Patch notes 22/12/2018

[Morf]

Spoiler:

Or respec to dps. Its what I did.

What if I don't want to play DPS? **** me, huh?

You can heal just fine exactly as you did before, you can now dps exactly how you did before assuming you gear and spec for the roles. The mechanic is now still VERY strong, stronger than most other career mechanics

Heres what it does now - 40% cast time reduction, 40% ap reduction and 25% augmentation on instants AND movecast on certain abilities - this is a strong career mechanic by any estimation. Even now, this only requires a SINGLE point to be active and receive all the benefits.

Heres what it DID - 40% cast time reduction, 40% ap reduction and 25% augmentation on instants AND movecast on certain abilities, converted all your willpower/intelligence from items to the other depending on ability type cast AND made said abilities behave as if the AM/SH had full 15 point investment in respective trees, oh and additional strikethrough on various abilities. On top of that, the conversion was not grabbing an average, it was grabbing ALL of your base stats, adding them together, and reducing it by 70%, then using that TOTAL value for the modifier. Not at average of your stats * .7, but the total of your stats * .7, which is ridiculous. This premise is broken, ignores the fact that stats exist on gear at all, and wildly overshadows any player who is building for their spec in an intuitive manner who might not realize the messed up way this mechanic was working.

So if you were full heal spec, as much willpower as you could muster on items with defenses and tools without a single point in the DPS trees, you could hot yourself then use an attack and it would convert all your stats (not average stat contribution, contrary to speculation) over to intelligence AND fill up your DPS tree with 15 points worth of augmentation.

So yeah, Archmage/Shaman having their own mechanic, stealing the RP and Zealots mechanic and massively improving on it as well, then adding in the other base benefits that STILL exist was grossly exploitable.

Now don't get me wrong, if you played as a straight DPS sham/am you wouldn't have personally benefited from the system as the stat transfer only went onto other people in heals. If you played as a healer with a little tapping, you would be benefiting by a large amount but assuming you invested to Energy of Vaul/ Fury of da Green you only gained 2 additional mastery points of benefit (and a crazy stat transfer). However, if as said, you were a full heal spec, will some in the "lifetap tree" and zero in damage tree you could hot 5 people pretty fast and then drop 5 massive attacks on people with a huge intelligence boost AND as if you had a full 15 points invested in the DPS tree, if you cant see how this was exploitative and overpowered there may be no convincing you.

You may not have used it this way, you may have played in a manner which didn't synergize the mechanic to its extreme, if you played as a heal caster nothing has changed, if you play as a dps nothing has changed, if you want to be caster healer/tapper hybrid you will feel the pinch currently and if you were a caster healer/nuker that's gone forever. If you want to deal significant damage, you're going to need to invest in the damage stat, like every other class also needs to do. There's choices involved, and having it all simultaneously is busted.

There is nothing weak about the AM/Shaman classes, they may not be the best class, they may not be the worst but NO class on RoR is going to be the recipient of a monstrously complex omni mechanic which when used at the extreme produces literally insane results.

This isn't a player fault, it was a mechanic which became a rolling snowball and its now been cut back to what a mechanic should be which is a benefit, not a plaster cast over class/ability issues in this manner which gave all things to all specs, that's not what a mechanic is for.

To sum up, its had the potentially exploitative shifter system removed, this is not where the class will remain, its just where the class is right now. Its on the agenda, flaws are known and its in the works. We currently have a decent draft for a more dynamic mechanic that encourages different uses of the mechanic, and will require a bit of relearning to use effectively. Which, in itself, will be reviewed over time to make sure the values line up with effectiveness of the class as a whole.

You are correct if you are talking about the first ab ex shaman/am changes way back but this isnt how it played out with the last changes, sure as a healer your dps was boosted if u had a stack or 5 to use up but the damage was still bad and if you were dps and had a stack or 5 of heal stacks your damage was not god like as you try to portray the main bonus was cast time reduction and thats it, i mean did anyone making these changes actually play the class effectively in non 1v1 pug environments ? u have under 200 int and around 500-600 willpower as a healer and around 800-900 int and 300ish willpower as a dps, these dont add up to monstrous dps numbers, far from it.

