Spider Weaver - Feedback

[SSG_Orion]

Please put feedback on the changes to the spider weaver here.

[Spilo]

Class desperately needs better group utility and more relevant debuffs before we spend hours testing 1v1 balance and the stupid pet's HP.

[Daec]

Copied from other thread.

Spider Weaver:

• 'Clinging Webs' miss chance debuff increased from 7% to 15%.
• 'Venomous Haze' now has a max range of 40m, and reduces player ranged skills by 15m.
• 'Lethal kiss' now deals slightly more damage at the outset, and deals ~4x that damage after ten seconds if the effect is not removed; cooldown has been increased to 10s.
• 'Grasping Webs' now has a 50% chance to break on damage.
• 'Necrosis' now reduces the resistance rating of targets by 120k.
• The trait 'Steelweave Webs' now increases the grace period of your roots to 3s.
• 'Envenom' base damage increased; bonus 20% damage for every venom pip.
• 'Shelob's Gift' reduced from a full heal to a ~1/3 heal.
• 'Feast' now restores morale on a defeat event instead of power.
• 'Poison Spray' can now be used against NPCs.
• Hatchlings:
  - Base Hatchling Health increased by 15%.
  - Strong Brood now gives +75% Health, -10% power, 5% faster attacks, +25% melee damage, +25% Critical Damage, +25% Melee Critical Hit Points, +15% Evade Rate.
  - Scytode Brood now gives +25% health, +15% power, +10% faster attack speed, -25% melee damage, +35% ranged damage, +25% critical chance, +15% melee critical hit points, +10% Evade Rate.
• New skill: Cleansing Shadows:
  - Costs 3 Venom.
  - The weaver can consume up to 3 negative tactical, song, or cry effects.
  - The weaver is healed a small amount for each effect consumed.
• 'Toxic Carapace' has been reworked slightly:
  - The effect from Toxic Carapace now tiers down over time; the starting tier depends on the number of Venom pips consumed.
  - Tier 5 effect is now -25% incoming damage, 80% reflected damage.
  - Incoming damage potency is reduced 5% per tier, and reflect potency is reduced 10% per tier.
  - Overall duration and cooldown increased slightly (25s maximum possible duration, 90s cooldown).
  - This effect is now a Corruption, meaning it can be tiered down or dispelled by the free peoples.
  - Known Issue: Toxic Carapace buff is not tiering down at the moment.

-Lethal kiss - If the change of making the end effect uncurable, this is solid, damage seems to be around 75-85k on expiration, which is nice compared to what creeps typically do but with a 274,000 - 305,000 dmg tool tip this seems a bit low? . Initial damage still seems very low at around 15k non-crit.
-Envenom - Not impressed, even with 3 ensnared and 5 venom pips this skill seems to crit for around 100k. With burning such a valuable venom generation skill at max venom to push as much damage this seems a bit underwhelming. Baseline damage increase is welcome, i expected a bit more however. Update: After a bit more testing, it doesn't seem the damage bonus from venom is applying to the skill?
-Toxic Carapace - Bug seems known? It only gives you 1 stack of the corruption no matter what venom you use it at. Additionally the -25%inc dmg doesn't seem to be applying, at least in the character sheet?
-Cleansing shadows - Very good heal, but also very situational. Will be nice vs. some classes and a wash vs. others. Would still like to see it usable at 2 venom as opposed to 3 but otherwise a very nice skill. But overall it seems to sit in a decentish place depending on the match up.
-Feast - Heal seems solid, as this is a defeat response i think it sits in a good place.
-Shelobs Gift - Heal still for ~500k, which is good, however its utility vs. feast is a bit in question. The heal doesn't really justify the trait slot anymore potentially, would be nice to see it in the 700k range on the low end due to the defeat response and trait slot requirements.
-Pet update - Ranged pet sits at around 482k health compared to 424k on live. This change does little to address the issues with the spider pet. Its baseline health needs to huge boost as well its mitigations. Didn't have a chance to test its damage.
-Necrosis - This is a huge nerf, even with the changes to creep finesse via relic/OPs. If 400k is too much i would suggest moving it into the 250,000 rating range. right now its about a 6% resist debuff if memory serves correctly.

[CHEBURASHKA]

@Orion
I want to give some suggestions on how to make spider more useful in group.
IMPORTANT NOTE: if these suggestions make spider too strong in 1v1s, you can nerf spider mits and morale to balance things out.

