Shattered Paths Signet

dark_hunterxmg · May 28

Remember when Malacath was nerfed from 25% to 16% because it was too strong? Remember when Empower was nerfed out of pvp completely because 70% was too strong? Somehow a decision was made to allow an item to add170%( 85%) more damage. What happened to make this okay? This feels like one of those story lines where they set out rules for the universe to operate by, but when they run out of material they just break the rules and do what they want.

Someone_Unknown · May 29

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

Remember when Malacath was nerfed from 25% to 16% because it was too strong? Remember when Empower was nerfed out of pvp completely because 70% was too strong? Somehow a decision was made to allow an item to add170%( 85%) more damage. What happened to make this okay? This feels like one of those story lines where they set out rules for the universe to operate by, but when they run out of material they just break the rules and do what they want.

To be clear, ailment damage is not the same as overall damage output, so the resulting damage increase is not actually equal to 170% (85%). That said, your point has merit — the Signet has become a significant game-changer for certain classes. Unlike your examples with Malacath and Empower, which were nerfed across the board for all classes and multiclasses, the current change is a targeted edit aimed at one specific class that ZoS, historically speaking, seems to have had it out for.

I think a change along the lines of "Increase your damage done with status effects by 1% for every 2 Ultimate you have..." — reducing the peak effect from 170% to 85% (just as an example) — would have been fairer and less disruptive overall, since it would have affected all classes equally. The notoriously high Sorcerer peak DPS of 220k would have come down accordingly.

Instead, they simply turned Warden into a dee-pee-ass class again, just like it was for years.

NxJoeyD · June 1

SPS is strong, agreed, but I don't know that I'm subscribed to it being taken out of the game or nerfed into Oblivion.

What we're seeing in PvP is that players have multiple ways of slotting SPS and turning it into a near one-shot gank, with or without Pulse. But in order to do this it leaves just about any build vulnerable. These builds aren't unkillable tanks, they're closer to glass cannons. These builds, on their own, do have counters.

The problem with what people are seeing in PvP comes down to coordination and cooperation, which, is the entire point of PvP game modes. An SPS gank build, on their own, is going to be able to be taken out by any number of experienced players with descent builds. But, when an SPS ganker is running with a solid squad, say a hybrid DK or some other form of the meta, well that's a much different story because if the SPS ganker has solid team cover they're going to be able to deliver heavy damage.

When we think about what's broken and what should be adjusted I think we need to be careful about what we ask for, especially at this point in time. Only the DK has had their refresh and the upcoming patch adds WW but that still leaves the rest of the field with a big question mark next to their class.

Maybe it would have been a good idea to release SPS with values that scale upward with each class refresh release, but, that didn't happen.

I don't know that I'm on board with nerfs or adjustments when the root cause of complaints really comes down more-so to proper coordinated gameplay versus just broken stats.

If SPS builds couldn't be beaten on their own, then yeah, I'd agree we have a bigger problem. But we all know that we're going to have imbalances for some point in time while classes are refreshed and we can't go nerfing something that has strength just because people can cooperatively use them.