Re: [PTS] Patch Notes 16/08/2024
Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2024 4:27 pm
It's taken me a couple of days to drum up the desire to post feedback on the weapon skill change, mostly because it feels like shouting into the wind. Balance direction has consistently missed many of the marks when it comes to small scale and non-wb play, and this weapon skill change (imo) reflect that and continue this trend by nerfing some of the other hybrid specs and forcing players to play ways they don't want to. I don't want to play a certain spec, and tbh instead of respeccing, I just wouldn't play.
I don't think the removal from parry is that well thought out;
1. The mindset that stats shouldn't have offensive and defensive provisions is wrong. It's common in most RPGs and is a core concept (agility, characteristic checks etc.) for multiple games in this genre and other genres.
Everyone talking about how willpower isn't an offensive stat is peddling cope, willpower scales abilities like strength or intelligence, and unike initiative or toughness; I don't know if any ability that scales off these passive stats, unlike willpower. Calling the change fine because it isn't an offensive stat is just weak (and imo fake) justification to defend it; there's not much ground or rationale behind "it shouldn't do two things" - all of ror's stats have multiple benefits.
Saying that it's one stat point to gain both an offensive and defensive benefit, imho makes the stat weaker and less efficient than a mono-purpose stat; the only reason the defensive attribute is so valuable is due to the insanely generous aoes and melee meta that exists.
All mdps stack strength to cap first, because it gives the greatest return for damage. Weapon skill comes after because it's the best avenue to further boost damage. For many mdps is about that deeps; bulk comes after.
2. Removing parry from WS will asymmetrically buff some classes and nerf others, like magic-dealing 2h tanks (chosen and SM). They don't need to pack WS just for parry and arp, they can dump into ini and receive greater benefit from stat allocations.
I also can't wait for healers to start parrying tank punts, cc, etc.
IMHO this is also a big nerf for the regular 2h tanks, and as much as many players don't like 2h tanks, the reality is changes like this doesn't lead to more snb tanks, it just leads to less tanks - no one will play a spec they don't enjoy or didn't sign up to play.
All of the physical 2h tanks rely on weapon skill to help them mitigate guard damage and provide the armour pen they need to be an effective assistant on most meta targets. Pushing the stat priority to ini just means you may as well roll shield cause you are no longer an assistant, and just a debuff bot.
It's changes like this that drive people out of the game and have lead to where we are today. Like personally, I've played ror on only mostly the one class and spec for the last 5 years because I enjoyed the class and the experience that class provides. No other class captures or scratches that itch - I won't play another class or spec because changes make it unviable; I'll just play a different game.
There are a lot of games out there competing for the player audience, and the end of the day the priority is enjoyment.
3. It reduces melee bulk from sustaining in melee.
You could say this is ameliorated by people picking up parry in initiative, and to a point that's true, but the current sets core itemisation does not have the allocated stat budget to initiative to make up the difference in bulk.
We will see a big drop in melee combat as a concept, survivability of some melee dps to drop, and also the damage output of melee will drop as they split allocations. The damage drop won't make up the difference in lengthening ttk as without avoidance the amount of fluff aoe will be enough cleave that people will be eating much more damage.
4. Current itemisation doesn't support it change for melee - a huge chunk of weapon skill comes from gear before talismans. Many sets were designed and budgeted under the old system; you would need to re-allocate budgets for parry % or initiative to give similar (but still less) levels of bulk compared to what melee have at the moment
I highly doubt that we will see people having initiative similar to their current weapon skill, and subsequently they won't have a similar level of parry, even if they stack initiative.
5. This change doesn't really address why weapon skill is so good and taken primarily; it's not because of the parry. The is a key benefit, but ws is usually picked up for the armour pen it provides.
Moving parry off it maintains the whole gripe mdps often have of "we have to spec into 2 stats to do damage", but considerably ups their risk. That's a reasonable tradeoff on paper, but when it starts getting into melee, parry helps melee survive the insane amount of fluff aoe that currently goes on.
It changes the value of armour too; if people don't stack weapon skill, we will see armour being the better stat to stack than toughness.
6. Makes initiative too good .
One of the reasons to change WS is because it's too good; but now initiative becomes exceptional. -CTBC has long been the top defensive priority, and with the extra crit it'll be more important.
Now initiative gives increased -ctbc, dodge, stealth detection, AND parry. That makes it the best stat to pile on because no other stat gives you such strong defensive returns. Avoidance is far superior to toughness; you don't need to increase your EHP if you don't get hit.
7. Initiative is skewed across the races with elves at the top and dwarves and orcs at the bottom.
It doesn't seem like a lot but those extra % really stack up when you're trying to hit certain breakpoints (like 250 ini), and can mean the difference in viability and having to take RR in stat blocks. While I can hear the babies say "well good, you need to make decisions", some races don't have to make decisions at all; when it comes to crucial stats, that's not balance that's an actual bias.
---
My suggestion is if you wanted to nerf weapon skill, then make it a technical stat; keep parry there, move parry strike through to it, put block strike through on initiative, and move armour penetration to strength.
