[Chosen] Embrace the Winds

[herooftime]

Hello fellow Chosen its me Hero, and I yet again need your awesome opinions and feed back. Two weeks ago I posted about Chosen utility to stir up conversation and was completely overwhelmed with the support. We received 69 replies and almost 5000 views. I learned that there are many of you, like me, who are unhappy with the current state of the class.



As of Sunday we received this message from a Game Master shortly before the 7 page forum was closed.
Subject: Chosen are underperforming vs Kotbs in group play

seven pages.. impressive. this motivation and energy would be useful in a good proposal thread - but of course this here is also a "solution".

So naturally I did what anyone would do after reading this post. I took to the balance forums and laid out the first of many balance proposals for Chosen to come. This time focusing on the Embrace the Winds tactic.


viewtopic.php?f=95&t=32245&p=364258#p364258

Identify the issue
The Chosen tactic "Embrace the Winds" and the Knight tactic "Focused Mending" were seemingly intended to be mirrored, but as they stand now the Knight tactic is a much stronger tactic and cheaper mastery investment.

Embrace the Winds -
12pts into Path of Discord
All healing used on you becomes 15% more effective.

Focused Mending -
8pts into Path of Glory
Stay Focused! will now also cause groupmates in the area to receive 15% more from all healing effects used on them.

The more expensive Chosen tactic only affects himself. The cheap Knight tactic gives 15% heal to all group members within 100ft.

Why is this an issue?
The issue is that having one tactic clearly better than another factions mirrored tactic is unbalanced. This gives an unfair advantage to groups who bring a knight vs groups that bring a chosen.

Proposal
There are a few options:
1. Swap the two the tactics. Since the Knight has to invest fewer points in the respective mastery tree, the Knight should receive the weaker Chosen tactic. And since the Chosen has to spend more mastery points to receive the tactic, the Chosen should receive the superior tactic when using the Path of Discord Aura "Discordant Instability".

2. Buff the Chosen tactic. Because the Chosen tactic is a more expensive mastery investment, the Chosen tactic should be stronger. We could keep the Knight tactic as is and only improve the Chosen tactic. Instead of giving 15% to all heals within aura range, the Chosen could give 20%-30% more health to group members healed within 100ft.

3. Mirror the tactic. The hardest and most unpopular option would be to mirror the two tactics one way or another, and fix the mastery trees to require the same point investment in their respective mastery trees. This is a less desirable option because it requires some discussion on fair point costs for these tactics as well as the other tactics in Path of Discord and Path of Glory mastery trees. Its also worth pointing out that the community seems very proud to boast its game having 24 unique classes, this option would only go against that precedent.

4. Give the Chosen a new unique tactic. One fun option would be to give the Chosen a new thematic tactic that makes sense in its respective mastery tree. The Path of Discord is all about embracing the power of Tzeetch and using his strength to weaken your enemies. With this option, Embrace the Winds would siphon the life of enemies making the healing on foes within 30ft to be 15% less effective. This tactic would only work if it was stackable with other healing debuffs including Discordant Turbulence.

Because of the nature of balance forums, only devs can post comments and opinions, but I'd like to leave it up to you guys. Do you feel this is a fair balance proposal? Which option do you like best? Is there anything you feel needs to be added to the post?

[Tesq]

Not really, first thing the kobs tactic is overperforming. Second we dont wanna perfect mirroring.

The values that buff group are between 7% and 10% and some.dont work on user but only on group (save me hide / sw 7% g-crit buff / sorc 10% dmg buff) hence kobs tactic should be nerf to that value first and even prob dont work on him.

The values for self buff are between 10-15% with exeption exatly for heal increase which is 20%.
So instead ch heal increase should be increase to 20% as per swordmaster cross mirror. And thats all.

Kobs 10% to other g-memeber / chosen 20% to himself.

P.s. note considering sorc other g-member dmg buff , kobs is the counter; therefore it should be other g-nember +10%. Thereafter chosen value became self 20%.

Rule -> Group/aoe = 1/2 st/self

Summary

Sorc +10 / kobs +10
Ch +20 / SM + 20

[herooftime]

Holy crap I can't believe I missed this. Sword Masters get a "heals are 20% more effective on self" tactic without investing into a single mastery tree, while the Chosen has to spend 12 mastery points for a "15% more effective heals on self" tactic. To my knowledge these are the only 3 tanks that get these types of tactics but the Chosen version is not only more expensive but strictly worse than both the SM and Knight tactics. Chosen are in an even worse spot than I initially calculated.

