I mean, I think it's totally valid to also discuss group combat as well, because Imperian practically IS group combat, but you did say "blah sees Runeguard in a pretty bad state for single combat".
Guess it would be a win win for everyone to revert the sowulu change!
Most of us who have it don't want it the way it is now, and apparently (based on what I'm reading) it would also be better for the opposing side if it was the way it was before (so they aren't getting hit by multiple).. so maybe we should just change it back
It does half the damage it did. Now we need two flares to hit that, where the second would have been nauthiz before.
With 606 health, I eat a sowulu flare for 49 psychic (raw damage: 55). Prior to this change I would have eaten a sowulu flare for 606 * 0.13 = approximately 79 unblockable damage. Now, breaking out my fifth grade math skills here, I'm pretty sure that 79 divided by 2 rounds up to 40 damage and that 40 is, in fact, less than 49.
In fact, this means that I can be taking approximately 100 damage every 4 seconds as opposed to 80 damage every 4 seconds. That is what is called an 'upgrade'.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"Man, that is a problem. If only we had some kind of queueing system that helped people hit tight windows..."
Let me know when that system works in team fights! I will gladly use it, but right now I have to check on my next hit for rebounding and shield, so I can't exactly queue the next dsl now, can I? I would love if you had a way to do this.
I think he means the "fast" stance, although I admit to remembering being pretty underwhelmed with it, at least in Templar, because it made my reaves pretty meh. But if it let me "do awesome thing", I think I'd feel differently.
"Man, that is a problem. If only we had some kind of queueing system that helped people hit tight windows..."
Let me know when that system works in team fights! I will gladly use it, but right now I have to check on my next hit for rebounding and shield, so I can't exactly queue the next dsl now, can I? I would love if you had a way to do this.
You queue it up and then you clear the queue if rebounding pops up. It's the same thing I did for Blade Spin combos as a Wardancer.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"The point is that when it fires, you still have the bonus resist mitigation for a reave within the next 4 seconds. Reave as athletic (the knight statpack for anyone who is serious about being optimal in both teams and duels) has a reave combo that has a balance of under 4 seconds. So this is achieveable 100% of the time; there's no variation involved other than on the side of the user."
Yeah, that is possible now that we don't have to use infused weapons because our sowulu flare was shortened, but prior to that there was no great way of getting a reave under 4 seconds.
You should really avoid infusion at all costs, anyway. For anything but an execute weapon the slowdown just isn't worth it. A big reason is also that longer balance on knight weapons just constrains you to rebounding cycles more than they already do.
The number of logs there are of Khizan rebound killing himself show this to be a worthwhile and hearty strategy.
These are memorable because people killing themselves is hilarious. That aside, three points
Wardancer has like 30% physical resistance counting armor and was throwing a 4 hit combo into rebounding (spin+strike+strike+suicidedrop's self damage component) and the combination of those things could kill me from like 85% health. Runeguard queuing into knife is throwing two slashes while maintaining solid physical resists. Two entirely different scenarios.
My KDR on those combos is in my favor.
Elimination of a primary target is worth taking a few risks. Blowing Kryss up in the first few shots of the fight turned everything else into wrap up.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
@Septus You haven't gotten Templar nerfed that I know of. I think we'd be fine.
We're on like the fifth incarnation of Mirroring. Our Flare does 25-30 damage and we have to burn a weapon enhancement to keep rites while we do it. Our affliction-based weapon proc has a health gate on it. The ORIGINAL emblazing was also nerfed directly because of Septus.
Pretty much all of that stuff is due directly to Septus. Templar is the worst knight class in the game by a large margin right now and a lot of that is because of people trying to specifically nerf Septus.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"You don't want Septus to go RG because a competent player is going to buy Runeguard nerfs by the boatload."
I guess if you want to say that all of the combatants we have had in the magick circle so far weren't competent, maybe it's time to even the playing field and have a competent player on our side. Numerous of players who I consider great combatants gave this class a try and decided it wasn't worth it compared to other classes. Because we apparently aren't using it to the potential everyone else sees in the class, there is really no difference if he got the class nerfed to 70% or if we continue to play the class at the 70% potential we apparently have been.
Well, we like our Septus (even if he does ruin EVERYTHING), but it's not that Septus is a competent player, it's that he can and will get every last little bit out of a given prof.