Currently trying to work the mechanic and lifetap as a healer im wasting ap, hitting targets for under 100 and healing for under 150, i really dont understand the need to gut it again, u had something great (not op), something am/sham healers have been asking for since the live game and decided to return sham/am healers back to having numerous disadvantages over the other 4 healers, once again we lack a decent st heal that doesnt take forever to build up and we all know hot spamming doesnt work here due to low def values compared to off values.

Why not just allow the 4 lifetap skills to benefit from the stat maths u described when consuming a heal stack instead ? this allows heal sham/am to continue to use the mechanic and does no harm to dps sham/am because generally all you do as dps sham/am is spam group heal or your only big st heal with cast time reduction when someone or your group is in trouble

[Stinkyweed]

Agreed, make baby step reductions to find what the devs feel is a sweetspot for the performance of the class rather than a sweeping gutting and possible future rebuild to some other mechanic. My opinion, for what its worth(less), is the heal shammie and heal AM where on the right path to making the class more viable and fun to play.

[wargrimnir]

You are correct if you are talking about the first ab ex shaman/am changes way back but this isnt how it played out with the last changes, sure as a healer your dps was boosted if u had a stack or 5 to use up but the damage was still bad and if you were dps and had a stack or 5 of heal stacks your damage was not god like as you try to portray the main bonus was cast time reduction and thats it, i mean did anyone making these changes actually play the class effectively in non 1v1 pug environments ? u have under 200 int and around 500-600 willpower as a healer and around 800-900 int and 300ish willpower as a dps, these dont add up to monstrous dps numbers, far from it.

Currently trying to work the mechanic and lifetap as a healer im wasting ap, hitting targets for under 100 and healing for under 150, i really dont understand the need to gut it again, u had something great (not op), something am/sham healers have been asking for since the live game and decided to return sham/am healers back to having numerous disadvantages over the other 4 healers, once again we lack a decent st heal that doesnt take forever to build up and we all know hot spamming doesnt work here due to low def values compared to off values.

Why not just allow the 4 lifetap skills to benefit from the stat maths u described when consuming a heal stack instead ? this allows heal sham/am to continue to use the mechanic and does no harm to dps sham/am because generally all you do as dps sham/am is spam group heal or your only big st heal with cast time reduction when someone or your group is in trouble

Except it didn't work this way. The mechanic added your Strength, Willpower, Toughness, Wounds, Initiative, Weaponskill, Ballistic Skill, and Intelligence up, then multiplied it by .7, this was the value consuming stacks was using as Intelligence.

[Sulorie]

Except it didn't work this way. The mechanic added your Strength, Willpower, Toughness, Wounds, Initiative, Weaponskill, Ballistic Skill, and Intelligence up, then multiplied it by .7, this was the value consuming stacks was using as Intelligence.

What we understood was, when the mechanic was added, that heal spells use all attributes excluding intel multiplied by 0,7 to calculate spellpower, when consuming dmg stacks. The opposite for heal spells on dmg builds. Furthermore we all thought, that the spells use the normal tree ranks and not by default lvl15.

[Fey]

No ill will intended on my end for what it's worth. Playing shaman really has been great fun these last two months. I just don't want to end up spamming group heal with my 2 hots in between. Engineer is now especially difficult to save my gits from. Particularly in keeps which as I healer I already hate participating in.

All the best trying to balance the mechanic.

[Sulorie]

Wasn't the base heal added, because the base dmg was significantly reduced, which was the reason we got a 11pt tactic in right path to increase the damage of those skills back to "normal" values?

[anarchypark]

Spoiler:

What if I don't want to play DPS? **** me, huh?

You can heal just fine exactly as you did before, you can now dps exactly how you did before assuming you gear and spec for the roles. The mechanic is now still VERY strong, stronger than most other career mechanics

Heres what it does now - 40% cast time reduction, 40% ap reduction and 25% augmentation on instants AND movecast on certain abilities - this is a strong career mechanic by any estimation. Even now, this only requires a SINGLE point to be active and receive all the benefits.

Heres what it DID - 40% cast time reduction, 40% ap reduction and 25% augmentation on instants AND movecast on certain abilities, converted all your willpower/intelligence from items to the other depending on ability type cast AND made said abilities behave as if the AM/SH had full 15 point investment in respective trees, oh and additional strikethrough on various abilities. On top of that, the conversion was not grabbing an average, it was grabbing ALL of your base stats, adding them together, and reducing it by 70%, then using that TOTAL value for the modifier. Not at average of your stats * .7, but the total of your stats * .7, which is ridiculous. This premise is broken, ignores the fact that stats exist on gear at all, and wildly overshadows any player who is building for their spec in an intuitive manner who might not realize the messed up way this mechanic was working.

