Azarael wrote: ↑Mon Aug 06, 2018 3:28 pm
Right. So let's consider something else. You mentioned that other classes can slot tactics to get past Disrupt. If the ability to do the same were present on magical damage classes in general, would this be a solution?
The other idea I heard was making both Willpower and Intelligence benefit Disrupt.
I'm loath to introduce a specific renown opposing Disrupt if none exist for the other stats.
tl;dr: stay open to the possibility that the avoidance formula experiment might not work out as intended in the end. Consider other options to get the same end effect through different changes.
I haven't posted publicly in a while, which I think will make this come off as more combative than intended. This isn't an issue pulling me out of retirement or anything like that, I'm just musing and want to throw my two cents in.
I think the problems with introducing a disrupt strikethrough tactic are the same as introducing a strikethrough renown ability - it forces everyone else into a Sophie's Choice situation to maintain the same degree of effectiveness they used to have. The changes to the avoidance calculations overall have not only buffed the defenses of certain classes, but also reduced the offensive capabilities of other classes by forcing them to shift their investments from damage/crit into strikethrough.
This may have been intended from the start. With the changes to itemization RoR has made over the years, it's probably easier to get more offensive stats with lower-level gear than it was on AoR. But all the same, I think these changes are essentially trying to find ways to make the initial change palatable. There needs to be an option for deciding that the entire path of changes is not worth juggling, or at least some time spent considering whether the original change was worth it.
If I understand correctly, the original change was made because it was thought that mRDPS classes should not be as effective against healers - killing healers should be the job of MDPS archetypes. I'll admit I've never quite understood how healers fit into WAR's stated RPS system of Tanks > MDPS > RDPS > Tanks. I assume it makes sense if healers are squeezed in with RDPS. I think it could be interesting if healers were pushed more into the RDPS role, but that's a whole 'nother discussion for a different day. My point is, the same goal could have been addressed in different ways.
EDIT: I see after writing this that the change to avoidance formulas was universal / applied to all three stats? If that's the case, then maybe the change wasn't made with healers/mRDPS in mind. Maybe the intent was to make defensive stats more valuable. That would be laudable, but defensive stats in WAR are tied to the primary stats for some classes, and it's impossible for others to stack them. I think if it's a design goal to make defensive stats more valuable, then avoidance needs to be separated from stats certain classes are going to get anyway. Healers are always going to have more WP, pDPS are always going to have more WS, nobody should have more Initiative because it impacts crit% very strongly which is universally desired.
One of the problems with balancing through avoidance is that it's very... swingy. You either avoid 100% of incoming damage, or none at all. Healers in WAR have always been pretty effective/bursty, so the trend has always been for burst damage to kill players before the healers can catch them. We have heal debuffs so healers have to be bursty to compensate. DPS favor crit% and crit damage tactics and renown abilities (or at least they used to), which was why TB was virtually mandatory at RR80/100. Morale abilities are undefendable.
I will admit, I have not played in a long time. For this reason, I am trying to avoid talking about hard numbers, and I hope that does not preclude me from being able to talk about the
philosophy of these changes or balance in general. With that in mind, if a healer is able to get 44% disrupt, through Willpower, tactics and/or renown, they now have the equivalent avoidance as a tank with 25% block and 25% disrupt (or 15% block and 35% disrupt, if that sounds more reasonable). You don't need to play to get those numbers, that's just entry-level statistics. Granted they're not going to have the toughness to mitigate the damage they do take, but it's a huge increase in survivability. Getting more continuous disrupts gives them more time to get more heals out to mitigate or negate the burst damage that does come through. It means there's more time where the healer is not directly under pressure themselves, and it means they get more warning when they are under pressure to through up an absorb or to start pre-healing themselves.
What if, instead of adjusting the disrupt formulas, the softcap for resists was increased, and more base resists added to healer gear? Obviously this would require more intensive changes to itemization and balance of individual classes with resist buffs/debuffs... but isn't that on the same level of effort as adding and balancing renown abilities, tactics, and potential strikethrough on staffs? Increase resist softcaps to 75%, give light armor resists equal to +20% at whatever the minRank is, and play around with that. Consider making WP a resist penetration stat like Mythic had in alpha.
Obviously there's a lot of numbers to run here, but generally you'd see an increase in healer survivability against mRDPS, but without the swinginess caused by avoidance. It would be
easier for them to heal through incoming damage, but at least it would also allow mRDPS to keep some amount of pressure on them.
I'm sure there are a lot of people who would look at the resist example and say, "What the ****, that's a terrible idea why would you do that?" And that's fair, I'm sure a lot of people said the same thing about the avoidance formula changes. My point is, if you're going to make a sweeping change and spend a lot of time adjusting it to make it fit into the greater whole, consider what other kinds of sweeping changes you could make instead that would have similar impacts.
Changing the avoidance formulas globally is going to (or rather, probably did) hugely shake up how some classes perform against others. If WS affects parry% the same way WP affects disrupt, MDPS get a lot more defense against tanks, and pRDPS get weirdly more avoidance against MDPS. Initiative, already important for it's extreme impact on crit%, also ends up increasing dodge more than it used to.
I don't know the game well enough to work out all the intertwined impacts of this change, but I suspect they weren't all worked out ahead of time either (which is why we're here). These kinds of changes would be best made with an overall framework for balance in place ahead of time. For example, if the goal is to enforce the "Tanks > MDPS > RDPS > Tanks" triad, that needs to be a central pillar around which all changes are evaluated. Other examples would be armor class (L/M/H) vs armor/resist values. Avoidance rates by archetype. Start with very high-level foundations, and work down from there. That way, changes can be evaluated by how well they move the game towards those design pillars, rather than being evaluated by how fair they feel against the current meta.