Patch Notes - August 10th, 2021

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HEADLINES
  • Shadowknight and Paladin Discipline system rework.
  • Top end dungeon tweaks.
QUALITY OF LIFE - BUFFS
Now that a lot of the foundational systems have been implemented, we have been discussing ways to re-add the quality of life benefits that players enjoy, but within these new systems.

Players have expressed concerns with how variables to raid recovery times clash with the new buff system, the following change is designed to smooth this out.

Currently, buffs do not expire when a player is safe inside a city (eg. Athica while not in combat or PVP); this was a past quality of life addition. We have extended the "safe in city" rule to include areas that allow binding. An iconic example would be the bind location known as "tables" (or table if you're a purist).

DISCIPLINES
A six second lockout timer has been added to disciplines after a player swaps weapons.

TANK REBALANCE
As we move forward, we would like to explain where we see each tank ranked in different categories:

MITIGATION
Warriors would continue to be the best at physical mitigation with Paladins the worst. The caveat being, Paladins will now specialize further in spell mitigation to differentiate them.​
  • Physical Mitigation: Warrior (13%+) Shadow Knight (7%) Paladin (5%)
  • Spell Mitigation: Paladin (7%+)
AGGRO
Currently, the tank single target aggro order is not correct. Warriors are too low due to our weapon balance and Paladins are too high due to Zealous Might aggro multipliers.​
  • Single Target Aggro:
    • Shadow Knight: Single target aggro should be easy and efficient. Other raid members should be jolting rarely.
    • Paladin: Single target aggro should be the lowest of the three tanks. Other raid members should be jolting often.
    • Warrior: Warriors should be between Paladin and Shadowknight aggro, being closer to Paladins. Other raid members should be jolting sometimes.
  • Area of Effect Aggro:
    • Paladin: High aggro on 6+ targets. Easy and efficient to generate.
    • Warrior: Moderate aggro on current target and decent aggro on 2 to 3 other targets. Targets beyond this should produce noticeable aggro loss.
    • Shadowknight: Unbreakable aggro on a single target. Aggro on a second target should be moderate but need to be worked for. Targets beyond this should produce noticeable aggro loss.
SINGLE TARGET DPS WHILE TANKING
Warriors should always provide the largest DPS while tanking. Shadowknights should be second, closely followed by Paladins. Currently Paladins are doing too much single target tanking DPS due to Zealous Might multipliers.​

KNIGHT SHIELDING MASTERY
  • This AA has not been working, it was not adding its bonus to shields for knights (for at least 10 years). It now properly applies its bonus.
BASH
  • The bash damage formula now applies diminishing returns to bonus damage from shoulder and shield armor class as it increases.
  • Using bash currently applies a bonus aggro value that is equal to shield AC; knights receive a multiplier to this bonus value. For this patch, we have increased this multiplier. We feel that bash is an appropriate source for aggro for knights; it scales with level, gear and accuracy. By buffing this source we can spread out aggro generated by more absurd sources. This is one adjustment that will assist with the low level paladin aggro issues we have received from feedback.
WARRIOR
The aggro multiplier of bloodlust has been increased to put warriors in a more appropriate spot for aggro generation. This is an interim fix until warriors receive a full discipline rework.