All my suggestions are based on 3 premises:
1) I want to buff spiders in group but at the same time don’t buff them too much solo (in other words, spider gives other creeps strong buffs but it doesn’t benefit from them that much solo).
2) I want to achieve that goal by: a) making creep utility better through group coordination and synergy between classes (to avoid bad creeps from being too strong and to give good, well-coordinated creeps tools to compete with good freeps)
3) I want to make creep aoe damage better

Also important note: these suggestion will work assuming the cleanse problem is fixed to some degree. Otherwise a lot of these changes will not be really useful.
How can the cleanse problem be fixed? There are multiple solutions: 1) (my favorite) is tier system for debuffs and bleeds; 2) increase the amount of cleansable bleeds and debuffs WITH SHORT COOLDOWN that creeps have so that they can spam them more often and hence it will be harder for freeps to cleanse them. 3) etc.
There are some ideas in my suggestions that can help a lot with cleanse problem as well.
Another note: when I say RAW below I mean the actual dmg/healing and not mastery or other stats (for example, 10% raw dmg reduction from 100k dmg hit is 90k dmg).

Suggestions:


1) Poison Spray:
- keep the bleed that it does
- make it apply vitality debuff instead of agility and increase vitality value to make it more useful. That will reduce max morale of the freep that is getting focused which is really helpful.


2) Catch Prey:
- keep the BPE buff and debuff that it applies.
- add inc. Melee and Ranged dmg debuff (+3%). Important note: don’t add tact. dmg debuff so that it’s good for group content but doesn’t buff spider too much in solo PvP (because ~75% of spider dps is tactical, ~25% melee/ranged).
- reduce CD to 5s (this is needed because this skill is removed if you are CCd for more than 2 seconds or so, unlike captain mark, for example, and also because you’ll have to switch between targets often).


3) Piercing Attack:
- add 3% inc Melee and Ranged dmg debuff that lasts for 15s (don’t add Tactical dmg).


4) Clinging Webs:
- change miss chance debuff to outg. damage debuff (like 5%). It has to reduce RAW dmg and not mastery. Make it stack with warg debuff and WL banner.


5) Entangling Web:
- keep induction and attack duration debuffs.
- add outgoing healing debuff (-5%). Not outgoing healing rating but RAW healing.
- add debuff that reduces skill range by 10-15 meters (for skills that have more than 21 meter range). One cool thing that creeps will be able to do is to root the healer with this debuff to prevent it from getting close to the freep that is being focused.


6) Necrosis:
- keep resist debuff at ~300k
- reduce CD from 20s to 10s
- add debuff that additionally reduces disease and fear resist by 15%. That will help defiler/WL/warg to land offensive debuffs on the target that creeps focus on (primarily blight).

[CHEBURASHKA]

7) Toxin:
- remove power drain
- reduce CD from 15s to 10s
- add weak bleed (you can use the same dmg value that Poison Spray bleed has)
- if this skill is applied to the target that has debuffs from [a) Clinging Webs; b) Entangling Web; c) Necrosis] then all debuffs (out of these 3) that are present on the target are applied to all nearby freeps within 10m. If there is one debuff then only one will be spread out, if there are all 3 then all three will be spread out (in short, I want Toxin to work the same way Wind-lore works on LM).
- also make it spread out the weak bleed that I asked to add above (but only if there is at least 1 debuff on the target)
- these Toxin changes will help MASSIVELY with cleanse problem, not only for spider but for other creeps as well


8) Venomous Haze:
- remove range debuff (it should stay on Entangling Web only)
- add mitigation debuff (-5% tactical and physical)
- reduce CD from 30s to 15s
- duration should be 10s
- add weak bleed (like Toxin above). It is needed to help with cleanse problem
- increase Max Targets from 4 to 6


9) Toxic Carapace
- keep 75% reflect (if you want to add inc dmg as you said in your notes, ok, but I would suggest not to)
- remove corruption removal (idea from your notes)
- it should last for 15s (if you use it with 5 venom pips) and have 1m CD
- add new group-wide effect: your fellowship gains 6% mits when Toxic Carapace is up (but spider doesn’t get mit buff, it only gets 75% reflect). So if you use it with 5 venom pips your group gets 6% mits for 15s, if you use it with 0 venom pips your group gets 6% mits for 5s. Reflect is bad as a defensive CD in group pvp because freeps can outheal reflected damage pretty easily so this skill can now be used as a way to help others instead.
- don’t make 6% mit buff stack with other spiders


