So I was reading the patch notes, and the long list of changes being made for pvp, and it got me thinking…. What is “balance” for powers. Meaning, for the Devs in charge, what are the powers being balanced to? Are they being balanced on single target damage? 3 target damage? Potential damage to one kill? Potential damage to half a kill? Reason I ask is because I have a feeling that certain powers are being “balanced” to only ever be less then equal (or in other words, worse). DOT Powers: - Slow to build up of damage - Little to medium burst potential - Target always dies with “potential damage” left un-used (meaning a dot was applied that would potentially cause X amount of damage, but either the target was KO’ed or you were KO’ed resulting in the DOT stopping) - Damage continues temporarily if you block - Good damage in the long run Pet Powers: - High damage to start - Little to medium burst potential - Pet helps survivability with damage splitting - Pet continues to do damage if you block - Damage slows down after the initial burst from the pet before it runs out of power Combo and Ability based Powers: - High damage to start - High burst damage - Damage immediately stops if you block - Damage stays consistent in the long run So in regards to PVP. Upfront damage is preferable, because if you can kill your opponent before they can kill you, obviously you win. Also, burst damage is preferable for 2 reasons. 1 so that you can take advantage of stuns from counters. 2 because you cannot heal death, but you can heal someone who has DOTs on them that would potentially kill them. So back to the question at hand. Are powers balanced to a straight up…. Every power should be able to do X amount of damage in X amount of time? Or for example, are Combo and Ability based powers balanced to that, and then DOT powers balanced to that plus 5% to make up for the downside of using a DOT? And if you want to dive deeper, are powers that have a lot of stuns balanced to -5% because they have the ability to stun their opponent. This may come across as me wanting DOTs to get buffed. I am sorry if it does, I am a Nature player so my opinion is biased. But I am serious in asking what the main factors are when these powers are being “balanced”.
It's hard to say. I'm thinking that it mainly revolves around single target and "this amount of damage in X time". With the changes coming tommorow I would not be of the opinion that DoT powers are at a disadvantage in the way ppl view them to be in PvP. I don't know that it's even accurate to classify powers by their damage type in PvP currently. The main difference between powers currently is finishers and single target moves.
idk to be honest burst powers like mental, ice, quantum all have DoTs, so why not give nature, electric some fat burst ?
25/30/35 on a sparring target. That is range, midrange, melee. For a single parser. Obviously this way is flawed for buildup powers, pet powers, and dot powers.
main factory you ask? how many use weapon, how many dont, how many are prec based, how many are might. they take the non-weapon might based 1s and buff them first, then all the others. My guess is sorc/earth will next (if they havent already been updated with these new formats) then electric, HL, nature.
Why did you wait until the day before the update to ask these questions? This has been on test for, what, two months? Long story short, all damage was brought down by an equal amount, it was still too much so then brought down again, then individual powers within individual power-sets that were still overpowered we're brought more in line i.e. Rage and HL. Testing was also done from 1v1 to 5v5. Nature was also one of those powers, DoT or not, it wasn't exactly under-performing recently was it? Vine lash>briar (DoT AND burst) was no joke, neither was the stun involved... Considering that, where would you put Nature in the +/- 5% equation if it has ALL the variables you mentioned? This is also by no means the last of the attention PVP is getting, it's only the start and it's looking like a good start. AMs and weapon holds were brought down alot and AM no longer has power regen so it's looking like (as far as I can tell without being on test) WM and old school loadouts may be making a comeback? Check it out tomorrow before worrying so much.
In every video game ever in this history of time would tell you that DOT powers aren't the hardest hitting powers, but do the most damage, bc they r damage over time...which is the whole point of having damage over time....every videogame but this one however....this is the only game where DOTS actually do less damage over time...the game is backwards at times...take it or leave it
