Improving the ST of BW/Sorc.

[Reesh]

Spoiler:

My personal opinion on this: I disagree with OP proposal, simply because DoT specs are still kings of pug killing. You only suffer when facing a good premade, which happens like 5% of the time? At that point then yeah: your DoTs get cleansed, and you can't even assist properly on healers due to so much disrupt.

I would much rather prefer tweaking their direct damage and AoE trees in a way to make them more effective against premades. It kinda sucks that all ST specs revolve around Boiling Blood and Word of Pain; i would prefer something similar to what happened with SWs (Assault /Scout got buffed). So I don't know, maybe reworking Shades of Death/Shadow Knives/Neverending Agony (faster cast time, longer range/Undefendable/cast while moving for some DD non-instant skills, etc etc etc) in a way that those who want to be competitive against premades would spec Agony/Destruction.

tl;dr: OP is saying "hey, I want this spec, the one 99% of the players run, to be effective all the time in all situations against all enemies". I am saying "I would prefer coming up with a new spec, fixing/changing some skills, that would be competitive against organized groups".

(this will be my only post as a player)

I also feel the pain, that WoP/BB is the one trick pony, and ST BW/Sorc are not working pretty much without these skills popping on target.

I would love to have more flexibility on a class, but I always come from the position to implement as tiny changes as possible, to avoid massive amounts of coding. If that's not the case, I approve the idea of a hard switch upon the class abilities.

My proposal was pretty much a weak band aid for the situation these classes are facing.

[Coma]

in my opinion the problem with ST of BW/Sorc (and by extension of Magus) is the absolute lack of dirupt reduction, Phisical ranged dps have access to Pierce defense, melee can bypass parry by moving on the side/rear of target, Magical dps have to deal with the full disrupt of their target without any way to reduce it, this problem is excerbereted on healers that have high WP and is even worse on WP that also have a +10% disrupt tattic making them virtually invulnarable to burst damage (since burst is build around several high damaging skill hitting in the same timestamp if you manage to dirupt 2 of the damage source your burst will be made useless...)

In regard to the proposed changes they hardly solve the problem but could be at best considered bandaid;

having BB/WoP non cleansable will not solve the problem that they are hard to land, in this regard having skill only check for defense on application would be much better

SB/VT are not meant for sustained damage but rather to help with burst, originally WoP tattic didn't reduce the duration of the debuff, it only increased the damage (much more than what it actualy does) and debuff, this allowed to stack WoP with VT in the same timestamp.

SoA/SoD this is probably the best suggestion from OP... but it too sound like a "ok you can now be a real dps for 7 sec every minute"... while I think this proposal is moving in the right direction I still don't think that it should be the only change aimed to reduce the "effeciency" of disrupt

PS: I'm looking for apropriote tattics to actualy make a proposal for a "MDPS" version of pierce defense, IMHO that would help a lot for both single target as well as AoE just having problem finding a good spot to put that in ^^'

[Cimba]

My personal opinion is that the theoretical damage potential of the BW/Sorc is fine. This is showcased e.g. when you melt down pugs.

What becomes obvious when facing organized players is that there are very little tools to counter the counter plays. Disrupt stacking being currently incredible easy/cheap in addition to being an always-on mechanic results in what we currently see: BW/Sorc waste a good 15-35% of their GCDs and cooldowns without accomplishing anything. This is not only very frustraing to play but also incredible ineffective.

Therefore my approach would be to increase the reliability of the skills he already has instead of the damage. I believe to a certain extend this should be possible on the BW/Sorc itself e.g. through tactics (maybe extending Burn Through to additional abilities). Or swapping the willpower debuff from BB/WOP to SB/VOT. As these abilities have no cooldown you could at least get that debuff running, after some time.

However I also see this current situation as a chance to improve certain undervalued classes/skills. What immediately comes to my mind would be the IB. The BG Elite Training recieved a buff to disrupt the next 4 spells. Why not mirror that inversly to an IB abillity (Next 4 attacks cant be disrupted)?

Another ability to look at would be WHs Seekers Blade, which afaik is also currently underperforming. Maybe increase the disrupt strike through to 10%.

Well you get the idea. I also think it would be good idea to add something to the offensive ability of zealot/rp. So they can do something offensively productive other than staggering/silencing.

A more mechanical approach could be to reduce disrupt rates during disables.

Back to the OP proposals

1. Chillwind/Ignite
*buff, by giving them more sustained dmg. Increase the tick speed by 0.25 and allow ticks to procs effects.

II dont quite get it. Reducing the tick time by 0.25 would mean ticks every 2.75 seconds. With a duration of 9 seconds you would still only get 3 ticks? Allowing for procs seems like an interesting idea but I dont think it will do to much in terms of damage.

2. WoP/BB
*Option 1: Disable second defense check.
*Option 2: Make them uncleansable - if they have to face 2 defense checks, whilst second one can be modified heavily by defending player it doesn't seem that bad.
*Option 3: Both.

I dont like the idea of uncleanseable WoP/BB. Back in the day healers at least tried to cleanse it. That they currently just ignore it, is unfortunate. Removing the second defense roll would go a long way.

3. Slow Boil/Vision of Torment. - Apply option 1 or 2 from above, both, or:
*change them to fast ticking DoTs. From now they tick every 1 second.

