Celestial set concern

nooneatza · May 2020

*this isn't a me mad "me rANt at deVs", this is me trying to give constructive feedback*

Regarding the celestial weapon set. As soon as i saw it i got scared.
Reason it's concering is that it only caters to encounter spammers like ranger, cleric(arbiter) and wizard.

As far as i know(and as it should be done) class balance is done by looking at the very top skill ceiling players. Let me explain why Celestial Set isn't so great:

The very top of the playerbase will obviously get it, they are endgamers, they aim for the trial. This means that those guys, which you follow to do balancing, will do more damage than the rest of the pleb classes that are at that skill level. So your balancing will not be really accurate in the future.

As im not good at explaining stuff, i will give a practical example:

I main a rogue, my optimal encounters for single target fights have 17.2, 14.3 and 11.2 second cooldowns, as you can see, a rogue has a very tiny window to get that Divine Fury and if my math holds, with a daily, you can only get one stack of Divine Fury per minute (it can stack to two, but a rogue will never get two).

This obviously means that a (bigger) discrepancy will be created between the encounter spammer classes (wizard, cleric, ranger) and the rest.

Possible resolutions in my nublet rogue eyes:

- Cap the number of Divine charge you can get in a certain amount of time
- Change the weapon set bonus completely to something that doesnt rely on encounter spamming
Maybe do something like old twisted weapons except with %dmg? Gain 0.5% dmg when you hit, lose a stack but gain 0.5% dmg resistance
when you get hit up to a cap ? i dont know

Also with lionheart buffs (oh yes players noticed even without patch notes !!) it doesnt make much sense for long cooldown classes to go for zariel weapons, if they will barely proc them. Think about it, what if target goes untargettable in that tiny 4second window a rogue has to refresh stacks? bam, progress lost. Whereas lionheart is based on your stamina and the 10% damage bonus should be up 90% of the time or so.

I really hope i made my point clear, if not i will edit this post in the future.

sundancewanderingwolf · May 2020

Well said my friend.
Yeah, I see your points and I do wish they'd stop doing all of their testing with only the best of the best because so many in the game suffer. Still so many can't do ToMM. I hope this trial is more doable for those who missed the Mod 17 frenzy.
I'm not good with the math but your logic sounds solid to me.
I hadn't thought about the encounters on many classes. This all makes sense and yeah they should fix. Maybe to every couple at-wills instead or something. It's going to widen the gap between many classes rather than bring them closer together.

harnrim · May 2020

I totally agree with nooneatza, cause these were my first thoughts too. Every class which can not spam encounters are at a clear disadvantage and these are all classes beside Mage, Arbiter and Hunter. So please consider changing the bonus or the ways to proc it.

wilbur626 · May 2020

Use another weapon set?

mord · May 2020

I main a Ranger and this has also got me a little worried. You said you want to use rogue as a baseline for damage... Ranger already got a nerf due to this. Making them over perform with a weapon set bonus will make you nerf them more to retain the 'balance'. Then what happens when this weapon set is obsolete? We remain nerfed for mod, or 2, or more, while you try to balance again... This isn't sustainable development in my opinion and will just cause more issues in the future.

nooneatza · May 2020

wilbur626 said:
Use another weapon set?

By your logic, the endgame rogues (and probably barbs? i don't know enough to have an opinion about their cooldowns) will just have to skip the new trial completely, or run it with the second best weapon set(Lionhearts) because the new one doesn't make much sense.

Do you honestly think the devs want the entire population of a certain class to skip a piece of endgame content and gear ?

ramesh84 · May 2020

100% with that, as long only a type of weapon is allowed the bonus should be good all around.
Situational bonuses works better if different choices are available.

theraxin · May 2020

I want to note that players cannot just "stick" with the lionheart, because the Celestial set has a higher IL, which directly affects it's base damage and it does by ~10%, so while the long CD classes might not benefit that well from it, they will be forced to change because the Lionheart would not hold up to the base of the Zariel weapon, even adjusted with the buffs or just getting the Zariel weapon buff ignored altogether.

nooneatza · May 2020

theraxin#5169 said:
I want to note that players cannot just "stick" with the lionheart, because the Celestial set has a higher IL, which directly affects it's base damage and it does by ~10%, so while the long CD classes might not benefit that well from it, they will be forced to change because the Lionheart would not hold up to the base of the Zariel weapon, even adjusted with the buffs or just getting the Zariel weapon buff ignored altogether.

Let's run some back of the napkin math

Preview stats are as follows(just taking into account the top value because it's easier to calculate, still just as relevant):

5288 dmg for lionhearts
5728 dmg for celestials

So celestials have so far over lionhearts:
An extra 440 weapon damage, or ~8.3% more
An extra 1920 power stat

Using janne's calculator, it comes out that 1920 power stat is equal to 0.8% more dmg for someone who has 200k power (not rare for someone bis or nearly bis)

This would make it so that celestials are better than lionhearts by 9.1%, just by equipping them.