PALADIN
All Paladin stances have been removed (including aggressive and defensive), and reworked or replaced with Disciplines. We see the Paladin as a hybrid between Warriors and Clerics. Clerics tend to be a bit more melee oriented in design, so Disciplines were also designed to accentuate this. Paladin will be the top healer of the three tanks both while tanking and as a raid utility. To differentiate the Paladin from the Shadowknight when it comes to mitigation, we have further advanced their Spell Mitigation theme. Paladin single target aggro was nerfed, while also increasing their area aggro generation. We have given the Paladin three tools to help with emergencies that arise from aggro:
  • A single target aggro information skill, similar to Jayla's Insight.
  • Fast casting target of target healing spells.
  • A unique taunt skill.
PALADIN DISCIPLINE ABILITIES
Paladins may purchase the following disciplines from the Paladin Guild. Be sure to explore for additional ranks!​
  • Pious Strike - Ranks I to VI. Strike an undead target, banishing their existence from this plane. Has a chance to weaken your target. Has a very rare chance to deal massive damage to your target.
  • Lady's Strike- Ranks I to VI. Bash your target with your shield, dealing physical damage and generating aggro to those around you. Deals additional damage to stunned targets. Requires a shield. This ability should bring low level paladin aggro to values that feel better while leveling. Because this ability is bash damage, it inherits the properties of bash.
    • It interrupts spells.
    • The damage can never crit.
    • Bonus aggro is generated against your primary target using the above BASH rule.
  • Cleansing Strike - Ranks I to VII. Channel a purifying flame into your weapon, striking your target with fire damage. Additional chance to deal a critical strike against Undead. Requires a two handed weapon. Consumes both stamina and mana.
  • Holy Inspiration - Read the tide of battle, gauging how close another player is to pulling aggression off you. Only works if you are the primary aggro to an enemy.
  • Moment of Truth - Ranks I to II. Force your enemy to focus its rage toward you. Only usable in combat. Must be in melee range.
PALADIN DISCIPLINE BUFFS
  • Bastion of Faith - Ranks I to III. The defense of the faithful, granting 3/4/5% melee mitigation and 3/5/7% spell mitigation.
  • Althuna's Fury - Ranks I to III. Faith exudes might! Your zeal carries you into battle, increasing melee damage but decreasing mitigation and aggro. Increases melee damage by 10/15/20%, increases melee damage taken by 5/7/10%, and reduces aggro generated by 5/10/15%.
ZEALOUS/RIGHTEOUS MIGHT REWORK
Due to Zealous and Righteous Might's impact on single target DPS and tanking aggro, these spells have been reworked. Althuna's Fury is intended to provide measured Paladin melee damage, while dissuading from use while tanking. Aggro loss has been distributed to Bash, healing, and Lady's Strike. These new healing spells accentuate the Paladin's healing and spell mitigation strengths.​
Inspire your target's target with the power of faith, healing them and mitigating spell damage for a duration. This buff will also heal them again on their next successful block.
  • Inspire Belief- Target's Target, 287 Base Heal, 1.5s cast, zero recast time, 3.5s recovery, 12s duration, 2% spell mitigation. (Reworked from Righteous Might)
    • Bestow Light - Fade on block, 95 Base Heal.
  • Runic: Inspire Faith- Target's Target, 691 Base Heal, 1.5s cast, zero recast time, 3.5s recovery, 12s duration, 3% spell mitigation. (Reworked from Zealous Might)
    • Bestow Faith - Fade on block, 399 Base Heal.
BLINDS
Blind spells can no longer be overwritten; freeing up a spell slot for some who used two. Paladin blind spells now lower dexterity instead of attack. The dexterity debuff value increases with spell rank. Additional lower level blinds have been added to assist the leveling paladin. Searing light gets a balance nerf as it was out of bounds numerically.​
  • Flash of Light - Decreases dexterity by 5.
  • Glint of Light - A new magic-resist blind purchasable at level 18. Decreases dexterity by 8. Has a magic-resist adjust.
  • Gleam of Light - Decreases targets dexterity by 5.
  • Fervid Light - A new fire-resist blind purchasable at level 45. Decreases dexterity by 12.
  • Blinding Light - Decreases targets dexterity by 16.
  • Wave of Light - Decreases targets dexterity by 10.
  • Searing Light - Decreases targets dexterity by 20. Mana cost increased to 120. Resist adjust lowered to 75. Direct Damage component removed.
STUNS
  • Words of the Righteous is a new single target stun available to Paladins to purchase in late game areas.
  • Descending Judgement has been reworked into Word of the Templar, an upgrade to Word of the Crusader. Descending Judgement provided a lot of a Paladin's aggro while also being predominantly hated by a large portion of developers and players.
HAND OF PIETY
The cooldown of Hand of Piety has been reduced to 20 minutes.​
HEALING AGGRO
Healing aggro generated by a Paladin using single target, self, or target's target healing spells has been slightly increased, outpacing other healer classes.​
DIVINE REFUSAL
The base healing has been increased to 17% (from 13%). Ranks of Divine Radiance further increase this amount. 20, 25, 33, 50%, (from 14, 17, 20, 25%). The AA description has been updated.​
Focuses your fighting spirit, increasing the chance to flurry against undead. Paladins will refuse to die from undead once every 24 hours. Ranks of this AA reduce the cooldown and increase the heal amount of this innate skill.
DIVINE STUN
The AA description has been updated to inform players that this spell generates aggro:​
Training in this ability gives you a new, fast-casting low-resist stun that work even on creatures immune to stun spells. Always generates a medium amount of aggro.
UNDEAD NUKE
Paladins may now learn Banish Undead at level 64. Literally the best buff, so I saved it for last. Nuke on.​
SHADOWKNIGHT
All Shadowknight stances have been removed (including aggressive and defensive), and reworked or replaced with Disciplines. We see Shadowknights as a hybrid between the Warrior and Necromancer classes. Because Necromancers are more spell oriented, Shadowknight Disciplines are not themed around weapon use. Damage Over Time spells were adjusted to play a core role in Shadowknight gameplay. Leech stance has been converted to a short cooldown ability, setting self-healing below Paladins, and above Warriors. A few tools were given to a Shadowknight to address mana sustain, being the cousin of a Necromancer. The mechanics of pet sacrificing should feel better:
  • Instant triggering
  • Failure messages describing when the ability requirements are not met
  • Introduced at lower levels
  • Pet clickies no longer allow for pet sacrificing, being replaced with a class skill
Lastly, a Shadowknight is the undisputed champion of Single Target aggro. Veil spells have been replaced, shifting aggro to new single target aggro tools.

INNATE DOT AGGRO
Shadowknights now have an innate bonus to aggro generated from damage over time sources. Spell casting subtlety for Shadowknights will now also apply to DoT aggro.​
VEXATION OF BLIGHTS
Each rank of this new AA further increases the aggro generated from damage over time sources. This AA also applies a multiplier to the Shadowknight's contribution to DoT Weakening. Excerpt from our forums detailing this mechanic:​
DOT WEAKENING
Weakening effect works by adding up all the damage done to a mob by DoTs in a single tick. For the remainder of that tick, the mob directly deals less damage in melee based on how much DoT damage it is taking in proportion to its HP.
LOW LEVEL DOTS
Low level DoT levels have been lowered to increase usability. New low level DoTs have been added to their repertoire. Adjacent spells shuffled to maintain 1 spell per level.​
  • Disease Cloud - Level 3 (from 5)
    • Locate Corpse - Level 5 (from 3)
  • Clinging Darkness - Level 9 (from 11)
    • Fear - Level 11 (from 12)
  • Fever - New, Level 12
  • Engulfing Darkness - Level 18 (from 20)
  • Heart Flutter - Level 21 (from 36)
  • Virulence - New, Level 30
  • Dooming Darkness - Level 33 (from 44)
  • Searing Blood - New, Level 42
  • Scourge - New, Level 45
  • Boil Blood - Level 48 (from 53)
  • Inflame Blood - New, Level 53
  • Asystole - Level 56 (from 60)
  • Cascading Darkness - Level 58 (from 59)
DISEASE DOT/DEBUFF REWORK
The following spell line has been adjusted and added to. Three of these spells replace the Shadowknight veil line.​
  • Heart Flutter - Duration lowered to 30s, mana cost reduced.
  • Arrhythmia - New, Level 34, 2.0s cast time, 30s duration. (Reworked from Veil of Dis)
  • Heart Panic - New, Level 44, 2.0s cast time, 30s duration. (Reworked from Veil of Marlow)
  • Asystole - Cast time reduced to 4.1s, duration lowered to 30s, mana cost reduced.
  • Cardiac Arrest - New, Level 65, 2.0s cast time, 30s duration.
  • Runic: Heart Possession - New, Runic Two, 2.0s cast time, 30s duration. (Reworked from Veil of Kaezul)
SCORCH BLOOD
A new fire DoT available to Shadowknights to purchase in late game areas.​

