[Declined][Sorc/BW] Damage, survivability and CC balance.
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2017 4:07 pm
Currently, BWs have better damage overall, better survivability and better CC than Sorcs.
It is an issue because these two classes are the "killers" amongst their respective realm. If one of the two is underperforming or overperforming, the effects on the balance of the game can be felt with ease, and thus lead to unbalance. Also, there is no reason why one of the two should be better than the other.
But first, why exactly BW is better than Sorc? What's the issue?
Well, let's begin with the damage unbalance.
Both classes have the same base damage for each abilities they share. For example, a doombolt base damage is 533 corporeal damage, just like a fireball one is 533 elemental damage, and so on. That's not the issue. The issue is that elemental resistance is harder to get than spiritual resistance. Both with jewelry and accessories, and even more so with bonus from armor set. Most of these bonus favors spiritual resistance rather than elemental resistance. On a personal experience, every toons I get to rank 40 have higher spiritual resistance than elemental one. Sometimes, spiritual resistance was softcaped even if I don't wanted it.
Both BW and Sorc have the same damage potential on the paper. Both have uniques abilities and tactics that make the classes equivalent at burst (funnel power, fireball barrage, swell of gloom, shades of death etc...).
But since spiritual resistance is easier to get than elemental, the damage potential of the BW will always be higher than the sorc's one.
Having access to a heal debuff in the case of the BW is not an issue, destro have also access to some ranged heal debuffs. In my opinion a burst class like the BW should not have a heal debuff, but it makes the class unique, and I don't want Sorc and BW to be mirrors.
Sorc also have access to Obsessive focus, but its only use is in 1vs1, otherwise this is mostly a debuff.
Now, the survivability unbalance.
Let's take a look at the BW tools in matter of survivability.
Shield of Aqshy, accessible at rank 3, is an armor buff with a counter setback.
Cauterize, accessible at rank 9, is a cleanse that works for Curse, Hex and Ailment.
Heart of Fire, a rank 3 morale ability that cleanse Hexes, Curses and it's a HoT.
Searing Vitality tactic, that heals for 67 % of the damage that Sear inflict (can be A LOT with crits).
Now the same for Sorc:
Shroud of darkness, which add bonus to all resistances for 20 secs.
Absorb Vitality, a decent HoT (IF it crits).
Tapping the Dark, a tactic which add a 5 secs absorb shield if Frozen Touch procs for group member.
Bathing in Blood tactic, which is a HoT if the sorc kill an enemy.
Let's compare Cauterize and Shroud of Darkness. SoD will not save you from a complete BW or ST Engie rotation. Its only real use is to take a little less damage from DoTs until a healer saves you. However, cauterize will simply remove the DoTs that Sorc can barely resist.
Then Heart of fire. The equivalent rank 3 morale of the Sorc is Darkstar Cloak, which makes all your abilities to not consume action points for 10 seconds. A really bad morale 3. Even the morale 2 Focused mind is better.
Searing Vitality can decently heal if it crits. Meanwhile Sorc have Tapping the Dark, which requires procs for a weak shield anyway. Bathing in Blood is also an option for the sorc, if it have a place for it. Still it's a pretty weak HoT.
Shield of Aqshy is a decent tool against physical damage.
And finally Absorb Vitality. The only decent survival tool of the Sorc. Unfortunately really high on the Calamity tree, only a few sorcs would rather sacrifice their burst for this ability.
It's clear that BWs have better survival tools than Sorc. Not by much, the only two aberrations I see here is Cauterize/Shroud of Darkness and Heart of Fire/Darkstar Cloak.
And finally the CC unbalance.
I'm not gonna talk about changing the RKD of the BW here. Just like the heal debuff, it makes the class unique and should not be changed.
The only unbalance I see here is about ranged snare.
On the BW side, the class have access to an instant cast, 6 secs channeled snare, with Withering Heat. This ability is "mirrored" with Hand of Ruin. Despite the fact that HoR does not have a snaring effect, it deals a little more damage than Withering Heat (HoR: 343 per tick, WH: 310 per tick). This damage difference is minimal while BW benefits of a good ranged snare.
