Patch Notes 10/08/2019

[Ravai]

Its getting to the stage where like zarbix I rarely ever get involved in balance discussions but feel I should speak up and throw you my two cents for what its worth.

The tactics SHOULD stack with melee squig, they have:

No auto haste tactic (or auto damage in general, the tactics dont effect auto attacks from what I gather)
No heal debuff of any kind
No Silence
No Crit damage scaling through tactics or gear (no crit tactics either btw)
No aoe castable detaunt (unlike all other melee dps) - if you slot the detaunt tactic you lose a damage tactic right, its also only 25%
No pet in order to supplement their dmg due to lack of all the above
2 completely useless mastery trees.

So the stackable tactics is the only way to minmax their damage, they have very little in regards to scaling and building single target rotations due to lacking all of the above, the current strength of the class is the aoe pressure it applies and the mobility the perma pounce offers, If a healer detaunts my melee squig literally stands there and just heals its almost impossible to kill them, just saying

The only part of the class I'd consider maybe too strong right now is the mobility, add a 10 second cooldown to squig pounce, give them an aoe castable detaunt and your on the way to balancing the class if you feel it is over performing.

I mean if your balancing the class because how it fairs against pugs and the people who dont use detaunts or heal themselves under pressure then we're opening a huge can of worms here arn't we maybe its about time we really do look at how white lions fair against them also.

[agemennon675]

Its getting to the stage where like zarbix I rarely ever get involved in balance discussions but feel I should speak up and throw you my two cents for what its worth.

The tactics SHOULD stack with melee squig, they have:

No auto haste tactic (or auto damage in general, the tactics dont effect auto attacks from what I gather)
No heal debuff of any kind
No Silence
No Crit damage scaling through tactics or gear (no crit tactics either btw)
No aoe castable detaunt (unlike all other melee dps) - if you slot the detaunt tactic you lose a damage tactic right, its also only 25%
No pet in order to supplement their dmg due to lack of all the above
2 completely useless mastery trees.

So the stackable tactics is the only way to minmax their damage, they have very little in regards to scaling and building single target rotations due to lacking all of the above, the current strength of the class is the aoe pressure it applies and the mobility the perma pounce offers, If a healer detaunts my melee squig literally stands there and just heals its almost impossible to kill them, just saying

The only part of the class I'd consider maybe too strong right now is the mobility, add a 10 second cooldown to squig pounce, give them an aoe castable detaunt and your on the way to balancing the class if you feel it is over performing.

I mean if your balancing the class because how it fairs against pugs and the people who dont use detaunts or heal themselves under pressure then we're opening a huge can of worms here arn't we maybe its about time we really do look at how white lions fair against them also.

No one ever mentions SW while talking about SH balancing, no one wants SW's to their party/wb cries in the corner

[Grock]

Most of that is a design failure of limiting mSH to permanently sit in squig armor and losing access to 80% of his skill set.
Trying to make a single mastery tree work like a fully-fledged melee class is a futile attempt.
Double loner stacking is merely a crutch, and as i said you'll still have TA + SS for 40% damage boost, its only ~7% total damage loss.

IMO Squig Armor should be temporary powerup CD, not a permanent effect that makes your character/armor appearance irrelevant.

[Grunbag]

Most of that is a design failure of limiting mSH to permanently sit in squig armor and losing access to 80% of his skill set.
Trying to make a single mastery tree work like a fully-fledged melee class is a futile attempt.
Double loner stacking is merely a crutch, and as i said you'll still have TA + SS for 40% damage boost, its only ~7% total damage loss.

IMO Squig Armor should be temporary powerup CD, not a permanent effect that makes your character/armor appearance irrelevant.

This ! Original design were better (squig armor were not permanent and gave a better boost when you were inside , and you could increase the duration with Da smell don’t bother me) , and out of squig armor Squig Herder had some interesting stabba abilities (yes stabba had a use before) So melee squig Herder could use both stabba and bow abilities at melee range + jump into the squig for short duration to unlock several powerfull abilities + power boost (like VoN did for SW before 1.4.7 even if it wasn’t perfect)

[Alfa1986]

you still forgot +4% from the 6th bonus of vanq set.) and still tactics +120 str and ws. At 60-70 + rr, a squig can have about 900 str, more than 500 ws, 25-30% crit, 8+k xp, 20 +% parry, 20+% dodge, and even + 25% + 25% + 15% dps of tactics, in my opinion it’s not very bad and I would not say that the class is weak.

