You Read 1 sentence and stopped reading. Mama mia
Read the whole thing, but Contagious Reagents is not Volatile Bomb, however you might try to spin it. Nor does Alpha Predator do all that Pheromone Bomb did, as thereâs a large difference between simply having enough Focus and getting KC resets, especially when running Quickshot, Ruthless Marauder, etc. And Shrapnel, though not tuned high enough to be especially significant, was also about our only remaining source of uncapped AoE.
AgainâŠ
âŠis just outright false. WFIâs benefits were not limited to preventing WFB from overriding its own DoT.
If Grenade Juggler would make it obligatory to spend all charges immediately after each Explosive Shot to reduce the chance of CD waste, thatâs more an issue with Grenade Juggler degenerating the kit than it is something we ought to simplify other gameplay in accordance with.
Mmmmmm no you are wrong but thatâs ok. Instead of fishing for a Volatile bomb for AoE, itâs now completely in our control and 100% consistent, through Butchery > Merciless Blows hitâs 3 targets, applies Vipers Venom. Butchery again, Merciless Blows applies to either 3 more targets if you target swap totaling 6, OR if any of the Merciless Blows hit a target with serpent sting already that spreads to an additional 2 more while refreshing this also consumes latent poison 3 times in 1 swing. So this is just much better than oh I didnât get volatile bomb in the last 2-3 bombs unlucky, now I just do this on demand. Alpha Predator alone just gives more freedom on when to KC instead of making sure itâs always on CD to not waste a reset, especially now with the new interaction of Tip of the spear you will almost always want to have KC off CD. Having 2 charges means that if you generate any charges through the new wildfire infusion talent (15% on MB and RS) you donât feel the need to use it right away (already better). Granted onto the fact that not only our best stat now (Crit) will be contributing even more KC resets through flankers advantage. KC alone has a 20% chance to reset itself at 0 crit. if we use a generously low crit chance at 30% this gives KC an average of around a 27% chance to reset itself. Focus should almost never be an issue if you always keep 1 charge off CD which you will press KC on CD no question about it for Tip. This isnât even taking into account bloody claws which at MB 5 you would add another base 10% KC reset, when you would need it most making the base 30% on non crit to 60% with a crit, with crit being our best stat atm. Compare this to the normal 10% on live (unless you took flankers advantage on live, which most people didnât) so Pheromone is no longer needed or would even be relevant in itâs usage. Shrapnel is self explanatory.
For grenade juggler, you are going to do what we do already anyway which is Bomb on CD (unless we are saving a Volatile bomb near the end of a M+ pack for the next one which just sucks). A realistic CD for bomb would be around 9 seconds in TWW (unless explosive expert ends up looking good this it would prob be around 6 - 7 seconds) and the only thing this talent does is give you a second priority proc in your rotation which you will always prioritize over MB for 1 GCD so this is not the world shattering disruptive gameplay you would think it is.
Not using a chance of a powerful reset when it has the most seconds left to reduce is wasteful. You can mindlessly throw WFBs on CD even with GJ, but it would be a dps loss, as already explained earlier.
Focus is a reason to want sufficient KCs, not a reason for wanting KC resets specifically. The procs specific to KC resets are the reason for specifically wanting KC resets above and beyond mere Focus. As already mentioned.
Volatile Bomb is also perfectly consistent in what immediate applications it allows; you just donât always follow that procedure be cause you donât always have Volatile Bomb at start of the pull. Which is good. Available variance⊠is good. Knowing when to drop a bomb âearlyâ so you can see whether youâll want to prep (or have time after a Shrapnel + Butcheriesâ uncapped AoE bleed to then prep) a Volatile is a fun bit of optimization.
But youâre also forgetting the larger effect of Volatile Bomb, especially for mass AoE: the fact that each enemy already stung then explodes. That allows for, again, a fun bit of optimization. Which doesnât happen from Merciless/Contagious.
Thus far youâre suggesting that we take 2-4 talents for at best half the features we had under WFI, and at lower skill ceiling. Iâd rather just have the option of actual WFI. Leave the other talents for those who prefer them, of course, but why the hell are we getting rid of WFI just to leave a âWFB damage increased by 8%â talent?
