Roaring Opportunist Rebalance/rework

Iron_Blurr

Ok so before people get up in arms about changing Roaring Opportunist let me explain my thoughts..

It is clear to me that Zos did not want Roaring Opportunist to become a support set. Unfortunately the way his set has gone live ensures it will NEVER be anything other than a support set and here are some critical reasons why that is the case.

The fact that the buff provided by this set has a target cooldown rather than a proc/activation cooldown means that the most efficient usage of this set revolve around maximizing the duration of each activation of the set. The problem here is not the high damage limit but rather the fact that the ONLY way to extend the buff uptime beyond the built in 12 second maximum is through the usage of the set Jorvulds Guidance. (I am NOT suggesting that jorvulds guidance is the problem here or that nerfing the set will even fix the problem. Hypothetically even if jorvulds guidance was removed from the game, Roaring would STILL be a healer set because if a healer or a dps can both hit the same high damage value for maximum duration it will ALWAYS be better for a healer to use the set since the stats on the set itself do not help increase personal dps. Basically a dps will have an opportunity cost to consider if they run the set because that means they are sacrificing another set that could boost their dps more than RO. A healer can wear the set and achieve the max heavy attack value and not sacrifice any group damage potential. If anything removing jorvulds would simply make it easier for a healer to maintain maximum uptime on the set because they could run a set that boosts their damage way more than Jorvulds ever could. Sure deleting jorvulds would reduce the max uptime potential but it would NOT solve the main problem of having RO become a mandatory healer set and borderline useless on a damage dealer.)
Because the most efficient usage of the set currently requires the usage of jorvulds guidance, the set is basically destined to become only a support set.
My proposed fix to this situation is not a nerf to the set or to nerf Jorvulds but rather a rework of the proc duration and cooldown.

What I suggest is that the set is changed to provide major slayer to all group members for a maximum duration of 5-6 seconds per activation but that the set NOT have a target based cooldown. This would change a few things.. Suddenly jorvulds guidance is not really worth running since a 40% extension on a buff that lasts 5-6 seconds is much less than the current benefits jorvulds provides to the 12 seconds duration. A 40% extension on a 5 second duration only amounts to a 2 second increase which is a value so low it is borderline worthless. This change would also allow groups a few options for building a group with maximum uptime in mind.

Option 1 is to have a few group members run the set so they could rotate the heavy attacking ensuring that each participating dps can put 1 heavy attack into their rotation and still manage to keep maximum uptime on the group.
Option 2 allows for a single dps to dedicate their build to maintaining the maximum uptime for the entire group. This must be done by landing a high damage heavy attack every 5 seconds. This would allow for a dps to build a rotation centered around heavy attacking every 5-6 seconds. That dps could have a rotation centered around dropping 3-4 DoTs and then preparing for their high damage heavy attack.

These changes would allow for a the major slayer uptime to be based on how good the dps using the set is at hitting those high value heavy attacks consistently. This would theoretically allow for a good dps to keep 100% uptime on the major slayer buff for the group. Significant sacrifices to that damage dealers personal dps would have to be made since they would spend quite a bit of time focused on maintaining the buff rather than light attacking or casting spammables.

These are the positive effects of implementing a change similar to what I have described:
1. This would allow for a high skill ceiling regarding usage of the set.
2. This would allow a more casual user to still contribute to the groups performance even if they dont manage to hit the maximum duration damage requirement.
3. This would allow extremely high group flexibility when determining who runs the set and how many players have to run it. Maybe your group wants 3 dps to run it, maybe another group wants a single dps to run it, or maybe your group wants a single dps and a healer to run it. Options make everything better.
4. This would allow for players who are potentially unable to achieve the high light attack weaving ratios to have a set place in groups. If you are unable to light attack weave effectively due to latency or physically limiting factors you can still participate in end game activities and have a large impact on your groups effectiveness.
5. This would allow for healers to have more flexibility regarding sets they have to run for the group and would allow them to focus more on healing(if they choose) while still leaving the door open to them running the set to help keep maximum uptime on the major slayer buff for the group.
6. This change would effectively remove the present incentive forcing this set to be run on a healer with jorvulds guidance for maximum efficiency. This would manage to remove those incentives WITHOUT nerfing the sets effectiveness in groups.

