Nobody's perfect, nobody's equal. One person plays better, one person plays worse.. It is normal. Unfortunately some people don't understand what we're trying to achieve. Why game must be easy? Why game dont have level of difficulty, LoMM tier 1, loMM tier 2 (mobs got more HP, better dmg, more skills) for exemple.. better drop?(heh) 1% more! xD We should not only complain, but also speak out if something is good. But WHY EVERYTHING is for people who have problem? With build, with class, companions, dung.. Ok, They'll have easier.. BUT people who had easier, they will be bored.. I like this game, new MOD is good, game have balance...We need time and challenges.
I don´t mind CW´s being strong honestly, I also saw numbers like 35% Rimefire Smolder at lomm 3.boss from good performing CW's with endgear, no need to pop up screenshots. About Soulweaver there no point to call that path competetive. Outside a top performing group with a warlock wearnig endgear, there is a big difference between healer classes performance imo. Warlock has no fast burst-heal to top a cocooned player except channeling sparks with his AT Will. He does not have any option to fill up sparks at 2. boss first phase, he can´t block cc effects in between like Paladin, got no HOT's to compensate and the magnitude is halve of compareable classes, no real mitigation-tools except a a "not working class feat" and all of his healing is generated by one spell more or less, passives are weak to not excistent. I don´t want to argue about all that, Soulweaver is simply in a pittyfull state due to "perma-ignore-status" on preview.
Nobody's perfect, nobody's equal. One person plays better, one person plays worse.. It is normal. Unfortunately some people don't understand what we're trying to achieve. Why game must be easy? Why game dont have level of difficulty, LoMM tier 1, loMM tier 2 (mobs got more HP, better dmg, more skills) for exemple.. better drop?(heh) 1% more! xD We should not only complain, but also speak out if something is good. But WHY EVERYTHING is for people who have problem? With build, with class, companions, dung.. Ok, They'll have easier.. BUT people who had easier, they will be bored.. I like this game, new MOD is good, game have balance...We need time and challenges.
Don't be afraid angry people. "Sometimes"?
Challenge is subjective. I don't find LOMM to be challenging (assuming that party generally knows to follow mechanics), but the experience of the more "casual" player and the newer player also have to be taken into account, because the game as a whole is unhealthy if a significant portion of the population is frustrated and not having fun, hence not inclined to help keep the lights on. That being said, Neverwinter could use a more robust end-game as long as it doesn't lean too far in that direction and exclude the massive casual population from new content.
Recently I saw a comment alleging that DPS Warlock wasn't even as strong at dealing damage as Paladin. Do I agree? Absolutely not; this is absurd. However, that player's experience does matter in the bigger picture. The devs can't completely account for players not bothering to read tooltips and playtest for themselves, but sometimes there is a design failure of sorts if only a handful of players seem to be getting it right.
Thaumaturge Wiz as an example of intuitive class design is a good one, because it's kind of hard to mess it up too badly if you at least read what the powers and feats do before you slot them. You don't even have to be using the exact same power tray as another Thaum to be doing decent damage. Then we have the Warlock paths as examples of needing to build in very specific ways that are obviously not universally intuitive, the consequence of building incorrectly being general ineffectiveness.
The problem here is lack of a proper testing team in the house.
Cryptic should have their own team, and should pay no attention whatsoever to comunity opinions that are 99% of the time too biased to personal gain and interests.
Fast forward ---> D&D core rulebooks already have it balanced for you Cryptic. No need to retune whats there. Use it please
hallenge is subjective. I don't find LOMM to be challenging (assuming that party generally knows to follow mechanics), but the experience of the more "casual" player and the newer player also have to be taken into account, because the game as a whole is unhealthy if a significant portion of the population is frustrated and not having fun, hence not inclined to help keep the lights on. That being said, Neverwinter could use a more robust end-game as long as it doesn't lean too far in that direction and exclude the massive casual population from new content.
But why "better people" mean people who understand this game, and don't have problem with new content. Must be punished because most "casual" player have problem? @mimicking#6533 said Purpose: Give players more power while running this content, while still trying to keep high-level players from one-shotting everything in the process. " Right, we dont kill on 1shot, only 2 hits..We cant use daily sometimes, because mobs are dead. I dont need use shield vs mobs, only boss"sometimes". I know many people have problem.. I see it, they dont know what is Combat Adventage, they have worse dmg than tank, etc.. OK No problem. We are tolerant, weird right? But why we can't have higher lvl content? "Casual" player have fun on dungeon's now..but we have fun from the challenge. Sorry, is that weird? Some people don't understand what we're trying to achieve and are attack us. Why? Because we have more AD? Better DMG? Better time on dungeon? Because we want FUN like others people and have different opinion...? I think level of difficulty on dungeon is best idea. Character's and dungoeons are in good overall good place, they only need a few changes. I can not say anything about SW healer. But i think your'e right, they have a pretty common but low heal, useless vs cocoon, and i know about Creeping death it overwrite, and "removes" earlier dmg/skill.
Cryptic should have their own team, and should pay no attention whatsoever to comunity opinions that are 99% of the time too biased to personal gain and interests.
Comunnity opinions is important but they can't create game like now..
" Ohhh i don't have DMG on my beautiful OP --> Spam 1month
Why all people have problem with CW? Smolder got big dmg, etc.. Hmm fire mage got smolder? TR got posion?! Immposible! CW is easier because Smolder does all damage, why CW can't be Best DPS in this game? He is paper, got low sustain 100% dps. Ranger can be good dps too, TR too, SW too. Barbarian too but it is "off-tank", better sustain, a little smaller dmg.
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darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,259Arc User
> @lardeson said: > Part of the problem is Proc based dps. Wizards, Rangers, Rogues, and Barbarians all have some form of proc based DPS. These are usually tied to Feats, Class Features, or a combination of both. > > Lets takes Wizard/Thaumaturge for example, they have the Class Feature "Critical Conflagration" which procs smolder on a critical hit, then combine that with the capstone feat "Focus Flames" (iirc the name) and boom, we have high burst proc based dps. With builds based on this combo, smolder is about 30-50% of all damage done. And the cherry on top, the At-Will Ray of Frost ticks really really fast. This is what is causing Wizards to do really good damage. And this is why the formula for Magnitude/Cool Down Time/Casting Time/etc is broken, because not all damage comes from the base damage of encounters, dailies, and at-wills. (note: this is also why arcanist is inherently inferior to thaumaturge for both aoe and single target. SS can only proc 30% of the time on crits for proc based burst damage (a 15% proc rate), while critical conflag procs 100% of the time on crits (a 50% proc rate.) > > Combine the issue with proc based DPS to some classes with poorly designed feats, and we have the situation we are in now. > > For classes and paragon paths that don't have proc based dps from one source or the other, feats and class features should be changed to either provide some sort of equivalent, increase Magnitude of all powers or at least a variety of them, and/or decrease cooldown timers (HR uses this heavily, hence why they are better shape compared to some other dps classes). > > those numbers are off, rimefire smolder can indeed do about 25% on aoe but on bosses its about 5-8%, on the otherhand repel which is an encounter does about 15-20 on aoe and 25 on bosses, that clearly beats rimefire smolder, i have tested this with act and if you want a log, pme ingame we run and i'll send you the log. flames is only great in aoe, its not as much as u are assuming on bosses, every other encounter do more damage than it on bosses. > > Also thats not why arcanist is inferior to thaum lol, arcanist is inferior to thaum cos in arcanist you dont have relative hated, chilling advantage. your encounters are relatively higher. Secondly no ap gain on cw, if we had ap gain, even with DF and CC, arcanist would be superior due to arcane empowerment, the lack of ap and lack of cd reduction on arcane is why its currently inferior to thaum no because of smolder > > Lets be honest and dont hide the true numbers. . > > this is from trobriand in lair of mad mage. > > i already sent a screenshot to quickfoot, u can ask him for it, not sure how u guys get those numbers, i dont get those ever, i use directed flames too, and most of the time im between 14-19 from rimefire smolder. Now lets not already forget that something important to remember here is 50% crit chance, so yes, if you do 20 crits in dungeon while i do 10, you obviously gonna get more from rimefire cos its only strenght is from crits, if it doesn't crit, its only as good as any other feat. And i repeat myself, if you are relying on getting 30+ from rimefire to dps, u are doing something wrong with ur cw. Like i stated before, if only they'd fix the lack of ap gain without us having to rely on artifacts to get ap, then i see no reason why arcanist shouldn't be better on bosses. on bosses i never go over 8% from rimefire so when i see 30+ on bosses i honestly dont know how u guys do it xd, but im glad i dont have to rely on that to dps so im cool, if you happy with ur numbers, lovely, i dont want to see 30%+ of my damage being from a class feature.
