Maze Engine Preview Patch Notes NW.60.20160307z.2

terramak · April 2016

These patch notes show changes from the NW.60.20160307a.14 patch, live on Neverwinter as of 2016-03-31.

Highlights

Powers / Balance Changes: April 2016
We've made some balance changes for a few classes and items. The notes below describe only the changes, not the intents. If you'd like to read more about the design decisions and process behind these changes, and give your feedback, these threads are your go-to places:
Informational Thread: Upcoming Powers/Balance Changes
Feedback Thread: Lostmauth's Vengeance Changes
Feedback Thread: Oathbound Paladin & Devoted Cleric Changes
Feedback Thread: Guardian Fighter Changes

Release Notes

Combat and Powers
Classes and Balance

Devoted Cleric
- Feats: Gift of Haste: Now grants AP over 5 seconds, instead of instantly. If you are already affected by Gift of Haste, having it applied to you again will refresh the duration.
- Feats: Gift of Haste: Now places a buff icon on the recipient, instead of popping up combat floating text with every application.
- Feats: Gift of Haste: When casting Healing Word, Gift of Haste no longers fail to apply to the caster in certain circumstances.
- Healing Word: The targeting of this power is now more reliable on angled terrain.
- Healing Word: Buff tooltip now accurately reflects what the power does when applied in Divinity mode.
- Divine Glow: Modified tooltip wording slightly to be more succinct. Also added tooltip text to the buffs and debuffs.
- Divine Glow: No longer incorrectly states that the effect stacks 3 times when cast in Divinity mode.
Guardian Fighter
- Guardian Fighters will no longer receive a 20% damage buff for 1 second every 20 seconds.
- Mark: No longer roots the user in place when activated. Can now be activated while blocking. Animation changed to work with this new functionality.
- Aggravating Strike & Shield Slam: The scaling on these powers was not updated when we added the 4rd rank of powers. This has been updated, resulting in a slight damage increase for these 2 abilities.
- Aggravating Strike: Activation time reduced from 1.2s to 1s. This has increased the DPS of this power by ~20%. Note that this also means each individual hit generates slightly less AP, but the average AP generated over time is still roughly the same.
- Shield Slam: Activation time reduced from 1s to 0.9s. Damage increased ~14%. The combination of these 2 changes has increased the DPS of this power by ~27%. Note that this also means each individual hit generates slightly fewer Action Points, but the average AP generated over time is still roughly the same.
- Crushing Surge: Decreased the activation time of each of the 3 attacks in the combo. This has increased the DPS of the combo by ~16%. Note that this also means each individual hit generates slightly fewer Action Points, but the average AP generated over time is still roughly the same.
- Crushing Surge: Now heals on every swing of the attack. The first swing heals for 1/4 the amount of the final swing, and the second swing heals for 1/2 the amount of the final swing. Ranking this power up now also increases the healing value.
- Cleave: Decreased overall activation time of the combo from 2.41s to 2.25s. Increased the damage of the third hit by ~33%. The combination of these 2 changes has increased the DPS of this combo by ~20%. Note that this also means each individual hit generates slightly fewer Action Points, but the average AP generated over time is still roughly the same.
- Cleave: This power now has a cone area of effect, instead of a short cylinder. In addition, it no longer forces you to face a valid target, allowing you greater control over what you can hit with the power.
- Tide of Iron: Activation time reduced from 1.125s to 1s. This has increased the DPS of this power by ~12%. Note that this also means each individual hit generates slightly fewer Action Points, but the average AP generated over time is still roughly the same.
- Indomitable Strength: Now lowers the damage the target deals by 10% for 5s. Each rank increases this duration by 1s.
Oathbound Paladin
- Oathbound Paladins will no longer receive a 20% damage buff for 1 second every 20 seconds.
- Divine Protector: Duration reduced to 3 seconds plus 1 second per additional rank (6 second max, down from 20 second max).
- Divine Protector: Now reduces all damage you take while active by 50%, down from 80%.
- Heroism: Duration reduced to 4 seconds plus 2 seconds per additional rank (10 second max, down from 20 second max).
- Shield of Faith: Duration reduced to 6 seconds plus 2 seconds per additional rank (12 second max, down from 24 second max).
- Shield of Faith: Now decreases incoming damage by 30% (down from 50%) and increases healing taken by 30% (up from 20%).
- Aura of Vengeance: The damage proc from this Class Feature no longer counts as At-Will damage.
- Binding Oath: Modified tooltip wording slightly to be more succinct and understandable.
- Binding Oath: The damage dealt to other targets at the end of the duration can no longer exceed the Max HP of the Paladin.
- Feats: Echoes of Light: This effect can now only occur once every 15 seconds. The proc chance no longer secretly increases if you are hitting multiple targets. The proc chance has been increased from 1/2/3/4/5% to 2/4/6/8/10%.
Scourge Warlock
- Harrowstorm: This power is no longer capable of proccing Lostmauth's Vengeance on every tick. It still can proc Lostmauth's Vengeance on the initial hit.
- Harrowstorm: Now hits all targets on the first tick, instead of just the main target.

