Here's your run of the mill 16.8k tr on preview, no guild boons but i chugged elixir of fate, guild food, potion of power and event food. To explain what i did: Only had time for about two rotations with sod because(oh of course) lostmauth is bugged on preview and he makes your comp dissapear so he only applies bondings once. Used x3 sly flourish to stack up the debuff, then buffed myself up with tenser, crystal and lurker's, and here's the result.
I've been playing since 2013, and I've always played only tr because it's the only class I like. Now, I have endured for many years the problem of the dps in Tr, making it an almost useless class in pve, finally in module 14 you have equalized the dps with the other classes and now again you throw yourself as rubbish. From November 6th of I dedicate to other games, I'm tired of giving my time to NW. Greetings.
These changes will completely remove TRs from end game groups. SoD was finally at a spot where we provided the bursts our class was designed for and left us competitive with GWFs. TRs needed a rework of Whisperknife to bring it on par with Executioner - not to bring Executioner on par with Whisperknife and consequently be excluded from end game PVE. Will definitely be considering dropping the game - not a veiled threat or anything like that, just the truth.
This is not the rework we were looking for at all, I agree with the above that M14 finally made the TR desirable in endgame content, I still have to read the other class balances but at first pass this looks like it will retire my TR to the new workshop.
Are you guys serious. We finally after years and years can compete with other dps and because a small percentage complain bout some TR's out dps others your nerfing this much.. what about all the time and real life money we spent on TR's to get them were they are at, to be able to finally join endgame dungeons. Are you going to repay us for all that time and money we spent on them, because a TR will and is pretty much useless to the game if you go ahead with all the nerfs. What will be next,who will be next to complain when they get out dps by another character nerf them to because there not the best in game, there not the highest dps.. Do you really hate TR's that much.. next will be GWF getting nerfed, then all dps characters. I will be asking for ALL the money i spent on my TR back if this change happens and the game will be deleted..
You're joking, right? now that it was at the level of others, you ruin it? do you realize that no one wants more TR in a group? even now nobody loves the TR, after they will be just a side of the game, TR = NPC managed by people. Why I play and spend money in ZEN like the others, I can not face all the contents of the game? You know what it means to not be accepted in any group because of your class, never, without anyone knowing you, but ONLY because you are a TR? yes, all the TR know it, and now that we could finally PLAY, you weaken us! Do you realize that there is ONLY GWF? you want to remove the TR, well, give us a token to change class, but do not throw away all our efforts, our ZEN, our MONEY. Then you can change the name to "GWF & GWF NEVERWINTER" I do not like to complain, but if this change passes I will devote myself to other games, where money is the same for everyone
First of all, I like to make clear that I appreciate your efforts to balance the TR and make more ways to play that class viable. Also I see the need to tackle some unbalanced interactions of powers.
Overall I can tell by the changes you plan to make, that you tried to make a “fair trade” for things you changed in powers and feats.
Nerveless, I'm afraid at some point the impact of the changes is more heavy than you intended. At this point, the overall damage of a TR decrease by up to 30 - 50% (I added two videos in the next post).
In the following, I try to identify the major impact points of the changes, review the changes and offer suggestions to reduce the heavy impact a bit (everything for PVE).
Stealth Changes These are a perfect example for what I would call a (more or less) “fair trade”. On the one hand you increase the time stealth needs to build up, but on the other hand you increased its duration and remove the interruption of the stealth regeneration. Overall I think the Stealth changes won't have that much impact on the overall damage in PVE and only requires an adjustment in rotation timing.
At-will Changes With Duelist's Flurry I have the impression you tried to make a “fair trade” too: Each swing will give a Bleeding Stack and for that the Bleeding Damage will be lowered by ~40%. That might sound fine at first glace but the impact is huge. A TR Executioner does around a great amount of his/her overall damage with Bleeding – lowering the damage of Bleeding will significantly lower the overall damage of a TR. Why didn't the “fair trade” work in this case? In my opinion the reason is that a TR will only profit by the guaranteed Bleeding Stack at the beginning – if there are 10 stacks a TR won't gain more benefit from it – only the -40% damage remains. A skillful TR has no problems to get his/her 10 stacks full in a short time.
