What is the Shadow Weaver bug? I've been wanting to work on getting it for a while now to play around in it so I'd like to know what the bug is.
The 4 piece bonus stops activating sometimes.
This can be resolved from removing a piece of the set & putting it back on, which can by a pain to do frequently in combat.
"A lot of the Armor Penetration issues are being worked on now for a tentative release for our next module. The current implementation of the fix should resolve it not working for all classes and powers. It's a fairly complicated solution so it will not likley be made for M3 at all. "
To clarify on this a little I looked at how Armor Penetration works and found a couple of side cases where our implementation just wouldn't work. Most common was that some of your powers didn't inherit it correctly, and the second most common was anything happening on a delay actually missing the impact of the Armor Penetration. I have fixed both of these issues locally and they have to go through some testing (as I made armor penetration a fair bit more expensive on the system in fixing it), but I am confident that it works on pretty close to everything, if not everything now.
Also, incidental to this fix, I have corrected a bug where in rare cases two players could benefit from each other's armor penetration on the same target. So yay!
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nwnghostMember, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2014
DoT powers that already apply Armor Penetration correctly currently have the unfortunate side effect of triggering new instances of weapon enchantments on every tick (i.e. Duelist's Flury Bleed)
Could this be corrected before your changes go live and cause all DoT powers to do this?
DoT powers that already apply Armor Penetration correctly currently have the unfortunate side effect of triggering new instances of weapon enchantments on every tick (i.e. Duelist's Flury Bleed)
Could this be corrected before your changes go live and cause all DoT powers to do this?
It is actually more likely that those should not do that. It is part of how the power is constructed (those powers are actually firing a new power every time they would tick, rather than just ticking damage). That said, I need to look into how weapon enchants work on a global level anyway since they currently normalize very poorly across each class.
To clarify on this a little I looked at how Armor Penetration works and found a couple of side cases where our implementation just wouldn't work. Most common was that some of your powers didn't inherit it correctly, and the second most common was anything happening on a delay actually missing the impact of the Armor Penetration. I have fixed both of these issues locally and they have to go through some testing (as I made armor penetration a fair bit more expensive on the system in fixing it), but I am confident that it works on pretty close to everything, if not everything now.
Also, incidental to this fix, I have corrected a bug where in rare cases two players could benefit from each other's armor penetration on the same target. So yay!
Armpen on CW powers have been talked about for the past 2 years now I think and it have been "fixed" several times now. What powers exactly are suppose to use armpen? Because right now many powers dont. Would the powers below use armpen now when you fixed it again?
RoE
Icy Rays
SotEA: Shard slam
Entangling Force
Repel
It is actually more likely that those should not do that. It is part of how the power is constructed (those powers are actually firing a new power every time they would tick, rather than just ticking damage). That said, I need to look into how weapon enchants work on a global level anyway since they currently normalize very poorly across each class.
Crush,
Id encourage you to see this thread that I detailed this issue...
Armpen on CW powers have been talked about for the past 2 years now I think and it have been "fixed" several times now. What powers exactly are suppose to use armpen? Because right now many powers dont. Would the powers below use armpen now when you fixed it again?
RoE
Icy Rays
SotEA: Shard slam
Entangling Force
Repel
Yes, I tested all of those powers and they were correctly getting Arpen with my changes.
I have seen your thread and have been keeping it in mind. I would more likely change it to something like % Weapon Damage per second (so a power that activates in 1 second would see the same bonus right now) and then powers that take 2 seconds would deal twice as much. However this is far enough off right now that I am not going to be making changes short term because I don't currently have the bandwidth to make the changes and test them appropriately.
I have seen your thread and have been keeping it in mind. I would more likely change it to something like % Weapon Damage per second (so a power that activates in 1 second would see the same bonus right now) and then powers that take 2 seconds would deal twice as much. However this is far enough off right now that I am not going to be making changes short term because I don't currently have the bandwidth to make the changes and test them appropriately.
Crush,
Thanks for the response. The liability I see there is unless all the enchants are toned down, that will create massive damage spikes not intended...
An IBS getting 15-18 seconds worth of weapon enchant? That would be insane damage boost.... Its a good idea though, I still think though that a major reason GFs frankly suck is they cant take advantage of weapon enchants since they atk slow and have low weapon damage.
The simple fix to changing it to a pure % damage boost, would make GFs actually have viable options because they can hit hard, they just cant hit often for % weapon damage to work....
I keep coming back to this idea that IMO would really balance the classes alot right now, and id REALLY suggest considering making a change before changing more classes because frankly, weapon enchants will change classes...
There is alot of fun you could have here and it would really bring alot of balance to the game. Also, you can always throw something up on preview and let us do the testing... Seriously there are ALOT of pvpers who would jump at the chance to give you real solid feedback....
...as I made armor penetration a fair bit more expensive on the system in fixing it...
Does this mean that Armor Penetration will give less "Resistance Ignored" than it currently does? That will be tough for all classes without a Resistance Ignored bonus on one of their attributes (or massive Armor Penetration on their gear).
