Snare and CC Immunity Buff Durations

Glory

There has been a lot of developer commentary about how micromanagement of buffs does not feel good on classes. I believe this should apply to snare and root immunity buffs as well.

2 seconds is far too short for immunity with the prevalence of snares and roots. I play classes that rely on snares and roots, and still believe that my enemy shouldn't have to be casting a snare removal skill every second global cooldown to be able to not be borderline stationary.

4 second immunity feels like a balanced duration for these skills, where you will have to still prioritize this buff at the cost of using other skills. However, you will not have to spam snare/root immunity. I propose that all snare/root immunities be increased to 4 seconds to be consistent and standard.

Please let me know what your thoughts are.

xaraan

I feel like the durations on some of these abilities keep getting shorter and shorter until they eventually feel not worthwhile to cast.

Two seconds is pretty much in that area. If you aren't using the skill for the long buff in a specific build, then slotting it for these shorter buffs isn't worthwhile at all imo. Even the 4 seconds I've gotten in the past from FM or Wings seems too short, when I saw 1 second (increasing to 2 as you rank up) I laughed. I'd have added a couple seconds to the others and left Race at 4 seconds myself. I think this game has become way too much about roots/snares/CCs than anything else when you get in combat.

And the bad thing is that any sort of CC just makes it easier to group up on someone, whether it's a 2v1 or 10v2 or whatever variation. You end up with the group that already has the advantage in numbers having even more advantages because of the way skills are built to not give you enough time to do anything but recast them. I guess I have magplar flashbacks b/c it often feels like in pvp my magplar is either offensive or defensive and can't often afford to be both at the same time (better now than it used to be) -- skills like this feel the same. Once you need to cast them (in any situations outside of a 1v1 maybe), they are so short, you need to recast them again, and again, and again just to accomplish whatever defense or movement you needed and you never get a chance to actually fight back.

usmcjdking

I'd prefer the durations be short (basically enough to break out of whatever snare and immobilization) whilst the total sources of both snares & immobilizations be greatly reduced in number.

Snares & immobilizations should be potent and should require quick and effective counterplay. They should, however, not be ignored entirely because people want to pick and choose when & where they fight. Ground snares should do little, if no damage (just enough to basically pop off cloak until cloak is removed from the game), whilst single target snares should have limited other functionality.

A good example of a single target snare is Stampede. A good example of an AOE snare is Ash Cloud.

Snares and immobilizations exist in PVP applications to force fights and make other options like kiting & running significantly more difficult and more than likely result in death.

Dottzgaming

100% agree with this. The old 8s on FM was insanely long, and 2 seconds is barely noticeable. 4 seconds is the sweet spot and should be the standard among the skills. If theyre worried about the "other effects being too good", lower the duration on those - like the minor force on RaT - instead of continuing to nerf movement.

DeadlyRecluse

usmcjdking wrote: »

I'd prefer the durations be short (basically enough to break out of whatever snare and immobilization) whilst the total sources of both snares & immobilizations be greatly reduced in number.

I agree with this (make snare removal rarer/worse, make snares rare), but if they aren't pulling snares off of spammable damage skills, I think Glory is on the right track. 4 seconds is worth casting in a fight, 2 seconds is really only worth casting if it helps you get around a corner or something.

NirnStorm

100% with you on this one Glory.

Having to cast the same skill over and over every second GCD just to be able to WALK seems ridiculous to me.
Considering how dominant snares and roots are in PvP environments, I feel like it makes no sense to bound your decent movement skills to such short periods of time.

While I do think the old 8s was too much, 2s is not worth casting in most scenarios, and so not even worth slotting in the first place. And a skill that isn't worth being slotted can't be offered as a solution to a major problem many players experience in the game - the constant root/slow.

I believe the 4s duration was just perfect to not be taking away from the power of CC while still being worth the slot and frequent casts.

