[Review] [BW/Sorc] Mechanic

[Penril]

The current mechanic is NOT noticeable in ST spec. Actually, the spec has nothing to do with it; you only notice the mechanic if you are solo/pugging.

Also, as I said, if no one focuses me then Backlash will represent 100% of my inc damage. I don't know where you got that 30% from but it means nothing without giving proper context (who were you fighting, were they able to attack/focus you, were you guarded, was your spec glass cannon/defensive, were you in guard range, etc. etc. etc.).

[sabat80]

Spoiler:

30% comes from the combat log. Just reset it before a day of good fighting and you will see.

Situation where nobody focuses you on sorc/BW is not existent, unless you are playing idiots on the other side As I agree that backlash is not a big drawback you cannot assume that's not noticeable as it hits for more than 10% of life every 3rd cast (even more often if you use glomburst on sorc)

I think from all ideas I like one where as your combustion grows you are more easy to crit - just a linear growth of both.

Or if you want to have some management of resource maybe move the point where best crit damage is - if you divide skills to build / drain combustion / DM, set them at bit higher values than now, so it can be managed and than move crit chance / crit damage in non linear way so you need to keep combustion in the middle instead loading it fully and just forgetting about it

As an example using current numbers:
1 -10 4% / 10%
11 - 30 15% / 40%
31 - 70 35% / 100%
71 - 90 25% / 80%
91 - 100 8% / 20%

That way people will need to manage it. To put some logic you might want DoTs to build it DD drain it and channels to be neutral??

[Coma]

Alright man, you sold me. So this was a very detailed post, care to summerize what you would say is your actual proposal? I mean this is what Penril is looking for correct? The "end goal" of this thread is to come up with a proposal that can then be officially discussed and voted on.

Your suggestion meets all the criteria that I can see:
- makes it not as punishing in PUG scenarios/warbands
- it can never be ignored.

The ONLY question I would have, would be that Penril's stated objection was that in some ways this be seen as a "buff" to BW in that a skilled BW can execute this well and likes it. The ONLY avenue I can see you making this fit in your proposal is to significant buff Mastery Mechanics that are also spenders, so the spenders are the "if skilled its a buff" part of this, while at the same time, the increased AP cost is going to be somewhat of a "nerf" to the current playstyle of BW - since they cannot maintain 100 mechanic all the time as they wll be AP starved.

Heck, you could toy with a simple scaler at first where your crit chance and crit damage increase and your "AP cost" is increased at the same level of the "bonus crit damage" meaning at 100 mechanic, you have +35% crit +100% crit damage and have +100% AP cost to all abilities (meaning double).

Then like you said, give an ATTRACTIVE mechanic spender in each Mastery tree (maybe at the top of each tree?) so that now it would be part of the "rotation". Build up mechanic, manage AP, at the right time use a spender to alleviate AP costs + possible finisher.

The ONLY downside that I dont see discussed is how BW damage is crap without mechanic build up - and POTENTIALLY this is where this "mechanic spender in Mastery Trees" can come in.

I would like to see your fomalized "proposal" as I think you are onto something.

- increased AP cost based on mechanic.
- Mastery skills as spenders (that are GOOD) and can be used at both high mechanic and low mechanic.
- No more "self damage"

Ok I'll try to get it into a "formal" model (I hope to have understood what you mean by formal ^^'):

1) Mechanic change:

a) Combustion Bonus stay as they are; progressive increase in critical chance and critical damage up to 35% critical hit chance increase and 100% critical damage increase.

b) removed Explosion/Backlash.

c) Added progressive increase on ability AP cost scaling the same way as Critical damage (this can be revised based on test, either up, down or giving a different scaler that start slower and reach the 100%+ at max combustion in order to not inder the "build up phase" too much).

2) Core Skill Change:

a) Sear/Gloomburst; removed CD, change cost from 40 AP to 25 or 30 Comb/DM.

b) Slow Boil/Vision of Torment; Changed cost from 35 AP to 20 or 25 Combustion/DM, change AP dreain of 6 per second/30 to 10 per second/50, Ap Drained is returned to the Caster.

3) Mastery Change:

a) BW Draining vitality; Change live tap form 67% to 100%, increase the Combustion cost of sear to 2X (also suggested to switch it's place with draining burn).
a2) Sorc Swell of gloom; Removed automatic backlash, Increase the DM cost of gloomburst to 2X or 3X.

b) (not sure about this but since bothe Sear/Gloomburst and SE/SP have a tactic attached to them that make them more appealing this one should also have one) Fuel to the FIre/Vision of Domination; Added increase AP drain for Slow Boil/Vision of Torment from 10 per second/50 to 15 per second/90 (ap drained is stil fully returned to the caster so it now restore 90 AP over 5 second).

