[PTS] Patch Notes 28/02/2025

[leftayparxoun]

Let's ignore the new heal component completely and even assume that you will always proc the shield on the first hit you take (more on that soon).
The abosrb shield itself scales with (30 + Mastery Lvl)/45 at level 40 in both cases.
Due to both versons having the same scaling, the damage loss will be:
(Base_old - Base_new)/Base_old * 100% = 22.9% less absorb with the above assumptions.
Again, not sure where the 66% came from.

As for the perma uptime assumption, the old version procs on being hit and has an internal cooldown (ICD) of 2 seconds.
This means that the number of attacks you take during those 2 seconds is irrelevant. They will NOT be able to refresh the proc until those 2 seconds are up. In turn, this means that after the ICD is over, every attack will have exactly 20% to proc it. Even if we were to assume you are getting hit e.g. 5 times in a second when it comes up as you mentione, this means that you have:
- 80% chance to not have procced it after the 1st attack
- 64% chance to not have procced it after the 2st attack
- 51.2% chance to not have procced it after the 3rd attack
- 40.1% chance to not have procced it after the 4th attack
- 32.8% chance to not have procced it after the 5th attack

As you can hopefully agree on, the old version is quite unreliable even under ideal conditions to proc it when the ICD is up. The time wasted by the old version not proccing is way more significant than the new version with perma uptime but 23% less potency. Or at the very least the shield effectiveness will be comparable.
And now you also get 3 small heals on top.

Now lets go back to the real world. Add another wl or wh, since for some strange reason they like to roam in pairs, and remake the calculations.

Calculations do not change regardless of the number of people hitting you. Only thing that changes is how many hits you are taking per seconds.
To reach a 23% efficiency loss (at which point the Absorb/second value becomes equal between old and new versions) you'd have to proc the old Shield on average at X seconds after the GCD ends, where:
1/(2+X) = (1-0.23)/2
1/(2+X) = 0.385
X = 1/0.385 - 2
X = 0.6 seconds

Proccing the 20% Absorb at that point on average would mean that 50% of the time you get it before it and 50% of the time you get it at that point or after it.
I will not prove it here but the expected value in this kind of experiment (described by a geometric distribution) is:
1/p, where p = chance of success
Here we get 1/0.2 = 5 attacks on average in that duration.
The hits/second required to reach that will be 5/0.6 = 8.33 hits/s


If your attackers are hitting you 8.33 times per seconds or less on average, then the new Absorb shield part is better. 8.333 hits/s is quite high on average. A solo WH or WL could potentially reach 5 or 6 during in their burst but their average would be quite lower (around 2). I'd argue that you'd need 4 people hitting you to achieve a 8.33hit/s average. Perhaps 5.
And we are of course ignoring the healing portion of the new Ritual as mentioned before.

As someone who actually plays zealot, unlike someone who has no idea about the class but still posts giant walls of text, yep like I said non in his right mind will take more than 1 ritual. Non is going to spec according to "hey, I might use this ritual eventually sometime"- either that specific ritual fits the spec, or you got a better things to waste the mastery point and the gcd on.

For reference, Zealot is my most played class. Specifically healer Zealot.
Resorting to personal attacks is not something I enjoy, so I just bid you farewell and hope you enjoy your 1 Ritual builds

[Gearknot]

What you've done to rituals doesn't seem like a good move to me, 10 second duration...30 second cool down, reducing the effect to group members in 50 ft range. PVP moves constantly out in the open and even having an 100 ft effect radius it was common to find the fight moves out of range of the ritual. You should keep it to %100 up time with rituals/runes, maybe 15 sec 30 second cool down and having 2 rituals to swap back and forth with would be viable. Overall would prefer you don't make any of these changes.

I personally played zealot on live, and recently decided to pick this game up again this year. Zealot has been the only class I've been interested in playing, if this change gets implemented it might be just enough to push me away from this game to be honest. Depends how it works out in the long run.

Please rethink your design decisions and listen/discuss with your community, i really think you should leave rituals/runes alone, if zealots only using ritual of lunacy was a concern make some minor changes to the other two rituals to show them a little more love.

[Anderlin]

Some good things, some bad things.

But one important thing ( Regarding DPS WP). It has no gap- closer, an no longer a ranged detaunt.

You removed the 100 ft range detaunt leaving the WP completely vulnerable to ranged kiters, previously it could detaunt a shaman/ranged dps. Now it is a sitting duck.

One interesting thing:

You added Judgement to dps tree but without the snare.

This also applies to Dok DPS but at least they can use Covenant of celerity with the Judgement equivalent and tro to snare from range( with tactic 35% proc). WP 2H is a sitting duck.

P.S. The new detaunt ability is really bad for dps WP, 15 sec cd / 5 sec duration, at least make that equivalent to mdps, 10 sec cd/ 5 duration.

Looks like they scrapped the charge ability idea from the original road map:

[Zxul]

Let's ignore the new heal component completely and even assume that you will always proc the shield on the first hit you take (more on that soon).
The abosrb shield itself scales with (30 + Mastery Lvl)/45 at level 40 in both cases.
Due to both versons having the same scaling, the damage loss will be:
(Base_old - Base_new)/Base_old * 100% = 22.9% less absorb with the above assumptions.
Again, not sure where the 66% came from.

As for the perma uptime assumption, the old version procs on being hit and has an internal cooldown (ICD) of 2 seconds.
This means that the number of attacks you take during those 2 seconds is irrelevant. They will NOT be able to refresh the proc until those 2 seconds are up. In turn, this means that after the ICD is over, every attack will have exactly 20% to proc it. Even if we were to assume you are getting hit e.g. 5 times in a second when it comes up as you mentione, this means that you have:
- 80% chance to not have procced it after the 1st attack
- 64% chance to not have procced it after the 2st attack
- 51.2% chance to not have procced it after the 3rd attack
- 40.1% chance to not have procced it after the 4th attack
- 32.8% chance to not have procced it after the 5th attack

As you can hopefully agree on, the old version is quite unreliable even under ideal conditions to proc it when the ICD is up. The time wasted by the old version not proccing is way more significant than the new version with perma uptime but 23% less potency. Or at the very least the shield effectiveness will be comparable.
And now you also get 3 small heals on top.

Now lets go back to the real world. Add another wl or wh, since for some strange reason they like to roam in pairs, and remake the calculations.

Calculations do not change regardless of the number of people hitting you. Only thing that changes is how many hits you are taking per seconds.
To reach a 23% efficiency loss (at which point the Absorb/second value becomes equal between old and new versions) you'd have to proc the old Shield on average at X seconds after the GCD ends, where:
1/(2+X) = (1-0.23)/2
1/(2+X) = 0.385
X = 1/0.385 - 2
X = 0.6 seconds

Proccing the 20% Absorb at that point on average would mean that 50% of the time you get it before it and 50% of the time you get it at that point or after it.
I will not prove it here but the expected value in this kind of experiment (described by a geometric distribution) is:
1/p, where p = chance of success
Here we get 1/0.2 = 5 attacks on average in that duration.
The hits/second required to reach that will be 5/0.6 = 8.33 hits/s


If your attackers are hitting you 8.33 times per seconds or less on average, then the new Absorb shield part is better. 8.333 hits/s is quite high on average. A solo WH or WL could potentially reach 5 or 6 during in their burst but their average would be quite lower (around 2). I'd argue that you'd need 4 people hitting you to achieve a 8.33hit/s average. Perhaps 5.
And we are of course ignoring the healing portion of the new Ritual as mentioned before.

So you figured out you were wrong about the dmg part of the patch, glad we settled that out.

Now to absorbs ritual. You put it up, wh self punts, you are staggered for 6 sec. And yep, whs very much will do it. Now calculate how much absorb are you getting, when the old ritual duration was 30 sec, while the new ritual duration is realistically 4 sec.

Also, how much the heal portion will heal, when you are heal debuffed 75% (Punish the False + heal debuff bullet).

As someone who actually plays zealot, unlike someone who has no idea about the class but still posts giant walls of text, yep like I said non in his right mind will take more than 1 ritual. Non is going to spec according to "hey, I might use this ritual eventually sometime"- either that specific ritual fits the spec, or you got a better things to waste the mastery point and the gcd on.

For reference, Zealot is my most played class. Specifically healer Zealot.
Resorting to personal attacks is not something I enjoy, so I just bid you farewell and hope you enjoy your 1 Ritual builds

Then I'm glad that I'm not in your wbs. And as to my build, I do successfully roam on dps zealot. Remind me, how do you do as one?

[vanbuinen77]

These are great zealot changes.

[Fontaami]