Are you using Ray of Frost and critical confraglation?
> Part of the problem is Proc based dps. Wizards, Rangers, Rogues, and Barbarians all have some form of proc based DPS. These are usually tied to Feats, Class Features, or a combination of both.
>
> Lets takes Wizard/Thaumaturge for example, they have the Class Feature "Critical Conflagration" which procs smolder on a critical hit, then combine that with the capstone feat "Focus Flames" (iirc the name) and boom, we have high burst proc based dps. With builds based on this combo, smolder is about 30-50% of all damage done. And the cherry on top, the At-Will Ray of Frost ticks really really fast. This is what is causing Wizards to do really good damage. And this is why the formula for Magnitude/Cool Down Time/Casting Time/etc is broken, because not all damage comes from the base damage of encounters, dailies, and at-wills. (note: this is also why arcanist is inherently inferior to thaumaturge for both aoe and single target. SS can only proc 30% of the time on crits for proc based burst damage (a 15% proc rate), while critical conflag procs 100% of the time on crits (a 50% proc rate.)
>
> Combine the issue with proc based DPS to some classes with poorly designed feats, and we have the situation we are in now.
>
> For classes and paragon paths that don't have proc based dps from one source or the other, feats and class features should be changed to either provide some sort of equivalent, increase Magnitude of all powers or at least a variety of them, and/or decrease cooldown timers (HR uses this heavily, hence why they are better shape compared to some other dps classes).
>
> those numbers are off, rimefire smolder can indeed do about 25% on aoe but on bosses its about 5-8%, on the otherhand repel which is an encounter does about 15-20 on aoe and 25 on bosses, that clearly beats rimefire smolder, i have tested this with act and if you want a log, pme ingame we run and i'll send you the log. flames is only great in aoe, its not as much as u are assuming on bosses, every other encounter do more damage than it on bosses.
>
> Also thats not why arcanist is inferior to thaum lol, arcanist is inferior to thaum cos in arcanist you dont have relative hated, chilling advantage. your encounters are relatively higher. Secondly no ap gain on cw, if we had ap gain, even with DF and CC, arcanist would be superior due to arcane empowerment, the lack of ap and lack of cd reduction on arcane is why its currently inferior to thaum no because of smolder
>
> Lets be honest and dont hide the true numbers. .
>
> this is from trobriand in lair of mad mage.
>
> i already sent a screenshot to quickfoot, u can ask him for it, not sure how u guys get those numbers, i dont get those ever, i use directed flames too, and most of the time im between 14-19 from rimefire smolder. Now lets not already forget that something important to remember here is 50% crit chance, so yes, if you do 20 crits in dungeon while i do 10, you obviously gonna get more from rimefire cos its only strenght is from crits, if it doesn't crit, its only as good as any other feat. And i repeat myself, if you are relying on getting 30+ from rimefire to dps, u are doing something wrong with ur cw. Like i stated before, if only they'd fix the lack of ap gain without us having to rely on artifacts to get ap, then i see no reason why arcanist shouldn't be better on bosses. on bosses i never go over 8% from rimefire so when i see 30+ on bosses i honestly dont know how u guys do it xd, but im glad i dont have to rely on that to dps so im cool, if you happy with ur numbers, lovely, i dont want to see 30%+ of my damage being from a class feature.
Are you using Ray of Frost and critical confraglation?
conduit of ice was the source of the procs and those procs have better total damage than to slot chil strike.
it doesn't matter to me lol, but im commentin from my numbers i have conduit of ice on 100% of the time, like i said, if it crits, great, if not well not much can be done. personally, i have never ever seen even 20% from rimefire smolder lol, and ofc cc is a must in thaum. But like i said before, all that damage depends on ur crits.
Lardeson CW not Mage. Where's my fireball and my thunderbolt?
it doesn't matter to me lol, but im commentin from my numbers i have conduit of ice on 100% of the time, like i said, if it crits, great, if not well not much can be done. personally, i have never ever seen even 20% from rimefire smolder lol, and ofc cc is a must in thaum. But like i said before, all that damage depends on ur crits.
Usually when people slot journal, they cast dailies much more often, which ofc drops the overall percentage of smolder-rimefire dmg, and increases encounter dps cuz dailies do a lot of dmg. If I woulda known how overpowered the journal was gonna be in m16, I woulda farmed for it, but I didn't bother at the time, and I was taking a break around then too.
Also, idk about the maths with conduit procing rimefire more so being better than chill strike or icy rays (cuz if conduit don't crit obviously one of the others would be better), but on some bosses chill falls off fast, but conduit will keep it on, that's why I use it, probably icy terrain would work too, and if you use shatter strike, it might proc that, idk haven't tested it, and I use the other feat anyways.
Still some things to be tested that might do better dps (damage per second) overall, and bring down % of dmg from rimefire, great, awesome sauce.
The issue I wanted to highlight wasn't that this or that feat/class feature is broken, or that CW is overpowered, or whatever. What I wanted to highlight is that I think the devs forgot to incorporate proc based dps into their balancing formula, that's all. Which is part of why I think classes with strong proc dmg are doing better atm. CW has SS or Rimefire, TR has Poison, Oppressive Darkness, and CD reduction, HR has roots and CD reduction, Barbarian has steel blitz. And as you can see, the order is interesting here, the classes w/ stronger procs, are generally doing better dps, and as the procs get weaker or nonexistent, less (Barbarian steel blitz only procs 20% of time on at-wills).
Albeit, a PC Forum, my question is, Since you delayed the Console roll out by a week, will these changes be present on June 18, or will they not be implemented until August on Console? You're making these changes and fixes two months after PC release, so I figure, unless you are going to go ahead and address them now, hence the one week delay, then it wont happen to console players for 2 months, which would be August.
