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Module 12b Preview Patch Notes: NW.90.20170911a.1
terramak
Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 995Cryptic Developer › Cryptic Developer
Note: Several changes made before the initial Module 12b showing on Preview still have not made it into the patch notes. I apologize for the delay on that.
Note: The issue with double-dipping Crit damage reduction is still active on the Preview shard. We acknowledge this issue and are testing solutions.
Release Notes
Content and Environment
Merchant Prince's Folly
Combat and Powers
Classes and Balance
Items and Economy
Refinement
User Interface
Campaigns
Note: The issue with double-dipping Crit damage reduction is still active on the Preview shard. We acknowledge this issue and are testing solutions.
Release Notes
Content and Environment
Merchant Prince's Folly
- The end-of-instance reward no longer incorrectly gives out rough Astral Diamonds (that AD is now given via Random Queues).
- Merchant Prince Wakanga O'tamu has cracked down on rooftop runners, and the wards preventing traversal of Port Nyanzaru's pristine buildings have been strengthened to try to counter teleportation and leaping style powers.
- Rhix no longer gives outdated information on how to gain Astral Diamonds.
- Sea of Moving Ice: A treasure chest in an overturned ship can now properly be looted without being blocked by invisible collision.
- Several minor fixes to contact dialog text have been made.
- Trade of Blades: Players can now swap loadouts here.
- Trade of Blades: PvP gear now displays the PvP version of its stats while inside the Trade of Blades.
Combat and Powers
Classes and Balance
- Devoted Cleric
- Empowered bonuses for Break the Spirit, Forgemaster's Flame, Sunburst, and Warding Flare are once again properly applied and provide the proper buff / debuff values.
- Experimental change: Astral Shield's Empowered bonus no longer reduces the damage taken from attacks by a fixed number.
- Experimental change: Astral Shield's Empowered bonus now increases incoming healing by 10% for each stack consumed.
- Developer Note: Even after nerfs, Astral Shield continues to be far and away one of the most game-changing powers in PvP. While we still want it to be effective, the flat damage reduction often results in 0-damage hits. This is an experimental attempt to make the power more reasonable in PvP, and prevent it from further trivializing PvE content, while still remaining useful.
- Empowered bonuses for Break the Spirit, Forgemaster's Flame, Sunburst, and Warding Flare are once again properly applied and provide the proper buff / debuff values.
- Trickster Rogue: Courage Breaker now applies a slow for 5 seconds, reduced from 10 seconds.
- Certain new Module 12b companions have updated powers and stats.
- We've made a significant change in the back-end to how dodges and deflections occur. Now, feats and other effects that proc on Dodge or Deflect now only do so when affecting incoming damage.
- This should result in fewer occasions where the player character is suddenly put into combat, and as a result should also result in fewer cases where a Companion runs off to attack an enemy the player has not yet engaged.
- Barkshield no longer absorbs amounts of damage significantly higher than the tooltip states, and no longer continues to absorb at 0 stacks. (This bug only affected the preview environment.)
- Fey Blessing: This enchantment's effect once now properly allows enchantments to drop again.
- Frost Weapon: The cooldown is now respected on the Rank 13 effect.
- Plague Fire: The Poison damage component in ranks 11-13 is now accurately specified in the tooltip. A minor punctuation fix was also made.
- The effect of Rank 12 Bonding Runestones once again properly stacks.
- Strategist's Gear: Stunning Encore now grants a flat 1200 Power per stack.
- Healing powers can no longer be dodged. This also includes Insignia procs.
- Developer Note: As this fix required us to adjust a large number of powers, it's possible that some powers, feats, etc. were missed. If you dodge any heals, it'd be appreciated if you let us know which healing powers / effects they were.
- Ras Nsi no longer occasionally strikes the player with an "UNTRANSLATED" combat damage popup.
Items and Economy
Refinement
- When attempting to upgrade an Enchantment in a stack, it no longer incorrectly takes two clicks (one to fill it with RP and remove it from the stack, and another to actually upgrade).
- Artifacts: Soul Sight now only works on the target it was applied to.
- Artifacts: Soul Sight visual effects now last 10 seconds.
- Hero's Feast: This consumable item now gives stats scaling up to more reasonable values at level 70. The maximum Power granted by the feast is now 750, and the maximum Hit Points granted by the feast have been increased to 4500.
