U51 Early Preview: Epic Destiny Revamp: Shiradi Champion

[Impaqt]

My Sharadi Champion build is one of my favorite builds to play. Its been a toon I kept at Level 30. I love to run Challenges with it. Farm Ingredients. Events.... Even some raiding...

Unfortunately, the build is incredibly lacking for anything reaper. and even end game raiding on Epic is not a lot of fun.....

This absolutely does NOT help my character at all.. I'm going to have to look at significantly changing the build if this goes forward like this. THis will hurt my ability to run the character though challenges and events even.....

Heres my biggest source of confusion...

Why all the Spell Penn and DC's? Shiradi was always more about damage and procs. DC's and Spell penn is not all that importantly with caster damage spells.

Magister should be the DC/Spell penn destiny. Is THere is going to have to be a ton of crossover between Shiradi and Magister?

I'd much rather see Shiradi keep the extra Procs and be the Spell Power destiny rather than just more DC and Penn.

My 2 Cents

Impaqt

[elvesunited]

My Sharadi Champion build is one of my favorite builds to play. Its been a toon I kept at Level 30. I love to run Challenges with it. Farm Ingredients. Events.... Even some raiding...

Unfortunately, the build is incredibly lacking for anything reaper. and even end game raiding on Epic is not a lot of fun.....

This absolutely does NOT help my character at all.. I'm going to have to look at significantly changing the build if this goes forward like this. THis will hurt my ability to run the character though challenges and events even.....

Heres my biggest source of confusion...

Why all the Spell Penn and DC's? Shiradi was always more about damage and procs. DC's and Spell penn is not all that importantly with caster damage spells.

Magister should be the DC/Spell penn destiny. Is THere is going to have to be a ton of crossover between Shiradi and Magister?

I'd much rather see Shiradi keep the extra Procs and be the Spell Power destiny rather than just more DC and Penn.

My 2 Cents

Impaqt

Ah, poor soul, did you not hear the news? Magister is going away. It is being replaced by Magus of the Eclipse. A necro/cold epic destiny that probably has little to do with enchantment. Shiradi is the new home for enchanters and they've got to share it with ranged to the detriment of both as each will find the epic destiny will be loaded with abilities of no value to them. ( The only winner here is the arcane archer parabow build )

[Tobril]

Otto and Pin should work with improved precise shot.

Ability damage is rather limited in usefulness due to the high ability regen in epics.

Hunts End needs to have a design more parallel to Adrenaline. (Reduced cooldown, available early, increase in power as you level up)

Healing spring should work with Primal Charges and/or there should be an effectively endless (or at least 4x larger than today) pool of Wild Empathy charges available in some way.

[Monkey_Archer]

Otto and Pin should work with improved precise shot.
...
Hunts End needs to have a design more parallel to Adrenaline. (Reduced cooldown, available early, increase in power as you level up)

How about:

Tier 1 Hunts End: Primal Builder: Ranged Attack: Your next shot with a Ranged or Thrown weapon has +100% damage. This shot has +20 Critical Threat Range. On hit, generate one Primal Charge. Cooldown: 10 seconds

Tier 5 Rain of Arrows: Your next shot with a Ranged or Thrown weapon has +200% damage. This shot has +20 to Critical Threat Range. All Enemies struck are slowed for 6 seconds. On Crit: Enemy struck is immobilized for 6 seconds. Cooldown: 30 Seconds.

Essentially divide up the hunt's end damage between 2 attacks, so that leveling is less bad and Tier 5 has a more interesting ability.

[Graskitch]

I would be curious to know from Steelstar what the objectives were in changing the Shiradi destiny for the update? Was the destiny overperforming because of the ranged pass?

1. as others have said, I would like for Stay Frosty stance to be restored!! it is just great to have a stance that works to slow down mobs.

2. As elvesunited suggested (and which you conceded as a good argument "for replacing Pin as the ranged Builder with a version of Hunt's End that gets upgraded, similar to Fury."), yes I would like to see an upgradeable Hunts End, but I still would like to keep Pin as well.

