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State of Module 5 PvP "ELO" and Class Balance
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State of Module 5 PvP “ELO” and Class Balance
Introduction: In all respects, this must be the most balanced PvP in-game since pre-tenacity. Now with that being said, there are still some things that need to be addressed, and points that need to be brought back into light.
Disclaimer: All points, criticisms, and observations are made with “Best in slot, max potential, best skill level of each class, some of these results will not be reproduced without max gear or adequate skill level. In-extension, the author will not respond to ANY comments that concerns the lower tier PvP bracket. Each class breakdown is done with the advice of a top level player of that class as well as some outside criticisms by the author. Coming from the mouth of an “End Game Player”. This is Module 5 PvP.
Class breakdown (We’ll go in Rainbow order this time):
Great Weapon Fighter: Let’s start off by saying that I am completely happy with the damage output that this class has to offer; however the way it does it is irrational, unengaging, and unfair in some cases. The current “Flavor of the Month” GWF build involves the following:
Intimidation - This feat is indeed very useful for PvE, and I have a proposed solution to make it equally as beneficial while taking away it’s incredible impact on PvP-which is due to the powers it employs-and still make it a viable PvE skill. Firstly, remove its dependency on power and make it so that it’s affected by the amount of targets within a certain range, i.e A lot of monsters = a lot of damage. This solution will allow GWF’s to stack other stats as opposed to giving up all their defensive stats to stack Power
Come and Get it - This issue ties into the first, but let me start by saying I’m not worried about the damage it puts off, but more so the lack of visual tell, and it’s casting speed. Speaking on behalf of the TR class, a well played GWF can 100% guarantee a CAGI hit on a TR the minute he see’s them dodge roll, this is attributed to the fact that the time it takes a tr to dodge roll one after the other is far too long and CAGI’s casting time and range can easily be slotted into the time slot, while also having no visual tell to “Reaction Dodge” it.
Take Down - The once signature move of the GWF has been made borderline useless, to put things simply, the prone NEEDS to be reinstated. With this power being borderline useless, GWF’s are being roped into the Intimidation build with no clear alternative.
Overall Changes: Some fundamental changes to the class to give it more diversity and build structure:
Feat Tree Diversity: Currently, the 3 tree’s for GWF do as follows:
Instigator: Get hit first, then do a ton of damage!
Destroyer: Hit someone a couple times, then do a ton of Damage!
Sentinel: Do a ton of AoE damage without being a tank, or just be a almost useless tank that will live a lot longer.
These tree’s should be amended as follows:
Instigator: This tree has some interesting feats pertaining to movement speed which gave me a decent idea; keep the tree’s current damage, but incorporate a few feats that will drastically slow enemies, maybe sap stamina, and turn it into a more team friendly class on account of the new added Control.
Destroyer: In a world where Takedown’s prone was restored, all that would need to be done to this tree was to add more power to make it 10-20% stronger than instigator damage wise, and this tree would be sitting pretty.
Sentinel: In a world where the proposed intimidation changes take effect, restore the feat “unstoppable recovery” so that it becomes much stronger, but move it deeper inside the tree so that it would become inaccessible to other trees, turning this tree into a really good tank with moderate damage.
Shift Sprint Changes: With unstoppable recovery being made inaccessible to certain trees, Sprint needs to become a much faster animation so that it’s possible to react with sprint as a means of being immune to control powers if you react quick enough.
Determination Gain Changes: If the above changes were to be implemented, determination might need to be gained a bit faster in order to keep up with the ever increasing damage of other class’s. Guage the increase moderately and appropriately.
Current known Bugs:
Takedowns prone register’s that it hits you at the beginning of the animation, even though you don't actually get proned till the end of the animation, this is frustrating for classes because you can be half way across the map “Due to marauders, deft strike, or basic run speed, and still get proned by takedown with the gwf standing a good full node away. If this is implemented, the animation will need to be sped up a tad.
Indomitable Strength - You can dodge the first hit, but still get hit by the second hit.
Avalanche of Steel leaves the GWF apparently invisible for a good portion of time after the daily ends
Sprint animation is still bugged.
If you animation cancel FLS, or CAGI, the Control affect still applies without cooldown, but without damage.
Should these changes be implemented, I believe the Great Weapon Fighter Class would take a bit more skill but be a lot more fun to play while also not being a sitting duck 1v1 in a “Best in Slot” match, in addition, the new game mechanic of severe slows and stamina sapping abilities would truly, and finally set this class apart from the GF and give both classes a stronger Identity in a match.]
Guardian Fighter: Lets start off with an obvious fact, a Protector Guardian Fighter is an invaluable asset to a team, however many Guardian fighters are currently complaining about a lack of fundamental utility, and a lot of USELESS feats, such as the temporary hit point based buffs found inside the conqueror tree and replaced with more damage or utility.
There really isn’t a lot of criticism one can place about this class’s potential other than the fact that, “unless you're a protector spec, you are useless for an “End Game” Premade.” Unfortunately, this commonly voiced concern hits the nail on the head. Much like the GWF Class there are a couple changes that should be implemented to improve the QoL of this class as well as it’s angle of use in an endgame premade. For starters:
Conqueror - as stated before, the temporary hit point feats are useless in a PvP match, the buff which rarely applies, but even when it does, can only be applied every once in a while is pretty much a waste. if these Feats were amended so that supplied more damage bonus, the conqueror would then be able to compete in end level games as Damage dealer and node clearer.
Protector - This spec is pretty balanced for what it does and how it can help a premade team; although many GF’s will often complain that it is a boring playstyle. Guarded assault needs to return more damage per hit, with current Defense level, the return off guarded assault typically equals zero.
Tactician - (Does this tree even still exist? I don’t know any GF who specs into it) This tree definitely needs some love. I presume that the original intention behind this tree was to be the ultimate utility tool for a team. Unfortunately, it fell supremely short. I personally suggest buff’s to the buffs this tree gives the rest of the team as well as some feats geared towards extra control time. This will further allow teammates to do the big damage while the tactician keeps them safe with some extra control. In addition, the capstone needs to be fixed.
Anvil of Doom - To make a long story short, needs a slightly better hit box. This encounter misses more than a blind man at a shooting range.
Griffin's Wrath - An average of 12 seconds to recharge 1 charge? That is way too excessive.
Guarded Assault - as mentioned before it’s return damage is so low, that the majority of reflected hit’s come up as zero damage.
Front Line Surge - Speaking for the Guardian Fighter Class ONLY, this paragon power NEEDS to prone again. Even if it doesn't prone all 5 targets, maybe it should prone the first person it hits and stun the rest?
Current Known Bugs: Fortunately, the late GF advocate (Who resigned for reasons I won’t publicly discuss) was doing his job and collecting a lot of bugs about his class, you can
find these all highlighted in red on this forum
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?772161-GF-Class-Advocate-Feedback
Should these changes be implemented to GF, I’m pretty certain the GF population will be a lot happier while also having multiple build choices that could positively affect a Best in Slot Premade match.
Devoted Cleric: Let me start off by saying, Bravo, I can’t think of a way to make this class more fair, or find a way to make it fit better in a Premade then what its impact is right now; However there are still many bugs that need to be fixed and some points that need to be addressed.
Virtuous - Beautifully crafted HoT tree with a lot of potential, however it seems to be out performed by faithful in PvP (Although I’m not sure how this compares in PvE) and the only thing major about this tree that might be a bit out of line is the way “Purity” can sometimes proc for over 20k.
Faithful - Again, Great Job, truly the tree needed for the current burst damage in PvP. The only bug I know is that the Capstone isn’t affected by Healing Depression, In addition it seems to build separately on each person, I’m not sure if thats WAI. In addition, it currently builds higher than the DC’s Max HP, which I know they meant to adjust. However, when the capstone reach’s full, I strongly suggest the 25% debuff to heals be removed once the capstone is full.
Righteous - A very nice addition to our solo queing DC community, my only criticism is that I wish the damage was implemented in the form of something that wasn’t an unremovable 2-3k Dot that ticks every second. As for it’s premade potential, it kinda stands in the same position as a conqueror GF in this current NW Build.
Empowered also should receive some better visual tells for those abilities for the DC and the enemy; I suggest turning the visuals of empowered powers to a form of neon green, i.e Green Astral Shield, Green Healing word, Etc.
