test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

M18 Class Balance Adjustments

145791014

Comments

  • foxxy#4211 foxxy Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 563 Arc User

    Thaumaturge:

    The bad news is, it will also be time to fix Directed Flames. Directed Flames is intended to do 75% of the damage smolder would have done over time when it first lands, and then not be able to be reapplied to the target until the normal smolder time has passed (can apply once every 12 seconds). This has obviously not been the case as it can just keep reapplying over and over making it much more powerful than Smolder itself.

    The original intent was to have a feat that made smolder more useful for quicker fights where the critters die faster than 12 seconds.

    As an additional change to go along with that, I was considering changing Rimefire Weaving to be "A stack of chill or smolder on a target will decrease its damage resistance to your attacks by 5%, having Rimefire on the target will decrease it by 10%." I would be interested to hear from Wizards how they feel about that change to Rimefire Weaving.

    So Picking directed flames would cause a lost of normal smolder if it was intended to be 12 secs per trigger? not per enemy? How much damage would a rimefire smolder do in 12 secs compared to that gap? In addition, if that was the initial purpose it will damage a lot thauma's AoE damage, Instead of having cooldown increased, leave the instant damage 50% for both smolder and rimefire?.

    About rimefire weaving that won't compensate the 3% lost from chilling pressence, when the idea was to "tone down" arcanist; what about 6% and 12%? Also some powers need to be checked as they are not applying rimefire when enemy affected by chill.
  • nemesrichnemesrich Member Posts: 85 Arc User
    edited December 2019
    rafaelda said:

    I really pity the devs here , theres just no way to have people happy on this tread really

    Personal opinion under, feel free to disagree
    One of the problems with the changes since mod 16 is that we are heading to a game with no options, all Wizards, Barbarians Rogues, Rangers look the same, theres no way to have a new build, there are to few choices to create a real build so what we have now is DPS AOE, DPS ST, Tank and Healer builds

    If we get every DPS able to do the same dmg in Single target and aoe all the diference will be animationin encounters and at-wills the old combat style is dying because we are getting more MMO and less D&D each day, I'm not forgeting this was a mmo from start but it is also a D&D game, Wizards, barbarias and Rogues should be places where they shine over others and places when they dont but noone will agree because , they want to have the same "DPS potential in all places"...

    I know is a Game, and i know not everyone like multi toons soo feel free to disagree 100% with everthing abouve.

    in the end of this my real feedback here will be useles as always but:

    The big mistake here is that we have as Base for balance TOMM, that is a place that even the developers call a "point out of the curve" Lomm is also not scaled content and have much more varety than TOMM, there you can get much better stats then in a bis place with only 1 target and a lot of moviment to avoid mechanics...

    PS: I am Tomm ready did runs there both on preview and Live server, just dont run that content anymore dont like places where i can't take people with me

    Bring back normal and Master style, the lower version allow starters to understand mechanics complet the story and have fun, and the BIG one can give the Best rewards and be a BIG challenge

    It is funny how you blame people because of expressing their negative opinion. The purpose of a forum is not soft soaping the devs but telling them your opinion even if it is negative. And since mod 16 we have a lot of reason to be negative.
    My main problem, I mained 3 classes from the beginning and just let's say I manage to fall in love always with the class devs hit with the nerf bat at the end of the mod so personally "If we get every DPS able to do the same dmg in Single target and aoe all the diference will be animationin encounters and at-wills " would be OK for me, if it means I can participate in every content succesfully. By that I mean such as I am not laughed at when want to join a high end content group only because of my class. And I could continue but I guess you get what I am talking about.
  • @noworries#8859
    If you could look into these changes for the barb it'd be greatly appreciated

    Sure strike should have a magnitude increase to help with single target damage.

    Mightier leap should have a slightly bigger aoe on the second jump, not something over the top but just enough to catch more mobs (maybe close to the pally heal aoe).

    Battle fury should have it's cool down reduced a bit. It used to be an integral part of a barbs rotation but now it's never used and the long cooldown is one of the reasons.

    The paladin stole our threatening rush and we got that crappy bounding slam, I want the old animation back. This is too slow to be viable.

    Brash strike is just a bootleg Savage advance, it has the worst animation in the game. The magnitude is not the problem, it's the animation.

    IBS having a magnitude increase and hitting multiple targets like before could be a feat like blood spiller so then you'd have to chose one or their other.

