Arcanist Execute now and the whole 'balancing' thing

LittlePinkDot · July 27

Marto wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

It's been mentioned before, everyone would've preferred they dropped the heal, not the execute. Now Arcanist has no execute in PvP. And they Need a crux builder so they can't even replace it with a weapon skill execute. They now need to use a whole extra bar slot for an execute if they want one.

Then... they don't get execute. Simple as that. Just how Dragonknights and Wardens don't get execute.
The rest of the kit is strong enough. Arcanists being unable to execute sounds like a fair downside to the class.

Templars are slow. Dragonknights have poor passive recovery. Sorcerers lack a spammable. Wardens don't have any crit bonuses. Etc. It's fine for classes to have downsides.

My PvP Arcanist doesn't use flail or beam she uses Lethal arrow, escalating rune blades, toxic barrage and poison injection execute with Swamp raider and Sheer Venom. She's a poison build.
It's stupid to use beam in pvp, it sucks and wastes your crux that you need for Impervious runeward.
I can't wait until I get enough class scripts to be able to generate crux from soul wield and replace runeblades.

YandereGirlfriend · July 27

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

pklemming wrote: »

Please stop making stuff up and calling it 'balancing'.it honestly feels like the combat team have been beaten by too many of X class in PVP and decide to 'fix that'.

Arc is decidedly mid tier in PvP and this nerf pushes Arcs to either replace a class skill with the generic Whirling Blades, or go all in on laser shenanigans. PvP builds don't have room for "jack of all trades, master of none" utility skills, removing the execute damage simply kills Flail in PvP, the superfluous heal and root really should've gone instead.

Agreed. This ability (the "Wesker Arm") was completely fine when it originally debuted in the last Chapter. Back then it had no heal and (IIRC) no Immob. Those two random toss-ins are what make the skill overloaded. Strike them away and restore the execute scaling = cool skill with way no random gimmicks.

BananaBender · July 27

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

But that's not really a shortcoming on Flail's side and more on the rest of the arcanist's kit.

Flail was the coolest thing about Arc's kit to me, class power fantasy defining even if janky to land, now it's relegated to cc/debuff bot spam. A better comparison in PvP would be NB's Power Extraction. It's just as loaded with utility, but unlike Flail, it provides self buffs, it's instant cast and point blank 8m radius, so hit hits everything you want it to hit effortlessly, while countering opposing NBs and roll spammers. They're both fine in PvP, no nerfs needed here.

Well, in PvE it's by far the most cracked and overloaded spammable there is and it's not even close. And not necessarily because of the damage, which isn't bad in any means, but because of how much it enables. NB's power extraction is a much more balanced skill, because it doesn't provide as much unique damage. I can see how it can be much stronger in PvP or solo play than it is in group PvE though.

Power Extraction:
The damage is mediocre but it gives you major brutality/sorcery, which does allow you to use other potions, but it's usually sourced by a DK and can be scribed nowadays. It also provides minor courage which has multiple sources (arcanist being the most common one), and applies minor cowardice which is a defensive buff and can be sourced elsewhere.

Cephaliarch's Flail:
Damage is good but nothing superb but it applies Abyssal Ink, which makes you deal 5% increased damage. This is a unique buff so there are no other sources. It also generates crux, which enables the strongest damaging ability in your kit. This also cannot be provided to you by others.

Power Extraction is a nice skill that gives some good buffs, but it's not unique, so an arcanist can have the exact same benefits as Power Extraction and have the unique buffs from Flail on top of it. Also the fact that it generates crux is insanely important. The skills would be close to even if Power Extraction gave your Merciless Resolve extra stacks (ZOS this is not a good idea, please don't).

Joy_Division · July 27

Marto wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

It's been mentioned before, everyone would've preferred they dropped the heal, not the execute. Now Arcanist has no execute in PvP. And they Need a crux builder so they can't even replace it with a weapon skill execute. They now need to use a whole extra bar slot for an execute if they want one.

Then... they don't get execute. Simple as that. Just how Dragonknights and Wardens don't get execute.
The rest of the kit is strong enough. Arcanists being unable to execute sounds like a fair downside to the class.

Templars are slow. Dragonknights have poor passive recovery. Sorcerers lack a spammable. Wardens don't have any crit bonuses. Etc. It's fine for classes to have downsides.

