It saddens me when the hopes for entire builds are dependent on the tuning of a covenant ability…
3 Likes
It saddens me that Blizzard learned nothing from other systems to not see the problems with the Covenant system which should have been entirely cosmetic.
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It saddens me that blizzard are not only as you have said using covenant abilities to base specs around but that they are resisting what a lot of alpha testers have said which was let us slot covenant abilitys like the abilities from the hoa and give us access to all of them. And let covenants themselves be about the cosmetics.
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bUt ChOiCeS hAvE tO mAtTeR!1!
Ya, this and the AoE cap change are the swords they’ve decided to die on this expansion, just like the GCD change, hyper-RNG loot, and rental power in general, from the last couple. They don’t realize it, by the are slowly crushing this game under the weight of their utterly ridiculous development process and decisions.
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I can see the AoE cap, if it was a scenario that was happening in GW2 in world content. 1-2 people could wipe out an entire group of enemies before anyone else got to tag and mobs. They did this limit to increase the amount of people able to tag mobs, to get credit for participation in events to be able to get karma. In WoW the only thing I can speculate is to allow more people get involved when adds are introduced. But it’s not applied equally the last I heard like fFrostwyrms fury can hit 20 mobs per damage area that it creates. Then you have Frostscythe which is limited to 5. It doesn’t really make any sense.
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Ya, it’s spastic as hell, and is going to cause huge issues. Soul Cleave, for example, now has a cap of 5, but Thunderclap and Revenge (which is also a melee cone attack) are still uncapped. In fact, the only tank abilities with target caps in SL are Soul Cleave, Avenger’s Shield, and Heart Strike, and Soul Cleave is the only one having a target cap added (because, you know, Vengeance’s AoE from Soul Cleave is incredibly oppressive…or even noticeable…/s).
Most melee are being capped at 5, but Unholy’s Bursting Sores is capped at 8, and both Epidemic and Scourge Strike via DnD are uncapped (despite Unholy’s performance in the MDI arguably being the reason for the change). There are other inconsistencies, though:
- Frostscythe is 5 targets, while Howling Blast, Remorseless Winter, Breath of Sindragosa, and Frostwyrm’s Fury are uncapped.
- Blade Dance and Fel Barrage are capped to 5, but Eye Beam is still uncapped. The AoE from the covenant ability Sinful Brand (400% AP over 8s, applied to all nearby targets when casting Metamorphosis) is uncapped.
- Soul Cleave is capped, but Sigil of Flame and Spirit Bomb are still uncapped. This enforces even more that Spirit Bomb is the only option.
- Brutal Slash and Swipe are capped at 5, but Thrash and Primal Wrath (their strongest AoE option anyway) are uncapped. The vast majority of their AoE comes from their bleeds anyway.
- Carve and Butchery are capped at 5, but Wildfire Bomb is uncapped.
- Multi-Shot is capped, though the spell data is incomplete. Trick Shot is still capped at 6 (well, primary target + 5). Beast Cleave is now capped at 5, while Barrage is capped at 8 (that’s gunna feel weird), Explosive Shot at 6. The new Volley is uncapped.
- Fire Blast spreads to 8 targets per cast, but this is arguably a buff to their ability to spread Ignite, especially since the charges mean they could double-tap or maybe even triple-tap in quick succession, and will still naturally spread it as part of their single-target rotation.
- Frozen Orb is capped to 8 targets, but Blizzard, Flamestrike, and Arcane Explosion are uncapped.
- Both Spinning Crane Kick and Rushing Jade Wind are 6 targets.
- Divine Storm is capped at 5 target, but Consecration and Wake of Ashes are uncapped.
- Blade Flurry is capped at 4 additional targets (beyond the primary), as is Killing Spree’s cleave via Blade Flurry, but Blade Rush, Fan of Knives, Poison Bomb, and Crimson Tempest are uncapped. Shuriken Storm (Sub AoE builder) is capped at 8 targets, and Shadow Vault (Sub’s new AoE finisher) is uncapped.
- Crash Lightning, and the resulting cleave of Stormstrike and Lava Lash, are uncapped. In fact, Enhancement AoE does not appear to have been capped in any way.
- Whirlwind is capped at 5 for both Fury and Arms. While Cleave is capped at 5, the CD is being removed (replaced by a requirement to use Whirlwind on 3+ targets first, so 50 rage per Cleave cast, 30 for the Whirlwind and 20 for the Cleave). Since most of Arms’ AoE is in the bleed from Cleave, this is less of a hindrance for them than other melee.
Like, it’s just all over the place. Some specs have all of their AoE capped, some have just their primary AoE buttons, some have only less relevant abilities capped, and some aren’t really being capped at all.
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Well if you trust it Ion also mentioned how people were mass puling in vision pulling everything in a area hide around the corner and just aoe it down. Which he said was not how visions were supposed to be played. I get that Blizzard doesn’t like when players play the game other than how they intended it.
But people are going to find the fastest and easiest way to do things. If Blizzards team can not deal with that then they need to find a new job. They keep making content expecting everything to be done in the way they envision it. And they seem to get upset when it doesn’t happen the way they want it so they make changes to make the game play how they want it.
3 Likes
Who knows what they are thinking. The further and further into alpha the worse and worse the expansion looks. Soft timers in Torgast which no one wanted all to solve a non issue of people waiting for bloodlust/heroism. Which in itself is a type of timer that just prolongs the run, not to mention if people have to wait for heroism in the early levels it would seem the difficulty is a little too overtuned.
Man, it’s almost as if they should have added a mechanic to discourage mass pulls or something. But naw, definitely the players’ faults for finding the optimal way to handle their garbage repeat-scenario spam.
The major issue for me is that this is being applied incredibly inconsistently, and is massively more putative towards melee than ranged. Most ranged AoE is not being touched at all, or is being capped at 8 rather than 5. This is absolutely going to be a ranged-favored expansion at this rate.
Also, randomized floors or not, Torgast is going to get just as mindnumbingly boring after a few weeks as Visions did.
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It might play out like nephalem rifts did. Go in, don’t get a good mob type/density and you would leave and reset. People might just look for the best starting anima and mob type if that even matters. Or just play normal and by time you get to the floor where heroic would be, you are already a god and nothing really matters.
Ya, and you just know Blizzard’s response to that will be to lock you into it, or only let you start X number per day, or make every single one the same layout/mob selection/anima until you clear it, or something else equally stupid.
2 Likes
It was fine how it was. This change removes solo tanks and healers pretty much as well. Without these torments it didn’t matter and rewarded good play, now the longer you take the harder it’s going to be.