10) Shelob’s Gift and Drink Deep (two skills):
- remove defeat response mechanics from Shelob’s Gift and make it usable whenever
- remove heals from Drink Deep to avoid giving spider too much heals (DD heals for ~370k and has 20s CD on live)
- nerf heals from Shelob's Gift (it heals for ~550k on beta, should heal for like 250-300k)
- increase Drink Deep dmg to make it a useful burst damage skill (maybe it can also penetrate 50% mits like Piercing Attack)
- add +5% inc Melee and Ranged dmg debuff to Drink Deep that lasts for 10s (don’t add Tactical inc dmg debuff)
- fix the animation problem with Drink Deep: if you get CCd during ~2.6 second animation of this skill, it goes on CD, you lose venom but it does no damage/healing (dmg and healing go off only at the very end of the animation). Make it do damage and apply debuff at the start of the animation.
- add group-wide buff to Shelob’s Gift: +3% RAW dmg; +2% mits; +3% inc RAW healing for 15s (spider DOES NOT get these buffs, only your group does)


11) Feast:
- remove defeat response mechanics from it and make it usable whenever
- increase CD from 20s to 60s
- keep the heal that it does for the group but remove the heal that it does to spider itself (so that spider doesn’t have too much heals in solo PvP)
- make it do class specific offensive buffs to your group for 10s:
warg: +5% speed, resets CD of some Melee dps skills, gets 5% mit penetration
BA: -50% induction reduction, inductions cannot be interrupted
Wl: resets CD of Menacing Roar; Menacing roar applies 2 mit debuffs instead of 1 (btw WL mit debuff from Menacing roar should apply both phys and tact mit)
defiler: Curse of Rotten Flesh inc dmg debuff is increased from +5% to +10%
reaver: +5% speed; resets Impale CD; single target skills do 5% more RAW dmg
spider: resets all CDs that it does now (both roots, Latent Poison, Paralytic Venom, Venomous Haze) except for Web the Earth (because it will be OP in solo PvP)


12) Born of Shadow:
- keep mit buff for spider
- make it an aura that gives class specific permanent buffs to your group (within 20m):
warg: +3% movement speed; Dire Howl CD is reduced from 45s to 40s; Snap CD is reduced from 25s to 20s; crippling bite slow increased from 25% to 30%; Rend Flesh debuff increased from 10% to 12%
reaver: +3% movement speed; Disarm CD is reduced from 25s to 20s; aoe skills deal 10% more dmg; Thrash CD is reduced from 30s to 20 (that will help with cleanse problem as well).
BA: all inductions are reduced by 10%; aoe skills deal 20% more dmg; Death Blossom CD reduced from 30s to 25s; Flaming Arrow is now aoe (3 targets) (that will help with cleanse problem as well).
WL: all inductions are reduced by 10%; all 3 shouts have higer crit chance (+5%) so that WL can get Power of Fear buff more often; Get a Grip CD is reduced from 180s to 160s.
Defiler: +3% outg. healing (raw); Blessing of Darkness CD is 5s shorter; Fear CD is reduced from 30s to 25s.

13) pet skills:
- make pet sumonable in combat
- buff morale and mits (should be at least 1 mil morale)
13.1) Devour:
- add 2.30 CD
- reduce heal that spider gets from 1 mil to 150k
- add group wide buff that increases incoming healing by 15% for 15s (spider DOES NOT GET this buff, only the group)
13.2) other 2 debuffing skills should be the same for all versions of pets (it’s probably better to just make 1 type of pet)
- first skill reduces max morale by 4% (10s duration, 20s CD)
- second skill reduces mits by 2% (10s duration, 20s CD)

[SneakPeek]

With Audacity becoming compulsory on freepside, it has inadvertently nerfed creep CC across the board. Naturally, Spiders too suffered from this. My suggestion is to enable Spiders to increasing the CC duration on their targets - for example, as Ensnared stacks up it adds +10% CC duration on the target (up to +30%) as a secondary, uncleansable debuff. Alternatively (or with) a single cleansable debuff that increases incoming CC duration by +20%. This will enable them and other creeps to fulfill pre-burst tasks such as a Warleader/Warg/Spider Stun/Daze on healers/target.

Other changes to uniquely enhance their cleansable dots is for all of them to apply a fixed amount of damage when the DoT is cleansed. This allows their damage to not suffer as much, which can be leveraged in both small and large group situations. Another idea to pair with this - allow the Spider to consume upto 3-5 debuffs on the target (either theirs only or both theirs and other creeps) to slightly enhance their stats for a short duration. If timed well with their own spider DoTs, it can allow Spiders to contribute to burst as well. Perhaps the stat enhances could be defensive in nature too, to allow for an escape since the Consume would likely require melee range.