What exactly is strong enough in the Arcanist's offensive toolkit? The only offensive skill quite a few will slot is Flail: meaning the rest of their offensive kit, which you're trying to tout as strong, doesn't move the needle. Sure DK's don't have an execute, but they have distinctive DoT pressure and a fantastic ultimate for securing kills. Wardens have never been perceived as average, let alone average, because they have the best delayed bust damage skill in the game (which is functionally better than the "overloaded" Flail), excellent heals, and unique capabilities with a damage type (we'll see how u43's update will change that. Both of these classes are currently considered either excellent or very strong options for PvP because they have well rounded kits that can live without an execute. The same is not true for the arcanist, even as of right now with thus "overloaded ability" and being the best PvE DPS in the game.

That you count the sorcerer lacking a spammable as a downside is laughable as it is the best pvp class in the game right now, having everything a player could possibly want: mobility, one-button defense, burst damage, etc. The best sorcerer spec does not even use damage proc sets like Tarnished because the spec is so good it doesn't need them. Even NBs love their tarnished set.

It's amusing when PvE players complain that PvP is the source of their nerfs, while they have no problem applauding a nerf because of the peculiarities in PvE.

BananaBender · July 27

Joy_Division wrote: »

It's amusing when PvE players complain that PvP is the source of their nerfs, while they have no problem applauding a nerf because of the peculiarities in PvE.

So you are saying that people are happy about positive changes to the game mode they play the most? That is shocking indeed. I don't think it matters that majority of the player base plays exclusively PvE and rightfully or not ZoS keeps mentioning when something gets changed due to PvP, like Warden for example.

I do agree though that they could have left Flail in peace for now, since this nerf does nothing to address the real problem with arcanist.

But in ZoS fashion they address the problem completely the wrong way (looking also at you Arctic Blast).

Tommy_The_Gun · July 28

From my experience, Arc is still very strong class in PvP (in some aspects too strong). They will be luck if they don't get any further nerfs.

Skjaldbjorn · July 28

BananaBender wrote: »

I do agree though that they could have left Flail in peace for now, since this nerf does nothing to address the real problem with arcanist.

Yeah I have no idea how Arc performs in PVP, and I think changing the heal to on-hit instead of healing from smacking the air was a really good choice. I actually think requiring it to hit to build crux as well would be pretty reasonable, but flail isn't the central issue in PVE. Beam's interaction with Azure is just obscene tbh.

BananaBender · July 28

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

I do agree though that they could have left Flail in peace for now, since this nerf does nothing to address the real problem with arcanist.

Yeah I have no idea how Arc performs in PVP, and I think changing the heal to on-hit instead of healing from smacking the air was a really good choice. I actually think requiring it to hit to build crux as well would be pretty reasonable, but flail isn't the central issue in PVE. Beam's interaction with Azure is just obscene tbh.

Yeah, I agree that the heal nerf was reasonable enough.

Azure not working with beam would be an interesting choice and could actually work pretty well.

Skjaldbjorn · July 28

BananaBender wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

I do agree though that they could have left Flail in peace for now, since this nerf does nothing to address the real problem with arcanist.

Yeah I have no idea how Arc performs in PVP, and I think changing the heal to on-hit instead of healing from smacking the air was a really good choice. I actually think requiring it to hit to build crux as well would be pretty reasonable, but flail isn't the central issue in PVE. Beam's interaction with Azure is just obscene tbh.

Yeah, I agree that the heal nerf was reasonable enough.

Azure not working with beam would be an interesting choice and could actually work pretty well.

Yeah, once it popped into my brain I've tried to mention it around. Not that I think they'd actually do it, but I think it would instantly balance Arc pretty well from a PVE perspective. It would limit their set choices even further which sucks, but might encourage people to look deeper at sets as well.

propertyOfUndefined · July 28

I would have preferred they remove the root over the execute scaling. But, yeah... skill is way overloaded, imho...

tsaescishoeshiner · July 28

While I generally think classes should be buffed up to the same level instead of nerfed, this skill did like 5 things at once lol. Heal, damage, debuff, execute, immobilize. The heal, debuff, and immobilize all help Fatecarver, so I think the execute is the best thing to eliminate.

Ceph Flail will still be the spammable of choice. But this makes it closer to choosing Runeblades or a Scribed ability that generates Crux. So that's nice. More than one option is good imo.