Literally never said it was, nor implied anything of the sort beyond noting that wasting reset potential, per your suggestions, would be dumb. I just asked that WFI be left an option, because it allowed for more gameplay at lesser expenditure, for those willing to really engage with it.
Bruh it barely affected gameplay even when used optimally idk where you are pulling this from lmao
To keep the thread feedback related if blizz reads this ty for making sv cooler and realising df wfi was not it
And 8% WFB damage is?
Again, asking for the option. Ideally, for a second point possible from which to give back Volatile its Shadowlands quadratic value and make Shrapnel more noticeable, but at least for what we already had.
You already have ignite on WFBs, so if you dislike it and no longer need it to allow for consecutive bombs, whatâs the cost to you?
As it currently stands, this is just not true and has been tested already, you just send WFB and react to the explosive proc not fish for it. So already wrong and uninformed.
This is just a nothing statement unrelated to Pheromone Bomb. This reads âKill command good because kill command do stuffâ. Yes Kill command is good because kill command does do stuff, hell it even gives us focus while doing other stuff.
Sure in maybe a setting where doing good and consistent damage doesnât matter such as low keys or LFR you might think this. But having a slot machine determine if my AoE will be good in any difficult content (where optimizing my damage as much as possible is needed) is not fun. Bomb DoT is 6 seconds, you need to fit in 3 butcheryâs which has a 9 second recharge into a shrapnel bombâs DoT to âmaximize itâ which once again is only ever done on a fresh pack in M+ because the resources you would spend happen to overlap in time and you are not sitting on Butchery charges in-case you get a Shrapnel bomb. Itâs not oh I have shrapnel bomb I need to make sure I get the Bleed maxed, itâs oh I have Shrapnel bomb I WILL get the bleed maxed because I was going to use these abilities in the 6 second window regardless.
Correct this is cool, but it almost never happens. Maybe once in a key it will and itâs impact on overall damage is minimal. Understand that the explosion only happens on targets with SS applied to them already. So if you are using this to spread SS (the main point of the bomb which only spreads up to 3 targets) no explosions, unless you are manually applying SS (which you would never do). The explosion requires you to not only have a Volatile bomb on pull, now you need to RNG your way to a second one before the pack dies or is almost dead because that explosion is not worth sending when you could save a guaranteed Volatile bomb that you would want for the next pack instead. And in single target once again negligible damage.
Iâm suggesting that by taking the talents you would always take in AoE anyway (This is not a real argument against taking M+ talents almost every class and spec does this and is one of the purposes of the talent treeâs) you get a more deterministic and better version of Volatile bomb. Because now that you can chose when and how much you are going to spread SS (which will actually spread more than old volatile bomb which was 3 per bomb) added on to the fact that you can pop Latent poison injectors on multiple targets at once while also refreshing SS. So yes much better, itâs not even close and is one of the reasons why we are getting rid of WFI. The 8% talent exists because it is an optional talent that could be spent elsewhere that sacrifices one type of power for another without being super abrasive. Also the pathing means this is not a mandatory pathing choice.
Welp itâs not an option and for a good reason, with the current build of SV hunter and the talents available It would be mostly redundant and never be played around to begin with. And if it was strong enough to be played around it would add unnecessary friction to the current design of the rest of SV which sucks as the redesign has a very clear direction of what it wantâs to do and is a breath of fresh air for the spec.
Being upset about WFI would be justified and make sense IF we didnât get the changes to the rest of the kit to supplant itâs function and be more in our control and deterministic. However we did get these changeâs and old wildfire infusion no longer has a real purpose as our kit is not as shallow as it once was, with the only flavor being WFI to begin with. Instead we have a brevity of different interactions through CDR, resets and procâs that worrying about what color my bomb is on top of this would just become an afterthought and itâs gameplay mostly ignored.
Banking WFB where possible, now that it no longer provides any interaction with surrounding rotation beyond refreshing itself, for use immediately after Explosive Shot as get as much CDR as possible out of the new Wildfire Infusions, is not going out of your way to âfishâ for the proc. Itâs just common sense.
Itâs literally a damage increase to do so. What are you going on about?
Youâre going to always have 27 pre-Haste secondsâ worth of charge in any given 6-second window? Youâre running 77% Haste there, bud?
No, at 17%+ Haste, youâd have one charge back regardless. Youâd still want 2 charges readied outside of Lust or PI and a specifically Haste-focused build.
