SW on live is same - about spamming dailies, so here nothing changes (black humor ).
And this is one of flaw in warlocks desing itself, and only by using daily power TT can compete with other classes in pve, without it, not even chance. Such bounding to one daily power is also key why sw is not so good in pvp too. If warlock considered normal only when using daily power Tyrannical Threat, mean that without it, performance is poor, and thus in pvp also is bad..
I agree that Hellbringer still needs some help. We're looking at some of their individual powers, but some fixes might have to wait for a later module. We'll have to see what we can reasonably (and safely) get in.
From such statement I understand that they will provide cosmetic buffs to create illusion that warlock performance increased. And with other swing they did radical nerf.
Plus such statement only make clear, that big changes for hellbringers will come (if will) in next mod, But till that hellbringers will had to survive. Its like u cut someones leg and claim that he still can go to sprint tournament and all will be fine.
Or as better comparison take away cars engine, and claim that u can still beat someone in drag racing.. Even in live server with Tyrannical Threat we still only get near other classes, maybe sometimes ahead. But only if we use it.. Since devs nerf it, we need powers to compensate it. Survivability is required, but heck we are striker class not tank. We should be doing damage instead imitate that he striking.
@fernuu did you test PvE SW DPS on preview server while running T2s and compare to other classes?
I know you're one of the more decked out SWs on PC and I'm sure your character is fully developed, so just curious how lower level / experienced SWs will fare.
Probably compared on paper ( joking )
======================================================================== “The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. Gustave Le Bon. ==================================================
bloodyspamer have you actually tested anything or you just whining to whine? And hence you post about SW using only TT quoting me saying how Immolation Spirits was buffed, together with AP generation. GJ.
In PvP actually all (soulbinders) daily are useful... only TT isn't. You might wonder why because I assume you never played warlock nor have one. TT has one important outcome - it boosts your AoE capabilities. It "doubles" your AoE encounters' effect and turn your single target into AoE.
Probably you got so far from tooltip but hence, I had to clarify that. And why is turning single target spells into AoE so important? Because they are doing approx. 65-80% of your damage. While buffing AoE encounters would make it even more % (as TT would 'double' it effect).
I predict that population of SW will drop a lot. And it's not because TT change or "not enough buffs". This class is just hardest one (or TOP2) to masterize. Curse Consume, Curse Synergy, using right encounters at proper situations etc. etc. Why was SW so popular now? Buggy MF and buggy puppet.
The only thing I can agree with you is current Hellbringer situation. It survivability will be increased a little but still that won't be enough and HB looses top damaging encounter. Not counting that there is no rework to fury feat buffing damage only on full AP. It could be nicely combined with new insignia bonuses but still - won't be worth using it as dailies are key for SW. Maybe in PvP with good rotation it might be useful but what can I know - you're the expert.
On the topic of the soul puppet, I'd also like for Damnation's Spitfire to only be active when you or the puppet are put into combat. People may disagree w/ this, but I find the aura DoT being active out-of-combat to be annoying and not very good design.
I agree that this is really annoying to be always-on. This is why there's a debate about whether or not the puppets aggros mobs when you're running around. The puppet itself likely doesn't, but the passive damage from this feat certainly will.
On the topic of the soul puppet, I'd also like for Damnation's Spitfire to only be active when you or the puppet are put into combat. People may disagree w/ this, but I find the aura DoT being active out-of-combat to be annoying and not very good design.
I agree that this is really annoying to be always-on. This is why there's a debate about whether or not the puppets aggros mobs when you're running around. The puppet itself likely doesn't, but the passive damage from this feat certainly will.
The passive damage from this feature is not BiS GWF to steal aggro from tank .............. They fixed the scaling so I dont understand the whole point of debating over damnation's soul puppet as if it's the only thing to go for.
This complaint has nothing to do with stealing aggro from a player, and not much to do with group content at all (it might have some consideration as causing the puppet to pull dungeon mobs that could otherwise be skipped). For me, it's not a concern in any content where the puppet has been overpowered at all... it's in solo play.