Ilost around 30k power in ME, daily is more painful then before, All Enchantments and Runestones, aside from Bonding Runestones, have had their item level and stats doubled - dont work . Certain Boons that give bonus HP now properly provide that bonus HP - also dont work ... more scales, more bugs less fixed bugs ? GG guys we know for what WE pay you
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arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
Enemies can now aggro on players up to 20 levels above them, increased from 7.
So...level-64 redcaps will attack level-80 players because they love being annihilated?
Tell me the planet on which this makes any sense.
It's so players in instanced areas, like Arcane reservoir or Celedain's Tower don't just walk to the boss. Granted the time difference won't be too much, but they at least need to not make it a complete joke to do.
Part of the problem is Proc based dps. Wizards, Rangers, Rogues, and Barbarians all have some form of proc based DPS. These are usually tied to Feats, Class Features, or a combination of both.
Lets takes Wizard/Thaumaturge for example, they have the Class Feature "Critical Conflagration" which procs smolder on a critical hit, then combine that with the capstone feat "Focus Flames" (iirc the name) and boom, we have high burst proc based dps. With builds based on this combo, smolder is about 30-50% of all damage done. And the cherry on top, the At-Will Ray of Frost ticks really really fast. This is what is causing Wizards to do really good damage. And this is why the formula for Magnitude/Cool Down Time/Casting Time/etc is broken, because not all damage comes from the base damage of encounters, dailies, and at-wills. (note: this is also why arcanist is inherently inferior to thaumaturge for both aoe and single target. SS can only proc 30% of the time on crits for proc based burst damage (a 15% proc rate), while critical conflag procs 100% of the time on crits (a 50% proc rate.)
Combine the issue with proc based DPS to some classes with poorly designed feats, and we have the situation we are in now.
For classes and paragon paths that don't have proc based dps from one source or the other, feats and class features should be changed to either provide some sort of equivalent, increase Magnitude of all powers or at least a variety of them, and/or decrease cooldown timers (HR uses this heavily, hence why they are better shape compared to some other dps classes).
@quickfoot#7851, the ability of rimefire smoulder to do damage is dependent on a Tier 5 feat "Directed Flames", and two Class Features "Critical Conflagration" and "Swath of Destruction". Even still, the best CWs I have seen run LoMM probably get anywhere from about 20-35% of damage from Rimefire smoulder. You can of course get a higher percentage of this damage if you aren't using better encounters in your rotation, in my experience.
The problem is when you start using ACT exclusively before looking at what contributes to that damage.
The alternate Tier 5 feat for the Thaumaturge is Rimefire Weaving, which adds 10% damage if you alternate fire and cold powers.
The equivalent of the Class Features for this class mechanic would be Storm Spell (looking at the Arcanist), which adds about 8-14% of total DPS. Even chilling presence would add about 6-12% (on Chilled - Frozen targets) to overall damage.
So looking at the contributors to Rimefire Smoulder being about 20-35+% DPS, you have: (1) Two class features, which would probably each add around 6-10% of damage if an alternative class feature was chosen = 12-20%, and (2) A Tier 5 feat which would add about 10% to fire/cold based damage. If you subtract these three contributors to Rimefire, then it would probably account for about, I approximate, around ~10-15% of damage (but then you would add DPS elsewhere to your ACT logs by using alternatives).
Exclusively looking at the proportion of damage on ACT without looking at the contributors and the alternative +DPS% options, in my opinion, is misleading.
@vordayn tbh I’m indifferent to the contribution to damage Rimefire makes. I’m interested in the synergy, and the clarity of that synergy for players in building a character.
Rimefire Thaumaturge is a simple clear build that does good DPS. It doesn’t matter to me if it is the best DPS or not, it’s a fairly easy build for players to create and have an effective character. That was one of the goals of Mod 16.
Warlock, the DPS I’m most interested in, fails completely on this front. Worse the class has contradictory goals ( sustain curse vs remove curse) in its design, making it even harder to get peak dps from the class.
The Wizard is just my go to for this comparison because it is the one I’m most confident in for effect. I’m pretty confident the Ranger has a similarly clear build that is easy to get good performance from as well, but just haven’t played mine enough yet to do more than listen to others on this front.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
3
darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,259Arc User
@quickfoot#7851, the ability of rimefire smoulder to do damage is dependent on a Tier 5 feat "Directed Flames", and two Class Features "Critical Conflagration" and "Swath of Destruction". Even still, the best CWs I have seen run LoMM probably get anywhere from about 20-35% of damage from Rimefire smoulder. You can of course get a higher percentage of this damage if you aren't using better encounters in your rotation, in my experience.
The problem is when you start using ACT exclusively before looking at what contributes to that damage.
The alternate Tier 5 feat for the Thaumaturge is Rimefire Weaving, which adds 10% damage if you alternate fire and cold powers.
The equivalent of the Class Features for this class mechanic would be Storm Spell (looking at the Arcanist), which adds about 8-14% of total DPS. Even chilling presence would add about 6-12% (on Chilled - Frozen targets) to overall damage.
So looking at the contributors to Rimefire Smoulder being about 20-35+% DPS, you have: (1) Two class features, which would probably each add around 6-10% of damage if an alternative class feature was chosen = 12-20%, and (2) A Tier 5 feat which would add about 10% to fire/cold based damage. If you subtract these three contributors to Rimefire, then it would probably account for about, I approximate, around ~10-15% of damage (but then you would add DPS elsewhere to your ACT logs by using alternatives).
Exclusively looking at the proportion of damage on ACT without looking at the contributors and the alternative +DPS% options, in my opinion, is misleading.
I agree with you, and my numbers are in line with yours. Whay I want to say is that rhimefire is not overpowered, is just an "easy to go" combination for less geared CW that will give them good numbers (50% of dmg), but you can get better numbers when you are more powerfull using other powers and setups (and still have 25% from rhimefire).
This is one of the main goals of mod 16 and wizards are in a good spot because you have different ways to do good dmg but still have room for optimization. Other classes need more work in this aspect (give players an easy-to-go option for dps) but people should ask for more work in other classes instead of nerfs for Wizards.
Yesterday I did run with other 2 CW (23K and 22K) and I doubled the dmg to one and tripled to the other. They where in 50% from rhimefire both.
Doubling enchants values might be good for scaled content. Thing is, those people you are talking about devs, with saying (quoting Asterdahl on that one stream he made an appearance) "we couldnt kill you guys". Well, we can still die but LoMM isnt enough to kill us. The only thing that can kill us atm is the Essences bosses. And doubling enchants value isnt gonna help with killing us everywhere else. Instead of 20mn ish LoMM its gonna be 15mn...