Septus has gotten Templar nerfed quite a bit... I can at least survive him for a few rounds, now... And when I was Magick and him/Xeron/Azefel joined, he got RG nerfed a decent amount too (all before weaponmastery changes, but still). This was when you either weren't playing, or weren't Magick, though (I never saw you so that's the basis I'm going on), so can't really blame you for not knowing that.
Just saying, if there's multiple people saying your class isn't as bad as you think it is (and said people fight more than you do), then there's a pretty solid chance that it's not bad.
We're kind of going off topic here. Suffice it to say the chances of me going Magick are fairly small, due to personality clashes with various members probably making it unsustainable (much like last time). Should probably get back to discussing rg!
I know we just got done with classsleads, but maybe next time we should have a mirror server session where combatants can more adequately assess the current skills of each class, rather than just looking at the skills on paper and saying what is amazing in that class and what should/does work. This would need to be done for balancing both team and individual combat.
I know that we recently lost some of our best combatants in this circle because there isn't a whole lot of eagerness to fight from the magick professions due to either 1. the skills not being as great as everyone else says they are or 2. not being able to figure out how to make them great like everyone says they are, I'm not honestly sure which it is.
Just all in all, this is really discouraging for anyone who wants to fight in this circle because we are seeing combatants leave and we aren't seeing any combatants rushing over to join magick circle because our skills are "the best."
Honestly? The entire reason I won't even entertain the idea of going to another org, much less another circle has absolutely nothing to do with profs, and absolutely everything to do with the people/power structures I'd expect to encounter - none of which seem to be particularly friendly to people who enjoy PK and don't enjoy tedious rituals, requirements, power struggles, and rank pulling, and yes, sometimes, even "omg, you brought PK to the city and people dieeeeed, disfavour" in a game that is supposed to be combat oriented. Although I am not a "real" combatant, I can tell you that sentiment is not unique to me. Some people are just waaaay more diplomatic about it. Initially, I had intended to dabble in all of the circles, especially if one "needed people". Now, even though I really like some of the people in other circles, I will have absolutely no intention of ever playing those circles unless their culture were to drastically change.
I know we just got done with classsleads, but maybe next time we should have a mirror server session where combatants can more adequately assess the current skills of each class, rather than just looking at the skills on paper and saying what is amazing in that class and what should/does work. This would need to be done for balancing both team and individual combat.
This is the classlead beta and we have one after almost every classlead round.
I know that we recently lost some of our best combatants in this circle because there isn't a whole lot of eagerness to fight from the magick professions due to either 1. the skills not being as great as everyone else says they are or 2. not being able to figure out how to make them great like everyone says they are, I'm not honestly sure which it is.
Just all in all, this is really discouraging for anyone who wants to fight in this circle because we are seeing combatants leave and we aren't seeing any combatants rushing over to join magick circle because our skills are "the best."
Here is a truth about combat: You learn to fight well by fighting often and dying gloriously. Losing fights is what teaches you to win them. You do not learn to fight by sitting at the Threshold. You do not learn to fight standing on the Parade of Rathad. You do not learn how to fight by not fighting. This should be common sense. If you want to get good at fighting, you fight.
More specifically, fight challenging fights. You are not going to improve your skills in combat by only fighting when you have a massive advantage. Going out with Aakrin+Iniar+Emily+Mael+Sumie+Alvetta+Pellerin against Septus and Khizan is not going to teach you anything because the numbers in that situation are skewed so heavily in your favor that you don't actually have to work for it. You can beat us by button mashing. This doesn't actually exercise your skills, it doesn't make your focus on your teamwork, it doesn't make you think. And so you won't improve at any of those things. You don't get better at fighting by only picking fights that you're sure to win. If you want to get better at fighting, you're going to have to lose sometimes. That is how it works.
You are heavily artifacted. Alonzo is heavily artifacted. Aakrin is heavily artifacted and so is Seraphyne and Sumie and so forth. You're all on an artifact level with Septus and I, and your professions are all pretty solid, frankly. 2v2 should be a pretty solid fight, 2v3 and we should be at a disadvantage. But what happens when Septus and I decide to go for your bounties in Celidon? You guys QQ out of combat and Alonzo posts on the forums bragging about it. That is not how you learn to fight.
And, moreover? It's not how you convince fighters to move to your side, because what it says to us is "the last thing I want to do is fight, I literally would rather not play this game than fight". That is not the attitude that attracts fighters to your side. You tell Septus to join. Why would he do that? We want to fight so badly that we'll take on 2v6 odds and go back and try again after losing. You guys want to fight so little that you'd rather log off than die once. Seeing that doesn't encourage us, it tells us "These people are going to throw you under the bus. They're going to complain when you raid because they're afraid of getting raided. You'll never get any PvP objectives because nobody will back you". Why would a fighter want to move there?
