Return of Reckoning

Allorien wrote: Sat Apr 21, 2018 6:07 am Hmm. SW didn't have a meta on live servers. Each was fairly well balanced. Assault spec SW was not viable until a few years into the game; not just do to balance. This class was littered with bugs from day 1.

Example: one would not get any contribution to strength from ballistics unless one pulled their sword out before switching to assault stance

Example: Eye Shot (restricted to Scout/Skirmish stance) required one to be stationary to cast

SW was a class many could not figure out. SO naturally when people learned what a squig herder could do/had, they thought that it must be the reason the class is under-performing. Some proceeded to complain until they got something similar to whichever SH ability/tactic was. This lead to Leading Shots being moved to a 'core tactic,' and No Quarter replacing it from the Path of Scout mastery path. SW Path of the Skirmisher used to be as follows:

Path of Skirmisher:
- 3 point tactic Split Arrows - Spiral-fletched arrow hits all targets within 20 feet of your target
- 5 point ability Shadow Sting - An ailment that deals ____ damage to your target over 9 seconds and all healing effects used on them to be 50% weaker. Usable only on a target that is already Ailing.
- 7 point tactic Keen Arrowheads - Increases durations of Broadhead Arrow to 21s, Takedown's snare to 15s, Takedown's Stun to 5s, and Eye Shot to 15s
- 9 point ability Flanking Shot - Requires Skirmish. Requires rear positional. Deals ____ damage to target: Vengeful: 20% increased chance to critically hit.
- 11 point tactic Charge Forth - Reduces max range of Skirmish attacks to 45ft, but increases chance to crit Skirmish attacks by 20%
- 13 point ability Barrage - Requires Skirmish. Deals ____ damage to all targets in radius.

Also Expert Skirmisher was another significant change:

Expert Skirmisher - Increases damage by 25% when under 45ft and decreases damage by 20% when over 45ft

I miss Charge Forth/Expert Skirmisher, but this was just an example of how much the class has changed. Even with so much change, there was no specific flavor that had to be played because it was SOOO much better than the others. Plus reguardless of ones points spent in any specific mastery path, a SW kept its range kd, snare, ae root (Whirling Pin), but sadly still had to spend points in Path of Skimisher to obtain the heal debuff.

I am not quite sure what you mean by no place in a warband verses a 6 man.

I will seek reasons for almost all of the changes made to the class. For now, I am focusing on why changes were made to mastery paths. There seems to be an underlying theme of 'this is how it is, just deal with it.' Which I understand because this is an alpha/beta server where not everything is going to be fixed/adjusted all at once, and some things take priority over others. And that 'meta' is a thing?! In my time with WAR most classes had specific builds for specific situations/roles. Not specific build that is the best possible build at that time in the game for just about anything a SW can/could be doing.

I'm just going to say it how it is: someone might have made some changes skirmish/assault because the felt that is what most people on the server played - therefore potentially making more people happy. Or someone focused on them because that's what they liked to play or wanted to see SW's play as (they saw the role of a SW to be as such - so made changes respectively), and/or someone made changes that may not have revolved around someone playing all possible pairings of mastery trees (Scout/Assault, Assault/Scout, Scout/Skirmish, Skirmish/Scout, Assault/Skirmish, Skirmish,Assault).

dansari you stated you are 'not going to address the eye shot change.'
I ask is it your responsibility to address the reason for the change?
You typed as if you know of a reason for the change, but are choosing not to disclose it.
Why not mention the reason. I'm sure it went under some form of peer-review before the change happened. I am very interested in this process that lead to this outcome.

If I am in the right place for this, any help best one can to help me understand the reasoning and logic behind the changes
If I am not in the right forum (section), please direct me to where I might be better addressed.

Allorien wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 1:03 am Eye Shot was solely an initiative debuff. VoN (which was on a 2 min cool down timer) was required to give TD the ability to knockdown the target along with applying the snare. It was a change that was not smart. It went from a 2 min CD to 20s CD without having to use VoN at all. The VoN mechanic (which was fairly half-assed from the start) was turned into just an extra keystroke for damage spikes...instead of making a SW really decide if they wanted to pop it for the ranged KD benefit because they weren't going to be able to do so for another 2 min.

Thank you for information around why changes were made.

I don't know what you mean by giving SW two KDs. Are you talking about EW in the Path of Assault mastery path? If so that's fair. I think its balanced to have 2 KD's. There are immunity timers. One had to spend a lot of mastery points into Path of Assault to get the second KD. How much has changed in this game to make having this be imba?

I don't understand AM Kotbs and SW wiping things comment. Too many variables I think in that statement for me to understand the point.

I still think its silly that people say "strong melee dps" for a rdps class. This is a prdps class that also has the choice to spec into a melee build. My question is why make a prdps class 'main choice' for damage a melee spec? Was/Is that just something the community wanted?

Is there a full change-list? I have used the in game command, but that seems insufficient.