Bullroarer Update 30: Early Look: Skill Balance Work

[Caladria-Gr]

Minstrel

• Anthems should now be Raid-wide.
• Anthem of war unimbued LI bonus to physical/ranged reduced [~10->~5%]. Anthem of War base tactical bonus reduced [15->10%]
• The tooltip for Major Ballad now correctly says it is a damaging skill in the Dissonance form instead of the Resonance form.

Since anthems are now raid-wide and that several key captain buffs are also raid-wide, are there thoughts of making Call to Greatness and possibly minstrel tales buff raid wide as well?

[Joedangod]

discuss.....

RK isn't passed over due to their healing, they have pretty darn great healing and great raid defensive cooldowns. They just don't boost raid DPS like a mini/bear does.

[Kander]

RK isn't passed over due to their healing, they have pretty darn great healing and great raid defensive cooldowns. They just don't boost raid DPS like a mini/bear does.

Their group heal is the worst of all healing classes honestly, they are best tank healers, though. I still see no harm in raid-wide rousing words and fates entwined, considering captain buffs and mini buffs will be raid wide now. What rk needs is a good debuff to enemies (maybe frost skills or just more reliable fire line debuffs).

[Daenirion]

While you're at it, could you please change Beorning heals to group/raid only. Their AoE skills heal literally anyone who is in range

[Dranak123]

RK isn't passed over due to their healing, they have pretty darn great healing and great raid defensive cooldowns. They just don't boost raid DPS like a mini/bear does.

thank you. very interesting. maybe some different content mechanics would be a breath of fresh air to counter the predominance of high DPSers or high Buffers. I realise this may not be the place to bring it up ...but hey...guess theyre reading this thread. How about some fun side 'bosses/encounters' with high numbers of low ranking bosses, or no bosses and just vast numbers of mobs , or a timed survival type task that is harder at higher tiers, or whatever other fiendish twists come to mind (all in the spirit of Mr Gygax RIP )
Could the presence of differently written encounters within a raid change the need for particular skillsets (class and traitline) that would progressively challenge the DPS race phenomenon as the tiers were raised , and lead to some unconventional team building and team roles , which may favour some classes that currently struggle to petition for a spot ?

[Zaheer]

thank you. very interesting. maybe some different content mechanics would be a breath of fresh air to counter the predominance of high DPSers or high Buffers. I realise this may not be the place to bring it up ...but hey...guess theyre reading this thread. How about some fun side 'bosses/encounters' with high numbers of low ranking bosses, or no bosses and just vast numbers of mobs , or a timed survival type task that is harder at higher tiers, or whatever other fiendish twists come to mind (all in the spirit of Mr Gygax RIP )
Could the presence of differently written encounters within a raid change the need for particular skillsets (class and traitline) that would progressively challenge the DPS race phenomenon as the tiers were raised , and lead to some unconventional team building and team roles , which may favour some classes that currently struggle to petition for a spot ?

this is already done in the past and requires the entire system to be reworked to constant flow of dmg, rather than ridiculous spike.

[Hephburz-2]

Vastin

Can you please take a last look at Captains before this (whenever this) goes live? I think hitting Last Stands duration as much as you have is quite unnecessary; at least moving forward to the next level cap, by which point the Remmorchant gear granting -25% reduction in cooldown will no longer be useable, on top of the reduction in the proccing of the cooldown mentioned in the first set of notes. We can all agree the frequency at which Last Stand could/can be used is beyond stupid for where such a skill should be, but to also hit the duration of the skill as well, but such the amount that you have, I don't think it's warranted, I would suggest not cutting the duration down beyond 13s.

I understand that you don't like Last Stand as it is, which, to be fair, it is quite overpowered, so, if I could suggest a change, why not make it a morale bubble? Strength determined by the Captain's own morale, something like 50 or 75% of the Captains morale, whilst it would still be relatively strong, it would no longer be a perma-invulnerability skill, and there would still be the chance that the Captain 'could' die, especially with IHW active. Just a thought..

--

Also, with the changes to the raid wide buffs, I can understand there might be a bit of contention to making To Arms raid wide, especially due to stacking or chaining the buffs from 2 or more Captains, but, could you at least please make the Sure Strike buff (tactics) from each respective line apply to the raid?

