Report 1514

Report #1514
Skillset: Athletics Skill: Surge
 Org: Serenguard Status: Completed Aug 2016
Furies' Decision:
Solution 2.
Problem: Currently Surge is an 8 power skill that provides a boost to a
warrior's Transmute ability, at a -5/-10 mana malus. For multiple reasons this
skill is rarely used. 1)Transmute changes mana to health, so using it in PVP is
asking for quick mana kills. 2) the mana malus reduces your mana to such a
degree that again it is risky to use in PVP. 3) The extra amount of transmute is
nice to have in bashing, but rarely if ever actually needed, outside of
permalinking astral nodes.
Solution #1: Change Surge from a boosted transmute to a 4 power skill, no
 maluses, that will surge your Universal resistance by 3/10 for 2
 minutes if you reach a health threshold of less than 40%. It only
 fires once then has to be reactivated. The skill is a defense,
 paid for on putting it up. Not at the time it procs.
Solution #2: 10 power skill, no maluses. Permanent defense. Grants 3/10 to
 Universal resistance when below 40% Health.
Solution #3: Allow the warrior to select mana or ego to transmute and change
 the mana malus to -2/-10 mana and -2/-10 ego, to encourage use of
 the skill more often. TRANSMUTE 500 MANA/EGO
Player Comments:
---[Shango on 8/1 @ 01:19 writes]:
I'd support solution 2. Really never see a need to use this ever, as is,
otherwise.
---[Falmiis on 8/1 @ 01:20 writes]:
All of the solutions look fine to me
---[Falmiis on 8/1 @ 01:21 writes]:
Oh, I will say that in general skills don't go above x/10 resistances so that
might be something to consider.
---[Synkarin on 8/1 @ 01:24 writes]:
I support solution 1 or 2. In fact, I may support this as a permanent defense
that lets warriors surge their resists when they dip below 33% health. It'll
help them take back the tankyness factor that they should be known for. One
minor thing is that the surge should maybe be a 3/10 bonus instead of 3/13 just
because it's not an artifact and is a skill.
---[Synkarin on 8/1 @ 23:27 writes]:
Support new sol 2
---[Cyndarin on 8/2 @ 01:45 writes]:
1 is fine. I'm not a fan of 2 because I don't really agree that, between
vitality, numb, and transmute, warriors necessarily need more tanking. Though,
admittedly, I don't think 9% at that low of health is a really significant
change to survability, just not sold on its necessity.
---[Shedrin on 8/2 @ 23:08 writes]:
I don't think extra resists below 33% would be very useful. At that point,
you're still probably 1 or 2 hits away from dying even with the extra resists.
However, Solution 3 is probably too strong.
---[Dylara on 8/3 @ 18:48 writes]:
Any of these would be fine, I do like the sound of 1 and 2 best
---[Kaimanahi on 8/6 @ 04:04 writes]:
For Solution 1, is this an upfront 4-power cost to raise the defense, or is the
4-power hit incurred when the 33% threshold pops? Because if it's the latter, I
would never use this ever, and would rather have that power to use any number of
defensive skills. I also think that 33% is a little too close to the 25% which
procs vitality. I would suggest something like 40% as a more reasonable number
to give this due utility. On Solution 2, there's no reason to give a third party
message. You can already discern/assess for no balance cost, and if you're
fighting a warrior you can assume that surge is in play. No extra spam
necessary. I would prefer Solution 2. TBH, everyone at the upper tier can
already cap out the 13/13 resistances, so this probably just helps the low-
midling warriors.
---[Demartel on 8/8 @ 16:36 writes]:
Updated solutions based non Kaimanahi's comments. @Kaimanahi I added a
clarification to solution 1. I am not sure why you would have thought you would
pay for it when it procced, but I hope that clears up confusion.
---[Lerad on 8/9 @ 00:46 writes]:
I'm not comfortable with even more powerful resistance skills that are set-and-
forget. I think 3/10 is a very powerful resist, and its trigger (and power cost)
needs to be an active decision by the user, not yet another "Oh, it just popped
up and saved my life, yay." kind of thing. We already have vitality for that,
and warriors are already amongst the tankiest as it is. That said, extra resists
at low health is not particularly useful - I would rather make the defensive
effect more situationally impactful, but also increase the burden of decision
making. For example, making surge a 4-5p activated ability that heals both h/m/e
as well as cures afflictions depending on a combination of how many afflictions
and how low your vitals are. That makes it extremely important for the user to
use it only when it is "worth" it, and synergizes with the other tanky abilities
of the archetype (that allows the user to survive long enough to pull off a
surge instead of just falling over), at the same time punishing a user (or
rather, giving very little benefit, if any) who has no such situational
awareness. It will also create the advantage of another defensive choice, as
well as create an additional dilemma for the warrior, "should I use the cheaper
green/gedulah? Or should I splurge a little more power, and get (potentially)
more healing?". Suggested numbers could be something like more than 3 or less
afflictions = cure 1 aff. 5 or more affs = cure 3 affs. 7 or more affs = cure 6
affs. 70% and below vital = cure 10% vitals. 50% and below = cure 30% vitals.
Less than 30% = cure 60% vitals. Etc.
---[Kaimanahi on 8/14 @ 04:22 writes]:
I think that warriors have lost the niche of being THE tanks, since the vitals
overhaul brought up the average across all classes and reaching >8k hp is pretty
standard. So imo giving warriors added "set-and-forget" resistance would be
appropriate, and in reality that 9% isn't going to make much of a difference in
burst damage situations (team fights or bomb skills). I think Lerad's idea has
merit, though a significant vitals boost might be debilitating for mana/ego kill
classes.
---[Wobou on 8/17 @ 14:17 writes]:
I believe that Surge's current state is a problem. I'm not sure if warriors not
being a clear choice for tankiest in the game is a problem (I'd also say they
still are, just by a more narrow margin). I like elements of both Solution 1 and
Solution 3. For solution 1 I think that surge should modify vitality since that
is essentially the same mechanic (when vitality pops while surge is up you gain
3/10 universal resist for 2 minutes). I'm wary of adding ego to the mix in
solution 3 because its very common for classes to use health/mana pressure, I'm
thinking particularly of PBs and current monks, and just about anyone else that
does bleeding damage. Adding ego to the mix allows a well crafted system to use
a vital that you most likely won't be punished for lowering (there's relatively
few ego kills compared to mana/health). What I do like about solution 3 is
reducing the overall harshness of surge's trade off.
---[Wobou on 8/17 @ 14:21 writes]:
So in short I would support Sol. 1 although I think its simpler if it modifies
vitality. I would also support lowering/removing the mana malus, and lowering
hte power cost, and substantially reducing the boost to transmute. I just
realized writing this that I don't know how significant the boost surge provides
to transmute is. Can someone tell me how much difference it makes currently?
---[Shedrin on 8/23 @ 16:55 writes]:
Idea: Surge heals 33% health for 3 or 4p. Can increase max health over 100% (up
to 133%).