Hi guys.
With latest changes, I upgraded all my chants for r12/13 and I'm a dps monster.
This is insane. Devs stated they wanted to stop power creep, while I'm strong as hell now. I swapped to Feytouched (Combat build) and pumped my crit chance to 92%. I'm stronger than pre-bonding nerf. And this isn't even with r14 or Unparalleled Fey!
So, my point is: Are we best dps class now?
And on the sidenotes I would like to notice that I don't think 12b made us weaker, it made us sooooooo much stronger.
1
Comments
Of course that is true for just about every well payed and speced dps except maybe sw....they need some hamster love.
Tldr, it's not that we're suddenly stronger, it's just effectively we were less nerfed than everyone else.
I am curious which build you are using. Would you be willing to share that information?
This is from a trapper point of view though. Don't know if I'll ever switch back to combat as I'm already losing interest in the treadmill.
I'm using Sume's Combat PF build. You can find it on YouTube.
I agree we got less nerfed and some bugs on our class has been fixed and it really worked well for HR performance. So, do you think we will be the first ones to be nerfed in the near future?
Also worth noting is that any good BiS DPS GF will beat any good BiS HR in a matter of single target damage. No offense to you guys, but GF simply has stupidly good tools for single target: GF has the second best weapon damage in the game, GWF like damage buffs on bosses (but only for 10 seconds), and GF abilities have very high base damage. I would argue HR excells in that category better than GWF, making HR the BiS choice for a BiS team.
In a BiS team, the DPS is the most interchangable part. Your supports are the ones who determine how long you take in the entire run, the DPS just shaves off a few minutes.
If you've run in a variety of T9G teams, from pugs to ultra 1337 tryhards, which runs were the fastest? Chances are, I would bet that the fastest ones where the ones where DCs were actually buffing rather than healing. Another thing I'd like to point out was in the Mod11 FBI craze. If you look at the completion times, most teams had similar times, but you'd see a variety of DPS classes: CWs or HRs or TRs or GWFs (I didn't see or hear of any teams using a SW as their main DPS slot, since, well, SW.).
Due to the way BiS parties work, where everyone provides some chip damage and buffs, HR would likely be more beneficial due to Longstrider's beating Battle Fury in terms of buff %. Hell, in the PvE section, the fastest T9G speedrun (PS4 team) done thus far was done with 2x DC/OP/DPS GF/HR. Join the line and take a number, the butthurt GWF brigade already has DPS GF lined up, and the devs have their sights on DC.
I'm serious. For some weird reason, Bloody Death is simply programmed to hit harder if you're playing a GF or GWF, versus if you're playing HR or CW or TR.
@artifleur was there when Old Man Sharp was realizing that even the Bloody Death doesn't think HRs are people.
> There was something not right about that 13 minute run with the dps GF. I've never seen chunks of damage done like that....he had to be hitting in the 10s of millions every swing on orcus..thats insane.
>
> We call that "Bloody Death is stupid on DPS GF and GWF because Cryptic programming".
>
> I'm serious. For some weird reason, Bloody Death is simply programmed to hit harder if you're playing a GF or GWF, versus if you're playing HR or CW or TR.
>
> @artifleur was there when Old Man Sharp was realizing that even the Bloody Death doesn't think HRs are people.
What is bloody death?
Edit:. NVM, the curse for Orcus. As a tank I wouldn't know, lol.
Unfortunately I'm kind of ignorant when it comes to classes other than HR and GF, so I don't acutally know what are the powers/buffs of GWF.
And I also agree on GWF cry train. I'm really affraid Devs will eventually listen to this crybabies and will hit my beloved GF hard.
If you are a combat HR, a sizeable portion of your damage (piercing blades) will not trigger bloody death. Just be glad you are not CW, where like 60-80% of your damage won't trigger it lol.
Next question: How can I recognize that Bloody death is coming? Is it possible? If yes, I understand that if affects only 1 hit (doesn't affect DOT) - which should I use? If no, how can I recognize that it was Bloody death?
Playing trapper.
> There was something not right about that 13 minute run with the dps GF. I've never seen chunks of damage done like that....he had to be hitting in the 10s of millions every swing on orcus..thats insane.
