Patchnotes 07/10/16

[warkaiser]

While the Engi / Magus changes are welcome to an extent, i have to say that i think the range increases, especially that much of an increase, may be a bit overboard. Especially considering the fact that we ALREADY have to deal with things like "pets" shooting through walls. This is something that, at the very least should be reserved for that stuff being fixed first. A 50% range boost on turrets that aren't blocked by LoS is just way too easily exploitable in the current state of the game and something that will give too much of an advantage, especially considering all the other tools at their disposal.

Compare this to say an SW who only gets a 10% range buff in Scout Stance, and if specced into it a 50% boost to just Skirmish skills. This gives them 1 spammable, but nerfed by 30% damage AoE, and a couple on cooldowns vs Engi/Magus now having the same range on several AoEs and 150 ft on others.

Maybe another option would be to, similar to SW/SH have the range buff be something in one of the mastery trees and have it only effect the skills associated with that tree. This would require speccing into that tree, and using up a tactic slot to gain such a big range buff to specific skills, rather than just having it buff ALL skills by 50%.

*Side note/question*: Does this range buff also impact range on things such as the radius of healing keg?

SW's increased range ? I doubt they need any more versatility to evade against melee classes.
I think the range was not specifically focused for spells/abilities, but for a unique effective partnership with the pet,/turret and its master magus / Engie.
Class design for these magus/engie could finally be complete and may seem OP for now,however these classes needed reworked first and foremost,(as AZ has mentioned). Until then ,patience maybe required for other classes to get their time in the sun so they can shine at their full potential.

I played a couple SC's against engies yes they are new and improved but they didn't seem to change the course of the battle. Who know's if a change is in order , I do know the concept is perfectly designed .

I didn't say anything about increasing SW range. I was pointing out that even they only get a 10% range buff for Scout Stance, and dont have anywhere near the AoE capability of Engi and Magus. Aside from that they can get a 50% range buff to Skirmish skills only, not all skills, and it requires speccing into that mastery and using a tactic slot for it.

Was just thinking that going that route for Engi & Magus, requiring it be specced into with a tactic and only impact skills in a specific tree, might be a better route to go. Seems a bit overboard to give both 20% more damage and such a big range boost, especially since it gives it to both the player and their pet / turret (especially with the currently broken pets and being able to shoot through walls), and all without having to spec into it with masteries or use a tactic. Its a pretty huge boost for free.

I can't really speak yet as to how OP, if at all, this much of a boost is. Im just not a fan of blanket buffs/nerfs like this which dont have limitations to gaining them. I feel that smaller, more tightly controlled adjustments work much better when it comes to balancing things or else you run into OP or UP classes. EA made the mistake of applying blanket nerfs & buffs based on things like archetype of classes or categories of skills (ie: nerfing ALL AoEs because BWs and Sorcs had OP AoEs. it didnt fix the balance, it just made everyone do less damage, but BWs and Sorcs still put out the same ratio compared to others), rather than analyzing individual classes. So at least the devs here are doing that part better than EA was able to manage, I just hope that they will consider the full consequences of giving boosts like this to a classes entire arsenal rather than making small adjustments to individual skills.

Just as an example of what I mean is lets say they felt WH and WE were a bit underpowered and needed a boost, then went and did something like removed the AP drain for stealthing (perma-stealth + full AP when attacking) and only made finishers remove one of their 5 combo points. That would be a quick easy solution to boosting their power quite a bit, but would probably make them somewhat OP vs making small adjustments to the power of individual skills without changing class mechanics to get the balance just right.

[7rere7]

While the Engi / Magus changes are welcome to an extent, i have to say that i think the range increases, especially that much of an increase, may be a bit overboard. Especially considering the fact that we ALREADY have to deal with things like "pets" shooting through walls. This is something that, at the very least should be reserved for that stuff being fixed first. A 50% range boost on turrets that aren't blocked by LoS is just way too easily exploitable in the current state of the game and something that will give too much of an advantage, especially considering all the other tools at their disposal.

Compare this to say an SW who only gets a 10% range buff in Scout Stance, and if specced into it a 50% boost to just Skirmish skills. This gives them 1 spammable, but nerfed by 30% damage AoE, and a couple on cooldowns vs Engi/Magus now having the same range on several AoEs and 150 ft on others.

Maybe another option would be to, similar to SW/SH have the range buff be something in one of the mastery trees and have it only effect the skills associated with that tree. This would require speccing into that tree, and using up a tactic slot to gain such a big range buff to specific skills, rather than just having it buff ALL skills by 50%.

*Side note/question*: Does this range buff also impact range on things such as the radius of healing keg?

SW's increased range ? I doubt they need any more versatility to evade against melee classes.
I think the range was not specifically focused for spells/abilities, but for a unique effective partnership with the pet,/turret and its master magus / Engie.
Class design for these magus/engie could finally be complete and may seem OP for now,however these classes needed reworked first and foremost,(as AZ has mentioned). Until then ,patience maybe required for other classes to get their time in the sun so they can shine at their full potential.

I played a couple SC's against engies yes they are new and improved but they didn't seem to change the course of the battle. Who know's if a change is in order , I do know the concept is perfectly designed .