The Sorc tactic is barely worth mentioning, but they get a tactic that, like the SM, takes no mastery investment but only makes heals 10% more effective on self. I've never met a sorc that ran this tactic, most will go for tactics that increase damage because the utility that the class brings to a group is the high damage burst. This only confirms that the Order tactics are grossly overpowered compared to the destruction equivalents.

[Tesq]

Holy crap I can't believe I missed this. SM get a "heals are 20% more effective on self" tactic without investing into a single mastery tree, while the Chosen has to spend 12 mastery points for a "15% more effective heals on self" tactic. Chosen are in an even worse spot than I initially calculated.

Mastery disposition is NOT always indicative of the potency is fine if ch have it on 11 pt we have other things core because it's not perfect mirroring.
The problem are values being wrong.
Kobs is slight overperforming and chosen is slight underperforming.

[TenTonHammer]

Even if you buff it let’s be real would any chosen run it? Outside of say a pve dungeon environment over the other core stuff we need?

On top of that we have amplification M2 as a panic heal buff

[herooftime]

Even if you buff it let’s be real would any chosen run it? Outside of say a pve dungeon environment over the other core stuff we need?

On top of that we have amplification M2 as a panic heal buff

I would say that the tactic is extremely powerful in the right situations. As a Warband tank, I don't think its takes much imagination to understand why improving the healing of players within 100ft of you is powerful.

[Tesq]

Even if you buff it let’s be real would any chosen run it? Outside of say a pve dungeon environment over the other core stuff we need?

On top of that we have amplification M2 as a panic heal buff

Meh, well now morales are shaken before you had raze as m2. Well it could be run to not waste m2 to the way to m3 or m4 aswell for 2h tanks. Even in case m2 last 15 sec. It is still something worth try.
Or you could just take the dmg debuff instead the ratial m2.

It's build dependant, it open more option and is not op so is positive for the game.

[TenTonHammer]

Even if you buff it let’s be real would any chosen run it? Outside of say a pve dungeon environment over the other core stuff we need?

On top of that we have amplification M2 as a panic heal buff

I would say that the tactic is extremely powerful in the right situations. As a Warband tank, I don't think its takes much imagination to understand why improving the healing of players within 100ft of you is powerful.

I was talking within the context of it increasing the healing on self to 20%

[rTrSleepy]

Given that the 25% heal debuff aura is really garbage and I can't think of a single instance where it is actually viable, requiring a tactic to make it 40% heal debuff, seems the most interesting.

You have to understand that 30 ft is basically standing right on top of them. What I would consider making it is a tactic that only effects the aura. Otherwise you obviously would not use the HD aura and just use it on top of other real HD's and make them 65% debuffs which would be waaaay too much.

6v6 Chosen is already 2firm tactics and 2 other flavor tactics so there is no loss in slotting this. Requiring you to run the HD aura and not AP would be a risk/reward type of thing. Results in a melee train would be constant 40% HD as long as Chosen is not punted and no more than 50% at max with a HD from an MDPS.

Possible consequences from this change could be Choppa running 2h and Chop fasta.
Mara's dropping their HD tactic and running brute force.
We's dropping Kiss of Death for added dmg or init debuff.
DPS Dok running Horrifying Offering and if combined with a CD decreaser could be a spamable 50ap drain, which is better than than the ap aura debuff

Linking a perma viable HD to a tank could be a game changer and buff to Destros dmg which is honestly needed. This one change could drastically swing the power of the best on paper 6 man from order to destro.

From anaIyzing both sides it seems to be a fair buff and I support it as long as it is not more than a 50% HD.

[kmark101]

I read your thread and proposal and you are extremely biased in your opinion about chosen.

You only see Kotbs where it's slightly better, but refuse to acknowledge the fact that Chosen does spirit damage and vastly outdamages Kotbs on every possible level (and lately many other tanks as well, hello new Ravage spam in Oppressor gear...).

If anything, Chosen's damage potential should be nerfed to Kotbs levels, before you start to discuss balance of tactics.