I think Oakensoul is finally in a good stable spot. I'm happy with that.

It's hard to judge the changes when they come out in such a piecemeal fashion. All the changes work together, so you can't understand the impact of just a subset of the overall patch.

This is the right way to debug things, making one (or just a few) changes at a time. It's awful for evaluating balance issues, though.

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

I was analyzing that. Empower can be useless on many builds as they don’t heavy attack. Aegis is virtually useless for dps builds (you are either one shot or not, 5% doesn’t save this). Lastly, Slayer is found on many trial sets which are easy to obtain in normal. While having slayer on a non trial set build is nice to have, most of the trial sets are some of the more potent sets to have. Therefore, it is a complete loss whether or not you are wearing a trial set.

The set gives you a dozen buffs. Just because X or Y buff is not useful for a particular build or scenario doesn't mean the set is bad or worthless.

Aren't people always going on and on about build diversity? Well, now you have a set that allows you to not use the same trial sets every other person runs, and instead be more creative.

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

Still don’t see the vision,

Other than balance changes among classes (which is a different argument to whether they are good or not) - all of these changes are the same as the LA/HA changes two years ago they tried - the vision is to make Heavy Attack builds a thing by bringing down power everywhere else. Nerfing them too much caused too much blow back this time and two years ago, this is the last form of the vision I guess. Balancing HAs to be useful at base in builds and then allowing them to be almost doubled in power by empower (that doesn't effect LAs or PvP HA power).

They want 'hold the button down and avoid dynamic combat' builds to be a thing as much as possible. That's why there were dot/hot changes and that's why you are seeing, out of all the back and forth changes this PTS cycle, HAs (for PvE) are coming out so well. That's also why a HA buff is being added to oakensoul, because that ring is kind of targeted as the 'make the game easier' ring.

It was never about just bringing down the ceiling, that's why their dev comments didn't hold up under scrutiny; it was about LAs in general and nerfing all the aspects of dynamic combat. (rotations, LA weaving, etc) They want to find the balance that lets the retain enough players while pushing this HA playstyle.

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

Lord_Nikon wrote: »

I think Oakensoul is finally in a good stable spot. I'm happy with that.

I was analyzing that:

Empower can be useless on many builds as they don’t heavy attack.

Aegis is virtually useless for dps builds (you are either one shot or not, 5% doesn’t save this).

Slayer is found on many trial sets which are easy to obtain in normal. While having slayer on a non trial set build is nice to have, most of the trial sets are some of the more potent sets to have. Therefore, it is a complete loss whether or not you are wearing a trial set.

All are null and avoid, except for a heavy build only.

Adding slayer allows use of non trial sets.

Which, is kind of the point of accessibility right? If the players who need Oakensoul to compete are already able to obtain the trail sets with slayer on them, would they actually need Oakensoul?

This is for the players who can't get those sets, for whatever reason.

As to Empower. I mean, many players who complain about accessibility utilize heavy attack builds, because, those builds are more accessible. This ring enabling those builds even further very accurately hits its intended target.

Not to mention, even without those 3 newly added things, the ring is still really strong even after the initial PTS nerf.

jaws343 wrote: »

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

Lord_Nikon wrote: »

I think Oakensoul is finally in a good stable spot. I'm happy with that.

I was analyzing that:

Empower can be useless on many builds as they don’t heavy attack.

Aegis is virtually useless for dps builds (you are either one shot or not, 5% doesn’t save this).

Slayer is found on many trial sets which are easy to obtain in normal. While having slayer on a non trial set build is nice to have, most of the trial sets are some of the more potent sets to have. Therefore, it is a complete loss whether or not you are wearing a trial set.

All are null and avoid, except for a heavy build only.

Adding slayer allows use of non trial sets.

Which, is kind of the point of accessibility right? If the players who need Oakensoul to compete are already able to obtain the trail sets with slayer on them, would they actually need Oakensoul?

This is for the players who can't get those sets, for whatever reason.

As to Empower. I mean, many players who complain about accessibility utilize heavy attack builds, because, those builds are more accessible. This ring enabling those builds even further very accurately hits its intended target.

Not to mention, even without those 3 newly added things, the ring is still really strong even after the initial PTS nerf.

Don’t get me wrong, the heavy addition is very nice. But accessibility does not equal heavy build only. It’s helpful, but not for everyone.

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

Still don’t see the vision,

Other than balance changes among classes (which is a different argument to whether they are good or not) - all of these changes are the same as the LA/HA changes two years ago they tried - the vision is to make Heavy Attack builds a thing by bringing down power everywhere else. Nerfing them too much caused too much blow back this time and two years ago, this is the last form of the vision I guess. Balancing HAs to be useful at base in builds and then allowing them to be almost doubled in power by empower (that doesn't effect LAs or PvP HA power).

They want 'hold the button down and avoid dynamic combat' builds to be a thing as much as possible. That's why there were dot/hot changes and that's why you are seeing, out of all the back and forth changes this PTS cycle, HAs (for PvE) are coming out so well. That's also why a HA buff is being added to oakensoul, because that ring is kind of targeted as the 'make the game easier' ring.

It was never about just bringing down the ceiling, that's why their dev comments didn't hold up under scrutiny; it was about LAs in general and nerfing all the aspects of dynamic combat. (rotations, LA weaving, etc) They want to find the balance that lets the retain enough players while pushing this HA playstyle.

The old vision for Las and heavies were not that long ago, and, additionally, their first vision was make lights do less damage, and restore resources. Heavies were for damage. It has been a very bad back and forth since the beginning of the game. The problem: it was widely despised by all types of players. Additionally, players do not like using heavy attacks on non heavy builds for dps. It feels very sluggish and breaks the flow of combat.

The LA/HA changes were like two years ago right? or was it one year ago? Can't remember if it was before Blackwood or Greymoor, but I thought it was Greymoor. (edit: looked it up, it was 2020, so yea it was that long ago)

And the end result of that test and this patch was the same, to make LA builds not completely useless so they don't drive off too many players that like the playstyle, while making HA builds a thing that competes with them close enough to clear all the same content. That's what we see here, through a combination of attempted hot/dot changes and way LA/HAs work. Of course it's the the exact same changes that blew up in their faces last time, just a new attempt at the same goal.