Return of Reckoning

Question to veterans - normally how fast new patch from Test server get to Live server?

Wow! Great patch notes! I've noticed many of the suggestions I've put forth a long while back have had some form of influence on the AM/Sham changes. Heartwarming to see that either the team at work is competent enough to accurately pinpoint the class' issues, or that I've managed to make my own meagre contribution.

While I'm unprepared to comment on whether some things are overbuffed or not buffed enough within the confines of the AM class, one thing I'd like to note is that one of the class' core issues, which is extremely telegraphed damage, is still yet to be adressed for the purposes of making it viable in a smallscale setting. And that is how TELEGRAPHED the damage is. It takes a long while to apply your dots and your debuffs, even if you skip out on a few of them on the way there, and by that time an enemy can and will switch guards to your target, making it very difficult to land a kill on a competent team.

I would like to say that AM still requires an ability that would allow it to take the dots it has already applied from one person and transfer them to a new target, so that it may participate in target swapping tactics. If at all possible to mechanically code, it's my hope that this is an ability that will be considered until the PTS patch is finalized.

AM Feedback

EDIT Summary of thoughts here at top:
1. New High Magic mostly good, I suggest removing the mechanic where at 5 stacks your cast removes all 5 stacks of tranquility or force. It feels bad and is an overall healing/damage decrease. Mechanic involvement is good, until it is too much and becomes tedious and unfun to remain competative.

2. The -5.5% nerf to Path of Asuryan across the board is OK if it is to entice players to engage with the new High Magic Mechanic. but with the new high magic mechanic we should be seeing closer to a +5 or +6% damage increase from live (production server) rather than increase to 2% more damage then live. To sum that up, we are currently seeing -5.5% damage not using new mechanic when patch would go live. If using mechanic to fullest we would increase that damage to 2% (7.5% damage increase). To feel GOOD, this damage should be closer to a 11.5% damage increase to be 6% more then current live server damage

3. The damage reduction to path of vaul is too much. -30% damage reduction to EoV, why cast this worse group heal when you could cast Blessing of Isha and do close to the same damage (nothing). To make balance essence realistically usable as a heal you must take the tactic that gives it a -50% decrease in damage. Why would you want to go through extra steps for a worse heal and only a tickle of damage? The way I see it, the changes to Path of Vaul is in the right direction but there is still not enough there to make someone want to do it for healing over path of Isha. See my recommendations for Path of Vaul at bottom

Start of Essay:

First, thank you for continuing to improve Warhammer Online each year. This re-work is one of many projects already completed and still in the works, I love that the game still feels alive with fresh changes (good or bad both). Keep up the awesome work.

I want to give some feedback based on some testing I did, regarding the Archmage changes. The testing involved minimal tactic and mechanic rework testing, for that I am assuming a perfect rotation would be stacking 4 tranquilities, using 4 force skills, then stacking 4 tranquilities again OR vice versa. I love this change and attention to the class but want to start off (before we get into numbers) with some thoughts on the new class mechanic:

1. The change is a vast improvement from the high magic we know on live now. The current high magic is largely unused except in niche situations as a DPS AM.

2. Going to five (5) star, and burning all of your pips with a single cast feels bad. It seems like a massive loss in damage or healing and the ideal rotation would be to go up to 4 pips, stop until you cast back to 0, then build back up again. I think making an upper limit like that will be a bad thing in the long run, but it is very hard to test without lots of SC/RvR combat. Let me give an example: Monster Hunter Gunlance. The Monster Hunter Gunlance used to have a heating mechanic where you basically fire shells to build a heat gauge and then you cut the gauge off before you overheat to get the most damage out of your weapon. But when you overheat you get a massive debuff in damage. I can see the risk / reward for this type of mechanic, but overall, the community hated it because there is already so much going on in a fight, it is just another “resource” to manage. Resource management makes the game more interactive, however too much Resource management makes it very tedious to play a class.

