Huh? So Fang gets nerfed but we get no actual changes for how Slash works?
How do i do Vardorvis now? Or Duke? Why not change their defense or increase Slash accuracy for other weapons?
Sorry but this is not what was promised! We were told we would get a Fang nerf on Slash AND make other Slash weapons worth using!
The initial Project Rebalance blog was pretty clear that we wanted to make larger changes down the line, but that the dominance of the Fang on Slash and tiny (or inverted) gap between Scythe/Fang was something we were treating as a live-game issue.
If you could do Vardorvis with a Fang before, you can still do it with other weapons (though it is slower), and Duke is still a superb candidate for Arclight charges. Right now this change aims to do what we said it would, make the Scythe stand further clear of other Slash offerings and bring the Fang's power down a little in literally two pieces of content (it still rips literally everywhere else in the game that it used to).
feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth for anyone who hasn't been able to abuse fang yet considering the only slash buff is on a much harder to obtain item
would've rather everything was rebalanced together
Appreciate the sentiment and we feel the same, but also that changing a whole bunch of things all at once means that stuff takes longer (which is problematic if we believe we're resolving a significant live-game balance issue) or has the potential to cause other problems (i.e. the more stuff you do all at once, the more chance there is for stuff to be missed and be broken in other ways).
Fang still goes nuts at all of the other content it did, Arclight is still solid at Duke, Vardorvis is still more than farmable with a Tent whip - we fully get that it never feels 'good' to have items made weaker but ultimately think it's a necessary change and one we wish we'd made way sooner (along with the Scythe buffs)
Will the change to fang be indicated anywhere in game? Not sure it's good game design for such things to only be apparent if you happen to be actively using the wiki and keeping up with these upates
No more so than the Fang's existing double accuracy roll mechanic was indicated, or the Scythe's triple hitsplats. It's something I've made a note of though because it is something we want to improve as a team.
In this instance it's likely more a case of making clear in the Passive Effects section that Fang rolls accuracy twice on Stab. Appreciate that it's not ideal though, hopefully it's something we can indicate more clearly in a (near) future update!
Duke is still a superb candidate for Arclight charges
Duke is kind of awkward because he’s on a 5t cycle so eventually you need to 5t your arclight which is pretty bad.
I probably just… wouldn’t Duke without a Scythe.
yeah the 5t offset isn't great, fell into a big math rabbithole with it during some comments in December, but he's still doable (missing so many ticks definitely feels kinda bad though). Mostly just wanting to proactively encourage people to still give stuff a go following the change, assuming the bosses in question are content they enjoy, rather than saying they'll never be able to do them again until they acquire a Scythe - hoping that people get out and give it a go more than anything.
Nothing interesting in other changes, my favourite part of game updates :(
It is a little bit of a quieter update yeah :( Hopefully some of the upcoming changes we're talking about at Winter Summit might make up for it at least, though it's always a treat seeing one relatively small change in 'Other Changes' that everybody goes absolutely nuts for.
Where Soulreaper Axe usability buff? >:(
Shocked there were no stat adjustments for Duke, 4t weapons are SO bad at him and your kill times are almost going to be entirely reliant on BGS landing, definitely a huge nerf to Duke KPH, Vard is less impacted because you can still maintain 4t DPS uptime there and Saeldor isn't that much worse there, though way less consistent.
Soulreaper's something we'll chat more about alongside other Project Rebalance stuff, though we don't have a super firm timeline for when we'll start talking through each topic.
Happy to ask the team to explore some Duke adjustments, but it's a delicate balance to strike with making other stuff more useable vs. making the Scythe absolutely astronomical there - will be raising it as a feedback point for sure.
Using archlight at Duke is not realistic as you would blow through charges very quickly. There needs to be a realistic GOOD alternative to slash that isn't scythe.
Think Arclight's issue is more the 'missing loads of ticks feels bad' than going through charges quickly. I've got 2 endgame Iron accounts and feel like outside of maybe Cerberus, there's nowhere else in-game to use any of the charges I accumulated during the Slayer grind - sure you chew through them at a pretty rapid pace, but I feel it's preferable to just letting them sit in the bank surely?
Agree that other bits of Slash do need a touch-up though, and hope that it's something we can address with the rest of Project Rebalance.