Tier 5:
Hunt's End: The equivalent of Fury of the Wild's Adrenaline. ( which ranged can no longer use ) But unlike adrenaline which Fury gives at Tier 1 and gradually builds up with additional epic destiny choices in later tiers. Ranged get nothing for large scale damage until tier 5 and level 30. A hunt's end ability should be offered at tier 1 and provide +100% damage. And then later abilities in Tier 3,4 and 5 should increase the damage by 100% each. Otherwise this update is a massive nerf for ranged from level 20-29.

3. ACK! please please do not make Audience/Tea with the Queen a rest shrine activation. Keep it as it is currently on live, as an emergency bail out tool as Singular said - it is so much fun having it based off the Diplomacy skill check. Please please revert that back to as it was, and allow us to use it in public. I still want to run around as a kobold if I have terrible manners, critical failing my diplomacy check with the queen.

Not sure if you meant to, but this nerfs Tea with the Queen. On my sorc, I use it as an emergency heal - it basically pumps HP into your character while making the character invulnerable to attacks. By forcing Tea to activate only upon shrining, you're removing this very useful aspect of it. Also, these changes make Tea essentially useless in most raids as many raids either don't have shrines or have them at an appropriate time (i.e., before the main battle), though there are a few raids where the bonus would still be working.

[redoubt]

Pin, Ottos and nerve venom should apply on ALL mobs hit.

Why is another round of nerfs needed for ranged?

[salmag]

snip

This is all pointless though you don't listen to feedback anyways and previews basically always just go live as-is ignoring prior given mathematical proofs, so here is a recipe for blueberry muffins so this post at least has some value:

1?½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup white sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
? cup vegetable oil
1 egg
? cup milk, or more as needed
1 cup fresh blueberries
½ cup white sugar
? cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup butter, cubed
1?½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

Step 1
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
Step 2
Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and add enough milk to reach the 1-cup mark. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
Step 3
To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
Step 4
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

Is this a TRUE Muffin recipe? Or a sarcastic joke? I will try making it since I won't be running much anymore.

As for the "already set in stone; don't bother offering suggestions; this is what we're going to get" ED pass.

Once again, THANK YOU, Devs. You prove time and time again that you HATE ranged builds.
This Shiradi Pass will do absolutely nothing except keep my Ranger "Muled." I was hoping to release her.

Unfortunately, I blame myself. I set my hopes high, only to be let down again.

When does Horizon Walker drop? I guess that will be the LAST pass for Bows.

BTW, this really is an "ED" pass because there is NOTHING to get "excited" about (at least in the Shiradi tree).

[salmag]

My Sharadi Champion build is one of my favorite builds to play. Its been a toon I kept at Level 30. I love to run Challenges with it. Farm Ingredients. Events.... Even some raiding...

Unfortunately, the build is incredibly lacking for anything reaper. and even end game raiding on Epic is not a lot of fun.....

This absolutely does NOT help my character at all.. I'm going to have to look at significantly changing the build if this goes forward like this. THis will hurt my ability to run the character though challenges and events even.....

Heres my biggest source of confusion...

Why all the Spell Penn and DC's? Shiradi was always more about damage and procs. DC's and Spell penn is not all that importantly with caster damage spells.

Magister should be the DC/Spell penn destiny. Is THere is going to have to be a ton of crossover between Shiradi and Magister?

I'd much rather see Shiradi keep the extra Procs and be the Spell Power destiny rather than just more DC and Penn.

My 2 Cents

Impaqt

Remember...

PROCS are the "Devil" (or "Debil" if you watch Waterboy) that causes lag.

Oh wait that lag still exists...

Nevermind, nothing to see here.

Time to check out Magister and Draconic, to see if I'll still play this game.

Oh wait, no preview for Magister or Draconic.

[elvesunited]

Remember...

PROCS are the "Devil" (or "Debil" if you watch Waterboy) that causes lag.

Oh wait that lag still exists...

Nevermind, nothing to see here.

Time to check out Magister and Draconic, to see if I'll still play this game.

