Magic damage kings after ini patch

[CptGeorges]

This is an awful change. Seriously awful. Just when I strike some form of balance for tankiness and pressure for small scale as kotbs you just YOLO bash ws to the ground. I suppose the overall pressure I will be doing will be higher cause mDPS phys will have to invest into initiative but because of my class I just straight up lose a gajilion parry and no way to get it. Did you guys not think that certain classes only have WS to increase their parry?!

It seems that overall the power threshold of all melee phys classes has been nerfed while the magic users just get free reign, except for, you know, the chosens and SMs who can completely ignore ws if they chose to, and now just stack initiative and str to be parry monsters as well as be unkillable, while I have to wade around praying to sigmar i get a parry because as a kotbs i dont get a single parry buff, parry tactic and now not even an initiative buff. What the actual hell?!

Edit: honestly I am sick and tired of redesigning my tanks over and over again from scratch. I think it's time to just switch to some branided dps and complain about lack of healers and tanks in scenarios. Apparently those people have the right idea after all.

[what63]

People dont invest into magic resistances, dodge nor disrupt because :

1. Disrupt is currently penetrated 10% more than before, for free, by casters :

- Usually average disrupt/dodge chances are 2-4% from stuff +18% maxed out DD, meaning a max of 20-22%, plus a tiny amount from Willpower (saving healers who can add another 21-24%)
- Strikethrough stuff from BoS gear is about 6-8%, plus another 9-10% from mainstat.
- Most casters add another 3 to 5% (Sorc/BW and magus respectively, with base skills).
- Add tactics like elf racial (10%), and various means by other gear, talismans and consumables (1 to 10%).

In the end, at minima, casters and ranged got minimum 17% strikethrough, plus minimum debuffs > 20-22%.
Poof, you average disrupt and dodge scores are now gone, and your 20 renown points became useless.

You can even negate tanks defenses with 15% disrupt tactics (35% > 5-15%), even healers got reduced from 41-46% to 16-26%, at best (wich could be considered as useful disrupt value in the end, in this extreme case).

Same or even worse for Dodge, since you add +10% Pierce defense tactic on top of that, and you can spread then with AoE.
Still physical ranged need to build WS to be effective, as stated previously.



2. Resistances means are existing, but arent ignoring the fact the need further sacrifices, wich are not low ;
- Resist liniment is taking your only liniment slot, further rieving builds based on other stats (crits, wounds, other resistances, etc.)
- Magic resistance rings are taking your 2 or 3 ring slots
- Magic resistances are softcapped to 660, and for some reason divided by 3 (instead of 2) over that value.
- Resist talismans are only protecting against one type of magic, and purple 200 fragments do not exist, you need to make super crits to get at best a +93 magic resistance of one type.
The only other otpion if to get legendary talisman with +60 all resist, while slotting +6% disrupt should in theory hold much more value.
- Magic resistance Tactics are taking 25% of you tactic slots only to protect you from 1-2 classes at best. Pretty much all other tactics are more valuable, because more universal against damage (close combat for mdps, toughness, wounds, avoidances, etc.)
- Magic resistance Potions are taking you armor potion slot, and only protect from one damage. Plus now liniment is far superior (was +180 before, max potion is 256 for one type).

3. Magic resistances are lowered by 40-85% by easy to get (or core) skills/tactics.
- KotBS/Ch, Magus, Engineer, Runepriest, Zealot, Sham, AM and BO/SM with AoE debuffs, often core skills.
- Sorc with mandatory tactic on ST spec wich offer other benefits.
- SW/SH with tactic to ignore all resistances for 1-2 powerful skills.
- Probably forgot some.


All of this without heavy investment (no renown, only mainstat for casters, gear and base skills often doing the rest).

Hitting with 100% over greatly or very low resistances whould at least require more investment from casters, when all people on receiving end (including casters themselves just saying) need to invest 20 renwon point, heavy gear/talismans/tactic/consumables/buffs, only to be always hit 100% but with a measly 20% mitigation in the end ?

I mean, healers and casters can stack toughness and armor, plus anticrit, and be significantly resistant against most physical melee classes, while being able to hit them 100% from 100+ ft away, and kite for most ?



Proposed solutions :

1. Reduce scaling from defensive bonuses from Initiative and willpower, like 2% per 100 instead of 3% to avoid making to much discrepancies between average classes, and healers for example.
Dodge from initiative could stay on 3 per 100 maybe, because initiative is never a secondary stat on any gear.

2. Remove Strikethrough from mainstats, it was a bad idea from the beginning, because it didnt take into account various buffs (and high ones for tanks) to avoidances, stacking them with skills (HtL and other), nor the great means already needing (small or big) investment to get reasonable strikethrough (listed before).