[Berzar]

I don't really want to get into a grudge match regarding the SH in comparison to the Slayer. I think most players would agree that the Slayer is very strong right now with Invader. I haven't played one myself, so I can only go with what I've seen fighting with and against them.

So to, I don't think it's helpful to have numbers and ability information seemingly pulled at random, coupled with misinformation about how tactics and abilities work. It comes off as biased, and misinformed, and generally taints any valid criticisms. That is exactly the kind of rhetoric that leads to poor balance changes.

If the class design as a whole needs to be reworked, then that's okay. The class shouldn't be hobbled in the interim until that can be implemented. By that same token there are many classes that are extremely strong right now, and I don't think anyone would be okay with that kind of balancing methodology.

My 2 cents, and I'll leave it there. See you on the battlefield!

[Reesh]

I'm up with zarbo on this one.

TA + ABM combo were perfectly fine (when used properly, and not in an exploit manner with +950% damage) and opened the class to be playable, and not gimp that can only annoy like a pesky fly, without doing any damage at all.
It is not free - there are cons. Melee spec is tactic heavy, if you want to do any kind of damage you will use 4 dps tactics whilst missing on defensive/utility ones. It should be up to msh decision if he want to go glass cannon without having other possibilities open.

[Grunbag]

Balancing career with outgoing damage % is not a solution . If you need to boost damage by X% to make it viable then there is a issue with base damage or abilities themselves. As a Squig Herder player , I was strongly against creating tactic that remove the pet from a pet career and give in this tactic the pet buff without bothering to summon it anymore. I rather fix the issue with pets than remove pet from pet career. But this is done and it is what it is .
I am aware Squig Herder is not close to any other dps (in organised warband at least) and I’ll look attentively at how MSH is doing now we fixed ABM and TA.

[Orontes]

Initially ABM and TA should not stack together . It’s a bug no one reported . TA is a ABM version for SA , that allow squig Herder to spam Pounce like WL . But there was an issue with assign pounce spam on ABM cause melee squig is dependant of his pet to stay in melee , so we created TA to replace ABM.

I have to fix this 950% damage boost and try how to prevent ABM and TA to stack .

Bug or not, but this 25% of damage in a cost of tactic slot was really NEEDED for Meely SH to have a slot in a WB. Even with 25%+25%+15% damage tactics you'd need to significantly invest into your SH (get high renown\equip close to BIS) to compete for a slot with 40/40 Sorc\Choppa. With 25% less damage SH doesn't have a place in organized warband. SHs should really be either given some utility abilities\tactics (something really worth reduction of WB damage by replacing Sorc or Choppa) or a way to increase their damage to competitive values...
Just my opinion nothing more, no offence intended

TA is not here to be an addition of ABM but replace it when you play melee squig.
If melee squig is useless without TA + ABM then we would have to review it i think.

I think a possible solution would be to have TA and ABM distinct (one can't be used with the other), but allow melee squigs access to "What Blocka" (or, it's affects in a close combat form). Melee squig have no way to affect their damage type in SA mode (unlike melee SWs). The mastery focus is cut off from the other two mastery lines completely while in SA.

The other option is simply allowing the combining of TA and ABM, as already noted.

[Orontes]

TA is not here to be an addition of ABM but replace it when you play melee squig.
If melee squig is useless without TA + ABM then we would have to review it i think.

I would advise you to consider possibility melee Squig in SA to use skills from other paths. otherwise it turns out to be too cut. It can't use disarm (if there is no battle squiq), silence, armor penetration, ini penetration, heal debuff, but have only one dps (although good), and average survival. Or need to change all time range on SA , SA on range, which in the dynamics of the battle is practically impossible. and else there are no needed enormous number skill points , which is almost useless.

I am thinking about a proposal to give the possibility to have a viable melee spec in and out squig armor (and be able to use your bow abilities too)

That would be great. Being cut off from the other two mastery lines is nasty.