Current Known Bugs:
Sunburst: Needs to respect CC immunity; this is currently destroying GF’s.
Faithful Capstone: Needs to respect Healing Depression
Burning Guidance: Breaks the game with Lag
As I stated before, the DC is in a beautiful spot and doesn't need to be adjusted much at all, just a few simple bug fixes.
Hunter Ranger: Very glad to see this class brought back down to earth. In all honesty, the class is sitting in a pretty good position all though I do have some personal criticisms that would make the class more fun to play without really affecting its Level of contribution to a best in slot match; in which it definitely has a spot. Let it be known, I am very pro-range in the path the Hunter Ranger class to take. I find the Combat tree unentertaining and too overbearing for a class that is supposed to do most of its damage with the bow.
Archery - What was once the best tree for PvP has now been made into a glass cannon without any time to fire the cannon balls. To say the least, it dies before it can do any serious range damage. This tree has little to no person survival which is not viable in current PvP. In addition, its range damage falls short to the damage output that the combat tree can do in melee range, and has far less survivability. My suggestion is to bring back a lot of the cooldown reduction and crit stacking.
Combat - Currently sitting at the top as the best PvP feat tree, this ranger paragon path makes it so that the hunter ranger rarely has to touch his bow in order to do damage. I believe this is a mockery to what a bow wielding class should be able to do. With that being said, it’s aptitude for damage with it’s lifesteal qualities are very unique features and the class currently sits really well in it’s ability to 1v1 Most classes and do very decent damage in 2v2 scenarios. It’s impact on an End Game PvP match is right where it needs to be, however I truly hate the means and application.
Trapper - Number two in its impact to a premade of the three HR trees. This tree is by far my favorite one to play at the moment, it’s dynamic, forces you to use both sides of your tab (Instead of just melee) and has a lot of fun CC, I truly hope someone comes up with a way to make trapper more viable than combat.
Constricting Arrow - The day they removed the three-stun-effect of this ability, the HR class lost an amazing encounter, and I for one would love to see it restored. With the three stun effect a GOOD had the opportunity to keep a person locked down with CC and use a truly engaging encounter rotation that called for using both sides; melee and archery stance.
Roots in General - I’ve said it twice already, and I’ll continue saying it until I’m blue in the face. Roots need to be re-released to the way they were when the hunter ranger first went live. Sure it ignored CC immunity, but the fact of the matter was that it was a healthy and counterable game mechanic. With the old roots, the HR’s utility to a team was far more than what it is now. As a compromise, program the old roots so that they break with CC breaks, but not the CC immunity associated with sprints and dodges, i.e, Unstoppable, ITC, and CC break artifacts will break them accordingly.
Fox Shift - Perfectly okay with it’s damage, and it’s CC immunity, however a large part of the community is very disgruntled with it’s excessive range and it’s Damage Immunity during the course of the encounter.
Marauders Rush - I personally suggest CC immunity during the effect's of this power (although I have a feeling that it might get out of hand), Nevertheless, it needs to be tried.
Current Known Bugs:
As far as I know, there aren’t any MAJOR bugs with this class other than the ability to shift out of the control of certain encounters, but still get whacked with all the damage, and vise versa. I know this is a lack of knowledge on my part, but I’m pretty sure some posters will be glad to further advise me.
Should these changes go through, I’m confident you will see a vast improvement in the skill level of most HR’s and the overall fun of the class would improve drastically. #CanIusemybownow?
WARNING
The next class is my main class and I do have a certain standard that I hold all TR’s to. This is generally considered an extremist view, and in addition people sometimes find me biased towards my own class; however I always try my best to make my class as far as possible based on what demand the team puts on TR and what the classes’ responsibilities entail.
Introduction: In all respects, this must be the most balanced PvP in-game since pre-tenacity. Now with that being said, there are still some things that need to be addressed, and points that need to be brought back into light.
Disclaimer: All points, criticisms, and observations are made with “Best in slot, max potential, best skill level of each class, some of these results will not be reproduced without max gear or adequate skill level. In-extension, the author will not respond to ANY comments that concerns the lower tier PvP bracket. Each class breakdown is done with the advice of a top level player of that class as well as some outside criticisms by the author. Coming from the mouth of an “End Game Player”. This is Module 5 PvP.
Class breakdown (We’ll go in Rainbow order this time):
Great Weapon Fighter: Let’s start off by saying that I am completely happy with the damage output that this class has to offer; however the way it does it is irrational, unengaging, and unfair in some cases. The current “Flavor of the Month” GWF build involves the following:
Intimidation - This feat is indeed very useful for PvE, and I have a proposed solution to make it equally as beneficial while taking away it’s incredible impact on PvP-which is due to the powers it employs-and still make it a viable PvE skill. Firstly, remove its dependency on power and make it so that it’s affected by the amount of targets within a certain range, i.e A lot of monsters = a lot of damage. This solution will allow GWF’s to stack other stats as opposed to giving up all their defensive stats to stack Power
Come and Get it - This issue ties into the first, but let me start by saying I’m not worried about the damage it puts off, but more so the lack of visual tell, and it’s casting speed. Speaking on behalf of the TR class, a well played GWF can 100% guarantee a CAGI hit on a TR the minute he see’s them dodge roll, this is attributed to the fact that the time it takes a tr to dodge roll one after the other is far too long and CAGI’s casting time and range can easily be slotted into the time slot, while also having no visual tell to “Reaction Dodge” it.
Take Down - The once signature move of the GWF has been made borderline useless, to put things simply, the prone NEEDS to be reinstated. With this power being borderline useless, GWF’s are being roped into the Intimidation build with no clear alternative.
Overall Changes: Some fundamental changes to the class to give it more diversity and build structure:
Feat Tree Diversity: Currently, the 3 tree’s for GWF do as follows:
Instigator: Get hit first, then do a ton of damage!
Destroyer: Hit someone a couple times, then do a ton of Damage!
Sentinel: Do a ton of AoE damage without being a tank, or just be a almost useless tank that will live a lot longer.
These tree’s should be amended as follows:
Instigator: This tree has some interesting feats pertaining to movement speed which gave me a decent idea; keep the tree’s current damage, but incorporate a few feats that will drastically slow enemies, maybe sap stamina, and turn it into a more team friendly class on account of the new added Control.
Destroyer: In a world where Takedown’s prone was restored, all that would need to be done to this tree was to add more power to make it 10-20% stronger than instigator damage wise, and this tree would be sitting pretty.
Sentinel: In a world where the proposed intimidation changes take effect, restore the feat “unstoppable recovery” so that it becomes much stronger, but move it deeper inside the tree so that it would become inaccessible to other trees, turning this tree into a really good tank with moderate damage.
Shift Sprint Changes: With unstoppable recovery being made inaccessible to certain trees, Sprint needs to become a much faster animation so that it’s possible to react with sprint as a means of being immune to control powers if you react quick enough.
Determination Gain Changes: If the above changes were to be implemented, determination might need to be gained a bit faster in order to keep up with the ever increasing damage of other class’s. Guage the increase moderately and appropriately.
Current known Bugs:
Takedowns prone register’s that it hits you at the beginning of the animation, even though you don't actually get proned till the end of the animation, this is frustrating for classes because you can be half way across the map “Due to marauders, deft strike, or basic run speed, and still get proned by takedown with the gwf standing a good full node away. If this is implemented, the animation will need to be sped up a tad.
Indomitable Strength - You can dodge the first hit, but still get hit by the second hit.
Avalanche of Steel leaves the GWF apparently invisible for a good portion of time after the daily ends
Sprint animation is still bugged.
If you animation cancel FLS, or CAGI, the Control affect still applies without cooldown, but without damage.
Should these changes be implemented, I believe the Great Weapon Fighter Class would take a bit more skill but be a lot more fun to play while also not being a sitting duck 1v1 in a “Best in Slot” match, in addition, the new game mechanic of severe slows and stamina sapping abilities would truly, and finally set this class apart from the GF and give both classes a stronger Identity in a match.]
Guardian Fighter: Lets start off with an obvious fact, a Protector Guardian Fighter is an invaluable asset to a team, however many Guardian fighters are currently complaining about a lack of fundamental utility, and a lot of USELESS feats, such as the temporary hit point based buffs found inside the conqueror tree and replaced with more damage or utility.
