Coma wrote:th3gatekeeper wrote:
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 ^^'
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)
) while putting timers on mechanic cranking abilities that make sense while giving access to mirror classes to the same sets of skills and tactics. 
).