[Kander]

Vastin

Can you please take a last look at Captains before this (whenever this) goes live? I think hitting Last Stands duration as much as you have is quite unnecessary; at least moving forward to the next level cap, by which point the Remmorchant gear granting -25% reduction in cooldown will no longer be useable, on top of the reduction in the proccing of the cooldown mentioned in the first set of notes. We can all agree the frequency at which Last Stand could/can be used is beyond stupid for where such a skill should be, but to also hit the duration of the skill as well, but such the amount that you have, I don't think it's warranted, I would suggest not cutting the duration down beyond 13s.

I understand that you don't like Last Stand as it is, which, to be fair, it is quite overpowered, so, if I could suggest a change, why not make it a morale bubble? Strength determined by the Captain's own morale, something like 50 or 75% of the Captains morale, whilst it would still be relatively strong, it would no longer be a perma-invulnerability skill, and there would still be the chance that the Captain 'could' die, especially with IHW active. Just a thought..

--

Also, with the changes to the raid wide buffs, I can understand there might be a bit of contention to making To Arms raid wide, especially due to stacking or chaining the buffs from 2 or more Captains, but, could you at least please make the Sure Strike buff (tactics) from each respective line apply to the raid?

Main issue with LS uptime and cd was raid set, which shouldn't have been like that but rather something like battle hardened buff or something like that. Giving an invulnerability skill such a drastic cd reduction is a mistake.

[Lotro_Dancer1]

Their group heal is the worst of all healing classes honestly, they are best tank healers, though. I still see no harm in raid-wide rousing words and fates entwined, considering captain buffs and mini buffs will be raid wide now. What rk needs is a good debuff to enemies (maybe frost skills or just more reliable fire line debuffs).

RK healer are focused on fellowship and raid player. switching to target and debuff bosses should be left to LM's and BURGS. (Although both Yellow and Red RK already debuff the enemy). I think the Rousing Words is enough to at least bump the RK closer to par in raid healing.

If the community doesn't think that is enough to balance the RK with the mini and bear, than then I suggest that the frost skill (Flurry of Words) is changed to (for blue line only): no induction, +10sec duration, and bumped to 5% crit chance to provide an average 2.5% damage increase to any player in the effect box.

But... its easy, as an RK player, to ask for this and that to improve gameplay. The real question here is to the RAID LEADERs. Why not the Healing RK? Why Mini-Bear? What does the RK need to make them ON PAR, but not better than a mini or bear healer, so that all three healing classes can be equally viable in raids? I think the healing RK is extremely close but just needs a few little tweeks...


BUG FIX: Glorious Foreshadowing is supposed to increase incoming healing by 5% for each tier of Writ of Health... however Writ Applied by Rousing Words do not trigger this effect.

[Hephburz-2]

RK healer are focused on fellowship and raid player. switching to target and debuff bosses should be left to LM's and BURGS. (Although both Yellow and Red RK already debuff the enemy). I think the Rousing Words is enough to at least bump the RK closer to par in raid healing.

If the community doesn't think that is enough to balance the RK with the mini and bear, than then I suggest that the frost skill (Flurry of Words) is changed to (for blue line only): no induction, +10sec duration, and bumped to 5% crit chance to provide an average 2.5% damage increase to any player in the effect box.



BUG FIX: Glorious Foreshadowing is supposed to increase incoming healing by 5% for each tier of Writ of Health... however Writ Applied by Rousing Words do not trigger this effect.

Because its not a bug? Glorious Foreshadowing is applied only by directly using WoH, its not a byproduct of it, so WoH stacks obtained from rousing words are not subject to the same benefits as if you would have just used the WoH skill, it leaves the HoT not the buff.

Furthermore, despite how powerful RK healing is, they won't ever replace a minstrel or a beorning without competent raid support, however, a blue runekeeper could now spec into red for the +5% incoming damage buff and the -15% armour debuff (even more so because they can't be resisted anymore), that would make them quite valuable in cases where you wouldn't take a Red RK, but I don't think that alone is enough to warrant replacing a Minstrel for example.

[Lotro_Dancer1]

Because its not a bug? Glorious Foreshadowing is applied only by directly using WoH, its not a byproduct of it, so WoH stacks obtained from rousing words are not subject to the same benefits as if you would have just used the WoH skill, it leaves the HoT not the buff.

I'll quote the trait tree and skills directly:
Rousing Words: Allies affected for at least 5 seconds WILL GAIN A TIER OF WRIT OF HELATH <-- this teirs up writ of heal... same buff...teiring up and down...