Any damage source that applies out of combat and hits mobs will make them attack you, even if you're running through an area you've outlevelled, or were trying to be efficient and bypass groups that are irrelevant to your current objectives. I've seen it with certain paladin auras as well. A companion's pathing can run right through a pack of mobs you skirted (because the companion takes the shortest route to you) and they'll ignore it if you don't engage, but the puppet with Spiritfire will pull them. It's annoying.
Not really going after the puppet, but saying that this feat can be a mechanical hindrance to a Damnation build just trying to get their dailies done without pulling extra mobs. I don't see a reason why it should apply when you're not in combat, because it ends up forcing you into combat when you don't want to be.
eGWD run on preview. We did 3 test runs, I will upload them all with ACT later I used: - AoE trash: BoVA -> Fiery Bolt -> Curse Bite (on 3rd run I added Accursed Souls before FB) - bosses: usual rotation - BoVA/KF/SS
Looks solid bud, definitely a good run/rotation. Fernuu and I have chatted a bit in the last few days, along w/Sharp, on Test and honestly seeing a lot of positives for SW.
Looking forward to seeing the Shadowslip / Shadow Walk update in the next past, and hope to see the Devs fix Tyrannical Curse so it actually dispurses it's damage to other bad guys!
Another round of changes incoming with another preview patch... soon. Here's the list:
Scourge Warlock: Arms of Hadar: Damage increased ~40%. (This overrides the previous damage increase of ~14%)
Scourge Warlock: Blades of Vanquished Armies: No longer toggles off when you are Stunned or Dazed.
Scourge Warlock: Feat: Creeping Death: Updated tooltip to match the new changes.
Scourge Warlock: Feat: Gatekeeper's Empowerment: No longer affects Flames of Empowerment. Instead, now increases the DoT damage of Hellish Rebuke by 5/10/15/20/25%.
Scourge Warlock: Feat: Murderous Flames: Damage dealt by this Feat no longer receives double benefit from damage buffs.
Scourge Warlock: Feat: Power of the Nine Hells: Now extends to the new Damage Resistance buff, in addition to the Damage buff.
Scourge Warlock: Fiery Bolt: Reduced base recharge time to 12s, down from 14s. (This overrides the previous CD change)
Scourge Warlock: Flames of Empowerment: No longer increases your damage when your AP is full. Instead, applies a debuff to your target when you hit them with an At-Will power. This debuff increases the damage you deal to the target by 2% (+1% per rank, to a max of 5%), and stacks up to 3 times.
Scourge Warlock: Harrowstorm: Reduced base recharge time to 12s, down from 16s.
Scourge Warlock: Hellish Rebuke: No longer refreshes the duration of the debuff when the target attacks you. Instead, deals another blast of damage equal to the initial damage dealt by the power. This additional damage can only be dealt to a target once every 2 seconds.
Scourge Warlock: Lesser Curse: Should no longer fall off immediately after applying in certain circumstances. This was most noticeable with the new version of Accursed Souls, and should no longer occur.
Scourge Warlock: Pillar of Power: This power has had a slight rework. Now always casts under your feet, instead of needing to be placed. Recharge time now starts as soon as you cast it instead of when the effect ends, and has been reduced to 10s, down from 15s. You may only have 1 Pillar of Power active at a time, so recasting it while it is still active will move it to your current location. The effects of the Pillar have changed, as well. In addition to increasing your damage, it now also grants you damage resistance while you stand within it. The Pillar no longer builds up and explodes when an enemy enters it. Instead, it lowers the enemies damage and damage resistance, and deals damage to them.
Scourge Warlock: Prince of Hell: No longer increases your Armor Penetration stat by 10%. Instead, directly increases your Resistance Ignored and Life Steal Chance by 5%, plus 1% per rank.
Scourge Warlock: Shadow Slip: Increased speed by 15%.
Scourge Warlock: Shadow Slip: Now provides damage immunity for 1 second after activation, and loses 20% damage resistance per second while it is active, down to a minimum of 40% (this timer persist through rapid reapplications).
Scourge Warlock: Tyrannical Curse: Fixed an issue that caused the "damage link" portion of the power to not work in many cases.
Again, these changes are not on preview yet but should hopefully be there with our next build pushed to preview.
