Set Gear Balance Changes...?

[Gargos]

I agree dual classing disadvantages single class players, but there is another aspect to consider. Bronze and Silver ANBs are pretty long time-consuming events. Playing two different classes makes it more interesting, can break the monotony. Perhaps a compromise formula could be found, e.g. a dual-class player able to carry across 50% (or whatever percentage is fair) of accumulated CL.

[ReigorMuerte]

I would very much like to see the other builds improved. I'm just saying that in order to be successful as a mage or a bh it shouldn't be required to play warrior first. I think we agree on that?

[Tin Man]

Heikki Gross I though Arcanist is a good XP farming feeder build for pushing with SCR?

[LodWig]

What if I were to tell you all that I'm lobbying to make multiple elemental damage types a feature instead of a bug...?

That is very nice of you. And an elegant way of dealing with the bug: just acknowledge that it's what players want instead of going against them.

And as I said in the Discord server: forbidding bischools is not a good way to foster build diversity.

[Heikki Gross]

Travis | Support Mgr. For the sake of build diversity and maintaining the existing balance between zap and beam, I would say that it is great news.

[Heikki Gross]

I would not be on board with it, or should I say that better farming capabilities for other classes is mandatory. It would kill SCR mage completely. It takes time to push the build to its limits and if we are restricted from fast warrior farm, getting there will just be a dream. But, when all classes would be fast farmers, then this restriction isnt needed anyway.

Hopefully the lobbying works out as a feature, dual-school damage opens up more variety in builds.

[Travis | Support Mgr.]

What if I were to tell you all that I'm lobbying to make multiple elemental damage types a feature instead of a bug...?

[ReigorMuerte]

People dual classing with Warrior for XP farming during ANB is a huge disadvantage for people purely playing the other classes. The previously listed suggestions for improving damage and playability are certainly worth consideration unto themselves but, and this will make me extremely popular, an easy change is to prevent CL from carrying over between classes during ANB, or, just block any new ANB toon from inheriting the accumulated CL. The leaderboards are set up as class rankings, restricting the competition to the individual classes would immediately provide greater balance and make the game more competitive.

[Heikki Gross]

Yes, we have 3 sides in this equation, inside them everything is additive and between them its all multiplicative. When ever the total value in some of the section gets bigger, anything added to that has less value. By having +400% arcane damage in SOFT we will be dilluting the effectiveness of elemental damage on gear. But I think it will be still valuable enough.

[Jose Sarmento]

Thx for the exposition. I'm aware (from your own videos, lol) that GC/PI/TW are all additive instead of multiplicative, I guess it makes sense that SOFT also adds to those.

If that is correct, I of course agree with your math, and withdraw my previous argument.

[Heikki Gross]

As you broke the news about removing Bischool damage from the game there are some things to add to my post. I will also address the issues brought up about my calculations in the SOFT change.

In my previous post I stated, that my ideas apply, if you will not remove bischool. It was because SCR set is so close to beam only because of that. Im not here to say that you should revert the decision, because removing bischool may give the opportunity to address the real issue of the build. But without those changes it will fall far behind beam.

The part SCR mage has always struggled is the single target dps. For big clusters of mobs, it has more than enough. So changes have to be made in a way, that there will not be any boost to Event Horizon dmg, while helping the single target part.

When we break down the dmg on boss, then currently in the game within a 7 minute bossfight, the dmg of Arc Lightning and Incinerate are equal. In 8 minute bossfight, incinerate will pass AL by 25%. After removing bischool, the dmg of incinerate will be cut in half, meaning that AL will have to get at least a 75% dmg boost to fill that gap.

Also we have to take into account, that incinerate is a shoot and forget skill. Meaning, that as long as its stacks on the mob, it will do its damage regardless of your actions. It will benefit from all your buffs and procs 100%. While AL isnt like that, it requires you to cast it, to do damage and as the mobs get harder and harder, there is less time to stand at one spot and cast. That is the reason I think that the buff to AL dmg should be at least 75%.

There are a few options, what could be done to boost AL damge.

1. Increase Lighting Struck - this would boost overall nature damage and we dont want that
2. Increase Arc Lightning base damage or BOM dmg modifier - That has the risk to affect also other builds in an unpredictable way
3. Increase the dmg modifier on SCR 4 piece bonus - This is the best approach IMO. It would target only AL dmg and it would be only SCR speciffic.