Does this mean that Armor Penetration will give less "Resistance Ignored" than it currently does? That will be tough for all classes without a Resistance Ignored bonus on one of their attributes (or massive Armor Penetration on their gear).
Thanks for the response. The liability I see there is unless all the enchants are toned down, that will create massive damage spikes not intended...
An IBS getting 15-18 seconds worth of weapon enchant? That would be insane damage boost.... Its a good idea though, I still think though that a major reason GFs frankly suck is they cant take advantage of weapon enchants since they atk slow and have low weapon damage.
The simple fix to changing it to a pure % damage boost, would make GFs actually have viable options because they can hit hard, they just cant hit often for % weapon damage to work....
I keep coming back to this idea that IMO would really balance the classes alot right now, and id REALLY suggest considering making a change before changing more classes because frankly, weapon enchants will change classes...
There is alot of fun you could have here and it would really bring alot of balance to the game. Also, you can always throw something up on preview and let us do the testing... Seriously there are ALOT of pvpers who would jump at the chance to give you real solid feedback....
WOAH, you are thinking of the wrong time. Not the recharge time. Just the casting time. Recharge time will NOT factor into the value of weapon enchants (and shouldn't).
Does this mean that Armor Penetration will give less "Resistance Ignored" than it currently does? That will be tough for all classes without a Resistance Ignored bonus on one of their attributes (or massive Armor Penetration on their gear).
I meant on the internal side. The stat has the same numerical value as it did before
Just another question with the encounter Ice Rays, GWF's can use Threatening Rush at-will to break out of the root, is this a bug or was it intentional, only because when using ice rays on any other opponent they cant move at all, but gwfs can use an at will to move atleast 10 irl feet forward and right back on top of the cw, instantly & ignoring the root time
WOAH, you are thinking of the wrong time. Not the recharge time. Just the casting time. Recharge time will NOT factor into the value of weapon enchants (and shouldn't).
I think the point that ayroux is trying to make is that recharge times do factor into the value of weapon enchants as they are set up now and they probably shouldn't, at least not as massively as they do.
For instance my GF has a weapon which is somewhere in the range of 500-600 weapon damage. On the other hand my HR has a main hand weapon which hits for 700-800 damage. To make matters worse Cleave probably hits once for every two hits of Sure Strike, Rapid Shot/Strike or any TR at-will.
Oddly enough Guardian Fighters are fairly bursty. Their main source of damage is from their sparse but heavy hitting encounter powers rather than their At-Wills. Weapon enchants, however, directly reward hitting more often for less damage. The faster and more frequently you hit the more damage bonus the weapon enchantment will give you.
This not only negatively effects the Guardian Fighter but also funnels the metagame into an attack speed (what I believe you are calling Casting Time) game unless you are designed around critical strike and using a Vorpal Enchantment.
I hope this makes the point a bit clearer. It seems like you might have understood and simply disagree but I would I have to respectfully disagree with your disagreement. Having cast times, as you called it, play such a major role is really painful to classes like the Guardian Fighter who land less frequent but more painful attacks.
I think the point that ayroux is trying to make is that recharge times do factor into the value of weapon enchants as they are set up now and they probably shouldn't, at least not as massively as they do.
For instance my GF has a weapon which is somewhere in the range of 500-600 weapon damage. On the other hand my HR has a main hand weapon which hits for 700-800 damage. To make matters worse Cleave probably hits once for every two hits of Sure Strike, Rapid Shot/Strike or any TR at-will.
Oddly enough Guardian Fighters are fairly bursty. Their main source of damage is from their sparse but heavy hitting encounter powers rather than their At-Wills. Weapon enchants, however, directly reward hitting more often for less damage. The faster and more frequently you hit the more damage bonus the weapon enchantment will give you.
This not only negatively effects the Guardian Fighter but also funnels the metagame into an attack speed (what I believe you are calling Casting Time) game unless you are designed around critical strike and using a Vorpal Enchantment.
I hope this makes the point a bit clearer. It seems like you might have understood and simply disagree but I would I have to respectfully disagree with your disagreement. Having cast times, as you called it, play such a major role is really painful to classes like the Guardian Fighter who land less frequent but more painful attacks.
Nailed it! Thanks! Yes this is what I was trying to say and maybe failed to do so. Guardian Fighters are actually how I came to realize the balance issue with enchants - there really is no good enchant that shines for the GF because of the way enchants work...
For TR - Bilethorn is BIS because of the rapid attacks and high weapon damage
For GWF - GPF currently shines because of the debuff and nice weapon damage and fast attacks
HRs - GPF again because of the high weapon damage/fast attacks.
Just a few examples. To make matters worse, what USED to be the pure best enchant for pvp has traditionally been Vorpal since it IS based on "final" damage numbers so your power/crit/arp all play a role. Well GFs have no STAT (Con/Str) that give crit so they suffer horribly from diminishing returns and even the best GFs will only have around 21-22% in PVP.
Ive gone into too much detail but I think overall the end issue is that most enchants in the game are not very useful - especially for PVP because of the way enchants work. Its all based on weapon damage and attack speed when In my opinion it should just be swapped to a damage bonus - this allows all characters to get equal benefits BUT allows players their own "flavor" if you will. I think thats what was intended?
