What would you rather have?

[Malice83]

<p>Ok, first off is the basics. The spell I'm examining is Boon of the Dark and its successive upgrades. At best it transfers 4% hate to one target. </p><p>Most comments I've heard on this is that it's utter "¤/!# or that it's better than nothing. My personal opinion is that it is a band aid on a volcano.</p><p>Recently hate transfers for Assassins and Swashbucklers got nerfed, I know the highest possible percentage Assassins can now transfer is 16% and I'm assuming it's the same for Swashbucklers.</p><p>For those that don't know, 4% << 16%. Which I think is unfair in many ways, but I can live with it. Also, the scouts can put their transfer on any group member, the Warlock's (and Wizards) is limited to fighters. Only one Warlock (or Wizard) my hate feed any one person, the same as with the scout hate transfer, although Assassins and Swashies can have both on at the same time (since they belong to different ex-subclasses).</p><p>It would be quite simple to make this spell more usefull, by just raising the amount of hate that it transfers. But if this was something the devs wanted to do it would probably have been done already.</p><p>I'm suggesting that it be changed to a straight out hate reducer instead, at 8% it should be roughly equivalent.</p><p>My question is, would you rather have it stay as it is now, or have it changed to a hate reducer?</p><p>Pros of changing:</p><p>+No need to fight about who gets to use their hate transfer when multiple Sorcerers are in the same group with only one possible hate feed target.</p><p>+Doesn't matter who you cast the spell/proc on (even works on yourself).</p><p>Cons of changing:</p><p>-The tank gets slightly less hate total, reducing the overall utility of having a Warlock in his or her group slightly.</p><p>In general I think it would be a largely positive change to do this, and in my opinion it would make it more viable to upgrade the percentages too. Largely due to the fact that I suspect devs don't want (so many)people to be able to dump so much hate on the tank that he can't lose aggro. To compare with the Assassin/Swashbuckler hate transfer, the Master I version of Boon of the Damned (tier 7) could reduce hate by 32%, which would be much better than the 4% hate transfer we currently have, in my humble opinion. This would also allow for the spell to progress like a normal spell, rather than being stuck on 4% at master quality through all tiers.</p><p>Anyway, I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks. I know it was a lot to read for a simple question, but I wanted to be as clear as possible. Also I want to point out that this is <u>not a poll</u>, it's merely a question to see if there are any other viable reasons to go through with a change like this, or to not go through with it.</p>

[Korpo]

A few things: <ul><li>I don't know if the assassin and swash transfers stack, I seem to remember that they didn't used to.</li><li>Ours is raid-wide whereas theirs is group only.</li><li>Ours gives us and the tank power when the tank gets hit, the scout versions are transfers only. </li></ul> The only problems I have with our transfer now is that it doesn't stack with multiple sorcs and that you can't put it on anyone but a fighter. The 4% doesn't bother me that much, given the benefits it has over the scout version. I definitely wouldn't be willing to give up the power proc and raid-wide functionality to have the transfer go to 16%. Instead of your ideas, I'd rather they just change one of the INT AA things so that it upped the transfer percentage. Maybe make the transfer go up 1% per point spent, so if you max it out your M1 transfer is 12%.

[Malice83]

<p>On what you said. </p><ul><li>Hm, you might be right about the stacking issue. Also something I discovered is that the 2 scout hate transfers probably aren't 16%, but at least they are close to it, and for my reasoning here that is more than adequate.</li><li>Yes, ours is raid wide where as theirs is group only. Although that just means more competition over who gets to put the spell on the tank (more people = more sorcerers).</li><li>Indeed it does, but I am looking at the hate transfer part alone and disregarding the additional effects (or rather, the main effects) of the spell. Although what you said brings up yet another flaw in the spell, with a raid having only one tank (nearly always) that means that only one spell will ever actually be of use, thus making all the other sorcerers miss out on this extra power. But this is another issue.</li></ul><p>The suggestion I made would allow it to stack, technically (the hate effect part of it which is the part I want to discuss) since it wouldn't matter who you cast the spell on, it would still give you a straight out hate reduction (I'm thinking 8%). To me the hate reduction effect should be its own spell, and that is how I am looking at this (skewed perspective, I know).</p><p>I think that each damage dealing class should have an effective way to reduce hate not counting "holding back", and most do. Rangers have a hate reducer, Swashbucklers and Assassins have a hate transfer, Brigands have a hate reducing proc, Bards and Enchanters have group buffs to manage hate, and Summoners split their hate with their pets. Those that are missing an effective method are the two Sorcerer classes, and they need them the most, in my humble opinion.</p><p>Let me ask you this: Would you rather have the spell as it is now, or changed so that instead of transferring 4% hate to your target, it reduces your hate by 8%? (The power proc effect will be left untouched)</p><p>To me this would be a clear improvement to the spell, as I would gladly trade the extra few points of hate the tank gains for the ability to always have my spell active, no matter how many sorcerers/tanks are in the group/raid.</p><p>EDIT: Fixed a small error.</p>