As for some other topics:
Temptation still needs love, that we won't really be able to give it with this review. We have plans for it that require bigger changes than we can make right now. I don't want to talk about them beyond that, as plans can change, and I don't even have a concrete timeline for when they will come. I realize that won't be everyone's favorite answer, but hopefully it is better than none.
We'd like to get Hellbringer into a much better place with this module. It's one of the least use Paragon Paths in the game, and hopefully some of the most recent changes can help fix that.
I read through your concerns and suggestions about Shadow Slip - they're interesting, though we've been discussing how difficult it is for classes without any damage immunity from there Shift powers to survive in our splat heavy end-game, so we still want to see how this plays. That doesn't mean it will make it live - and even if it does, if it ends up causing problems we can't foresee, we will reevaluate.
Also want to just post a reminder of our intent - our intent with these changes is not to nerf the Scourge Warlock. While they have a few outstanding powers, overall, they are underperforming, and we want to bring up the class as a whole while making the "crutch" powers like Tyrannical Threat not an absolute must-have for the class to function.
I'm looking forward for more test (and I hope you fixed Murderous Flames on 4/4 KF not proccing as well :P)
I really like, on paper, changes to Pillar of Power and Flames of Empowerment. In close combat it might work pretty nice as a direct buff to finishing touch like Killing Flames
@amenar thank you so much for listening and communicating regularly. You're the man. Seriously.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited July 2016
Some decent progress, but can I suggest that you change Gates of Hell's AoE to a normal AoE? It's targeting is just so terrible, that you end up missing mobs with it all the time.
Flames of Empowerment change only hurts the HB's DPS vs mobs. I would suggest further buffing this, or changing it.
Some decent progress, but can I suggest that you change Gates of Hell's AoE to a normal AoE? It's targeting is just so terrible, that you end up missing mobs with it all the time.
Flames of Empowerment change only hurts the HB's DPS vs mobs. I would suggest further buffing this, or changing it.
Scourge Warlock: Flames of Empowerment: No longer increases your damage when your AP is full. Instead, applies a debuff to your target when you hit them with an At-Will power. This debuff increases the damage you deal to the target by 2% (+1% per rank, to a max of 5%), and stacks up to 3 times.
Man, it's 15% damage increase basicly all the time. You just need to attack 3 times with at-wills and there you go Or maybe even once with Hellish Rebuke - up to test it
Some decent progress, but can I suggest that you change Gates of Hell's AoE to a normal AoE? It's targeting is just so terrible, that you end up missing mobs with it all the time.
Flames of Empowerment change only hurts the HB's DPS vs mobs. I would suggest further buffing this, or changing it.
Scourge Warlock: Flames of Empowerment: No longer increases your damage when your AP is full. Instead, applies a debuff to your target when you hit them with an At-Will power. This debuff increases the damage you deal to the target by 2% (+1% per rank, to a max of 5%), and stacks up to 3 times.
Man, it's 15% damage increase basicly all the time. You just need to attack 3 times with at-wills and there you go Or maybe even once with Hellish Rebuke - up to test it
*And* it doesn't require you to sit on your action points to keep your buff.
Some decent progress, but can I suggest that you change Gates of Hell's AoE to a normal AoE? It's targeting is just so terrible, that you end up missing mobs with it all the time.
Flames of Empowerment change only hurts the HB's DPS vs mobs. I would suggest further buffing this, or changing it.
Scourge Warlock: Flames of Empowerment: No longer increases your damage when your AP is full. Instead, applies a debuff to your target when you hit them with an At-Will power. This debuff increases the damage you deal to the target by 2% (+1% per rank, to a max of 5%), and stacks up to 3 times.
Man, it's 15% damage increase basicly all the time. You just need to attack 3 times with at-wills and there you go Or maybe even once with Hellish Rebuke - up to test it
Uhhh, mobs will be killed off by other players before you even get a chance to buff yourself vs mobs with at-wills. This still cannot compete with SB and dust to dust.