So just an example: Lifedrinker enchant current deals/returns 8.8% of (weapon damage). Well I believe this is hurt by tenacity AND possibly healing depression but the end result in PVP is truly pitiful for an enchant.
If this was switched to say 5% damage boost and returns 5% (much like lifesteal but not affected by dim returns on the stat) well now ALL classes can use this, and I coulkd even see some unique builds looking at lifesteal again + lifedrinker as a possible build.
Just a thought - because this is a BIG reason GFs are not very useful right now... They just cant excel in weapon enchants AND its also why top "tier" PVPers only really use GPF/Vorpal or Bile(if TR).
I think the point that ayroux is trying to make is that recharge times do factor into the value of weapon enchants as they are set up now and they probably shouldn't, at least not as massively as they do.
For instance my GF has a weapon which is somewhere in the range of 500-600 weapon damage. On the other hand my HR has a main hand weapon which hits for 700-800 damage. To make matters worse Cleave probably hits once for every two hits of Sure Strike, Rapid Shot/Strike or any TR at-will.
Oddly enough Guardian Fighters are fairly bursty. Their main source of damage is from their sparse but heavy hitting encounter powers rather than their At-Wills. Weapon enchants, however, directly reward hitting more often for less damage. The faster and more frequently you hit the more damage bonus the weapon enchantment will give you.
This not only negatively effects the Guardian Fighter but also funnels the metagame into an attack speed (what I believe you are calling Casting Time) game unless you are designed around critical strike and using a Vorpal Enchantment.
I hope this makes the point a bit clearer. It seems like you might have understood and simply disagree but I would I have to respectfully disagree with your disagreement. Having cast times, as you called it, play such a major role is really painful to classes like the Guardian Fighter who land less frequent but more painful attacks.
This is exactly why the recharge time *doesn't* play a factor right now, and also exactly why the change I talked about above would normalize it correctly.
The math would be as follows
(WeaponDamage * %) * (CastTime).
Meaning they will provide exactly (WeaponDamage * %) Per second you spend casting powers. (DPCT would be normalized).
Cast time has absolutely zero to do with recharge time, and because you can only cast one thing at a time (generally anyway) having a lot of fast recharge time powers *doesn't* become more beneficial to getting more out of a weapon enchant. So rapidly striking powers would deal lots of little hits and big slow powers would hit bigger and harder directly proportional to how long they take.
This is exactly why the recharge time *doesn't* play a factor right now, and also exactly why the change I talked about above would normalize it correctly.
The math would be as follows
(WeaponDamage * %) * (CastTime).
Meaning they will provide exactly (WeaponDamage * %) Per second you spend casting powers. (DPCT would be normalized).
Cast time has absolutely zero to do with recharge time, and because you can only cast one thing at a time (generally anyway) having a lot of fast recharge time powers *doesn't* become more beneficial to getting more out of a weapon enchant. So rapidly striking powers would deal lots of little hits and big slow powers would hit bigger and harder directly proportional to how long they take.
Maybe your just way above my level of understanding so I apologize and thank you in advance for your patience in explaining this AND taking time to post feedback/thoughts - seriously your posts are a MAJOR reason in what made me become an active player again (from a casual) so seriously Crush, thanks first and foremost.
Cast time - this is something I guess I dont understand, because MOST attacks in the game have a "cast time" or "animation time" of under 1 second. Maybe encounters like cloud of steel for TR are closer to 2 per second, but there are only a handful of attacks that I know of with a true "charge speed" or "cast time" thats long... the closest to this without one may even be IBS for the GWF with a LONG animation windup.
So I guess with what your saying for cast time I dont honestly see MUCH difference between whats already live and your suggesting. Maybe a handful of powers will get a double multiple of the enchant damage (and are you saying faster attacking enchants will get LESS benefit than currently on LIVE?) but in the end, I still think there will be normalizing issues with some classes getting a bigger benefit than others - or an even worse fear is that this will only drastically nerf some "niche" builds out there right now...
Maybe you can help me understand how this would affect an at will like Flurry for TR OR even a GWF in unstoppable with faster attack speed? Contrasted to maybe an at will for GWF like "Reaping Strike" that has a "charge time"
The other thing too would be.
Do you think that would be too convoluted for players trying to figure out enchants? I know if the tooltip didnt explain the actual damage AND its multiplier by animation speed, I would wonder how the heck its calculated...
THANKS!!!
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nwnghostMember, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
This is exactly why the recharge time *doesn't* play a factor right now, and also exactly why the change I talked about above would normalize it correctly.
The math would be as follows
(WeaponDamage * %) * (CastTime).
Meaning they will provide exactly (WeaponDamage * %) Per second you spend casting powers. (DPCT would be normalized).
Cast time has absolutely zero to do with recharge time, and because you can only cast one thing at a time (generally anyway) having a lot of fast recharge time powers *doesn't* become more beneficial to getting more out of a weapon enchant. So rapidly striking powers would deal lots of little hits and big slow powers would hit bigger and harder directly proportional to how long they take.
