Patch Notes - August 10th, 2021

Status
Not open for further replies.
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
 
Last edited by a moderator:
To reduce aggro.

I am perplexed why jolts are the point of discussion. They have existing from the dawn of SoD, been implemented into many an item, and suddenly now they are an issue?

"Developers say jolts are good. Therefore jolts are bad!" Is this where we are? Because it feels like it.
They are now an issue because of the changes that have been implemented. And the stated intent that classes are "expected to jolt".
As Tev said,
"[Jolt] was always something you'd cast early in a fight to let the tank build a threat lead, to drop threat if you were focusing the wrong target, or to manage threat if you outgear the tank you're playing with. There was also the rare occasion where you'd have a warrior tanking a mob with a shield because they needed supreme defense."
They served that purpose very well, why make them more necessary than that? DPS class should DPS, and tanks should tank.
 
Let me reiterate what we will explore. As much as I like these back and forth discussions we have derailed a bit. This is based on feedback:

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’s Strike is propagated in an AoE?
4) Review EQEmu's melee range calculations against ours.
5) Convert pet sacrificing to self target.

These changes are new and definitely not perfect, but we can continue to make adjustments.
 
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.

could this also remove the 6 second lock out for weapon changing?
 
To reduce aggro.

I am perplexed why jolts are the point of discussion. They have existing from the dawn of SoD, been implemented into many an item, and suddenly now they are an issue?

"Developers say jolts are good. Therefore jolts are bad!" Is this where we are? Because it feels like it.
Ok let me elaborate further since it seems I was unclear I was referring to what the intended use cases for jolts are. Is it intended you regularly weave them in every few casts? If so, do the devs think this leads to a more interesting and fun gameplay experience? If it is intended that jolts are meant to be weaved in every few spell casts, could a solution be implemented to make it more intuitive of when you are close to pulling threat? Or is it intended that jolts are more situational in their use - like the situations I outlined in my previous posts. Prior to this patch it seemed like the use cases for jolts were relatively intuitive.

Most players do not find having to routinely press FD / jolt / concussion fun. Especially FD where you can give your group an exp penalty. Tanks do not find investing a lot of effort into generating threat and struggling to maintain it fun. Prior to this patch, players very rarely had to jolt (see the cases outlined in my previous post). After the patch players are finding that they need to use their jolts / FD much more frequently. This is why the topic of jolting now an issue.
 
Let’s be real, Veil was up for 1/3rd of an SKs pulls in exp. How did they manage for years when it was on cooldown? How did SKs and guilds progress before R2? I think in the future a new AoE tool with limited use could be designed, but veil could not continue to exist. It kind of masked the underlying issue of bad SK threat.
My point was specifically that it was necessary on SOME pulls, not ALL pulls.


Which fights.
Two examples I can think of off the top of my head. Supreme Ritualist Ofghats fight, adds at the beginningg and for sure when they spawn in the middle, and there are two pulls on the way to mountain king in emberflow (and others in emberflow) that are designed super unituitively, with one having mobs linked in a way no one would guess intuitively, if you do it perfectly you get four or five, through walls, some that pb root and db, and if a mistake happens 8+ come, the other, later on there is at least one other semi bad pull though without the same linking issues, other ember wings have their own examples. There are others

I don't want those encounters changed, I LIKE challenging fights and mechanics. I just want to reiterate that, as an emergency button veil IS needed.


T57 raiders are also adjusting to the changes.
This wasn't meant as a dig at t57 raiders, or the group you would think I'm talking shit to. I'm a t55 raider myself. I was making the point that the two games are vastly different, endgame raiding vs xp and that very much for xp, an ae aggro tool is much more important when you cannot just use another tank.


This is good.
(This was in response to me saying I didn't have aggro issues pre change) No it isnt. The changes solving a problem I didnt have means that the changes didn't DO anything. While not 'bad' either, its like saying 'Clerics need a better group heal'. One that heals for more and costs more mana. No they don't when the current one basically fully heals their group. It's just a wash. It is just flavor, but again not a complaint, just a fact. I, and other SKs I suspect, have problems on AE aggro, which was why the consistent request in the suggestion thread was for MORE ae aggro generation. If you just reinforce what I can already do, and further nerf what I can do well, then it makes sks a much more niche class on what they are able to do, which I thought was not the purpose, stated or implicit.
The idea I liked:
The important things to note about whatever would be added are that it have a decent range, it be able to pull aggro off a healer who has healed once or twice and that it NOT require that the SK is already on the aggro list for it to hit.