There really isn’t a lot of criticism one can place about this class’s potential other than the fact that, “unless you're a protector spec, you are useless for an “End Game” Premade.” Unfortunately, this commonly voiced concern hits the nail on the head. Much like the GWF Class there are a couple changes that should be implemented to improve the QoL of this class as well as it’s angle of use in an endgame premade. For starters:
Conqueror - as stated before, the temporary hit point feats are useless in a PvP match, the buff which rarely applies, but even when it does, can only be applied every once in a while is pretty much a waste. if these Feats were amended so that supplied more damage bonus, the conqueror would then be able to compete in end level games as Damage dealer and node clearer.
Protector - This spec is pretty balanced for what it does and how it can help a premade team; although many GF’s will often complain that it is a boring playstyle. Guarded assault needs to return more damage per hit, with current Defense level, the return off guarded assault typically equals zero.
Tactician - (Does this tree even still exist? I don’t know any GF who specs into it) This tree definitely needs some love. I presume that the original intention behind this tree was to be the ultimate utility tool for a team. Unfortunately, it fell supremely short. I personally suggest buff’s to the buffs this tree gives the rest of the team as well as some feats geared towards extra control time. This will further allow teammates to do the big damage while the tactician keeps them safe with some extra control. In addition, the capstone needs to be fixed.
Anvil of Doom - To make a long story short, needs a slightly better hit box. This encounter misses more than a blind man at a shooting range.
Griffin's Wrath - An average of 12 seconds to recharge 1 charge? That is way too excessive.
Guarded Assault - as mentioned before it’s return damage is so low, that the majority of reflected hit’s come up as zero damage.
Front Line Surge - Speaking for the Guardian Fighter Class ONLY, this paragon power NEEDS to prone again. Even if it doesn't prone all 5 targets, maybe it should prone the first person it hits and stun the rest?
Current Known Bugs: Fortunately, the late GF advocate (Who resigned for reasons I won’t publicly discuss) was doing his job and collecting a lot of bugs about his class, you can
find these all highlighted in red on this forum
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?772161-GF-Class-Advocate-Feedback
Should these changes be implemented to GF, I’m pretty certain the GF population will be a lot happier while also having multiple build choices that could positively affect a Best in Slot Premade match.
Devoted Cleric: Let me start off by saying, Bravo, I can’t think of a way to make this class more fair, or find a way to make it fit better in a Premade then what its impact is right now; However there are still many bugs that need to be fixed and some points that need to be addressed.
Virtuous - Beautifully crafted HoT tree with a lot of potential, however it seems to be out performed by faithful in PvP (Although I’m not sure how this compares in PvE) and the only thing major about this tree that might be a bit out of line is the way “Purity” can sometimes proc for over 20k.
Faithful - Again, Great Job, truly the tree needed for the current burst damage in PvP. The only bug I know is that the Capstone isn’t affected by Healing Depression, In addition it seems to build separately on each person, I’m not sure if thats WAI. In addition, it currently builds higher than the DC’s Max HP, which I know they meant to adjust. However, when the capstone reach’s full, I strongly suggest the 25% debuff to heals be removed once the capstone is full.
Righteous - A very nice addition to our solo queing DC community, my only criticism is that I wish the damage was implemented in the form of something that wasn’t an unremovable 2-3k Dot that ticks every second. As for it’s premade potential, it kinda stands in the same position as a conqueror GF in this current NW Build.
Empowered also should receive some better visual tells for those abilities for the DC and the enemy; I suggest turning the visuals of empowered powers to a form of neon green, i.e Green Astral Shield, Green Healing word, Etc.
Current Known Bugs:
Sunburst: Needs to respect CC immunity; this is currently destroying GF’s.
Faithful Capstone: Needs to respect Healing Depression
Burning Guidance: Breaks the game with Lag
As I stated before, the DC is in a beautiful spot and doesn't need to be adjusted much at all, just a few simple bug fixes.
Hunter Ranger: Very glad to see this class brought back down to earth. In all honesty, the class is sitting in a pretty good position all though I do have some personal criticisms that would make the class more fun to play without really affecting its Level of contribution to a best in slot match; in which it definitely has a spot. Let it be known, I am very pro-range in the path the Hunter Ranger class to take. I find the Combat tree unentertaining and too overbearing for a class that is supposed to do most of its damage with the bow.
Archery - What was once the best tree for PvP has now been made into a glass cannon without any time to fire the cannon balls. To say the least, it dies before it can do any serious range damage. This tree has little to no person survival which is not viable in current PvP. In addition, its range damage falls short to the damage output that the combat tree can do in melee range, and has far less survivability. My suggestion is to bring back a lot of the cooldown reduction and crit stacking.
Combat - Currently sitting at the top as the best PvP feat tree, this ranger paragon path makes it so that the hunter ranger rarely has to touch his bow in order to do damage. I believe this is a mockery to what a bow wielding class should be able to do. With that being said, it’s aptitude for damage with it’s lifesteal qualities are very unique features and the class currently sits really well in it’s ability to 1v1 Most classes and do very decent damage in 2v2 scenarios. It’s impact on an End Game PvP match is right where it needs to be, however I truly hate the means and application.
Trapper - Number two in its impact to a premade of the three HR trees. This tree is by far my favorite one to play at the moment, it’s dynamic, forces you to use both sides of your tab (Instead of just melee) and has a lot of fun CC, I truly hope someone comes up with a way to make trapper more viable than combat.
Constricting Arrow - The day they removed the three-stun-effect of this ability, the HR class lost an amazing encounter, and I for one would love to see it restored. With the three stun effect a GOOD had the opportunity to keep a person locked down with CC and use a truly engaging encounter rotation that called for using both sides; melee and archery stance.
Roots in General - I’ve said it twice already, and I’ll continue saying it until I’m blue in the face. Roots need to be re-released to the way they were when the hunter ranger first went live. Sure it ignored CC immunity, but the fact of the matter was that it was a healthy and counterable game mechanic. With the old roots, the HR’s utility to a team was far more than what it is now. As a compromise, program the old roots so that they break with CC breaks, but not the CC immunity associated with sprints and dodges, i.e, Unstoppable, ITC, and CC break artifacts will break them accordingly.
Fox Shift - Perfectly okay with it’s damage, and it’s CC immunity, however a large part of the community is very disgruntled with it’s excessive range and it’s Damage Immunity during the course of the encounter.
Marauders Rush - I personally suggest CC immunity during the effect's of this power (although I have a feeling that it might get out of hand), Nevertheless, it needs to be tried.
Current Known Bugs:
As far as I know, there aren’t any MAJOR bugs with this class other than the ability to shift out of the control of certain encounters, but still get whacked with all the damage, and vise versa. I know this is a lack of knowledge on my part, but I’m pretty sure some posters will be glad to further advise me.
Should these changes go through, I’m confident you will see a vast improvement in the skill level of most HR’s and the overall fun of the class would improve drastically. #CanIusemybownow?
WARNING
The next class is my main class and I do have a certain standard that I hold all TR’s to. This is generally considered an extremist view, and in addition people sometimes find me biased towards my own class; however I always try my best to make my class as far as possible based on what demand the team puts on TR and what the classes’ responsibilities entail.
DERSIDIUS
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Saboteur - I haven’t had this much fun playing TR since the initial tenacity nerf, the utility and damage this tree can bring is exceptional and I hope they never change its capstone. With that being said, there are some things that could be toned back and we’ll get to that later on.
Scoundrel - Really cool utility tree, however they need to make it so that if a power normally has a daze, it can’t proc Concussive strike, also the damage needs to be brought up to par with Saboteur.
Executioner - As far as the feats go, I believe they are spot in on what a damage dealer needs to be able to do, However I feel like the capstone might need to last 6 seconds in order to fit in enough damage to make it worth it.
Bloodbath - Needs a damage nerf, at the moment Bloodbath can clear an entire bar of each HP, and then some when everyone has Max gear, I suggest 30% base damage nerf; however, I’m a bit scared to do this because at the moment, the Team demands TR to back cap and fight 1v2 the whole match, with that in mind, I strongly believe TR needs to be able to pressure the back cap or else multiple bad things will happen for the QoL of a team as a whole. I’ll explain those in greater depth later on.
