Scout - Feedback and Bugs

Estarion said: ↑

“Does swash's Double Cross elemental inc dmg increaser triggers only for one elemental hit? Or what does it mean absorb a total of 1 attack? Not good if so”

I was wondering the same. I assumed it was a bug. Caith are you there? Can you comment on that?

Keep in mind the beta buffer reset all my CA's back to expert but here are the levels according to the update notes. Fixing Pirate's Fancy to effect all of our aoes (maybe with the exception of Dagger Storm because that would be OP) would certainly put Swashies on top of the aoe parse where they prolly should be considering the low single target dps. It would even up the zonewide parse a lot better.

ABILITIES
Swashbuckler

Pirate's Fancy - Increased the damage granted to area effect abilities This is not applying to Dashing Flourish, Dagger Storm, Spinning Flurry, Pirate's Spin or Enfeebling Whirl. Intended? I can understand Dagger Sorm but would like to see PF effect the rest of those please.

Thieving essence - Deals Increased damage and grants more ability modifier to the group.(This is before adding 10 points to it in the Heroic line)



Shadow - Increases Physical Damage done to the target encounterShould this be 3.5%? I seen no difference in the parse on this. It's exactly the same as AoM from what I can tell.



Dagger Storm - Will deal more damageWorking great! Basically doubled the value of Dagger Storm.

Marauder's Vaunt - Increased Final Ability Damage granted to group members. It was raidwide and now says group on it for some reason. Which route are you going with this? I would love to see this changed to all classes raidwide. This one buff might make the difference if we get into raids or not.


Double Cross - Increases Elemental Damage done to the target encounterCaith is the "absorbs 1 attack" thing a bug?

[Bunshin]

So if the update to swash was just that, then i see the improvements being lackluster. Also I'm not sure if you remember from what was said before about swash temp consolidation, hoping to see a last update on swash with those in general. Well so far beta hasn't lived up to the hype that was given about scout buffs, swash and bl updates, and bard stuffs. Focused feed backs for scouts (or /feedback in general)has treasure trove of ideas that could implement a few good changes but have not seen anything implemented along the lines. Here's to hoping a few more changes are on the way...

[Estarion]

Advantages gets nerf with last update.
First of all - making a hidden changes is unprofessional. Barely it takes more than a 1 minute to drop a line about it in beta update thread.
Second thing that amazes me - how fast bl gets nerf after complains of a few whiners whose top parse positions comes under threat. And how long are the proposals of bl players to give us some raid needed utility for just being a raid worthy class. It seems to become an eternal.

Was working on the open x4 raid on beta with the guild over the last week and came across a couple of scout-related bugs.

First up was during pulls on the tree named in the zone, the one that spawns the 2 sapling adds. Every time we'd swap to dps down the adds and I would toss my debuffs (I play a dirge), after the adds died, my mitigation debuff, Clara's Chaotic Cacophony, was still active... on a group-mate. It didn't show up as a curable detriment and when I canceled the spell it dropped off the other player. I also saw that it was listed on the affected player in their maintained spell list in the target window. I was the only dirge in raid and it was the only spell that applied to group-mates. Was also the only encounter I noticed it happening on. I have no idea if the debuff actually did anything to the player.

This was during raid on Saturday, November 7th from sometime between 7pm and 11pm PST.

Second was during pulls on the iron constructs in the same zone. The group make-up was Berserker, Warden, Defiler, Swashbuckler, Brigand, and Dirge. At one point I noticed in my incoming personal damage log that I was taking damage from the Defiler, Xinxoaw. The damage came from the Swashbuckler's Pirate's Perception proc. I guessed, based on what the bug was from the raid before, that it was triggered on spells that had a combined hostile damage component and friendly buff component (as Clara's Chaotic Cacophony has a mit debuff + group proc attached to it) and had the Defiler add a macro to his Maelstrom ability (that he was using to power feed us for the fight, meaning he used it constantly). This isn't all the corresponding hits to casts (there were quite a few more instances) and there were a few hits that didn't line up with the casting of Maelstrom. Additionally, that was the only Swashbuckler in raid and no one else was hit with any other player-generated proc.









These were from Tuesday, November 12th in PST.

Estarion said: ↑

“Advantages gets nerf with last update.

Second thing that amazes me - how fast bl gets nerf after complains of a few whiners whose top parse positions comes under threat. And how long are the proposals of bl players to give us some raid needed utility for just being a raid worthy class. It seems to become an eternal.”

suddenly doubling everyone's parses was just a tiny wee little bit over the top. i'm not talking doubling some scrubs parses, but doubling skilled players

[Rarrum]

Most of "the beastlord problem" isn't about damage or parses. Those are just numbers to be tweaked. Every "damage-type" class operating in an exclusive damage mode will probably end up doing acceptable damage. It's "given comparable damage, why would you want a beastlord?".

