Weapon Mastery Support Role Bonuses

Discussion in 'Testing Feedback' started by Kristyana, Apr 17, 2014.

  1. Kristyana New Player

    I was asked to post this here a few days ago as the original thread in Gotham City that Spytle was posting in got derailed from the point I was trying to make, so I'll try to make it here again with some hard numbers and opinions. Finally finished my testing and I feel I'm able to give further feedback and illustrate my point.

    This is a really long post and I want to preface it by saying that these are my opinions on the matter, having tested it thoroughly in many different situations the past week.

    Weapon Mastery's bonuses for the Support Role seems to be a controversial topic given the responses to the threads. In the first iteration on Test, a successful Weapon Mastery Combo + Power would result in a power cost reduction for healers on the power cast at the end of the combo, and a dominance buff for tanks and controllers that lasted for 6 seconds. After it was only on test for two days, Spytle posted that they were making changes to the mastery buffs so that there was a power cost reduction across all roles.

    I pointed out that I felt this was not as useful as support roles were much more reactive than working with standard rotations and a power cost reduction wasn't needed. If there's ever a time where a support role is stressed for power, it's reacting to a situation where they won't have time to get a Weapon Mastery Combo off. If the tank just Rage Crashed and is about to die, I'm not going to have time to execute a 6 second combo to save power as a healer on a move that needed to be cast right now. Spytle felt my argument had everything to do with timing. My argument involved timing to illustrate my point: When a support role is able to perform WM combos, the power reduction is not needed, and when it is needed, there's no time to perform a combo.

    Compare this to the dominance buffs that lasted for six seconds for tanks and trollers. I feel that these are much more useful because they allow you to chain WM combos to keep a buff up, and encourage putting WM combos into rotations to keep that buff going. Then when something comes up where you don't have time to perform a combo and have to react by breaking your rotation, you still have the benefits of WM for a few seconds.

    I don't think a straight dominance buff is perfect, but I'll get to that a bit later in the post.

    Now the latest build on Test drops this buff and instead changes all support roles over to power reductions.

    I have tanked, trolled, healed, and DPSed all the T5 raids and the new T6 alert both before and after this change was made. What's more, I even sat down and tried out every single WM combo to figure out what the buffs actually were. They change depending on how difficult/long it takes to pull off a combo. I want to present two charts here: The first is the result of my testing with the old WM dominance bonuses, and the second is the current power cost reductions on Test:

    Table 1: Dominance Buffs for Trollers and Tanks (currently obsolete on test)

    Methodology for testing: I built up my tank and troller to have exactly 1000 dominance. I performed the WM combo against a sparring dummy, hit the power at the correct moment, then checked my stat screen to see how much my dominance increased.

    [IMG]

    Now here's the second table:

    Table 2: Power Reduction Costs for Support Roles (currently on Test)

    Methodology: I stripped down to T1 gear on my character (to avoid power cost increase) and selected a power with a known power cost(200). I went into a T1 instance and performed the combo, clipping the power with a soder and checking the combat log to see how much power the soder (and possible recovery) actually restored to figure out how much the power cost. I noticed immediately that the % of reduction was double the amount of the dominance buff. I did not have time to test out every single WM combo, but I tested a dozen and I am confident that the pattern remains the same through the entire table.

    [IMG]

    Here are some of opinions I can draw from looking at this table and trying things out practically. Would love to have a discussion on these.
    • Power cost reduction does not make WM worth the risk for support roles. When you look at the second table and see how much the reductions actually are, the risk/reward is just not there because every WM combo is counterable. There are a few quick combos that you can get off consistently if you want to add them into a rotation where you're throwing taunts/HOTs/PoTs/Recharges but you're sacrificing either your hit counter or you're having such a small decrease in power cost that it won't make any noticeable difference in the content. Such is case for the Brawling - MA combo that will become a staple for controllers only giving a 5% power cost reduction. For trollers, the power cost reduction doesn't make up for the amount of regeneration you lose from not getting your weapon combos to the first or second tier.