TERRORS
The cooldown has been removed from all terrors; freeing up a spell slot for some who used two.​
  • Terror of Gradalsh is a new terror available to Shadowknights to purchase in late game areas.
SHADOWKNIGHT DISCIPLINE ABILITIES
Shadowknights may purchase the following disciplines from the Shadowknight Guild. Be sure to explore for additional ranks!​
  • Meld Bone - Reap undeath from the fading of life, summoning your highest level pet from your spell book. If used on a target that is close to death, the cooldown of this ability will be lowered. Requires melee range.
  • Touch of Hatred - Ranks I to VII. Instill deep hatred upon your enemy, greatly increasing their aggro towards you. Requires melee range.
  • Festering Harvest - Ranks I to VII. Harvest the life of another through a festering touch. The life healed increases with the number of your afflictions on the target. Requires melee range.
  • Deceitful Doubt - Instill powerful doubt upon your enemy, dispelling a beneficial buff with a chance to interrupt spell casting. Requires melee range.
  • Pet: Edict of Pain- Commands your pet to sacrifice itself, imparting its strength to you for a duration.
  • Edict of Pain- A buff granting the Shadowknight a 500/1000 Delay Death life value, 15/25 Disease Resist and 1/2% physical mitigation.
    • Delay Death is most commonly known as "Purple Club", a negative life value that must be exhausted before a player dies.
  • Pet: Grave Pact - Ranks I and II. Commands your pet to sacrifice itself, restoring mana through it's undeath.
The following Discipline skills require ranks in Servant Training to use:​
  • Pet: Noxious Blast - Commands your pet to sacrifice itself, causing disease damage to nearby foes.
  • Pet: Reaper's Touch - Commands your Pet to sacrifice itself, Draining HP from its target and giving it to your group
  • Pet: Ritual of Gore - Commands your pet to sacrifice itself, mesmerizing nearby foes in a spectacle of gore.
  • Pet: Withering Curse - Commands your pet to sacrifice itself, infecting its target with an incremental damage over time spell. This ability counts towards Festering Harvest's heal.
Meld Bone and each sacrifice skill have their own cooldown timer.​

SHADOWKNIGHT DISCIPLINE BUFFS
  • Shadow of Marlow - Ranks I to III. You fade slightly into the realm of dreams, granting 5/6/7% melee mitigation.
  • Putrid Aura - Ranks I to III. You are wreathed in a caustic aura, increasing the damage of all your damage over time spells by 25/50/100% but decreasing melee mitigation by 5/7/10% and aggro by 10/25/50%.
  • Spirit Anchor - Merge your energies with the spirits of the dead, guarding yourself from detrimental mana drains. Mitigates mana drains with a value less than one fourth your maximum mana.
  • Terror Guard - Wreathe yourself in nightmares, enthralling all those who strike you in combat.
FLAYING STRIKES
This AA now increases damage dealt to Ancient and Young races in addition to Humanoid Monsters.​
SHROUD OF THE LICH
Weapon proc moved to slot 5 to allow for more usability.​
UTILITY BENEFICIAL: CONVERSION
Deathly Temptation mana regen increased to 12, health decay increased to 12.​
NECROMANCER
  • Deathly Temptation is now available to purchase at level 40 as a nice step between Call of Bones and Lich.
DRUID
  • Cataclysm mana cost increased.
ROGUE
  • LOIO and Refuge discipline vendor costs have been lowered.
  • A poison vendor has been added to Kelethin, and the poison vendor in The Mountain Crags of Tarhyl has been updated.
  • Nimble Dance duration extended to 10s.
  • Crippling Point now has a vendor cost.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Concealed Blades AA from working.
  • Gutsy Gambol movement speeds increased slightly. Stamina costs decreased slightly.
  • Wisterol has been re-added to Poison Merchant to allow continued crafting of Savage Frenzy for Marlow quest.
ENCHANTER
  • The duration of the Misdirection line of spells has been doubled.
SPELLS
  • Cleric symbols, Savagery, and Reagent conservation descriptions corrected.
  • Razadian Conservation has been corrected, setting its value at 25%.
  • Flash Powder Ranks I to III correctly state which reagent they require.
  • Flash Powder Rank III now correctly requires a "Flash Powder" reagent.
  • Suffocate, Gasping Embrace, Torment of Gnyrt, Asphyxiate, Chokehold, and Misery of the Swamp spell descriptions updated.
  • Critical Precision spell description updated.
TOP END DUNGEONS

GLOBAL CHARM CREDITS
Initially we only allowed charm credits to drop from enemies with a respawn timer greater than 30 minutes. Based on feedback and additional data, the following changes have been made. A linear drop adjustment has been added because we want to reward more difficult play.​
  • Respawn limit has been lowered to 20 minutes, and lesser charm credit drop chance lowered by 20%. (More zones, less chance)
  • Greater charm credit drop chance increased by 100%.
  • A linear drop adjustment based on enemy level has been added:
    • 20% drop penalty at 55, 33% drop bonus at 65
CITADEL OF THE CLAW
  • Rust Code added for all named.
  • Experience slightly increased.
  • Visiting nobles have a higher chance to rust code named and drop Commander's Orders.
ELDENAL'S MANSION
  • Hybrid-type Rust Code and accelerated respawn feature added.
  • A new visitor awaits your arrival.
BLOOD QUARRY (ROCK SIDE)
  • An additional Rebel Acquisition token quest has been added that involves this area.
  • Rust code added for named.
  • Trash in this wing now drop Yclistinite Bits.
EMBERFLOW
  • The spawn delay on cash named has been lowered to 5 minutes (from 30min)
WEAPON BALANCE
  • Ortananoch's combat innate, Legacy of the Dragonkin, has been altered. Proc rate has been increased, but will fade after five procs. Proc damage lowered to account for a higher proc rate.
  • Entropy's Spine damage proc, Withering Wave, has been changed to a flat damage value instead of a scaling value.
SUNKEN CATHEDRAL
  • Fixed bugs with named mobs spawning - should work normally henceforth.
  • Improved Quest NPC behavior.
  • Wax Fruit increased from snack to meal.
  • Unfeeling alkahest behavior improved.
  • Improved encounter flagging (Thanks Rymy, Marthog, Wuuc, Paxit).
  • Aggregate fungi should no longer fall under the world.
  • Zone quest reward received a bug fix.
  • Tunnel mushroom add spawning frequency reduced.
  • QoL improvements with respect to the amount of items.
  • Revisions were made in the spiral room.
  • Main quest line lengthened a bit - a new bonus awaits for those going all the way.
  • Quest encounter receives rebalancing and items brought in line with the difficulty.
QUESTS
  • A short little quest in Sundered Mountains offered by Freya the Blacksmith that was broken and could not be completed is fixed.
  • Ryzan's Dagger quest which was broken and could not be completed has been fully redone, now accessible by rogues level 60 and above.
  • Previously, killing 6 of 7 required types of stonemites & elementals for the quest "Things that go bump in the mines" incorrectly gave text implying the quest was complete when it was not actually complete. This has been fixed.
  • Gleaming Steel Sword has been added to the Well-Illustrated Treasure Map loot table.
  • Forest of the Fallen:
    • Vaton has listened to reason and will now allow all animal trappings to be done at the same time.
    • Guorth is allowing multiple defenders at once during the Yiv invasion of the Kromtor fort.
    • Gravedigging with Gumdor should work better.
MISC
  • The command system transition is complete. Commands using /cm will no longer work and will display an error
  • Yclistinite Credits can now be purchased in Lake of Ill Omen. Credits are tradable and can be redeemed for their full value.
  • Increased Heart Panic (Previously Veil of Marlow) and Taraztu's Healing Flames drop rates.
  • The Lug Worm has been fixed.
  • The Silent Halls: Soul Hunters of Rajzaa spawns changed to be more dynamic.
  • Cryospine bodytype has been adjusted to 'animal' to allow druid charm.
  • Lifedraw spell proc added to Ghostmetal Shield.
  • Max health of "a faerie trickster" lowered slightly.
  • Rotten Core(s) are no longer stackable.
  • Axe of Continuous Attraction was fixed to prevent a rare but serious malfunction. Thanks Stever for reporting the issue.
  • The Fletching combine to create Quiver of Scornwood Arrows is now up-to-date with the Fletching revamp in a previous patch.

KNOWN ISSUES
  • Archaic: Tarhyl's Raging Curse is currently not functioning correctly. (Fixed)
  • Some disciplines have occasionally been failing to land successfully with an "out of combat" message
  • The new Paladin target of target spells are not landing on Allies. (Fixed)
  • Edict of Pain I is not working. (Fixed)
  • Paladins can target themselves with their damaging discipline abilities
 
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This is why I made this post. I am asking for Jyre to be flagged as a shield.
Jyre has already been nerfed to be pretty much a solo item/novelty at this point. I’m not saying that having your discipline activate on a 2h bash is a bad thing, I just have a hard time imagining it gets put in.
 
Unless paladins are not supposed to tank anything more than 1 mob at a time with a 2hr, lady's strike should really be usable with 2hrs as long as you have the 2h bash AA to let them tank with a 2hr equipped.
 
I don’t see why you wouldn’t add the capability to Lady Strike with a 2 hander.. make the threat scale just like bash does. If the vision is that Paladins can/should be able to EXP with a 2 hander then make it so :)

If there isn’t agreement to do that then Jyre definitely is lacking an identity as you wouldn’t use it tanking (lack of aggro) or DPSing (for obvious reasons). Maybe make it a 1 hander or perhaps better yet strip the innate mitigation from it and make it more offensive.
 
Duoing with a paladin and a druid, pal aoe aggro has become really inconsistent. In some instances I can do a round of Ladys + AOE blind + AOE stun and cata on the druid and it holds aggro, in other instances I do 2 rounds of Ladys + aoe blind + aoe stun and all but the 1 target I'm directly on with the paladin go straight for the druid. This is all after an initial pull where I cast a blind / stun to pull things and get that initial aggro on each target.

