I’ve been feedbacking on the EU forums before, but sadly that forum reaches a very small amount of players, so if some people cannot see what my feedback was until now (the latest set of changes), here is a short tldr:
- Red spells in a very weak spot
- Blue Spells in the right spot but with lots of rng due to tier set
- Upranking Eternity Surge felt very nice with the amount of damage it did
- Bombardments not showing up properly on damage meters
- Deep Breath being a polarizing button for some players
- Talent tree rigidity and the tier forcing dev into Star Salvo
- Rising Fury duration and ramp up time (mostly M+ issues)
- Power Swell and its importance regarding general flow of the spec
- Strafing Run recast window being too short
With the recent changes:
- We can enjoy Swell once again with Scalecommander, which is just a blessing
- Upranking is pretty much dead
- RNG heavily reduced by putting damage back into baseline spells instead of the tier giving insane amounts of damage, this is a very good change. (Being reliant on a 15% chance to have 20% swings in damage output given you rolled D20 or not)
- A much better damage pattern and profile overall for Scalecommander in every scenario
I’ll have to say I disagree with you here with the part of the disintegrate buff being an overreaction. Eternity Surge (scint+stars) dealt more damage than Deep Breath in a dungeon or Disintegrate. Reducing RNG and increasing the output of the base spells is a good way to streamline damage. Deep Breath, Disintegrate feels absolutely nice to press, to use, each use of those spells feel impactful, and not only did Star Salvo rid us of Power Swell, it was also brutally RNG reliant. And also don’t forget the 4P effect, which basically buffs Causality by 20%, 0.5 seconds every disintegrate cast, which further drives the rotational loop of using Empowers, getting back essence quickly (with swell) for spenders.
Where I agree with you that this tier was doomed from the second it was released.
I do believe that this adjustment was absolutely the correct move and it addressed most of Scalecommander’s issues for now but Devastation as a whole will need help in its talent tree. (The most important part moving Swell higher up so you can reliably get it.)
Help regarding:
- Power Nexus baselined or moved up to the position of Ruby Essence Burst meanwhile the two Essence Burst talents get merged and would take place where Azure Essence Burst is currently.
- Power Swell needs to stack when Empowers are used back to back and moved higher up in the tree so we can take it reliably. The loss of Swell makes both specs incredibly sluggish.
- Capstone part is very-very rigid with no wiggle room.
- Some other talents gatekeeping the other hero talent, main offender being Lay Waste.
- Burnout being incredibly weak
- Onslaught being an absolutely dead talent
If you seriously believe the 20% increase to Causality and 10% damage is nothing to Devastation then oh boy you’re wrong, the change to the tier was for the betterment of the spec without a doubt and its so much better already.
Overall though, I feel like this iteration of Scalecommander is very close to reaching dopamine levels of TWW S2 Flameshaper for me. I was genuinely having so much fun playing dungeons on PTR with this iteration and I do hope the devs preserve this aspect of the spec.