[Anguish 2.0] Path Steps

[craggy escarp]

This thread is intended to track conversation around Path Steps.
Let's focus on highlighting pain points, and making suggestions around tweaks and new supplementary maluses.

If you have a concern, try to raise that concern with a suggested solution to that concern.

As always, please keep these threads respectful.

[eager lava]

I do have a question, would anguish paths and the leveling of the guild be acceptable to discuss? Primarily a suggestion I guess

I know this is a specialization, but what if some of the levels throughout the anguish guild(some of the between levels) be buffs/benefits we could pick? Some with bonuses to gold, bonuses to status affects or dots, pet/summon bonuses or just overall class bonuses. They could be changed to fit different builds, or changed depending on the situation/specific farming you’re doing.

[fringe crown]

Add maluses for ward based attack skills.

[craggy escarp]

What current area in the path steps is this attempting to address?
Just trying to make sure we're clear on what the pain point is, before trying to solve it if that makes sense

[eager lava]

Sorry, it isn’t really a pain point for me really. Just something I had seen people talking about in the previous chat with the levels in the guild. Just offering a suggestion really.

Like with the reward in the guild line for the anguished specialization. I thought I posted a picture prior.

Sorry I can’t read. You can delete all that Dangy.

[kind granite]

Héllo all. The most disgusting malus (or pain step if you like to call it like that) is the permanent status fade %. This thing gets a % roll everytime you hit a monster or everytime a monster hit you. Before testing, I thought it would be once per turn or per attack. I was so so wrong... It makes mélancolie & agonie paths a huuuuuuge struggle to rebuff after the buffing phase. And in despair & torment, this malus is useless because you either start with no buff, or so many it won't remove that one buff you rely one (mag / atk buff). To make it playable in agonie & mélancolie, I'd suggest to make it roll once per turn instead of once per hit.

[worn gazelle]

I think current paths are missing the mark, instead of forcing us to adapt to the maluses and adding new difficulty, they are just locking us into one build.

We can choose between 4 different specific maluses, we can just choose the maluses that affect the least us the least and keep playing the same way (not to mention certain builds are completely unaffected by maluses, hello spiked shield/summons)

To fix that I would rather see more generic and powerfull maluses, but choosen less frenquently For example:

• Every level of anguish just increase ennemy stats% / bonus%
• Every 5 level you choose a major malus between a selection (on a specific theme) and get a better loot bonus than a standard level-up.

It would result in:

• More build diversity as every builds are affected the same way
• Fewer maluses overall (since they apply every 5 levels).
• More impacts from them as they would be more scary

Few examples for random thresholds choices:

Would be for tower/dungeons/world

• Increase chance of berserk by X%
• Increase enemy crit rate by X%
• Add X% chance of monster to survive with 1 HP

Would be for tower/dungeons/world

• Choose a big damage upgrade for one/multiple monster factions among a list

Would be for raid

• Take X% more damage from ultimate attacks
• Take X% more damage from physical attacks
• Take X% more damage from magical attacks

Would be for a high anguish treshold

• Take X% of your max HP as damage every turn
• Have X% to get a random stat debuff each turn
• Have X% chance to be unable to act during a turn
• Have X% chance to lose a permanent buff each turn

[thick condor]

Paths have repeat options between them too often. We’re basically forcing into taking specific debuffs when they’re present in 3/4 choices and the other one is considerably worse

[thick condor]

This so much. 0 counterplay around it, and even at 1% it’s a very significant debuff that just causes frustration all around

[thick condor]

I’d also like to call attention to the accuracy malus bug. I have currently selected 4 malus that give -1% accuracy, but the battle modifiers page shows -6% accuracy. So take this into consideration when picking your maluses

[flat dome]

path setups should be like gear sets (3-4 for free, more with $$), and pathspurs buy the steps outside of the first path permanently, basically we need to be able to have different paths on click if we invest in them

[red temple]

Since it hasn't been mentioned ITT yet, it's worth calling out the absolute weirdness around path maluses and followers and summons.
It's totally unclear which (if any) effect them; and more directly, virtually none of the important maluses effect them.

This is seen especially in summoner endless where players can put zerks and gaits on their summons (via wintara gear) and then have the downside of a zerk fall off with permanent fade chance, but the summons don't have permanent fade chance. Overall it just feels like a big ball of mud -- clarity nowhere.