It doesnât. You still get decent AoE without it, just via a slightly different APL.
It happens consistently if you just use it. Each Serpent Sting GCD with Hydraâs spent in mass AoE on manual Serpent Sting is worth 845% armor-penetrating AP, or at least 6.6 Raptor Strikes vs. at-level NPCs (on whom physical damage loses about 30% damage). For 10 Focus each.
And since Serpent Stingâs initial application provides next to no threat, that can be safely done in mid-gather while holding Misdirect for near the pullâs completion, allowing even an undergeared tank to handle full Ret/Havoc burst. Or, if you donât need to worry about that, then they simply occur within your first 6 GCDs, in place of 3 filler single-target attacks.
Now, youâre also looking at up to an extra 407% mAP (equivalent to 582% physical AP vs. at-level mobs) per Volatile even off just those few introductory GCDs at a net cost of just 7.5 Focus.
Volatile Bomb is no longer quadratic like in Shadowlands, where those 3 GCDs would mean 3645% more mAP instead of a mere 407%, but it is significant (equal to the direct damage of nearly 6 Butchery casts from that bonus Volatile damage alone across 9 mobs).
I cannot for the life of me understand why you would want to leave that on the table just to get out an eventual 3 more filler ST attacks within that AoE pull, themselves at a total net loss of 2150% (RS) to 2173% (MB) AP compared to 3 GCDs of Serpent Sting if their victims live even just 18 seconds⊠which is more the norm than exception in higher and/or Fortified keys.
Iâm not looking for deterministic, constant, and basic. Iâm looking for something less frequent, more impactful, and to which I can adapt, as âto meâ thematically fits a Survivalist.
I would rather take the choice, per a shared node, of old WFI over the new if I couldnât both, keep the manual Sting, and not bother with Viperâs Venom or Contagious Reagents, spending those talents instead on any among Terms of Engagement, Outland Venom, Quickshot and Sulfur Lined Pockets, or the like.
Have your basic nodes for simple, direct, and consistent functionality. But allow those who want that need for adaptation per tools that have been iconic for the last three expansions to retain the thematic alternatives we already had.
Then itâs a damn good place to put other avoidable options with actual gameplay value, no?
Or, per earlier suggestions:
- Move Bloodseeker to Row 3 central column (directly below KC), pathable from Kill Command and pathing to Mongoose and Quickshot. Have it now affect Haste instead of Attack Speed, but at just 4%, diminishing with additional target count.
- Baseline Harpoon. Move Terms of Engagement into its former place. Move Aspect of the Eagle into Terms of Engagementâs former place. Move Grenade Juggler into Aspect of the Eagleâs former place. As such, Terms of Engagement (where Harpoon was before) now paths directly to Outland Venom, and Wildfire Infusions now also paths directly to Ranger, increasing freedom of pathing for those who donât want to go hard into Wildfire Infusions or uptime-helpers.
- Move Frenzied Strikes into the position of Lunge, but have it apply from all your melee attacks, reducing WFBâs CD by as many seconds as targets struck, to a maximum of 5. Move Merciless Blows to directly below Butchery, pathing to both Tactical Advantage and Sick Emâ.
- In the position of Wildfire Infusions, give a choice node between the old effect and new. Grenade Juggler now grants its current effect if you took NewInfusions, and empowers the rotated bombâs unique effects if one took OldInfusions.
- Make Viperâs Venom a choice node with Serpent Sting a la Hydraâs Bite. Contagious Reagents now causes any application of Serpent Sting to to apply also to an additional nearby target or two if the primary was already afflicted, and increasing Serpent Sting direct damage faintly. This thereby allows for up to 6 applications at a time from Merciless Raptorgooses, Hydras, or Volatile Bombs against, positioning the talent as useful mostly just for mass AoE.
So not DF version of wfi at all lol
Literally still worth adapting to. And again, in this case with an augmenting node doubling its strength, just as Grenade Juggler does for NewInfusions.
Iâve always said that survival should be a fantasy combination of The Predator and Rambo. Aggressive hand to hand with traps and improvised explosives.
Loving the new design. Now Sentinel needs to be redone into something thatâs not elf nonsense that focuses on guns and traps. Mortar team/sapper is right there.