Stat/Sets tweak suggestion.

[rychu007]

I think the idea of the team is to not have one stat providing both offensive and defensive bonuses, which I think is right.

Right now weapon skill provides armor penetration AND block strike through, so something people seem to ignore is that block is now weaker, as both weapon skill and strength provide strike through now. So, for group play, weapon skill is still worth It as long as you are guarded.

For solo play (which is not the main focus of the game), my guess is that as mdps or 2h tank (except chosen and sm), you will have to focus on sustain, instead of going full ws.

So why magic class need invest only in intellect?
Mdps need to invest in 2 stats str and ws.
Its so unfair since start. Moreover mdps need to catch all targets what is kind of joke in this game with all slows, punts, kds, etc. And finally to make this game only for range dps parry has been taken away.

Iam not against of the ws change itself but in current meta with huge huge favour of range iam wondering why mdps are nerfed again?

[Sulorie]

So why magic class need invest only in intellect?
Mdps need to invest in 2 stats str and ws.
Its so unfair since start. Moreover mdps need to catch all targets what is kind of joke in this game with all slows, punts, kds, etc. And finally to make this game only for range dps parry has been taken away.

Iam not against of the ws change itself but in current meta with huge huge favour of range iam wondering why mdps are nerfed again?

Quite simple, the damage potential and sustain is higher with physical dd due to aa damage. Furthermore with 3 armor "weights" the flat armor debuffs can on some targets negate all their armor. Resist debuffs, if you don't stack it, only reduce 40% resists down to 20%.
Procs are more reliably caused by direct melee hits (incl aa) since the number of instant casts is limited and spells with cast time by nature are not the best skills to proc.

If this change would cause melee dd to go ranged, it wouldn't affect other melee dd, since parry would be useless anyway. Furthermore as others have written, parry was never needed at front line, or melee dd would have been useless since the game exists. People stacked parry for reflect builds while solo roaming.

[Fenris78]

Spoiler:

Melee DPS didn't need parry to survive on the frontline, and only relied on guard last year and for all years prior with the exception of a few shortlived failed experiments. "Ranged DPS" are mostly melee in a bomb setting and didn't rely on parry at ANY point to survive on the frontline.

The fact that you were given an ungodly amount of parry at the start of the year does not mean you needed it, that it was balanced relative to other classes that by necessity have to be in the same melee blob despite never having had parry or that the removal of such left you in a worse state than you have been in historically.

WS carried the exact same weight last year as it did after january patch for dps. They did not magically opt to take MORE WS because it gave far more parry. The typical investment simply happened to give more defense out of nowhere.

Parry has never been a priority unless absolutely wanting to maximize defense. People do not do this at scale and opt to invest in 3-4 offensive crit with the rest going FS as a general defense. Outside of that, wounds. (Of course you have some weirdos speccing full strength/WS/What have you, but you know, they simply have even less of an argument despite technically loosing more of the free **** they were handed.)

Some things simply should not change. Making mainstat avoidance OP has ALWAYS backfired because it simply doesn't translate between archetypes, or even between different classes within the archetypes.

I'll say this again; The solution is to revert to Mythic formula. It solves every issue.

While I dont agree on 100%, I'm too for the old avoidances formula. Maybe tweak it a bit to accomodate for difference between Initiative/wilpower and offensive stats ; there are vast differences between archetypes and initiative/willpower values, which in turn need to be ironed out to not have vastly superior avoidances for healers, or globally more dodge than disrupt.

Get rid of that stupid strikethrough ; maybe keep it against block to give more purpose capping mainstat, and to avoid block being too strong (especially since you can have +50% block skills)

Actually the parry bonus is likely reverted to "average" values before pre-patch, but some specs like 2H Knight and BO are greatly losing in the process, because no real parry increase, so the difference is now more negatively perceived, by contrast.

Previous values of 10-15% average avoidances (from what I can extract from various log files on my DPS classes at least) where slightly above what I could expect (more 20% effective), but at least they were not zero like they can be now with all this added strikethrough over many existing means.

