Fatigue duration decreased from 10 > 2s

Lumberjack:
"Currently the Lumberjack doesn't show promise using its armor shred ability, as it doesn't scale to late-game to counter diamond rushers, and it proves less effective on leathers as they typically are already low by the time their armor has been broken. Furthermore, Lumberjack suffers from not being able to use the sword. These adjustments allow Lumberjack to scale properly, and prove a threat to enemies."

• Reworked:
  • All axes now do +1 damage to all sources to match swords.
  • Armor Shred scaling increased on special tiers of axes. Wood and Stone axes still retain a 20 armor shred when combined with the ability. Iron will upgrade to 25 armor shred (4 hits break leather, 10 hits break iron, and 22 break diamond), and Diamond axes will do 30 armor shred (3 hits break leather, 9 hits break iron, and 18 break diamond).

Mercenary:
"After the many nerfs to the class, it finally has settled into a great spot in Annihilation."

• No Changes.

Miner:
"Annihilation has revolved around Miner for awhile in the early game. Despite this, Miner has become very normal and fair for all teams and progresses the game healthily."

• No Changes.

Pyro:
"As a class that applies tons of pressure, and out-damages most PvP classes, the Pyro sits near the top of the class list. Part of this reason is also for the large amounts of utility revolving around fire. This single change targets the best of these perks that Pyro gets in attempt to tone down the amount of damage it outputs."

• Melee chance to catch enemies on fire reduced from 37 > 20%

Rift Walker:
"Most of the time, this class is shelved in favor for the Transporter, since they do virtually the same job, except Transporter has greater potential and is easier to use. This rework grants Rift Walker an ability that Transporter doesn't have."

• Reworked:
  • Open Rift will work anywhere on the map, except within own nexus boundaries. However, the energy surrounding enemy nexuses are strong, and brings Rifters to the edge of death, bringing each person to half a heart and cuts away five bars of hunger, in addition to the Weakness effect.
  • The Cooldown of Open Rift no longer will be affected by the number of players travelling through. Instead, the cooldown will change depending on the action taken. Rifting to any player on the map outside nexus ranges incurs a 30 second cooldown. Rifting back to base starts a 45 second cooldown. Finally, Rifting to enemy nexuses gives a 60 second cooldown.
  • Now shows whether a player is within nexus distance on Open Rift's menu.
  • Allies attempting to travel through a rift will be warned with the message "Entering a dangerous zone" if the portal is headed to an enemy nexus.

Robin Hood:
"The idea of being able to leave base and farm with kills is a great one, and Robin Hood encapsulates this well after the last adjustment. However, the progression of Robin Hood's bow, especially early on, doesn't allow for survival and usually results in the players death and loss of tier. These changes to the progression of the bow serve as both quality of life changes, and as help for Robin Hood players looking to get started on their farming."

• Reworked Progression:
  • All tiers of the Bow of Justice now have Unbreaking III.
  • Kill requirements changed from 10/15/30/40/55/70/90 > 5/10/20/30/45/60/80
  • Tier 1 no longer grants Power II, instead grants Punch I.
  • Tier 2 no longer grants Punch I, instead grants Power II.

Scorpio:
"Since quality of life changes have already been made in the last update, and the class retains its balanced state, it is best to leave it be."

• No Changes.

Scout:
"The most hotly debated class of them all, Scout provides an unprecedented amount of mobility and combat power unmatched by any class in the game. These changes target its ability to pick fights, and changes its combat strategy. Scouts will be able to still move around the map extremely fast, and still can engage into fights at high speeds, but its safety will take a heavy hit."

• Reworked:
  • The Grapple and the Speed effect will be subject to an 8 second combat timer, which will start up upon taking or receiving damage from a player, dispenser, thrown projectile, or fire. Both abilities will not work until the 8 seconds is over. Fall damage, class abilities that do not cause fire or directly hit a player, and mobs do not trigger the combat timer. Speed will be unaffected if the user obtained it from a potion.
  • The Grapple will now be unbreakable once again, and any armor tier will work with the Speed passive again.

Sniper:
"Very late-game class that can be used to great effectiveness at range, Sniper has reached a great place in the balance spectrum."

• No Changes.

Spider:
"The Spoderman now has great utility and safety with its new found powers. Cobwebs now can stick enemies to the ground, and also provides fall damage relief to high skill cap players. Overall a great balance."