I am very concerned about this, especially given how rampant animation cancelling exploits are on GWF in particular using sprint or using another power during the animation of the previous power (threatning rush/indomitable battle strike), to reduce effective cast time of the power, but presumably the calculation still using the "nominal" cast time
I am very concerned about this, especially given how rampant animation cancelling exploits are on GWF in particular using sprint or using another power during the animation of the previous power (threatning rush/indomitable battle strike), to reduce effective cast time of the power, but presumably the calculation still using the "nominal" cast time
I would assume this would not be affected by any animation cancel and would be set per power used. So an IBS would be the same cast time across the board on all GWFs, just like a Magic Missile would have a set animation timer across all CW
Maybe your just way above my level of understanding so I apologize and thank you in advance for your patience in explaining this AND taking time to post feedback/thoughts - seriously your posts are a MAJOR reason in what made me become an active player again (from a casual) so seriously Crush, thanks first and foremost.
Cast time - this is something I guess I dont understand, because MOST attacks in the game have a "cast time" or "animation time" of under 1 second. Maybe encounters like cloud of steel for TR are closer to 2 per second, but there are only a handful of attacks that I know of with a true "charge speed" or "cast time" thats long... the closest to this without one may even be IBS for the GWF with a LONG animation windup.
So I guess with what your saying for cast time I dont honestly see MUCH difference between whats already live and your suggesting. Maybe a handful of powers will get a double multiple of the enchant damage (and are you saying faster attacking enchants will get LESS benefit than currently on LIVE?) but in the end, I still think there will be normalizing issues with some classes getting a bigger benefit than others - or an even worse fear is that this will only drastically nerf some "niche" builds out there right now...
Maybe you can help me understand how this would affect an at will like Flurry for TR OR even a GWF in unstoppable with faster attack speed? Contrasted to maybe an at will for GWF like "Reaping Strike" that has a "charge time"
The other thing too would be.
Do you think that would be too convoluted for players trying to figure out enchants? I know if the tooltip didnt explain the actual damage AND its multiplier by animation speed, I would wonder how the heck its calculated...
THANKS!!!
I am using cast time as a shorthand here to describe a bunch of timing tools in the game that add up to convert into "the total time you spend not able to cast other powers".
So lets say for example the flurry on DF hits 5 times in 1 second (to make the math easy)
Each hit then locks you out for .2 seconds (this isn't literally how it works, but the math is close enough)
Therefore it would deal (WeaponDamage * %) * (.2)
On the other hand lets say that cleave takes 1 second per cast, except the last one which is 1.2.
It would deal (WeaponDamage * %) * (1) for the first two hits and (WeaponDamage * %) * (1.2) on the third hit.
As far as what nwnghost is concerned about, there are powers that can have their activation times shortened if you are chaining powers together (we call this the override time), I would use the "ideal" time which would be a power that is chained together. You would lose efficiency on the same order as you would lose by not chaining the power.
The net value of this is that the weapon enchants become a flat DPS boost equal to some fixed % of your weapon damage *as long as you are actively swinging*. Downtime against targets then also has a finite and measurable loss that is equal to everyone.
Hopefully that clears up why the change above works the way it does
I am using cast time as a shorthand here to describe a bunch of timing tools in the game that add up to convert into "the total time you spend not able to cast other powers".
So lets say for example the flurry on DF hits 5 times in 1 second (to make the math easy)
Each hit then locks you out for .2 seconds (this isn't literally how it works, but the math is close enough)
Therefore it would deal (WeaponDamage * %) * (.2)
On the other hand lets say that cleave takes 1 second per cast, except the last one which is 1.2.
It would deal (WeaponDamage * %) * (1) for the first two hits and (WeaponDamage * %) * (1.2) on the third hit.
As far as what nwnghost is concerned about, there are powers that can have their activation times shortened if you are chaining powers together (we call this the override time), I would use the "ideal" time which would be a power that is chained together. You would lose efficiency on the same order as you would lose by not chaining the power.
The net value of this is that the weapon enchants become a flat DPS boost equal to some fixed % of your weapon damage *as long as you are actively swinging*. Downtime against targets then also has a finite and measurable loss that is equal to everyone.
Hopefully that clears up why the change above works the way it does
Yes this does help alot, THANKS! So would there be a potential re-visit on some existing enchants that are really sub-par?
Basically on a DPS measurement your now "capping" if you will Bilethorn damage per second. So if a TR has 1000 weapon damage, and it deals 7.5%/16%(4sec) weapon damage in a sense it can only do a total of 235 damage per second correct? Since a .2 speed attack only deals 20% of that and a full 1 sec attack deals 100%.
So if your looking at 235 DPS compared to an enchant (like vorpal) that on a 35% crit character (very possible to have much higher) at 75% base severity + 50% more severity (perfect vorpal) is getting a 28.5% damage boost (2.25/1.75) * .35 crit = almost 10% damage boost where I would bet 235 DPS is almost NOTHING compared to 10%. By the way thats on 1000 weapon damage, take a GF whose weapon damage is 650 and the numbers run even worse.
