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https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8235739/
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8235739/
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Templar Burning Light in AoE
WrathOfInnos
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I’m sure most Templars have noticed that since Burning Light was changed from a 25% proc chance to building 4 “stacks” for a proc the Burning Light damage on multiple targets has been very low. This is strange because on average 4 ticks should give equal procs to 25% chance per tick, so I did some testing to figure out what was going wrong.
The way Burning Light works now is that it builds up stacks on your character with each tick of an Aedric Spear ability, and once you hit 4 stacks the Burning Light proc hits whatever enemy was targeted by that 4th tick. If there are multiple enemies within Jabs/Sweeps it will proc on the one closest to the caster, and for Blazing Spear it will proc on the one closest to the center. To be clear, no stack buildup is being tracked on each enemy, you can hit one enemy 3 times with Aedric abilities, then another enemy once and Burning Light will proc on the 2nd enemy.
So why is this bad for AoE procs? It turns out that there is a hidden cooldown on building stacks. So if you hit 6 enemies with a Blazing Spear it only gives 1 stack toward the next Burning Light. One cast of Blazing (11 ticks) on 6 enemies (so 66 ticks total) with the old system would’ve averaged 5 Burning Light procs spread randomly across them, but with the new system it only results in 2 Burning Light ticks, always on the one enemy closest to the center. I don’t know exactly what this cooldown on stack building is, but it’s more than 0 and less than 0.2s.
How do we fix this? I understand that the old RNG system was not ideal, and changing the Burning Light stacks to track on each individual enemy (similar to Stone Giant Stagger debuff stacks) could be a lot of additional calculations. I believe the simplest answer would be to make Burning Light deal AoE damage when it procs. It could still be centered on a single enemy, but would just splash all other enemies within 5 or 6m (like Shock Clench, or a Pulsar sized AoE at an enemy location). This would have no effect on single target DPS, but would allow AoE damage more similar to the old version of BL. I don’t think the splash radius should be the full 8m of Blazing Spear, since this could be too powerful when using Jabs/Sweep. Instead the smaller radius would create an interesting effect where enemies near the center of Blazing take both Burning Light and Blazing ticks, while those near the edge take only Blazing ticks without BL procs.
Edited by WrathOfInnos on February 11, 2021 4:41PM The way Burning Light works now is that it builds up stacks on your character with each tick of an Aedric Spear ability, and once you hit 4 stacks the Burning Light proc hits whatever enemy was targeted by that 4th tick. If there are multiple enemies within Jabs/Sweeps it will proc on the one closest to the caster, and for Blazing Spear it will proc on the one closest to the center. To be clear, no stack buildup is being tracked on each enemy, you can hit one enemy 3 times with Aedric abilities, then another enemy once and Burning Light will proc on the 2nd enemy.
So why is this bad for AoE procs? It turns out that there is a hidden cooldown on building stacks. So if you hit 6 enemies with a Blazing Spear it only gives 1 stack toward the next Burning Light. One cast of Blazing (11 ticks) on 6 enemies (so 66 ticks total) with the old system would’ve averaged 5 Burning Light procs spread randomly across them, but with the new system it only results in 2 Burning Light ticks, always on the one enemy closest to the center. I don’t know exactly what this cooldown on stack building is, but it’s more than 0 and less than 0.2s.
How do we fix this? I understand that the old RNG system was not ideal, and changing the Burning Light stacks to track on each individual enemy (similar to Stone Giant Stagger debuff stacks) could be a lot of additional calculations. I believe the simplest answer would be to make Burning Light deal AoE damage when it procs. It could still be centered on a single enemy, but would just splash all other enemies within 5 or 6m (like Shock Clench, or a Pulsar sized AoE at an enemy location). This would have no effect on single target DPS, but would allow AoE damage more similar to the old version of BL. I don’t think the splash radius should be the full 8m of Blazing Spear, since this could be too powerful when using Jabs/Sweep. Instead the smaller radius would create an interesting effect where enemies near the center of Blazing take both Burning Light and Blazing ticks, while those near the edge take only Blazing ticks without BL procs.
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Joy_Division✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭WrathOfInnos wrote: »I’m sure most Templars have noticed that since Burning Light was changed from a 25% proc chance to building 4 “stacks” for a proc the Burning Light damage on multiple targets has been very low. This is strange because on average 4 ticks should give equal procs to 25% chance per tick, so I did some testing to figure out what was going wrong.
The way Burning Light works now is that it builds up stacks on your character with each tick of an Aedric Spear ability, and once you hit 4 stacks the Burning Light proc hits whatever enemy was targeted by that 4th tick. If there are multiple enemies within Jabs/Sweeps it will proc on the one closest to the caster, and for Blazing Spear it will proc on the one closest to the center. To be clear, no stack buildup is being tracked on each enemy, you can hit one enemy 3 times with Aedric abilities, then another enemy once and Burning Light will proc on the 2nd enemy.
So why is this bad for AoE procs? It turns out that there is a hidden cooldown on building stacks. So if you hit 6 enemies with a Blazing Spear it only gives 1 stack toward the next Burning Light. One cast of Blazing (11 ticks) on 6 enemies (so 66 ticks total) with the old system would’ve averaged 5 Burning Light procs spread randomly across them, but with the new system it only results in 2 Burning Light ticks, always on the one enemy closest to the center. I don’t know exactly what this cooldown on stack building is, but it’s more than 0 and less than 0.2s.
How do we fix this? I understand that the old RNG system was not ideal, and changing the Burning Light stacks to track on each individual enemy (similar to Stone Giant Stagger debuff stacks) could be a lot of additional calculations. I believe the simplest answer would be to make Burning Light deal AoE damage when it procs. It could still be centered on a single enemy, but would just splash all other enemies within 5 or 6m (like Shock Clench, or a Pulsar sized AoE at an enemy location). This would have no effect on single target DPS, but would allow AoE damage more similar to the old version of BL. I don’t think the splash radius should be the full 8m of Blazing Spear, since this could be too powerful when using Jabs/Sweep. Instead the smaller radius would create an interesting effect where enemies near the center of Blazing take both Burning Light and Blazing ticks, while those near the edge take only Blazing ticks without BL procs.
Overcomplicated and unsatisfying attempt to remedy something that was not broken in the first place. It's not removing the randomness of the mechanic, it's still a AoE DPS loss from the original mechanic, and it still means the Templar can lose the procs they do build during a dynamic fight in which the target either moves/avoids/disrupts a Templars rotation or the Templar has to temporarily go on the defensive.
There was nothing wrong with the old mechanic, which the devs put in as an intentional means of putting a little randomness on how Templars got to the desired DPS (that is, they lowered the base damage of Aedric skills, intending the over time the procs would mathematically average to the target DPS). It's a very common mechanic in fantasy games.
If we are no longer fans of having any RNG aspect, that's fine, up the damage of the Aedric skills and remove the entire pretense of Burning Light and give something else that the Templar class will actually find useful.
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GreenHere✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭"So what you guys are saying is... Templars are too powerful, and we need to reign them in asap? Read ya loud and clear!"
~ ZOS, probably
Why do you hate us Templars, ZOS?
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