      Speaking as a troller, I had a more difficult time powering a group using WM than without it, because my hit counters were not building as fast and I wasn't regenerating my own power as quickly, giving me less to power the group. The only combo that didn't suffer from this was the Brawling - Shuriken Storm combo, which suffers from the point I'm trying to make for all the different combos here: You may do more damage but you might have a harder time performing your actual role.
    • Stat buffs are far more useful. Maybe not dominance by itself, but I found I was getting far more use of WM when I had to think and plan my rotations to keep a dominance buff up, especially when tanking. That was definitelya risk worth taking as every WM combo is counterable.
      • Tanks: A dominance AND a health buff together would be a great combination, even at the percentages in the first chart. It would make you stronger for casting a power at the right time, reward you for the risks involved in trying a high-end combo, and speaking as a fire tank, we desperately need this to help cover the glaring weaknesses in our self heals and survivability in endgame content when appropriately geared, and it also helps Earth out as well.
      • Healers: A restoration buff would be better than a power cost reduction, especially since we're losing the first tier of restoration innates in the new weapon trees. This would also reward players that run with a group shield making it stronger if they cast it as part of the WM combo.
      • Trollers: A vitalization buff would be greatly appreciated here to help sate the costs of power increases in top tier content, and may actually encourage groups to bring two trollers to raids again instead of three to keep the DPS powered. Dominance buffs don't really do much for controllers here that I've seen, as the buff is minimal when applied to how long something stays CC'd.
      • While we're on the subject, if any role benefits from Power Reduction, it's the DPS. DPS use the most power in the raid by far (except a Rage tank going all out) and giving them a power cost reduction for successful WM combos would result in less stress on the trollers and in turn benefit the entire group.
    These are just my personal opinions, but I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. The stat buff as it was isn't perfect, but I feel it's far more useful than a power cost reduction for support roles, having done all the endgame content from each role with both versions.
    • Like x 34
  2. Tikkun Loyal Player

    Both beautiful and brilliant. I agree.

    I can't really say as a healer, especially with the Pet/DoT changes (which I agree with, don't get me wrong), that there is any reason for me to use Weapon Mastery in PvE over taking innates in my usual rotations.

    I do admit though, having new raids to crunch may help me see the other side of this.

    EDIT: I just wanted to add a power regen would be much more beneficial than a power reduction on a single power. This would give healers much more incentive to carry WM especially in groups with 2 trollers (or maybe even open possibilities for solo trolling). Power regen would allow support to use the power at the most necessary time and I believe it will greatly ease the pressure on trolls.
    • Like x 2
  3. TheDark Devoted Player

    How much of vit increase are you asking for to be part of the reward?
  4. Remander Steadfast Player

    I agree that power cost reduction is not a great option, because honestly, WM in itself improves efficiency considerably. That said, healers already have ridiculous resto. Not sure that's much help either. I guess controllers can always use more vit, though WM will likely be adopted widely enough and improve team efficiency enough to take some stress off of them. Dom/health for tanks would always be helpful, though.
    • Like x 3
  5. Kristyana New Player

    Its a tough question as it would definitely need to be fine tuned, but a good starting point would be the percentages listed in the first chart.

    There aren't many consistent buffs you can pull off with a 100 percent uptime while still dumping power, debugging, etc. But it would be fairly easy to sleep a 10 percent buff up. The larger ones have downtime,
    • Like x 1
  6. cosmic war New Player

    I totally agree with kristyana.
  7. TheDark Devoted Player

    As long as it's based off percentages and not a flat vit amount. Which I don't think would be the case anyway.
    Because of how PoT and Instant Power heal directly, I would take a minimum of 8%, maybe even 7%, vit increase to the short combos. Anything less than that and I just think a vit buff would be as useless as the current dom buff.

    The combo's I currently plan on using in Controller role give a petite return if it was switched over to vit and kept the current %+. But I'm starting to wonder of the frequency of activating those small buffs from short combos... I'd have to ponder more.

    Sometimes I day dream on how these buffs could've been a cool way to provide power for a controller. So that the regular controllers could be more engaged. Kind of like what the SPARC weapons did in that players using them would receive power up to 3 members. So with this someone would receive power from the Controller if both activated WM. The amount of power given, number of teammates who receive mana, and how that power scaled would of course be debated. This isn't going to happen but it would've been a creative way to avoid pressing Defib/Recharge for those who find it bothersome.
    • Like x 4
  8. Superskull85 Devoted Player

    I agree but if the goals is not to buff direct stats I would simply extend the Power reduction buff so that it last 6 (though 8 keeps the uptime more consistent) seconds regardless of the combo. Or a mix of the two: have a smaller stat buff but also a Power reduction which both could last 6 seconds.

    Regarding the Tank buff though I would gauge it based on the powerset at the time. A Dominance + Health buff helps Tanks the most in this order: Fire >= Rage > Earth > Ice. Fire and Rage would get far greater benefit due to their mechanics. Earth gets both a shield increase and Defense buff. Ice gets a shield increase as given a good rotation Health is usually more or less untouched; not as much as all other Tanks.

    I would keep the suggested buffs the same for Fire and Rage. Give Earth a Dominance and Defense buff and give Ice a much greater Dominance buff compared to other Tanks. This way Fire and Rage get their main mechanic (Health) buffed, Earth starts to bridge its Defense gap to Ice and Ice gets a major shield boost which they depend on the most.
  9. farm3rb0b Committed Player

    Aw jeez. First and foremost? I don't see them backtracking and giving role-oriented buffs beyond the power reduction. Which pretty much makes the rest of this reply and any others a moot point...but we'll roll with it.