My suggestion for this case: maybe it might the best not to change the bleeding damage (or only a minor decrease). Decreasing the Bleeding Damage will always have a direct impact on the overall damage. Getting guaranteed stacks of Bleeding will not compensate that.
The changes of Sly Flourish is another example for “fair trade”. Broken Armor debuff in now only 4% but can stack 3 times to 12%. Also the other At-will powers (in both paragon paths) receive a minor buff.
Overall the at-wills will be buffed a bit with this changes and might encourage people to use it more. Even if some of them (e.g. Gloaming Cut) might be not that useful for PVE.
Encounter Changes I appreciate that you plan to fix and boost the damage of different Encounter Powers to make them more viable.
From the changes you want to make to Smoke Bomb I get the impression you feel that Encounter is too powerful so it feels “mandatory to use”. Nonetheless a damage reduction of 30% is huge (even it is “only” around 25% when you take into account the 8% damage increase from the corrected damage table). You might adjust the power of Smoke Bomb with the other changes you mentioned (longer cooldown, no slowing of enemies) so no need for the huge amount of damage reduction.
You may answer that the decrease in damage of Smoke Bomb might be compensated by the increase of 43% Damage and AP gain of Blade Flurry. That might be true. But you should have in mind that you just made another Encounter “mandatory”.
The 20,000% deflect from Impossible to Catch (out of Stealth of course) was nice at long it lasted but to be fair a decrease is a good thing. The decreased buff duration (5s at Rank 4 -> 4s at Rank 4) is a bit sad, but should be only a minor change. You compensate that with the decreased cooldown for each Rank, what should help lower IL players with few Recovery.
Daily Changes So... this is a big one. I think the aim of the changes is to stop “power looping”. Like stacking Courage Breaker and Whirlwind of Blades (both massively increase the buffed Power at the moment). This is definitely a massive thing at the actual game play with Power hoarding “meta” parties. I understand you want to cap the maximum Power a character can stack (like... really >400k Power is honestly a bit too much).
Whirlwind of Blades grants you now 40% damage boost (5 times 8%) in a group of mobs – not bad and you can control the massive Power boost in powerful parties while still making it viable in mob phases. But, TR should shine while boss fights. There the boost will only be 8% - not that good. Now you might say, well then use a single-target Daily.
Sadly Courage Breaker looses its ability to strengthen the TR with more Power. I'm not sure the 12.5% Damage Resistance Reduction Debuff will make out for that. Especially Damage Resistance Reduction is kinda capped at 200% (please correct me if I'm wrong). Or if it means “more ArmPen” it isn't that useful for parties at 100% ArmPen. My suggestions for Courage Breaker: Change the Power boost to base Power Boost OR change the 12.5% Damage Resistance Reduction to more Damage dealt for everyone hitting the boss. This way the TR might loose his/her “own” damage but can contribute within the group with a Damage buff.
Then using Lurker's Assault might be an alternative Daily for bosses. 30% more Damage is undoubtedly great. But on the downside you can't regeneration AP while its effect is active. If you enable AP gain with Lurker's Assault that, it might be a viable Damage dealing alternative for Courage Breaker. Courage Breaker would be a more support oriented daily what would be fine too.
An easy solution to stop “power looping” might be to simply “overwrite” the effects of one Daily with another so you can't stack Whirlwind of Blades with Courage Breaker.
Class Feature Changes I think your changes here are helpful to balance things out (for solo content).
Feats The changes to the Feat trees are overall interesting and should help to more ways of playing viable. Sadly at this point of suggested changes a major part of making other paths more viable is to make the executioner path way less viable. I try to illustrate that in the following.
Saboteur Feats The changes to the Saboteur Feats are well designed and fitting for that path. For example:
The changes to Sneaky Stabber are in line to the overall Stealth change.
The buffed effect of Grinning Steel helps, if you didn't reach the 100% crit cap.
Exposed Weakness moved to the Saboteur tree will definitely help PVP builds.
