Shattered Paths Signet mythic

At first glance, I really disliked the patch notes with the attempt to lock out Warden from using it because it was considered too effective. I've since heard that the Chill lockout will not take effect, but the permanent pet fix will remain. That's great to hear.

However, this brings up an important topic I think should be addressed. This mythic is poorly implemented by rewarding sitting on your ultimate indefinitely to get 100% of the inflated value which is only so high in the first place, because it's meant to be worked up to via harder ultimate generation and high ult spending.

Here is an example of changes that could match that design intent better, while being less problematic:

"Gain Chaos Initiate causing Light and Heavy Attacks to apply a random status effect, up to once every 4 seconds, and increases your damage done with status effects by +25%

When you cast an ultimate, gain Chaos Incarnate for 1 second per 10 ultimate spent, granting Light and Heavy Attacks to apply a random status effect, up to once every 1 second, and increases your damage done with status effects by +100%.

Only 1 of these effects can be active at a time. Applies Minor Timidity to you, consuming 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds while in combat."

1. Lowers ceiling, more balanced damage done modifier.
2. Raises floor with always active buffs, makes it fun 100% of the time.
3. Rewards high ultimate spending, bonus is multiplied by 4x for a set duration based on ult spent.

Something like this would be more interesting and fun to play with. Whether the modifier starts higher at 40%, but goes lower to 2x at 80% and a 2s cooldown, maybe 2s per 10 ultimate spent, etc, there's so many ways to go about this that avoids players never casting their ultimate again for a massive free damage amp. That isn't what mythics should be.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

The decision to nerf the most popular Crit Resistance sets without touching Crit Damage is a truly bizarre choice.

The playing field was already tilted wildly in favor of Crit Damage and you have now made the situation even worse. Which is the precise opposite of what most PvP folk have been asking for over the last many patch cycles.

Also, ZOS: where is the Crit Resistance Mundus? Why is Sturdy Horn still unusable and costing a crazily high 250 ult? Can we please un-nerf Impen as a trait? How about Major Enervation as a debuff? Please toss folk a bone to combat the Crit Damage inflation we have experienced over the last several years.

While I agree that they should look at crit damage and crit resist, a big factor in that is subclassing which will inevitably be toned down as class refreshes complete and less people stack the 10~12% from 3 lines. It's already happening with DK refresh since Ardent and Draconic don't have Crit Damage, but should inflate as pure classing becomes more and more popular. Hell I'd be happy if some classes move away from that bonus entirely, I'm not sure why they gave it to DK in the first place, aside from a last minute PVE buff, but here we are, 5/7 classes with crit damage.

Also, their "nerf" didn't do much really. Impreg was always a joke, 5pc static sets like that have been largely underwhelming for 10 years now. We don't use Hunding's Rage, Fortified Brass, etc for a reason.

Rallying Cry is arguably the most popular option, so let's use that as an example:

• 2 piece = 657 Critical Chance
• 3 piece = 1096 Magicka -> 424 Critical Resist
• 4 piece = 657 Critical Chance -> 129 W/S Damage
• 5 piece = 300 W/S Damage + 1650 Critical Resist -> 986 Critical Resist

986 + 424 = 1410
1650 - 1410 = 240
240 / 66 = 3.6%

Effectively you lose 1.1k Magicka which wasn't useful to roughly half the playerbase, and -3.6% crit resist going from +25% to +21.4%, practically nothing, and since RC still provides one of, if not the best 5pc back bar buff you can find, it's still a staple. Not to mention it gives it in aoe for a minor reduction in potency.

Also, should be mentioned that the -3.6% from RC is potentially offset by all the sets that just had +424 (6.4%) Crit Resist added in if you happened to use them too.

This whole thing is inconsequential to say the least, it doesn't read as a balancing pass we need to read into, it reads as "these sets had bonuses that didn't match their 5 piece, use case, or collection, so we adjusted them to make more sense."

If one day they decide that Crit Resist on their spread sheet should be 3x that of a Crit Chance line instead of roughly 2.2x, then all of these sets would be buffed at the same time which would address your feedback.

Also, why did Pyrebrand come in for looks like a titanic nerf for any DK not using that specific Class Mastery passive.

That... isn't how this works.

This sort of punitive thinking, where the set is completely dumpstered for anyone, a) not pureclassed and b) not pureclassed and using one specific class Mastery, was also not applied to any of the other class sets, most of which received global buffs for both pure- and impure builds alike.

Similarly to the Shattered Signet Mythic, this is a design dead-end that should be reverted and never done again.

Don't agree with the Tideborn and other %dmg sets nerfs. People who want easier sets with no proc conditions basically can't enjoy the game now. The sets weren't the highest dmg, they were at a great spot for more casual players. At least make them additive with each other, but multiplicative with other dmg bonuses. For example wearing Tideborn+Velothi won't be as good, but using just one will remain the same. These nerfs are an easy way to lose players and I hope they won't make it to live.

Monolith of Storms buff and additional spell damage make this one of the most stat dense sets available, so very exciting but the proc condition with lack of class spammable is what takes away from this set again. On static fights is very viable, but otherwise hard to run. Will need to wait for class rework for sorc to get a spammable and this set will be perhaps stronger than Sirorias or Harmony in Chaos. Without class spammable it is just situational.

Beacon of oblivion pvp buff from 5% to 7% is I guess welcome but not enough to swap.

We're toning down how strong this mythic can be in ultra niche cases by targeting the relative problem space; pet builds, and especially ones that utilize Feral Guardian.

So let me get this straight. This mythic item in a pet build shell(specifically Feral Guardian) produces much over 200k DPS in PVE (read any unethical amount in current meta)? Or is this due to vast majority of pet builds we have lately in PVP (I have seen how useless bear is in PVP and how fast it's demolished by any meta PVP build)? Games tend to make changes that allow variety in builds (basically like nerfing Lash skill), toning down ultra niche case seems... strange. Could we elaborate on this, maybe?

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Shattered Paths Signet mythic

At first glance, I really disliked the patch notes with the attempt to lock out Warden from using it because it was considered too effective. I've since heard that the Chill lockout will not take effect, but the permanent pet fix will remain. That's great to hear.

However, this brings up an important topic I think should be addressed. This mythic is poorly implemented by rewarding sitting on your ultimate indefinitely to get 100% of the inflated value which is only so high in the first place, because it's meant to be worked up to via harder ultimate generation and high ult spending.

Here is an example of changes that could match that design intent better, while being less problematic:

"Gain Chaos Initiate causing Light and Heavy Attacks to apply a random status effect, up to once every 4 seconds, and increases your damage done with status effects by +25%

When you cast an ultimate, gain Chaos Incarnate for 1 second per 10 ultimate spent, granting Light and Heavy Attacks to apply a random status effect, up to once every 1 second, and increases your damage done with status effects by +100%.

Only 1 of these effects can be active at a time. Applies Minor Timidity to you, consuming 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds while in combat."

1. Lowers ceiling, more balanced damage done modifier.
2. Raises floor with always active buffs, makes it fun 100% of the time.
3. Rewards high ultimate spending, bonus is multiplied by 4x for a set duration based on ult spent.

Something like this would be more interesting and fun to play with. Whether the modifier starts higher at 40%, but goes lower to 2x at 80% and a 2s cooldown, maybe 2s per 10 ultimate spent, etc, there's so many ways to go about this that avoids players never casting their ultimate again for a massive free damage amp. That isn't what mythics should be.

I would not agree on this.
You are incentivized to use ultimate in game, because:
1. Ultimate is the most powerful ability you have.
2. You can have synergies connected to using ultimate.
3. You have items designed to empower you when you use ultimate.
So from this point of view, it's a question of trading all of this for 170/85% damage bonus to Status Effects, which is not worth it if you are not heavily built into it at all (ie.: Dawnbreaker on cd will easily overperform this mythic).

On other hand, despite this, we have Strategic Reserve CP, which is rewarding for sitting on ultimate, so such playstyle is already an option (often used combined with Guardian). And don't forget about Temporal Guard, which is used for Minor Protection and Psjic Passives, and rarely actually activated.
So, I don't see why hoarding ultimate is not a possible playstyle option that some players would want to commit into and build around it, despite all the benefits that using ultimate actually gives. So adding items which will either give you an easy way to capitalize on such playstyle or not so easy way to manage your ultimate - is absolutely fine. We are talking about RPG game after all.

RedMamba wrote: »

Rallying cry nerf was not a enough to make a difference or stop it from being the back bar meta in Cyro. Take away the 300 weapon damage or bring it down to 150.

RC should work like wrathful strikes and only add s/wd to damaging abilities rather than boosting defense and damage and healing all at once.

1.Changing the way damage to monsters is not inherently problematic, but it raises questions about whether many sets should retain their current values. Because after the calculation change, many sets that "increase damage to monsters" will likely see a 5-10% decrease in damage. This significantly reduces the value of many sets; a 5-10% reduction is substantial, equivalent to sacrificing 1-2 CP points, such as Master-at-Arms and Deadly Aim.

I believe these sets that "increase damage to monsters" should be slightly adjusted simultaneously, providing a buff of approximately 3%-5% as a balance.

2.The buffs to Class sets this time are fantastic. I especially love the buffs to Wrathsun, Aerie's Cry, and Monolith of Storm. I think these enhancements will definitely give them a greater chance of appearing in high-difficulty games, such as HM trials.

I think the Salvation set should be touched

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

The change to Soulcleaver is very welcome and well placed. Putting some generic power on this hyperspecialized set was a good call, and I think I like it even better than the original concept now. It will have reasonable uptimes/counterplay and synergizes well with its skill line. Very happy to see this change and I hope it survives the PTS.
You certainly put the power in a nice niche and I am happy there is a silver lining for NB, as the class masteries are really not interesting for me at this point.

As a soucleaver nb for my primary build in pvp, I'm pretty good with the change. lose a bit of healing and efficiency on the set but not enough to really hurt, esp with the new masteries to counterbalance that lost healing; meanwhile +12% to everything and 15% to siphoning (so 27 total for siphoning damage skills) leaves the set stronger for dds by a mile.

is still underperforming compared to other damage-oriented class sets imo.

First of all, it works over a very mediocre skill line. Outside siphoning attacks the rest is rarely used, and then in top of that it has a negative effect with the ulti drain, just like siphoning has a negative effect by costing health. Why every other class get pure benefits and better sets over better skillines, and we get something mid, over a mediocre skill-line with a negative effect that drains your ultimate on top of it? it doesn't make any sense.

Just remove the ultimate draining mechanic from soulcleaver, at least until the class re-work makes the siphoning skill line better (the cost reduction part of the set is irrelevant because all the expensive and useful skills of nightblade are on the other skill lines). There is no reason for it to have a negative effect just becase of some lore-themed idea they got when the set was first introduced.

Add the ability to self-synergize the Nova and for the Nova to assume the morph that you have selected on your character and the set would be COOKING.

calamity192 wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Shattered Paths Signet mythic

At first glance, I really disliked the patch notes with the attempt to lock out Warden from using it because it was considered too effective. I've since heard that the Chill lockout will not take effect, but the permanent pet fix will remain. That's great to hear.

However, this brings up an important topic I think should be addressed. This mythic is poorly implemented by rewarding sitting on your ultimate indefinitely to get 100% of the inflated value which is only so high in the first place, because it's meant to be worked up to via harder ultimate generation and high ult spending.

Here is an example of changes that could match that design intent better, while being less problematic:

"Gain Chaos Initiate causing Light and Heavy Attacks to apply a random status effect, up to once every 4 seconds, and increases your damage done with status effects by +25%

When you cast an ultimate, gain Chaos Incarnate for 1 second per 10 ultimate spent, granting Light and Heavy Attacks to apply a random status effect, up to once every 1 second, and increases your damage done with status effects by +100%.

Only 1 of these effects can be active at a time. Applies Minor Timidity to you, consuming 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds while in combat."

1. Lowers ceiling, more balanced damage done modifier.
2. Raises floor with always active buffs, makes it fun 100% of the time.
3. Rewards high ultimate spending, bonus is multiplied by 4x for a set duration based on ult spent.

Something like this would be more interesting and fun to play with. Whether the modifier starts higher at 40%, but goes lower to 2x at 80% and a 2s cooldown, maybe 2s per 10 ultimate spent, etc, there's so many ways to go about this that avoids players never casting their ultimate again for a massive free damage amp. That isn't what mythics should be.

I would not agree on this.
You are incentivized to use ultimate in game, because:
1. Ultimate is the most powerful ability you have.
2. You can have synergies connected to using ultimate.
3. You have items designed to empower you when you use ultimate.
So from this point of view, it's a question of trading all of this for 170/85% damage bonus to Status Effects, which is not worth it if you are not heavily built into it at all (ie.: Dawnbreaker on cd will easily overperform this mythic).

On other hand, despite this, we have Strategic Reserve CP, which is rewarding for sitting on ultimate, so such playstyle is already an option (often used combined with Guardian). And don't forget about Temporal Guard, which is used for Minor Protection and Psjic Passives, and rarely actually activated.
So, I don't see why hoarding ultimate is not a possible playstyle option that some players would want to commit into and build around it, despite all the benefits that using ultimate actually gives. So adding items which will either give you an easy way to capitalize on such playstyle or not so easy way to manage your ultimate - is absolutely fine. We are talking about RPG game after all.

As I said, I don't believe the intent of the set was to ask the player to never cast their ultimate as you're illustrating. If that were the case, it would be better highlighted like the following sets:

• Oakensoul = disables back bar, but you get a multitude of core buffs to compensate for the loss of 6 abilities
• Snow Treaders = disables sprint, but you no longer get cc'ed
• Velothi = disables light/heavy attack damage eliminating the need for perfect weaving, but all damage is improved
• Rakkhat's Voidmantle = flips light/heavy attack effects to enable heavy attack as the better dps option

If the intent is for you to not cast your ultimate, disable it altogether like the other sets, double down on it being a playstyle choice. I may not understand why it should be a playstyle anyone would want considering it's not like an accessibility concern at a 30-100s cooldown in comparison to weaving or bar swapping, but hell, if that's how you want to play, go for it, like you said, it's an RPG so it doesn't hurt. The difference with the playstyle specific sets is they tend to raise the floor, but lower the ceiling, this doesn't really do that and is counter intuitive to the builds that should benefit from it the most.

Minor Timidity as a curse only lowers your ult gen from 3/s to 2.3/s which can be offset easily through Minor/Major Heroism or the 1 class passive everyone has. This hardly "disables" ult gen, it just makes it a little slower, but rewards the build up to your ult spent at 170+. If you go to any fountain to get 500 ultimate, you keep it indefinitely and the bonuses of the mythic are active 24/7. It hardly promotes a playstyle in which it's hard to keep up, you do nothing and get rewarded for it.

As the one and only status effect mythic in the game, which happens to have a 170 ult cost threshold, it conveniently lines up with every status effect based classes ult's. Warden's Northern Storm (200), DK's Standard of Might (225), Sorc's Storm Atronach (200, 170 w/ passive), and Arcanist's Unblinking Eye (175). To me, this alone explains the design intention because it's too oddly specific to warrant any other reasoning. The set reads like "hey, you like status effects, you have a high cost ultimate, we're going to make that harder to build up to, but reward you along the way."

Either way, the set can be improved to highlight either your vision of what it should be or mine, right now it's sitting in this really weird place.

You also mentioned how not casting your ultimate has numerous sacrifices, yet the one class where this set is being abused with Warden's Bear, doesn't sacrifice anything because the passive damage is the majority of the benefit and the bear provides no additional support. Even with the nerf this patch, not casting Bear is providing more DPS than casting mega buffed Northern Storm with this mythic. It makes no sense from your own argument and frankly the added negative for permanent pets they're going with for this set and Implosion is just ridiculous to me. They need to go back to the drawing board instead of adding unnecessary red tape. It speaks to a larger issue about the set and permanent pets in general I hope they address long term.

calamity192 wrote: »

On other hand, despite this, we have Strategic Reserve CP, which is rewarding for sitting on ultimate, so such playstyle is already an option (often used combined with Guardian). And don't forget about Temporal Guard, which is used for Minor Protection and Psjic Passives, and rarely actually activated.

The funny part is, these examples constantly get ragged on for being terrible designs and rightly so.

Strategic Reserve is a dumb concept full stop. It along with OG Mist Form is entirely responsible for gutting Health Recovery via battlespirit. The stat is effectively dead in todays meta despite being a staple for PVP for years before the problematic sources of it were introduced.

The only reason abilities like Camo Hunter, Inner Light, etc, provide buffs for slotting is because they tend to be used for very specific reasons instead of rotationally, not everyone uses stealth and only 1/7 classes has immediate access and incentive for it, so providing some type of benefit when it can't be used is more of a consolidation prize than for min/maxing like Signet and never casting your ultimate.

Temporal Guard is an interesting example, on paper the effect is crazy strong, but in practice it bugs out 30-50% of the time, so people stopped casting it unless they really had to. The other thing is, not every class has a good defensive, "oh ***" button ultimate, this is universal, so even if you removed Minor Protection, but fixed it, it would still be slotted, if not more than before. This is a great example of what is wrong and what shouldn't be further supported instead of an argument for why Signet should exist in its current form.

Again, if they want this mythic to be the "don't cast your ultimate" mythic, then double down on it. Otherwise, my feeling on the design remains, it's intended for status effect based classes with high cost ultimates, to which it currently actively works against, creating a conceptually bad gameplay design that rewards doing nothing too effectively. It would be like if Warmask gave +25% single target damage for 10 minutes, but -5% aoe damage, basically inconsequential. Instead, the way they designed that set hugely rewards single target dps with a decent timer and management, but heavily reduces cleave dps by -50%, it's a very clear playstyle decision with a justified kiss/curse.

The nerf to Velothi/tideborn/ansuul feels like it's going to be a big nerf to mid game players which is not exactly the direction the game should be taking. Their value previously was pretty close to where you would want them to be, not the best sets but good enough for every situation.

Edit: after some further rough testing I'm finding basically all my builds with velothi are down 10-15+% dmg with tide-born+other sets compared to the live game. The base class DK feels about 5% less dps even + class masteries with velothi. Feels like it's barely outperforming the loss you take from losing your light attack damage.

ManDraKE wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

ManDraKE wrote: »

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

The change to Soulcleaver is very welcome and well placed. Putting some generic power on this hyperspecialized set was a good call, and I think I like it even better than the original concept now. It will have reasonable uptimes/counterplay and synergizes well with its skill line. Very happy to see this change and I hope it survives the PTS.
You certainly put the power in a nice niche and I am happy there is a silver lining for NB, as the class masteries are really not interesting for me at this point.

As a soucleaver nb for my primary build in pvp, I'm pretty good with the change. lose a bit of healing and efficiency on the set but not enough to really hurt, esp with the new masteries to counterbalance that lost healing; meanwhile +12% to everything and 15% to siphoning (so 27 total for siphoning damage skills) leaves the set stronger for dds by a mile.

is still underperforming compared to other damage-oriented class sets imo.

First of all, it works over a very mediocre skill line. Outside siphoning attacks the rest is rarely used, and then in top of that it has a negative effect with the ulti drain, just like siphoning has a negative effect by costing health. Why every other class get pure benefits and better sets over better skillines, and we get something mid, over a mediocre skill-line with a negative effect that drains your ultimate on top of it? it doesn't make any sense.

Just remove the ultimate draining mechanic from soulcleaver, at least until the class re-work makes the siphoning skill line better (the cost reduction part of the set is irrelevant because all the expensive and useful skills of nightblade are on the other skill lines). There is no reason for it to have a negative effect just becase of some lore-themed idea they got when the set was first introduced.

Come on, a unnamed major berserk on demand with 100 % uptime is enough. Having to dip into a skill line with lower offensive potential is the very least I'd expect as a trade off. Not everything needs to be mindlessly broken. And don't talk down on that sustain too much, not all classes have free sustain...yet....

we are talking about set value, and the set is bad. What does incap has anything to do with it? Specially if you consider that when using soulclever you won't be using incap, at least on pvp, you should be using soul tether as ultimate, that's the whole point of the set because funnel health as spamable is gargabe. Making an argument for soulcleaver to be bad because incap is too god makes me wonder if you even read the tooltip of the set.

About "infinite sustain", i think you havent tried PTS where classes are getting infinite sustain WITH PASSIVE, or live for that matter, heart of flame is way superior to siphoning. Arguing that soulclever should be bad because nightblade is too god is absurd, nighthblade pure class is bottom of the barrel in pretty much every content.

Tell me why anyone should use soulclever instead of any other set? Soulclever is not even close to be broken, is garbage.

Who said anything about incap?
And that last line was clearly referring to the sustain buffs in U49 and U50 PTS. On live I still save an average 500 mag on each Siphoning ability cast, which is a good deal.
I also didn't claim it is broken, I said the change is good and there is no reason to become greedy and ask for more.

You got like 0 of the things that I said right.
Make a better effort man.