Improving the Master Architect and War Machine 5-piece bonus

dpencil1

Currently, the 5-piece bonus for the Master Architect and War Machine gear from Halls of Fabrication applies Major Slayer for 10 seconds to yourself and 2 nearby allies when you use an ultimate. The current functionality of this bonus has two significant draw-backs:
1. It applies to the two nearest players, regardless of if they already have the Major Slayer buff active or not.
2. It strongly favors use of low-cost ultimate skills, disincentivizing more potent ultimates like the destro ult or warhorn.

So the suggested improvements would be:
1. Make the game do a check to see if a nearby player already has Major Slayer active, and if so, apply the buff to the next nearest player.
2. Change the nature of the buff duration from a flat 10 seconds to a duration that scales with ultimate cost. Say, every 1 ultimate spent gains 0.1 seconds of Major Slayer uptime. So a 100 point ultimate would grant 10 seconds and a 250 point ult would grant 25 seconds, etc.

I suppose similar changes could be made to the other non-dps sets from HoF, but they are not the primary concern of this thread.

Do you think these suggested changes would be a good thing, or should the sets remain as is? Vote and comment to let ZOS know if this should be something they address.

paulsimonps

Yes. These or similar changes should be made to the HoF 5-piece bonus.

Maybe not that powerful of a scale on the timer but I do like the sound of those ideas, especially the first one. And though its not as widely used, if changes would be made to these sets it should be made to the Major Aegis sets as well.

dpencil1

Yes. These or similar changes should be made to the HoF 5-piece bonus.

Thanks for chiming in @paulsimonps
I agree it would make sense for all of them to have identical mechanics, and if ZOS does decide to make a change, I imagine they would do that.

As far as the scaling goes, if 1 = .1 sec would be too much, they could find a sweet spot for it. How long does it take to normally generate 200 ultimate? If you figure they want people to have about a 30% uptime, so that they are relying on receiving the buff from their partners in a kind of 3-man rotation, then you'd just need to balance the duration with the expected ulti gen rate to get that result.

dpencil1

Yes. These or similar changes should be made to the HoF 5-piece bonus.

By the way, the first point is drawn from the video @Alcast made recently about these sets. I agree with him and would like to see more attention brought to these issues, so these sets can really be as valuable as they deserve to be.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Please let us know if/when these issues can be looked at and addressed.

dpencil1

Yes. These or similar changes should be made to the HoF 5-piece bonus.

Heh. Maybe everyone who cares about trials sets already have Moondancer, etc.

Draqone

I don't agree with scaling he bonus to ulimate cost. Warhorn and desro ulti are already MUCH too strong in trial scenarios, to the point they can be the only ultimates used.

That said, the check that would share the Slayer buff better with your group is needed.

dpencil1

Yes. These or similar changes should be made to the HoF 5-piece bonus.

Well, let's put the benefit a bit more into perspective. I was testing the set on a Sorc using Soul Assault, since it's the lowest costing Ult a Sorc has access to. We can also compare that to the Destro Ult and Shooting Star both with the Master Archetect as is and with my suggested change. So lets do some math!

Let's take a 30k parse without Major Slayer as our baseline. The potency of the buff will increase with your base dps.

Soul Assault costs 85 ult on a Sorc.
Ult is gained at the rate of 3 per second.
85 ÷ 3 = 28.33 seconds
(You would add 4.2 seconds because of the channel time, to get 32.5 seconds. This hurts our buff uptime, but since a channel time is unique to this Ult, we'll also consider it as if it didn't have a channel time for a better comparison between different Ults.)

Here's the other Ults to compare against:
Destro Ult: 213. 213 ÷ 3 = 71 seconds
Shooting Star: 170 - 9 (for hitting 1 target) = 161. 161 ÷ 3 = 53.66 seconds

First, we'll start with a 75 point Ult (like Warden Bear) as several classes have access to this and is currently the most cost effective way to use the set. Then examine the Sorc. And finally look at a 250 point Ult without cost reduction, like Warhorn.

1. Warden Bear, set AS-IS
10 second buff every 25 (75 ÷ 3) seconds.
10 ÷ 25 = 40%
30,000 × 0.40 = 12,000 × 1.15 = 13,800 - 12,000 = 1,800 extra dps from Major Slayer

2. Warden Bear, set CHANGED
7.5 (cost ÷ 10) second buff every 25 seconds.
7.5 ÷ 25 = 30%
30,000 × 0.30 = 9000 × 1.15 = 10,350 - 9,000 = 1,350 extra dps from Major Slayer

1. Soul Assault, DISREGAEDING channel, set AS-IS
10 second buff every 28.33 seconds.
10 ÷ 28.33 = 35%
30,000 × 0.35 = 10,500 × 1.15 = 12,075 - 10,500 = 1,575 extra dps from Major Slayer

2. Soul Assault, INCLUDING channel, set AS-IS
10 second buff every 32.5 seconds.
10 ÷ 32.5 = 30%
30,000 × 0.30 = 9,000 × 1.15 = 10,350 - 9,000 = 1,350 extra dps from Major Slayer

