Proc feedback and analysis

[wonshot]

Hello,

After some changes on RoR over the last while the "Procs" have gone from something extra to add on top to becoming the main desire for pvp burst and pressure, as a result escalating TimeToKill. In this post I'd like to go over as much involving procs directly and indirectly and how we ended up here, along with some suggestions to solutions if procs are deemed in need of being adjusted.

RoR history.
Procs were the meta back in 2017 with players stacking Slayer+BW for the synergy between offensive classmechanics, aoe attacks, and BW/Sorc buffs affecting party members back then. It was adjusted around 2018 where Flames of Rhuin was changed to no longer affect party members. And after that procs between 2018 - 2024 were just some extra damage you added on top of your abilities but it was never out of control.

2024 Ability rework RoR-reverts
When the ability rework was finally done some of these RoR changes were reverted, so the BW/sorc buffs once again affected allies. On top of this the Global cooldown had been increased, and internal cooldown on how frequent procs can occure was reduced. First of all, this made BW/Sorc + WP/Dok reentering the warband scene again after a little bit of absence. Since the Global cooldown had been increased instead of running more spamable classes, or running classes which counter Spamable-builds the two cooldownincreaser warband specs in Meleesquigherder + Slayer saw less play on top of their nerfs as there was less need for increasing cooldowns against the enemy spamable specs as more of the killpressure comes from coordinated 3-2-1 Channel abilities as an indirect adoptpation to longer Globalcooldown, less spammy abilities, and MoralePerSecond barrier.

Meta change as a result of indirect changes
When the gameplay now was centered around getting as many groupbuff procs in each warband group, and having less spammy builds and therefor less need of running cooldownincreaser debuffs. The tempo rapidly increased and pushed TTK drastically. As WL/Monstro mara naturally have a counter towards themselves with acces to AoE interrupt against the enemy Channels. These classes also bring the most frequent AOE channels with 7 attacks over 3 seconds.
If we compare these channel to for example the BW/Sorc Annihilate/ DC which are 4 attacks over 3 seconds, it becomes obvious that if you pair these frequent attacks per second with several procs then it becomes pretty much best in slot.

Some of the same behavior can be seen in 6v6 ranked and smallerscale, having twohanded tanks coordinate assist with their singletarget channels on top of procs the damagepressure can brute force some kills where previously before proc meta kills took more teamplay to setup with targetswaps, coordinated cc, and not just dogpiling on a target with Championschallenge.

Attempts to adress this situation, which didnt have much affect and instead affected other areas of the game unsuccesfully.
1)Tactics on BW/Sorc got changed (Crown of Fire) got changed from 75%chance to 45% as a result of this. This didnt really change the warband/group proc meta but instead it negatively affected BW/Sorc in singletarget smallscale/solo play without the change hitting its mark. When a RoR copy paste patch of the 2018 version of Flames of Rhuin could just had been reimplimented after Abilityoverhaul patch reverted this situation.

2) Instead of directly affecting procs as the main issue all aoe abilities saw a net nerf from 30ft to 25. And this seemingly had no impact on TTK in oRvR warband warfare. Instead it reduced the killzone from aoe warbands and made it ever so slightyly more safe to be closer to an enemy warband who now need to stack slightly closer and this benefits the aoe ranged zergsurfers.

3) Added a cooldown on buffing on BW/Sorc in an attempt to add counterplay to removing these Enchantments via tanks and creating downtime of when the buffs are up. This didnt really do much and hard to see this having an impact in proc performance.

So how can procs be adjusted
1) The internal cooldown seem like the easier approch to reach the core issue.
2) BW/sorc buffs no longer affecting allies would help some of it so there are less procs with less frequency.
3) Currently some if not all procs are single-mitigation they are only getting mitigated by either toughness or their resist type (e.g elemental)

Suggestion for better pvp TTK with procs being relevant but not overperforming
As boring as it sounds, maybe just go as close as possible to the 2018-2024 version of Internal cooldown, tactics not affecting allies and instead reverted back to 75%chance for the user.
An other direction could be to change how some of the absurd channeled abilities are hitting the same damage out over the duration, but in bigger hits and not as requently. E.G WL/Mara channel no longer hitting 7 times but instead 4 but each hit is bigger to make up for the fewer hits.
But overall these seem like so many indirect attempts going around the core issue of the internalcooldown which seem to be the biggest issue in all of this, and all the indirect attempts have opened up different issues or nerfs outside of what the target was.

- Internal cooldown on procs restored to how it was before ability revert
- Tactics such as Crown of fire restored back to 75% from 45%
- BW/Sorc buff tactics no longer affecting allies like the 2018 change.
- Aoe abilities can stay either 25ft or 30ft but this change had no net possitive impact.

Thanks for reading, any thoughts?

[Zxul]

In addition, the +%dmg not affecting procs any longer has killed classes/ specs which were based on personal +%dmg buffing procs- for example, dok in CoC+ Bloodthirst+ Potent Covenants spec, DF not effecting CoC any longer was a 25% dmg nerf to main dmg source of a spec which already wasn't anywhere near top dmg numbers.

