Patch Notes Servers Down Thursday, March 16th for Mana Build

[Villy]

pffft never surrender just take over!!!

However you want to turn your server into . There are those who just want to test themself, which is fine. But is never good to discourage another player with his or her class. DPS class is the middle ground. Nature Hunter, personally for me, is like best of both Villager & Hero aspect of the game. My main isn't even a tank, even though is the first toon/class that helped me learn the game. As for DPS, is just an advantage to make others to do more damage or their upmost damage to help clear content.

 

[Villy]

Your toon is a tank, so if you grab aggro it doesn't matter who has it as long as the squishies don't get attacked.

It do matter to the other tank, is time to let them have fun to & grow.

 

[IrishElf]

However you want to turn your server into . There are those who just want to test themself, which is fine. But is never good to discourage another player with his or her class. DPS class is the middle ground. Nature Hunter, personally for me, is like best of both Villager & Hero aspect of the game. My main isn't even a tank, even though is the first toon/class that helped me learn the game. As for DPS, is just an advantage to make others to do more damage or their upmost damage to help clear content.

Ultimately, tanks should be the ones who grab and keep aggro. But right now there is a hunter bug that has them OP, but it is being fixed.

To Everyone:
Being able to maintain a delicate balance between solo and group play is a hard thing to do and I don't envy the devs assigned to do so. So many right now are clamoring to get back what they feel they lost, but in most cases they were definetly OP. When the range fighters can grab aggro from strong tanks, then there is imbalance.
Tanks are supposed to get the attention of the mob or boss and hold it while the range fighters (who are supposed to be glass cannons) take them out.
Unfortunately over the years the balance has been lost and the job of fixing that seems to be quite thankless right now.
Please be patient and do read all the feats you currently have before making dramatic changes. Some feats were changed or moved. It's just going to take a little patience all around.
AND Thank You for your patience.

 

[Villy]

Ultimately, tanks should be the ones who grab and keep aggro. But right now there is a hunter bug that has them OP, but it is being fixed.

To Everyone:
Being able to maintain a delicate balance between solo and group play is a hard thing to do and I don't envy the devs assigned to do so. So many right now are clamoring to get back what they feel they lost, but in most cases they were definetly OP. When the range fighters can grab aggro from strong tanks, then there is imbalance.
Tanks are supposed to get the attention of the mob or boss and hold it while the range fighters (who are supposed to be glass cannons) take them out.
Unfortunately over the years the balance has been lost and the job of fixing that seems to be quite thankless right now.
Please be patient and do read all the feats you currently have before making dramatic changes. Some feats were changed or moved. It's just going to take a little patience all around.
AND Thank You for your patience.

I Know.
I personally have no issue about my own tank toon, but typing this doesn't sounds right either. Yes, I know.

 

[Antavious]

Honestly yes warriors (basically hybridised ones are op) the whole point it to reduce this but removing threat damage from lightning ones isn’t the answer. truth time there are two kinds of hybridised warriors offensive ones and defensive ones both are op in very different ways the offensive ones are mostly op in the threat damage department (no shock there) and of course the defensive ones are immortals (but to be fair it’s only been recently this type has emerged mostly due to increasingly difficult content).The key to balancing these is to separate the op hybridised elements (make it so only fury can do high damage& only lightning can do high threat) again a no brainier. for threat it’s the easiest part to tackle as I have already stated take the boosts to threat away from fury, for damage it’s a bit trickier but changing talents and feats in ways that rely on a rotation of almost exclusive sub class only feats is the way to go (hence the new changes)

 

[скибидивапапа]

Ultimately, tanks should be the ones who grab and keep aggro. But right now there is a hunter bug that has them OP, but it is being fixed.

To Everyone:
Being able to maintain a delicate balance between solo and group play is a hard thing to do and I don't envy the devs assigned to do so. So many right now are clamoring to get back what they feel they lost, but in most cases they were definetly OP. When the range fighters can grab aggro from strong tanks, then there is imbalance.
Tanks are supposed to get the attention of the mob or boss and hold it while the range fighters (who are supposed to be glass cannons) take them out.
Unfortunately over the years the balance has been lost and the job of fixing that seems to be quite thankless right now.
Please be patient and do read all the feats you currently have before making dramatic changes. Some feats were changed or moved. It's just going to take a little patience all around.
AND Thank You for your patience.