But Lionheart has a set bonus that states:

Increase damage dealt and outgoing healing by up to 10% whenever your stamina is full.
Effect decreases as stamina decreases.
Decrease damage recieved by up to 10% whenever your stamina is empty.
Efect decreases as stamina increases.

If my knowledge of the game tells me anything, it's that:

A dps is pretty much all the time at full stamina when he is dpsing, and if he is not, he's DODGING so he isn't attacking.

Same way for tanks, if he is tanking he's at close to or zero stamina, if he's full he isn't tanking.

Now by this comparsion, lionhearts > celestials, this is a dumb statement bcause we haven't taken into consideration the celestial set bonus, which states:

When you use an encounter or daily power during combat, you gain a stack of Divine Charge for 15 seconds. Once you reach 10 stacks of Divine Charge, they are consumed and you are empowered with Divine Fury for 30 seconds, granting the following:
+5% Outgoing Damage
+5% outgoing Healing
You may only have 2 stacks of Divine Fury at a time.

Let us take our little rogue as an example for this now:

3 encounters, cooldowns of 17.2, 14.3, 11.2. Our rogue has to shoot off that 11.2 encounter AS IT COMES OFF COOLDOWN just for the stacks to not run out.
And if my math (so much math today) is right, a rogue can proc the set once a minute if he makes some sacrifices to his rotation, or god forbid use worse abilities than what is currently optimal.

Now i am not saying "celestial bad hurr durr buff them or players will skip", they are better than lionhearts indeed, BUT some classes will benefit a lot more from them.

Here is what i am talking about:

Wizard arcanist applies god mode and shoots off 20 ecounters in 10 seconds.
Cleric arbiter does the same if he's good at managing his divinity (or extremely lucky with rng)
Ranger...well...those guys have 4-5s cooldowns so they will proc the set alot aswell.
Rogue is stuck with his cooldowns so he'll never see the second stack of divine fury
(and again i apologize for not knowing enough abour barb and warlock to comment)

This is what i mean when i say that it will create a discrepancy between those dps classes. And as someone else pointed above the rogue is the baseline for dps. So if weapons stay like this i can only expect buffs to rogue or nerfs to the above mentioned classes.

theraxin · May 2020

nooneatza said:

theraxin#5169 said:
I want to note that players cannot just "stick" with the lionheart, because the Celestial set has a higher IL, which directly affects it's base damage and it does by ~10%, so while the long CD classes might not benefit that well from it, they will be forced to change because the Lionheart would not hold up to the base of the Zariel weapon, even adjusted with the buffs or just getting the Zariel weapon buff ignored altogether.

Let's run some back of the napkin math

Preview stats are as follows(just taking into account the top value because it's easier to calculate, still just as relevant):

5288 dmg for lionhearts
5728 dmg for celestials

So celestials have so far over lionhearts:
An extra 440 weapon damage, or ~8.3% more
An extra 1920 power stat

Using janne's calculator, it comes out that 1920 power stat is equal to 0.8% more dmg for someone who has 200k power (not rare for someone bis or nearly bis)

This would make it so that celestials are better than lionhearts by 9.1%, just by equipping them.

But Lionheart has a set bonus that states:

Increase damage dealt and outgoing healing by up to 10% whenever your stamina is full.
Effect decreases as stamina decreases.
Decrease damage recieved by up to 10% whenever your stamina is empty.
Efect decreases as stamina increases.

If my knowledge of the game tells me anything, it's that:

A dps is pretty much all the time at full stamina when he is dpsing, and if he is not, he's DODGING so he isn't attacking.

Same way for tanks, if he is tanking he's at close to or zero stamina, if he's full he isn't tanking.

Now by this comparsion, lionhearts > celestials, this is a dumb statement bcause we haven't taken into consideration the celestial set bonus, which states:

When you use an encounter or daily power during combat, you gain a stack of Divine Charge for 15 seconds. Once you reach 10 stacks of Divine Charge, they are consumed and you are empowered with Divine Fury for 30 seconds, granting the following:
+5% Outgoing Damage
+5% outgoing Healing
You may only have 2 stacks of Divine Fury at a time.

Let us take our little rogue as an example for this now:

3 encounters, cooldowns of 17.2, 14.3, 11.2. Our rogue has to shoot off that 11.2 encounter AS IT COMES OFF COOLDOWN just for the stacks to not run out.
And if my math (so much math today) is right, a rogue can proc the set once a minute if he makes some sacrifices to his rotation, or god forbid use worse abilities than what is currently optimal.

Now i am not saying "celestial bad hurr durr buff them or players will skip", they are better than lionhearts indeed, BUT some classes will benefit a lot more from them.

Here is what i am talking about:

Wizard arcanist applies god mode and shoots off 20 ecounters in 10 seconds.
Cleric arbiter does the same if he's good at managing his divinity (or extremely lucky with rng)
Ranger...well...those guys have 4-5s cooldowns so they will proc the set alot aswell.
Rogue is stuck with his cooldowns so he'll never see the second stack of divine fury
(and again i apologize for not knowing enough abour barb and warlock to comment)

This is what i mean when i say that it will create a discrepancy between those dps classes. And as someone else pointed above the rogue is the baseline for dps. So if weapons stay like this i can only expect buffs to rogue or nerfs to the above mentioned classes.