Was just testing this with ~ 3 mobs at a time. Casting cata at all is extremely risky now as there seems to be no way to tell if it's going to pull aggro on 1-many of the aoe mobs you're engaged with. Saw similar behavior with wizard AOEs as well. Definitely does not feel like a paladin is the king of aoe aggro if nobody in the group can cast an aoe dmg spell without a relatively high risk of 1 to many of the mobs you're fighting bum-rushing a squishy and the paladin having no great way to pick that aggro back up off of the squishy (save for the force taunt on 1 target every 10 minutes). What causes aggro inconsistency such that you never can really know whether or not you have enough aoe aggro built up for people to be able to start casting aoe nukes? Is it expected behavior that mobs have a relatively high chance to bum-rush someone after 1 aoe damage spell cast when the paladin has already gone through 2 rounds of aoe aggro and 1 round of single target aggro on each mob? (2 rounds of Lady's+AOE Blind+AOE Stun on top of casting blind / divine stun while pulling to get initial aggro)
 
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Casting cata at all is extremely risky
Cataclysm has a lot of extra components that cause additional threat and cannot be compared to other Area Damage (which actually has threat reduction). Cataclysm is a very strong spell that should have a risk offset to its use. So it is in a good spot then.

This shouldn't be the behavior with general damage-only AoE. If we have to tweak the AoE threat up a bit, we can do this. This and 2 Handed AoE threat needs to be considered.
 
I frequently forget druids even have a pet because I solo a lot pulling large numbers of mobs and it was inconvenient to do pet hold every pull to keep from having my pet fighting mobs on the other side of the zone. and back when I raided I frequently was told not to use it because it was bad for various boss mechanics.
 
paladins firmly in the benched why would you ever play this class for farm content zone, have fun hanging with the shamans.
 
paladins firmly in the benched why would you ever play this class for farm content zone, have fun hanging with the shamans.
Because I enjoy it, I am good at it, and it brings a variety of strong tools to the Raid force. (Re: Paladin)

The purpose of this thread is for Feedback... right?
 
investing a bunch of time into a character specifically because it is the tank with the best damage and threat only for a patch to come and make it the tank with the worst damage and threat by a non-trivial margin does not feel very good. also paladin raid utility loses value in farm content, which for some players is literally the entire game until new content is added.
 
I am sorry for your frustrations. Any corrections at this point might take some time.

First I will double check pre and post patch threat values of basics like stun and blind to make sure we are operating well.

Second, we have chatted a bit for some potential solutions:
1) Reduce the stamina cost of Lady's strike by 40%
2) Allow Lady's Strike to be used with a two-hander, but share a cooldown with Cleansing Strike? I have not put two disciplines on the same cooldown with different timers so I need to make sure his would work if it is a good solution.
3) After that, paladin AoE threat should increase without increasing ST threat. I need to figure out a good code-side solution to this. Maybe the bash threat portion of Lady’a Strike is propagated in an AoE?
 
Putting my Shadowknight feedback to the patch here. If the mods want to make this a separate thread feel free.

The sk changes are here, and wow. I definitely have some criticisms but I want to say it up front that I'm trying to improve things, not just crap on the effort that was put in by the devs heree. I appreciate the effrort and want that understood up front before I yell and maybe get ranty below.

First, the overall concept of the change. Giving sks an offensive set of abilities is one of the things that we did ask for, and having it be dot focused makes sense in relation to our parent class. I mean 'I' was one of the people suggesting this so obviously I am not crazy angry about the concept of this.

Affirming what was already kind of known/assumed about aggro wasn't a surprise, SKs as the single target tank and pallys as the multi target tank were not exactly new information. Setting Warriors as explicitly the highest tank dps as well as the best mitigation WAS a bit of a surprise, since they can aggro single targets better than a paladin now and have multiple abilities to deal with ae aggro. This does not feel like a balance this feels like 'fuck knights' No matter what, all three tanks have to be able to generate aggro on single and multiple mobs and do so in a manner that lets the group/raid actualy function. So SKs lose their ae aggro, so they can do like sixth tier single target dps, behind warriors, and just barely ahead of paladins?

I don't think this is a good balancing concept. By this metric the ENTIRETY of the reason for tank differences is based around how much other classes are expected to jolt? Because other classes 'almost never' have to jolt, as an SK, I take more damage than warriors, do less damage than warriors AND don't have ae aggro. Paladins, do less damage even than that, take more melee damage than that and EVERYONE ELSE has to jolt more, all because they can aggro multiple mobs. Warriors...get to continue to be the effectively the best all around tank to bring to every situation. They do the most dps, they take the least damage, they can aggro multiple mobs. Downsides: may have to wait 5 or 10 seconds to engage, Upsides: Literally everything else.


The changes that were done to reinforce this approach were ....bad. SKs already had by far the worst ae aggro of the three classes with one semi difficult to acquire spell line as the way of gaining multiple mob aggro. (veil). Veil was given to sks explicitly AS their one ae aggro spell and is janky for that reason, it has a respectably long cooldown and requires other people to participate for it to work. This was the ONE tool sks had, and removing it has already, in my testing cost me two wipes in groups because I couldn't aggro five+ (mandatory, not overpulled) mobs quickly enough to prevent a healer's death during an encounter. I can't stress enough how bad this is for the class. Yes it was a bit of a crutch....because it was the ONLY thing available to use. Having NO ability to generate aggro on multiple mobs on engage makes a few encounters undoable on tier. I don't think Im overexaggerating this. I (and my groupmates) overtier of enough of the content in this game that its much less of an issue for me, since my healers and casters can take better than many tanks, but I can name two or three encounters off the top of my head that are lower tier and now the answer is 'don't bring SKs to hard xp' because its simply too dangerous on tier. This is not a good thing.

I've played this game a bit, and tab terroring things is already part of my reflexes but there are pulls where it is simply impossible for a number of reasons, number of mobs, number of random other targets in my line of sight that will also get tab targeted, includng many objects, pets of the mobs and charm pets of my group mates. Veil was our one tool to help with this and it was an absolutely necessary one for the class to do its actual job. I can't stress how much of an issue this is.

