Recommended balance changes for the PTR.
Some abilities that cc got hit with way too hard of a damage nerf, I think its important to distinguish between AOE cc and single target cc. Single target cc should definitely still be damage oriented and should not be doing less damage than an regular auto attack, AOE cc, especially gritted AOE cc should have reduced damage, as its main function is CC and team follow-up.
Recommendations:
Great Axe:
- Gravity Well’s upward Melee Swing damage should be changed back to 100% weapon damage.
- Gravity Well’s burst damage should be reverted back to 125% weapon damage. (The identity of Great Axe rests in it being the defacto consistent aoe melee dps, without this the weapon is dead, GS does everything else better. )
- Insatiable Gravity Well Perk should give 50% healing on armor and 80% on weapon. (makes the perk worth taking considering the damage nerfs and makes the perk more about survivability, might also be worth getting rid of all damage on the perk and granting the user %DR for x seconds after gravity well pops. This would help a lot with the GA survivability problem that is going to happen on PTR due to the fortify nerfs and also solidify the perk as utility oriented and easier to balance.)
- Grit should be granted to light attacks if you have more than 5 stacks of maulers fury.
Warhammer:
- Wrecking ball damage should be reverted back to 130%
Sword and Shield:
- Reverse stab should either get back its stagger like flourish and finish or be buffed like perforate was to compensate losing the stagger component.
- Leaping strike should regain the 50% damage and have its stagger removed
Spear:
- Javelin damage should be changed to 100% weapon damage
Great Sword:
- Calamity counter should be reverted to 100% weapon damage. Very few people run this ability over stab or rupture as it is.
- Cross cut cooldown should be reverted back to 15 seconds. Totally unnecessary nerf hardly anyone uses this in competitive pvp, no sense to nerf pve-ers.
- Relentless rush should have 1m less distance
- Tracking on 2nd part of skyward slash should be removed.
Rapier:
- Flourish and finish should regain the stagger on the second part of the attack instead of the first, damage should stay the same as live and not be adjusted.
Hatchet:
- Feral rush first attack damage should be changed to 100% weapon damage.
- Defy Death is absolute garbage and should be replaced with an offensive perk see post
- Berserk “Berserking Refresh” perk should be reverted to heal or the new leaching should be increased to at least 25% to compensate. Perhaps also the leaching could increase the lower health the user is.
- Allow desperate refresh to effect the cooldown on defy death.
Bow:
- Evade shot’s damage should be changed to 110% weapon damage.
- Bow perk for haste on weapon swap should be changed to 1% cdr per debuff on the enemy (up to 5 debuffs, 1 second internal cooldown).
- Bow perk for haste on roll should be changed to grant 3s of haste when dodging an attack and have a 6 second cd.
- Bow heavy attack hitbox or fire rate should be reduced
- Heavy attack crouch animation cancel should be patched out of the game.
Musket:
- Stopping power should be changed to 105% weapon damage.
Ice Gauntlet:
- Ice spike should either gain back its stagger, or apply a 10% weaken per spike similar to perforate as consolation for losing its stagger.
Firestaff:
- Incinerate should still double hit, decrease its damage back to 130%
- Flare should only activate when hitting a target, not when hitting the terrain.
7 Likes
Some good suggestions, but the only one I’d really change on PTR in need of a real second look is incinerate.
It hits like a wet noodle and is as telegraphed as shockwave without the cc and utility. Increase its dmg or give it better utility.
I’m not a fan of grav well reversions as suggestedas I like the idea behind lowering the dmg on it. All CC moves shouldn’t be about dmg output and grav well is a big CC move and prior to the patch gives some big burst dmg. This needed changing.
Anything that helps reduce cc chain kills is a good thing.
No one enjoys being wrecking ball’s into shockwave then into clear out and losing a chunk of hp without being able to do much.
Shockwave and clear out should still have their damage reduced and grav well would still be getting a nerf via insatiable grav. There just won’t be really a room for GA without grav doing damage. Everything else I was kinda splitting the difference on single target ccs because honestly any single target ability doing less 100% weapon damage seems unreasonable. I disagree that incinerate is the highest prio on this list though, bow haste, Gs relentless rush and skyward slash, and great axe balance are all in a worst state on ptr, firestaff has other viable builds without incinerate
I still disagree about grav well. Now with possibly less people having grit it’s CC ability should be even more useful. And even without the op burst it has now it is is still the best tool for the clump meta we have in competitive PvP.
1 Like
I mean on a personal level I’m considering going SnS and great axe next patch. So grav well being good would be nice for me.
I just don’t think it needs it.
i absolutely disagree with single target staggers should be above 100% weapondmg
as a stagger is a safe chance for follow up dmg, so you can use other damaging abilities or get a safe basic attack. or in the case of bow, it’s purely meant to be an evade shot, not a dmg shot.
could’ve put that to 50% dmg imo as it is movement and stagger combined.
so when we keep 150% weapon dmg on stagger abilities and people can follow up with another ability that 150% weapon dmg without you even having a chance to dodge, that’s 300% weapon dmg for free.
that’s why bow is so op
i mean, even most dmg abilities don’t go far over 100% weapon dmg, why the hell should cc abilities do the same dmg as dmg abilities do.
you can argue that low weapon dmg on an ability which you can only chose 3 of makes abilities overall less impactful and making some abilities being more niche than before (purely cc/selfpeel)
but then you’d need to give damaging abilities more dmg instead so that the game makes sense.
i’m not advocating for ridiculous 150% on stagger abilities. Just the same as an auto attack 100%, but I don’t think it should be less 100% for a single target attack. Most damage abiltiies are at least 130% or hit multiple times. Having single target cc abilities hit for 100% seems reasonable.
Now because of cc durations and damages are reduced grav should not be getting nerfed! Do you think grav does not pull people that has grit?
I don’t think you are a great axe player otherwise you would not say that. Every bruiser should know incoming nerfs are deadly especially it will be harder to hit people with gravs since it’s root also got nerfed indirectly when med and heavies got 10-20% freedom.
I don’t play bruiser often. But I have played quite a bit of GA and hatchet. With Grav-Well being my main tool for dmg
The burst on DPS with grav well combined with its ability to pin down enemies is too good.
IMO it doesn’t need as much of a nerf as they are giving it, but their reasoning is correct, it is a CC ability and one of the best ones. They are nerfing dmg on cc abilities to separate utility from DPS.
They are pivoting towards great axe autos and execute being the DPS portion of the axe’s loadout. Which could be a good idea.
I hope further balances buff these up when we see where ga lands of it does indeed need more dmg.