So how much to increase it?
Currently it is 1000%,
If it was 2000%, then the dmg increase to AL would be 90%,
If it was 1800%, then the dmg increase is 72%

I believe that the answer to this lies between that range 1800% - 2000%

Here is the math part for AL dmg.
Although all the dmg in that equation is multiplictive, we could look only at the dmg modifier difference:

1000% is a modifier of 11,
1800% is a modifier of 19 (100x(19/11-1) = 72%
2000% is a modifier of 21,(100x(21/11-1) = 90,9%

But for anyone interested, the full equation is this:
Currently: 1,85 (AL base modifier) x 2 (BOM) x 11 (SCR 4 piece) x 2 (Lightning Struck) = 81,4
1800% : 1,85 (AL base modifier) x 2 (BOM) x 19 (SCR 4 piece) x 2 (Lightning Struck) = 140,6
2000% : 1,85 (AL base modifier) x 2 (BOM) x 21 (SCR 4 piece) x 2 (Lightning Struck) = 155,4

Now about the Arcanist dmg modifier math issue:

I suggested to change the +400% overall dmg to +400% arcane dmg and it was brought to my attention, that this will actually nerf the dmg. I dont agree with that. Lets look at the equation:

400% dmg SOFT would look like this: 1,93 (+arcane dmg on gear) x 2 (Lightning Struck +100% more arc dmg taken) x 5 (400% dmg from SOFT) = 19,3
400% arc dmg SOFT would look like this: 5,93 (+arcane dmg on gear and SOFT) x 2 (Lightning Struck +100% more arc dmg taken) = 11,86

By this we see that my idea really is bad. But we did not think about other +dmg modifiers in the game, if paradox will have 60% more dmg as I suggested, TW has 60% and, GC has 20%, PI has 40%. So it is a total of 180% more damage. Lets add it to my previous equations:

400% dmg increase would look like this: 1,93 (+arcane dmg on gear) x 2 (Lightning Struck +100% more arc dmg taken) x 6,8 (400% dmg from SOFT and 180% from other sources) = 26,25
400% arcane dmg increase would look like this: 5,93 (+arcane dmg on gear and SOFT) x 2 (Lightning Struck +100% more arc dmg taken) x 2,8 (180% dmg increase from other sources) = 33,2

Now we actually see that this would be a major buff to the dmg and it would also make those dmg buffing skills more worthwhile for the build, because with +400% dmg from SOFT, their effect was heavily dilluted.

And I will also remind why it is a good idea to turn the SOFT dmg to arcane.

First, it will buff the deflect dmg, because deflect is affected by only 2 things, characters power value and + arcane dmg. No weapon dmg or any other +dmg modifier affects it.

Second, it will remove the possibility to use the set with frost or fire skills. If all skills will add charges, then using arcanist for beaming would be a nobrainer. More toughness and a bit more than double the dmg ELR has.

[Jose Sarmento]

I don't feel permaSoFT (as a concept) is that bad in itself. I agree it dumbs down the gameplay if it boils down to "spam skills as they become available" like it used to, but if it requires juggling a precise rotation, making use of Paradox immunity windows, waiting 1s for a Blink charge to recover so you can trigger SoFT to recover the second charge, etc. etc., all while ensuring you can "set a cadence" of 2 (or 3) SoFT triggers per ToS cycle, with 1 SoFT hitting on ToS -> I think there would be considerable skill in that.

One thing we didn't explore would be lowering the FK bubble cooldown. My perception is that in SCR you can "afford" to die after a pull to reset the bubble anyway (and the pull mobs are mostly dead, so the onus is very small), so making its cooldown 30s instead of 90s (for example) could let one have a reliable bubble to devote ToS windows to dishing out Ripple/AB damage, while not really pushing SCR over the top. What do you think?

[Heikki Gross]

BTW, I'm not a fan of permasoft, but since for now, there is only a way to change the values and not mechanics, it is the only option. In general, the idea of permasoft is bad, because it dumbs down the play, but to get rid of it, the build needs some powerful nukes. So far it is sustained dmg build, meaning, you have to be constantly close to the mobs to let the flow of ripples and arcane bolts deal with them. It doesnt have Beam+shock or Event horizon type ability to delete mobs during one vortex, so it has to be able to take a beating in the face.

[Jose Sarmento]

Just to be clear, I didn't mean to tout my previous suggestion as "superior" or something - that would be hubris, as you are a far better player. I also didn't intend to "sneak in" my "version" and pass it off as yours.

What I meant was that, in spite of the "keep it simple changes" paradigm that Travis emphasized, *something* is required to enable perma Soft again, or at least to substantially quicken it; we can both agree Arcanist can not thrive on 1 SoFT trigger per ToS cycle, that won't do for DPS and it won't do for survivability. So if somehow my change is easier to do - or jjust to lower the total number of Shards to 5 or whatever - then let's have that *for now* and then we can suggest a more honed enhancement when the Unity port comes.

I do have some arguments about your math/example (in the spirit of friendly discussion), but let's take that to Discord chat.