Warg Stalker - Feedback

[SSG_Orion]

Please put feedback on the warg stalker changes in this thread.

[Spilo]

Copy and pasted from the main feedback thread:

Overall Macro/Meta Feedback- will repeat what I said above:

1. Please fix the login/Rez bug for non-VIPs. Getting sent to your milestone every log in and being unable to accept rezzes in the Moors is beyond annoying.

2. Please reduce the gear gap between T4 and T1 gear. T1 gear should be as strong as T3 gear, otherwise you're going to completely destroy the motivation for new players/alts to enjoy the Moors, especially given the commendation grind that will persist despite the infamy/comms % changes. Be kind to new players- being unskilled AND completely naked gearwise is really too much.

3. Consider future macro changes for QoL aside from class balance. Class balance is an endless war, however dealing with Maps for creeps (too many), Map adjustments (hot spots, EC/OC), dealing with store buff discrepancy, and reducing comm grind for either side lasts forever.


--- Feedback specifically from Beta:

Creeps need more options with inc damage/mitigation debuffs, specifically Reavers, Spiders, and Wargs. All this excitement, but aside from the inc heal debuff stacking, Creep damage increased only slightly over live (which is fine) and options to debuffs Freep damage stayed essentially the same (which is not fine).

Reconsider some of the immediate adjustments (Reaver/Warg). Disarm, Howl, Sprint, and Charge lose a huge chunk of their usefulness by not being immediate- it makes rotations clunkier and hurts their utility as well. Blood of Fire change makes sense- not the other ones.

Regarding the inc-heal debuff stacking... I think it's a cool idea, and the only significant change to Creep group play with all these changes, however you may need to adjust the numbers on a few things. Puddle stacking with itself with inc-heal debuff is probably too much (the mit stacking is fine, but the inc heal stacking may not be), and VT stacking with everything else is sort of cheesy (it's a brainless and easy inc heal debuff that now can stack with any other debuff). Preventing the Puddle inc heal debuff from stacking and nerfing VT to 25% inc heal debuff would be a good start, in my opinion IF Creep get other debuff options (as requested above).

Base stat buffs are cool, but nerf corruptions! Spoke about this with one of your devs already, but would be thrilled if traiting 4 Pmits didn't take me from 38% mits to 70% pmits- that's such a ridiculous variance considering Creeps cannot reasonably have balanced builds (it's not fun for either side, either you're overstacked or understacked). Freeps, even if they tried their darndest, cannot come even close to this level of variance with their essence gear.

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WARG FEEDBACK:

Ok, so a lot to unpack here. The TLDR is damage distribution is looking pretty solid compared to live, but is clunky in aspects. The immediate change sucks, and Shadow wargs probably still need more utility APART from interrupt spam.


Bestial Claws: Damage output looks fine now- weaker than live even after the overall stats/damage buff, overall percentage drops from (ballpark estimate) 45-50% of warg damage to 30-40%. Good stuff.

Scratch and Snip: Cool change with this- would be a lot cooler if the autocrit applied to Piercing claws. Damage output is reasonable given its new utility.

Swipe: Flayer change is nice, no complaints, but should consider buffing this skill's damage a little.

Rend: Would love this skill to receive some love, specifically my suggestion with the tiering 5% inc damage (5, to 10, to 15, and maybe even 20% on subsequent uses). If not, it certainly needs to do a little more damage.

Maul/Piercing Claws/Tendon Shred/Crippling Bite/Throat Rip: Totally fine.

Frenzy: Would love this to be a mitigation buff for the Warg, although maybe that'd be broken with Flayer...

Shadow Fangs: THIS IS BUGGED, IT IS 25% NOT 45% LIKE IT SAYS IN NOTES... otherwise- damage component is fine, bleed is fine- at first I thought the induction debuff was too much, but after the new traceries, I think it's fine as long as we deal with...

Eye Gouge/Fleas: Same feedback I gave earlier- too many interrupts. Either completely useless or completely broken- either it's an inductionless class or gets cleansed OR it's completely busted. Do NOT touch Eye Gouge as an immdiate/CD, but if you can separate it from the interrupt component (internal CD) and rework Fleas into something else, that'd be great.

Rabid Bite/Fleas: Putting Fleas in here again, as I really don't know what to do with either of these skills. Some form of debuff tied to these would be nice, maybe keep Fleas AoE and removable, and make Rabid bite unremoveable but not power cost debuff related- not sure. Actually, what if we tied some sort of self sustain into Rabid bite when comboed with Crippling bite debuff? Sort of like a morale Tap from Warden that was increased in Shadow stance. Fleas could leave as 25% induction and attack duration.