I don't think it needs anything in exchange. Instead, they could buff up other Arcanist abilities to compete (Runeblades, Tentacular Dread).

xylena_lazarow · July 28

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

The heal, debuff, and immobilize all help Fatecarver

Opposite in PvP where they compete for gcds, and Flail is much better on proc vessels, where the execute damage is absolutely necessary to finish pressuring down enemies. The heal and root are whatever in PvP.

StarOfElyon · July 28

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

From my experience, Arc is still very strong class in PvP (in some aspects too strong). They will be luck if they don't get any further nerfs.

The only thing that makes Arcs strong in PVP is that shield. Bring that shield down and they're beatable. Most of them are completely reliant on the standard cheese set-up (masters dual wield, maarselok, and vate destro).

BahometZ · July 29

propertyOfUndefined wrote: »

I would have preferred they remove the root over the execute scaling. But, yeah... skill is way overloaded, imho...

It's overloaded because arcanist, like the necro, only has damage dealing skills in the one skill tree. Lazy design.

ZDunlain · July 29

BananaBender wrote: »

This shows pretty well how incredibly stale the meta has been on PvE side ever since arcanist has been released. It should definitely get nerfed, but they are focusing on the wrong skill to make an actual difference.

Credit to Geldis1306 for the picture and gathering the data.

Interesting how people say that templar is in a super good spot as DD, this graph shows that it is not lol.

Also as a healers, once the best healer ingame is just a healer in oblivion and I cannot mention as a tank, the worst of the worst.

alpha_synuclein · July 29

ZDunlain wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

This shows pretty well how incredibly stale the meta has been on PvE side ever since arcanist has been released. It should definitely get nerfed, but they are focusing on the wrong skill to make an actual difference.

Credit to Geldis1306 for the picture and gathering the data.

Interesting how people say that templar is in a super good spot as DD, this graph shows that it is not lol d.

Pure dps-wise it is. But bringing it to that spot is more difficult that doing the same on arcanist.
Not to mention the insane cleave and group utilities arcanist have (and plar lacks). Same with wardens. They can hit big numbers , but remain healers, because it's more practical to stack arcanists.

Tbh, taking away the free heal on flail is a good idea, but if they want to address arcas overload they should just nerf beam. At least the shield version of it. So much defensive power shouldn't be attached to such a strong skill.

ZDunlain · July 29

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

ZDunlain wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

This shows pretty well how incredibly stale the meta has been on PvE side ever since arcanist has been released. It should definitely get nerfed, but they are focusing on the wrong skill to make an actual difference.

Credit to Geldis1306 for the picture and gathering the data.

Interesting how people say that templar is in a super good spot as DD, this graph shows that it is not lol d.

Pure dps-wise it is. But bringing it to that spot is more difficult that doing the same on arcanist.
Not to mention the insane cleave and group utilities arcanist have (and plar lacks). Same with wardens. They can hit big numbers , but remain healers, because it's more practical to stack arcanists.

Tbh, taking away the free heal on flail is a good idea, but if they want to address arcas overload they should just nerf beam. At least the shield version of it. So much defensive power shouldn't be attached to such a strong skill.

Pure dps yeah but no utility, making teplars useless in support roles as healers-tanks, because of that they are thaaaaat bad.

They were one of the best healers but now they are not.

And agree on nerf arcanist and put it on the same level as other classes.

BananaBender · July 29

ZDunlain wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

ZDunlain wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

This shows pretty well how incredibly stale the meta has been on PvE side ever since arcanist has been released. It should definitely get nerfed, but they are focusing on the wrong skill to make an actual difference.

Credit to Geldis1306 for the picture and gathering the data.

Interesting how people say that templar is in a super good spot as DD, this graph shows that it is not lol d.

Pure dps-wise it is. But bringing it to that spot is more difficult that doing the same on arcanist.
Not to mention the insane cleave and group utilities arcanist have (and plar lacks). Same with wardens. They can hit big numbers , but remain healers, because it's more practical to stack arcanists.

Tbh, taking away the free heal on flail is a good idea, but if they want to address arcas overload they should just nerf beam. At least the shield version of it. So much defensive power shouldn't be attached to such a strong skill.

Pure dps yeah but no utility, making teplars useless in support roles as healers-tanks, because of that they are thaaaaat bad.

