[General] Morale Damage

[Darosh]

I have no objection to time spent thinking, though I would counsel against judging solely based on function and not on power. Immaculate Defense at M3 for example, in its current form, seems an unwise proposal.

On the note of function:power:placement, how do you plan to handle morale pumps as extension of morale gains? Morale pumps (regardless of source and ICD) essentially indirectly change the placement of morales on the morale meter; e.g.: if you were to run a dedicated AM to pump morales, any of its targets are to gain M3/M4 in the time it takes a stock morale gain to hit M2/M3 ~

[Aurandilaz]

I have no objection to time spent thinking, though I would counsel against judging solely based on function and not on power. Immaculate Defense at M3 for example, in its current form, seems an unwise proposal.

That's true, would probably require dropping it from -75% to -50% or losing 2-3 seconds of duration.
Nevertheless, designing M4 slot as the definite spot for offensive mastery tree morals would enable that all 72 currently extremely rarely seen unique morals would get their spot in daylight. (because how many tanks drop that defensive M4 and get a mastery path M4... maybe 1-5%, maybe not even that many players) They require high investment, very long buildup during which you might now be able to drop several M1/M2s instead, and in case of tanks it's just stupid to run something else than ID as M4; IMO a bad design because so much cool content is never encountered and brought to daylight.

[Azarael]

I have no objection to time spent thinking, though I would counsel against judging solely based on function and not on power. Immaculate Defense at M3 for example, in its current form, seems an unwise proposal.

On the note of function:power:placement, how do you plan to handle morale pumps as extension of morale gains? Morale pumps (regardless of source and ICD) essentially indirectly change the placement of morales on the morale meter; e.g.: if you were to run a dedicated AM to pump morales, any of its targets are to gain M3/M4 in the time it takes a stock morale gain to hit M2/M3 ~

I, personally, don't. I am not qualified to make judgments on this topic that aren't derived from simple reasoning, because large scale is not my bag. I intend to see what you guys come up with.

[Acidic]

There are to me two main issues with morals.

A) no counter play to instant damage morals
B) no mitigation feature to the damage

Altering instand damage morals to cleansable dot or channel would allow some counterplay
Having morals use standard damage rules would make them have less impact on the game and reward /punish how the toon is setup. I think it sounds fun with moral vs moral but this just drives the game into sub games and over complexity in my opinion.

[Tesq]

I would first list all the ista 1200 dmg we actually find as " cultrip" of thia thread.and some soft mirrors

Mara/wh/we(?) Directional 1200 ista aoe m2
Bw ista aoe 360 degree 1200 m2

Magus aoe 360 degree from target overtime 1200
Wl directional aoe channeling 1200 dmg.

About these morales 2 most of istant are on classes which have no spot in wb then the only 2 ista 1200 morales on relevant classea are on mara and bw nuff said these are the classes which get wb spots.

As it was said above "channelong morales" offer "counterplays" in addition to "awareness" while the ista morales only offer "awareness",

There 3 type of m2 right know x above

Ista 1200 bw like ( ista frontal subtype mara like)
Dot 1200 magus like
Directional Channeling wl like

The wl is the worst one and is basically raze for wl.

In the same category of bw there are aswell wh/mara/we with the difference that at least wh and mara are" frontal / directional" while bw and magus one are 360 degree ( someone can add the one i miss which is which elf?).

Where "Ista" is better than both " dot" and "channeling" and where "360 degree" is better because it offer less missplay than "directional".

The chain of food on morales is pretty easy to get where bw sit on top (also moral boost which gona make these m2 avaiable in 10 sec after combat start with AoR values) and this is exemplar because this type of play offer very few counter play and WILL escalate with sov sets immunity in real alpha strike.

Another exemple and for this bw m2 is the exemplar scenario , is that due how you wanna focus morales ; m2 is better than core m4 because that moral PuNT ppl away and so you cant focus drop morales,..... this is pretty much indicative of how m2 istant with CC are better than some m4

Since the lack of counter play and presence of self evident powercreep a nice solution would nerf according to how much classes do raw dmg for base:

-Bw make it over time as magus (for consitency or instead if is too good with tactic ,make it channeling)

-Mara could most likely need to be put in line with wl and have it changes to channeling

-Wh/we which are the less likely to got i to wb left istant directional.

These solution would offer more counterplays without nerf morales too much

Bw/magus move away+snare/punt/silence
Wl/mara aoe intterrupt / spread wb on sides
Wh/we lets face these 2 ahould not be touch

The very first nerf to bw would not make bottle neck worst since you can stack morales with skill now, and wh/we can stil ista stab ppl pn door.