Rallying Howl: Seems ok, don't really think increasing the duration was that big of a deal, but maybe it helps a little with group utility.

Pounce: Double damage and buffing Bite skills from stealth was... unexpected, but seems ok. There's a bug where Scratch and Snip buff only applies to the first hit of pounce which should be fixed.

Snap!: Very sad- I'm not sure what adjustments were made, but this skill is still not working- it is not multiplicative in the literal sense. I tested this multiple different times different ways, and it around 3-5% of a debuff, which is only slightly better than what it is on Live. In addition, this skill needs a damage component like the other debuff skills.

Howl of Unnerving: Also sad- the debuff was too strong but really did not last long enough (the 50% chance of application also really leaves a bad taste in your mouth). 5s duration on a 20% mit debuff that has a 50% chance of applying but, wait, just kidding, it goes through FEAR resist, which is always absurdly high on Freeps from Muster Courage (so gonna get resisted even in the off chance it does apply... for 5s, and assuming it doesn't get instantly cleared).

Pack Hunters/Puddle: Stanceless is cool, range just sucks (3.5m is impossible to keep up). Shadow is fine (didn't know we were keeping the mit debuff but hey), but puddle stacking with itself may be a wee bit broken for the inc heal debuff.

---

Flayer:

I did not test Flayer extensively, but I did test a few things:

1. Seems unbelievably tanky and still does good damage compared to Shadow (benefits a lot from the etc skills being boosted and Bestial Claws being nerfed did not affect it). The 5% Beleriand damage goes OVER cap which allows Flayer to reach 75% Beleriand mits

2. Brutal Fangs armor debuff ends up being around 2% mits- should be upped to 5%.

Stanceless:

Always been a bit of a meme, but I do have one thought here- the Pack Hunters change could be pretty cool IF you increased the range of it to 7m- otherwise it falls off at the slightest movement on the target and becomes entirely useless.
--

Overall:

Snap!/Fleas/Rabid Bite/Howl of Unnerving need looking at, some bugs to address with Scratch and Snip/Pounce/Shadow Fangs, Sprint/Howl immediates need to be reverted.
Flayer may need some adjustments with better debuffs/less tankines- 2% mit debuff and BPE debuffs isn't much.
Shadow needs a little more utility considering it took a big damage hit from live, perhaps buffing skills like Rend/Swipe in shadow would help as well.

___



ETC observations:

Tact mit corruptions were not buffed during the update, but the Resist amount was, not saying this is bad or good, just reporting
BPE in the Pmit corruptions stayed the same, just reporting
For Warg, Foe of the Light and Armor boost were the only racials buffed, the rest stayed the same, just reporting.

[Blotch]

I would like to suggest a small change. Both reaver and BA classes have a skill that takes advantage of a low health enemy. I believe that the shadow warg could get a real improvement with a skill that helps finishing faster a fight. My suggestion would be to make piercing class switch between stances, so in flayer - you would go for the long fight - the skill would take 5% health and in shadow stance it would deal massive dmg to a target below 20% health. You could use a trait to improve the threshold to 35%.

[Fulgurix]

I agree with all the points made by Spilo pretty much. 2 small things i noticed:

- Swipe is now AOE (3 targets, 5m radius). I was so used to not having any aoe, but ok i guess, it needs a target to be activated tho.
- Tendon Shred is not affected by the Pounce buff (Dev already answered me on this, it's a bug, it should be fixed later)


PROBLEMS

As Spilo already mentioned, shadow warg feels clunky to play right now, for 2 reasons linked between them:

- loss of 2 immediates
- buffs being added to 2 of the slowest animation skills (Scratch & Snip, Pounce)

So at the moment, it feels too time consuming to apply Pounce buff + S&S buff + many more absurdely long animation skills (shadow fang debuff/bleed, fleas, shadow pack, the new Howl of Unnerving, Howl from the Shadow), with pretty much only eye-gouge to try and cut them. This coupled with the fact that shadow warg is the most fragile creep class and the only one without a reliable form of sustain makes things pretty ugly, simply can't indulge in wasting any time during a fight.
I like the idea of "jaw" and "claw" skill types, it gives something to work with in terms of awareness, reducing the mindless spam. But it need some more work to be properly rewarding in terms of damage.


FEW SUGGESTIONS

1. Move the pounce buff to Swipe, it's already the corruption designed skill in Flayer stance, it makes sense to have an alternate version for Shadow.