3. Adjust various buffs to avoidances to check their efficiency in average cases.

4. Adjust magic resistances by lowering debuff values (Aoe need to be half ST one for example), in general not getting them far over 250-270.

5. Adjust buffs from consumables and such to not make them overshadowing support classes buffs, and to balance out reduction of magic resistances.

6. Make it so minimum average dodge/disrupt is around 10-15% after all strikethrough and avoidances are maxed (or with average BiS against BiS gear).
Pushing someone to 0% avoidance would mean Attacker maxed out his strikethrough with ALL available means, AND defender didnt invest any on defense, for example.

7. Maxed out Deft Defender should at least provide 10% effective dodge and disrupt against maxed out Strikethrough attackers.

Indeed, casters got a 10% boost - roughly 4-7% if accounting for base WP. If we include buffs/debuffs, especially with tactic investment, we can negate the WP portion of this on a local basis, but in most AoE situations especially, the figure will be significantly smaller than 10%. On the flipside, BG/IB willpower buffs, along with certain things like RP ini/WP buff will now actually make a difference contrary to the past, along with statsteals from BO/SM and the likes. The existence of sorc/BW debuffs makes this less relevant in SOME cases, but does not negate it. Every single person in the game does not carry a tacticed BW/Sorc debuff, and especially not in largescale combat. A caster can in fact find himself facing disrupt values that exceed or closely match the previous baseline with some buffs that previously just didn't really do anything, but were commonly present. This is also a factor in the application of a BW/sorc rotation to begin with, as the most important debuff you need to land, is also the one that makes the remaining portion of it actually land easier. The debuff on WoP/BB does nothing to aid in its own application unless there are other casters already debuffing the target with it. A failed or cleansed application also comes with a very, very disproportionate cost. Likewise for magus debuff. Its existense does not mean we can confidently assume its presence on every single cast of any spell, considering its high cooldown for one, and its debuff not aiding in the application of itself. This is all for the most part simply indicative of a healthy dynamic being in there somewhere.

What I'm trying to say, is that the point of "minimum debuffs" is somewhat moot. And you would also have to include "minimum buffs", though adjusting logic to "possible debuffs" and "possible buffs". Similarily, the fact that certain classes have access to racial tactics allowing further investment in strikethrough, is not a global factor. While this is something that shifts with the winds of balance, the current state of things is that AM for example is not a particularily threatening character to face in a group+ setting. Most of the potential damage from a successful hit facilitated by the tactic can also be negated by a cleanse, unlike classes more heavily relying on direct damage, which is relevant to a fair degree. The elven racial does not apply to magi, sorcs, BW, shaman etc.

Anyways, you can in fact, even when looking at a BIS DPS as incoming source, clearly have a fair amount of avoidance if looking at buffs/debuffs in a more realistic manner. BIS gear is also BIS gear. The equipping of such should in fact be a significant factor when we look at baseline avoidance values- and I think a DPS class having anything north of 5-10% disrupt before debuffs/buffs against such is unhealthy, unless assuming significant investment in the form of avoidance procs/avoidance set boni/avoidance talismans and the likes. The fact that better gear significantly eats into/neuters the gains from "easier" avoidance sources should be a given. But there is a further fallacy at play here still. We are assuming that if an investment of avoidance, in a 1v1 setting, is effectively equal to zero or close to, then the investment will be globally moot. This is not the case. At all. Ignoring the existence of HTL (and IB/BG buffs especially) is, and always was, utterly disingenuous.

Let's assume you invest naught into disrupt, because hey, it all gets removed by strikethrough. You and your group are happily farming pugs, but out of nowhere, a wild Simtex arrives, and aggressively proceeds DoT up your poor choppa. Well, you happen to have a single stack of HTL on you as at least somoene is using his brain. Every spell lands. You effectively do not have a stack of HTL, because it adds to 0%, gets completely bypassed by strikethrough on account of no baseline value. You effectively leave yourself at zero minus incoming strikethrough as base.

Now assuming you didn't operate under the mindset of every single person hitting you being a BIS AM, hitting you while you were under tacticed BB while having a sent strikethrough talisman and double avoidance strikethrough tactic slotted, and you actually invested in D/D to have a baseline against more realistic average attackers, you would very likely not only have at least some % disrupt before the HTL, but now also actually gain a significant amount of avoidance from that one stack of HTL, which absolutely every group has the capacity to bring to RvR. Simtex misses his BB, his day is ruined.