On the Sorc side, the class have access to a 2 secs cast, 5 secs snare, with Arctic Blast. I should mention that this ability also has a slow travel time, so it's not an instant snare by any means. It also needs the target to be cursed first.
All these flaws make this ability unusable 90 % of the time. In a fight, people who are in range of this ability are already snared by tanks or MDPS. And for people who are not in immediate range, like RDPS or healers, you want to kill them as fast as possible with your rotation, not snaring them immediately. That's the job of the SH, not the Sorc.
Anyway, at this range, once a target is hit by one of your curses, it will not stand still for the 2 secs cast.
In any case, a 2 sec cast snare for minimal damage is a waste of a GCD for a Sorc.
The "mirror" of Arctic Blast for BW is Pyroclastic Surge, which makes all the actions of the target to take 50% more time to build up for 3 seconds, which is a thing that is not covered by another RDPS in a fight, unlike a ranged snare.
What the solutions could be for these issues?
One or more solutions can be picked.
About the damage unbalance:
Solution 1: Change the spiritual resistance from armor bonus sets to elemental resistance, particuarly on destro side. Not ALL armor sets give bonus to spiritual res, but the great majority do.
Solution 2: Add more elemental resistance to jewelry.
The objective here is to make both spiritual and elemental resistance have more or less the same values. Currently, the big difference between the two favors the BW for no reasons.
About the survivability unbalance:
Solution 1: Replace Cauterize with a Shroud of Darkness mirror. The morale 3 Heart of Fire is acceptable.
Solution 2: Darkstar Cloak is useless compared to Heart of Fire. A mirror of HoF for Sorc is welcome.
Solution 3: Replace Obsessive Focus with a Shield of Aqshy mirror.
I know that's a lot of mirroring here, but for classes as squishy as BW and Sorc, I think it's the better for the two classes to have the same basics in terms of survivability.
About the CC unbalance:
Solution 1: Add a snaring effect to Hand of Ruin. The Sorc will have 2 ranged snares (whose one is meh), and HoR will still does a little more damage than Withering Heat, but this will compensate for the fact that BW have access to a RKD, a heal debuff AND a good ranged snare.
Solution 2: Remove the snaring effect from Withering Heat. In my opinion, that's not the good solution. Both classes should have a reliable ranged snare.
It is an issue because these two classes are the "killers" amongst their respective realm. If one of the two is underperforming or overperforming, the effects on the balance of the game can be felt with ease, and thus lead to unbalance. Also, there is no reason why one of the two should be better than the other.
But first, why exactly BW is better than Sorc? What's the issue?
Well, let's begin with the damage unbalance.
Both classes have the same base damage for each abilities they share. For example, a doombolt base damage is 533 corporeal damage, just like a fireball one is 533 elemental damage, and so on. That's not the issue. The issue is that elemental resistance is harder to get than spiritual resistance. Both with jewelry and accessories, and even more so with bonus from armor set. Most of these bonus favors spiritual resistance rather than elemental resistance. On a personal experience, every toons I get to rank 40 have higher spiritual resistance than elemental one. Sometimes, spiritual resistance was softcaped even if I don't wanted it.
Both BW and Sorc have the same damage potential on the paper. Both have uniques abilities and tactics that make the classes equivalent at burst (funnel power, fireball barrage, swell of gloom, shades of death etc...).
But since spiritual resistance is easier to get than elemental, the damage potential of the BW will always be higher than the sorc's one.
Having access to a heal debuff in the case of the BW is not an issue, destro have also access to some ranged heal debuffs. In my opinion a burst class like the BW should not have a heal debuff, but it makes the class unique, and I don't want Sorc and BW to be mirrors.
Sorc also have access to Obsessive focus, but its only use is in 1vs1, otherwise this is mostly a debuff.
Now, the survivability unbalance.
Let's take a look at the BW tools in matter of survivability.
Shield of Aqshy, accessible at rank 3, is an armor buff with a counter setback.
Cauterize, accessible at rank 9, is a cleanse that works for Curse, Hex and Ailment.
Heart of Fire, a rank 3 morale ability that cleanse Hexes, Curses and it's a HoT.
Searing Vitality tactic, that heals for 67 % of the damage that Sear inflict (can be A LOT with crits).
Now the same for Sorc:
Shroud of darkness, which add bonus to all resistances for 20 secs.