On Live, I made my own reasons. I run a full ability build, with a ton of survivability (including using a shield full-time, ditching autoattacks). On raids I'm still in the top 5 or so damage (granted this isn't the highest end group, but we've cleared challenge mode fabled, etc). I intentionally run hot on hate; it's actually an advantage for me: I'm usually our offtank. If the tank goes down, my build and ability choices usually let us salvage the situation. If a group is struggling with heals, I can fill in there too instead of doing damage (though this gets increasingly difficult as spiritual stance falls behind).

Most people aren't going to do that though. So instead, I'll go into the changes I'd like to see.

-

On the topic of damage abilities, the main change I'd want to see is Salivary Excretion moved from feral primal slot 2, to feral primal slot 1, and changed to an AE like Luclin's Pain. The other is Draconic Breath changed from 4 targets to 8 like everything else. These alone would help address beastlord's comparatively weak AE damage, and also help make left-side prestige more competitive also.


On the pet:

• Please fix the mana pool to scale like the players' does. Right now "small" (to a player) AE mana drains completely empty the pet mana pool, making it unable to trigger advantages.

• It'd be nice to see the pet's damage scale better at higher levels (at lower levels it's a good balance between the player and pet). By level 100, it's not even the same order of magnitude anymore.

• Marisha Kur's Protection (our only pet heal) was never scaled up with everything's hp shot through the roof several expansions back.

And most importantly... Spiritual Stance. It's literally 50% of our primals and advantages. It's what makes the class different than other damage classes. And it needs help, really bad:

• First, the slot 2 primal Chillbarrier is broken; it doesn't crit, so it wards for less than our advantage-based ward.

• From a raw healing and damage perspective... the root of the problem is the base numbers on everything. Every ability is trivially overcapped from ability mod, so it stopped scaling with that long ago. For reference, in the PoWar era on a 3-mob-encounter, spiritual stance did comparable damage to feral stance. Now it's not even close. I'm actually ok with that. But the heal/utility portion needs help instead then.

• Most people aren't aware, but beastlords actually have group damage reductions: Slot 4 advantage has a small one that can be maintained full-time, and slot 4/5 primals have a small one that can't. Maybe we can play around those: First, swap Enchanted Barrier (slot 5) with Astral Soulsiphon (slot 6); nobody uses the slot 5 dr now because our big and only-reliable heal lives there, and this change puts it in a spot where it might see use. Second, make the dr amounts more signficant, so people actually care. And finally, make those 2 primals last at around 16 seconds each. This gives the beastlord a choice for using them: Keep one up full-time at half effectiveness, or use both at once for part-time higher effectiveness.

ZUES said: ↑

“You bring up a very good point. I'm looking at these parses and some of the names are fresh beta copies. My gear is substantially better because I'm very active on beta. So no matter what parse I post, the numbers will be lopsided versus everyone being equally geared. That and we basically 3 grouped everything because some people refuse to beta. So the raid force is by far not an "optimal" setup. I suppose the best I could do is post early parses from the x2 shortly after beta opened up. But even if I do, those were before the swash changes. Hmmm.


All in all you raid leaders should look at your current conj dps an expect equal to or greater from your swash. Now factor in the raidwide utility and the entire raidforce's dps going up. I think if any class should be threatened it should be the conj and necro. We increase everyones dps if we have our class cloak but necro the least of the 2. So if I was a raid leader I would drop a necro for a swash. That's my opinion.”

So if I am understanding you Zues, you are better geared, and still can't touch 50% of Assassin DPS. If that is generally the case, I'm going to have to disagree a Swash will generally get a raid spot. The HP debuff utility alone dwarfs any utility Swashes have and you can;t use the elemental debuff as effectively if you displace the Conj to get in a raid. Also, getting thrown in a caster group to displace caster dps is inefficient at best and top raid guilds won't do it. Swashes appear to be far behind in dps and still of marginal utility (compared with other scouts) so you don't get in the MT/OT group either..

In summary I am very disappointed with the Swash 'improvements' and still see them unable to compete for a raid spot, sadly.

Estarion said: ↑

“Advantages gets nerf with last update.
First of all - making a hidden changes is unprofessional. Barely it takes more than a 1 minute to drop a line about it in beta update thread.
Second thing that amazes me - how fast bl gets nerf after complains of a few whiners whose top parse positions comes under threat. And how long are the proposals of bl players to give us some raid needed utility for just being a raid worthy class. It seems to become an eternal.”

Could you elaborate a little more on how advantages have been ninja nerfed? I haven't been able to get on Beta all week and I probably won't get on at the weekend either

what is everyone of you talking about bl is supposed to be t1 dps, if he parses even with a brig he isnt worth a raid spot, bls shouldnt be offtanks or healer

[Karsa]

Awesomeo said: ↑

“Could you elaborate a little more on how advantages have been ninja nerfed? I haven't been able to get on Beta all week and I probably won't get on at the weekend either ”

Logged on last night didn't see any big changes to advantages on beta..