Mara would be bringed down to wl level since while not offering a moral pump it counter the enemy one and as in bw case is firat choice in wb so ot need a tone down.

About m4 the sinch with the new rates will make these into meta; my advice would be focus ONLY on the morales 2 power creep at the beginning

And see what get out from m4 meta, but give also a firat impression all m4 should became istant 1200 with crow controll or 2400 unterruptable channeling ( similar to Am m4).

The second problem of off morales are def morales , morales such sorc/engi do NOT reduce off morales dmg, if theae was chamged then to off moralea with channeling or dot component you coult also reapond with moral def counter.

This also is true for tank m4 and the main reason why no wb have a real tool to face the zerg, because if ALL zerg drop morales you die there are no counter for that.

If morales wanna be see as a way to face zerg than more off morales need to offer more counterplays and leaa awareness and vicevetsa def morales need to work vs offensive one , this will give way to a wb to push "throught" zerg and work then both with normal skills amd morales for kill it.

Sy for error and bad format but im with cell and away for holidays.

A special mention would also require kobs and bo m3, these morales while beinh m3 and not 2 will be reached faster so they could use too a dmg reduction to maybe 900 instead aince they offet peculiar CC in game regarding hit 9x target. ( if ista m4 gona be 1200 as i said).

[Ramasee]

Spoiler:

However, now with client control I'd love to see AAO alter moral gains, say with each AAO percentage your realm has, you gain extra moral per second maybe up to 100 m/s from having 100 AAO. So that a smaller strikeforce operating against much larger realm gets to use their morale goodies and actually offer a serious threat despite being outnumbered.
And on the other end, if your victim realm has AAO, maybe the attacker moral dmg diminishes from hitting outnumbered underdog, say enemy having 20 aao makes them take -10% less moral dmg, and at 40 aao take -20% less moral dmg and all the way up to 100 aao giving -50% reduction in moral dmg taken.

A lesson we learned at cost two years ago was that we cannot use AAO to indiscriminately apply a buff or a debuff to all members of a realm, because engagements happen individually. Being outnumbered in an engagement does not mean your realm is outnumbered. I would not use AAO for this.

If possible, the first thing is that morale-based bubbles and morale-based, damage mitigation should work against morale damage. This would vastly improve these types of morales and provide a small level of counter play against morale damage dumps.

This is indeed possible and sounds good.

M2 and M3 morales should not have AoE direct damage. They should be changed to (short duration) DoTs or channels to allow some level of counter-play. Raze for example can be interrupted and has some chance to be healed through if it isn't due to the duration.

Also trivial to do with client control.

Outside that, it may be better for discussion noise sake to bring up the morales by category and then individually. Maybe better still to solidfy what rates of morale regeneration and morale setpoints we will used before we start trying to balance morales.

Go for it.

Current morale system runs at 10 morale generated per second. 360 morale gives you M1; 720 morale gives you M2; 1800 morale gives you M3; 3600 morale gives you M4. All morales have a shared cooldown; most trigger 60s; some 120s; and others 300s.

I think that the current morale generation of 10/s is an excellent base number. This number allows 2/3 morale per second gear to be more impactful than it would be under older generation models. It is the morale breakpoints and the pump/drain numbers that I contend need to be changed.

M1 is the primary domain of smaller scale engagements and effects. M2 is sometimes used in small scale and is the starting point for warband sized morale use. Currently it ends at m2 for most of us. M3 for some classes is seen and used. M4 is rarely ever seen unless being massively pumped.

My idea would be to keep M1 for its similar role; push out some of the warband use of M2 and giving it more small-scale use (by rebalancing them); make M3 be more of the "standard, spammed" morales used in large scale environments; and M4's be used for domination because you are willing to wait. Morale should drop at rate of 100/s in the RvR Lakes/Scenarios if there are no more enemies nearby (aka no more collision). This is to reduce the ability to enter a fight with morales already built.

M1 breakpoint should be 300, M2 breakpoint should be 600, M3 breakpoint should be 1000, and M4 breakpoint should be 2000. All morale pumps and drains should be re-balanced to provide something in the realm of 2-10 morale per second (based on cooldown, cast time, etc) so that they are still useful, not overwhelming, and the morale generation gear can emulate them somewhat. M1s would be primarily self-benefitting or ST. M2s would be for group use, powerful single target effects, or 6 target cap offense. M3s would be for the standard 9 target cap offense, ridiculous single target effects (like cannon smash) or powerful group effects. M4s would be for 12 target offense, maybe local allied buffs, all the things that could dominate warband level play.