3. With number 2. Said, I would like to propose that the five (5) star cast only reduces your pips by two (2) rather than burning your whole stash of charges. So essentially you are rewarded with a burst hit of damage for building up for so long, but you are not penalized for doing so. The reason why it would take two (2) charges is it is double the boost (30% versus 15%) and you get an extra effect as a bonus for building for so long. Additionally, you couldn’t just always keep it at 5 stars with a single cast boosting you back up. Maybe it would take (3) charges instead. But 5 feels like too much and is a penalty rather than feeling awesome that you just fired off a powerful spell. EDIT: Or, all charges are an equal 15% increase and there is no bonus at 5 stars.

Before I get into the balance of the trees, I want to mention how I conducted the testing on my stream. I tested on Live and PTS server with an Archmage using 649 intelligence exactly for the Path of Asuryan and Path of Vaul mastery tree tests. This is important to note is because it looks like all skills had their base damage/heal value decreased, and their scaling with intelligence/wisdom was increased. I have some major concerns for this change, as I think it will just make the already large gear gap between RR80 players and fresh RR40 players even larger. As you get more stats you will significantly increase your damage. However, I can see that this change also made Crit Strike % less powerful because your raw stat will provide a great increase especially at the lower levels. Which makes going for +Crit not as important until you get to a high Gear Level. We will have to see how this plays out, I’m afraid it will widen the gear gap, but I at the same time am hoping it reverses the current Stack Critical Strike and Futile Strikes Meta which we have now. When talking about a rotation, utilizing the new High Magic, we are going to use 4 cast builder and 4 cast spender for optimal damage or healing increase over 8 casts. I made a spreadsheet of values of damage hits and heals on the same dummy and had excel do some mathing for me. I’m fairly confident my numbers are in the ballpark of changes. This was completed without tactics at first.

Path of Asuryan damage spells look to have taken an overall 5.5% nerf in damage between Production and the Public Test Server. If utilizing the mechanic to it’s highest rotational dps output where you cast 4 tranquility builders to build force damage, then cast 4 force skills to bring your High Magic back to neutral (0) it is an overall 2% increase in damage (after casting 8 spells, 4 at -5.5% damage from production and then 4 at +9.5% damage from production using the class mechanic). This means players will be required to interact with their class mechanic in order to do their damage and will be penalized if they do not. I think the increase in damage for utilizing the class mechanic should be higher to give a greater incentive. I’m not sure we should have had an overall 5.5% nerf as AM damage in DPS spec is significantly lower then say a Shadow Warrior, White Lion, or Slayer. With the new High Magic we will be required to pay very close to our rotation in order to match the damage we are currently doing on the production server. This should be closer to a 5 or 6% damage increase to feel “good” for engaging with class mechanics. Again, I think having to pay attention to keeping your stacks below 5 may be too much micromanagement and make the class feel bad again, as I have felt with similar mechanics in other games. Playing devils advocate quickly here, if you were to go to 5 stacks and then cast one big ability at a 30% damage increase. You are now casting 7 spells at -5.5% damage from live and a single spell at +24.5% damage from live, averaging at -1.75% (decrease) damage. Going for the 5 point damage or heal spell in most cases will not be advantageous.

Path of Isha spells look to be largely unchanged in value at Mid Tier (RR40-60). If you do not pay attention at all to class mechanics you will have a slight boost, lets just say for simplicity that you are spamming Blessing of Isha, you will see no increase in healing output. However if you engage with the mechanic to the fullest, you will see an approximate 7.5% increase in healing output over an 8 spell cast rotation. I think this is fine, if anything I would have liked to see heal numbers decrease across the board. As a healer Main (I play AM on Order and DoK on Destruction), I feel as though healers are too powerful and the Time To Kill is much to high when healers are involved, it feels bad for everyone else. But that is probably a conversation for another time.