Oh wait, no preview for Magister or Draconic.

No Magister at all. It's getting replaced by Magus of the Eclipse.
And "replaced" isn't really the appropriate term.
Magus is going to be a cold/necro/negative epic destiny.

Magister has been scattered to the other destinies.

Shadowdancer is the new home for illusionists.
Primal Avatar I guess is Transmutation
and Shiradi is the new home for enchanters.

[salmag]

No Magister at all. It's getting replaced by Magus of the Eclipse.
And "replaced" isn't really the appropriate term.
Magus is going to be a cold/necro/negative epic destiny.

Magister has been scattered to the other destinies.

Shadowdancer is the new home for illusionists.
Primal Avatar I guess is Transmutation
and Shiradi is the new home for enchanters.

Thanks for the info.

I only looked at a view other threads before getting disgusted. This was the first. Primal the second, then Fury before I went back to work.

[Oxarhamar]

Tried it did not like

it still seams like the best Ranged ED & ranged will remain as a burst archetype

Was hoping to get away from this with the revamp

[thomassmith2]

Extraordinarily disappointing.

1) Per the description, Pin has been gutted: now only actually pinning one target and now only on a critical hit and now only for 3 seconds. A three second slow is pathetic, a 3 second pin isn't much better. I assume the wording is meant to indicate that it no longer benefits from Improved Precise Shot. Compare with live where pin actually pins all targets that are hit for 18 seconds. Major degradation to CC.

2) Stay Frosty is gone? Even more degradation to CC tools.

3) Prism - I assume double rainbow is going to have the same muted and weak set of effects as it does now on live.

4) Ranged power from cores drops from 60 (10/core x6) to 18 (6/core x3).

5) There is no replacement offered for the loss of Favorable Winds which over the cores gave 7% chance to deal 10d10 additional sonic damage and 7% chance to deal 2d100 extra force damage.

This is a disaster for physical ranged characters that used Shiradi. In a different reality where you weren't level gating the progression, these changes would already look like a major performance degradation. When you combine it with level gating and we're limited from using tools like nerve venom and hunt's end until level 30?

I generally try to keep these things in perspective - I praise when I see good things and try not to get hung up in ranting about negatives. I'm sorry, but this looks like garbage to me.

I'm also really worried about the potential loss of Favourable winds and Fey power which equates to a 7% chance of 10d10 sonic and 2d100 force damage...that seems like a lot...and it definitely feels like a lot when testing my Shiradi caster on Lamannia.

[QuantumFX]

Fey Favor grants my character Magical Training, but does not make the character eligible for Feydark Illusionist. This is not cool as it would be nice to have the option to take the Musical training in Spellsinger.

[Bobby88888]

For the 'ranged' tree, this has very little ranged, it is mostly a caster centric tree.
I will go over the tiers in broad strokes and dive into specifics where I feel it is necessary.
Historically, Shiradi for casters has been used mostly with low DCs relying on procs to do damage. With the removal of most of those procs and the addition of a bunch of DCs I am left wondering why a caster even wants to be here.

Cores:
Pierce the Twilight - provides nothing worth mentioning to a ranged character, the +2 DCs is nice. I guess?
Audience with the Queen - And this had been gutted and left bleeding out on the floor. The buffs from this are too hit and miss, nobody used this for the buffs. If you happened to get a useful buff nice, if not no surprise. The use of Audience is the Invulnerability window and heal to full in a tough fight. Even with 10 min instead of 5 min duration on buffs, if I even get a good one, it will probably be expired when I need it. Renew on shrine means nothing in most quests, and I don't want to have to start shrining just for a random buff.

Overall - Reduced RP stings but will get over it, Core 2 and 3 provide nothing to ranged and little to caster. Where is all the damage procs from the cores? They were really important to the tree.

