Melee/Assault SW

[Foomy44]

It’s almost as if people don’t cleanse or detaunt anymore... next you’ll be crying that the Zealot armor/resist debuff stacking(as it should, since it’s a Tactic) is game breaking....

Yea, being double ini debuffed really makes you more likely to be crit... it’s supposed to. Even with 100% crit rate, your group should be able to help you out, since you should see this coming. Guard, absorb bubbles, CC, morales, cleansing, etc... yknow, gameplay.

I don't think comparing a morale to a spammable ability is quite fair (if that's what you were referring to, not very clear). Yes there are defensive tools to help and people are using these but when you are getting hit by 10 ticks of blurring shock every second that even melee healers can now proc thanks to your 100% chance to be crit in addition to all the crit attacks that are actually procing those shocks, those tools aren't quiet as effective as in most other situations. Is your argument that as long as defensive tools exist, no offensive ability can possibly be overpowered? If not, then a line needs to be drawn somewhere, and many people in this thread are arguing that 100% to be crit caused by spammable abilities crosses that line. Don't see how your argument is proving them wrong.

[Dabbart]

#1 it’s not 100% crit if you stack initiative or FS. Maybe100% for BWs.
#2 100% crit doesn’t mean garaunteed death.

Sure you can debuff the enemy. They can debuff you too. They can also morale bomb you, or drop a pair of 6s staggers on your healers and AoE fluff you to death. There a lot of strategies. Something isn’t OP or game breaking until it has no counter. You can counter an Assault SW. You can counter spike DPS.

Edit: with a DPS zealot in the group you can triple debuff Corp and double debuff armor... I love me some DPZ, but they aren’t exactly smashing groups left and right now are they?

[TenTonHammer]

#1 it’s not 100% crit if you stack initiative or FS. Maybe100% for BWs.

How feasible is it to stack ini?

Its really not, stacking the stat itself does not give great returns hence why people get futlie strikes renown instead nor is their a lot of ini stat gear and people cannot afford a arm and a foot for rare fortune gear

also have you seen order? they are 70% rdps and BW is easily one of the most common classes

[Dabbart]

It’s feasible to stack nearly any stat, just depends what your willing to sacrifice for it. The point, was that the double debuff isn’t an auto 100% on every single toon out there. My knight had over 350ini back when 35/40 was the cap. I think my BO was over 320 in defensive gear as well...

People build toons differently. Personally, I’ve always thought chance to be crit was one of the most important defensive stats. After avoidance.

Yea lots of BW. The class that requires additional crit chance the most right... one would say that WHs or any other class would benefit the most, since they wouldn’t have to gimp their defenses to pump crit. Every BW I know has a far harder time being disrupted than not attaining chain crits....

Again though, even 100% crit isn’t the auto death it’s being portrayed as, especially when the SW requires melee to accomplish it...

[roadkillrobin]

Stacking FS will not help the mather.

Forcing players on one side to stack one stat over evrything else coz of the risk of running into one build on one class is not ballanced. Then we're back to Trivial Blows rethoric which was implemented just coz of BW and Sorcs.

Also the Zealot armor/corp debuff tactic doesn't stack with other debuffs as it improves the Demon Spittle ability and the effect still comes from an ability and not from a tactic.

[dansari]

Technically it's better to run init talis instead of FS up to a certain point. Math people did math one time.

[Bozzax]

#1 it’s not 100% crit if you stack initiative or FS. Maybe100% for BWs.
#2 100% crit doesn’t mean garaunteed death.

Sure you can debuff the enemy. They can debuff you too. They can also morale bomb you, or drop a pair of 6s staggers on your healers and AoE fluff you to death. There a lot of strategies. Something isn’t OP or game breaking until it has no counter. You can counter an Assault SW. You can counter spike DPS.

Edit: with a DPS zealot in the group you can triple debuff Corp and double debuff armor... I love me some DPZ, but they aren’t exactly smashing groups left and right now are they?

What you conveniently leave out is that debuffing ini is a nonlinear function. Obviously crits is a burst thing but lets just simplify and look at average damage increase.

@250 ini your avg damage inc 3,5% with a 80 debuff and 23% with a 200 debuff (with 50% crit damage which is low)

But here is the thing it also makes your enemies base crit raise to 70% which unlock Blurring Shock proc meta (add your groups outgoing crit buffs and some additional kniggit incoming = 100% for most)

@300 ini your avg damage inc 4% and 12% respectively. Base chance to be crit 35%. Add the 20-30% of crits of your group and we still have a 65% on hit BS proc meta.

Debuffing armor (toughness or resists) yields linear mitigarion reduction, meaning the first 1000 is exactly as effective as any stackable 1000.

You are correct though the ZELE non morale debuff stack and probably should be mirrored or altered to ability to enforce equality btw realms when it comes to how much realms reduce incoming damage.

E: The most fun question is if 2 WS (2 SWs) can stack with 120 statsteal for a 280 debuff?

E2: Some say this is how WS was on live but they are actually incorrect. They leave out the fact that average base ini of the players was much higher because of sov+ gear was standard (sov, dom, warp all have massive amounts of ini). I remember always aiming for 350 ini which was fairly easy to get. In this context WS ini debuffs become a fun toy, nothing more plus melee SWs was much weaker over all keeping them out of most org play.

E3: morale bomb needs to be adressed as well but that don’t grant broken ability amnesty

[Q73px]

E2: Some say this is how it was on live but they are actually incorrect...

They are not only incorrect for the said reasons but also because literally nothing stacked on live. That's why you wouldn't see any tank using Demolishing Strike post nerf. Pre RR cap increase when they changed the armor debuff values, they also changed the stacking behavior so only the highest debuff would count. That happened because of the abundance of armor debuff stacking. Pre nerf all different types stacked: Weapon/Gear procs with abilities, with tactics and with morales. An IB on his own could debuff 3k armor without much effort by using a proc weapon, demolishing strike and stone breaker.

A stacking ini debuff is equally or even more gamebreaking and those defending it are either those trying to abuse it within their group or people playing said class. The argument of Althirion made me laugh the most because of its contradiction. Sure lad, from now on we all gonna ask our enemies nicely to not abuse their broken tactic. Nerfing it wouldn't be a viable solution, so rather ask your enemy to not abuse a gamebreaking tactic. All evidence for why this ability is broken was provided in the closed thread and the permanent outcry should be reason enough to finally provide a developer statement to clarify why this isn't gamebreaking in their mind and why it doesn't get nerfed! The recent SW changes have been enough to make the class viable even w/o the stacking behavior.

I dont get why one realm is forced to invest into gear, renown and mastery, while one class just hast to slot one core tactic.

[Bozzax]

Oh that was already provided its low usage proves it is not broken iirc

E: regarding stacking there were several things on live that bypassed the general rule

[roadkillrobin]

I remember testing WS and Wtyf (waz that yer finger) live to see if they actually stacked with other things and i do remember wtyf stacking with several things while WS didn't.

Iirc about WS the weaponskill and initiative buff didn't even stack with the Stances.