[subtle python]

A lot of high agony discussion got derailed by the performance of specific glass cannon builds when duo-raiding, so I'll just repeat this here: be real careful when suggesting nerfs for specific classes/builds. A BeoA running a full glass cannon Towerfall setup indeed does damage at agony 30, but you cannot use this setup against any threatening raids at agony 10 without getting turned into paste.

[blazing prairie]

I think raid path should boost orn gold exp also, not just proof chance and luck.

[eager lava]

With how badly agony is being cheesed I’d say that’s a bad idea
We shouldn’t reward exploitation

[blazing prairie]

Also discuss the possibility of paths being a attribute point system.

[subtle python]

I've seen you suggesting an orn boost for agony track before and am genuinely curious: what are you after when you suggest it? Are you thinking more for progression factors (ex: hitting the point where gold doesn't matter faster, helping you get to T11 faster) or do you see that as a serious extra reward consideration for the long run (ex: more orns for maxed out players)?

I personally see increased orn rewards for raiding to not be a good consideration; there are already much better avenues to get orns such as endless or memory hunt spamming, I just feel like tacking more orns onto raids doesn't accomplish anything. I only really remember getting lots of orns from raiding when I am dropping hundreds of scrolls, and I would honestly have gotten more just by running a few successful endless dungeons.

This comes from the thought of "raiding is for gear" though, I'm guessing you are just more generally wondering why some paths are lacking boosts on certain reward types.

[blazing prairie]

Personally.

Raid CoA doesn't offer any real rewards. If orn doesn't matter then why oppose it. Not everyone plays the game the same as you do.v

[subtle python]

Honestly, I would say it's more of that I don't see the point of it rather than oppose it. Just asked because I wanted to hear why you were after it.

I'll leave that discussion there because this is the path steps thread and I don't want to go too far off topic.

[blazing prairie]

And I feel like it should be put in to the steps for raid.

[craggy escarp]

Reminder - let's stick to the ask in the initial post ;)
Raise pain points, and then solutions to those pain points.
If we just add suggested buffs, it may not amount to anything without understanding the why

[civic dew]

We definitely don't need orns/gold in the paths themselves. We have Karma buffs now to get those with

There definitely should be some adjusting to Perma fades and I like the suggestion to just make it on a turn basis vs mobs, and if we are going to keep crit maluses we should have Ward power maluses to counter SS at the same time

[subtle python]

What is the intent with maluses as you get into mid-higher anguish? Is every build supposed to be hit or should a single build be able to forge through? If every build is supposed to be hit, what to what degree? just a bit? a lot?

Regardless of the answer, each malus should be re-examined on the basis of damage they do to any one build. My example as someone who plays BeoA through agony, avoiding the 4x secondary elemental malus is required for a Towerfall build to be remotely usable since it gets hit by every secondary elemental malus on a path step. However, I can swap to ASG even if I have a few basic element maluses and it still performs fine because ASG's attacks only get hit by one elemental malus from the path step at a time.

This can be somewhat easily solved by diluting the maluses with more, smaller individual selections for maluses that are too large. The hard part is going to be maintaining difficulty while doing this, assuming that is the preference.

[blazing prairie]

I am not understanding what you are asking, can we get an example?

[blazing prairie]

I am completely lost what is a karma buff. We definitely do need orns/gold in the paths it was in the 1.0 so why take something away...

[turbid sage]

the recent most beta has added this shackled retribution system where you farm a bunch of proofs shackled and are able to claim these rewards

[civic dew]

Because 1.0 was a mistake and a lot of things were "broken". But like Yoshi's post they are buffs earned through shackled play.

And you still get orns etc through paths

[dim garden]

This was my reaction as well. Picked it up twice in torment thinking it was a % chance for any buff to fade per turn, not each buff rolled its own % to fade. Became a game of micromanaging what buffs I had and having to check my buff bar constantly against the titans. Would be much more takeable as 1% per turn as a collective.

Another pain point for me is having crit damage and crit chance tied together. One or the other is already a huge hit to RS, but being tied together makes having to readorn more complicated.

