So, it's happening on preview already. Master of Flames is back. Thaumaturge gameplay is gone, DPS of smolder is minimal again. It's even worse than mof's, since smolder now ticks every 3 sec (down from 1.5 sec pre mod 16). Good point, Critical Conflagration adds Smolder on all targets hit by a critical again. But now that's useless.
Directed flames now sets a 12sec cooldown for smolder. On paper only, ingame, the average delay on a single target is 18sec. This feat made 50%/30% (aoe/1-target) of total dps at launch of mod 16, mod17 nerfs lowered to 25%/10%, now it's <5%/<1%. Next adjustment, smolder will heal targets. Another issue is that an arcanist who adds chill stacks will deal more Rimefire Smolder than the thaumaturge itself… Again, mod 16 version of Directed Flames (smolder isn’t dot and no cd) was a great mechanics, and only its magnitude should have been adjusted. This made Dot spells useful, especially Conduct of Ice.
So, Rimefire Weaving is the only way to go. The new buffing mechanics is more more interesting than previous one. Smolder/Rimefire isn’t meant to deal decent damage anymore (it has half of Lostmauth’set dps), but at least it will buff other powers. From any ally. That means thaumaturge becomes a dps support class, exactly as former Mof was.
Thaumaturge also has too many weak or even useless class features. 1) Swath of destruction buffs smolder by 5%. Smolder now has <5% of total dps, this buff is insignificant. 2) AP gain bonus from Combustive action is far too low, and doesn’t work on 1vs1. 3) Frost wave is just useless: dailies recovery is very long, there are many much more efficient ways for adding chill stacks.
Last point, Chilling advantage still has no effect on critical severity at all.
i would like creepy death to do crit hits ty i dont see why other classes feats can do crit but not sw..ive seen the so called bufs on preview for sw..its a joke
guys fact is .... 1) pre m16 smolder wasn't major damage source it always moved between 3-10% 2) m16 CWs started to abuse multiprocing OP smolder to get 30-50% and now they are spoiled by it 3) if directed flames dealt 100% of smolder damage with 12s cooldown ... it would be better than 80% m16+ class powers anyway keep in mind class powers are extremely weak compared to pre m16 some classes dont have even two class powers to fill slots .. that mean more than 1% dps gain
iam not judging thaum balance ... but who said thaum should be all about spamming instant smolder
i would like creepy death to do crit hits ty i dont see why other classes feats can do crit but not sw..ive seen the so called bufs on preview for sw..its a joke
nope ... majority of dots from feats cant crit ... some dont even benefit from CA
Actually some mobs in the first dungeons mattered a lot. Illithid Scourges in Dread Vault, Succubi in Mad Dragon's Lair, pretty much everything in Castle Never, archers, Witherers in Malabog...
not in last 10 modules trash monsters are squishy harmless cannon fodder for quite long time already ... while it's not ideal its not new or surprising issue ofc removal od scaling ruined 70 non dungeon locations in same manner
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
I posted an overall look at the Ranger class from my point of view in The Wilds. I guess it could be an interesting point to start a dsicussion on the class. Hope it's good food for thought.
My biggest gripe is how hard it is to get Shatterstrike just to proc. Increasing its magnitude to control-immune targets is useless if the damned thing won't proc.
I have three CW's. The most powerful one is geared exclusively for CC. She has TEN (10!) legendary Insignia of Mastery. She has the Valindra set. She has 4 points in the control bonus boon. She has 71.5% control bonus, and it's useless, because her main CC feat just won't proc. For crying out loud. This is incredibly frustrating.
Post edited by hustin1 on
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My biggest gripe is how hard it is to get Shatterstrike just to proc. Increasing its magnitude to control-immune targets is useless if the damned thing won't proc.
Don't worry, Shatter strike works very fine on bosses (= control-immunized), since it procs everytime you cast a encounter/daily control spell. Shatter strike also works fine on all regular foes, when they are frozen either with Ray of Frost or Icy Terrrain. The control Bonus has nothing to do with Shatter Strike.
i would like creepy death to do crit hits ty i dont see why other classes feats can do crit but not sw..ive seen the so called bufs on preview for sw..its a joke
nope ... majority of dots from feats cant crit ... some dont even benefit from CA
glowing flames .... you should recheck that feat ....its not dot that feat just change 20% of smolder into aoe damage nothing else and whenever rimefire crits ... this aoe dmg get marked as crit as well
cant talk for hr .. but if its truth what you say then 2of 3 cant crit ( toxic blades + creeping death) and 1/3 can (roots)
What I am still missing is why focusing that much on a feat (creeping death) that in best case scenario is simply replacing another (executioner's gift) with same functionality. That made a sense back in m16 preview testing when CD was useless, but consideringlast rework just made CD a weaker EG clone, what about moving CD with t3 feats, swapping it with risky investment?
I really do believe if they would have left thaum functioning as it did in m16 and just 1) fixed directed flames procing when chill was added 2) reduced directed flames to 50% or something, it would have been much better. Even at 25% probably would have worked since they made smolder take so long to tic.
It's fine for warlock to have dot of 100 magnitude every 2 seconds, but smolder is too op, SS procs too much, and they want creeping death to crit too, really?! I must be missing something to not see how this makes sense.
Is it possible to get these balancing changes on console (PS4, XB1) also at 21th January (or one week later)? I mean only these balancing changes, not whole Mod18. Because otherwise we have to play another two months on console with that huge imbalance between DPS classes. It would be really nice to get them at the same time like PC.
I really do believe if they would have left thaum functioning as it did in m16 and just 1) fixed directed flames procing when chill was added 2) reduced directed flames to 50% or something, it would have been much better. Even at 25% probably would have worked since they made smolder take so long to tic.
It's fine for warlock to have dot of 100 magnitude every 2 seconds, but smolder is too op, SS procs too much, and they want creeping death to crit too, really?! I must be missing something to not see how this makes sense.
short answer, is yes, you are missing something.
