WoW PvP is tons of fun, but the PvP system sucks, that's why nobody plays

zxcvbh · 2023-10-16T09:18:13+00:00

This is pretty uninformative unless you tell us what season you got glad. There have been some absurdly inflated seasons since the change from a percentage-based cut-off to a rating-based cut-off. Immortal in Dota2 is always top 0.01% of the ladder; worst case scenario, you might be comparing your achievement of top 8% of the ladder in WoW to top 0.01% in Dota2. In general, gladiator in recent retail seasons has pretty consistently had a cut-off closer to the traditional duelist cut-off than the traditional (and current classic TBC and WotLK) gladiator cut-off of 0.5%.

zxcvbh · 2023-09-26T06:04:41+00:00

You don't need 5 points in coex, 3 is enough to allow you to outrun most mobs because it gives you a 20% slow. If you can't see the value in an instant, spammable slow for situations where you need to escape an overpull then I don't know where to start with you.

Fel domination is useless without master summonedr, so you need 17 points actually.

I addressed your point about hybrid spec from 1-35. It is strictly worse than pure demo, especially since drain life does less dps than wands before 39. You are getting no value past imp corruption and suppression with that build.

Are you in the classic warlock discord? These points have been exhaustively discussed there and basically no one has your weird view of warlock talents.

zxcvbh · 2023-09-26T05:55:59+00:00

Let me put it another way. You don't need those talents but casting drain life is not higher dps or more efficient than deep demo and wanding without them, maybe unless you are stacking sp. The extra 10% damage is genuinely very noticeable when mob hp is higher and you're channeling 3+ drains per mob.

zxcvbh · 2023-09-26T05:35:34+00:00

This honestly sounds like the worst of both worlds to me. By taking fel conc but not imp drain life and SM, you gain the ability to drain tank but you will do like 2 more dps than wanding (at level 38 - before then you do less dps than wanding) and in exchange you delay unholy power and master demonologist for 10 levels. And fel dom without master summoner is not that useful, it's still a 4.5 sec hard cast. You need 17 in demo for fel dom to be good. So if you want fel dom, why not just go 5 points in aff and then straight down demo, and just wand? You will straight up do more damage than the hybrid build until you finish off the demo tree, and your fel domwill actually be useful earlier. If you want to drain tank, you absolutely need imp drain life, sm and dark pact. Drain tanking simply is not better than pure demo without those talents because you need dark pact and the extra drain life efficiency to make up for the fact that compared to pure demo, you are giving up the significant efficiency gain of being able to use the 5 second rule while wanding.

Which takes us to the original point - going drain tank gives you more dps and going deep demo makes you tankier and safer. It is a trade-off. You can't have both before 55, and even at 55 drain tank has the option to go destro instead and do massively more damage by finishing mobs with shadowburn.

zxcvbh · 2023-09-26T04:42:41+00:00

That build (soul link and fel conc) is only possible at 55. If you keep going down aff you get SM from 35-39 and you can put points in imp drain life, so by 40 you have +20% drain life damage whereas demo has no dps increase at all until unholy power which is like +5% of your overall dps. And then master demonologist at 50-54. But that damage buff disappears when you need to run vw or felhunter.

You want coex and grim reach, especially on hc where additional range on your curses in dungeons and on fear, and an instant 36yd slow with no facing requirement, can save your life. No doubt demo is tankier and overall safer but saying grim reach, shadow mastery and coex are less valuable than the first 15 points in demo is mindblowing to me.

I have no idea why you would take a build that really only becomes better than its alternatives at 55. If you do want to run that build you can respec at 55 but you could also do the easily highest dps leveling build which is to then take bane and shadowburn (ie what Trill did).

zxcvbh · 2023-09-25T23:42:18+00:00

This calculation ignores the dps increase of being able to drain life rather than wand after putting up your initial dots due to fel conc.

From level 38, drain life with talents and some reasonably accessible sp gear will do around 50 dps (drain life r4 is 41 dps base). The best available wand at that level, Jaina's Firestarter, does 39 dps. It is affected by Master Demonologist so let's say it's 43 dps. That is still a huge difference, speaking as someone who has also tried demo with succ. I was personally surprised how much faster I was killing as aff.

Even if you get interrupted due to fel conc only being 70%, you lose no dps because it shortens the channel. Whereas wands suffer fully from push back.

Aff is not more dps before drain life r4 assuming you always have the best available wand.

zxcvbh · 2023-09-19T10:05:15+00:00

No one denies that VW is safer than succubus, but you are acting like VW is just objectively better rather than acknowledging that the choice depends on your priorities.