Why defend mega nerfs after 1-2 years? A bunch of you have happily used the Fang to farm out the DT2 bosses so you don't care that the rest gets screwed over. Now it's "have fun using a tentacle whip or go grind out a 1b+ mega rare or the aids Red Prison".
They don't even adjust Duke/Vardo to make it a bit more fair or anything.
Just on the "have fun using a tentacle whip or go grind out a 1b+ mega rare or the Red Prison" point, would encourage you to run some calcs for Fang on Stab at TOB - it absolutely rips. I think it's still common for Irons to Stab near enough every room except for Verzik P2/3? (been a while since I've run numbers) on the way to Scythe, Fang still goes utterly nuclear at TOB pre-Scythe.
The only use-cases that get hurt are Vardorvis (which isn't much worse with a Saeldor, and is still super farmable with a Tent) and Duke (which admittedly is quite a lot worse, especially relative to Vardorvis, but this is something I'll take up with the team and see if we can rectify).
To echo 2-2-7-7's point, time elapsed since release isn't a reason for us to not make changes, especially in the case of Fang, where the main issue surrounding its Slash potency didn't really have a light shone on it until the DT2 bosses dropped - context changes, our plans might change, player concerns change, and all of those make up equally important factors when it comes to making balancing changes!
Wouldn't it be simplest to just remove the slash option from the fang? Without its special effect it won't be so good slash weapon and this removes all possible confusion from it.
Honestly think this probably is the simplest solution all-around, but think the point still stands that Fang's special effect should probably be displayed to the player somewhere in-game, as should the Scythe's, as should a whole bunch of other stuff!
I feel like this is only really true if you don't use arclight much. Personally I use arclight to afk greater demon tasks and that tends to blow through charges faster than it accumulates them.
Especially considering Duke is very much an early midgame boss, so it's not really reasonable to assume somebody doing him will already have accumulated a large supply of charges.
Totally valid, would love to ask for your thoughts on why Duke is a relatively early boss in progression - for me personally I think Magus Ring is a 'nice to have' super endgame ring (very few places you're mono-styling mage) and Virtus is kind of 'pick your favourite', I wouldn't seriously devote time to it on Iron progression until maybe unironically having a Shadow?
What is it that makes it an 'early midgame boss' for you?
Will Dukes defence be reduced or skipping 1st phaer to make this grind fun?
Think Defence, Arclight cap, attack speed, HP at which DUke enters new phases etc. are all levers that can be pulled - will leave that stuff to the team, assuming the devs are keen to explore a light rebalance, but that's not something we'll be able to answer today, just something for us to absolutely keep on the radar and for me to raise with the team ASAP.
Would a mechanic where scythe 2nd and 3rd splat gain accuracy when the previous misses not be a more elegant way to buff scythe instead of something as rigid as a flat accuracy increase. I don't think osrs can realistically still be balanced properly by only doing 'bigger number, smaller number' changes every once in a while.
The more 'sensible' way to buff Scythe is to just give it more use cases. Where Scythe is already good, it is absurdly good, it hits DPS numbers in TOB that even things like Tbow/Shadow can only dream of at most content. The problem with some of the more complex 'hidden accuracy roll' type of suggestions that we saw is that it made Scythe even more insane in places where it's already good, which means that releasing content in future where Scythe is good likely is balanced in a way where the gap between Scythe and 'next best' thing is a bigger gap than we're comfortable with. Plus, game balance is an ever-present and ongoing issue, if we re-evaluate in the future and feel some other kind of way then we can always look to make bolder changes etc.
Maybe you should have done that before these nerfs?
I think the team viewed Fang/Scythe changes as important for game health on a more broad spectrum, and weren't keen on holding all of that up to fix one specific use case (though it's an important one that I hope we're able to improve)
But you said that this 1 specific use case is basically why the Fang is getting the nerf in the first place (DT2 bosses).
I think it's more a case that the use-case in question made clear an issue with the Fang (and exacerbated issues with the Scythe) that we as a team hadn't adequately considered, and wanted to resolve as soon as possible before upcoming releases so that any balancing around Melee or around Slash would be done in the right context!
Will you also be talking about Saeldor buffs?
