Nature and Weapon Mastery....

Discussion in 'War Room (Powers, Artifacts, & Builds)' started by CrappyHeals, May 8, 2014.

  1. Fugly New Player


    At first I thought it was splitting and that's why the damage dipped that low, in the end I asked a league mate to go somewhere open and try it in duel mode but still those low ticks where still showing up.
    Do you always have ticks off 250+ on single target?
  2. KatanaRamaRage New Player

    Nature does not fall behind at all. I have 90 gear and 60 sp at the moment and I cause almost as much damage as some t6 150 sp players. nature is beast
  3. Superskull85 Devoted Player

    Are you talking about the Melee Attack or Sting? It does both and the Melee Attack will always be about a 1/4 of Sting. Sting is ranged and Melee Attack is melee.

    On 1 target Sting will do larger 200 range damage (depending on CR) and Melee Attack will do the smaller 50 range damage (depending on CR). On multiple targets Sting will split but Melee Attack will not. So for example on 8+ targets Sting split to the 50 range damage. On 2-3 targets Sting will split to the 150 range damage. I wasn't easily able to take numbers for the 4-7 split though. Also the numbers I quote are based on Base level Sparring Targets which currently have an abnormally high Defense and +/- depending on the min/max range and your CR.

    You will also get about 3 Melee Attack's per every 2-3 Sting's from Swarm.

    Are you mistaking Melee Attack for Sting possibly?

    P.S. Also I have that with Swarm you have to attack actively in order to get consistent use of Melee Attack. If you don't attack your target Swarm may not always use Melee Attack but should use Sting regardless. Just in case you don't see the Melee Attack in your log while testing.

    Be careful with Sparring Targets as well if you are testing splits. You probably know but they will remove Power Interactions (Swarm counts as one) fairly soon causing you to lose Sting's damage.
  4. Fugly New Player


    Thanks for the detailed response, it was very helpful.

    I looked at my combat log and noticed that the smaller ticks were from the swarm melee attack.
    I never noticed them before now, is the swarm melee attack a new thing that they have done in the last 3 months? I ask because as I was looking for some more info on my problem, I looked at a few nature dps videos on youtube to see if other people were having the same problem. I noticed that videos before may 2014 there were no smaller swarm melee attacks showing so I was wondering if its something new that I've missed as its been a couple of months playing my nature dps as I was concentrating on my main which is a troll.
  5. Superskull85 Devoted Player

    You won't see the change in the patch notes but with Game Update 32's revamp two distinct hits were added to Swarm but until Game Update 34 they were both labeled the same thing. Sting was separated out in Game Update 34. Most Nature players don't even realize that Swarm does this from what I have noticed as well.
    • Like x 1
  6. Fugly New Player


    Glad to see I wasn't going mad then.
    Thank you very much, you've been very helpful :)
  7. supah koopa Well-Known Player

    This thread needs to get locked before the Devs listen to the bad players and screw up the power like they always do. Nature is still one of the best
    • Like x 1
  8. Zeikial Committed Player

    I am nature, and I will not be blind to the fact that I wished nature received wm bonus with dots active, but I will also say nature is not lacking as is right now. Some players are still stuck in their phase dodge clipping load outs and are having a hard time adjusting or just don't want to. As is now I am running Harvest, Vine Lash, Briar, Harvest, Swarm, and VP.

    And for duos I run the burst load out, anyways nature could use some love but its not as bad as people think it is
  9. Sore Steadfast Player

    I still hold the following opinions...

    Terror-based Play
    This is relatively balanced. It doesn't need poisons added to it because it's meant to a be a secondary (but balanced) style of playing Nature. It doesn't need much of anything because it's focused on the use of Weapon Mastery. All you need is something to setup PI (Serpents Call) and something to leverage PI (Voracious Plants). After that, you have your buffs. The only thing you could add is some non-poison DoTs...maybe. Something worth casting once instead of VP, but then you use VP while its DoTs tick and recast it again when those DoTs run out. I'm not thinking Terror needs that, but it's the only way to add more powers to terror without them being redundant with VP and SC. That would certainly add variety to a Terror-based rotation which right now is fairly straight forward.

    Poison-based Play
    This needs a little love. It's not meant to get the WM crit. That's okay. But it doesn't do enough crowd control, making you take more damage when you don't have a tank (solos and duos). Even with a tank, your spread DoTs just about guarantee any NPC that the tank misses with a taunt will come your way. It's fairly balanced at top-speed against bosses but it has slow acceleration against mobs. The power refund mechanic is nice but Vine Lash and Savage Growth need a burst component like Briar so that you're not losing ground as you're trying to stack poisons. It'd be even better if the damage done while stacking was AoE.

    Shapeshifting-based Play
    It definitely needs WM-combos, even if that means you don't get to pick what combos that'll be. Maybe that should require you to have WM unlocked with those specific weapons, e.g. Brawling and Martial Arts. I'll let others comment on what else that needs.
    • Like x 3
  10. MEBegnalsFan Devoted Player

    Terror build is limited in the powers available...I don't like playing nature this way...

    The Posion Spore build is how I see Nature and play my Nature to that ability...

    Shapeshifting to me should be removed due to it lacking WM..yeah the Wolf form provides a 40% damage bonus all the time; however, it stinks because you cannot do WM...if anything bump that 40% to 50% if WM is not given to the Wolf form or add WM to the form form at the current 40% damage increase....