Gloaming Cut - This at-will gets a lot of flak about doing too much damage, but I believe it’s learning curve thing more then anything. The fact of the matter is this, Gloaming Cut leaves the TR completely open to retaliation which could spell certain doom if it happens to be CC, and with the pending Bloodbath Nerf (Come on we know it will happen) should GC and BB be nerfed together, the amount of pressure the TR can apply to a node will zero out, at which point, running in circles becomes the game again.
Shadowy Opportunity - This feat is essentially the equivalent of the HR piercing blade, a moderate nerf might need to occur.
Bait & Switch (Fun Suggestion) - Bait & Switch currently exists a very useless form for PvP, other than it’s typical purpose to run around in circles. To make the encounter more useful, I suggest turning it into an AoE bomb if destroyed that would do 4-5K damage with Max gear, adding this to the encounter would actually make it feasible to use its half dodge mechanic
Impact Shot - Remove the 3 charge debuff effect.
Disheartening Strike - This at-will has an excessive amount of damage that I’ve been able to stack to 10K per tick on the DoT, resulting in over 100k damage.
Current Known Bugs:
Impossible to Catch - This bug has existed since beta and has gotten progressively worse with every module that passes by. It has progressed to the point where the encounter will not activate and cycle a cooldown out of no where for zero reason, this occurs a lot more when any form of CC or damage
Shadow Strike - This Encounter will bug out and cycle a cooldown without activation if the target steps out of range during the animation.
Scoundrel Tree Capstone: Bugged so that scoundrels have an additional 25% movement speed, I'm not even sure where this was implmented
Should these changes be implemented, the QoL of TR would improve drastically, in addition with scoundrel being made more useful in a Premade. This will result in more choices for the TR to go down, without being forced into 1 real build for BiS matches.
Control Wizard: I’ll start off with a simple statement that is felt by all PvP CW’s(Personal Reactions May Vary) Ever since they nerfed Shard of Endless Avalanche (Arguably the most fun mechanic to ever exist in the game) I never wanted to touch my CW ever again. With my personal bias set aside, here’s the current situation of CW:
Oppressor: The concept behind this tree is really nice, but the actual additional control is small and useless with the lack of damage it has compared to other trees. I suggest a moderate damage buff and more control time
Thaumaturge: Last module I couldn’t stop complaining about assailant force, in all honesty, it should have never existed. Adding damage in the form of a flat damage is a big no when it comes to class balance. The damage should’ve been added by making Shard of the Endless Avalanche viable again. With last module aside, this module I’d almost say Thaumu needs a damage buff, but I really hate the concept behind assailant force; but fair, is fair, and this tree needs to be able to compete with the new renegade.
Renegade: The new found utility this tree has is greatly welcome, and I’ve fallen in love with it’s ability to heal itself, my only suggestion is to bring back Shard of the Endless Avalanche.
Shard of the Endless Avalanche - Especially with the new damage that TR/DC/SW/GWF can do in PVE, Shard of the Endless Avalanche needs to have a glorious return with damage or else CW’s will just continue to be smoked in PvE Dungeons. Now in concern to PvP, I believe a full boulder rotation, with the use of other Encounters should in fact Soulforge a Squishy target like TR/CW/SW and in some cases HR if the whole rotation lands (this needs at least a 100% Damage buff per hit). Please, bring back the games best mechanic.
Shield - I’m aware that its the “go to” spell for all the players now, but in all honesty it’s a waste of the spell mastery slot. To further up on that point, the PvP armor set bonus for CW doesn't even benefit shield on tab. In my opinion, the shield should’ve never gotten as strong as it is now, in fact the shields DR is what made TR’s completely useless last module.
Current Known Bugs:
Chilling Advantage - Doesn't work at all
Shard of Endless Avalanche - Disappears upon control affect on caster
Author Swap
Co-Author: @Demoniceinstien
In this section I will, to the best of my knowledge and experience, outline where the
Scourge Warlock could use some minor tweaks in PvP only. One of the current struggles
late game Warlocks must deal with is casting times and organized PvP for a few reasons (to
be detailed later). I will remain impartial with my critique and aim to help the Warlock
player base as a whole.
Scourge Warlock: Alongside the release of this class came high hopes of many players looking for a new taste. With the progression to 60 and debut of new powers this class showed that it could bring a new style of play to PvE and PvP. While the class’s capabilities shine in PvE, they fall short in PvP. Of the first paragon pathway came a unique feature that allowed every critical to instantly gain combat advantage. This immediately screamed DPS DPS DPS. The next paragon showed that it offered more survivability with the sacrifice of dps. In spite of the paragon differences, with some small changes, both should be viable in PvP.
Here I will outline my opinion on the
paragon feats and most of the
skills I see useful or could be more useful.
Fury: This pathway offers numbers upon numbers of damage at the expense of movement. It provides small numbers of damage here and there as additional damage that all add up. While the Warlock may be overlooked this pathway is not to be discarded.
Damnation: This pathway offers a different type of combat. Unfortunately it is not a very popular one due to its reliability upon a non-controllable AI. I have tried it myself and I lost both Damage AND Mobility.
Temptation: This pathway seems, by far, the most versatile. While it allows you to passively aid your party, you are also constantly about to evade some attacks. This pathway bring moderate damage, high overall (party included) healing, and almost limitless mobility.
Harrowstorm: Being able to activate the prone of this skill at any time is a great feature to this skill” however, the cast time is devastating in most cases. Due to the nearly instant CC effects from classes like Hunter Ranger and Control Wizard, this skill in uncastable in all 1v1 scenarios unless Warlock gets first hit. This skill has a good effect to it but would be more useful if its initial cast time was shortened.
Infernal Spheres: The damage from this skill is fairly low to point where it can be completely negated. Beyond that there is not much use for this skill. *Thought: Due to the relatively few amounts of CC the Warlock has, the spheres could also act as an interrupt. In this instance the final OR first hit only would act as an interrupt to that target.
Dreadtheft: To many this skill has lost its luster in pvp but still has benefits. It is a tactical skill to use in specific situations. *Thought: Dreadtheft has two skill choices. One is damage focused and one is control focused. The damage focused one remains as is. The control one does 50% of the original damage and additionally pushes affected target(s) 5 feet per second. If the warlock is controlled or interrupted during its duration all targets within 30’ get hit with combustion which pushes them 20’ and expends the remainder of the damage. If the Warlock cancels the attack early with sprint, no effect occurs.
Wraith’s Shadow: This skill has a nice Damage over Time to it but also is hard to hit a target with. In most cases, if the Warlock is focused, there is no chance to initial cast is going to activate. I believe this skill effect is where it should be, but the initial cast could be sped up a bit.
Warlock’s Bargain: As far as I can tell this seems to be the fan favorite. The only minor issue with skill is the backlash that comes with it. In end game pvp settings running a Warlock with 60,000 health (achievable) Suffers from this skill. With one single cast you already put yourself at a disadvantage by giving up 9,000 health. To make this more friendly in PvP this skill would be more viable for every situation if its self damaging mechanics acted like healing depression where instead of sacrificing 15% of your life to cast, you only sacrifice 7.5%. The damage redirect of this skill is not noticeable.
Soul Scorch: This is is useful in PvP no doubt, but it is also easily interruptible. With some of my earlier mentions i'm trying not to be repetitive here, but this skill would benefit from a cast-time increase.
Shadowwalk: This skill is very handy when it comes to sprinting but other than that it has no function. The base movement speed of the Warlock could use and increase. *Thought: Along with the 10, 20, 30% while sprinting and could also ad 3, 6, 9% base movement speed.
Eldritch Momentum: This feature is very useful, in PvP. Having it at the 4th Tier of Temptation makes it hard for the Warlock to have a versatile build. Without this feature I basically always feel backed into a corner. *Thought: Switch the 2nd Tier feature Compounded Soul with Eldritch Momentum.
Hopestealer: This feature basically says here have 600 more lifesteal when you already have 3200. With the Warlocks gear every character easily passes the lifesteal softcap. *Thought: Rework: While affected by a control power take 5, 10, 15, 20, 25% less damage from all sources.