Finally, lets get to Path of Vaul, the numbers here were slightly more varied in differences. EoV had a damage decrease of about 30% and a heal decrease of about 7.5%, a massive damage nerf here. Balance essence (without tactic, this important) has about a 5.5% decrease in damage and a 5.5% decrease in healing. Which was surprising at first, since I thought this was supposed to be a buff to our life steal build. Law of gold and Storm of Chronos also had a damage decrease which feels bad. However, once we slot in the new tactic which replaces expanded control, we are able to see some BIG changes that can actually make Balance Essence more viable. However I think the initial damage decrease is unjustified, the damage is already pitiful (especially against highly geared opponents) and decreasing the damage even more makes me really wonder what the benefit is for doing lifesteal over normal healing. Path of Isha will heal for more, and the damage you will do with the new lifesteal is negligible. It makes Path of Vaul feel like a nerfed healing tree with extra steps.

Let me explain with some numbers. Once I slotted the new tactic in to improve balance essence, our damage decreased almost 53% from the production server. We are smacking a dummy for 178 damage. That is absolutely pitiful, imagine hitting another player with that.. what would it be 45 damage after a 75% reduction? That is nothing. The heal is significantly better. 1321 non crit heal because of the tactic, that felt nice very nice. If we were actually doing the original damage (356 on production), this would be very worth the extra steps we have to take. However 1321 for a 2 second cast where you have to target both an enemy and a defensive target is worse than a 2 second cast of Boon of Hysh healing for 1536 where we only have to select one defensive target. The more I think about it the more I understand why the increase to healing was hidden behind a tactic, because you want the player to have to invest in the skill tree and the style of play to be able to do the healing necessary. But the -50% damage is too much, there is no incentive to the significantly harder playstyle of lifesteal healer where you have to not only manage your enemy targets (which enemy is easiest to hit, which enemy will take the most damage, which enemy can I target without exposing myself to unnecessary risk) and your friendly target (is Healer low on hp? Ok target him. Are healers good and tank bad? Ok target tank. Are two dps low? which dps is most important, or which one CAN I save, ok focus on him). This on top of managing the new mechanic is too much work for a lower heal and insignificant damage.

1. My suggestion for Path of Vaul, is do not give a 30% decrease to the damage of EoV, and do not give a 50% decrease to Balance Essence for making the skill useable as a heal.

2. Moving while casting Balance essence feels a lot better then the 1.5 second cast, but if to balance removing the 50% decrease damage I would rather have the QoL remain at a 1.5 second cast if that makes sense.

Thanks for reading! I hope to test out my other main DoK tomorrow night and give some feedback on that as well.

Zxul wrote: Tue Mar 04, 2025 1:32 pm

Farrul wrote: Tue Mar 04, 2025 1:02 pm The only dps hybrids that we should be concerned about is the AM/shaman, those two needed to be nerfed in dps not buffed, since they're ranged and players have been abusing those specs for a long time.

An advantage of playing a dps zealot, so far not a single post asking to nerf it.

Nerf DPS Zealot

ismetto wrote: Mon Mar 03, 2025 9:59 pm Not trash, dealing damage is not the job of a DPS DOK or DPS WP anyway. With a DPS WP or DOK, you take a tank with you and roam in RvR—that’s normal.

Only if you are in empty zone. This is the reality of probably 5 years ago, if not more. There's nothing to do with a warband in prime time now, nothing to roam. Main dps is that, who lead and coordinate the party. It has already shifted in this direction.

ismetto wrote: Mon Mar 03, 2025 9:59 pm The game has shifted towards RvR, and that's fine. Melee DPS damage combinations have been adjusted accordingly, and that's also normal. You have to respect the fact that small group and solo players are now a minority.

I recently wrote in another thread what rvr has turned into and why with wall of text. I won't repeat myself. Especially considering that this topic is not about that.
"You have to respect" , I smiled when I read this. Surprisingly, the "small groups" have always been a minority. This follows from the logic of their name.
Regarding utility - I also don't particularly like that wp/dok were given the same armordebuff, if only because it really erases the uniqueness of some other classes (marauder is in this list, but dok dont do the same amount of damage as marauder. Marauder is in a good spot atm, with some minor problems that could use some relief - and its not a dps part). Or as in the case of order, which has a lot of physical dps, which depend on such armor debuffs, but at the same time have one armordebuff less than destro. And a large armoredebuff is only 1 (wl), despite the fact that there are obvious excesses in other classes with a dependence on a debuff of exactly this format (like wh without blessed blade, for example, which would be more logical to give such an good armordebuff). What I mean is that in this way, the importance of other dps really decreases when you give their unique "tricks" to others. But we are still far from a dps rework, and this topic is more for it.

