Scout Prestige Conversions

StatA->StatB conversions are clearly not future-proof, as previous posters have explained.

One idea would be to do away with conversions altogether... maybe replace them with a static cb or potency value on each side.

That could simplify class balance issues... and if you think about it, even potency->potency type conversions serve no purpose except to steepen the gear curve by 10% or so, widening the performance gap between lesser geared and more geared players for no important reason. Obviously it's good to have a noticeable increase in player power as the player increases their stats through item progression... but accelerating that effect via conversions seems a little convoluted any way you look at it.

And with the excessive stat inflation ballooning player power in GU100... dropping conversions wouldn't be a bad way to curb that a bit so that content stays fun for longer.

Any suggestion that involves scaling back player power even slightly seems to be unpopular around here but... just an idea no one has mentioned.

Even if we did a time warp to where everyone was getting 3k CB and 15k+ pot from equipment alone mages would have some like 1250 CB extra they can reforge out of into stats including potency on EVERY ITEM. Meanwhile I would have something like 60 extra CB to play with and thats if i got out of my way to get 1200 haste. I have less than that even now as melee stats continue to become less valuable in the face of potency ad mod inflation.

Getting rid of conversions would more or less serve the same purpose as potency to potency on all conversions but we can all guess which option would be better received.

Fix mage conversions....bring them down to scout levels. It shouldn't be so trivial to cap CB

Yes and make re-use speed on spells same as on combat arts like dagger storm ...

Dagger Storm and Unda have the same reuse... 30 seconds.

No,because then you'll have even more mages whining, rather then fixing one problem, you will create two. Not a good idea. just bump up scout conversions

Truly don't think they ever thought that a single prestige point would be worth 1k plus in stat. Values on the conversions are out of control.

Trust me, I would absolutely love the same conversions that mages enjoy, but lets be honest...theyre a bit on the broken side currently.

Yea, this please.

Sometimes the right thing isn't the most popular choice. If this game is going to have any long-term potential, then I think player power needs to be scaled back & stats need to be crunched. As I understand it, that Blizzard game (my brother & nephew play it, for some inexplicable reason) has done so & the game overall is improved for it.

Giving something a static number instead of growing at a rate over time makes it less useful as stats increase, which would lead to them having to constantly change it in order to make it 'valuable' again or leave it and let it stay worthless (like outdated AAs). Which is why warlocks are upset over focused casting. It not longer scales over time, it gives a static number, 750 pot if I remember correctly at max, which is less than spellbind (and whatever the scout equivalent is). Sure, 750 pot might have been nice when we were pushing 5k-6k pre-gu100, but what about when you are pushing 10k pot? 20k pot? 30k pot?

^ I said it would be unpopular...

Well they could do a little of both. If they made the 'conversions' something like '5% base increase to potency' it would be a lot more intuitive than potency to potency and if I didn't botch the math 12 pot to 1 pot is something like 8.3% base.

The other worry would be making sure dual conversions didn't completely destroy end-lines, at least no more than they do now.

Wow. I think you misinterpreted what I was saying. I never said going backwards was a bad idea. In fact, I said that a stat mash is something that needs to be done as it would address lag issues in a previous thread. Even if you do mash backwards and then make it a static stat, it will eventually become useless like those small AAs that provide 5-10 crit bonus or potency, etc. Stats are not going to stay low to keep those numbers relevant forever. At some point gear has to upgrade, otherwise progression is pointless.

Just make them "Increases base potency by 5% and CB by 3%" across the board and be done.

Right, I completely understand every point you've made here. You're 100% correct, static stat bonuses get less good as time goes on, cuz stat inflation. Yep. Class skills and AAs that were once good, get cruddy as the game evolves. You know I used to main an inquisitor right? Inquisitors know that process so well, they'd happily punch the tears off the faces of warlocks crying over focused casting.

What I'm saying is, consider this. Everyone is already getting a fluid +8% to base crit bonus and potency from the second prestige tree. So these 900 potency items... are really giving like 1000 potency instead, just because of that, before you even look at conversions from the first prestige tree. So if you have ANOTHER +whatever% increase there, like mystic with the +10% base potency... I'm effectively getting 18% more potency from every item than what it says on the item. If you did conversions like that for every class, then it would serve absolutely no purpose but to steepen the gear curve by whatever percent across the board.

Why is it bad to steepen the gear curve more? Because content is pretty much designed to challenge players in the middle. The wider the spectrum of player power, the less content will feel relevant to the top end, and possible to the bottom end. For me, the ideal content would be A. not trivial from day one, and B. possible to at least try with a decent PuG. I'd love to be proved wrong, but it seems to me that things like fervor and percentage based stat bumps, and especially the combination of the two, widen the player power spectrum and move us away from that ideal.

Coming back around to the point, you're saying static values would be much less useful over time than percentage based conversions; I'm saying yes you're right, and that's a good thing in this case. It seems like any class that has good conversions is dropping their unique and interesting class endlines in favor of stats stats stats. It's the smart thing to do, but it homogenizes classes and I'd suggest ultimately that's not a good thing. Giving every class the "good" conversions would be a fair way to handle the problem, but maybe not an awesome one.

If they either did away with percentage based conversions on the first prestige tree, or just did a uniform static bonus of like potency for the left side, crit bonus for the right side... or whatever... people could consider going for the endlines again. It could be argued that would make for better gameplay, ultimately.

Maybe it's still not the best proposal, and I'm not saying it is. Just saying... maybe it's not a totally dumb idea...

That is another aspect I hadn't considered and a good point. The poor scout conversions do actually keep the endlines viable in comparison. Or, I should say, the op mage conversions make dual spec too easy a choice.

Starting from scratch, and all things considered, I'd really say the better choice is to bring mage conversions down to scout levels as opposed to raising scouts up.

I'm somewhat confused by this statement. These conversions are nothing new they have been around for years. When you increase a multiplier by a % it does not matter how much or little you have of that stat the strength of the % boost stays the same. This is the reason why you see so many people using bolster charms now, not because they all of a sudden got real good but because the stat inflation hasn't had much affect on the int multiplier, so if your base int multiplier was 170% and bolster charm made it 177% it effectively raised that multiplier by like ~4% which is a higher of a % increase to that multiplier than you can get from potency on a charm. Long story short the strength of % boost to multipliers stay relatively the same no matter the stat inflation.

True but it's more of an issue with game changes and how the conversions interact with them. Back when these were created scouts were piling on the dps/ma/etc stats.

But now autoattack has been demolished, and no scout in their right mind continues to focus on these stats. Simultaneously potency levels have skyrocketed far beyond what I expect devs imagined back when conversions were created.

Like others have posted, where scouts/mages used to get comparable returns out of these conversions we now see mages getting at least 30x the benefit with current game design.

Mages whining is a problem? I thought that was just the default setting for mages

Their overcapped CB converts into whine ability.

Isn't this a scout whine thread? Pot calling the kettle black?