Question to @amnar. Is it possible to combine a range encounter with another Meele encounter than it's present counterpart? As an example putting marauder escape with ambush without to much hours of programming.
It is possible, and something I think is pretty likely to happen in the future. It was a bit too large of a change for this review.
Amazing !
As you seam reluctant to buff "at wills" in a general matter, would it be in your time frame to implement something like my earlier suggestion @amenar?
Combat capstone - 100%(or more need to be tested ofc) add damage on all Meele attacks(alternative 50% on encounters) 150% on at wills , testing will get accurate numbers), 15% deflect (allowing Meele style).
Archery capstone - 100% on at wills 50% on encounters (again testing can get accurate numbers) criticals slows target(s) x% stacks x times(can differ in pvp and pve if needed).
This way you minimize the risk of over buffing as you limit combat to meele "at wills" and/or encounters, same goes for archers range "at wills" and/or encounters.
The deflection for meele you already done so your halfway there -:).
Seems there may be a misunderstanding, my apologies for not being clearer. I was asking for clarification, which unfortunately I didn't really get, not stating that things "are fine."
I agree that Combat still needs work. I'm sad that I couldn't dedicate more time to Combat this module. HR is, unfortunately - due to stance switching - twice the size of every other class (with the exception of Devoted Cleric, due to Divine and Empowered modes), and considerably more complex. Our testing shows that we'll likely start seeing some viable builds pop up with Archery, and Trapper won't be going anywhere. It'd be awesome if Combat was also there. Getting to these places takes time, and I hope that you can trust that our goal is to make our game - which is something many, many people at Cryptic invest their hearts and souls into - the best game it can be.
@ghoulz66 I'm sorry that you've become frustrated by this process. You've provided a ton of very useful feedback during this class review, as have many, many other people. Communication on the forums can be difficult, and I'm only able to spend so much time on here, while also continuing to work on improving the game. Unfortunately, we are very leery of making big sweeping changes that could potentially lead to something being very overpowered without the proper amount of time to test it. Releasing a huge buff, which then causes everyone to switch to that spec, and then nerfing it, is not something we're big fans of doing. Yes, it has happened, but we're always sad when it does.
Try to keep in mind that, while the amount of changes we can still make this module are very small, this is an MMO, and things will constantly change. More changes to the class will come, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
/salute
There is Hope for us @ghoulz66 (see what I did there? )
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I think the best way to describe Combat is not by tooltips but by role. So, it would be best to compare it to Mod 4 Destroyer. It was tanky, but lame damage. So, it was useless due to the fact a CW could just Steal Time/Icy Terrain it or an SW could TT/DT anything before you could even swing. That is how combat will be and has been. No damage, just a wasted party slot. It needs more damage so that it can be justified to even play or invite one. A T4 or 5 feat or the capstone must be changed to give it a massive boost to melee at-wills so it is on par with other melee strikers. Or, the at-will themselves need to be boosted. Why invite a Combat HR when you can just invite a TR or GWF that can melt everything down?
makes sense.
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
As long as all 3 trees are within 5-10% damage of one another I'll be more than happy. If the devs can manage that they can all take a bow. As @amenar pointed out people will always gravitate to the highest damage-dealing spec, especially for pvp while only the die-hard HRs will stick with the playstyle they most prefer/enjoy.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
IMO is normal that combat has lower damage than the Destroyer because, even when is focused on the melee, the HR still can use the bow making it more versatile than a GWF Destroyer.
There's no such thing as versatility in this game. When even support builds are out DPSing you, when all you have to offer it DPS.
Well I guess this the end. Combat will remain a joke again for another 6 modules because no one will listen. People simply won't test it themselves in IWD or where ever and realize how terrible and why it is. It showed evidence of at-wills under half the DPS of what other classes have, and yet there are still excuses. Test it yourself!
Why do you think no one uses combat!? How many modules has it been?
I have never been asking for Combat to do the DPS of a GWF. I been asking for them to do more DPS than support builds and tanks!!!
