Work In Progress: Weapon Mastery (Updated)

the 6/6 innates should get reduced to 3/3 innates because when this hits live they are not going to be viable sense they use to much skill points and weapon mastery gives us 3/3 innates with a lot of stats and the 6/6 gives way less.

Thought I'd chime in and say thanks for shunting the support roles again. I mean controllers get a slight dominance boost, the same as tanks for pulling off a combo!? Oh jeez wow that's amazing *sarcasm* That 70 or so dom boost is gonna make such a huge difference *sarcasm* You could have given controllers boosted vit, boosted critical power, increased CC effects, increased CC time etc., for healers you could have boosted resto, boosted healing mag, boosted Heals over time etc., for tanks increased their health, defence etc., but no we get something useless.

I say just be grateful, at least other roles are getting a boost to some stat like the roles are getting better and adding more damage then they originally should, im just saying be grateful that they are getting more involved in the group.

Don't fool yourself, this is a dog and pony show. The only reason I'm posting at all is so there's a paper trail of opinion, at least as long as the thread exists. I've found that the SoE / DCUO dev teams cherry-pick positive responses and use those to reinforce what they've planned to do all along. (See "Echo Chamber")

When you look at the genesis of this whole mess, it starts with a sales pitch, and it's continued to BE a sales pitch. The intro video () was a sales pitch, not a feature rollout. Spytle's language is an appeal to emotion "we wanted something that would look and feel bad-*** to play." The whole thing he wrote is an appeal to emotion. I may, for fun, go through and dismantle Spytle AND Tunso's post line by line. But at no point have they seriously asked the community for help.

This is all a show to make people think they're helping. It's a done deal, the only tweaks they'll make are to fix bugs. Weapon Mastery WILL cost 20 SP to open, it WILL require dedication to grinding, it WILL make cookie-cutter builds. What I think is really going on is that somoene higher up who doesn't play the game said "make this happen, make them love it, and make them buy the new DLC."

I really don't get their approach, they hamfist a bunch of weapon combos that don't even flow and call it weapon mastery. If you actually master more than one weapon, all combos should be available, they are capable of a more open ended system, it appears that they had a novel idea over tea and just ran with it.

I have to ask this because I have yet to see anything specific about this as apparently people are more concerned about the dps applications of WM than they are the support applications. In a game already over run with DPS and lacking knowledgeable support class players, what exactly does WM bring to the table for Support classes? I see here that a lot of things were being investigated, but have not seen anything in regards to what we've actually received.

As this is on test, I know things are subject to change still so I'd like to state that a % bonus for Restoration is a nice option, but a buff to HoTs would be more beneficial and make using WM as a healer more desirable. As it stands right now, from what I have been able to find, I don't really see how healers or any of the support classes, especially tanks, will be able to properly and safely utilize WM to gain these buffs.

My issue is the duration of these buffs. Spord stated in the testing feedback that the Dom buff for tanks only lasts 6 seconds? How is that a useful buff for a class that inherently needs to block more than use weapon combos? Now, I know the argument can be made that for powers like Rage and maybe Ice WM would be beneficial to use, but what about Earth and most especially FIRE. I especially don't see how WM would be beneficial to use as a Fire Tank with buffs that only last 6 seconds.

Me and you both know, that we don't see the benefits.... because their isn't any...

Lol

Lol. Did I not call this...did I not forecast that lack of usefulness and lack of creativity that will be attach to the support classes. Over 35 pages if amazing ideas and 700 post completely and utterly wasted......I can only laugh.

I have a bit of hope for the devs listening this thread and changing a bit the support role buffs, most of them are useless.

Come on, in PvE as a tank there is no time to use this system without risk and just for a 6 seconds dominance buff? and we dont even need more dom...

And thank god im not a troll, they get more dom and no vitalization buff...

The only buff nearly decent is the healer buff and seems like is only useful in low/middle tier PvE and probably a bit in PvP but in high tier PvE there is no time to start making WM combos...

If the devs continues with this orientation it will be a DPS fest.

I think they're trying to make it so you have to put all your eggs in one basket, dedicate to one weapon and one weapon only. Once people figure out what mastery makes the "best" DPS, they can cookie-cutter to it and SoE can cater to that.

My view of how this came to be is a little more cynical. A higher-up, surrounded by yes-men, who doesn't play the game, said "we need a way to make people buy this new DLC, everyone uses weapons, combining them would be awesome, do something with that." I seriously think that this was a decision based on sales, not on whats good for the game play. I'm also convinced that Spytle and company don't play the game, not with us dirty casual players anyway. They may play on the private servers they keep in the ivory towers, but not in the trenches with us plebeians.

