Feedback on the Winds of Insanity changes from the 21/6/24 patch

[Omegus]

Hello devs.

Winds enjoyer here. I have feedback. It's a bit rushed as I don't have much time to make it fancy.

THE GOOD

1) The self-root has been removed and instead the channel breaks on movement and jumping. This is much better than the first attempt at making it a channel (2020 to 2023) as before you were still rooted so the Zealot could not break it. This change now lets it work like every other stationary channel which is a good thing.

2) The healing can crit. I would expect this as it is a channel, but it's good to see it made it in.

3) The damage can still crit. Also as expected, but I'm glad it didn't get changed.

4) The damage still gets converted to healing with Transference so no change there either. This interaction is expected as it's channelled AOE damage which means it should be treated as direct damage.

5) Order get some counter-play through interrupts and CC. This is fine with me.

THE BAD

1) The healing seems to be classified as a DoT rather than direct, so it does not proc any on-direct-heal or on-direct-heal-crit effects. Why? It's channelled ability so should be classified as direct. Unsure if intended or not. UPDATE @ 24 JUNE 2024: This was a bug and is now fixed. The healing is intended to be direct and will proc stuff

2) Even though the damage is converted by Transference which would imply it's direct damage, crit damage does not proc Changer's Touch (the heal debuff tactic). Unsure if intended or not, but if it's crit direct damage then it should proc crit direct damage tactics. UPDATE @ 24 JUNE 2024: This was a bug and is now fixed. The damage is intended to be direct and will proc stuff

3) Being able to use it in the air as a defence against being murdered after pulls is now gone as the channel will immediately end immediately while in the air. Before you could use it to disrupt an AOE blob using AOE pulls (or even just getting an annoying WL off of you) as you would activate Winds while being pulled through the air and it would keep knocking back people as you were landing. This was one of those niche/nuanced uses of the ability that added a bit of extra skill to the class to use correctly.

4) The healing-per-tick is pretty terrible. Prior to the changes you could combine Winds with group heal to pump out about 640 healing per second to group members within 100ft and get 2 and a bit chances of procs during that time (based on my group heal doing 1600 during testing today). Now Winds is a channel and has its own heal built in and heals for 304 per tick. At 7 ticks over 6 seconds it's 355 healing per second which is getting close to half the amount of group healing for half the range and zero procs. Granted, combining Winds with group heal cost a lot of AP but it was a tactical decision the Zealot had to make and that option has now been removed entirely. UPDATE: Now it has been confirmed that the healing type was a bug and it should be direct and proccing things, the overall healing-per-second now needs proper testing as WOI now gives you 7 proc attempts per group member over 6 seconds. The stuff about the reduced range still applies though

5) The damage has remained the same, which is a net loss as before you had the option to cast over Winds for additional damage ("overlapping" damage). The Rune Priest got its overlapping damage from combining Rune of Battle with other PBAoE, while the Zealot got it from combining Winds with other PBAoE. The Zealot has now lost the extra damage that could've been obtained (yes for extra AP, but that was a choice) along with losing all chance of getting any form of procs during those 6 seconds... and the Zealot is a proc class. UPDATE @ 24 JUNE 2024: The non-proccing has been confirmed as a bug and will be / has been fixed. The damage is still bad.

6) Juggling with multiple Zealots is still possible. It's still using the 1.5s CD system which prevents a single Zealot from punting with Winds more than once every 2 seconds (Winds ticks once per second), but 2 Zealots with staggered activations can still punt once every 1.5s instead. This gives the enemy almost zero time from landing to being juggled again and was a contributing factor to how oppressive mass Winds could feel for the enemy. I would have expected Winds to now grant 2s of proper knockback immunity (or 1.999999 seconds to ensure it can still punt every 2s).

7) Instant double-punt is still possible with two people. As Winds only grants immunity to Winds, it was - and still is - to instantly double punt people to launch them even higher. The Zealot would open with Winds and immediately afterwards another class would use their own knockback while the victim was already in the air, allowing them to be launched even further. Granting 2s of proper immunity would fix this and make Winds feel a bit fairer.

8) Delayed double-punting (Winds/Breath) with a single Zealot is still possible. This is like the point above but the Zealot does the double punt itself. The timeline is: cast winds, punt at 0s, immune (ICD) at 1s, then at 2s Winds punts again. Then while the victim is in the air from the second punt, the Zealot uses it's standard healer PBAoE punt (Breath of Tzeentch) to punt the enemy even further as they began in mid air. I love doing this, and fully admit how unfair it was for order. Granting proper immunity for 2s would fix this.

