Patch Notes 31/1/2017

[Fyoshinite]

Some questions:

So essentially everybody has an "allies do -X% AOE damage to targets within Y feet of you" aura?

During huge fights, if either party is too scared to engage, will this cause damage to become too volatile? Is this 'fear' and the melee aoe damage increase the incentive for melee to rush the enemy lines? Would rushing the enemy lines even be a good idea as a group because you're fractioning your mass backline damage?

[dur3al]

Ok, 14 pages and I just got off work, I aint reading all of that...

Picked a bit, and I see a common theory that this will be a major issue for Premades... Why? Wont this greatly incentivise ST builds and assisting? Swap to a bomb spec if you have a bunch of AAO, and watch as they melt, while having all of their damage decreased vs. you. I fail to see any negative for premades...

I see this change as a boon to "competitive" teams. It also follows the lines of Siege Damage(would be cool to have a Damage Reduction on Oil based on friendlies too btw), which I always appreciate. Standardizing systems as best as possible is always a boon in my eyes. It makes things far easier to understand/explain to newbies/returning players/people who don't read the forums...

+anything to decentivise(is that a word?) zerging is good.

Read my post at page 11 to see how this is not really helping the ST builds and assisting, nor will help run "bomb" as a small group.

In reality this change actually can potentially make warband-sized premades be much more stronger. All it'll take is some tweaking in setup for more cone damage instead of around caster and you've just shifted the power even more to the warband-sized groups over small groups in oRvR.

[altharion1]

I believe they already stated that odjira and QE will never be added to the game, I'm pretty sure you won't change their mind on this. Thus I went for a similar overall effect via a different method. I think a snare on certain sizes of blobbed players is a better option than QE or odjira because the snare won't effect scs or small scale engagements, won't stack with existing speed procs etc

Obviously the 30% snare I suggested is far too high.

[dur3al]

I believe they already stated that odjira and QE will never be added to the game

Seriously? Why on earth wouldn't it be added to the game? Mechanic wise we already have weapons in-game who increase speed so I certainly don't see that as an issue? Regarding changing dev's opinion I honestly hope you're wrong - and I do believe they're able to concede from doing past mistakes and move forward from those mistakes as demonstrated by Aza in another thread regarding casual solo play vs group focused play.

The problem people are having, is when thinking "blob" vs small numbers is that this shouldn't really be about AoE vs ST. The blob uses as much ST as the small numbers. The issue is the amount of attacks incoming from one side (splash damage, pet damage, direct damage, dealing over time damage etc) is much higher from the "blob" side, which is why it makes sense for a speed increase proc on-being-hit to be available in-game such as QE.
And why speed and not some armor buff or something else? Because speed and movement is king in open field battles, that's what enables groups to stretch the "blob" side opening room for opportunities of other groups to engage in a semi-equal position of strength. Because no matter what other buffs you gain, being able to simply be out of touch and avoid taking any damage is just simply much better in situations where you're being hit by multiple targets.

[Arteker616]

something i noticed, in 2 attemps of keep assault. with new mechanic a entrenched force has it very easy to blow up the first waves of people storming up the keep .in the time they reach ur tanks u can realy dish alot of dmg wich spreads quickly.

rinse and repeat, very few attackers manage to reach the defensive line wich are not either murdered by npcs+lord and mdps spamming aoe .


gonna be very very hard to get a keeep now.

[navis]

eyy let not forget the best update in here!


Natherul
-Changed all SC quests to have a shared drop off point in the capital cities, Order have Kaige Mortem in Altdorf Market Place and Destro have Riccekac Warshard close to the entrance of the Viper's Pit.


sweeeeeeeeeet!

oh man, I am lovin' it!

[blaqwar]

I have to agree with dur3al here. Although I have to point out I haven't tested the changes yet (doubt I will test them properly, WBvsWB combat isn't my thing) but it seems to me that the change will simply alter the way bomb WBs play but won't diminish their strength.

Consider that destro bomb WBs, Phalanx for example (the most active lol-bomb group on destro), already largely use cone AoE from Sorcs as a source of damage (Infernal Wave, Ice Spikes and Shattered Shadows with FM but that's targetted and ranged). Sure their Magus AoE damage will suffer but their Sorc damage and the few lolAoE MDPS spamming stuff when the enemy is finally in range should theoretically increase quite a bit. Tanks simply stand to the sides of the WB with HTL with Sorcs in the front and spam away.

The predicted counter to this that is inferred from the changes is a direct-engage, fast group of shocktroops, guarded MDPS with tanks (and melee healers??? ) charging into the enemy WB with RD up. This would minimize the enemy WBs damage as they would be hitting their own members (unless you do some clever and quick repositioning of course) while the shock WB's MDPS damage should stay the same (or even go up? Fuzzy on the details of the "48 players cap").

Of course the above only works if the damage reduction affects morale damage otherwise you get dumped into oblivion. And you'd need to have your healers charging with you in order for them to not get wrecked by the uninhibited cone-AoE, which would imply melee healers. That's just theory of course, who knows if the shocktroops even survive the initial AoE when moving in, the damage bonus seems overwhelming.

Also; poor Bitterstone Thunderers, Engi/Magus damage is so heavily 360° AoE based that this change essentially neuters them. Perhaps the shaving of heads in shame and taking up axes is in order?

[DokB]

So I guess it pays to get stuck in quickly against the enemy melee line if you want to help mitigate the aoe bombs, particularly in the instance of taking a keep?

[navis]

I didn't quite catch if the balancing effect is game-wide? RvR, SC?

I just did a SC and TTK seemed way up. I would suggest something like this wouldn't occur in any 12 v 12 situation (eg scenarios), except my BFP maybe..

[Pumatouch]

Fixed an issue causing players not to be considered within the RvR lake if returned there from a scenario.

Stop the press for a second. This is the first line in the changelog. In 15 pages it has gotten 2 mentions. You know what this line means, right? It means Aao has been juked/artificial/fake/constructed/random since who knows when. All the posts about Aao this and Aao that at any given time; they can be discarded now? Does the count work now then? Are we ready to face up to the fact that none of our numbers were correct? Was it ever willfully employed? Or is this a good day to bury bad news?