LordExozone Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 (edited) At the moment Heat Blast on live is a staple ability for the Shieldtech Powertech, both in PvE and PvP. It should be used on cooldown (so every 15 seconds) and adds a reliable heat vent (8 heat + a global cooldown of heat dissipation) plus some added burst dps. Current Heat Blast: Heat Blast Instant Cooldown: 15s Range: 10 m Discharges 8 heat into a fiery blast, dealing 392 elemental damage. This ability does not respect the global cooldown. The redesigned Heat Blast works significantly different: Heat Blast has been redesigned and is now only usable with 3 stacks of Heat Screen. Using Heat Blast consumes Heat Screen to deal Elemental Damage, vent 8 Heat, and increase Shield Absorption by 25% for 6 seconds. It is now completely reliant on our Heat Screen, which has also changed from: Heat Screen Flame Burst and Heat Blast generate a Heat Screen, increasing shield absorption by [1 / 2]% for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 4 times. To: Heat Screen has been redesigned, now a one point skill. Defending against, resisting, or shielding and attack generates a Heat Screen, increasing shield absorption by 1% for 20 seconds (Up from 15 seconds). Stacks up to 3 times (Down from 4 times). This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds. In addition, each time you build a heat screen or refresh your Heat Screen stacks, the active cooldown of Heat Blast is reduced by 1 second. So in essence, we are reliant on shielding/defending (resisting doesn't happen) attacks, to be able to use Heat Blast. As compensation, Heat Blast now provides +25% absorb for 6 seconds. While this is fine in PvE where almost all attacks have a chance to be defended against, it is different in PvP. Even with the reworked Shielding, still a significant amount of attacks cannot be shielded against (all internal and elemental damage attacks and all auto-crits). Even with a hypothetical 50% of the incoming attacks having a chance to proc the shield, and a 30% shield chance, and assuming 1 incoming attack every 1.5 seconds, only 1 attack will be shielded every 10 seconds. In this situation it will take 30 seconds before Heat Blast can be used. In addition to this sad figure, the ability also discourages Shieldtechs in PvP from neglecting some defensive stats for offensive ones, which may conflict with personal preference. For example my shield chance on live is only 22%, or an on average 1 successful shielding made every 15 seconds. Taking the earlier example, it would take me 45 seconds of fighting to make Heat Blast useable. Suggestion: Personally I feel the reworked Heat Screen & Heat Blast are too restricting and unreliable in PvP. I suggest making at least one of our non-spammable attacks build Heat Screen, so there is at least some reliable way of being able to use Heat Blast in PvP. My suggestion would be to have Flame Thrower build a stack of Heat Screen. It has a long enough cooldown (two potential flamethrowers every 18 seconds with our new flamethrower reset talent) to not make it too easy to build Heat Screen, whilst still providing for a reasonable uptime of Heat Blast. Edited February 23, 2013 by LordExozone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordExozone Posted February 22, 2013 Author Share Posted February 22, 2013 Bah this was meant to be posted in the PTS forum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob_y Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 (edited) Even with an optimistic 50% of the incoming attacks having a chance to proc the shield (remember crits cannot get shielded, so 30-40% of all incoming attacks cannot be shielded in PvP due to that alone...not to mention all the abilities that autocrit or have a significantly buffed crit chance, and add to that all the abilities that do elemental/internal damage...), and a 30% shield chance, and assuming 1 incoming attack every 1.5 seconds, only 1 attack will be shielded every 10 seconds. In this situation it will take 30 seconds before Heat Blast can be used. In addition to this sad figure, the ability also discourages Shieldtechs in PvP from neglecting some defensive stats for offensive ones, which may conflict with personal preference. For example my shield chance on live is only 22%, or an on average 1 successful shielding made every 15 seconds. Taking the earlier example, it would take me 45 seconds of fighting to make Heat Blast useable. A few things - 1.) Your shield chance is way too low for you to be considered a tank, so I doubt they're trying to balance any skills around someone with your stat distribution. 2.) Critted attacks can't be shielded, this is true, but this isn't calculated on a separate roll from chance to shield. So, unless crit chance + shield chance is greater than 100%, this doesn't even diminish your shield chance. So, yes, auto-crits will avoid your shield, but anything else will likely have no impact on realized shieldings. (i.e. if someone with 40% crit hits you 1000 times and you have 45% shield chance, you'll shield 450 of the attacks, 400 will be crits, and only 150 will be normal attacks; if you up his crit chance to 50%, you still shield 450 of the attacks, the 100 extra crits instead take away from the normal attacks). 3.) With the changes, a decent chunk of damage is now shieldable. Most attacks are not internal / elemental and are rather kinetic / energy. I don't have exact numbers, but look at a parse from any particular class as an example. Even madness Sorcs (dot-based damage) have a ton of shieldable attacks under the new system. Edit: For instance, check out this parse I just grabbed from googling Sage/Sorc parses- http://www.torparse.com/a/69775/1 You can see that 61.6% of his damage is kinetic, and therefore shieldable. Edited February 22, 2013 by rob_y Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marb Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 (edited) A few things - 1.) Your shield chance is way too low for you to be considered a tank, so I doubt they're trying to balance any skills around someone with your stat distribution. Obviously you haven't been on testlive. All secondary stats have been changed, even when your at level 50 in your BiS dread guard gear, you barely have 50% shield chance on testlive. Shield chance sits at about 45% at 55 in arkanian gear. And if your in pvp gear your shield chance would be even lower then that. The biggest issue I have is with heat screen being made passive, when the pt play-style is already too static and passive as it is. Edited February 23, 2013 by Marb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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