Please, if you are quoting and answering me at least read all that I said. You quoted just the first part but I said inmediatly after that Combat need T4, T5 and capstone feats to increase the damage because the damage of that path is too low to be competitive. About "there is no such thing as versatility" I just can say that if you really think that you picked the wrong class, because the best thing about the HRs is his versatility. I've been trying and making several copies to check diferent rotations and builds and end up with same results, for both Trapper and Archer the best DPS rotations are cordon+hindering+constricting because it allow you to keep the mobs at the distance for archery and apply roots for Trapper, then you can use plant to stop and deal more damage if they get close while you shift away if you are archer or more roots if you are Trapper. Those are at least for solo play, on dungeons I would probably check Hawk Shot if I'm archer and Gushing if I'm trapper at the boss. Combat has no place, Archery has improved greatly but as most of the good things of the archery can be used by Trappers too at the end Trapper stay the best option.
I'd like to see some viable archery PvP builds now
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited August 2016
I really, REALLY don't want to be forced to continue to slot plant growth just for DPS. Let the at-wills be good enough to justify slotting weaker lower CD encounters to further utilize flurry more often. This type of build is 100% not viable still.
Combat is like the old SW who was reliant of only 3 powers to deal it's DPS!! Except here combat is bad still and is limited to even less.
please do not feel discourage in what have you done so far, you have been more helpful than anythin could've been, please do not take personally most of the comments around here or in any threads,
I've been on our forums for 7 years - 3 here, and 4 before that on Champs - my skin is pretty thick.
You learn early on working on MMOs that people being angry & frustrated generally comes from passion about the game, and that's a good thing (not the anger, the passion). It's sad to disappoint people when my goal being a designer is to entertain people, and to make them smile, but... you can't please everyone all the time. But if you try real hard, you just might... no, now I've lost my metaphor.
I'd like to see some viable archery PvP builds now
The problem for archery in pvp is that they need to keep distance to opponents and as it is now they lack the ability to do so.
1. They have no cc escape 2. They have close to no effective cc 3. They lack the ability to produce burst damage
If as @amenar mentioned earlier you can exchange some encounter between meele and range (like combining marauders escape with ambush etc), give archery some cc (like slow) then add some form of cc escape ( like add cc immunity to fox or marauders escape) and finally give some burst capability on top of that you have a pretty good chance to build yourself a fun competitive archer.
This will not happen in a near future so my guess is that you have to wait for those builds unless some pulls out some rabbit build out of their hat ...
I really, REALLY don't want to be forced to continue to slot plant growth just for DPS. Let the at-wills be good enough to justify slotting weaker lower CD encounters to further utilize flurry more often. This type of build is 100% not viable still.
Combat is like the old SW who was reliant of only 3 powers to deal it's DPS!! Except here combat is bad still and is limited to even less.
What's wrong with using Plant Growth as Combat? All 3 trees use the encounter in one or both forms. It's our hardest-hitting encounter - been using it since I unlocked it.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
I really, REALLY don't want to be forced to continue to slot plant growth just for DPS. Let the at-wills be good enough to justify slotting weaker lower CD encounters to further utilize flurry more often. This type of build is 100% not viable still.
Combat is like the old SW who was reliant of only 3 powers to deal it's DPS!! Except here combat is bad still and is limited to even less.
What's wrong with using Plant Growth as Combat? All 3 trees use the encounter in one or both forms. It's our hardest-hitting encounter - been using it since I unlocked it.
That IS our only source of remotely decent DPS we have for combat besides gushing wounds. But can you spam them? Of course not. This is why you go trapper YET again because it does everything combat can do already.
Trapper does this better than combat, on top of the Thorned roots which is so vastly superior in DPS to combat's pathetic piercing damage and flurry capstone.
So why not buff the amount of piercing blades does?
Because it will merely slap a baby amount of damage on top of already half DPS at-wills.
Seriously, a TR buffed with 500% more damage in a party, will still be doing nothing with Path of the Blade. Why? Because it already does no damage from the beginning.
Not to mention, it further buffs plant growth, leaving us in the same boat of depending so much on it. The majority of combat's DPS is NOT from at-wills, they're not even close.
I'd like to see some viable archery PvP builds now
The problem for archery in pvp is that they need to keep distance to opponents and as it is now they lack the ability to do so.
1. They have no cc escape 2. They have close to no effective cc 3. They lack the ability to produce burst damage
If as @amenar mentioned earlier you can exchange some encounter between meele and range (like combining marauders escape with ambush etc), give archery some cc (like slow) then add some form of cc escape ( like add cc immunity to fox or marauders escape) and finally give some burst capability on top of that you have a pretty good chance to build yourself a fun competitive archer.
