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Hammer of the Limp Wristed confusion
thecoat9
Member Posts: 25 Arc User
So now having had the opportunity to play with the changes from the balancing update for a while, I can say that most of the changes have overall been good for the game as a whole, and fit very well all together. The changes to Hammer of Fate however just seem silly.
First of all the cumulative damage on it seems to regularly be less than a single target hit by divine light, both divine and non divine casts. Not that I am advocating reducing the damage on DL, but if HoF was doing to much damage to be balanced, why was DL left alone? Keep in mind the ability doing less damage is a Daily vs an encounter power doing more damage.
The addition of AP gain in tandem with the damage reduction might initially be perceived as a trade off for the reduced damage, but I've come to the realization that it was put in place to mitigate the effect of it killing on the first or second hit where the full damage is not realized, and if you manage to kill with the third hit, it's icing. I take this stance because honestly the return from managing to land a killing blow with it is so lack luster, that it's just not worth trying to time it to gain all of the full benefit, especially considering that if you are holding off on using it with a full gem you are forgoing more ap generation. From a DPS perspective, you are better off just using it when the gem fills rather than holding off hoping to land a killing blow with it.
In the end while the damage reduction may have been needed in the grand scheme, it went to far, and the placebo added is and utter failure for synergy.
Or perhaps I'm just failing to grasp how this daily is intended to be used and what makes it a top level ability that you would want to put points into and use? Frankly next time I respec I'm thinking this is going to fall into the "not worth the points" category.
First of all the cumulative damage on it seems to regularly be less than a single target hit by divine light, both divine and non divine casts. Not that I am advocating reducing the damage on DL, but if HoF was doing to much damage to be balanced, why was DL left alone? Keep in mind the ability doing less damage is a Daily vs an encounter power doing more damage.
The addition of AP gain in tandem with the damage reduction might initially be perceived as a trade off for the reduced damage, but I've come to the realization that it was put in place to mitigate the effect of it killing on the first or second hit where the full damage is not realized, and if you manage to kill with the third hit, it's icing. I take this stance because honestly the return from managing to land a killing blow with it is so lack luster, that it's just not worth trying to time it to gain all of the full benefit, especially considering that if you are holding off on using it with a full gem you are forgoing more ap generation. From a DPS perspective, you are better off just using it when the gem fills rather than holding off hoping to land a killing blow with it.
In the end while the damage reduction may have been needed in the grand scheme, it went to far, and the placebo added is and utter failure for synergy.
Or perhaps I'm just failing to grasp how this daily is intended to be used and what makes it a top level ability that you would want to put points into and use? Frankly next time I respec I'm thinking this is going to fall into the "not worth the points" category.
Post edited by thecoat9 on
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Mostly I just now rely on my DA (Divine Armor).
The more discussion, the better. At the very least the dev team could share their reasoning as to why they thought the arguably least popular class with the steepest gear requirements for effective play needed any skill in their toolbox to become less useful.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Kaylee Krankenwagen, level 60 GF | Tavandruil Wayfinder, level 49 GWF | Aldith Langley, level 51 HR
I don't mean to diss on the Cryptic staff, because I really do like this game a lot. It's just that Hammer of Fate is no longer worth speccing into, and that's especially sad considering it's so far in our power tree. Let's consider that at 40 points, control wizards get Ice Knife and even my terribly geared, low-statted alt can dish out 18k+ or more with it. Meanwhile my nicely geared cleric does maybe enough damage to cost one health pot if the target's shift key jams and they can't even try to dodge. And PVP's pretty much the only place where most clerics would even use the said skill, so there's that before some troll rushes to tell me 'lol heal u **** cleric, u no deeps, i deeps, i manly and cary a big sword, grrr'.
Essentially, Hammer of Fate is in no way worth any points, especially not at 50. I get that devs don't want clerics to dish out damage for some reason, but why even give us a daily that has no other function except to pummel things gently? Because it feels like we're hurling pillows... except pillows could actually hurt in some cases, the Hammer of Fate does not.
Well said, But they did it to TR too, Unless they are using a vorpal enchant and high crit chance their shocking execution usually does less damage then a lashing blade.
Seems they are overnerfing dailies for all classes instead of buffing defense. The tooltip for shocking execution on my TR lists less damage then her lashing blade. At least ours still lists more and does marginally less if we are unlucky. They need to fix dailies for alot of different classes, however clerics seem to be hurt the most because this nerf wasn't explained no making any sense as to why it occurred. In contrast I know while they nerfed TR shocking execution (which does more damage based on missing health, the only reason why it is still even worth taking for them) was nerfed because they were 1-shoting players from full hp with it.