One With the Shadows receive a buff (20% additional Damage to 30% additional Damage).
Scoundrel Feats The rework of the Scoundrel Feats has a lot of Damage boosting Feats, what will help that path. For example:
The rework of Press the Advantage to be now a 10% Combat Advantage Damage Buff instead of 10% (base) Power buff. Depending on the (base) Power of a player that might or might not be a buff.
Master Infighter is surely a buff for the Scoundrel Tree – dealing more Damage via a Feat. On the other hand a problem here might be TRs don't get hit that often in party PVE, because the do not generate that much threat.
Talking about more Damage via a Feat Savage Blows gives now (with all stacks) 15% more Damage.
More Deflecting chance (which means more often procing Master Infighter) with Concussive Strikes and Mocking Gesture is a matching addition for this path.
The Damage buff of Low Blows is a bit lowered what should be a “fair trade” for the overall more Damage Feats in this path.
The Skullcracker Capstone is change in two great ways: First now At-will AND Encounter powers will proc it. Second this feat no longer rely on dazing a target to profit from the Damage bonus. So it is viable with bosses who are mostly immune to daze.
Executioner Feats The major impact in this fight has its Capstone – you reworked it in a way I'm not sure is the optimal way to make it more “on par” with the other paths.
The changes in Deathknell and Last Moments include a lower health threshold and a lower Damage boost. Overall that should be a “fair trade”.
Blood Soaked BladesSounds great in this path, but only good in mob phases (or boss fight with mobs).
The changes to Shadowborn are connected to the changes in Shadow of Demise. You restored the “old” Shadow of Demise with these changes. Only 50% of the Damage (instead of 75%) and no Damage over time from the initial hit. The “fair trade” for the second part might be the buff of Shadowborn, so that might work out.
But the first part – the reduction of the Shadow of Demise Damage – I don't understand why you buffed that one Mod ago (to bring the TR on par with the other Damage dealing classes) and now step back to the old thing. Boosting Shadow of Demise accomplished exactly what you wanted it – and it was a good thing for the TR! So please consider to change the Shadow of Demise Damage back to 75%.
[Part2] To show the impact of the change of Bleeding and Shadow of Demise of this changes I've made two short videos (sorry for the not optimal quality).
This is a ~50% Damage decrease because of the changes to Bleeding and Shadow of Demise.
I didn't change my build between Live and Preview. I stacked bleeding 10 times and started the Shadow of Demise with Lashing Blade, continuing to do Duelist's Flurry. I did nothing else to make both situations more comparable.
I hope this feedback contributes to a reconsideration of the announced changes to the TR. Some of the planned adjustments are great and will contribute to an overall balancing of the class. Some other changes – as I described – will have a massive negative impact on overall viability of the TR.
After getting some love on TRs, some buffs, some minor changes to feats, TRs finally got into a position where they could compete with GWF on dmg. And now u take it all away, and dump even more debuffs on us. We got SoDs buffed 1 mod ago. Now its like it was in mod 13, but u nerf all our other DMG too? U wanted to get rid of powerlooping cause some ppl where to strong with it. But use it as an excuse to remove the dmg from everyone who didnt use the powerlooping aswell.
All these changes are they cause by some deep seated dev hate on TRs? Or is it just a result of ur inability to do simple math, or have the common sense to understand how u changing some numbers have effect in the game.
When u push these changes to live (cause im fairly certain no matter what argument we make, or how many ppl who tell u they will leave the game, that u are not gonna care, we are just TRs after all, we have no worth in ur game) can all the TRs have their money back? I understand a game needs to evolve and change, and u cant be certain what u put ur money into right now will be good forever. But theses "reworks" are a joke. U stole our time, u stole our money, and now ur just laughing...
Personally idk what the complaints are for - sure some stuff has been nerfed but just do basic math on gloaming cut and blood soaked blades being in exe tree - just playstyle will change damage won't
Exactly, since you want to eliminate the TR, give us a token for class change. At this point it is the only possible request, since you want to break down the tr, and you do it because you want to do it, it's your purpose! Even if I do not understand all this hatred of the TR, you are more credible if you eliminate the class!