[Wdova]

My whole point of view on procs:

a) tactics should not increase damage of procs from other tactics. Example: WL´s tactic loner shouldn´t increase damage of jagged edge, Centuries of Training or Tearing blade.

b) tactics like WL´s loner or SH´s all by my self should´t increase damage of procs granted by other players (Flames of Rhuin - BW, Frozen Touch - sorc, Covenants - DoK, Prayers - WP)

c) tactics should increase damage of Your own procs. example: WP´s Divine fury tactic should incrase his damage of prayers.

d) Class mechanics should affect the damage of Your own procs. This counts especial for Slayer, Choppa. They meant to work that way. Example: Rage should increase damage of jagged edge, riposte, hurting time, reckles gamble. Its trade off for to be the most vulnerable damage dealer on battlefield. It was the class concept in AoR. I dont see the reason to break this in RoR.

Is this damage increase unfair? It´s question. Does other mdps has to sacrifice theyr defensive stats to deal more damage? No.

[akisnaakkeli]

My whole point of view on procs:

a) tactics should not increase damage of procs from other tactics. Example: WL´s tactic loner shouldn´t increase damage of jagged edge, Centuries of Training or Tearing blade.

b) tactics like WL´s loner or SH´s all by my self should´t increase damage of procs granted by other players (Flames of Rhuin - BW, Frozen Touch - sorc, Covenants - DoK, Prayers - WP)

c) tactics should increase damage of Your own procs. example: WP´s Divine fury tactic should incrase his damage of prayers.

d) Class mechanics should affect the damage of Your own procs. This counts especial for Slayer, Choppa. They meant to work that way. Example: Rage should increase damage of jagged edge, riposte, hurting time, reckles gamble. Its trade off for to be the most vulnerable damage dealer on battlefield. It was the class concept in AoR. I dont see the reason to break this in RoR.

Is this damage increase unfair? It´s question. Does other mdps has to sacrifice theyr defensive stats to deal more damage? No.

Mostly answering your d) The tradeoff is the dmg they do. In Aor you could disrupt slayer/choppa detaunt and it was 30s cooldown instead of 10s. Rage did NOT increase jagged edge or riposte dmg in Aor. But Riposte could crit in Aor and was Affected by Crit dmg tactics but NOT increased by Rage mechanic.

[CyunUnderis]

2) Instead of directly affecting procs as the main issue all aoe abilities saw a net nerf from 30ft to 25. And this seemingly had no impact on TTK in oRvR warband warfare. Instead it reduced the killzone from aoe warbands and made it ever so slightyly more safe to be closer to an enemy warband who now need to stack slightly closer and this benefits the aoe ranged zergsurfers.

I don't agree totally with your analysis.

Before Ability Reworks, AoE radius was 30ft. After Ability Reworks, AoE radius was 35 ft (despite tooltip saying 30 ft). Since the recent change, moving AoE radius to 25 ft (on tooltip because in reality it more or less the 30 ft we had before Ability Rework), the TTK in 24v24 (or 12v12, 18v18 SC) has changed drastically.

Why ?

Because players that know how to position themself (close to the bombing point but not in) are not impacted anymore and will take less random damages from big AoE radius, so less pressure for the whole group (especially for tanks that are not in the ball or in the AoE radius, but at +-25 ft of their guard).

[Caduceus]

Where do all these BW/Sorc nerfs keep coming from?

Have people somehow forgetten these are some of the squishiest classes in the game and continually morale bomb themselves in order to deal damage?

[Uchoo]

https://killboard.returnofreckoning.com/kill/34938832

Here Pepeliga took over 4700 damage from 1 Covenant and 1 Prayer in roughly 3 GCD's. Keep in mind this is 6v6 so the potential is much lower compared to higher player numbers.

It's a bit absurd, I think the internal cooldown just needs to be tuned.

Just that and ID spam change, then the major outliers are dealt with.

[Akalukz]

I think the easiest way to make a change would be to increase the ICD to .75 or .6 so you don't get as many procs on the WL/Mara channel. Additionally, the WL channel should be mirrored to the Mara (IE Not 360 Degree)

Just these 2 changes alone would go a long way in controlling this issue. Although I do agree it should just be reverted to what was working. I feel like there was an attempt to shakeup the meta, which is good, but it went to something that was identified as being broke previously, which means it's still broken.

[Keula]

RoR history.
Procs were the meta back in 2017 with players stacking Slayer+BW for the synergy between offensive classmechanics, aoe attacks, and BW/Sorc buffs affecting party members back then. It was adjusted around 2018 where Flames of Rhuin was changed to no longer affect party members. And after that procs between 2018 - 2024 were just some extra damage you added on top of your abilities but it was never out of control.

You should clarify that the nerf was only about the increased proc% tactics(the usage of buff instead of tactic made me do a bit of double take on what was actually meant), not the base ability itself as that obviously worked for allies still during that period.

[Sever1n]

Im pretty happy with that bw and sork are finally part of wb and give extra power to it in uniq way. Always was rooting for every class be in wb meta not just boring melle blobs of slays and other axe fetishists. If staking procs is such big problem, remove dmg from covenants into utility effects, like buff stats, increase healing, etc. In that way they will be utilized equally, and no need to ruin working classes. Like #removecovenantofcelerity reworked in something like little speedboost/ap buff without dmg part. U will get rid of staking, and give bw and sork some boost in terms of WB utility, so they will not go back into oblivion. Would be great if wb consisting of diferent dps classes will become meta and each of dps classes have something to offer for wb. I remember spellcleaving sork wbs with that cd redusing (it was strong as fk, but still was interesting bit of fresh air), maybe nerf it a little and rework prock tactis into tactics that make infernal wave/breath into spamable aoe like other classes have.