Let me explain my position regarding the current dps wp/dok - it one of the most close to "balance" dps in game -they are not broken as something disgusting, they are not so weak, they are "balance, with small additions", which do their not so popular. For Dok - its a big good dps window. For WP - the same as dok, but plus a gap closer, you are absolutly 0 in this way, which is not good - everyone should have their weaknesses, but this is clearly too much. This causes problems in roaming, and in a party it forces you to play in a pair with only one DPS - the WL, otherwise, you will never catch anyone and most likely just die.
About roam and solo - every class who are not a "dps" shaman/AM or don't have stealth is a mediocre.

Feedback regarding Shield DOK:

I really like most changes on paper. I get the feeling that the redesign was made while also having the possibility of warband play for that spec in mind. Hopefully I'm not completely off the mark here, but in any case I decided to test some numbers regarding the new spec for orvr.
Before I get into the specifics, let me list the key differences between Chalice and Shield specs as I view them from the context of playing in a warband:

• Both are healers and as such need to have the healing potential to (at minimum) keep their party alive

• Shield spec will contribute a tiny bit into ST pressure during the fight.

• Chalice has a more mid-range positioning and as such is not in immediate danger from enemy damage.
  Shield has to play in melee range and as such ''eats'' the brunt of the enemy's 360 AOE (very prevalent on Order side). At least until they can reach a ''safe'' spot (e.g. hitting an enemy healer in their backline). Therefore, Shield has to be built more defensively (if they are to not have a Guard on them at all times)

• Most important Chalice heals are casts, meaning they can be interrupted. Luckily they are short casts, but still. Shield cannot be interrupted on their most important skills.

• Chalice's heals scale off of Willpower while Shield's scale off Strength. While Shield builds will have easier access to STR buffs (from Chosen Aura) than Chalice to Willpower (unless there is a surplus of Zealots in warband), STR debuffs are also more prominent (e.g. KOTBS' AOE STR aura). I don't think this will be a major difference between the two specs.

• Chalice's heals scale off of Willpower while Shield's scale off Strength. While Shield builds will have easier access to STR buffs (from Chosen Aura) than Chalice to Willpower (unless there is a surplus of Zealots in warband), STR debuffs are also more prominent too (e.g. KOTBS' AOE STR aura). I don't think this will be a major difference between the two specs.

• Ignoring debuffs, Chalice healing output is mostly independent from what the enemy does.
  Shield healing output partially depends on both how tanky the enemy they are hitting is (less than before but still somewhat important), but crucially, on if they can hit an enemy at all. While the new rootbreak helps a lot, being punted can mean a near-total healing output loss until you can reach an enemy again. This is also a huge issue in Keep/Fort sieges/funnels where you will have to either respec on the fly or somehow already be running a mixed build with Willpower. Moreover, Enemies moving around normally can also lead so small gaps where you cannot hit someone, resulting in slightly less output compared to what you can test on a dummy/calculate on paper.

• Both specs are now affected almost equally from heal debuffs (the direct heal portions are the bigger parts of shield healing). This means that shield is also succeptible to heal debuffs which are quite more common when being next to the enemy frontline (WL Fortress proc from 360 attacks, KotBS outgoing heal debuff Aura, as well as tageted heal debuffs from dps that notice your build and that you are near them.

The last 3 points indicate the need to not only get your defensive stats to a decent level (Wounds, Armor, Reduced armor pen, chance to be crit) but also to increase your avoidances (block%, parry%, dodge%, disrupt%) to help with damage reduction and also with avoiding certain incoming on-hit debuffs or CC.