T1:
Wild Magics, Good Luck, Fey Sight - Generally just junk. Wild Magic might be useful for bumping spellpoints on non casters as a dump point for the massive required quantities of filler DP.
Prism (mantle)- Ah now this stings as a ranged character. It really does. Can we get Stay Frosty back instead of Prism/Rainbow/Double Rainbow. As a caster, this is what I would rather though. Maybe a multiselector or roll Rainbow/Double Rainbow back into Prism and give Stay Frost and Stay Good in their places.
Shiradi Growth (builder): Pin - Ouch more nerfs for ranged. After 8+ consecutive updates of ranged nerfs you think they could catch a break. Only slowing the 1st target hit makes this junk, considering the uses for Primal Charges in the tree too I wouldn't even bother taking this.
Shiradi Growth (builder): Fey Lights - Really powerful, definitively taking this over Pin on a ranged if I use a mental stat, even if I don't care about charges. This alone might be enough to make a caster lock in this tree, the +2 DCs in core 2 also encourage the light splash.

T2:
Healing Spring and Empathetic Link - For most Empathetic Link only serves to Power Healing Spring, which isn't really worth the space it takes up on the hard drive, even in its live form it is terrible and only taken as filler DP. Both are a total bust, and having to spend extra points to unlock charges for Healing Spring takes it from downright terrible to unmentionable.
Shiradi Power (Spender): Otto's Whistler - Spender portion means nothing and is nothing. But nobody was here for that anyway. We just want the live portion of the ability.
Shiradi Power (Spender): Beguile - Nope.
Phase Double (Enhancer) - Doubleshot is excellent (though unfortunate it is from Whirling Wrists and not a new source, sorry throwers, we are charging you extra). Enhancer Portion is okay, but not worth taking and using pin over, specially since I cant use builder from another ED if I use Pin. If I took Fey Lights on a ranged then nice boon, as a caster I would skip.

T3:
Pierce Deception - I mean some people love the feat I guess? I have never seen the point given the opportunity cost is so excessive, this almost makes taking the feat mandatory though so I can get the doubleshot, even if I'm not a trapper ranged, given the lack of things to spend DP on in the tree the tax of taking 2 abilities for it doesn't feel too bad, at least there is something to spend them on.
Shiradi Magic - See initial comment on casters and Shiradi
Vision - Not too fussed either way. At least it doubles for free since I usually end up with Holy Strike by default since there are no good feat choices for ranged at that level. Good enough spot to dump filler DP.
Elemental Absorption - Can you give back the old version please, at least I could put it on the tank to help buff them. Since Primal Charges mean nothing to this tree the cap bonus is not an incentive. Still 3% absorption is better than most of the options in tree so can dump filler DP here but I wouldn't take this unless I have to.

T4:
Fey Form (mantle) - If a caster stuck around this long then you get 5 spell power as a reward! If you use Shiradi Mantle. Nobody else cares.
Track - Generally not particularly useful. If you are badly geared the fort bypass might help?
Enemy of my Own - If you have a bunch of favoured enemies then this is okay, otherwise its laughable, especially at T4, new favoured enemies in heroic enhancements are found in T1 (ironically, unless your a ranger)
Whirling Wrists - Throwers now have to pay extra for this rather than getting it with their doubleshot in T2. Also given the state of thrower builds this should really be in T1 in a heroic universal tree, but will settle for T1/T2 in this ED. Regarding the value nerfs. I read what was said and provided that holds true makes sense.
Step into the Wilds - Perma Displace. Unless you die, which is when you need it the most. With the ready access to so much displacement already in the game can we have something useful here please. This is T4.

T5:
Nerve Venom (mantle) - And the only reason to use the Shiradi mantle has arrived. Now if only there was some other good stuff on the mantle too.
Control - See initial comment on Shiradi and casters.
Feywild Attunement - Dodge bonus might as well not exist even if you have 20 copies of wilderness law, 5% more dodge over cap is a total of 0% dodge. Some spell power for casters who came to T5. The PBS range is situational, and useless or less useful on several ranged builds (DWS, Mechanic). Most of the time you are already in range. Not much here for ranged characters.
Hunt's End - The 1 ability that we took this tree for as a ranged.