Glorious Foreshadowing: Incoming Healing is increase by 5% for EACH WRIT of HEALTH Tier on a target. <-- thus Glorious foreshadowing should be going up and down with Writ of Health regardless of which skill cast the Writ of Health.

However. this does not work... if you cast Writ of Health, you have the T1 +5% buff and T1 Writ of Health. If you then cast Rousing words, Writ of Health properly tiers up to T2, but Glorious Foreshadowing misses it.. You now have T2 writ, and T1 Glorious. Casting Writ of Health again increase writ to T3, but Glorious only increase to T2.... further... if you work all the player up to T3 and then use Rousing to keep it refreshed...the Glorious Forshadowing can time out while you still have a T3 Writ

Suggested Quick Fix: instead of Glorious foreshadowing being an independant buff, just delete it and when you acheive "Glorious Foreshadowing" in the trait tree update Writ of Health directly to have the added Glorious Foreshadowing +5% per teir...simpler and won't get out of sequence...

[Lotro_Dancer1]

I'll quote the trait tree and skills directly:
Rousing Words: Allies affected for at least 5 seconds WILL GAIN A TIER OF WRIT OF HELATH <-- this teirs up writ of heal... same buff...teiring up and down...

Glorious Foreshadowing: Incoming Healing is increase by 5% for EACH WRIT of HEALTH Tier on a target. <-- thus Glorious foreshadowing should be going up and down with Writ of Health regardless of which skill cast the Writ of Health.

However. this does not work... if you cast Writ of Health, you have the T1 +5% buff and T1 Writ of Health. If you then cast Rousing words, Writ of Health properly tiers up to T2, but Glorious Foreshadowing misses it.. You now have T2 writ, and T1 Glorious. Casting Writ of Health again increase writ to T3, but Glorious only increase to T2.... further... if you work all the player up to T3 and then use Rousing to keep it refreshed...the Glorious Forshadowing can time out while you still have a T3 Writ

Suggested Quick Fix: instead of Glorious foreshadowing being an independent buff, just delete it and when you achieve "Glorious Foreshadowing" in the trait tree update Writ of Health directly to have the added Glorious Foreshadowing +5% per teir...simpler and won't get out of sequence...

With this fix.. I would also suggest that if Rousing Word changes to raid-wide as requested above, that Rousing Words is changed to "Refresh" Writ of Health not ADD a tier. Otherwise this skill is a little too easy. This mean the RK needs to focus more and work a bit harder to tier up writs on each player, track them, and ensure they are raid-wide refreshed before they tier down.

[gildhur]

• Anthems should now be Raid-wide.

LOVE these changes to Captain and Minstrel skills. IMO all group buffs should act this way (including race traits, tokens, and scrolls). Major quality of life upgrade.

[Lohi]

So guardian which right now has excellent damage at least for solo or small groups, is having damage boosted. Captain which has abysmal damage is having damage reduced. The +10% revealing mark makes it worth inviting a red captain to join a group - if it's only 5%, you will do more overall dps bringing a champion, rune keeper, or even a red guardian!

[BinaryTertiary]

So guardian which right now has excellent damage at least for solo or small groups, is having damage boosted. Captain which has abysmal damage is having damage reduced. The +10% revealing mark makes it worth inviting a red captain to join a group - if it's only 5%, you will do more overall dps bringing a champion, rune keeper, or even a red guardian!

except a good captain was outparsing a guardian in extended fights with weapon swaps

...lol.

[laughatdo0m]

So guardian which right now has excellent damage at least for solo or small groups, is having damage boosted. Captain which has abysmal damage is having damage reduced. The +10% revealing mark makes it worth inviting a red captain to join a group - if it's only 5%, you will do more overall dps bringing a champion, rune keeper, or even a red guardian!

I would debate saying a red guard brings more benefit to a fellowship than a red captain. The guard literally only brings personal damage and Protection of the Sword. A good red captain's "abysmal" personal damage is not that far behind a red guards; possibly better when you factor in the damage increase for everyone else in the group. When you also account for the survivability a captain gives your fellowship (herald mits, banner, to-arms, motivated speech, and tons of healing) I don't see how you could ever justify that a red guard is more useful.

