Work In Progress: Weapon Mastery (Updated)

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all the comments regarding weapon mastery. We'll be continuing the conversation about Weapon Mastery here. Here is the original thread with our intro to Weapon Mastery and the W.I.P. Livestream replay. We opened a new thread for two reasons:

1) We need to focus on Weapon Mastery itself in this topic.
2) We have some updates we want to give you regarding the feedback

Let's go right into the update.

We had a debate about how this affects support roles before we did the W.I.P. live stream. It was known to us that the current implementation left something to be desired for support roles, and that it focused mainly on damage, not DPS role, but damage for all roles. But we wanted to get the system out there and see what people thought about it the way it was. Well, you confirmed our suspicions loud and clear, that this system needed to have more to offer the support roles. So, now it will. We are going to make some ADDITIONS to the system if you are in a support role. Why did I cap lock "additions"? Because we aren't going to change the damage component we're going to add extra buffs to it if you are in a support role. So, all roles still have the damage as explained, but support roles get something extra.

Here is what we are INVESTIGATING:
Again W.I.P. means things can change because we are early on and you never know what obstacles pop up in front of you - "best intentions."

·Healer Options:

• • Some amount of % bonus Restoration for a time. (This would give more powerful heals)
  • Some amount of reduced power cost for the ability following the WM Combo. (This would make that power cheap)

·Tank Options:

• • Some amount of % bonus Dominance for a time. (This would boost defense)
  • Secondary tank power specific bonus to the ability following the WM Combo (Varies between fire, ice, earth, and rage)

·Controller Options:

• • Some amount of % bonus Vitalization for a time. (This would increase power healing)
  • Some amount of % bonus Dominance for a time. (This will improve CC duration and their personal shields)

Let us know what you think about these types of options. Furthermore, we are thinking of scaling the benefit of any of these based on the length of the combo preformed. So, you would get more of one of the above options if you performed one of the longer combos (risk/reward). Again, I want to reiterate, we're in a planning phase here, so we're still investigating what will work and how. As Tunso said, we might have to take a mulligan on any of these ideas at any time due to technical realities.

So. that's what we're investigating on the role front. Let's briefly talk about some ideas we can't incorporate. As I stated, doing an open ended system, one which allows you to mix and match any weapon or combo you want, is just way beyond our means. I realize this may disappoint you, but we simply cannot change the facts that drive that reality. Our architecture and systems just do not allow for it nor do we have the production resources to support the nearly infinite combinations that this would create.

Thanks, look forward to your impressions of this.

**Updated 4/10/14

Here is what we have settled on:

In addition to the regular damage bonus for doing Weapon Mastery combos Healers, Tanks, and Controllers get:

• Reduced power cost of a super power that is activated precisely when any cross weapon mastery combo impacts or completes

Tank
Secondary bonus (varies between power set).

Healer
Decrease power cost.

Controller
Increased CC.

These are what I personally would like to see. As for a time frame maybe 15-20 seconds so they don't have to worry about doing them constantly to maintain the buff.

that sounds really nice

I'm sensing you want WM bonuses to be triggered by always using a well timed damage move with your WM Combo. I don't see a lot of incentive for it to be a heal, shield, instant power, etc. It looks like those are meant to follow your bonus, not achieve your bonus.

Repost of my suggestion from the original thread:

I just want to throw out that healers have more than enough resto when geared. A buff to restoration would be overkill. I suggest a buff in the form of power regen, defense, or damage would help to make healers more rounded. I personally think if all roles were given a burst power regen option, it could resolve a lot of the "trollers being treated as batteries" complaints.

Specifically, please consider the possibility of giving all roles a "wildcard secondary trait" for completing combos. For example, I can be a healer, but if I see heavy damage is needed, I can spec into combos that will allow burst damage not normally associated with a healer. Another scenario I see is a might based dps who can burst power regen through certain combos.

This potentially could put the super back in our heroes!

A couple questions:
1. If I just master brawling will I be able to do a power finisher at the end of lets say a haymaker combo?
2. If not, can we have the option to use bare handed skin style instead of picking a usual weapon style?

Personally I think shields would be a better fit for brawlers melee counterpart animation wise.
1. Backfist into that forward kick at the end of the shield tap combo.
2. Haymaker into two footed slam.

Awesome ideas so far!
Would there be a possibility of making the weapon mastery take a direction towards the type of buff for roles you would like to have?

For Controller (since it's the role I prefer):
Say 2 options at the top right/left, one would lead to the Vitalization abilities, but then lock out the other option. And Vice-versa.

This would allow for a bit more customization, and give the ability to see multiple builds possible for a role.

Just my 2 cents.
Keep up the great work!

Really liked reading this !!!!!

I would be good with either tank suggestion personally. Is there any chance to do almost like the HT mods and allow us to pick from a few options based on our builds, or would something like that not be feasible given the timetable you guys are on?

I really like this idea. How about the wildcard trait being chosen from a choice of tactical mods (or did you have something else in mind)?

For the tank bonus I think the secondary bonus depending on power type sounds like the better of the two. What would work with one power set really might not with another since they are played so differently. The other support roles I can't speak for. I'm not as familiar with them.

Nice to have these topics separated. Will make discussion much easier to follow.
Thank you again for the opportunity to discuss things early on in development process.

I really like the role buffs, def something to make this more appealing to support roles. My next concern is this, are the weapon combinations set in stone or are you guys open to some suggestions?

For example, instead of pistols, I'd much rather see staff or brawling for MA. HBs are fine, but pistols really feel out of place IMO. Sure it fits a concept like Huntress but the majority of martial arts characters wouldn't use these.