• No Changes.

Spy:
"As one of two stealth classes, Spy is somewhat stepped on by its aggressive cousin the Assassin. While Assassin is heavily focused on rushing enemy nexuses, these changes will isolate Spy as the murderous version of Assassin in an attempt to give it more of a focus."

• For 2s after becoming unvanished, Spy will do +2 attack damage to all players.

Succubus:
"Succubus has had an extensive criminal record in Annihilation, breaking the game post-1.6 which caused its nerfs. At the moment, Succubus is a high-risk class that provides little to be had at the moment. Many other classes overshadow it in their damage and present little risk to their owners. These changes will hopefully make Succubus a better choice overall for players looking to turn fights around on their enemies."

• Reworked:
  • Right-clicking the Life Drain now will tether you to the selected player within 6 blocks of yourself, giving off bloodstain particles. Over the next 4 seconds, the enemy player loses 2 hearts, both players receive Weakness II, and the Succubus gains Speed I. After the duration is complete, if the enemy is at 5 HP or below, they are instantly killed, healing the Succubus for equal to the damage dealt between the two players while tethered. If the enemy is above 5 HP, the ability backfires, dealing the 2 hearts of damage to the Succubus and giving the Succubus Slowness II for 5 seconds. Cooldown 60 seconds. If the two players ever become separated by 10 blocks or more, the tether severs, cancelling the rest of the process and sets the Cooldown to 40 instead of 60.

Swapper:
"The Swapper is a great class in certain situations, but may hinder the user more if used poorly. Having great pros and cons and a well defined role in-game, the Swapper does not need tweaking."

• No Changes.

Thor:
"Thor has been dunking people ever since the update with great efficiency. While the changes to Thor have been welcome, such as the fix to the Resistance passive, the knockback aspect takes Thor's DPS and stacked another element that has caused an unnecessary spike in power to the class. The following change will reduce this problem a little while following the same vision that was given to Thor in the first class update."

• Hammer's knockback tier lowered to Knockback I.

Tinkerer:
"Now the standard for granting team buffs, Tinkerer now provides the player with the same amount of reward as effort put in, and succeeds in remaining fair."

• No Changes.

Transporter:
"While sometimes being the dagger to nexuses or sometimes not doing much at all, Transporter remains in a similar position as Tinkerer, where effort put in equals the output."

• No Changes.

Vampire:
"Currently, you get less than half the game to shine as this class, and three chances per night to use the ability. These adjustments aid Vampire players in getting to use their special ability to the max as well as fixing a few headaches that come with using the kit."

• Transform cooldown reduced from 120 > 70s
• Killing an enemy in bat form will return Regeneration II and Absorption I to the Vampire for 6 seconds.

Warrior:
"Extra damage still holds up as the Warrior's main ability and doesn't cause balance issues in-game, remaining fair and easy to use."

• No Changes.

Wizard:
"The spells provide great utility to support teammates, and they grant useful effects when playing solo. Unfortunately, the Wizard doesn't have access to them often enough to last in longer fights. These adjustments will help Wizard to be able to fling spells more often and allow for more combinations and tactics."

• Reworked:
  • The Wand will now have a cooldown of 20 seconds, and allow you to use another spell after the duration. The spells still all have individual cooldowns, but another spell can be used while the first is still on cooldown.
  • Flame and Darkness cooldowns reduced from 50 > 40s

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wow

Beautiful, loved reading this
What I noticed, is that you want to remove the things that weaken the class (not alwayss), just like u did on scub. You made it that if u use the ability, it doesnt kill u, but it gives u a very low chance to survive, which is what I like about this megathread. Some classes took us some time but its finally done

Amazing

Another excellent suggestion thread, you'll just have to wait to see what ideas we steal I mean erm, "borrow"

+2 everything. I especially like vampire and bloodmage. EDIT: Also for acrobat, it should be a feather, or double space to double jump. So if people have trouble doing double space, and it also shows the cool down

I would set {Unbreakable:1b} for Thor's hammer and Robin Hood's bow because those have a possibility to break. I like the idea of giving civilian apples because you can craft golden apples with them but can't give them to anyone else (even the resulting golden apples would be soulbound).

