So you may be wondering, what is our next step following this assessment?
We are going to make the following changes:
Chosen:
-Corruptive Power: Reverted, changed to "Any time you critically hit an enemy, all members of your group within 100 feet, except you, will gain a blessing that reduces their chance to be critically hit by 10% for 5 seconds." This ability can be refreshed by re-activating it, similar to Knight's Dirty Tricks. This ability can be severed from any group members it is applied to.
-Mixed Defenses: Now exists as the 11 point tactic in the Corruption tree.
-Corruptive Power: Now exists as the 7 point tactic in the Corruption tree.
-Oppression: Now requires a shield to use.
Knight:
-Vigilance: Now requires a shield to use.
Let's go in with a explanation for each of the changes.
-Corruptive Power - This was changed to effectively mirror Dirty Tricks. 5% Critical Hit Chance has the same renown rank cost as 8% Reduced Chance to be Critically Hit. We weigh tactics the same as renown investment, as they are all specialization related. When we factor in that a Chosen must do an offensive attack to proc this tactic on the group, we add about 2% extra bonus to offset the fact that it may not be always up, depending on the Chosen's critical hit chance.
This gives Chosen a very viable 2h build as well as a defensive build, similar to what the Knight has with Dirty Tricks, but on an offensive action to fit the Chosen's offensive class identity. It also ensures you are rewarded for staying near melee range, which also fits the Chosen's class identity. Keep in mind, too, that it may be severed by an enemy team, so that is an extra reason that it has a slight leg-up over Dirty Tricks.
-Mixed Defenses / Corruptive Power position changes - This is done solely for build purposes. We don't want the Knight and Chosen to be exact mirrors, and ultimately this fits two builds that a Chosen can take.
-Oppression/Vigilance: This is done to mirror the defensive abilities. If you're speccing a 13 point ability, you're pretty much committed to the role in that tree. This change will reflect that Chosen is a more offensive tank by nature, but if you want to go defensive, the option is available, but more forced. As such, a great weapon cannot be used for such a powerful defensive ability.
Plus, Chosen's ability states in the description that it is a Shield Slam - kind of hard to do that with a great weapon!
Going forward, we hope to avoid mistakes like this in the future. We're not perfect, however, I hope we can restore a level of trust in the team. We have very talented folks, and our developers have been a godsend in getting work done across multiple disciplines to provide content that never existed in Age of Reckoning. We want to be able to give the game new life in addition to its nostalgic feeling, and we do this unpaid because we're passionate about making sure the game continues on in the best form it can be.
Clearly, we have a lot of work to do with communication. As always has been the case. But admitting our faults and making things right here is our priority right now, and that is exactly what we're doing.
tl;dr whirly axe goes weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Wargrimnir had this to add as well:
Wargrimnir here. First off, thanks for all the patience and kind words, if you didn't have patience or kind words then you just make this job harder and I don't care much for you. The first version of this tactic getting pushed was simply a mistake. It was my responsibility to catch which I failed at doing. Part of this was miscommunication. There were a couple simultaneous discussions going on, what appeared to be explicit approval on this tactic was actually intended for exploring options to replace the existing -AP tactics. When I went back and looked at the conversation, it sure looks like I rubberstamp approved of the -25% crit tactic and no further discussion was had, then it was quickly buried. The other part was real life getting in the way of providing a backstop to ideas and proposals in balance. I had worked 12 hours the day before the patch, and in the morning got pulled into high priority items (when I would otherwise dink around on the forums looking for troublemakers). I saw the patch notes at least an hour after they went up and had the same reaction as everyone else, except I was kicking myself for it. Normally we post them internally at least the day before, but I just didn't see this one among everything else.
I'm not going to promise any of us are going to do a better job. This is the level of job we do here, sometimes you get a bad patch every couple of months because one of the many people around here missed something or glazed over what is otherwise obvious. We have a lot of people that can see these things, they're all free to chirp when something doesn't look right, and the majority of the time we run patches as intended. However, I do offer an apology on behalf of my own failure.
This thread is open for discussion. Feel free to provide constructive feedback regarding the second round of changes. These will be going live later today in a hotfix.
As a player let me start by expressing my appreciation for all that the devs and GMs of this server do. As a long time chosen player I will say that there's no doubt that the tactic that came into the game reducing 25% crit chance was going to be overpowered. The revert changes though are hefty and to far of a back track in my personal opinion and I'm sure other Knights and Chosens will agree. While I do get that Oppression and Vigilance are defensive abilities they were heavily utilized for survivability cookie cutter spec ESPECIALLY with guard changes of block vs parry etc in orvr. Also with this change to make use of the tactic rework chosens will be forced to dump their renown into crit chance to maintain maximum uptime while already reducing the overall survivability going 2h PLUS removing oppression. This only really addresses what is given up to efficiently utilize the tactic and not the usefulness of the tactic. Everyone already runs 0% chance to be crit typically anyways. Getting and extra 10% reduced chance to be crit would only be trying to prevent against initiative debuffs and increased chance to be crit from the enemy. Even then it only affects MY group which just isn't worth the point nor the lose of survivability and renown points. The only way this tactic will be used is if the Chosen player base finds a way to reliably proc and maintain the buff then asking other 5 people to sacrifice futile strikes for other renown abilities (highly unlikely regardless). Again, as mention above I appreciate all that yall do, but at the end of the day from a long standing chosen player. The unused AP tactic was revamped into another tactic that will still be unused.