    The aoe daily should have an option to land faster

    Please try to give these changes some thought.
  • rafamarques#5700 rafamarques Member Posts: 155 Arc User
    edited December 2019
    in fact, all the classes dont look the same. for example, fighter vs DC. lets suposed both have the same damage. to compensate the fact that DCS have range attacks and dodge, and fighters, being melees, are more "exposed", they have block "like a tank". that sounds a good diference and +/- balanced.

    you dont see that theorical compensation in barbarians for example (shift, tab, nothing)... they said "this game dont have more controllers, only dps", well, wizards still have a lot of control, why GWFs dont have more your defensive tools, mark, nothing?
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    question: why tanks need lose10% of damage to receive 40% hp, but dps, that oblivious dont need a tank in the most of content, dont have anny kind of disadvantage? if the most important embalanced never, ever will be touched, lets, please, change that "10% HAMSTER" ?
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ps: tested brash strike, yeah, still really bad.
    Post edited by rafamarques#5700 on
  • alfons#3156 alfons Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 20 Arc User

    Thaumaturge:

    There has been decent talk in this thread of fixing several of the issues with Thaumaturge around smolder such as:

    Critical Conflagration will only apply smolder to one target even when an AoE crits
    Directed Flames does only 50% of the smolder damage instead of 75% like it should (and like it does with Rimefire)
    When using AoE powers to cause Rimefire, it only applies to one target

    The good news is that I'm actively looking into these to get fixes in place.

    The bad news is, it will also be time to fix Directed Flames. Directed Flames is intended to do 75% of the damage smolder would have done over time when it first lands, and then not be able to be reapplied to the target until the normal smolder time has passed (can apply once every 12 seconds). This has obviously not been the case as it can just keep reapplying over and over making it much more powerful than Smolder itself.

    The original intent was to have a feat that made smolder more useful for quicker fights where the critters die faster than 12 seconds.

    There wasn't a rush to fix this as Thaumaturge wasn't crushing the DPS charts (and contrary to some beliefs, we don't prioritize all player benefiting bugs to the top of the list), but some of these other fixes will actually necessitate fixing that now.

    As an additional change to go along with that, I was considering changing Rimefire Weaving to be "A stack of chill or smolder on a target will decrease its damage resistance to your attacks by 5%, having Rimefire on the target will decrease it by 10%." I would be interested to hear from Wizards how they feel about that change to Rimefire Weaving.

    U know fact that wizard is only BiS for single as arcanist,but thauma trash killer it's far far far away from few classes?
    Thaumaturge is stricte aoe character so limitation of his ability to single it's a joke.
    Rimefire Weaving sounds okey,but buff gonna increase with amount of stacks of chill - better check it ?
    Instead of nerfs any of wizard mechanics just fix Ray Of Frost , lol.
  • trgluestickztrgluestickz Member Posts: 1,144 Arc User
    edited December 2019

    While a nerf to wizard shield was needed in PVP, the nerf shield got probably killed that power altogether. I doubt the shield power will remain in use at all. While that outcome is preferable to leaving shield as it is on live, I'd look into finding a way to make wizard shield useful at least.

    As for how I'd expect PVP wizards to adjust to shield being nerfed, good ones likely would go glass cannon, similar to what the best rogues and rangers do. Likely very scary if using 4 dps encounters. They'd have some forms of defense like a little bit of self healing and shadowclad, and probably a little more HP than they currently run. Some might also add in some crit aviod.

    It might be possible to build wizard similarly to dps clerics, which can have nearly maxed out defense and crit aviod and still dish out high damage. I don't know much about cleric's mechanics but I do know this build runs high critical chance in addition to high defense and crit aviod.

    At any rate, wizard will probably be fine, though I won't be suprised if a bunch of wizards cry about this nerf for a bit.

    I would not go full glass cannon in PVP. Every other class has faster casting times, and casting powers on wizards is a bit odd. It takes time to build up stacks of chill and arcane mastery to get your buffs up to do good damage, not to mention that control sucks in pvp (except if you're a ranger or rogue), so you need to be able to survive, and since you can't dodge but once or twice, all they will need to do is sneeze and you'll blow over.

    I think it was a mistake to nerf shield so much if at-all. I've tried building a tanky wizard in pvp (in m17), it changed being one rotated by rogues and rangers to taking two rotations. The shield isn't all that powerful.

    What they need to do is find a balance between M16 and M17, they need to reduce damage taken and healing, no reason a rogue should one rotate the tank on your team like he's just butter. Sometimes they can even get you with just an encounter and a daily. Also, while the new simpler mechanics of stats may work in PVE, they don't work well in PVP. To have any defense or deflect chance, you have stack over Arm Pen and Accuracy, but by the time you've invested so much into defense, and you get your 10% DR (after 80k defense), you have no stats left for anything else, and they can still one rotate you. It's better to invest in stats such as Arm Pen, Accuracy, Awareness, and Crit Avoidance, because you only ever need to reach a minimum for those stats to be maximally effective. Every thing else (other than hp and power) has to be stacked over and over invested in to be effective. This is problematic for builds that rely on crits to proc other class features/feats.