    Vit numbers from here on our are going to go through the roof. I'm at around 2800 on test and it's a terrible gear setup. Let's say I go FotM and use Brawling>MA, and let's go big or go home, we'll go into the Enhanced Shuriken. Lots of rounding here to keep it simple. If I get the 7% increase from your first chart, that's about 200 extra Vit from 2800. So, I'm at over 3k Vit if I pull off a combo. This 200 increase ups my PoT tick by about 15 and my recharge by about 60 (or 20 per person once you split it 3 ways). That's for now. ...that doesn't seem like a lot of paper, but the PoT tick being increased by that much for even a cycle is pretty major. The instant dump isn't so much.

    If we're talking about ideals? Garden of Eden? Utopias? Since the DPS buff is pretty much guaranteed (you hit the window, the next attack is buffed and DPS are always attacking...) I would want something more guaranteed for my role. Something akin to the CC trinket maybe. Healers pull off a WM combo, auto HoT or instant heal THAT DOESN'T OVERWRITE; Trolls pull one off, auto Recharge to group; Tanks pull one off, auto group shield. But...this is not the Garden of Eden. We all wear clothes. And I'm allowed to eat all the apples I want. :D
    • Like x 2
  10. Kristyana New Player


    I was doing some more thinking about this last night from a trolling perspective. The drawback is that you aren't regenerating your own power nearly as quickly because you're never getting above the first tier on your weapon combo. If you're going for something with a higher buff, you have less time to be doing other things a troller should be doing.

    I think this gives trollers more options. They can provide more power to the group at the cost of their own power regeneration or they can provide less power to the group to build it up themselves. It would definitely be more engaging and interesting than the "PoT, pulse beam to 9 hits, debuff clipped with recharge" and would probably make mixed troller builds a lot more viable for the average group.
    • Like x 2
  11. Remander Steadfast Player

    Fact is that we all suggested much more specific role buffs back when there was only a damage buff. They came back with minor stat buffs that were not particularly useful. Now we have the power cost decrease. I don't think we'll be getting anything more support-friendly, and quite honestly, I don't see myself using WM much, if any, in support role anyway.
    • Like x 5
  12. farm3rb0b Committed Player

    Eh, I dunno.... Brawling was made for Light trolling, so as much as I love my bow, I'll likely switch to brawling from bow. Brawling has the lowest Tier 1 power regen...I believe it's at 5 hits. Clap>Shuriken should be a 5 hit. So, Tap/Hold gives me my 5 hit combo and makes my next power cheaper. Sure, there are things I want more than that "buff," but it's not exactly harmful to use either.
    • Like x 3
  13. Kristyana New Player


    The thing that kindof gets me is that the version with the dominance buffs was up on Test for what, less than 48 hours before they announced the change? I know it took a few more days to get put into the build, which is why I tested it for numbers and to see how practical it was.
  14. Kristyana New Player


    It's a 7 hit combo so it actually gets you well into the second tier much faster than Shuriken Storm by itself.
  15. BumblingB I got better.

    As much as this is well thought out, I really am not a fan of continually feeding vitalization to controllers. But alas, we still don't get content that promotes "controlling" just "shut up and feed power".
    • Like x 3
  16. Remander Steadfast Player

    Actually, it's a variably 5-7 hit combo. Those shurikens don't always all hit, unless there's a big group of targets. One single targets, you usually get 5 hits (clap and 4 shurikens) even at PB range.
    • Like x 1
  17. Remander Steadfast Player

    Yeah, that was part of the "not much." I could see using Clap>Shuriken before each power dump, just like I would a regular weapon combo, but that's really the only one worth using. No role for me in healing, though, unless I'm battle healing with Celestial. The precision damage from those combos would translate into great heals. Honestly, for the SP cost, WM is really a better investment for DPS than support. I'd probably just unlock some of those juicy innates without getting the combos.
  18. SirMuttonChops New Player

    As far as I'm concerned, Healers and Controllers no longer need stat buffs. I agree entirely that the current "benefits" from WM to support roles aren't worth the risk of actually going through WM combos. In my opinion, Crit increases are much more relevant, making 4-man heals or power dumps essentially replenish almost entirely a bar that was going down while we were using our Weapons instead of our powers.

    I just personally don't feel like increasing Vit or Resto will yield as much of a return as we think they will, given how high our stats are now.
    • Like x 2
  19. TheLoneLantern New Player

    For controllers, I think a good use of WM would be to provide added effect to debuffing.

    For example, debuffs reduce 7% regardless of any other stats. With WM, Staff->Cleave would do something like 7.5% reduction while Dual Wield->Ground Pound would do 10%, while Dual Pistol->Ultra Flurry would do 14%.

    Essentially, WM would increase the effect of the debuffing to 7.1-14% depending on the time length of the combo. Obviously you would have to clip your WM combo with the debuff power within that window to get the effect.

    That's my suggestion.
    • Like x 1
  20. Kristyana New Player


    Agreed, but you have to admit that they'd be better than what's in place currently.