Question: Did they remove the "exploiter" CP star?

Nyladreas · February 2021

I cannot get on PTS to see this for myself so I'm curious whether they removed it or introduced something else instead.

"The Exploiter perk from 75 points in The Ritual will increase your damage done against Off Balanced enemies."

The reason I'm asking is because I'm personaly sick of having to backbar a lightning staff on my tank (Might be unpopular opinion but I just hate it) and groups sadly demand it because it increases overall damage from off-balance while fighting multiple mobs/bosses. I just can't get myself to play my tank if I have to switch to a silly magic stick every couple seconds, not to mention it completely breaks my vision and theme of characters. If I'm a DK/Templar I want to see Flames not Lightning, if I'm a Warden I want to see Ice not Lightning etc. Probably the only one where I don't mind is Necromancer and even then I can't fully get behind it. Would much rather use Ice if i really had to.

relentless_turnip · February 2021

Yes it's gone. You can test the cp trees on UESP build editor to have an idea of how things sit for you. Most your stats come from being level 50 now.

JanTanhide · February 2021

I'm on the PTS atm in the CP Tree and I do not see anything even remotely related to what we have on live now for off balance.

I have looked through all three trees to be sure multiple times so hopefully I did not miss it.

Nyladreas · February 2021

relentless_turnip wrote: »

Yes it's gone. You can test the cp trees on UESP build editor to have an idea of how things sit for you. Most your stats come from being level 50 now.

Wonderful news for me then! Thank you!

JanTanhide wrote: »

I'm on the PTS atm in the CP Tree and I do not see anything even remotely related to what we have on live now for off balance.

I have looked through all three trees to be sure multiple times so hopefully I did not miss it.

Awesome! Thank you so much for the effort

Olupajmibanan · February 2021

The removal of Exploiter is highly questionable. What is the purpose of off-balance now? Passive damage increase from off-balance is gone, and the effect is really badly telegraphed to make use of double resources and double damage on HA. Seriously, how many of you noticed a boss, let's say Rakkat, during a fight going off-balance and threw a Heavy attack specifically for the purpose of making use of off-balance (without using addon for off-balance tracking, of course)?

Vevvev · February 2021

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

The removal of Exploiter is highly questionable. What is the purpose of off-balance now? Passive damage increase from off-balance is gone, and the effect is really badly telegraphed to make use of double resources and double damage on HA. Seriously, how many of you noticed a boss, let's say Rakkat, during a fight going off-balance and threw a Heavy attack specifically for the purpose of making use of off-balance (without using addon for off-balance tracking, of course)?

For procing magDK's Flame Lash? Honestly, if people stop using off balance effects my magDK is going to get less Power Lash procs which would hurt my DPS against bosses.

Juhasow · February 2021

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

The removal of Exploiter is highly questionable. What is the purpose of off-balance now? Passive damage increase from off-balance is gone, and the effect is really badly telegraphed to make use of double resources and double damage on HA. Seriously, how many of you noticed a boss, let's say Rakkat, during a fight going off-balance and threw a Heavy attack specifically for the purpose of making use of off-balance (without using addon for off-balance tracking, of course)?

Plus from me. Every time in longer fight with weak group support when I see my resources are starting to get low I am waiting for off balance to perform 2-3 heavy attacks and frankly off balance is very easy to notice without the use of any add on. You have ingame flytext telling that enemy is off balanced , animation circling around his head and very easy to recognize icon in buff tracker. Off balance is one of the easier things to notice tbh. With weaker groups heavy attacks on off balanced target are basically part of my rotation.

virtus753 · February 2021

Vevvev wrote: »

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

The removal of Exploiter is highly questionable. What is the purpose of off-balance now? Passive damage increase from off-balance is gone, and the effect is really badly telegraphed to make use of double resources and double damage on HA. Seriously, how many of you noticed a boss, let's say Rakkat, during a fight going off-balance and threw a Heavy attack specifically for the purpose of making use of off-balance (without using addon for off-balance tracking, of course)?

For procing magDK's Flame Lash? Honestly, if people stop using off balance effects my magDK is going to get less Power Lash procs which would hurt my DPS against bosses.

While there still may be a case use for Off-Balance, people generally won’t prioritize the effect anywhere near as highly as they did before when (outside of the extra resources from HAs, which not everyone uses) it now seems to boost only a single skill each of two individual subclasses (which may or may not even be in group). Before, the question was much more straightforward: do we want maximal uptime on an extra 10% damage group-wide? That is a very easy question to answer and build around. Now not so much.

robpr · February 2021

Off-balance will still be very important, but for tanks. Compared to live, blocking cost is higher while there is no extra resources from Tenacity.