⭐ Disciplines and Classes

[halcyon yarrow]

Yeah duskbow is just press same abilities every time no variation

No chance to fuck up or improve

[keen bluff]

Of the seven classes I've tried to much any extent, elementalist has been the least brain dead. Imo the reason people would think its brain dead is that the difference in dps between managing stacks vs casting on cooldown is pretty negligible. Especially because the only instances long enough to manage stacks are boss fights, which are all single target, and if you care about single target damage youre not playing elementalist anyway. Having a shorter cooldown on Orb of Frost is nice, I guess? But I'm not sure what the change is supposed to do. If I'm solo killing on-level mobs I need to wait for my 30sec cd Meteor Storm anyway.

[halcyon yarrow]

There isnt any stack management

Its press spell off cd

[keen bluff]

You get extra dps from procing enflamed, frostbite, and jolted, which are from building stacks?

[halcyon yarrow]

Yes but that just happens by pressing your spells of cd

It isnt Oh i gotta build fire then proc fire whit lightning

Its smash buttons and stuff happens

Not saying its brain dead but stack management doesnt feel like a thing to me

[keen bluff]

Also keeping jolted from reaching 3 stacks and becoming thunderstruck keeps a dot on them that you would otherwise lose

An extra ~400dps is worth waiting a couple extra seconds to cast a spell

[pseudo tapir]

if shifting some more damage into the stack bursts to make the stacks more important, that's an easy fix

[keen bluff]

though it does seem counterintuitive as the only debuff you dont want to reach 3 stacks

[patent walrus]

Removing stacks for improper setup would be interesting. Can't just mindlessly throw out abilities. Building towards this combo so don't cast this spell. Increase the effect to compensate. Adds difficulty to the class with reward for proper planning

[halcyon yarrow]

As far as i know you cant even get 3 lightning stacks

[keen bluff]

Lightning strike gives 2 stacks

chain lightning gives 1

Anyway, the kit for elementalist feels like the goal should be procing your enflamed/frostbite/thunderstruck, you can proc them more often if you pay attention to them. But its not much of difference single target

Aoe pulls, your orb of frost and meteor storm guarantee youre reaching enflamed and frostbite so pretty braindead

Though aoe pulls are pretty awful right now with increased mob speed, low leash ranges, occaisional glitched pathing, and facing requirements, as minyo described

[pseudo tapir]

Which mobs are you farming in particular atm?

[keen bluff]

I still need to try out backpedaling, but will get back to you after that

Mm, am pulling thundercoil djinns atm, as they were the easiest of the stone farms for me. I think after shaking some rust off, and adjusting to backpedal, I'll withdraw my "awful" comment

[pseudo tapir]

any thoughts around minor details that would improve the feel/gameplay are welcomed

[keen bluff]

Leash ranges still feel low, terrain still gets in the way

[pseudo tapir]

kk let me check their setting

their leash range is too low

I am going to bulk update this actually

[keen bluff]

For elementalist playstyle, I think balancing damage more towards procs might make it more engaging, but I seem to be alone in that opinion. For jolted/thunderstruck, it feels bad when I reach 3 stacks of jolted, consuming it and losing the dot as 2 stacks of jolted will do much more damage over time than the burst of procing thunderstruck

[pseudo tapir]

we can correct the payoff damage to be valuable, that's no prob

ele is basically positioned as a control + combo mage

[keen bluff]

It feels weird at all that jolted is the only of the 3 stacking debuffs to do anything

[patent walrus]

Instead of "I can proc this so I should proc this" all the stacks should be "I can proc this but SHOULD I proc this". Let the fire tick longer. Let the ice slow longer etc.

[keen bluff]

It would be interesting if ember and shiver did things on their own, but that may risk making elementalist more of a dot class

[pseudo tapir]

so as it is now, each trigger status gets consumed to do different functions on consumption

AoE damage, Single Target damage, Slow, etc.

Idk if i can agree that only lightning does something, unless you mean the DoT tick?

[keen bluff]

Yes, ember stacks to enflamed and does nothing else, shiver stacks to frostbite and does nothing else

[patent walrus]

By itself it does something. Without outside intervention. Fire and Ice require outside intervention to "do something"

[keen bluff]

But jolted is a dot AND stacks to thunderstruck

[pseudo tapir]

originally iirc jolted did nothing, and they are all just counters to stack up to the consumption trigger effect status

but fundamentally we're talking about shifting damage around, if jolted feels good ticking DoTs and people would want DoTs on the other counter effects, we could shift damage away from casted spells into DoTs

But the main purpose of the counters -> consumption status is to build up, then use when you need a particular effect (AoE, Single Target Damage, etc)

balancing the damage so those payoffs feel better is important tho

also making sure the cooldowns flow cleanly so you have a few options when ready to consume

[patent walrus]

In my experience with the class only lightning was thought about. AoE Fire and Ice kept those stacks rolling. Regardless of what the stacks did I just wanted to pop them so they did anything.

[keen bluff]

I mean, if my frost shock comes off cooldown and the target has 2 stacks of ember, I’m gonna cast another firebolt first to stack enflamed

[keen bluff]

It feels engaging as something to manage, but it feels opposite what the class is about

Trying to avoid reaching 3 stacks of jolted so as not to lose the dot

[pseudo tapir]

that seems like we should make the DoT less important and make the stack consumption more valuable and important

[keen bluff]

It would be more consistent

Im not next to a training dummy, and for some reason thundercoil djinn seem to be resistant to lightning damage

[pseudo tapir]

they might have lightning res for sure

[keen bluff]

But iirc the thunderstruck proc is only 2-3 tics worth of jolted

[keen bluff]

this is regarding single target, as its impossible to get thunderstruck on more than one target. in a group of 4 or 5 the aoe may tip the scales in favor of a thunderstruck proc

[keen bluff]

Sarcasm doesnt translate to text well. Of course the beings made of lightning dont take full lightning damage

On a training dummy, 2 stacks of jolted will deal roughly the same damage to 1 target as procing thunderstruck on a group of 3

[pseudo tapir]

so tstruck too weak, jolted too stronk

take jolted power, put it all in tstruck?

[keen bluff]

That would move dmg towards burst quite a bit

Only way to get 3 stacks of jolted is casting lightning strike, an 18 second cooldown

So maybe cut jolted in half? transfer some of that to thunderstruck?

I'm trying to think of incentives to wait on procing enflamed/frostbite/tstruck. Only thing that comes to mind is like, enflamed reducing the targets fire resist until its proced or something

[patent walrus]

AoE or single target DMG makes no difference. DMG is DMG. If you can proc the stacks you should proc the stacks. Push the buttons 99/100 times off CD to proc the stacks. 1/100 times maybe cast fireball first then proc the stacks. This is why I didn't find the class engaging to play. Could just be me.

[keen bluff]

My complaints about jolted were a separate issue of it feeling opposite the rest of the class

I would think taking some of the spell damage and weighting it more towards the elemental procs would encourage keeping track and engaging with stacks more

[patent walrus]

I hardly felt like I was engaging with the stacks is the disconnect. It was just something that happened as I pushed buttons. I'm not gonna track 3 debuffs on a group of mobs while 2 of them are being applied automatically over time. After the dust settled it was cleanup with fireball and the frost spell. Lightning if available.

[pseudo tapir]

What is your favorite class of all time in an MMO @patent walrus ?

[patent walrus]

It was Resto Shaman in WoW. After playing Ashes of Creation (RiP) I fell in love with the Bard.

[keen bluff]

Healer/support classes are going to be a bit more engaging than dps rotations

[patent walrus]

A good group makes a bad healer look good. A bad group makes a good healer a god. DPS rotations are less choatic but they don't have to be braindead. It's possible to keep them simple but require some skill to perfect. Even with a small spell set. You can faceroll just about every class in this game right now and pull 95% of the dps someone paying attention would. I'd rather see that be 80% at least. Give us a reason to want to pay attention to our rotation.

[keen bluff]

Well said

[halcyon yarrow]

wich they arnt atm either

but agrre dps needs to be lower dps when face rolling the paying attention

[patent walrus]

How much lower should depend on the class. Beginner friendly classes should be closer to the 90/10 split. Advanced classes should be closer to 70/30 or more.

[keen bluff]

I mean, I cant think of a time when I was pushing content as a healer that I wasnt engaged. Of course when your group knows the fights and outgears the content a healer will be bored, I dont think theres a way that can be helped. I mean, in full t9 in BoC I can spend the vast majority of some fights only casting flames judgement

[halcyon yarrow]

there is very little you can do as a healer in general

i did it alot on priest only time its tricky is shadow boss

because cleanse

[frigid jetty]

I like the format of healers right now where you are basically maximizing your support abilities by swapping through your different class options for example: Druid is best healer, but worst at anything else, Priest can do a little dps and heal, Enchanter is even less heals, but can boost party dps and mana regen, then cultist which is the highest dps, party dps, but hardest to play and runs oom. Warden may even be an option in some groups.
I think it is interesting to swap to more healing if your party is less geared, but I also realize this takes 4-5 different relics and in a way makes you think of all healers as a single class where you prepare for specific situations ahead of time.

[potent jackal]

I will say, I think Warden having respectable dps now should always be a compliment to one of the other 'secondary' healers. Cultist or Enchanter, namely. I don't think the idea that Warden can heal current content should be pushed too hard. We do only have two heal buttons that can affect others, they're both on 10s cooldowns, and with no HoT/OH shit heal, or any targeted heal to speak of...I don't really think it's viable without excessive effort for an averagely geared party, in at level content. Like you said, in some groups; with careful party comp and everyone pulling their weight with their own survivability as well, during those cooldown periods, and you could probably minmax heals to dps this way in certain situations.

I don't have BiS, and I fully expect my feelings on that to change once I do.

[frigid jetty]

This is right. I threw it in there because on the extreme scale of being over-levelled/overgeared for a dungeon, warden would factor in as a healer, but no one should go into being a warden expecting to actually be primary healer.

[potent jackal]

I picked up Cultist yesterday and am debating grabbing Enchanted next. I haven't fully unlocked the Cultist kit yet, need to do a few more maps to power level it. I like the buff support classes.

I will say, my initial impressions of Cultist are that the whole flow is messy, and it needs work. The complexity to its rotation is not one that is smooth. It could be both.

I don't have enough time with it for that to be definitive judgment. Will play more and come back.

[pseudo tapir]

I'd say there is a bit of a learning curve, but it has a specific, slow, methodical stacking rotation that makes it feel unique to play to me

It's possible to execute the stack/rip perfectly and then have a 'recovery' button with blood ritual in case you need stacks

[coral eagle]

cultist is surprisingly decent so long as the fight is long enough to start getting stacks up. Also if your party doesn't need direct heals. It's really a force multiplier type of class.

Still needs some tweaks though. Extremely high mana cost. Pact of bloodrage just makes it worse even though it's fun for others. Pact of Malady aoe isn't big enough to even hit melee consistently. And i still hate that healer is the only playstyle that you're forced to another class if your cleanse doesn't work. No other archtype needs to buy 4 different relics to do all content and HAS to switch off their class of choice.

[pseudo tapir]

fixed the aoe radius to be 3 tiles (should hit melee properly unless large monster hitbox

[potent jackal]

I'm kind of on board with the "Make cleanses just cleanse" and unifying them tbh. Originally, I appreciated the distinction. But what Arch laid out is very frustrating, admittedly.

[potent jackal]

I definitely don't have a good handle on Cultist yet. But I get bored to tears playing Priest. I'd rather sweat a teeny bit when healing.

So I'm gonna give it some playtime.

[frigid jetty]

I dont play cultist cause its too hard and im not good enough

[halcyon yarrow]

i remember playing it way back is it really that hard?

[coral eagle]

i think it's sweatier only cause of managing mana.

When i was running rifts (not bis parties) on it we could clear like 1m faster but I was chugging pots, using leyline during bosses, people were at much higher risk of dying... I ended up just switching back to druid cause everyone had 0 risk of dying, people had to rest less cause mana regen. It just made no sense in the grand scheme of things to eek out 1 saved minute.

If someone died that minute was completely lost anyways so... idk. I'm not seeing where cultist's niche actually is.

[halcyon yarrow]

its niche is thr trashcan

https://tenor.com/view/lmao-lol-xd-gif-6972117878448025061

[potent jackal]

Do you think Enchanter provides enough mana regen to make Cultist go with less breaks/cost/risk? Just curious.

[coral eagle]

yup, definitely would but i don't think a party going enchanter + cultist would offset the dps lost by giving up a dedicated dps player. Might be worth trying in boc one of these days though.

I just feel bad whoever has to play enchanter that day. Doing nothing but clicking down the party list casting the mana buff on repeat is peak content.

[potent jackal]

Honestly, if we were going to combo "healers" I'd sooner run Warden and see one of you with experience run Enchanter or Cultist. Been curious about that for a while.

Get all the buffs. Guardian banner and shit.

[coral eagle]

yea, maybe. Just buff everyone to the moon. When i've healed boc on cultist so long as the party is basically in bis it goes fine but I'm oom so much it slows the group down. I haven't tried enchanter there but that class feels so bad to play i wouldn't want to do it more than one run lol

in boc on cultist i literally had to stand there for a few bosses and not cast anything to get mana back

[potent jackal]

What I'm hearing is all 4 dedicated healing specs and healing as a whole system needs a serious work over, in such a way that those two things can't really be separated.

[coral eagle]

and then due to the heals taking time to ramp I had to switch to priest/druid for the adds cause i can't cleanse hemmorage

[pseudo tapir]

I can do a check on mana consumption for next patch

Any detailed intel is useful, specific spells etc

[coral eagle]

Let me go hit some dummies and I'll get you some scuffed numbers

[halcyon yarrow]

you can i think whit bis already run boc whit just warden as healer

only poblem is mobs in between

[potent jackal]

I could see that, if everyone is in BiS. And group hugged. It would work better with a mostly full melee crew.

The radius on our burst heal is a bit too small in my opinion, but I can't have everything

[halcyon yarrow]

I mean ranged players dont really take damage anyway

[potent jackal]

Well, fair.

[halcyon yarrow]

In boc that is

[coral eagle]

ok, so rough napkin math on cultist. I tried to do a "real" rotation, not using every skill, holding bloodboil for an aoe heal, etc.

For a full min this is my rough usage:

Leeching bolt (x60) - 1980 mana
Pact of Malady (x5) - 230 mana
Pact of Bloodrage (x2) - 264 mana
Bloodboil (x4-x6) - 176- 264 mana
Misc other stuff cast as one-offs as needed, 200-300 mana.