I agree to the need to decouple some offensive and defensive value from stats, and it was true Initiative been mostly useless stat before (especially for Order since only 1 enemy class to dodge amongst 12), but now linear increase and linear strikethrough are causing so much more trouble than before ; between uber high parry classes (especially some mdps which could get nearly 1k WS, and tanks with 75+ parry), high disrupt healers (with base high willpower granting about 20-25% disrupt on top), and globally zero dodge/disrupt for anyone beside Hold the Line, the formulas seriously need big ironing to avoid so much discrepancies along all classes.

Everyone will get benefit from added dodge/disrupt, and everyone will get more fun hitting enemies without 80% parry all the time... So it's a win-win for everyone, while getting more usefulness to various buffs and debuffs.


Globally what could be done is already suggested by OP, here are my recommendations :

- Return to old formulas with some tweaks, ensuring resulting avoidances with maxed out renown (on DPS with BiS gear) are around 20-25%, at minima.

- Then tweak buffs and debuffs and watch closely how they stack, to get, either :
1. better than 25% avoidances against zero strikethrough + stacked defense buffs
2. lower than 25% avoidances against stacked strikethrough and zero defense buffs.

This way everyone should be happy, no matter the receiving end, enjoying utility from renown and various buffs from skills/tactics/gear/buddies.


Obviously formulas should take into account stat potential, i.e. stacking 800 initiative should give same avoidance score than 800 willpower, but "base" initiative score should give equal avoidance score than "base" willpower score, this way scaling will be a bit different, accounting the fact stacking high initiative is harder for everyone, while stacking high willpower is easy for healers.

[what63]

Spoiler:

Melee DPS didn't need parry to survive on the frontline, and only relied on guard last year and for all years prior with the exception of a few shortlived failed experiments. "Ranged DPS" are mostly melee in a bomb setting and didn't rely on parry at ANY point to survive on the frontline.

The fact that you were given an ungodly amount of parry at the start of the year does not mean you needed it, that it was balanced relative to other classes that by necessity have to be in the same melee blob despite never having had parry or that the removal of such left you in a worse state than you have been in historically.

WS carried the exact same weight last year as it did after january patch for dps. They did not magically opt to take MORE WS because it gave far more parry. The typical investment simply happened to give more defense out of nowhere.

Parry has never been a priority unless absolutely wanting to maximize defense. People do not do this at scale and opt to invest in 3-4 offensive crit with the rest going FS as a general defense. Outside of that, wounds. (Of course you have some weirdos speccing full strength/WS/What have you, but you know, they simply have even less of an argument despite technically loosing more of the free **** they were handed.)

Some things simply should not change. Making mainstat avoidance OP has ALWAYS backfired because it simply doesn't translate between archetypes, or even between different classes within the archetypes.

I'll say this again; The solution is to revert to Mythic formula. It solves every issue.

While I dont agree on 100%, I'm too for the old avoidances formula. Maybe tweak it a bit to accomodate for difference between Initiative/wilpower and offensive stats ; there are vast differences between archetypes and initiative/willpower values, which in turn need to be ironed out to not have vastly superior avoidances for healers, or globally more dodge than disrupt.

Get rid of that stupid strikethrough ; maybe keep it against block to give more purpose capping mainstat, and to avoid block being too strong (especially since you can have +50% block skills)

Actually the parry bonus is likely reverted to "average" values before pre-patch, but some specs like 2H Knight and BO are greatly losing in the process, because no real parry increase, so the difference is now more negatively perceived, by contrast.

Previous values of 10-15% average avoidances (from what I can extract from various log files on my DPS classes at least) where slightly above what I could expect (more 20% effective), but at least they were not zero like they can be now with all this added strikethrough over many existing means.

I agree to the need to decouple some offensive and defensive value from stats, and it was true Initiative been mostly useless stat before (especially for Order since only 1 enemy class to dodge amongst 12), but now linear increase and linear strikethrough are causing so much more trouble than before ; between uber high parry classes (especially some mdps which could get nearly 1k WS, and tanks with 75+ parry), high disrupt healers (with base high willpower granting about 20-25% disrupt on top), and globally zero dodge/disrupt for anyone beside Hold the Line, the formulas seriously need big ironing to avoid so much discrepancies along all classes.