So if you were full heal spec, as much willpower as you could muster on items with defenses and tools without a single point in the DPS trees, you could hot yourself then use an attack and it would convert all your stats (not average stat contribution, contrary to speculation) over to intelligence AND fill up your DPS tree with 15 points worth of augmentation.

So yeah, Archmage/Shaman having their own mechanic, stealing the RP and Zealots mechanic and massively improving on it as well, then adding in the other base benefits that STILL exist was grossly exploitable.

Now don't get me wrong, if you played as a straight DPS sham/am you wouldn't have personally benefited from the system as the stat transfer only went onto other people in heals. If you played as a healer with a little tapping, you would be benefiting by a large amount but assuming you invested to Energy of Vaul/ Fury of da Green you only gained 2 additional mastery points of benefit (and a crazy stat transfer). However, if as said, you were a full heal spec, will some in the "lifetap tree" and zero in damage tree you could hot 5 people pretty fast and then drop 5 massive attacks on people with a huge intelligence boost AND as if you had a full 15 points invested in the DPS tree, if you cant see how this was exploitative and overpowered there may be no convincing you.

You may not have used it this way, you may have played in a manner which didn't synergize the mechanic to its extreme, if you played as a heal caster nothing has changed, if you play as a dps nothing has changed, if you want to be caster healer/tapper hybrid you will feel the pinch currently and if you were a caster healer/nuker that's gone forever. If you want to deal significant damage, you're going to need to invest in the damage stat, like every other class also needs to do. There's choices involved, and having it all simultaneously is busted.

There is nothing weak about the AM/Shaman classes, they may not be the best class, they may not be the worst but NO class on RoR is going to be the recipient of a monstrously complex omni mechanic which when used at the extreme produces literally insane results.

This isn't a player fault, it was a mechanic which became a rolling snowball and its now been cut back to what a mechanic should be which is a benefit, not a plaster cast over class/ability issues in this manner which gave all things to all specs, that's not what a mechanic is for.

To sum up, its had the potentially exploitative shifter system removed, this is not where the class will remain, its just where the class is right now. Its on the agenda, flaws are known and its in the works. We currently have a decent draft for a more dynamic mechanic that encourages different uses of the mechanic, and will require a bit of relearning to use effectively. Which, in itself, will be reviewed over time to make sure the values line up with effectiveness of the class as a whole.

You are correct if you are talking about the first ab ex shaman/am changes way back but this isnt how it played out with the last changes, sure as a healer your dps was boosted if u had a stack or 5 to use up but the damage was still bad and if you were dps and had a stack or 5 of heal stacks your damage was not god like as you try to portray the main bonus was cast time reduction and thats it, i mean did anyone making these changes actually play the class effectively in non 1v1 pug environments ? u have under 200 int and around 500-600 willpower as a healer and around 800-900 int and 300ish willpower as a dps, these dont add up to monstrous dps numbers, far from it.

Currently trying to work the mechanic and lifetap as a healer im wasting ap, hitting targets for under 100 and healing for under 150, i really dont understand the need to gut it again, u had something great (not op), something am/sham healers have been asking for since the live game and decided to return sham/am healers back to having numerous disadvantages over the other 4 healers, once again we lack a decent st heal that doesnt take forever to build up and we all know hot spamming doesnt work here due to low def values compared to off values.

Why not just allow the 4 lifetap skills to benefit from the stat maths u described when consuming a heal stack instead ? this allows heal sham/am to continue to use the mechanic and does no harm to dps sham/am because generally all you do as dps sham/am is spam group heal or your only big st heal with cast time reduction when someone or your group is in trouble

i'm full conq heal spec AM.
my channeling attack was ticked 600~1k. 100~300 to deftard tanks.
zero invest in dps and deal 1k per tick? that was monstrous dps.
it's like deftard SnB tanks hit 1k per swing with channeling.

only reasons i didn't report in balance forum was i had no exp. in dps spec.
and too complex mechanic details i couldn't follow.

long cast 2k~3k burst healing was class trademark IMO.
shaman can add mobility in there
but it was borderline OP undying healer with lifetap, IMO.
glad it's fixed without writing in balance forum.