Giving Spiders these two tools (or similar) would, in my opinion, strengthen both their group presence and identity.

[Spilo]

Nice to see Spider with an inc-heal debuff- hopefully continue to see more utility from this class moving forward.

- TC rework means that ALL DoTs reflect from Toxic Carapace, which massively screws all DoT classes which, sadly, are also the weaker classes in the Moors (LM, Fire RK, Warden). This in combination with...
- Corruption removal discrepancy leads to Toxic Carapace being really bad vs some classes and really good vs. others (LMs have a horrible single tier corruption removal with a slow animation, for example). This is one of the reasons why I'm hesitant with corruption removal being the go-to little trick for Creepside nuance, as there is a massive gap between Freep classes in that regard (unless, you know, we found a way to make Moors specific changes to Freeps skills...).

[Daec]

Spider Weaver:

• 'Clinging Webs' miss chance debuff increased from 7% to 15%.
• 'Venomous Haze' now has a max range of 40m, and reduces player ranged skills by 15m.
• 'Lethal kiss' now deals slightly more damage at the outset, and deals ~4x that damage after ten seconds if the effect is not removed; cooldown has been increased to 10s.
• 'Grasping Webs' now has a 50% chance to break on damage.
• 'Necrosis' now reduces the resistance rating of targets by 120k.
• The trait 'Steelweave Webs' now increases the grace period of your roots to 3s.
• 'Envenom' base damage increased; bonus 20% damage for every venom pip.
• 'Shelob's Gift' reduced from a full heal to a ~1/3 heal.
  - Shelob's Gift heal potency reduced.
  - Shelob's Gift now gives 5 Venom and increases DoT damage for 15s.
• 'Feast' now restores morale on a defeat event instead of power.
• 'Poison Spray' can now be used against NPCs.
• Hatchlings:
  - Base Hatchling Health increased by 15%.
  - Strong Brood now gives +75% Health, -10% power, 5% faster attacks, +25% melee damage, +25% Critical Damage, +25% Melee Critical Hit Points, +15% Evade Rate.
  - Scytode Brood now gives +25% health, +15% power, +10% faster attack speed, -25% melee damage, +35% ranged damage, +25% critical chance, +15% melee critical hit points, +10% Evade Rate.
  - Hatchlings will now accept the skins of their summoning spider in the Ettenmoors.
• New skill: Cleansing Shadows:
  - Costs 3 Venom.
  - The weaver can consume up to 3 negative tactical, song, or cry effects.
  - The weaver is healed a small amount for each effect consumed.
• 'Toxic Carapace' has been reworked slightly:
  - The effect from Toxic Carapace now tiers down over time; the starting tier depends on the number of Venom pips consumed.
  - Tier 5 effect is now -25% incoming damage, 80% reflected damage.
  - Incoming damage potency is reduced 5% per tier, and reflect potency is reduced 10% per tier.
  - Overall duration and cooldown increased slightly (25s maximum possible duration, 90s cooldown).
  - This effect is now a Corruption, meaning it can be tiered down or dispelled by the free peoples.
  - Toxic Carapace now tiers down correctly when each tier expires.
• Toxin now decreases your target's Incoming Healing by 20% for 10s.
• Piercing Attack now gives 2 Venom.

Round 2

- Heal Debuff on toxin is A+ change.
- Piercing attack giving 2 venom is A++++++
- Pet still gets slapped in 1-2 skills, hope to see some significant buffs to its health/mits before 33.2 goes live.
- Shelobs Gift - Some nice sounding changes applied to this skill, the DoT potency seems a bit underwhelming when considering the duration is 15s and the dots will be overwritten at a lower value during the next application after the buff has ended. 5 venom pips is a nice addition. Even with these changes the heal value being so low this still almost doesn't seem like its worth the trait slot, perhaps return to the 500k range heal barring any alterations to the DoT potency. Dot potency also doesn't apply to poison spray at the current moment.
- Lethal Kiss - Crit magnitude doesn't apply to the end effect as the value crits and non-crits are almost identical. Is this intended or a bug? Also lethal kiss end effect does not stack from multiple sources, meaning spiders will be constantly overwriting or wasting the skill.

[afritter]

Lethal Kiss End has another bug: it has the same damage, no matter how much venom pips you have.

Here we see 291-323k damage (5 pips):

But on the debuff itself we see 264-294k. As if we had 0 venom pips:



"bonus 20% damage for every venom pip" thing for Envenom is still not working. The difference between 0pips and 5 pips is ~10k damage (~91k vs ~101k on a dummy), but the skill should show a difference of 130% of the base damage (5x 20% + 30%).