If its just 3 hits of any at-will and not 3 full cycles of any at-will (ie. all 4 hits of HoB = 1 cycle, etc) for the new FoE, then that's a pretty trivial build-up time. The duration could be extremely short such that long casts of encounters could cause it to drop-off mid-combat, though. But then again, NPNM also has a rel short duration but still works out fine for upkeep w/ decent gear attuned for crit. I guess we'll see..
And yeah, re: Spitfire and combat, I was mostly arguing for solo play. Spitfire not being active when out-of-combat shouldn't really have much an effect in normal grouping content.
Temptation still needs love, that we won't really be able to give it with this review. We have plans for it that require bigger changes than we can make right now. I don't want to talk about them beyond that, as plans can change, and I don't even have a concrete timeline for when they will come. I realize that won't be everyone's favorite answer, but hopefully it is better than none.
Curious if ya guys could at least give some small dps benefit to Tempt's capstone or latter feats in the meantime. I know ya have larger plans for it, but it'd still be nice to have something to bump it up in the interlude, and even if we know its not going to stay.
edit: oh, forgot to say, but thanks for the continued updates.
Curious if ya guys could at least give some small dps benefit to Tempt's capstone or latter feats in the meantime. I know ya have larger plans for it, but it'd still be nice to have something to bump it up in the interlude, and even if we know its not going to stay.
Problem with something like that is that when the time comes for the real rework, newer players and people with short memories will meet anything being removed with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I get your intent, but think interim changes are a bad idea in this environment.
ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
If this change is a done deal, can eldritch blast get an attack speed buff at the cost of a slight DPS loss? There's no viable way to make the most of flames of empowerment vs mobs.
The damage buff benefit from Flames of Empowerment may simply have to be reserved for single target fights.
I just don't see this convince people to go HB over SB. Spamming dailies on mob to mob is vastly more efficient than this. Single target fights!? It's not going to compete with IS + SS, not even close. So now we're at the mercy of the performance of HB's encounter and at-will. HB could have been about having superior damage in at-wills or encounters or something, but it's currently getting no advantage over SB and it's ability to spam dalies so frequently.
It's not even efficient of a class feature. It's totally useless if you use DT. Smacking a bunch of things first just to get the buff then to spam your encounters is a time constraint. You're not going to get that kind of time in a dungeon run.
Let's compare this to destroyer.. no wait, you can't. Destroyer blows this out of the water.
@ghoulz66 Oh, no doubt. To me, its clear that despite the efforts to buff the Hellbringer paragon path, it will still be inferior to Soulbinder offensively and defensively. My opinion is this:
Soulbinder:
Borrowed Time = defensive mechanic providing passive significant healing and deflect chance. Hellbringer has nothing to compete.
Dust to Dust = A must for dungeon runs and the majority of solo play content. I am able to refill my entire AP bar after each mob encounter. Full AP = Use daily power = DPS
Soul Scorch = SWs #1 best DPS encounter. Huge damage, no cooldown.
Between the two, Hellbringer is, in writing, the best DPS paragon path. In reality, we all know this is not the case. The developers are aware of this. As I have mentioned a few times in this thread, the only real way I see Hellbringer being used is by massively boosting the damage buff from Pillar of Power (Hellbringer's exclusive paragon encounter power) while introducing some form of significant cooldown reduction to compensate for the loss of Soul Scorch--be it in the form of an addition to Pillar of Power, a feat, or a class feature. In the acronym "DPS", Soulbinder has the Damage (Soul Scorch) and the Per Second (Soul Scorch=no cooldown). Hellbringer can't have Soul Scorch, so give the paragon unique damage boosting potential coupled with cooldown reductions. Win!
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
They could at least, change one of the inferior fury feats to further buff FoE like with destroyer. An extra 5% damage on top of the 15% and encounters now affect the buff.
Well probably HB will still need some tweaks and love but this is really good change. Earlier you had like "deal massive damage using daily" or "have buff to you damage but bb dailies".
Now it's a little better - HB still haves KF which hits hard and now can be buffed even more but as you all stated - most devastating encounter is soul scorch. HB with dark revelry might be nice team buffer, considering damage resistance debuff from pillar of power will be teamwide, not SW binded.
