Patch Notes 11/11/2020

[nat3s]

Engi buff? Literally the last thing the game needs if we are to help restore some sort of balance to Forts. Order is infested with Engis at present. AoE dots + rampaging slayers = destro funnel melts. Thought that was common knowledge.

A small Order RDPS nerf is needed to balance Forts, in much the same way as a small Destro MDPS nerf helped with Cities.

[Oglaf]

What about the Chosen/KoTBS changes that totally weren't warranted nor wanted?

Any word on these?

[Ramlaen]

I would be interested in the thought process behind Engi being given reduced cast times on timestamp abilities such as snipe (imagine this with focussed mind and then add in gun blast..) and not Magus on BoC and FrF. Will magus be given ranged auto attack damage in future to compensate? or will that remain exclusive to Engi/Order.

Do you want physical damage and the need to stack weaponskill to have any meaningful damage on decently geared opponents?

[Ramlaen]

Engi buff? Literally the last thing the game needs if we are to help restore some sort of balance to Forts. Order is infested with Engis at present. AoE dots + rampaging slayers = destro funnel melts. Thought that was common knowledge.

A small Order RDPS nerf is needed to balance Forts, in much the same way as a small Destro MDPS nerf helped with Cities.

What Destro needs is for people to actually play ranged AoE classes. If that means SH being reworked so they can have an aoe dot then so be it

[emiliorv]

Engi buff? Literally the last thing the game needs if we are to help restore some sort of balance to Forts. Order is infested with Engis at present. AoE dots + rampaging slayers = destro funnel melts. Thought that was common knowledge.

A small Order RDPS nerf is needed to balance Forts, in much the same way as a small Destro MDPS nerf helped with Cities.

Im really sorry for zealots/shamans trying to keep ppl alive in forts with 4.5 secs castime for group heals....or a sorc trying to compete VS BW with a +50% castime debuff..just lol

[noronn]

Buffing Engi or Magus dmg output is the wrong approach. These classes have a ton of dmg output already. While it is true engi is much more mobile with the new tactic, because you can apply your burst/a big hit for assist dmg much quicker, move to a new position and repeat, it also tremendously buffs dmg output from the already strong 8 stacks camp and click on top of a keep playstyle which, no doubt, is fun but doesn’t require any skill.

Some solutions to rewarding a mobile play style could be:

Make Insta pet / turret tactics part of the actual mechanic. To play the class in any other environment than sitting in a keep you NEED that tactic to gain any immediate benefit from your turret. It would free up a tactic slot for both classes and would make build variety a tad more exciting.

When summoning a new pet of the same type currently (ie, gun turret -> new gun turret) you lose half your stacks (same applies for the pet being killed).
Remove the penalty when you summon a new pet.

You are at 5 stacks, need to move because your position is not good for the fight anymore (ie moving too far away from you or moving towards you), while walking to the new position you lose 1 or 2 stacks, because you are out of pet range. Now you summon a new pet of the same type and keep the stacks you currently have.

If this is considered too strong on its own you could change the new pet heal ability again (lets be serious: the pet is gonna die after the 3 secs dmg immunity anyway. Its a nice touch but not really viable to use) into the following:

When the ability is active you don’t lose stacks when summoning a new turret of the same type and reduces the cool down of summoning pets to 0 seconds. X seconds duration.


Reverting the current change and just implementing one of the above (or all) changes would make engi/magus skill ceiling much higher while rewarding more skill based gameplay and not overbuffing the already fine Sniper keep play style.

[Tyrean]

I would be interested in the thought process behind Engi being given reduced cast times on timestamp abilities such as snipe (imagine this with focussed mind and then add in gun blast..) and not Magus on BoC and FrF. Will magus be given ranged auto attack damage in future to compensate? or will that remain exclusive to Engi/Order.

Do you want physical damage and the need to stack weaponskill to have any meaningful damage on decently geared opponents?

Engi turret has an armour debuff and it is not hard to get your weapon skill where you need it with the options they have and gear. Have you ever been hit by an Engi with decent gear on a non destro tank class? the fact there is a ranged auto attack hitting between casts already helps, now with M2 up you can melt squishies even through a detaunt..

[Nekkma]

Regardless of the merits of the actual changes, the timing is terrible (yes, timing matters). Destro is having a hizzy fit regarding forts and order rdps and then, lo and behold, a buff to what seems to be the most popular order rdps. I get that changes are worked on for a longer time and presumably get pushed when ready, but still, bad timing which will cause unneccessary drama.

[wargrimnir]

Regardless of the merits of the actuall changes, the timing is terrible (yes, timing matters). Destro is having a hizzy fit regarding forts and order rdps and then, lo and behold, a buff to what seems to be the most popular order rdps. I get that changes are worked on for a longer time and presumably get pushen when ready, but still, bad timing which will cause unneccessary drama.

General realm balance is not an ongoing concern for the members of the balance team. How the realms organize themselves and react to changes is a player oriented issue. Realms rise and fall based on general population, not the small changes we regularly make to classes. If your realm is collapsing because of a change, then it is far too fragile to begin with, and likely had many other underlying factors. Or you're using minor balance changes as a scapegoat for your own failures.

Whichever is more likely of course.

Let us do our job. Provide some reasonable feedback after testing. We're going to watch and see how things play out, as always. If your feedback lines up with our observations, then we have multiple points to consider. If your feedback is baseless, fabricated, or cherry picked, it makes things more difficult not only to interpret and tweak, but also to continue having trust that players are interested in more than their own pet class or realm. We're not out here trying to make bad changes, but rather seeing how far some changes need to be pushed in order to facilitate the effect intended. If they're too strong, they'll get rolled back.

Also, as a side note the people who have caught warnings so far. We provided a detailed explanation of the Chosen changes from last week. It simply was not intended to go live, and was a mistake and failure of oversight. We explained as much. Continuing to frame it as some kind of bias or reaction to feedback is absolutely false. You can either choose to stop spreading that rhetoric, or I will do it for you.

[Oglaf]

Also, as a side note the people who have caught warnings so far. We provided a detailed explanation of the Chosen changes from last week. It simply was not intended to go live, and was a mistake and failure of oversight. We explained as much. Continuing to frame it as some kind of bias or reaction to feedback is absolutely false. You can either choose to stop spreading that rhetoric, or I will do it for you.

Fully understood. But then you made further changes rather than just revert them - changes with neither Chosen or KoTBS are happy with, to say the least. These are the ones I'm talking about, since nobody really expected the 25% crit tactic to actually stay.

Changes such as moving Mixed Defenses higher up and putting the replaced and highly, hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighly situational Corruptive Power (only 6v6 ranked premades would ever consider it) in it's place.