    Try explaining why we need a larger stat pool in PVP, and people just say that it's not fair to allow people to get stats from companion bonuses. They blame this that and the other, but the real problem is the core mechanics.
    Currently (on live) people who have built their wizards with low defensive stats or have a middle ground setup are abnormally hard to take down compared to the other dps classes. And wizards can still dish out very high damage, have great node control due to repel, and are ranged. This does impact the leaderboard, wizards have an easier time advancing than rogues or rangers do. They have an easier time turning matches in their favor thanks to the combination of shield + lots of repels + lots of damage. They get a lot fewer deaths too.

    I don't know what your personal experience with trying out a tanky wizard is but I've fought other tank wizards like jerico and kalina and they are extremely difficult to kill. Even steven's 108k defense fighter and the several 90k+ defense 50k+ crit aviod clerics walking around aren't as difficult to kill as these wizards.
    It makes no sense to even attempt killing tank wizards inside of a match, unless you have the help of 1 or 2 other coordinated good dps and they don't mess up.
    I adjust my stats and powers for the enemies I fight on a regular basis and am nearly maxed out so I know it isn't a build issue on my end.
    It is possible for me to kill them in "one or two rotations" but realistically, this is difficult and partially luck based to line up and I'd be trying over and over again for most of the match before I get it. Or more likely, one of their friends shows up and prevents me from landing it at all.

    As for the tank classes, those classes need some work done on them, they do seem to be under preforming. Some of this is the majority of players not building well but even the good ones seem to lag behind to some degree.

    I'm not opposed to lowering crit damage and healing in PVP, but only if they are both lowered at the same time.

    As for the whole stat pool too small for PVP thing, as new mods get released, you'll be able to stack more and more stats. That and I'm not sure I agree with this premise anyways. We definitely don't need companion active bonuses in PVP. Though I'd like having access to a little bit more critical strike, allowing the massive amounts of HP, busted bonuses, and stats from companions in PVP didn't go well.

    Rogue and ranger do have strong control, but the control I've seen come from fighters, some paladins, and barbarians is also formidable. The control that wizards do have seems to be the most effective for winning matches, repel is quite a tool, especially when they can do this 3 times within a short timeframe. So I don't agree that control sucks for everyone that isn't a rogue or ranger.
    Post edited by trgluestickz on
    --
    PVP Rogue,
    --[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]--
    ----------------------------------------------------------------
    Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin)
    Ingame Handle: trgluestickz
    Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563
    Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression
    Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud
    Platform: PC
  • rikitakirikitaki Member Posts: 926 Arc User

    Thaumaturge:

    Directed Flames is intended to do 75% of the damage smolder would have done over time when it first lands, and then not be able to be reapplied to the target until the normal smolder time has passed (can apply once every 12 seconds). This has obviously not been the case as it can just keep reapplying over and over making it much more powerful than Smolder itself.

    The original intent was to have a feat that made smolder more useful for quicker fights where the critters die faster than 12 seconds.

    Hi, I am afraid that this 12 seconds delay of directed flames would make them significantly worse than rimefire in boss cases. It already has the percentage penalty... Just a thought.

  • sobi#1980 sobi Member Posts: 401 Arc User
    edited December 2019

    Thaumaturge:

    There has been decent talk in this thread of fixing several of the issues with Thaumaturge around smolder such as:

    Critical Conflagration will only apply smolder to one target even when an AoE crits
    Directed Flames does only 50% of the smolder damage instead of 75% like it should (and like it does with Rimefire)
    When using AoE powers to cause Rimefire, it only applies to one target

    The good news is that I'm actively looking into these to get fixes in place.

    The bad news is, it will also be time to fix Directed Flames. Directed Flames is intended to do 75% of the damage smolder would have done over time when it first lands, and then not be able to be reapplied to the target until the normal smolder time has passed (can apply once every 12 seconds). This has obviously not been the case as it can just keep reapplying over and over making it much more powerful than Smolder itself.

    The original intent was to have a feat that made smolder more useful for quicker fights where the critters die faster than 12 seconds.

    There wasn't a rush to fix this as Thaumaturge wasn't crushing the DPS charts (and contrary to some beliefs, we don't prioritize all player benefiting bugs to the top of the list), but some of these other fixes will actually necessitate fixing that now.

    As an additional change to go along with that, I was considering changing Rimefire Weaving to be "A stack of chill or smolder on a target will decrease its damage resistance to your attacks by 5%, having Rimefire on the target will decrease it by 10%." I would be interested to hear from Wizards how they feel about that change to Rimefire Weaving.

    It's becoming very apparent that the dev's actually make changes reflecting the outcry in the forums. I mean, you tell me, shouldn't your priority be to balance the dps classes first before touching secondary dps classes? If you really wanted, you could just buff arcanist's aoe and that would solve this issue once for all and then do a complete overhaul to thaum, hunter and whisperknife when the time comes.