Creeping Death is a Feat, and it was always supposed to be 10% overall damage. It originally was supposed to deal 10% of the damage dealt by any attack as a DoT over 5 seconds, but it never worked, which is why its been changed to a magnitude based attack, easier to code I guess.
Bottom line, its supposed to be about 10% of our damage, and at 100 magnitude at 10 stacks, isn't 10%. so it either needs to be able to crit, or have the magnitude raised a bit.
Do I think thaumaturge is in a good spot? no I don't, but don't HAMSTER on any warlock hopes at changes long overdue just because they screwed up thaumaturge.
Creeping Death is a Feat, and it was always supposed to be 10% overall damage. It originally was supposed to deal 10% of the damage dealt by any attack as a DoT over 5 seconds, but it never worked, which is why its been changed to a magnitude based attack, easier to code I guess.
While the power did do 10% of the damage as a DoT, that doesn't mean it increased your damage by 10%. If the power worked in that it always got the first tick off before being overwritten, it would have been a 2% increase to your powers damage because it would be 10% of the damage, divided by 5 for the 5 ticks of the DoT.
So even as initially intended, it would only have been a 10% increase to damage if you did an attack and then waited for the whole DoT to finish before doing your next attack, in normal play it would at best have been a 2% increase. The new setup should be much more beneficial to players both in terms of damage increase and in it actually functioning.
A brief rundown on why it wasn't a matter of being easier to code but was instead a flaw in the design itself (which is naturally on us as a design team):
If a power is only going to have one instance of itself active at a time on a target, and an instance can either be set to (this is a bit of a simplification of parts of the combat engine to make it easy to discuss in one post):
discard - means if the power is already active and a new version tries to apply, the new version is simply dropped
replace - when a new version comes in it replaces the previous version
stack - an additional stack is added to the power
Then when a player does an at-will followed by a daily the following would happen:
discard - the per tick damage would stay at the level of the at-will and the big damage from the daily wouldn't apply to CD
replace - CD would now switch over to being the big damage from the daily, which is good news, until you follow the daily with an at-will and now the at-will damage has overwritten the daily damage. This is what it was setup to do, but wasn't allowing the first tick to go off before being overwritten.
stack - this would have been real messy because stack doesn't mean each stack has its own magnitude, it means that the magnitude will be multiplied by the number of stacks. So that runs into situations such as doing multiple at wills to build stacks, and then doing a daily to overwrite the magnitude and have 5-10-however many stacks of that daily damage DoT.
A power trying to do a damage over time that is based on the damage that triggered the power, but that only has one version active at a time and can be applied by a wide magnitude of powers, is never going to function in a good way for the player.
There are some ways on paper such a power could be designed to work if you get rid of the single instance side of it but those will also have negative server performance issues by trying to track too many unique versions of the DoT on targets at all times.
Nice to have some explanation into reasons why it wasn't working as intended, but doesnt really change the fact that it needs to be doing 10% damage or better to be an alternative Feat choice with Executioners Gift. which averages out at 9-10% dps increase.
I presume the whole point of Trimming down the feat trees to 5 choices of 2 paired feats was to make each feat a desirable option depending on the style/type/situation of play.
Well as it stands, Creeping death isnt a better option in any circumstance. Its not better single target, its not better as AoE, its not better as burst, and its not better as sustained damage over time.
It has to do Something better than executioners gift, or its a pointless choice
Nice to have some explanation into reasons why it wasn't working as intended, but doesnt really change the fact that it needs to be doing 10% damage or better to be an alternative Feat choice with Executioners Gift. which averages out at 9-10% dps increase.
I presume the whole point of Trimming down the feat trees to 5 choices of 2 paired feats was to make each feat a desirable option depending on the style/type/situation of play.
Well as it stands, Creeping death isnt a better option in any circumstance. Its not better single target, its not better as AoE, its not better as burst, and its not better as sustained damage over time.
It has to do Something better than executioners gift, or its a pointless choice
To add to this, I think that the issue here is that Creeping Death and Executioner's Gift are competing for the same role: they're both designed to shine in long fights against high-health targets. Between the two, Executioner's Gift also perform better (if not especially well) in short fights---for bursting down a low-health dungeon boss, for example, or reliably finishing off a mimic. So for Creeping Death to be a viable choice, it really needs to be *better* than Executioner's Gift in long fights, because it certainly can't compete in content that's burned too quickly to make stacks and then see them run for any duration.
glowing flames .... you should recheck that feat ....its not dot that feat just change 20% of smolder into aoe damage nothing else and whenever rimefire crits ... this aoe dmg get marked as crit as well
cant talk for hr .. but if its truth what you say then 2of 3 cant crit ( toxic blades + creeping death) and 1/3 can (roots)
Just posting this for accurate facts: Toxic Blades can Crit. Not sure why yours cant.
Nice to have some explanation into reasons why it wasn't working as intended, -snipped for brevity-
To add to this, I think that the issue here is that Creeping Death and Executioner's Gift are competing for the same role: they're both designed to shine in long fights against high-health targets. Between the two, Executioner's Gift also perform better (if not especially well) in short fights---for bursting down a low-health dungeon boss, for example, or reliably finishing off a mimic. So for Creeping Death to be a viable choice, it really needs to be *better* than Executioner's Gift in long fights, because it certainly can't compete in content that's burned too quickly to make stacks and then see them run for any duration.
And an easy way to make Creeping Death at the very least be an actual option would be to make it be able to crit. That way Creeping Death can proc more other effects and it will increase the damage to a level where it might be viable.
> @hrakh said: > (Quote) > And an easy way to make Creeping Death at the very least be an actual option would be to make it be able to crit. That way Creeping Death can proc more other effects and it will increase the damage to a level where it might be viable.