All classes seem to be having their dailies nerfed as people complain even if it is for no reason
They need to balance for PvE then have some skills behave differently in PvP.
Kaylee Krankenwagen, level 60 GF | Tavandruil Wayfinder, level 49 GWF | Aldith Langley, level 51 HR
And yes, anything above a lesser is by-and-large out of the reach of anyone who doesn't have the time to really put some hours in. Or some cash in.
And yes, the balancing isn't terribly well thought-out. A large part of it is tenebrous enchants, which are a stupid, stupid idea that they absolutely won't get rid of because MONEY, but they also have an odd tendency to punish all players for single players discovering synergistic feats/powers: if someone puts the hours in to theorycraft a build that does something really well, they'll pick one of the feats/powers involved, often seemingly at random, break it so the build doesn't work, call it a day and move on.
They don't seem to factor in everyone else's use of that feat/power. It's "this power is being used in a manner we didn't intend, therefore...noone should ever use this power."
I thoroughly enjoy the gameplay and see a lot of great work done by the Cryptic team, so I don't want to sound entirely negative, but any nerf to DC makes no sense at all. By trying to make sure that the class doesn't do TOO much healing and certainly not TOO much damage, they've made it so that the class shines in few areas aside from being an incredibly stubborn doorstop in PvP.
Most games try to reward the player for taking on the "Leader" role because it takes a lot of skill and situational awareness to perform well (and frequently gets you the blame if anything goes wrong), but Cryptic has yet to really empower DCs. Removing Righteousness and fixing HoF would be a start....
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
I agree. DC aren't the only ones needing nerfs rolled back though. Any TR not using a weapon enchant has a terrible 50 point daily that does less damage then lashing blade unless it crits on boss or high hp mob with alot of health gone. CW has a 50 point daily that does less damage then ice knife in an AoE and is almost never used because it's damage is pathetic. GF actually have a good 50 point daily and idk about GWF since my GWF is a lowbie still. Our 50 point daily is laughable as well, yay hammer of fail....
Dailies are supposed to be really powerful, more so then encounter powers. They need to give that back!
But since you effectively immobilize yourself while using the spell, the usefulness is still kind of limited.
^ This.
It's such a good idea I'm surprised it hasn't been implemented already, though I guess it would be a lot of work and PVPers would get upset regardless. There is at least one enchantment that has a different effect on mobs and players. The Loamweave can immobilize the attacker for three seconds if it's a mob and for one second if it's another player. I don't see why many other powers couldn't have their damage decreased/increased similarly.
Edit: I'm really sleepy, so this might not be a very coherent reply.
I hear you about the other dailies. My pet peeve CW Daily is Maelstrom because the idea behind it is great, but in practice it doesn't perform. Small PBAoE with a casting delay that does nothing to prevent targets from calmly walking out of range? It's annoying even in PvE; just forget it in PvP except for the very first time you pull it out of your hat and everyone forgets to move out of the way because they weren't expecting you to use that HAMSTER daily. Badly needs a vortex effect or at least a massive slow a la Steal Time.
I'm getting a little far off DC topics, but basically I agree that Dailies are getting gradually devalued across the board, and the HAMSTER ones are still HAMSTER. Not sure why this is the case when the devs are finally getting around to balancing powers that allowed players to gain AP at an incredible rate.
To bring it back full circle to DC dailies, maybe they could buff up Guardian of Faith a bit? I don't understand why they spend all the development time making these great animations and coding these powers that no one would want to use. At least with the CW there is only one really disadvantaged daily power. The others all have their place in different setups and builds. DC already had the useless Guardian and the barely-better-than-an-Encounter Flamestrike, and now has a significantly weaker Hammer of Fail with barely more damage than an Encounter and a virtually useless utility feature.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Basically they seem to have decided that dailies are a bad idea, and are just trying to discourage them as much as possible... :P
We'll rogues are still one shotting people so reducing the damage on shocking execution was really effective >.<
Somebody mentioned that Hammer was pointless in PVE. Depends on what you're doing would be my answer. Can be very useful in certain boss fights and It'll put out one hell of a heal when it crits.
I'm not expecting any explanation or valid reasoning for this. I know we won't even get an anser or any info but yeah it really doesn't make much sense at all. The AP regain should of been like 40% if they wanted to try and actually offset the loss of dmg. Anyways, I'm feeling like PVP is so much harder now post patch. I'm sure the lack of hammer plus having less AP and my FF healing less is really making things no more fun
O_o Is this heal coming from A Seal? I wasn't aware of any big heals coming from this daily.