People are already calling weapon mastery a "pay to win" situation. If DCUO gets saddled with that reputation, it's as good as dead.

I'm sure you appreciate that it's merely a product for consumption. As a consumer, I don't mind paying even a pretty penny for desired goods, I get it. I scratch your back you scratch mine. However, DCUO was almost spot on with armories but failed to allow players multiple builds/powers per armory. WM doesn't even come off as a well planned and executible idea and appears to be a half hearted effort, imo. I can sit here and accurately extrapolate where the devs are coming from and going to in spite of how inconsistent their feedback is.

You should see the anger and vitriol I get while livestreaming from "hardcore"players yelling at me for sucking because I don't use "dual wield" or "rifle" or whatever the "weapon-du-jour" is this week. And as much as this is ad-hominim, irony is posting an image macro making fun of someone else's post while having a link in your sig about stopping online harassment in which you say "Gaming cannot become a safe haven for bullies, creeps, and abusers simply because "everyone knows that's just how it is". That's pretty darn funny.

But my point still stands. I'm seeing a lot of negative feedback here, and I'm willing ot bet dollars to donuts that weapon mastery will be in DLC 10 with little to no change from what it looks like now. The devs won't read posts that aren't glowing and positive, they'll only cherry-pick ones that match their own ideals, and I'm convinced they don't play the game at the "player level". If they do it's for novelty only.

Or, in short, Weapon Mastey isn't a "work in progress", it's a done deal. And as of now, I have yet to see ANY evidence to support that the dev team will change their mind in any way based on forum posts. But they'll add new hairstyles!

I know its only superficial stuff but is this the right place to complain how disappointing the WM animations appear, as a brawler (and one that uses bare hands) the last thing I want to be doing is producing a giant hammer from my ***....and is Shuriken storm the only thing we get from MA, no kicks or kneelifts?

That singular, uninformed, statement you made was purely what I was addressing and is exactly the kind of talk that I was addressing. The pendulum swings both ways. Just because they are devs doesn't mean they deserve the anger and vitriol that are demonstrating. Pointing out that you are "hating" is not me harassing or bullying you or even poking fun. It's calling hate, hate.
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As for the people on your livestream, not exactly sure what they have to do with what you said unless you're stating that you're projecting your own anger at them towards the devs. I've been using HB before they were cool, never sold out to the 1H or DW crowd and my favorite weapon to use is Shield. Play your way. Not the way other players say you should. Just don't take your frustration towards them out on others.

The devs do listen and they do make changes according to the desires of the community so long as they are fitting and needed.

Why did they ditch the original plan for buffs? Where all roles got the crit chance and damage increase.

Why listen to these clowns that say that doing damage as a support role is "pointless?"

THINK....
Healers already have a hard time getting any extended weapon combo off while healing t5/pvp, why would they risk getting someone killed for reduced power cost for 6 seconds? STUPID.

Trollers have to literally power dump every time its off cooldown, to be effective in most cases, why would trolls stop supplying power to get a dom buff?


I think that adding the damage buff to even support roles was the best idea. The only time trolls and healers would WM combo is when they were NOT needed on support anyways.

Ikr, people were moaning not long ago about the gap between DPS and support roles getting too wide and then complain about a mechanic that will help said support roles put better numbers out to the point the devs look like changing it to pointless support role buffs. These forums are strange at times.

I have asked for this before so I figured I'd chuck it it one more time in the hope it will get read. Would you change savage growth so it does the might damage in both bug and normal form. It's a small change and would make heal loadouts more diverse in choices. Plus it looks stupid when you smash this huge plant out from under an enemy and it sends them flying, yet doesn't hurt?!? Changing to bug just to get some ticks out can be risky, the delay can be just long enough to allow other team members to fall. Also, bug mode isn't as responsive in terms of healing. Don't know why it occurs but I always notice it misfiring from time to time when I hit heals in that form. You can't have misfiring when you're healer. Please!!!!

P.S. Totally agree with the damage buff suggestion for support roles from WM a few posts back. i suggested something similar early on asking for the a similar mechanic that already occurs in PvP, the confidence dmg boost that can be triggered from using a power on the right target. Could always switch this mechanic in so as a successful combo triggers the confidence boost. Maybe maybe??

This gist I got from that live stream was, "this ain't at all for support roles, they may get some more damage, who knows, who cares, it ain't for them' which is fine, but maybe if it were a little more clear, like just say 'this is a dps change, for dps benifit only' ' people will no longer waste their time imaging possibilities that will never occur as they were never intended. Personally I just figured from the fact it was called Weapon Mastery that it was always gonna be about damage.