~3k mana per min used.
~8mana / sec regen = 480 mana
2 pots per min = 2500 mana

Honestly the mana isn't as bad as I remember. Doing a "solo" rotation though changes things a bit. I'm usually able to get another 5 or so casts of Leeching bolt and a few extra Exsanguinates so the mana used goes up a bit.

HOWEVER - the above is assuming perfect pot usage. The longer you miss your window the worse things get. Maybe with macros this wont be a problem long term but short term I do miss pots when having to pay attention to mob mechanics, party hp bars, and stacks. #skillissue maybe.

I think though... if I'm like "ooo fun". Maybe if Pact of Bloodrage had something like -10-20% on Leeching Bolt it'd take the edge off and make it a more fun skill for Cultist since they can spam dps more and it takes the edge off the leeching bolt spam.

Or maybe as we get access to more stats/trinkets/enchants wis mana regen will be high enough it'll give enough buffer? Idk. I'm ranting. I hate when numbers complicate things and don't confirm my feelings 😄

[pseudo tapir]

FUN

yea we need a mana oriented trinket soon

need to brainstorm lower level trinkets too and start filling gaps

[coral marsh]

We were running maps in a 3 person team. @cloud mountain was running enchanter and this is the comically low xp per map. Grisus is lvl 43 doing my level 49 maps, but the 4+ level penalty shoudn't be that extreme right?

[pseudo tapir]

there shouldn't be any penalty for XP, however this is the main reason we added the meters to track things down and try to solve

what was the typical gameplay? lots of tempest? enchanter is a unique case in terms of making sure all XP sources are cleanly mapped

Also, would you be able to send snapshots of your xp gain as well? that would be useful to see

[cloud mountain]

Yeag it was mostly spamming Tempest/Clariy and haste none of them give any EXP and the small exp i got were all from the bits of heals i was doing

[lucid current]

So after testing a bit on Assassin, these are my thoughts:

• Still worse than Shadowblade. Does less damage, has less utility, and has no survivability (ironic considering the discipline name). Shadowblade does more damage, provides more group utility, and is incredibly tanky by comparison.
• I like the idea of the ramping poison > consume playstyle (similar to Assassination in WoW) but it doesn't feel rewarding enough. Perhaps on an actual raid boss that lived for like 5 minutes it would shine more but with the current TTK in BiS gear, the value proposition of doing this vs just spamming abilities on ShB is not great
• I still don't really find it fun to play. It's thematically cool, but it doesn't feel very cohesive. It does have a finisher which I like, but all of the other abilities just feel very samey and "press on CD" without any thought behind it, really.

I would personally rather see Assassin totally reworked from the ground up with new abilities and everything. In my ideal scenario, there would be 3 potential dagger classes, each focusing on a different combat archetype:

• Pure single target, highest sustained damage output with primarily DoT abilities (bleeds / poisons) (Assassination)
• Pure single target or perhaps a small bit of AoE, highest burst-direct damage output (Shadowblade)
• AoE damage output with an emphasis on a bit of both with procs / variance (something similar to Combat in WoW for rogues or what is now called Outlaw in modern WoW)

For the survivability / tanky / sustain aspect, I think there's room for each of these to have some form of it. It's thematically cool to be an elusive high damage dealer. Also in line with typical rogue archetypes. But currently it's vastly favored towards ShB's. Given that you spend 99.99% of your time solo, this is just invaluable compared to something that will need to rest more often etc. In a group setting it's less necessary.

[lucid current]

As an aside: My shadowcaster in Dole gear, DLP wands and no hydra neck does more dps than my shadowblade in full BiS, but it does go OOM eventually which never happens on ShB

[pseudo tapir]

we do have to tighten the dps a bit - precise balance hasn't really been done yet, mostly kit tweaks

[coral marsh]

As a comparison for damage, Minyo did some tests with multiple classes, one being Brawler. With his legendary he got 3400/dps with the 1 minute lvl 40 dummy test.
For Berserker w/ legendary, same test I got 3200/dps. He mentioned thinking Brawler is supposed to be lower then Zerk, but figured I'd post and let you decide.

[pseudo tapir]

brawler req a bit more focus, zerk is more zug

seems like a decent delta between the two

[coral marsh]

honestly I'd agree. Brawler is more complex and thusly should have a higher ceiling

[pseudo tapir]

side question that just came to mind - is it even necessary to have research XP for kills? I wonder if we eliminate that and have it exclusive bones. Kills would still grant book progress

[lucid current]

Makes more sense IMO to have it tied to bones / remains. Would probably bump up how much you get from said bones/remains to compensate. Mostly to avoid confusion for new players who will level up Research on SI killing stuff and have no idea why.

[coral marsh]

Personally, the 10 per is beyond negligible and think it'd be fine to removed.

Yeah, what Ren said, much more eloquent

[lucid current]

But yea, it's negligible regardless even if it does add up. It's like 1 huge bone for 1.5k mobs or something

[coral eagle]

The 10 per was nice up until about 30. With the exp curve late the 10 exp is useless but it does have value early on. 🤷‍♂️

[lucid current]

I agree, which is why I think it should be redistributed into bones / remains. Could just be the lower tier bones to help round out that curve a bit if there's a balancing concern.

[halcyon yarrow]

Idk its useless for me then

Since i still cant research the 35 bones the only ones i get

Because system was changed

[drowsy wharf]

I'd like to see a little more bones dropped over all. I'd be interested to see if research can keep up with a new player grinding through the brackets

[wintry pike]

If the research keeps up with levelling then its a free skill and would just afk level alongside combat

[halcyon yarrow]

I think should just be like RuneScape no lvl limit

[coral eagle]

Noobie Paladin Feedback

• Holy Storm: This skill is really underwhelming and never feels good to use. Maybe if it had some HP regen, a debuff, etc. it'd feel better to use when Deliverance is on CD. Right now I usually just ignore it unless I just used Deliverance.
• Divine Protection: This feels like it needs some additional feedback into what it's doing. Is it absorbing dmg like a shield? Is it reducing dmg? Is it close to breaking?

Stretch Asks

• Holy Wrath: What if this could stack up to 2 times? It still keeps the player bound to current cds but won't feel so bad when you see Holy Wrath refresh when you didn't have a skill that you could use it for
• Maybe Pala needs one additional skill to use that isn't tied to Holy Wrath. Of the class skills, 4 are buffs, 3 are dps, 1 is a stun, and 2 are tied to Holy Wrath. Those 3 dps skills often are all on cd and you're just slowly whacking with your axe. It creates weird lulls imo.

I'm no good/experienced Paladin so @coral marsh @frigid jetty @eager flame I know you've played it more.

[potent jackal]

Hi, I'm also a Paladin main, it's about tied for my most played class with Warden o/

I've asked for 2 stacks of Holy Wrath and Ryan basically said abilities would have to be neutered because balance. We're likely stuck with one stackfor now. I've had the best overall results dumping stacks on Holy Storm when Deliverance has any number bigger than 3 for a cd remaining when the Wrath stack lands.

Agree that Divine Protection should have a bit more clarity. How I've understood it is that it is a damage shield, and it heals you when it expires for whatever % of the damage it absorbed over its duration.

I 110% agree that Paladin needs one more builder skill. I'm gonna throw in my idea on that, I've cooked a bit since I last brought it up. Give us a Radiant reskin of Warden's Torrent of Spirits animation, where we raise a hand skyward and call down a bolt of radiance to strike our person. Does AoE damage centered on us. Have it give enemies hit a dot like from Sader's one spender, and do a bit more damage than Holy Storm currently does. Rename this Holy Storm. This is our new AoE Holy Wrath spender. If it wasn't hard to implement, I'd love to see the DoT applied "Burst" rather than have duration refreshed. Bursting wouldn't do more damage; just finish whatever damage is left. This helps alleviate the pain of Holy Wrath refreshing before you feel you can spend it.

The reason it feels bad is because Holy Storm feels bad to press compared to Deliverance. Adding the DoT component means if you get one extra stack, you do some aoe damage and apply DoT pressure. Oh shit, you got another stack immediately, and Deliverance is STILL on CD. Hit it again, the DoT bursts for faster damage. God forbid it happens a third time, now you just reapply the DoT. The idea being, by whatever implementation, to make Holy Storm a button you want to press.

Take the existing Holy Storm spender and make it our new clicky spammy ability, with adjusted downward damage. Too strong for a builder. Call it Radiant Cleave.

[pseudo tapir]

ideally we wanted holy storm to feel better than deliverance in aoe scenarios

[potent jackal]

If I'm surrounded by enough enemies for it to feel better than Deliverance, I'm likely dead

[pseudo tapir]

however, i guess the CDs are what are problematic

you want to just use deliv in single and just use storm in aoe

so we could adjust the CDs and damage such that deliv is within reach at all times on solo, and HS within reach at al times aoe

and yes i do feel that most people dont like aoe spells bc mostly solo gameplay atm, but i think it's important to consider group play

[potent jackal]

I definitely want to hear from the people Arch tagged on this as well. I'm not in BiS, and Opecla I know for a fact has more hours clocked on Paladin than me. I just love the class almost as much as Warden, wanted to throw in my piece.

[frigid jetty]

I think you need 3 monsters to break even on holy storm dps vs deliverance if I am remembering right

[potent jackal]

3 feels good, 4 feels best, but 4 usually kills me. Sounds correct.

[frigid jetty]

and that is just kinda even. so in that case you would just deliverance anyway to eliminate one source of incoming damage more quickly

[potent jackal]

I think regardless, Holy Storm needs a buff to live up to what you want out of the two aiblities, Ryan.

[potent jackal]

I don't disagree that Deliverance just being more available would solve problems, and it may well be the simplest solution since we're just talking damage and cooldowns tweak wise.

[pseudo tapir]

can tweak a bit

FUN

[frigid jetty]

whirlybird pally time!

[potent jackal]

I may be hallucinating on Divine Protection, idk where the "%of the damage absorbed" came from. More clarity on this tooltip would be great.

[frigid jetty]

https://tenor.com/view/toon-link-spin-spin-attack-up-special-wind-waker-gif-13351995737872086148

[potent jackal]

Yesssssss

[pseudo tapir]

i think i forgot to add absorb shield mech to this

[frigid jetty]

I didnt see any grey bar when i used it now

[pseudo tapir]

ok sec i check fast

[potent jackal]

Ryan...FUN, right?

Just remove the cd on Deliverance. See how busted it is. Then dial as necessary.

[pseudo tapir]

https://tenor.com/bq0tT.gif

[potent jackal]

Is it though?

Can't use it without procs. Leave it at one stack. I think it COULD be, it'll make the class spikier

But that's like...it's thing. Also buff Storm. Make the choice actually, am I single target or am I AoE

In current state, if Deliverance had low/now CD, we'd just press Deliverance all the time. Hammer the anvil.

I was half joking, but the more I chew on the idea, the more willing I personally would be to see Deliverance hit not quite as hard if it had no cd and Storm hit a little harder

[pseudo tapir]

buff holy storm
fix protection shield
slightly reduce deliv damage
deliv CD 5s -> 3s

[potent jackal]

Hmm

@coral marsh

[pseudo tapir]

https://tenor.com/li731QR8dAV.gif

[potent jackal]

https://tenor.com/view/atomic-nuke-j-robert-oppenheimer-destroyer-of-the-worlds-death-gif-15159234

[eager flame]

holy wrath does need the buff from what ive seen, divine protection as well would be cool it feels very minimal

[drowsy wharf]

My off the wall input. Keep holy storm as is. BUT. Let it build stacks. The more it hits the better chance at a stack

[potent jackal]

So instead of spending a stack, it gives a progressively better chance at a stack every time it hits without generating one? I feel like that would shift a lot of the rotation in a way that isn't strictly needed. Because that would almost certainly mean it would need to have a CD added.

[drowsy wharf]

Honestly why is paladin treated with kid gloves. On mobs that have 25% divine vulnerability it just barely outpaces my berzerker. And that’s when the stacks are flowing freely. I thought the whole point was it was a gambling class with high potential.

[potent jackal]

Like, it's a cool idea, don't get me wrong. But idk

[drowsy wharf]

Nah it spends a stack. But has a chance of refunding that stack on every hit it performs

For instance berserkers execute still out damages deliverance in the above example. And has a potentially shorter cooldown because you can spam it off cooldown versus being in a stack drought sometimes.

[potent jackal]

Okay. I feel like at that point Holy Storm should apply a buff to the Pally at that point, for tracking and application purposes

[drowsy wharf]

It’d just offer a different avenue of playstyle. On one hand you have the normal playstyle of click deliverance every opportunity and go for the single target bursts. Then you have the alternative to risk pulling larger groups at a chance of going beyblade mode on the world.

It’d also feel a LOT better at lower levels when you can kill 4 or 5 mobs without seeing a stack of the good stuff. And watch in envy as infuser and elementalist pulls the entire area and nukes em down.

You don’t even have to add a tooltip for the change. People would pick up the idea pretty quick

[potent jackal]

Currently, Ethyrial's classes don't really feel like they are being balanced around the idea of multiple playstyles. I think that comes later, with the advent of Augments.

They'll be a core pillar of the build kit once they're implemented. I think a Paladin Lightning variant that implements a pseudo builder system that works how you're talking about, maybe with Divine Protection turned into a pulsing damage cloak instead of an absorb shield, would be really cool.

[drowsy wharf]

Doesn’t this check most of the boxes people are asking for in a simple way? Adds a stack generator, gives holy storm some value without upping damage, and gives the class the potential to do more than swing an axe for 4 seconds while you wait on cooldowns?

[potent jackal]

I'd say honestly, no, not for me. Having one of our stack spenders, our filler/aoe stack spender, now also be a stack generator is unintuitive and would mess with the very good flow Paladin already has. We don't REALLY gain a way to press more buttons more often, so that we have less autoattack downtime, because Storm still costs a stack to use, for a chance to get one back. If the chance builds each time Storm is used and doesn't refund a stack, it will really mess with the current flow of Paladin, which again, is very good. It just needs another builder. One more extra clicky. And even that, idk. Ryan's already computed change of shortening the Deliverance CD and buffing Storm so it feels better to press in AoE, over just using Deliverance, feels fine to me. I had very few complaints.

Like I said, it would be weird split in the class's flow, and wouldn't really present a choice. It would feel like an addon to a very tight proc based rotation for me.

[drowsy wharf]

I didn’t mean it’s chance to generate a stack increases everytime it’s used.

Right now it feels like there’s about a 30% chance to proc a stack whenever a mob gets hit by 3 of our skills. Or an auto attack. I’m saying. If storm hits 4 targets, then that’s 4 separate 30% chances to gain another stack.