There were two things in the SK feedback thread that people were unanimous on. Don't remove/ruin leech stance, and sks wanted something to help with ae aggro. So Leech stance is gone entirely and our only tool to deal with ae aggro is gone. I can live with leech stance going, though the 'replacement' is not even remotely close and not a replacement. Leech stance was an emergency survival tool. The new lifetap has a completely different purpose and use. I'll deal with one less 'oh shit' button, but the veil thing is too much.

If one single thing is read and or understood in this post, it is that veil removal is going to kill the class for a non trivial amount of content. The game isn't just about the t57 raid game where you have three or four tanks, mostly single and or double targets and can swap a different tank in as necessary, other settings also matter (again assuming one wants a generally healthy server), where you go with your friend, the one guy you know who has a tank and is playing an sk or a pally, and now he just cant do emberflow on tier or the wizard in your group is chain dying due to pulling aggro, so oops, guess he made a bad choice of class, wonder whats going on on P1999. Simply, Sks need SOMETHING to do the job, and taking away the only thing they had to further differentiate the classes, is far to drastic.

General note:
The new terror and increase in aggro solved a problem I did not have, that of keeping control of one mob. With the new dots, I can hold aggro or often steal aggro from other tanks just by using my dots and melee.. It is a solution in search of a problem. I mean...I guess...thank you for making the thing I was already good at, even easier, the downside is now the SK class is a specialist class since it has ONLY single target aggro tools. This is not a great place to be.

Specific feedback with regards to the change to SKs as a dot class:

TLDR version: with just below capped out focuses, and 5kaa and a non trivial amount of time playing the class, by my math, the dots, IN the new dot stance, should math out to about 1850-2k damage per tick, when I maintain three of them, (minus pet curse) so about 350dps, not counting crits,, call it another 10% damage with crits. With the sheer amount of button presses I now have to engage in to maintain those dots and the 'stance', I dont tend to have much time to cycle in a lot of other spells, but the end result is not very impressive. It's certainly not very much higher than it would be if I spent the same amount of time chaining lifetaps and spears, So far, and counting my unfamilarity with the cycles of spells, hence parsing slightly lower than I will when I get practiced, my dps hasn't gone up much at all. All trash mobs are at 50% health or less by the time I even land my three main dots. For longer raid fights, early impressions are that my dps is still nearly the same, and requires a TON more attention as im now managing a minimum of six abilities that are all on different timers and all have to be watched independently of each other (stance timer, dot timer, pet ability timers and the pet summon timer, spear timer, then clickies. Yes I can set up gina triggers for this and will, but this requires and absurd amount of attention for a trivial gain.

There are a number of specific problems with the new abilities outside of raw numbers:

ALL of the disciplines require being in combat and or this new 'melee' range. The 'Melee' range on these abilities is nowhere near melee range, as I will be swinging at the mobs and have disciplines fail due to oor errors. Some have theorized its because the disciplines use the x axis, some that it just measures from the dead center of the mob and not the hitbox, whatever it is, this NEEDS to be corrected. It DESTROYS efficiency at best, as almost every fight I pull the mob to me, then once it gets to me, have to reposition closer so I can have abilities work after trying one. It is very important to note that this even further messes up my ability to fight multipulls since I have to reposition for each mob or at the very least reposition groups of mobs multiple times, and all disciplines are useless to hit anything that more or less isnt already aggroed on me and already fighting me. Disciplines nearly unusable if this isnt corrected. Why ARE all of these disciplines coded to melee range only?

Pet self destruction abilities (all of them): All of these disciplines have similar melee problems as the other disciplines as well as other issues that cause them to fail a non trivial amount. Activating any of these abilities, autoswaps my target to my pet. If the ability succeeds, then the pet blows up, and because my melee target has died, my autoattack now turns off and my target disappears. I now have to retarget and turn on attack again. This is very annoying and just two more button presses added to the gajillion button presses that were added to the class overall. If the ability fails, for any number of reasons, mostly having to do with range, or if the pet is aggroed on anything (which is may not be if im not tanking) and its position, then the pet stays alive, and my target remains on the pet. Again I have to retarget and try to use the ability again. Maybe change position, find my target, make sure the pet is angry at what I am trying to use the ability on etc.

On the upside all of the pet abilities are nice, and I do quite like the ones that were added and or fixed. One quibble is that the pet doesn't actually DO anything on its own, still not worth using, with this change it just becomes two more buttons I have to press now and its just flavor for abilities that already have their own independent cooldowns. I had suggested that the pet be given SOME unique utility so there was actually a CHOICE to be made whether to blow it up or not, now its just a choice of what to blow it up for. A quibble that may only bother me as I liked having a pet as a tank class. I was a fan of this tome line before, and if the targeting change thing is removed and the range issues resolved it will be quite good. The new quick summon button is a great change.

Stances: Why do they last a minute? Not a lot to say. The mitigation stance is less than paladins (counting spell mitigation which is huge on raids) less than warriors by a lot, and tedious to have to keep reusing and draining stamina for, but if this is how 'stances' are then ...ok. The dot stance. is interesting for the concept, execution is lacking, as again with 30 second lasting dots and stance lasting one minute, its a LOT of button mashing to keep meleeing, cycling dots and trying to use any pet abilities, let alone lifetapping or spears or anything else.

Pet Mez and Mez stance: Finally fixed after being broken for my entire run as a SK on this server, thank you!!!!!

TLDR on stances:: Is a two minute duration out of the question?