This will not happen in a near future so my guess is that you have to wait for those builds unless some pulls out some rabbit build out of their hat ...
The major problem with archery in pvp is that if the archer is far away it means they are not on the node. And if you are not on the node you are making your team lose. So if your build is forcing you to lose it is instantly not viable right?
Guild - The Imaginary Friends We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
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treesclimberMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,161Arc User
@amenar it seems to be very easy to compare combat to destroyer gwf, so far the only minimally viable way to be speced combat was to mix some trapper feats and play it has a rotation(while many players would prefeer the playstyle as single stanced) to get most damage possible, but by doing that people would loose a lot if surviviality by skipping battlecrazed for example, so trapper was a much better solution, so in order to have notion of the damage between destro and combat hr simply use act or the program you use as dps metter, and hit a dummie for a fixed amount of time, like lets say 2 minutes without changing stances, after that do same with destroyer gwf and you'll see a very diferent result.
@flowcyto : the combat ranger should do the same of the destroyer. Use its feats to rank up damage. The point is that those feats are lagging behind. In this game feats are a large part of the playstyle. Asking for blanket damage increases makes every tree more similar to the next one as feats have to be reduced in power not to make something overpowered.
Eh, a 40% (now 50%) added piercing dmg, a x*5% dmg bonus when surrounded, a 65% bonus dmg multiplier (capstone) are pretty big modifiers in themselves, but they are mostly buffing at-wills (and not all of the time) and our at-wills still are our weakest link by far. Destroyer (and Trapper) show somewhat the opposite case and are why I'm a bit hesitant to focus on just making really potent Feats.
I mean, sure, continue to make the feats better (the 2-sec duration on the re-worked capstone prob won't be enough, but its not like we can test that yet), but one should also blanket buff the at-wills at least somewhat. This is also since Archery could still stand a buff to some of them, and Trapper won't be affected by them that much.
I'd like to see some viable archery PvP builds now
The problem for archery in pvp is that they need to keep distance to opponents and as it is now they lack the ability to do so.
1. They have no cc escape 2. They have close to no effective cc 3. They lack the ability to produce burst damage
If as @amenar mentioned earlier you can exchange some encounter between meele and range (like combining marauders escape with ambush etc), give archery some cc (like slow) then add some form of cc escape ( like add cc immunity to fox or marauders escape) and finally give some burst capability on top of that you have a pretty good chance to build yourself a fun competitive archer.
This will not happen in a near future so my guess is that you have to wait for those builds unless some pulls out some rabbit build out of their hat ...
The major problem with archery in pvp is that if the archer is far away it means they are not on the node. And if you are not on the node you are making your team lose. So if your build is forcing you to lose it is instantly not viable right?
Yes any build depended on range has a problem with existing node pvp. However 5 players on 3 nodes does allow for some running between helping to clear a node (alternative help kill 2vs2) so it's not hopeless if you can produce enough burst and survive between.
There are also pug vs pug that gives some room for playing a bit more "sniper" mode(even if most of this kind of pvp died out due to premade running around hunting kills against pugs).
I don't say that an archer Hr is the ultimate in a pvp set up but with what I wrote it would be possible to make an playable archer in pvp. If by some miracle they add "capture the flag" or other pvp maps with alternative methods to win archery would still need those changes but could then become both effective and fun to play. But as I mentioned it's in the "maybe" future -:).
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited August 2016
The fact that combat has been built the way it is, to revolve around making use of at-wills, but being too afraid to touch them, despite them underperforming and leading to the unviability of the whole tree is beyond me. The whole concept is trying to make it play similarly to a GWF, but with a fraction of the DPS and much lower bulk.
I'm not kidding here @amenar, I can honestly respec my CW to oppressor and be a more viable DPS in a party. Along side providing some party buffs and DPS, AND control. Combat has nothing to offer the party but damage, and damage only. Even my solo DPS was far better.
Predator, while not the best capstone in the world, it at least fulfills it's purpose of dealing heavy DPS to a single target. Along with the aimed shot buff. The tree can at least do what it was designed around.
Flurry and the at-will damage can't even keep up with Thorned Roots. Mobs DO melt faster from them. Trapper can cycle though all the best DPS powers, combat can't. The moment rain of arrows, or plant growth, are on CD, DPS simply plummets. Almost no other class or build faces this kind of severe handicap.