- The new Stronghold decorations for this module now have icons.
User Interface
Campaigns
- Caer-Konig Reputation once again has an icon.
- Patronage tokens can now properly be created for all expected campaigns, and all of them now properly function.
- Patronage Tokens now display a warning if players attempt to use one for a campaign that has already unlocked token creation.
- Certain legacy mounts have been removed from the Trade Bar Store collection location.
- Character-bound Identification Scrolls are now used in the Identify All process.
- Items no longer seem to disappear when using Identify All.
- KNOWN ISSUE: There's a client crash when attempting to Identify All while in the River District.
- "Sell All Treasure" is now disabled if the player has no Treasure-category items.
- The "Grid / List" selection now persists across gameplay sessions.
- Leveling Dungeon Random Queue no longer displays a minimum item level of 10,000.
- The scoreboard for Epic Trials now properly show the rewards earned for participating in a Random Queue.
Post edited by terramak on
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Comments
@asterdahl @rgutscheradev
>Trade of Blades: PvP gear now displays the PvP version of its stats while inside the Trade of Blades.
Thanks for the change.
>Deflection and Dodge Procs
>We've made a significant change in the back-end to how dodges and deflections occur. Now, feats and other effects that proc on >Dodge or Deflect now only do so when affecting incoming damage.
That sounds interesting.
>Mounts
>The "Grid / List" selection now persists across gameplay sessions.
@terramak @asterdahl @rgutscheradev take note: the change affects only the "Choose Appearance" mount stable UI ("Current" Tab); "Swap to stable" UI still broken ("The Stable" Tab).
Thanks
Dead🔪Haha also your plan takes Empowered AS from potentially too strong to near-useless in PvE. Not sure about PvP, but I would imagine it'll start losing out to something even like emp DG.
Incoming healing increases (especially only 30%) are strictly useless in the current state of PvE. As you're probably aware, the status of damage is pretty near binary: lethal or insignifiant. And it's all about mitigating those infrequent big / overwhelming hits.
I get how flat tax on damage is really strong in PvP, where many classes rely on more frequent small hits (It's probably good then that Unbreakable Devotion feat is so underpowered as to be effectively useless in current content). I know that long-term you might also be trying to move the game in a direction that makes healing relevant again. But this is a pretty big nerf to mitigation ability associated with AS, compensated with a new mechanic that is virtually worthless in the current environment.
Would you be open to having AS provide other types of benefits potentially? Maybe an increase to deflect chance, deflection severity, or move speed? Or perhaps a separate layer of mitigation similar to OP's Shield of Faith. I think it would be interesting to keep empowered AS relevant as an option rather than make it strictly worse than other powers.
To summarize, I agree that the current state (in PVP especially) is problematic but I think your approach makes empowered AS non-viable in PVE. I am advocating for a different change to hopefully keep the empowered form of AS relevant in the current game.
I can't speak for the team members making these changes, but given they were marked as experimental changes, I'd imagine they'd be interested in hearing continuing feedback about these changes. Thanks for adding your voice here!
@jaime4312#3760
I'll keep an eye out for any changes in the pre-M12b patch notes and see if the change was intentional. Regardless, your feedback about the viability of Scourge Warlocks (before and after this change) is still valid and worthwhile, whether or not this was an intended change. So thank you for calling it out.
The bug pretty much kills the main appeal of the enchant and makes it worthless in Mod12.5 if not fixed.
And, (hopefully), will you fix the long list of Feytouched bugs (listed below)?
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1234400/feytouched-buglist
I would also like to voice my concern that the change to empowered AS is basically making it useless. increased healing doesn't help survival. Dupek's idea about increased deflection chance is a great one I think (increased deflect severity is a poor idea because classes like TRs can already get too much deflect severity which makes them nearly immortal in pvp, and besides, more deflect severity only helps if you can deflect, and most builds/classes don't stack deflect in the first place making deflect severity useless to them)
We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
I'd like to get the fix to BtS / FF to the live server before Module 12b goes live, both on PC and Console. Console has its own challenges getting fixes live, so it'll likely be addressed a little later than PC. (As always, no promises, since Murphy's Law can strike at any time with game builds.)