BTW. I never used Dust to Dust as soulbinder before patch, Sigil of Devoted was all I wanted (but I ran premades in dungeons so Dust to Dust barely healed me, therefore nearly never granted AP + Offhand class feature never gave me dps increase do to soul scorch spam). I prefer All-Consuming Curse and now it will be even better - with lesser curse uptime nearly 100% all your damage will go to Creeping Death, as it procs now from every curse - even lesser Plus you can get nice combo - I tested today BoVA>Accursed Souls>Fiery Bolt>Curse Bite and it's was nice in T2 - for solo content it will be even better.
@fernuu any chance I can lure you into posting ACT logs on test dummies comparing total damage output of Soulbinder vs Hellbringer, say, over the course of 1-2 minutes?
I'd like to know approximately the total damage output difference between the two.
@macjae either that (recharge speed bonus tied to Pillar of Power) or work it into the Prince of He** class feature.
The added armor penetration / resistance ignored becomes exponentially less useful as characters progress through PvE content. (The real benefit would be in PvP, but even then, it's not much of a boost when the RI% benefit is tied to a fixed percentage.)
Therefore, considering Prince of He** is one of the least used class features, a recharge speed bonus added here would make things interesting for Hellbringer.
Edit: also, if recharge speed bonus is granted on a class feature rather than Pillar of Power, you can opt to unslot Pillar of Power rather than being completely married to it.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited July 2016
Not having to save your daily vs striking mobs with at-wills. Probably won't make a difference in a party run through the mob run to the boss so HB's DPS will still suffer there.
Question is, why can't it just be streamlined like the destroyer feated or aspect of the serpent for trappers? Those will function in every and all PVE situations.
Just make it work off any hit. 15% buff isn't amazing enough to warrant such a huge drawback. Combat superiority, you just take a hit, and that's it. Why does the primary striker have to try so hard?
@fernuu any chance I can lure you into posting ACT logs on test dummies comparing total damage output of Soulbinder vs Hellbringer, say, over the course of 1-2 minutes?
I'd like to know approximately the total damage output difference between the two.
Sure - but I will do that after new patch is on preview so it will benefit from changes
Between the two, Hellbringer is, in writing, the best DPS paragon path. In reality, we all know this is not the case. The developers are aware of this. As I have mentioned a few times in this thread, the only real way I see Hellbringer being used is by massively boosting the damage buff from Pillar of Power (Hellbringer's exclusive paragon encounter power) while introducing some form of significant cooldown reduction to compensate for the loss of Soul Scorch--be it in the form of an addition to Pillar of Power, a feat, or a class feature. In the acronym "DPS", Soulbinder has the Damage (Soul Scorch) and the Per Second (Soul Scorch=no cooldown). Hellbringer can't have Soul Scorch, so give the paragon unique damage boosting potential coupled with cooldown reductions. Win!
I like this idea a lot. Having Pillar of Power boost recharge speed and/or AP gain would be a way to effectively boost DPS and give a less passive "feel" due to one encounter being taken up by a buff power. It depends a bit on the precise values they've assigned Pillar of Power with the latest changes, but adding recharge speed on top would probably make it worthwhile and internally competitive.
After patch Pillar of Power will be on (reduced) cooldown immediately after you cast it, while buff will be still pending. I don't know how long it lasts but I believe it will be nearly perma buff (area bounded).
Comments
If warlock considered normal only when using daily power Tyrannical Threat, mean that without it, performance is poor, and thus in pvp also is bad..
U mean From such statement I understand that they will provide cosmetic buffs to create illusion that warlock performance increased. And with other swing they did radical nerf.
Plus such statement only make clear, that big changes for hellbringers will come (if will) in next mod, But till that hellbringers will had to survive.
Its like u cut someones leg and claim that he still can go to sprint tournament and all will be fine.
Or as better comparison take away cars engine, and claim that u can still beat someone in drag racing..
Even in live server with Tyrannical Threat we still only get near other classes, maybe sometimes ahead. But only if we use it..
Since devs nerf it, we need powers to compensate it. Survivability is required, but heck we are striker class not tank. We should be doing damage instead imitate that he striking.