I agree that something needs to be done with that spell because its currently rather useless. Could be worth a try.

4. Shield of Aqshy/Shroud of Darkness - For the next 7 seconds all of your attacks are undefendable, 40ap cost, 1m cd.

This needs to be limited to single target attacks. Even then it would become an incredible potent core ability. Probably should be swapped for Funnel Power (Kind of mirrors the 100% disrupt from WH/WE).

My personal opinion on this: I disagree with OP proposal, simply because DoT specs are still kings of pug killing. You only suffer when facing a good premade, which happens like 5% of the time? At that point then yeah: your DoTs get cleansed, and you can't even assist properly on healers due to so much disrupt.

We have been running a SW/BW assist for the last 6-8 weeks on BIS level. And I hardly use DoTs anymore against pugs. They are too slow and just give unwanted warning against incomming damage. Simple Fireball+Sear+Nova in addition to the damage the SW provides are enough for 90% of the targets out there.
Only against organized player I need the additional damage from the DoTs.

[Toldavf]

Spoiler:

My personal opinion on this: I disagree with OP proposal, simply because DoT specs are still kings of pug killing. You only suffer when facing a good premade, which happens like 5% of the time? At that point then yeah: your DoTs get cleansed, and you can't even assist properly on healers due to so much disrupt.

I would much rather prefer tweaking their direct damage and AoE trees in a way to make them more effective against premades. It kinda sucks that all ST specs revolve around Boiling Blood and Word of Pain; i would prefer something similar to what happened with SWs (Assault /Scout got buffed). So I don't know, maybe reworking Shades of Death/Shadow Knives/Neverending Agony (faster cast time, longer range/Undefendable/cast while moving for some DD non-instant skills, etc etc etc) in a way that those who want to be competitive against premades would spec Agony/Destruction.

tl;dr: OP is saying "hey, I want this spec, the one 99% of the players run, to be effective all the time in all situations against all enemies". I am saying "I would prefer coming up with a new spec, fixing/changing some skills, that would be competitive against organized groups".

(this will be my only post as a player)

I also feel the pain, that WoP/BB is the one trick pony, and ST BW/Sorc are not working pretty much without these skills popping on target.

I would love to have more flexibility on a class, but I always come from the position to implement as tiny changes as possible, to avoid massive amounts of coding. If that's not the case, I approve the idea of a hard switch upon the class abilities.

My proposal was pretty much a weak band aid for the situation these classes are facing.

The main problem with any direct buff is there is no way to improve one tree without creating additional synergy with other trees.

The entire way skill trees work atm really limits the way that skills can be changed/improved.

[Penril]

The main problem with any direct buff is there is no way to improve one tree without creating additional synergy with other trees.

The entire way skill trees work atm really limits the way that skills can be changed/improved.

Don't bother discussing what I said in this thread; i only pointed it out so you knew why I disagreed with OP.

I will make a proposal with my own idea in the near future.

[Nameless]

the thing is that bw/sorc state depends of stats math and dot rules that may end up not permanent. From that point of view buffing/fixing other trees that seems lacking to the lvl of dot tree is better solution than buff to bb/wop

[Reesh]

1. Chillwind/Ignite
*buff, by giving them more sustained dmg. Increase the tick speed by 0.25 and allow ticks to procs effects.

II dont quite get it. Reducing the tick time by 0.25 would mean ticks every 2.75 seconds. With a duration of 9 seconds you would still only get 3 ticks? Allowing for procs seems like an interesting idea but I dont think it will do to much in terms of damage.

I meant, to speed up by 25%. As of current as you said it ticks 3 times in total during it's whole duration, 1st time after 3s from application. Most of the time it's getting cleansed almost instantly, as ignite/chillwind is used to "hide" other dots like wop/bb. My idea was to increase it's effectivness, so make it tick 4 or 6 times during it's duration, whilst proccing effects. That would make this main dot more potent, at giving the consistent "fuel" to damaging.

In summary, after 1 day of discussion so far one thing is clear - everyone voted on removing the second defence check from WoP/BB and I suppose from SB/VoT as well.

[SilverWF]

The more Int u have - then more disrupt avoidance you have also.
This only can be done here.
And no need to create bicycle for a 2nd time.

And also increase a cost of the Deft defender renown passive.

[Acidic]

The only issue I see with the current disrupt mechanism including the check on running dots is the inability to spec disrupt strike through.
The mechanisim is like live and has helped reduce rdps rule.
Yes soc is affected by the disrupt but similar to dps effected by parry and block.
The big issue is that there is no option for strike through.
Adding a method to ignore what someone specked for one class for free is wrong imo.

Edit:?yes nit has that effect , could even bee a choice to raise the strike though number given by int,

[Coma]

Yes soc is affected by the disrupt but similar to dps effected by parry and block.

actualy this is not true... parry and block can be avoided with positioning... disrup and dodge no... also there are tactics that reduces parry, block and dodge (in particular the pircing defense tactic avaible to all phisical ranged DPS debuff all 3 defenses by 15% and it actualy proc easy against target with hig defense... that are those you want it to be up against...) as well as 2h having innate 10% block striketrough.... but there is pretty much nothing that reduces disrupt (magus has a 5% dirupt reduction on a ST dot... but the skill have 20 sec CD and is itself vulnerable to disrupt ^^')