Please reconsider the addition of multicast avoidance

[Darchon6]

With each new expansion, you seem to find new, creative methods to make the role of dps feel less entertaining. It’s bad enough that for the first time since prior to the launch of Desert of Flames, our abilities are no longer capable of hitting for the amount they should be based on character data (potency, ability mod, cb, etc.) resulting from an ambiguous npc stat called combat mitigation. Bear in mind that DoF removed all forms of physical and spell mitigations, causing respective debuffs to provide a damage bonus (up to 50%) rather than negate a penalty. That did not change until the last update in ToT (fabled Isle of Mara) with the introduction of combat mitigation. <br /><br />In Planes of Prophecy, all npcs in solo, heroic, and raid dungeons will have a new penalty for dps classes — doublecast avoidance. Solo NPCs will negate 20% of all spell doublecasts / 4% of all ability doublecasts, and heroics are 48% / 12% respectively. I imagine that raid encounters will penalize players even further.<br /><br />I can foresee situations in which a player would have topped the parse if they had “gotten lucky with avoidance checks”. Why must we deal with yet another layer of RNG? It was bad enough before with legendary, fabled, and mythical ascension hits + combos differentiating damage output by billions of dps. Honestly, the combat situation feels almost as bad as the vanilla days (super long cast times, fizzles, resists, and NPC mitigation).<br /><br />Is anyone honestly excited about effectively losing half (or more) of their doublecasts? I’m personally tired of entering a new expansion weaker than I was before while using the same equipment, buffs, etc.<br /><br />Whatever happened to balancing the longevity of encounters through hit points alone? It’s not too late to scrap combat mitigation and multicast avoidance then adjust hit points accordingly.

[Earar]

all that means is now u need 148% DC at least ...<br /> <br />not exited .. but I guess it's their way to fight the stat overcaps ... Maybe .. being 148% 200% DC will be easy ?

[Kander]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Darchon6"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Darchon6 said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6473845#post-6473845" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">Is anyone honestly excited about effectively losing half (or more) of their doublecasts? I’m personally tired of entering a new expansion weaker than I was before while using the same equipment, buffs, etc.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>You are entering the Planes. You aren't weaker, the monsters are stronger. New itemization will help you overcome this.

[Fyreflyte]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Darchon6"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Darchon6 said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6473845#post-6473845" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">I’m personally tired of entering a new expansion weaker than I was before while using the same equipment, buffs, etc. Whatever happened to balancing the longevity of encounters through hit points alone? It’s not too late to scrap combat mitigation and multicast avoidance then adjust hit points accordingly.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>You aren't weaker than you were before. You'll still be able to kill npcs in older expansions at the same rate. As Kander pointed out, npcs in a new expansion are always going to be more powerful than those in the last expansion, or there wouldn't be any reason for you to advance your character's power.<br />Additionally, because of the way % based abilities work, it is impossible to balance through hit points alone without losing the use of those stats. Eventually a % stat will cap out, and can effectively be ignored. ie. If you have spell doubleattack capped out already, then it becomes meaningless to acquire new gear with that stat on it. The general expectation is that with current stat amounts, players will start out a little low in power against new expansion content, then will acquire newer, more powerful gear to increase their power.

[Moss]

So it means that tanks that already have a hard cap on taunts (and detaunts) at 10k potency, will also see a decrease of their dps because of their lower spell double attack and those new mechanisms ? In contrary to mage equipment that will provide a lot of double cast. I hope there are some plans to help the tanks incoming.

[Moss]

Or may be it is plan that tanks and dps will use the same equipments and stats (again) in order to reach the same cap.

[Mermut]

Potency already doesn't help HoTs, Reactives and direct heals, since pot values are so high compared to health pools.. and double cast never helped them.<br />Nobody is 'picking on' dps.. they generally get more out of their gear and stats then non-dps classes.

