Longer abilities alone doesn't make rotations easier

Bhaygon

I was playing Nightblade and noted how my eyes had to be glued to the ability bar all the time, even if most of my skills lasted a long time, 20 seconds and up to 32 seconds some of them, so why did this happen?

The problem wasn't the duration of the abilities, it was with every ability lasting a different amount of time, one lasts 10 seconds, another 12, another 15, 20, 22, 24, 30, 32... and that makes it harder to cast abilities with identical timers together, you will always need to break your rotation to cast another ability. Don't get me wrong, longer duration definitely helps, but it is not everything, some changes need to be made.

And I have some sugestions:

A new duration rule that most abilities should follow: Abilities with longer durations must have durations that increase on 5 by 5 seconds, unless the class has other abilities with similar durations and types (dragonknight ardent flame abilities for example). The result should be durations between 10, 15, 20, 30. Abilities that would last 25 seconds should last 20 or 30 to make it easier to manage and find abilities that match each other. This value always includes the bonus from passive abilities that increases duration.

• Nightblade - Shadow - Dark Veil: Remove the bonus duration from shadow abilities and increase duration of buffs and debuffs applied by class abilities by 2 seconds.
  There is no point in increasing ability duration with a passive when you can just add 2 seconds to it. With this, nightblade could also be the only class able to extend duration of off-balance, giving it a more unique bonus.
• Mages Guild - Fire rune: Increase duration to 30 seconds.
  This means you would have another ability to match the 30 seconds rule to use with, for example, Quick cloak or Vampire’s Bane.
• Mages Guild - Everlasting magic: Remove previous bonus, now increases your magicka and stamina recovery by 2% for each mages guild ability active.
  
• Mages Guild - Magicka Controller: Change to increase your maximum magicka by 3% for each mages guild ability slotted on either bar.
  Those changes would make mages guild abilities good for builds that need better sustain while removing the weird durations of the previous iteration, and that would also fit very well into the theme of the guild.
• Two handed - Carve: Reduce the duration to 15 seconds, the first hit always applies hemorrhaging.
  That ability duration increase was nice when no other abilities lasted that much, but it is pointless now. Now, instead of this big duration, it would be a good combo to use with stampede or/and caltrops.
• Dragonknight - Ardent flame: This skill tree may not need those changes because it already has abilities that last the same amount of time and can be cast together.
  
• Dragonknight - Earthen Heart - Eternal Mountain: Now increases the power of damage shields by 10%.
  Duration of other abilities should be adjusted to match the new duration rule, Ash cloud should last 20 seconds and molten weapons 60, maybe with a shorter morph that turns your physical damage into fire damage or something, but that should be another topic.
• Templar - Dawn's Wrath - Enduring Rays: Instead of increasing the duration, increases the power of Dawn’s Wrath abilities by up to 20% after half of their duration. Readjust damage values of some abilities to be in line with previous iterations.
  That would give it extra power for the final seconds of each ability but players would still have time to react from those empowered beams. It would also encourage players to make those abilities last the entire duration and make the passive more relevant for this skill tree.

But there is also another thing that helps creating easier rotations and ties well with the changes I suggested, that is, skills that last 3 seconds. Those skills are good to maintain rhythmic rotations and although not every class needs to be that way, it is a perfect combination with warden and necromancers. You cast Blastbones and 2 abilities together, then Blastbones again and other 2… You don’t really have to think much about this, you just follow the rhythm, but in order for this to work some changes would have to be made:

• Necromancer - Grave lord - Blastbones: You can now always cast a second Blastbones after 2 seconds, but the last one will self destroy 1 second after calling another.
  This would just make the ability reliable for all ranges, the only thing it needs.
• Warden - Animal companions - Subterranean Assault: Stir a bigger group of shalk that attack after 3 seconds, dealing 3600 Poison Damage to enemies in front of you. After the shalk complete their attack, they burrow underground for 3 seconds and then resurface again, dealing 1800 Poison Damage to enemies in front of you. Cost is reduced if cast before the second attack. (Increases number of shalks to 5 to reach longer distances, the first attack to hit deals increased damage and if you cast the ability before the second attack the cost is reduced by 50%)
  This would make it so you can cast this ability after every 2 other abilities to have slightly better damage, but if you miss your cast you still have the second shalk to hit and deal a good amount of damage for no cost.
• Warden - Animal companions - Deep Fissure: Now lasts 20 seconds with shalks coming over each 4 seconds to apply the debuffs. Also increases enemy ice damage taken by 5% to give it a more unique bonus that would fit the theme of the class and better connect this skill line with the Winter's embrace line.
  This morph would have the default range but that shouldn’t be a problem as it should be used on tankier ice staff builds.

And that would be it, the only thing left is to test popular builds to see how easy it is to find skills that fit well together and maybe adjust some other abilities to be perfect. I know many of those changes can be difficult to implement but they would make the game so much more enjoyable so, think about it, and I know that changes like I suggested usually never happen but do it in your way, do your best.

Zodiarkslayer

DK needs the passives reworked, too. After all the class abilities need to able to work together with weapon and guild abilities.

I would Iike there to be standards for each type of ability. For example, all armor abilities get a 30s duration. Or all sticky DoTs get 20s. And all ground effect DoTs should be 15s.

All in all these are good suggestions, but I do not think it'll get reasonable responses. You see, end game DPS is all about mastering these complicated rotations.
Just think about the contempt for Heavy attacks Sorcs and Arcanists.