Probably compared on paper ( joking )
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Gustave Le Bon.
==================================================
In PvP actually all (soulbinders) daily are useful... only TT isn't. You might wonder why because I assume you never played warlock nor have one. TT has one important outcome - it boosts your AoE capabilities. It "doubles" your AoE encounters' effect and turn your single target into AoE.
Probably you got so far from tooltip but hence, I had to clarify that. And why is turning single target spells into AoE so important? Because they are doing approx. 65-80% of your damage. While buffing AoE encounters would make it even more % (as TT would 'double' it effect).
I predict that population of SW will drop a lot. And it's not because TT change or "not enough buffs". This class is just hardest one (or TOP2) to masterize. Curse Consume, Curse Synergy, using right encounters at proper situations etc. etc. Why was SW so popular now? Buggy MF and buggy puppet.
The only thing I can agree with you is current Hellbringer situation. It survivability will be increased a little but still that won't be enough and HB looses top damaging encounter. Not counting that there is no rework to fury feat buffing damage only on full AP. It could be nicely combined with new insignia bonuses but still - won't be worth using it as dailies are key for SW. Maybe in PvP with good rotation it might be useful but what can I know - you're the expert.
Mod 10:
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Flames deals 16636893 (1009292) Fire Damage to Ethraniev Marrowslake.
Mod 9:
[Combat (Self)] Your Murderous Flames deals 376274433 (18876929) Fire Damage to Red Tiamat Head.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Any damage source that applies out of combat and hits mobs will make them attack you, even if you're running through an area you've outlevelled, or were trying to be efficient and bypass groups that are irrelevant to your current objectives. I've seen it with certain paladin auras as well. A companion's pathing can run right through a pack of mobs you skirted (because the companion takes the shortest route to you) and they'll ignore it if you don't engage, but the puppet with Spiritfire will pull them. It's annoying.
Not really going after the puppet, but saying that this feat can be a mechanical hindrance to a Damnation build just trying to get their dailies done without pulling extra mobs. I don't see a reason why it should apply when you're not in combat, because it ends up forcing you into combat when you don't want to be.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
eGWD run on preview. We did 3 test runs, I will upload them all with ACT later
- AoE trash: BoVA -> Fiery Bolt -> Curse Bite (on 3rd run I added Accursed Souls before FB)
- bosses: usual rotation - BoVA/KF/SS
Mod 10:
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Flames deals 16636893 (1009292) Fire Damage to Ethraniev Marrowslake.
Mod 9:
[Combat (Self)] Your Murderous Flames deals 376274433 (18876929) Fire Damage to Red Tiamat Head.
Looks solid bud, definitely a good run/rotation. Fernuu and I have chatted a bit in the last few days, along w/Sharp, on Test and honestly seeing a lot of positives for SW.
Looking forward to seeing the Shadowslip / Shadow Walk update in the next past, and hope to see the Devs fix Tyrannical Curse so it actually dispurses it's damage to other bad guys!
Another round of changes incoming with another preview patch... soon. Here's the list:
- Scourge Warlock: Arms of Hadar: Damage increased ~40%. (This overrides the previous damage increase of ~14%)
- Scourge Warlock: Blades of Vanquished Armies: No longer toggles off when you are Stunned or Dazed.
- Scourge Warlock: Feat: Creeping Death: Updated tooltip to match the new changes.
- Scourge Warlock: Feat: Gatekeeper's Empowerment: No longer affects Flames of Empowerment. Instead, now increases the DoT damage of Hellish Rebuke by 5/10/15/20/25%.
- Scourge Warlock: Feat: Murderous Flames: Damage dealt by this Feat no longer receives double benefit from damage buffs.
- Scourge Warlock: Feat: Power of the Nine Hells: Now extends to the new Damage Resistance buff, in addition to the Damage buff.
- Scourge Warlock: Fiery Bolt: Damage increased ~33%.
- Scourge Warlock: Fiery Bolt: Reduced base recharge time to 12s, down from 14s. (This overrides the previous CD change)
- Scourge Warlock: Flames of Empowerment: No longer increases your damage when your AP is full. Instead, applies a debuff to your target when you hit them with an At-Will power. This debuff increases the damage you deal to the target by 2% (+1% per rank, to a max of 5%), and stacks up to 3 times.
