(edited by Tulki.1458)
Trait stat bonuses have big problems
And in zones that it should give 37 toughness, it gives < 1 per stack.
This also affects necromancers and reapers because the armored shroud (death magic) trait is bugged the same way.
Aaaand it seems to affect Last Rites, i.e. all necromancers who slot blood magic.
It’s also worth noting that the 10% toughness to condition damage earth magic elementalist trait doesn’t seem to count the toughness granted by sigil of earth, and neither the 10% power to condition damage or the 10% toughness to condition damage count the power/toughness from being attuned to fire/earth with the respective traits.
Is there a delay to it or does it just never apply the bonus? What if you pick up a conjured item then switch in the trait?
Is there a delay to it or does it just never apply the bonus? What if you pick up a conjured item then switch in the trait?
It just never applies the bonus. I just tested conjured weapons, and it wasn’t applying to the stat increases due to the magnetic shield (Toughness) or Lava Axe (Power), there was no change with the magnetic shield, and lava axe only increased condition damage by the 180 that’s built into the lava axe itself.
Aren’t there stat caps at lower levels?
Aren’t there stat caps at lower levels?
There aren’t stat caps. The way the game works is it divides your stats based your effective level versus actual level. The further those two are apart, the bigger the divider.
The problem is that many skills and traits which grant stat bonuses are having their bonuses scaled by the same system, which devalues those abilities for higher level characters in central Tyria.
So as an example, a level 35 necro could walk into Ascalonian Catacombs with a trait that gives +55 toughness while shroud is active, but if a level 80 necro walks into that same instance with the same trait, it will give them only ~8 toughness while in shroud. The trait is essentially useless.
It’s one thing to downscale gear bonuses, but it’s another to downscale stat bonuses from traits. Downscaling gear makes sense because players acquire better gear as they level (which counteracts downscaling). But traits? Those don’t scale up with your actual level, yet downscaling will keep making them weaker and weaker in lower level zones as your actual level increases. It doesn’t make sense.
Granted, since HoT is all level 80, these problems won’t affect those zones. But it’s a VERY glaring issue when a whole bunch of traits have severely diminished or even nonexistent effects in areas <L60. And I mentioned the issue here in the HoT sub-forum because I noticed it’s affecting elite specs in the expansion as well.
(edited by Tulki.1458)
Aren’t there stat caps at lower levels?
There aren’t stat caps. The way the game works is it divides your stats based your effective level versus actual level. The further those two are apart, the bigger the divider.
The problem is that many skills and traits which grant stat bonuses are having their bonuses scaled by the same system, which devalues those abilities for higher level characters in central Tyria.
So as an example, a level 35 necro could walk into Ascalonian Catacombs with a trait that gives +55 toughness while shroud is active, but if a level 80 necro walks into that same instance with the same trait, it will give them only ~8 toughness while in shroud. The trait is essentially useless.
It’s one thing to downscale gear bonuses, but it’s another to downscale stat bonuses from traits. Downscaling gear makes sense because players acquire better gear as they level (which counteracts downscaling). But traits? Those don’t scale up with your actual level, yet downscaling will keep making them weaker and weaker in lower level zones as your actual level increases. It doesn’t make sense.
Granted, since HoT is all level 80, these problems won’t affect those zones. But it’s a VERY glaring issue when a whole bunch of traits have severely diminished or even nonexistent effects in areas <L60. And I mentioned the issue here in the HoT sub-forum because I noticed it’s affecting elite specs in the expansion as well.
It works the other way around as well in areas that upscale you, it’s kind of silly, but see what happens if you enter shroud as a full minion necromancer with flesh of the master in WvWvW as soon as is absolutely possible.
^ Yes, I’ve actually tried this with a Mesmer mantra as soon as hero points unlocked.
The upscaling combined with channeled toughness made me effectively invulnerable to direct damage while casting a mantra. That’s why I reported the bugs under exploitable. And yet, still they haven’t been fixed. It’s niche and awkward since you have to play as a low level character, but it absolutely is exploitable. You can get up near 10k toughness.
You can actually exploit this with the first death magic trait for insane toughness as well.
It’s not a programming bug, it’s a game design issue. You can’t let level scaling affect a skill whose effectiveness is already based on level. They probably didn’t think of that.
The easiest solution would be to just let some traits apply their effect after level scaling, and then give that property to all skills that use level.
But the scaling system has always been broken and it just doesn’t scale well, so I’d like them to eventually replace it. Since they use a base stat → derived stat model, where the derived stat is the one that really matters in combat (ie: toughness → defense, power → damage multiplier, vitality → health, etc.) I think that letting the base stats grow unhindered but then applying an asymptotic diminishing return formula on the derived stat would work best.
I don’t know, I’ve played every single profession downleveled, and it’s relatively easy for me. So to me this isn’t a game breaking bug. I just see it as part of downleveling.
I don’t need to be more powerful when downleveled, because when I’m downleveled there’s nothing I can’t do. Seems to me that this sort of thing might be 100% true and still might not particularly affect most players.
It’s not a programming bug, it’s a game design issue. You can’t let level scaling affect a skill whose effectiveness is already based on level. They probably didn’t think of that.
The easiest solution would be to just let some traits apply their effect after level scaling, and then give that property to all skills that use level.
But the scaling system has always been broken and it just doesn’t scale well, so I’d like them to eventually replace it. Since they use a base stat -> derived stat model, where the derived stat is the one that really matters in combat (ie: toughness -> defense, power -> damage multiplier, vitality -> health, etc.) I think that letting the base stats grow unhindered but then applying an asymptotic diminishing return formula on the derived stat would work best.
I’ve thought about your second point to rework scaling and it seems good but I doubt they’ll go and overhaul it now.
Also, this isn’t a design bug. It is a programming bug. Some traits behave like regular buffs and are unaffected by level scaling while others are affected.
So this apparently also applies to stat-stacking sigils, including both being broken by downscaling and upscaling. It’s exploitable even at lower levels though, for much greater effect.
(edited by Tulki.1458)
So this apparently also applies to stat-stacking sigils, including both being broken by downscaling and upscaling. It’s exploitable even at lower levels though, for much greater effect.
Aren’t these compensated for by the fact that low level characters can’t use major/superior sigils though?
Not exactly. Minor stat stacking sigils aren’t level-gated, but if you have something like a superior sigil of power (+10 per kill) in an ~ level 20 zone it will grant zero power per stack even though a level 20 character could have +2 per stack with the minor version.
If a level 1 character takes a minor stat-stacking sigil into WvW they can gain ludicrous amounts of that stat by killing mobs and then entering combat with players because the game doesn’t treat the sigil any differently than gear stats while scaling levels.
This issue still affects Reactive Armor on scrappers and Last Rites on necromancers post-HoT.