I am just afraid this may end up going in the wrong direction - even if meant to "level" the playing field....
It will do largely the same thing as a percent damage increase (because weapon damage makes up such a large part of your base damage) but will be a much smaller part of your overall output than for example stats and various other things. And yes, if (or when, whichever) changes happen to enchants it would come with a balancing pass to make them all a little more competitive. That is the primary reason this is currently waiting until more time is available to do it 100% right.
It will do largely the same thing as a percent damage increase (because weapon damage makes up such a large part of your base damage) but will be a much smaller part of your overall output than for example stats and various other things. And yes, if (or when, whichever) changes happen to enchants it would come with a balancing pass to make them all a little more competitive. That is the primary reason this is currently waiting until more time is available to do it 100% right.
Oh nice! That would be fantastic!
Another way to balance this or atleast consider it would be to potentiality adjust the "base" time on attacks. So instead of using 1 second using .5 seconds as the base, so a power that uses a full second gets double the value than currently on live. This would boost my number calculations to 470 DPS up from 235. Although in my experience having hard capped DPS like this often doesnt bode well since things that are pure % damage boosts scale ALOT better.
Is there any potential to even change what the % is based off of? Because weapon damage favors some classes over others, And while its the most important it just seems like there COULD be something else to base the %s off that is scale-able with other stats.
So basically how Power/ARP/CRIT all support and boost vorpals damage, it would be nice to see some way for stats to affect ALL weapon enchants potential otherwise all the geared players will flock to scale-able enchants.... GPF/Terror/Bronzewood are somewhat scale-able as well and also why they are typically more favored as well...
This has to do largely with a perception of the math. A % of your weapon damage is a % damage increase. It just doesn't happen to benefit from power (or other damage increase bonuses such as feats or boons). Vorpal is in a strange place and will require careful consideration about what to do with it, but in general anything that looks at your weapon damage is actually scalar in value (because it is in general synonymous with your base damage). GPF/Terror and Bronzewood are a little trickier because they are designed with a slightly different goal in mind, but this is all far off future and harder to account for at this point.
I cant really get any deeper into the math without sharing underlying behaviors (which would get me in trouble ) but suffice it to say that I do look quite carefully at the formula and where these things fit into the overall output.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited June 2014
Let me echo aryoux's sentiments, thank you! That explanation was much clearer and easier to understand.
Your continued diligence in keeping us as much in the loop as possible and listening to our thoughts and sometimes fears on possible future changes is extremely appreciated.
I was more confused on the specific meanings of your insider lingo than anything else and now that I know you intend to normalize the damage bonus based on a standard time it is a very good solution. As you said you are basically applying the damage bonus correlating to time rather than to each hit and that is what we want.
Enchantments have been something I know my guildmates and I have felt needed adjustments for a long time, and although I think we may be getting quite a bit off topic here I was wondering if these changes to enchantments you are considering would be including changes to armor enchantments as well.
While weapon enchantments are a bit overpowered based on certain classes at the moment armor enchantments have an almost opposite reaction.
Every character I design I end up looking at the possible armor enchantments hoping to use something other than soulforged. It almost never happens. And while I am not beyond saying that soulforged is overpowered I lean towards feeling if soulforged was not an option at all I would still be choosing the least bad effect rather than the best effect.
In my opinion they just fall short of being good defensively (lack damage reductions, CC or CC immunities) and barely add one minute of damage throughout an hour long dungeon. I'm almost inclined to say they need a good rework from the ground up to focus on making them more impactive rather than just further toning down the soulforged or boosting their current effects.
And again, thanks for having this discussion with us. It's been very enlightening on our end and we do appreciate the direct interaction and considerations to our concerns.
*I leave this one up to you, would you like me to pull all of this enchantment discussion into it's own thread?
It just doesn't happen to benefit from power (or other damage increase bonuses such as feats or boons).
I guess to be honest with you Crush, I know im not the only person who feels like way but it seems like most players would strongly prefer is weapon enchants took into consideration your power/stats/feats because being scale-able I think its what makes them not only more attractive but it opens windows for players to build unique niche builds. I understand what your saying about weapon % being a DPS boost % but because it cant scale with stats, it typically makes it really lac-luster.
Thats just my feeling and perception from playing NW since beta and what I have gathered from many players. I know its far off - and it really is awesome your willing to listen to feedback. My feedback would be id really like to see weapon enchants all operate and affect "final damage" number and not just be a factor of % of weapon damage - enemy DR - because as DR scales upwards, only the scal-able enchants can keep up. With the introduction of tenacity - this nerfed most % of weapon based enchants and had less of an impact to scale-able enchants.
So when you consider a rework possible consider having weapon enchants a factor of tooltip or final damage but at a lesser % which allows for the scale-ability. As classes all participate in "power creep" with every new module via boons/stats/new gear since % weapon enchants do not participate in "power creep" it continues to make them less effective. The way I see it, weapon and armor enchants should have a big impact on how your build can be played, not just a small sliver of x% increased damage but a player with lifedrinker should FEEL alot different than a player with a vorpal and different than a player with a bile.
