Spec Changes
Both good design goals. Skyfury is especially egregious with Crusading Strikes as the proc which gives holy power cannot be anticipated or controlled, directly contradicting earlier Midnight season 1 goals of making HoPo generation more controlled.
This allows players who would otherwise “munch” an important Art of War proc to have one more stack of wiggle room. This both decreases the “immediate must press” priority of AoW, and lowers the rotation skill ceiling.
- I’m genuinely not sure how I feel about this change. AoW proc being a super high priority button can feel degenerate when you are supposed to ‘make mistakes’ in your rotation to optimize damage.
- …but now the gameplay decision is “this is still High Prio, you can just afford to mess up more without being punished”
Is there anyway to introduce a player skill based decision in here about the ability to spend at 1 or 2 stacks of AoW? Additionally, please make sure the default UI shows when you have 2 stacks with an additional visual indicator, not just a small “2” next to the buffs bar.
Maintenance tuning for Ret’s offhealing, where it will pendulum between being both too simple, and strong,… or too weak to bother.
- I do not envy this design issue. Ret’s offhealing has gone back and forth between stepping on the Healer Role’s toes… or being so unimpactful/unfun to press it feels like a Tax when the Ret is spending HoPo on an emergency heal… and still not doing much.
- I miss and wish you had more focus on (old) talents that modified how FoL and WoG function, rather than just picking an arbitrary numbers based powerlevel for Ret’s offhealing per season. The talent that made FoL instant cast with a 6 sec cd had issues of its own, but was a decision by the Ret about committing to at least caring about offhealing - a flat buff to WoG or FoL that you chase season after season as HP pools increase is designed to be constant treadmill tuning.
- Why?
- What does this achieve?[1]
We already have 3 HoPo cost spenders. They are the core of the builder/spender gameplay loop. What possible benifit to skill expression is gained by making the one unique spender cost standardized? It would be equally baffling to make Divine Storm/Final Verdict cost 5 HoPo
- If the intent is to instead simplify Ret’s rotation further, I apologize. However, that would be a bad choice for a Spec that is already lacking rotational depth. (and rotational depth is already being simplified by other changes)
Tier Set Bonus
Standard small player power increase for 2-set. It’s alright.
- It is frustrating that acquiring Divine Purpose is not within player control enough where one could try to maximize buff uptime (If the intent is to allow a Ret during standard rotation to have 100% buff uptime as the procs will be plentiful enough, then this tier set is just a flat dmg buff with extra steps, right?)
- …As opposed to the current mini-game of Undisputed Ruling’s Haste buff that can last ten seconds, (be easily tracked by the Cooldown Manager), and can first be applied by both something directly activated by player button pushes (Wake of Ashes, Hammer of Light - buff is up!), then reapplied by the free Hammer of Light cast gained from reaching enough stacks of Light’s Deliverance (something also easier to track via the CD manager).
That is a better example of a ‘maintenance’ buff minigame that has decisions and skill ceiling. Do I munch a few seconds of Undisputed Ruling’s haste buff to get this HoL in my Wings/Exe Sentence window? Is the target likely to die before 10 seconds are up and I won’t need the full buff window uptime anyway?
- Current 2-set as written: “You should get more free spenders - you will use the free spender when you get it - if you get another proc within 12 seconds you are happy”
I know why you are doing it…
I just can’t really say I think “press AoE button in Single Tar, and then press Single Tar in AoE” is an exciting design choice.
- it is a[2] “introduce(d) variety of gameplay”.
- …but “always make sure to press AoE spender with Divine Purpose, regardless of target count, then push Single Tar spender, regardless of target count” is what Ret gets?
Thanks
If you are feeling forced to do this as the 2-set increases the chance of Divine Purpose - and HoL in its current “big hit/big cost” game play would be too strong if it was free too often - are you not just damaging the Spec’s core rotational depth in exchange for a largely forgettable Tier Set bonus? HoL is a more loved spell, that will be around longer, than this new 2-set ↩︎
Again, it is a gameplay. It is one of the gameplays of all time ↩︎