April 2017 Tuning Discussion - PRELIMINARY

[BenjaminBreeg]

Why don't you let Siege have a chance, too, to eliminate the effects of passives? Like 50% to counter the passive shields/immunity etc and 100% to work as usual on beneficial effects of the enemys buff effects...

[Tritium]

Yeah, It's practically that. I believe that AoP need to be full sharded to be able to use, so, we all going to loose 10 shards if this going to be definitive.

And another point that I let go unintentionally its about the AoF damage, why it need to be reduced even more? Its becouse the number of sentinels on the current scenario? This will be dif in the future, so I dont believe he deserves to be nerfed again.

Yea, I don't understand the second nerf of the AoF either. Especially when it will lead to him having more def instead of MR ─ which would be far more helpful considering his weakness to magus toons. Given the option, I would never trade some of AoF's attack for an increase in merely def.

[Rodrigo-3281]

Well that's too bad about AoP and all the skill shards I apparently wasted on it.

Looks like I'll be working on my Death Dog now and I guess I shouldn't have sacrificed the Harpy Warrior as that passive looks useful.

Would have been great to have seen these characters updates before Sacrifice.

[Frost]

a way to realocate skill shards...

So far 3 toons I have nerfed with skill shards on them.

[Sparton_LOTB]

So, if I have a Immunity Dog, how does it work against Prisioner? And, if its affected as usual, a Immunity Talis would block prisioner's debuff?

Start of combat Immunity will prevent the Block Passive status effect.

What's the story behind the name change from Ox Cultist to Cultist Cleric? And, why no corresponding change for the Corrupt Ox Cultist?

Hah, I love the Cultist Cleric myself. He's been one of the guys I've been wanting to pump some skill shards into him and see how he rolls; he has a surprisingly potent team heal that doesn't cost 5 or more.

The reason for the name change (or lack thereof for the Corrupt guy) will be made more clear in a subsequent update.

Could you please provide more detail about the change to Ascension talismans? Your post indicates that they will change to Warp.

What will happen to existing warp talismans? I have 2 at level 50 and they currently are giving 1% of hp increase to magic which is useless. Will these be fixed to give 25% of MR increase to special as they did originally? Will they also be renamed?

I have only created a subject in Bug Reports on Warp/Ascension Talismans... http://forum.ironmaidenlegacy.com/sh...lisman-Set-Bug
Interestingly, the similar jamb with Warp Talismans will be corrected along with Ascension?)

Ascensions will be renamed Warp, and Warps will be renamed Ascension.

The newly renamed Warp (the green ones) will function like they did before the name change. The newly renamed Ascension (the yellow ones) will change to something more potent at some point in the future, and will become available in the Brave New World when that feature arrives.

The reason we didn't mention anything about the yellow talismans is we thought those were not available when we compiled the preliminary tuning notes, but those were available at some point if some of you have them (maybe even I have some in some corner of my inventory...).

Sparton, to clarify, will the Death Dog's new passive work in the first round (i.e. against enemy passives)?

He will, but you'll not be able to hit everyone, and he can be stopped by the Prisoner.

What about Vikings Loot?
Was it a stealth nerf that he only steals one effect healing next to nothing or will we get him back?

That change was not intended; we're still investigating a fix for that bug.

It doesn't affect passives - it now removes beneficial effects on two enemies. So basically the Prisoner will be countered with immunity (he's now basically useless), the Blue Bat will kick in the second round (also useless), and Death dog will block effects like ATK increases and immunity on two enemies - but assuming not shields (probably the best of the three).

To clarify, shield status effects are beneficial status effects, so the Death Dog will rip those out too (although again, not everyone's, unless you've already worn the team down to 1 character).

First of all I'd like to know if this are things open for DISCUSSION or is this thread another 'that said' discussion? So I don't comment if not necessary.

We're open to discussion, although we're not necessarily going to change a whole lot based on one or two players' feedback if it's not something we also agree with. Nonetheless, part of why we want to post preliminary notes for such substantial changes is indeed to have a bit of a discussion about possible changes, and possibly change course if part of the plan has a flaw we didn't anticipate and we have the resources to make that change.

You forgot or should I say you intentionaly left out SSD, after pris/siege the most used one if owned. We know @Sparton its your char of choice and you are reluctant to discuss it since 'suspect thread' where owners didn't mind. But I'm gonna speak of disbalance and against ssd.