And I really think if it was all % based on tooltip or "final damage" numbers then you wouldnt have to worry about adding the cast time feature, since it would then not matter how fast you attacked but what was the final impact of each attack. typically faster attacks ALREADY deal less damage than slower attacks, so you dont need to worry as much about time, rather pure final damage.
Comments
The 4 piece bonus stops activating sometimes.
This can be resolved from removing a piece of the set & putting it back on, which can by a pain to do frequently in combat.
To clarify on this a little I looked at how Armor Penetration works and found a couple of side cases where our implementation just wouldn't work. Most common was that some of your powers didn't inherit it correctly, and the second most common was anything happening on a delay actually missing the impact of the Armor Penetration. I have fixed both of these issues locally and they have to go through some testing (as I made armor penetration a fair bit more expensive on the system in fixing it), but I am confident that it works on pretty close to everything, if not everything now.
Also, incidental to this fix, I have corrected a bug where in rare cases two players could benefit from each other's armor penetration on the same target. So yay!
Could this be corrected before your changes go live and cause all DoT powers to do this?
It is actually more likely that those should not do that. It is part of how the power is constructed (those powers are actually firing a new power every time they would tick, rather than just ticking damage). That said, I need to look into how weapon enchants work on a global level anyway since they currently normalize very poorly across each class.
Armpen on CW powers have been talked about for the past 2 years now I think and it have been "fixed" several times now. What powers exactly are suppose to use armpen? Because right now many powers dont. Would the powers below use armpen now when you fixed it again?
RoE
Icy Rays
SotEA: Shard slam
Entangling Force
Repel
Crush,
Id encourage you to see this thread that I detailed this issue...
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?657951-This-is-probably-asking-for-too-much-but
Yes, I tested all of those powers and they were correctly getting Arpen with my changes.
I have seen your thread and have been keeping it in mind. I would more likely change it to something like % Weapon Damage per second (so a power that activates in 1 second would see the same bonus right now) and then powers that take 2 seconds would deal twice as much. However this is far enough off right now that I am not going to be making changes short term because I don't currently have the bandwidth to make the changes and test them appropriately.
Please keep us in the loop so we support you by testing on Preview. Do you have any timescale for the internal testing before it reaches us?
Crush,
Thanks for the response. The liability I see there is unless all the enchants are toned down, that will create massive damage spikes not intended...
An IBS getting 15-18 seconds worth of weapon enchant? That would be insane damage boost.... Its a good idea though, I still think though that a major reason GFs frankly suck is they cant take advantage of weapon enchants since they atk slow and have low weapon damage.
The simple fix to changing it to a pure % damage boost, would make GFs actually have viable options because they can hit hard, they just cant hit often for % weapon damage to work....
I keep coming back to this idea that IMO would really balance the classes alot right now, and id REALLY suggest considering making a change before changing more classes because frankly, weapon enchants will change classes...
There is alot of fun you could have here and it would really bring alot of balance to the game. Also, you can always throw something up on preview and let us do the testing... Seriously there are ALOT of pvpers who would jump at the chance to give you real solid feedback....
Does this mean that Armor Penetration will give less "Resistance Ignored" than it currently does? That will be tough for all classes without a Resistance Ignored bonus on one of their attributes (or massive Armor Penetration on their gear).
Probably just more taxing on the system/server.
The feat Prestidigitation doesn't work with a high number of stats.
Namely:
Combat advantage bonus
Stamina/guard gain
I also suspect it's not working with
action point gain
control bonus
incoming healing bonus
aoe resist
control resist
companion influence
Tenacity
In other words, I don't think it works on any stat that's been introduced in the game after launch.
WOAH, you are thinking of the wrong time. Not the recharge time. Just the casting time. Recharge time will NOT factor into the value of weapon enchants (and shouldn't).
I meant on the internal side. The stat has the same numerical value as it did before
CRAZY MIKE - 14.6k PvE CW
Backbone - 16.7k PvP HR
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I think the point that ayroux is trying to make is that recharge times do factor into the value of weapon enchants as they are set up now and they probably shouldn't, at least not as massively as they do.
For instance my GF has a weapon which is somewhere in the range of 500-600 weapon damage. On the other hand my HR has a main hand weapon which hits for 700-800 damage. To make matters worse Cleave probably hits once for every two hits of Sure Strike, Rapid Shot/Strike or any TR at-will.
Oddly enough Guardian Fighters are fairly bursty. Their main source of damage is from their sparse but heavy hitting encounter powers rather than their At-Wills. Weapon enchants, however, directly reward hitting more often for less damage. The faster and more frequently you hit the more damage bonus the weapon enchantment will give you.
This not only negatively effects the Guardian Fighter but also funnels the metagame into an attack speed (what I believe you are calling Casting Time) game unless you are designed around critical strike and using a Vorpal Enchantment.
I hope this makes the point a bit clearer. It seems like you might have understood and simply disagree but I would I have to respectfully disagree with your disagreement. Having cast times, as you called it, play such a major role is really painful to classes like the Guardian Fighter who land less frequent but more painful attacks.