[Chris91]

Furthermore, despite how powerful RK healing is, they won't ever replace a minstrel or a beorning without competent raid support, however, a blue runekeeper could now spec into red for the +5% incoming damage buff and the -15% armour debuff (even more so because they can't be resisted anymore), that would make them quite valuable in cases where you wouldn't take a Red RK, but I don't think that alone is enough to warrant replacing a Minstrel for example.

The 5% damage has a 20% proc chance on every fire skill though, so keeping that up as a non-red RK means spending a large amount of time using fire skills. If that buff would be applied 100% of the time on a fire skill it would actually be meaningful for blue RK (and not change a thing for red, because red produces 100% uptime anyway)

[Kander]

The 5% damage has a 20% proc chance on every fire skill though, so keeping that up as a non-red RK means spending a large amount of time using fire skills. If that buff would be applied 100% of the time on a fire skill it would actually be meaningful for blue RK (and not change a thing for red, because red produces 100% uptime anyway)

The 5% is truly unreliable with that chance indeed but -15% armour is quite strong except when all raid debuffs are active, if it's true it won't be resisted anymore then it's a good damage support.

[Daenirion]

I understand that you don't like Last Stand as it is, which, to be fair, it is quite overpowered, so, if I could suggest a change, why not make it a morale bubble? Strength determined by the Captain's own morale, something like 50 or 75% of the Captains morale, whilst it would still be relatively strong, it would no longer be a perma-invulnerability skill, and there would still be the chance that the Captain 'could' die, especially with IHW active. Just a thought..

--

I agree with this 100%. The whole reasoning behind theses changes is raid designers having a hard time designing encounters around these skills, yet the most broken of them all remains almost unchanged. I think LS should be deleted from the game, but the morale bubble is a decent compromise.

[Zaheer]

Main issue with LS uptime and cd was raid set, which shouldn't have been like that but rather something like battle hardened buff or something like that. Giving an invulnerability skill such a drastic cd reduction is a mistake.

No, I don't agree with that, I think LS duration at 13-15 seconds is more than fine. What worries me more is the fact that people are whining about captain having so many panic skills whilst maintaining a superior tanking position without them.


While it's true, I do not think that it's either LS, dunedain, hardened as a factor. I think it's rather the raw added morale bonus that was added with the captains patch. As for the ridiculous self-healing the yellow captain has now. Not that it entirely works well since for example turning point no longer works properly, cutting off a supply of healing that it would have had if the stat system & BPE system wasn't so ridiculous.

Captains excel at the current meta mainly because of how the system itself is designed, not so much the captain. Yes, it is OP, but what really pushes it is the way content atm is biased. Having mechanics circumventing BPE, BPE not properly working, stat system not allowing for diversity, captain having too much-added morale bonus. These things really push and make captain OP, because its flat dmg reduction from hardened gains most advantage of the current circumstances.

What's most important to understand about yellow is that ''flatwise'' tanking, so in the sense of not burning any cooldowns next to guard and warden, the captain is meant to receive most damage here out of the 3. So despite hardened being on, Captain used to still receive roughly about 15% more dmg IIRC compared to guard & warden around 100/105. Whilst its selfheal was above guard, but below warden. What you need to understand was that the tank of the yellow captain is designed for inheriting different builds, this way it was able to pull the advantage out. Not because it's flat-out OP, but rather because the captain tank is meant to be flexible at situations, opposed to guardians and wardens.

For example, you could expand your morale pool at the expanse of stats like inc healing, mitigations, or perhaps ''BPE''.

Or allowing for a smaller pool with more inc/outg heal & tightening defensive stats. In case BPE was circumvented, the captain was never compromised because it simply was able to go around that. As to where wardens and guardians would suffer because their tank design allowed for less diversity.


So when we look now, diversity is thrown out of the window, because SSG wants us to tank in a specific way. Stats like mitigations, BPE & inc heal have gotten a ridiculous curve, and since guardian and warden aren't designed to operate the way they do now, of course, the captain will shine. Having a boss & adds constantly bombarding the tank with tactical skills basically circumvents the BPE system. Guardian and Warden are at a worse position when it comes to absorbing spike damage, opposed to captain and beorning, the captain is able to get there because no matter how you build your captain tank (as in it used to be in the past), it would always work somewhere, somehow, because builds matter.

[Kander]

No, I don't agree with that, I think LS duration at 13-15 seconds is more than fine. What worries me more is the fact that people are whining about captain having so many panic skills whilst maintaining a superior tanking position without them.