    Nothing wrong with buffing an under performing class paragon, but rules have to be followed. All dps classes should have 1 viable dps path, and all healing and tanks should have one viable path. Then you can worry about secondary paragons. Also, dps warlocks, barbs, clerics and fighters are primary dps classes just like arcanist, assassin and hunter.
  • darthpotaterdarthpotater Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,259 Arc User

    Thaumaturge:

    There has been decent talk in this thread of fixing several of the issues with Thaumaturge around smolder such as:

    Critical Conflagration will only apply smolder to one target even when an AoE crits
    Directed Flames does only 50% of the smolder damage instead of 75% like it should (and like it does with Rimefire)
    When using AoE powers to cause Rimefire, it only applies to one target

    The good news is that I'm actively looking into these to get fixes in place.

    The bad news is, it will also be time to fix Directed Flames. Directed Flames is intended to do 75% of the damage smolder would have done over time when it first lands, and then not be able to be reapplied to the target until the normal smolder time has passed (can apply once every 12 seconds). This has obviously not been the case as it can just keep reapplying over and over making it much more powerful than Smolder itself.

    The original intent was to have a feat that made smolder more useful for quicker fights where the critters die faster than 12 seconds.

    There wasn't a rush to fix this as Thaumaturge wasn't crushing the DPS charts (and contrary to some beliefs, we don't prioritize all player benefiting bugs to the top of the list), but some of these other fixes will actually necessitate fixing that now.

    As an additional change to go along with that, I was considering changing Rimefire Weaving to be "A stack of chill or smolder on a target will decrease its damage resistance to your attacks by 5%, having Rimefire on the target will decrease it by 10%." I would be interested to hear from Wizards how they feel about that change to Rimefire Weaving.

    Thanks for the explanation.

    What if you change directed flames to a lower value, lets say 25%, and remove the 12 sec CD? Otherwise that capstone will be very bad for bosses. Or maybe your intention is to have a capstone for bosses and other for AoE? That could work but it limits our options, and 12 sec CD is too long, you usually take less time between mob groups.

    Either way, our class features are horrible in both paragons, and one of them we were using is going to be nerfed by half (Chilling presence).

    Now that you are working at bugs, take a look into some powers not giving Action Points or giving a micro value. Thank you.
    Lescar PvE Wizard - Sir Garlic PvE Paladin
    Caturday Survivor
    Elemental Evil Survivor
    Undermontain Survivor
    Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
    Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
  • eclipse#6873 eclipse Member Posts: 13 Arc User
    edited December 2019
    @noworries#8859 the change to rimfire weaving does sound good for boss fights. For direct flames, i wouldnt suggest such a long cooldown for a feat, it might be okay if it was hard hitting encounter power but this change would kill the feat entirely. Maybe instead have it be on a 3-4 second cool down at most to keep it relevant for aoe as most grps will be on the next group of mobs by the time its off cool down. Ideally, i would like direct flames to have a damage increase to keep it competitive maybe for each stack of chill add 10 magnitude when applying direct flames to give it more of an impact in comparison to rimefire weaving(for aoe most times u wont be able to build up chill stacks on all enemies so this would keep it balanced between aoe and single target especially with the cooldown and keep it noteworthy as one of our two last feats the magnitude can vary tho since we can get up to 6 stacks of chill).
    Post edited by eclipse#6873 on
  • gildriadorgildriador Member Posts: 231 Arc User

    Thaumaturge:

    As an additional change to go along with that, I was considering changing Rimefire Weaving to be "A stack of chill or smolder on a target will decrease its damage resistance to your attacks by 5%, having Rimefire on the target will decrease it by 10%." I would be interested to hear from Wizards how they feel about that change to Rimefire Weaving.

    To be sure that I understand well (English is not my native language), do you mean 5% debuff for smolder or chill stack and if your smolder convert to Rimefire and the target keep at least 1 stack of chill is 5% + Rimefire 10% = for a total of 15% debuff if you maintain Rimefire and Chill stack on the target or it's a maximum of 10%?
    “He raised his staff. There was a roll of thunder. The sunlight was blotted out from the eastern windows; the whole hall became suddenly dark as night. The fire faded to sullen embers. Only Gandalf could be seen, standing white and tall before the blackened hearth.”
    ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
  • bifflincultebifflinculte Member Posts: 210 Arc User
    edited December 2019

    Thanks for the explanation.

    What if you change directed flames to a lower value, lets say 25%, and remove the 12 sec CD? Otherwise that capstone will be very bad for bosses. Or maybe your intention is to have a capstone for bosses and other for AoE? That could work but it limits our options, and 12 sec CD is too long, you usually take less time between mob groups.

    Either way, our class features are horrible in both paragons, and one of them we were using is going to be nerfed by half (Chilling presence).

    Now that you are working at bugs, take a look into some powers not giving Action Points or giving a micro value. Thank you.

    Thauma drama strikes back.

