[AM/Sham] AP Drain

[Tesq]

sy but due the changes to am/sh meccanic there is 20% striketrhough, i hardly see these ap drain fail , if you really fear the first one to miss tab a pet, the second can go easily on a target after ppl stopped to htl and is pretty easy shut down some one from act.

No one spec those ap tactic maybe because

A) there is no need exept if am/sh drain

B) they are for spam/substain aka more pve friendly

Dont see why 1 class should dictated your set up, when something like this happen is hardly balanced. If you say than ANY set up have a counter to a heavy hit skill ( like mara pull can be interrupt with taunt) thats a thing.
If you say that you need to have mandatory X or Y to coutner Z then there are only variable.

1- tools to coutner Z are spread a lot and better and easy accessible with out jimp yourself

2- Z is overpowered.

So all of this resolve around: do tools to counter ap drain are easy accesseable more or less and /or are these skill increase the only efficent way to coutner ap drain ?

( cleanse are not since in ROR differently from live with random cleanse you can bury what you want with other dots and every healign am will do just this so even if you cleanse 5 thing you are still ap debffed and drain is currently every 1 sec so cleanse in 5 sec before was more rewarding than now where you have 2 sec more or your ap being drain).

P.S. i wanna add a third option, leave the ap drain as it's now but make it a channeling, even on the move this will assure a easy and always ready coutner play aka taunt / other interrupt.

[Grolar]

1) Return the AP drains to drain every 3 seconds - is it required, yes/no and why you believe so.

Spoiler:

No, because that its too fast a return and makes the ability too powerful.

This contradicts yourself as it currently drains every second and does not provide reasoning for why its to powerful compared to its current incarnation.
Gerv


2) AP drains now only drain 90 AP but you receive 180 in return - is it required, yes/no and why do you believe so.

Yes, because a 180 drain is too much to be drained from a target and essentially decapitates them before the fight begins.

I would like to see the ability cool down increased to 20-30 sec rather than the current 10 sec. I see a lot of AM's heavily reliant on this ability as an offense. IMHO it shouldn't be an ability that is used so much as an offensive one as much as one to use as a backup defense to regain AP.

My additional questions about AP drain. Does it stack? Can you be drained by multiple players simultaneously or only a player every 10 sec's?

Yes you can.
Gerv

[Morf]

You're kidding, right? Restorative burst combined with ~20% healing crit gives you more than enough APs even without drain skill. It's APs on every heal, including lifetap healing. EVERY heal. Works without ab.ex mode. Tested&used.



On order side: Slayer group AP regen, SW group AP regen, RP AP group rune, KOTBS AP group regen, IB AP group tactic, WL group AP regen.

Destruction has counterparts to these skills AND shammies get +AP for target on cheapest heal skill.

Ways to defend: starting with Initiative / Disrupt booster skills, group AP regens, LoS breaking, spending renown on Daft Defender / Initiative (you don't need that much for it to be effective). Ask any of group AP regen classes to use their skills when you are drained. Problem solved.

And AP drain CAN BE disrupted / blocked. I've seen in on my AM and Shammie enough times to know it to be true.
There's no need to change AP drain skills (remember that AM/SHM are not the only classes with AP drains. It just so happens that right now these classes use AP drain the most), just change the way you and your group are playing.

A few things just to correct you on, resto burst grants ap on crit not every heal and requires a tactic slot where ap drain is core ability, slayer ap buff doesnt increase regen but reduces ap cost ( if u have no ap it doesnt matter if it reduces cost by 99%), rp ap ritual is 20% proc on ability use (wont proc if you have no ap to use an ability), ib group ap buff is 25 ap with 3 sec internal cd and this tactic is very high up in brotherhood tree and is never used, shaman ap tactic on heal isnt there cheapest heal skill, gork'll fix it and the am counterpart cost a ton of ap for what it is and again that tactic is rarely used because you wont be using gork'll fox it often at all (waste of a tacic slot), initiative doesnt increase disrupt values willpower does, with ab ex mode ap drain has a bonus to strikethough so its harder to defend and as far as i can tell because my knowledge of every wl ability isnt great there is no ap regen ability according to both career builders(correct me if im wrong).