[kind granite]

This is the only malus (with zerk encounter) that affect all build and classes. It's really fair: it screws everyone equally. This malus is not that bad during tower run if you have the one-shoot everything meta build. Then if you're not, it's the thing to avoid at all cost. So either make it not roll everytime you hit a monster (like there's 5 monsters, it rolls 5 times currently), and then all monsters have a roll when they hit you (5 further rolls on turn 2). It's stupid. During raids, it's a pain cuz you're only buffing with the good buffs. For titan fight, you have so many buffs it's actually oké.

Anyway my point is this malus is avoided by 200% of the aethric community and we're all in agreement that it's way too strong of a malus compared follower protect or ult defense.

[thick condor]

The system is also a huge disincentive to HoCing, since you’d have to buy a bunch of pathspurs to readapt to a new class. I like the idea of us being able to permanently unlock a levels step (be that via level up or pathspurs) and then being able to freely switch between them

[blazing prairie]

If I enable shackles, is it permanent?

[marble citrus]

No

[kind granite]

Asking there cuz the anguish live thread is locked.

Do you know what kind of step every path should give? The steps to promote LOVE. Sharin' is carin' as people say. And not being able to share our way-too-high agony raids with newer player prevents us to help give a helping hand to the community. Most of events have some best-in-slots gears for classes and higher ascended players could grind them. With how cyclic the game is, being able to give leftover raids to any people is great for the newer player. I remember the 1st week of ang2.0 where a kingdom mate could share some ag2 raids while I was still ag1. Please let us do that again with the leaders maluses. I'd love to give some events raids (trev) to people but they don't receive my invitation due to too low agonie level.

[shrewd onyx]

I really like about the game that you can easily switch between classes and classlines. However, the current malus system kind of forces me to choose and stick to a single build for each type of content. For example:

• For raids, I play sometimes BeoA/Towerfall (-> malus for the 4 higher elements is a no go), sometimes BeoA/ASG (-> the 4 base elements are a no go), and I want to be able to play a crit build (-> crit malus is a no go)
• For standard dungeons (with BeoH) and endless (with Dara), I also have different preferences.
  Wouldn't it be better to allow choosing the path steps not only depending on raids vs dungeons, but also individually for each class/classline? This way, I think the game would keep the strength of high variety, instead of pushing towards using a single class/build.

[finite gyro]

a problem that I can see is if a player wants to hoc to another class and then has to change all their anguish maluses

[fringe crown]

a problem that I can see is that Orna servers will burn

[shrewd onyx]

What does "anguish gear chance: 200%" mean? 🤔
Ok, seems to be a bug. The final number remains at 100% (shackled).

[flat dome]

is it intended to not allow HARD mode on self-built towers?

[real hornet]

Thread is called "[Anguish 2.0] Path Steps"

[real hornet]

I'll answer anyway, but I have no idea why you asked that here.

Yes https://discord.com/channels/448527960056791051/1398246466488766466

[flat dome]

yes i thought i was in general then i asked it there sry

[iron tulip]

This Torment level is brutal for crit strategies. Every choice has two really bad maluses except for 4, which only has one really bad malus.

I'd actually rather take -crit damage instead of berserk at this point - I can't play around a berserk ronin or IL instantly killing me because they out-FS me. But I can't even do that in this path because every -crit also has another terrible malus

[marble citrus]

This is actually insane

[blazing prairie]

How would berserk encounter matter for torment CoA when monster party is already predetermined?

[iron tulip]

Not sure what you mean. Monsters will randomly become berserked in towers.

[blazing prairie]

When did that start happening?

[iron tulip]

It's a malus for anguish 2.0, which is what this entire thread is about. There are several points in the anguish path that can add a chance for berserk enemies

[distant sphinx]

Ang8 agony, I swear that NF have something against elemental gameplay

[boreal coyote]

well yeah, the higher you get, the less crit and elemental gameplay are usable, and it happen quick

then only option left is... SS.
Or some pet and GS gameplay, but far behind

it feels really wrong imo.
ward debuff, healing debuff, damages taken, DoT damages, lower status resist, and other stuff like this seems already enough. I dont really understand why Crit builds/ultima have to die

[blazing prairie]

Yeah but towers are not randomly generated so the +4 probability means nothing.

[turbid sage]

I can confirm that the malus is currently working in towers, do you have any proof that it's not?