[potent jackal]

Ah

[drowsy wharf]

If you refund the stack. Spin again. If you don’t. Carry on as usual. But the more you pull. The better the chance at spinning again.

[potent jackal]

I don't actually know whether Holy Storm is currently excluded from the current stack generating mechanic

Beucause that is, as I understand it, just any time we hit an enemy with the weapon having Bless Weapon: Martyr on it.

[drowsy wharf]

I cant say for absolute certainty it is excluded. But I am almost positive it, deliverance, and the stun do not generate stacks

[potent jackal]

Don't think Retribution counts as a contact spell, and Deliverance isn't either I don't think

Weapon damage isn't part of their scaling

[drowsy wharf]

I did most of my paladin play time at mamabear which is a bit more isolated than general farming and I have never seen them generate a stack

[potent jackal]

For Holy Storm, however, it is.

Again, hitting the enemy with the weapon has to be part of it

Neither of them do.

Holy Storm does

But idk. Because Sanctification doesn't make contact either, and it still procs

At least, I think it does. Now I'm questioning everything.

[drowsy wharf]

Easiest way to test it is to sit at dummy’s outside melee range and use the stack generator to spin until it generates a stack

Sanctification does generate a stack. And I THINK every instance of damage it does has the same chance

But the aoe is so small I’ve never had success pinning that one down

[potent jackal]

either way, I think Ryan already pulled the trigger on the first set of Pally changes, so we can test that and see how it feels after. Increments will yield better results. I'm fairly certain the proposed changes solve my couple small gripes with the class. Comes down to whether the reduction in damage Deliverance does is worth it being usable potentially twice as often. We shall see.

Again, I like your idea; I just believe that different playstyles for the classes will live in Augmented abilities. It would be hype and thematic to be more aoe, building current focused with the Augmented abilities being type swapped to Lightning or like Demonic or something.

[drowsy wharf]

I don’t see how the flexibility would hurt. However that’s not my decision to make. And Ryan’s buffs did change bunch of stuff

[potent jackal]

o.o but they aren't live yet are they

And, idk how to explain my thoughts on why I do think it would hurt/bloat succinctly. I also think I've said enough on the topic until others have said their piece. That's all.

https://tenor.com/view/laika-missing-link-laika-studio-laika-studios-stop-motion-gif-20493977

[coral marsh]

Since I've been tagged twice, I suppose I'll give my 2 cents worth.

I think my biggest issue has been feast or famine for pally with Holy Wrath. Decreasing the CD for Deliverance may help a bit, but I think inconsistency of gaining stacks is the part that makes it really feel bad. I worry that lowering its CD without lowering or altering any of the other skills will make the rotation feel off.

If I'm really trying to make stacks count I will be patient with my button presses to see if there is a Holy Wrath stack after each one, that will greatly affect how I press my next buttons. Sometimes the other three "gainers" will each proc a stack, sometimes its 2 or three rotations without one.

My thoughts would be leaving the CD of deliverance and its dmg where it is, increase the %chance of generating stacks with the Blessing and the flow of Deli and Holy Storm can be more consistent and less RNG.

[potent jackal]

I'll be honest, I didn't think once about increasing the chance of gaining a stack at the weapon imbue level. I like that.

[coral marsh]

Guardian Feedback

Overall, I think the class feels pretty good. The rotation is nice and the kit has built in survivability that feel good for a tank class.

• Inspiring Banner: Currently the uptime on this skill feels too short. My ask would be decreasing the CD from 60s to somewhere around 40s. This will feel better in group play, but more importantly in solo play while leveling and using the class. Would take it from a 20% uptime to a 30% uptime.
• Grit Stacks: These feel a bit out of place. Very quickly you can get to max stacks and keep them indefinitely. Compared to other builder/spender classes, this just builds.
  • A way to spend these stacks could add a lot. Currently, the stacks might as well disappear and the buff from Grit be a static buff.
  • Idea for spending: Make Barbed Shield and/or Inspired Banner spenders. Spent stacks of Grit give a few second increase in damage with other skills. This would allow for solo play to feel better and give meaning to having stacks as it will be a trade off to keep max stacks for defense, or gain damage.

[pseudo tapir]

Banner adjustment could work for sure

Grit - we actually wanted to keep the build, no spend thing here, because spending would reduce armor. The goal is to build armor and 'grit' as you go longer in combat and get more defensive

It does feel weird when thinking of the class compared to the other spenders but it does mix things up and fit the theme of guardian "stay in combat, be more tanky"

[coral marsh]

I can live with that. Its a small gripe overall. As I mentioned, you can just max stacks very quickly in the fight and then its just static already.

Did you have thoughts on my suggestion for Paladin above this one?

[pseudo tapir]

My thoughts on that:

If we take away RNG and make the class deterministic, it's niche gets removed and it becomes more of a run-of-the-mill class

It was designed with "Big Procs" in mind, which makes high highs and lower lows than most classes. Crusader is the far more deterministic and consistent option in Empyrean

With the tweak to Deliverance having a slightly shorter CD but not 0, it is feasible to get lucky w/ 2 Holy Wrath procs and do 2x big damage in 3 seconds, but it's still driven by the chance to proc (or a guaranteed proc if you choose)

We also have to nerf the damage, since you'll be proccing HW more often, and it'll have lower hits more often, which imo would feel bad

Part of the fun is to do 50% HP on a mob in 1 shot even if it's not every mob

[coral marsh]

That's true, and I agree that would take some of the fun of the class away and make it too similar to Crusader.

As I use Pally mainly for bossing, I suppose my issue with it not being as deterministic is a more specific to me issue, than with the class. Bad RNG can make a boss fight feel bad.

[pseudo tapir]

But as always, we can test these changes, see how they feel, and then adjust!

FUN

[potent jackal]

Any thoughts on maybe adding one additional clicky builder skill? That was brought up multiple times during this circle of feedback, but I feel we haven't addressed it. Even with the shorter Deliverance CD, the frequency we get to press a button still doesn't really go up since none of the changes are increasing proc chance of Holy Wrath.

[pseudo tapir]

The more guaranteed HW procs you can get, the more the high damage multiples have to go down to keep the average DPS in line with where it's supposed to be positioned

So yes, if you all want more HW procs it could be possible, but it leads to the same thing, less big dmg, more medium dmg

[coral marsh]

Personally, I'd rather it stay slower APM and keep the bigger bonk even if it is RNG dependant. Not every class should be like playing the piano on max.

[potent jackal]

Yeah, I don't want it if it means even more nerfs

I wasn't of the thought that a 8s cd AoE melee range clicky skill would result in that

I'm already having misgivings about the potential outcome of the slight Deliverance nerf from the outcome of yesterday's talks lol

[pseudo tapir]

overall it should be a dps increase from yday

[potent jackal]

I did have one final thought on the topic of "making stacks available more often" idea. Kind of inspired by Velox's point, and solidified by your response to Opecla's. Just curious about your thoughts on it.

What if the CD on Divine Fury was shortened by a small amount for every stack of Holy Wrath we spend? Like, by 1s.

Or even a .5s

[pseudo tapir]

hmm that's interesting

def a value add

[potent jackal]

Trying to give ourselves more ways to make stacks more available when we already have one, feels wrong. We have one. Just make Divine Fury play into the mechanic a lil bit.

It would give the get stack/spend stack a bit of feedback into other parts of the kit, and make those chains of lots of procs feel just slightly better, and better in a way that would slightly offset the feeling of drought we get. Especially in bossing situations, especially ones where we're alone.

Longer fights, namely. The CD is pretty long; mind you, it's a big instant damage proc basically, so that's fair. Should be.

🤷‍♂️ just an idea.

[coral marsh]

I like that idea a good bit, I would even take a small nerf in damage if you thought it needed for that add.

[coral eagle]

html aside, i think this value is a bit too high to ever break 🤔

[pseudo tapir]

https://tenor.com/uQLx.gif

[coral eagle]

unless the tooltip is just off

[pseudo tapir]

oopsies, fed the scaling into the multiplier, not the amount value

hehe

[coral eagle]

paladin is bis

[potent jackal]

Off to DLP and then Fire Hydras to test

[potent jackal]

So far I like the changes.

[patent walrus]

I agree about the stacks. Could just be a passive for all it matters. You build them in like 3 GCDs and don't have to manage them. Is just spam buttons off CD. I get wanting them to keep the tankiness but it doesn't give me the fantasy of being this grizzled veteran tank. Just a tank with a group DMG steroid. Even if some abilities consumed just 1 or two stacks it would feel better to see the stacks moving at some level.

[drowsy wharf]

On one hand, I’m jealous to see Guardian have permanent up time damage reduction that EG used to be able to maintain through work. But on the other it’s nice to have higher skill cap classes and lower skill cap, chill grinding classes. I agree that Guardian could use a little identity baked in. But I don’t want yet another stack management class.

[patent walrus]

When I first started this thread I brought up how every class, except for paladin which we can say is proc based, is just a builder spender. The speed of combat makes it so the classes designed around builder spender all feel the same. Very very slight differences between them. As I leveled and purchased more classes I quickly realized this and stopped reading abilities and only looking at their CDs to know what it did. This built, this spent. After that I only picked classes based on what color their damage was.

[drowsy wharf]

There’s a few non stack builders. But hopefully by the end of Ryan’s overhaul there will be a little more identity on each class

[patent walrus]

I keep kicking the same dead horse with my comments so I'll explain why I believe this is such a large issue.

MMO players will always find the path of least resistance. If every class is essentially the same the player base will ignore everything except the meta. Class A is BiS because it does the same DPS as Class B with less effort and Class B doesn't provide anything else to make it worth playing over Class A. Sure everyone might have 2-4 classes they rotate based on what content they are doing but it will turn into the same 2-4 for an overwhelming amount of the player base. Classes that require effort to produce comparable numbers to the meta classes won't see play unless they can produce meaningful results for the effort.

The grinds in this game lean towards semi afk play styles with how long they are. Most people don't want to hyper focus on rotations to reduce a 100 hour grind to a 99 hour grind. Having braindead classes is fine but the downside to playing them should be a less effective class vs a class that requires thought to play. Paying attention should be MUCH more rewarding.

[potent jackal]

I just want to point out, that what requires thought or effort to play a class is going to be strictly subjective person to person.

Which is something that should be kept in mind.

[patent walrus]

Holding every button so it casts off cool down doesn't require thought.

[potent jackal]

Not everybody does that. Sounds like a self inflicted problem tbh.

And not every class can do that, either.

[old marlin]

There is an objective reality to it though. Just like in League of Legends there is Garen who is face Roll and simple and there is Lee sin with a complicated kit. People play Lee Sin because his ceiling is higher than Garen's and they want to be rewarded for their execution prowess.

[potent jackal]

I do agree that being able to do that and play every class proficiently is a potential problem, but it could also be seen as an accessibility feature.

[old marlin]

Definitely, there should be both, but I think Aullairen's point is there isn't much reward for going for the higher skill ceiling classes

[potent jackal]

Realistically, many successful MMOs don't balance their classes the way you're talking about. GW2 is a great example of one where you play builds with higher skill ceilings/floors because you want to. You aren't necessarily entitled to better performance. There's a general trend toward higher input/complexity builds having moderately better performance than low input/accessible ones, but there's so many exceptions that it's hardly a rule.

From things I've seen Ryan say, he believes higher input/complexity classes in similar roles SHOULD have more output of whatever their doing, DPS, healing, yada yada, but both accessible and complex classes need to continue to exist.

[old marlin]

I agree that it can't go to infinity. Like I can't just have unlimited dps because I'm really good at executing mechanically. However, the way that I see it implemented in practice is classes with higher skill ceilings are viable in many diverse situations because they are not locked into a narrow gameplay loop. They don't do more dps per se but they have options where a simpler class is really good at doing what they are supposed to do but don't exist quite the same outside their specialty.

[potent jackal]

Brawler does 200ish DPS more than Berserker with both in BiS, iirc

I play both often, and I'm happy enough with that difference. I play each of them when the situation calls for it, or because I want to. 🤷‍♂️

[patent walrus]

Two classes with different numbers makes sense that's not the point I'm trying to make.

If we both have the same gear and are playing berserker with one of us working mechanics and the other just mindless spamming, the difference in our dps should be very clear. Most classes don't offer that right now for a variety of factors. We would be close enough in DPS that the try hard paying attention is working hard for no reason.

[wintry pike]

Ranger pet doesn't seem to give exp towards ranged with a ranged weapon equipped (my ranged is 24 when spiritualism is 25, even medium xp is ahead of it).
Nature's swiftness doesn't reduce the channel on spirit shot at all, not sure if intended..would need to make sure it gets the full scaling if this is changed
Each new ranger pet seems to only get bigger, does anything else change? Scaling? Tooltips for this would be nice (especially since it's our only skill at lvl 25)
Spiritroot arrow and verdant barrage both say they scale with weapon damage, but hit for very low damage, I understand one is aoe and one is utility but the damage on them is barely worth the press even with unlimited mana

I'd also like a way to keybind the different pet stances, sometimes you want to pull back so have to swap from passive to defensive, and swapping stances untargets your creature. Sometimes if you tab target back after it'll hit another mob and shoot it

If you pull 2 mobs and command pet to attack/taunt secondary one it doesnt listen, he just keeps smacking the first one he started with. passive/defensive swap may fix this but as that drops target it is a bit clunky even if it does work

[eager flame]

what if the druid could transform into some animal to go with the class type and maybe a small buff to go alongside it

[halcyon yarrow]

They have been working on it have said in dev streams they wanted high skill ceiling class to perform better that why Weaver such hugh dps now

[halcyon yarrow]

Thing is more I who has never played zeker can pull of the same dps as you in 5 minutes

[wintry pike]

i refuse to believe you can hold 5 buttons at once good sir!

[halcyon yarrow]

Sorry i lied

I onyla have 4 fingers

But not trying to say people are skill les there is only 1 class really where you have to think about your buttons or lose dps and thats spellblade

All the others can just faceroll keyboard

[wintry pike]

Yep there needs to be a viable reason to not use spender to add any thought to it

[halcyon yarrow]

Lots of classes really doesnt matter what you do

Duskbow for example just spam buttons of cd

Ranger same story

Illusionist Generaly same story

[wintry pike]

The only thought on ranger is if you wanna hold spiritburst cd to make your heals do more

[halcyon yarrow]

Shadowcaster hold 1 button

[halcyon yarrow]

Yeah

[wintry pike]

And even then at 10% you'd prob get more healing over time by not holding it the extra 2s

ranger seeming fun, did my first impression infodump above

[main iron]

@celest tusk @teal hawk @livid mica

here is my first attempt at conceptualizing a refactor for earthguard

lmk what you all think

(numbers and stuff are not figured out yet)

[pseudo tapir]

who else big EG enjoyers ? @frigid jetty tag em if u know em

[main iron]

big egg

https://klipy.com/gifs/pouring-ostrich-egg

[halcyon yarrow]

You back Dave has Ryan released you from the prison?

[main iron]

https://klipy.com/gifs/free-17

[lucid current]

I thought it was the other way around? The other day Ryan said chisme kept him in jail, so much so in fact he prevented him from relieving himself. What sorta power dynamic you guys got going on over there?

[pseudo tapir]

we take turns!

[coral eagle]

I'm guessing so but is EG staying as a tank or moving towards a brusier? Does it still scale off of int?

I haven't played EG for months but as a tank it was nice pre-nerf cause it was dead simple but you'd put on heavy for that cause managing the cds was a pain. If they fell off you while you were in light/med you'd wipe the party.

Solo using leather/cloth was fine-ish but you were forced to lower end zones to aoe which has it's own suite of problems. It just never felt like the aoe-int-light-tank theme aligned.

[halcyon yarrow]

yeha my qeustion too

it being int makes it just odd and gearing weird

[coral eagle]

it made it weird but only cause you really still wanted to use heavy. If you really could use med/light it'd itemize well with Spellblade which would be cool.

[pseudo tapir]

Not sure I see why that is the case, you can get adequate armor and phys armor in leather - it only matters that you get as close to cap, or over cap, as you can

shield/book is a big component of this

also now we have block rating (which needs to be added to shields) which is extra def with a shield/book

[coral eagle]

Why people felt like they had to use heavy instead int med/light?

[pseudo tapir]

prob lack of insight into damage/armor info but we have that now for more theorycrafting and planning

[coral eagle]

This is all few month old eg stuff I'm trying to remember so grain of salt it.

I think it's also how the class is designed around Earth Armor.

If you're in a dungeon and you're pulling a pack of mobs you need to pre-prop Geomantic/Protective shards then time Earthly Absorption to get the Earth Armor stacks for the DR or try and use solid core right off the bat. So you have a lot of potential to miss the DR buffs, or wait for them to be up for latter pulls.

If you didn't micromanage your cds when those DR buffs fall off you can take pretty massive damage. Having heavy armor makes a lot of this way less deadly.

[frigid jetty]

Medium and a heavy shield was working well for EG, but INT vs CON was not worth it, you were only boosting dps, and it was negligible, so BOC Con Plate and int shield was probably BIS before for tanking

[coral eagle]

it's kind of brutal too that for EG to shine you need to train at least two armor skills in light/med + heavy for the shield.

[pseudo tapir]

Could just make it the magic tank niche even further

But I guess that still leads to leather / balanced feel

Just psychologically we think tank = heavy so the same could be said for heavy classes having to level light

We need to make medium shields too tho

[frigid jetty]

and melee which makes it not interchangable with anything except spellblade.

[pseudo tapir]

U could technically do wand now with earth slash not needing a sword

[frigid jetty]

It never did

[pseudo tapir]

It did a long time ago

[coral eagle]

it did a while ago

[pseudo tapir]

But now flex

[frigid jetty]

17.7 dps on a legendary 😄

i know its about skill damage

[halcyon yarrow]

i guess but then normal tanks just got heavy and mabye light for spellbook

[frigid jetty]

I like this design Chisme posted.
I think this build addresses some of the things people have been bringing up. Adding an absorption shield and health recover boosts the sustain of EG where before it had none. This is the biggest thing.
Big damage reduction and group damage reduction are a great mechanic making EG unique and better in some situations than other tanks.
You could choose dps, but of course no one will except a rare situation or if they dont have any other relics. I think that is fine tbh. Maybe since it is a DOT a good earthguard could add ~400 dps in BIS gear if they time their DPS phase for when the target's DPS is low. Fun idea.
In the end I suspect this will feel a little like Warden, where you build stacks, then figure out how to use them in the moment.

I don't honestly hate that a class needs 2 armor skills. Tanks have been the gear-heavy class in almost every game I have played. If you have to boost another skill to get a more perfect shield etc then I think that just adds value.

Medium shields would help it. I also think adding a "class difficulty" field on the character creation screen would be helpful here.

[main iron]

The spikes i wanted for this class would be much more impactful than wardens

warden would be more consistent

I guess impactul isn't the right word...more one way or the other

[teal hawk]

Overall the concept is cool, especially the earth-manipulation theme and the shard system

The biggest issue is that everything is tied to Earth Shards. Damage, shields, protection, cooldown reduction, healing it’s all based on the same stack system. That creates a situation where the class is either extremely strong or extremely weak depending on how many shards you have(almost Iike zerk). If you get reset to zero stacks because of a boss phase, death, or downtime between pulls, the class suddenly feels terrible until it ramps back up.

Another problem is ramp-up time. Tanks usually need to be strong right when a fight starts, because that’s when bosses hit hardest and healers are still stabilizing. With this system you’re building shards first before you become durable, which could make the Earthguard feel fragile at the start of encounters.

There’s also a balance problem with stack scaling. If you allow up to 20 stacks and multiple abilities scale directly off those stacks, the class could become ridiculous once fully stacked. High mitigation, shields, AoE damage, and healing all stacking together could make the class feel almost unkillable in PvP or extremely dominant in PvE.

The shard system is also doing too many jobs at once. It’s acting as a damage resource, a defensive resource, a support mechanic, and a scaling mechanic for multiple abilities. When one resource drives that many systems, balancing it becomes very difficult. If shards are tuned too high, the class is overpowered. If they’re tuned too low, the whole kit feels weak.

Another potential issue is visual and gameplay complexity. Players would have to track Earth Shards, Earthstruck stacks, Chaotic Shards, shields, armor buffs, cooldown reductions, and more. For a tank class, that might end up being more micromanagement than most players expect. Ofcourse not a problem for me I’ll just build an addon to mitigate this.

[main iron]

Good feedback, thanks!

The stack count could be reduced to prevent issues with ramp, and then we can make the abilities scale better per stack. That reduces the complexity of the class and homogenizes it a bit, but it may play better that way.

I don't think players would need to track chaos shards too much, as the overshield is the main visual feedback for that. Perhaps looking at durations in order to decide when to cast the duration extender, but that's it.

I can noodle a bit more on that

[teal hawk]

yeah bringing stacks down but scaling it higher per stack seems solid! honestly class has potential to be a lot of things if it's not locked by a shield imbue

[wintry pike]

Since ranger is sort of a support dps I wouldnt mind seeing them get a castable buff for the party (either one of the 30 min ones or something like natures swiftness).

[potent jackal]

Group movement speed and chance to dodge on a low/moderate cooldown

Edit: Or, group Crit Buff. Call it "Pack Tactics"

[wintry pike]

Packtics

[potent jackal]

Nope, got me thinking Valheim now

[pseudo tapir]

Pack Watch

https://tenor.com/brqwa.gif

[wintry pike]

Pack Watch sounds like a discord mods guild

I think attack speed fits thematically but idk if any other classes bring that

[potent jackal]

Cultist does

and Warden brings Haste, which shortens ability cooldowns. I think the Ranged Spiritualism spec having a group Crit buff that is either accompanied by something else, like move speed since that's also missing, or it being a 30 minute maintenance buff, fits.

Crit helps everyone

Crit heals are real fun to hit

Wait, doesn't Enchanter also bring attack speed? Eh. One or both.

[wintry pike]

If you wanted to lean into the pack thing you could get bonus crit chance per ally in range (up to a cap)

[potent jackal]

I like that, but everybody else gets to benefit from the full strength of the buffs they bring when alone

That would make Ranger different, and worse

Same kinda shit we get with Warden basically objectively needing to keep a cosmetic pet out to hit with our green claw ability to generate extra stacks, if we're talking optimal performance here >.> that's a function I want closed, not expanded

[pseudo tapir]

bump

[stone knoll]

yess and then let druid give iron bark to group as a part of Spiritualism

[wintry pike]

Even just having iron bark on 1 person other than yourself would be nice, chuck it on tank and get more xp

[coral eagle]

Enchanter, post tweaks

• Exp is still borked.
• Gust of Alacrity: This imo shouldn't require a target. The class is stuck in casts non-stop so you never get the opportunity to cast this to move pack to pack.
• Stormshield: mobs do magic dmg and this requires melee attacks to trigger (I thought this changed to not be like this)
• Storm of Haste: CD feels way too long. Especially when Cultist's book has a 30s lower cd. Hydroshield isn't enough to justify double the cd imo.
• Imbue: Mind Clarity: Still awful to have to click every party member every 6s to apply this. Could this just apply party wide in an aoe instead?
• Tempest: Moving and it doing dmg is a nice touch.

IMO This class is still mega boring to play. No connection to skills. Stuck in Tempest or Stream of Life. Spam clicking Imbue Mind.

[wintry pike]

Is it worth making an ideas thread for each specific class or are you guys able to keep up with all this?

[pseudo tapir]

We can keep up with it for sure

i agree on storm of haste CD we can check on that - adjusted

stormshield shouldn't req melee only - is it not firing? - fixed

clarity HoTs and Mana regen is basically to keep an active weaving playstyle instead of just tunneling stream/tempest

[coral eagle]

clarity HoTs and Mana regen is basically to keep an active weaving playstyle instead of just tunneling stream/tempest

I don't think it's hitting the mark, at least not in a fun way.

You need ~5s of Tempest to get the full buff and then you need to refresh it ever 4s.

So you tempest for the full duration > click everyone in the party once + clarity (up to 10 actions), then re-tempest for 2-4s, interrupt it, throw random 1 off buffs on, repeat.

That amount of weaving feels kind of nuts

The weaving feels more like RTS clicking the party menu like a madman

[celest tusk]

man now crusader doesnt get stacks from imbue

shouldnt have said anything

[halcyon yarrow]

Whaaat

Thats a mistake surely

[halcyon yarrow]

Imbue: Mind Clarity: Still awful to have to click every party member every 6s to apply this. Could this just apply party wide in an aoe instead?

yes please

[celest tusk]

idk, my bad class just never works

[pseudo tapir]

It should still be getting stacks from main hand hits - that’s not the case?

[pseudo tapir]

If it’s party wide the CD or mana has to come down, this is desirable?

We could also make it a very big mana regen on a long CD

[celest tusk]

no stacks at all

[pseudo tapir]

Imbue is definitely applied, no visual bug?

[celest tusk]

dont have the stack buff at all

on hit still works

[pseudo tapir]

🤔

Ok I fix when I get up

[halcyon yarrow]

i dont mind the cd doming down

[pseudo tapir]

0s CD to -1s

[potent jackal]

Can we maybe get a little extension to the reach of Lifeburst on Warden? Current, it happens often where visually, the claw effect is clearly going through/overlapping with a target, hostile or otherwise, but it doesn't actually reach. Effective range needs to be extended by like, a tile or 2.

[coral eagle]

maybe? It might feel more impactful.

The current clarity is in a weird spot IMO. It provides a low amount and requires so much micromanagement that it's hard to feel it's impact. It's undoubtably strong but you don't feel a connection to it. You just throw it on someone and quickly move on to the next person.

[pseudo tapir]

Innervate in wow is a proven “feel good” skill, we could make it a baby innervate w lower CD

But then it’s only 1 pumper who gets blessed

[old marlin]

Can we get explosive shot on a slightly shorter cooldown? 15 seconds to match poison arrows? Its still at 18 sec. Makes it awkward when going from mob to mob as the only skill in the rotation that isn't ready after a full rotation.

[celest tusk]

sader still unplayable

😭 😭 😭 😭 😭 😭 😭 😭 😭

atleast on-hit dmg on off hand now

but still no stacks

[pseudo tapir]

didn't get a chance to restart yday but will hit it today

[lucid current]

The Shadowform portion of the tooltip is now incorrect

An innocent casualty in the F U N initiative

[coral marsh]

https://tenor.com/view/spongebob-squarepants-plankton-fun-f-is-for-fire-u-is-for-uranium-bomb-spongebob-squarepants-plankton-plankton-meme-spongebob-meme-gif-12753923551581279491

[potent jackal]

@pseudo tapir the "spend stack, reduce CD by 1s" addition to Divine Fury is not working.

[pseudo tapir]

Kk I check

[celest tusk]

can confirm stun does nothing

another 2 weeks of sader disabled lets go

[pseudo tapir]

Can restart this morning - client + server have to restart together so we had to wait for both to be ready

[celest tusk]

hit it and tag me

[celest tusk]

how long does it take

cause pondering if i should fire up the netcafe rn

[pseudo tapir]

hmm i'd say .. still 1 hr to go

for finish build + upload + restart

[celest tusk]

okay good good

usually takes an hour to download

[frigid jetty]

Hunter skills still use "Archery" skill? Also, they dps about as much as Duskbow now, you been going ham on them they feel good.

[pseudo tapir]

Will fix the archery stuff in the morning

Glad they’re feeling better so far

[wintry pike]

Is there a reason verdant barrage only hits 3 targets?

[coral eagle]

I don't think that Cultist's "Pact of Vitality" is giving 20% increased max hp. Seems more like 10% or it's not 20% after buffs?

EDIT: It's hit or miss i guess. Sometimes it feels like it does give 20% and other times it doesn't. Maybe it's just rounding in the ui not reflecting it right

[pseudo tapir]

looks like it was set to only give 20% of current HP

fixed for next patch

[coral eagle]

Similarly, i think "Blood Ritual"'s hp sacrifice has an incorrect value too

[pseudo tapir]

fixed to do pure dmg

[coral eagle]

ah yea was just going to say it's getting mitigated (i forget we got this now)

[pseudo tapir]

bump

[potent jackal]

Hey Ryan, can we increase the cooldown reduction on Divine Fury granted by spending a stack to like 5s for a reset? Or with a hotfix? I believe it still isn't working, but I want to rule out animation/ui nonsense as a possibility. I figure a 5s chunk should be pretty noticeable...

[pseudo tapir]

I’ll check this morning

[livid mica]

3s taunts pls n thanks

[teal hawk]

Assassin:
Stealing this from Ashes since the rogue was super fun to play!
Poison Vial switch it to change based on the type of poison applied so it gives it a bit more of a variaty!
Make Poisons great again! i'd like to see a Variation of poison per dagger like WoW! Spells could do different effects depending on Main hand and off hand poison

Rogue Relic? :
Grappling hook!!! Would love to see a grappling hook that I could use to be mobile (plus why not)
Expand on Bombs! not just one Noxious bomb maybe the variaty to choose between the bombs I want to equip! Now this goes further into a Skill Tree where either you can swap skills and only have 1 at a time or some type of talent tree later on.
Stealth,Sap, Caltrops, Cloaking, Cunning!

[coral eagle]

With the changes to Ranger/Archer Duskbow is feeling in a weird spot.

I'm not the most experienced duskbow but I wonder if Eclipse Barrage was lowered from 14s -> 10s if that'd help things. It would sync Void Sting and Eclipse Barrage cds. Help with mob to mob clearing and create slightly less downtime in the kit.

Otherwise I think they would benefit from another skill in their kit. There's so much weird downtime right now where you're often between cds of Eclipse or everything else is on cd.

[pseudo tapir]

10s change is elegant and simple, which i like

will swap for restart in 5 min

[eager flame]

thats a nice change

[pseudo tapir]

ok shit i forgot to do this for this patch

done for next

need hot reload soon so we can hotfix this

[azure relic]

Hi I just started, and wanted to play a druid, but am really not getting the vibe that I expect. I understand the need for healers in game, but healing shouldn't be all a class can do. certainly not at level 1. starting out, you have 1 attack and 3 healing spells. the attack has poor damage, takes seconds to cast, and stops movement. The attack also doesn't really feel druid-y, except that it's green. I think what I'm looking for is a little more wrath of nature vibes. maybe this happens later, I can see that you get a couple more damage spells later on. I died to spiders trying to kill 6 spiders, because i ran out of mana and was forced to resort to hitting them with my staff. Just some feedback, because I heard you like feedback. I will continue to play druid because that's the fantasy I'd like to play, and my friends have been pushing me to try this game forever. I have no suggestions, because I haven't played for more than 2 hours.

[pseudo tapir]

appreciate the feedback - druids are definitely healer oriented and take a little time to come online with damage - keep sharing feedback as you play through, it's helpful!

[azure relic]

I feel like any class should be able to hold their own in solo situations, and if healers are going to be a thing it should be a perk, not an identity. Something as simple as buffing the damage of their starting spell, and removing mana cost would go a long way

[eager flame]

It would be nice if casters didnt have to chug mana potions so often to keep up with other classes, they constantly need to rest or chug a bunch of mana potions compared to other classes that can just dps non stop

Maybe less mana consumption per cast

[pseudo tapir]

it's hard to solve, every game has casters that use mana and oom in x amount of time

[pseudo tapir]

druids become unkillable aoe farmers as you level, so they are still viable for leveling - especially since xp from healing is pretty good

[azure relic]

The solution is easy, simply remove mana.

[pseudo tapir]

[eager flame]

Right, how about 20% less mana usage on spells?

[pseudo tapir]

Would this solve the issue completely, or just go from oom in 120s to oom in 144s and then we start back at sq 1?

We coudl use a mana pass for sure tho, i'll do a check

but the overall concept is that at some point mana will always be a resource that depletes

if we push too far, pots are not useful / needed

[eager flame]

I was using shadowcaster in a map as duo while he was using an archer and i had to stop very frequently and rest and chug so many mana pots while he just kept going nonstop

[pseudo tapir]

true but shadowcaster is high dps and high mana use

archer = ranger? or hunter

[eager flame]

Ranger

[pseudo tapir]

ranger should be 60% or so of your DPS, maybe 66%

ik theres the pet buff bug atm so it might be broken

[azure relic]

if i am a brawler I can run up to a monster at level 1 and hit a button 500 times and never run out of juice. Should there be a stamina bar so all classes have the same oom problem? my point is mana is bad. I know I'm a radicalist so apologies, or you're welcome 🤷

[eager flame]

Yeah i think a small mana adjustment would be better still, at least to not chug pots like candy,

[pseudo tapir]

we can def do a pass on mana, shadowcaster is the heaviest mana guzzler atm

for phys classes getting a resource, not necessarily - variety is good

[livid mica]

infinite mana tech <.<

[pseudo tapir]

should rename it to the mana bonker

[pseudo tapir]

• removed 'freeze on cast'
• buffed bolt of narun slightly at very early stage when u have little wis

[coral marsh]

With all the newer people I've been seeing, I think it would be really helpful to have recommendations listed for some classes over others for someone's first.

For instance, if a new player starts as a tank like guardian, realizes its really close, tries another and picks Druid, they're likely going to have a really bad first impression.

Putting little warnings on some class for "first time players" such as, better for group play, or recommending a DPS class first.

I like that classes have distinct roles they can fill, but if not all classes can function stand-alone or as a first character, then its going to turn people away.

[halcyon yarrow]

also whit stuff like spellblade atm because it doesnt have weapons it confusses alot of players

[coral marsh]

Maybe like a set of tabs prior to the class choices that is like "First time player" or "Returning Player". Have classes be limited for the first time players with an option to show all or hide again.

[sly night]

I wouldn't limit it, but maybe have a 'beginner difficulty' listed under each class

[coral eagle]

I don't think ranger's dog is healing faster out of combat over time, unless it's a really minor healing ramp effect

[pseudo tapir]

can investigate

[stone knoll]

As a druid main I loved freeze on cast with Naruns, it helped me snap into position and was easier to cast on the run. Now I have to let go move my d key to cast it and frequently i'm cancelling because i'm still holding my movement. Also it doesnt matter because you can't cast this spell while moving anyway. Dmg buff seems nice!

[pseudo tapir]

hmm i see - is the lack of freeze something that u will get used to and ultimately give you more control of when you cast/don't?

[patent walrus]

I started as assassin and when I unlocked crusader later on around lvl 20 I realized I started the game handicapped because of how bad the class was at doing anything compared to crusader. If a system is used to judge a classes difficulty it should be based on its solo progression experience. Classes that have it "easy" early mid and late game with farming potential would be beginner classes.

[stone knoll]

i'm sure i could get used to it but it made kiting much easier for me. Being able stop my char on a dime was really useful in a lot of scenarios for dodging too.

[potent jackal]

I have a question for Ryan and Spellblade people

Is there any compelling reason why Spellblade couldn't be made to be able to use 2handers as well?

[pseudo tapir]

u could do it but it'd be slower stack gen and nerf instability booms

but u could test it

[potent jackal]

Pretty sure certain key abilities require dual wield

Which is why I asked. I have this Scythe, see...

[pseudo tapir]

iirc just slashes but i can check

which thematically makes sense

2x slashes

[potent jackal]

I would but I just got to Thundercoils and don't have it on me.

Scythe would definitely be most effectively used with the haft, like a staff, so you'd likely strike twice in rapdiish succession...>.> still fits

I could make the argument lol

[potent jackal]

Yeah, it is just Twin Slashes. But you see, we have this cool Scythe with Int and Wis on it...and Spellblade might be the only class that can really take advantage of it that uses Int, since you always want wands for the damaging casters. Until Soulweaver releases anyway

Also, further itemization for Spellblade could allow for Int greatswords, which would be hype. Bigger damage on abilities in exchange for fewer stacks might not be ideal, but I could see a trade-off some might find appealing for the flavor, including myself.

[silver goblet]

whats the delay on the scythe?

could see it working maybe if close to 3secs ^^

2.5 or less the window for the second slash and siphon get really small

still looking at atleast a 4 sec initial build up though where daggers are less than 2

or around 2 depending on when that 3rd auto attack hits

[potent jackal]

Attack speed is 3.1. It's not viable without the ability to use the full tool kit, and if 2h Spellblade is not something the team is open to, thats totally fine.

[potent jackal]

Hey @pseudo tapir this duplication/extra auto attack sorcery going on with Warden's damage logs is confusing people that are new/returning to the class. I thought you said you were looking into it, I can't remember; just that you told us not to worry about our damage receiving a big nerf because of it. Any updates on this?

[pseudo tapir]

It's def a UI bug, still ironing that out

Consider it free psychological dam

[potent jackal]

o7 wanted to make sure I wasn't spreading misinformation if I tell other Warden folks that it's a UI bug. Thank you.

[potent jackal]

@pseudo tapir by the way I have further Intel for you on the exp issue with Warden and Scythe of the Seraphim. So. I get a boost to Medium and Spiritualism from healing periodically in the logs. That xp also applies to Magic, but not Melee, or at least not the scythe. Seraphim isn't coded as a Magic weapon, just has a Magic requirement as previously discussed.

Feels like an oversight, since Warden is a hybrid class and is supposed to be able to do their thing with a Magic or a Melee weapon.

The difference per mob is substantial. Higher XP mobs that were giving Medium/Spiritualism 3.2k were giving Melee maybe 2k-2.4k.

[pseudo tapir]

Tyty good info

[twin dawn]

Enchanter would gain a lot if Stormbolt could be cast while moving. It’s not a very popular class, but I think it would gain more character with this change. Enchanter would be like water and wind — always in motion.

[pseudo tapir]

fun fact

back in the day i had a runescape character named Waterofwind

therefore, I approve this request

[potent jackal]

Love this. I haven't gotten back to Enchanter in a bit since I bought it, but my two big pieces of initial feedback I wanted to give were this:

1. It would be a huge boon and in line with Elementalist to be able to cast Storm Bolt while moving without interruption.

2. I kinda wish it had a direct damaging channel as well. One more harming ability to target hostiles with that plays back into the rest of the rotation somehow. Not hard feedback on this one, but I would be curious what other people think. My original idea was to have the existing Stream of Life multi target; one friendly, one enemy, if you have both focused/target. You just shoot twin beams. After all, we got two hands.

[old marlin]

Cannot cancel cast on Spirit Shot. It can also be cast and fired while facing away from target.

[twin dawn]

Stream of Life might become too powerful.

My idea for Storm Bolt comes from the Electric Elementals' ability. They apply a shock effect, and only after the third stack the damage is triggered.

Channeling Storm Bolt could have three phases: the first two would apply the effect with minimal damage, and the final phase would deal the main damage. All of it while moving.

Does that make sense?

[stone knoll]

You cannot fire while not facing enemies, considering you cannot target an enemy without facing them, also i think it's good to not cancel since you can move on the run

make sense as the clss for me

[potent jackal]

Except now that locks me into a full channel that I can't weave in between my heal channel or the level 25 channel. Right now that weaving can be done. You'd end up interrupting one channel and giving up that chunk of damage you're talking about if you had to stop to heal yourself or an ally.

As the bolt stands right now, it can be cleanly woven in between as that one hard cast has a much lower time used. Having to commit to a much longer channel would be cumbersome. If this were a DPS class, sure. I'd love that.

[twin dawn]

Given the above, the simplest solution is usually the best: Storm Bolt should not be interrupted by movement and should be castable while moving.

[potent jackal]

Is the Divine Shield on Touch of Ethersalos for Crusader supposed to give a tiny, piddly, insignificant amount of damage shield? I get 278.

With 5k health in my Sader set, at level 43. 36 Empyrean. That seems like an error, and if it isn't, I'd say it's an issue.

Like, Paladin's shield which only does the shield without the extra effects, and gives me a hair less than 800 at my level. So, damage shields maybe just aren't big. But the one on Sader is basically pointless. I'd be curious if @celest tusk has any better ideas for a 5 stack effect on Touch, if buffing the shield isn't a valid option.

[celest tusk]

well pala doesnt heal for 1700 and get mana aswell

mini shield is fine

[potent jackal]

I know, I pointed that out, it's just buried.

Fair enough, you're the expert. I guess my 2 cents is I still think it should be bigger. If anything, I think Pally's should be too. Like, 20% and 10% of total health respectively for Sader and Pally, would feel better imo.

That would put mine at ~1000 for Pally, and ~500 for Sader. 278 is like, 1/5th of one of Auriel's floor tiles.

[celest tusk]

yeah but in total its 2k for one spell

many other classes would like that

[potent jackal]

That's true. For perspective, I'm doing DLP right now

So I was trying to use the shield portion for active mitigation

And that is 110% pointless with those values.

[celest tusk]

dont use a dlp as comparative measure for a class thats focused on selfheal

[potent jackal]

It more just made me look at the value of the damage shield.

I usually just press it. Never actually looked at the amount.

And the amount made me go, why am I pressing this? Outside, totally different. Big sustain.

[celest tusk]

sader is in a good spot for the first time in a long time, lets not invoke more changes xd

last time i couldnt play for 2 weeks

[potent jackal]

I don't want to rock your boat lol

But, if Ryan swooped in and was like, "I don't see an issue with increasing the scaling to the damage shield, done" with no cost, would you like it?

[celest tusk]

sure, but then palas come back next week saying, why sader get both big shield and big
heal, and pala get a nuttin

[potent jackal]

Also fair. Have Sader and Pally both gotten their FUN checkmarks yet?

Either way, I said my piece on this, thank you for the expert input. Gonna go take my plated ass back to elementals, DLP is being mean

[celest tusk]

dont use sader for no heal content either way, the dmg is low compared to most other classes

[potent jackal]

I was still getting faster kill times on average than Warden lmao

I'm just bad at DLP unless I've got headphones on, music up, in the zone anyway. I zone out too hard.

I'm gonna enjoy throwing gold at guildies and Ryan for Prisms like everyone's a high class stripper

[celest tusk]

you just have to do it enough

at 2k you can do it with your eyes closed

test the pala heal on bubble

should be abysmal like the sader minibubble

think theory is sader big heal, small shield - pala big shield, small heal

[potent jackal]

Yeah, the heal is tiny. Was observing that earlier.

[halcyon yarrow]

at 200*

[stone knoll]

With the spirit shot change to being unable to cast while moving, it feels like a hunter ability rather than ranger. Ranger is all about kiting and moving and using your pet to control the fight, where hunter should be about stalking targets, setting up traps and dealing big burst dmg(at least to me). I wouldn't even mind the ability being off of the ranger. I never really enjoyed it anyway aside from the dmg part.

[abstract pewter]

Doesn't the pet allow you to cast it safe?

[stone knoll]

it's also about there being a sudden change after 200 hours on a class. This is has happened twice to both my mains where a skill changes for the worse. idk let be upset bout it.

[coral eagle]

Is there something new with Phantom Daggers on Illu that resets the cd? I noticed it a few times where it randomly will reset to 1s cd so i can spam it more times

[pseudo tapir]

iirc ther's a bug with it but it will be fixed next patch

[potent jackal]

@pseudo tapir can we get a FUN crusade checkmark update when you have time? Curious what's left.

[potent jackal]

Also, which classes are you the most in need of feedback on that haven't already received their checkmark? Which ones are you getting the least constructive feedback on? I'd like to focus my efforts on testing the remaining problem classes, to aid in unlocking Pirate, now that my Warden goals are, for now, accomplished.

Edit: reworded for clarity

[abstract pewter]

There is a new clase called pirate????

[potent jackal]

Not yet.

It's our reward if all classes get the fun checkmark.

I was going to start with testing the recent Spellblade changes. I thought it had already gotten its checkmark, can't remember. Now I'm unsure.

[abstract pewter]

Fun checkmark?

[potent jackal]

Scroll up

[abstract pewter]

In the phone is complicated. Cannot jump to the start

Can you link it to me?

[frigid jetty]

Pirate class unlocks when all disciplines are at 40!

[abstract pewter]

For what I'm reading, spellblade did indeed had the fun checkmark, but I assure you, after 200 hours only playing spellblade, it still needs a bit of changes. Specifically AoE options and survivability. I already made my points on another thread and the dev team is cooking a bit more changes to it

[coral marsh]

Its the pinned message in chat if you didn't see it yet

[potent jackal]

I wanted an update. Wasn't sure if that was current.

[potent jackal]

I really disagree on Spellblade needing aoe options. It's clearly not designed as an AoE class.

It's presented itself clearly enough as a single target class cannon.

I'd rather have stronger single target options and more manual control over the stack flow than anything.

I would expect its aoe options to provide cleave damage in group content, not be able to pull multiple mobs and nuke them all solo without imminent or outright death.

[abstract pewter]

Again, running low level content with spellblade is grueling. I'm nos asking for huge aoe. Just to have range 3 in a couple of skills more

[potent jackal]

I really don't want any of these classes balanced around clearing under leveled content. That's bad class design.

[abstract pewter]

Not asking for that

[potent jackal]

Balance should be looked at from multiple angles, at level solo, at level group, against low/high armor/resist enemies, etc; but I really don't think that's one of them. You can very easily pop another class that blows shit up AoE and do it faster.

[abstract pewter]

I did made my points more clear elsewhere

[potent jackal]

You aren't? I've been keeping up somewhat on the back and forth between you and Ryan on this, and that was my understanding.

[abstract pewter]

I've explained myself better there

[abstract pewter]

The class had a single proper AoE (range 6). It was serviceable. Would be enough if spellblade had some form of sustain.

Now it has been removed and is grueling, when it was already tedious

[potent jackal]

Glass cannons don't need sustain, though. You have a 4s total immunity block now with 25% availability. That's really good.

[abstract pewter]

For solo play that was not enough until i got my hands on t8 life steal on the weapons

[potent jackal]

If Spellblade got enough sustain to make a difference, it would probably lose something for balance sake. The trade off should be high damage in exchange for little/no sustain, since your sustain takes the form of active mitigation that must be used skillfully. If the issue is that the damage isn't high enough, that's a different issue.

[abstract pewter]

I did like 20 hours of warden and i enjoyed all of my time in it

[potent jackal]

Not every class is built for solo play, and with this game's class design I really don't think they need to be.

[abstract pewter]

And glass cannons are usually ranged

[potent jackal]

And don't have 4s of total damage immunity every fight that can't run out early

Like. Is the issue that you have to stop to rest?

[abstract pewter]

The sustain i was talking about specifically was that of a mana steal skill

[potent jackal]

I would support the having a mana leech attached to one of their existing skills, or built into the stacks blowing up; but it shouldnt also have a health factor.

They have Ward. It's now even better than it was before. Shaving 20% off of the cooldown AND adding 1s duration is a lot of power on an already powerful active mitigation skills. Their glass cannon status should be preserved and locked in.

[silver goblet]

it doesnt need a health siphon its survivability is killing the mob quickly for the most part

the extra second allows us to block an extra auto without oerfect frames

could be better sure but i dont think there is a mob in lvl range that spellblade cant kill

and the rotation is fun

[potent jackal]

It was fun, I haven't tried it since Ryan's most recent series of changes. And I didn't get to test the intermittent state before it got changed again.

[abstract pewter]

I did not ask for a health siphon skill. My ideas was to instead of invulnerable the aegis be that you get hit in your mana

[silver goblet]

aye i didnt either =/

[abstract pewter]

So you would use your mana and mana steal to have sustain

With limitations of course

[potent jackal]

I know. Again, I read your feedback. I think the mana leech effect being slotted into their kit is a good idea, and I think the mana-as-health bar is a bad idea. Way too op for the class with the rest of their kit.

[potent jackal]

This + newly buffed ward + health pots/BT enchants are your answer to staying alive. That, and burning one/maybe two mobs at a time.

[abstract pewter]

Maybe the mana shield is not one to one

Maybe you get twice or thrice the damage to your mana

[potent jackal]

My firm stance is that it isn't needed and we should focus on feedback that isn't such a drastic system switch. That sounds like it would be a pain to program. Numerical things are easy to swap. That's a whole ass new system for the class.

[silver goblet]

i mean you saw my numbers on the zerk right? if it got more sustain it would loose a ton of dps

zerk was doin around 40ish k on the bear in t7.5 gear spell blade hitting upwards of 55k in stock t7 with dex daggers

thats a massive difference xD

[potent jackal]

Think Spellblade needs to lose its checkmark for now tbh lol

It clearly needs more testing.

[abstract pewter]

Now it hits like a truk

[potent jackal]

Are you measuring total damage done to the bear before death, or what?

[silver goblet]

clearing the damage bar yea

[abstract pewter]

But in long fight you deplete your mana quite quick

[silver goblet]

spellblade literally skipping eating phase

and getting one poop

[abstract pewter]

Other clases can do that too

[silver goblet]

in stock lvl 30 gear

[potent jackal]

DPS on a controlled neutral target with no armor and no resistances is the best metric imo. Would be curious what you come up with on the 0 armor Cobalt Tower dummy over a few sustained 1 minute DPS tests with each class in that gear.

[silver goblet]

ya i need to take some time for sure

[potent jackal]

Not in that mismatched ass gear. Spellblade gets little benefit from the Dex on those daggers lmao

[silver goblet]

but that was a crazy difference

[pseudo tapir]

real gameplay benchmarks are always helpful to reference

if u do any just send pic of dmg source breakdown for analysis + total DPS + 60s duration

[potent jackal]

Having made this mistake myself, they are. But they're also bad for perspective if you don't have a control benchmark to weigh the real gameplay benches against.

[silver goblet]

aye for sure but not today i got a cold and dont have the focus for spellblade atm xD

[abstract pewter]

mmmm

[potent jackal]

Just regurgitating what you and Minyo reminded me of Ryan 😂

[pseudo tapir]

sorry my bad let me clarify - real dummy gameplay benchmarks - i have simulated dps benchmark brain bc not enough time in the day

[abstract pewter]

the thing is, most of my "feels" come from nearly 200 pre changes spellblade, doing all solo content and reaching lv 30 with it

now i cna for sure say it hits like a truck in single target scenarios

i cannot clear old mines as fast as i used to (which was slower than warden per example)

[potent jackal]

But what does like a truck mean? This is why we need carefully controlled dummy tests.

[abstract pewter]

and get out of mana quite easily

mama bear reliable phase skipping with no single potion used

lv 30 gear (manafused mindblades)

[potent jackal]

DPS numbers? Break down? Mama Bear isn't a true control. Better than Old Mines by a lot, but still not really fitting the bill for good data.

[abstract pewter]

also now that i have both my weapons enchanted with life steal i'm enjoying myself quite more

[silver goblet]

ill get some dummies going in the next couple of days

[potent jackal]

Skipping the eating phase and not drinking any potions is already way better performance than most of the classes I took to Mama Bear at the time. On that feedback I'd think Spellblade needs no further changes and can keep its fun checkmark. Long as the Ward change stays...

[abstract pewter]

i would want to push at least for a mana leach in its kit
and to have an reliable Aoe like it had before (shockwave was range 6, cd 6 seconds)

[silver goblet]

are you keep satiety full at all times?

[abstract pewter]

i also had apple of perseverance

[silver goblet]

ive noticed that adds quite alot of passive regin

[abstract pewter]

so that is 5% more damage for free

(yes baby i got the cyanide in me)

[potent jackal]

So is it Arcane Shockwave or Arcane Surge now? I'm disappointed it got changed again so quickly, I would have liked to test it consuming stacks. I thought it would make getting the Consume or whatever off with 5 stacks easier to do. Which was my biggest complaint with Spellblade to be honest.

I'm at work, can't check.

[abstract pewter]

Arcane Surge now. Removing stacks felt like a decelerator

it feels much better to insta get 3 stacks

with a single surge give how autoattacks work you insta get to 4-5 stacks reliable for the rotation of siphon

and you have no fear spamming it

the remove 3 stacks version (a skill that you have every 6 seconds) made the regular regular stack pops quite slower

and you needed to take care of two breakpoints, 3 (for when you had surge up) and 5 for when you had siphon up

[potent jackal]

I'll have to test, will start after fencing tonight probably. Burning single targets faster with more damage is the kind of improvement Spellblade needed.

[silver goblet]

i wouldnt tbh you want to be able to get 2 of those off during the window

if you put it on cooldown then cast im pretty sure it wouldnt be possible

[abstract pewter]

i think i'm the only one that tried that change before they swapped it to give 3 stakcs and thus, an accelerator

[potent jackal]

You're the only one who talked about it at least.

[abstract pewter]

the change, to me, felt to worse

my main points was
i could not skip mama bear even when i had better gear

whihc i semi reliable could before the change

now is 100% skip

[abstract pewter]

i think i was the only spellblade of the server for like a week, since derion was leveling other classes

XD

[silver goblet]

i generally hit 4 stacks and watch the animation frame for the 5th stack to pop buff then unload everything becuase of the dmg boost it gives

[abstract pewter]

now you cna use surge, get the first autoattack in , pop de buff and unload everything

you cna get another surge in mid buff

[potent jackal]

The problem with this game and getting class balance right is that we have a very small sample of people playing some of these classes, so sometimes it's only one voice, with no general consensus.

[silver goblet]

agreed

[potent jackal]

And that doesn't always result in the best feedback results. Collaborative feedback is always better.

[silver goblet]

it is mechanically my favorite class to play so far though

ive still got a few to try though

[abstract pewter]

i did not think they would change the change soo soon

expected at least a couple of days

supossed Derien and Istillfrank would chip in on feedback

[silver goblet]

i dont think consupton would have changed much in the grand scheme of things though just a minor annoyance during buff since stacks explode quickly during that phase and would quite possible reduce dps

[abstract pewter]

as i said, it did reduce dps for me and my way to play

[silver goblet]

timing would be more diffcult im sure xD

[potent jackal]

When I gave the big mega blocks of Warden feedback that led it to the current design iteration, I called out the other Warden enjoyers I knew of explicitly. Also had the advantage of Ryan being a Warden enjoyer himself. I had a lot of ideas, but there was no guarantee my ideas were actually good ideas for the class and the game.

Crank is off in OSRS land. Also, may have just been busy with real life. Bear in mind that sometimes it seems silence is taken as acquiescence when it comes to feedback, and tag other people you know that play the class. Especially a 40+ who mains it wherever possible. That's how we get good balanced feedback. Ryan also has a good general idea who the experts/enjoyers on each class is...I think.

[silver goblet]

aye i was hoping crank would have come in to check it out since he is the only vocal spellblade ive really seen with longtime exp

[potent jackal]

I don't think he'd care if he is tagged to respond to feedback to the classes he enjoys. As long as he isn't being pinged every thirty minutes or some shit.

@halcyon yarrow

Hot Spellblade takes above, you seen the recent class changes for it the last few days?

[abstract pewter]

also in this thread https://discord.com/channels/540514574462615552/1487932013683015781

[potent jackal]

Anyway. I have a lot more Spellblade testing to do personally, but this gave me some things to think about while doing so.

[halcyon yarrow]

For sure dont mind

Check in a bit

We talking about Arcana slash stuff right?

[halcyon yarrow]

Yes from update tab

[potent jackal]

Arcane Surge

[abstract pewter]

-Arcane Aegis now last 4s and has a 16s cooldown
-Arcane Shockwave was reworked into a single target skills that gives you 3 stacks instead of 1
-Arcane Wave now does more damage

[halcyon yarrow]

The 3 stacks seems more annoying then good

[abstract pewter]

it is not

[halcyon yarrow]

Aegis change doesnt do anything if you are fighting mobs anyway

1 second extra means nothing in 99% of situation

[halcyon yarrow]

Its not annoying?

[silver goblet]

its niche but better than nothing basically 2 guaranteed autos xD

without needing the timing

[halcyon yarrow]

I guess i have to test

[abstract pewter]

you start combat with surge and you insta get 5 stacks

what i think it needs a tweak in that regard is:

what i've noticed is that the 3 stacks you gain from arcane surge, do not go over 6. if you already had 4-5 it makes the stacks explode and you do not get the other 1 or 2 you should be applying for the next

so you can "waste" 1-2 stacks

[potent jackal]

Really think so? Admittedly I was more excited about the 20% shorter CD than the longer duration, but still.

[halcyon yarrow]

Yeah cd reduction is sweet

But its just a skill that in general gameplay does nothing

And in a few situations is bonkers

[potent jackal]

How would you change Ward to be more useful to Spellblade for active mitigation in broader circumstances? Would you at all? It seems one of the biggest complaints is sustain/survivability. I liked your suggestion of it blocking a number of hits, but I'm not sure how that would implement.

Could also potentially reeeeeally cheese some mechanics the devs may not want cheesesd. Idk. Like it either nullifies DoTs entirely for duration or gets chewed up by them immediately. Would probably make Spellblade my favorite class for DLP for sure.

[silver goblet]

i liked his suggestion of buff with x number of hits

[abstract pewter]

Would block close to 0 with several enemies

[potent jackal]

Also, on the topic of mana leeching/sustain: what if when stacks exploded, it just restored some percent of the damage dealt by the explosion?

[potent jackal]

Which is fine since Spellblade kit is for single target

[silver goblet]

except we dont normaly fight more than 1 enemy

[potent jackal]

It would be a net increase on your survivability, even against 2.

You will not be fighting multiple enemies at level with Spellblade post like...38+.

[silver goblet]

id rather see mana cost reduction than mana recovery

[abstract pewter]

Mummy releases ads per example. You will not be tanking them in a group of course

[silver goblet]

unless recovery is scald way back

scaled*

[abstract pewter]

You explode a lot

[silver goblet]

with recover you would try to scale loads of atk speed to proc it

with reduction its just flat and could be tied into perfect buff as a pluss

though mana pots exsist so its kinda w/e i made like a thousand this morning

[potent jackal]

The amount would then be small.