c) FBB; changed cost form 20 AP/second to 25 Comb/second, progressive increase of damage (last hit should hit for 50/100% more to take into account the progressive drop of combustion and by consequence the reduced chane to crit and crit damage) increase chance to Crit based on main target HP (this should also give it the fealing of a single target FINISHER so not a skill you use on CD but you use when the time is right).
c2) Shades of death; changed cost from 30 AP to 60 DM, Increased damage by 150% (this take into account the drop in DM and by consequence the reduced chance to crit and critical damage as well the much higer cost).
c2 Alternative) Shades of death; changed cost from 30 AP to 60 DM, it now apply a debuff on the target that increase all damage suffered within the next 5 second by 20/30%, Incresed CD to 15 second (again a Finisher type or actualy a called focus type of skill where you sacrifice your damage to give your party a burst on the significant target).

d) Stop drop and roll; changed cost form 30 AP to 50/60 Comb, increased damage by 50/100% (this take into account the drop in combustion and by consequence the reduced chane to crit and crit damage)
d2) Absorm vitality; changed cost form 30 AP to 50/60 DM, Increased damage by 20/30% (As a dot with long duration it suffer less from the sudden drop in DM compared to other skill), added a movement speed reduction by 40% for the duration (this is to compensate the high DM cost and increasing it's usefulness as a survival tool that you would be willing to damp your damage increasing mechanic for).

e) Backdraft; changed cost from 25 AP to 50/60 Combustion, increased damage by 20/30% (As a dot with long duration it suffer less from the sudden drop in combustion compared to other skill), increased push distance (as for absorb vitality the increased efficency as a survival tool will increase the usefulness despite the damage drop that will follow it's use).
e2)Shadow Knives; Changed cost drom 20 Ap/second to 15 DM/second, progressive increase of damage (last hit should hit for 50/100% more to take into account the progressive drop of DM and by consequence the reduced chane to crit and crit damage), Added movement speed reduction by 40% on all enemy for 2 second on each hit(skill hit every 2 second so it should reapply the snare effect for it's full duration plus 2 additional second after it's over).



ok here it is... let see if people find it resonable or not ^^' since it is quite extensive it will probably need a lot of twiking ^^'

This would ONLY serve to make singletarget bw/sorc completely useless and require a zealot in all cases. Also, you have focused solely on singletaget specs, which (in my optinion) don't really matter in the grand scheme of things where AoE is the dominant form of damage. AoE is the area where a change is most needed, as in ST specs the current mechanic is still noticeable and deals +/- 30% overall incoming damage.

I actualy didn't focus on ST/DoT... it's just that AoE mastery already have a skill to damp Comb/DM (SE/SP) and it also have a tactic associated with that skill ^^ that's why I didn't suggest additional skill/tactic change for that mastery ^^

with this said since Combustion/DM spending skill should indieed be more incentivated some adjustament to SE/SP or their related tactics could actualy be a good idea ^^ I did indeed left it out simply thinking of what wasn't there to being with and forgot to adress what was there but may need some more love ^^ about this any suggestion is greatly apreciated as well as direct feedback on what doesn't sound right on what I've posted ^^ obviously all is subject to the other player opinion before even thinking about actualy proposing it as a possible change ^^

[Telperien]

What about increasing spells costs and reduce CD on Burnout/Reckless Gathering?
Make Meltdown/Dhar Wind instant?
I think its better to encourage using mechanic instead of panishing for not to.
Make worth use it. Atm there is no reason to use Bournout/Reckless (unless ur preping for m2) or Meltdown/Dhar Wind.

[lefze]

What about increasing spells costs and reduce CD on Burnout/Reckless Gathering?
Make Meltdown/Dhar Wind instant?
I think its better to encourage using mechanic instead of panishing for not to.
Make worth use it. Atm there is no reason to use Bournout/Reckless (unless ur preping for m2) or Meltdown/Dhar Wind.

As has been said before, increasing AP costs would only make sorc 100% reliant on zealot, which already is the best healer.

As for having a one button solution in meltdown/dhar wind, it would add nothing to the gameplay and not be even close to enough incentive to drop comb/DM, so that would have to incorporate the ridiculous debuffs in earlier suggestions. And this in turn leads to really boring gameplay. Make meltdown/dhar wind a lot more powerful on the other hand, and add more options for spending mechanics and I think we would be getting somewhere. Any change made should improve gameplay and add more decisionmaking into the rotations, not just add one more mandatory spell into it.

[JoyToy]

I don't understand why the mechanic gets the attention rather than the fact that the 2 classes have such different skills/tactics. If your goal is to balance, bw is way OP in group/warband play because of the instacast tactic while sorc has more single burst potential because of the gloomburst tactic.

Also, why is it that sorc can SPAM a mechanic cranking ability OUT OF COMBAT while the bw is on a 10 sec cooldown... The mechanic per say is fine, I believe making the skills that reduce the mechanic is the way to go without throwing all the balance out of ''whag'' (see what i did there? ) while putting timers on mechanic cranking abilities that make sense while giving access to mirror classes to the same sets of skills and tactics.