That is a horrible comparison. Destroyer GWF has feats and a capstone that are built for high damage and has modifier encounters to add to them. Combat does not have any comparable feats or self-buffs. Combat will never do the amount of damage as a Destroyer without HR getting a complete rework and the Combat feats totally changed.
The capstone is trying to force the at-will heavy play style the GWF is known for. That's the comparison. Of course it's never going to work when the at-wills are HALF of everything else.
with 2 damage trees maybe time to make combat a tank like GF with dps and buffs for tanking instead. imagine every one asking for tank and choices are GF or Combat HR. I truthfully see a demand for tanks more than any other class in my higher level runs. let Combat have a part in this. maybe stupid idea but needed in our game
with 2 damage trees maybe time to make combat a tank like GF with dps and buffs for tanking instead. imagine every one asking for tank and choices are GF or Combat HR. I truthfully see a demand for tanks more than any other class in my higher level runs. let Combat have a part in this. maybe stupid idea but needed in our game
HR is not a defender.....
You can't even be remotely serious here. How in the world is a squishy leather user with deflect only going to tank T2 bosses, OR AGRO THEM...?
There are way too many feats on the HR dealing with survivability and not enough dealing with damage. The damage ones are not powerful enough. When you look at the HR objectively you see a class that is built to fail. It has to be that the base damage of the class as a whole is just too low for the feats.
But there were more % buffs added if you look back at previous notes. But that's not the problem here. Too many powers having terrible base damage is. They aren't willing to buff them to any decent amount. Thorn strike got buffed, that's about it....
Seriously this is getting annoying now. Having a combat capstone that buffs at-wills to be pretty much in line with unbuffed attacks from other classes. Once they get buffs up, the capstone is rendered a waste of time.
Combat doesn't even deal mid-DPS, it deals LOW DPS. We can't even get it enough focus to even buff it to be at least a competitive level of a mid-range DPS class/build. It's stuck at the bottom of the barrel unless a decent change is made! Why not just change the capstone if at-wills are going to be left useless and weaker than that of other classes. EVEN 1/3rd that of the GF!
My suggestions weren't trying to make it OP, I'm trying to get it at least viable enough to not warrant dirt bags from kicking you. To at least feel like you're helping a group.
Different things got sorted, some goals got achived like a general cooldown reduction to several (but not all powers and charge refill yet), and some of the longtime bugs that exist since over 5 modules (reported during past 2-3 years and never listened as no devel was really bothering to read our forums before now) got fixed, the main issue is that the overall cooldown reduction is only one of the three main goal there existed to fix the HR class properly, the base damage boost didn`t yet happened (we got a raw 10-15% increase in some cases) while we require a 30% to 70% damage boost increase, 30% for most (but not all) encounters, 40% for dailies and 70% for most (but not all) at-wills. The 3rd goal is the diversification which goes trought rework the other two trees (archery and combat) to bring them in pair with Trapper, so far Archery is the one that got this process started and I would say around 70% achieved, while Combat got started but not more than 20% of the needed work got achivied.
Alot of the changes even relies in "limbo" as it´s part of patches done by @amenar but didn´t yet reached the preview, which is silly, and this cause fights in here as many ppl are unable to understand them before have tried them out, which in any case we all need be able to test them to figure out that the new changes aren´t bugged in some matter.
The time run short and this is the pissing part of it all, while we have a company (cryptic) that set a release date, and on the other side we have a community (us) that is unable to test changes and finish off the started work together, @amenar by now I guess has figured out that the HR of all classes is the one that require the most attention to get reworked. I will ask this here now Loud, despite alone I wont be able to get this done, as eventually not even a petition will get this done, but eventually if everyone will shout for it we can raise a Louder voice, get the date of Module 10 pushed back to a september release date as we are only half way to have our HR class rework done.
Comments
As you seam reluctant to buff "at wills" in a general matter, would it be in your time frame to implement something like my earlier suggestion @amenar ?
Combat capstone - 100%(or more need to be tested ofc) add damage on all Meele attacks(alternative 50% on encounters) 150% on at wills , testing will get accurate numbers), 15% deflect (allowing Meele style).
Archery capstone - 100% on at wills 50% on encounters (again testing can get accurate numbers) criticals slows target(s) x% stacks x times(can differ in pvp and pve if needed).
