Empower change creates even more of a gap in the skill

MikeSkyrim333 · August 2022

For example, I am playing a class that doesn't have an access to empower, so I'm using a Wrecking Blow two-handed skill with 5 second access to empower. Now it turns out that when I use other skills I should do a light attack, because there is no empower, and when I use Wrecking Blow I should do a heavy attack to increase my damage

I trained this rotation on dummy and almost went crazy with such a rotation. Now in addition to controlling weaving, I have to combine light and heavy attacks. Whoever makes these changes is not playing the game at all!

ZiggyTStardust · August 2022

Why even use a skill that provides empower? It's still gonna be a damage loss to do a fully charged heavy attack unless you build specifically for them

MikeSkyrim333 · August 2022

ZiggyTStardust wrote: »

Why even use a skill that provides empower? It's still gonna be a damage loss to do a fully charged heavy attack unless you build specifically for them

Because I like Wrecking Blow skill and don't want to use class spammable. For example, necro and warden spammables looks awful to me

Rimskjegg · August 2022

MikeSkyrim333 wrote: »

ZiggyTStardust wrote: »

Why even use a skill that provides empower? It's still gonna be a damage loss to do a fully charged heavy attack unless you build specifically for them

Because I like Wrecking Blow skill and don't want to use class spammable. For example, necro and warden spammables looks awful to me

Then keep using Wrecking Blow and don't bother with heavy attacks. The new Empower is an accessibility option for players who can't light weave because of disabilities or other reasons. If that's not you, then you'll get higher DPS light weaving Wrecking Blow anyway.

GloatingSwine · August 2022

Rimskjegg wrote: »

MikeSkyrim333 wrote: »

ZiggyTStardust wrote: »

Why even use a skill that provides empower? It's still gonna be a damage loss to do a fully charged heavy attack unless you build specifically for them

Because I like Wrecking Blow skill and don't want to use class spammable. For example, necro and warden spammables looks awful to me

Then keep using Wrecking Blow and don't bother with heavy attacks. The new Empower is an accessibility option for players who can't light weave because of disabilities or other reasons. If that's not you, then you'll get higher DPS light weaving Wrecking Blow anyway.

I'm not so sure. Like I have a suspicion that trying to use an empower>full heavy is just going to be worse than spamming abilities on its own.

prof_doom · August 2022

ZiggyTStardust wrote: »

Why even use a skill that provides empower? It's still gonna be a damage loss to do a fully charged heavy attack unless you build specifically for them

I think, at least for 2H, if you're not going to do heavy attacks, you might as well swap morphs to dizzying swing.
Same damage, and you get off balance and a stun.

Necrotech_Master · August 2022

prof_doom wrote: »

ZiggyTStardust wrote: »

Why even use a skill that provides empower? It's still gonna be a damage loss to do a fully charged heavy attack unless you build specifically for them

I think, at least for 2H, if you're not going to do heavy attacks, you might as well swap morphs to dizzying swing.
Same damage, and you get off balance and a stun.

i would also recommend this, wrecking blow is a completely dead morph

the original intention of wrecking blow was with light attack weaving, but since empower doesnt affect light attack anymore, this morph is 100% useless

edit: spelling, and more spelling

Holycannoli · August 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i would also recommend this, wrecking blow is a completely dead morph

the original intention of wrecking blow was with light attack weaving, but since empower doesnt affect light attack anymore, this morph is 100% useless

edit: spelling, and more spelling

The original original Wrecking Blow buffed the damage of your next attack by 20%. Actually that's what Empower originally did. It didn't buff light and heavy attacks, it buffed the next attack. So you'd spam the skill. Every Wrecking Blow after the first one did 20% more damage.

Necrotech_Master · August 2022

Holycannoli wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i would also recommend this, wrecking blow is a completely dead morph

the original intention of wrecking blow was with light attack weaving, but since empower doesnt affect light attack anymore, this morph is 100% useless

edit: spelling, and more spelling

The original original Wrecking Blow buffed the damage of your next attack by 20%. Actually that's what Empower originally did. It didn't buff light and heavy attacks, it buffed the next attack. So you'd spam the skill. Every Wrecking Blow after the first one did 20% more damage.

yeah i remember that way back in the day it was a good spammable lol

now there is absolutely no reason to even use it since it only buffs a heavy attack and the empower buff still only lasts like 3-5 seconds

Billium813 · August 2022

I think several of the skills that currently grant Empower now no longer make any sense or rather Empower becomes completely pointless. I think they need to look at who does HAs and what benefit would they get from having Empower. I think support roles like Healer and Tank would want Empower more than DPS would and those roles would rather see an increase in resources returned from a fully charged HA, rather than simple damage.

Not only is the duration of 3-5 seconds abysmal for a fully charged HA centric buff, but the return on investment is +80% damage to the HA? Big whoop for a ~2 second charge time investment. They have fundamentally changed Empower by reducing it to fully charged HA only, but they haven't acknowledged (or done) any of the other necessary changes to move Empower onto skills that care/matter. Original Empower, the skills it's on and the rotations made sense as players fit LA/MA weaving in. Now, it doesn't make any sense, leads to clunky rotations if you try to fit it in, and it's another example of them throwing things at the wall instead of considering ramifications and design.

The one skill I like Empower on still is Dark Flare. It might fit into a Healer skill bar with the Major Defile debuff and following up with a HA from a healer, ok. But it's not enough imo.

They need to take Empower back to the drawing board and start over. I'd like to see it either

Scale the damage buff based on attack charge time, to 100% buff at fully charged HA.
or, return +50% resources instead of damage and move to support skills

Other ideas could be that Empower buffs the duration of other buffs/debuffs that the support applies/applied. Or maybe Empower grants WP/SP damage to your next non-damage/healing abilities.