WE/WH Elixirs Cooldowns
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 3:14 pm
Issue:
WE and WH both have Elixirs (let this cover also Shroud of Magnus, Seal of Destruction and Von Horstmanns Speculum to make it simpler). (Elixir of Insane Power, of Cauldron, of Blades); they are potent, but are quite limited in their use due to a 60 second cooldown. One could consider them to be part of their career mechanic almost, as whatever way you spend your mastery point, you are most likely to pick one or two Elixirs to aid you.
Their potency is limited by somewhat short effect duration, 7 seconds, and then waiting 53 seconds before you can choose any of them for use again. Which effectively means that WE/WH maximum potential is achieved every 60 seconds.
However the Stealth mechanic is at hand every 30 seconds, which is another core mechanic of the classes. Even if you manage to pull a withdrawal from combat, enter stealth, and then re-engage again, you will lack the Elixirs which will be on CD most likely, assuming that you used them during initial Stealth-Opener engage phase like most of us usually do to achieve peak efficiency with initial engagement phase.
Suggestion:
Decrease Elixir cooldowns down to 30 seconds. This allows WE/WH to perform effectively with a 30 second cycle, instead of previous 60 sec cycle. This would then work in tandem with the 30 sec CD Stealth mechanic, allowing 2 max efficiency performances per minute of combat fought instead of one peak performance per minute.
They require you to spend mastery points, and only one of them can be used at a time. Yes, other classes have various potent buffs that are available at 60 sec cooldowns, but few of them require similar investment into mastery trees.
The end result would be that the WE/WH rotations of peak efficiency changes from 60 sec to 30 sec, which would go hand in hand with the other career mechanic, Stealth.
Would this change balance massively?
Hard to believe. WE/WH are far from being the most in demand dps classes, and mostly excel at playing alone. This would possibly increase their demand for party gameplay, since they no longer would need to wait 60 seconds to reach maximal efficiency rotation, but could do it every 30 second instead.
This would result in the classes becoming closer to the performance levels of WL/Mara, which can hardly be a bad thing from the perspective of class balance.
Furthermore, most "fights" (or ganks) that WE/WH experience last longer than 5-15 seconds at best. This is normally then followed by waiting a bit until stealth becomes available again, and then waiting even more until the Elixirs can be used again.
And, not all Elixirs are offensively used, some of them are used for defensive purposes (especially Disrupt elixir), with rdps meta still quite strong, allowing a light armoured class more survival potential against rdps should make melee slightly less risky in general, and make it in generally less easier for rdps to melt WE/WH from distance. From my Sorc POV, I can honestly say that most WHs hardly pose a threat, either because they skip the anti-disrupt Shroud of Magnus, or 7/60 sec coverage is not enough to keep them alive against proper rdps focus.
WE and WH both have Elixirs (let this cover also Shroud of Magnus, Seal of Destruction and Von Horstmanns Speculum to make it simpler). (Elixir of Insane Power, of Cauldron, of Blades); they are potent, but are quite limited in their use due to a 60 second cooldown. One could consider them to be part of their career mechanic almost, as whatever way you spend your mastery point, you are most likely to pick one or two Elixirs to aid you.
Their potency is limited by somewhat short effect duration, 7 seconds, and then waiting 53 seconds before you can choose any of them for use again. Which effectively means that WE/WH maximum potential is achieved every 60 seconds.
However the Stealth mechanic is at hand every 30 seconds, which is another core mechanic of the classes. Even if you manage to pull a withdrawal from combat, enter stealth, and then re-engage again, you will lack the Elixirs which will be on CD most likely, assuming that you used them during initial Stealth-Opener engage phase like most of us usually do to achieve peak efficiency with initial engagement phase.
Suggestion:
Decrease Elixir cooldowns down to 30 seconds. This allows WE/WH to perform effectively with a 30 second cycle, instead of previous 60 sec cycle. This would then work in tandem with the 30 sec CD Stealth mechanic, allowing 2 max efficiency performances per minute of combat fought instead of one peak performance per minute.
They require you to spend mastery points, and only one of them can be used at a time. Yes, other classes have various potent buffs that are available at 60 sec cooldowns, but few of them require similar investment into mastery trees.
The end result would be that the WE/WH rotations of peak efficiency changes from 60 sec to 30 sec, which would go hand in hand with the other career mechanic, Stealth.
Would this change balance massively?
Hard to believe. WE/WH are far from being the most in demand dps classes, and mostly excel at playing alone. This would possibly increase their demand for party gameplay, since they no longer would need to wait 60 seconds to reach maximal efficiency rotation, but could do it every 30 second instead.
This would result in the classes becoming closer to the performance levels of WL/Mara, which can hardly be a bad thing from the perspective of class balance.
Furthermore, most "fights" (or ganks) that WE/WH experience last longer than 5-15 seconds at best. This is normally then followed by waiting a bit until stealth becomes available again, and then waiting even more until the Elixirs can be used again.
And, not all Elixirs are offensively used, some of them are used for defensive purposes (especially Disrupt elixir), with rdps meta still quite strong, allowing a light armoured class more survival potential against rdps should make melee slightly less risky in general, and make it in generally less easier for rdps to melt WE/WH from distance. From my Sorc POV, I can honestly say that most WHs hardly pose a threat, either because they skip the anti-disrupt Shroud of Magnus, or 7/60 sec coverage is not enough to keep them alive against proper rdps focus.
