Corrosive + Subclassing: A Dangerous Combo That Needs Attention

Sluggy

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Honestly, I think Corrosive is too overtuned.

You can shrug off 97% of damage and all of your attacks go through armor? Yeah, that's a lot.

Do people still to this day conflate 3% of max hp with 97% damage mitigation? Those things are even remotely in the same field of power.

Imo corrosive is a decent but somewhat overhyped Ultimate. Getting nearly full penetration isn't particularly hard these days with even a mediocre build so all the Ultimate is doing is allowing you to swap maybe one set out for a smaller uptime on that pen. As for the damage reduction - easily, EASILY circumvented. Most builds probably do it by accident without even knowing it. Every time I see a DK pop as a defense to survive an onslaught of my own I just laugh because it literally does nothing. Well, I guess the health and resources are the only good it does them. The only thing it every really stops are the two-tap nightblade gankers and maybe the occasional all-in burst windows of a fully buffed Warden.

Personally, I dropped it a a year or so ago for SoM (yes, SOM, not shifting. I usually play solo) or Shield Wall and I don't miss it even a bit.

All of that being said, I haven't bothered to keep up with subclassing at all. It's possible that some weird ganker builds or a good pressure build might make great use of it. But, I just don't see that many ballgroups going all-in on this one skill line for this one skill. Really, what else do they get out of it? They already have enough pen and damage in general. They already have full uptime on damage shields and one person can run magma as a group-wide 'Oh Sh---' button. Negate is still the bread n butter of these groups and will continue to be real big-play ultimate for any kind of coordinated effort.

Four_Fingers

Why is always about Ball groups?
It will also be just as problematic on solo and dueling players.

tomofhyrule

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Why is always about Ball groups?
It will also be just as problematic on solo and dueling players.

One of the main things that people are putting this on Ball groups for is that Subclassing, as a whole, is really empowering group play much more than it is helping solo play.

Even the article said it:

"We know the Subclassing system will infuse power into the player community. For example, players can drop their tank and support skill lines for more damage-dealing abilities and passives,” notes Day. “However, there is a trade-off—by taking all damage skill lines, you are more reliant on your team for support healing, shielding, and protection."

(let's ignore the fact that 4 of the 7 Classes don't have strict "tank" and "support" and "damage-dealing" lines, since obviously the devs don't even realize that minor issue)

But this does mean that solo players will still need to self-source their heals and shields. Organized groups, however, can freely drop those lines and passives and take exclusively the high-damage lines and passives because they are able to depend on their groupmates.

This is definitely allowing organized groups to be miles better than solo players in every way, and seriously increasing the chasm between soloists and group play.

Artisian0001

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Why is always about Ball groups?
It will also be just as problematic on solo and dueling players.

It is extremely problematic for any size group, but it can be utilized best in ballgroups, and that's for obvious reasons. Groups of larger size have all the necessary buffs and skills they need already allocated on other players, this leaves multiple players in the group with the ability to put on corrosive and ignore damage. The massive problem with ballgroups right now is their ability to survive. Bad ballgroups will still die to things like siege, being outnumbered, getting outplayed, or whatever the case may be, but with corrosive this negates any damage they take with the amount of cross healing they receive, and also allows them to deal even more damage than they did before, at the same time. The great deal of lag on the servers is caused, not just by big groups, but mainly by huge drawn out fights where people don't die. This will only exacerbate that problem, and it's caused by a skill that is overloaded and should be fixed. Not only is it extremely bad from a balance perspective, it's bad from a performance perspective as well.

Teeba_Shei

Artisian0001 wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Why is always about Ball groups?
It will also be just as problematic on solo and dueling players.

It is extremely problematic for any size group, but it can be utilized best in ballgroups, and that's for obvious reasons. Groups of larger size have all the necessary buffs and skills they need already allocated on other players, this leaves multiple players in the group with the ability to put on corrosive and ignore damage. The massive problem with ballgroups right now is their ability to survive. Bad ballgroups will still die to things like siege, being outnumbered, getting outplayed, or whatever the case may be, but with corrosive this negates any damage they take with the amount of cross healing they receive, and also allows them to deal even more damage than they did before, at the same time. The great deal of lag on the servers is caused, not just by big groups, but mainly by huge drawn out fights where people don't die. This will only exacerbate that problem, and it's caused by a skill that is overloaded and should be fixed. Not only is it extremely bad from a balance perspective, it's bad from a performance perspective as well.

I agree with this. I think the offensive portion of it is unhealthy from a gameplay perspective, but the defensive portion is super problematic and unhealthy. Hoping to see some changes to this in the future.

xylena_lazarow

Ball groups of 12 organized already dominate entire 60+ disorganized faction stacks until the 12 get bored and leave. How would Corrosive change that? The strat already breaks large scale. Can't break what's already broken.

Urzigurumash

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

Artisian0001 wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Why is always about Ball groups?
It will also be just as problematic on solo and dueling players.

It is extremely problematic for any size group, but it can be utilized best in ballgroups, and that's for obvious reasons. Groups of larger size have all the necessary buffs and skills they need already allocated on other players, this leaves multiple players in the group with the ability to put on corrosive and ignore damage. The massive problem with ballgroups right now is their ability to survive. Bad ballgroups will still die to things like siege, being outnumbered, getting outplayed, or whatever the case may be, but with corrosive this negates any damage they take with the amount of cross healing they receive, and also allows them to deal even more damage than they did before, at the same time. The great deal of lag on the servers is caused, not just by big groups, but mainly by huge drawn out fights where people don't die. This will only exacerbate that problem, and it's caused by a skill that is overloaded and should be fixed. Not only is it extremely bad from a balance perspective, it's bad from a performance perspective as well.