First of all, I want to thank developers for providing us with opportunity to test upcoming healers balancing tweaks.
Now, I only focused here on dps zealot (a bit on dps rp too) and I will try coherently and precisely to provide my subjective, flawed view on these 2 classes.
Pros:
1) Both dps z/rp got additional 13-point middle tree abilities which is always welcomed. However, Changer's Echo ability for dps z does not work with Transference tactic from the middle tree and does not heal player after it hits the target. Seems like a bug for me.
2) I also enjoyed new tactics for both dps z/rp (Burst of Chaos, Prolonged Suffering and Blazing Runes). I think they all could be deployed in dps z/rp different builds too.
3) The addition of Boon of Tzeentch/Rune of Fortune abilities to the core of the Alchemy/Grungni mastery paths. The slight nerf of their basic damage is a small sacrifice I am willing to take.
4) DPS RP M1 Rune of Insanity is now a better version of its current version. M3 Valaya's Shield is also a better option compared to current M3 Rune of Rebirth. Congratulations to order for obtaining a second Morale which adds an additional 1 second to build up for all abilities (even insta cast).
Cons:
1) Changer's Echo damage is woefully weaker than RP's Rune of Fulmination (new 13-point ability). I was fortunate to do some small PvP test vs dps rp tester and it became painfully obvious for me that CE is like a shadow of RoF in terms of damage and overall impact to the player effectiveness.
2) "The Rituals/Mastery Runes have received an overhaul focused on bringing a more active playstyle and at the same time promoting the use of multiple Rituals". While I like the overall direction of making all rituals/runes much more distinct and active to use, I do not understand why rituals and runes are still locked inside mastery paths? It is literally a waste of 18 mastery points now for all z/rp players in order to always have 1 ritual active all the time. Keep in mind that most builds for both healer and dps z/rp will lock player to only 2 out of 3 ritual/rune instead.
3) Tied to Rituals rework, Waves of Chaos tactic is nerfed pretty hard too. Considering that most useful AoE dps z builds will only get 2 Rituals too, that means in ideal situation (targets stay in 1 spot for 20 second or more) this tactic will deal only 12 ticks of non-crit damage. And that damage is slighty above meaningless sadly.
4) Scourged Warping tactic rework. I personally have a mixed feelings on this one. The component of steadily increasing Warp Reality damage is ok for me, but I did not get the part of "Instead of making Scourge be instant cast, Scourge now ignores the target’s Corporeal Resistance". Just why? Dps z already has a corporeal debuff tactic (Sweeping Disgorgement) and ofc M1 Tzeentch's Talon. And I feel that ability to insta cast a 2 second cast ability while having a very high possibilty of being interrupted, setback, silenced, knocked, pulled, pounced, focused etc stuff is much much better than even complete corporeal ignore on this ability.
Still, I want to thank everyone invovled with this rework for their hard work! Keep it up!

[shoelessHN]

What you've done to rituals doesn't seem like a good move to me, 10 second duration...30 second cool down, reducing the effect to group members in 50 ft range. PVP moves constantly out in the open and even having an 100 ft effect radius it was common to find the fight moves out of range of the ritual. You should keep it to %100 up time with rituals/runes, maybe 15 sec 30 second cool down and having 2 rituals to swap back and forth with would be viable. Overall would prefer you don't make any of these changes.

I personally played zealot on live, and recently decided to pick this game up again this year. Zealot has been the only class I've been interested in playing, if this change gets implemented it might be just enough to push me away from this game to be honest. Depends how it works out in the long run.

Please rethink your design decisions and listen/discuss with your community, i really think you should leave rituals/runes alone, if zealots only using ritual of lunacy was a concern make some minor changes to the other two rituals to show them a little more love.

If you base your playing on one ability staying the same forever you may as well leave now.

[Zxul]

What you've done to rituals doesn't seem like a good move to me, 10 second duration...30 second cool down, reducing the effect to group members in 50 ft range. PVP moves constantly out in the open and even having an 100 ft effect radius it was common to find the fight moves out of range of the ritual. You should keep it to %100 up time with rituals/runes, maybe 15 sec 30 second cool down and having 2 rituals to swap back and forth with would be viable. Overall would prefer you don't make any of these changes.

I personally played zealot on live, and recently decided to pick this game up again this year. Zealot has been the only class I've been interested in playing, if this change gets implemented it might be just enough to push me away from this game to be honest. Depends how it works out in the long run.

Please rethink your design decisions and listen/discuss with your community, i really think you should leave rituals/runes alone, if zealots only using ritual of lunacy was a concern make some minor changes to the other two rituals to show them a little more love.

If you base your playing on one ability staying the same forever you may as well leave now.

Lol. The very basis of current zealot healing is healing ritual triggering procs for entire party. Once it is removed, it means a very large drop in zealot both aoe and single target healing.

Edit: Also comes to think of it, the reduction of range of rituals from 100 ft to 50 ft wasn't addressed. With how mobile rvr is, 50 ft means most of the time party won't be covered by ritual- have plenty of experience of short distance non mobile buffs from playing magus with non mobile pet.

[derKleineKerl]

Bye bye zeal/ rp was nice playing you....

[Nelly74]

I thought my shaman was already too powerful, but after two hours of testing all kinds of things, it's even worse. The rework idea is great, but honestly, it’s made the class even easier and stronger than before. Please, make the class more challenging, not more powerful. The gameplay is so sluggish it could bore you to death, and you can play the shaman with one hand in your underwear.

Anyway, mine is going the same way as my level 89 slayer: retirement!