Item Powers

Lostmauth's Hoard: The damage dealt by the set bonus, Lostmauth's Vengeance, no longer scales with damage bonuses. It now properly deals Weapon Damage, as stated in the tooltip.
Control Wizard Templar set bonus: Changed the tooltip to read more clearly.

terramak · April 2016

To reiterate: If you have feedback for the following topics, please post that feedback in the respective threads.
Informational Thread: Upcoming Powers/Balance Changes
Feedback Thread: Lostmauth's Vengeance Changes
Feedback Thread: Oathbound Paladin & Devoted Cleric Changes
Feedback Thread: Guardian Fighter Changes

drkbodhi · April 2016

We all knew it was happening... sooner or later... it had to happen.

Unknown · April 2016

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jobsalotofwork · April 2016

Why nerf harrowstorm if you're nerfing lostmauth? Why didn't equivalent powers of other classes get changed?

candinho2 · April 2016

and the warlock was left aside again

shadowgod244 · April 2016

so testing the dmage on the lostmouth set on scorps and lostmouth it went from a 4 million to 200k damage this is overkill it makes all dps classes lose from 12%-33% and thats to far, i understand people complain about that and the power creep has gotten a little out of hand but in this case it actually makes it counterproductive to running a set for the bonus you would be better to run a mix and match to get more damage

ltgamesttv · April 2016

Thank you, the pally nerf was completely necessary to make the PVE content challenging and to make PVP matches with paladins more balanced. The lostmauth set was spot on, the AP gain had mostly been fixed except for PVE builds so it was needed as well. The one thing that concerns me, and I'm assuming this will be addressed later, is that GF's damage is already through the roof, now they can mark, and do more damage with at-wills. I think this is perhaps necessary for PVE and I can only hope that you will look at a tank classes burst damage in PVP.

All in all, nice work, I'm hoping to see more of this exact stuff in the near future to try and re-balance the classes. Please, please fix all this stealth stuff going around, it's really huge and game breaking, you're obviously paying attention to gear and OP mechanics so I can only hope that ambush rings and shadowclad enchantments are under the microscope, any confirmation that you're looking at those mechanics would be a huuuuuge leap forward in confidence from a bunch of us watching what's happening from the sidelines.

Thanks again, keep up this kind of good work!

Unknown · April 2016

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foxxy · April 2016

:wrong feedback:

baalhashmal · April 2016

Divine Glow in divinity does not stack 3 times. It will only stack once according to the tool tip on the preview server. Furthermore, it does not proc weapon enchants.

What a bummer. Divine Glow was arguably a staple encounter to have equipped due to its utility (buff/debuff/heal).