Ok ok ok let's talk about new players/casual players. My alliance is full of those. Well they still have r8's or r9's. So it's gonna help them some. But by a little only...What you are missing here, the total point you are missing here, is that most of those players you said you cant kill have had a PROGRESSION somewhat. A progression... I was running t1s then i was running t2s when i was strong enough back in old mods. But new players want REQ the second they finished lvl 80. They try to scratch iL to reach 20k and wait for LoMM as if it was the Messiah itself. Like the Savior of their Misery. Like the Holy Graal you promised on all your social medias feedbacks and video and what not. I read that i swear all day long in alliance chat 'im not strong enough, they want 23k iL, i so want to go there, hooray im lvl80 how do I unlock LoMM????'' But no? Im sorry im sure its not meant to be this way? There's no vertical progression in this game and no horizontal one either. It's just a mess. The land of confusion. What are those ratings for new players? Numbers. Personnally im learning how to play my dps classes by soloing MEs with 1-2-3 runes and ACT on, and my healers/tank by pugging. But thats just me,and im an old beta player.
Imho, instead of doubling enchants value you should have made the Boons more valuable. To force people do them. My casual alliance full of new players and casual players does not bother with boons. Cuz why suffer through days and days and weeks of campaign to get that? And maybe we're waiting in RAQ 20mn ish now because new players dont bother unlocking FBI or MSP through grindy campaigns that will give them the boons of Misery, but also maybe because those that unlocked them are scared and had a bad experience. And finally because those of us that unlocked those since ages dont always feel like subscribing to the whole 'lets play together' kind of thing, to get our emerald from bosses and a return of the Jadeite from chest.
You want to enforce old community/veteran players (those handfull left) play with new players? Make a tutorial quest. Make some type of Mentorship quest. Idk. Maybe you're scared of bots, but they do not have the same amount of playtime veteran had. Legacy campaigns are one good thing to help out and ease out the cost of reagents. But If you really cherrish the idea of the community playing as a whole, new players and veterans, i do not see any ideas in there that would encourage this. I do not mind bringing my guildies through all kind of dungeons they havent completed. Thing is, sometimes the feeling of accomplishing something as a team is fading out fast.
Albeit, a PC Forum, my question is, Since you delayed the Console roll out by a week, will these changes be present on June 18, or will they not be implemented until August on Console? You're making these changes and fixes two months after PC release, so I figure, unless you are going to go ahead and address them now, hence the one week delay, then it wont happen to console players for 2 months, which would be August.
they said in the stream when we are updated it will be the most current incarnation
Part of the problem is Proc based dps. Wizards, Rangers, Rogues, and Barbarians all have some form of proc based DPS. These are usually tied to Feats, Class Features, or a combination of both.
Lets takes Wizard/Thaumaturge for example, they have the Class Feature "Critical Conflagration" which procs smolder on a critical hit, then combine that with the capstone feat "Focus Flames" (iirc the name) and boom, we have high burst proc based dps. With builds based on this combo, smolder is about 30-50% of all damage done. And the cherry on top, the At-Will Ray of Frost ticks really really fast. This is what is causing Wizards to do really good damage. And this is why the formula for Magnitude/Cool Down Time/Casting Time/etc is broken, because not all damage comes from the base damage of encounters, dailies, and at-wills. (note: this is also why arcanist is inherently inferior to thaumaturge for both aoe and single target. SS can only proc 30% of the time on crits for proc based burst damage (a 15% proc rate), while critical conflag procs 100% of the time on crits (a 50% proc rate.)
Combine the issue with proc based DPS to some classes with poorly designed feats, and we have the situation we are in now.
For classes and paragon paths that don't have proc based dps from one source or the other, feats and class features should be changed to either provide some sort of equivalent, increase Magnitude of all powers or at least a variety of them, and/or decrease cooldown timers (HR uses this heavily, hence why they are better shape compared to some other dps classes).
@quickfoot#7851, the ability of rimefire smoulder to do damage is dependent on a Tier 5 feat "Directed Flames", and two Class Features "Critical Conflagration" and "Swath of Destruction". Even still, the best CWs I have seen run LoMM probably get anywhere from about 20-35% of damage from Rimefire smoulder. You can of course get a higher percentage of this damage if you aren't using better encounters in your rotation, in my experience.
The problem is when you start using ACT exclusively before looking at what contributes to that damage.
The alternate Tier 5 feat for the Thaumaturge is Rimefire Weaving, which adds 10% damage if you alternate fire and cold powers.
The equivalent of the Class Features for this class mechanic would be Storm Spell (looking at the Arcanist), which adds about 8-14% of total DPS. Even chilling presence would add about 6-12% (on Chilled - Frozen targets) to overall damage.
So looking at the contributors to Rimefire Smoulder being about 20-35+% DPS, you have: (1) Two class features, which would probably each add around 6-10% of damage if an alternative class feature was chosen = 12-20%, and (2) A Tier 5 feat which would add about 10% to fire/cold based damage. If you subtract these three contributors to Rimefire, then it would probably account for about, I approximate, around ~10-15% of damage (but then you would add DPS elsewhere to your ACT logs by using alternatives).
Exclusively looking at the proportion of damage on ACT without looking at the contributors and the alternative +DPS% options, in my opinion, is misleading.
Yeah, I get it, it's not about % of total damage that rhimefire does that means you're doing better dps, it's about your average "encounter dps", and it may be, that maximizing that is best achieved by using different class features and feats. But it also may be that procing directed flames 10x per second does better encounter dps. I wasn't trying to say that one thaum build is better than another, I've already said what my point was, but I'll say it again, I think the devs forgot to incorporate proc based dps into their balancing formula, or in other words, proc based dps can break that formula in a meaningful way, thus breaking class balance.
As for actually trying a different build and what may be better, this is what I think. When thinking about using different feats and class features, you need to check to make sure they actually work (especially now), or at least the way you're expecting them too. For example, I have a strong suspicion that chilling presence isn't buffing smolder rimfire, and possibly the feat that buffs by another 1% per stack of chill, but I need to investigate that further. I don't use Swatch of Destruction btw, I use Critical Conflagration and Chilling Presence, though I have been considering swapping CP for Swatch depending on what I find in some tests I'm going to run today. The logic behind switching would be, if CP doesn't buff smolder, the swath might be better since it seems to make more sense to buff you're highest source of damage as much as possible. So getting 30%-50% of your damage from smolder rimfire is not dependent on 2 class features, just one, Crit Conflag, as I haven't even used Swath like you suggested.
Another thing to keep in mind, the other t5 feat, while in theory, or on paper might produce better +X% dmg numbers, may not actually produce better dps in practice. The reason directed flames works so well, is because it can multiproc from at-wills like rof that ticks relatively fast. It's easy to use, you can't really mess it up. Where as, with the other feat, your rotation becomes kind of odd, they way I would use it is, cast ray of enfeeblement (tab), case scorching burst, cast chill strike, scorching burst, icy rays, scorching burst, ice knife, scorching burst, .... until there's nothing left except at-wills, what do you do? Meanwhile with directed flames when you're between encounters, just hold ray of frost and chuck flames.
As for getting more directed flames procs from icy terrain and conduit of ice, Well what if procing directed flames X times with coi or it does more damage than repel? I haven't done the maths, I'm not an expert theory crafter or anything. I'm just asking the question and I don't know the answer, but it is something to think about.
