Scorch:
This ability and the Deep Fissure morph now deal their damage after 3 and 9 seconds, rather than 4 and 10.
These abilities now hit with 2 unique damage sources – the first hit deals approximately 14% less damage while the second hit does 20% more damage.
Reduced the cost of these abilities to 2700, down from 3240, to help improve their ability to be recast early for more DPS or faking your opponent out.
Subterranean Assault (morph):
This morph continues to reduce the time it takes for the second hit to go off, but this second hit does not gain the extra damage.
Please note this ability is currently not working as intended and its timing is still 3 and 8 seconds, rather than the intended 3 and 6 seconds.
Developer Comment:

The changes to Scorch and their morphs were done in attempts to try and help the class feel less intensely focused on buff management and allow for other actions in combat, while still trying to retain their burst-oriented nature, to a more balanced degree when comparing them to other burst skills and taking their total time before impact better into account. The original PTS iteration was ultimately too disruptive to those who are familiar with the class, as it threw off the timing of the skill by a second, so we have brought it down back to the original duration while also keeping its overall timer divisible by 3s to help ensure a rhythm is felt with the class. By separating the damage, we can also better allow the skill to function as a burst skill or a sustained DPS skill, where recasting it earlier will result in more total DPS, whereas waiting for the bigger explosion will result in those dopamine printing burst combos.

Scorch:
This ability and its morphs now last for 10 seconds in total, detonating once after 4 seconds and again 6 seconds after that, rather than only once every 3 seconds.
Reduced the damage by approximately 8%.
Increased the cost to 3240, up from 2430.
Subterranean Assault (morph): This morph now reduces the time it takes for each damage event to occur, causing the damage to occur after 3 seconds and 5 seconds after that.

Sandman929 wrote: »

I'd say better with 8.1.3...except this:

Nocturnal’s Ploy: Increased the cooldown of this set to be 15 seconds, up from 2, to reduce the rate in which it can actively dispel effects from a target.

There is no cooldown that makes this ok...it's a terrible idea and it literally robs players of gold/resources used to buy or craft potions since it steals potion buffs.
It's a horrible idea, quit trying to make it seem better.

Marto wrote: »

That's literally what they did right now.

True, they still got rid of Major Force, but Major Force is an extremely powerful buff that was always intended to be a short-duration, sporadic buff that only a couple sets in the game can provide. Having 100% uptime on Major Force was absolutely OP, and needed to be toned down.

fiender66 wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

fiender66 wrote: »

LA some % less, HA some % less.

Maybe I'm so dumb to miss something relevant, but this looks to me as some more nerf.

18th of this month my sub ends. This notes have made me save some €120+.

A good result indeed

The light attack changes will result in damage being less than live but more than the initial PTS damage. So they are still nerfing light attack damage.

The heavy attack damage will see lesser damage drops from live, but the change to empower will mean the players using heavy attack builds in PVE should see a significant buff when utilizing empower.

@jaws343 yes, empower is more or less doubled, but you have to use HA, slowing significantly your action, while LA do less than before. Besides, not everyone can or want to use empower. Consider also that the sets that give empower (5 or 6 of them) are all DLC bound, except one dropping in Auridon. And all in all, they ARE nerfing both LA and HA (not for VWs, true, a solace), so the buff by empower is less than it appears at first sight.

GetAgrippa wrote: »

I think I've got it. Zos wants templars to slot solar barrage and run around heavy attacking everything from melee range. That's the new templar meta.

merpins wrote: »

If they want to buff heavy attacks, great. Make empower give 80% heavy attack damage. But there's no point in using it for most builds. If they want to keep that buff, keep it, but empower should also grant 40% light attack damage as before.

Nemeliom wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

I'd say better with 8.1.3...except this:

Nocturnal’s Ploy: Increased the cooldown of this set to be 15 seconds, up from 2, to reduce the rate in which it can actively dispel effects from a target.

There is no cooldown that makes this ok...it's a terrible idea and it literally robs players of gold/resources used to buy or craft potions since it steals potion buffs.
It's a horrible idea, quit trying to make it seem better.

Not entirely sure about this anymore. Players in pvp are constantly using skills that causes debuffs on other players. They won't wait until you drink a potion to hit you. And once they hit you, they have to wait 15 seconds to re-apply it.

I'd rather use a better set. And you can't stack this set I belive. You can't be targeted by it after another 15 seconds, even if more players are using it. Which means it could make your set useless if another player is using it.

Firstmep wrote: »

Can we please take a look at skills that grant empower, now that they lose half their functionality in pvp?

Holycannoli wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

I very explicitly said that Players using heavy attack build would see a buff from live. Which is true. Especially if they use Oakensoul, which now has permanent Empower. If you are a player running a heavy attack build, you WILL be using something with empower. It isn't a can or a want, you will be using it to be effective.

Which seems to be their intent. An overall nerf to heavy attack damage, to lower player damage, but allowing heavies to synergize with empower in a unique way to make heavy attack spammable builds viable options for decent DPS.

Are there a lot of people running HA PvE builds?