Want to get better at fighting? Fight. You guys have got the artifacts to take on anybody, you just need the practice.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
I'd also like to add that you should practice fighting in small groups outside of the arena. Get three people together and try to cap a monolith or something, see if somebody bites.
I see you guys doing a lot of stuff in the arena, but that doesn't really help much imo. Arena heroes are teamfight zeroes a lot of the time. The reverse of this is true as well; I'm probably the best example of a teamfight hero who's an arena zero. This is because they reward two entirely different things. The arena rewards execution of a canned offense against a single target and the ability to outlast your opponent's offense. Group combat rewards managing the chaos of a group fight without losing track of the fight in the spam, and it rewards teamwork and coordination and planning.
Learning to throw your offenses at each other in the arena WILL help you in a group fight, it is true. It just won't help you enough. Teamwork is the most important thing in a group fight and teamwork requires practice.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
On sowulu flares, the damage type change has reduced its effective damage by 25% (33% on targets with the artifact ring, bit more of you have something like algiz), and it can now be used in every combo, as opposed to every other one. That means that the effective DPS is going to be 20-40% higher than before, at the cost of losing some of the burst damage. Definitely not a downgrade, if anything, we may need to tweak the damage numbers slightly downwards. We'll see.
I stopped fighting @Septus after that one time we attacked their outpost. We fought for 3 hours (me with a full bladder) and right at the end of it, Septus shackles me and gg no re, all my team-mates dying like flies :S. After that, every time I see Septus, my bladder hurts and tells me 'Pls.' @Menoch knows.
People aren't really thinking about how Sowulu is actually used in 1v1 anyway. The cooldowns on flares are set up so that a Runeguard with battleaxe never has to use Sowulu twice in a row anyway. You can cycle Pithakhan, Sowulu, Nauthiz, Sowulu, Eihwaz(or Hugalaz), Sowulu, and repeat, and if your bal time is 3.5 or higher, you should be able to sustain that pattern infinitely. In that sort of 1v1 flare rotation, this change has reduced Sowulu's dps.
In team combat(where you should be easily keeping all of those flares up as soon as they come back off cooldown), yes, this change does increase dps.
For those asking why Magick was using infused, it was something I think Eldreth originally tried out? With a heavy/infused battleaxe in Ath, it actually pushed your double reave speed to a long enough time that you could fire Sowulu every single combo, and you could proc Flame every single combo(the CD is 4s on an infused weapon). With the way Sowulu works now, and the renewed usefulness of Knife, it's likely that that setup is no longer optimal.
After this change, it seems like the easiest thing for the magick circle to do would be to dedicate one Runeguard to using sowulu on every attack to maximize the deeps while a second (preferably one with better flare/aff/target condition tracking) uses the other flares to deny shields and healing or even prone when appropriate.
I look forward to the glorious political campaign deciding who gets assigned to which role.
I guess this is the last I will post about it because you all know the class better than me.
Sowulu was proc'ing every combo for 79u over 4.8s balance. 79/4.8=16.45 dps.
Now it procs every combo for 49p over 3.98s balance. 49/3.98=12.31 dps.
Providing I have another knight with me, 49+49/3.98s=24.62 dps. Yes, this is a huge buff, but why am I basing MY DPS on having another knight with me for a flare?
In single combat or even team combat if there is only one knight this is a nerf to our already-lower-than-every-other-knight dps due to being down 1 str, and I don't like that my skills are being nerfed specifically for team combat so that I now have to have another RG in team combat to get the same damage potential from my original flare.
Comments
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Let's be fair here. If wd hit rebounding at all, they killed themselves.
Everyone hits rebounding occasionally. We just don't laugh at them as much because they usually don't one shot themselves doing it.
"The point is that when it fires, you still have the bonus resist mitigation for a reave within the next 4 seconds. Reave as athletic (the knight statpack for anyone who is serious about being optimal in both teams and duels) has a reave combo that has a balance of under 4 seconds. So this is achieveable 100% of the time; there's no variation involved other than on the side of the user."
Yeah, that is possible now that we don't have to use infused weapons because our sowulu flare was shortened, but prior to that there was no great way of getting a reave under 4 seconds.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."