[Morf]

You are correct if you are talking about the first ab ex shaman/am changes way back but this isnt how it played out with the last changes, sure as a healer your dps was boosted if u had a stack or 5 to use up but the damage was still bad and if you were dps and had a stack or 5 of heal stacks your damage was not god like as you try to portray the main bonus was cast time reduction and thats it, i mean did anyone making these changes actually play the class effectively in non 1v1 pug environments ? u have under 200 int and around 500-600 willpower as a healer and around 800-900 int and 300ish willpower as a dps, these dont add up to monstrous dps numbers, far from it.

Currently trying to work the mechanic and lifetap as a healer im wasting ap, hitting targets for under 100 and healing for under 150, i really dont understand the need to gut it again, u had something great (not op), something am/sham healers have been asking for since the live game and decided to return sham/am healers back to having numerous disadvantages over the other 4 healers, once again we lack a decent st heal that doesnt take forever to build up and we all know hot spamming doesnt work here due to low def values compared to off values.

Why not just allow the 4 lifetap skills to benefit from the stat maths u described when consuming a heal stack instead ? this allows heal sham/am to continue to use the mechanic and does no harm to dps sham/am because generally all you do as dps sham/am is spam group heal or your only big st heal with cast time reduction when someone or your group is in trouble

Except it didn't work this way. The mechanic added your Strength, Willpower, Toughness, Wounds, Initiative, Weaponskill, Ballistic Skill, and Intelligence up, then multiplied it by .7, this was the value consuming stacks was using as Intelligence.

Forum swallowed my first response and cba to do the maths again with total stats and rewrite everything..to sum up what i did say stat total should be close to the same with maybe a difference of 100 each way when either dps or healer, playing healer my dps was bad hitting for 600 max on lowbie squishies and under 200 on def targets, as dps hitting for like 1k on lowbie squshies and 400 ish on def targets (these are loose numbers) but going by your theory of stats transferred and max mastery points when consuming a stack dps should be basically the same as a healer or as a dps, this isnt the case at all.

What you describe is the first ab ex am/sham.

Im really not trying to be a **** or contradict every change, it would be far easier to say nothing and watch as **** changes for the worse but i would prefer to see the server flourish and changes be positive.

[DanielWinner]

[Shadow Warrior - Path of Assault]

- New Ability Crosscut replaces Sweeping Slash at 9 points in path of Assault, this is a single target attack which places a debuff on the enemy which causes them to have a 10% more chance to be critically hit.

Is it stackable with other skills? Like Kotbs' Arcing Swing?

[germ32]

WH and WE, to king of class...?? This class has everything, absurd damage, mobility, aoe, absurd parry, ignores all armor, knocks on all sides, runs invisible, CC for 8 seconds, ignores damage ... how about giving them a bazooka and two swords of two hands?

Sry but this server breake the classes all days...

You know that it worked like this, figuratively, during the era of disrupt? It adds some sense to those abilities cause before there were no use pressing them when you were already dotted to hell.

You need to talk to the community about so much improvement for some classes while others are almost forgotten. Not sense for example to make a choppa if a WE is doing almost its role, AOE, has more penetration of armor, ignores armor, has its particular invisible "charge", absurd mobility. While a choppa needs two more classes to at least walk without dying.

I do not play Choppa but I see how much this class suffers in my guild.

I think this needs to be addressed as well. WHs and WEs are over kitted in comparison to other mdps. Invisibility/charge, 100% disrupt, stagger/self punt, silence and 3s knockdowns on demand.

With invisibility you can be almost certain that any engagement you take will be a favorable one which allows WHs/WEs to build for maximum dps and still have good survivability with all of the utility listed above. Other mdps struggle to survive with maxed out dodge/disrupt renown training and you pretty much need a healer and/or a tank to group with you just to play your class effectively. I understand the game isnt balanced around solo play but if you throw a class that is highly resilient on their own (like WHs and WEs) into a group where they can be guarded and healed, they become exponentially harder to kill.

Also the return of investment for offensive stats on WHs and WEs is much higher than other mpds classes because they have multiple abilities that allow them to bypass 100% or 50% of armor so they dont need any weaponskill or armor debuffs essentially.