Also, it's not very meaningful to compare builds between players, each has different skill levels, stat allocations, etc. And it's even less meaningful to compare builds between players in any given dungeon run, you also have different situations, one player may have better dps for example, pull agro, and then have to deal with that. Comparing builds really only becomes meaningful when comparing them on the same player in the same situation (or as close as you can get), and the goal for dps roles, is to maximize encounter dps and minimize encounter duration. At the end of the day, do what works for you, while one build might be better for one person in a given situation, maybe you would do better for yourself with another build that fits your skill level and play style.
nerfing the envenomed journal was necessary...it was simply too good to be reasonable - provided too much of a difference between those who have it and those who don't.
the doubling of the enchantment stats is good - it basically reverts a part of the 1:500 to 1:1000 change.
However, it is still too easy to cap stats. I would like to see a 10-15% reduction of all stats provided by armor...or maybe better, removal of the "combined" stats.
Ah, the ivory tower logic, that it's more important for you not to have overcapped stats than for more casual players to be able to access the game.
Keep combined rating. It's about the only source of Accuracy in the game for Fighters.
Small note: >Orcus' rings no longer show an immense damage value.
When I tested the Orcus rings, they didn't proc *at all*, no matter what I did. I get that their damage tooltip was immense and bad, but I couldn't get ANY Orcus ring to trigger.
When you fixed the tooltip, did you also fix any problems with triggering the effect?
Just saw on the stream that you tested the rings and they worked. Well, I feel silly. But you asked for details.
The Orcus ring that didn't proc was a +4, and it procced exactly zero times in ~20minutes of Chult and Stronghold play on my GF. I ran around deliberately letting monsters hit me because that massive damage number looked very sexy, and according to ARC and me watching carefully, it didn't trigger even once on random mobs in Soshenstar River and both normal mobs and small HEs in the Stronghold.
Part of the problem is Proc based dps. Wizards, Rangers, Rogues, and Barbarians all have some form of proc based DPS. These are usually tied to Feats, Class Features, or a combination of both.
Lets takes Wizard/Thaumaturge for example, they have the Class Feature "Critical Conflagration" which procs smolder on a critical hit, then combine that with the capstone feat "Focus Flames" (iirc the name) and boom, we have high burst proc based dps. With builds based on this combo, smolder is about 30-50% of all damage done. And the cherry on top, the At-Will Ray of Frost ticks really really fast. This is what is causing Wizards to do really good damage. And this is why the formula for Magnitude/Cool Down Time/Casting Time/etc is broken, because not all damage comes from the base damage of encounters, dailies, and at-wills. (note: this is also why arcanist is inherently inferior to thaumaturge for both aoe and single target. SS can only proc 30% of the time on crits for proc based burst damage (a 15% proc rate), while critical conflag procs 100% of the time on crits (a 50% proc rate.)
Combine the issue with proc based DPS to some classes with poorly designed feats, and we have the situation we are in now.
For classes and paragon paths that don't have proc based dps from one source or the other, feats and class features should be changed to either provide some sort of equivalent, increase Magnitude of all powers or at least a variety of them, and/or decrease cooldown timers (HR uses this heavily, hence why they are better shape compared to some other dps classes).
@quickfoot#7851, the ability of rimefire smoulder to do damage is dependent on a Tier 5 feat "Directed Flames", and two Class Features "Critical Conflagration" and "Swath of Destruction". Even still, the best CWs I have seen run LoMM probably get anywhere from about 20-35% of damage from Rimefire smoulder. You can of course get a higher percentage of this damage if you aren't using better encounters in your rotation, in my experience.
The problem is when you start using ACT exclusively before looking at what contributes to that damage.
The alternate Tier 5 feat for the Thaumaturge is Rimefire Weaving, which adds 10% damage if you alternate fire and cold powers.
The equivalent of the Class Features for this class mechanic would be Storm Spell (looking at the Arcanist), which adds about 8-14% of total DPS. Even chilling presence would add about 6-12% (on Chilled - Frozen targets) to overall damage.
So looking at the contributors to Rimefire Smoulder being about 20-35+% DPS, you have: (1) Two class features, which would probably each add around 6-10% of damage if an alternative class feature was chosen = 12-20%, and (2) A Tier 5 feat which would add about 10% to fire/cold based damage. If you subtract these three contributors to Rimefire, then it would probably account for about, I approximate, around ~10-15% of damage (but then you would add DPS elsewhere to your ACT logs by using alternatives).
Exclusively looking at the proportion of damage on ACT without looking at the contributors and the alternative +DPS% options, in my opinion, is misleading.
well thats what i've been saying xd, thaum is a paragon based on smolder, its the primary mechanic, so i'd expect a considerable part of your damage to come from smolder. Just like when you go to arcanist, you take "a step above mastery", arcane empowerment, arcane powerfield and use imprisonment on tab, arcane powers will be 90%+ of your damage, not to mention repel doing 40%+ on bosses with that setup, its the mechanic of that paragon.
@quickfoot#7851 your act only proves what i've been saying, you are only going to get those numbers if you crit, use fire or ice power, cc will already add smolder on crit, any ice power will convert that smolder to rimefire, reason im not getting those numbers is easy, im going with a more mag/s based setup which basically focuses on managing damage based on cd, hence why i use encounters like repel and entangling force. Whether to use Coi or not is debatable, in aoe it can be useless if you are in a good group that can 1 shot adds so yes i run different setups based on groups, from going with a complete aoe build or just going with single target even with multiple targets, all depends on the group. but if there's 1 or 2 encounters i never use and honestly dont see no need for them as they huge rely on crits, those are IT and Ftf, Coi relies too much on crits too, which is why i dropped it. So yes, if you using cold or fire power, which includes RoF ofc, you will be proccing more rimefire than someone using 3 arcane encounters on bosses (roe, entangling, repel). I mean this is common sense. but this doesn't necessarily mean you are doing more dps, like i've said before, there are alot of other factors that influence dps, not just the scoreboard, some of being; who gets to adds first, who crits, is gets stunned, who dies, etc etc etc etc.
Lardeson CW not Mage. Where's my fireball and my thunderbolt?
Part of the problem is Proc based dps. Wizards, Rangers, Rogues, and Barbarians all have some form of proc based DPS. These are usually tied to Feats, Class Features, or a combination of both.
Lets takes Wizard/Thaumaturge for example, they have the Class Feature "Critical Conflagration" which procs smolder on a critical hit, then combine that with the capstone feat "Focus Flames" (iirc the name) and boom, we have high burst proc based dps. With builds based on this combo, smolder is about 30-50% of all damage done. And the cherry on top, the At-Will Ray of Frost ticks really really fast. This is what is causing Wizards to do really good damage. And this is why the formula for Magnitude/Cool Down Time/Casting Time/etc is broken, because not all damage comes from the base damage of encounters, dailies, and at-wills. (note: this is also why arcanist is inherently inferior to thaumaturge for both aoe and single target. SS can only proc 30% of the time on crits for proc based burst damage (a 15% proc rate), while critical conflag procs 100% of the time on crits (a 50% proc rate.)
Combine the issue with proc based DPS to some classes with poorly designed feats, and we have the situation we are in now.
For classes and paragon paths that don't have proc based dps from one source or the other, feats and class features should be changed to either provide some sort of equivalent, increase Magnitude of all powers or at least a variety of them, and/or decrease cooldown timers (HR uses this heavily, hence why they are better shape compared to some other dps classes).