If I want to be pedant I would point out that the lionheart set bonus is not a multiplier by 10%, but an additive 10%, which has to be factored in by the same way you factored-in the base damage (dividing the new value by the old to see the relative difference it makes in overall damage ). Which if even if you only use 2 +3% rings ebony shirt +3%, batiri 4% and +7% damage from all feats and powers, makes it 130%/120%= ~8.3333 thus my general point that the Lionheart does not hold up to the Zariel, even without buffs.

On the 2. point, we agree, it will generate a huge difference between classes, which ultimately will affect balance because you cannot just skip it if it does not work for you.

thefabricant · May 2020

We mentioned we were not a fan of the set bonus in the beta, but yes, I will say it again here.

rikitaki · May 2020

The new weapon set has a different flaw: it will divide the players between "has it" - and - "does not have it".

The jump of the IL - along with the damage - is too much. There is nothing even close to that. No crafting option, the treasure hunt set is too far behind - and lionheart even further.

We know our people - there will be a small window at the beginning, but after a few weeks you will have no chance to get on a serious (not training) run of this trial without that set already in your possession.

There are many conceptional issues with the mod on preview - which will chase away many people. A single weapon with simply too high damage is one of those more serious.

tom · May 2020

rikitaki said:
The new weapon set has a different flaw: it will divide the players between "has it" - and - "does not have it".

The jump of the IL - along with the damage - is too much. There is nothing even close to that. No crafting option, the treasure hunt set is too far behind - and lionheart even further.

We know our people - there will be a small window at the beginning, but after a few weeks you will have no chance to get on a serious (not training) run of this trial without that set already in your possession.

There are many conceptional issues with the mod on preview - which will chase away many people. A single weapon with simply too high damage is one of those more serious.

lionheart is pretty close to the new set. They buffed lionhearth to be the 2cnd best set on preview.

liadan1984 · May 2020

TBH, arbiter cleric doesn't even have to be good at managing divinity...
"Ah, I'm out of divinity.. *cast one at will, tap tab and there's enough divinity for another encounter*
Not ideal. But it's like.... 3 seconds?

kors · May 2020

mord#3639 said:
I main a Ranger and this has also got me a little worried. You said you want to use rogue as a baseline for damage... Ranger already got a nerf due to this. Making them over perform with a weapon set bonus will make you nerf them more to retain the 'balance'. Then what happens when this weapon set is obsolete? We remain nerfed for mod, or 2, or more, while you try to balance again... This isn't sustainable development in my opinion and will just cause more issues in the future.

You are misreading. The OP is asking for a different set bonus, not for a nerf of Ranger class. Each class has a different playstyle and the target is to have (if comparable with stats, bonuses, etc) the same DPS output (Talking about DPS classes of course) among the classes.
The problem here is that the Celestial set bonus clearly create an advantage for classes that can spam more encounters in a short time window (more procs of set bonus -> higher bonus damage -> higher DPS output). The reason beyond changing the bonus set is to keep DPS classes balanced between them. If, let's say, a class will get advantage from the set, then class balance will be broken again and this will be the point where some classes will get nerfed or the others buffed. At the current state of the game is easier to change a set bonus than nerfing (or buffing) classes.

I hope I was clear enough in what I wrote. Cheers

gabrieldourden · May 2020

nooneatza said:

wilbur626 said:
Use another weapon set?
By your logic, the endgame rogues (and probably barbs? i don't know enough to have an opinion about their cooldowns) will just have to skip the new trial completely, or run it with the second best weapon set(Lionhearts) because the new one doesn't make much sense.

Do you honestly think the devs want the entire population of a certain class to skip a piece of endgame content and gear ?

They could add a second set with the same stats and a different bonus. Like they did in the past several times.

gabrieldourden · May 2020

tom#6998 said:

rikitaki said:
The new weapon set has a different flaw: it will divide the players between "has it" - and - "does not have it".

The jump of the IL - along with the damage - is too much. There is nothing even close to that. No crafting option, the treasure hunt set is too far behind - and lionheart even further.

We know our people - there will be a small window at the beginning, but after a few weeks you will have no chance to get on a serious (not training) run of this trial without that set already in your possession.

There are many conceptional issues with the mod on preview - which will chase away many people. A single weapon with simply too high damage is one of those more serious.
lionheart is pretty close to the new set. They buffed lionhearth to be the 2cnd best set on preview.

Blessed blades will be pretty close, if we ever discover where it is

chomp01 · June 2020

Celestrial Artifact (loot from zariel trials) can give 5% damage reduction ?
Lionhearth give 10% dmg reduction but zariel weapons give nothing so as tank we will do more dmg but we will tank less.
So for a tank who want to tank and not do dmg so lionhearth is enough and better specilly if we hold aggro in zariel so why farm this if weapons are less good for tank.

Celestial set concern

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