2. Something that might help with giving the class a more defined rythm and rotation can be looking at red minstrel's dps rotation (on live atleast), alternating 1s cd high crit chance skills (ballads, very similar to warg's bestial claws) with long animation big hitting skills (called cries and calls) + immediate (piercing cry, which cooldown is reset by ballads).

[Seattle2k11]

I have been using a warg for a long time now and even with these updates wargs are still going to die fast. The problem is none of our skills do enough damage to survive. If you do not have a defiler or war leader around you will die even if its a 1v1. I tested my warg on a slug on Bullroarer and the slug died just barely faster then on Arkenstone. I watched several fights on Bullroarer and wargs were dieing just as fast even though I did not see a lot of healing on freeps fighting them. There is not one class of freep that a moderately good warg such as myself could even have a chance with unless that freep has 700k or less in health. I know Spilo does a great job testing , but again he is a great player, is good at moving his toon around. I can not move like he does and without more health, damage etc, I will die just a little slower then I do now. The average warg player is not in the same class as Spilo. We used to be able to solo an op like burgs do but now it takes at least one other creep to do that. I used to take a bear down in 3 hits now it takes at least 4 or 5 (tested on Bullroarer). With freep healing, dps of hunter, damage by champs stay the same wargs will still die faster. This 1st beta is no better and we will still have a grams camp. What is happening now on Arkenstone is we will have multiple champs and hunter killing creeps and a couple of impossible to kill or stun healers camping us at grams. Even if you can get a champ down in health they just sprint away, same with guards. You need to sit in grams on Arkenstone and see what is actually happening before deciding what to do. We are not safe at grams unless you are inside the walls where most of the quest givers are, because of the range that the hunters, etc have. I have seen single champs, bears, rk's that 12 creeps could not kill.

[Spilo]

PROBLEMS

As Spilo already mentioned, shadow warg feels clunky to play right now, for 2 reasons linked between them:

- loss of 2 immediates
- buffs being added to 2 of the slowest animation skills (Scratch & Snip, Pounce)

So at the moment, it feels too time consuming to apply Pounce buff + S&S buff + many more absurdely long animation skills (shadow fang debuff/bleed, fleas, shadow pack, the new Howl of Unnerving, Howl from the Shadow), with pretty much only eye-gouge to try and cut them. This coupled with the fact that shadow warg is the most fragile creep class and the only one without a reliable form of sustain makes things pretty ugly, simply can't indulge in wasting any time during a fight.
I like the idea of "jaw" and "claw" skill types, it gives something to work with in terms of awareness, reducing the mindless spam. But it need some more work to be properly rewarding in terms of damage.


FEW SUGGESTIONS

1. Move the pounce buff to Swipe, it's already the corruption designed skill in Flayer stance, it makes sense to have an alternate version for Shadow.

2. Something that might help with giving the class a more defined rythm and rotation can be looking at red minstrel's dps rotation (on live atleast), alternating 1s cd high crit chance skills (ballads, very similar to warg's bestial claws) with long animation big hitting skills (called cries and calls) + immediate (piercing cry, which cooldown is reset by ballads).

Agreed!

Something I just noticed with flayer is the Swipe Brute bonus is a bit redundant with the Brute skill- using swipe increases your bonus by 50%, which, in combination with Brute means it's 75% chance, so when you add another stack from swipe (which lasts 30s), you now have a 125% chance- kinda meaningless. What if the Brute bonus for swipe was reduced to 20-25%, the Brute bonus for the skill Brute was 50% (to make it a more useful CD), and go from there? Would require more thought for the 100% uptime.

Also, the brute debuffs from Brutal fangs needs to be buffed, and probably should add another Brute debuff elsewhere, on Scratch and Snip for example, as there's really not enough interested debuffs here.

Finally, I think the defensive buffs Flayer are too high for the DPS it puts out. Shadow Warg took a DPS nerf, Flayer warg got nothing but damage buffs. This should be a solely defensive/debuff stance- I'd recommend starting with a small nerf to Agonizing Maul and Raking Claw (and its bleed), and probably reduce the inc damage reduction from 10% to 5-6%, then compensate by adding another debuff to the class+buffing the mit debuff from Fangs.


Also, want to re-iterate that the auto interrupt from new Fleas is gross and dumb.