@quickfoot#7851, the ability of rimefire smoulder to do damage is dependent on a Tier 5 feat "Directed Flames", and two Class Features "Critical Conflagration" and "Swath of Destruction". Even still, the best CWs I have seen run LoMM probably get anywhere from about 20-35% of damage from Rimefire smoulder. You can of course get a higher percentage of this damage if you aren't using better encounters in your rotation, in my experience.
The problem is when you start using ACT exclusively before looking at what contributes to that damage.
The alternate Tier 5 feat for the Thaumaturge is Rimefire Weaving, which adds 10% damage if you alternate fire and cold powers.
The equivalent of the Class Features for this class mechanic would be Storm Spell (looking at the Arcanist), which adds about 8-14% of total DPS. Even chilling presence would add about 6-12% (on Chilled - Frozen targets) to overall damage.
So looking at the contributors to Rimefire Smoulder being about 20-35+% DPS, you have: (1) Two class features, which would probably each add around 6-10% of damage if an alternative class feature was chosen = 12-20%, and (2) A Tier 5 feat which would add about 10% to fire/cold based damage. If you subtract these three contributors to Rimefire, then it would probably account for about, I approximate, around ~10-15% of damage (but then you would add DPS elsewhere to your ACT logs by using alternatives).
Exclusively looking at the proportion of damage on ACT without looking at the contributors and the alternative +DPS% options, in my opinion, is misleading.
well thats what i've been saying xd, thaum is a paragon based on smolder, its the primary mechanic, so i'd expect a considerable part of your damage to come from smolder. Just like when you go to arcanist, you take "a step above mastery", arcane empowerment, arcane powerfield and use imprisonment on tab, arcane powers will be 90%+ of your damage, not to mention repel doing 40%+ on bosses with that setup, its the mechanic of that paragon.
@quickfoot#7851 your act only proves what i've been saying, you are only going to get those numbers if you crit, use fire or ice power, cc will already add smolder on crit, any ice power will convert that smolder to rimefire, reason im not getting those numbers is easy, im going with a more mag/s based setup which basically focuses on managing damage based on cd, hence why i use encounters like repel and entangling force. Whether to use Coi or not is debatable, in aoe it can be useless if you are in a good group that can 1 shot adds so yes i run different setups based on groups, from going with a complete aoe build or just going with single target even with multiple targets, all depends on the group. but if there's 1 or 2 encounters i never use and honestly dont see no need for them as they huge rely on crits, those are IT and Ftf, Coi relies too much on crits too, which is why i dropped it. So yes, if you using cold or fire power, which includes RoF ofc, you will be proccing more rimefire than someone using 3 arcane encounters on bosses (roe, entangling, repel). I mean this is common sense. but this doesn't necessarily mean you are doing more dps, like i've said before, there are alot of other factors that influence dps, not just the scoreboard, some of being; who gets to adds first, who crits, is gets stunned, who dies, etc etc etc etc.
Your points are good, but I consistently see lower overall damage from Wizards who aren't leveraging encounters like IT or CoI in AoE. While of course you can't guarantee crits, over the course of a run you should average sufficient crits to make them worthwhile. I also look at it as Thaumaturge not having a wealth of great AoE powers, to the extent that I don't use Fireball on Tab; I slot Chill Strike in Tab so that I have another upfront AoE damage option and put Fireball into a regular slot since it still functions, albeit with slightly lower potency and a tighter radius.
For single-target, I weigh CoI against Icy Rays and usually choose CoI. While it's still behind in magnitude even if you take into account the lower CD, crits over the course of the fight should easily make up the difference in overall damage, provided of course that the feats and cf are chosen for synergy, not to mention that it helps maintain Chill uptime for Chilling Presence if CC causes an untimely interruption in the rotation. I end up with RoE, Entangle, CoI, and Repel with Ray of Frost.
To your other point, you're completely right about other factors influencing overall damage. A slow-moving or lagging Wizard obviously loses a ton of damage by not having the opportunity to set up and benefit from procs before characters with more direct, guaranteed burst kill everything.
Idk if the devs are aware, but chill based powers can proc directed flames twice if smolder is already applied. Once if they crit, and a second time for applying chill. lol
@terramak I don't think cutting Valhalla set debuff by 200% is a reasonable number, same as I miss a comment about that storyteller journal dealing more aoe damage with ticks up to 140k than any of my aoe-encounter does. Please fix also that pocketpet Doohickey. 240k aoe- crits every 30 seconds are comparable to my best single target encounter.
Comments
Unfortunately some people don't understand what we're trying to achieve. Why game must be easy? Why game dont have level of difficulty, LoMM tier 1, loMM tier 2 (mobs got more HP, better dmg, more skills) for exemple.. better drop?(heh) 1% more! xD
We should not only complain, but also speak out if something is good. But WHY EVERYTHING is for people who have problem? With build, with class, companions, dung.. Ok, They'll have easier.. BUT people who had easier, they will be bored..
I like this game, new MOD is good, game have balance...We need time and challenges.
Don't be afraid angry people. "Sometimes"?
About Soulweaver there no point to call that path competetive. Outside a top performing group with a warlock wearnig endgear, there is a big difference between healer classes performance imo.
Warlock has no fast burst-heal to top a cocooned player except channeling sparks with his AT Will.
He does not have any option to fill up sparks at 2. boss first phase, he can´t block cc effects in between like Paladin, got no HOT's to compensate and the magnitude is halve of compareable classes, no real mitigation-tools except a a "not working class feat" and all of his healing is generated by one spell more or less, passives are weak to not excistent.
I don´t want to argue about all that, Soulweaver is simply in a pittyfull state due to "perma-ignore-status" on preview.
Recently I saw a comment alleging that DPS Warlock wasn't even as strong at dealing damage as Paladin. Do I agree? Absolutely not; this is absurd. However, that player's experience does matter in the bigger picture. The devs can't completely account for players not bothering to read tooltips and playtest for themselves, but sometimes there is a design failure of sorts if only a handful of players seem to be getting it right.
Thaumaturge Wiz as an example of intuitive class design is a good one, because it's kind of hard to mess it up too badly if you at least read what the powers and feats do before you slot them. You don't even have to be using the exact same power tray as another Thaum to be doing decent damage. Then we have the Warlock paths as examples of needing to build in very specific ways that are obviously not universally intuitive, the consequence of building incorrectly being general ineffectiveness.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Cryptic should have their own team, and should pay no attention whatsoever to comunity opinions that are 99% of the time too biased to personal gain and interests.
Fast forward ---> D&D core rulebooks already have it balanced for you Cryptic. No need to retune whats there. Use it please
Must be punished because most "casual" player have problem? @mimicking#6533 said Purpose: Give players more power while running this content, while still trying to keep high-level players from one-shotting everything in the process. "
Right, we dont kill on 1shot, only 2 hits..We cant use daily sometimes, because mobs are dead. I dont need use shield vs mobs, only boss"sometimes". I know many people have problem.. I see it, they dont know what is Combat Adventage, they have worse dmg than tank, etc.. OK No problem. We are tolerant, weird right?
But why we can't have higher lvl content? "Casual" player have fun on dungeon's now..but we have fun from the challenge. Sorry, is that weird? Some people don't understand what we're trying to achieve and are attack us. Why? Because we have more AD? Better DMG? Better time on dungeon? Because we want FUN like others people and have different opinion...?