Even Mythic by their own admission did not balance the game around everyone wearing their endgame sets. Non-BIS players very much do exist, and are very much something that should be considered. BIS strikethrough values are a factor, but not a global constant. If we look at the game as what it is, a world with all kinds of people of differing progression levels and thoughts about gear, we can have a more realistic outlook on real values. A lower geared player will have little strikethrough and struggle severely against anything with any form of investment and/or buff. With gear, they have an exponentially easier time dealing with baseline values, but it becomes more and more of a necessity for their enemies to invest in a good baseline AND utilize the available tools for them to enjoy the same level of safety as they did when they were a junior. As with everything else, gear does and SHOULD matter here.

Dodge is, a different story, and needs to be looked over as the ranged physical classes have received the same treatment as their melee counterparts. I.E. completely clown level damage buffs, turning them from solid utility picks into Freddy Krueger.

As for everything resist related, see previous post. Yes, things aren't completely 1:1. No, magic doesn't always face less mitigation, even in cases where the physical comparison is done without even close to max penetration investment or with max possible debuffs. This fact extends well into the medium armor range. There's plenty more actually accurate math that could be done to show the side by side, but I honestly do not even remotely have the patience to concoct a spreadsheet calculator for this at this time. But even the limited data in that post can have multiple points extrapolated to support the fact that magic is, for the most part, completely fine, even without looking at any talisman investment on either side, as far as DPS classes are concerned. Physical does significantly better against some targets, magic does marginally to significantly better against others if we don't fall into the trap of looking at things in a vacuum. Magic is simply more consistent as long as bare minimum counters are employed. The specific softcap and its rules are simply there to counteract the fact that magic pen isn't a thing, and makes things line up fairly nicely to the effective mit physical DPS face.

For the specific suggestions, my only comment is this: The formula for avoidance should quite frankly just be what it was last year instead. While the current situation isn't in any way extreme, the previous iteration was simply better despite its flaws. There are many factors that simply aren't accounted for atm to the same degree as they were then, like people with no mainstat investment having a far easier time hitting people now than back then, I.E. SnB tanks CCing DPS.

[Xalon]

Magic users invest in stats that help them like intelligence. Wtf

[Faction69]

Physical damage also gets autoattack which by itself is easily a 25%+ dmg buff. This is often forgotten.

Autoattacks that are worth talking about are often 2 handed, which means melee range. This is a far worse advantage than having inherent 100 range on your attacks like all these magic casters do.

I have no idea where you get 25% from, it just depends on the target and still big WS investment is needed for it, are you hitting a Shaman with a WL? Autoattacks will hurt, are you hitting regen chosen/mara with engineer autoattacks? Lol.

The efficent of magic is that it need no investments, penetrates everthing regardless of armor class, or resistance buffs. Phys can never match that.

Engineer autoattack is easily 25% or more of the dmg of their single target spec. Even not specced into it it's still huge damage. I play WH, only use 1 autoattack tactic, nothing else, and autoattack is 25% of my dmg, without much WS investment (WH goes main stat first). Can easily be checked on any solo kill on killboard ie:
https://killboard.returnofreckoning.com/kill/35528560
https://killboard.returnofreckoning.com/kill/35528595
https://killboard.returnofreckoning.com/kill/35392752

It's absolutely a hugely significant factor that swings thing back to equality between magic and physical classes. I used to think the same as you but after playing both factions with the same mirror combos including a Magus and an Engineer the lack of autoattack dmg is hugely noticeable.

[kaliyama]

i was just about to dip my toe into this but if this is what's been done with balance, maybe not. what a bummer! fond memories of the original tho...

[Panel]

So are we saying that dodge/disrupt aren't worth the RR points and they are better spent elsewhere?

[Rydiak]

So are we saying that dodge/disrupt aren't worth the RR points and they are better spent elsewhere?

Not really, at least not currently. See this post for an explanation why: viewtopic.php?t=53721&start=160#p561187

[Bozzax]

The formula for avoidance should quite frankly just be what it was last year instead.

+1 as pointed out curreng version is worse

[Rydiak]

The formula for avoidance should quite frankly just be what it was last year instead.

+1 as pointed out curreng version is worse

+1 +1

If the avoidance formula wasn't changed from the August 2020 formula (which had been in use for much longer, as chronicled in the Avoidance Calculator located in the Damage Calculator in my signature) then avoidance and strikethrough wouldn't be as much of a mess as it is now, and parry would never have had to been moved from Weapon Skill to Initiative. Basically, changing the avoidance formula created a snowball effect of balance issues that the devs have been chasing since January.

[Florian90210]

When my SM died couldn't even get to sorc while channeling WoDS over and over, I realized that investing in disrupt on other classes which can't stack 80-100 disrupt is useless.