erethizon1
Well-known member
We are past time for casters to be the strongest. They are the only ones with a limited power pool (spell points) and should be the strongest (at least until they run out spell points).
clunkiest = most powerful play style is bad for the game's health
- Thread starter Concavenator
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LurkingVeteran
Well-known member
DoTs institutionalized kiting, it is kind of bad design that we don't want to go back to. Mantles kind of solve the same problem, it's mainly that caster 30s burst is too low now.
The number of buttons is a separate problem. I think they should reduce cooldowns overall. Or give casters a kind of right-click weapon attack that fired cantrips with no CD, and acting more like a weapon attack you could weave in inbetween spells to maybe even increase DPS. This would be cool but I'm afraid too much work for the devs.
FVS Archon / Predator Plasmacaster.
Sarlona Raiding
Well-known member
Balancing is difficult in this game due to all the asymmetrical abilities and combos. With crossbows the combination of inexorable advance + either no holds barred or endless fusilade is the asymemetrical ability that provides incredible short-term burst damage. Throw in reaper boosts and whatever else you have such as legendary trick shot rp boost, etc. and it gets a little better.
Soloing on a crossbow build is no fun and slower than other playstyles, but I like crossbow builds for casual pug raiding where burst and single-target damage is king - and there are mechanics that are more punishing to melee players without solid damage mitigation in raids. I have a few crossbow build low-investment characters I can use for LH pug raiding.
Over time thrower builds do more dps on an accomplished character vs. crossbows, but for casual LH raiding crossbow is probably the 2nd best dps aside from the bugged big melee attack that has been around for several years and not super well known yet and not on the dev's radar.
The asymmetrical abilities make the game more interesting and allow for some interesting builds, but also make balance difficult as players are good at finding powerful combos and interactions.
In general I think some people spend way too much time trying to get other people's builds nerfed. I think the devs are aware of what crossbow builds can do and why already, but they can't jump and make a change every time someone nerf-rants on the forums.
Soloing on a crossbow build is no fun and slower than other playstyles, but I like crossbow builds for casual pug raiding where burst and single-target damage is king - and there are mechanics that are more punishing to melee players without solid damage mitigation in raids. I have a few crossbow build low-investment characters I can use for LH pug raiding.
Over time thrower builds do more dps on an accomplished character vs. crossbows, but for casual LH raiding crossbow is probably the 2nd best dps aside from the bugged big melee attack that has been around for several years and not super well known yet and not on the dev's radar.
The asymmetrical abilities make the game more interesting and allow for some interesting builds, but also make balance difficult as players are good at finding powerful combos and interactions.
In general I think some people spend way too much time trying to get other people's builds nerfed. I think the devs are aware of what crossbow builds can do and why already, but they can't jump and make a change every time someone nerf-rants on the forums.
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But all those things combine to a die roll and a damage calculation. And nerfing/buffing can be done to any or all of the individual components.
SSG will have access to all the data so its just a matter of caring.
Also this was written like youre a crossbow user.
Oliphant
Well-known member
What I'm describing involves the same dots we have now but allowing deeper stacking, perhaps escalating increases if needed to make deep stacking good enough. It's not "boosting stacking" per se its allowing deeper, time involved stacking. Don't see how a time involved wind up on single targets makes kiting much more practical. If a caster could stack 40 dots on a boss, it would take time to wind up but it could be designed to help casters be comparable to other DPS in the long run.
Regarding faster cool downs, specifically my Arcane Trickster characters in raids having to constantly push buttons eventually got really boring and also hard on my wrists at some point. It was both the frequency and the number of buttons but the frequency was the worst part, so faster cool downs for my DPS buttons, at least for AT is the last thing I would want to balance that. Faster CDs for my PK AT of course would be nice for easier IK.
Sarlona Raiding
Well-known member
I mostly use crossbow builds for casual raiding where their unique single-target burst damage is very useful. I never use these for soloing and prefer other builds for questing, but will sometimes bring a crossbow build to group quests.
I have a mix of ranged, melee and casting. I don't prefer any one playstyle over the others, but I use specific builds for specific purposes. Outside of casual raiding I don't like crossbow builds much.
LurkingVeteran
Well-known member
Not sure what you mean, current DoTs are obsolete, and good riddance. I don't think we want to go back to casters having to slowly stack up DoTs by pressing a button once overy 8 seconds. Especially not by taking even longer to stack up. Everything except a reaper raid boss will be dead by the time you stack your DoTs. Imagine if Archer's Focus built up on the monsters rather than the player, and they had to build it up again when they changed targets. I bet people would love that change.
Should make more 8th and 9th level spells like Black Dragon Bolt and Rend the Soul. No stacking, no damage fading over time, no damage building up where you get the most right before it expires and if you recast the DoT too soon, you skip the best damage. Just cast and forget, recast whenever you feel like. Go to the epic destinities that enhance how many stacks the bad DoTs can get and just replace them with something that increases the damage of these 8th and 9th level versions (without adding stacking).
Oliphant
Well-known member
Just a way for them to provide a path toward long term caster dps without cranking up their ability to roast everything else quickly (they don't seem to want that, but just guessing). The fact current dots are wack is why I suggest escalating dots, like maybe exponentially growing. Make dots better but only after a bit, trying to make it practical only for long term boss dps. Using the limitations of a slow build up to make it a boss thing only. Its a compromise idea.
LurkingVeteran
Well-known member
But I would never settle for this, casters need single target DPS that is not too far behind the martial classes. I don't see why this should be a problem, martial ranged classes have insane DPS and is also ranged classes. Casters additionally have sp constraints and have to press a bunch of buttons, I don't see why they can't get at least 75% of martial ranged DPS if you build for it. An argument could be made for casters getting higher burst DPS even.
Bjond
Well-known member
Hmm. IMHO, regular INQ solos better than non-xbow and my last ranged (repeater) was pretty amazing solo, though that was not intentional -- it was built for raids.
The reason was Dragon Lord, though, not repeater. Roar + Shatter would zero most of a pack, then could zap the few remainders 1x1.
There are only two things keeping xbow from competing with shuriken: draconic reinvigoration and OH LGS. There aren't enough EF/NHB charges for more than short raids and OH Rune-Arms are lacking versus LGS OHs for Shuriken.
Oh, and one more: repeaters are so sluggish that playing is torture.
The one good thing about GXB is a single shot hits hard enough to kill mobs in low reaper so you can toggle quickly between them. Repeaters have to go through the entire animation and if you dont time it right it fires a 2nd volley into nothing.
Not an issue when shooting orange red and purples though, where repeaters excel.
Last time I played a shuri build was just to level to see what the fuss was about. I didnt stay at cap. It levelled just fine, too. Not Barb or Sorc or stick Monk but being ranged you just never stop hitting things. And I enjoyed it.
Oliphant
Well-known member
Yeah I dont know why the seem to fear caster DPS