Shielding Mastery fix: Thanks. Can this be applied to Jyre. Jyre has already been nerfed into the ground from a super cool. permanently character changing, character defining sword,to...just another thing to get but probably not even worth the effort now outside of masochism. I was, I think one of the last Jyre holdouts among the the higher end raiding knights and that was mostly out of stubbornness because I REALLY prefer using 2 handers in general over sword and board an this was the only option left, even if it was objectively not great for knights due to the low delay (you lose more melee strikes when casting spells with a faster weapon) and propensity for much of its damage to get resisted. Now, the shielding changes have put me firmly back into the sword and board camp (much to my continued sadness). Still overall great find and fix.

Bash changes: Shrug...fine, but since bash is still an attack skill and bash mods are not on any actually used gear at any tier, it suffers a LOT in the raid game due to normal accuracy chances.

Dot Weakening: Can we get some hard numbers of just how much SKs contribute to dot weakening? There are a couple issues with this as a mechanic. On paper it seems neat, but the practical effects of it are minimal at best. This is just flavor. Single xp and 6/12 man trash content dies too fast to stack dots on, multiple mob pulls I wont have a lot of time to dot as I will be terroring and lifetapping and for big raid mobs I have others who are doing a lot more damage than I am with dots and already contributing a lot more. On paper this reads like hey bonus mitigation, but for practical purposes, I am doubtful. Also for raid mobs, if I am tanking, I wont be stacking more than maybe two dots, so hoping the extra contribution will be HUGE.

This also brings me to an interesting point. I have seen dots of mine now on raids not land due to (what I assume is) the debuff limit being hit and others have said the same thing. If its the intent that im now cycling three to five more dots on raid mobs, they need to do a LOT if I am edging out a dot that does triple my dots damage.

Specific new Spells/discs:


Heart Possession: ....well I did ask for it, a dot that debuffs. Replacing all of my ae aggro with a 150pt a tick dot makes baby Marlow cry. Also every SK on server. I may have a contract out on my life now. Resist adjustment needs to be better. 30second duration, 150 a tick,. The Necro r2 casts two dots, for a total of 840 a tick base, heals the pet, AND has a dd. Not really the same thing is it? Veil was a core component of the sk class, this is just...another spell. Meh

Searing Blood: I guess the ceiling for sk dots is 150pts a tick and nothing else.

Terror of Gradalsh: What happened to the dd component this spell used to have? Shrug

Festering Harvest: The 'replacement' for Leech stance is...meh. Base it hits for as much as my deflux, but on a cooldown. If I stack four dots (where the ability caps out at) it scales up to about say 2500ish heal with some variance. The damage does not scale. It doesnt cost mana, but it also doesn't blow my skirt up. It is there. I can use it, but it does the exact same thing as my other lifetaps. If it didn't suffer from the same range issues and failure rate as all my disciplines I might have a higher opinion of this, but since it has discipline bugs it has a real chance of failure when I really NEED a lifetap.

Decietful Doubt: I am quite happy this was made into a strike instead of a stance. Can we get actual numbers on how the dispel works, is it for sure? What is 'interrupting spell casting' since what mobs actually 'cast' spells at this point?

Spirit Anchor: No chance to test it What does this and doesn't this work on. I mean I know the patch notes give a range, but what mobs specifically? Its super niche use, so ...yay maybe, but this feels like the knight 'fear immunity' aa. Either it completely trivializes an encounter and encounters will be changed to ignore it or it is completely pointless.

Shroud of the Lich change: Neat, I guess. If i use it that is another buff slot gone, which was another recurring complaint of SKs in the feedback thread.

Deathly Temptation: Neat, its almost not terrible now. Almost



Random other notes:

With the new focus on dots, now I have even fewer spell gem slots and buff slots to use. So many spells just will never get used now. Touch of the succubus, the Silent Halls spell, probably brazen bull and a few other spells that would occasionally show up on my bar simply have no room now. I have dememmed feign death a LOT in the last few days, and that is also NOT a good thing. No idea how paladins look but there are a lot of neat and or fun or utility spells that simply don't have a place now ever. Just a note.



Summation and final thoughts:

The changes are interesting, but far to button intensive for the slight increase in damage and for me it is VERY slight, considering I now need to regear out three new focus effects which is going to create its own fun. I am literally wearing boots from abyss because that is my best affliction enhancement option until Silent Halls.

There are a number of actual bugs that NEED To be addressed before I can give a final verdict on the dps question and some practice on my part. The focus change for the SK class needs some adjustments for sure. So much of the changes just seem tedious for the sake of tedium. Button pushing for the sake of button pushing. There are quite a few of the new abilities that are very short duration, that could be longer, that due to their short duration need to be constantly refreshed, and its not adding anything to the game other than just another button. It is now entirely constant watching cooldowns and reactivating things, this means im just watching my hot bar only. This is why I dont play a cleric very often, due to 95%of my job is watching hp bars and not anything thats going on in the actual game.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE engaging gameplay that forces you to be active, but this change has gone too far in the other direction.

SUPER SHORT ANSWER: Bring back veil. It should never have been removed and cripples the class in some key, and not uncommon situations. Fix discipline range issues. Fix pet ability retargeting silliness. Bring Back Veil.
 
The point about melee range and discs is still very true. I find myself constantly humping mobs to be in range of melee discs both levitating down the z axis and moving extremely close in on the x/y.

For SK aggro, is the debilitating part about it picking up initial aggro so on pulls mobs don't just rush squishies before you have the time to cast a single target aggro spell on them? If so, it might be worth considering giving SKs some sort of initial aggro boost to prevent this from happening, giving them time to cast their single target spells without mobs destroying the group first. This could maybe be some passive ability (when in a tanking stance) similar to foe lock, perhaps even all tanks should have. Or maybe a very minor aoe aggro spell (a terror or a dot?) Just to get a little aggro prior to cycling for single target aggro. On some necessary pulls squishies will die in seconds, far too quickly to single target aggro everything. While SKs are single target aggro focused, they should have something to deal with that, otherwise they just aren't effective tanks in a grouping situation.
 