HankTwo

My general problem with the new concept of RAT are two things:
1) It's a skill that is available to any class and weapon setup
2) It would be the only mobility buff in the game that gives both snare/immobilization immunity AND major expedition unconditionally (mistform prevents you from from performing any other actions while active and loses the immunity when block-cancelling)

Because of the above reasons I think 4s of immunity would have been too strong on RAT, since that would be mobility wise stronger than any other mobility buff in the game. 2s might be an acceptable compromise.

Glory

Disappointed to see so much conversation about Incap Changes, but the 100% duration nerf to the sorely needed Race against Time morph for magicka players is underdiscussed.

Many have pointed out that skills like Reflective Plate and Race against Time are very heavily loaded, which is why the duration is so short. Here are some suggestions to consider that I think would justify increasing the snare/root immunity duration to 4-6 seconds:

• Heavily/proportionally increase the cost. Scaling cost alongside the duration would make it equally expensive to cast (averaged over time), and would reduce buff management like Zenimax has wanted. It would also restrict the skill usage to either magicka (or a dedicated magicka dump for stamina users), which is a concern rising about heavy stam + RaT meta.
• Remove some of the strength of the secondary effects of Race against Time. It has been shown how snares are far more powerful than Major Expedition, so this change seems reasonable.

As it is, 2 seconds of immunity is encouraging painful buff management in order to move. If you're skilled enough to cast a skill every 1 second, this means that you be able to cast this skill, cast 1 more skill, then have to recast Race against Time (or be snared/rooted).

Glory

While there hasn't been much discussion of this change, I will say that the overwhelming opinion of the individuals I have talked to (in-game, discord, etc.) have been as follows:

• Players are excited when they hear Race against Time will be 4 seconds of snare/root immunity
• Players reconsider their build choices due to change (no mist form requirement, opening of heavy armor builds without Forward Momentum, etc.)
• Players are dismayed when they hear it has been changed to 2 seconds
• Players feel restricted again to the same meta (forward momentum, mist form)

DeadlyRecluse

Glory wrote: »

While there hasn't been much discussion of this change, I will say that the overwhelming opinion of the individuals I have talked to (in-game, discord, etc.) have been as follows:

• Players are excited when they hear Race against Time will be 4 seconds of snare/root immunity
• Players reconsider their build choices due to change (no mist form requirement, opening of heavy armor builds without Forward Momentum, etc.)
• Players are dismayed when they hear it has been changed to 2 seconds
• Players feel restricted again to the same meta (forward momentum, mist form)

This summary almost 100% reflects the conversations I've heard in various discords and guild chats. And my own thoughts.

Najarati

I can't speak for others, but the above follows exactly my train of thought. I was initially considering changing my build away from vampire (finally!) to pick up Race Against Time. RAT gets nerfed. Now, I'm no longer considering abandoning vampire (as much as I would love to do so) since having to cast something so frequently just to move around gets annoying real fast. At least Mist Form has a decent duration.

Insco851

Najarati wrote: »

I can't speak for others, but the above follows exactly my train of thought. I was initially considering changing my build away from vampire (finally!) to pick up Race Against Time. RAT gets nerfed. Now, I'm no longer considering abandoning vampire (as much as I would love to do so) since having to cast something so frequently just to move around gets annoying real fast. At least Mist Form has a decent duration.

4 sec rat would have been Bis on every class, every build, mag or Stam.

Not hard to understand. There’s other options to fit different classes and specs.

Magblade: Rat or even their own class skill.
Stamblade: class skill
DK: class skill or mist for tankiness
Stamplar: rat (crit synergy)
Magplar: mist on most builds.
Stamwarden: FM or Rat
Magwarden: Rat, mist for trolls. (Or netch spam
Necro- Rat, crit synergy.

Medium builds will still enjoy Shuffle for extra tankiness (non DW builds). Heavy builds will have FM. Damage breeds will want Rat. Squish toons might venture for Mist for burst damage mitigation.