Well said

 

[Grz]

To Everyone:
Being able to maintain a delicate balance between solo and group play is a hard thing to do and I don't envy the devs assigned to do so. So many right now are clamoring to get back what they feel they lost, but in most cases they were definetly OP. When the range fighters can grab aggro from strong tanks, then there is imbalance.
Tanks are supposed to get the attention of the mob or boss and hold it while the range fighters (who are supposed to be glass cannons) take them out.
Unfortunately over the years the balance has been lost and the job of fixing that seems to be quite thankless right now.
Please be patient and do read all the feats you currently have before making dramatic changes. Some feats were changed or moved. It's just going to take a little patience all around.
AND Thank You for your patience.

Take into account that many 95s don't really have good gear and technique, and that some are true casuals who have no desire to bring their class to its potential, while others are on top of their game. I'll never steal aggro from a tank who is on top of his game, even if I was doing more than twice his damage. I've also been a tank who was always at the top part of the dps chart but this is because the other DPS toons simply weren't trying, auto-attacking while watching movies, chatting while playing, and many other forms of slacking.

The imbalance was because some dps subclasses were not doing as much damage as (many shadow priests/some fire wizards/ 1-2 earth shammies), not the other way around that shadow or fire was too powerful. Empowering classes that fell left behind was the better approach than nerfing classes that were ahead.

 

[Renaiss]

About a week ago, I decided to take a break from actively playing V&H, at least for a while. Last night, after seeing this patch had gone live, I installed the update to get the "gift bags" for each of my toons. Although I was glad that the new, level 1 mana potions will restore a small percentage of total mana, I was disappointed that it will be "over time" rather than instant, particularly since it doesn't specify the amount of time involved. After checking their mail & visiting the new mana NPC, I logged out without checking how this patch has affected any of my toons. (Kind of hard to do that without actually playing, lol.)

After reading all the posts in this thread (and elsewhere), it's looking more & more like my "break" from the game will be permanent. I was never the type of player who focused much on "build": most talent points went into the subclass, with some in the middle tree for better survival odds. With most of my gear being crafted, my options were limited by the time I had to spend crafting or what was available in the AH. It now seems that, if I ever want my toons to be of any use in combat, I would have to completely change the way I've played this game for over 2-2/3 years. I'm just not sure it's worth it.

While I haven't seen much about changes to nature hunters (my main), it seems that all 3 of my alts (marksman hunter, earth shaman, and shadow priest) have been very negatively impacted by the changes in this mana build, much as I had feared they would be. It also seems that the fears of many other players, for their particular subclasses, have also been realized. What has struck me the most is what many of you have said about losing the ability to build/use your toons your way. In a role playing game, shouldn't players have the freedom to play their role in the way that best suits them? Isn't that part of the appeal of an RPG?

 

[Villy]

Take into account that many 95s don't really have good gear and technique, and that some are true casuals who have no desire to bring their class to its potential, while others are on top of their game. I'll never steal aggro from a tank who is on top of his game, even if I was doing more than twice his damage. I've also been a tank who was always at the top part of the dps chart but this is because the other DPS toons simply weren't trying, auto-attacking while watching movies, chatting while playing, and many other forms of slacking.

The imbalance was because some dps subclasses were not doing as much damage as (many shadow priests/some fire wizards/ 1-2 earth shammies), not the other way around that shadow or fire was too powerful. Empowering classes that fell left behind was the better approach than nerfing classes that were ahead.