In short a change like this is a WIn-win for everyone involved. Zos achieves their vision of Roaring Opportunist being a damage dealer set. Healers are not pidgeonholed into running this set and have more build flexibility. Total group damage potential will go up by approximately 3.4% but only if 100% uptime is maintained and that is now actually possible with a highly organized group. Players who are unable to effectively maintain a high light attack ratio now have an important role they can perform in end game groups and will have a high positive impact on a groups overall performance. This change also manages to bring many more options to the table regarding who, when and how the major slayer buff is maintained in groups. This change has no effect on pvp balance.
And lastly this change would have a positive effect by limiting the power creep present in this sets current live version by providing a strong incentive for a damage dealer to wear the set and keep 100% uptime while taking a personal loss in dps for the good of the group. The personal loss in dps is offset by the potential net gain to rest of the group by maintaining the buff. This also provides a disincentive for healers to run the set since it will be very difficult for a healer to consistently hit high heavy attacks every 5-6 seconds since they have other duties to attend to such as maintaining combat prayer, HoTs, buffs, debuffs etc.

Please let me know if this is a change you would agree with or if I overlooked something. Alternative ideas to solving the issues present in the sets live version are also appreciated.

WrathOfInnos

Yes, there are several things wrong with this set.

1.Only one DPS can use it. Could easily be solved by making the cooldown per user instead of per recipient. As you mentioned this also fixes the mandatory Jorvulds pairing since there’s an alternate way to increase uptimes.

2. It’s a Heavy Attack set that requires an Inferno Staff and is not good with a Lightning Staff (could easily be fixed by removing the scaling, or having not apply to the sum of all ticks). It’s also not good on a build that actually uses heavy attacks in a rotation, since the timing has to be aligned with other buffs and debuffs to maximize uptimes. Who is this even intended for?

3. The 2 piece bonus is Spell Pen, which is the weakest set bonus on all Magicka DPS builds (about a 1% DPS boost by shifting points out of Spell Erosion). I could almost see this as a 4pc bonus so that it is lost on back bar and fits well with the Perfected Maelstrom Inferno 1pc Spell Pen (still wouldn’t like it because I don’t think a back bar weapon should have a Spell Pen bonus), but even that is not the case since the 2pc Spell Pen is still active on the vMA bar and just means wasted stats (especially if used on a Necromancer with their passive 1500 Spell Pen). This 2pc bonus should just be Spell Crit.

4. The heavy attack damage requirement is arbitrary, unintuitive and does not make this into a DPS set. In fact, a support/healer has a much easier time building around the ridiculous hoops to approach this 96k tick for max uptime (Molag Kena, Molten Armaments, tracking off-balance, stacking CPs in Staff Expert, coordinating with Major Vuln, etc.). I did not like the 6.0.0 version much, but it was much better than what went live. The way to get a DPS to run something is by making it fun and powerful, not by an arbitrary number requirement attempting to prevent non-DPS from running it.

For the record, I like the way Engulfing Flames was handled recently, with scaling in magnitude so that it encourages a DPS to run the buff over a tank. However, basing a buff on stats makes much more sense on a skill than a set. It’s also much more achievable to separate tanks vs DPS since they wear different armor types and build different stats. You could never prevent a healer from hitting the 10% Engulfing cap because they are wearing and building the same as a Magicka DPS (Light Armor, Spell Damage, Max Magicka, etc.).

RO should be handled the same way as Engulfing, make it a fluid part of the user’s rotation and not a chore, and then plenty of DPS would gladly use it and it won’t get pushed onto healers. Sure a healer could use it if they wanted (because they have access to everything a magicka DPS does), but there’s no reason they must.