I think level of difficulty on dungeon is best idea. Character's and dungoeons are in good overall good place, they only need a few changes.
I can not say anything about SW healer. But i think your'e right, they have a pretty common but low heal, useless vs cocoon, and i know about Creeping death it overwrite, and "removes" earlier dmg/skill. Comunnity opinions is important but they can't create game like now..
" Ohhh i don't have DMG on my beautiful OP --> Spam 1month
Patch note:
OP will have better magnitude
//
Can't equip Tacital Enchantment to utility slot, --> spam 1 month
Patch note:
nothing
PS:
I'm not crying
Why all people have problem with CW? Smolder got big dmg, etc.. Hmm fire mage got smolder? TR got posion?! Immposible! CW is easier because Smolder does all damage, why CW can't be Best DPS in this game? He is paper, got low sustain 100% dps.
Ranger can be good dps too, TR too, SW too. Barbarian too but it is "off-tank", better sustain, a little smaller dmg.
> Part of the problem is Proc based dps. Wizards, Rangers, Rogues, and Barbarians all have some form of proc based DPS. These are usually tied to Feats, Class Features, or a combination of both.
>
> Lets takes Wizard/Thaumaturge for example, they have the Class Feature "Critical Conflagration" which procs smolder on a critical hit, then combine that with the capstone feat "Focus Flames" (iirc the name) and boom, we have high burst proc based dps. With builds based on this combo, smolder is about 30-50% of all damage done. And the cherry on top, the At-Will Ray of Frost ticks really really fast. This is what is causing Wizards to do really good damage. And this is why the formula for Magnitude/Cool Down Time/Casting Time/etc is broken, because not all damage comes from the base damage of encounters, dailies, and at-wills. (note: this is also why arcanist is inherently inferior to thaumaturge for both aoe and single target. SS can only proc 30% of the time on crits for proc based burst damage (a 15% proc rate), while critical conflag procs 100% of the time on crits (a 50% proc rate.)
>
> Combine the issue with proc based DPS to some classes with poorly designed feats, and we have the situation we are in now.
>
> For classes and paragon paths that don't have proc based dps from one source or the other, feats and class features should be changed to either provide some sort of equivalent, increase Magnitude of all powers or at least a variety of them, and/or decrease cooldown timers (HR uses this heavily, hence why they are better shape compared to some other dps classes).
>
> those numbers are off, rimefire smolder can indeed do about 25% on aoe but on bosses its about 5-8%, on the otherhand repel which is an encounter does about 15-20 on aoe and 25 on bosses, that clearly beats rimefire smolder, i have tested this with act and if you want a log, pme ingame we run and i'll send you the log. flames is only great in aoe, its not as much as u are assuming on bosses, every other encounter do more damage than it on bosses.
>
> Also thats not why arcanist is inferior to thaum lol, arcanist is inferior to thaum cos in arcanist you dont have relative hated, chilling advantage. your encounters are relatively higher. Secondly no ap gain on cw, if we had ap gain, even with DF and CC, arcanist would be superior due to arcane empowerment, the lack of ap and lack of cd reduction on arcane is why its currently inferior to thaum no because of smolder
>
> Lets be honest and dont hide the true numbers. .
>
> this is from trobriand in lair of mad mage.
>
> i already sent a screenshot to quickfoot, u can ask him for it, not sure how u guys get those numbers, i dont get those ever, i use directed flames too, and most of the time im between 14-19 from rimefire smolder. Now lets not already forget that something important to remember here is 50% crit chance, so yes, if you do 20 crits in dungeon while i do 10, you obviously gonna get more from rimefire cos its only strenght is from crits, if it doesn't crit, its only as good as any other feat. And i repeat myself, if you are relying on getting 30+ from rimefire to dps, u are doing something wrong with ur cw. Like i stated before, if only they'd fix the lack of ap gain without us having to rely on artifacts to get ap, then i see no reason why arcanist shouldn't be better on bosses. on bosses i never go over 8% from rimefire so when i see 30+ on bosses i honestly dont know how u guys do it xd, but im glad i dont have to rely on that to dps so im cool, if you happy with ur numbers, lovely, i dont want to see 30%+ of my damage being from a class feature.
Are you using Ray of Frost and critical confraglation?
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Also, idk about the maths with conduit procing rimefire more so being better than chill strike or icy rays (cuz if conduit don't crit obviously one of the others would be better), but on some bosses chill falls off fast, but conduit will keep it on, that's why I use it, probably icy terrain would work too, and if you use shatter strike, it might proc that, idk haven't tested it, and I use the other feat anyways.
Still some things to be tested that might do better dps (damage per second) overall, and bring down % of dmg from rimefire, great, awesome sauce.
The issue I wanted to highlight wasn't that this or that feat/class feature is broken, or that CW is overpowered, or whatever. What I wanted to highlight is that I think the devs forgot to incorporate proc based dps into their balancing formula, that's all. Which is part of why I think classes with strong proc dmg are doing better atm. CW has SS or Rimefire, TR has Poison, Oppressive Darkness, and CD reduction, HR has roots and CD reduction, Barbarian has steel blitz. And as you can see, the order is interesting here, the classes w/ stronger procs, are generally doing better dps, and as the procs get weaker or nonexistent, less (Barbarian steel blitz only procs 20% of time on at-wills).
So...level-64 redcaps will attack level-80 players because they love being annihilated?
Tell me the planet on which this makes any sense.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
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My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
47% from smolder rimefire
Also, I noticed something, it appears icy terrain doesn't respect my Accuracy stat, as enemies still deflect it when I have over the cap of Accuracy.
The problem is when you start using ACT exclusively before looking at what contributes to that damage.
The alternate Tier 5 feat for the Thaumaturge is Rimefire Weaving, which adds 10% damage if you alternate fire and cold powers.
The equivalent of the Class Features for this class mechanic would be Storm Spell (looking at the Arcanist), which adds about 8-14% of total DPS. Even chilling presence would add about 6-12% (on Chilled - Frozen targets) to overall damage.
So looking at the contributors to Rimefire Smoulder being about 20-35+% DPS, you have: (1) Two class features, which would probably each add around 6-10% of damage if an alternative class feature was chosen = 12-20%, and (2) A Tier 5 feat which would add about 10% to fire/cold based damage. If you subtract these three contributors to Rimefire, then it would probably account for about, I approximate, around ~10-15% of damage (but then you would add DPS elsewhere to your ACT logs by using alternatives).
Exclusively looking at the proportion of damage on ACT without looking at the contributors and the alternative +DPS% options, in my opinion, is misleading.
@lardeson, @mamalion1234, @darthpotater, @obsidiancran3 please read the above. I'd like to get your insight on this as well, since you have all discussed this to a degree.
Rimefire Thaumaturge is a simple clear build that does good DPS. It doesn’t matter to me if it is the best DPS or not, it’s a fairly easy build for players to create and have an effective character. That was one of the goals of Mod 16.
Warlock, the DPS I’m most interested in, fails completely on this front. Worse the class has contradictory goals ( sustain curse vs remove curse) in its design, making it even harder to get peak dps from the class.
