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AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

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live4treasure
Posts: 270

AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

Post#1 » Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:54 pm

Alriiiight, so I've done a lot of testing with a friend of mine around the new 0.7 total stats from gear thing. I'll share with you my experience, the results and a few thoughts.

So to start off, I'd like to say that the "hybrid" component of the class has really been nailed this time. DPS can heal. Healers can dps. Etc. etc.

My first reaction as a pure DPS AM was absolute astonishment, that I can pretty much fill a healer slot in our usual guild rvr roam groups and do alright. It's not pure healer tier healing, but on the upside I had a heal-debuff, an ap drain and some pretty good damage. I was honestly amazed and thought that this was perhaps OP, but of course I soon realized that by going this route the only benefits you gain to your own pure survivability is an increase to Lambent Aura healing and Shield of Saphery, as well as lifetaps being slightly more potent. It was pretty good all in all, but having a dps AM fill the healer role had some clear disadvantages associated with it, namely being very squishy, so all it did was make DPS AM useful for 6v6 and capable of making an actual contribution with its healing in a WB. Didn't seem that OP at the end of the day.

Next I decided to test the healer side of things. So, the idea was to boost the 0.7 coefficient as high as possible, so that the healer could not only heal better by making use of lifetaps, but also deal out respectable damage with divine fury slotted. I did some calculations and arrived at the conclusion that a BIS healer AM using 2 gear sets and 2 accessory sets and full wound talismans will have around 1136 total stat contribution, if you push it as far out as possible, which translated to 795 intellect when casting with a tranquility empowered damage ability. With a 100 intellect pot, that becomes 895. They would retain about 650-700 willpower baseline, so their passive healing with no way to juggle their mechanic is still quite potent, and then grows slightly with force stacks.

This isn't exactly a whine for equal outcome, but rather I'm telling this story to illustrate something. The result turned out to be slightly disconcerting. My healer friend (rr 78, I'm 71) was running around with about 8050 hp, 45% disrupt, 21% dodge, 13% parry, 0% chance to be crit and they used two armor talismans instead of wounds, simply because they didn't have any, so in fact their stats fell a little short of the maximum. More like 875ish. They didn't lack in self-healing compared to a DPS AM build because of their high base willpower, especially with around 35% healing critical chance. It was actually an insanely strong build with damage, healing (mobile because of lifetaps too), tankiness, everything you'd ever want. Great stuff, lots of fun for my guildie.

Essentially it came down to a playstyle difference, where a pure healer will heal first and then do damage, while I would damage first and then heal. It felt very even at first because a pure DPS AM will obviously have much higher critical hit chance for his spells and so the overall dps is higher, along with having a more reliable ap drain.

However at closer inspection, what happens is that basically in order for me to be 100% optimal in my build, I have to use the exact same gear my guildie is using. I have to go with a mixture of two healing sets for stats, beastlord etc. etc. I won't be able to damage upfront as soon as the fight begins, but I'll be able to fill a healer slot properly and do almost the same amount of damage that I could do while running dominator and full intellect talismans, while having far more self-healing, far more tankiness, so on and so forth. It seems to me the recent AM patch has made a drastic change that isn't immediately obvious to the class. While the DPS playstyle is still a thing, it seems to just be weaker than the healer playstyle now, while basically being able to do the exact same things, while also being more flexible as an upside, because you can remove Divine Fury from your tactics and simply slot something more focused purely on healing.

The optimal setup for a vaul spec also seems to actually be a willpower base that uses the total stat thing to deal out damage to enemies. I'm still testing to find the optimal minmaxed sweetspot, but as it stands, it's pushing AM into a very very weird state. I do hope DPS AM recieves some form of buff before it's pushed out of existence, though. So far, that's all I have. Other than that this was a great change for theorycrafting, had a great deal of fun.
Giladar - rr 80 DPS AM

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RiesgoJones
Posts: 6

Re: AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

Post#2 » Mon Jul 16, 2018 4:58 pm

Thank you and your friend for all this work. Really helped me to better understand how these changes work. Now its time to try things ;)

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Gangan
Posts: 652

Re: AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

Post#3 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:07 am

live4treasure wrote: Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:54 pm Alriiiight, so I've done a lot of testing with a friend of mine around the new 0.7 total stats from gear thing. I'll share with you my experience, the results and a few thoughts.
(...)
I don't realy understand what those new changes on the AM/sham mechanic are about and where did you get that 0.7 factor from?
Maybe a dumb question, I know, but perhaps someone could explain them to me :mrgreen:
Pächter des Wahnsinns
Gangan - SH 75 .... Blumnmoscha - BO 63
Scophis - Zealot 73 .... Drengur - WP 64
Iznogoud - Sham 50+ .... Bixo - Engie 50+
Apogemoth - Magus 40+ .... Loarelle - AM 65
originating from Drakenwald

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live4treasure
Posts: 270

Re: AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

Post#4 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:18 am

Natherul explained the mechanic a bit better in the patch note forum thread, I've been doing calculations and testing ever since and it's very complicated :D Basically, it takes all your stats provided from your gear, so that's cape, armor, accessories + set bonuses + talisman bonuses and then takes 0.7 of that. When you have tranquility and you cast a damaging spell, if your intellect is lower than 0.7 of those total stats, it will use those stats instead. The same way, if you have force when you cast a healing spell, it will use your 0.7 stat instead of willpower for healing.

