[PTS] Patch Notes 23/07/2026 - RDPS Patch and New Scenario Mechanic

[Kanser]

Both classes were already strong in st spec. Are you even playing the game ?

ok...

You seriously believe most of them on the leaderboard are ST spec? They’re nearly all AOE…

That's a lie

[salazarn]

I don't think they should have nerfed signal flare or lowered its damage.

If you asked engineers I am sure they would rather keep it a high cooldown and make it feel rewarding to use

Also was it nerfed just because magus is regarded as op and you thought there would be outcry if you didnt just nerf engi as well? Everyone knows Engi is magus's slightly underfed brother

[Boernsen]

Hey, nice to know. Could you please elaborate the reason for nerfing dps of ST engi and ST magus (compared to live the dps on PTS is now lower on both)? Magus at least has received a teleport.

Both classes are not really the strongest in current ST meta, both classes are not rly wished in warbands because of low burst aoe from the distance.

Is the melee aoe spec - the only way how both classes should be played now?

Both classes were already strong in st spec. Are you even playing the game ?

ok...

Okay, and what does that proof ?

[buerdig]

Both classes were already strong in st spec. Are you even playing the game ?

ok...

Okay, and what does that proof ?

Clearly, every Magus is going to be Tramadol due to the revamp I believe is the reasoning.

I don't think they should have nerfed signal flare or lowered its damage.

If you asked engineers I am sure they would rather keep it a high cooldown and make it feel rewarding to use

Also was it nerfed just because magus is regarded as op and you thought there would be outcry if you didnt just nerf engi as well? Everyone knows Engi is magus's slightly underfed brother

Both abilities got buffed equally at the start, it would be great if people were giving feedback on engi's to bring them up to the level of magus instead of both of us taking hits.

[Orontes]

Here my quick feedback:
- Scout SW: should be fine I think. Gotta see how they do on live.
- Skirimish SW: not fine. The AOE nerfs were really heavy. mSH feels a lot better, tankier with great tools and higher AOE damage/pressure. SW doesn't feel right. Please have another look.

Edit: forgot mSW: no more armor buff? ufff. What's the reasoning behind that? The mSH has now actually more than 100% armor bonus with the tactic and the base buff when there are no armor talis.

Why do you think Scout SW should be fine? Under the new model Acid Arrow would need to be shot first (1.5 seconds) before Fester to get any benefit of Corp. reduction, and Fester is a 9 second wait for a payoff. Fester has also had the mobility removed. What leads you to the should be fine idea?

The Skirmish and Assault changes are simply a disaster. It really feels like active hostility toward the class.

It's not that big of a difference for Acid Arrow and Fester. Fester is 3s on live, 2s with tactic. On PTS it is 1s cast without tactic. So when you use Acid Arrow followed by Fester they hit pretty quickly after another. Scouts still need two tactics to make it work though.
Flame Arrow is now base line and got moved to Scout, plus it has 100ft range. So for Scouts you can use it now and it gains power from points in Scout. It is pretty weak though. However, you have now 3 dots to stack on the target before burst. Broadhead, Shadow Sting and Flame Arrow.
I guess the rotation is something like that: stack the 3 dots, then Acid, then Vengeance, then Fester, then Rapid fire, Glass Arrow, Fell the Weak, maybe throw in an Eye Shot in between or a Take Down for kd. Something like that to get the full 10x stacks for Fester 2nd proc. btw: Rapid fire can now remove one absorb.

Oh btw: Broadhead and Shadow Sting have only 72ft range in Scout stance. That is awful for Scout snipers.

I wouldn't say it is "bad" but also not kind of "good". With Vengeance you can get 1000dps or 7k ish burst on the training dummy. Without Vengeance is more like 900dps and 6k ish. Kinda meh. Will it be "fine"? Maybe, maybe not. I think overall it is a nerf for Scouts. The fester burst got nerfed and you are still very dependent on the Vengeance buff to do meaningful damage. Destros with their non stop crying in the region chat have won again and another Order class has it's biting power been nerfed. To be honest. They tend to overnerf Order classes. Skirmish SWs got mega wrecked. aSWs gonna die in seconds with the removed armor buff and Scouts SWs are kind of only mediocre.