[blazing prairie]

The towers are preprogrammed.

[boreal coyote]

well the mobs are predefined, but they can become zerk.
3x nidhogg pack become 3x zerk nidhogg pack

[main shoal]

Yes, but it'll also take the zerk counter malus, except for the ones thay are already 100% zerked like frost troll, medsa, bear

[iron tulip]

Yeah, tell me the malus means nothing with 0 evidence other than "the packs aren't random"... it's been known that towers can have random zerks since beta lol

[blazing prairie]

And that's why I asked you before when did this start happening. I don't enough run towers like that.

[boreal coyote]

then dont go full affirmative statement if you dont know ?

[blazing prairie]

I don't understand your question.

[turbid sage]

If you're not sure about something, you shouldn't word your sentences like this

[marble citrus]

Im not 100% but didnt ppl already try and you can reset zerk encounters if you leave tower and rejoin like they wont be zerk anymore

[iron tulip]

You can reset zerk encounters, but not if you immediately die to the zerk because it out foresights you

[flat dome]

dont do fights where zerks can kill you turn 1...

[iron tulip]

Yeah simply skip any fight where a 4% zerk chance might kill you, starting at torment 8.

Meanwhile non-crit strategies get by with -3% multitarget dmg. Point is that crit strategies get disproportionately hit here

[marble citrus]

.

[carmine sun]

Now that "+% Permanent Status Effect Fade Chance" matters in Torment for Yelbeghen towers Choice 18 feels really bad with fade chance being in 3/4 choices and the only one without it has -crit dmg/chance

Removing fade chance from choice 4 and adding something along the lines of +zerk chance would be great imo, still a maluse that matters and you feel the difficulty for but does not force you into using chain shield/spiked shield builds

[sharp parcel]

or a new malus for spiked shield so that one shows less all the time would be good no?

[marble citrus]

Hm

[subtle python]

Sirith, how much minus war absorption have you been forced to take? You play entirely BeoH so it might not be a huge concern, but I can't see how redline classes are supposed to function without full ward absorb.

[carmine sun]

Overall in Ang2.0 I'm at [12 / 9 / 13 / 20] (despair, Mel, Agony, Tor) and I've been able to 100% avoid ward absorption maluses/crit maluses

(tho Tor 18 your forced to either take crit maluse or status effect maluse)

[subtle python]

I feel like Beo/BeoA will become non-functional the moment ward malus hits them. Even if follower ward absorb never gets hit, not being able to properly redline just looks like the functional death for each class.

Realms are probably also sweating with ward malus because they need to also keep Crit maximized.

[carmine sun]

Yeah it was a major topic of discussion in the closed beta (and even a bit in the open beta), but as far as I can see it seems quite optional.
Unless there is straight up a path choice/level I haven't noticed or missed

[subtle python]

I'm taking my sweet time getting up there so maybe I'm concerned for nothing.

Also LMAO at your torment being so much higher than agony

[carmine sun]

My agony could be ~15/16 if I didn't spend so damn much on DWTs/Crucibles 😅

[subtle python]

Oh right, I saw that earlier. That'll do it

[carmine sun]

Tho as I get closer to Tor 21 I'm curious to see how the extra path scaling plays out, been super busy in IRL to really grind but we'll see soon just how crazy it gets

[subtle python]

Oh right, also wanted to ask how much -follower act and protect you have been able to get away with in your 20.

Early on I feel like there is one forced level for it, wondering if it gets piled on.

[carmine sun]

This is my current Tor20 maluses, usually I would swap Tor18 choice 2 -> 1 (see screenshot above) but I'm purposely avoiding permanent status fade chance due to Yel being on

I haven't actually had to deal with any -follower act/prot in torment at all, honestly I'm not even sure it comes up, I could be wrong tho

[subtle python]

Oh I guess that is an agony thing then.

[carmine sun]

I should note, berserk Encounters is also higher than usual to purposely avoid permanent status fall off

[subtle python]

Thanks for showing that off.