Everyone will get benefit from added dodge/disrupt, and everyone will get more fun hitting enemies without 80% parry all the time... So it's a win-win for everyone, while getting more usefulness to various buffs and debuffs.


Globally what could be done is already suggested by OP, here are my recommendations :

- Return to old formulas with some tweaks, ensuring resulting avoidances with maxed out renown (on DPS with BiS gear) are around 20-25%, at minima.

- Then tweak buffs and debuffs and watch closely how they stack, to get, either :
1. better than 25% avoidances against zero strikethrough + stacked defense buffs
2. lower than 25% avoidances against stacked strikethrough and zero defense buffs.

This way everyone should be happy, no matter the receiving end, enjoying utility from renown and various buffs from skills/tactics/gear/buddies.


Obviously formulas should take into account stat potential, i.e. stacking 800 initiative should give same avoidance score than 800 willpower, but "base" initiative score should give equal avoidance score than "base" willpower score, this way scaling will be a bit different, accounting the fact stacking high initiative is harder for everyone, while stacking high willpower is easy for healers.

Part of the point is simply that the differences in avoidance due to the mainstats were neglible to begin with in the old system.

The theoretical high end of avoidance there was simply a significant buffer against CC from non-DPS classes/specs. Healers had noticeable defense against being staggered/silenced every time immunity went down (Yes, RP/zealot swapped to harb to lessen this, but you know, an active measure taken). DPS and in some rare cases 2h tanks gained significant defense against CC from especially SnB/def 2h tanks. Basically it acted as a decent way to lessen the hits you take from anyone not very specifically focusing on output as opposed to defense. And it did so without granting any significant gains against people that prioritized output. To gain defense against these, you needed a bespoke investment in the form of flat avoidance.

WS/WP would at the very peak give 7.5% avoidance against someone actually doing damage. More realistically 3-5%. But against someone not gunning for throughput? Well, a 200 int AM trying so silence a 700 WP zealot would be hitting the 25% cap from contested stats, before any flat disrupt. If the same figure for example applied to every class however, healers would be far too big of a sitting duck, so it simply makes sense. Same logic applies elsewhere.

And this entire dynamic was incredibly healthy. You simply shouldn't have a bunch of free avoidance against practically every melee class simply because you are a DPS. Same with healers. The formula filled defense in the appropriate areas, but left you bare where it made sense. And on the other hand, you also simply shouldn't have a good chance of landing a punt on someone if you run 200 str and don't actively position for it.

As for any notion that there should be a baseline avoidance for free without investment to make it to where Deft Defender has a greater impact, it's just not good. Strikethrough should eliminate it. A higher baseline still negates strikethrough insofar as additional buffs on top go.

[cacumen]

Somehow I agree that WS should not increase parry, only if there's Parry coming from another sources for mDPS.

I understand what Devs said about not wanting a stat to increase offensive and defensive aspects. But that directly nerfs mDPS. So if the reasoning behind that is true, there should be Parry added to mDPS sets, weapons or tactics.

I would say that adding 1% and 2% Parry to several Sov/Warlord/Triumph/Vale pieces is the way to go for mDPS to have a way to survive fighting in the front line. Just around 10 to 20% extra parry from different sources would be just fine.

[skorvag]

I think the idea of the team is to not have one stat providing both offensive and defensive bonuses, which I think is right.

And thats where the team is fundamentaly wrong. You cant treat meele and ranged classes the same. Meele classes do need extra protection. And if its not parry on WS put dodge or disrupt to WS.
To put it into anyother perspective. Healer are now way more tanky than they should be so parry on Ini isnt that of a bright idea either.

[what63]

I think the idea of the team is to not have one stat providing both offensive and defensive bonuses, which I think is right.

And thats where the team is fundamentaly wrong. You cant treat meele and ranged classes the same. Meele classes do need extra protection. And if its not parry on WS put dodge or disrupt to WS.
To put it into anyother perspective. Healer are now way more tanky than they should be so parry on Ini isnt that of a bright idea either.