I'm not entirely clued in on everything that's on the table, since I've been all-systems-go on Winter Summit since getting back for 2024, but I'd hope to see us talk about the Saeldor somewhat since the gap between it and the Tent Whip is kinda teeny
Give me the "Wrapping up Forestry" update as promised 2 months ago or give me death .
https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/wrapping-up-forestry---changes--tweaks?oldschool=1
Back from bloody November 21st . Removing the event items and adjusting the gland/egg/whistle droprates accordingly is too much work ?
Will check in with where the team's at with this stuff (I'm really far removed from Forestry in general), but in their defence removing a bunch of stuff like that means a lot of testing to make sure everything left still works, couple that with the QA time on top of self-testing and the Xmas break/holidays for many people on the team and it's hopefully a little more understandable why it might be taking longer than you'd expect.
Why tease us with a jagex launcher being usable without a jagex account only to revoke that access later?
My understanding is that this was a necessary outcome of a change made for security improvements to Jagex Accounts.
What about the mental for people who've gone very dry on vard and now need to possibly drop down to 2 kill trips? It'll feel so bad, just to please the people with a mega rare.
Totally understand why it might feel like it's 'to please people with a mega rare', but it's moreso to extend that megarares utility to more use-cases so that it better suits its status as a megarare. Naturally it means that people who have one are pleased, but as I understand it, this is a change that the team would have looked to make regardless to safeguard future reward options and balancing for Melee/Slash in particular
If it’s any consolation I’m fine with scythe being astronomical at Duke
You're so brave for this!
(On a real, think it's fine for it to be really good at Duke, but more talking about 'astronomical' where the gap between Scythe and something like Arclight/Saeldor is hitting a delta of 30-40%, which isn't even really the case for tbow vs. bowfa or shadow vs. sang. Just wanting to make sure that if we do make changes then we get it right, and keep in mind that it can be a little obtuse to calculate around Duke's changing attack speed)
u/JagexGoblin can you give us more information on the possibility of a rapier/mace/blade buff to help fill the void left by the Fang nerf, as well as making them an overall more viable option? Is it something that's being considered?
I don't have any specifics, but that tier of weapons is something we're planning to look at alongside other Project Rebalance changes!
Is there any chance we could look at making arclight consider Duke a full demon? Or tweak that %? If I missed my bgs spec at Duke it felt slow with the fang, I can't imagine how bad it's going to feel with arclight. I do think the nerf needed to happen, Duke (And vardorvis to a lesser extent) is just going to feel awful going back to arclight
It's for sure a lever we can pull. When I get back home tonight I'll probably poke around some 'hypothetical' DPS calcs for Arclight vs. Scythe if the cap were removed and try to bake in the missed ticks etc. to see if I can present the devs with some alternatives (obviously I'm not a dev/designer but giving them a baseline to go off of tends to make changes easier to push through quickly)
/u/JagexGoblin
Project rebalance is going to be this generations EoC and you're ushering it in.
No it's not, and I'm just the go-between. Nobody on the Old School team wants another EOC, we're not changing anything without letting players get hands-on and we're not married to any of the changes we'd like to propose on Project Rebalance. Please drop the fearmongering, they're not even close to the same thing, and the entire project is subject to feedback via playable betas at every single stage.
Fang on Stab at TOB - it absolutely rips. I think it's still common for Irons to Stab near enough every room except for Verzik P2/3? (been a while since I've run numbers) on the way to Scythe, Fang still goes utterly nuclear at TOB pre-Scythe.
Not quite because teams use DWH and BGS.
Remember to add to your calc 2 DWH and 150 BGS or so for maiden and Xarpus, 50 BGS to Bloat, 30 BGS to Nylo boss, 2 hammer for Sote. Everything should be minimum defense.
For ToB (pre-scythe) you used to:
- BP / Tbow maiden
- Whip Bloat
- Whip Nylo boss
- Stab Fang Sote
- BP Xarpus (whip if you wanna melee / bank your assembler)
- Slash Fang P2
- Slash Fang P3
Irons lose Fang slash on P2 and P3. It’s not a big deal, honestly the biggest hit is having to re-learn 4t P3 tanking and eating the tick loss at webs. But you shouldn’t be Fanging much at ToB
Yeah this is a bit of a troll from me, when I was running TOB most recently with some other ppl from work we had 2 DWH and 2BGS between the 4 of us so Fang was a way more appealing prospect. Appreciate you (and others) clarifying, been a minute since I've done anything but CoX - you're fully correct that you're not really losing much ToB-wise with Fang changes though
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