But again, Veil already filled the niche. It did a unique thing, required the rest of the group to do participate to make it actually work, had a resource cost (buff slots on you and the rest of the group, a short duration, and a recast so, as you said it wasn't up all the time.



As far as my parsing, my parsing on multiple toons has been close enough from my own parsing compared to other people in my raids parsing me across multiple toons so I suspect its not that. While they arent exact, there werent parses where I was consistently hundreds less, but always possible.

But we can math it out very simply, as I stated(and if I am wrong, correct my numbers) but three castable dots in dot stance were about 300-350 dps. Adding in pet curse is difficult to parse because it is so dependent on the length of the fight but I am explicitly noting that I am not including it. There is at least one more dot I could cycle in but with the stance being one minute, one dot being thirty seconds and another less than a minute in length, you simply cannot add in much more before you get to the point where you are recasting abilities. Pet curse will not be doing 100dps on its own until a couple minutes into the fight. I don't include melee dps as nothing changed. I also don't Procs should be higher in my normal cycle because I cast many more spells.

I'm not even arguing for more DPS, I'm simply nothing that the changes are super labor intensive and I dont feel like they are worth it for what appears to be a net gain of about 10% damage on a class that doesnt start out high, for 300% of the effort. I get that sks certainly shouldnt be pulling down necro numbers, but I'd LOVE if some others playing sks here can chime in. Am I crazy here? My rotation for the new abilities uses ALL of them, so I'm not exactly sure what I'd be missing, but its entirely possible I just suck.

Due to the labor intensive nature of the changes and number of spell slots, I can't do much else. Note this is not counting bracer procs, but vs my old style of play which was much more using lifetaps and spears and the 4k pet explosion, was pretty damned close to 350dps. Hell say I sucked and it was half of that. I am still having to regear and go full tryhardmode when not tanking to gain....175dps....that is like a rounding error to dps classes. I get that I am not a dps class, but its not a huge increase. Melee damage didnt change and should be a wash,
 
Please, if you are going to compare me to the mighty Dafoe, there is only one, Streets of fire Dafoe.

 
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’s Strike is propagated in an AoE?
1) this should help with exp groups big time
2) this would help make 2handers relevant again
3) id suggest doubling or even uncapping how many targets can be hit by aoe blind/stuns and maybe reducing their cds, otherwise in my opinion foelock will always be superior.
 
Yes, we fleshed out their toolkits in a varied and interesting way. The reality is that some who are used to a 15 year old server do not like change, no matter what it is.

Once again it's not "some people" - a lot of the feedback in this thread has been universal. It's not just one or two grumpy malcontents and everyone else is singing praises. You're telling people what they ACTUALLY want isn't what they think they want - that you know best - rather than listening to their very experienced and thoughtful feedback.

The pizza delivery guy could smear dog shit on my pizza and it would be an interesting and varied pizza. That I wouldn't want to eat because it's now a bad pizza.

You argue it's change itself that people don't like, implying these and past changes are good and fine, and it's just bad attitudes. This is misdirection. There are many forum threads requesting changes, many good ideas in these patch threads alone, that people would enjoy or begrudgingly agree on their merits. Cole. Some of these changes are bad or poorly implemented changes. That a dev has spent time on them and now we just have to eat it is a sunk cost fallacy, and that the only path is this one and forward is a false choice.
 
Last edited:
Also, veil was an aggro transfer tool, it did not generate threat on it's own (it did not get modified by threat multipliers). If you were in a group that does not sync well and did not do area damage when veil was up, you would only get proxy aggro at best.
It was aggro transfer that also worked for heal aggro. It let me heal my tank while I was pulling or just as mobs were coming in and they wouldn’t run to the cleric, giving me time to terror or hopefully proc on them. Maybe the initial presentation of the spell wasn’t enjoyed by devs, but it was one of our only tools for reliable aoe aggro on multiple mobs.

