Early access balancing changes - August 2021

[Heikki Gross]

This is the first part of my feedback to the changes in 1.5.71 and it is about Stormcaller set.

If you dont want to read, there is also a video added where I talk about the same stuff.

Firts of all i want to thank the developers for listening to our feedback and Im so happy to see that some of the things suggested made it into the alpha.

So what did change for Stormcaller?

• Optimized the visual effects and logic for the Stormcaller mage set to reduce lag when fighting hordes of monsters

This is has helped the FPS issue a lot, but it still lags on very large groups, at least it seems the damage is not skipped anymore. There is an example in the video. Although when the FK set bubble procs and we get the Immune texts it still nearly freezes. Please, just make it so, that the immune text will also be shut off, if you turn off floating text and I think it will be fixed that way.

• Moved the damage reduction effect from the Event Horizon to the Lightning Struck debuff

Very good change, but there is a bug now. When lightning struck is procced from the belt of whispered secrets, then the damage reduction debuff does not apply. So when a mob damage gets deflected, this is the debuff what will be on the mob and that one will also be refreshed with blizzard or another deflect, the only way to remove it is to let that run out and add the one from blizzard. Also shown in the video.

• Greatly increased the radius at which Time Warp affects enemies

Very very good change. It works and there is nothing to add.


The belt

I am still very strongly behind the idea of joining the belt of arcane shielding and whispered secrets and removing the armor reduction. Basically it will be a belt of whispered secrets with 8000 deflect rating. This belt will make a lot of sense, there is a proc and a bonus what will aid that proc. This belt would synergize very well with Stormcaller set and Arcanist set. (I will get to that set in another post)
Deflect rating itself in the game is totally useless stat and nobody will trade 8000 deflect to 1000 armor. Nobody! But this change would make it valuable at least for those 2 builds and there was actually another build what emerged from that synergy, where the deflect is very important. I would like to propose that also in a following post. Doesnt have to happen in this alpha, but some thought for the future.

Now on the matter of damage, I do understand that you want to take it slow, so its not going to be broken and this is the smart approach. You have almost fixed the set, gave it more defence and made the gameplay better, there is only one thing left to do, to make it also a proper contender for top spots. The build lacks damage and there are 3 ways you could fix it.

1. The simplest way is to just change the lightning struck damage bonus on the belt and set to 200% - this would be my no.1 suggestion today. After doing a lot of runs and tests in previous alpha, I found that this change would bring the damage of the build to required level, it would boost the damage of mobphase and boss phase enough so we could do 160+ given how my run at 153 went in current alpha this damage buff would place that clear to 158 and with pristine gameplay to 163, and thats where ELR sits at the moment. This would make XP farming with the set also viable.
2. The second option is what i suggested earlier, make the belt change and buff the lightning struck just on the belt to 200% and make the debuff icons different, so we can understand which one is on - This will get the build to around TL158 and will require some smarter gameplay. I would be also behind that change, if the first one seems too extreme. This would also help XP farming.
3. The third option is to separate lightning struck from the set and belt, so that they can both be on the mob simultaneously - It will not give as strong results as the second or first option but it would still be a buff and this way you can keep the damage reduction debuff from lightning struck only on the Stormcaller set. - this one I would like the least because both changes what are above, would open up some alternative builds and will help Arcanist as well.

Below are Changes to Eridanus what affect the build, but not much.

• Radius of Cosmic Ripple has been greatly increased (tripled

This helps to keep aggro in some cases, but not much else, because the damage type was changed.

• Fixed a bug causing Cosmic Ripple to deal no damage

Yeah, it works now. So its great.

• Cosmic Ripple damage type is now Arcane

This is a bad chage, it makes the weapon worse. Arcane damage is only on one skill (arcane bolts), nobody will invest into it and it is bad even on Arcanist build. I will show that in a later post. In my opinion you should remove Arcane damage from the game completely or change it to act like elemental damage - boosts all damage types but with 75% efficiency. This would revive some dual damage builds.

Below is a video about the Stormcaller changes.

[LStab]

yeah,i didn't test it yet.I made the judgment by comparing the previous Arc build.At that time(not entirely sure of these data,a vague memory),
The damage distribution of Mobs fight is Cosmic Ripple(45%),Singularity(45%),others(10%).
The damage distribution of Boss fight is Arcane Bolts(70-90%,It depends on the FPS).
The damage distribution of Total fight is Cosmic Ripple(30%),Singularity(30%),Arcane Bolts(20%),others(20%)
There are many buff with Cosmic Ripple and Arcane Bolts in this update.so make them the same type of damage is great.If devs can make all these three main abilitys the same type of damage will be perfect.

[bojck]

making Singularity Arcane sounds good to me as well, then it will be a true arcane build. It's quite fun to have multiple damage dealing skills, in this case singularity, ripple and arcane bolts. Now if we go +arcane we'll likely have to use an arcane bolts bracer, which will make singularity quite weak. If we choose +nature and a singularity bracer both bolts and ripple will suffer. It has to be tested properly... Surely it won't be on par with SCR and ELR, but it sounds more fun to play than it used to, so I'm looking forward

[Quetzorian]

Great video showing the changes. Thank you so much for your excellent analysis and feedback to the Devs! I really look forward to trying the upcoming changes with my SCR build (and will test the changes with Arcanist, too).

[Benedicto]

Does anybody tried the changes of Defender set? I just think that these will improve SW on damage but not much, as the AR still the hindering factor for survivability on higher trials. SB is one of the main ability that needs to be active at all times, but 5 seconds duration is too short. Either increase its duration or add an effect to increase it like the Regalia Chest that gives additional time on Northern Wind, or procs when there's a critical block, etc.. The increase on the Blackguards set is great so let's see if it will help.

[TheExorcist]

The rest of Shield warriors alpha. Where are you?. Say something will ya.

[Kardinaal]

Blackguards set will definately be easier to manage.

Dropping down to 30% health for the trigger and then get enough heal to survive isn’t easy. With the treshold at 50%, this will be easier to manage. Maybe even staying below 50% is doable. Also, while in mob phase loosing health to trigger is easy enough, during the boss phase it’s a lot harder.

So while there won’t be more shield block procs than before, it will be a lot easier to consistently get the procs. One of the reasons I like shockwave on my shield warrior so much, is that it is the only decent way to manage healing to get the blackguard procs. And that will get a lot easier now.

For the rest, whirlwind triggering healing procs from defender 2 is a god send, and 100% block as power during Sb (with 25% more block you can stack) might be a bigger boost than it looks at first glance. And with Sb up only 40% of the time, higher (crit) block will give you more shield slams when Sb is not up. So it might be worth stacking more block rate than on previous shield builds.

Oh and shield warriors will dominate the Arena with these changes. It’s gonna be crazy.

[MrNoob]

6 piece havoc still says 6 missiles not 9 and verified in TG that its only 6. Its my theory that the quartermaster stole them and is in hiding.

[jay clarke]

Is there any news on alpha2? And when can we expect to be able to spend money? And will the quest bugs be sorted?

[papa jim]

It seems we went from alpha to a closed beta yesterday, read the post by Adrian. Quest bug is still there, I still can't purchase anything but that was not affecting all of us.

[Travis | Support Mgr.]

It's still in alpha, not beta.

[papa jim]

Sorry, I misunderstood the post Adrian made, the closed beta is alpha 2.

[Travis | Support Mgr.]

Is there any news on alpha2? And when can we expect to be able to spend money? And will the quest bugs be sorted?

Adrian posted links to the new alpha yesterday, along with release notes.

[jay clarke]

Already downloaded no difference from previous one. Same problems.

[Heikki Gross]

This is my feedback on the changes to Arcanist set.

I will add also a video, where I mumble a bit more about it. Watch it with an example gameplay and results. I am wrong there about the damage done by singularity, but still, it wont make any big difference.

Overall, it is a good idea to revive the set, but changes what have been done, leave me puzzled of the motivation. I dont understand in which direction the developers want this to go. Reducing a lot and then adding a bit back to the SOFT damage reduction, makes the set worse than it was. At least the same type of gameplay what it used to be, on current meta level, SOFT should make you immune to damage, otherwise you don't survive being in mobs at trials above 145.

As I show in the video, the set in its current alpha build state, is able to barely clear TL140, so that is miles behind everything else. As expected ripple does most of the damage, but that 10K weapon damage just wont cut it. It is mainly a single target build with a bit of AOE. If you want it to be successful as one, some major overhaul has to happen.

I have always thought that the set should play an assassin/mage type of gameplay, where you are fragile most of the time.

A written description of my suggestion about the build would be this:

Change the 6pc set bonus to act as a damage sponge and upon end of the duration you can use that damge. In other words, you gain charges as usual and once you hit SOFT, all the cooldowns are finished and there is a 5 sec duration where you gain the ability to absorb all the damage. After the 5 sec you loose the absorb effect, but gain a damage modifier. The more damage you absorbed the bigger the modifier and it lasts until you will get a new one from SOFT. So it lasts through the absorb effect as well, until its renewed. It is kind of like reversed paradox.