    I agree, reducing damage of Directed flame instead of its frequency should be the way to go. 12s cooldown is just crazy. That means, this feat would reduce overall Smolder damage by 25% (regular smolder has 4 ticks every 3sec, 4x3=12sec). Regular smolder already has very low dps (about 5% of total outgoing damage), let's reduce it even more! Best feat ever...

    Arcanist has both good extra dps (storm spell) and good damage buff (arcane mastery). Smolder used to grant little extra dps but huge dr debuff (Master of Flame before mof 16). At launch of mod 16, Smolder granted very high (too much) extra dps with Directed Flames but dr debuff was gone (2% from swath of destruction is a joke). Now, plan is to kill again extra dps and to reintroduce dr debuff (presonal or for party ?). Anyway, with Directed Flame off, Smolder is even more bugged than when it's on.

    So, pre mod16 Master of flame is back, with even worse smolder dps as before (regular smolder ticks every 3s, was 1.5s before mod 16).

    An other idea would be to remove automatic conversion of Smolder into Rimefire Smolder when chill is added, unless you activate the Rimefire Weaving feat. 3 possibilities:

    1) Character is leveling and doesn't has access to last feat (lvl 77): smolder is dot and lasts X sec. Its duration be refreshed by another proc of smolder, but can't be converted to rimefire by chill.

    2) You choose Rimefire Weaving; smolder is refreshed to rimefire on chilled targets and get periodic damage + damage buff (or dr debuff or other bonus) as long as targets are affected by chill. Critical Conflagration isn't mandatory with this feat on. Basically former MoF build.

    3) You choose Directed flame: everytime you add smolder (with any fire spell or ANY critical hit from your powers + Critical Conflagration), targets get an instant smolder hit. No more dot. Adding chill doesn't proc Rimefire. After smolder is added, targets get a smolder status for X sec, renewed after each smolder proc (timer for Swath of Destrustion buff).

    Please don't kill thaumaturge, smolder has much potential. Else all wizards will choose arcanist. Make Thauma great again!
    Post edited by bifflinculte on
  • thefiresidecatthefiresidecat Member Posts: 4,486 Arc User
    nooneatza said:



    rangers need adjustment to their daily powers to cost 1000 ap as any other class because atm only ranger can use action point based sets more effective than others.
    Atm forest ghost has cost 50 ap(hunter and warden) call of the storm 500 ap ( warden) and disruptive shot 250 ap( hunter).
    Change them all to 1000.

    OR give a low ap cost daily to each class.

    As much as i was never a fan of "Hurr nurf other classes they too stronk". I have to agree with this guy here.
    In mod18 HR will be the absolute best DPS in the game, by a far margin. Because HR can use AP based sets (arcturia's strong as hell) and all other classes have had their demo set nerfed, it's somehow an indirect nerf to all of them. Dont get me wrong, its about time demo got nerfed.

    But yeah, the point is that in mod18 you will get a massive gap between HR and other dps classes.

    Find a way to fix it ! Im not saying nerf HR, buff the ap gain of other classes, or maybe give other classes "discount" dailies at 50% off or something.
    you are acting like there isn't a trade off here. other classes have strong dailes. hr really doesn't in comparison. you can't single out one thing and say ohhh they're gonna kick our butts because of this because there is a lot more to the equation. all these things are taken into consideration when they adjust values.
  • noworries#8859 noworries Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 651 Cryptic Developer

    Thaumaturge:

    There has been decent talk in this thread of fixing several of the issues with Thaumaturge around smolder such as:

    Critical Conflagration will only apply smolder to one target even when an AoE crits
    Directed Flames does only 50% of the smolder damage instead of 75% like it should (and like it does with Rimefire)
    When using AoE powers to cause Rimefire, it only applies to one target

    The good news is that I'm actively looking into these to get fixes in place.

    The bad news is, it will also be time to fix Directed Flames. Directed Flames is intended to do 75% of the damage smolder would have done over time when it first lands, and then not be able to be reapplied to the target until the normal smolder time has passed (can apply once every 12 seconds). This has obviously not been the case as it can just keep reapplying over and over making it much more powerful than Smolder itself.

    The original intent was to have a feat that made smolder more useful for quicker fights where the critters die faster than 12 seconds.

    There wasn't a rush to fix this as Thaumaturge wasn't crushing the DPS charts (and contrary to some beliefs, we don't prioritize all player benefiting bugs to the top of the list), but some of these other fixes will actually necessitate fixing that now.

    As an additional change to go along with that, I was considering changing Rimefire Weaving to be "A stack of chill or smolder on a target will decrease its damage resistance to your attacks by 5%, having Rimefire on the target will decrease it by 10%." I would be interested to hear from Wizards how they feel about that change to Rimefire Weaving.

    Thanks for the explanation.