@rjc9000
Thanks for the link - I've had that page up for a bit and have been planning to forward it on to some folks, but I'll just send it over now to raise awareness and worry about the specific write-ups afterward.
We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
(If no: YAY! Because I take a DC into PVP. But probably it shouldn't be undodgeable?)
As terramak says, a LOT of powers were touched. So there's always the risk some individual effect got tagged improperly. But in principle (and hopefully mostly in practice!) the tagging should be heal-specific.
@terramak
Thanks for the answer, sir. The viability of the Scourge Warlock has been compromised greatly because of fixes to bugs whereby the class was able to deal competitive dps, I am talking about mod 10 of course, we all know mod 9 Murderous Flames was extremely broken and that needed to be fixed. Anyway, what was wrong about mod 10 dps wasn't its potential but how the SW dealt it (TC not WAI by scaling with power and other things) so in mod mod 10.5 it go fixed but! here comes the big but... there was no compensation for that change... the outcome? As per @thefabricant 's calculations, top tier SW's lost up to 40% of their dps so it gutted a lot of the class' damage potentiall, it affected all good players and the Hellbringer paragon took a heavy blow in dps. @tom#6998 and @fernuu (they are 2 of the most powerful Scourge Warlocks in the game) tested the changes on preview by running dungeons and comfirmed Sharp's calculations were right. If any of you 3 can comment on this that would be really appreciated, especially you, Sharpedge.
After the mod 10.5 TC fix that gutted a lot of the class' dps, there have been more nerfs + other classes got buffs (like power changes and/or enchantments rework), because of that, not only does SW underperform vs other striker classes, support classes that are able to HDPS can either give SW a run for its meal or flat out outperform it in certain situations. What purpose does a striker class that can't deal top tier damage serve especially if support classes can match it or beat it at what it is supposed to be its main role?
Sir, here's a screenshot of an ACT log of @tom#6998 which again, is one of the most powerful SWs in the game
https://imgur.com/a/NsuYO
There you can see OBC makes up for 15% - 20% of his dps. As good as he is, other classes at BiS level, properly built and played can beat him rather often and it's not because he's bad, it is because of being a Scourge Warlock. With the changes on preview that cut down the OBC proc rate by half, the stimated dps loss for him is 10%, for lower level SWs is greater than that and for low crit templocks can exceed 50%. As you can see, the OBC changes, whether intented or not, further worsen a problem that's already pretty bad hence why the class does need a rework as soon as possible.
As per @tom#6998 feedback (sorry to quote you so much mate, if you can give your feedback that'd be awesome though), the best SW knows (so yeah, more powerful than him) gets outperformed by the best TR he knows and, considering he often runs with top tier players from all classes and is a top one himself, you need to keep that in mind: properly played and built TR > SW.
There you have it, the class that once was the top damage dealer became awfully underpowered, not only loses to other striker classes but hpds support classses can go toe to toe with it or flat out outperform it, it's both baffling and unacceptable. Needless to say, being a SW is not precisely convinient when trying to run endgame content, with most classes offering better dps perfomance, group and queue leaders will pick others instead.
Perhaps, when possible, could you consider starting a thread where you can gather information that can help you see the insane amount of weaknesses and problems the class does have? That way, it'd be much easier for you and/or other developers to come up with a proper fix/rework.
@asterdahl @rgutscheradev
YAIII LEGENDARY CARPET MOUNT!
And in the case of me falling flat on the ground and getting right back up because of soulforge, i loose all my Prior Rotation, Then i get out dpsed by a 12k GWF (with rank 12 Lightning) and a 13k CW.
So not only that. Our DPs is under that of a HR/GWF/CW/TR, But the temptation tree has the best heals, But fails at the buffs, because CW is prefered over SW as a Buffer...
I would also like to know if you have a team member/Manager/Dev that has maned a scourge warlock since its release like i have, and so many others who have posted in these fourms.>>??
As an aside, it seems like from what I've read the 2 DC debuff/buff group is not what you had in mind, yet rather than work from that end you decrease the usefulness of a go-to for heal DC's to keep people alive between heals. Having to take an extra step of putting down a zone where players will receive extra healing if they stand in a designated circle which could be in a splat zone or right next to the TR with SoD or the GF with a full rotation waiting makes the skill not only useless but a potential hazard if you are hoping to benefit from it. "Here stand in this yellow target while I get some stacks of empowerment for my bastion".