Previously I thought that my suggestion to belt of whispered secrets, would also synergize very well with this kind of play, but now that most of the damage of the build would be Arcane, I think it needs also a dedicated belt.

[Heikki Gross]

And as promised, I will showcase a cool and alternative way Stormcaller could be played, with some minor changes to the game.

Again, im going over this info as well in the video, but key points I will bring out below also.

This is a build, what utilizes the most useless stat in the game, "DEFLECT" and makes something very awesome out of it. I used also the shield, because shield mages are cool and Rylocke's was so sad alone, noone ever uses it. It also works with tome, but i found the shield to synergize a bit better and as I said already, shield mages are cool

What is the build about:

• We changed the Rylocke's Deflector shield to give - 100% chance to strike back the enemy with 10000% weapon damage and 25000% of your reflected damage as lighning (it used to be around 50% chance to deal 100% weapon damage and around 650% reflected damage, so basically nothing) this helps for the loss of offhand damage.
• We used a modified belt of Whispered secrets what gives 8000 deflect and lightning struck effect with 200% nature damage increased upon deflecting. (in video i used 20000 deflect on the belt, but that was to gain an effect what should be on the skill)
• For the build to work, mage has to get max block rating it can achieve (near 90%, we used a lot more, but for the testing there was no damage reduction coming from the belt lightning struck effect, so we had to be creative)
• Paradox skill bubble effect time has to be increased to 4-5 sec and while the effect is running, bubble + shield, the mage gains 15000 deflect rating. This will help to get 100% deflect rating what the build needs. Also it helps to maintain the shield longer.

Skills:

• Arc Lightning
• Immolate - we cant use Time warp, because we need the mobs ot hit us for the lightning struck from deflect.
• Paradox - This is the key to the build, it lets us to jump into mobs and it also lets us to deflect damage same time.
• Singularity - for the event horizon of course.
• Passives are the usual.

Gameplay:

Mobphase

The idea is to gather a lot of mobs, then vortex them together and while it holds move to the center of the pack while activating paradox. Paradox will help you survive and while mobs hit you they will get the lightning struck debuff. This will reduce their damage to you by 50% and increase your damage to them by 200%. Then release singularity and cast immolate right under all of them to debuff them even more for the damage. And its time to get out before the paradox shield ends and they kill you. Rinse and repeat until the map is clear.

On boss

We want to save our paradox charges for boss big hits (Mag meteor, Elban jump, Garm breath, Kara's knives and TBD overload) since the bubble will save us, we will deflect back a lot of damage. The rest of the bossfight is as usual SCR play, just know, you have to let the boss hit you, so he gets back your lightning on block.

Take note, that in this video I play TL141 and the deflected damage seems big, at TL151 it is not the case anymore and you start seeing the hp melt only with huge osmosis stacks. My highest on clear with it was 155 which I could also do with conventional SCR build, so I declare them pretty equal.

I think it is an awesome way to revive a useless shield and a useless stat. What do you think?

[Quetzorian]

Brilliant! Great to see Block and Deflect actually having an impact... I've been experimenting with those stats on SCR for ages hoping to see this kind of outcome! Also, swapping Time Warp for Incinerate... Genius!

[Grand_Wazoo]

I really appreciate all the effort you make to prove your point. Hope the devs are considering all of this.

[Kardinaal]

I’ve heard a lot here about the need to balance AR. And I agree to a point. Here is my problem with the current AR system: the diminishing returns are too steep. The difference between having 2000 ar on you character and double that, is only a 3rd of a second on a 10 second cooldown.

having around 30% faster cast time at 2000 ar is ok. But doubling that and only get 1% extra… That’s very steep on diminishing returns, especially knowing that 4000 ar is far from the max you can get…

So in my opinion the base ar is ok, but the diminishing returns are so steep it’s crazy. A good baseline for me would be 30% at 2000 ar, 60% at Max possible ar or something (all gear, 3 mages,…). AR should be hard to get, but stacking it should at least have some benefit.

[Kardinaal]

Oh and one other thing that bugs me to no end. Could you please give one of the carnival Capes a different boost. Change one to 500 vit or something. Easy change and you now have 3 capes instead of 2.

[LodWig]

Cooldowns were halved at the same time the AR benefit was reduced, overall it was a win, up to about 3621 AR. Not many players had more, and very few had more than 4000 AR. By the way, I think the max is close to 4319 AR, giving 42.6% CdR, vs 42.1% at 4000 AR, and 36.4% at 2000 AR. I agree the diminishing return hits hard, but think of it as an opportunity to replace AR with other stats...