The breakpoints listed here allow for, without pumps, a small scale engagement to have more choice between using morales 1 or 2 and when. M2s come faster in warband play but wouldn't be as useful, but could still turn the tide in 12man fights. M3s and M4s become more readily available and designed for warband fights. Of course all of this requires going through and changing most of the morales in the game.

Edit: Forgot to say that pumps/drains should not be instant and instead should increase morale/s for X duration. There should be a softcap on total morale/s at 20 with a hardcap at 25.

[Zxul]

Before making changes though plz do consider the effects in all environments.

For example, suggestion about absorbs or at least moral absorbs absorbing moral dmg- AMs already got 2 buffs lately (mechanics+disrupts changes). Quite a few dd classes relay on moral spike to kill healers- should AM m1 absorb morals, they will pretty much dominate small scale (like they did in the past).

[moorfs]

Morale damage being more potent here than on live is due to 1. players having a lot less wounds 2. no aoe morale drain from sov sets.

Not saying it would work but creating a new morale for tanks that could either reduce morale damage for group or drain morale over time or instantly from nearly enemies may work, morale are an important part of the game but at the same time can be complete bs when coordinating a 7K+ damage drop.

Counters before nerfs imo, ppl generally dont like changes to skills which they may use even if its for the greater good and works out.

[Tesq]

Morale damage being more potent here than on live is due to 1. players having a lot less wounds 2. no aoe morale drain from sov sets.

Not saying it would work but creating a new morale for tanks that could either reduce morale damage for group or drain morale over time or instantly from nearly enemies may work, morale are an important part of the game but at the same time can be complete bs when coordinating a 7K+ damage drop.

Counters before nerfs imo, ppl generally dont like changes to skills which they may use even if its for the greater good and works out.

This would not make morales leas powerfull just make require more time to build em.

It still wont fix the effrctiveness of use m2-m3 and the usefullnes of m4 because work is done better with m2-3.

Conqueror tank alredy have 9 k wounda with conqueror proc vs 10 k of sov , not high enough to make a difference, tanks still get wrek by 7x or more 1200 aoe morales if they get drop togheter.

Because tanks and DD have both access ti

[Aurandilaz]

There are to me two main issues with morals.

A) no counter play to instant damage morals
B) no mitigation feature to the damage

Altering instand damage morals to cleansable dot or channel would allow some counterplay
Having morals use standard damage rules would make them have less impact on the game and reward /punish how the toon is setup. I think it sounds fun with moral vs moral but this just drives the game into sub games and over complexity in my opinion.

The counterplay to instant dmg morals are:
Max wounds (make sure all tanks in your warband have at least 10-12k wounds)
when moral dmg fills your screen or you know its about to happen, Pot asap - and have good healers in your warband prehot you adequately.
spread out; no one (well most are not) going to dump a moral bomb on 2-4 people; no - they are saved for getting rid of a pile of people that are tightly packed. No one forces you to enter a blob formation and no one forces you to march in a deathstack that is where every enemy AoE dps is pouring their AoE, soon followed by morals.

good warband tanks (meaning not random pug wb 2hander loldps tank) are stacking wounds because that makes them more likely to survive a moral bomb drop, unless its extremely well launched nuke that deals +10k dmg within seconds, there exists a chance that lesser "nukes" can be brushed off.
What does this mean? It means that in actual large scale combat between organized guild warbands you need extremely high amount of burst to tear down the enemy tankwall, which can be extremely hard in situations like funnels where you cannot touch their healers, so you have to apply raw force to get into the keep past their massive funnel formation - this is why you have morals, to prevent long stalemates that bore people to such extent that they log off because no real way to force a breakthrough or advance the RvR campaign.

It sucks being moral bombed, but if you coordinate well, it might mean that your sacrifice of soaking enemy morales allows your allied warband to advance without threat of being moraled, possibly allowing a decisive manoeuvre that wins the fight for your realm.

Obviously with declining playerbase and organized guilds vanishing you might think that morals are just mean and make life harder for pugs, but if this game ever gets to a stage where you have multiple well geared and organized warbands going to gargantuan lengths in order to lock down a zone or push the campaign to the enemy capital, you will be needing massive moral bombs to ensure that zones don't become stalemates. People will explode, some will be sad over dying, but renown will rain, medals will be looted and the campaign will advance. This game is all about killing, and when you have 2 optimized warbands that do their absolute best to ensure that they can not be wiped with normal means, you need that moral drop.
Leading to the conclusion, do you want the game to be Age of Pughammer 2018, or do you want to move the game in direction where organized warbands become the primary tool of campaign advancement with all the associated large scale RvR tools (i.e.; AoE bomb morals) that help them in their campaigning.