9) This is theoretical, but an entirely new abusable combo has been added with this patch. Now that Winds does no damage when in healing mode, it means it shouldn't break staggers. This now allows you to reposition staggered enemies every 2s (1.5s with multiple Zealots) without the enemy being able to do anything about it, and then likely eat a double punt at the end for good measure. To me this sounds absolutely hilarious, but then I'm not the one on the receiving end of it...

THE (B)UGLY

1) The tooltip text is so long that the client cannot display it all within the box. UPDATE @ 24 JUNE 2024: Fixed

2) The healing on the tooltip says it heals for 0. UPDATE @ 24 JUNE 2024: Fixed

3) The damage on the tooltip says it only does 25 damage. UPDATE @ 24 JUNE 2024: Fixed

4) Not sure if this is a bug or how channels work these days. It ticks 7 times but drains 20 AP 6 times. The final 7th tick is free. Not sure if intended or not.

5) Some of "THE BAD" might belong here. UPDATE @ 24 JUNE 2024: Direct/proc issues fixed

I do not have the time to put the bugs on the tracker yet. I'll do it this weekend if no one else does it.

THE SUGGESTIONS

I'm going to assume it's not possible within the ability system for an interrupt to turn off a toggle as IMO that would've been the best option, so let's assume it has to be a channel and I have to give up my anti-pull tactic for it. My feed-back is:

1) Make all of the damage and all healing direct and have it proc stuff. This is expected for channelled abilities and the Zealot is a proc class. UPDATE @ 24 JUNE 2024: the healing and damage not proccing was a bug, it has now been fixed.

2) Increase the damage to compensate for losing the overlapping damage. It's a Zealot - it's not like it was doing great damage before these changes.

3) Change the fake immunity to proper immunity of 1.9999 seconds to fix all of the proper abuse that could be done with the ability. UPDATE @ 24 JUNE 2024: based on further conversations in this thread it was brought to light that this would then make it difficult for tanks to use their important tanks. Instead, a way of preventing double-Zealots juggling with Winds without ruining tanks would be to keep the "fake immunity" but extend that to 1.9999 seconds. This would still allow tanks to do an important punt within Winds and still allows for the "double punt".

4) The range of the group heal in healing mode seems very restrictive. Regular group heal has a 100ft range from the Zealot. The group heal ritual has a 100ft range from the ritual which can be placed within 80ft of the Zealot, allowing it to project some group healing out to 180ft. Winds will heal group members within 50ft. I don't know which direction you should go with it but I would suggest either making the group heal range bigger, or making the heal a true 24-person AOE and making the radius smaller. The second option is very much stepping on the toes of the WP/DoK and the Zealot isn't really known as being a mass AOE healer so increasing the range seems fairer to me.

5) Assuming it fully procs everything then keeping the heal amount as-is for now might be fine especially as it would be doing crazy procs like AP pump, absorb shields, etc. However, if the heal is going to remain proc-less then the healing amount needs a big buff to compensate (please just make it proc instead). UPDATE @ 24 JUNE 2024: the healing not proccing was a bug, it has now been fixed. This suggestion is on pause until we see the actual impact having 7 chances to trigger procs on each group member over 6 seconds has.

6) In order to prevent the interaction with staggers, you might need to make healing mode also pulse a tiny amount of damage. Or, just let the new combo exist for a while and see if anyone is able to actually use/abuse it in practice before making Winds even more complex.

7) Probably increase the AP cost if all of the above gets added.

[leftayparxoun]

Thanks for testing everything out.
Great analysis. I agree with most of the suggestions too, especially about making the ability able to proc stuff as it feels intuitive.

I will have to disagree on your suggestion for changing it to grant proper immunity. That could potentially grief teammates out of better punts (especially due to the changes to punts this patch) and, while the way it works now can be used for double punts, I think leaving it as it is will be perfectly fine.

Same for the stagger issue. Will people really be angry if a zealot squad does that to them? I'd be amazed if anything

[Omegus]

Thanks for testing everything out.
Great analysis. I agree with most of the suggestions too, especially about making the ability able to proc stuff as it feels intuitive.

I will have to disagree on your suggestion for changing it to grant proper immunity. That could potentially grief teammates out of better punts (especially due to the changes to punts this patch) and, while the way it works now can be used for double punts, I think leaving it as it is will be perfectly fine.

Same for the stagger issue. Will people really be angry if a zealot squad does that to them? I'd be amazed if anything

Honestly I hadn't actually thought about 6 seconds of shitty punts being really aggravating for allies when a tank needs to go big. If double-punting is considered fine then perhaps instead of proper immunity for 2s then extending the ICD of the Winds punt from 1.5s to 1.99999s would stop multi-Winds juggles without screwing over tanks?