While it seems counter intuitive to have weapon skill cancel itself out; it's better having it as a technical stat for melee checks IMHO., and something that melee will want to have. It gives snb tanks a stat that isn't strength to increase their tonk and help them land blows and keeps melee attributes within their design arenas.
I don't think the removal from parry is that well thought out;
1. The mindset that stats shouldn't have offensive and defensive provisions is wrong. It's common in most RPGs and is a core concept (agility, characteristic checks etc.) for multiple games in this genre and other genres.
Everyone talking about how willpower isn't an offensive stat is peddling cope, willpower scales abilities like strength or intelligence, and unike initiative or toughness; I don't know if any ability that scales off these passive stats, unlike willpower. Calling the change fine because it isn't an offensive stat is just weak (and imo fake) justification to defend it; there's not much ground or rationale behind "it shouldn't do two things" - all of ror's stats have multiple benefits.
Saying that it's one stat point to gain both an offensive and defensive benefit, imho makes the stat weaker and less efficient than a mono-purpose stat; the only reason the defensive attribute is so valuable is due to the insanely generous aoes and melee meta that exists.
All mdps stack strength to cap first, because it gives the greatest return for damage. Weapon skill comes after because it's the best avenue to further boost damage. For many mdps is about that deeps; bulk comes after.
2. Removing parry from WS will asymmetrically buff some classes and nerf others, like magic-dealing 2h tanks (chosen and SM). They don't need to pack WS just for parry and arp, they can dump into ini and receive greater benefit from stat allocations.
I also can't wait for healers to start parrying tank punts, cc, etc.
IMHO this is also a big nerf for the regular 2h tanks, and as much as many players don't like 2h tanks, the reality is changes like this doesn't lead to more snb tanks, it just leads to less tanks - no one will play a spec they don't enjoy or didn't sign up to play.
All of the physical 2h tanks rely on weapon skill to help them mitigate guard damage and provide the armour pen they need to be an effective assistant on most meta targets. Pushing the stat priority to ini just means you may as well roll shield cause you are no longer an assistant, and just a debuff bot.
It's changes like this that drive people out of the game and have lead to where we are today. Like personally, I've played ror on only mostly the one class and spec for the last 5 years because I enjoyed the class and the experience that class provides. No other class captures or scratches that itch - I won't play another class or spec because changes make it unviable; I'll just play a different game.
There are a lot of games out there competing for the player audience, and the end of the day the priority is enjoyment.
3. It reduces melee bulk from sustaining in melee.
You could say this is ameliorated by people picking up parry in initiative, and to a point that's true, but the current sets core itemisation does not have the allocated stat budget to initiative to make up the difference in bulk.
We will see a big drop in melee combat as a concept, survivability of some melee dps to drop, and also the damage output of melee will drop as they split allocations. The damage drop won't make up the difference in lengthening ttk as without avoidance the amount of fluff aoe will be enough cleave that people will be eating much more damage.
4. Current itemisation doesn't support it change for melee - a huge chunk of weapon skill comes from gear before talismans. Many sets were designed and budgeted under the old system; you would need to re-allocate budgets for parry % or initiative to give similar (but still less) levels of bulk compared to what melee have at the moment
I highly doubt that we will see people having initiative similar to their current weapon skill, and subsequently they won't have a similar level of parry, even if they stack initiative.
5. This change doesn't really address why weapon skill is so good and taken primarily; it's not because of the parry. The is a key benefit, but ws is usually picked up for the armour pen it provides.
Moving parry off it maintains the whole gripe mdps often have of "we have to spec into 2 stats to do damage", but considerably ups their risk. That's a reasonable tradeoff on paper, but when it starts getting into melee, parry helps melee survive the insane amount of fluff aoe that currently goes on.
It changes the value of armour too; if people don't stack weapon skill, we will see armour being the better stat to stack than toughness.
6. Makes initiative too good .
One of the reasons to change WS is because it's too good; but now initiative becomes exceptional. -CTBC has long been the top defensive priority, and with the extra crit it'll be more important.
Now initiative gives increased -ctbc, dodge, stealth detection, AND parry. That makes it the best stat to pile on because no other stat gives you such strong defensive returns. Avoidance is far superior to toughness; you don't need to increase your EHP if you don't get hit.
7. Initiative is skewed across the races with elves at the top and dwarves and orcs at the bottom.
It doesn't seem like a lot but those extra % really stack up when you're trying to hit certain breakpoints (like 250 ini), and can mean the difference in viability and having to take RR in stat blocks. While I can hear the babies say "well good, you need to make decisions", some races don't have to make decisions at all; when it comes to crucial stats, that's not balance that's an actual bias.
---
My suggestion is if you wanted to nerf weapon skill, then make it a technical stat; keep parry there, move parry strike through to it, put block strike through on initiative, and move armour penetration to strength.
While it seems counter intuitive to have weapon skill cancel itself out; it's better having it as a technical stat for melee checks IMHO., and something that melee will want to have. It gives snb tanks a stat that isn't strength to increase their tonk and help them land blows and keeps melee attributes within their design arenas.