These are tooltips for 0 and 5 venom respectively:

Or [136072 - 171340] - [120623 - 150779] = [16449 - 20561] - which is equal to a 30% difference (from the base venom buff). If we multiply the numbers by 3.3(3), we get [54830 - 68537] which is roughly equal to envenom damage of an r3 spider without mastery/audacity/promotion/buffs:

But even 1 (initial) audacity gives a spider +10% dmg so the numbers above are probably equal to ~110% base damage. With 1-tier ensnared buff envenom gets +20% dmg or ~130% total. This is exactly what we need to find out what damage really corresponds to 130% of the base dmg.

So the difference between 0pips and 5 pips should be at least ~29k, not 10k. Of course, I may be missing something, but I believe that the difference should be more than 10k anyway.
btw, 29k damage gain relative to ~91k (shown by Envenom with 0 venom pips) is very low. Even though it may seem that 130% is a lot.



- Scytode Brood now gives [...] +25% critical chance - still not working. The default hatchling have ~10-15% crit chance, so the ranged one should show ~40%, but instead it does not exceed 20%.

[Daec]

Lethal Kiss End has another bug: it has the same damage, no matter how much venom pips you have.

Here we see 291-323k damage (5 pips):


But on the debuff itself we see 264-294k. As if we had 0 venom pips:




"bonus 20% damage for every venom pip." thing for Envenom still not working. The difference between 0pips and 5 pips is ~10k damage (~91k vs ~101k on a dummy), but the skill should show a difference of 130% of the base damage (5x 20% + 30%).

These are tooltips for 0 and 5 venom respectively:


Or [136072 - 171340] - [120623 - 150779] = [16449 - 20561] - which is equal to a 30% difference (from the base venom buff). If we multiply the numbers by 3.3(3), we get [54830 - 68537] which is roughly equal to envenom damage of an r3 spider without mastery/audacity/promotion/buffs:


But even 1 (initial) audacity gives a spider +10% dmg so the numbers above are probably equal to ~110% base damage. With 1-tier ensnared buff envenom gets +20% dmg or ~130% total. This is exactly what we need to find out what damage really corresponds to 130% of the base dmg.


So the difference between 0pips and 5 pips should be at least ~29k, not 10k. Of course, I may be missing something, but I believe that the difference should be more than 10k anyway.
btw, 29k damage gain relative to ~91k (shown by Envenom with 0 venom pips) is very low. Even though it may seem that 130% is a lot.



- Scytode Brood now gives [...] +25% critical chance - still not working. The default hatchling have ~10-15% crit chance, so the ranged one should show ~40%, but instead it does not exceed 20%.

I think the 10k increase you're seeing is from base line venom bonus you get at 5 pips to all acid skills. The dmg bonus is being applied on hit (just like it does with differing stacks of ensnared but doesn't show in the tooltip). Some quick testing yesterday did show the skill hitting harder than previously, but nothing extensive was done. On its face it looks to be working but i could be wrong.

[afritter]

I think the 10k increase you're seeing is from base line venom bonus you get at 5 pips to all acid skills.

Yes, I came to the same conclusion and this is what i meant initially. 10k diff is not some theoretical number, it's what you get by hitting a dummy (r15, 3-tier ensnared).

With 0 pips:

With 5 pips:

I will never believe that 10k is the 130% increase. That would mean that 91k is about 1200% of base damage.

The dmg bonus is being applied on hit (just like it does with differing stacks of ensnared but doesn't show in the tooltip).

Sure, I thought so as well, but ,alas, tests show no extra damage.

Some quick testing yesterday did show the skill hitting harder than previously, but nothing extensive was done. On its face it looks to be working but i could be wrong.

The damage with 0 pips remained almost the same as it was. https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...91#post8156191
So I suspect that only the base venom bug has been fixed, nothing more.

[Daec]

Yes, I came to the same conclusion and this is what i meant initially. 10k diff is not some theoretical number, it's what you get by hitting a dummy (r15, 3-tier ensnared).

With 0 pips:


With 5 pips:


I will never believe that 10k is the 130% increase. That would mean that 91k is about 1200% of base damage.


Sure, I thought so as well, but ,alas, tests show no extra damage.


The damage with 0 pips remained almost the same as it was. https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...91#post8156191
So I suspect that only the base venom bug has been fixed, nothing more.

You did a lot more testing than i did, i did hop on this morning after i made that post and did a few, it seems you are right. Envenom does not seem to be getting the bonus damage from venom pips.