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TFS -> RE: =DF= September 13th Design Notes: Maleurous: Part II and Chaosweaver Testing (9/17/2019 15:38:39)
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I'm mostly comfortable with this version of Chaosweaver; while the old guard DC classes are still in no danger of being dethroned, ChW is still very viable/usable with the proper setup. Have a few issues with it though as far as skill changes go.
I don't think Vengeance really needs to eat a Soulthread; -10 All on its own generally isn't going to be worth the cast turn (use Stan! Or your dragon!) and the standard burst -> stall rotation you can now do with empowered Aegis/Obliterate is really, really thirsty for that one extra Soulthread during the stall phase following expiration of Gambit's buffs and persistence of its debuff. The class would benefit a fair bit from Vengeance not having normal/empowered versions and just always inflicting -20 All imo.
Not really sure why the new version of Rebuke can't crit; it seems to be capped at around 430% total damage anyway, and that's if you only have 1HP remaining. Unless there's something silly like % of enemy HP in the calculation that I wasn't aware of, I'm not really sure why the -crit is a thing. Chaosweaver already struggles (and fails) to meet the casual damage output of its predecessors at the cost of its defenses, removing the -crit from Rebuke would certainly help with that imo.
In fact, now that it's on my mind, I'd like to take this opportunity to compare the damage of a DC class intended to be a glass cannon and compare it to that of one of its defensively oriented predecessors. If we ignore the reigning king (Kathool Adept) and just compare Chaosweaver to its doomed counterpart (Entropy), even in its one-time burst phase ChW can barely match the damage output Entropy reliably has while maintaining its monumental defenses. Let's pretend that Entropy's damage output is limited to temporary burst (like ChW's) and is not at all consistent, and compare its favored spammable skill to Chaosweaver's strongest skill with complete setup.
Chaosweaver: 300% damage on Untangle, x 1.85 for Chaosweaver's Crit modifier and Untangle's autocrit, x 3 for Gambit's (very, very risky!) 200 Boost, x 1.2 for an empowered Vengeance. The theoretical number intended only for comparison that this leaves us with is 1,998.
Entropy: 414% damage on Rotting Touch (assuming you are level 40 or higher), x 1.375 for the 1.75 crit modifier and the assumption that a Level 90 player crits 50% of the time, x 1.7 for Blood Womb's (which not only has 50% uptime, it also gives you +70 MPM!) 70 Boost, x 1.6 for the loopable res debuffs offered by Infection and Fever Spit. The theoretical number intended only for comparison that this leaves us with is 1,549.
These numbers are fine and dandy, but for people who don't have excessive amounts of free time what do they mean? It means that a huge attack that Chaosweaver can only pull off once at the expense of 200 All resist offers a mere 25% damage increase over an attack that Entropy uses every 5 turns while maintaining a 50% uptime on its MPM shield, at no defensive penalty. A tank class that uses its own 2/3 MPM shield while attacking is more offensively potent than a glass cannon that anywhere from triples (3x at 0 All from gear) to octuples (8x at 69 All from gear) its own damage intake in order to attack.
Am I saying that this means Chaosweaver is offensively worse than Entropy in every situation? Of course not, Chaosweaver can use this big attack on the second turn of a fight (first if you don't Vengeance) while Entropy needs four turns of setup before it can start spamming this huge attack, Chaosweaver is clearly better at clearing out mooks.
Am I saying that looking at these specific attacks in a vacuum definitively characterizes both of these classes? Of course not, there are other considerations like mana costs and hit counts that have to be taken into account, you of course can't look at a few skills in a vacuum and make judgements based on that (Of course, this is pure rhetoric, for the specific case of ChW vs Entropy I've given Chaosweaver every benefit of the doubt and compared both classes to the one thing Chaosweaver is good at; Entropy is good at far more things than just pure damage while ChW is good at nothing else).
Am I saying that Chaosweaver needs to be as strong as Entropy? Of course not, Entropy is one of the most powerful classes in the game and it would be ridiculous to think that every single class should be on the same power level. This is also somewhat cherry-picked, of course, I wouldn't expect every DC class to be as good as Entropy (or Kathool Adept), Chaosweaver is certainly better than stuff like GPS and Ascended Chickencow.
Wasn't I saying Rebuke was too strong the other day? It was, and that was because of degenerate accessory setup that had nothing to do with playing the class as intended.
What am I saying, then? Comparing Chaosweaver's damage output to DC classes that aren't glass cannons should probably lead one to conclude that I'm not unjustified in thinking Chaosweaver should be a bit less "glass" and a bit more "cannon." Ergo, Rebuke shouldn't really have the -crit imo.
Rip is also very awkward imo. I don't think an already hyperoffensive class needs to have a good stun, of course, but the Soulthread toggle makes it inconvenient to use against multiple mooks and implausible to use against tougher bosses. Small nitpick.
Uh, that post was a lot longer than I intended it to be when I started. Not trying to trashtalk Chaosweaver and it probably came off like I was, like I said earlier it's still viable and fun to use. Just trying to illustrate the power difference between ChW and some of its fellow DC classes. Of course, this is still a test version after all, for all I know the final version will have damage scaling or something crazy. Again, that's what testing is for, to make sure the final version is as good as it can be!
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