This way you minimize the risk of over buffing as you limit combat to meele "at wills" and/or encounters, same goes for archers range "at wills" and/or encounters.
The deflection for meele you already done so your halfway there -:).
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
There is Hope for us @ghoulz66 (see what I did there?
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
Combat is like the old SW who was reliant of only 3 powers to deal it's DPS!! Except here combat is bad still and is limited to even less.
You learn early on working on MMOs that people being angry & frustrated generally comes from passion about the game, and that's a good thing (not the anger, the passion). It's sad to disappoint people when my goal being a designer is to entertain people, and to make them smile, but... you can't please everyone all the time. But if you try real hard, you just might... no, now I've lost my metaphor.
ME TRY MAEK GAEM GUD. ME HOPE YOU LIKE.
1. They have no cc escape
2. They have close to no effective cc
3. They lack the ability to produce burst damage
If as @amenar mentioned earlier you can exchange some encounter between meele and range (like combining marauders escape with ambush etc), give archery some cc (like slow) then add some form of cc escape ( like add cc immunity to fox or marauders escape) and finally give some burst capability on top of that you have a pretty good chance to build yourself a fun competitive archer.
This will not happen in a near future so my guess is that you have to wait for those builds unless some pulls out some rabbit build out of their hat ...
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
Trapper does this better than combat, on top of the Thorned roots which is so vastly superior in DPS to combat's pathetic piercing damage and flurry capstone.
Seriously, a TR buffed with 500% more damage in a party, will still be doing nothing with Path of the Blade. Why? Because it already does no damage from the beginning.
Not to mention, it further buffs plant growth, leaving us in the same boat of depending so much on it. The majority of combat's DPS is NOT from at-wills, they're not even close.
We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
I mean, sure, continue to make the feats better (the 2-sec duration on the re-worked capstone prob won't be enough, but its not like we can test that yet), but one should also blanket buff the at-wills at least somewhat. This is also since Archery could still stand a buff to some of them, and Trapper won't be affected by them that much.
<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!
However 5 players on 3 nodes does allow for some running between helping to clear a node (alternative help kill 2vs2) so it's not hopeless if you can produce enough burst and survive between.
There are also pug vs pug that gives some room for playing a bit more "sniper" mode(even if most of this kind of pvp died out due to premade running around hunting kills against pugs).
I don't say that an archer Hr is the ultimate in a pvp set up but with what I wrote it would be possible to make an playable archer in pvp.
If by some miracle they add "capture the flag" or other pvp maps with alternative methods to win archery would still need those changes but could then become both effective and fun to play. But as I mentioned it's in the "maybe" future -:).
I'm not kidding here @amenar, I can honestly respec my CW to oppressor and be a more viable DPS in a party. Along side providing some party buffs and DPS, AND control. Combat has nothing to offer the party but damage, and damage only. Even my solo DPS was far better.
Predator, while not the best capstone in the world, it at least fulfills it's purpose of dealing heavy DPS to a single target. Along with the aimed shot buff. The tree can at least do what it was designed around.
Flurry and the at-will damage can't even keep up with Thorned Roots. Mobs DO melt faster from them. Trapper can cycle though all the best DPS powers, combat can't. The moment rain of arrows, or plant growth, are on CD, DPS simply plummets. Almost no other class or build faces this kind of severe handicap.
Even Cloud of Steel hits harder
Sentinel GWFs, though, are waiting in the wings to be tanks- if anyone else should step up to that plate next, its them.
<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!
You can't even be remotely serious here. How in the world is a squishy leather user with deflect only going to tank T2 bosses, OR AGRO THEM...?
Seriously this is getting annoying now. Having a combat capstone that buffs at-wills to be pretty much in line with unbuffed attacks from other classes. Once they get buffs up, the capstone is rendered a waste of time.
Combat doesn't even deal mid-DPS, it deals LOW DPS. We can't even get it enough focus to even buff it to be at least a competitive level of a mid-range DPS class/build. It's stuck at the bottom of the barrel unless a decent change is made! Why not just change the capstone if at-wills are going to be left useless and weaker than that of other classes. EVEN 1/3rd that of the GF!
My suggestions weren't trying to make it OP, I'm trying to get it at least viable enough to not warrant dirt bags from kicking you. To at least feel like you're helping a group.