Historically, DOK has been a class that suffers from itemisation. The reason being that, unlike most other careers in ROR, they have 3 different specs instead of 2 and therefore you only have ~33% of all the sets dedicated to your spec instead of the normal ~50%.
Shield DOK also has the highest number of priority stats in the game.

Namely: STR, WOU, INI, Block%, Parry%, Armor, Redarpen, Chance to be Crit, Melee Crit
And also ideally:Dodge/Disrupt, TOU, WS and Willpower too

While future updates might bring in new sets that can help with this challenging minmaxing, I decided to check the current situation for Shield DOK when the update goes live.

In my opinion, maximizing the avoidances gives you a lot of leeway regarding the rest of the defensive stats; if you are getting hit less you don't necessarily need to be hit for less. With that principle in mind, I tried to minmax the available sets and find what I believe could be the BIS build for a wb Shield DOK build.

I compilled the information about the build as well as the comparisons with the new Chalice Build that I'm about to go into next in this doc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/112M ... sp=sharing

To sum everything up, the build results in:

• 191 Damage Bonus (955 STR equivalents)

• 838 Wounds

• 3282 Armor

• 9% reduced armorpen

• -3.4% chance to be crit

• 2% generic crit

• 292 Toughness

• 254 Weapon Skill

• 33% Parry

• 38.5% Block

• 13.8%% Dodge

• 13.6% Disrupt

A few comments on the stats. A DB of 191 is ok, but could potentially be higher. This build has to also sacrifice crit%. The reason being that crit can only be found in certain Set bonuses of sets that offer non priority stats too (e.g. 2pc and 3pc bonuses on warlord) or it directly contends with parry/block as a secondary stat on the main gear pieces themselves. I made the hard decision to not focus on crit% at all in this build, in order to boost the other important stats adequatly.

Speaking of avoidances, one might say that the gathered values are already good enough to justify lowering other stats (e.g. redarpen, WOU) further in favor of either crit or STR. Let's see how the fare vs a BIS WL, BIS SW and a BIS BW in orvr:

Assuming you are not further debuffed by something like Pierce Defences or (even worse) Staggering Imparct, your chance to defend an attack from:

• White Lion will be: 1 - (1-(1-(0.385-0.17))*(0.33-0.165)) = 0.344 , 34.4%

• Shadow Warrior will be: 1 - (1-(0.385-0.094))*(1-(0.138-0.069)) = 0.340 , 34.0%

• Bright Wizard will be: 1 - (1-(0.385-0.052))*(1-(0.136-0.068)) = 0.378 , 37.8%

and if the sDOK spends 1 GCD on Warding Strike to gain a 10% block buff they will increase the above percentages by about 8%.
As you can see, while the chance to avoid an attack is quite nice (~35%) it is still not a surefire way to avoid debuffs, CC and damage. Therefore, both WOU and Armor/redarpen are stats you still want to have good values on.

I also decided to test a crit build too, that has lessened defensive stats but should be able to heal better. You can also find the details at the doc. The stats for it are:

• 201.4 Damage Bonus (1007 STR equivalents)

• 833 Wounds

• 3434 Armor

• 7% reduced armorpen

• -1.7% chance to be crit (with Vict 4pc proc)

• 2% generic crit

• 22% melee crit

• 184 Toughness

• 276 Weapon Skill

• 38.3% Parry (with Vict 4pc proc)

• 24.8% Block

• 18.3%% Dodge (with Vict 4pc proc)

• 13.6% Disrupt

And its non-debuffed avoidances vs:

• White Lion will be: 1 - (1-(1-(0.248-0.124))*(0.383-0.1915)) = 0.292 , 29.2%

• Shadow Warrior will be: 1 - (1-(0.248-0.094))*(1-(0.183-0.0915)) = 0.270 , 27.0%

• Bright Wizard will be: 1 - (1-(0.248-0.052))*(1-(0.136-0.068)) = 0.251 , 25.1%

and if the sDOK spends 1 GCD on Warding Strike to gain a 10% block buff they will increase the above percentages by about 8%.
Compared to the previous build you are losing about 5%, 7% and 12% true avoidance which is a big deal.
Can the increased offensive stats justify the difference?
Let's check.