    As for the powerset being nerfed is crap...Using the increase in damage from a power and going into WM is a great way to cause some damage to enemies...what we lose in critical damage we make up with power rebuilding and DOT ticks...You cannot get everything, Nature would be way OP if we had DOT and WM combined...

    I ran A&B and had very low gear but was not far from the top DPS...If I had 91 or 92 gear like the top 2 DPS players, who knows where I would have ranked as a DPS....
  11. xNohellz Committed Player


    Terror-PI: WM prec based or for low content

    Poison spore-PI: Dot+WM combined might/prec (higher content)
    • after applying dots & spreading them =>WM=>Voracious Plant=>WM=>Voracious Plant=>Hold Ranged=>Harvest
    • Like x 1
  12. Superskull85 Devoted Player

    If you play only with that play style I would agree but because of Primal Wolf's loadout option you should never need to choose and just switch on-the-fly. In the the Amazon Fury Part 1 Duos I switch between Terror and Poison Spores when I am between bosses and at bosses respectively. In Themyscira Divided I pretty much use Poison Spores exclusively unless I mess up and drop them mid-fight between bosses. At this point I have the option to switch to Terror to clean up the rest of the NPCs.

    In 8-Man content such as Paradox Wave it is nice to have a fast tap using Primal Wolf and the ability to kite with Internal Flywheel.

    In regards to each of your points as a separate play style I would agree that they are lacking but the beauty of Nature is that you don't need to choose between the three.

    The only part I would agree with is adding a Weapon Mastery equivalent to forms. Should probably be unique combos for Primal Wolf/Insectoid where when used like traditional Weapon Mastery combos gives you the critical bonus. That or raise the damage modifier to make it similar to Ice's Ice Armor. For me this is not a necessity though because of the ability to switch forms mid-combat. If I were stuck in Primal Wolf it would be a bigger issue but because I am not stuck it does not affect my gameplay. It just gives me movement and utility options.

    This why I would prefer Nature's forms were not removed. They can be used to extend your options. Using them means you get the full benefit of Nature. I see a lot of Nature users not realising this and thinking that they must conform to 6 loadout spots. Thus debates between loadouts prop up pretty consistently when in truth a lot of them were created because the parties involved were thinking too limited.
  13. MEBegnalsFan Devoted Player

    Speaking of the wolf loadout...which one should it fall under between Posion Spore or Terror PI?

    I may consider adding it to my loadout and have one setup for Terror PI combo and the other setup for Posion Spore combo...
  14. Superskull85 Devoted Player

    You can put the Poison Spores in Primal Wolf and Serpents Call, Carnage, Voracious Plants, Swarm and Harvest in normal form. You can switch the loadouts if you prefer Primal Wolf over normal form for certain content, etc.
    • Like x 1
  15. MEBegnalsFan Devoted Player

    I like rotating with WM...I will be missing that 2-3K damage if I go Wolf form right?

    Depending on the content I would go into Wolfe, start my DOT, go normal...keep up DOT with Harvest in normal form...and use Terror PI along with DOT...huh...need to consider this....
  16. Superskull85 Devoted Player

    Well Primal Wolf will gives you 4 rotations of weapon rotations per 12 seconds (tight be doable) while Weapon Mastery at most will give you 3 weapon rotations (3.5 if you want the last bit to be a normal clip, though again tight if you do it this way). You won't get the critical bonus with Poison Spores anyway and Primal Wolf naturally gives you a critical boost.

    If you are great with timing and you can keep up with Primal Wolf's weapon rotation but I would recommend using Weapon Mastery when utilizing Poison Spores. You can use Primal Wolf for melee options in Solos/Duos if you can't get melee oriented Weapon Mastery combos. I still use Primal Wolf in Solos as typically if they are open world NPCs are very fragile so much so that melee Weapon Mastery combos will not complete in the time it takes to kill the NPC (depending on what you use). Primal Wolf can also provide a friendly movement for close tight room combat if you don't naturally have one.

    I would change your tactics when needed but staying with Weapon Mastery with Poison Spores is safer and less error prone. Typically using medium length Weapon Mastery combos (3 steps) will prevail more than any other combos as you only have 11 seconds to refresh your Poison Spores. In one of the recent Nature threads someone mentioned using Shield combos which can be done but the range combo is so long that you won't have a lot of room for error. Shield's random combos are 4 steps and you will typically get up to 6 steps off with errors accounted for (8 steps in the case of Primal Wolf but you can clip at the start of steps 2, 4, 6 and 8 saving time with the 8th clip being Harvest and not Voracious Plants).

    Hopefully that didn't get too technical and helped you understand my reasonings. :)
  17. MEBegnalsFan Devoted Player

    Thanks...Not technical enough...I'm a junkie for technical details....

    I am going to pursue the ability to go Wolf and Normal...Normal form will focus on Terror-PI and Wolf will be posion PI...I will try to limit my usage of changing forms...
  18. KatanaRamaRage New Player

    Nature is beast I just started using it and I kill it with the DOT loadout
  19. Sore Steadfast Player

    I also like that you can switch between play styles but it should be between equally viable styles. Otherwise, you're basically setting Nature up to be a class that requires the minimal use of a second armory (a marketplace item) to be balanced with other powersets. There should be an option to run an instance front-to-end using only Terror+WM, or only Poisons+AM, or Shapeshifting, or switching between the three and have your performance be equivalent in each run.
  20. Superskull85 Devoted Player

    But what I mean is it is possible to use all three with a single Armory. You don't need 3 Armories to switch between each style.