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[AM] Dissipating Energies

For proposals that have been rejected.
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live4treasure
Posts: 270

[AM] Dissipating Energies

Post#1 » Sat May 19, 2018 4:36 pm

The Issue

I've been playing DPS AM for a pretty darn long time now and I've noticed how this ability is generally regarded as entirely useless, both by my peers and myself, really. The few times I've tried it, it turned out to basically do nothing even if you time and position it really well. I figured that since the general philosophy is that the more points you spend on an ability, the more useful and worthwhile it should be, this ability is probably due a change.

Here are the reasons of why this ability is generally considered as useless:

  • Long cast time for very low return
  • Extremely long cooldown for very little impact
  • Negligable damage even if it was instant cast and had a smaller cooldown
  • Primary targets are the enemy melee line, because you have to target your own melee for it to have any effect. This means that most of the time the only enemies that will be recieving this damage are the tanks, which makes the effect of this ability that much more insignificant
  • Useless in subwarband rvr and 6v6 where the DPS AM has some semblance of viability


The Solutions

I will split this part of the post in two different categories to reflect the two different types of solutions I would like to present you. The first category will deal with solutions that focus on replacing this ability with something else entirely. The second will deal with solutions that keep the core function of the ability as something designed to provide DPS AM with a solid aoe damage option.

Category 1:

  • Solution A: Replace Dissipating Energies with a 1 or 2 second cast time on-the-move slow ability with weakish damage and a cooldown 5 seconds longer than the duration. This ability would have utility and be useful mostly against tanks or to chase down fleeing enemies. Melee dps, which are the primary targets that you want to use this on, all have ways to negate its effect. As such, I don't think it would be an unbalanced ability.

  • Solution B: Replace it with an instant cast ability with a 20-30 second cooldown that deals progressively more damage for every Force stack it consumes. Such an ability would serve as a way to both drop stacks and provide an extra bit of burst damage for a DPS AM.

  • Solution C: Replace it with a buff that would provide a certain amount of Intelligence, Ballistic Skill and Strength to those affected, capping at 120 at max rank, allowing the use of defensive pots instead of offensive ones for him and his team. This mirrors the RP ability that does something similar, but I'm not entirely sure that this is a bad thing.

  • Solution D: Replace it with an instant cast ability with a 60 second cooldown that makes all AM dots tick twice as fast for the next 10 or 20 seconds. I'm honestly not sure what this would do to the class, but it would certainly become a worthwhile ability to pick up. Might be a bit worrying in terms of balance however.

  • Solution E: Xs cooldown, teleport AM a short distance in the direction the character is facing. Alternatively, it could just be a short speed boost.

  • Solution F: Freeze the AM in place, making him unable to move, cast spells or perform any actions for the next 3-5 seconds, but also make him immune to all damage and debuffs. This ability would have to be usable while stunned, staggered or otherwise incapacitated to have any real effect. I can't predict how balanced or unbalanced it would be. I can say with certainty that there are pros and cons for this ability.

  • Solution G: Instant cast, 20 second cooldown. Remove all dots from the target and store them for the next 10 seconds. By using this ability again, the AM may apply all his dots to a new or the very same target, refreshing their duration. A situational, but useful ability. Its effect on damage dealing is indirect, but I think this would serve to reduce the amount of time DPS AM spends reapplying dots, which would be nice.


Now, something I want to point out after this category is that AM requires a huge amount of GCDS before it can actually start to do any damage. I don't consider this a problem, I see it more as the DPS AM's identity of sorts. This effectively means it has ramp up time. The reason I point this out is because adding any more dots or effects that give you a benefit later and not right now means that they would add on to the GCD counter, making the gameplay more and more clunky and unwieldy. This is why generally speaking, I think the correct way to go for AM is to either provide instant cast damage abilities that aren't dots, or provide various utility or defensive effects. Especially defensive effects.

Category 2:

  1. Solution A: Instant cast, 80 ft range, 30-60 second cooldown. Spread all dots upon the target applied by the caster of this spell to all enemies within 20-30 ft of him, refreshing their duration, but ending them on the target of this spell. Now, honestly, I don't think this will make AM aoe damage viable, because at the end of the day, the dots won't be enough to cause significant pressure. A potential use for this could be to spread an aoe heal debuff, which could potentially create a spot for DPS AM in warband play.

  • Solution B: Create a stationary sphere of energy that will deal moderate damage within 20 ft of the epicenter for 10 seconds and slow enemies walking through it. 20-30 s cd. This could potentially revitalize DPS AM in that it would suddenly allow the spec to completely drop Mistress of the Marsh in favor of this ability and spec into other useful things. Mistress of the Marsh still is useful, because it is an undisruptable aoe slow that debuffs the initiative of anyone standing on it. It'll just give two similar abilities for two specs of the same class with similar, but not identical uses.

  • Solution C: Basically just your average, run of the mill spammable aoe damage ability with 2s cast time. Maybe even just copy the shaman one with a cool chain lightning effect. Really, just having a reliable, spammable aoe damage ability might be good enough. I would suggest removing the 5 s cd for both shaman and AM however.



Finally, I think that any ability that would provide solid defensive options for DPS AM would be even better than anything proposed here. To deal damage that even comes close to other RDPS classes, AM has to pretty much go full glass cannon, leaving him basically a free kill for any melee train. I haven't managed to come up with such an ability besides the invulnerability one, however I would urge others to try.

P.S. Solution A from C1 and Solution B from C2 would have to be my favorite of the bunch, because both of them open up more possibilities and design space in the future. Solution A C1 creates an argument for not taking MotM and using those points elsewhere, which could open up future replacements of the Asuryan tree's M4 at the very top for something better and more impactful (Like the recent changes for melee DoK and WP), while Solution B C2 basically just frees up points to use in other places, which also includes the M4 slot.
Giladar - rr 80 DPS AM

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peterthepan3
Posts: 6509

Re: [AM] Dissipating Energies

Post#2 » Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:15 am

In light of AM changes to this ability I am declining for now, as general consensus is ability is in a viable state.
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