I can’t even think of a group that doesn’t do aoe aggro. Even just my duo, I would summon my pet, cast veil, do noxious blast stance, and get aggro on multiple mobs. Couple that with a hot/heal and a landslide bracer proc or 2 and things were running smoothly. The spreadsheet nerf hurt procs really bad, but almost everyone still had some amount of aggro to transfer.
 
Which pulls? Specificity is important.
Not impossible, but fights like Korl, Ofgats, MB when not completely overtier, MK hellpull if you can’t pro strat to make it 3 and 5, lake fort pulls, bloodfire pull in the buildings before scorcher, etc. All of these result in at least 3-4 mobs running for healers and you slowly tab target your way to terror them off. This is all while outtiering this by 3-4 tiers at least. Doing some of these with an on-tier shadowknight would start venturing towards the impossible.

This game has been about aoe since the dawn of Dalaya. I remember paladins of old being the kings of xp because they could reliably keep aggro on more than 2 mobs. Then I got R2 and actually felt like I could go to some of the fights listed above and not feel like a hindrance. The recent patches have incrementally reduced the player‘s ability contribute ability to this play style.

I don’t mind the disciplines and the new abilities/stances. If:

1) discipline range got fixed
2) pet tome became much smoother ( not losing target, not having to click auto attack back on, having the pet attack the mob you have targeted if its not hitting you)
3) SOME tool for aoe aggro. Change assault of shadows to aoe on 5 minute reuse. Change sublimate to aoe lifetap. Any lifeline would be helpful.

I understand you don’t want paladins doing massive single target aggro and shadowknights tanking multiple mobs every pull. Having abilities to do these situationally would feel nice and help tanking overall. Being a tank and knowing you’re just going to fail in certain scenarios doesn’t feel good.
 
Is nut hugging needed for all enemies? or just some?

If anyone can point out specific mobs that this seems to be the case, list them so I can use them to test. Thanks
Earth Trio in UT. When you tank 2 it was really clear that using WW and ramp was hard. Believe the range was changed since I have last done the fight however. That should give you a large mob however.

Or the 3 new thaz trash you made. I have to get close to use warrior abilities.
 
Is nut hugging needed for all enemies? or just some?

If anyone can point out specific mobs that this seems to be the case, list them so I can use them to test. Thanks
I noticed this just doing bloodfires in FR - sometimes if you pull and let them stay at their max melee range you are unable to ww/ramp/etc. Gotta scooch up a bit and it is pretty annoying.
 
3) SOME tool for aoe aggro. Change assault of shadows to aoe on 5 minute reuse. Change sublimate to aoe lifetap. Any lifeline would be helpful.
Assault is essentially useless, always thought it could be a nice small AE agro tool with whatever CD seems necessary.

AE lifetap is maybe even a better idea - fits within the role/definition of the SK class
 
if I recall the melee range issue has existed for almost all melee skills even pre-discipline revamp. it isn't just knights either they just get to join in the fun now. Also think size of the mob can matter for this. another annoying range issue is mobs summoning you to them so close that you are no longer facing them especially annoying on some plants that summon and root. and you have to rotate until you guess the correct direction.
 
if I recall the melee range issue has existed for almost all melee skills even pre-discipline revamp. it isn't just knights either they just get to join in the fun now. Also think size of the mob can matter for this. another annoying range issue is mobs summoning you to them so close that you are no longer facing them especially annoying on some plants that summon and root. and you have to rotate until you guess the correct direction.
It's possible that the client is telling you your too far away, which we would not be able to change.
 
one thing that might help is if mobs when pulled came a little closer before deciding they were close enough rather than the barely in range position they currently settle at.
 
Earth Trio in UT. When you tank 2 it was really clear that using WW and ramp was hard. Believe the range was changed since I have last done the fight however. That should give you a large mob however.

Or the 3 new thaz trash you made. I have to get close to use warrior abilities.
I can whirlwind Garr at this distance
1629304256855.png
 
What I am seeing with combat range is if a mob is attacking you, then you are in combat range with it. The check always makes sure both bodies are in combat range of each other for every attack/skill. This is server side, so perhaps it is caused by lag on the player side and the client is blocking you?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom