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.

[*] Was the system easy to use?

Yes, it felt seamless and straight-forward.

[*] What was the most challenging aspect of encounters?

Having to really watch for fast interrupt on some enemies, and ensure being built for survivability. Charging into and stacking multiple pulls of adds is dangerous as being pelted by multiple enemies very dramatically ramps up in damage taken. World Bosses require a tank.

[*] Did the risk feel appropriate for the reward?

The exp and gold looked noticeably improved but hard to really say as my pts character also had enlightenment. More gold in particular looted from slain enemies would definitely incentivize the higher difficulties.

[*] Did you enjoy the system overall?

I am of the opinion that this system is not ideal and would have prefered just plain veteran overland instancing as we had before at game launch. I easily forsee the frequent unintended griefing to occur when other players inevitably join in or "pass through" on easier difficulties. But for what it provides and does, it's better then trying to self-nerf myself on live. At least with this system I can immersively collect and utilize quest rewards and use transmutation system, enchants, and tempers to attempt to min-max these looted drops and 5pcs for a zone for survivability and sustain if needed and avoid the immense power creep. On live my only option is to remove all cp and never ever equip a 5pc bonus set.


[*] Any general feedback?

Currently the values are:

Seasoned: You will take 100% more damage from monsters and do 20% less damage.

Master: You will take 300% more damage from monsters and do 50% less damage.

Vestige: You will take 600% more damage from monsters and will deal 80% less damage.


My suggestions:

Seasoned: You will take 100% more damage from monsters and will deal 50% less damage.

Master: You will take 200% more damage from monsters and will deal 70% less damage.

Vestige: You will take 300% more damage from monsters and will deal 90% less damage.


This system absolutely needs tweaking. As it stands now, Master and Vestige difficulties feel too much like an FPS shooter. You either burn down the mobs or they burn you down. If we use the standard vet group dungeons as an example, a trash pack there can quickly kill a dps player, while a tank can indefinitely tank, but will take a while to whittle them all down if no dps skills are slotted. A middle ground should be approached for overland. Even at 80% reduced damage done, most of the mobs die exceptionally quick. While most World bosses can also be quickly burned. However alot of these enemies are also grossly over-tuned for having 600% damage recieved. World bosses should not be landing stronger light attacks on my tank then Trial Hard-mode 3rd floor Falgravn, while having less "health" then a HM dungeon boss that hits for substantially less light attacks on my tank. My dps friend with 25k buffed resists and self-healing would get very regular one-shot pelted by random adds in split seconds before I even had a chance to taunt as many of a selection of adds that I could.

For additional reference the primary sample size we used for all difficulty options was Lake Olo WB in West Weald. On Vestige difficulty we could get to the 1st split phase consistently, but we ultimately gave up on progging it. Every miniscule bit of random damage or untaunted add(and boy I had a LOT to taunt) would just insta-gib my dps friend through 25k resists and 25k health with all blue defense cp slotted. The boss itself was capable of one-shotting my tank with 55k+ light attacks against 34k armor, all defensive blue cp slottables and I was in Swarming Scion form when I finally let go of block to see how much damage it would do. I would have needed over 60k health to safely endure one unblocked light attack.

We toned it down to Master and were able to secure a 4 minute kill clear on it. My friend still died a few times, but this time it felt like he could react to adds and even the big ones weren't clipping his 25k health pool with a basic light attack. I still had to permanently never let go of block while the Boss was active in the arena, but I could survive its light attacks in Swarming Scion(they now were clocking for 40k, which without swarming scion this would clean one-shot me, I had 35k health base.) The damage we were taking felt appropriate for Vestige difficulty. But of course, this was on Master.

For additional sample reference, with our same duo composition we can duo Group dungeon HM Unhallowed Graves Kjalnar. Kjalnar on HM does less light attack damage on my tank, and theres plenty of reaction-able things that are capable of insta-gibbing my dps friend. This is a HM group dungeon. We secured Kjalnar kill on a no death clean pull at 11 minutes. Just the two of us.

Laka Olo on Seasoned difficulty was straight forward and pretty fun for duoing WB. The boss was landing 21k light attacks on my 34k resist and all defensive blue cp tank. My dps friend could handle untaunted adds reasonably. We secured a smooth 2 minute kill clear on it.

We then did Lake Olo on Adventurer for the full sample experience. 10k light attacks on my tank, I didn't really put much effort into taunting anything else. We secured a 1 minute clear on it.

On live(adventurer) I can solo Lake Olo with a 4 minute clear. I know of others that can solo it on live in 2 - 3 minutes. Just for some additional anecdotal referencing.

DoofusMax wrote: »

@ZOS_JasonBarnes raises a question. I've left my character parked in the staff puzzle because no progress can be made until the bug fix goes in. Will I need to abandon and reacquire that (starting over from the vault entrance, one supposes) or will I be able to pick up where I am, complete the puzzle, and keep going?

Because it's in an instance and instances spin down after a certain amount of time, at the very least you'll be kicked to the part where you enter that portion of it. So not the entire quest, but there will be a little bit of backtracking.

Let's check pain points that PvE NB-DD has on live and take a look, if class masteries address them:

Mediocre ST DPS - on week 1 of PTS NB is on the lower end of all ST-parses. The only class that parses (barely) lower is arc. And cro, if we're talking about a non-cheesy cro set-up.

Low cleave - no mastery gives you more cleave directly. Masteries boost your DPS overall, but from the previous point, we can see that it's not even a big boost, so your low cleave remains low.

Complex rotation, extremely dependent on proper weaving - nothing.

Bad sustain - in theory, ulti-gen passive improves the sustain cause you will use ult more often instead of regular skills. In practice, this mastery isn't that good DPS-wise. And "Share the Spoils" only gives sustain for your allies, not you.

Low group utility - ulti-gen passive can boost your group if you're in WM or Crypt jail. That already sounds pretty sad, but remember that Plar also has ultigen mastery. And a unique 300 WPD/SPD from new mastery. And synergy for Kosh from Ritual. Well, Share the Spoils also gives something to allies - sustain, that no one needs, and a low amount of ult - and it's bad DPS-wise.

So, NB masteries solve none of these issues. And, you know, NB is the only class that suffered directly from "damage to monsters" becoming additive with "damage done", since Shadowy Disguise got nerfed with this change. And Shadow is already either the least or second least popular skill line for DDs, which also got nerfed twice, since multiclassing came out.

Now masteries from the PvE healer PoV:

Nocturnal Inspiration - in theory decent utli-gen, but only in fights with multiple enemies, since your crit is low, and you can only proc it with Light Attack or Elemental Blockade. I'm not sure that multiclassing into Bone Tyrant in this case won't grant you more ulti. And the change scales from weapon critical, which is probably lower, since hybridisation is not complete, and you won't have Major Savagery in most cases.

An Eye for Exploitation - more HPS against low HP allies, but you already have enough HPS to outheal anything. So it's kinda useless.

Above and Beyond - even more HPS, but now it's random. And if you actually have some HPS check, you would rather not rely on critical healing. Also, can we make Hemorrhage and other crit passive give both Crit Damage AND Crit Healing, like this mastery and Fated Fortune, at least for consistency? It won't even be a big HPS boost.

Cutthroat's Focus - you should not be the one who's getting attacked by the boss. Useless.

Share the Spoils - transfer has a 4-second CD. Do you have a Siphoning skill you wanna cast every 4th GCD? No. The best option is Healthy Offering, since it procs Pearls of Elnofey. But it's a ST-heal, so it's useless in most cases. Can you do that? Yes. But it feels really miserable. And reward is a little bit more ulti for you, 4 allies and useless sustain for them.

Overall, NB class masteries need a major overhaul to become useful; without it, pure NB DDs and healers will be completely useless.