The change I would like to be reverted is the one on Alacrity, 15% chance (with 2000 AR) of a 0.5s reduction of running timers is really low. It's only 17.5% chance at 3000 AR, so again a steep decreasing in AR usefulness. Maybe 20% chance of 1s reduction, or 40% chance of a 0.5s reduction, would make 3000 AR more appealing.

[Kardinaal]

The ar reduction hit hard on the warrior side though, basically nerfing both shield and bleed warriors by a lot.

That said, a change in alacrity would also make ar more interresting.

Now it’s just a no brain stat, just stack 2000…

It’s more that stacking ar giving more gains would have people thinking more of hitting breakpoints, like “with x ar you can have constant shockwave healing”.

[Arin]

alpha 2 shield warrior is still much weaker than current cleave meta for trial push due to its too long cool down (for both shield block & deadly throw).

[Turgeon]

You tried it? What trial are you able to go?

[Souloist]

The assault set is still way to weak. Scatter shot dmg is not enough. There is no synergies there. Charged amo base dmg seems to be not big enough to benefit from the multishot dmg buff. Plus the problem is the way we play. Gather around and kill a group. What if charged amo damages all the enemies that are in combat? As long as you deal dmg all mobs are affected by charged amo ?

Is there any chance to start another anb just to check current changes?

[CarnivorousDeathParrot.2]

I think some builds, mainly Assault and Apprentice, would need a significant revamp adding completely new mechanics or even items.
Adjusting numbers could eventually make them competitive but not too interesting to play compared to the others.

[CarnivorousDeathParrot.2]

Any chance of allowing mobile ELR players vortex during Frostbeam?

We have to be careful not to come up with things that would only work on a desktop.

[Heikki Gross]

If igniters belt would be buffed like I suggested, it would help mobile ELR players a lot. Probably its not that easy to fix the vortex, easier to have optional builds, what are not affected by this bug.

[Schmutzus]

I have an adjust suggestion for the Mage Apprentice Vestments Set.

First of all, I see as big Problem of this set the bossfights. You have no real damage source, beside of your autoattacks. Immolate Rank 50 might deal some damage, but you need a LOT more, to be able to challange Bossmonsters in high trials.
One suggestion for a build arround would be: Make the Immolates, summoned by the 6 pcs setbonus, stackable and give the summoned Illusions of 'Blink' also the Effects of the setbonus -> They would be able to cast the Immolates aswell with their autoattacks. This way you could stack the DoT´s and the % Bonus damage of Immolate which would made your Autoattcks more competetive. Also this would be a fun new mechanic: Summon some illusions to burn down everything with ton´s of fire damage and dot´s.

Another suggestion would be: Add some boni to the set pieces: Maybe give the Gauntlets: +50% Fire Damage and helmet: Fire Damage DoT´s durations are increased by 2 seconds.

Maybe you should nerf the damage in Arena, but PVE this set does still need some damage buffs

[LodWig]

• Tracer Ammo now increased the physical damage component of Explosive Shot by an additional 12% per stack.
• Explosive Shot area of effect damage component now deals 1200% weapon damage, up from 600%, and the radius of the area effect is now 30% larger.

• Igniters set bonus - Tracer Ammo can now stack 10 times, up from 5.

• Tracer Ammo now properly increase Explosive Shot damage by an additional 12%

Without the Igniters set equipped, the Physical damage of Explosive Shot (from the bullet) is still not modified by Tracer Ammo stacks.

However, the Fire damage of Explosive Shot (from the explosion) is. The increase is an additive 12% per stack. The multiplicative 7% per stack is still in effect. The new formula to compute the Tracer Ammo factor with n stacks is thus

1.07n × ( 1 + 0.12 × n )

With the Igniters set equipped, the formula is the same for the explosion, and for the bullet is as it was in previous stable release, that is:

1.07n

(Note: The Explosion is indeed now 1200% Weapon Damage. The Igniters set now indeed allows for ten more stacks.)

[Heikki Gross]

- Deadly Throw adds 500% of shield Armor value when a shield is equipped, (not 150%), up from 100%; Deadly Throw also inflicts a bleeding effect for 2000% weapon damage when a melee weapon is equipped in the offhand slot, up from 1000% weapon damage.

What if DT bleed was changed, so it doesnt have stack limitation of 5, it would stack infinitely and it would also apply with a shield?