You mean nerf Duskblade of Draktharr right? For patch 7.15 xd

While I could be that guy and spew nitpicky jargon about just a couple classes, so much of this is yes that you have earned my like with gusto.
- I definitely agree with all classes you suggested remained unchanged.
- Your tier list is actually pretty close to how I would place them; I was impressed.
- I especially agree with your proposed changes to berserker, handyman, healer, hunter, iceman, pyro, scout, spy, thor, vampire, and wizard.
- I mostly agree with the rest and thank you for this fantastic thread. There wasn't a single thing that I outright thought, "No," which is rare on a forum thread anywhere close to this magnitude of text... or anni threads in general, for that matter.

I like it.
Quick suggestion for wizard (since it is the least useful spell)
Remove (and slightly nerf) the missile spell from the spellbook and add it as a left-click ability for the wand.
Maybe even have it trigger a shorter cooldown on the wand than the right-click spells.

Its just individually not that useful. Does awful damage and doesn't hit as reliably as flame and darkness, and only does raw damage (no blindness or blinding fire effect)
So, when forced to pick between it and another spell, it just isn't a good choice.


Shower thought: what if the wizard's wand worked more like a roulette instead? Shorter consistent cooldown, but a random spell is cast instead.

Many of these Balances have been suggested before in individual threads.

You cant craft with soulbound items.

Ive repaired archer's spawn bow (soulbound) with a regular bow (not soulbound) in a crafting grid and the resulting bow was soulbound.
Also, I've crafted a soulbound dispenser with a soulbound bow.

I think what you are referring to is the Archer nerf and the Scout rework. These changes were almost exactly the same as the first class balance thread I posted exactly 2 months ago. The difference is this Scout suggestions asks for 8s instead of 10, and also allows for the return of the speed and unbreakable grapple mechanics. I can say that a few other changes were also taken from my old balance thread, but I tried to generate more original ideas for each class that I was repeating myself for. Example: Acrobat's cooldown nerf was tweaked from the last thread, but I also added a cooldown timer suggestion.

Other than Farmer, every other rework idea was original and thought through while taking notes about classes. For most, I played as the class in-game whilst thinking of them and diagnosed a problem in-game, then wrote down solutions and numbers. If the ideas come close to another thread, then perhaps they had the right idea, and maybe if their thread got passed and not seen, hopefully this one brings the idea to life.

I'm not sure mapping the Missile to the left-click would bring consistency to the kit. We'll have to wait and see how effective Wizard is after the update, whether or not it is touched again.
I actually had an idea for Wizard that I forgot to include where you could left click and swap to spells in that way. But that would have the major implication of not having to stop for switching, which could impact Wizard's effectiveness in unpredictable ways.

Oh never mind I was thinking of tinkerers books but you have to craft a book shelf and then break it to use books.

I dont think enchanter needs a nerf. It is the current enchanting system that needs to change.

Enchanter is powerful because:
A. The double xp progresses far faster than Minecraft enchanting usually allows. This is why many people have full enchanted iron and one god-tier enchanted item by P2.
B. It can tank hits and avoid death very easily. The parameters of this aren't even known, so if the change in the thread was implemented, then the numbers would be clear. I remember seeing a video where someone had level 30 as enchanter, jumped off the edge of the map, and tanked 5 void hits at one heart before dying.

Remember that nerfing Enchanting in general nerfs ALL classes that gain Enchanting levels. Furthermore, nerfing the progression of Enchanting levels slows down the game more, which is definitely NOT what is needed right now. Games last too long as it is, nerfing Enchanting on top of the already nerfed Strength will only prolong matches more.

No, the reason the games are too long is because everyone already has OP gear making it hard to get something better for a rush. When the Devs removed the 1.9 enchanting they made all of the xp values double what they used to be so now getting level 30 is twice as fast. That and you get the same enchanting seed almost every game took the risk out of enchanting. Enchanter only needed a nerf when the 1.9 enchanting mechanics where around. Pre 1.9 it usually took an average of 2-3 enchants before you got something worth playing with so enchanter needed to be very quick at getting them. Infester is fine its a powerful ability with a long cool down so it is balanced. If enchanting went back to the pre 1.9 form you would see a drop in OP items giving the people who do a good chance to rush there for reducing the game times.

Your explanation sounds good on paper but if you look at how the game mechanics changed and compare old anni to new anni its not the class its the system.