    What if you change directed flames to a lower value, lets say 25%, and remove the 12 sec CD? Otherwise that capstone will be very bad for bosses. Or maybe your intention is to have a capstone for bosses and other for AoE? That could work but it limits our options, and 12 sec CD is too long, you usually take less time between mob groups.

    Either way, our class features are horrible in both paragons, and one of them we were using is going to be nerfed by half (Chilling presence).

    Now that you are working at bugs, take a look into some powers not giving Action Points or giving a micro value. Thank you.
    The intent of Directed Flames is never to have smolder/rimefire do more damage than it would have as a DoT, but instead to allow it to be unfront damage for shorter fights. Smolder/Rimefire lasts for 12 seconds which is why that is the cooldown length. So while it could be something like 25% with a 4 second cooldown, that would make it less useful on quick to kill targets than 75% with a 12 second cooldown. The cooldown is per target. And it does make it not useful on bosses, hence the proposed adjustment to Rimefire Weaving to give a better boss option.
  • mamalion1234mamalion1234 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 3,415 Arc User
    edited December 2019

    Thaumaturge:

    There has been decent talk in this thread of fixing several of the issues with Thaumaturge around smolder such as:

    Critical Conflagration will only apply smolder to one target even when an AoE crits
    Directed Flames does only 50% of the smolder damage instead of 75% like it should (and like it does with Rimefire)
    When using AoE powers to cause Rimefire, it only applies to one target

    The good news is that I'm actively looking into these to get fixes in place.

    The bad news is, it will also be time to fix Directed Flames. Directed Flames is intended to do 75% of the damage smolder would have done over time when it first lands, and then not be able to be reapplied to the target until the normal smolder time has passed (can apply once every 12 seconds). This has obviously not been the case as it can just keep reapplying over and over making it much more powerful than Smolder itself.

    The original intent was to have a feat that made smolder more useful for quicker fights where the critters die faster than 12 seconds.

    There wasn't a rush to fix this as Thaumaturge wasn't crushing the DPS charts (and contrary to some beliefs, we don't prioritize all player benefiting bugs to the top of the list), but some of these other fixes will actually necessitate fixing that now.

    As an additional change to go along with that, I was considering changing Rimefire Weaving to be "A stack of chill or smolder on a target will decrease its damage resistance to your attacks by 5%, having Rimefire on the target will decrease it by 10%." I would be interested to hear from Wizards how they feel about that change to Rimefire Weaving.

    and if the target has chill +rimefire smolder then what happens?15% damage?
  • dontez1dontez1 Member Posts: 114 Arc User

    Thaumaturge:

    There has been decent talk in this thread of fixing several of the issues with Thaumaturge around smolder such as:

    Critical Conflagration will only apply smolder to one target even when an AoE crits
    Directed Flames does only 50% of the smolder damage instead of 75% like it should (and like it does with Rimefire)
    When using AoE powers to cause Rimefire, it only applies to one target

    The good news is that I'm actively looking into these to get fixes in place.

    The bad news is, it will also be time to fix Directed Flames. Directed Flames is intended to do 75% of the damage smolder would have done over time when it first lands, and then not be able to be reapplied to the target until the normal smolder time has passed (can apply once every 12 seconds). This has obviously not been the case as it can just keep reapplying over and over making it much more powerful than Smolder itself.

    The original intent was to have a feat that made smolder more useful for quicker fights where the critters die faster than 12 seconds.

    There wasn't a rush to fix this as Thaumaturge wasn't crushing the DPS charts (and contrary to some beliefs, we don't prioritize all player benefiting bugs to the top of the list), but some of these other fixes will actually necessitate fixing that now.

    As an additional change to go along with that, I was considering changing Rimefire Weaving to be "A stack of chill or smolder on a target will decrease its damage resistance to your attacks by 5%, having Rimefire on the target will decrease it by 10%." I would be interested to hear from Wizards how they feel about that change to Rimefire Weaving.


    One way I see that this suggested fix works for Thaum is if, Smolder damage is increased to be more in-line with Storm Spell.
    That way if Directed Flames is on a 12s internal cooldown between damage it feels impactful each time it does proc.
    The damage should be increased x3 or so for Smoulder/Directed Flames.
    If not it will be like using a extra At-Will every 12secs and should fill more like a extra Encounter.

  • tenetombtenetomb Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 113 Arc User
    edited December 2019
    @noworries#8859

    And it does make it not useful on bosses, hence the proposed adjustment to Rimefire Weaving to give a better boss option.

    To be honest, i don't think that giving any improvement to Thaumaturge to perform well on bosses is the good way to go.
    Arcanist, after nerfs is in a good place, i think and is completely designed for the single target. I mean, it completely lacks of aoes but has a lot of powerfull single targets spells. Arcane Empowerment is really fun to play but too slow on packs of mob.
    Thaumaturge (after buffs) is still more or less the opposite : An aoe paragon daily and at-will, full aoes encounters and a mechanic that encourages aoe play.