[dim garden]

Adding in some thoughts having gotten a few paths to 20. Crit chance is a really annoying malus coming from a class that relies on crits. I can take it maybe once or twice and roll crit on a wep, but any more than that and I'm having to force crit adornments that change builds across all paths, not just one. I feel crit damage and chance should be separate maluses that can be rolled individually. Theoretically, if I take a crit chance malus, I'll be rerolling damage or removing damage adorns, so I'm losing damage from crit damage and rerolling/adorning. It's a huge hit to rs

[carmine sun]

I feel the follower act rate for agony path is being overlooked, -8% / -11% Follower act feels very extreme for only Agony 14 when the majority of half decent followers have only around 4 - 8 act rate to begin with

[steep owl]

Even considering Small Bestial Potion is +5% Act and Bestial Potion is +7% Act and they stack together?
Blackened Eye of Kerberos, weapon adorns, gives +2% Act

[dim garden]

Yea I gave up on a follower at agony 20. They're basically useless at that level.

[carmine sun]

Having to use kerb eyes in crit builds is a massive hindrance losing your main source of crit chance (4% weapon adorns), and that's just to counter act 1 level, meaning if this is the first time you take it you'd have to give up 6 adorn slots to counteract it which is 24% crit chance (15% if dual wielding)

Idk about later levels but if it comes up a second time where it's unavoidable that basically ruins most builds/there is no way to actually build around it

[subtle python]

NF, I'm going to ask a few things here since we don't really have a general anguish feedback topic anymore.

1. Adorns are currently not giving bonus anguish stats based on the anguish level of gear they are slotted in despite showing that they give increased stats in the stat screen. Is it intended for adorn stats to be affected by gear anguish level or not?

2. What's the timeline for hearing about how this topic's feedback will be reflected in an update to maluses in path steps?

3. How is anguish class balance going to be handled? It is apparent that there are no plans to nerf overperforming classes; Are underperforming classes going to be adjusted at the class level, or are maluses related to those classes going to be softened/changed? Or is the plan that only certain classes are going to be able to traverse deep anguish?

4. Is duo agony raiding going to be altered in any way to account for abusive duo setups?

Thanks.

[iron tulip]

Agony 14 is brutal for crit strategies. Every class besides GS relies on followers for parts of their build and this levels hits them hard, or hits crit damage

[subtle python]

It's just another example of maluses piling on in ridiculous concentrations. As a BeoA I took that same path to avoid follower act maluses, and it meant that all of my follower protect was simply gone.

(Had to take the -11% follower protect earlier, for reference).

[dry ember]

I mean, at some point that just becomes a free malus then! Accept you won't get protected by follower, and you can take as many of that malus as you want - it can't get lower than 0% anyway

[subtle python]

I know, that's how I rationalized it a while ago. It's just sad that I'm only at Agony 16 (not even out of baby anguish yet) and entire parts of my kit are already straight out gone.

And I'm only complaining about this from a Beo perspective, any class that actually needs to use crit strats has it far worse.

[dim garden]

So far I've taken a couple crit maluses. It's not as bad on agony as other paths thanks to realmstrikes having high crit chance, but I'm only agony 21. I feel like there should be more maluses to balance things out, -hp%, -mana%, -ward%, separate crit chance/damage. Ward absorption being a thing is just silly to put it nicely

[subtle python]

Yeah, there are just in no uncertain terms a few things that need to be completely altered with path maluses:

1. Maluses need to be diluted, especially around crit and elemental damage. For crit stuff you can live with 1 or 2 paths worth of maluses then it become untenable and ultima anything is dead in the water way too early because you can't avoid crit and elemental maluses.

2. as part of the above, new maluses need to be added - and those maluses should hit things that are not touched at all such as damage from ward power. We need more maluses to take to dance around maluses that kill entire strategies once they build up to a certain threshold.

3. ward absorption malus needs to be removed completely. It mechanically destroys redline classes if they take it at all, unless those classes have a massive crutch like stasis to just never get hit... and it locks all non-redline classes into running mammoth to get full ward absorb.

We've already seen from Abyss that solo raiding in deep agony is either SS3 spam or stasis, and outside of that it comes down to abusing duo raid setups which lean on stasis.

Stasis needs an entire discussion on its own, but the foundation of the path steps should be fixed first.

[subtle python]

Back on the topic of follower protect malus: what if the malus didn't lower protect rate, but rather the amount of damage blocked? Currently the malus is a free space for everyone but Beo, for who it is a free space after we lose our kit's main defensive option.