There have been some raid fights ( aoM) where a scout tank was useful, granted beast lords don't have taunts like roGues but they can be used in such a manner. After a long long wait only fixing one half the class and returning it to t1 dps status is great, but not addressing the other side of class, heals & support issues, leaves that aspect of the class in limbo as the game moves forward. There is long line of other classes that need & want revamps too so try fix it now while the class is on the table opposed to another long wait.

Some sort hate mechanic or revamp current hate mechanics great... It's great throw out crazy numbers ... But it's like driving like lighting and knowing your crash like thunder with no brakes... Or give all tanks 'amends' ...

[Estarion]

Awesomeo said: ↑

“Could you elaborate a little more on how advantages have been ninja nerfed? I haven't been able to get on Beta all week and I probably won't get on at the weekend either ”

before update Feral Rendering was xx~340k and Neurotoxic Venom was xx~180k while Claws of Khati Sha was xx-318k. xx - I don't remember. Actually I always look at max values.
now Feral Rendering is 202-284k and Neurotoxic Venom is 90-122k while Primals stays at its values. Neurotoxic Venom DoT part also doesn't change. All values @ 13.3k agi, 1330 pot, 60k mod.
It may be considered not a nerf but adjustment, but hey where is the BL utility adjustments at all? If there is not planned not even one utility fix then why nerfing BL dps? Whats with the logic here?

You may not see any changes until launch day. A lot of the Swash, BL and Bard changes will be in the launch update notes (and probably/hopefully some class changes we have not yet seen).

[Bunshin]

ZUES said: ↑

“You may not see any changes until launch day. A lot of the Swash, BL and Bard changes will be in the launch update notes (and probably/hopefully some class changes we have not yet seen).”

Really hopeful thinking... I'll go along with it because I like the game but the track record doesn't look that good.

Bunshin said: ↑

“Really hopeful thinking... I'll go along with it because I like the game but the track record doesn't look that good.”

Agreed. It would make no sense not to utilize beta to test class modifications. Unless, perhaps, the devs are just tired of 'feedback'?

putting 10 points into evade on the prestige line for scouts should add a -1 positional. just saying.

How do you know Deathtouch had anything to do with it? It doeslittle to no damage on bosses except for one in Caverns.

[Karsa]

Othion said: ↑

“putting 10 points into evade on the prestige line for scouts should add a -1 positional. just saying.”

yeah a revamp of Punishing Evasion with postionals would be great...

Othion said: ↑

“putting 10 points into evade on the prestige line for scouts should add a -1 positional. just saying.”

recast of evade is way to low too justify putting -1 threat position on it. nice try beastlord

[Estarion]

2 days left and I must admit the beastlord is utterly useless. Same story with swashies. None of them will be raid needed. DBG thanks, at least you've tried, but next time try harder. May be some one would wait a year more.

kluxor said: ↑

“recast of evade is way to low too justify putting -1 threat position on it. nice try beastlord”

I disagree with putting it on evade as I want utility to matter. That said, I don't see how that is more powerful than say... acid rain (-1 position on proc) or a huge transfer.
No one wants beastlords to be best at everything. Beastlords just want to be good at something: they either need to DPS better than DPS with utility, or they need utility to match.

[Ruckus]

Estarion said: ↑

“2 days left and I must admit the beastlord is utterly useless. Same story with swashies. None of them will be raid needed. DBG thanks, at least you've tried, but next time try harder. May be some one would wait a year more.”

Agree. Nice try, but it feels lackluster. A launch of a new expansion does not mean that improvements to classes has to end. Get the expansion launched. Fix some bugs, but still keep working with the players and listening and asking for feedback.

Caith fixed Double Cross and some other stuff. Thanks Caith.

This is a copy of a previous post of mine, clearly you may need some practice at Beastlord if you think they're broke.

I'm not sure what type of Beastlord's you're grouping with, but they suck at the class if their low dps. I'm in a high end raiding guild and our Beastlord parses even if not more than any of the other T1 dps. A well played Beastlord does sick dps, as you can see in the following parse our BL did such low dps he topped the parse. I have edited the named out, but I can post 100's of parses that reflect this, so please stop the Beastlord's do low dps whining, I'm the Ranger in the parse and struggle to top the BL, its back and forth all the time.
(07:37) Crohp the Mighty: 343579322 xx-Temporal Mimicry-1283805050
| 49976247 - Beastlord
| 43269984 - Illy
| 39107458 - Ranger

[Neiloch]

Whats was the group setups? how high were the VC's? Who got what buffs? The fact the illy was second shows some definite bias in group setups.