Phoenix necklaces are in my opinion broken. If anyone ever goes under 20% LP whilst wearing one, they're essentially given a free life and healed by 30% of their LP. This on top of the fact that other necklaces don't provide many buffs and that pnecks are very cheap means a lot of people use them and that there's little to no cost associated in using them. Not only that but whilst healing, they also null the following damage and also break many other debuffs/buffs such as vuln/immort/etc. This makes it impossible to kill someone once their phoenix necklace breaks unless you have a ridiculous amount of DPS. The necklaces also only have a 1 minute cooldown, allowing them to be repetitively used throughout a fight.
Now, I do understand the importance of them in multiway, but let's just ignore that for now; I do have other suggestions for multiway which may offset a nerf to phoenix necklaces whilst also increasing the skillcap.
Simply put, there needs to be some sort of penalty when using these necklaces. Imo, the easiest and most effective solution would be to make them reduce your DPS. This way, tanks can still use them in various other situations, but they wouldn't be as overpowered in 1v1 combat. Also, when they activate, they shouldnt null any of following damage. The necklace should simply act as quick heal (Much like eating food) and if the other player's DPS is high enough they should be able to die.
too weird to live, too rare to die.
Next are portents. With the use of portents, you can heal up to 2.3k more per tick. They also only have a 15 second cooldown meaning that you can continuously use them throughout a fight and that they'll usually be there for when you get combod. They basically act as buffer Hp to counteract the any strong combos. Imo the idea of being automatically healed without any sort of penalty is GARBAGE. The idea that you can heal over half your HP in a single HP is also GARBAGE. Portents really need to have some sort of penalty to balance them because currently the only cost in using them is the cost of making them.
In my opinion, the best penalty would be to make them drain adrenaline, whilst also increasing their cooldown. This way portents aren't automatically OP for PvP and there's actually a penalty to using a lot of them. They could however still be used tactically, allowing players to tank a stronger combo at the cost of some adrenaline.
too weird to live, too rare to die.
Next up are numbing roots. I honestly don't know what the Mods were thinking when they implemented this one. Bleeds are a massive part of DPS, especially for melee, and without them KOs can be extremely difficult. Anyone who has PvPed recently will know what I'm saying when melee DPS SUCKS in PvP and that's mostly due to the introduction of numbing roots (As well as mushrooms and the nerf to barge). If the developers thought that there should've been something to balance the DPS of bleeds, they could’ve easily added a new ability which counters bleeds. Instead though we now have an item which is locked behind a pretty expensive pay wall which is also completely unbalanced. On a sidenote, I don't think that anything expensive should be a consumable within PvP. Taking part in PvP can already be expensive and there's also already a giant gap in stats between t90 and t80. It just makes richer people more powerful which ruins the experience for newer, poorer players.
As for how to balance them, a good be to give them an adrenaline drain similar to thresholds. If you don't have enough adrenaline you wouldn't be allowed to use them. They'd keep the cooldown though, making them basically a pseudo ability for clearing bleeds that people have been wanting.
too weird to live, too rare to die.
With the nerf of the four items above, KO potential should be much more balanced than it currently is. Players could continue to use the items as they currently do but with all the costs linked to their usage, the player would become severely handicapped, unless the stop spamming them and being to strategically use them. The nerfs to numbing roots and gorajian mushrooms also provide an adrenaline sink similar to the one pre-legacy, without the severe snowballing effect.
However, although KO potential would be much more balanced with the nerf of those items, there are other changes that need to be made to KO potential, specifically the influence that overheads have on it. Currently whenever a player has an overhead (Deflect/protect prayers) active which corresponds to the damage they're taking, they take 40% less damage. There is however no cost associated with their usage other than not being able to use soulsplit. This makes overheads vastly better than other prayers whilst also severely capping KO potential. Although I do understand their importance in allowing newer players to fight on a level field with more skilled players, their effects are simply too strong. In prayer fights all combos have to be revolved around a prayer drop ability and if the ability misses or the players prayer goes up before the combo ends, they pretty much lose all hope of KOing. With the changes to the entry system in PvP and allowing more players to actually fight players of similar skill, I think their nerf is justified.
too weird to live, too rare to die.
Although no big changes need to be made, there is definitely a few things that need rebalancing. Firstly, their % effectiveness needs to be lowered from 40%. Good alternative values could be somewhere along the 15-25% bracket. This way overheads can still defend players but they wouldn't act as an absolute barrier against DPS. The length of time before you can reactivate overheads after they're dropped also needs to be increased as currently most combos can't be pulled off in the small amount of time you have. Again, I do understand the importance of overheads in multiway and so I have come up with suggestions which can balance the nerf whilst also increasing the skill cap and making things a bit more varied.
too weird to live, too rare to die.
One long-standing concept within RS that has always bugged me is the combat triangle. In my opinion, styles should not have an inherent advantage over each other and players should not be forced into using specific styles just because of their strengths over others. Obviously a ice monster could be weak against fire or crush attacks, but besides that, I don't think the combat triangle as a whole has a place in RS, especially within competitive environments like PvP. Players should be able to use whichever style they prefer or for the specific advantages they provide such as big DPS with melee or utility with magic. Also, being dominated in a fight solely because the person you are fighting has a style which counters yours can make PvP extremely frustrating. Their is literally nothing you yourself can do about it without switching styles or avoiding the person (I'm sure you notice a lot of this in PvP). This also leads to ragging where players will constantly switch styles, so that they always have the upper hand on whoever they fight. Although you could consider this skilful and say that it requires planning and knowledge it makes the PvP experience horrible for whoever is fighting them. Honestly, as soon as EoC started they should have removed weaknesses in favour of a more balanced system where players are free to use whichever style they want.
too weird to live, too rare to die.