While I understand the suspicion of no changes being made to a character I pretty clearly like, the fact of the matter is is that we don't see a need to change him at this time. As Tritium noted earlier in the thread, taunt-based strategies are going to take a huge hit in this update, which we believe will change Sentinel Soulless Demon from a cog in a CC machine to being someone that will either work fine in his own right or be better served by a different character (depending on the teams you are facing).

A few more laughs.. first one I see on my list with a wolf cultist stunner fully sharded I'm gonna personally bash myself into that guy and give him 1000 pts push in arena! And my poor red Imp who you personally had a chance to play recently with maxed endurance vs dmg arena setup (4 power 5,5k aoe true, healing down, preety much same as your ssd with wicked rates and few options on talis setup - blind, vanish, etc) with miserable 4.5k max hp isn't getting mandatory green, bummer.

We normally don't look at arena viability of 1 and 2 star characters as a factor when doing balancing changes, but we do carve out an exception for the low-rarity units players would more likely see when they first start playing the game (especially considering them as opponents), which is part of the reason why some early-game, low-rarity characters have gotten adjustments. For the most part, low-rarity characters are built to be PVE opponents and the collectability/usability when the player has them is just a side benefit.

I'd like to see if anything could be done to make the assassin and magus golden sons look less alike. I think the blue on the magus is very dark and very often I confuse it with the assassin - only to realise the golden son I just killed had revived itself.

Oh shit, I definitely see how that could be a problem for some people, especially if you're not aware or are fighting two at the same time.

All I can tell you right now is it seems the glow on the Assassin one is brighter/more saturated, but the body colour is nearly black. Pumping your device brightness might help in the meantime as well.

And another point that I let go unintentionally its about the AoF damage, why it need to be reduced even more? Its becouse the number of sentinels on the current scenario? This will be dif in the future, so I dont believe he deserves to be nerfed again.

Yea, I don't understand the second nerf of the AoF either. Especially when it will lead to him having more def instead of MR ─ which would be far more helpful considering his weakness to magus toons. Given the option, I would never trade some of AoF's attack for an increase in merely def.

We found that his single target and AoE damage capabilities were both still head and shoulders above most other damaging characters, on top of having one of the most potent passives in the game (when you can make it trigger), which means he's too often the obvious choice instead of any other single target attacker (or even many AoE attackers, because he can do both).

Why don't you let Siege have a chance, too, to eliminate the effects of passives? Like 50% to counter the passive shields/immunity etc and 100% to work as usual on beneficial effects of the enemys buff effects...

Siege's ongoing effect is useful in it's own right, and we'd rather make what the Angel of Pain does more distinct from what the Death Dog does. The Angel of Pain mocks Void Shield users if his passive isn't blocked whereas the Death Dog will still only get rid of 1 or 2 of them, for example.

[BonFire]

Goddamn it. Why nerf the Prisoner from doing his job? It's not his fault other passives are really dickish.

Well, I don't have the luck to try find a better team, so I'm probably gonna spend the next couple of months trying to get a Rainmaker and then I'm done.

[Jofer16]

Goddamn it. Why nerf the Prisoner from doing his job? It's not his fault other passives are really dickish.

Well, I don't have the luck to try find a better team, so I'm probably gonna spend the next couple of months trying to get a Rainmaker and then I'm done.

He'll still do his job if you use 3 of them haha

[mjmxiii]

Kinda bummed that AoP and Prisoner are getting nerfed but I'm really looking forward to the changes to my Death Dog. That is my dawg! Glad I maxed him up..

Also good to see an attempt to have more of these great chars we all have but are quite useless PvP-wise at the moment be more viable in the arena.

How long (roughly) before we see these changes and will there be fixes for all the specific bugs that were introduced with the last update?

[PsiH86]

The reason we didn't mention anything about the yellow talismans is we thought those were not available when we compiled the preliminary tuning notes, but those were available at some point if some of you have them (maybe even I have some in some corner of my inventory...).

I have Warp Talismans of the whole 5 pieces...
I don't remember itself precisely from where they have fallen...
Most likely from Secret Missions that precisely I remember they at me for a long time.
Thanks for the answer!

[Sparton_LOTB]

How long (roughly) before we see these changes and will there be fixes for all the specific bugs that were introduced with the last update?

We are aiming for mid-April.

There will be plenty of other fixes and improvements not specified in the preliminary character tuning.