Nailed it! Thanks! Yes this is what I was trying to say and maybe failed to do so. Guardian Fighters are actually how I came to realize the balance issue with enchants - there really is no good enchant that shines for the GF because of the way enchants work...
For TR - Bilethorn is BIS because of the rapid attacks and high weapon damage
For GWF - GPF currently shines because of the debuff and nice weapon damage and fast attacks
HRs - GPF again because of the high weapon damage/fast attacks.
Just a few examples. To make matters worse, what USED to be the pure best enchant for pvp has traditionally been Vorpal since it IS based on "final" damage numbers so your power/crit/arp all play a role. Well GFs have no STAT (Con/Str) that give crit so they suffer horribly from diminishing returns and even the best GFs will only have around 21-22% in PVP.
Ive gone into too much detail but I think overall the end issue is that most enchants in the game are not very useful - especially for PVP because of the way enchants work. Its all based on weapon damage and attack speed when In my opinion it should just be swapped to a damage bonus - this allows all characters to get equal benefits BUT allows players their own "flavor" if you will. I think thats what was intended?
So just an example: Lifedrinker enchant current deals/returns 8.8% of (weapon damage). Well I believe this is hurt by tenacity AND possibly healing depression but the end result in PVP is truly pitiful for an enchant.
If this was switched to say 5% damage boost and returns 5% (much like lifesteal but not affected by dim returns on the stat) well now ALL classes can use this, and I coulkd even see some unique builds looking at lifesteal again + lifedrinker as a possible build.
Just a thought - because this is a BIG reason GFs are not very useful right now... They just cant excel in weapon enchants AND its also why top "tier" PVPers only really use GPF/Vorpal or Bile(if TR).
This is exactly why the recharge time *doesn't* play a factor right now, and also exactly why the change I talked about above would normalize it correctly.
The math would be as follows
(WeaponDamage * %) * (CastTime).
Meaning they will provide exactly (WeaponDamage * %) Per second you spend casting powers. (DPCT would be normalized).
Cast time has absolutely zero to do with recharge time, and because you can only cast one thing at a time (generally anyway) having a lot of fast recharge time powers *doesn't* become more beneficial to getting more out of a weapon enchant. So rapidly striking powers would deal lots of little hits and big slow powers would hit bigger and harder directly proportional to how long they take.
Maybe your just way above my level of understanding so I apologize and thank you in advance for your patience in explaining this AND taking time to post feedback/thoughts - seriously your posts are a MAJOR reason in what made me become an active player again (from a casual) so seriously Crush, thanks first and foremost.
Cast time - this is something I guess I dont understand, because MOST attacks in the game have a "cast time" or "animation time" of under 1 second. Maybe encounters like cloud of steel for TR are closer to 2 per second, but there are only a handful of attacks that I know of with a true "charge speed" or "cast time" thats long... the closest to this without one may even be IBS for the GWF with a LONG animation windup.
So I guess with what your saying for cast time I dont honestly see MUCH difference between whats already live and your suggesting. Maybe a handful of powers will get a double multiple of the enchant damage (and are you saying faster attacking enchants will get LESS benefit than currently on LIVE?) but in the end, I still think there will be normalizing issues with some classes getting a bigger benefit than others - or an even worse fear is that this will only drastically nerf some "niche" builds out there right now...
Maybe you can help me understand how this would affect an at will like Flurry for TR OR even a GWF in unstoppable with faster attack speed? Contrasted to maybe an at will for GWF like "Reaping Strike" that has a "charge time"
The other thing too would be.
Do you think that would be too convoluted for players trying to figure out enchants? I know if the tooltip didnt explain the actual damage AND its multiplier by animation speed, I would wonder how the heck its calculated...
THANKS!!!
I am very concerned about this, especially given how rampant animation cancelling exploits are on GWF in particular using sprint or using another power during the animation of the previous power (threatning rush/indomitable battle strike), to reduce effective cast time of the power, but presumably the calculation still using the "nominal" cast time
I would assume this would not be affected by any animation cancel and would be set per power used. So an IBS would be the same cast time across the board on all GWFs, just like a Magic Missile would have a set animation timer across all CW
I am using cast time as a shorthand here to describe a bunch of timing tools in the game that add up to convert into "the total time you spend not able to cast other powers".
So lets say for example the flurry on DF hits 5 times in 1 second (to make the math easy)
Each hit then locks you out for .2 seconds (this isn't literally how it works, but the math is close enough)
Therefore it would deal (WeaponDamage * %) * (.2)
On the other hand lets say that cleave takes 1 second per cast, except the last one which is 1.2.
It would deal (WeaponDamage * %) * (1) for the first two hits and (WeaponDamage * %) * (1.2) on the third hit.
As far as what nwnghost is concerned about, there are powers that can have their activation times shortened if you are chaining powers together (we call this the override time), I would use the "ideal" time which would be a power that is chained together. You would lose efficiency on the same order as you would lose by not chaining the power.