It's not like before mod14 tr was unplayable Cmon guys you can find a way to be good dpsers I believe in u Compare mod13>mod15 just forget about mod14. these are all improvements </p>
Before mod 14 people woud tell me "sry no tr" when i'd ask to join. And i wouldn't consider myself weak, as other people could also tell you. Now it's gonna be worse, if these changes go live tr will not be considered dps at all.
Before mod 14 people woud tell me "sry no tr" when i'd ask to join. And i wouldn't consider myself weak, as other people could also tell you. Now it's gonna be worse, if these changes go live tr will not be considered dps at all.
To this day ppl say no when I say dps with SW. (even though i can dps fine just fine) Join the back in club I'm all alone here now that CW is getting buffed </p>
Yes you damn buffoon, but you have a buffing tree ! TR's got nothing, they will be excluded from all content. I'm perfectly fine with TR being buffers with no dps, as long as they're just as good as temptation sw's.
Comments
To explain what i did:
Only had time for about two rotations with sod because(oh of course) lostmauth is bugged on preview and he makes your comp dissapear so he only applies bondings once.
Used x3 sly flourish to stack up the debuff, then buffed myself up with tenser, crystal and lurker's, and here's the result.
Now compare that to any other dps class with the same gear.
EDIT: Sorry i forgot to add character sheet.
https://image.ibb.co/dRv92U/Game_Client_exe_Screenshot_2018_09_22_15_08_06_83.png
Now, I have endured for many years the problem of the dps in Tr, making it an almost useless class in pve, finally in module 14 you have equalized the dps with the other classes and now again you throw yourself as rubbish.
From November 6th of I dedicate to other games, I'm tired of giving my time to NW. Greetings.
OP - Sunshine: 16000 IL
Casual Dailies
How much dmg loss did TR take with this update?
My 18.2k tr just deleted mod 15
RW_Fless
Well sorry...
Why I play and spend money in ZEN like the others, I can not face all the contents of the game? You know what it means to not be accepted in any group because of your class, never, without anyone knowing you, but ONLY because you are a TR? yes, all the TR know it, and now that we could finally PLAY, you weaken us!
Do you realize that there is ONLY GWF? you want to remove the TR, well, give us a token to change class, but do not throw away all our efforts, our ZEN, our MONEY.
Then you can change the name to "GWF & GWF NEVERWINTER"
I do not like to complain, but if this change passes I will devote myself to other games, where money is the same for everyone
Overall I can tell by the changes you plan to make, that you tried to make a “fair trade” for things you changed in powers and feats.
Nerveless, I'm afraid at some point the impact of the changes is more heavy than you intended. At this point, the overall damage of a TR decrease by up to 30 - 50% (I added two videos in the next post).
In the following, I try to identify the major impact points of the changes, review the changes and offer suggestions to reduce the heavy impact a bit (everything for PVE).
Stealth Changes
These are a perfect example for what I would call a (more or less) “fair trade”. On the one hand you increase the time stealth needs to build up, but on the other hand you increased its duration and remove the interruption of the stealth regeneration.
Overall I think the Stealth changes won't have that much impact on the overall damage in PVE and only requires an adjustment in rotation timing.
At-will Changes
With Duelist's Flurry I have the impression you tried to make a “fair trade” too: Each swing will give a Bleeding Stack and for that the Bleeding Damage will be lowered by ~40%.
That might sound fine at first glace but the impact is huge. A TR Executioner does around a great amount of his/her overall damage with Bleeding – lowering the damage of Bleeding will significantly lower the overall damage of a TR.
Why didn't the “fair trade” work in this case? In my opinion the reason is that a TR will only profit by the guaranteed Bleeding Stack at the beginning – if there are 10 stacks a TR won't gain more benefit from it – only the -40% damage remains. A skillful TR has no problems to get his/her 10 stacks full in a short time.
