let me preface this: I took necrolord because I enjoyed the overall vibe of it, Chakram was a viable option at some point in the alpha beta cycle until it was gutted to the floor, leaving Wild Spirits or Resonating Arrow for any reasonable raider to take eliminating the illusion of choice for covenants.
Death Chakram whats wrong: currently this ability on a 45 second cooldown, has no AoE Scaling, feels and plays like a horrible focus generator. what could be an actually really cool AoE ability is overshadowed by its other flaws and its weak soulbinds making this undesirable and an overall really awkward and feels bad button.
some suggestions:
make this proc beast cleave for BM, if the AOE scaling isn’t an option then consider having it contribute to the hunters AOE gameplay in some way.
look at reducing the cooldown 45 seconds for what little gain there is, is just a punishing cooldown, look at Emeris soulbind 7 second buff when using chakrams which is 45 seconds. add AOE scaling currently chakram is capped with 7 bounces which is fine it fits the (capped AOE that they are going for) if this cooldown is here to stay please scale up the damage in AoE situations as this ability had so much potential for Mythic Plus only to end up so lack luster.
I’ll admit, I haven’t played with it since Beta, but it does about 650% AP and returns like 20 focus, right? It’s not the best thing in the world, but it still has value.
Unless I’m missing something there isn’t a single class in the game where there isn’t a BiS Covenant for Raiding, M+ or PvP. In this case, Death Chakram just happens to be the PvP choice.
it is more something around there Chakram isn’t the pvp choice, its resonating arrow. resonating arrow is what currently has been synergizing with marksman really well and the fact it provides the ability to ignore Line of sight.
chakram really doesn’t have an identity nor a niche the same can be said for flayed shot to a degree. and 21 focus, assuming you hit 7 targets is paltry given the other focus generators the class already has.
27.5 + 42.5 + 57.5 + 72.5 + 87.5 + 102.5 + 117.5 = 507.5% AP by default, so I must have added one extra hit when doing the math. I imagine Vers effects this too, and individual “ticks” can crit.
To me this is just better than Wild Spirits, Resinating Arrow and the Venthyr one in PvP. Not this crazy Epic BG spam from this last week, but pairing Chakram with Flock of Seagulls is over 800% AP in two instants that you can then pair with burst.
Increase its base damage to its current average %AP per hit over its 7 hits, then have its damage increase by 100%-120% per new target it bounces off, and have it strike the current target only after it’s hit all other available targets, or until just 1 hit remains (such that the target is hit the hardest).
Voila, it now scales with AoE. Wild Spirits and Resonating Arrow would still scale slightly better 2-5 targets for total damage, but would have inferior focus fire damage over the nearly same range.
Agreed 100%, the scaling should increase substantially depending on the number of targets hit.
15% on first bounce, 30% on second bounce, etc, up to 90% on the last bounce if it hits 7 different targets.
Maybe higher depending on what’s needed to balance it with Wild Spirits (and everything should be brought UP to Wild Spirits, rather than WS and RA being nerfed into the ground so nobody cares).
I don’t think that math is right. The 15% increase, from my understanding, means that the second hit hits for 1.15*27.5 = 31.625, not 42.5, and so on.
Sorry, yes, that’s probably right. It’ll be multiplicative, not additive. So it’ll be more like 319% AP or so, so basically a second Crows which is a little…underwhelming for a signature ability.
It definitely needs a buff then, or a change of mechanics to make it do increasing damage in packs as a few people suggested.
So much this, I would rather see them bring everything up with Wild Spirits then gut Wild Spirits to the ground, chakram has/had a lot of potential but ultimately feels like it just fell flat and doesn’t really have a place anywhere currently and the same can be said with flayed shots.
Whether they modify the soulbinds for better interaction for AoE, or add AoE scaling, or a mix of both right now necrolord for what seems like could have been a solid choice for AoE ironically is not.
Even add some better soulbind integration with chakram, given emeni is currently the only one with any synchronization with chakram, and necrotic burst is a disappointing conduit
Consider changing the conduit for chakrams to a cooldown reduction instead of a flat damage increase with a miniscule increase in focus
As 45 second CD with a 5% damage boost and 2 extra focus doesnt make that worth taking
Nevermind that emenis soulbind is a 7 second buff that happens once every 45 in the grand scheme that buff with the current cooldown doesn’t add a whole lot to the value of chakram, and the other two soulbinds don’t exactly offer much in the way for chakram benefits. Making the ability still woefully underwhelming after soulbinds
How did you get those numbers? It’s a 15% increase to damage with each bounce, multiplicative. It looks like you just added 15% AP to each step.
It’s a sum total of 335.962% AP. The hits hit for 100%, 115%, 132.25%, 152.0875%, 174.9006%, 201.1357%, and 231.3061% of the base damage, which is 27.5% AP. That’s a sum of 1221.68% of base damage, or 335.962% AP.
Fair, missed that in my scrolling. It definitely needs a buff. It also needs some way of scaling in AoE, because even if it’s buffed to compete with Wild Spirits and Resonating Arrow, those two are also awesome in AoE, while Death Chakram and Flayed Shot are effectively single-target only.
So what Blizzard won’t tell us, but I’m 99% sure is the case, is they want the BiS Covenant to be completely obvious for Players to spread out amongst the Covenants for given content. That is why they had to nerf Pelagos two weeks before the expansion because that 5% Vers (later 4%) was still too good, so people were still going Kyrian just for Pelagos.
Having some abilities be way better than others is a feature, not a bug.
They want a nice even spread so that there’s an even mix per raid and even in 5 mans. That being said, because Necrolord is so under-represented, I’m surprised they don’t buff it which will also move people away from Kyrian at the same time, so it’s like killing two birds with one stone.
Death Chakram — 45 second cooldown. 10 Focus.
Throw a deadly chakram towards the target that will strike enemies near it, if any, before striking the target. It will rapidly deal (30% of Attack power) Shadow damage 10 times, generating 3 Focus each strike and bouncing to other targets if they are nearby.
Each time the chakram deals damage to a target it had not yet struck, its damage is increased by 100%.
Note: This is additive, not multiplicative.
Maths and comparisons
The skill previously dealt 39.875% AP average across each of its 7 ramping hits, thus always dealing a total of roughly 280% AP, whether that be in single target or AoE. Now, at 30% for each of 10 hits, it will deal a total 300% AP in single target (a 7% buff), though it will generate 1 Focus fewer, with increasing total damage over 2-10 enemies struck:
This means Death Chakram’s AoE scaling overtakes’ Wild Spirits’ after 8 targets, but maximizes its focus target niche at 6 targets, to a maximum of two thirds of the total AoE damage dealt all to the primary target for three times its single target damage.
In summary, Death Chakram now deals up to 5.5x damage over 10 targets (400% damage at 5 targets), while claiming a focus-target and quickly-cast niche. Its single target damage has been increased by 7%. It now nets 20 Focus, down from 21, but benefits from Survival’s Mastery.
This can of course be nerfed down or its baseline (ST value) up, etc, but 10 hits was simply provided smoother values by which to demonstrate the mechanic via its maths.
As for Flayed Shot, the obvious AoE scalar there is to make it like LnL, but affected by all but auto-attacks instead.