HEllo Lumpi

This is what I took as your key position:

I guess the rotation is something like that: stack the 3 dots, then Acid, then Vengeance, then Fester, then Rapid fire, Glass Arrow, Fell the Weak, maybe throw in an Eye Shot in between or a Take Down for kd. Something like that to get the full 10x stacks for Fester 2nd proc. btw: Rapid fire can now remove one absorb.

Oh btw: Broadhead and Shadow Sting have only 72ft range in Scout stance. That is awful for Scout snipers."

Most if not all of the noted require one to be stationary. I don't play Scout, but this does not seem viable to me.

[M0rw47h]

I love idea of like 10 GCD rotations, in game where you just burst people with /assist xD

[Ramzel]

Can you walk back the sac stab nerfs?

It is in no way OP for organized play like was claimed. On average it does around 1500 with a glass cannon WE, and a BiS WE with 40% crit chance has just a 16% chance of getting a double crit where you see numbers around 3k, and that chance is lowered a lot if someone runs anti crit, which is common...

Solo WE is too much, but DPS WE needs help not nerfs compared to WH. Sac stab is horrible compared to burn away lies for organized play, it does low damage for a snare and the convenience of not needing a class to armor debuff for it... Burn away lies does around 4k tooltip, while sac stab is around 1.1k... at str cap.

If you guys are insistent on the changes, can you atleast make the DPS sov give +2 skill-points to path of suffering now, because getting that skill will be not be worth 13 mastery points...

BaL is a damage over time that can be cleansed and can be countered easier, than SS. Sac Stab is instant damage, if you pair it with witchbrew the 3s burst is insane and its all instant damage and very easy to setup. Not comparable to BaL, the ar. pen on SS stacks with your ar. pen from gear and WS, 4 bloodlusts SS is still 100% armor pen. The SS damage hasn't changed much if you test it on PTS, still big crits, still big damage, i was able to crank 8k in 3s on construct without any minmaxing or doing 20 attemtps to roll lucky crits.
p.s.if you go +2 build with both wb and ss , even without crits it slaps hard and will force people to use big CDs to recover from it

If you need to take that much time to setup your burst you'll probably loose vrs a good team. And that burst isnt that big, sac stab often does bad damage, especially to anti crit specing players, which is common

So you are talking about building 5 frenzies, witchbrew, and then building 4 frenzies then sac stabbing? Thats a crazy amount of time investment(Or the use of a 1 min CD) to try for 1 kill. WE's do waayyy less damage then a WH using burn away lies on an armor debuff target without the crazy setup that takes...1k~ tooltip vrs 4k, yeah it can be cleansed, but thats very rare and can also be countered played with just other stuff on them so they probs wont get it most of the time.

Sac stab should be getting a buff if anything, nerfing it's utility, arm pen and dmage is just so unjustified. As I posted in the other thread with logs from pvp vrs high level players, the damage on it is only great 16%~ of the time(2x chance of crit with a base 40%, though that 16% chance plumets agaisnt people who build anti crit, which is a lot of people, which is why the average sac stab numbers are so low), to remove it's utility and lower its damage anymore is insane. Most of the time its nice because it's a snare that is a slight DPS boost, it's already so mild

Sac stab was also not stacking with the armor pen on the class when I tested it, did it for you?

git prepping the witchbrew and sac stab takes couple of seconds, i play it in rvr and its literaly about 5s to get burst ready and one shot somebody before they realise what's coming
In SCs you have crazy burst every 10s , but for most people you don't even need fully stacked, 3-4 is more than enough
This setup was meta in cities and ranked for a reason
p.s. imo SS got more buffed than nerfed because now we always have big snare with long duration

[ronago]

Kudos to the team for giving Shatter back to sorc on the 29th patch, that was a wise move.

Only thing I miss now is a solution to the current xrealming... you can live with minor balancing issues but core gameplay issues make you long and play something else.

[ravezaar]

minor balance issues ?