Absorb Vitality, a decent HoT (IF it crits).
Tapping the Dark, a tactic which add a 5 secs absorb shield if Frozen Touch procs for group member.
Bathing in Blood tactic, which is a HoT if the sorc kill an enemy.
Let's compare Cauterize and Shroud of Darkness. SoD will not save you from a complete BW or ST Engie rotation. Its only real use is to take a little less damage from DoTs until a healer saves you. However, cauterize will simply remove the DoTs that Sorc can barely resist.
Then Heart of fire. The equivalent rank 3 morale of the Sorc is Darkstar Cloak, which makes all your abilities to not consume action points for 10 seconds. A really bad morale 3. Even the morale 2 Focused mind is better.
Searing Vitality can decently heal if it crits. Meanwhile Sorc have Tapping the Dark, which requires procs for a weak shield anyway. Bathing in Blood is also an option for the sorc, if it have a place for it. Still it's a pretty weak HoT.
Shield of Aqshy is a decent tool against physical damage.
And finally Absorb Vitality. The only decent survival tool of the Sorc. Unfortunately really high on the Calamity tree, only a few sorcs would rather sacrifice their burst for this ability.
It's clear that BWs have better survival tools than Sorc. Not by much, the only two aberrations I see here is Cauterize/Shroud of Darkness and Heart of Fire/Darkstar Cloak.
And finally the CC unbalance.
I'm not gonna talk about changing the RKD of the BW here. Just like the heal debuff, it makes the class unique and should not be changed.
The only unbalance I see here is about ranged snare.
On the BW side, the class have access to an instant cast, 6 secs channeled snare, with Withering Heat. This ability is "mirrored" with Hand of Ruin. Despite the fact that HoR does not have a snaring effect, it deals a little more damage than Withering Heat (HoR: 343 per tick, WH: 310 per tick). This damage difference is minimal while BW benefits of a good ranged snare.
On the Sorc side, the class have access to a 2 secs cast, 5 secs snare, with Arctic Blast. I should mention that this ability also has a slow travel time, so it's not an instant snare by any means. It also needs the target to be cursed first.
All these flaws make this ability unusable 90 % of the time. In a fight, people who are in range of this ability are already snared by tanks or MDPS. And for people who are not in immediate range, like RDPS or healers, you want to kill them as fast as possible with your rotation, not snaring them immediately. That's the job of the SH, not the Sorc.
Anyway, at this range, once a target is hit by one of your curses, it will not stand still for the 2 secs cast.
In any case, a 2 sec cast snare for minimal damage is a waste of a GCD for a Sorc.
The "mirror" of Arctic Blast for BW is Pyroclastic Surge, which makes all the actions of the target to take 50% more time to build up for 3 seconds, which is a thing that is not covered by another RDPS in a fight, unlike a ranged snare.
What the solutions could be for these issues?
One or more solutions can be picked.
About the damage unbalance:
Solution 1: Change the spiritual resistance from armor bonus sets to elemental resistance, particuarly on destro side. Not ALL armor sets give bonus to spiritual res, but the great majority do.
Solution 2: Add more elemental resistance to jewelry.
The objective here is to make both spiritual and elemental resistance have more or less the same values. Currently, the big difference between the two favors the BW for no reasons.
About the survivability unbalance:
Solution 1: Replace Cauterize with a Shroud of Darkness mirror. The morale 3 Heart of Fire is acceptable.
Solution 2: Darkstar Cloak is useless compared to Heart of Fire. A mirror of HoF for Sorc is welcome.
Solution 3: Replace Obsessive Focus with a Shield of Aqshy mirror.
I know that's a lot of mirroring here, but for classes as squishy as BW and Sorc, I think it's the better for the two classes to have the same basics in terms of survivability.
About the CC unbalance:
Solution 1: Add a snaring effect to Hand of Ruin. The Sorc will have 2 ranged snares (whose one is meh), and HoR will still does a little more damage than Withering Heat, but this will compensate for the fact that BW have access to a RKD, a heal debuff AND a good ranged snare.
Solution 2: Remove the snaring effect from Withering Heat. In my opinion, that's not the good solution. Both classes should have a reliable ranged snare.