This class, above all, needs to be balanced better. It is something that I noticed on the old DC server as being greatly unbalanced to the point that a level 50 AM would out perform a level 800+ WM.

I've taken several measures toward balancing the AM class here including:

Triple damage cannot be used on Energy weapons (in addition to rage, piercing or vorpal.)

Lower maximum abilities.

Offensive AM artifacts have been reduced in power in various ways, such as increased adren cost per second and lower damage output.

Spree bonuses give less adren.

Team AM artifacts such as MWMs and spheres are a bit cheaper.

Fewer 1-room maps with lots of DDs.

One of the things I've considered is getting rid of the double modifier. I've also considered reducing the power of energy or just dropping it in favor of the vamp leech weapon.

Hollon and I haven't done a review of the AM subclass yet. We're considering Dragon's idea for a flight/agility subclass, A "free" or "timed" flight artifact will be easy to make, but we could use some ideas for the subclass using currently available abilities and artifacts.

I hate to say this but the beam/bolt needs to be adjusted real bad. You get a good AM going and they will beam/bolt anything in sight, even without a double modifier.

dc_demonslayer wrote:
This class, above all, needs to be balanced better. It is something that I noticed on the old DC server as being greatly unbalanced to the point that a level 50 AM would out perform a level 800+ WM.
I haven't been on DC long enough to comment on this. We do, however, have a DEK AM regular, and she's excellent at it.
dc_demonslayer wrote:
I hate to say this but the beam/bolt needs to be adjusted real bad. You get a good AM going and they will beam/bolt anything in sight, even without a double modifier.
The lightning beam and bolt can certainly be overkill. I think the issue in DC was the manipulation of the awareness ability and the bonus system, so that when a monster's health would get low, an AM would take the kill with the beam, scoring the point and the adrenaline. As Jefe mentioned, spree bonuses on DEK give less adren. Additionally, there is no awareness ability on DEK.

Something that doesn't make sense, however, is the adrenaline return on killing monsters with the lightning artifacts. You use adrenaline to kill monsters, just to regain that adrenaline back. It is, in essence, killing monsters without spending adrenaline. That may be an issue.

There is something else I want to point out.

An AM is, essentially, a WM, and all because of denial 3. The only difference is that an AM has a triple, a double modifier, lightning rod/beam, etc.. Because an AM has no means of replenishing health aside from the booster combo, they would need to rely on the magic weapon maker to carefully craft a modifier that will help them survive.

With denial 3, they don't need to be careful about it. Once they have that modifier, they're guaranteed it for the whole game, unless they kill themselves. This is how our AM prodigy on DEK was able to survive: she relied heavily on the re-occurrence of an energy, and she was always guaranteed it even after she died.

Szlat always mentioned the importance of random occurrence for magic weapons- which the MWM artifact certainly does. It is, however, the opposite of what denial 3 does. Something else to think about.

AMs rely on energy weapons to replenish their adren supply, so they usually spend a while attempting to make an energy weapon, typically a flak or mini. But what if they had an adequate source of adrenaline that *wasn't* based on a weapon?

So what I'm going to try for the next week or so is remove the energy enchantment from the game. To compensate, I've increased the amount of adrenaline adrenal drip provides by a factor of 3. That will provide 3 adrenaline per second. Other classes that get adrenal drip 3 (gens and meds) will be reduced to drip 1, resulting in the same net amount of adrenaline. Vampiric Leech will still be available; it is approximately a 1/3 power energy weapon along with vampire.

Vampiric leech weapons are okay. Haven't been able to utilize it effectively, favoring other tactics. It's better in the beginning rounds to get adrenaline fast to make better weapons.

Null entropy feels way too powerful. First you null the enemy, then you fireball or beam it, then it dies. Super effective against all but the largest of opponents.
Null minigun is probably the best null weapon with its multiple chances at getting a hit worth the full amount of null time at almost any range. Hit scan weapons are good for null in general. It just seems too easy.
A way to alter this might be to make null entropy duration dependent upon the damage dealt . . . kind of like what the knockback weapons employ.

Also, I think it's weird that I only bought Loaded Artifacts 2 (fireball, no blasts, no lightning), yet I feel like I've reached the peak of the class' power.

dragon7350 wrote:
Vampiric leech weapons are okay. Haven't been able to utilize it effectively, favoring other tactics. It's better in the beginning rounds to get adrenaline fast to make better weapons.

Null entropy feels way too powerful. First you null the enemy, then you fireball or beam it, then it dies. Super effective against all but the largest of opponents.
Null minigun is probably the best null weapon with its multiple chances at getting a hit worth the full amount of null time at almost any range. Hit scan weapons are good for null in general. It just seems too easy.
A way to alter this might be to make null entropy duration dependent upon the damage dealt . . . kind of like what the knockback weapons employ.

Also, I think it's weird that I only bought Loaded Artifacts 2 (fireball, no blasts, no lightning), yet I feel like I've reached the peak of the class' power.

That's why I told you about that tactic Insta-freezing targets is powerful indeed, especially on DM/TDM against other players. But, for what AMs are worth, I think its fair for them to be able to use hit-scan nulls.

It could be the case that AMs reach their potential far more quickly than other classes, especially since they have fewer abilities to buy. Loaded Monsters, Engineer, and Weapons take time to develop. You can instantly get LA 4 with enough stat points. Keep in mind that the beam (LA3) has been nerfed considerably on this server, so the fireball might seem like the number one artifact. The blasts (LA3) cost too much adrenaline for it to be effective, especially Megablast, unless you use it on a group of monsters that will return the majority of the adren to you after killing them. All that makes LA2 very convenient.

As cancer and others have noted, I do want to raise the XP for remote artifacts. Why spend 100 - 150 adrenaline helping others when that same amount of adrenaline can get you more than double the EXP killing monsters? Doesn't promote a very team-friendly AM (its also on LA4, which should be the higher potential of the AM class, and not in LA2 where the fireball is).