In the linked document I performed a detailed analysis of a standard rotation with the goal of pumping AOE heals for both the updated Chalice DOK and for the 2 Shield DOK builds. The Chalice rotation was also analyzed for when the new 5point Soul Energy buff is on cooldown. The outputs of the Shield builds were also for an all-in rotation that spends your Essense very quickly, but could potentially heal for a bit more than the normal sustainable rotation.
I also added a theoretical calculation for what would happen if the HoT from the Gift of Khaine tactic would be able to stack with itself. You will soon see why I decided to do that.
In the calculations, incoming heal buffs and heal from Covenants were not accounted for since there should be no significant differences regarding them regardless of if the DOK is Shield or Chalice specced.

The findings in terms of the average Absorb + Heal produced per second during the rotations for those specs and builds are presented in the following table:


Observations:

• Chalice output largely depends on Khaine's Refreshment since it can heal very effective out of party (OOP).

• All-in Shield DOK rotations resulted in the same (tiny bit worse actually) outputs compared to the conservative rotations. This is because the HoT from the Gift of Khaine tactic cannot stack with itself, meaning that spaming Khaine's Force is just not worth it. This is the reason why I decided to check the outputs of the all-in rotation if the buff could stack (to see how much it would affect things).

• Even when we are examining the Output for purely a party's perspective (6 targets on Khaine's Refreshment) we see that Chalice BIS outperforms every single Shield Build + Rotation combination while Soul Energy is active:
  • 25.4% better than the sustainable tanky Shield build rotation
  • 15.3% better than the sustainable crit-based Shield build rotation
  • 21.1% better than the theoretically adjusted tanky Shield build rotation
  • 11.0% better than the theoretically adjusted crit-based Shield build rotation

• When Soul Energy is not part of the Chalice rotation (on Cooldown) we see that the Chalice Rotation is again better than the output of the Tanky Shield build:
  • 2.9% better than the sustainable tanky Shield build rotation
  • 0.6% worse than the theoretically adjusted tanky Shield build rotation
  but is slightly worse than the Crit-based Shield build:
  • 5.5% worse than the sustainable crit-based Shield build rotation
  • 8.9% worse than the theoretically adjusted crit-based Shield build rotation

To recap:
I calculated that the BIS Chalice party healing output is better than any* BIS Shield build out while:

• Chalice Build has 2 empty tactic slots to slot other stuff compared to the 1 free slot for the Shield builds

• without accounting for the better Essence sustain of the Chalice build via (Sov/Tri essence procs)

• assuming that both Shield builds can keep hitting an enemy and Chalice builds can keep healing without any interruption. I think it's more likely that Shield DOKs will find it harder to do their job here.

The only upside of Shield DOK is that you can currently do ~5.5% better healing on the riskier, Crit-based build, compared to Chalice when their Soul Energy buff is on cooldown. When that is up you are doing (1/1.153=) ~13.1% worse.

I believe that only this upside is not remotely enough to justify playing Shield DOK over Chalice DOK in warbands. Especially if we consider the Chalice OOP healing capabilities that come on top of the party heals. And especially not in lower than BIS gear (due to the stat requirements for shield dok we discussed earlier).

The downsides are just way too many.
With that in mind, I have certain proposals for making Shield DOK worthwhile taking in a warband with minimal (code) changes:

• Making the HoT from the Gift of Khaine tactic able to stack with itself will be a way to give Shield DOK a way to sacrifice resource sustainability for more short term heals. I already showcased how that's the case in the analysis above. This will add another layer of tactical gameplay to the spec (efficiency vs output) and will not punish you for using the same skill twice if the situation calls for it.