Current Bug:
Dust to Dust: does not generate Action Points when being healed by
soul sparks.
Class feature use: Snuff out: generate 1 soul spark when an enemy within 30’ of
you dies every 3 seconds (at max tier). *Thought: Daze all enemies within 30’
when a target dies for 3 seconds (1 second on players) ((2minute , 1:15, 0:45second cooldown)).
AUTHOR SWAP
PVP & ELO in General
(What we REALLY want)
Speaking on behalf of the PvP community, the same things we want are constantly being
requested over and over again every module. Some of these requests come from the time of
beta, and will also improve the replay value of this game. These requests are as follows:
NEW PVP MAPS - from the beginning of the game we, the pvp community have been constantly begging for new PvP maps. It has been over a year now; please, supply us with some new scenery
NEW PVP GAME TYPES - This should follow shortly after new maps. I have a very quick and easy suggestion with balancing built in. Capture the Flag; Recycle and open world PvP map if you need to, turn the middle node into flag stand, turn outside caps into capture points, add spawns, and then add a buff to the flag carrier that does as follows: Changes first at-will to flag bash which does decent damage, turn off the use of all encounters, Special powers, and shifts, add waypoint over flag carriers head, prevent dropping once flag is picked up untill capture or death, and then fill in the blanks with amount of players needed per team. Clear, cut, easy, simple and fun.
Real Prestige / Gearscore Bracket System - One of the biggest issue for old players and new players alike is the fundamental lack of smart paring to fight equal opponents. When the game first came out, the gear score gap between max gear and average gear was 1-2k GS (Unless they had tenebrous) Now the gear gap is sometimes as high as 13K. Because of this huge gear gap, and lack of proper bracket system, new players are quitting before they even start because they get roflstomped by a seasoned veteran; in turn, the seasoned veteran quits, because the PvP community is essentially dying with no new rise in talent or faces. Even if it takes to much time to program a prestige system, please create GS based domination ques for starters.
Fix the Leaderboard, same team kicking, and unfair leavers penalties - Currently it’s common knowledge in the PvP community that the leaderboards algorithm needs adjustment. It’s 100% possible to lose ranks from winning a match; this should never be possible. At the very least, winning a match should result in 0 progression, up or down.
There is currently a kicking war occurring in the PvP community at the moment resulting in further discrepancies in the scoreboard due to leavers penalties and fraudulent ranks.This
bug needs to be addressed and fixed so that it is no longer possible.
Leavers penalties should not occur for afk players in 5 minutes, nor should a team have to
wait for 2 people to leave in order to leave penalty free. Once one player is gone from the
party, all should be allowed to leave.
Conclusion: If all the above changes were implemented or even considered, this games community with see a significant and positive growth in both skill level and player population. I truly hope this post does not fall on deaf ears. If anyone has any questions or concerns feel free to contact me in game or on the forum. If I missed anything, feel free to add it as a comment to this post and please keep all feedback constructive. We all want change, working together to get it is the quickest way to achieve it.
Co-Authors & Advisors: @Demoniceinstien, @Josiahiyon, @ayroux, @jayrad8, @Toxic9721
@readytoredrum, @freshour, @tolkienbuff.
AND lets talk about the back of Shard of Endless Avalanche, we really need him back and remove this constriction of all players to all classes.
Its like one socialism, everyone can be a good player on the game because this is so fun.
NO.
We need more dificult, one of the greatest problems of neverwinter in comparision with other games is the low difficult in PvE and PvP and with that we down the skill player level.
Imagine the old mechanics in Tiamat...
Oh yes, Stop the buffs, OP Sets and decide about the tenacity satus, he need to stay... or not.
the half pvp/pve gear its definitively unacceptable.
AND PLEASE! REMOVE THE POTS FROM PVP!
This is one of the worst things on PvP's, look the old videos of guilds like Lemonade Stand or Enemy Team... they dont use any elixir and fight in equal conditions for both sides!
<Absolute>
PS: in case you elitist PVP players haven't realised yet Neverwinter has only one real measure of anything and that is damage. Look at PVE for a moment then take away the Sentine's damage from Power'ed Intimidation, make him 2x tanky at the same time. What will you get? A: an unkillable and equally useless juggernaut who cant be stopped cause no PVE mob cares enough about him to even try. All the critters + boss are too busy going for the wizards, warlocks, rangers, now even clerics or GFs ( the real tanks ). A Sentinel without his current high damage potential wont be able to do anything in PVE period as they have trouble holding aggro even with super high aoe burst due to long cooldowns.
News flash, in Neverwinter and this goes for any class/build you either have damage or you have nothing. It has become evident that being a buff bot aint enough, as people are calling the GF useless again. The dps buff to clerics also proves this is the only way Cryptic knows how to go. So enough already, enough of your changes. They are not some big revelations guaranteed to improve the game for everyone..no, they are nothing more than the collected suggestions of a small group of PVP elitists who like to practise self-assertion.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
Gwf needs to be really tanky or really damaging, sentinel are good tho now. CAGI causes rubberbanding on those hitted by it.
DC: im ok with them. Let's be fair they are overpowered especially in the dps tree but they help pvp to last more and i m happy about it. Empowered astral shield NEEDs fixing asap.
TR: it has some cheese that may need to be fixed.
SW: The new paragon path with incredible heal is ok. I really dont think they are in a bad spot.
they may use some casting time reduction.
general: remove elixirs.
Firstly, In PVE it was the capstone for CWs, it did a lot of damage and proned enemies. It was great and with multiple CWs it become a real easy dungeon clearer.
It was easy enough to have a party of 3 CWS and virtually nothing could stop them from pounding adds to death, so dungeon parties become more inclusive, in terms of what classes they wanted. Why bring a TR, HR or even a DC when you could have CWS instead? So I understand why they did this, to open up the dungeons for other classes.
Now in PVP, Shard was not used universally by the majority of cws. Further more, there were even less who could effectively use it with total precession. The mechanic on TAB is clunky, but with lots of practice it did become deadly in the right hands. And yes, elite pvp players did use it to great effect. However I lost count of the times I witnessed CWs trying to use it and failing. They usually ended up dead.
There were as there are today CWS who use it not on Tab, but it is not really effective at all -too easy to dodge being one reason - same reason why steal time and icy terrain are no good.
The fact is that only a minority of CWS used it and could use it effectively on TAB, these were mostly elite players in PVP guilds. Of course nerfing it meant that it was one less encounter that could be used, so now cws are restricted to using icy rays, ray of enfeeblement, chill strike, conduit of ice and entangle.
Why could we not see further additions to the existing spells, more spells, rather than new pathways?
As for shield on mastery, it is a waste of the TAB spot. I've killed plenty of CWs with shield on TAB. It will not save you and by having it on Tab, you lose your "right hand" the finisher move, the killing blow.
remove hard target locking - is rly unfair for me as GWF! My greatest "skill" is to learn to dodge via changing position, hard target lock nullifies that, fights vs GF/HR/TR most of all.
Hitting stuff as a GWF also requires now to have a good ping, people that play with a latency of 250-300 can never dream of hitting skills, for us tr/hr/cw/sw/dc are in constant dodge mode: by the time i see you and press my skill due latency i am always hitting air and be a target dummy for the next 15 sec. GWF puts no pressure atm as it is fully dependent on intimidation...
Main stat of the GWF always changes: i am very worried that our best stat will become DEX with the next module and make all my gear obsolete, at least let us use our refined gear as food for the next!
Another thing that sets me on edge is the rebirth of AP builds, it was stated that is not a desired thing and now they add more and more AP gain ways...
Separate premades from solo queue!!!
- Didn't mention the deflect bug decreasing stuns. It's highly disruptive for GWF non-intimidation builds. I have Instigastor with FLS buff and yet TRs and HRs expecially usually get stun for 0.1 seconds. On top of the high dodging abilities they have. You didn't even mention this bug and it's one of the worst bugs since it basically erases the one small weapon a fighter has to catch a TR, for example.
- Instigator needs may be slow downs but needs also a small buff to unstoppable to be a true half tank/DPS hybrid. It's as squishy as a destroyer right now, making it pretty much a more PvP friendly version of a Destroyer. If sentinels get 80% DR from unstoppable and Destro gets 30%+ buff to damage, Instigator too should get a Unstoppable buff on capstone. Like, for example, DR up to 25-50% OR determination gain buff.