- Scourge Warlock: Harrowstorm: Damage increased ~50%.
- Scourge Warlock: Harrowstorm: Reduced base recharge time to 12s, down from 16s.
- Scourge Warlock: Hellish Rebuke: No longer refreshes the duration of the debuff when the target attacks you. Instead, deals another blast of damage equal to the initial damage dealt by the power. This additional damage can only be dealt to a target once every 2 seconds.
- Scourge Warlock: Lesser Curse: Should no longer fall off immediately after applying in certain circumstances. This was most noticeable with the new version of Accursed Souls, and should no longer occur.
- Scourge Warlock: Pillar of Power: This power has had a slight rework. Now always casts under your feet, instead of needing to be placed. Recharge time now starts as soon as you cast it instead of when the effect ends, and has been reduced to 10s, down from 15s. You may only have 1 Pillar of Power active at a time, so recasting it while it is still active will move it to your current location. The effects of the Pillar have changed, as well. In addition to increasing your damage, it now also grants you damage resistance while you stand within it. The Pillar no longer builds up and explodes when an enemy enters it. Instead, it lowers the enemies damage and damage resistance, and deals damage to them.
- Scourge Warlock: Prince of Hell: No longer increases your Armor Penetration stat by 10%. Instead, directly increases your Resistance Ignored and Life Steal Chance by 5%, plus 1% per rank.
- Scourge Warlock: Shadow Slip: Increased speed by 15%.
- Scourge Warlock: Shadow Slip: Now provides damage immunity for 1 second after activation, and loses 20% damage resistance per second while it is active, down to a minimum of 40% (this timer persist through rapid reapplications).
- Scourge Warlock: Tyrannical Curse: Fixed an issue that caused the "damage link" portion of the power to not work in many cases.
Again, these changes are not on preview yet but should hopefully be there with our next build pushed to preview.As for some other topics:
Temptation still needs love, that we won't really be able to give it with this review. We have plans for it that require bigger changes than we can make right now. I don't want to talk about them beyond that, as plans can change, and I don't even have a concrete timeline for when they will come. I realize that won't be everyone's favorite answer, but hopefully it is better than none.
We'd like to get Hellbringer into a much better place with this module. It's one of the least use Paragon Paths in the game, and hopefully some of the most recent changes can help fix that.
I read through your concerns and suggestions about Shadow Slip - they're interesting, though we've been discussing how difficult it is for classes without any damage immunity from there Shift powers to survive in our splat heavy end-game, so we still want to see how this plays. That doesn't mean it will make it live - and even if it does, if it ends up causing problems we can't foresee, we will reevaluate.
Also want to just post a reminder of our intent - our intent with these changes is not to nerf the Scourge Warlock. While they have a few outstanding powers, overall, they are underperforming, and we want to bring up the class as a whole while making the "crutch" powers like Tyrannical Threat not an absolute must-have for the class to function.
I really like, on paper, changes to Pillar of Power and Flames of Empowerment. In close combat it might work pretty nice as a direct buff to finishing touch like Killing Flames
Mod 10:
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Flames deals 16636893 (1009292) Fire Damage to Ethraniev Marrowslake.
Mod 9:
[Combat (Self)] Your Murderous Flames deals 376274433 (18876929) Fire Damage to Red Tiamat Head.
Flames of Empowerment change only hurts the HB's DPS vs mobs. I would suggest further buffing this, or changing it.
Man, it's 15% damage increase basicly all the time. You just need to attack 3 times with at-wills and there you go
Mod 10:
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Flames deals 16636893 (1009292) Fire Damage to Ethraniev Marrowslake.
Mod 9:
[Combat (Self)] Your Murderous Flames deals 376274433 (18876929) Fire Damage to Red Tiamat Head.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Mod 10:
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Flames deals 16636893 (1009292) Fire Damage to Ethraniev Marrowslake.
Mod 9:
[Combat (Self)] Your Murderous Flames deals 376274433 (18876929) Fire Damage to Red Tiamat Head.