The Wizard is just my go to for this comparison because it is the one I’m most confident in for effect. I’m pretty confident the Ranger has a similarly clear build that is easy to get good performance from as well, but just haven’t played mine enough yet to do more than listen to others on this front.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
This is one of the main goals of mod 16 and wizards are in a good spot because you have different ways to do good dmg but still have room for optimization. Other classes need more work in this aspect (give players an easy-to-go option for dps) but people should ask for more work in other classes instead of nerfs for Wizards.
Yesterday I did run with other 2 CW (23K and 22K) and I doubled the dmg to one and tripled to the other. They where in 50% from rhimefire both.
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Ok ok ok let's talk about new players/casual players. My alliance is full of those. Well they still have r8's or r9's. So it's gonna help them some. But by a little only...What you are missing here, the total point you are missing here, is that most of those players you said you cant kill have had a PROGRESSION somewhat. A progression... I was running t1s then i was running t2s when i was strong enough back in old mods. But new players want REQ the second they finished lvl 80. They try to scratch iL to reach 20k and wait for LoMM as if it was the Messiah itself. Like the Savior of their Misery. Like the Holy Graal you promised on all your social medias feedbacks and video and what not. I read that i swear all day long in alliance chat 'im not strong enough, they want 23k iL, i so want to go there, hooray im lvl80 how do I unlock LoMM????''
But no? Im sorry im sure its not meant to be this way? There's no vertical progression in this game and no horizontal one either. It's just a mess. The land of confusion. What are those ratings for new players? Numbers. Personnally im learning how to play my dps classes by soloing MEs with 1-2-3 runes and ACT on, and my healers/tank by pugging. But thats just me,and im an old beta player.
Imho, instead of doubling enchants value you should have made the Boons more valuable. To force people do them. My casual alliance full of new players and casual players does not bother with boons. Cuz why suffer through days and days and weeks of campaign to get that? And maybe we're waiting in RAQ 20mn ish now because new players dont bother unlocking FBI or MSP through grindy campaigns that will give them the boons of Misery, but also maybe because those that unlocked them are scared and had a bad experience. And finally because those of us that unlocked those since ages dont always feel like subscribing to the whole 'lets play together' kind of thing, to get our emerald from bosses and a return of the Jadeite from chest.
You want to enforce old community/veteran players (those handfull left) play with new players? Make a tutorial quest. Make some type of Mentorship quest. Idk. Maybe you're scared of bots, but they do not have the same amount of playtime veteran had. Legacy campaigns are one good thing to help out and ease out the cost of reagents. But If you really cherrish the idea of the community playing as a whole, new players and veterans, i do not see any ideas in there that would encourage this. I do not mind bringing my guildies through all kind of dungeons they havent completed. Thing is, sometimes the feeling of accomplishing something as a team is fading out fast.
As for actually trying a different build and what may be better, this is what I think. When thinking about using different feats and class features, you need to check to make sure they actually work (especially now), or at least the way you're expecting them too. For example, I have a strong suspicion that chilling presence isn't buffing smolder rimfire, and possibly the feat that buffs by another 1% per stack of chill, but I need to investigate that further. I don't use Swatch of Destruction btw, I use Critical Conflagration and Chilling Presence, though I have been considering swapping CP for Swatch depending on what I find in some tests I'm going to run today. The logic behind switching would be, if CP doesn't buff smolder, the swath might be better since it seems to make more sense to buff you're highest source of damage as much as possible. So getting 30%-50% of your damage from smolder rimfire is not dependent on 2 class features, just one, Crit Conflag, as I haven't even used Swath like you suggested.
Another thing to keep in mind, the other t5 feat, while in theory, or on paper might produce better +X% dmg numbers, may not actually produce better dps in practice. The reason directed flames works so well, is because it can multiproc from at-wills like rof that ticks relatively fast. It's easy to use, you can't really mess it up. Where as, with the other feat, your rotation becomes kind of odd, they way I would use it is, cast ray of enfeeblement (tab), case scorching burst, cast chill strike, scorching burst, icy rays, scorching burst, ice knife, scorching burst, .... until there's nothing left except at-wills, what do you do? Meanwhile with directed flames when you're between encounters, just hold ray of frost and chuck flames.
As for getting more directed flames procs from icy terrain and conduit of ice, Well what if procing directed flames X times with coi or it does more damage than repel? I haven't done the maths, I'm not an expert theory crafter or anything. I'm just asking the question and I don't know the answer, but it is something to think about.
Also, it's not very meaningful to compare builds between players, each has different skill levels, stat allocations, etc. And it's even less meaningful to compare builds between players in any given dungeon run, you also have different situations, one player may have better dps for example, pull agro, and then have to deal with that. Comparing builds really only becomes meaningful when comparing them on the same player in the same situation (or as close as you can get), and the goal for dps roles, is to maximize encounter dps and minimize encounter duration. At the end of the day, do what works for you, while one build might be better for one person in a given situation, maybe you would do better for yourself with another build that fits your skill level and play style.
Keep combined rating. It's about the only source of Accuracy in the game for Fighters.
The Orcus ring that didn't proc was a +4, and it procced exactly zero times in ~20minutes of Chult and Stronghold play on my GF. I ran around deliberately letting monsters hit me because that massive damage number looked very sexy, and according to ARC and me watching carefully, it didn't trigger even once on random mobs in Soshenstar River and both normal mobs and small HEs in the Stronghold.
@quickfoot#7851 your act only proves what i've been saying, you are only going to get those numbers if you crit, use fire or ice power, cc will already add smolder on crit, any ice power will convert that smolder to rimefire, reason im not getting those numbers is easy, im going with a more mag/s based setup which basically focuses on managing damage based on cd, hence why i use encounters like repel and entangling force. Whether to use Coi or not is debatable, in aoe it can be useless if you are in a good group that can 1 shot adds so yes i run different setups based on groups, from going with a complete aoe build or just going with single target even with multiple targets, all depends on the group. but if there's 1 or 2 encounters i never use and honestly dont see no need for them as they huge rely on crits, those are IT and Ftf, Coi relies too much on crits too, which is why i dropped it. So yes, if you using cold or fire power, which includes RoF ofc, you will be proccing more rimefire than someone using 3 arcane encounters on bosses (roe, entangling, repel). I mean this is common sense. but this doesn't necessarily mean you are doing more dps, like i've said before, there are alot of other factors that influence dps, not just the scoreboard, some of being; who gets to adds first, who crits, is gets stunned, who dies, etc etc etc etc.
For single-target, I weigh CoI against Icy Rays and usually choose CoI. While it's still behind in magnitude even if you take into account the lower CD, crits over the course of the fight should easily make up the difference in overall damage, provided of course that the feats and cf are chosen for synergy, not to mention that it helps maintain Chill uptime for Chilling Presence if CC causes an untimely interruption in the rotation. I end up with RoE, Entangle, CoI, and Repel with Ray of Frost.
To your other point, you're completely right about other factors influencing overall damage. A slow-moving or lagging Wizard obviously loses a ton of damage by not having the opportunity to set up and benefit from procs before characters with more direct, guaranteed burst kill everything.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Please fix also that pocketpet Doohickey. 240k aoe- crits every 30 seconds are comparable to my best single target encounter.
why ???? .. the feat does say... at wills... is heavy slash not an at will anymore ?