Changelog 15/11/16

[Azarael]

Err, if you're fighting a melee DPS DoK, he's in Celerity. There are no undefendable attacks in Celerity. If he's in Vitality, his undefendable attacks are hitting you for half damage. You have understood that TE and RS are only undefendable in Vitality, right? And that they inflict half damage? So where's the DPS part?

I can't repeat this enough:

The answer to any problem related to the melee healing spec (not the melee spec, because there are no undefendable attacks within) is NOT a random chance for the heal to fail.

If Vitality does too much damage, I will solve that - but I will not add a failure chance to heals because all of the other heals in the game are guaranteed, and it is expected of any heal that it will, without fail, heal when its cast finishes.

[dur3al]

Err, if you're fighting a melee DPS DoK, he's in Celerity. There are no undefendable attacks in Celerity. If he's in Vitality, his undefendable attacks are hitting you for half damage. You have understood that TE and RS are only undefendable in Vitality, right? And that they inflict half damage? So where's the DPS part?

I can't repeat this enough:

The answer to any problem related to the melee healing spec (not the melee spec, because there are no undefendable attacks within) is NOT a random chance for the heal to fail.

If Vitality does too much damage, I will solve that - but I will not add a failure chance to heals because all of the other heals in the game are guaranteed, and it is expected of any heal that it will, without fail, heal when its cast finishes.

I'm not talking about dps necessarily, but the fact that they can outlast you far to easily and much more then before (and make his group outlast you too) - prior to the changes most melee doks pre-changes were able only keep themselves up a lot with self-healing, so you'd generally push other targets before going for him (which is the natural counter to them, cc and push a different target keeping them at range). But currently even if you push different targets (his back-line healer for example), the melee dok will be able to dish huge amounts of healing by switching from celerity to vitality while also having their stats converted for healing purposes without having any penalty basically, since his heals are very good now only needing a target (since he's naturally a melee dok he'll have plenty). Same logic applies if he's being pressured while in melee range, he is simply nearly unkillable now, switching from Celerity to Vitality he benefits fully from all the changes, (aoe detaunt, extra stats, better healing on Transfer Essence [undefendable!], etc).

You nerfed armor from doks (not mastery spec related), while seriously improved dps doks ability to keep his entire group alive at the cost of temporarily losing some dps (switching covenants). Before a dps dok would be a reliable dps source, but wouldn't be able to keep his group alive as an off healer reliably, but now you just gave them this option, while also increasing their damage in Torture. Let's just remind that dps doks never really stacked armor anyway??

Quoting Ade here:

Torture
Here is the build I ran with
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=dok ... 9:;0:0:0:0:
Heavy on dots, still picking up devour, its just too good to pass up.

As for torture, torture still holds some good burst potential, however not like the WP, in previous test versions the damage increase for both of these classes while in the 'dps stance' was 50%, this was far too much for the DoK, it was just far too strong, plus the DoK also has a much better tree to utilise, and its covenants are better than the prayers, given it gives you a group snare, is is also a much more sustain/pressure based given the amount of dots it can apply and continue to be a pain in the backside. WA does not hit as hard as HoS does, but it still hits for a decent amount, you can expect 1k or above on an unguarded target for example. The sustain damage from the dots being increased by 25% also adds more pressure, it plays the same as it always has, you just have more damage.

The downside of playing a pure dps of these is that if you find yourself in a bad situation, you will be swapping into CoV/PoD in order to keep yourself alive, doing this takes your damage back to normal levels, so use it when you need to, if you fill a traditional mdps role you should be good to stick in dps, however having this undefendable backup heals is just great utility, and I will explain more of that in Grace/Sacrifice.

Another upside to playing these is that you will now be using abilies that you didnt before. Cleave Soul becomes your new bread and butter over TE since it will do more damage for example. And when you do decide to heal your damage % will be dropping, so you are not as much of a threat when support healing.

So overall.
DPS WPS – Fantastic burst damage, improved curse heal debuff, very satisfying to play, can offheal when needed at loss of damage.
DPS DoK – Decent burst damage, Great sustain/pressure, can offheal when needed at loss of damage.

Before dps doks were good dps classes with huge amount of self survivability due to self healing, but (arguably) shitty off healer when necessary - that was the trade-off to having them in your group. But with this change you just made them good in every single aspect with only a 30s cool-down between roles.
Compare this with a melee dps which has equal damage compared with a melee dok, low survivability, and unable to off-heal what is the obvious choice? The only thing melee has superior is disengage and engage (since you can't really say debuffs when melee doks got a spammable healing debuff....) - which as a melee dok fighting melee enemies he will always have someone to hit (unless fighting a full kiting group, also reference to my previous post pushing more and more into range meta PS: We seriously need quick escape).