First, I'm sorry to type this but also not sorry for not resisting to type this.
To be fair, Priest had a nerf coming to them for a very long time. They just need a nudge, to execute that action. Other class are going thru class balance & identity change as well. In the patch, there was a bug fix stating that priest had a bug with their detonation that when curses detonated still have the curse lingered on the target( Or is this not a bug that did helped them for a long time or is it just a recent bug?). Before, the mana build, I can guarantee I can out dps and do more damage than every class you just mention if I was serious prior to a challenge (Only set back is, don't get dissapointed as we can also go into darring usages/premium consumes also or whatever available, too). If some1 out right didnt nerf nature hunter right away, without fixing bugs before determining if a class needed a nerf & fix bug that continued to stay bugged then the story today will be very much be different by a huge margin, or if any nature hunter in the past even bother to defend their class, etc. (Guess is what we also seeing here now but atleast we are all are going thru a balance phase and continue to be fine tune).
As you mentioned about your peers that are supposely slacking off, this is a casual game. I, too, experiences that as I tank on my lightning warrior. But, this is a game where you have players that could potentially been inflicted by an injury or is handicapped from one(sorry, I don't know how to word this in a right way), in general, that likely affect their game play performance(s). Climbing leaderboard & having one in the first place is dumb, except if one feels like the need to challenge themself or to prove themself in an actual casual game. At the same time, congratz to those who did raid for leaderboards or to find a challenge for themself. No matter how good the community is, hero(mainly combat related/damage from chart related/class change related) aspect of the game always brings out the demon(s), and I am not any better typing this. What heroic deed have you done in the game, as it seems mallok might actually be the hero and we're all just villians...
In game, I'm totally am different than on forum. Likely cases for many here, thus I leave this with an apologizing as these are my thoughts speaking out in a mess. With that being say, lets just stay on our own respective server.
Logging out

 

[Antavious]

on a personal note I hate that people are given a hard time for playing more casually in fights, wile it dose slow things down In the EZ’s I’m always ok with it, people have reasons. The only time I’m not ok with it is in timed activity’s like 95 elders, raids and rift but even then I’m tolerant unless I see gross misconduct as long as I see people trying I’m happy even if they are dead last in output. I specifically built my toon to last and so I stick it out no matter how long it takes.

 

[ParmaV]

Well said Antavious. I have never played my marksman to be all about DPS, I play him to stay alive at the back and hopefully get a few crits and stun stuff so my partner, a lightning warrior, can stay alive whist everything hits him not me. Essentially I try to be a Splinter Cell sniper in an RPG, unseen and headshotting things. I never had manna issues because I didn't need to cycle through all my shots continuously to get stacks of time limited things so if we weren't fighting a mob of stuff I didn't use splinter shot, waited until the boss is 30% to use murder and concussion shot only if needed.

I also have Resourcefulness maxed out to Cunning in my survival tree which is the past has always been enough to keep my manna up except in prolonged elder boss fights or longer rifts. Now though despite no mention being made of any change to resourcefulness or cunning I find that the manna regen. has been nerfed whilst the health regen is a crazy high 75% . This means that I can't keep up the required continuous rate of fire with a maxed out bow to stack the things needed by the new talents without resorting to manna potions, the thing I thought the new build was designed to avoid. Or to rely on a manna boost from other players (a new thing?) which apparently doesn't work on my marksman as I had a box saying "character name" unable to apply manna buff to you, not exactly the right wording but hopefully close enough for devs to know what I mean and is also useless unless you're playing in a group. Which is back to other comments here about the game forcing players to play in groups .

Someone mentioned players having a slower style of play for all sorts of unseen reasons and whilst I don't like "playing the disability" card I think it's worth mentioning I have various conditions which make certain aspects of gameplay challenging. One my partner is all too familiar with is my dyspraxia, which doesn't just mean I'm clumsy and can't ride a bike (Dr Who ref), I'm not and I can (although very badly) what it does mean I can't navigate for toffee. My partner will say go north and I'll happily head south because I'm not facing the same way as the map, then I can't reorient myself so I'm lost and I've lost him. He'll say "Go right" and I'll head left,to which he knows to say "no your other right". This means that playing in a group is extremely challenging and I frequently get lost and left behind even with fleetindra on. It also means that it can take me much longer than most players to find my way from one boss to the next even with my partner leading so when my talents get turned from nice simple increase the talent points, increase the effect to complex things that rely on stacking things that disappear after 5 secs I despair because I know that under most circumstances I won't get from one boss to the next quickly enough for everything not to have disappeared.
Even in the rift where it's pretty much impossible to get lost I died once last night outside the next boss room because I couldn't open or run through the closed door even though I def had the key and an aoe hit me whilst I was waiting for my partner to open the door for me. So all those precious stacks disappeared because of a glitchy door. The next door glitched in the same way but that time I just got stunned by a lightning strike (I swear I didn't get the usual warning blue circle on the floor). So again those precious stacks were all disappearing.