For staff put launching roundhouse instead of loft shot and put downward smash instead of sweep shot.
If u put brawling there, uppercut instead of loft shot and haymaker instead of sweep shot. Just something I'd like to see and I think they follow the MA animations nicely.

It makes me nervous when you say you're thinking about scaling the effect with the length of the combo. In order for this to work you would neee to make every weapon have the ability to have short/medium/long combos so that everyone doesnt flock to the weapon with the longest combo for the largest scaled effect.

Do you guys remember the weapon proc mods and the spark things?

Why not do that? An extra heal burst if you can pull off a combo! maybe a full burst or a heal over time. I think thats a great way for healers and controllers to give group buffs!

Maybe the Tank can generate a tiny group shield or defensive buff! The healer can do a Heal, and the Controller can give another power tick!

Do controllers really need more Vit? Reaching high amounts is really not that hard right now and its not even worth it unless its large amounts to increase pot ticks significantly. Any info on the percentage increase? I think these indirect ways to feed power are lame. Why not something direct? Either through another mini PoT base off the controllers regen or just a separate mini pot? Even a direct burst blue heal? I don't even like the blue bar healing bonuses idea in general to be honest.

The increase in Dom for Control duration also bothers me. Especially in raids where a majority of NPCs breakout after 2 to 3 seconds and develop immunity for 3 to 8 seconds. Unless you plan on making changes on the controller front to NPCs in raids this a waste. The shield benefit... Ok. But how about slightly increasing the duration of shield protection for controllers so that I can take advantage of my shields when and if I decide to melee control and use the combos.

I couldn't help to think you were talking to me when you stated that y'all can't incorporate all the different weapon choices together. If you can't, you can't right! I'll move on into looking at you new suggestion.

I think it would be cool to have the Tanks do respective PI Damage to enemies (ex. Ice: Chill Effect or Rooting, Fire: Immolation or Burning, Earth: Crushing, and Rage: Plasma Burn.

Depending on the weapon combo choice is how I'd see it working.

When you think about it, heroes aren't one dimensional. Superman isn't just tanky defensive, he's strong! Batman isn't just a fighter, he controls a situation. What our toons need are more dimensions. This is the PERFECT opportunity to deliver that!

Don't really have the time to make up an effort post here, but I'd like to chime in on Controllers:

Please do not make the (or one of the, if there are multiple bonuses) Controller bonus a Vitalization buff. A Dominance one is fine, since it leads to more of a focus on what Controllers should be doing (inasmuch as increasing Dominance increases CC length, at 500 Dom = 1 second increase it would need to be a quite large buff to be noticable) but buffing Vitalization does nothing but further pigeonhole Controllers as 'blue bar healers' and IMO they really, really don't need to be pushed even farther in that direction.

If anything we/you should be exploring ways to move Controllers away from that stereotype. Since no matter how much you buff up their power-generation capabilities, players will always find a way to use it up and ask for more. Giving power to the group is fine, but expecting to do nothing but feed power constantly as your sole role is not, and I think is one of the reasons why you see relatively few people willing to play Controllers instead of another role.

If the Controller-role bonus has to be a stat one (as opposed to something like making CC effects unable to be broken out of for X seconds, or allowing the controller to effect targets with CC immunity for Y seconds) then I would suggest going with a Dominance buff. Perhaps start it at 50% and scale it to 100%? A 50% buff on top of 3,000 Dominance (just to pick a number from the air) results in 4,500 - which is only 3 seconds additional control time (assuming it's not broken out of); a decent increase but hardly game breaking.

The numbers would obviously have to be tested, but Dominance has the advantage of both making Controllers actually 'control' better and having the side-effect of boosting their self- and group-shielding powers.

I just want to clarify. Would any power cast in the timing window have this bonus applied? For DPS it's an increase to critical attack chance and critical attack magnitude without changing any of the base damages.

From my own personal opinion, I'd like to see the same critical increases for both power healing and general healing, since those support roles will probably be able to hit those windows much more frequently (the livestream showed Tunso being able to use it not just on the Haymaker/Homerun combo but on ranged hold weapon combos as well) since it's very common for those roles to remain ranged and build up their hit counters. I think that might work better than a base stat increase, for the same reasons others have mentioned.

As far as tanking goes, raising dominance affects different tanks unequally across the board, so I don't think an increase to those would work to be beneficial to all the different tank classes the same way. As it stands now in T5 content, there's no benefit to attacking as a tank except to blockbreak or lunge your opponent - you simply take too much damage. You'd have to have one hell of an incentive to use a weapon master combo since you're going to be taking extreme amounts of damage while pulling it off and will be vulnerable to counters. I just can't imagine any type of stat buff you could give a tank that would make that risk worth it.

So I got to thinking last night about something that would be beneficial for tanks and encourage them to try for a Weapon Mastery combo.

How about when a tank pulls off a WM combo, there's a chance that the enemy he hits with it has their willpower/resistance lowered for a few seconds to the point that they can actually be stunned or CCd? Think about what Orbital Strike used to be able to do when it was bugged. Now I'm not asking for something that powerful, but this could be a great mechanic that adds a lot of strategy to the game.

Imagine being able to pull off a combo and have a chance of knocking a boss out of a oneshot skull attack, if you predict it coming and are quick enough to pull it off.

That would be a tremendous tool to be able to give tanks, and it's something that nearly every tank class in every other MMO has the ability to do.

Sounds good to me, could also (or instead of I guess) put in things like..... chance to apply shield/give power, chance to knockback, and whatnot, kinda like the sparc weapons did.

Also... maybe I missed this on the encyclopedia that was the other thread. But will there be any benefit from this for wolf/bug/gorilla form? Or is this basically gonna make no one want those forms anymore?