The net value of this is that the weapon enchants become a flat DPS boost equal to some fixed % of your weapon damage *as long as you are actively swinging*. Downtime against targets then also has a finite and measurable loss that is equal to everyone.
Hopefully that clears up why the change above works the way it does
Yes this does help alot, THANKS! So would there be a potential re-visit on some existing enchants that are really sub-par?
Basically on a DPS measurement your now "capping" if you will Bilethorn damage per second. So if a TR has 1000 weapon damage, and it deals 7.5%/16%(4sec) weapon damage in a sense it can only do a total of 235 damage per second correct? Since a .2 speed attack only deals 20% of that and a full 1 sec attack deals 100%.
So if your looking at 235 DPS compared to an enchant (like vorpal) that on a 35% crit character (very possible to have much higher) at 75% base severity + 50% more severity (perfect vorpal) is getting a 28.5% damage boost (2.25/1.75) * .35 crit = almost 10% damage boost where I would bet 235 DPS is almost NOTHING compared to 10%. By the way thats on 1000 weapon damage, take a GF whose weapon damage is 650 and the numbers run even worse.
I am just afraid this may end up going in the wrong direction - even if meant to "level" the playing field....
Oh nice! That would be fantastic!
Another way to balance this or atleast consider it would be to potentiality adjust the "base" time on attacks. So instead of using 1 second using .5 seconds as the base, so a power that uses a full second gets double the value than currently on live. This would boost my number calculations to 470 DPS up from 235. Although in my experience having hard capped DPS like this often doesnt bode well since things that are pure % damage boosts scale ALOT better.
Is there any potential to even change what the % is based off of? Because weapon damage favors some classes over others, And while its the most important it just seems like there COULD be something else to base the %s off that is scale-able with other stats.
So basically how Power/ARP/CRIT all support and boost vorpals damage, it would be nice to see some way for stats to affect ALL weapon enchants potential otherwise all the geared players will flock to scale-able enchants.... GPF/Terror/Bronzewood are somewhat scale-able as well and also why they are typically more favored as well...
I cant really get any deeper into the math without sharing underlying behaviors (which would get me in trouble
Your continued diligence in keeping us as much in the loop as possible and listening to our thoughts and sometimes fears on possible future changes is extremely appreciated.
I was more confused on the specific meanings of your insider lingo than anything else and now that I know you intend to normalize the damage bonus based on a standard time it is a very good solution. As you said you are basically applying the damage bonus correlating to time rather than to each hit and that is what we want.
Enchantments have been something I know my guildmates and I have felt needed adjustments for a long time, and although I think we may be getting quite a bit off topic here I was wondering if these changes to enchantments you are considering would be including changes to armor enchantments as well.
While weapon enchantments are a bit overpowered based on certain classes at the moment armor enchantments have an almost opposite reaction.
Every character I design I end up looking at the possible armor enchantments hoping to use something other than soulforged. It almost never happens. And while I am not beyond saying that soulforged is overpowered I lean towards feeling if soulforged was not an option at all I would still be choosing the least bad effect rather than the best effect.
In my opinion they just fall short of being good defensively (lack damage reductions, CC or CC immunities) and barely add one minute of damage throughout an hour long dungeon. I'm almost inclined to say they need a good rework from the ground up to focus on making them more impactive rather than just further toning down the soulforged or boosting their current effects.
And again, thanks for having this discussion with us. It's been very enlightening on our end and we do appreciate the direct interaction and considerations to our concerns.
*I leave this one up to you, would you like me to pull all of this enchantment discussion into it's own thread?
I guess to be honest with you Crush, I know im not the only person who feels like way but it seems like most players would strongly prefer is weapon enchants took into consideration your power/stats/feats because being scale-able I think its what makes them not only more attractive but it opens windows for players to build unique niche builds. I understand what your saying about weapon % being a DPS boost % but because it cant scale with stats, it typically makes it really lac-luster.
Thats just my feeling and perception from playing NW since beta and what I have gathered from many players. I know its far off - and it really is awesome your willing to listen to feedback. My feedback would be id really like to see weapon enchants all operate and affect "final damage" number and not just be a factor of % of weapon damage - enemy DR - because as DR scales upwards, only the scal-able enchants can keep up. With the introduction of tenacity - this nerfed most % of weapon based enchants and had less of an impact to scale-able enchants.
So when you consider a rework possible consider having weapon enchants a factor of tooltip or final damage but at a lesser % which allows for the scale-ability. As classes all participate in "power creep" with every new module via boons/stats/new gear since % weapon enchants do not participate in "power creep" it continues to make them less effective. The way I see it, weapon and armor enchants should have a big impact on how your build can be played, not just a small sliver of x% increased damage but a player with lifedrinker should FEEL alot different than a player with a vorpal and different than a player with a bile.
And I really think if it was all % based on tooltip or "final damage" numbers then you wouldnt have to worry about adding the cast time feature, since it would then not matter how fast you attacked but what was the final impact of each attack. typically faster attacks ALREADY deal less damage than slower attacks, so you dont need to worry as much about time, rather pure final damage.