[Review] [SW] Steady Aim

[Manatikik]

Issue

Steady Aim is a terrible skill that no longer synergizes with any strategy/skills that SW has. It has too high of a cost for its reward, especially with key changes to SW ST spec.

Why an Issue

SW is class based around consistent damage that has a few core tools (VoN, Steady Aim, and UF) at its disposal to give it damage spikes in small windows every minute or two. With certain RoR changes (crit cap making Festerbomb irrelevant and UF removal) SW has lost its ability to spike damage and coupled with the DoT changes leaves SW in a wonky state in smaller scale PvP and ST line ups (LA bombing is still viable for ORvR WB fighting) where they can neither burst nor lay down consistent pressure. Improving Steady Aim could also breathe some much needed life back in to Scout SW's.

Solution

1) Steady Aim changes to increase your chance to critically hit and be critically hit by 25/50% for 6 Seconds on a 30/60 second cooldown. This is my preferred change because it gives equal risk/reward to the SW and rewards good play by the SW if they use it under safer circumstances to mitigate the risk.

or

2) Keep it the same but instead of a flat 1.5 second increase to cast times change it to a +50% buildup time and keep the +50% critical chance for 6 seconds on a 30 seconds cooldown. This way it still affects its mainly "exploitable" skill, Festering Arrow, the same amount but gives other damage moves like Eagle Eye and SFA effective cost /reward for damage spikes. This also would help ST DPS because instant cast skills would benefit from it without becoming long cast moves (mainly FS, FtW, and GA; though a balance to this could be reducing the critical chance increase down to +25% for instant cast skills and DoTs).

[Penril]

Moving to Discussions.

[TenTonHammer]

Spoiler:

Does SW need inc crit chance when they can already inc their chance to crit via ini debuff?

YOU tell us. Debunk OP, or refrain from posting here.

[dansari]

Not sure I agree that the first would be preferred. I think it would make an already viable LA bombing SW stronger, which I'm not sure we want. Picture: I'm already running maybe 10% base ranged crit chance (to make maths easy), plus I'm running bullseye (+20% crit), plus I get extra crit from my group: maybe I've got a knight running Encouraged Aim (I think that's still 10%, correct me if I'm wrong), or Dirty Tricks for an added 5%. So I'm already sitting at 35%-40% crit chance. Now I get Steady Aim, which gives me 25-50% crit chance, to bump me up to 60%-90%! crit chance. I can get at least two LA's off and I practically crit everyone in front of me for those 6 seconds. It would basically become a morale bomb on squishy targets, and the only way to mitigate it would be to HTL. And the risk would absolutely be worth it, since with enough healers and tanks to protect you, you can be pretty tanky even in warband play.

Wouldn't be super OP in small scale, but would be devastating in orvr, at least by my mediocre math.

For #2 -- honestly any buildup increaser probably won't be used (at least by me) even if it does grant added crit chance. It slows down the rotation and still doesn't really allow you to apply burst damage, which I agree is something that SWs are missing.

What I might prefer to see is giving some sort of skill(s) that can be part of the normal SW rotation, but give different bonuses based on which stance you use it in. For example, if I'm in Assault, I would love to see some self-sustain options to increase my defense. If I'm in Scout, maybe I want more burst with Fester or FtW, and if I'm in Skirmish, maybe I want more Toughness or the ability to shred Toughness from my targets. So, something like:

6s with 15s cooldown Steady Aim

• If used in Assault, grants 25% returned hp on damage dealt in those 6 seconds
  If used in Scout, grants +20% armor pen
  If used in Skirmish, grants Toughness steal (60 per target hit for a max of 180)

This gives SWs more of a skill ceiling by allowing them to choose when to use Steady Aim, makes Steady Aim part of a standard rotation, and doesn't grant a flat buff that could make Skirmish OP. I think moving in that direction (more choice, variety based on stances) would be better than a flat crit increaser across the board.

[Acidic]

I fail to see why the dot changes has any relevance to a sw , this change affects pretty much all classes both offensive and defensive. The inclusion of this in the argument for change should mean all classes get given an equivalent improvement.

[Panzerkasper]

Spoiler:

Does SW need inc crit chance when they can already inc their chance to crit via ini debuff?

YOU tell us. Debunk OP, or refrain from posting here.

Ok, I will tell you. No!

The last thing order, and especially SW, needs is another crit buff. Multiple Crit tactics, crit buffs via spells and Ini debuffs. To even discuss about more buffs for the SW is an infamy.
The only proper crit counter destro has is the BG, until this hasnt changed there should be no more crit buffs for order.

1) Steady Aim changes to increase your chance to critically hit and be critically hit by 25/50% for 6 Seconds on a 30/60 second cooldown. This is my preferred change because it gives equal risk/reward to the SW and rewards good play by the SW if they use it under safer circumstances to mitigate the risk.

Where is the risk in that? Order kiting capability is insanely good and SWs defense skills are also more then enough.

[dansari]

I fail to see why the dot changes has any relevance to a sw , this change affects pretty much all classes both offensive and defensive. The inclusion of this in the argument for change should mean all classes get given an equivalent improvement.

OP is not using the dot changes exclusively to propose the need to change Steady Aim, he's saying that SW has no burst potential

Steady Aim is a terrible skill that no longer synergizes with any strategy/skills that SW has. It has too high of a cost for its reward, especially with key changes to SW ST spec.
...
crit cap making Festerbomb irrelevant and UF removal

[Penril]

I fail to see why the dot changes has any relevance to a sw , this change affects pretty much all classes both offensive and defensive. The inclusion of this in the argument for change should mean all classes get given an equivalent improvement.

The DoT changes are irrelevant, yes. But the issue raised by OP is still valid in my eyes: Steady Aim sucks.

[daniilpb]

I don't like solution number 1 because it would limit certain builds which rely on Assault stance. Most of the time when Assault SW is in combat it is under hard pressure because SW in melee range = priority target = easy kill. We don't have aoe detaunt, snare breakers or any other "oh shh!" buttons exept WP. So in my opinion this kind of change wouldn't have much use especially when SW already can gimp its chance to be crit hit with Bullseye (basically this solution just mirrors this tactic - we don't need it)
But I like the idea of solution number 2. For me it can be a fair trade : you would decrease your burst speed, but would increase the overall damage. So you would have some new possibilities. Also it would require better management of your rotations which is quite good, class really needs some new ways to actually think about your skills and not just spam X-Y-Z-repeat.
Also I would like to see how it would affect skills w/o cast times. Would they have 0.5 sec cast?

[lefze]

I completely agree that SW already has way too much crit to be messing around with an ability that gives even more crit.

The issue with scout in my eyes is the long cast time on fester. Make steady aim reduce the build time on the next ability cast by 50% to solve this without giving other parts of the kit any noticeable power. Reduce cooldown to somewhere around 10 sec aswell and we might be looking at a pretty fluid and reliable gameplay.