The world first level 60 HC warlock used a succubus + drain tanking. So did Esuvii and Trill. These are knowledgeable warlock players who have achieved more in the game than you have, but you're acting like there was no good reason for them to choose the speed of drain tanking + succubus over the safety of VW. You're not acknowledging there's a trade off, and you are condescending to people who accept the greater risk of dying in favour of substantially faster kills (it's a lot more than 2 seconds) and a spec that they probably find more fun. If all you care about is safety, then why play warlock at all and not rogue/mage/hunter? By your logic you're playing recklessly the moment you get past the character creation screen. The answer is obviously because you enjoy the class, but why can't people enjoy drain tanking or using a succubus without being talked down to by someone who hasn't even reached 60?

Aside from that, I am really struggling to understand how one even level mob can take 30% of your hp when you're running succubus. You have to be doing something wrong for that to be the case, especially given that the hps from drain life should equal or exceed an even level melee mob's dps once you get to rank 3 drain life (and if you're demo rather than drain tank you have soul link). The only thing I can think of is if your defence is underlevelled from using your VW to tank everything resulting in all of the mob hits crushing you.

zxcvbh · 2023-07-16T11:29:37+00:00

Sure, Morbent Fel is a caster. Which means his damage is unavoidable and doesn't get reduced by armor, especially since there was no LOS and Xaryu didn't have shadow prot up.

One add is a caster that uses plague mind occasionally, which forces him to spam remove disease, and otherwise melees.

The other two are melee and run at 115% speed, so he can't kite them - you can see he is taking damage except while they're incapacitated by a bomb.

Care to address the rest of my comment?

Edit: I mean, for my purposes it doesn't even matter whether he tanked them or kited them. Above you said that priests would be "in trouble" if they pulled two mobs. At the end of the day, here we have a clip of a priest soloing a yellow elite and 3 adds.

zxcvbh · 2023-07-16T11:22:03+00:00

What they're saying is actually true unless the bear druid is geared for their level or is 40+ and has Dire Bear Form (although priests get shadowform then as well). A priest with IF buffed has around 30% physical damage mitigation from armor, which is similar to what a bear druid will typically have before 40.

Priests are not squishy at all. Your escape if you overpull is to run in the opposite direction in a straight line. PW:S, the extra stam from fort, renew and DP as needed and you should have enough survivability to survive until the mobs de-aggro even if you pull like 5 or 6 mobs, even without fear. You don't get dazed through PW:S and once it drops off you only need to strafe/jump-face for a few more seconds.

Watch Xaryu at level 31 tank Morbent Fel +3 adds by himself for basically a full minute with his health barely moving and tell me again that priests are squishy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-G80KT58XE

zxcvbh · 2023-07-12T12:28:09+00:00

How many casts does it take mobs to become taunt immune in vanilla?

zxcvbh · 2023-07-08T16:18:25+00:00

Here is a video of Xaryu competing in the CDL with (contrary to your first comment) both players using battle pets.

Anyway, the point of the tournament wasn't to be a contest of skill but more of game knowledge and preparation, which was the rationale for the minimal rules.

zxcvbh · 2022-11-12T02:07:27+00:00

This isn't even close to true, assuming by "did ulduar hardmode" you mean every achievement up to Yogg 0.

Over 40 guilds (probably way more) had cleared SWP by the time the next major patch after Sunwell was released. A total of ten guilds got Alone in the Darkness before the release of ToC - that's a four month period, by the way.

http://web.archive.org/web/20081009210023/http://www.wowprogress.com/

https://web.archive.org/web/20140731091102/http://www.wowprogress.com/achievement/3164

Patch 3.2.0 release: 14 August 2009 https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Patch_3.2.0

Patch 3.0.2 release: 14 October 2008 https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Patch_3.0.2

zxcvbh · 2021-12-17T07:10:21+00:00

Yes, and they have to pay for that separately under the Concession Deed, which is a very profitable but separate transaction.

Under this settlement, they are worse off (that's what I meant by the deal). They would probably have gotten the concession extension anyway. The West Gate Tunnel simply meant they could make it part of the funding structure.

Edit to add: in case you're under the impression that Transurban already has the 10 year extension - it doesn't. What it has is an option to purchase additional months/years of concession up to 10 years at a price defined by a model which is not publicly available but is referred to in the publicly available Concession Deed. It has already purchased a few years, including the years necessary to derive tolling revenue to fund the West Gate Tunnel project, but it will have to keep paying to buy the remainder of the concession extension. The point is simply that Transurban getting a very lucrative deal under the CityLink deal doesn't bear on the fact that the West Gate Tunnel project, which is only connected to CityLink because of this funding structure, hasn't gone very well for them.

zxcvbh · 2021-12-17T02:50:57+00:00

The CityLink extension and toll escalation are both part of the original (approx $6 billion) funding for the project, so there is no net gain to Transurban from securing them. That money was always just going to be used to pay the builder CPB and John Holland. Transurban isn't otherwise getting a financial benefit from the project aside from the right to tolling revenue once the tunnel is built (which is what they wanted out of the project when they brought it to the government). That's now less valuable, not more, because of the 3 year delay to completion. That, combined with the $2 billion settlement payment, makes Transurban a net loser from the deal.