They were one of the best healers but now they are not.

And agree on nerf arcanist and put it on the same level as other classes.

Templar is sadly in the same boat with Warden right now in PvE. It's really good to have one in your group but any more than that is not needed. For Templar to see more play they would have to buff the cleave quite a bit. The class spammables are lacking (bring back old jabs, please) and ultimates are bad. If these would get addressed Templar would be in much better position on a DD stand point. The execute is insanely good and that's also one of the main reasons why a Templar DD is brought into a group.

As healers they would have to get improved ult gain and maybe a viable shield. Their healing output is still good, they just don't have an ultimate that would make them see play nor the ult gain to overshadow NB. Their unique class buff is also competing with DK, which is in every single group already so that's not helping the situation either.

I think Templar could use some love, but not necessarily in the single target damage department, but more on the utility and cleave side.

xylena_lazarow · July 29

BananaBender wrote: »

but more on the utility and cleave side

So sad what they did to jabs, absolutely gutting an entire class power fantasy in the name of spreadsheet balance. And now they're doing it to the Arc tentacle, and for what? Plar and Arc still have their disgustingly overloaded beam attacks, Arcs are still going to dominate PvE, another piece of class identity thrown in the garbage for nothing.

StarOfElyon wrote: »

The only thing that makes Arcs strong in PVP is that shield. Bring that shield down and they're beatable. Most of them are completely reliant on the standard cheese set-up (masters dual wield, maarselok, and vate destro).

And not even the best proc vessels, DKs and StamSorcs do a lot more damage, you see it so much on Arc because they're basically forced into procs to do anything at all in PvP. These style pressure builds get potatoes complaining because they're good at punishing overly passive opponents, Arcs in particular punish you if you don't move.

Vahndamme · July 29

I agree, ZoS does not listen to playerbase at all. The adjusted jabs animation nobody wanted. All the power shifted to back end of combat and jabs totally losing their identity together with Burning Light. I liked the class a lot better before the change.. it still deals a truck ton of damage but only on execute really ^^ it's way less fun to play, jabs was fun, more versatility tbh. Now it is truly just beam and that's it. About the other classes I don't know the specifics, but I do know that the numbers and nerfs and such always been super random.. like nobody asks for it, nobody wants it and still it goes live. And we keep going. Honestly I'm baffled at how this game survives with this kind of mentality.

I know PvP lost a big part of population for a long time. The big groups are gone and I doubt they'll be back. Only a matter of time till PvE also loses big and then what?

Galeriano2 · July 30

Vahndamme wrote: »

I agree, ZoS does not listen to playerbase at all. The adjusted jabs animation nobody wanted. All the power shifted to back end of combat and jabs totally losing their identity together with Burning Light. I liked the class a lot better before the change.. it still deals a truck ton of damage but only on execute really ^^ it's way less fun to play, jabs was fun, more versatility tbh. Now it is truly just beam and that's it. About the other classes I don't know the specifics, but I do know that the numbers and nerfs and such always been super random.. like nobody asks for it, nobody wants it and still it goes live. And we keep going. Honestly I'm baffled at how this game survives with this kind of mentality.

I know PvP lost a big part of population for a long time. The big groups are gone and I doubt they'll be back. Only a matter of time till PvE also loses big and then what?

Changes to jabs were actually requested by people. Not in a this specific current form but overall before changes happened templar in PvE basically became a prisoner of jabs because nothing else could beat that ability and it even reached the point of absurdity where just pure jabs spam was able to go over 100k DPS which is comparable to like 110k DPS these days. Many people considered templar a boring class because of it.

xylena_lazarow · July 30

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Many people considered templar a boring class because of it

Sounds like a good reason to nerf Radiant on Plar and Fatecarver on Arc, then spread that power out to other class skills, instead of nerfing Flail which indirectly puts even more of Arc's power into Fatecarver.

Galeriano2 · July 30

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Many people considered templar a boring class because of it

Sounds like a good reason to nerf Radiant on Plar and Fatecarver on Arc, then spread that power out to other class skills, instead of nerfing Flail which indirectly puts even more of Arc's power into Fatecarver.