I didn't say anything about increasing SW range. I was pointing out that even they only get a 10% range buff for Scout Stance, and dont have anywhere near the AoE capability of Engi and Magus. Aside from that they can get a 50% range buff to Skirmish skills only, not all skills, and it requires speccing into that mastery and using a tactic slot for it.

Was just thinking that going that route for Engi & Magus, requiring it be specced into with a tactic and only impact skills in a specific tree, might be a better route to go. Seems a bit overboard to give both 20% more damage and such a big range boost, especially since it gives it to both the player and their pet / turret (especially with the currently broken pets and being able to shoot through walls), and all without having to spec into it with masteries or use a tactic. Its a pretty huge boost for free.

I can't really speak yet as to how OP, if at all, this much of a boost is. Im just not a fan of blanket buffs/nerfs like this which dont have limitations to gaining them. I feel that smaller, more tightly controlled adjustments work much better when it comes to balancing things or else you run into OP or UP classes. EA made the mistake of applying blanket nerfs & buffs based on things like archetype of classes or categories of skills (ie: nerfing ALL AoEs because BWs and Sorcs had OP AoEs. it didnt fix the balance, it just made everyone do less damage, but BWs and Sorcs still put out the same ratio compared to others), rather than analyzing individual classes. So at least the devs here are doing that part better than EA was able to manage, I just hope that they will consider the full consequences of giving boosts like this to a classes entire arsenal rather than making small adjustments to individual skills.

Just as an example of what I mean is lets say they felt WH and WE were a bit underpowered and needed a boost, then went and did something like removed the AP drain for stealthing (perma-stealth + full AP when attacking) and only made finishers remove one of their 5 combo points. That would be a quick easy solution to boosting their power quite a bit, but would probably make them somewhat OP vs making small adjustments to the power of individual skills without changing class mechanics to get the balance just right.

A complication with pets shooting through walls shouldn't deem classes gimped for it .
SW's were designed for movement/escape versatility. Some of the AOE cast abilities are movable ....more versatile for less damage trade off.

Everyone can probably point out some part of each class being a bit over or under powered . That shouldn't mean an exaggerated extreme change should take affect. Magus and engie wasn't a bit underpowered ,its obvious they needed buffed.
I get what your saying though ,maybe couple of lower % on the pet/turret stacks might do it,idk.

[Glorian]

I for one welcome our new bitterstone thunderer overlords....

Aye! There is a constant Party in our WhatsApp group since yesterday.
We call it the Bitterstone Patch.

For the ones who find the Range and Damage increase OP:
For the full effect of the increase you need to be standing 7 seconds near your turret.
7 Seconds are AGES in any SC or oRvR.
And if the Mara's or Witch Elves are on you you are dead in less than 3 secs.

You don't have the increase on the move and when chasing or getting chased, which is actually most of the time in ROR.

@Kegs and Rods:
The Tooltips doesnt say it has an increased Range. Need to do some testing.
On Grenades they can be lobbed farther, but the radius of the Blast is still the same.

And as usual, Magus got the same changes.

[Grolar]

I think most can be happy that the dev's are actually looking at balance and trying out things. PLUS, the game is no longer a constant snare party. BIG up to the dev's

[Mcgotrek]

Looks like Snipe is back on the menu, boys!

[Gotfryk]

I envy all the people with their perfect alts. This way you can always be FOTM ;(

[zumos2]

Roots breaking on a damage threshold would be amazing

i second this sentiment if nothing else bar the fact that i always prefer consistency over RNG

I second this as well to be honest. Removing RNG from game-play is always the best way to go.. same for proc damage being the main income of damage as of late.

While I can agree to removing RNG from roots, procs with high proc chance are hardly to be called RNG. You cannot compare that something like a root being removed. It's almost the same as asking for a removal of crit chance ...

[zumos2]

So I do like the way you want us to test the experimental changes. This way it is clear for everyone it is just some experimenting and people don't have to go fullout on the forums before something is implemented. Some changes like the magus/engie are easier to theorycraft than much more in depth changes like the AM/Shammy which just gonna require testing. With these changes in now, I guess it would make sense to have a thread on the balance forum discussing the experiences from players with these changes.

Furthermore, I think changing the morale roots is something quite significant that I would have liked to discussed before they were implemented. It's obviously a huge nerf to the RvR Knight and for smaller scale has an impact on the balance of melee vs ranged setup. The morale root in that sense wasnt very reliable already because it can be broken my Focused Mind, so I'm of the opinion this nerf wasn't really necesarry.

[Bozzax]

Additionally, other roots have had their condition fixed. They previously checked break chance on any damage instead of when the target was attacked, meaning they were very unreliable in DoT-heavy climates.

Think this was good change as roots really shouldn't break on dots ticks or procs. If I understand it correctly ... "first tick" of dots can still break roots if you don't avoid it, right?

Out of curiosity may I ask why Rock Clutch and Paralyzing Nightmares was left untouched?

[BrockRiefenstahl]

Only thing is, dont listen much about ongoing whine from T1/2. I played Magus/Engi, and even without those changes in low Tiers they are already pretty strong. (No effort top dmg top kills) BUT, as soon as healers get dispells etc... the Career mechanics are pretty much hard countered. So with those changes I predict a ton o now low level Heros coming to forums and whine how OP this is.

I myself will start a Magus or Engi today.