The downside is that when if you don't have any tranquility, your spells won't do significant damage as a healer, and likewise when you don't have force, your healing spells won't heal for much as dps. However for healers there's an additional advantage. You can get your 0.7 intellect so high that it's almost equal to a dps am, but you will actually do MORE DAMAGE because your dots and your channel recieve 25% damage bonus when cast using tranquility. I've managed to crit for 1400 damage using searing touch in almost full healer gear on a squishy target and not even runnin max dps spec. That is my all-time record, and before I used to run full int talis max Asuryan mastery build. However, it behaves very oddly, because if your target has high toughness or guard, the damage drops by an insane amount. I've had it crit for 230 damage on a guarded dps, not 100% sure why it does that.

For example, the build I tried in the above example was a dps-centric build with magical infusion specced and 4/6 conqueror gear. I had 630 intellect and 550 willpower. The main purpose of it was to avoid having to use wild healing and restorative burst for ap management in favor of AP drain, which also allows you to have 0 heal crit chance and instead devote all your renown and gear to magic crit chance for more damage. It has it's pros and cons, but it's very suited towards solo roam as you I have 1k extra hp and self-heal for a lot more, while basically doing the same damage with a little set up.
Giladar - rr 80 DPS AM

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Gangan
Posts: 652

Re: AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

Post#5 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:44 am

Ah okay, thx, I'll check the patchnote-thread^^

Sounds intersting on the one hand, because the hybrid-part of these classes seem to be back, but on the other hand also a little bit frightful, if you can dps and heal so effective :o

We'll see how it work out and how balncing will go ^^
Pächter des Wahnsinns
Gangan - SH 75 .... Blumnmoscha - BO 63
Scophis - Zealot 73 .... Drengur - WP 64
Iznogoud - Sham 50+ .... Bixo - Engie 50+
Apogemoth - Magus 40+ .... Loarelle - AM 65
originating from Drakenwald

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Lileldys
Posts: 666

Re: AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

Post#6 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:47 am

live4treasure wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:18 am Natherul explained the mechanic a bit better in the patch note forum thread, I've been doing calculations and testing ever since and it's very complicated :D Basically, it takes all your stats provided from your gear, so that's cape, armor, accessories + set bonuses + talisman bonuses and then takes 0.7 of that. When you have tranquility and you cast a damaging spell, if your intellect is lower than 0.7 of those total stats, it will use those stats instead. The same way, if you have force when you cast a healing spell, it will use your 0.7 stat instead of willpower for healing.

The downside is that when if you don't have any tranquility, your spells won't do significant damage as a healer, and likewise when you don't have force, your healing spells won't heal for much as dps. However for healers there's an additional advantage. You can get your 0.7 intellect so high that it's almost equal to a dps am, but you will actually do MORE DAMAGE because your dots and your channel recieve 25% damage bonus when cast using tranquility. I've managed to crit for 1400 damage using searing touch in almost full healer gear on a squishy target and not even runnin max dps spec. That is my all-time record, and before I used to run full int talis max Asuryan mastery build. However, it behaves very oddly, because if your target has high toughness or guard, the damage drops by an insane amount. I've had it crit for 230 damage on a guarded dps, not 100% sure why it does that.

For example, the build I tried in the above example was a dps-centric build with magical infusion specced and 4/6 conqueror gear. I had 630 intellect and 550 willpower. The main purpose of it was to avoid having to use wild healing and restorative burst for ap management in favor of AP drain, which also allows you to have 0 heal crit chance and instead devote all your renown and gear to magic crit chance for more damage. It has it's pros and cons, but it's very suited towards solo roam as you I have 1k extra hp and self-heal for a lot more, while basically doing the same damage with a little set up.
It doesn't seem to count armour, just total stats from .getstats

Its a bit sucky for healing Shaman/AM who stack armour, but I guess willpower stackers are enjoying it.

Still nothing for reliably landing that AP drain, which on Shaman without Wild Healing tactic is a bit of a bummer.

I just don't see why there isn't just a conversion on Willpower straight to Intelligence, instead of having some whacky formula.

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live4treasure
Posts: 270

Re: AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

Post#7 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:04 pm

You can stack full wound talismans instead, for example and because willpower straight to intelligence and vice versa requires the devs to basically copy RP stance mechanic, which is unique to them.