The legit group ap regen abilities u list all have a lengthly cd where as ap drain is on a 10 sec cd, its very very easy to keep someone perma ap drained, the amount of times i have drained a healer or been drained which resulted in the group wiping is alot and i run with cw, double ap pots, purple cleanse cloak and when grouped will always call out for a cleanse.

Again im not fussed what method is taken to reduce its effectiveness aslong as it is basically nerfed or changed back to how it was, no class should be able to perma silence/disarm and not grant immunity to it and in its current state this is exactly how ap drain works when used by competent players.

@Grolar yes they do stack.

[arnagob]

@NSKaneda

How are you playing your shaman for saying you have NO AP problems ? I'm really interesting, cause as a spammer shaman i don't get it! how you can't get off of AP (even with AP Drain and premade) ?

Otherwise i like the 2nd Morfee idea, we all know AP drain is too much powerfull, 1s or 3s drain will not change so much (even if 3s is already better). Just 1 AP drain on any toon and it's RIP.

[NSKaneda]

@NSKaneda

How are you playing your shaman for saying you have NO AP problems ? I'm really interesting, cause as a spammer shaman i don't get it! how you can't get off of AP (even with AP Drain and premade) ?

My Green Battery build has been posted on forums for 7 months now. It worked on live, it works in RoR. Look it up.


@Morfee: that 20% heal crit (or more) effectively makes (almost) every heal an AP source. Since most SHM/AM skills are either heals, hots or lifetaps you get plethora of AP sources to use and generate from. It's a matter of the build you use and how you utilize class mechanic.

As for AP generators: it's true that Gudrun's Warcry reduces the cost of a skill. For AM/SHM it means that you can generate APs from your cheapest hot at almost no cost at all*. Being drained also means that you have to break LoS and are effectively put out of combat for 6-8 seconds (let's talk about WE 6 seconds stun/disable, eh?). Your teammate uses AP regen. You're back in combat.

Of course, if you want to maintain your front line position or ignore AP drain altogether then why do we even have CC skills in this game? This attitude reminds me of recent "nerf guard" posts.
You are drained / CCed / taunted for a reason. Act accordingly and by that I don't mean "stand where you stood and ignore the source of danger". In 90% of times all it takes is to retreat to back lines / break LoS / get out of range and regenerate APs. It takes what, 10 seconds? And it only takes 1 rotation for AM/SHM to get from 0 to 250.
Other classes disable, stun, knock down, morale drain, silence, slow down, increase AP cost or GCD. AP drain is just another form of CC. And, just like a form of CC, there are mechanics in game to prevent it. I'm sorry to say but it's players fault for not using the tools they have at their disposal.


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* You can fire it up 2 seconds after AP drain started. Tested & used.

Restorative Burst does not proc on heal over time spells.
This discussion is not on other class staggers and they have no relevance here, warned, continued mention of un-related issues will results in further warnings and later banning.
Gerv

[footpatrol2]

You can't and shouldn't be able to protect yourself from all aspects of this game. Your group composition will always have a weakness and strengths. There is nothing wrong with a group comp having a weakness, all group comps should have a weaknesses. It is not unrealistic to take into consideration ap feeds when creating your group composition. Its actually good game design. There are a lot more ap feeds then what has been listed also.

You can create your group comp to be modular and conduct a fast tactic slot switch conducted as a group to deal with ap drains. You know those tactic's that noyone spec's into that has massive AP feeds... they are in the game for a reason.

Btw morfee I've played a shaman for a long time also.

[Morf]

My Green Battery build has been posted on forums for 7 months now. It worked on live, it works in RoR. Look it up.


@Morfee: that 20% heal crit (or more) effectively makes (almost) every heal an AP source. Since most SHM/AM skills are either heals, hots or lifetaps you get plethora of AP sources to use and generate from. It's a matter of the build you use and how you utilize class mechanic.