[dim garden]

Leveled up to agony 32 and the next choices for agony 33 all have ward absorption as a malus, which completely kills redlining. Sadly I don't have any decent ward absorption amities to counter the malus. Instead of ward absorption, make it lose % ward each turn

[carmine sun]

Sadly with how ward absorption is calc'd even amities/gear won't make a difference after so much. This is the main reason why I'm really not the biggest fan on the maluse in general.
I did out the math for it a while ago on what is needed to get it back to 100%:
when using DB / Walls of Aaru

• -1-4% Ward Absorption = needing 1 "+5%" Amity
• -5-9% Ward Absorption = needing 2 amities or sky chest
• -10-13% Ward Absorption = needing 1 amity and sky chest
• -14%-18% Ward Absorption = needing 2 amities and sky chest
• -18% or more Ward Absorption is impossible to get back to 100%

[robust cypress]

I dont mind ward absorption generally, but think as a general principle it would be good if you could avoid a particular malus in your path, but for certain levels like this you can just put one of the other hated maluses in the 4th slot.

[flat dome]

for some reason, some malus can be dodged a lot (or completly), others can't

which reduces build diversity by a lot at high anguish in all content. like as a GS i can dodge summon protect malus up to agony 38 completly

[dim garden]

@viral veldt In response to the "you can pick your path", maluses in general are just unbalanced. There's been suggestions in this thread on how to work that out, but physical/no element abilites aren't even touched by any maluses nor are hp/ward/defense/res. Beo/Heretic/Realm face the biggest challenge from 2.0 imo

[unborn fox]

sorry that I am busy, irl is crazy these days, can I have a TL:DR of this here

my opinion is that the current malus are OK is some aspects but with some bad design here and there.

IMO we should have an item to shuffle a level. I get that this may be too strong and go against the whole concept, so maybe once per 5 even 10 levels would be enough. There are some levels that are just retarded, and worst than that, just not fun. It feels that it is about sucking time, instead of giving a nice experience, so difficulty for the same of it without any proper purpose. Finally, 1% face should be just removed, there are not words to coat and flower that, it is just bad and that is it. IF that would be for a turn or for a floor, then yes, but then way it is is simply bad design

[burnt flume]

We need gatcha rerolls for anguished battle modifiers, which increases the % of difficulty the more u roll for the same level.

I think 1% fade chance is good in the pool even though I never pick it.

[burnt flume]

Isn't anguished supposed to make the game difficult for end game players?

[unborn fox]

difficult is not the same as less fun, 1% fade is retarded, so nobody picks, so it does not make the game more difficult, it makes the game less fun. This is not a 1x or 10 x times Malenia fight, if i would be like that then yes 1% fade is nice to try for an achieve, etc. This is a 1000 times towers or/and dungeons, so 1% is just bad design, it is just a filler, don't pick me option. I do not know 1 person that chose that. Maybe you do, but independently on that, what does it tell you, that is it bad design

So yes, I would accept every malus if one or 10 or even 50 kills would get you done, the game is about grind and grind is the name of the game, hence stuff like 1% fade, and this obsession to make crit builds feels like shit is just bad design, so imo calling something else is getting a good dose of copium

and to emphasize, malus are nice, ang 2.0 is nice, and the overall idea is also nice, yet it kills builds and the desired to play. I stopped at ang 24 dungeon because 25 is just stupid, and will make me play less, so I rather cope/placebo my mind to enjoy 24 than to chose stupid options , get pissed and stop playing

I do not believe I am the only one

and no, please no gatcha, we have RNG enough my dude. I would agree that it gets more expensive to reroll, but then it should be per level. I am not saying my idea is great, but I know for sure that the malus options are for sure far from being good

[subtle python]

1% status fade feels like 20% is the problem, it is way overturned. I took 2 status fades back when the new wyrmhunt content dropped and I feel like I lost buffs if the battle took more than 1 turn ever.

[burnt flume]

Wait, is there an
Obsession to make crit build feels shit? I never feel like it though.

I pick critical battle modifier or the fade chance only in World/Despair. But it never makes me feel like the dev trying to make critical like shit.

Fade chance modifier can be used in towers and worlds since the match are short.

If your focus is only in raid and dungeon, ya it's less fun but it still need to exist in the pool.

[burnt flume]

Damn your luck is same as my drop luck. Turn one fade chance proc.