[Aluviya]

Archmage - Funnel Essence (20 AP/Sec, 1 Target, 3 sec Channel, with 1 initial tick & 3 following ticks, counts as direct healing, no additional effect):
551 /Tick resulting in 734 HP/Sec (642 Willpower)

DoK - Khaines Refreshment (20 Essence/Sec, Targets within 25 Ft, 3 sec Channel, with 1 initial tick & 3 following ticks, counts as direct healing, no additional effect)
338 /Tick resulting in 450 HP/Sec (662 Willpower) on self
338 /Tick resulting in 2704 HP/Sec (664 Willpower) on self + 5 targets

Zealot- Winds of Insanity (20 AP/Sec, Targets within 50 Ft, 3 sec Channel, with 1 initial tick & 6 following ticks, counts not as direct healing, small range punt effect)
256 /Tick resulting in 299 HP/Sec (664 Willpower) on self
256 /Tick resulting in 1792 HP/Sec (664 Willpower) on self + 5 targets

While I agree, that the healing of this ability isn't very insane, from the small scale PvP I can still say this ability is still somewhat gamebreaking. Practically a griefing tool that no other healer has against enemy healers: Stagger enemy healer, run to him, wait till stagger wears off and pop WoI to deny for further 2-3 secs any ability but instant spells - possibly longer if healer is caught in a position with collision towards walls. So even if this ability would do a small portion of damage, this combo would still be possible.

[Gunlinger]

While I agree, that the healing of this ability isn't very insane, from the small scale PvP I can still say this ability is still somewhat gamebreaking. Practically a griefing tool that no other healer has against enemy healers: Stagger enemy healer, run to him, wait till stagger wears off and pop WoI to deny for further 2-3 secs any ability but instant spells - possibly longer if healer is caught in a position with collision towards walls. So even if this ability would do a small portion of damage, this combo would still be possible.

can be countered by a fast Engineer that is in range with ''shock grenade'' to brake the stagger, if he either notices it himself, or the staggered healer reacts fast enought to voice up about the stagger.

[Aluviya]

While I agree, that the healing of this ability isn't very insane, from the small scale PvP I can still say this ability is still somewhat gamebreaking. Practically a griefing tool that no other healer has against enemy healers: Stagger enemy healer, run to him, wait till stagger wears off and pop WoI to deny for further 2-3 secs any ability but instant spells - possibly longer if healer is caught in a position with collision towards walls. So even if this ability would do a small portion of damage, this combo would still be possible.

can be countered by a fast Engineer that is in range with ''shock grenade'' to brake the stagger, if he either notices it himself, or the staggered healer reacts fast enought to voice up about the stagger.

Just a fair question, did you see an engineer participating in the the last 5 years in group ranked ?

[Nameless]

Taunt? There are plenty of counters now, so many that it is questionable to rush frontline and use it cos will be insta cancaled. Not being rooted means that knockbacks also stop it.

Imo to be more usefull and used devs should change heal portion of the skill. Make the heal direct so proc all, make it 100 ft. so zealots could use it as heal ignoring the kd aspect and increase heal value abit (500 non crit heal per tick with 200 hb).

After all to have it you should sacrifice something stagger, ritual or shield tactic which most of the times are mandatory. So make it worth to take

[mdrntms]

After all to have it you should sacrifice something stagger, ritual or shield tactic which most of the times are mandatory. So make it worth to take

With Sov+2 you can get all of those.


Anyway, on my end I see no channel bar ticking down in the likes of Chaotic Agitation (another Zealot channel). It might be a bug or an add-on problem.

[Nameless]

After all to have it you should sacrifice something stagger, ritual or shield tactic which most of the times are mandatory. So make it worth to take

With Sov+2 you can get all of those.


Anyway, on my end I see no channel bar ticking down in the likes of Chaotic Agitation (another Zealot channel). It might be a bug or an add-on problem.

Using full sov is sacrificing better gear options itself especially for orvr where the woi is most usefull

[Omegus]

So even if this ability would do a small portion of damage, this combo would still be possible.

At that point the enemy healer can pop their own CC such as a PBAoE knockback (all healers have this as core?), or stagger (RP spec), or silence (RP core, AM spec).

Also, let's be honest here - if anyone sees a Zealot running through the front-line it's likely to do one of two things: vomit (with tactic) or Winds, and tanks can shut down Winds with the press of a button again now as it's back to being a channel.