Besides the things mentioned earlier, there's still one big problem with the combat system. A lot of abilities are simply unbalanced. They're either far too powerful for their cost or way too weak. These abilities can often make PvP combat frustrating, especially in the case of the overpowered abilities. In my opinion the following abilities need to be changed (Note that these abilities don't have to be changed in PvM):
Metamorphosis:
The damage from metamorphosis is currently far too high considering their how few ways there are too counter it. The player can move whilst using it allowing them to chase you down easily and pretty much one hit you from full HP. I think that just lowering the damage boost in PvP would be enough to balance out meta (After all it uses 100% adrenaline). A good alternative % boost would in my opinion be around 30% (Down from 75%). This way players are still provided with the boost needed to kill someone, although it won't be possible to completely one hit players anymore.
Reflect:
The fact that reflect only uses 15% adrenaline for what it does makes it one of the strongest abilities whilst PKing. Honestly, the adrenaline cost needs to be increased because currently it's on par with some defence ultimates. A good cost would be around 40-50% because this way players won't be as trigger happy with their reflects as there is a sizeable cost in using it.
too weird to live, too rare to die.
Instinct:
Currently this ability is far too strong. It completely lowers your opponent's adrenaline whilst also allowing you to set up with abilities like meta with little fear of your opponent countering. Imo this ability needs to act as a combo breaker in PvP by still reducing your opponent's adrenaline whilst also reducing yours. Your oponent's adrenaline should be reduced to 0% whilst giving yourself half the amount of adrenaline they had prior to the instinct. This way instinct still has some sort of use in terms of KO as it allows you to set up on your opponent whilst they have no adrenaline. It also conserves its usage as a combo breaker whilst not being as overpowered as it was before.
Shadow Tendril, Wild Magic, Hurricane:
These abilities aren't necessarily overpowered but their adrenaline costs are definitely disproportionate to what they do. Some people even consider these abilities to be close to 'Ultimate' tier which just goes to show how strong they are. In my opinion these abilities don't need to be nerfed that badly but a slight increase in their adrenaline costs would definitely make them more balanced. Possible values could be 25-35%. The higher cost would make their usage more strategic and force players into planning their combos precisely before they attempted them.
too weird to live, too rare to die.
Berserk:
This ability is certainly strange. On one hand the damage it can let people deal can be ridiculous. I've often seen people get one shot from full HP because of a berserk-hurricane. On the other hand, the damage it makes you take can be extremely high, making it not worth using unless you're crazy good or have insane balls. If I were Jagex I would slightly tone down this ability in PvP by reducing the increased damage you take whilst also reducing the increased damage you deal. Good alternative values could be 50% increased damage dealt (Down from 100%) and 25% increased damage taken (Down from 50%). This allows players to use berserk more regularly, although it would be slightly weaker compared to now.
Most damaging ultimates:
These abilities are usually never used in PvP and there's a reason for that. The amount of adrenaline you lose simply isn't worth it expect in a few specific situations. The cost of these abilities needs to be reduced to make them worth using; I wouldn't increase their damage any further because they're already capable of hitting ~8k on a max hit. The adrenaline cost would obviously depend on the ultimate but I think that anywhere from 50-75% would make them worth using whilst also not making them overpowered. The following ultimates should be changed:
Melee: Overpower, Meteor strike, Massacre, Frenzy, Pulverize
Magic: Omnipower, Tsunami
Ranged: Incendiary shot, Unload, Deadshot
too weird to live, too rare to die.
Alongside these changes to abilities, I think that the adrenaline system needs to be changed slightly. By giving the stronger abilities more proportionate costs, I don't think that the 50% restriction on thresholds and 100% restriction (Talking about how you can't use them unless you have that %) on ultimate needs to be in place any more. The only real reason I see in having them is to prevent snowballing or strong combos, but with the changes to the stronger abilities' costs, I don't see any reason to keep it this way. Players should be able to use threshold abilities successively although with the increase to adrenaline costs, the 50% restriction may prevent this from happening and would ruin the combos. Without it I think PvP could be a lot more entertaining and less repetitive.
And lastly, there's one more change that I'd make to abilities. Channel abilities have become slightly unpopular in PvP because of one main reason. If your target moves out of range, the ability gets completely cancelled. Entire asphyxiates and rapid fires can be cancelled simply because your opponent moved one step away. Now, I do agree that there is a degree of skill required to cancel them but at this point everyone seems to be doing it and because of that channel abilities are in a bad spot. Melee is basically not worth using solely because of this. It is also extremely difficult for rangers to drop their opponent's overheads and people can easily avoid snipe by running away. Without the prayer drop, it can become almost impossible for rangers to kill their opponents. I know Mods have already commented on this not being possible but just want to reinforce how important it is to fix them.
too weird to live, too rare to die.