I feel at a huge disadvantage now because of the changes to the way marksman talents work and the conflict with my necessary style of gameplay. I can't change how my brain is wired and am old enough to know that my issues don't get any better with practice. So devs please consider ALL types of people who play the game and consider why some people may have chosen a certain class in the first place and don't assume that we can all simply adapt to a new style because not all of us can.

 

[V]

I also have Resourcefulness maxed out to Cunning in my survival tree which is the past has always been enough to keep my manna up except in prolonged elder boss fights or longer rifts. Now though despite no mention being made of any change to resourcefulness or cunning I find that the manna regen. has been nerfed whilst the health regen is a crazy high 75% . This means that I can't keep up the required continuous rate of fire with a maxed out bow to stack the things needed by the new talents without resorting to manna potions, the thing I thought the new build was designed to avoid. Or to rely on a manna boost from other players (a new thing?) which apparently doesn't work on my marksman as I had a box saying "character name" unable to apply manna buff to you, not exactly the right wording but hopefully close enough for devs to know what I mean and is also useless unless you're playing in a group. Which is back to other comments here about the game forcing players to play in groups .

I double-checked the values for Resourcefulness pre and post patch and there have been no changes made to this talent. Mana regeneration through the Will stat has also received a 33% boost overall, for all players.

Adding mana restoration to water shaman was not meant to force players to group, but rather allow groups to use fewer mana consumables when a water shaman is assisting them. This is similar to how players can use fewer healing potions if a healer is around. They are not required by any means though, and players can always fall back on crafted mana potions if they need some additional mana.

I feel at a huge disadvantage now because of the changes to the way marksman talents work and the conflict with my necessary style of gameplay. I can't change how my brain is wired and am old enough to know that my issues don't get any better with practice. So devs please consider ALL types of people who play the game and consider why some people may have chosen a certain class in the first place and don't assume that we can all simply adapt to a new style because not all of us can.

There are a few marksman tweaks in the works for upcoming patches (they may not all arrive together).

• Fix to Concussion Shot and Wounding Shot damage
• Marked for Death's bonus will be doubled (so 2% resistance debuff on the enemy per attack rather than 1%)
• Proliferate's effect will no longer have a 5s timer but instead a charge which will be consumed upon use (so players are not rushed to make use of the effect)

Once the dust settles from these changes and the various fixes / updates to other classes then the state of marksman can be reevaluated. The goal is for Marksman to perform as one of the more powerful single-target damage classes in the game as well as give them multiple avenues to debuff their enemies in solo and group-play.

 

[Cosmickitty]

Mm was originally a support class, if we lost the support class….. does that mean we’re getting a bard

 

[V]

Mm was originally a support class, if we lost the support class….. does that mean we’re getting a bard

I would say that they still qualify as support, just in a different way. Some classes provide support by buffing their allies (Fury, Holy, Water) while others provide support through debuffing their enemies such as Marksman. They are able to:

• Reduce enemy damage (debilitating shots)
• Reduce enemy critical chance (debilitating shots)
• Reduce enemy movement speed (slowing shot)
• Reduce enemy armor & magic resist (crippling shot)
• Reduce enemy healing (wounding shot)
• Reduce enemy resistances (marked for death)
• Stun enemies (concussion shot)

Most of these will buff allies in indirect ways (allies take less damage, are less prone to being critically hit, deal more damage, etc.). It may not seem like much in action because there isn't a metric for tracking it in the charts, but overall I would say it adds up and is a benefit to their group.

 

[ParmaV]

Thank you for replying to my post. I am glad to hear that at least of the time dependent stacking talents is being changed to non-time dependent . It's a relief.
I wasn't sure that resourcefulness had been changed but I am confused as to why my manna goes down faster now than it used to especially if will has been boosted and several manna costs reduced. I admit than another one of my issues is dyscalculia so I don't pay lots of attention to the stats and numbers as I more confused than helped by them so am just going on how it seems. Maybe it was simply that I had a higher, more continuous rate of fire than usual to try and get things to actually stack for me.

If anyone has any ideas as to why I just got a box at the bottom saying the manna restoration buff couldn't be applied to me I'd appreciate it. Is it a bug? Something about my build? Something else I had on me at the time?