Nah. The concern pertains to largescale multiple WB vs multiple WB battles. Battles where sorc, BW, Engi, magus are all also in the same bomb on account of having ROUGHLY THE SAME RANGES BUT LACKING THE MOBILITY, WITHOUT ever complaining about parry, AND being in light armor. I mean, please, just think. This situation also didn't MAGICALLY change at any point, this was always true and everything was fine. Suddenly complaining that MDPS specifically need exclusive free defenses from MDPS in a bomb setting while cloth armors don't is ridiculous, when the only basis for such is that they were granted said additional defenses out of nowhere literally early this year.

[skorvag]

[/quote]

Nah. The concern pertains to largescale multiple WB vs multiple WB battles. Battles where sorc, BW, Engi, magus are all also in the same bomb on account of having ROUGHLY THE SAME RANGES BUT LACKING THE MOBILITY, WITHOUT ever complaining about parry, AND being in light armor. I mean, please, just think. This situation also didn't MAGICALLY change at any point, this was always true and everything was fine. Suddenly complaining that MDPS specifically need exclusive free defenses from MDPS in a bomb setting while cloth armors don't is ridiculous, when the only basis for such is that they were granted said additional defenses out of nowhere literally early this year.
[/quote]

Roughly the same range? What are you talking about? If you are in meele range as a range class you did something wrong. And correct. Nothing magically changed, everything was fine. So why put the parry off from WS? "Suddenly complaining that MDPS specifically need exclusive free defenses from MDPS" its vice versa. People suddenly complain why mDPS need extra defense. And parry allways has been on WS.

[what63]

Nah. The concern pertains to largescale multiple WB vs multiple WB battles. Battles where sorc, BW, Engi, magus are all also in the same bomb on account of having ROUGHLY THE SAME RANGES BUT LACKING THE MOBILITY, WITHOUT ever complaining about parry, AND being in light armor. I mean, please, just think. This situation also didn't MAGICALLY change at any point, this was always true and everything was fine. Suddenly complaining that MDPS specifically need exclusive free defenses from MDPS in a bomb setting while cloth armors don't is ridiculous, when the only basis for such is that they were granted said additional defenses out of nowhere literally early this year.
[/quote]

Roughly the same range? What are you talking about? If you are in meele range as a range class you did something wrong. And correct. Nothing magically changed, everything was fine. So why put the parry off from WS? "Suddenly complaining that MDPS specifically need exclusive free defenses from MDPS" its vice versa. People suddenly complain why mDPS need extra defense. And parry allways has been on WS.
[/quote]

Jau, RDPS AoE channels are 25ft. Their spammable PBAoE are 25ft. Some of their cones are slightly larger, mostly DoTs. Fact is, at the scale where this particular complaint could fesibly bear any weight- RvR in something akin to organized guild warbands and the likes- RDPS bomb at EXACTLY the same range. But with FAR greater drawbacks than the melee DPS you so staunchily claim have severe survivability issues. RDPS simply are NOT ranged in a bomb/warband setting.

You don't get it; Up until january, WS gave something akin to 3-5% parry on average. Straight up. If you were 1050 WS, you had 7.5% parry against someone with 1050 strength. This patch brings things closer to sane values, as opposed to the tens of parry you got post-january.

If the complaint re parry is valid, we need to grant stuff like DPS zealots in warbands the same level of parry, logically, as they sit in the same radius dealing their own damage in cloth armor. Chew on that. The parry argument holds no weight at smaller scales.

Add: I agree with the complaint on a thematic level. But which exact stat grants the specific parry is pretty much a technicality as long as the end values line up. And they line up better to pre-january now than they do with WS giving 3% per 100 points on DPS. The only true path forward is a reversion to pre-jan though.

[Toshutkidup]

I haven't changed my build at all still full WS talis. Now I did try to figure out how much parry I actually have and for me.getstats don't work. Did that command get removed the 7 months or so I was gone? I still have no plans to change anything about my build but addon to track stats apparently is all bugged and wrong.