[Lucus]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Mermut"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Mermut said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6473883#post-6473883" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">Potency already doesn't help HoTs, Reactives and direct heals, since pot values are so high compared to health pools.. and double cast never helped them.<br />Nobody is 'picking on' dps.. they generally get more out of their gear and stats then non-dps classes.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>yeah they do, i think that taunts do need to be looked at and defensive cloaks in beta should have aggression stat on them.<br /> <br />as for the debuffs i expect by end of the new expac players will have equal or greater doublecast to overcome the debuff and be at 100% doublecast effectively vs the debuff mobs.

[Darchon6]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Fyreflyte"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Fyreflyte said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6473856#post-6473856" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">You aren't weaker than you were before. You'll still be able to kill npcs in older expansions at the same rate. As Kander pointed out, npcs in a new expansion are always going to be more powerful than those in the last expansion, or there wouldn't be any reason for you to advance your character's power.<br />Additionally, because of the way % based abilities work, it is impossible to balance through hit points alone without losing the use of those stats. Eventually a % stat will cap out, and can effectively be ignored. ie. If you have spell doubleattack capped out already, then it becomes meaningless to acquire new gear with that stat on it. The general expectation is that with current stat amounts, players will start out a little low in power against new expansion content, then will acquire newer, more powerful gear to increase their power.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div> <br />There are other ways to introduce power creep without making existing stats less effective (relative to the encounters you are fighting, obviously) -- potency, fervor / fervor overcap, CB / CB overcap, and procs to name examples. Ability doublecast was barely itemized (max of 14.3%) during Kunark Ascending, yet it's being negated by PoP dungeon NPCs. Sorry, but I still feel that this is a bad decision.<br /> <br />There are <b>fun </b>ways to make spell doublecast above 100% meaningful -- just look at auto-attack multiattack for an example. You could introduce a diminishing curve after 100% which provides a chance for a 3rd spell attack.<br /> <br />p.s. I find it humorous that auto-attack multiattack and flurry are lumped together with spell doublecast and ability doublecast on the NPC defensive buff as if they're in the same league in terms of performance.

[Mermut]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Darchon6"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Darchon6 said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6474138#post-6474138" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content"><snip><br />p.s. I find it humorous that auto-attack multiattack and flurry are lumped together with spell doublecast and ability doublecast on the NPC defensive buff as if they're in the same league in terms of performance.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>Agreed.. especially with wdb and crit bonus with the same caps, auto-attack is being more and more meaningless. It's only purpose is to trigger procs.<br />And yet, gear-wise, flurry still 'equal' double cast... especially since flurry hits don't trigger procs...

[Darchon6]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Fyreflyte"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Fyreflyte said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6473856#post-6473856" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">If you have spell doubleattack capped out already, then it becomes meaningless to acquire new gear with that stat on it.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>By that logic, auto-attack stats on equipment should be re-evaluated too. Scouts and fighters have effectively become mages with melee weapons, focusing on mods which affect their profession and ascension abilities only. That said, I hope there isn't a shortage of spell doublecast on scout usable equipment this expansion! For a ranger, it affects ascension spells, heartseeker hawk, evade (dmg component from dragon AA), and dots (even those found on melee combat arts). <br /> <br />Since spell doublecast is demanded by every class in the game at this point, I feel that it would make sense to rename it to "ability doublecast", make it affect CAs wholly (base damage of combat arts would have to be adjusted for balance purposes), and rename ability doublecast to "ability doublecast overcap".

[duckster]

If this only affects DPS classes i do hope the itemisation reflects that and compensates accordingly.<br /> <br />After all having your ascension ability be limited damage on the basis of your archetype seems unbalanced particulary since tanks(with their additional potency buffs/self fervor temps) already can be deemed DPS ...

[Mermut]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="duckster"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">duckster said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6474241#post-6474241" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">If this only affects DPS classes i do hope the itemisation reflects that and compensates accordingly.<br /> <br />After all having your ascension ability be limited damage on the basis of your archetype seems unbalanced particulary since tanks(with their additional potency buffs/self fervor temps) already can be deemed DPS ...</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>It affects all class' dps.. but somehow some people seem to think this change is an 'attack' on dps classes,

[Earar]

yeah think of tanks who usually do't have DC on their mitigation gear