[silver goblet]

i generally rest for hp more than mp

just from chip dmg

having x attacks on the dmg prevention i could pop right before fight and then burst quickly to avoid loosing much hp

making it far more sustainable for chainpull farming

i fine how ever it ends up being balanced though worst case is i just farm on a class that does it better xD and play spell blade for other stuffs

[potent jackal]

I would rather see Spellblade's active mitigation empowered and keep it entangled with the rest of the kit than give it some kind of restorative health sustain. So I'm in favor of the multiple hits idea. At that point it would be tuning how many hits, and do they have a duration/what is the duration before they just fall off if not used.

[silver goblet]

could quite possibly bee semi perm and recast timer starts when when buff is consumed

could see something working either or tbh

[halcyon yarrow]

i mean thats why it has counter potential too, dots fuck it completly

[silver goblet]

would be easier to time though if buff expired

would probably also not need a seperate tracking system

just a rework of the couple of methods

[halcyon yarrow]

0nce again

spellblade needs to fight 1 mob at a time

that is its strenght

[patent walrus]

Trying to AoE with spellblade is like driving a screw with a hammer. Just using the wrong tool for job.

[silver goblet]

nah bro you will eventually drive the screw xD spells wont kill em unless severly overleveled xD

unless that shits a rubber mallet

[patent walrus]

If I want to fight multiple mobs I swap to a class with AoE. Low level farming Demon Knight shines pretty bright. Pulling an entire area feels pretty alright.

[silver goblet]

aye i lvled both demon and dragon knights for enchantment mat farming

honestly prefer dragon though

[potent jackal]

This is the most succinctly I've seen this point put, thank you.

[patent walrus]

I don't find myself AoE farming mobs at my level. It's just as quick in my experience to burn one quickly and move on. Mana issues have never been a thing either. I have like 10k mana pots in the bank from leveling Alchemy so I consider them to be part of every classes kit as a spell I push off CD.

Classes are fluid and you should own most of them if not all of them by end game. Each one should be useful in some situation. I think the goal for making classes fun is to tune them so it's more likely you pick this class over that one for a reason. Some classes are so good cough Shadow blade cough they remove the need to think about swapping in about 80% of situations though.

[silver goblet]

thanks i was looking for soemthing to spend 350 primordium on

;D

[coral eagle]

Shb isn't the monster it use to be. It's still really good but with the recent tuning I think there's a ton of viable options now.

[patent walrus]

I haven't played since the recent changes. Did they nerf its DMG mitigation and healing? That's what made it kinda wild imo.

[coral eagle]

nah, no nerfs it's more that other classes got small nudges over the past bit that makes it so that shb isn't the far and away #1

All the bow classes right now are pretty popular due to having good dmg and cc options. Pala got a buff so you can boop more. Shc has crazy dmg now, etc.

[silver goblet]

hows assa?

[patent walrus]

Bad. Always been bad. Just hold every button to cast off CD and pray

[coral eagle]

recently got a rework but it still needs tuning imo. It's still far worse than shb in my limited experience.

[silver goblet]

might pick it up then next

bad classes need feedbacks

[patent walrus]

It was my starter class and I was playing on hard mode until I got a new class. Would not recommend it for almost any situation. Even if enemy is weak to green damage shadow blade still has better clear times because it has almost no downtime while assassin has downtime after each kill.

[coral eagle]

have you tried it since the rework? #🚀updates message

[patent walrus]

No but they didn't change what makes it underperforming compared to others. Finishing every fight at half health was the problem. The class is designed to be braindead so you just hold every ability to cast off CD and pray. Needs some CDs that help it survive.

[pseudo tapir]

ginshade needs a bit more of a buff - nep should ramp massively for long fights

[patent walrus]

If it's supposed to be a top dps in group content it might fill that role better now after the changes

[pseudo tapir]

target was basically upper-mid for ginshade for normal use, then push it very high for nep w ramp DoT + big envenoms

also i agree survivability could go up bigly, so we can test 75% dodge w adrenaline rush

should feel noticably like a rogue archetype

[patent walrus]

Shadowblade gets 80% mitigation on top of blind why not just give it 100% dodge or tie the percent to a poison stack.

Ginshade stacks probably if nepbloom stacks are for ramping in group content.

[pseudo tapir]

sb mitigation was reduced

[patent walrus]

How far?

[pseudo tapir]

70% in SF / 40% outside; 36s CD

however a dodge is 100% damage reduction, so we'd have to do the math on comparability - also 24s CD on adren rush

[patent walrus]

That's something. The blind is also a huge amount of mitigation since you are in shadow form more often than not. Could look at the blind being a dodge on like a 3s CD.

[silver goblet]

give em a passive avoidance check cough

[patent walrus]

Blind could last longer but give a 20% chance to miss for the duration and further applications increase the value until a dodge occurs.

[abstract pewter]

Other classes can do both. If you could delete enemies i would not complain.
But again, im not asking for mega aoe, i'm asking for arcane surge and supernova to have range 3 like arcane wave

It is super close range

Enemies would need to be really on top of each other

I find it strange that arcane slashes and arcane wave have more range that two fucking explosions

Arcane shockwave had 6 range per example

Now, it is not there

[halcyon yarrow]

I dont know any classes that do that very good at end game

Best classes are shadowcaster single target

Shadowblade

Also single target

Almost no one is aoe farming at all

Its 1 mob at a time

[patent walrus]

AoE farming at end game would be group content since taking 2-3 late game mobs is death

[halcyon yarrow]

Yeah

But even earlier in the game its not very efficient anyway

[patent walrus]

Nope. Unless you are down ranking the mobs to level new skills you don't AoE farm.

[halcyon yarrow]

Yep

[patent walrus]

If it was an implosion instead of explosion would it feel better?

[abstract pewter]

And how do you reach endgame? A friend invested less than half the time i did to level their character to the same level (spellblade vs ranger). He had zero problems at all because ranger has a complete kit for every leveling situation. Not to mention in most mmo all the classes have single target combos and aoe combos.

As i said, having range of 2-3 as minimum in melee (in order to sanitize all single target melee clases) would be the best approach imo

[abstract pewter]

the best leveling method i found was for a demon knight friend to pull half a dungeon (i think it was the 4th or 5th one) and then kill it together and obtaining xp thanks to being able to hit several enemies with arcane shockwave (range 6 which is not that high comparing with per example the are the demon knights leave) which now does not exist

again i do not want for spellblades to be able to pull half the dungeon

i want spellblades to be able to work alone, of course they are really good when a healer bakcs them up or a tank removes the aggro

having range 3 in supernova and arcane surge (even when they lost the range 6 skill they had)
AND
have some kind of better sustain (which @potent jackal seemed on board now)

would allow that

range 3 singe the range arcane wave has, for comparison

[potent jackal]

Mana sustain, yes.

[abstract pewter]

and a change to aegis too no?

[coral eagle]

For Ranger's "Spirit Shot" the language seems like you should charge it but it just casts at 2s, with or without "Nature's Swiftness". I also can't cancel it.

Am I missing a mechanic with it?

[potent jackal]

I would find Crank's idea of making it block all damage from a fixed number of hits, rather than a shorter fixed duration to block all damage as it is now, acceptable. Probably preferable.

But that is just fixing the execution of an ability so that it is still on theme, but more generally useful.

[abstract pewter]

and what if aegis gives a ward?

[potent jackal]

I'm unsure what you mean.

If I said anything about a Ward, I was only getting the name of the shield ability wrong. Nothing more. I stand by what I just said.

Thought it was Arcane Ward off the top of my head, and didn't check the wiki. Was in the office.

[abstract pewter]

i mean, what do you think, instead of complete immunity Arcane Aegis gave a shield over the health?

[potent jackal]

Ah, an absorption shield, or bubble.

No. I like Cranks idea better. It would be functionally similar, but still be mechanically different enough, and thematically different in a way that pleases me.

Bubbles like that are the domain of the Empyrean classes.

[abstract pewter]

would it be hard to program that it takes first into account duration and then charges of hits?
So you could have a few second of protection and then maybe 1-2 hits more or something like that?
it would be a buffs for single target and would work basically the same as now for several enemies?

i suppose 2-3 seconds and then 1-2 hits of protection? depending on how long the expected target takes to attack
for a total of 3 attacks blocked or something like that

[potent jackal]

We haven't even gotten a comment from Ryan yet. The duration and amount of hits, the details, I'd want to shop with him being directly involved. Crank too, since his idea.

[abstract pewter]

just an way to have the same functionally it has now (all encompasin for several seconds) and buff it for single target

[stone knoll]

you do charge it it's max is 2 seconds

and if you move you you deal dmg based on charge time

they also changed a couple patches ago to be like this. You used to be able to move and charge it at the same time.

also while we are on the topic spirit bite doesn't give ranged exp, but spirit beast's wrath does

[patent walrus]

Seems like you are trying to power level which isn't a thing in this game either. Even if you make it to character level 40 it's not useful unless your armor and weapon skills are 40 as well to use the end game gear. The grind is closer to OSRS in a way that there is almost a required amount of time to get there instead of just AoE blasting your way there like in other mmos.

I spent some 700 hours or so leveling most combat skills to 30 before understanding this and only focusing on medium and melee. This also includes getting most professions to 40 along the way.

[silver goblet]

here ya go @pseudo tapir top 3 is without food and pot bottom half with t7 food and pot

these are by all means not perfect rotations im getting too old for that shit, ive got latency built into my fingers xD

lvl 30 spellblade and leather int armor jewelry 7.5 int and lvl 30 dex daggers

a few lower tier enchants

brillance giving 48 int due to being lvl 36

[halcyon yarrow]

I mean some classes will just be better for lvling

Tanks like demon Knight are pretty trash since killing stuff takes ages

Healers as well are awfull

Spellblade is good single target but aoe farming at lower lvls might be better so people will go and play something like elementalist

[halcyon yarrow]

@pseudo tapir

[abstract pewter]

a guildmate of my have been playing for 5 days, started warden until lv 28 and switched to druid
i've played for almost 8 days (7days 20hours), started spellblade until 28, played warden for a couple of levels changed back to spellblade

both of us are lv 34 now

i asked how he did caht me up so quick, he told me we has fighting packs of 6 enemies by 6 enemies while doing skinning

i do not have the option to do that

supernova and surge having a little bit of range would allow me to do a bit of that

[halcyon yarrow]

once again

some classes are gonna be better for lvling

spellblade shouldnt be able to aoe farm

since its a single target class

that would be same for stuff like illusionist wich also cant aoe farm

[abstract pewter]

for fucks sake, not asking for a "good" aoe, i'm asking that the Aoe they had is somehow balanced in again

spellblade had a 6 range skill every 6 seconds
i'm asking that surge and supernova gain range 3

which is really~~ fucking~~ small

[halcyon yarrow]

id rather see spellblade have 0 aoe same whit duskbow

[potent jackal]

Look man, that isn't going to resolve the issues with Spellblade doing AoE. Even before the changes that resulted from your feedback, Spellblade didn't have the kit to handle aoe situations. MAYBE it could hang if it was vastly over leveled in an area like the Old Mines. But as discussed, that shouldn't even be a factor for balance.

Your friend won't be doing that with Warden with at level mobs once they get to the 40 tier mobs, where they will be doing the vast majority of their accounts grind time; and Druid will survive, but kill shit so slow you'd be better off with Spellblade going one at a time.

All classes can't be equal at everything.

If this class is supposed to be a single target nuke you point at one enemy at a time, and decimate them, then recent changes added to that. Surge feels pretty good.

[potent jackal]

0 AoE and swap out the limited tools it has for even more single target power honestly is great. ST, AoE, and Cleave classes being distinct archetypes feels good, and I'd prefer they remain distinct.

[stone knoll]

trust me as an Druid main , the aoe farming dies at lvl 35ish anwyay since mobs start actually hurting and having abilities you can't ignore or just take too long to kill it's not worth it.

[potent jackal]

And with the recent armor changes and resistance/damage type corrections, this is even more so true.

I have a maybe hot take on Spellblade, actually. @halcyon yarrow give me your take on this.

What if the detonate from stacks wasn't automatic? Make it a button that must be pressed, that lights up when you have enough stacks. No cooldown, you'd be able to press it as quick as it lights up.

Admittedly, I'm still finding the rhythm, especially with the change to the current implementation of Surge. You can get the Consume buff active quickly by just pressing Surge and immediately eating the 5 stacks, but you miss out on Surge getting damage boosted casts twice during the buff duration. Which feels good. So I changed from doing that to building up with Slashes and autos to 4-5 stacks first; but that's harder to control.

Edit: just to say, @abstract pewter and @silver goblet discussed these two rotational points above I believe, I just had to get a feel for it myself.

It was a thought I had, not a hard suggestion. Curious on the thoughts of everyone that has been a part of this discussion.

And if I missed anyone I apologize

[stone knoll]

so it would kinda function like Retaliate from wow except the condition is number of stacks, rather than a parry kinds cool idea

[potent jackal]

All the mechanics would be the same, how we build stacks, everything; we'd just have an "Unstable Detonation" ability that lights up like a proc and whenever we have six stacks, we hit it, triggers explosion. No cooldown to simulate how it is now, but manual input to put more control over our stacks into our hands. Would immediately solve the stack control problem, in my opinion.

I worry whether Spellblade enjoyers with more time on the class feel it would take something away or devalue it though. It would, I think, make the stack management easier and more intuitive. It would lower the skill floor of the class, but maybe slightly raise the ceiling as well.

[halcyon yarrow]

would take away from the skilla bit i guess since the damage buff consume is all about timing

[potent jackal]

Yes, that was my concern. As someone still relatively new to the class, though, I gotta say: that aspect of the class does require awareness, the need for precise awareness of the timing, but it also just kinda feels clunky AF. I generally dislike when intrinsic parts of a class's kit aren't firmly in the hands of the player. Also seems like it would be a nightmare to play with high latency as it is currently implemented.

[abstract pewter]

it is

i'm playing from europe

surge+consume i cannot usually do it right

so i do ther aa and slashes to trigger the first buff

and surge + supernova do crazy damage

a single press on surge already gives me 5 stacks

also the idea you mentioned would like the combo points from the rogue of wow no?

[potent jackal]

Do you feel having your explode be an input you have to manually press to trigger at six stacks rather than an automatic explosion would take something away from the class? My other concern is that people would feel it would make it too samey to other builder spender classes in the game. It wouldn't feel too different other than colour from Crusader's Holy Lightning Bolt From God.

It would make it into more of a "standard" builder spender class, yes.

My only thought on how to preserve some of the original feel while giving you a manual choice over whether to explode or consume, is to shoehorn in a secondary buff that we get at six stacks, with a fixed duration of like, idk. 3 seconds?

Basically, while that secondary buff is active, is when you can choose whether to explode immediately or Consume. If you don't choose, it explodes, or maybe to increase the risk/reward factor, the stacks just expire.