[subtle python]

If it was described as "1% status fade (every time a muscle fiber on any enemy twitches in any battle currently occuring with any player)" then the description would feel more accurate.

The reality is that some maluses need to be diluted or removed. Don't even get me started on ward absorption malus.

[iron tulip]

I think some testing should be done on the permanent fade chance malus to establish whether it really is 1%

[subtle python]

I am definitely exaggerating a bit, but the only reason I don't credit status fade as driving me into madness at the time is because dragon towers did it first.

[burnt flume]

So do you feel the same for the normal towers?

[unborn fox]

yes there is, go ask the RS people, plus when there is 3 out of 4 options being decreasing crit chance plus crit dmg, plus multi strike, well yes it feels like it is focused on it.

You may argue that it was all random, well then I can argue that is bad design to allowed that on the same level that a malus is repeated 75% of time

It aint about world or dungeon, or anything, it is about the malus options in general. They should provide options without handicapping builds making everything feel like an annoying chore.

1% fade in towers is also shit, you lose the chests you get, and go take a loot at ang8 towers, it is just bad.

I do all content apart from PVP because I don't play chad builds, sorry 1m ward, sorry, gilga I always forget the name (sorry for being an ass)

Last but not least, it feels that is 1% per buff, not 1% of one buff, so if you have 10, it is 1% 10 times. I did try when I started on dungeon ang, and guess what, it felt a retarded option, so I never pick again

[subtle python]

Not in the slightest, dragon towers scaled at least 3 times harder than normal towers. That being said I'm only on torment 9 (since I keep just letting towers expire ) so it's not threatening enough for status fade to affect anything.

The problem is that as soon as you reach a difficulty that can't be trivialized, status fade starts having a very outsized effect.

[burnt flume]

Damn your luck on roll is bad too. I've never got 3 cri modifier in one level. Not even 2. And I'm in anguished 13 for dungeon.

I'm at torment 9.

You are maybe right on the 1% x10 if you have 10 permanent buff. We need a confirmation on this.

Whether it is 1% on all buff or 1% on each buff and it stacks.

[unborn fox]

it aint my luck, it is the same for everybody

[subtle python]

And I hard agree with nefandi, Crit maluses are too concentrated. I hit Agony 21 yesterday, let me grab a picture of the path.

[unborn fox]

so again, bad design, you just didn't get there yet

[subtle python]

Left 2 with Crit maluses right 2 with status fade and pet act or ward absorption and pet act

How the hell does a realm or heretic deal with this level.

[unborn fox]

check tower ang level 8 #811254572042420245 message

[burnt flume]

I've never got 3 cri modifier before at melancholy 13.

[subtle python]

That is the easiest berserk encounter pick of my life

[burnt flume]

Oh wait there's one. Damn I didn't notice.

[unborn fox]

I agree, but you do know what I mean correct but bad design

[burnt flume]

Oh shot I didn't realize is the same for everyone.

[subtle python]

Honestly if Crit malus was the sort of thing you got once or twice or three times it'd be livable. Problem is it just occurs way too much.

[dim garden]

It wouldn't be so bad if crit chance and damage were just separate and all the armor crit adorns didn't have negative attack. Taking a crit chance malus means you're additionally adding on negative attack, it's just mean

[burnt flume]

We just need bigger modifier pool and a reroll that increase with cost to reroll?

Or separate the modifiers to smaller parts?

[subtle python]

Bigger pool is the correct answer. I don't think it is worth considering a change that lets you modify the path itself.

[dim garden]

Bigger pool would be great. Reiterating what we mentioned above but maluses affecting hp/ward/mana/stats in general. Personally I'd like ward absorption to be either - ward recovery or reduced starting ward

[burnt flume]

Since it's the same for everyone. The reroll could be done in game by players contributing to the cost together?

That would be fun.

[unborn fox]

that could be an option, but at 4 we should not have the same malus more than twice among the options

Look at 25, 3 crits again

this is just bad, and also 1% HP 3 times. 1% HP is dungeons is so annoying

[subtle python]

It's less egregious since you can inflict dots that tick enemies down... But yeah, survive at 1% HP is annoying

I can at least see the argument for it: "this is here to keep the glass cannon setups in line". But in practice it only affects the classes that have to actually give up defensive stats for more offense.