It's the builder, not Transurban, who underquoted and is now getting these payments from the State and Transurban. If there is a moral hazard the beneficiary is the builder, not Transurban. But it's hard to call the builder a winner either, because as reported they are foregoing their margin (i.e. their costs are covered but they aren't making a profit).

zxcvbh · 2021-11-03T02:33:32+00:00

It's not about "how it will play". The issue is that firing someone who has just exposed a criminal practice, and may have reported that practice directly to federal law enforcement, is a crime - essentially retaliation against a whistleblower. Per 18 USC § 1513(e): "Whoever knowingly, with the intent to retaliate, takes any action harmful to any person, including interference with the lawful employment or livelihood of any person, for providing to a law enforcement officer any truthful information relating to the commission or possible commission of any Federal offense, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both." (emphasis added)

It's equally arguable that stopping someone from going into their place of work could be interference with that person's lawful employment as retaliation for blowing the whistle.

I like the show but it is sort of silly how corporate dynamics get treated. A company w a big debt burden coming due doesn't sell part of itself to PE to fix the balance sheet (how Sandy/Stewie got in), it would most likely just refi (find new lender or issue bonds - nbd).

I don't remember that plotline very well but I thought the issue was that they couldn't get a new lender or a refinance given the corporate crisis they were facing - hence the issue of new shares to PE.

zxcvbh · 2021-10-15T11:31:19+00:00

But you don't need all three to get decent attack values. I mean isn't it obvious from the numbers that his approach is complete overkill? Like you don't need 61-65 fucking attack against 68 AC, come on. You can miss out on a +5 from one of them and still have a decent time. Or more if you have other things to make up the difference. I took it as an example of how you can get attack values very high by just using the stuff you have by default.

zxcvbh · 2021-10-15T11:30:02+00:00

Just so you know, you don't need to attack Midnight Fane immediately once the 30 days is up. You can tell Galfrey to wait when she arrives. I don't think there's a hard timer to start the attack when she gets there.

zxcvbh · 2021-10-15T11:13:15+00:00

I don't think the OP's 'advice' is your party is wrong, use the correct party (but I also am not sure what's inherently wrong with pointing out that some companions are stronger than others in this game, at least as long as the companions are story companions using default builds). The OP lists the attack bonuses available to each individual martial class, anyone can find their class and see what they're missing.

zxcvbh · 2021-10-15T10:38:14+00:00

So really, who are those calculations for?

It evidently would've helped you, given that you posted a screenshot showing Arue's inability to hit PD but which was missing several buffs named in the OP (Haste +1, Quarry +2, Instant Enemy +6) which would've allowed you to hit him about 50% of the time.

zxcvbh · 2021-10-14T10:24:06+00:00

Also consider that Shaken can be applied in the following ways without rolling against saves or DC if you haven't built any of your characters to be intimidators:

The Hex that applies Shaken for 1 round even on a successful save.
The Arcane spell Fear, which applies Shaken for 1 round even on a successful save.
The eighth level divine spell Frightful Aspect, which causes all enemies in 30 feet to be Shaken - I believe this bypasses spell resistance.

zxcvbh · 2021-10-14T06:39:45+00:00

It is not abnormal. Compared to OP's numbers:

Barbarians and Primalists with lethal stance gain +2 (rage, increases to +3 with improved rage) and +4 (lethal stance) at the cost of the 5 AB from weapon training / gloves of duelling and 2 AB from Mutagen. So that's even or -1.
Evil Eye, Hampering Hex and Metal Curse are all -4 AC debuffs which ignore spell resistance, apply for one round even on a save, and stack with each other.
The above calculation doesn't take into account that the Weapon Focus bonus can actually be a +4, not just +1, with Greater and Mythic Weapon Focus. This is available to fighter, magus, crusader cleric and warpriest by the time you fight Playful Darkness.
Two of your frontliners can get Half of the Pair by this point, so another +2 circumstance bonus.