    Thaumaturge was better everywhere during mod 16 because it was full of bugs (cooldowns reduced too much by "Relative haste", smolder multi-proccing on every power, etc.). Now, Arcanist deals way better single target damage (by far) and personally, i deal 30% more damage on arcanist aoe than thaumaturge (on preview, with the best setup i could find, except by using the Combustive action bug).
    I know you want every path to be +- equal and deal similar damages but this always leads to one path being better than the other.
    The way i see the balance is by having Arcanist as the boss build and Thaumaturge, the mobs build.

    Now, to speak about the change you suggested, i think it's a good thing, so why not ?
    Problem is, even if powers will be able, once again, to apply smolder on every target they hit, if they won't be able to spread it in less than every 12 seconds, thaumaturge's dps will be even lower than it is now !

    Rimefire smolder and Glowing flames are still doing 25% of our total dps, just because Directed flames allows them to proc rapidly.
    They were doing a lot more when they could proc multiple times on every power and maybe it was too much.
    But if you're going to reduce drastically the proc rate of smolder, making Directed flames useless, you'll have too compensate us with A LOT of additional damage bonus...

    The change you suggested on Rimefire Weaving is a good start in this way but if you don't want Thaumaturge to be even weaker than it is now, you'll have to boost things like Frigid winds or Critical Conflagration or Swath of destruction, etc.

    For me, this is too complicated and would takes too much time to do.
    I'd better keep the actual way Directed Flames works on live and limit the spread potential of Smolder or add an internal cooldown in Smolder proc rate (like Storm spell had a while ago), or just Rework Glowing Flames because the more Smolder spreads, the more this is dealing damage.
    Post edited by tenetomb on
  • noworries#8859 noworries Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 651 Cryptic Developer
    hrakh said:

    Thaumaturge:

    There has been decent talk in this thread of fixing several of the issues with Thaumaturge around smolder such as:

    Critical Conflagration will only apply smolder to one target even when an AoE crits
    Directed Flames does only 50% of the smolder damage instead of 75% like it should (and like it does with Rimefire)
    When using AoE powers to cause Rimefire, it only applies to one target

    The good news is that I'm actively looking into these to get fixes in place.

    The bad news is, it will also be time to fix Directed Flames. Directed Flames is intended to do 75% of the damage smolder would have done over time when it first lands, and then not be able to be reapplied to the target until the normal smolder time has passed (can apply once every 12 seconds). This has obviously not been the case as it can just keep reapplying over and over making it much more powerful than Smolder itself.

    The original intent was to have a feat that made smolder more useful for quicker fights where the critters die faster than 12 seconds.

    There wasn't a rush to fix this as Thaumaturge wasn't crushing the DPS charts (and contrary to some beliefs, we don't prioritize all player benefiting bugs to the top of the list), but some of these other fixes will actually necessitate fixing that now.

    As an additional change to go along with that, I was considering changing Rimefire Weaving to be "A stack of chill or smolder on a target will decrease its damage resistance to your attacks by 5%, having Rimefire on the target will decrease it by 10%." I would be interested to hear from Wizards how they feel about that change to Rimefire Weaving.

    @noworries#8859
    It might be a thought to spend a little more effort on considering the environment you are firing your statements into...

    I for one am not convinced that a statement that essentially translates to "So yeah, I said we do not have time to address major issues with Arbiter, Hellbringer, Barbarian, etc., but here is some relatively in depth work we are willing to do on Wizards..." is a great call, but YMMV...

    From my perspective it only reinforces the already quite prevalent opinion among players that the Wizard class is where your attention lies , at the detriment of all other classes. As your communication people should be able to tell you, the optics matter. Especially when dealing with a group of people that has been feeling ignored for >6 months..

    Just something to consider..
    Bug fixes are not the same as major power redesigns. Everything called out in my post is a bug fix with the exception of a change to Rimefire weaving to make it so those bug fixes don't actually bring the paragon path down in damage when it is an already under-performing paragon path. Wizard's other paragon path also got intentionally adjusted down, while other classes/paths received buffs.
    tenetomb said:

    @noworries#8859

    And it does make it not useful on bosses, hence the proposed adjustment to Rimefire Weaving to give a better boss option.