I don't think this is a good balancing concept. By this metric the ENTIRETY of the reason for tank differences is based around how much other classes are expected to jolt? Because other classes 'almost never' have to jolt, as an SK, I take more damage than warriors, do less damage than warriors AND don't have ae aggro. Paladins, do less damage even than that, take more melee damage than that and EVERYONE ELSE has to jolt more, all because they can aggro multiple mobs. Warriors...get to continue to be the effectively the best all around tank to bring to every situation. They do the most dps, they take the least damage, they can aggro multiple mobs. Downsides: may have to wait 5 or 10 seconds to engage, Upsides: Literally everything else.

Warriors will continue to be the worst tank to bring to 6 man content. A shadow knight without a weapon can still effectively give casters and dps the ability to go balls to the wall while a warrior is still going to have aggro issues.
 
I never really understood how I can run around and round up some mobs with +10% aggression, Mistborn aggression tome, and voice aggro buff but the moment I get to where the group is setup the mobs just beeline for literally ANYONE else.

I mostly agree with Thaag that if the pet retargetting/turning attack back on and the discipline range got fixed the class fix would fee a lot smoother. Having no veil “oh shit” button is really noticeable in groups and really hampers how to play the game. Aoe pulling has been the only efficient way to xp for literal years and having no replacement to get even initial aggro before terroring them all feels bad. No real leech stance is fine with me. I never really enjoyed that playstyle even though the self healing was really nice and needed. Now we have an extra sublimate button which works.

It would be great if the mitigation stances had their stamina cost reduced so they could be used for 5+ minutes. There are a ton of fights that go over this length and losing mitigation for part of these fights is noticible.
 
I've just been using all low lvl discs including mitigation stances when grouping to prevent the massive stamina loss from holding everyone up. It works. For utility discs and mitigation stances it's not that much worse to use the lower lvl one, for damaging discs they do basically no damage, so there's kind of no point in using the lower level ones which means you can rarely use them grouping.

Stamina still feels like a weird resource, and drains way, way faster than mana if not using lower level discs. Stamina drain this hard shouldn't be on necessary discs (eg. Lady's strike for necessary aoe aggro), and if it's going to be as hard as it currently is the damage/defense abils should feel stronger to be in line with how fast the resource drains vs. the strength of the ability.

If stamina is supposed to drain at a similar rate to mana, then what's the point of adding stamina as a resource? Stamina just feels weird right now; either use it all up quickly for minimal benefit, use all lower level discs for the most part to prevent stamina loss making damaging discs useless, or just don't use discs at all except in big fights for a few minutes where they don't really have all that much impact comparative to their cost, except for mitigation that you'd likely want to prolong by not using other stamina draining abilities in favor of keeping mitigation up for longer.
 
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Another thought about reverting to lower level discs to save stamina. If this is the idea for managing stamina, it'd be a nice QOL improvement to make it so that if you don't have enough stamina to use a higher lvl disc, it kept going down the line trying to use each lower lvl version until you had enough stamina to use one of them, that way you don't have to have a bunch of separate hotkeys for different levels of a disc to manage stamina usage, the disc just automatically uses whichever one you currently have the stamina for.
 
Another paladin QOL ask -- now that we have 2 aoe stuns and they're part of our aoe aggro rotation, can the knockback on these spells be removed? It's really disorienting for the group and annoying / potentially buggy when mobs get knocked through a wall, or mobs that summon get knocked back and summon you ping-ponging you around, or worse, get knocked into a wall and summon you into the wall.

Another question on aoe stuns too -- if a mob is immune to stun, do pal aoe stuns still generate the same amount of threat? Perhaps that's part of why pal aoe threat seems lacking, I've been fighting mostly stun immune mobs in my tests. Second question: if a mob is not stun immune but mitigates the stun because they were already recently stunned, does the pal aoe stun still generate the same amount of threat?

Also.. when aoe blind / aoe stun gets resisted entirely I imagine it doesn't generate much threat -- could this also be part of the inconsistency of AOE aggro?
 
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Thuug, I found your post rather detailed and good. It does seem like there is a core problem, regardless of the knight type or tank class. Aggro is just dismal in general.

Why is it this way?

This feedback is aimed towards the staff and meant 110% -respectfully- , but is it really so strange that a tank can just hold some aggro? I understand adding cool abilities and making the playstyle more fun, which this patch has, however why isn't the core issue just addressed and turn up aggro for all tanks innately. Just crank it up and stop all of these minor tweaks and balances... Make the car's engine actually run before you try to optimize the car's efficiency.

-A Wizard doesn't need to prep six different attacks and strategize to see if they are able to land a nuke.... they just push a button and the damage happens.
-A Monk doesn't need to push 4 different abilities before they feign death on a pull.... they just push the button and it happens.
-A Ranger doesn't need to calculate the distance to target, check the wind's angle and speed, adjust the fletching on the arrow, etc. They just shoot the bow!

Seriously, can we just "Make aggro happen?"

What would be so bad if the 3 tank classes could just do what they are supposed to do in groups and content?

Let's put aside all the little flavor changes and address the underlying issue. Tank aggro is too low. Boost it at the core, boost it 30%, 50% etc. Make it work for now and then tune the little details from there. This is a 20+ year old elf sim and we play this game because its awesome! I love playing here but I just want to be able to actually play.

Let us help you test things so that rollouts are smooth and working properly. Open up a proper test server. We want to help!

-On Patch day my Hand of Piety ability was summoning an IMP! It looks like more testing could really benefit the server.

Again, I post this with all due respect, but please just let us play and do what we are supposed to do!


Thank you.

Romulox - High Knight of Resurgum
 
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