- You mentioned damage nerfs needed on TR but you should have noticed how you are close to a 100-1 K/D ratio. Now, don't you see something wrong in TR survivability? Don't tell me it requires lots of skills cause spamming long rolls and being invisible 99% of the time does not require that much skill. And the piled up survivability tools make TR the most survivable class, now with top-class damage even with your nerfs. So i would add a survivability nerf, cause now TRs are VIRTUALLY squishy, but IN REALITY the most survivable class, by far, to a point it's quite frequent to see 20-30 kills 1 death in domination. You guys must start to be actually killable like any other class 2v1 at same gear score and stop being unkillable kiting machines. This is quite clear and numbers talk. It's too easy right now to avoid damage for TRs and there's pretty much no window of opportunity for the enemy to counter attack. That's also why you have a almost 100-1 K/D ratio while equally geared and skilled players from other classes can't even get close. Not even GF tanks or DCs with lathander set are so unkillable.
- Intimidation must be 50% of power FLAT with no crit, range must be reduced in PvP while increased in PvE, CAGI must drag the enemy on top of the GWF and overall tankiness for sentinel increased a bit to match current insane unresistable damage coming from various sources. Sentinels now deal more or equal damage than Instigator while keeping their improved tankiness. Damage output should be half that of a Instigator in PvP, but with the ability to tank more. I've seen PapaBiGN going down in pug game with non-Bis adversaries, while equally geared HRs and TRs are 10x more survivable. On the other hand, he can burst like a beast with intimidation like any other BiS Intimidatio nsentinel. This is a big NO. In a balanced PvP, HRs and TRs should deal that damage through powers that actually require aiming and can be dodged (no unresistable DoTs), while being way easier to kill. You didn't pick a tank class. You picked a DPS class so if you're not immortal well, that's just normal. In exchange, if the enemy does not dodge, you can 1-rotate them. On the other hand, a sentinel tank must deal you modest damage (5k+5k on 10k power sentinels, 10k max damage per rotation), with CAGI and DS being dodgeable due to decreased range (you can either dodge or move out of range) but it should take a while to you to kill them. 10k damage per rotation is still more i believe than a full-tank GF, but no enough to deal "real" burst, assuming HRs and TRs at same gear level have 40k HPs and can dodge (HR can get out of range with marauder escape, current TR roll is enough to dodge CAGI or DS with reduced range, if you see them coming aka just guess a bit if the GWF will shoot them right away. I can do it on my instigator, so i'm sure you can do it on a HR/TR if range get decreased).
Regarding DC, well, empowered Astral shield is powerful but again, all you need to do is either knock the DC out of it or CC-burst him when he's out of it, and CC him enough to prevent him from stacking empowered stacks to cast it. It's doable with a bit of teamwork.
Could reduce the duration of it so that it's more difficult to time and cast at the right time. But out of that, it's possible to counter it.
Also, team heals should be toned down.
DC DPS are not ok and should be toned down since i keep seeing 3k DOT procs for long duration of times and burst as high as a red glyphed CW or DW, while being far more tanky then them.
My point of view right now.
Also: red glyphs should get internal cooldown. The amount of DPS they add now to HRs and a bit less, CWs, is insane. Just insane. Don't know on DPS DCs, warlocks and TRs. But my experience with red glyphed is CW gets way more powerful and can 1-rotate most classes but feels more balanced than a red glyphed HR. Red glyphed HR is just insane. Can be tanky as hell but still deal mosre DPS than a DPS GWF or CW.
My GWF sits at 40k HP 45,6% base DR, more if you consider 15% DR buff from feats, and 37% base deflect, 47% when sprinting. Yet, a HR with red glyphs can easily take half of my HPs even if i'm sprinting and dodging his boar charges. If he gets me with his rotation boar+fox shift it's like 70% or more of my HPs gone. It's insane. CWs with reds can take away more than half HPs if i don't dodge their rotation, but if then i catch them, i can pretty much 1-rotate them or almost 1-rotate them. HRs, even if caught, can still tank no problem with BI armor and deflect. Plus they can dodge more than CWs usually.
If CWs need damage back in case of red glyphs ICD introduced, then no probem i'm totaly ok with monster damage on avalanche or any power that actually requires aim and can be dodged if you play well.
Our only cc break/immunity is maelstrom. I have toyed with using this to break perma-daze, and it can almost work. The issue is that you must have full AP to break cc. Due to the long casting time, massive tell, small AoE, and low damage, what if it only cost 50% AP to cast but could not be cancelled by dodging? As a utility option that offered a cc break it might actually be useful (and fun, the animation is cool as heck).
A thoughtful post as usual, sicarius, but "...the most balanced PvP in-game since pre-tenacity?" One might jump to the conclusion that you play a rogue :P
Jeffrina Jones, GWF
Jeffrodo, CW
Jeffrogue, Rog
Jelfro, GF
Jeffrogolas Do'Urden, HR
Jeffrodo Jaggins, SW
Agree. I play DC and HR, and could play CW too. It's easy mode compared to what a "normal" GWF must do to land powers, expecially with stuns being deflected. HR for example, have most PvP encounters coming with aim-lock and gap-closing. Except fox shift, but when you hit fox shift the enemy is usually prone, so it's very much like the old takedown-IBS combo. Marauder rush also is target lock and ranged, pretty much. GWF non-intimidation is all aim and timing. Landing FLS requires aim and timing since it's not a target-lock power, and landing, let's say, Restoring strike, is pure aiming and timing in melee combat.
And GWFs are behind DCs, HRs, TRs and GFs in terms of survivability these days. So it's not even like GWFs are that tanky anymore (at comparable GS). Sentinels are an issue due to determination crazy damage even after nerf. Tankiness is, pretty much, not a real issue and tanky DCs, GFs, HRs and TRs are a lot harder to kill than any GWF build.
CWs need what TRs got: longer teleports, 1 more base teleport, and change it so that you can't see where the CW is teleporting. This way you would have a strong tool to kite and the enemy would catch you only if he can predict your movements.
On the other side, aim lock should go. CWs must go back to actually try to land their DPS. For example, SW ray of death (don't know the real name of the power) requires them to actually aim actively. CW, when i was playing it, was like "point your trigger approximatively at the target, then press buttons. Even if the enemy moves, you don't need to aim again and your power will follow him.
I'd say change that if instant animations for CW powers but said powers must shoot in a straight line/ AoE area where the CW is aiming at, much like FLS for GWF but with CW range. And avalanche of course. I think it would be much more fun and rewarding if you have better dodging abilities to survive on top of shield on tab, and true powerful powers that require aim and timing to connect.
i was referring to the HardTargetLock bind that will always focus you as a target no matter where you go. For example:
- GF with shield up. I try to go behind to land a stun, the system while using HardTargetLock will instantly move the block to follow my path so i will never be able to hit that.
- HR will never miss a boar charge or the fox shift cause the system will autotarget me even if i try to run behind to avoid it.
Why isnt this working for GWF is cause we have aoes that in general can easily be dodge and no prone apart a daily that can be seen miles away and can be dodge as well all with huge CDs. GWF can still be good in premades, but for 1v1 is as useless as a SW (SW can easily kill a GWF in a 1v1 scenario)...
And if you put all that with the Sprint delay you;ll see that the second we stop running a GWF is pretty much dead.
The name of the power is Dreadtheft. Dreadtheft on initial cast has a soft target mechanic and once you start casting Dreadtheft it locks onto the target for the duration of the cast. It is a hard target lock, even more skill-less than cw soft-target abilities. The difficulty that comes with this ability is timing it since dashing cancels it and it leaves the warlock vulnerable to cc.
Every ability in the game that is not an AoE has a soft-target mechanic. This is not unique to CW's.
Jeffrina Jones, GWF
Jeffrodo, CW
Jeffrogue, Rog
Jelfro, GF
Jeffrogolas Do'Urden, HR
Jeffrodo Jaggins, SW
But with ranged it's quite different. While, say, takedown follows the target, it can easily miss due to the target moving out of range.