• The 13point skill Khaine's Encouragement is never worth using. I have dedicated a section in the doc named ''Why I am not speccing Khaine’s Encouragement'' to show the reasoning behind this statement. I would suggest adjusting the skill to also count for direct healing from lifetaps and potentially either increase it's value significantly (e.g. 35% --> 50%) or perhaps make the buff count for the next 2 or 3 lifetaps since that would allow you to not ''waste'' the buff on Consume Essence if the situation calls for an emergency ST heal (compared to the value you'd get from an enhanced Khaine's Force)

• Small buffs to either the stats/scalings of the lifetap abilities may also be needed to make the final fine tuning regarding desired healing output for what you have to sacrifice.

It's perfectly fine if Chalice DOK can perform better in OOP healing with Khaine's Refreshment, Soul Infusion, Restore Essense and Khaine's Invogoration, however I feel like Shield DOK should be able to outperfrom it in party healing. At least under ideal circumstances and imo in both Crit and Tankier builds. You are just sacrificing too much for it to be barely better and just add some ST damage from you into the mix.

One last thing I didn't mention is how Shield DOK could technically increase their healing further by slotting Bound by Blood as their 4th tactic in the crit build. Chalice doesn't have many more tactics that would increase their healing output for example. However, spending the 4th tactic slot there is a priviledge you won't have most of the time. Unless your party has a Zealot or a 2nd DOK you will definitely have to run the new Khaine’s Vivification tactic. It might also be more wise to slot PotentCovenants there if there is another incoming heal bonus% buffer in the party regardless.

If Shield DOK is not meant to play in warbands as a spec feel free to ignore all the above feedback.
Thank you for reading so far.

Shepasaurus wrote: Tue Mar 04, 2025 2:49 pm
2. Going to five (5) star, and burning all of your pips with a single cast feels bad. It seems like a massive loss in damage or healing and the ideal rotation would be to go up to 4 pips, stop until you cast back to 0, then build back up again. I think making an upper limit like that will be a bad thing in the long run, but it is very hard to test without lots of SC/RvR combat. Let me give an example: Monster Hunter Gunlance. The Monster Hunter Gunlance used to have a heating mechanic where you basically fire shells to build a heat gauge and then you cut the gauge off before you overheat to get the most damage out of your weapon. But when you overheat you get a massive debuff in damage. I can see the risk / reward for this type of mechanic, but overall, the community hated it because there is already so much going on in a fight, it is just another “resource” to manage. Resource management makes the game more interactive, however too much Resource management makes it very tedious to play a class.

3. With number 2. Said, I would like to propose that the five (5) star cast only reduces your pips by two (2) rather than burning your whole stash of charges. So essentially you are rewarded with a burst hit of damage for building up for so long, but you are not penalized for doing so. The reason why it would take two (2) charges is it is double the boost (30% versus 15%) and you get an extra effect as a bonus for building for so long. Additionally, you couldn’t just always keep it at 5 stars with a single cast boosting you back up. Maybe it would take (3) charges instead. But 5 feels like too much and is a penalty rather than feeling awesome that you just fired off a powerful spell. EDIT: Or, all charges are an equal 15% increase and there is no bonus at 5 stars.

Thought I posted this last week when it went live but yeh, 5 to zero for an instant cast feels like garbage. Should drop it by 3 pts back to 2.

the main diff chalice vs shield is that the shield healing add damage and if u check some 6v6 it is quite high amount so it is normal the heal output to be lower. Imo you should account that when compare them

Nameless wrote: Tue Mar 04, 2025 11:57 pm the main diff chalice vs shield is that the shield healing add damage and if u check some 6v6 it is quite high amount so it is normal the heal output to be lower. Imo you should account that when compare them

Quite fair. The issue is that the additional ST damage get's ''diluted'' in a wb v wb environement. I could potentially argue that the slotting Potent Covenants as Chalice could make up for the added damage from a Shield spec (you have 1 more free tactic slot to spare), but I think I'll agree with you for 6v6 or smallscale at least.
If shield is indeed meant to find a niche for orvr, I wonder if there's a neat way to balance things for both cases without making either one too powerful or too weak.