Would be good.. if cd proc teneb/owlbear...who need crit push up puppet maybe is better think . Or push up some single target think like hg or kf or rework soulsparks mecs (4 healer build its fun but for an hellbringer its meh) or rework the lesser curse why lesser why not a curse lol its fun who fear lesser curse. Idk but the warlock need needlot time to reach is dps at max with soul spark soul invest ecc ecc this is bad especially if feat for make puppet dont work propely + sometime puppet is too slow on reach and attack enemy so the feet that recarge speed power with puppet attack seem no usefull but if i switch with ss feat yu lose dps lol. And for aoe sometime when i reach the 6 stack ss the grup is just dead i lose 5ss and next grup all to do from beginning was cool if yu slow down ss losing charge or we star fight with 3 ss ss stack. This is just what i think keep up working maybe we make this dps class aviable again
Just to put things into perspective, using the new Preview Changes.
This is a breakdown of a warlocks potential damage output. Assuming AP gain works as it should (which it doesn't but lets assume), we would get 1 daily, every 60 seconds. And assuming we get 4 seconds of each encounter Cooldown Via Wrathful souls every 10seconds (0.5sec reduction every 1.25seconds) In a 60 second cycle we can cast
6 x Soul Scorch - 342 magnitude ( 18 sparks and double scorch feat) = 34.2 mag/sec 7.5 x Killing Flames 500-750 magnitude (625magnitude average) = 78 mag/sec 7.5 x Hellfire Ring - 135+220 magnitude (355 total) = 44.4 mag/sec 4.5 x Hadars Grasp - 230 magnitude + 50% from consume, (345total) = 28.8 mag/sec
or 185.4 magnitude per second from encounters
Assume 5 stacks of Risky Investment = 222.5 magnitude per second
1 x Tyrannical Curse - 900 magnitude = 15 mag/sec 67 x Hand of Blight (melee) 40magnitude each. 0.4sec cast time or 44.6mag/sec
Soul Puppet does ( as close as I can tell) 35 magnitude per hit, every 1.25seconds With 5 stacks of RI that gets multiplied by 2.7 ( dunno why but it does) so 95 magnitude every hit or 76mag/sec
Lesser Curse does basically Zero, but to be fair. 12 magnitude over 8 seconds, or 1.5mag/sec.
SO in Total. - 282.1 mag/sec from the warlock and 76mag/sec from the soul puppet In perfect conditions with the full stacks of Risky Investment and Soul Investiture
With buffs. 7.5% from sparks 12% from Warlocks Curse 5% average from Tyrannical Curse 10% average from Executioners Gift
34.5% damage buff. or x1.345 379magnitude from Warlock and 102magnitude from Soul Puppet. 481mag/sec Total ( 432mag/sec without Executioners)
So at 10 stacks Creeping Death would be 50mag/sec and assuming it scales with buffs, x 1.245 = 62.5 mag/sec or 14% of our total damage. Great. Its better than Executioners on long fights!.... but wait it cannot crit
now lets assume CA and 50% crit and 100% Critical Severity
Soul puppet cannot get CA and only has 50% CritSev so on average it will deal 153mag/per sec
379 x 1.5 (crit) x 2(CA) 1137magnitude per second + 153 from soul puppet ( notice how much less puppet now contributes) for a total of 1290 Magnitude with executioners gift
And without EG. 351magnitude x 1.5 x 2 = 1053(warlock) + 128( puppet) for 1181 magnitude per second Now Creeping Death can deal CA damage, so its 100magnitude per second. which is just over 9%. Worse than EG, and this gets even smaller the more Crit severity you have.
This is not including a weapon enchant either which will bring the percentage down even further.
As some bonus Fun
A Ranger Warden
6 x Boar Charge - 450magnitude - 45mag/s 6 x Marauders Rush -450 magnitude - 45mag/s 6 x Hindering Strike - 400 Magnitude 40 mag/s
2 x Daily. Average 12 hits of 80magnitude each + 330. 2580mag total or 43mag/s 72 x storm strike (if cautious) 4 per flurry window- 140magnitude - 168mag/s or 90 x storm strike. 5 per flurry window -140 magnitude - 210 mag/s 18 x final hit of storm strike - 70magnitude - 21mag/s
Total - 362magnitude per second ( cautious) or 404 magnitude per second
Focused = 20% 10% from behind target x1.3 bonus damage
470mag/s (4 storm strikes) to 525 mag/s (5 storm strikes)
Assume 100% CA, 50% Crit and 115% Crit severity ( 75% default +15% bonus + 25% from Feat)
470 x 1.575 x 2 = 1512 mag/s ( 4 storm strikes) 525 x 1.575 x 2 = 1654 mag/s ( 5 storm strikes)
So a rangers potential DPS 1654mag/s is still a whopping 25% above the potential warlock ( 1290mag/s) and that is with 5 stacks of risky investment which takes at least 65 seconds to ramp up. this gap gets even bigger with more Crit severity since the soul puppet is capped at 50%
Yes there are some assumptions here, you don't always have 100% CA uptime and crit is never a perfect 50% split, but I think this highlights pretty well what most of us already know. the "buffs" are not even close to good enough.
And last but not least I have a really nice idea, that will bring back our Mod15 playstyle (maybe with mod19 ): Mod15 Knights Challenge for both paragons (instead of Shield Thrower). That encounter skill should give the aggro for 5 sec and double the incoming and outgoing damage by/to the (single) target in that time. It can be combined with some feats, because Vanguards don't need that damage buff and Dreadnoughts don't want/need the aggro. That will bring back our Mod15 playstyle with high burst damage at single target. It is just an idea, that I really like.
To improve my idea/suggestion: It would be better and easier to change Knights Challenge with Into the Fray. So the Dreadnough would get Knights Challenge with increased (double?) incoming and outgoing damage for more single target damage and Vanguard would get with Into the Fray a support skill for the whole team. That would be awesome.