SW dreadtheft (purple-black ray of death) can be evaded through sprint by me, and can hit very hard only if i stand still or the SW is good at following my movements with it. Ray of frost, for example, keeps hitting me no matter how much i sprint. And other powers "follow me" and hit me 100% even if i sprint.
The devs really failed on the whole "perma tr". Its much easier to stay perma tr now, and while doing so, you have to have 2 people on the tr. That is totally unfair. A tr should never occupy more then 1 person from the enemy team. But right now their damage is too high for that.
Either remove their damage in stealth or remove stealth.
-> Caught up in Balance
If i could tell Cryptic where to invest money in
- class balance
or
- new maps / game modes
it is clear what would be much more important
So take the Pandaman, a GWF veteran and ask him how will a Sentinel do his thing in PVE with 10k damage + IBS per rotation in a game where a single ability from a control class will do more to more targets?
Dont you folks get it ? Its either damage or its nothing so I'll take my damage thank you. And it will stay this way till the game closes its servers cause it was built this way from the ground up and an overhaul is out of the question.
The most we can expect and we will get is another series of nerfs/buffs with end results being the same
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
All the non-gwf classes are happy with gwf's damage. Yes gwf being unhappy, that's still only one class unhappy, and all the other classes happy. And does it matter really that gwfs are unhappy, nobody plays this class nowadays anyway. Having an inadequate damage (sustained low as opposed to the desired spike burst) is one concern and is enough to lose any 1v1 fight, but this kind of discussion is only theoretical, it's like you put one sample of each class in front of a Blade vendor dummy and you compare the damage. By considering only the damage output you conveniently fail to address all the other issues, such as the non-existent damage reduction , the inability to hit anything at all or the lack of synergy in a pvp group.
Tired of Dailies/Tyranny of Dailies/Timers of Doom/Tricked Or Duped/Tremendously Obnoxious Dailies/Try Otherwise, Devs
I wasnt even going to comment, reading the Op and him starting out that GWF damage is acceptable is ridiculous, its only acceptable by BiS poeple , with one specific build, that most people curse at, because its way out of range from the old mechanics of this class.
Simply put they WAY over-nerfed this class, let alone for pvp, its also one of the worst now for pve. Sure there are plenty of powerful GWF's but they are near the end of the spectrum for gearing, if you take the regular curve of gearing , the GWF is way down on the low end of doing damage, surviving vs most other classes now, where it used to be at the top end of this curve, instead of making them near the middle, they just ripped out the heart of the class instead.
Again, I play all the classes to some extent , so I just moved along, my GWF is sitting in the fire at dread ring and I pull her out to get a enchantment 1-2 times a week. There just simply is not enough survibility vs the damage and the re-balance of this class was horrific, considering they were already planning a buff to the TR/DC and in pve case the release of the SW.
There was simply no reason to touch this class.. they should undo everything they did and allow the old destroyer back, this really most include at least one prone and I would state roar should allow a stun, just not the interrupt. This would bring back some teeth to this class.
This is from someone who has done enough pvp with all of the classes to get profound armours, vanguard banners on each (except the GF, not there yet on that one).
That doesnt mean Im a expert on every class, but I know enough to see balance issues when I see them. Increase these items would allow the destroyer back, but not increase the sent build. Destroyer would still be less survivablity then sent and wouldnt have the range, but they would have more CC, damage instead.
I dont know, I doubt they will look at this again for awhile, which is the reason most people , other then those who put everything into their GWF has already moved along.
first i should start by sayin GWF has the role of a striker and a defender .
that means
Destroyer should be a DPS paragon , and it really is, only lack is the capstone that takes to much to get.
increase base damage of destroyer by 20% and give 1% per stack , 20 stacks =20 % and while in unstopable you get 10% damage bonus = 50%
or leave it as it is but decrease the stacks to 10 stacks = 4% db / stack.
Sentinel should be most likely a defender with burst damage.
but it needs a rework on CAGI and Daring shout, change the animation/give some of use in matter of utility.
like Daring Shout can do somethin after marking the enemy either increase our allies damage or defense etc.
and CAGI should have other animation other than swingin the sword , doing alot of damage and move the dust from the ground. for example settin the weapon in fire or makin the character in a mystic RED aura cuz cagi gives a damage boost.
Intimidation should do 350% out of Weapon damage, as damage.
normally our weapon damage it's 1000. that means 350%.
it wont depend on POWER anymore, but wont be of any use with all that cooldown.
so the Cagi/Daring shout should have a decreasment in their cooldowns of 2-3 seconds.
the decreasement in cooldown will help in PVE for keepin the aggro as offtanks
instigator: i am pleased as it is, but i do like for him to get more tankynes.
it has half of the DPS a destroyer can give at full stacks, but it doesnt even have the same surviability as a destroyer.
for example: Destroyer lowers the cooldown on takedown , stunnin your opponent will allow you to attack again.
while doing damage, you gain Determination, faster unstopable.
so this are kinds 2 things instigator that doesnt have.
so i belive givin back the old unstopable would be the appropriate way of doing things.
35%-50% DR.
so i want someth like this
Destroyer gettin faster stacks up and be the DPS paragon as it is right now
Sentinel be a tanky paragon while giving burst damage that has a limit.
3500 damage from (350% out of Weapon damage) multiplied by DB,crit severity etc.
with a daring shout/cagi that give some utility in a party and lower cooldowns by 2-3-4 seconds.
and Instigator that wont do the same DPS as a destroyer and wont be as tanky as a sentinel, but be both of them.
Takedown should not prone, only if they decrease all the classes DPS.
BIS with DROW set/ full boons/ legendary off/belt/neck/weapon and 2xslot rings, will give the GWF sentinel power creep on all his defensive stats.
so the problem is that with the intimidation that is right now we are obliged to stack power.
and a fight against a TR
the only problem is BloodBath and ITC with DR, i think ITC should not give a 50% DR but probably 15% DR.
I must say I agree with a lot of your points. Your breakdown of each class in PvP seems logical. I 100% agree with your “requests”. Things like new maps or even better new PvP modes are way over due. As a cleric I mostly agree with you, however I want to expend a little on some points concerning the DC and some general things:
Potions:
Remove potions in PvP. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind fighting someone with potions up but I just object against the whole idea of them being available for the following reasons:
- If both teams (premade) are both fully potted up, they kind of nullify each other. You both increase your stats (and due soft-caps on stats more importantly ability scores) by the same amount resulting in a waste of money?
- Potions increase the difference in gear between high-end and low-end players even more.
- The argument to use the potions is simply a vicious circle: “my team doesn’t want to use potions but the enemy team uses them so we have to” – team pots up and wins the match but now has the potions left up next match – new team comes in – “oh our enemy team is using potions we need to use them too”
ect.
I love to see potion use if you for example dropped a piece of gear but now lack a specific stat. You still want to reach the “soft-cap” on this stat and thus pot up. This is in my eyes the only valid reason to use potions. The use to simply have an edge (which disappears once the other team responds with the own pots) is redundant. Its proven the top teams can’t seem to stop their addiction thus I feel Cryptic should step in. However this is just my opinion and considering the pots take AD out of the economy I don’t see Cryptic change anything.
Faithfull DC:
- The problem with the capstone (GoF) is not that its building separately on every player in my opinion. The problem lies in the fact it has no internal CD in combination that it will stack up from overhealing and doesn’t expire out of combat (it kind of wont expire at all till you travel somewhere that has a loading screen). The buff has no range and will procs even if the player is on node 1 while the DC is on node 3. The buff will even proc once it used up the stored healing (given for 0 but still).
- Then if you add that there is no cap on the healing stored, you will see a lot of angry players (mostly for the wrong reason). As a 200k heal will top a player just the same as a 50k heal would have topped that player.
- And finally 2 faithful clerics will stack their gifts on everyone. If you have 2 clerics in the party you can clearly see the buff get a “x2” in the corner. This makes the party immortal (especially in combination with KV) and promotes “exploiting” or “clever use of game mechanics” aka a lame 2 hour battle without deaths. (countered or stalemated by a good 2 TR team but that’s a different story)
DC in general:
- Righteousness is just too much at the moment. As clerics before mod 5 we never had the possibility to buff other players with the 7 sec buff as much as we do now. The 170% increases heals (which also applies to regen / lifesteal). There is a 100% up time now which wasn’t really there before. I think this needs a change.
