Report 1772

Report #1772
Skillset: Shadowbeat Skill: CrowCaw
 Org: Glomdoring Status: Rejected Aug 2017
Furies' Decision:
Not at this time.
Problem: Bard rework: The current concept behind crow caw is use it and other
bleed attacks to pressure bleeding to get the target to low mana where by
Crowcaw starts at 25% mana and under starts to do 25% of the targets health
damage. This design doesn't work in the current balance. Part of the issue is
the 25% mana issue that miasma and swoop have as well. I'm taking inspiration
from pfarewell and cairnlargo and trying to find a bit of a middle ground
between the two to put crow caw there.
[A: 3 R: 6] Solution #1: Remove the Stun from CrowCaw. This is part of the
 downgrading Bards control and I'd expect to see other
 bard reports to remove stuns/disrupts/etc from
 existing skills as well. Switch the requirement % of
 CrowCaws damage hit from 25% to 50% mana requirement.
 And add a new feature to CrowCaw. Crowcaw as a build
 to burst ability. When casting crow caw you place a
 debuff on the target called CrowsMadness. This debuff
 will fade away one level after 20 seconds out of the
 bards presence or 20 seconds after casting. Casting
 it again will refresh the timer. Hitting level three
 will remove the madness and place the debuff curse in
 its place. This debuff can be built from level 1 to
 level 3. At level three it invokes a Curse of the
 Crow upon the target. This curse will last 15 seconds
 and buff widowsmercy hits to do an additional 1500
 bleed when hitting the target of the curse.
Player Comments:
---[Veyils on 8/5 @ 01:33 writes]:
This curse will last for 15 seconds. With crowcaw being a three second cast time
that'd give a bard 12 seconds of attack time with it up. Time for roughly four
shadowchords. Just ball park numbers here but if it did 1500 bleed your talking
about 1800 damage from the chord plus 1500k bleed. The concept behind it is akin
to pfarewell in allowing a set up that does devastating vitals pressure but mana
and health instead of a pure health bomb. I think pfarewell is a bit too good
for groups myself with how quick it can be set up which is why I'm not asking
for something directly akin to it and gating crowcaws burst behind a longer set
up and with a bigger power cost.
---[Veyils on 8/5 @ 01:34 writes]:
The way I envision this working is the bard has two options in how to use it.
They can blow their power on it straight away to rush to the curse. This would
take 6 power and let them start doing their damage bleed burst after the first 9
seconds. The second option for tougher targets would be to build it up slowly.
So cast crowcaw, let power regen, cast it again to build to the curse then once
you have them at a level three you hit the curse, burst damage and bleed to try
and push them low enough in mana and then use crow caw under 50% mana with its
damage hit to finish them off.
---[Veyils on 8/5 @ 01:35 sets as pending]
---[Shedrin on 8/18 @ 00:58 writes]:
It's hard to evaluate this report without knowing the extent of Bard changes, so
I'm voting abstain (I expected this report to be postponed, honestly). But I do
have concerns that this removing the stun is not sufficient justification for
adding that much potential power to the ability, considering it'll still do the
base bleed and mental afflictions. Though obviously it'd be weaker in situations
where you can't stack to three or they're not below the new 50% threshold.
---[Ciaran on 8/19 @ 13:24 writes]:
This looks like it'd be totally insane in groups. Opposed
---[Veyils on 8/20 @ 15:31 writes]:
It'd be like a more costly pfarewell set up costing 6 power and three balances
before you could burst vs 3 power and 1 balance. But with bleed instead of pure
direct damage. Could drop the afflictions down to 1 so it's more like pfarewell
then in that it just does 1 afflictions, although blackout would be the stronger
affliction.
---[Aeldra on 8/21 @ 11:36 writes]:
I feel like, given that the bard overhaul is on hold, this report should not be
considered now.
---[Ejderha on 8/21 @ 16:54 writes]:
I agree with Aeldra, as the Bard rework is tabled, I see no reason for these
changes. On face it also seems far too powerful and tripling down on an already
strong synergy.
---[Veyils on 8/27 @ 23:08 writes]:
The report can stand on its own outside of the bard rework. Pfarwell and
cairnlogo have been reworked outside of the bard overhaul to give a high damage
burst route outside of octave for their respective bard specs. If the numbers
dont add up to you we can adjust or change them but well when one bard spec can
cleave 50% of your health in a two balance combo I'm not seeing the issue with
letting a different bard do a similar thing with a longer set up. I specifically
designed this to be weaker than the cantor set up for group combat but the
numbers could be adjusted. Most likely make them more % based instead of a fixed
bleed.
---[Falaeron on 8/28 @ 00:49 writes]:
No. Since you are so adamant that bards are too good at everything, it stands to
reason that 1) bards should be nerfed and 2) they don't necessarily require
anything in return for being nerfed. What you are asking for here is to remove
the stun from CrowCaw, but instead give it something that will essentially wipe
a person's health and mana via bleeding with very little set up. I don't really
understand how you can argue this is balanced in any way, bard rework aside.