> @tempus86#1158 said: > Just to put things into perspective, using the new Preview Changes. > > This is a breakdown of a warlocks potential damage output. > Assuming AP gain works as it should (which it doesn't but lets assume), we would get 1 daily, every 60 seconds. > And assuming we get 4 seconds of each encounter Cooldown Via Wrathful souls every 10seconds (0.5sec reduction every 1.25seconds) > In a 60 second cycle we can cast > > 6 x Soul Scorch - 342 magnitude ( 18 sparks and double scorch feat) = 34.2 mag/sec > 7.5 x Killing Flames 500-750 magnitude (625magnitude average) = 78 mag/sec > 7.5 x Hellfire Ring - 135+220 magnitude (355 total) = 44.4 mag/sec > 4.5 x Hadars Grasp - 230 magnitude + 50% from consume, (345total) = 28.8 mag/sec > > or 185.4 magnitude per second from encounters > > Assume 5 stacks of Risky Investment = 222.5 magnitude per second > > 1 x Tyrannical Curse - 900 magnitude = 15 mag/sec > 67 x Hand of Blight (melee) 40magnitude each. 0.4sec cast time or 44.6mag/sec > > Soul Puppet does ( as close as I can tell) 35 magnitude per hit, every 1.25seconds > With 5 stacks of RI that gets multiplied by 2.7 ( dunno why but it does) so 95 magnitude every hit or 76mag/sec > > Lesser Curse does basically Zero, but to be fair. 12 magnitude over 8 seconds, or 1.5mag/sec. > > SO in Total. - 282.1 mag/sec from the warlock and 76mag/sec from the soul puppet > In perfect conditions with the full stacks of Risky Investment and Soul Investiture > > With buffs. > 7.5% from sparks > 12% from Warlocks Curse > 5% average from Tyrannical Curse > 10% average from Executioners Gift > > 34.5% damage buff. or x1.345 > 379magnitude from Warlock and 102magnitude from Soul Puppet. 481mag/sec Total ( 432mag/sec without Executioners) > > So at 10 stacks Creeping Death would be 50mag/sec and assuming it scales with buffs, x 1.245 = 62.5 mag/sec or 14% of our total damage. Great. Its better than Executioners on long fights!.... but wait it cannot crit > > > now lets assume CA and 50% crit and 100% Critical Severity > > Soul puppet cannot get CA and only has 50% CritSev so on average it will deal 153mag/per sec > > 379 x 1.5 (crit) x 2(CA) 1137magnitude per second + 153 from soul puppet ( notice how much less puppet now contributes) > for a total of 1290 Magnitude with executioners gift > > And without EG. 351magnitude x 1.5 x 2 = 1053(warlock) + 128( puppet) for 1181 magnitude per second > Now Creeping Death can deal CA damage, so its 100magnitude per second. which is just over 9%. Worse than EG, and this gets even smaller the more Crit severity you have. > > This is not including a weapon enchant either which will bring the percentage down even further. > > > As some bonus Fun > > A Ranger Warden > > 6 x Boar Charge - 450magnitude - 45mag/s > 6 x Marauders Rush -450 magnitude - 45mag/s > 6 x Hindering Strike - 400 Magnitude 40 mag/s > > 2 x Daily. Average 12 hits of 80magnitude each + 330. 2580mag total or 43mag/s > 72 x storm strike (if cautious) 4 per flurry window- 140magnitude - 168mag/s or > 90 x storm strike. 5 per flurry window -140 magnitude - 210 mag/s > 18 x final hit of storm strike - 70magnitude - 21mag/s > > Total - 362magnitude per second ( cautious) or 404 magnitude per second > > Focused = 20% > 10% from behind target > x1.3 bonus damage > > 470mag/s (4 storm strikes) to 525 mag/s (5 storm strikes) > > Assume 100% CA, 50% Crit and 115% Crit severity ( 75% default +15% bonus + 25% from Feat) > > 470 x 1.575 x 2 = 1512 mag/s ( 4 storm strikes) > 525 x 1.575 x 2 = 1654 mag/s ( 5 storm strikes) > > So a rangers potential DPS 1654mag/s is still a whopping 25% above the potential warlock ( 1290mag/s) and that is with 5 stacks of risky investment which takes at least 65 seconds to ramp up. this gap gets even bigger with more Crit severity since the soul puppet is capped at 50% > > Yes there are some assumptions here, you don't always have 100% CA uptime and crit is never a perfect 50% split, but I think this highlights pretty well what most of us already know. the "buffs" are not even close to good enough.
Great job now i hope we get us buffs in a better position was maybe good if risky invest go back to original form... be4 nerf and add some love to puppets.
There are many suggestions and changes that NW needs to scrutinize before implementing them into the game. I hope Mod 18 is not delayed and the developers can just work at their own pace with other changes after its release.
(...creeping death...) The new setup should be much more beneficial to players both in terms of damage increase and in it actually functioning.
Can this - more transparent way of DoT - be applied in other cases as well? Probably All the Cases? ATM I have Dread enchantment at mind,... even the general term "poison" - for example Death Slaad offence slot ability is supposed to cause a stacking poison damage (the poisoning actually really stacks, but the damage does not).
What I am trying to say: the DoT used to be a major contribution to player's DPS, and right now it is still present on many items, powers and abilities - but for the real life experience the behaviour unfortunately often falls to "not triggering at all" (reset before the first tick) or "give only one tick" (reset after the first tick).
