Patch Notes 22/07/2021

[Caduceus]

Honestly yeah I would agree that Ignition should have been brought up instead of SoD brought down but sadly I wasn't seeing that happening. Would have brought more complaints than nerfing Sorc.

You don't balance based on what produces the least complaints.

I should hope so, at leaat.

[Caduceus]

It was suppose to function like BW's Ignition tactic, it didn't before, now it does.

Given both classes' performance in Ranked it would have made a whole lot more sense to make Ignition function more like Shadow of Disaster, wouldn't it?

Ironically, the person who complained was a solo roaming DPS AM, and DPS AM just so happens to outpeform Sorc in both Ranked and 1v1.

Odd how that works.

How likely is it to have double sorc or rdps in ranked to stack debuffs? Let me see ... it's 0%.
The fix doesn't affect sorcs in most instances and where it matters, they had an unjustified advantage.
SM spirit debuff stacking got removed for the same reason.

If they just removed several instances of SoD stacking you would have been right.

However, they decided to no longer let it stack with other abilities like Chosen auras as well (being against the ability/tactic/morale formula) which is actually a very big deal for Ranked.

I don't think Sorc has an unfair advantage in Ranked in any way (it seriously underperforms) so what unfair advantage are you talking about?

Advantages in inconsequential roaming that the devs have stated not to balance the game around?

Hearing this come from a DPS AM is rather amusing. Wanna talk about some unfair advantags your class enjoys in roaming?

[Sulorie]

If they just removed several instances of SoD stacking you would have been right.

However, they decided to no longer let it stack with other abilities like Chosen auras as well (being against the ability/tactic/morale formula) which is actually a very big deal for Ranked.

I don't think Sorc has an unfair advantage in Ranked in any way (it seriously underperforms) so what unfair advantage are you talking about?

Advantages in inconsequential roaming that the devs have stated not to balance the game around?

Hearing this come from a DPS AM is rather amusing. Wanna talk about some unfair advantags your class enjoys in roaming?

As a skill it isn't supposed to stack with any other skill. Chosen aura is a skill, I didn't mention it in my last post, because I thought it is obvious.
It was never meant to stack and didn't stack on live either.
The advantage would be stacking two high value spirit resist debuffs, reducing resists of most players to (almost) zero.
Their performance in ranked doesn't matter here, as this doesn't affect ranked balance only.
No idea why you are even arguing, when the intention is, that skill based debuffs don't stack unless it is by design.

It might be new to you, but having a certain class doesn't have to overshadow someone's view on balance, a class not being played in ages.

[Toshutkidup]

A bug is a bug and needs to be fixed. This was the same reason Riposte was changed and Destro was all excited even tho it only impacted solo slayers and Wh’s. Now that it’s being applied to Sorcs, it’s a issue.

[Caduceus]

Their performance in ranked doesn't matter here, as this doesn't affect ranked balance only.

No, apparently it affected some AM's ability to solo roam too.

Stellar reason to nerf an ability that has a crucial role in an already non-existent Ranked balance.

This change is idiotic, and the reason you're defending is probably because you were one of the AMs in question.

[Sinisterror]

If they just removed several instances of SoD stacking you would have been right.

However, they decided to no longer let it stack with other abilities like Chosen auras as well (being against the ability/tactic/morale formula) which is actually a very big deal for Ranked.

I don't think Sorc has an unfair advantage in Ranked in any way (it seriously underperforms) so what unfair advantage are you talking about?

Advantages in inconsequential roaming that the devs have stated not to balance the game around?

Hearing this come from a DPS AM is rather amusing. Wanna talk about some unfair advantags your class enjoys in roaming?

As a skill it isn't supposed to stack with any other skill. Chosen aura is a skill, I didn't mention it in my last post, because I thought it is obvious.
It was never meant to stack and didn't stack on live either.
The advantage would be stacking two high value spirit resist debuffs, reducing resists of most players to (almost) zero.
Their performance in ranked doesn't matter here, as this doesn't affect ranked balance only.
No idea why you are even arguing, when the intention is, that skill based debuffs don't stack unless it is by design.

It might be new to you, but having a certain class doesn't have to overshadow someone's view on balance, a class not being played in ages.