[Spilo]

I have been using a warg for a long time now and even with these updates wargs are still going to die fast. The problem is none of our skills do enough damage to survive. If you do not have a defiler or war leader around you will die even if its a 1v1. I tested my warg on a slug on Bullroarer and the slug died just barely faster then on Arkenstone. I watched several fights on Bullroarer and wargs were dieing just as fast even though I did not see a lot of healing on freeps fighting them. There is not one class of freep that a moderately good warg such as myself could even have a chance with unless that freep has 700k or less in health. I know Spilo does a great job testing , but again he is a great player, is good at moving his toon around. I can not move like he does and without more health, damage etc, I will die just a little slower then I do now. The average warg player is not in the same class as Spilo. We used to be able to solo an op like burgs do but now it takes at least one other creep to do that. I used to take a bear down in 3 hits now it takes at least 4 or 5 (tested on Bullroarer). With freep healing, dps of hunter, damage by champs stay the same wargs will still die faster. This 1st beta is no better and we will still have a grams camp. What is happening now on Arkenstone is we will have multiple champs and hunter killing creeps and a couple of impossible to kill or stun healers camping us at grams. Even if you can get a champ down in health they just sprint away, same with guards. You need to sit in grams on Arkenstone and see what is actually happening before deciding what to do. We are not safe at grams unless you are inside the walls where most of the quest givers are, because of the range that the hunters, etc have. I have seen single champs, bears, rk's that 12 creeps could not kill.

I do agree Shadow warg DPS is lack luster on the stronger Freep classes. Buffing Swipe/Rend damage would help (the pounce buff on Rend is a really cool idea if Rend did more damage), as would giving Snap! a damage component as well/making SnS 100% crit PC as well.

[Spilo]

Updated feedback from BR round 2:

"The three variants of 'Howl' are once again Immediate skills.
Tendon Shred is now correctly affected by the 'Slavering Fangs' corruption buff from Pounce.
Piercing Claws now correctly benefits from the 'Scratch' buff from Feral Scratch and Snip."

All great changes, thank you! Have some feedback for both Flayer and Shadow, and I'm going to prioritize the most important changes (in my opinion) by creating a hierarchy of needs at the bottom of the feedback.


SHADOW:

Overall Shadow damage still feels too low, see the below comparison (Shadow on the left)- auto attacks were disabled, but will have no tangible impact on the DPS comparison between Flayer and Shadow:



This was with a target standing in Puddle, too- something that never happens in open field fights and is inconsistent in Group fights. Shadow only was around 8-10% more DPS than Flayer, despite being significantly squishier and contributing less utility.

Shadow warg should aim to have around 30-35% more DPS than Flayer and should have slightly worse utility.

To make this happen:

1. Reduce cooldown of Scratch and Snip to 10s (from 15s). Loving the new autocrit buff, but Scratch and Snip's CD is too long in the quick and dynamic Warg rotation- this mechanic needs to be made available more often. Because FERAL Scratch and Snip is Shadow only, this would help Shadow DPS.
2. Buff Eye Gouge and Swipe damage specifically while in Shadow. Both of these skills have utility in Flayer, but in Shadow, Swipe's damage is far too low, and Eye Gouge's damage is lower than the damage component on the debuff skills (Throat Rip/Cripple/Shadow Fangs). Buffing each of these by 20-25% while in shadow seems to be a decent ballpark goal.
3. Introduce the Rend-tiering system for Shadow stance. This was a suggestion I had earlier, but making it Shadow stance exclusive would help deal with the Flayer/Shadow discrepancy, as well as increase Shadow warg utility. Leave Rend's initial application at 10% in Shadow, but on second application, have it strengthen the debuff to 15% incoming damage. I do not think tiering from 5, to 10, to 15% is a good idea (as I once suggested), as I think it would nerf Shadow warg's utility in burst situations- 3 tiers of Rend would just take too long to place on a burst target.
4. Lastly, something to consider if one or more of the other options aren't viable, buff the Shadow stance passive buff from +15% Melee damage to something much higher, 45% or perhaps more (or make it multiplicative). It's an additive mastery % calculation, so Shadow Warg has actually been indirectly stealth nerfed every update as the mastery cap rises. Every time mastery goes up, Shadow warg's relative DPS goes down.

---

Flayer:

Overall Flayer seems to be in a really solid spot- a 100% uptime 25% inc heal debuff, decent single target DPS, extremely potent defense levels, and various potent attack duration/induction debuffs. I would argue that it's defensives are too high, and that it could use slightly more expansion in its utility.

1. Reduce incoming Melee/Ranged damage Flayer buff from 10% to 5%. It stacks with Audacity, it stacks with food- it's just strong to a sort of silly level. The bubble buff was nice, the extra Beleriand mit buff was nice, the 5% will be nice- that's more than enough.
2. Flayer Brutal Fangs needs to be tied to Mits, not armor. This is anywhere from 1-2% mit debuff, which is simply too low to hold serious relevance. Increasing this to 4-5% would add another tool in Flayer warg's kit without breaking the bank (Creeps need more mit debuffs as well).