Now, I realize that it is a suggestion for a long term planning - as it would require touching and rebalancing on too many places - but why don't we have every DoT behaving the same way? Pre-set magnitude, stacking up to x-times, refreshed duration with each new stack?
discard - means if the power is already active and a new version tries to apply, the new version is simply dropped
replace - when a new version comes in it replaces the previous version
stack - an additional stack is added to the power
Then when a player does an at-will followed by a daily the following would happen:
discard - the per tick damage would stay at the level of the at-will and the big damage from the daily wouldn't apply to CD
replace - CD would now switch over to being the big damage from the daily, which is good news, until you follow the daily with an at-will and now the at-will damage has overwritten the daily damage. This is what it was setup to do, but wasn't allowing the first tick to go off before being overwritten.
stack - this would have been real messy because stack doesn't mean each stack has its own magnitude, it means that the magnitude will be multiplied by the number of stacks. So that runs into situations such as doing multiple at wills to build stacks, and then doing a daily to overwrite the magnitude and have 5-10-however many stacks of that daily damage DoT.
stacks dont have to multiply anything you can simply sum up old and new magnitude to get new ones the problem lies in duration making that bad idea unless
1) you sum up leftover damage meant to be dealt in remaining ticks 2) add new damage meant to this "damage pool" 3) divide this damage into new ticks and reset duration
another and very simple possibility is to allow multiple instances of creeping death ... but make it proc from encounter only (or enc + daily) + balance it around this fact ... to prevent "negative server performance issues from too many instances"
Just posting this for accurate facts: Toxic Blades can Crit. Not sure why yours cant.
i would guess you have some other source of damage called "poison" mixed in or something similar it would be helpfull to see total hits / crit rate i guess in any case no toxic blades cant crit clearly visible in 340 hits stacked or not on random enemies
https://pastebin.com/e8cmz0q5 but yeah its rather pointless ... creeping death basically "crit" anyway .. its crit is just depending whether original ability crit or not
when someone deal 100 damage dot will be 10 if original ability crit .... creeping death will be doubled(assuming 100%crit sev) so 20 you may not see that satisfying lightning ... but its already multiplied by crit sev .. it would make no sense at all to make already doubled dot .. crit to double it second time O.o if its weak its weak .. but arguing about allowing it to benefit from crit twice is well ... not really good idea in situation where damage already jump up and down quite badly what comes next ? will we demand crit for shadow of demise ?
1
lordaeolosMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 167Arc User
Nice to have some explanation into reasons why it wasn't working as intended, but doesnt really change the fact that it needs to be doing 10% damage or better to be an alternative Feat choice with Executioners Gift. which averages out at 9-10% dps increase.
I presume the whole point of Trimming down the feat trees to 5 choices of 2 paired feats was to make each feat a desirable option depending on the style/type/situation of play.
Well as it stands, Creeping death isnt a better option in any circumstance. Its not better single target, its not better as AoE, its not better as burst, and its not better as sustained damage over time.
It has to do Something better than executioners gift, or its a pointless choice
@noworries#8859 I concur, Creeping death, even with the rework is not a viable alternative to Executioners gift in any scenario.
Couple of ideas here (seeing that unlimited stacks would cause server issues):
Alternative #1: Remove these class based DOTs altogether: that means no thorned roots, no Smolder, no creeping death... They have never worked right, either being "overpowered" and causing server lag issues, or they have been so under-whelming that they are avoided like the plague. Instead do something like storm Spell, proc a single extra hit for weapon damage, and allow it to crit/ benefit from CA. Just don't do something like the Thaum Wizard (I know it was good M16 becasue it was broken), but that entire paragon has now been gutted, and has been gutted even further thanks to directed flames changes.
Alternative #2: Seriously up the magnitude of the procs, so that they meet or surpass the other feat choices they sit next to.. so for the Warlock creeping death should be at least a 10% damage increase on targets with large hit point pools.
The crux of the problem isn't with end game players... with a ToMM ready toon (stat /gear wise) I can run pretty much any build and feat selection and still complete content (other than ToMM), but for someone newer to mid game these feat choices ARE the difference between success with continued game play, or Failure and quitting the game in frustration. As players we also HATE being forced into running certain encounters/ Dailies because of a limited set of Feat selections. We are just asking for each feat pair on each class to be roughly equal in value.
"Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events."
stacks dont have to multiply anything you can simply sum up old and new magnitude to get new ones the problem lies in duration making that bad idea unless
The combat engine has the concept of a new instance comes in and therefore it increase the stack. It doesn't have the concept of caching the previous magnitude, taking the new instance and adding the magnitude to it.
Nor does it have the concept of taking the old magnitude, figuring out the remaining ticks to total how much is left, add it to a new magnitude then divide that for the new magnitude for each tick. If it did have that concept, it would be an option, but one that is still less performant than to simply increase an integer on a stack.
@noworries#8859 Now, from what I can see, you have the issue of having massive changes come in mods, and not enough time to consider some actually good changes and input from people suggesting HAMSTER, AND to finish the mod.
Good damn luck, mate. In any case, any changes to barbies? That is, ones that actually make a bloody difference.
Ri si stacks need to be untethered from soul puppet survival. It just flat out doesnt work well in tomm, or a majority of any content with stuns, aoes, phases, short duration fights or running with fast burst classes. There are very few scenarios where you have over a minute to stack without anything destroying stacks, it's just so slow and so bad. If no change to ri feat, move creeping death as the opposing feat to ri and possibly up its magnitude.
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Directed flames now sets a 12sec cooldown for smolder. On paper only, ingame, the average delay on a single target is 18sec. This feat made 50%/30% (aoe/1-target) of total dps at launch of mod 16, mod17 nerfs lowered to 25%/10%, now it's <5%/<1%. Next adjustment, smolder will heal targets. Another issue is that an arcanist who adds chill stacks will deal more Rimefire Smolder than the thaumaturge itself…
Again, mod 16 version of Directed Flames (smolder isn’t dot and no cd) was a great mechanics, and only its magnitude should have been adjusted. This made Dot spells useful, especially Conduct of Ice.
So, Rimefire Weaving is the only way to go. The new buffing mechanics is more more interesting than previous one. Smolder/Rimefire isn’t meant to deal decent damage anymore (it has half of Lostmauth’set dps), but at least it will buff other powers. From any ally. That means thaumaturge becomes a dps support class, exactly as former Mof was.
Thaumaturge also has too many weak or even useless class features. 1) Swath of destruction buffs smolder by 5%. Smolder now has <5% of total dps, this buff is insignificant. 2) AP gain bonus from Combustive action is far too low, and doesn’t work on 1vs1. 3) Frost wave is just useless: dailies recovery is very long, there are many much more efficient ways for adding chill stacks.
Last point, Chilling advantage still has no effect on critical severity at all.
My Wizard Guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JezPmehRjvkrHQKwEJ9tGGesDuekj2mcfKiWxlx56ns/edit?usp=sharing
My Arbiter Cleric guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UZGOcQIMLCh5I4lrH63REK5YVsa3Kpk1hOyfic21z8k/edit?usp=sharing
1) pre m16 smolder wasn't major damage source it always moved between 3-10%
2) m16 CWs started to abuse multiprocing OP smolder to get 30-50% and now they are spoiled by it
3) if directed flames dealt 100% of smolder damage with 12s cooldown ... it would be better than 80% m16+ class powers anyway keep in mind class powers are extremely weak compared to pre m16 some classes dont have even two class powers to fill slots .. that mean more than 1% dps gain
iam not judging thaum balance ... but who said thaum should be all about spamming instant smolder nope ... majority of dots from feats cant crit ... some dont even benefit from CA not in last 10 modules
@all rangers in the game
I posted an overall look at the Ranger class from my point of view in The Wilds. I guess it could be an interesting point to start a dsicussion on the class. Hope it's good food for thought.
Here's a link:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1253783/state-of-the-ranger
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
I have three CW's. The most powerful one is geared exclusively for CC. She has TEN (10!) legendary Insignia of Mastery. She has the Valindra set. She has 4 points in the control bonus boon. She has 71.5% control bonus, and it's useless, because her main CC feat just won't proc. For crying out loud. This is incredibly frustrating.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
My Wizard Guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JezPmehRjvkrHQKwEJ9tGGesDuekj2mcfKiWxlx56ns/edit?usp=sharing
My Arbiter Cleric guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UZGOcQIMLCh5I4lrH63REK5YVsa3Kpk1hOyfic21z8k/edit?usp=sharing
------------------------------
Actually you a wrong.
The only DoT class feats in game are
Hunter Ranger - Thorned Roots
Wizard Thaumaturge - Glowing Flames
Rogue Assassin - Toxic Blades
All of which benefit from both CA and Crit
So no, the majority of Feat based DoT effects can crit, and do benefit from CA
Creeping Death is the only one that doesnt.
https://imgur.com/e7XMNc3
glowing flames .... you should recheck that feat ....its not dot that feat just change 20% of smolder into aoe damage nothing else and whenever rimefire crits ... this aoe dmg get marked as crit as well
cant talk for hr .. but if its truth what you say then 2of 3 cant crit ( toxic blades + creeping death) and 1/3 can (roots)
1) fixed directed flames procing when chill was added
2) reduced directed flames to 50% or something, it would have been much better. Even at 25% probably would have worked since they made smolder take so long to tic.
It's fine for warlock to have dot of 100 magnitude every 2 seconds, but smolder is too op, SS procs too much, and they want creeping death to crit too, really?! I must be missing something to not see how this makes sense.
Is it possible to get these balancing changes on console (PS4, XB1) also at 21th January (or one week later)? I mean only these balancing changes, not whole Mod18. Because otherwise we have to play another two months on console with that huge imbalance between DPS classes. It would be really nice to get them at the same time like PC.
short answer, is yes, you are missing something.
Creeping Death is a Feat, and it was always supposed to be 10% overall damage. It originally was supposed to deal 10% of the damage dealt by any attack as a DoT over 5 seconds, but it never worked, which is why its been changed to a magnitude based attack, easier to code I guess.
Bottom line, its supposed to be about 10% of our damage, and at 100 magnitude at 10 stacks, isn't 10%. so it either needs to be able to crit, or have the magnitude raised a bit.
Do I think thaumaturge is in a good spot? no I don't, but don't HAMSTER on any warlock hopes at changes long overdue just because they screwed up thaumaturge.
So even as initially intended, it would only have been a 10% increase to damage if you did an attack and then waited for the whole DoT to finish before doing your next attack, in normal play it would at best have been a 2% increase. The new setup should be much more beneficial to players both in terms of damage increase and in it actually functioning.
A brief rundown on why it wasn't a matter of being easier to code but was instead a flaw in the design itself (which is naturally on us as a design team):
If a power is only going to have one instance of itself active at a time on a target, and an instance can either be set to (this is a bit of a simplification of parts of the combat engine to make it easy to discuss in one post):
Then when a player does an at-will followed by a daily the following would happen:
A power trying to do a damage over time that is based on the damage that triggered the power, but that only has one version active at a time and can be applied by a wide magnitude of powers, is never going to function in a good way for the player.
There are some ways on paper such a power could be designed to work if you get rid of the single instance side of it but those will also have negative server performance issues by trying to track too many unique versions of the DoT on targets at all times.
I presume the whole point of Trimming down the feat trees to 5 choices of 2 paired feats was to make each feat a desirable option depending on the style/type/situation of play.
Well as it stands, Creeping death isnt a better option in any circumstance. Its not better single target, its not better as AoE, its not better as burst, and its not better as sustained damage over time.
It has to do Something better than executioners gift, or its a pointless choice
Toxic Blades can Crit. Not sure why yours cant.
Thorn can crit too:
> (Quote)
> And an easy way to make Creeping Death at the very least be an actual option would be to make it be able to crit. That way Creeping Death can proc more other effects and it will increase the damage to a level where it might be viable.
Would be good.. if cd proc teneb/owlbear...who need crit
This is a breakdown of a warlocks potential damage output.
Assuming AP gain works as it should (which it doesn't but lets assume), we would get 1 daily, every 60 seconds.
And assuming we get 4 seconds of each encounter Cooldown Via Wrathful souls every 10seconds (0.5sec reduction every 1.25seconds)
In a 60 second cycle we can cast
6 x Soul Scorch - 342 magnitude ( 18 sparks and double scorch feat) = 34.2 mag/sec
7.5 x Killing Flames 500-750 magnitude (625magnitude average) = 78 mag/sec
7.5 x Hellfire Ring - 135+220 magnitude (355 total) = 44.4 mag/sec
4.5 x Hadars Grasp - 230 magnitude + 50% from consume, (345total) = 28.8 mag/sec
or 185.4 magnitude per second from encounters
Assume 5 stacks of Risky Investment = 222.5 magnitude per second
1 x Tyrannical Curse - 900 magnitude = 15 mag/sec
67 x Hand of Blight (melee) 40magnitude each. 0.4sec cast time or 44.6mag/sec
Soul Puppet does ( as close as I can tell) 35 magnitude per hit, every 1.25seconds
With 5 stacks of RI that gets multiplied by 2.7 ( dunno why but it does) so 95 magnitude every hit or 76mag/sec
Lesser Curse does basically Zero, but to be fair. 12 magnitude over 8 seconds, or 1.5mag/sec.
SO in Total. - 282.1 mag/sec from the warlock and 76mag/sec from the soul puppet
In perfect conditions with the full stacks of Risky Investment and Soul Investiture
With buffs.
7.5% from sparks
12% from Warlocks Curse
5% average from Tyrannical Curse
10% average from Executioners Gift
34.5% damage buff. or x1.345
379magnitude from Warlock and 102magnitude from Soul Puppet. 481mag/sec Total ( 432mag/sec without Executioners)
So at 10 stacks Creeping Death would be 50mag/sec and assuming it scales with buffs, x 1.245 = 62.5 mag/sec or 14% of our total damage. Great. Its better than Executioners on long fights!.... but wait it cannot crit
now lets assume CA and 50% crit and 100% Critical Severity
Soul puppet cannot get CA and only has 50% CritSev so on average it will deal 153mag/per sec
379 x 1.5 (crit) x 2(CA) 1137magnitude per second + 153 from soul puppet ( notice how much less puppet now contributes)
for a total of 1290 Magnitude with executioners gift
And without EG. 351magnitude x 1.5 x 2 = 1053(warlock) + 128( puppet) for 1181 magnitude per second
Now Creeping Death can deal CA damage, so its 100magnitude per second. which is just over 9%. Worse than EG, and this gets even smaller the more Crit severity you have.
This is not including a weapon enchant either which will bring the percentage down even further.
As some bonus Fun
A Ranger Warden
6 x Boar Charge - 450magnitude - 45mag/s
6 x Marauders Rush -450 magnitude - 45mag/s
6 x Hindering Strike - 400 Magnitude 40 mag/s
2 x Daily. Average 12 hits of 80magnitude each + 330. 2580mag total or 43mag/s
72 x storm strike (if cautious) 4 per flurry window- 140magnitude - 168mag/s or
90 x storm strike. 5 per flurry window -140 magnitude - 210 mag/s
18 x final hit of storm strike - 70magnitude - 21mag/s
Total - 362magnitude per second ( cautious) or 404 magnitude per second
Focused = 20%
10% from behind target
x1.3 bonus damage
470mag/s (4 storm strikes) to 525 mag/s (5 storm strikes)
Assume 100% CA, 50% Crit and 115% Crit severity ( 75% default +15% bonus + 25% from Feat)
470 x 1.575 x 2 = 1512 mag/s ( 4 storm strikes)
525 x 1.575 x 2 = 1654 mag/s ( 5 storm strikes)
So a rangers potential DPS 1654mag/s is still a whopping 25% above the potential warlock ( 1290mag/s) and that is with 5 stacks of risky investment which takes at least 65 seconds to ramp up. this gap gets even bigger with more Crit severity since the soul puppet is capped at 50%
Yes there are some assumptions here, you don't always have 100% CA uptime and crit is never a perfect 50% split, but I think this highlights pretty well what most of us already know. the "buffs" are not even close to good enough.
It would be better and easier to change Knights Challenge with Into the Fray. So the Dreadnough would get Knights Challenge with increased (double?) incoming and outgoing damage for more single target damage and Vanguard would get with Into the Fray a support skill for the whole team. That would be awesome.
> Just to put things into perspective, using the new Preview Changes.
>
> This is a breakdown of a warlocks potential damage output.
> Assuming AP gain works as it should (which it doesn't but lets assume), we would get 1 daily, every 60 seconds.
> And assuming we get 4 seconds of each encounter Cooldown Via Wrathful souls every 10seconds (0.5sec reduction every 1.25seconds)
> In a 60 second cycle we can cast
>
> 6 x Soul Scorch - 342 magnitude ( 18 sparks and double scorch feat) = 34.2 mag/sec
> 7.5 x Killing Flames 500-750 magnitude (625magnitude average) = 78 mag/sec
> 7.5 x Hellfire Ring - 135+220 magnitude (355 total) = 44.4 mag/sec
> 4.5 x Hadars Grasp - 230 magnitude + 50% from consume, (345total) = 28.8 mag/sec
>
> or 185.4 magnitude per second from encounters
>
> Assume 5 stacks of Risky Investment = 222.5 magnitude per second
>
> 1 x Tyrannical Curse - 900 magnitude = 15 mag/sec
> 67 x Hand of Blight (melee) 40magnitude each. 0.4sec cast time or 44.6mag/sec
>
> Soul Puppet does ( as close as I can tell) 35 magnitude per hit, every 1.25seconds
> With 5 stacks of RI that gets multiplied by 2.7 ( dunno why but it does) so 95 magnitude every hit or 76mag/sec
>
> Lesser Curse does basically Zero, but to be fair. 12 magnitude over 8 seconds, or 1.5mag/sec.
>
> SO in Total. - 282.1 mag/sec from the warlock and 76mag/sec from the soul puppet
> In perfect conditions with the full stacks of Risky Investment and Soul Investiture
>
> With buffs.