Keep trying Liledys, I've managed to reliably land ap drain, but I am an AM, so I have strikethrough tactics of course. You have Gettin' Smarther, though, so that should help you land it more reliably if you stack a little bit of base intelligence.
Giladar - rr 80 DPS AM

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Ugle
Posts: 589

Re: AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

Post#8 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:27 pm

After testing the changes on my AM and shammie, both more or less BIS geared, my conclution is that it is still not worth juggeling the mechanic as a healer because BM/ITT does not enough heals to be worth using as opposed to ignoring mechanic.

If you are lucky you might get a 1k heal from BM/ITT. This is not enough to make it worth it. Considering you need to go a lot closer to the enemy, disrupts, tanks etc.

Proposed solution to make it worth it would be as follows;

1. Make lifetap heals crit ( you would need to slot both heal crit and magic crit tactic and renown for it to be effective and get double crit, and would not be OP)
2. Add +dmg compnent to BM/ITT with first speccable tactic from right tree (cant remember name, I would see this as a bandaid fix as opposed to no. 1)
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live4treasure
Posts: 270

Re: AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

Post#9 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:42 pm

While this is true that this change doesn't make lifetaps suddenly 100% viable as a healing tool, what it does do is allow the healer to lay in some damage when required and even without divine fury it's a noticable bit of damage. (Provided you pick a squishy target :P)

A dedicated intellect lifetap build making use of Energy of Vaul may be quite a bit more viable now, though. It's certainly risky because you have to stand closer, but I've found some success using Energy of Vaul coupled with a Whispering Wind SM in a bomb warband. It's 100% not BW level, but it's actually very potent aoe healing and nothing to sneeze at, because you can slot this sort of dps AM into a healer's position in a group and you won't be left wanting in terms of healing output.
Giladar - rr 80 DPS AM

Dabbart
Posts: 2248

Re: AM mechanic changes, results and a few thoughts.

Post#10 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 11:30 pm

I played around the first 2 days with my Sham in healmode. I noticed significant DPS increases, managing to snag more than a couple DBs with crits up to 1400 on my channel. I stack Wounds/ini tali's though. Healing is still painful for me on Sham though. AP rapes me, and it's always a choice between survival or heal potential in tactics. As posted above, the max damage I received in Heal spec was actually higher than what I achieved in DPS mode, since it got all the mechanic bonus' as well.

I played a fullish day on DPS sham. Solo, in an off group, and in an "actual" 6man. Now, I love DPS sham to begin with, but the changes made it quite a lot of fun. Quicker cleansing is very nice. Unfortunately, I haven't run into a battle where I could take full advantage of it to test it fully yet. The shield/HoT increase is very noticeable even with DF, my heal potential was quite good. My DPS sham runs with 945int buffed, and I am horribly out of practice. But it was fun!

I am not a "good" shaman player by any stretch, but the benefits to the DPS side of Sham seemed to heavily outweigh the Healers benefits. Yay, I can crit a squishy and steal a DB, as long as I don't get disrupted at a 40% rate, and I happen to be in a position where a GcD on heal/cleanse//HoT/bubble/detaunt/AP drain isn't needed. Whereas the DPS gets to take full advantage on the fly consistently, and with Shield/cleanse actually increases the DPS potential.

Life-tapping as a healer carries with it 1 inarguable reality. In a tough fight, I(the healer) have to be reasonably certain(imo 85%) that the spell I am casting will A, work and B, provide adequate heals to keep my ally alive. If these are not true then I wont cast that spell. I will do something else that carries with it reasonable chance of winning this fight.

Lifetaps can't guarantee A, the spell wont be disrupted at a 25%+ rate(easy to do a dozen differen't ways) or B, the target will take "full damage"(did they just get Guard swapped onto them/detaunted me/M4/etc so even if I hit [and crit is added to the equation] the heals returned wont be negligable...) Having the entirety of heals provided tied to damage provides a system by which the spell is literally a wasted GcD, regardless of the "potential".

I already posted my thoughts on how to "fix" life-taps in the proposals section.

Gonna try a more hybrid build today. But I have zero hopes for it being effective in either regard. Juggling the mechanic just means I don't get off full DPS rotations, and I am constantly looking for a friendly target that needs a heal so I don't just burn AP.

Overall, the change is fun! For both specs, I have seen benefits and reasons to use a broader amount of abilities in a fight. I also appreciate this isn't the "fix" to AM/Sham, just a step.
Spoiler:
Here was a random thought I had the other day though. What if Lifetaps Took ANY Mechanic point? They do both right? DPS and heal? What if they got a benefit regardless of which mechanic point you had built? Say the heal component of the life-tap gets a bonus with Heal mechanics, but the Damage gets a bonus from DPS stacks? This would entail a complete rework of the Life-taps and their heal/damage system however. And i haven't fleshed it out yet. thoughts?
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