As for AP generators: it's true that Gudrun's Warcry reduces the cost of a skill. For AM/SHM it means that you can generate APs from your cheapest hot at almost no cost at all*. Being drained also means that you have to break LoS and are effectively put out of combat for 6-8 seconds (let's talk about WE 6 seconds stun/disable, eh?). Your teammate uses AP regen. You're back in combat.

Of course, if you want to maintain your front line position or ignore AP drain altogether then why do we even have CC skills in this game? This attitude reminds me of recent "nerf guard" posts.
You are drained / CCed / taunted for a reason. Act accordingly and by that I don't mean "stand where you stood and ignore the source of danger". In 90% of times all it takes is to retreat to back lines / break LoS / get out of range and regenerate APs. It takes what, 10 seconds? And it only takes 1 rotation for AM/SHM to get from 0 to 250.
Other classes disable, stun, knock down, morale drain, silence, slow down, increase AP cost or GCD. AP drain is just another form of CC. And, just like a form of CC, there are mechanics in game to prevent it. I'm sorry to say but it's players fault for not using the tools they have at their disposal.


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* You can fire it up 2 seconds after AP drain started. Tested & used.

I think we are going a little offtopic here, the suggested change isnt focused on builds for shamans which can grant alot of ap, CC or how this is similar to a nerf guard post, ap drain affects every class.
I never saw your shaman build thread before but i did read it, i wouldnt recommend using that build and you yourself said that you never really played the class and that you are a noob shammy (no offense intended just what you wrote).
Me and arnagob have both played shaman forever and have a good understanding of what works in a wide selection of situations, arnagob also agreed that ap drain is currently to powerful, again this balance proposal isnt about shaman builds anyway, i would just question how well you know what you are talking about after the false info you listed about possible ap regen abilities aswell as a shaman build that is not very useful, lets be realistic here and not focus on things like "if" everyone slotted ap jewels or "if" everyone ran ap builds which took up 2 tactic slots and meant they had to spec up a certain mastery tree.

The reason i created this topic in the first place is because ap drain can be as powerful as a CC effect and has no CC immunity, since this proposal went into discussion phase i have already received a pm from someone whos english isnt great saying that there should be some sort of immunity to it due to how powerful it is and they would be right however i would prefer an option that doesnt change it into a type of CC, one that makes it so you are not facing long periods of time being unable to do anything due to no ap, nobody likes playing there character and not being able to do anything for long periods of time.

The reason why ap drain wasnt much of an issue on the old live version is because it ticked every 3 seconds, allowing players to get off a casted skill before it drained you, most of the time resulting in no ap drain at all, here we have an ap drain that drains every second which results in casted skills going through the animation and cutting out at the end without firing off, this is a common thing, i have received plenty of pm's from ppl telling me how stupid it is because they couldnt attack me due to no ap and have seen this myself when playing various different classes.

Again if the majority of ppl do indeed think its a problem (which i believe to be the case going by the ppl i speak to who dont seem to want to post here ) then im open to any suggestion not just the 2 suggestions i listed.

[Tesq]

fixing morfee, it wasn't an issue becasue it blocked you from spam stuff but didn't completyl shot you down becasue it didn't stop natural regen completly.
This also mean that ap + stuff were working a lot better, here atm ap drain is as morfee said a form of cc just like it is cd increase/decrease but with no immunity.

[Gerv]

Points so far:
- A well placed continuous AP drain can over time silence a player, rendering them useless.
- +AP abilities and tactics exist but are limited by ability use or long cooldowns
- Groups should have a strength and weakness

Moving forward:
- Provide evidence there are alternaive solutions, not already posted, to restoring group AP
- Alternative solutions that reduce its strength but maintain situational effectiveness
- Remember, only prove and disprove.

Gerv.

[Ugle]

Agree with Morf last option seems the best to A) keep the skill viable for the am/sh. B) not shut down the victim 100%. Important with the split for reduced returns when affected by multiple drains.