When chosen uses str + toughess aura with daemonclaw proc they stack. Chosen aura is class mechanic. Imo bw should have been changed to match because small 160 resis debuffs/buffs should stack with resis aura/shaman/am resis buff or potion/skill. 1 skill buff/debuff stacks with gear procs defensive and offensive and/or tactic procs/debuffs. That's how it worked Live. Also when bw/sorc applied chillwind/wop/vot with tactic it has chance to proc frozen touch, it counts the attack landing itself as direct hit but dot ticks dont have chance to proc it, but if i remember correctly wop / vot dmg had chance to proc frozen touch as well. That is live im talking about,imo should work as close to live as possible regarding because it opens so much more versatility and new specs when all char's have access to much more gear procs and more unique set bonuses.Proc dmg like kisses/wpdok prayers/sorcbw frozen touch etc didnt have ICD but it was 2 sec in ror at some point at least, imo if there needs to be one max 1 sec. When WELF used finisher it had chance to double proc kisses AND the kiss dmg would be applied before the actual finisher hits. Also someone talked about riposte. Riposte has 1 sec icd live but it could crit live though, like all tactics that had dmg/added dmg proc or dot to skill could crit. armour pot should stack with 1 armour gear proc or tactic proc like zealot/rp 1k armour on hot tactic.

[Fenris78]

Very good patch overall, good job !

Careful about the rp reduction however, I got very strangely low numbers yesterday (like less than 1k on a full keep attack), and I dont think it's fully intended, especially since I presume the change was aimed to "field of Glory" bonus to apply correctly on objectives fights (it didnt seems to do anything before, afaik).

The oil change will lead to no oil at all, nobody outside of organized groups, and equal numbers (thus reasonable chance to counterpush), will ever bother to use it at all now.

Consider making it renewable loke other siege weaponry, or I'm afraid this item lifespan will be very short in the future.


About balance/bugfixing :
Very well done, QoL for healers (similar bug than the group cleansing for WP), better consistency for flat debuffs and finally no OP stacking for sorc to hit on zero resistances.

For those who struggle to grasp the issue, imagine a tactic with 100% armor debuff on your target, and you will know how bad stacking used to be for balance.
Still having the ability to reduce unbuffed target resistance to nearly zero if already a huge advantage, especially when you class can hit with instant cast, from 100ft away, and almost always crit for 2-3k+ with 8k+ burst over one second...
Friendly reminder : endgame gear unbuffed resistance is about 520 > one skill with tactic debuff it to about 120, and the maximum mitigation you will face will be about 25% with capped resist + buff (800 to 400).
That alone is still one of the best debuff you can get, not to mention you already have the Magus who can do the same in AoE, so free debuff anyway for you (rejoice !).

[GamesBond]

My personal opinion/feedback from a pug perspective about the oil change:

• Why is oil still a consumable that costs 5g? Most pugs will probably not even buy it anymore. To be more consistent, oil should be free or have its price drastically reduced

• I see less intensive to defend keeps, when we are severely outnumbered. One of the main motivations to defend such keeps is the potential for a high-renown oil drop.

The oil change will lead to no oil at all, nobody outside of organized groups, and equal numbers (thus reasonable chance to counterpush), will ever bother to use it at all now.

Oil is a core strategic siege weapon that is vital to a keep defense. If someone wants to defend the keep, they will pop it at the right time to defend the keep.

Let's be real, the number of times the oil was randomly deployed by a solo player to get 4-5 kills instead of waiting for a proper push is high and this often causes frustration on realm chat; At the end of the day, someone is trading a whole faction effort for personal gains. It's been a race for a long time now, if you had the intent to wait and use oil properly, someone else might not and thus you're more inclined to also spam a button and deploy it asap.

[Atropik]

and almost always crit for 2-3k+ with 8k+ burst over one second...
Friendly reminder : endgame gear unbuffed resistance is about 520 > one skill with tactic debuff it to about 120, and the maximum mitigation you will face will be about 25% with capped resist + buff (800 to 400).
That alone is still one of the best debuff you can get, not to mention you already have the Magus who can do the same in AoE, so free debuff anyway for you (rejoice !).

Last time I saw 3k+ crit on my sorc was in 2008 xd

[nebelwerfer]

gotta say it's always impressive the work you put in even during summer

though i always thought the rule was with a few exceptions and i never agreed with those. Having funny niche hyperspecialized builds that do really well is fun and challenging because making it work isn't easy and it typically has some pretty big disadvantages too.

I think the issue that should have been dealt with here is the blatant OPness of the Knight/Chosen aura debuffs / buffs and the stacking isn't the problem, the strength of these auras are.

Then you could roll back some of the nerfs to the kn/ch perhaps, making them more attractive again in other ways.