The heal from A Seal is dependant on the damage that A Seal does, therefore it would have no effect on this.
The heal comes from Repurpose Soul. land an 80k hammer and 15% of that becomes an AOE heal. So you'd get a 12k aoe heal from that. More dmg = bigger heal from repurpose soul, as long as your criting of course
Sigh... I see so many clerics in pvp using useless ablities like hammer of fate or chains of blazing nothing Hammer of Fate is great for killing someone the first day they pvp.. after that... a large dorito-eating couch potato can dodge it. The only people you could kill in pvp before with hammer of fate were people who were going to die many times any way. If you were using hammer of fate in pvp more than once in a month, you are "doing it wrong."
I would tell you what abilities are good in pvp... but i will leave that for everyone to discover for themselves, as i don
I took the liberty of boiling this post down to the most constructive part. The fact that it's so well telegraphed is a major argument for not nerfing its damage. It was already difficult enough to use to maximum effect.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Nice I never even noticed or thought about that, probably because even pre-nerf Hammer wasn't something I used often where the heal could be realized simply because In groups I've always viewed it as more of a superiority use daily, ie when it's not challenging at all. In the event myself or teammates needed health, other dailies would generally have been my goto.
You just haven't yet learned how to use it correctly, I'd clue you in but I'll leave you to discover that for yourself.
In PvP, in PvE it's not so much useful, my lashing blade regularly does at least 3x the damage of my shocking execution, unless it's an almost dead boss or elite, then it might do more damage then my lashing blade, if and only if it crits.
They have been balancing for PvP when they need to balance for PvP and then make some skills (like shocking execution) act differently in PvP.
They have been overnerfing dailies across the board, just like they nerfed our HoF.
Absolutely. But the thing is, there are some powers that appear to specifically be useful for PvP only or PvE only. Since we can only ever slot a few at a time, this makes some sense to "balance" things this way. But obviously some powers are good in both places. I had already given up on PvP before the Hammer nerf, but when I was naive enough to try and still then when I was gullible enough to believe some posts on the forum that it's possible to be good at it... the Hammer was the one thing that might let me get in a kill. Now it's a total joke. The best strategy is to focus on applying DoT's, but mainly using Prophecy of Doom. Even when you die, it will still time down and blow up. It hits reasonably hard so it's possible you might steal the kill from the poor sap that softened up whoever just killed you and get the kill from the graveyard. But we shouldn't mention that too loudly or I am sure it will get hotfixed.
PvP needs to be overhauled. Some kind of flat nerf to damage, across the board. Maybe everyone just does half damage. Then tactics matter more that burst. You could do more complicated things. Maybe some mechanic where the most damage you can take from a single hit is 25% of your health. Some type of diminishing returns on control powers, so you can't be chain-CC'd. Maybe after so many, you get temporary immunity. Maybe you get a chance to resist. Maybe they get decreased durations.
If you felt like the Daily powers were too strong, nerf them flat out. If they did something like reduce the damage from ALL Daily powers in PvP by 40%, fine. Maybe balance it by making AP gain twice as fast in PvP zones. You get more Daily powers but they don't hit as hard.
Maybe you add some PvP specific effects to certain class features.
There are dozens of things they could do to make it better. Nerfing everyone's Daily powers was not on anyone's list, I don't think.
It seems like there are some kind of limitations on the programming side of things. I don't know if it's the system, the skill of the programmers, the management, or what, but there are bugs that exist (that still haven't been fixed!) that any single professional programmer should have easily caught, let what I assume is a small team with at least one person devoted to testing. Whatever the issue, it is surely hurting the bottom-line which is sales.
I find myself looking at Neverwinter on paper and thinking, "Wow, this game is awesome." The action style, the DnD/FR franchise, the graphics, the gateway, the foundry, the PvP events (GG), the free-to-play model... but in practice, all of those things either turn out wrong or are crippled in such a way that they're pointless. I do like the Campaign stuff added in Feywild, but for the life of me, I can't get myself excited enough to grind anything. The new armor and weapons are useless since ArmorPen doesn't work for most of our powers. The boons add stats. Really? Anyone at end-game is going to be soft-capped. Adding more stats is kinda stupid. Why not add percentage bonuses or even Ability Score bonuses? (+1% Damage Resist/+2 AC or +1% Damage/+1 Wis, +1% Deflect/+1 Dex or +1% Critical chance/+1 Str, etc.)
I actually forget why I like this game sometimes, and then I see someone run by on a giant pig and think, Oh... my... god, I MUST have that. And then five seconds later, I realize I am close to hating this game and just log out after praying.