[burnt flume]

But the things is, even if you got bigger pool , every 5 levels, they will add one more modifier.

It will eventually force the RNG to repeat the same modifier again at higher level.

[dim garden]

Which is fine. There's a hard cap to how far in anguish everyone can push, but these are occurrences early on in anguish.

[unborn fox]

I believe being able to shuffle by adding another item an easier way to "fix", yet imo it should not be able to be done every level, just the retarded ones. This could be logged and then devs would see their bad design and then fix them

i don't want easy, I just don't annoying, it should be fun

[iron tulip]

I'm not sure how any item that "shuffles" the choices for a given step would be balanced. Wouldn't it just be a case of rerolling until you get an option that doesn't hurt you at all? That seems much more against the spirit of anguish than just a few targeted tweaks

[subtle python]

Functionally, this shuffling would just plug bad design holes until you push to the point where you have to choose between 2 very damaging maluses anyways. It kicks the can down the road and doesn't account for how the current frontrunners are least affected by maluses, allowing them to push further more effectively.

It will do nothing for realm and heretic since they get Crit screwed anyways and gilga will still ride into the sunset with SS3 (which has no maluses). Maybe deity too, unsure if the SS3 nerf hit them hard enough.

[unborn fox]

I agree, reason I mentioned that it should be capped or limited, e.g. once per 10 levels, etc. Meaning every set of 10 you would be able to reroll one level. Everything hurts one way or another, and rerolling for that level could get more expensive per reroll

Again, ang 2.0 is nice, yet some of the pools are imo bad design, and something should be done about that.

in summary I agree, I dont want to reroll everything, but I also don't think what we have is good design

[flat dome]

GS endless NEEDS fade chance to remove zerks from main after summons for it lol. we get it on purpose as a buff, and...everyone makes more or farming GS endless than any other class even with 0 Al in GS so

[flat dome]

it is 1% but if you are it profs per target like lugus and everything else. it takes hundreds of turns to remove 3 zerks

[dim garden]

That's actually very clever. You guys put zerks on your summons then let the buff fade? Why doesn't it fade from the summons?

[flat dome]

because malus doesn't apply to them

[dim garden]

Huh... wonder why. I'd assume maluses would target the summons too

[flat dome]

fade doesn't, they keep all permabuffs for 1k+ turns

[dry ember]

No malus applies to summons, at all, ever

It is that way because of the way that it is

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[iron tulip]

If that was the case then why do so many people see it happening constantly on single-target raids? It's anecdotal but where there's smoke there might be something calculated weirdly

[flat dome]

we a
have the perfect line in Italian from Dante (circa 1300 ad)

vuolsi cosi cola dove si puote ció che si vuole e + non domandare [they want it like this where they decide what is possible and don't ask again]

[flat dome]

saliency bias you remember when it happens because it hurts a lot and not all the other times; i have 2% at agony 43 and most raid snotra/mag++ don't fade but I don't take manybturns

[iron tulip]

If you don't take many turns then your sample size isn't great 😏

I understand that bias may be a thing but we are talking about 1% chances mattering in a manner that seems way more than 1%. Just worth testing is what I'm saying

[flat dome]

I killed several thousands raids per month I think my sample is fine. test it but remember, it's PER BUFF. it's not 1% procs then one buff dies. every buff rolls 1% every turn (more with aoe)

basically every "Perma" become a temporary with 99, 98 or whatever staying chance

[iron tulip]

Yes, but remember buffs are guaranteed to last at least 1 turn after being cast; so a sample size of thousands of raids lasting only a few turns is less representative than longer raids. At the end of the day testing will show us if the rates are accurate or not

[burnt flume]

I'm curious whether we can get a yearly reroll of the whole path lol.

Would be fun too.

[slate basalt]

Are you using summoner

You can speed up the perm fade with summons like pega or phaethon etc

Ive had times where i lose snotra, mag+ & ++ on "same" turn just bc phaethons were buffing me

[burnt flume]

How tht work?

[slate basalt]

When they buff you ,you proc effects like lugus etc and perm fade is one of these effects that can proc

[dim garden]

Agony 37 is another difficult choice for RS. We're pretty much limited to the two middle choices since we have to take ward absorption at 32