While it's true, I do not think that it's either LS, dunedain, hardened as a factor. I think it's rather the raw added morale bonus that was added with the captains patch. As for the ridiculous self-healing the yellow captain has now. Not that it entirely works well since for example turning point no longer works properly, cutting off a supply of healing that it would have had if the stat system & BPE system wasn't so ridiculous.

Captains excel at the current meta mainly because of how the system itself is designed, not so much the captain. Yes, it is OP, but what really pushes it is the way content atm is biased. Having mechanics circumventing BPE, BPE not properly working, stat system not allowing for diversity, captain having too much-added morale bonus. These things really push and make captain OP, because its flat dmg reduction from hardened gains most advantage of the current circumstances.

What's most important to understand about yellow is that ''flatwise'' tanking, so in the sense of not burning any cooldowns next to guard and warden, the captain is meant to receive most damage here out of the 3. So despite hardened being on, Captain used to still receive roughly about 15% more dmg IIRC compared to guard & warden around 100/105. Whilst its selfheal was above guard, but below warden. What you need to understand was that the tank of the yellow captain is designed for inheriting different builds, this way it was able to pull the advantage out. Not because it's flat-out OP, but rather because the captain tank is meant to be flexible at situations, opposed to guardians and wardens.

For example, you could expand your morale pool at the expanse of stats like inc healing, mitigations, or perhaps ''BPE''.

Or allowing for a smaller pool with more inc/outg heal & tightening defensive stats. In case BPE was circumvented, the captain was never compromised because it simply was able to go around that. As to where wardens and guardians would suffer because their tank design allowed for less diversity.


So when we look now, diversity is thrown out of the window, because SSG wants us to tank in a specific way. Stats like mitigations, BPE & inc heal have gotten a ridiculous curve, and since guardian and warden aren't designed to operate the way they do now, of course, the captain will shine. Having a boss & adds constantly bombarding the tank with tactical skills basically circumvents the BPE system. Guardian and Warden are at a worse position when it comes to absorbing spike damage, opposed to captain and beorning, the captain is able to get there because no matter how you build your captain tank (as in it used to be in the past), it would always work somewhere, somehow, because builds matter.

I agree on the analysis and reasons why captain is the only option at tanking at the moment, but I don't know what you suggest, changing back the entire game mechanics and all that before balancing tanks again? sure! that would be perfect but it's not gonna happen.
And captains having basically 1/3 of their tanking time as entirely impossible to be killed is a huge mistake. Having last stand is the most OP tanking skill of the game, reducing its cooldown with raid set was a massive mistake.

[Zaheer]

I agree on the analysis and reasons why captain is the only option at tanking at the moment, but I don't know what you suggest, changing back the entire game mechanics and all that before balancing tanks again? sure! that would be perfect but it's not gonna happen.
And captains having basically 1/3 of their tanking time as entirely impossible to be killed is a huge mistake. Having last stand is the most OP tanking skill of the game, reducing its cooldown with raid set was a massive mistake.

agreed

didn't even know about this bonus cuz I've been enjoying my time being away from the game and this ridiculous meta

[Lyonitis]

I think it's long past time to publicly acknowledge that wardens aren't intended to be tanks, and change the introductory text/video so it describes the actual intent of the class.

I play Warden to tank and that is the only reason I play the class as it's the most interesting tank and challenging tank to play. You don't speak for the majority of people who feel the same.

[Strider5548]

I play Warden to tank and that is the only reason I play the class as it's the most interesting tank and challenging tank to play. You don't speak for the majority of people who feel the same.

Same here, my Warden was a tank at L50 and is a tank at L130. I have no interest in being a DPS class, and completely oppose the idea of Wardens not being able to tank.

I do feel sorry for all the Warden tanks out there though...even though mine is decked out in all the top gear (from my raiding characters) he still can't tank any raid content above T2. I mean, maybe he can, but who wants to put 11 people through that?

[theultimatekyle]

I play Warden to tank and that is the only reason I play the class as it's the most interesting tank and challenging tank to play. You don't speak for the majority of people who feel the same.

He's not saying that wardens shouldnt be tanks, it seems he's saying that since the reality is that they aren't currently capable of tanking, and the devs show no desire to want to change that, that they should just update the class info on character creation to reflect that.

Warden's havent been proper tanks since 105 cap. That was 5 years ago. Plus with the new brawler tank coming in just a few months, they really dont have any incentive to fix Warden tanking. Thats just the reality of the class now.