The biggest issue with DC's being pigeon holed into buffing/debuffing besides how strong those mechanics are against Bosses with millions of HP and One shot mechanics is that there is no alternative. If you go virtuous, those heals over time will never save you from any real dungeon mechanics. If you go faithful it will at least grant you a large heal when you do take damage but still won't save you from one shots. If you go buff/debuff you're at least useful to your group. This typically means unslotting things like AS or Bastion (the type of heal that would be buffed by AS according to your changes).
To put it another way, you seem to be speaking out of both sides of your mouth. Don't go buff debuff groups, let's nerf the few other useful abilities that heal DCs may use.
I would also say that, you're already making heals 75% less useful in PVP, now you're potentially making AS useless in PVP. Why have you targeted DC's so strongly? They are primarily useful in premade settings tbh. Most DC's complain as is that they have little effect in Solo Q or Random Q Domi. This will make a lot of heal players reconsider playing PVP in general imho.
Damage DC's do too little damage to make them viable in PVP, they only go DPS for PVE and rarely do so for damage but for Debuffs. So what I feel you're doing is galvanizing meta's more than making other paragon paths and feat trees viable.
With Steel blitz.
TYPE DAMAGE ENCDPS AVERAGE MEDIAN MINHIT MAXHIT RESIST HITS Weapon Master's Strike 5.287.128 38.592,18 9.084,41 9.606 3.734 13.276 Physical 582 Lightning Arc 4.306.953 31.437,61 2.466,75 2.697 1.339 3.436 Physical 1.746 Steel Blitz 1.576.459 11.507,00 5.185,72 4.470 3.334 7.532 Physical 304 Lightning Weapon 1.575.775 11.502,01 2.707,52 2.954 1.485 3.754 Physical 582Without Steel Blitz
TYPE DAMAGE ENCDPS AVERAGE MEDIAN MINHIT MAXHIT RESIST HITS Weapon Master's Strike 5.751.338 40.502,38 9.585,56 10.386 3.450 13.232 Physical 600 Lightning Arc 4.657.474 32.799,11 2.587,49 2.800 1.189 3.439 Physical 1.800 Lightning Weapon 1.703.947 11.999,63 2.839,91 3.086 1.360 3.767 Physical 600Do you have any plan for unlocking class sigils being turned into RP?
All it would take is to decrease the RP value of artifacts at all levels by 150 so that a rank 1 artifact would give 0 RP.
This way, reclaiming sigils and turning them into RP wouldn't be an issue.
For the DO-AC issue. Can you make it so that their powers only stack in Q groups of 6 or more? That to me seems like a logical and elegant way to correct the issue. If you can code it.
WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT PvP!
Please fix our ongoing issues asap because as it is, very hard to get satisfaction from the latest high-level group content if our class can't properly contribute to it. Was nerfing CB really necessary in this context? This is really really disapointing.
My ONLY ask is that you guys release some of the PVP maps that have been gathering dust for the last few years... ready to be released.
Do that, and bring back the NCL and PVP is going to be fun again!!!
Whether or not this change is needed for PVP, it is definitely not needed in PVE. @asterdahl could you please consider making this a PVP only change since, as it currently stands, this power has very niche use in PVE and it will have next to no use after the change. Empowered Astral Shield is used only in a very small amount of PVE content, usually when soloing as a defensive tool on an undergeared dc and isn't trivializing PVE at all. In my opinion, this change should be limited to PVP only.
Essentially, this change makes Empowered Astral Shield exactly the same as normal Astral Shield except it wasted stacks that you could have used on Divine Glow or Break The Spirit. A significantly better change would be "Astral Shield never consumes Empowered stacks. If you cast it with Empowered stacks, you keep your stacks to use with a power that has a USEFUL Empowered bonus."
Some (more serious) suggestions:
Astral Shield's Empowered bonus now causes incoming healing to also grant temporary hit points equal to 10% of the healed value per stack consumed. These THP stack with themselves and with THP from all other sources. - turns the "overheal" of a bonus to incoming healing into something useful.
or
Astral Shield's Empowered bonus now reduces incoming damage by 15% per stack consumed, not reduced by Armor Penetration or Piercing and applied separately from existing damage resistance. - still reduces incoming damage significantly, but can never result in a zero-damage hit