Look at the spec suggested by Ade for a dps dok:
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=dok ... 9:;0:0:0:0:

And compare by the "back-line" dok healing spec posted by a tester earlier in this thread:
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=dok ... 6:;0:0:0:0:

When a dps dok goes temporarily into "off-healer" mode he benefits fully from all the changes of his stats, and all that he is missing from the "back-line healing spec" is Efficient Patching (which was nerfed anyway), Khaine's Vigor (which shouldn't be really used when going into desperate off-heal mode for his group, since you need burst heals, not hots) & Soul Shielding (a one minute cooldown ability) but is able to heal full potention on all the core healing abilities such as Khaine's Embrace, Khaine's Invigoration, Restore Essence & Soul Infusion.
Same can be said when he goes temporarily into Vitality covenant when he is being extra pressured, he won't deal as much damage but will heal himself (and his entire group in 100 feet!) much more now without any counter-play to it since you can't interrupt covenant change or anything, and since he'll also be in melee (being a dps dok), there is not even any difference from what he was doing, just go into Vitality and spam Transfer Essence for gawd mode himself and spamming huge amount of heals for his entire party.

[Azarael]

I knew this would end up being a problem. I'll think of some way to kill it.

[JONL]

Choppa

- The cooldown of Weaklin' Killa has been reduced to 15 seconds, from 30.

nice to see some changes to try and make 2h viable, any others in the works? can't see this change alone being reason that people will switch to 2h

[vouzou]

I think you're not getting what I'm saying. It doesn't matter whether you stack Willpower or Strength. The conversions from prayers mean that your Willpower from items counts as Strength from items, so the Soul Willpower proc will read that Willpower from items as well as your Strength from items and give you a value based on both. If it does not, then bugtracker it with proof.

Hmmm ok that sounds logic but i will try to post evidence that at the moment this doen't work as intended. At least when i use it the bonus i get with only Willpower stats when on Vitality is 0.
Thanks for clarifying that now it make sence!!!!

Korthian DoK of Phalanx

[Azarael]

I think you're not getting what I'm saying. It doesn't matter whether you stack Willpower or Strength. The conversions from prayers mean that your Willpower from items counts as Strength from items, so the Soul Willpower proc will read that Willpower from items as well as your Strength from items and give you a value based on both. If it does not, then bugtracker it with proof.

Hmmm ok that sounds logic but i will try to post evidence that at the moment this doen't work as intended. At least when i use it the bonus i get with only Willpower stats when on Vitality is 0.
Thanks for clarifying that now it make sence!!!!

Korthian DoK of Phalanx

It's fixed in the next patch.

[vouzou]

I think you're not getting what I'm saying. It doesn't matter whether you stack Willpower or Strength. The conversions from prayers mean that your Willpower from items counts as Strength from items, so the Soul Willpower proc will read that Willpower from items as well as your Strength from items and give you a value based on both. If it does not, then bugtracker it with proof.

Hmmm ok that sounds logic but i will try to post evidence that at the moment this doen't work as intended. At least when i use it the bonus i get with only Willpower stats when on Vitality is 0.
Thanks for clarifying that now it make sence!!!!

Korthian DoK of Phalanx

It's fixed in the next patch.

You rock man!!!!!!!
From testing so far, these changes work very well for DoK's-Wp's.
The only black spot that have found is gonna fixed at next patch so...........
Keep on good work thats only think i have to say!!!!!!!!!!

Korthian DoK of Phalanx

[Stmichael1989]

One way you might consider nipping the whole "straight up melee class that can offheal when needed" bit is to make Divine Fury and Fanaticism/Murderous Intent reduce the healing portion of their lifetaps as well. No DPS WP/DoK is going to play without +25% damage and 10% crit and parry, but at the same time slotting them will impose a 45% penalty to their healing output.

[vouzou]

One way you might consider nipping the whole "straight up melee class that can offheal when needed" bit is to make Divine Fury and Fanaticism/Murderous Intent reduce the healing portion of their lifetaps as well. No DPS WP/DoK is going to play without +25% damage and 10% crit and parry, but at the same time slotting them will impose a 45% penalty to their healing output.

We still need lifetap Dok's and Wp's in game so i believe that this tactic must stay as he is.

[Stmichael1989]

One way you might consider nipping the whole "straight up melee class that can offheal when needed" bit is to make Divine Fury and Fanaticism/Murderous Intent reduce the healing portion of their lifetaps as well. No DPS WP/DoK is going to play without +25% damage and 10% crit and parry, but at the same time slotting them will impose a 45% penalty to their healing output.

We still need lifetap Dok's and Wp's in game so i believe that this tactic must stay as he is.

Dedicated melee healers have little reason to slot divine fury. The added damage is negligible when applied to their bread and butter lifetaps, but it reduces their now integral casted heals by 20%. It does, however, punish those WP's/DoK's who are focusing on damage while trying to heal their group as well. If you want to be an effective damage dealer in your own right, you can't also be a competent backup healer whenever you feel like it. Doesn't work that way.