Vaqual

Not trying to be cynical, but that is something you will get a "feel" for when sticking with a build and honing your rotation. If all buffs and dots would line up exactly, the player would have to do nothing but press 1-2-3-4-5 in order. The asymmetry and situational priority changes is what makes the combat feel responsive. If you let an important dot drop off you likely lose less damage than you would by overriding it, granted you clicked something in the meantime.

I get where you are coming from, but I do not think it would make the gameplay more fun, just easier to optimize. This is no comment on your other suggestions, some of them are quite good.

AlterBlika

Usually when I solo I have less dots and just recast them at the same time (when caltrops end), I like it this way, still effective and tbh I'd die if I spend too much time on backbar.
Not the case with group pve, although I still think it's fine that we have complicated rotations sometimes. There should be at least some challenge. Being a dps is stupidly easy anyway.

Bhaygon

Vaqual wrote: »

Not trying to be cynical, but that is something you will get a "feel" for when sticking with a build and honing your rotation. If all buffs and dots would line up exactly, the player would have to do nothing but press 1-2-3-4-5 in order. The asymmetry and situational priority changes is what makes the combat feel responsive. If you let an important dot drop off you likely lose less damage than you would by overriding it, granted you clicked something in the meantime.

I get where you are coming from, but I do not think it would make the gameplay more fun, just easier to optimize. This is no comment on your other suggestions, some of them are quite good.

I get your point but I don't think that would make the game less fun, I mean, they already doubled the duration of skills to simplify rotation, and it doesn’t look like it worked, this solution would be less radical if implemented before and may have got better results. I would be very happy if they reduced the time of most abilities again and used more standardized durations, and if a passive increases the time of abilities they should at least increase from abilities outside of the same skill tree, that way you would still have a lot to do and it would be easier to manage, as you get good at the game you would be able to do your rotation while paying more attention to mechanics. Also, classes like DK that have good abilities to use outside of this rule would feel more distinct from others.

But reverting the durations back as it was before may be asking too much, I mean, they are not strangers to reverting everything back but I don't think they would do it again so soon.

KlauthWarthog

Making skill durations line up was one of the stated goals for Update 35, in which they somehow ignored duration increasing passives, and started by ignoring how tick frequencies interact with effects like weapon enchantments.
So... yeah, they already tried that, and failed spectacularly.

Bhaygon

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

DK needs the passives reworked, too. After all the class abilities need to able to work together with weapon and guild abilities.

I would Iike there to be standards for each type of ability. For example, all armor abilities get a 30s duration. Or all sticky DoTs get 20s. And all ground effect DoTs should be 15s.

All in all these are good suggestions, but I do not think it'll get reasonable responses. You see, end game DPS is all about mastering these complicated rotations.
Just think about the contempt for Heavy attacks Sorcs and Arcanists.

There will always be space for mastery, no matter how much you change the game, the balance should not be made to please people on the top end, they don’t even care, they will do their thing, find their ways to almost break the game, that's their fun, let them be.

The worst about Oakensoul for me is that it just forces you into a specific playstyle, they could just make a champion point node to increase heavy attack damage, but they always prefer to sell DLC, it’s fine to make money but imagine you could just use a champion point node to lock your ability to switch bars and give you extra weapon and spell damage and some critical chance, it would fit better in so many builds.

And arcanist is annoying. I think it is fine an ability that takes longer to cast and makes the game easier to play, but it is too much when the guy just runs through the dungeon with a deadly green laser beam killing everything as if he had brought the game only for himself. A good nerf for the arcanist would be that targets of the green laser beam have to be hit by an arcanist ability (includes light and heavy attacks) before they get the full damage of the beam, that would keep the playstyle the same and it would let others play the game as well.

Bhaygon

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

Making skill durations line up was one of the stated goals for Update 35, in which they somehow ignored duration increasing passives, and started by ignoring how tick frequencies interact with effects like weapon enchantments.
So... yeah, they already tried that, and failed spectacularly.

Yeah, they had some rough time those years, I don’t know what is happening there, the focus always seems to be switching, they never finish something before coming up with another.

ClevererHail6

I’ve noticed this too. Rotations are easier when times are similar. But, I can manage as long as they are long enough. I’ve also noticed that other classes have a very visible visual for certain buffs and that helps with rotation. NBs have always been rough. I’m surprised I got the hang of my sorc before a NB.

QB1

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

DK needs the passives reworked, too. After all the class abilities need to able to work together with weapon and guild abilities.

I would Iike there to be standards for each type of ability. For example, all armor abilities get a 30s duration. Or all sticky DoTs get 20s. And all ground effect DoTs should be 15s.

All in all these are good suggestions, but I do not think it'll get reasonable responses. You see, end game DPS is all about mastering these complicated rotations.
Just think about the contempt for Heavy attacks Sorcs and Arcanists.

Sticky dots need some love. The duration is too long and the damage is too low

Zodiarkslayer

I just remembered, Nightblade also has a passive, that prolongs Shadow abilities for 2s. It doesn't really do much, apart from raising Mass Hysteria to 5s, up from 3s.
So, good for tanking, but else? Definitely falls under those passives that could benefit from a rework, too. Just like Searing Heat.

Bhaygon

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

I just remembered, Nightblade also has a passive, that prolongs Shadow abilities for 2s. It doesn't really do much, apart from raising Mass Hysteria to 5s, up from 3s.
So, good for tanking, but else? Definitely falls under those passives that could benefit from a rework, too. Just like Searing Heat.

Passives like that are useless unless they change durations outside of the class abilities, if not, they could just have increased duration by default, instead of wasting a passive on that.