- Finally a comment on empowered AS. People saying this encounter is overpowered kind of need to get off their high horses. The cleric HAS to get 3 divinity to keep his healing going. If you fail to get divinity for 10 sec while being focussed, your GoF pops and after that you are just going to be dead meat. People need to understand the new cleric mechanics and start adapting to them. You have to stop the DC from using at-wills. Use CC and time your burst, pop gift, repeat with a second cc train and voila, dead cleric. (or bring 2 good CW and freeze, repel to death).
The AS helps the cleric to get in a few at-wills which are otherwise impossible to get (if proper focused). Think of AS as smoke bomb. If a rogue pops smoke bomb, you don’t stand in it right? Now if a DC pops AS, you don’t blow your freaking CD’s, you wait till its over or knock him out, THEN you burst.
I suggest the following:
- Put an internal CD on gift ranging between 30 sec and 1 min. This will not change that much in practise but gives the enemy a window to kill the cleric.
- Cap the healing on max heal of the friendly player. Then return the 25% extra healing to the cleric. This however has to be calculated separately on each player (which is a pain in the *** to code) and will mean a heal has to heal for 75% on 1 person (still stacking healing in gift) and 100% on the other player (already a fully stored gift). If this is possible to code, do it. Otherwise just leave it. As mentioned a 200k heal does the same as a heal for max heal, which is simply topping a player off.
- Maybe let the buff fall off out of combat. Then again as a cleric I like to be able to toss around some healing to a person then leave to heal an other node, with the knowledge the person I leave still has some buffer. Also making the buff fall off out of combat sucks if you store someone up full, say a TR, he goes stealth and prepares an attack, leaves combat and byebye all my work.
- Reduce the length of righteousness from 7 sec to say 3 sec. This will reduce that 100% uptime to say 60% uptime which I think is a nice spot.
General bug fixes:
- Sunburst ignores cc immunity (e.g. guard or unstoppable) – good fun but fix it
- GoF needs to respect healing depression
- AS empowered effect (as well as many other cleric spells) get applied to the cleric even when he’s not in the shield. So if you knock the DC out of the shield, the empowered effect still applies (though the DR is gone).
- Fix kicking people in PvP. Its sad and asks to be abused.
Thank you for reading !
//
If this is the basis of the analysis, one must consider what percentage of the overall pvp community meets the criteria and so therefore question the relevance of the analysis to the Neverwinter pvp community as a whole.
In other words, it is a bit difficult to take seriously such a narrow point of view on such a broad subject. Unless the reader happens to fall in that narrow scope. Subject title should reflect that, it seems to indicate the analysis is about "NW PVP" and not "a very small percentage of NW PVP".
This is by no means flames or trolling. It is an articulate, well written, and intelligent piece. It is just wayyy too narrow I think to be more than the kind of banter you might hear in an elite pvp guild hall.
So there is ONE viable PvP build for GWFs and you want to destroy it and give us shiny animations, really. Do you really think your suggested buffs would be enough to make the GWF viable in PvP? I personally dont really like the mechanics of senti/intim. build, but at last you are not the joke of the team.
Even with your suggested dmg buffs, without better CC and/or better defense mechanics, destroyer will not be viable in PvP anytime soon.
PvE wise, first things popping up into my mind:
raise target cap to spread the damage over multiple traget. It does not affect PvP but can affect PvE damage
increase threat generation through daring shout mark and come and get it and make that threat stack
decrease threat coming from pure DPS or else you'll always face the problem of DPS classes generating too much aggro.
Balance the whole thing to allow the GWF to generate enough threat and hit enough targets to help with DPS. From my point of view, sentinel should be a tank with DPS support for the group, while GF in PvE should be a better tank with utilities to help the party. So if you want a pure tank who can keep mobs occupied and protect the group you look for a GF, if you want a tank that is a bit less reliable than a GF but can bring some more DPS and help with boss fights, you bring the GWF.
From a PvP point of view, you can't go the tank path and still deal DPS that are comparable to Destroyer/ Instigator.
And that's why basically intimidation sentinel is now the only viable path. Noticeable increase in passive survivability and burst DPS on par with DPS paths.
Destroyer is a better choice for PvE DPS since the capstone stack mechanic fits perfectly PvE.
Instigator is a DPS PvP path but lacks the survivability to be a ture hybrid. The capstone perfectly fits PvP for GWF: you take damage first, then you get in range, try to land your FLS and then IBS-->restoring strike (enough time usually with feated FLS)+ trample of the fallen. Can also mark with threat rush before hitting if you have powerful challenge. I went for unstoppable recovery since survivability is needed more than damage, capstone is enough to boost DPS. Must manage sprint carefully and then you go for vorpal while destroyer is usually better with GPF cause it allows the destro to collect stacks fast enough in PvP, which means overall, with 30%+ crit, better burst. In PvE, it's tricky cause you have to run ahead and allow mobs to hit you, then deal damage. Mobs DPS is not really fast enough to keep the capstone up with 4 stacks, and against a boss you hardly can stack Instigator vengeance. Also, in new dungeons an Instigator would die running ahead to get hit by mobs. If you wait for the party, mobs will hit the ones holding aggro and again, you get no capstone stacks. It's been created for PvP GWF mechanics, pretty much.
The point is, going Instigator is pretty much a self-nerf cause intimidation sentinel now can tank much much more and pretty much deal comparable DPS with less effort.
PvP and PvE must be treated separately. I gave suggestions for PvP first. For PvE basically you need to bring Destroyer on par with CW/SW/HR archer in AoE, and make sentinel a tank with support DPS, with GF being a better tank with utility.
If you keep intimidation the way it is now, then you should boost Instigator/ Destroyer damage to much higher levels.
Cause i think it's pretty basic knowledge that a tank path with better DR, more deflect/ AC through feat and 50% more DR from unstoppable (big, big difference from the puny 30% DR of destroyers/ instigators) cannot deal DPS comparable to DPS paths.
This for internal balance.
m8
First of all i should start by sayin i was the first that found about intimidation build while i was testin on PTR before mod4, and i've known about the build before you probably heard it.
the reason why i am tellin this is that there are already other builds that are better than sentinel, in matter of fact i wouldn't said it if i hadn't discovered another build.
and what i said wont ruin the build.
right now it deals huge burst at 14-16 seconds
what i want is
to deal lower burst with lower cooldowns
that means you can spam cagi/daring shout. but you need to visualize, if you can't dont talk and defend someth that is unreasonable because you are afraid of testing other things out.
let me give you a piece of advice
if yo uever come at a top level of doing pvp
you will realise that the only enchants you need are RADIANTS
because after the release of the DROW SET
you will have enough stats that will hit the hard cap
from BOONS/tier 3 sets.
"BIS with DROW set/ full boons/ legendary off/belt/neck/weapon and 2xslot rings, will give the GWF sentinel power creep on all his defensive stats.
so the problem is that with the intimidation that is right now we are obliged to stack power."
so the only enchants you will add are radiants
on both offense and defense slots.
that means you will deal huge damage on each paragon. but you probably didnt test it out.
so you are confined on the idea "omg the intimidation build is only the only way"
and on other side i one shot BIS players with a build that isn't focused on intimdation.
nice, right?
and it's not about givin fancy animations
but giving better ones
cause i dont know have you noticed, but cagi/daring shout tends to miss and not deal damage sometimes, have you wondered why ? i doubt.
Man, enjoy class balance with your three friends then. Get it: You are the vast minority and will never be heard.
actually you didnt get it.
balancing should start on the top
cause right now it starts from the bottom and as you equip your character the class balanced starting to be unbalanced.
so we need to do the opposide
startin the balance from the TOP LEVEL in a downwards way, instead of upwards, do you understand?
so that means at a gs of 20kish a gwf and a tr should be equal and downwards of that GS both classes should keep a balance against eachother.
so that is the logic that this game should be starting to do balancing.
in each game especially shooters/mobas they pic the best players to test the game out.
thats how it should be done here.
reason that if you establish a max lvl of a certain skill you will know his capabilities.
rather then going blindly upwards and everythin be unbalanced
better be bring balance downwards.
probably a lil hard to understand.