    Problem is, even if powers will be able, once again, to apply smolder on every target they hit, if they won't be able to spread it in less than every 12 seconds, thaumaturge's dps will be even lower than it is now !
    Smolder has always been a 12 second DoT and still is. The cooldown is on Directed Flames and is per target, you can still use smolder/Directed Flames on as many different targets as you want in that 12 seconds.
  • aerhythia#3255 aerhythia Member Posts: 173 Arc User
    Arcanist has access to Steal Time, 1 or 2 other AoE powers and of course Icy Terrain. Maybe those could use some improvements especially with what's going on with Steal Time occasionally going on cooldown without being casted but not being interrupted either. There's the lightning and snowball as well. Personally I like using single target rotation of Arcanist the most, so it would be ideal for me if an encounter other then Repel gets an AoE effect on Mastery. But from my experience some of the existing encounters could use some improvements in damage or cooldowns to make Arcanist a better package in general purpose (basically everything except ToMM)

    On Arbiter I think Arbiter DPS loses more in total from the Orcus changes then the changes on preview increase it (just for reference). I'd try a small decrease in divinity cost of Searing Javelin (basically for QoL I don't need it personally but probably helps many Clerics for general purpose) and increase the magnitude of Forgemaster's Flame. The variable buff of 0 - 7% from a class feature is a sound idea but it makes Cleric even more dependent on optimally managing stacks. Then if you die you not only lose the stacks you also lose the buff that comes with it.
  • admiralwarlord#3792 admiralwarlord Member Posts: 611 Arc User
    GWF pre-mod 16: 2 At Will and several Encounters Powers to switch between rotations depending on the synergy in which the group was composed. We were able to be effective in both dps aoe and single target. Even in Mod 10 where there was a big nerf the class survived being able to hold any content.

    GFW postmod 16: 1 At WIll and the most magnitude encounters of your choice. Rotations? Synergy? Even with changes to the damage formula that improved the class's single target, we would still need improvements in that regard. Now the only way we can do all the content (the only thing that interested me, yes, I don't care anymore is ToMM) is by being a Tank or a bag to be carried. This is something that makes me sad, I played to get to where the best are, I shouldn't be carried anything and everything should be possible for me by now.

    In these last 3 modules, the only challenge I had was LoMM, something that should not even be classified as a challenge, since it is very easy. There are 3 modules playing in a bored way which should be as pleasant as it once was. And apparently there is no forecast of improvements.
  • bifflincultebifflinculte Member Posts: 210 Arc User
    tenetomb said:

    For me, this is too complicated and would takes too much time to do.
    I'd better keep the actual way Directed Flames works on live and limit the spread potential of Smolder or add an internal cooldown in Smolder proc rate (like Storm spell had a while ago), or just Rework Glowing Flames because the more Smolder spreads, the more this is dealing damage.

    Don't worry, it's already the case, smolder is already heavily flanged. Try to add smolder with a critical Icy Terrain hit on a mob pack, you'll see that only one target can be hit by smolder tick at the same time.

    Now, Arcanist always has more dps than Thaumaturge in both aoe and boss fights, because Arcanist have best aoe encounter (stealtime), best passive (storm spell), best feat (nightmare wizardry for aoe), best 1-target daily (Arcane Empowerment). Thauma used to have Smolder and will lose it. Rest of spells isn't bad, but will always lay behind arcanist.
  • kolatmasterkolatmaster Member Posts: 3,111 Arc User
    edited December 2019
    @noworries#8859

    Hey bud, hope all is well this holiday season!

    Can us Warlock lovers get a clarification if the Dev team is planning on any sort of fix/passover on Creeping Death ineffectual stacking, and other mechanical bugs that prevent the class from actually doing what the effects of our abilities are supposed to do?

    They've been detailed ad nausea for Mods and Mods, so I won't rehash them in this specific post, though I am sure you know of what I'm mentioning.

    Basically, would just like an answer on if these type of things ARE being looked at for Mod 18 or ARE NOT being looked at. It will save us Warlocks a lot of time in reviewing, analyzing, griping, etc.

    Really appreciate you taking the time to answer my above inquiry, many thanks!

    PS --- You can see how serious I am about this, as I didn't use a single meme/.gif in this post... (Outside the one in my sig lulz)
    va8Ru.gif
  • tenetombtenetomb Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 113 Arc User
    > @noworries#8859 said:
    > (Quote)
    > Smolder has always been a 12 second DoT and still is. The cooldown is on Directed Flames and is per target, you can still use smolder/Directed Flames on as many different targets as you want in that 12 seconds.

    That's exactly what i am saying. When i said "if they won't be able to spread it in less than every 12 seconds" i meant on the same target, for sure ! Saying that you can still use it on different targets is pointless when we can hit them all with an Icy Terrain. If i understand correctly, each target can be affected by smolder/Directed flames every 12 seconds.
    That would be a huge nerf to Thaumaturge, except if you increase A LOT the rimefire damage !

    > @bifflinculte said:
    > (Quote)
    > Don't worry, it's already the case, smolder is already heavily flanged. Try to add smolder with a critical Icy Terrain hit on a mob pack, you'll see that only one target can be hit by smolder tick at the same time.

    Don't worry, i know that for a long time. But even like that, Glowing flames + Rimefire = 25% of your total dps. That's why i'm saying that.
Sign In or Register to comment.