---

OVERALL:


1. Please revert Sprint change- it's used as a skill cutter, it's used a defensive skill in group fights (to avoid melee train)- its status as an immediate was crucial on both counts.
2. Fleas/Interrupts. Interrupt and Eye gouge still needs to be looked at (internal 7s CD is still the best option), but in the mean time, please just revert Fleas. Nobody asked for an additional passive interrupt.
3. Consider sustain/defensive options. Using crit response as tools to unlock defensive skills is something we can take from Reavers (but applies infinitely better with the consistent crits from Wargs)- working Frenzy to apply a mit buff instead of evade rating is one step, but I would like to see Rabid bite turn into a small DoT that also applies a 10s HoT on the warg (that heals for around 100-150k total every 10s). This DoT/HoT would increase in potency by 30-40% when consuming a crit response. There's some ideas here that I'd be interested in seeing experimented with.
4. Little detail to add, the Pounce corruption is cool, but sadly suffers from the same issues as Scratch and Snip- too long of an animation, and too long of a skill cooldown. If Pounce's animation were to be shortened, and the skill CD reduced to 10s, that would help!
EDIT: Would be cool to move the mit debuff from Howl of the Unnverving to Rabid bite instead of the HoT idea (buff its damage too).


BUGFIXES/BETA ISSUES:


1. Please fix Shadow Fangs- still showing 25% inductions instead of 45% as listed.
2. Please Fix Snap! It does not reduce outgoing damage multiplicatively (at least on actual damage applied). If this isn't something easily fixed, the best solution would be to simply increase its potency to 20% (so that it ends up being in the 10% reduction ballpark) AND giving it a damage component. You can remove the Silence/Disarm component- it's dumb.

---


Priority List for Warg:

1. BUG FIXES/BETA ISSUES
2. SHADOW DPS/UTILITY:
3. REVERTING SPRINT/FLEAS
4. ADDRESS EYE GOUGE INTERRUPT
5. FLAYER ADJUSTMENTS
6. SUSTAIN/DEFENSIVE OPTIONS WITH FRENZY/RABID BITE


Appreciate your work!

[Fulgurix]

The three variants of 'Howl' are once again Immediate skills.
Tendon Shred is now correctly affected by the 'Slavering Fangs' corruption buff from Pounce.
Piercing Claws now correctly benefits from the 'Scratch' buff from Feral Scratch and Snip.

Good changes, and thank you for the fixes. In my opinion we need to look at shadow stance cooldowns (rotation still feels disconnected with the new buffs and bit clunky) and making it a viable option (flayer is too good right now, without real drawbacks). I've come up with something i think might help address these issues and make this stance more fun to play.

***

SHADOW - INTRODUCING CRIT CHAIN:

Reduce cooldown of 'Swipe'
Reduce cooldown of 'Scratch and Snip' to 10 seconds
Shadow stance now adds 15% positional damage to all skills -> this will make shadow more appealing against the many positives of being in flayer, strengthen the identity of the stance and reward good positioning without simply buffing base damage.

Swipe becomes 'Feral Swipe' -> gives Shadow Strike (+ 100% crit chance for the next skill - remove the buff from SnS)
Snap! becomes 'Snap from the shadow!' (25s cooldown very small flat heal - keep the damage debuff - this skill can critical hit and it has increased critical magnitude)

Using Rend flesh unlocks Feral Swipe -> Rend is already a crit response skill, so the base setup is already there.

So the chain will be composed by 2 skills: Rend-> Swipe-> Crit Buff. From now we will have a choice:

1. Following with Piercing claws/SnS for maximizing damage (alternating between the two, given the high cooldown) and consuming the swipe buff (100% crit)
OR
2. Using Snap from the shadow! - sacrificing damage and consuming the buff for a guaranteed critical flat heal


I personally don't like Scratch and Snip as a buff skill, i think it is more fitting as a 'long animation high damage' skill. These changes will give skill variety to the stance and more importantly choises and options during a fight, with the appropriate drawbacks.

***


SUGGESTIONS

Remove the pulsing interrupt from Fleas and increase the Shadow Fang induction debuff to 40% - a pulsing interrupt is bad, we can't control it and the class have enough ways to interrupt inductions in melee, while making shadow fang debuff stronger will help with the extremely short induction times on freepside at the moment.

Move away the damage from Tendon Shred - it doesn't make sense to have such high damage on a stun skill.

***

BUGS

Pounce 2nd attack out of stealth doesn't crit when affected by 'Scent of Blood'.