Frankly I see dps archmages/shamans dishing out as much dps as sorcs/bws in scs while being able to heal, res, aoe slow, runaway etc so it seems to me like another nerf hidden in sheeps clothing, I hope I am wrong.

[Tulu]

Not sure if it's possible but what about making Dark Magic/Combustion a toggle effect?

That way you can play it safe, have lower damage but no downside or flip it on and have increased damage but with instant negative effects (take more damage/heal/wounds debuff or something along those lines). The skill would be in flipping it at the right time in order to balance damage done vs survivability.

[Zxul]

Spoiler:

But also in small scale, the organised groups rarely fight the organised groups. If your'e worried about the handful of good BWs on the server smashing some solos then who cares? Without the dmg output you struggle againt someone who has decent gear and guard especially now HtL works.

Im not worried about that. I'm worried about classes having a "mechanic" that they never use/look at/care for. Which is why Chosen/KotBS will also be looked at soon, for example ("aura" mechanic ).

Regardless, this thread will run its course for 2 weeks to see if we can come up with a decent proposal, and then (and only then) will we properly discuss that proposal. Which can, in the end, be completely declined ofc.

There is that point of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it".

Solo bw/sorc is already a free renown for most classes. In exchange, they shine in teams- same deal as with slayer/choppa. Nerf their mechanic (in the name of "mechanics more active", or such), and why would anyone want to play one?

Pretty sure you already seen the results of a "fix" with a 2h chosen for example.

I am getting tire of the terrible reading comprehension some of you have. User received a warning.

[Danielle]

Running a simple thought experiment; imagine BW/Sorc would just have the Slayer mechanic.

It would not impact a ranged ST BW/Sorc negatively whatsoever, unless he had a lapse of attention for getting focused a ranged ST BW/Sorc would just stay at Slayer/Choppa red 100% of the time until he gets focused and it's generally very telegraphed when a ranged character gets focused, then he simply drops to safe mode, until he is able to regain distance. Therefore it would also be a false negative, just like you are suggesting the current mechanic is. For a bombing melee BW it's a different story altogether, because they are under consistent threat of taking damage or consistently taking damage, therefore they would have to always actively manage their mechanic. If both these styles of playing the class are something that is desirable in the game, my conclusion from the above thought experiment is that a vulnerability scaler - like the Slayer mechanic (whether it affects resists, damage taken, wounds w/e) is not the correct solution, because it would be impossible to balance it or make it fun to play & play against on both these style of play of the class - kite ST & bombing melee, because they are affected asymmetrically by any such type of mechanic.

As someone already suggested I think the best way to go forward is to rework all the BW/Sorc abilities on how they build combustion and how they spend combustion AND how they interact with combustion. In principle, to execute maximum burst a BW/Sorc should be forced to spend combustion. An ability works differently at different levels of combustion, for a simplistic example, let's say fireball always builds 10 combustion on 0-90 combustion, at a 100 combustion it's a guaranteed crit that spends 30 combustion and etc. for oher abilities. I am by no means an expert when it comes to the class, so someone with that dedication, hard work, experience and good ideas would have to come in and suggest how to work those things out. Hello Haojun, I heard you play both ST roaming Sorc and bomb sorc.

Atm the BW/Sorc ST rotation is minbogglingly easy to execute, sometimes ignite/chillwind have to be reapplied if they get cleansed to get max damage, but that's about as much interaction as there is, so it can only improve in terms of complexity from where we are now.

Even given all these things there is a risk of making the game more complex, and changing the very basics, which runs counter-intuitive to a majority of the playerbase just wanting to re-experience the good old days, but that has been a theme with this project, for better or worse I guess.

[bctakhy]

RIP sorc/bw...


Didn't read past this. User has received a warning.

Spoiler:

I really think nerf then is very wrong. They are the ranged glass canon and it is like they mush be. Like in all games, u have the high dmg but the lower surv.

BW/sorc is the only class that can die alone in 10 cast (even if got disrupted), with the lower def from all classes. Without 100 conb they do no dmg, unlike the other ranged DPS that do same burts dmg with lot of def/surv skills ( self punt, kill pet for CC, keg, stagger, ...).
I have sorc, BW, eng, magus and low lvl SH ( also played BW, SW, sorc, eng on live) and have tested how easy kill / surv with ones and how easy die with others.

U compare then with melee DPS and that is wrong vienw. Melee can go easy next to guard tank, in case of slayer/chappa, not even need look for a good target, just spam 1 skill to kill (yes, have a slayer too ;P) and they have dmg from AA. Plus, u need dedicated healer.

They can be easy countered by a good tank that taunt and use other interrupt skills to break u rotation, and remever even when u challenged and u DPS is lowered, u still do 750 self dmg. A good healer will easy counter u dmg too, just looking to the UI thanks to addons.

U still wanna nerf then, ok, just cut bonuses they get from comb, but test the dmg compared with other DPS and u will see how they die before they do 50% dmg others do...