Thoughts
The tree tries to straddle ranged and caster and ends up feeling like neither wants to be here. While My ranged build I rolled on Lamannia that took Shiradi as primary destiny was still fun and of a decent power level, the destiny itself was incredibly unsatisfying to spend DP in and not overly fun (barring Hunt's End). Of the 41 Points I spent in the tree (I would spend less in the future, drop some of the T5 abilities) only 16 of them were on abilities I even remotely cared about or saw as marginally useful. That isn't great design. Most of the abilities are bad or mediocre filler.
There is very little that the tree offers until lvl 26 for a thrower and 30 for the rest of the ranged characters besides Otto's Whistler and Phase Double at T2.
The nerf to Pin was unnecessary, and putting it on a multiselector with an ability as good as Fey Lights makes the nerf feel like an insult.
Ranged people take Stay Frosty as their stance in Shiradi. Full stop. It's removal makes this feel even more of a caster tree.
Nerve venom is the only ability that makes me want to use Shiradi mantle and at T5 that means the mantle might as well not exist for splashers. Nerve venom might be good enough to stand up to all the other mantles on its own though given how bad most of the mantles in other trees are. Speaking of, where is the 15% dmg vs helpless on the mantle that just about every other tree gets at T4? since Nerve Venom does not trigger helpless it isn't some crazy OP combo.
T4 is completely void of anything useful except for a thrower and that comes much too late.
Pierce Deception means that Watchful Eye is now a must slot feat even without the ability to find/disable traps, which just makes it a feat tax and it isn't even shy about it.
Builder/Spender/Enhancer system is terrible, and Shiradi doesn't even try to use it. Spenders gain no real use from charges and Enhancer is minimal enough that having charges does not mean much.

The tree should pick a focus and play to its strengths. While Shiradi is currently the home of ranged and casters alike, the new take leaves both feeling like the other has forced them out. A few low tier abilities, especially as multiselectors should keep casters happy given the loss of much of Shiradi's draw. This would leave more design space in the tree to make ranged feel at home in their primary tree.

[Singular]

Having nerve venom as a T5 ability is awful. It's a core power of playing a shiradi caster and very helpful through leveling. Now it's going to be an endgame only power?

This overhaul is terrible.

[Shadowperson]

I support these new changes but Pin is completely useless now.

[Oxarhamar]

Having nerve venom as a T5 ability is awful. It's a core power of playing a shiradi caster and very helpful through leveling. Now it's going to be an endgame only power?

This overhaul is terrible.

I was hoping that the revamp would take us away from the spike damage burst active attack gameplay looks like it’s the opposite instead

[MistaMagic]

Are these going to stack giving +2 to Critical Damage Multiplier on 19-20 rolls?

[MistaMagic]

Pin, Ottos and nerve venom should apply on ALL mobs hit.

Why is another round of nerfs needed for ranged?

Where does it say that it does not?, Current wording is :-

Pin: Ranged or Thrown Attack: (Cooldown: [20/15] seconds) Deals [+2/+3][W]. If enemy is not moving, enemy is pinned in place for [9/18] seconds. Enemy is slowed if moving.
Otto's Whistler: Ranged or Thrown Attack: (Cooldown: [20/15] seconds) Deals [+2/+3][W] damage. If enemy is moving, enemy starts dancing for [9/18] seconds.
Nerve Venom: Passive Bonus: Your ranged and thrown attacks and offensive spells have a [3%/5%/7%] chance to paralyze living creatures for 6 seconds.

[Oxarhamar]

Where does it say that it does not?, Current wording is :-

Pin: Ranged or Thrown Attack: (Cooldown: [20/15] seconds) Deals [+2/+3][W]. If enemy is not moving, enemy is pinned in place for [9/18] seconds. Enemy is slowed if moving.
Otto's Whistler: Ranged or Thrown Attack: (Cooldown: [20/15] seconds) Deals [+2/+3][W] damage. If enemy is moving, enemy starts dancing for [9/18] seconds.
Nerve Venom: Passive Bonus: Your ranged and thrown attacks and offensive spells have a [3%/5%/7%] chance to paralyze living creatures for 6 seconds.

Try it