Avalanche, Upheaval and Shattering Smash apparently were not meant to be doing full WPS dmg from the solo hits (the latter worked like this for years and produced zero OP builds, because the numbers on it were reasonable and it only hit twice with a shield).
The fix of these WPS in this build has made the impact hits do white attack dmg (weapon dmg), resulting in 7-10 times lower the dmg than the wave itself, depending on the WPS and AA mods you have.
The compensation for WD% of these WPS is very small. Naturally, all builds with high chance of these WPS have lost 33% to 40% of their dmg:
Acid Avalanche Reaver went from 17 to 24 seconds vs Ravager (resistant target with high da), but it’s using both TDM pots in the video that it can no longer use due to losing the ability to instantly kill the enemies, so the end dps drop is closer to half of your dmg
Blazerush Blazerush (Upheaval test) went from 26 sec to 40 sec, losing 34% dmg
Branded Shieldbreaker (Shattering Smash test) went from 19 sec to 32 sec, losing 41% dmg (and keep in mind the build has a lot of trauma that wasn’t affected by SS nerf)
This is way too much reduction and makes all the affected WPS much worse than their counterparts inside or outside the mastery.
I suggest to buff the base WD% of these three or making the impact hit be at least a blank hit of AA your character is using, not white attack. Or combination of those. 40% dmg lost is a lot.
one unexpected victim caught in the crossfire - but ironlord commando went from 37-40 sec to 48 sec, since Demolish wps is just Upheaval in disguise.
I think increasing wd/flat further is absolutely needed. speaking of Demolish, it could - and probably should - get bigger flat and wd (up to 200%, I’d say), and extra 5% chance to be used.
can you clarify what do you mean by that? Because when a melee build loses about 20% of its single target damage it usually falls apart. Reason is that when you lose your single target damage output on a melee, your killing times increase and then your sustain decreases. So now you are fighting longer fights with less sustain. Now you have to increase your defences to compensate, because now you are taking more damage and healing less. If build even has room to do that than offense is going to be sacrificed. Which means even longer fights and even less healing. I hope that explains how those kinds of nerfs can just kill a melee build.
How were some of the builds mentioned here busted in the first place? Like Ironlord Commando or Lightning Veilkeeper Ritualist? Even Blazerush Elementalist wasn’t busted despite 26 seconds Ravager timer. I bet it was a bit mid, @banana_peel can comment on why.
genuinely curious which busted Smash build(s) was out there, (that wasn’t just added with the very same patch (obsidian)),
i can’t recall much Smash in the past 5? years that was considered busted , and the stuff that got close was due to trauma stacking, not carried by Smash dmg (utilized for RR more than anything perhaps?)
Upheaval wasn’t considered busted before outside 1 instance of either old multi target(passthrough) - which got global nixed, and newly added 100% wps; which still didn’t apply to everything turning broken post FoA.
Avalanche was more a specific issue because unlike the other two, could be used double for 4hit on dw now. The other two always had their mods based around the dmg of that double hit on heaval 'n smash
Have you tried new branded helmet with ironlord for weapon damage to fire strike instead? Not saying it will magically make ravager die in under 30 seconds, but might help.
There’s something bugging my mind about the Upheaval/Shattering Smash bug that I don’t quite fully understand, if anyone can share some insight it would be appreciated.
Since these WPS were “bugged” even before FoA, dealing twice their damage, doesn’t that mean that every pre-FoA balance change to them were done with that “bugged” performance in mind? Wouldn’t that also mean that every item that supported those WPS, be it the Avenger set, Veilkeeper set or any MIs supporting these WPS, now would have half the impact they were meant in the first place? Or am I missing something else?
Do you want me to provide 66% of all builds we’ve played since FoA release that are performing better than the listed 3 now? Because that’s about the estimate.
Why are the listed timers considered as good performance, when these are standard good results with solo target oriented builds before FoA release, and they are fighting a FG enemy?
You’ve added new tech into the game, added ascended mods. The new power the builds have gotten makes them perform better against all FG enemies, wasn’t that intended design?
And speaking about how these builds actually performed in the current game, before this patch:
All need very careful piloting in Crucible and all crumble at the dangers of full Altar in the ascended mode. Never mind the higher SR levels where they get oneshot simply by being melee.
This is a very worrying comment for me because I don’t understand the intended performance estimate, and how do I even provide further feedback?
Do you want more videos of the listed builds, how they get stuffed by ascended campaign, Dread and 181-200 Crucible?
Furthermore, again, this patch’s state of the listed WPS makes them just worse than other WPS options and even Cadence (@Ceno rejoice), that’s meant to be an AoE melee clear skill.
And it makes them much worse than other playstyles: AAR is better, Grenades are better, pets are better, Aegis is better, wereforms are better, all bleed builds are better, all kite builds are better. Probably runes are also better now since they got a massive update with charges.
Almost everything is better when you get the same or a little lower solo dmg, without being exposed to the enormous danger of melee gameplay.
Just to clarify, this is not about the Ravager timer as a solo dps check itself. It’s about nerfing the WPS output by 40%. They needed a nerf, but not that much.
Yeah, for some of my builds, if this was my damage with the skill bugged then it’s truly in the dirt now. Fix bugs sure, but it’s weird to seem them heavily nerf what was either not broken or struggling in some cases.
This is a fully kitted out build with Upheaval ascends and 60% WD mod to it. Movement speed ascend, movement speed pot, dangerous TDM pot. I don’t remember last time I’ve done a SR run this slow.
Tested Branded Shieldbreaker, performs fine now, I think, but it’s a bit squishy overall. I was going to report it as too strong before this patch, along with some other builds, I have various videos of it uploaded. If the SS if buffed to a decent level, Branded might need a nerf to some of its strong FS or SS mods.
Just to make a very clear numerical point. This is a baseline 3 target Smite (albeit with a small arc) at max ranks hitting twice with DW and SnB at 171% WD and big flat, and next to it is SS hitting once with 180% WD + much lower flat (about 264 now), plus a white attack. And Smite has big racial bonuses.
Smite, that’s not a very strong WPS among others in the game, right now is much superior to SS, which is a restricted SnB WPS that stands higher on the Keeper’s line.
Can we, please, balance WPS first, and then bring all the builds in the game to the fabled standard, whatever you need it to be?
This vid brings up another issue. That Utak Kunar tile needs a density buff. It took you over a minute to clear it and my experiences on it have been about the same.
Not sure what the point of this thread is so I’ll be brief. The WPS were clearly outperforming and everyone knew that. So they got nerfed as expected. The builds did not get destroyed, they can still kill an endgame superboss in half a minute. Nerf =/= bad.
Speaking of, crying about Ravager kills taking a few seconds longer is actually hilarious . Lots of normal builds would be jealous of those 30-40 sec kills. Not every build can even handle superbosses. Big Z has the right idea here.
This is a good and amusing graphic for which I had a Sensible Chuckle. It also reminded me of a point Rich Hickey, the Clojure guy, made back in an epoch when mammoths roamed the earth.
It would be silly to get where you are going by bouncing off guardrails as you travel down the road, he would say, derisively. But I would say most of us are not inventors of Lisps on JVMs, and don’t have the luxury of “just be brilliant and know the right answer and also implement it in one pristine perfect move”.
, and the stuff that got close was due to trauma stacking, not carried by Smash dmg (utilized for RR more than anything perhaps?)
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. Lots of normal builds would be jealous of those 30-40 sec kills. Not every build can even handle superbosses. Big Z has the right idea here.