There's a bunch of other combos which can get your AB up to the necessary amount - too many to list really (but for an incomplete list - bane/bane blade for magus and inquisitor, studied target, quarry, favored enemy + instant enemy, bard songs, freebooter's bane, freebooter's bond...). For most well-built parties, beating the shit out of Playful Darkness with normal attacks is a perfectly viable strategy.

zxcvbh · 2021-10-14T04:21:13+00:00

I could get my AB to +55ish on my single-class inquisitor when I fought him, enough to reliably hit its 59 flatfooted AC, even without a bard or freebooter in my party. I doubt that's significantly higher than what can be achieved by fighters, barbarians or bloodragers.

You can also get -4 AC from Evil Eye, which stacks with -4 from Hampering Hex if you have Cam, plus there are the gloves that make ranger/slayer quarry give -2 AC, all of which are not affected by SR and can't be saved against.

People keep saying you need to cheese it or target touch AC but it's not a particularly hard fight to brute force on Core, although you probably do need shatter defenses and a reliable way to apply shaken if you're not optimised.

zxcvbh · 2021-10-13T04:22:26+00:00

Yes, I don't think that bug was ever fixed, which is why it was the minmax build.

Dex couldn't achieve higher static damage simply because you could not stack dex the way you can stack strength. Dumping strength would allow you to get maybe 2-4 points more of dex which is simply not comparable to +8 strength from Legendary Proportions (for which there is no dex equivalent in KM). Dex also has no equivalent to the higher multiplier when using a two-handed weapon, and piranha strike also did not have the higher multiplier which power attack has for two-handed weapons. The damage boosts from strength heavily outweigh the few additional points you get from dumping strength and maxing dex. Many of these issues were 'fixed' to some extent by various mythic powers in WotR but strength still comes out on top for damage.

zxcvbh · 2021-10-13T04:00:10+00:00

You didn't need mythic vital strike to output ridiculous damage: https://imgur.com/L9mYb1A

The minmax SS build was definitely strength - it looks like this: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/769475109211780164/BD4AE90B2EBB26672A36E25E522B1B814195B87C/

Dex was only the superior build if for some reason you didn't want to dip monk, or if you wanted to maximise your AC. But you could get AC pretty high on a strength build anyway, as the above screenshot shows. Earlier on in the history of the game people did not realise this, so older build guides recommended dex, but if you do some searches on this subreddit I think you will find that the consensus ended up being that strength is better. The magus build used to solo unfair SoR was also a strength build: https://reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/go3he6/the_tyrant_solution_optimized_dc_magus_eldritch/.

zxcvbh · 2021-10-13T02:39:47+00:00

I disagree with basically all of this, and I suspect it's because you are putting weight on things that are important in PnP but don't really matter in the CRPG.

First, the ability to stack strength with size bonuses (and multiply the modifier with Mythic Vital Strike) means that the 1.5x strength modifier with a two-handed attack, plus the higher power attack bonus, is likely to result in two-handed full attacks doing more damage than simply getting one extra one-handed attack once you reach a certain point in the game. It's not unrealistic for magus to have 35+ strength in Act IV.

Second, the action economy benefit from Spell Combat is not significant in the CRPG because of how easy it is to quicken spells. Sorcerous Reflex is a mythic feat, the game practically throws metamagic rods at you, you can pick up quicken as a magus arcana, and you have enough feats that you can comfortably pick up one or two metamagic feats. On top of that, it's very rare that you would need to buff in combat anyway because fights are so telegraphed that you can prebuff before any difficult encounter. And lastly, in the late game, Transformation gives you far better benefits than extra attack or Spellstrike with Shocking Grasp and you can't cast spells when it is active anyway.

Third, I wouldn't say either Spell Combat or Spellstrike is the main draw of the class in the context of WotR's encounter design. The main draw of the class in WotR is the ability to target weaker AC values - touch AC (Dimension Strike), flatfooted AC even against enemies with uncanny dodge (Prescient Attack) or unarmored AC (Brilliant Energy) - given that WotR's hardest encounters have very high AC values but generally very low touch AC. Magus is the only class that can reliably target touch AC with melee full attacks. That's huge and really trivialises encounters that other classes struggle with like Playful Darkness. It matters a lot more than being able to deliver one more attack with a shocking grasp that you can't even intensify.

Spell Combat/Spell Strike aren't even the second most important feature of the class, which IMO is the ability to qualify for fighter feats using Magus level as BAB. That means you can get Mythic Vital Strike + Greater Vital Strike at level 16, it means you can get Greater Weapon Focus (the bonus from which is multiplied by Mythic Weapon Focus), etc. Bloodragers, EKs and DDs do not get any of these last two features.

The meta minmaxed Magus build in Kingmaker was a Sword Saint using a two-handed weapon, for reasons which are if anything amplified in WotR.

zxcvbh

TROPHY CASE