My suggestion for this case: maybe it might the best not to change the bleeding damage (or only a minor decrease). Decreasing the Bleeding Damage will always have a direct impact on the overall damage. Getting guaranteed stacks of Bleeding will not compensate that.
The changes of Sly Flourish is another example for “fair trade”. Broken Armor debuff in now only 4% but can stack 3 times to 12%. Also the other At-will powers (in both paragon paths) receive a minor buff.
Overall the at-wills will be buffed a bit with this changes and might encourage people to use it more. Even if some of them (e.g. Gloaming Cut) might be not that useful for PVE.
Encounter Changes
I appreciate that you plan to fix and boost the damage of different Encounter Powers to make them more viable.
From the changes you want to make to Smoke Bomb I get the impression you feel that Encounter is too powerful so it feels “mandatory to use”. Nonetheless a damage reduction of 30% is huge (even it is “only” around 25% when you take into account the 8% damage increase from the corrected damage table). You might adjust the power of Smoke Bomb with the other changes you mentioned (longer cooldown, no slowing of enemies) so no need for the huge amount of damage reduction.
You may answer that the decrease in damage of Smoke Bomb might be compensated by the increase of 43% Damage and AP gain of Blade Flurry. That might be true. But you should have in mind that you just made another Encounter “mandatory”.
The 20,000% deflect from Impossible to Catch (out of Stealth of course) was nice at long it lasted but to be fair a decrease is a good thing. The decreased buff duration (5s at Rank 4 -> 4s at Rank 4) is a bit sad, but should be only a minor change. You compensate that with the decreased cooldown for each Rank, what should help lower IL players with few Recovery.
Daily Changes
So... this is a big one. I think the aim of the changes is to stop “power looping”. Like stacking Courage Breaker and Whirlwind of Blades (both massively increase the buffed Power at the moment). This is definitely a massive thing at the actual game play with Power hoarding “meta” parties. I understand you want to cap the maximum Power a character can stack (like... really >400k Power is honestly a bit too much).
Whirlwind of Blades grants you now 40% damage boost (5 times 8%) in a group of mobs – not bad and you can control the massive Power boost in powerful parties while still making it viable in mob phases. But, TR should shine while boss fights. There the boost will only be 8% - not that good. Now you might say, well then use a single-target Daily.
Sadly Courage Breaker looses its ability to strengthen the TR with more Power. I'm not sure the 12.5% Damage Resistance Reduction Debuff will make out for that. Especially Damage Resistance Reduction is kinda capped at 200% (please correct me if I'm wrong). Or if it means “more ArmPen” it isn't that useful for parties at 100% ArmPen.
My suggestions for Courage Breaker: Change the Power boost to base Power Boost OR change the 12.5% Damage Resistance Reduction to more Damage dealt for everyone hitting the boss. This way the TR might loose his/her “own” damage but can contribute within the group with a Damage buff.
Then using Lurker's Assault might be an alternative Daily for bosses. 30% more Damage is undoubtedly great. But on the downside you can't regeneration AP while its effect is active. If you enable AP gain with Lurker's Assault that, it might be a viable Damage dealing alternative for Courage Breaker. Courage Breaker would be a more support oriented daily what would be fine too.
An easy solution to stop “power looping” might be to simply “overwrite” the effects of one Daily with another so you can't stack Whirlwind of Blades with Courage Breaker.
Class Feature Changes
I think your changes here are helpful to balance things out (for solo content).
Feats
The changes to the Feat trees are overall interesting and should help to more ways of playing viable. Sadly at this point of suggested changes a major part of making other paths more viable is to make the executioner path way less viable. I try to illustrate that in the following.
Saboteur Feats
The changes to the Saboteur Feats are well designed and fitting for that path. For example:
- The changes to Sneaky Stabber are in line to the overall Stealth change.
- The buffed effect of Grinning Steel helps, if you didn't reach the 100% crit cap.
- Exposed Weakness moved to the Saboteur tree will definitely help PVP builds.
- One With the Shadows receive a buff (20% additional Damage to 30% additional Damage).
Scoundrel FeatsThe rework of the Scoundrel Feats has a lot of Damage boosting Feats, what will help that path. For example:
- The rework of Press the Advantage to be now a 10% Combat Advantage Damage Buff instead of 10% (base) Power buff. Depending on the (base) Power of a player that might or might not be a buff.
- Master Infighter is surely a buff for the Scoundrel Tree – dealing more Damage via a Feat. On the other hand a problem here might be TRs don't get hit that often in party PVE, because the do not generate that much threat.
- Talking about more Damage via a Feat Savage Blows gives now (with all stacks) 15% more Damage.
- More Deflecting chance (which means more often procing Master Infighter) with Concussive Strikes and Mocking Gesture is a matching addition for this path.
- The Damage buff of Low Blows is a bit lowered what should be a “fair trade” for the overall more Damage Feats in this path.
- The Skullcracker Capstone is change in two great ways: First now At-will AND Encounter powers will proc it. Second this feat no longer rely on dazing a target to profit from the Damage bonus. So it is viable with bosses who are mostly immune to daze.
Executioner FeatsThe major impact in this fight has its Capstone – you reworked it in a way I'm not sure is the optimal way to make it more “on par” with the other paths.
- The changes in Deathknell and Last Moments include a lower health threshold and a lower Damage boost. Overall that should be a “fair trade”.
- Blood Soaked BladesSounds great in this path, but only good in mob phases (or boss fight with mobs).
- The changes to Shadowborn are connected to the changes in Shadow of Demise. You restored the “old” Shadow of Demise with these changes. Only 50% of the Damage (instead of 75%) and no Damage over time from the initial hit. The “fair trade” for the second part might be the buff of Shadowborn, so that might work out.
- But the first part – the reduction of the Shadow of Demise Damage – I don't understand why you buffed that one Mod ago (to bring the TR on par with the other Damage dealing classes) and now step back to the old thing. Boosting Shadow of Demise accomplished exactly what you wanted it – and it was a good thing for the TR! So please consider to change the Shadow of Demise Damage back to 75%.
[Part 2 in next post]To show the impact of the change of Bleeding and Shadow of Demise of this changes I've made two short videos (sorry for the not optimal quality).
Live: Shadow of Demise around 550k
Preview Shadow of Demis around 270k
This is a ~50% Damage decrease because of the changes to Bleeding and Shadow of Demise.
I didn't change my build between Live and Preview. I stacked bleeding 10 times and started the Shadow of Demise with Lashing Blade, continuing to do Duelist's Flurry. I did nothing else to make both situations more comparable.
I hope this feedback contributes to a reconsideration of the announced changes to the TR.
Some of the planned adjustments are great and will contribute to an overall balancing of the class.
Some other changes – as I described – will have a massive negative impact on overall viability of the TR.
All these changes are they cause by some deep seated dev hate on TRs? Or is it just a result of ur inability to do simple math, or have the common sense to understand how u changing some numbers have effect in the game.
When u push these changes to live (cause im fairly certain no matter what argument we make, or how many ppl who tell u they will leave the game, that u are not gonna care, we are just TRs after all, we have no worth in ur game) can all the TRs have their money back? I understand a game needs to evolve and change, and u cant be certain what u put ur money into right now will be good forever. But theses "reworks" are a joke. U stole our time, u stole our money, and now ur just laughing...
THC
http://www.theholycrusaders.com/
Name the developer who actually plays a TR as his main. I do not think there are any after reading this.
Who did the testing on this?
Can you provide a token so TR's can switch their Class, artifacts, mounts and companions to another class?
We waited so long to be made whole and after one mod you do this. What were you thinking?
Absent a token to change class I think I am done.
At this point it is the only possible request, since you want to break down the tr, and you do it because you want to do it, it's your purpose! Even if I do not understand all this hatred of the TR, you are more credible if you eliminate the class!
Now it's gonna be worse, if these changes go live tr will not be considered dps at all.
NW Masterwork Calculator mod26
Trial helper spreadsheet 1.1
NW Enchantment Calculator 2.1 (outdated!)
I'm perfectly fine with TR being buffers with no dps, as long as they're just as good as temptation sw's.