What's the reason for this?

joyousdeciever · April 2016

if you are dialing back loatmauth to just weapon damage could you maybe make it more balanced for hr (and tr i would assume, as i dont have a TRoll) by using combined mh/oh damage not just the damage of the one in hand ? in all reality hr does not strike any more times in a set # of seconds than say a gwf or cw or any other class since lostmauth procs on atwills and encounters.. all but these 2 classes have all of their damage stat attached to one weapon but only hr has separation of weapon damage due to stance switch .. .. correct me if my assessment is wrong

ik i do nowhere near the dps of even a gwf with 700 less il than me from lostmauth procs though

joyousdeciever · April 2016

another thought .... if the lostmauth damage proc is not modified by positive modifiers will it also ignore debuffs ?

Unknown · April 2016

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engineerofevil · April 2016

Two paladin dailies were nerfed 50% and Protector 70%, now nobody finds that overkill? They also reduced Paladin dps.

scathias · April 2016

You think that paladins one shotting dragons was a reasonable thing? now you can only deal out as much damage as you have HP (before buffs and debuffs are taking into account)... pretty reasonable considering that this is a tanking skill and not a DPS skill. warlock's bargin on SWs can't one shot anything anymore either.

xxmantaraxx · April 2016

I hope they take mob HP and damage output into consideration when applying these nerfs. Devs why dont you try to do throne or PoM without the current lol set. Honestly I had to get it on my main (GWF) to make gold level runs in my guild. If you are going to derp that much dps from long term players you need to evaluate mob hp totals.

mentinmindmaker · April 2016

Paladins will have to look at the other tools they have available for tanking. I would not claim overkill on the permabubble nerf until the OPs demonstrate what they can do with the other tools they have.

But obviously OPs will die more now. That is the entire point of the nerf. They were too good

jumpingmorks · April 2016

This will break my OP Healadin build but overall the OP changes are necessary I think, I'm now looking forward to playing my OP Protector instead of languishing as a level 70 Invoke alt. The OP community and those that relied on specific builds and especially those that asked for the combos of bubble OP's and AP DC's will no doubt cry foul on a large scale when they find out about these changes but no class/ class combos should be able to trivialize content.

Will a free respec be given to everyone affected by changes?

Also LoL set "nerf" is a lot more reasonable than I was expecting, just doing weapon damage and not scaling with buffs seems like a good way to go (my second main is a GWF with LoL and Lathander set).

My main is a GF and I am surprised by the damage buffs and the decreased animations, most GF's I know of rely most on Encounters to do their damage and our At-Wills were slow and hit poorly, does this mean that more changes are incoming? I only ask as those that cry foul over well equipped GF's seem to be pretty vocal.

The animation decreases are very welcome however but as I mentioned, I am very wary of anything that increases our DPS as I believe GF's are in a very good spot right now and as my favourite class I would hate to see them overly nerfed for becoming too strong.

xxmantaraxx · April 2016

mentinmindmaker said:
Paladins will have to look at the other tools they have available for tanking. I would not claim overkill on the permabubble nerf until the OPs demonstrate what they can do with the other tools they have.

But obviously OPs will die more now. That is the entire point of the nerf. They were too good

And they should die, well, at least at some point. I have been in pvp with a pvp geared team and 5-1 an op. we did that for the entire match, completely unkillable. Ty for making it harder to troll pvp than usual.

razor4lpha · April 2016

mentinmindmaker said:
Paladins will have to look at the other tools they have available for tanking. I would not claim overkill on the permabubble nerf until the OPs demonstrate what they can do with the other tools they have.

But obviously OPs will die more now. That is the entire point of the nerf. They were too good

OPs will not die more often(the oath will be still there), the party will(bubble will not be there).

scathias · April 2016

razor4lpha said:

mentinmindmaker said:
Paladins will have to look at the other tools they have available for tanking. I would not claim overkill on the permabubble nerf until the OPs demonstrate what they can do with the other tools they have.