3. Soul Assault, DISREGARDING channel, set CHANGED
8.5 (cost ÷ 10) second buff every 28.33 seconds.
8.5 ÷ 28.33 = 30%
30,000 × 0.30 = 9000 × 1.15 = 10,350 - 9,000 = 1,350 extra dps from Major Slayer

4. Soul Assault, INCLUDING channel, set CHANGED
8.5 (cost ÷ 10) second buff every 32.5 seconds.
8.5 ÷ 32.5 = 26%
30,000 × 0.26 = 7,800 × 1.15 = 8,970 - 7,800 = 1,170 extra dps from Major Slayer

5. Destro Ult, set AS-IS
10 second buff every 71 seconds.
10 ÷ 71 = 14%
30,000 × 0.14 = 4,200 × 1.15 = 4,830 - 4,200 = 630 extra dps from Major Slayer

6. Destro Ult, set CHANGED
21.3 (cost ÷ 10) second buff every 71 seconds.
21.3 ÷ 71 = 30%
30,000 × 0.30 = 9,000 × 1.15 = 10,350 - 9,000 = 1,350 extra dps from Major Slayer

7. Shooting Star, set AS-IS
10 second buff every 53.66 (161 ÷ 3) seconds.
10 ÷ 53.66 = 18%
30,000 × 0.18 = 5,400 × 1.15 = 6,210 - 5,400 = 810 extra dps from Major Slayer

8. Shooting Star, set CHANGED
16.1 (cost ÷ 10) second buff every 53.66 seconds.
16.1 ÷ 53.66 = 30%
30,000 × 0.30 = 9,000 × 1.15 = 10,350 - 9,000 = 1,350 extra dps from Major Slayer

9. Warhorn, set AS-IS
10 second buff every 83.33 (250 ÷ 3) seconds.
10 ÷ 83.33 = 12%
30,000 × 0.12 = 3,600 × 1.15 = 4,140 - 3,600 = 540 extra dps from Major Slayer

10. Warhorn, set CHANGED
25 (cost ÷ 10) second buff every 83.33 seconds.
25 ÷ 83.33 = 30%
30,000 × 0.30 = 9,000 × 1.15 = 10,350 - 9,000 = 1,350 extra dps from Major Slayer

RESULTS:
- With the proposed change, uptime is equalized between all Ults. No matter how much it costs, it will be up 30% of the time (assuming no extra forms of Ult generation are used). This would bring the lowest costing Ultimates down from their 40% uptime but also raise high cost Ults which would otherwise have a prohibitively low uptime.

- With the set as-is, Soul Assault is the only option even worth considering on a mSorc, and while 30% uptime including the channel is decent, the facts that it is single target and prevents the player from performing any other action for 4 seconds make it too restrictive to use effectively. This leaves the mSorc without any good options for utilizing Master Architect's 5-piece bonus.

- The 5-piece bonus is entirely dependant on base dps perfomance. A 20k parse would only grant 900 extra dps with a 30% uptime, while a 40k parse would grant 1,800 extra dps with a 30% uptime.

- Forms of Ult cost reduction and increased Ult generation will dramatically increase the uptime of this set bonus in either the as-is or changed version.

Just as a further point of info, the 2-piece bonus for Grothdarr usually adds about 1400-1600 dps. So Master Architect granting a 30% uptime for a 35k dps would grant 1575 dps. Very similar to Grothdarr.

Of couse, if you could coordinate with other players to get a 100% uptime on a base 35k parse, you'd gain a whopping 5,250 dps!

R0C95

No. Leave it as is.

I voted and didn't necessarily read other comments on here.

I think the sets are fine as is. Actually for reason #2 That you put up. This creates trial gear build diversity. For instance, if I have a higher cost ult I would benefit more from using vo, infal, moon, or alkosh. Likewise my ult does more damage/aoe damage than a low cost ult so there's the trade. These new sets that you are asking to change are giving us a great option in build diversity.

Iron_Blurr

No. Leave it as is.

Uh increasing the duration of major slayer would be very op when you take into account that means 2 people could stagger their ults and continually buff each other. These sets were intended to indirectly buff cheap spammed ults without making them op in pvp or trials. If the duration scaled with ult cost there would be no reason at all to use cheap ultimates and bam we would be back in the same old boring destro ult only meta. Now do you really want that? I think the sets are good as is because they offer you some pros and cons which you have to decide on. A painfully obvious choice, with one option being superior to the other in every way, isn't really a choice at all..

HJSmith24

Yes. These or similar changes should be made to the HoF 5-piece bonus.

Yes and no:

Point 1 - Completely agree with, its senseless that the game allows you to re-buff someone who already has it when it could be given to someone else, though maybe let them get it again if they only have 2/3 second left of the buff.

Point 1 - Don't agree with this one, the majority of classes use big ultimates such as destro ult / standard / ballista as they generally result in more damage, this bonus makes low cost ulti's more viable and gives some identity to certain classes (templar and NB). for that reason, I like it as a flat 10 seconds.

scaling it in the way you mentioned would probably result in tanks and healers running it to use with horns, funneling damage dealers back to other sets and big ultimates