I agree with this. I think the offensive portion of it is unhealthy from a gameplay perspective, but the defensive portion is super problematic and unhealthy. Hoping to see some changes to this in the future.

The defensive portion is not actually. It provides only a tiny amount of mitigation against most DoTs, and altogether no more survivability than Vamp Ult, Goliath, or Spell Wall, actually maybe less. Have you used all 4 of these extensively?

The 5 second and massively whiffable Onslaught doesn't really compare. (Even though the Devs nerfed Corrosive's Pen on DoTs to provide parity when they revised Onslaught iirc). As you said the only comparable thing offensively is Lamp Knight.

The Penetration is the busted part. With unprecedented instagibbing on the horizon, why should it remain?

Iriidius

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

Magma shell should be the defensive option and corrosive should be the offensive. Magma shell right now is basically corrosive without the penetration. The only change needed for magma shell is to make the range on the damage shield it gives to allies larger. Corrosive is just overtuned.

Magma armor not only gives a shield the size of your max health which is pretty big to nearby group members but also until todays update has ultiregen when for corrosive it is disabled for 1.5 years and 6 updates since update 40.
The range of dmg shield(8m it was in update 9, did not find newer source) matters only to already overperforming groups.
I think caster always gets shield anyway.
To make magma shell compete with corrosive it would be much better to not disable ultigen for it like corrosive. The ultigen actually made me swap corrosive for magma armor on penetration build.

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

And no, Magma Shell isn't the Defensive morph. It's the Group morph. Corrosive is the solo morph.

That's how it was back in the day, since StamDKs weren't welcome in groups anyway.

You continue to reframe and misinterpret everything I say. I never said that Magma Shell is currently labeled as the “defensive morph” — I was saying that it should be the defensive option. The problem is that Corrosive is providing both offense and defense, while Magma Shell feels like Corrosive without the penetration, which makes it objectively weaker in most scenarios.

Framing it as “group vs. solo” doesn’t address the imbalance I brought up. Corrosive gives full penetration and makes you incredibly tanky. Magma Shell, even as the so-called “group morph,” has a small-radius shield that isn’t impactful enough to justify picking it over Corrosive. That’s why I suggested a range increase to better define it as the defensive/group utility option, while Corrosive should remain the offensive option and lose the damage reduction.

The issue isn’t what the morphs are called—it’s how they function in practice.

Iriidius

Corrosive limiting incoming dmg to 3% of max health is a 97% dmg reduxtion only against real oneshots and no dmg reduction at all against ticks lower than 3% of max health like most dots or skills ticking multiple times.
If you get stunned at almost full health you can still be killed by a duellist before you can break free.
To optimally use dmg limit of 3% max hp DKs also dont stack more than 30k hp and especially not 50k like Warden making it easier to burst them during corrosive downtime which after disabling ult gen in corrosive should be long enaugh and DoTs are barely reduced by corrosive.

Iriidius

Kamp knight penetration also buffs DoTs and has 100% uptime which corrosive armor does not.
Lamp knight 46% dmg reduction is additive and can be compensated by using malacath(16%), essensse thief(10)%, major(10%) and minor(5%) berserk and some class passive likeEnergized(5%) to get back to 100% dmg but it is still too great of a sacrifice for anyone to use it other than to handicap himself.

Iriidius

Organized groups don’t use corrosive on DK (even when this corrosive DK could use all synergies with full penetration).
They can reduce Target resistance to 0 if they want if only one of them slots armor reduces like alkosh, crimson oath or tremorscale.
It they do not than it is because they dont need full penetration to kill.
They will not subclass to use corrosive on other classes (unless Zos buffs it so one player can give it to whole group).

The other morph magma armor is much better for organized groups giving them 12*12 max hp sized shields when 12 players cast it but still rarely used.

If ballgroups would (plan to)use corrosiv they would defend it heavily mobilizing every ballgroupmember in forum but they do not because they have no use for corrosive.

Iriidius

Other than corrosive the only often used skill in this skillline is fossilize which while one of the best stun will not get chosen over Streak so for subclassing I would rather swap out earthen heart than one of dk other skillines (ardent flame and draconic power) that have many good skills or swapping in earthen heart on other classes.

DK skillines are more dependent on each other and harmonizing than some other classes and bad for subclassing.

Animal companions + Assassin nation + restoring light seems to be popular subclassing combo.

Iriidius

Who needs corrosive when player can also get 20k penetration and 9k armorreduction using oakfather, Balorgh, sharpened maces/maul and major+minor breach which while giving penetration to dots and outside ult isn’t more investment than ulti gen sets trickery+bloodspawn and much less investment than lamp knight and when onslaugh or penetration allow you to still use burst ultimate.
DK dropped from meta after corrosive ultigen was disabled and is now worse class than sorc, nb and warden.
Many DKs do not even slot corrosive anymore and many others only because other backbar ultis are not that good either.

If corrosive is still considered too strong than it should be deleted completely because whatever remains will be a mock rather than a useful skill.