>
> We call that "Bloody Death is stupid on DPS GF and GWF because Cryptic programming".
>
> I'm serious. For some weird reason, Bloody Death is simply programmed to hit harder if you're playing a GF or GWF, versus if you're playing HR or CW or TR.
>
> @artifleur was there when Old Man Sharp was realizing that even the Bloody Death doesn't think HRs are people.
>
> Bloody death is 75% of the initial damage you deal post debuffs dealt as an additional hit. It also works the same way for HR however I think occasionally the piercing blades overwrites the 75% with 50%, which was why I was getting 2 different values in the log for hr but only 1 for other classes. Its a pain to check though. It is comparatively worse for classes whose damage comes from procs or dots, since procs do not trigger bloody death at all and many dots seem to only trigger it on the initial hit (and if it is something like creeping death or smoulder, not at all).
>
> If you are a combat HR, a sizeable portion of your damage (piercing blades) will not trigger bloody death. Just be glad you are not CW, where like 60-80% of your damage won't trigger it lol.
So is this working as intended or not? Has this even been reported as a possible bug?
Wheel of Elements Fire is a very similar proc to the Bloody Death, and Wheel Fire never procc'd on other procs such as Storm Spell, Courage, Piercing Blades, Blade Hurricane, etc.
To be honest, it's rather a flawed design than a bug.
From what I gathered, the dev team decided at some point that replacing damage buffs by extra attacks was a good idea because :
1. The extra attack is easier to find in the combat log
2. Since it doesn't scale with other extra-attack-based buffs there is less risk of having the new buff not scaling properly
What they failed to see at the time is that :
1. The extra attack can't be applied to all damage because otherwise it would cause a lot of lag and possibly damage loops. They therefore have to limit the "buff" to some attacks, usually powers (at-will, encounter, daily) and sometimes only the first damage done by powers. Because of this, the extra-attack-buffs favor classes that deal most of their damage from powers directly, such as GWF and GF, compared to classes with a lot of other procs, such as HR and CW.
2. For classes that deal a lot of small attacks at high speed, like the combat HR, the extra-attack-buffs tend to create server-lag resulting in the extra-attack not applying to all the attacks it should have applied to, or not properly. This further imbalances the extra-attack-buff concept towards classes with slow but heavy attacks such as GF and GWF.
The extra-attack-buff concept was applied to several general buffs which can be used by all classes (wheel of elements, stronghold slayer marks, executioner's black attire, bloody death...) which was a mistake.
I believe that the dev team now understand their mistake, but only too late. The brand new soul crystal artifact was, if I recall correctly, meant to be another extra-attack-buff but was reverted to a real buff before release.
As for HR, I do believe HR are in a sweet spot and can keep up with most GWF.
GF are just crazy good on bosses. Like insane good. So good that one GF I ran with Orcus did not even summon the balls.
Either way, we are good. I'm really happy with how I'm performing now. I think that key to this class is knowing how to utilise your class features to maximum. How to proc biting snares, how to build up stacks on AotS or how to utilise Combat capstone to its full potential. Positioning, movement and timing. That's why I love this class. I picked it knowing nothing about this game and I don't regret.
The other thing I love about it is that we have so many cool and useful powers.
And two decent HRs in T9G, wow. I enjoyed running T9G.
Another combat advantage is the fact you don't need to go away from the target. As trapper you would like to get to LS range, proc bonus damage and go with your rotation. Then repeat which means you will have to stop attacking for this few sec to get to LS range.
stormwarden beats out pathfinder because of throw caution.
The next thing is understanding your build. If you have no clue how to play the build you will do HAMSTER for damage, not matter if it is built properly or not.
If you have both the proper build and ability to maximize the damage for the build you will do well with the build.
Combat is a bit easier than Trapper to play and as others mentioned, combat damage is quicker to achieve vs a trapper.
I have seen both good and bad type of HR. When good, they do very well in damage. When bad, well I rather have a 3rd DC that is a pure DPS in the run.
I will try a hybrid build tonight with Arch and Combat.
I like!