And yeah, re: Spitfire and combat, I was mostly arguing for solo play. Spitfire not being active when out-of-combat shouldn't really have much an effect in normal grouping content. Curious if ya guys could at least give some small dps benefit to Tempt's capstone or latter feats in the meantime. I know ya have larger plans for it, but it'd still be nice to have something to bump it up in the interlude, and even if we know its not going to stay.
edit: oh, forgot to say, but thanks for the continued updates.
<CO docs> .: Petco :. // Base DPS Sheet (needs revision) // PSA on Power Activation Delay
- Themed Tanks // Misc Build Dump // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (stat data)
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Edit: err.. well.. or in symphony with TC.
It's not even efficient of a class feature. It's totally useless if you use DT. Smacking a bunch of things first just to get the buff then to spam your encounters is a time constraint. You're not going to get that kind of time in a dungeon run.
Let's compare this to destroyer.. no wait, you can't. Destroyer blows this out of the water.
Soulbinder:
Borrowed Time = defensive mechanic providing passive significant healing and deflect chance. Hellbringer has nothing to compete.
Dust to Dust = A must for dungeon runs and the majority of solo play content. I am able to refill my entire AP bar after each mob encounter. Full AP = Use daily power = DPS
Soul Scorch = SWs #1 best DPS encounter. Huge damage, no cooldown.
Between the two, Hellbringer is, in writing, the best DPS paragon path. In reality, we all know this is not the case. The developers are aware of this. As I have mentioned a few times in this thread, the only real way I see Hellbringer being used is by massively boosting the damage buff from Pillar of Power (Hellbringer's exclusive paragon encounter power) while introducing some form of significant cooldown reduction to compensate for the loss of Soul Scorch--be it in the form of an addition to Pillar of Power, a feat, or a class feature. In the acronym "DPS", Soulbinder has the Damage (Soul Scorch) and the Per Second (Soul Scorch=no cooldown). Hellbringer can't have Soul Scorch, so give the paragon unique damage boosting potential coupled with cooldown reductions. Win!
Earlier you had like "deal massive damage using daily" or "have buff to you damage but bb dailies".
Now it's a little better - HB still haves KF which hits hard and now can be buffed even more but as you all stated - most devastating encounter is soul scorch. HB with dark revelry might be nice team buffer, considering damage resistance debuff from pillar of power will be teamwide, not SW binded.
BTW. I never used Dust to Dust as soulbinder before patch, Sigil of Devoted was all I wanted (but I ran premades in dungeons so Dust to Dust barely healed me, therefore nearly never granted AP + Offhand class feature never gave me dps increase do to soul scorch spam). I prefer All-Consuming Curse and now it will be even better - with lesser curse uptime nearly 100% all your damage will go to Creeping Death, as it procs now from every curse - even lesser
Mod 10:
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Flames deals 16636893 (1009292) Fire Damage to Ethraniev Marrowslake.
Mod 9:
[Combat (Self)] Your Murderous Flames deals 376274433 (18876929) Fire Damage to Red Tiamat Head.
I'd like to know approximately the total damage output difference between the two.
The added armor penetration / resistance ignored becomes exponentially less useful as characters progress through PvE content. (The real benefit would be in PvP, but even then, it's not much of a boost when the RI% benefit is tied to a fixed percentage.)
Therefore, considering Prince of He** is one of the least used class features, a recharge speed bonus added here would make things interesting for Hellbringer.
Edit: also, if recharge speed bonus is granted on a class feature rather than Pillar of Power, you can opt to unslot Pillar of Power rather than being completely married to it.
Question is, why can't it just be streamlined like the destroyer feated or aspect of the serpent for trappers? Those will function in every and all PVE situations.
Just make it work off any hit. 15% buff isn't amazing enough to warrant such a huge drawback. Combat superiority, you just take a hit, and that's it. Why does the primary striker have to try so hard?
Mod 10:
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Flames deals 16636893 (1009292) Fire Damage to Ethraniev Marrowslake.
Mod 9:
[Combat (Self)] Your Murderous Flames deals 376274433 (18876929) Fire Damage to Red Tiamat Head.