Strenght of Fatecarver comes partially from Flail. No other crux building ability empowers beam arcanist as much as Flail does. Flail is an overloaded ability on its own let's not pretend it isn't.

xylena_lazarow · July 30

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Strenght of Fatecarver comes partially from Flail. No other crux building ability empowers beam arcanist as much as Flail does. Flail is an overloaded ability on its own let's not pretend it isn't.

Yeah it exists to provide a debuff so that Fatecarver gets to be the star of the show even harder now. Flail on its own is full of fluff, the heal and root are irrelevant to core function, without the execute it's a jack of all trades, master of none.

Galeriano2 · July 30

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Strenght of Fatecarver comes partially from Flail. No other crux building ability empowers beam arcanist as much as Flail does. Flail is an overloaded ability on its own let's not pretend it isn't.

Yeah it exists to provide a debuff so that Fatecarver gets to be the star of the show even harder now. Flail on its own is full of fluff, the heal and root are irrelevant to core function, without the execute it's a jack of all trades, master of none.

PvE wise heal and root are also strong additions. I reccomend You to try doing some veteran trials, solo arenas, dungeons and group arenas with Flail and later with other ability that builds crux. The difference quite often will be noticable thx to the amount of utility that Flail gives to beam arcanist.

Also I find it wierd to say "without the execute it's a jack of all trades, master of none". What currently the beam is master at that it won't be after execute removal?

ADarklore · July 31

What's interesting... is everyone is assuming that people are playing Arcanist solely for it's effectiveness, and yet, nobody seems to assume it's because it's actually a FUN class to play... and that's why many people are playing it.

Also, they previously talked about changing other classes to add a stacking mechanic like crux to the other classes, so perhaps they are not nerfing Arcanist because they plan to boost other classes to match them. One could always hope.

BananaBender · July 31

ADarklore wrote: »

What's interesting... is everyone is assuming that people are playing Arcanist solely for it's effectiveness, and yet, nobody seems to assume it's because it's actually a FUN class to play... and that's why many people are playing it.

Also, they previously talked about changing other classes to add a stacking mechanic like crux to the other classes, so perhaps they are not nerfing Arcanist because they plan to boost other classes to match them. One could always hope.

I know fun is subjective, but for me and pretty much anyone who I've talked to in the end game community think that arcanist is extremely boring to play. Most of it stems from the fact that the hundreds if not thousands of hours spent perfecting the weaving and good uptimes/rotations is just thrown out the window with arcanist. You build up your crux and for the next 5 or seconds you spend looking at our enemy's general direction.

The problem with arcanist and balancing other classes to it's level is that arcanist doesn't have a weakness. Even if they did buff DK, which is the closest class to arcanist in terms of performance, arcanist would still be way better, because DK has weaknesses. For people who play mainly PvP, arcanist in PvE is right now as oppressive as NB and sorc put together into a single class. You can play other classes sure, you just have no reason to.

xylena_lazarow · July 31

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Also I find it wierd to say "without the execute it's a jack of all trades, master of none". What currently the beam is master at that it won't be after execute removal?

Drop Fatecarver and run Flail as your primary u43 spammable, the answer will become clear.

BananaBender wrote: »

The problem with arcanist and balancing other classes to it's level is that arcanist doesn't have a weakness... You can play other classes sure, you just have no reason to.

That's why the Flail nerf is so sad. Doesn't fix PvE, just exacerbates their PvP deficiencies. While Arc has great defense and utility in PvP, its offensive kit was already arguably the worst in PvP, below even Necro or Plar.

alpha_synuclein · July 31

ADarklore wrote: »

What's interesting... is everyone is assuming that people are playing Arcanist solely for it's effectiveness, and yet, nobody seems to assume it's because it's actually a FUN class to play... and that's why many people are playing it.

For quite a bunch it is a very unfun class to play. Players that enjoy fast paced gameplay do not enjoy channelled skills. Especially if the channel is so long that you spend most of your rotation pressing one button. And the class is designed in a way that makes focusing on beaming (buffed with flail) your best option and that you will lose tons of damage if you choose to play it differently.

Arcanist was made so powerful that it doesn't leave you much choices if you want to be as effective as you can in hardest content. And lots of players that play them now crave different meta. Literally anything that is not beam...

Iuppiterr · July 31

Give flail to any other class and this class will be the best PvE DPS in the game, its such a crazy ability and nerfing it has nothing to do with destroying a class phantasy because you guys are still pressing it twice and beaming for 6 secs after.