[halcyon yarrow]

i play whit 130 normally and its fine

but yeah it becomes a bit harder for sure

[abstract pewter]

i cannot for the love of me, unless i overtly try to not look in the direction of the enemy, to use surge + consume directly

[potent jackal]

I don't have an issue with it personally, but I usually have like 35ms

Any other thoughts on the manual explosion idea?

[silver goblet]

lol surge is busted atm i posted in bug tracker

its suppose to give 3 stacks its giving 5

[abstract pewter]

yeah ryan knows

[frigid jetty]

Shadowblade with brawler claws on is strong

[abstract pewter]

claws for demon knights

[frigid jetty]

DLP weapon DPS Checks

Assassin (2012), Berserker (2333), Paladin (2520), Shadowblade (2761), Spellblade (2931)

lvl 40 single target dummy cobalt tower

@pseudo tapir

[abstract pewter]

did you notice getting 5 stacks on a single surge use?

[frigid jetty]

yes. Im sure it boosted arcane instability damage. Curious to know how much dps drops when it is fixed.

[abstract pewter]

what rotation did you do on spellblade?

surge into instability?

[potent jackal]

I had been wondering about this but Shadowblade I haven't purchased yet. This may convince me to.

[pseudo tapir]

quick q can you test nepbloom assasssin next

[frigid jetty]

depends what is on CD at the time, but yes thats how it started for sure.

[abstract pewter]

ping? i cannot do that since surge explodes instantly for me since it connects the first aa before i can instability it

[frigid jetty]

right its the start. im not quick enough typically to go for it at 0 stacks and yolo the siphon chance 😅

[frigid jetty]

Assassin Nepbloom (2374)

[pseudo tapir]

kk ty

envenom feels very low here

good intel tho tyvm

[frigid jetty]

I could be playing bad 😁

With all the dps from legendaries coming from a direct damage proc, classes like Brawler, Hunter, Shadowcaster, Spellblade get more of a boost.

I suspect Spellblade is going to be very very strong with legendaries.

[pseudo tapir]

theres a bit of a bug atm but yes it's better tuned now
assassin is still too low
zerk doesnt see execute dam on dummy
pally looks like a a suitable position
shaodwblade too much weight into imbue dmg, spells need buffs - MoD not reflected well

[frigid jetty]

I'm thinking about the 25% more damage on astral afterimage procs really.

It is a fun and challenging class to play though. All gas no breaks. It is one that seems like it could earn the #1 single target dps spot legitimately.

[patent walrus]

Idk how many times I've claimed it's BiS in this thread. Effort to reward ratio is the highest of any class I've played.

[coral marsh]

For clarity on this list, do you have the checkmarks for Dragon Knight and Demon Knight mixed up? I just put on Dragon Knight for the first time an hour ago and man it feels really good in general and compared to demon knight.

I plan to do some testing with Demon Knight after this too so I can give feedback.

[coral marsh]

I think my testing is pretty skewed for both since I have BiS Str gear and a legendary 2h and legendary Mace/Shield.

That being said, Demon Knight against Dragon Brutes in my current set up, I can comfortable fight 3 at a time and not care about their abilities, 4 is pushing it depending how their abilities line up. With Zerker I would never consider doing more than 1-2 at a time.

For Dragon Knight, I was comfortable fighting 3-4 Doombringers at a time, and 4-5 Yellow Hydra at a time.

Even for Primordial Dragon Brutes, I fought them 1v1 with Demon Knight and was consistently staying between 2.1-2.5k dps through the fight. So single target at endgame feels good which is a common complaint I've seen while people are leveling with DmK.

Tomorrow when more friends are on, I'll try using both in a tank setting and see how they feel. But as of right now they both feel really solid and fun for AoE MH farming with endgame gear.

[patent walrus]

I've been pretty tough on calling classes fun during this process but Demon Knight is one I was happy with before any changes. I like how I "shouldn't" spam all my CDs on rotation but use them situationally as the fight progresses to get the most of out of them. A well timed stun, shield/reflect and big heal can be used at bad times which is enjoyable to learn the proper use cases for them.

The only thing I would like to see is the stacks feel a little bit more impactful. I'm sure late game the healing % is easier to notice but it's not been something I've cared about, just that I have the stacks to push the buttons I need to. With that said I still enjoy playing the class.

[potent jackal]

What do we see as the big problems with Priest?

[patent walrus]

I played priest some while leveling mainly just to have a healer class available for dungeons but I don't have enough experience with it to explain what I didn't like about it.

[potent jackal]

It's my favorite healing class tbh, the kit is very solid. Has an answer to most things. Good tank healer. Also good solo. I'm just confused why it doesn't have its checkmark. What is it missing?

[halcyon yarrow]

its just a healer general issue imo

priest isnt really bad or really unfun

healers are

i used to play healers everywhere still do, gw2 main 1 where i play them in pve and pvp

here there is just almost nothing intersting you do you are just a heal bot thats it

[pseudo tapir]

i'd say gw2 is atypical for healers bc it was originally intended to be a "not holy trinity" game - most games have healers dedicated to healing

but we would just capture all playstyles bc relic system - pure heal, hybrid heal, etc

[coral eagle]

What's tough with healers rn too is there isn't a ton of group play happening so it's not feasible for someone to only play one. You will inevitably have to switch relics.

In OW or solo play there are very few niches a healer shines while alone (low level aoes and maybe doing solo Dole/Dungeons). Healer can't kill stuff better than others (makes sense), can't do solo content effectively (keys, potion-locked content like DLP/Key bosses, MH, etc), itemization isn't fun and presents little to no identity, etc. Since you can switch relics, if you don't, you're basically self harming yourself long term.

So... idk. It's tough to say any healers are "fun" when you only play one for 1% of your total playtime per week, if that.

[halcyon yarrow]

wasn more saying i play healers i most games gw2 just the latest

there is just barely any skill expressions for healers wich is mostly because you overcap on healing so easily

i can heal BOC in lvl 35 gear no problem

[pseudo tapir]

for sure yeah dmg and defense needs to be tuned a bit better

[stone knoll]

i agree with crank 90% of the time i'm just spamming heal on a single target

[stone knoll]

i would disagree with unless you got a juiced tank

[potent jackal]

I've longed for a more fleshed out damage kit on my healing classes the most, probably. Playing Priest solo basically amount to press bubble, spam your single target damage ability. The chip heal every three is enough for almost anything. It's boring as hell. Healing dragons earlier though, with Opecla playing Zerker, was a thoroughly engaging exercise as Priest. I had a good time.

I think a big part of the problem is that each of the classes in this game feels like it was designed more as a specialization of a larger, branching class. Likening Ethy to WoW, since it was a large inspiration behind parts of the game design, Druid isn't a whole druid. It's only Restoration.

Perception from the players is part of the equation here

My buddy tried the game a couple weeks ago and thought he was getting a whole druid. He only got Resto. And then he got salty about that and hasn't been back since. I don't really blame him, though.

[pseudo tapir]

what druid does he usually play?

bc the goal is to expand classes out more which is basically the equivalent of specs in wow

[potent jackal]

The most archetypical of the lot: D&D

[coral marsh]

Its a weird example, but we think he was hoping it was more like Maplestories druid too

[potent jackal]

Also that

[pseudo tapir]

which druid does he roll in wow?

and i havent played ms so im not too familair with that implementation

[potent jackal]

He doesn't play wow. I play wow. Poor mixing of examples.

[pseudo tapir]

oh i see kk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltM5jHIJFw4&list=RDltM5jHIJFw4&start_radio=1

[stone knoll]

Druid has alwyas been a shapeshifting class for me

i loved playing fferal in wow

[abstract pewter]

about that, demon knights + strenght claws...

[potent jackal]

This is a large, layered, and complex problem, with many more specific branches.

Healers aren't fun to play solo, because solo they aren't a complete class.
The tank classes suffer from a similar though perhaps lesser problem.
Both are unfun to play in most situations if you are not in a group or doing group content.

So, I think for starters, there should be a discussion about adding a strong disclaimer on all of the tank and healer classes. Attached to the Class Relic/character creation. So it's seen at creation and also at relic purchase. Something as simple as "This class is best enjoyed with a group." It's been talked about before.

Because healers for sure need...something. Like, Enchanter has one damaging ability.

[coral marsh]

Demon Knight with class feels off to me. I would love str claws for Berserker though.

[abstract pewter]

they are two handed weapons

[potent jackal]

A disclaimer until that something is decided on and implemented will help with player retention.

[coral marsh]

I know..?

[abstract pewter]

thye should work alreayd by the virtue of being two handed

also, demon hunter tank from wow

[potent jackal]

In Ethy, we basically got Resto druid without the tree for the whole Druid class

[abstract pewter]

as of now, claws are not a thing for demon knight because they do not work for their passive , even if we got strength claws

also the naked guy on top of the mountain in farwood has azinoth glaives

when demon hunter class/relic?

XD

i can settle for demon knight with claws though

[stone knoll]

ive played plenty of healers across multiple mmo's, i feel like it only feels so bad in this game is because you aren't questing to lvl up or exploring and gathering exp in other ways. You are just fighting mobs none fucking stop and when your goal is to deal dmg to mobs healing/ being unkillable is not very helpful.

[abstract pewter]

healing gives exp right?

[stone knoll]

i mean it's akin to balance but the dmg is missing

[pseudo tapir]

so i thought a bit about this before - in other games you don't just play a healer while leveling either unless spamming dungeons or group content - it's actually more painful for healers/tanks on the dual spec/ multi spec side

healing as a utility benefit for people who like to heal is actually the status quo - it just feels more apparent in this game bc of what rakken said; more mob killing

but having flexibility to switch around also accommodates that and we can keep thinking on the issue and implementing new ideas

[potent jackal]

Really? Which version of Balance? Think that's the big question lol. I definitely got Resto vibes. Green HoTs, raid wide heals, leaves

[potent jackal]

I think communication and presentation is the biggest problem. I love the flexibility of the class design. The fact that each class kinda IS just a specialization, a piece of a larger whole that is ultra focused, is cool. Because I carry six of them with me at most times and can freely switch between them.

But man, if you don't know all that like most new players don't. It really fkn sucks.

That part needs to be fixed, even if it's just by a very visible disclaimer when you're choosing the classes it most applies to.

[potent jackal]

Really shitty exp

[abstract pewter]

relics and equipment could be in it own separate bag

like quest items

letting you store 1 set of equipment per class

i do not like my equipment and relics cluterring my bag

also, could we get the same for tools?

a slot for each?

[potent jackal]

Inventory management is an intentional challenge by design in this game. Feel like we already got a big boon with the flexibility of the special bag slots tbh.

[abstract pewter]

after +200 hours i have get to obtain a bag for that slot

and we could just reduce the bag space if that is the intention, becuase having half your bag filled with equipment, when it could be neatly integrated into ints own sections...

i wanna have it neat and tidy, personally

[pseudo tapir]

issue w equip bag is: why use any other bag?

[potent jackal]

Still want to talk more about this, feel like the rails are missing

[pseudo tapir]

also - locking is useful for organization

[stone knoll]

idk i guess if you copuld imagine instead of the stacks healing over time the they dot'd pretty much just an un-trasformed boomy

[abstract pewter]

why not add it as it own section inside the C?

relic and set management tab

[pseudo tapir]

for healers the solution in mind was augments to remove key spells (i.e. infuse for priest) and swap with a damage ability - 1:1 swap;

but this requires a lot of game design work so it'll be after the foundational work

[abstract pewter]

or at least relics being stored there

i'm under the constant fear of for some dumb missclick on my part to loss my relics

XD

[pseudo tapir]

dont worry they are undroppable 🫡

[potent jackal]

What about adding a couple more abilities to the Discipline level? Is this too much? I said it out loud and wanted to voice it here.

[abstract pewter]

lv 30 lv 35?

[potent jackal]

Similar amount of work so not really a save there

[pseudo tapir]

idea for later spells is to make them longer CD utility abilities

[abstract pewter]

ah, the 1-3min cooldown skills

[potent jackal]

So core rotational ability number will remain largely the same as it is now, yeah? I'm also good with that. But, augments are a reasonably long ways off; what happens for this problem in the short term?

[pseudo tapir]

the 2 buckets that need to be solved to make the game less linear and hopefully uniquely positioned to get millions of players:

• discipline progression beyond 25
• player choice system (augments; socketable runes system; etc ideas)

[pseudo tapir]

the problem being that healers are usually pretty vanilla damage dealers u mean?

[abstract pewter]

warden seem to be quite in a good spot in terms fun/healing it seems

but it is an hybrid class

and does not heal enough right?

[potent jackal]

I don't think you can call a class with one offensive ability a vanilla damage dealer, to be fair. But yes. More largely, that there are classes designed to play a dedicated role in a group and don't feel good at all to play alone.

[potent jackal]

It's a DPS. Not a healer.

[abstract pewter]

but the idea behind it was to be hybrid dps healer no?

[pseudo tapir]

i dont think we can solve that issue personally without a system of choice - wow u pick priest, level shadow unless you're in a group you heal spellcleave / meleecleave giga pump

[coral marsh]

This type of thing has been brought up a few times by a few people, but I think adding something to Ethyrial's to show stuff like:

• Not recommended for Solo Play
• Not recommended as first class/for first time players
• Popular starter class
• Solo and Group friendly

Having stuff like that to the right of the classes would help a ton. Or even doing a similar difficulty rating for OW vs. Solo vs. Group, etc, would go a long way.

Too many people start on a class that shouldn't be a first class, or shouldn't be used solo and they are primarily trying to because of their own assumptions coming into the game.

[potent jackal]

It is a DPS, and it provides group utility by some buffs and some heals. It does not have the kit to be called a healer. Period.

[abstract pewter]

WoW blocks somes clases for lore reason

maybe we cna simply block classes?

so that they cna only be taken later/second charater

[abstract pewter]

i understand, but starting in a kit like warden, which seems well rounded and all purpose at a glance, and adding the specific kits for healing might be an interesting way to do it

and then tune the numbers

to hit, but not in the numbers of dps

maybe see how they do it in final fantasy 14

where healer are also required to deal damage for all to work

in final fantasy 14 healers have 60% of the damage of a dps

[pseudo tapir]

bench healers to see what they're at vs. deeps

[abstract pewter]

they also have their own damage rotation (which now is a single button and then a dot usually, became a bit boring lately because of that)

but it is consistent

but in ff14 they have quite a bit more buttons

all dps have 1 AoE combo (2 skills usually) and then a single target rotation (usually 4-6)

they have 10-20 buttons total