Options. It’s good to have. Super obvious bis? Not so much.

Irylia

The lack of mobility is not fun. And when being chased down by a decent sized group 2-4 seconds is very restricting to mobility.
They spam snares and you'll constantly be having to up that gcd. Meanwhile you can't snare all of them so they steadily gain on you.
between gap closers/chain pulls they are forcing you to be mobbed.

Let one guy los a rock against 6 players freely. Their advantage is the numbers/sets/ultimates that they have over the sole individual.

Need 4 second base for all immunity and I still wish it was 6 to provide enough time to get through buffing/bar swapping while under attack.

Olupajmibanan

I was fighting for standardized duration of snare/immobilization immunity buffs. You know how it ended?

Instead of changing the duration of the buff on Protective Plate and Shuffle from 2 second to 4 seconds, they changed Race Against Time buff duration from 4 seconds to 2 seconds. Now we have 3 abilities to fight for, instead of 2.

Don't even bother bro. I have given up already.

Rianai

usmcjdking wrote: »

I'd prefer the durations be short (basically enough to break out of whatever snare and immobilization) whilst the total sources of both snares & immobilizations be greatly reduced in number.

Snares & immobilizations should be potent and should require quick and effective counterplay. They should, however, not be ignored entirely because people want to pick and choose when & where they fight. Ground snares should do little, if no damage (just enough to basically pop off cloak until cloak is removed from the game), whilst single target snares should have limited other functionality.

A good example of a single target snare is Stampede. A good example of an AOE snare is Ash Cloud.

Snares and immobilizations exist in PVP applications to force fights and make other options like kiting & running significantly more difficult and more than likely result in death.

The problem with this is that snares - no matter how weak they might be in a vacuum - become exponentially stronger against outnumbered targets without immunity, because they can be (and actually are) spammed, while the outnumbered target can usually not afford to spam immunity every second gcd.

"Forcing fights" is ok if the majority of fights were more or less fair, but as it is, that's not the case and running with zergs shouldn't guarantee free kills.

There used to be times when players could have 8s snare immunity on top of perma major expedition, and it wasn't considered a big issue until speed stacking with swift happened, which resulted in mobility getting gutted as a whole. And while 8s immunity might have been too much, 4s seem totally fine, even when paired with major expedition. Mobility would still be far worse than what it once was for some builds and RAT being superior to other skills is just a result of those skills being nerfed into the ground.

technohic

They should make one morph of acceleration mobility and remove the minor force and make it 4 seconds, and just make the other one instant, but provide the minor force buff for the longer duration

They then should buff shuffle to 1 sec per piece of medium armor.

FM would still be a choice for those who want major brutality and immunity and a HOT in 1 keybind spot.

Magblades/nb have a choice then on immunity with expedition vs immunity with evasion

Buff wings to 4 sec so they have a choice of speed plus immunity or range defense with immunity

At that point, I dont care which is used more. There is a choice and ability to use any one of them and magicka no longer will be on the short end of the stick.

Stx

One thing I want to bring to the discussion is that it seems a lot of players feel entitled to be able to move freely when fighting greatly outnumbered, whether it's to stay on a target or reposition...

I have to ask. What on earth makes you feel entitled to be able to escape or consistently move when you are one person fighting groups of players each with their own snares and roots?

Stop being entitled. Look at these abilities from a 1v1 perspective against snares. 4 second rat is extremely overpowered because no other ability comes with major expo and snare immune. Literally every build in the game would run 4 second rat, it's too good for mobility. If rat has 4 seconds immunity, then major expo needs to be dropped.

People seem to just hate it so much when they're snared but playing a melee without snares in any mmo is pretty much impossible and very frustrating. There needs to be a balance between snares and immunities, and 4 second rat would obliterate any semblance of balance. Well, I guess everyone would be using it so it would maybe create balance but behind a paywall and build diversity would take a hit.