Regardless pillar was more than fine the way it was before. It’s in an anti skill expressions state now. Honestly firestaff was fine before the patch, bow is just over performing. Now they both are.
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I agree, they lowered the skill ceiling a bit. Also you can’t ignore the armor mitigation changes. I don’t think FS is really that over tuned, i think just in general people die faster and people want to blame FS for it. Like if these changes hit with the old armor mitigation changes and no bruiser nerfs, probably would be a completely different story.
He got hit by someone that he wasnt looking at. If that was bow behind him the same thing would have happened. He also has 8K health to start. How much con is that? This is a terrible example.
These are obviously the issues. Fully reverting pillar change would solve nothing and firestaff would still be destroying people
You can take the logical viewpoint or the mad because it makes things harder for pvp “you” viewpoint. Alot of professional gaming and high-level play involves splash damage usage. Bullet in the ground, nothing. Arrow in the ground, nadda. (unless exploding) Fireball glob hitting the ground or a wall…or anything, you would expect it to blow up a bit right. It’s not going to just…disappear. Totally legit. And unless you were a badass or uncontested pillar was useless before. If a melee ran up on you as a mage you had squat, you were going to die. It actually balanced it a bit and you actually have to use your brain and move around instead of just clump fight.
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armor mitigation changes don’t effect me tbh. I am running the same build I ran pre-patch (never abused shirking fort) and have always played low con light melee. I get hit for about the same damage from bows and a little more from FS now (I run rubies now since so many firestaffs). Animation is still too fast though, like objectively too fast. I just think its hilarious I run 50 con light melee and have 0% slash resistance and easily kill 90% of the melee players in the game with ease, medium/light, yet ranged damage can pretty consistently two shot from range with very little animations. People overhype the skill required to play ranged, for the most part its just 3rd partying melee players attacking someone else and 1-3 shotting them before they have time to react. Very bad gameplay loop.
So a mage shouldnt be able to blow up a 61 con light armor assassin who isn’t looking at him. What would happen if roles were reversed and greatsword rolled behind the mage?
It takes like 4+ attacks to kill a 150 con mage as 60 con GS lol.
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idk man, I droppped all fortify from my build like a week before the patch to prepare and i wasn’t dying anywhere near as fast i can now after patch. And before the patch i had 0 fire gems and 0 ele averion, and now i have fire gems and ele aversion. Its not even just fs, its everything. Something just feels off. even just watching footage back, i don’t see like ubsurd numbers from my end. typically 2500-4k crits at max. like nothing way more insane than last patch. people just die way waster.
The mage (who is playing 150 con btw) that two shot me for 7k damage in 100ms in the other clip is in this clip, I added it up and it took 9 hits (that connected, he dodged like 5 of them) for me to kill him. Don’t get me wrong I still think the GS is almost too powerful in some aspects but acting like ranged damage isn’t just as strong or stronger than current melee damage is dishonest.
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I would say 3 at least pre patch but the reason it isn’t a good example is because you are talking about the animation and not being able to react but you aren’t looking at the mage and got caught in an amination
actually you are right before patch I was not running physical aversion now I am running full physical aversion in addition to fire gems to account for losing some of my thrust gems. So yeah everyone is dieing faster I agree, I am just saying I changed my stuff around so it feels about the same tbh.
Ranged players being able to one shot melee players from off their screen is more in favor of my argument than yours, that obviously shouldn’t be a thing. Also, I did see him when I turned around; however, I had already queued up the skyward so it was too late.
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I dont disagree. If they want to nerf damage fine but just making ability basically unusable, as pillar has been for a long time, is not a good solution. Again if you were looking a the mage that combo would be much harder and you could have reacted
pillar was very good before patch. Bow was just overtuned. If bow wasn’t so overtuned pre-patch you would have seen many FS/IG.
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It did alot of damage pre patch yes but to say it was very good? Who is being delusional now? It needed a rework
4k damage on an instant pillar with literally one stack of smolder, too. Busted damage while incapable of being reacted to (only real solution is pre-dodging or blocking).
Sure, that damage may well have been reduced to idk 3.xk damage if you had 150 Con, but I do not really think that is something that should be applauded or justified. Fireball has an animation & audio cues that you can react to while Pillar for whatever reason is just machine gun fire 
goofy ish. Really is not defensible how Pillar was allowed to release like this.
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revert pillar animation change. bad for the game.
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Pillar does have an animation though, more then the fireball (cast animation). A newer mage is going to have to raise that arm and move the target around, so if you are looking that’s easy cuz they hold it for like a full second from what I see. A good FS is going to just double tap it, so it won’t have the arm raised straight up, but what you do see before the damage goes through is thrusting that arm forward.
For me its easier to dodge pillar then fireball maybe because I’ve been using FS and Pillar since release and I know what to look for.
I’m not against giving Pillar a good audio cue though that would be good.
It’s a fast attack yes, but it’s just as dodgeable as s/s leap, pretty much exactly. Part of that is predicting that it’s going to be used so you can be ready to react instantly.
Sounds like another “just dodge Petrifying Scream” argument. And yes, that was something I argued about too in the past for being obnoxious and stupid for such a obviously strong source of CC. Just dodge the LMB + AZB. Just dodge the Xmeter - Xmeter homing range on Steadfast Strike. I am a bit tired of this pitiful example that AGS has been heading towards where everything feels like a tab target game with guaranteed damage for everything, nothing skillful or promoting of better play. I guess if they want to do that, double everyone’s health totals so that drip fed hamsters can get their upcummies while not turning off what remains of their playerbase.
You literally cannot react to Pillar cast since this patch was implemented. The AoE damage indicator (the visual cue) is inexistent when the damage hits you, thus, unless you are literally watching the guy’s animation, you are never going to dodge the damage, which is flatout idiotic. Pre dodging high sources of damage is bad gameplay. At least PoF shrouded the ground with fire to indicate that damage was coming, now it just smacks the taste out of your mouth and you are left to just mitigate it and hope you dodge other attacks like Fireball or FlameThrower instead.
Is just as bad of an argument as dodging the musket. Sure, you can “get used to” the firing cadence of your average musket player, but in the end of the day, the ball is in the attacker’s court rather than being something that you as an average player can react to, you know, kind of like how you would expect a good Action RPG to work as.