> 7.5% from sparks
> 12% from Warlocks Curse
> 5% average from Tyrannical Curse
> 10% average from Executioners Gift
>
> 34.5% damage buff. or x1.345
> 379magnitude from Warlock and 102magnitude from Soul Puppet. 481mag/sec Total ( 432mag/sec without Executioners)
>
> So at 10 stacks Creeping Death would be 50mag/sec and assuming it scales with buffs, x 1.245 = 62.5 mag/sec or 14% of our total damage. Great. Its better than Executioners on long fights!.... but wait it cannot crit
>
>
> now lets assume CA and 50% crit and 100% Critical Severity
>
> Soul puppet cannot get CA and only has 50% CritSev so on average it will deal 153mag/per sec
>
> 379 x 1.5 (crit) x 2(CA) 1137magnitude per second + 153 from soul puppet ( notice how much less puppet now contributes)
> for a total of 1290 Magnitude with executioners gift
>
> And without EG. 351magnitude x 1.5 x 2 = 1053(warlock) + 128( puppet) for 1181 magnitude per second
> Now Creeping Death can deal CA damage, so its 100magnitude per second. which is just over 9%. Worse than EG, and this gets even smaller the more Crit severity you have.
>
> This is not including a weapon enchant either which will bring the percentage down even further.
>
>
> As some bonus Fun
>
> A Ranger Warden
>
> 6 x Boar Charge - 450magnitude - 45mag/s
> 6 x Marauders Rush -450 magnitude - 45mag/s
> 6 x Hindering Strike - 400 Magnitude 40 mag/s
>
> 2 x Daily. Average 12 hits of 80magnitude each + 330. 2580mag total or 43mag/s
> 72 x storm strike (if cautious) 4 per flurry window- 140magnitude - 168mag/s or
> 90 x storm strike. 5 per flurry window -140 magnitude - 210 mag/s
> 18 x final hit of storm strike - 70magnitude - 21mag/s
>
> Total - 362magnitude per second ( cautious) or 404 magnitude per second
>
> Focused = 20%
> 10% from behind target
> x1.3 bonus damage
>
> 470mag/s (4 storm strikes) to 525 mag/s (5 storm strikes)
>
> Assume 100% CA, 50% Crit and 115% Crit severity ( 75% default +15% bonus + 25% from Feat)
>
> 470 x 1.575 x 2 = 1512 mag/s ( 4 storm strikes)
> 525 x 1.575 x 2 = 1654 mag/s ( 5 storm strikes)
>
> So a rangers potential DPS 1654mag/s is still a whopping 25% above the potential warlock ( 1290mag/s) and that is with 5 stacks of risky investment which takes at least 65 seconds to ramp up. this gap gets even bigger with more Crit severity since the soul puppet is capped at 50%
>
> Yes there are some assumptions here, you don't always have 100% CA uptime and crit is never a perfect 50% split, but I think this highlights pretty well what most of us already know. the "buffs" are not even close to good enough.
Great job now i hope we get us buffs in a better position
What I am trying to say: the DoT used to be a major contribution to player's DPS, and right now it is still present on many items, powers and abilities - but for the real life experience the behaviour unfortunately often falls to "not triggering at all" (reset before the first tick) or "give only one tick" (reset after the first tick).
Now, I realize that it is a suggestion for a long term planning - as it would require touching and rebalancing on too many places - but why don't we have every DoT behaving the same way? Pre-set magnitude, stacking up to x-times, refreshed duration with each new stack?
1) you sum up leftover damage meant to be dealt in remaining ticks
2) add new damage meant to this "damage pool"
3) divide this damage into new ticks and reset duration
another and very simple possibility is to allow multiple instances of creeping death ... but make it proc from encounter only (or enc + daily) + balance it around this fact ... to prevent "negative server performance issues from too many instances"
i would guess you have some other source of damage called "poison" mixed in or something similar it would be helpfull to see total hits / crit rate i guess in any case no toxic blades cant crit clearly visible in 340 hits stacked or not on random enemies
https://pastebin.com/e8cmz0q5
but yeah its rather pointless ... creeping death basically "crit" anyway .. its crit is just depending whether original ability crit or not
when someone deal 100 damage dot will be 10 if original ability crit .... creeping death will be doubled(assuming 100%crit sev) so 20 you may not see that satisfying lightning ... but its already multiplied by crit sev .. it would make no sense at all to make already doubled dot .. crit to double it second time O.o if its weak its weak .. but arguing about allowing it to benefit from crit twice is well ... not really good idea in situation where damage already jump up and down quite badly what comes next ? will we demand crit for shadow of demise ?
I concur, Creeping death, even with the rework is not a viable alternative to Executioners gift in any scenario.
Couple of ideas here (seeing that unlimited stacks would cause server issues):
Alternative #1: Remove these class based DOTs altogether: that means no thorned roots, no Smolder, no creeping death... They have never worked right, either being "overpowered" and causing server lag issues, or they have been so under-whelming that they are avoided like the plague. Instead do something like storm Spell, proc a single extra hit for weapon damage, and allow it to crit/ benefit from CA. Just don't do something like the Thaum Wizard (I know it was good M16 becasue it was broken), but that entire paragon has now been gutted, and has been gutted even further thanks to directed flames changes.
Alternative #2: Seriously up the magnitude of the procs, so that they meet or surpass the other feat choices they sit next to.. so for the Warlock creeping death should be at least a 10% damage increase on targets with large hit point pools.
The crux of the problem isn't with end game players... with a ToMM ready toon (stat /gear wise) I can run pretty much any build and feat selection and still complete content (other than ToMM), but for someone newer to mid game these feat choices ARE the difference between success with continued game play, or Failure and quitting the game in frustration. As players we also HATE being forced into running certain encounters/ Dailies because of a limited set of Feat selections. We are just asking for each feat pair on each class to be roughly equal in value.
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"Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events."
Nor does it have the concept of taking the old magnitude, figuring out the remaining ticks to total how much is left, add it to a new magnitude then divide that for the new magnitude for each tick. If it did have that concept, it would be an option, but one that is still less performant than to simply increase an integer on a stack.
Good damn luck, mate. In any case, any changes to barbies? That is, ones that actually make a bloody difference.