When you say concussion shot and wounding shot damage is going to be fixed is that because they are currently lower than intended or higher?

Is there any intention to increase the starting base chance for marking a target from the current 0.5% please as that still seems very low and not of much use to lower level players or higher ones who haven't stacked points into that tree preferentially? It seems suited only to long boss fights anyway i.e. elder bosses so many players may consider it be a lower priority tree for that reason and therefore not have many points in it.

Lastly is there any intention to tweak the stack that vanishes when you take damage? I admit that once the threat levels of other classes are sorted (and that is based on forum posts and my experience of going on a boss run with a lightning warrior rather than cold, hard numbers) I will hopefully be able to resume my preferred method of "sniping" from a distance and minimize damage taken but certainly atm it's really tough being squishy with only one stun shot and that of reduced duration. As I've commented before I wouldn't want to be starting out as a marksman hunter having to wait for my stun shot until after lvl 10 elder bosses.

As an aside I have no idea how hunters are supposed to be bugged but I've had no experience of doing massive amounts of damage and was sitting well down the list on damage in the rift last night, lower than usual possibly although I don't often look (too busy paying attention to everything else), despite a pretty much continuous rate of fire. That's not a complaint just feedback.

 

[Sumi]

If anyone has any ideas as to why I just got a box at the bottom saying the manna restoration buff couldn't be applied to me I'd appreciate it. Is it a bug? Something about my build? Something else I had on me at the time?

Mana Pots restore their specified mana amount over a span of 30 seconds. Lets say you use a Mana Pot right as a fight starts. And then lets say 15 seconds into the fight you use another Mana Pot. The game will give you a warning about using that second potion, because the first one's effect hasn't finished yet, as it hasn't been 30 seconds. In other words, that box you saw was the game letting you know you're trying to use a Mana Pot while another one is currently active and already restoring your mana.

 

[ParmaV]

Hmm, I've just logged on and had a play around with sap and proliferate and have realised it is only the final part that won't be time dependent. The getting 10 stacks still is. With only 3 eligible shots to give you a stack it takes 1 minute to get the required 10 stacks, I may be able to shave a couple of secs of that but not many. If I use other shots as well to do my job, as described by you, of being one of the more powerful single-target damage classes then most bosses are going to be dead within a minute meaning I won't have built up the required 10 stacks before needing to move onto the next boss during which time the stacks I have built up will vanish as I can't usually get between 2 bosses that are essentially right next to one another on a map in less than 10 secs let alone one that's further away. So the basic starting talent available to all marksman is only of any use in a prolonged boss fight such as elder bosses or the rift. Add to that a crafted bow only has 1 eligible shot on it so you need to drop bows with crippling shot and wounding shot on them from in the wild and use sockets to gnogment them on before you stand any chance of being able to use the starting talent. Given that I haven't dropped any marksman bows with runes on for weeks now despite having magic find on every eligible item and used lucky find potion and dram of treasure, they've mainly been common with no runes, uncommon at best or nature (those I've had rares and epics) having all 3 eligible shots on a bow isn't always possible and is particularly onerous for low level marksman.
Although the tweak is an improvement it still means the starting talent that should give new players a bit of a boost is pretty much useless to them.

 

[ParmaV]

Hi Sumi I wasn't trying to take a manna potion, I don't even have any on my character. I presume it was the manna restoration buff from a water shamen that was mentioned by the dev as it said in the box the name of a player then that they were unable to apply the buff to me which I read as a problem with it getting put on me. I'm sorry I can't remember the exact wording it was mid-rift and I was just trying to figure out what all the little boxes meant in a vaguely quiet moment.

 

[Grz]

As you mentioned about your peers that are supposely slacking off, this is a casual game. I, too, experiences that as I tank on my lightning warrior. But, this is a game where you have players that could potentially been inflicted by an injury or is handicapped from one(sorry, I don't know how to word this in a right way), in general, that likely affect their game play performance(s).

Just to clarify, I'm not complaining about the slackers at all as I do that too when I don't feel like carrying. There was a statement said above that an imbalance occurred because some dps was out-threating tanks.. and that it had to be fixed. I'm just explaining some, of the many factors involved in that scenario.

 

[Cosmickitty]

I didn’t hear a no about bard though…