But obviously OPs will die more now. That is the entire point of the nerf. They were too good
OPs will not die more often(the oath will be still there), the party will(bubble will not be there).

then the party should be smart enough to stay out of the red and avoid taking life threatening damage shouldn't they?

thefabricant · April 2016

Where are the control wizard changes?

rapo973 · April 2016

royinever said:

ap dc needed this also, those dailies every 4 sec was ridiculous

But the virtuous path is now destroyed. See the dedicated thread (Oathbound Paladin & Devoted Cleric Changes)
This changes a number of overpower interactions, but make the virtuous path meaningless.
Shortly:
- tons of healing feats. Ok, but heals are less and less needed as long as the IL of the party goes up.
- mitigation feats: "have faith" is the only viable. Unbrakable devotion is so low that it's useless. The DC can mitigate 10^3 magnitude damages with it (good in pre-mod 6 range at level 60) but in dungeouns now the magnitude is 10^4 - 10^5. UD should be update to be in the right range: an order of magnitude is missing.
- Cleansing fire could be reworked to provide mitigation instead of heals/GoH.

schietindebux · April 2016

Great news and in case you really fix things like this, it will be an improvement to the game for sure, thanks.
What about the rework of warlock class, wich is said to be done for....1,5 years now.
The class performs really poor at low levels outside dungeons, inside a dungeon getting a real monster.
The class is a walking bug dealing >50% damage with broken puppet or morderous flame --> also buffed by team extremely to deal up to 200.000.000 hits

jumpingmorks · April 2016

schietindebux said:
what about the rework of warlock class, wich is said to be done for....1,5 years now

This isn't the only rework in the pipeline, I imagine they are staggering the changes over various patches to avoid overwhelming the community and for scheduling purposes.

razor4lpha · April 2016

scathias said:

razor4lpha said:

OPs will not die more often(the oath will be still there), the party will(bubble will not be there).
then the party should be smart enough to stay out of the red and avoid taking life threatening damage shouldn't they?

They should, I've wrote about it earlier, there are some content where you are forced to work around pretty nasty damages, to mention a few:
-Orcus's bugged self buff makes his aoe swing (without red) hit around 500k-1.5M
-Black and Blue dragons tend to use non-red aos too, way more than needed for a one-shot kill.

If they could fix it, also reduce several second long lags in their networks (let hope their ongoing maintenance helps a bit there) and intercontinental latencies (probably not, so longer time for reds to tick in would be good to allow some reaction time there) the environment damages like falling rocks would be avoidable easier.
My suggestion was to drop invincibility, use only damage reduction like 60-70% of the damage(or less if that makes it similar to GF tanks), reduce the timer to about 10-15 seconds, and reduce the reduction of the damage you get from the party members and tweak it until you can be useful with it but not considered a god mode, and you get back the need for a healer, and the group members to pay attention to reds, and probably end the reign of bubble fetishism as the only way to do dungeons.

shalaxsar · April 2016

So... Warlock fix was not ready but mini-nerfing harrowstorm was timely?
Well, Lostmauth set is anyway most likely gonna become non preferential for warlocks now and I, being an owner of one, am still OK/happy with this, the set was disbalanced.
Yet. We as warlocks get a little non-significant but still a nerf into the patch notes... Is that some sot of "F* you" from the developers? Because it looks like it...

theio666 · April 2016

(i am playing 3.2 berserk)Omg, you remove lostm set, but add any alternative! you want me to use new orcus set with AWFUL art stats, AWFUL belt stat(no more 800crit from basic stat, just more useless hp), and just some strange buff to damage, really? Just now in game in PVE we have only vorpal enchantment for DD classes, so usually everybody try to max crit chance, and after you nerf the only existing set with buff crit? OK, but then add any good enchantment for not crit(really good, existing are bad, some of them just don't work, some just do too litle impact for damage).

jumpingmorks · April 2016

The LoL set is still great for GWF's, + to STR and DEX and damage is likely still much better than BI or Imperial set.

ajiiim · April 2016

Its a good changes for pvp and pve . But , you should change HR permanent root too . And TR daily power that CAN NOT be dodge . maybe 1 in a million time that ppl can dodge.

Maze Engine Preview Patch Notes NW.60.20160307z.2

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