Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Preamble
Demonic Defiance is a fun trait which does a lot to distinguish Mallyx revenants from a generic condition damage class. Unfortunately, making the most of the trait is difficult in practice thanks to the trait’s 5-second cooldown. Not only is this invisible cooldown hard to track for the player but it also does not mesh well with how bursty the Mallyx playstyle can be.

My suggestion is to remove the ICD from the trait and balance by scaling the resistance gained to the energy cost of the skill. This will make the trait easier to use, easier to build around, compatible with a burst playstyle and less likely to distort the relative value of the Mallyx skills.

Demonic Defiance suggestion
With no ICD my recommended values of resist gain per skill use (assuming no increases to boon duration) are as follows:
Empowering Misery: 1 second
Banish Enchantment: 2 second
Pain Absorbtion: 3.5 seconds (on top of skill effect)
Unyielding Anguish: 3 seconds
Embrace the Darkness: adds +1 second to the duration of all incoming resistance effects whilst the upkeep skill is active.

Footnotes
The these figures are based on the fact that Revenant energy recovery is 5 points per second; on a conjecture that a Revenant will on average split its energy use evenly between utilities and weapon skills; and with the aim that if Revenant follows this split they should not get 100% resistance uptime from this trait alone. The guideline used therefore was that each skill should give base 0.5 seconds resist per 5 energy spent, which would then rise to 1 second of resist when at max boon duration.
The heal skill is above this guideline because the resist gain is balanced by the 30-second skill cooldown.
Since Embrace the Darkness would have very weird values following this guideline and since ticking resistance every second would be awkward I think it is better for the skill to instead improve the resistance gained from other skills – not only does this allow for resistance bursting it also works with the grain of the elite as a buff to other skills.

(edited by Professor Sprout.1560)

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Rounding out
These are all the changes that I would want to make to Demonic Defiance. However, the Maniacal Persistence trait was recently reworked in order to pair it with Demonic Defiance which meant it inherited the 5 second cooldown as well. Removing the ICD from Demonic Defiance would therefore just transfer the problem to this trait unless Maniacal Persistence is also reworked. Independently, Maniacal Persistence has been criticised for being in the same trait tier as Pulsing Pestilence, the only trait in the whole Corruption line which synergises with a self-conditioning condition build. Lastly, Bolstered Anguish feels out of place as a direct damage trait in a very condition-focused line. I think there is a good way to resolve all of these problems in a single fix.

Maniacal Persistence suggestion
My suggestion would be to drop Maniacal Persistence by one tier and use it to replace Bolstered Anguish, then change its effect to:
“Every second you have resistance, inflict bleed on yourself and nearby foes for each condition on you.”.

If one then changes Pulsing Pestilence to copy all and only damaging conditions I think that this whole series of resistance traits could then be in a really good place.

(edited by Professor Sprout.1560)

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

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Posted by: InsaneQR.7412

InsaneQR.7412

I like how you thought this through. It could still give some trait conflict with abyssal chill. But otherwise i like it and i think mallyx could benefit from these changes overall.

Pale Raiders united.
9 Sylvari, 9 unique Builds.

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

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Posted by: Dagger.2035

Dagger.2035

This seems like a pretty harsh nerf to a Revenant’s access to resistance. Here’s a before and after comparison of the resistance duration for 0% and 100% boon duration.

  • Empowering Misery: 2-4s of resistance becomes 0.5-1s
  • Pain Absorption: 4-8s of resistance becomes 3.75-7.5s
  • Banish Enchantment: 2-4s of resistance becomes 1-2s
  • Unyielding Anguish: 2-4s of resistance becomes 1.5-3s

I personally prefer the ICD over these changes for my front-line WvW Revenant.

Human Thief [DOA]
Sorrows Furnace

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@InsaneQR Thanks for the compliment ::) Regarding abyssal chill there’s definitely competition there, but I think the use cases are sufficiently different that both traits could exist. The current revenant chill effects are quite bursty in terms of their DPS, whereas with the right balancing this resistance skill could give more sustained damage. Perhaps to accentuate this further the trait should provide longer bleed stacks instead of shorter torment ones.

@Dagger you make a good point. There is wriggle room with the approach I’ve laid out and I’ve tried to make clear the reasons for these suggestions so they can stand independently of the specific numbers. In retrospect balancing numbers based on the player spending 100% energy on Mallyx was not the correct use case, so unless playtesting were to show the numbers to be OP I would be happy to balance based on a 50-50 split and double the original numbers. These numbers would then compare as follows:

- Empowering Misery: 2-4s of resistance becomes 1-2s
- Pain Absorption: 4-8s of resistance becomes 5.5-9s
- Banish Enchantment: 2-4s of resistance becomes 2-4s
- Unyielding Anguish: 2-4s of resistance becomes 3-6s
With Embrace the Darkness adding an extra second per skill on top of that.

Thanks so much for the feedback both of you, it really helps! I’ll update the original post accordingly.

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

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Posted by: InsaneQR.7412

InsaneQR.7412

Well abyssal chill is good as it is with torment. It morphs swords into condi weapons with good power scaling and it should have some good competitive trait against it.
The longer conditions on the bolstered anguish seems reasonable. At the moment you just have them.to increase your torment stacks for one-two ticks, but i would stick with torment though instead of bleeds.
Did you made a concept for a new GM too or did i missed it?

Pale Raiders united.
9 Sylvari, 9 unique Builds.

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@InsaneQR Right now I am currently conceptualising the Mallyx legend as being about three things in particular: dealing close range condition damage; having resistance and benefiting from having conditions on self; and stripping boons from foes. You can see each of these three ideas expressed in the 7-9 Mallyx utilities and with the my proposed changes two of these ideas have a 3 trait sequence:
- Condition procs = Venom Enhancement, Abyssal Chill, Diabolic Inferno
- Resistance = Demonic Defiance, Maniacal Persistence, Pulsing Pestilence

Right now boonstrip only has a the Opportune Extraction minor trait and Spontaneous Destruction from the middle set of options. I’m considering therefore a GM that works with enemy boons somehow but before I’m happy with a design I’d have to do a pass over Replenishing Despair and Spontaneous Destruction in order to see how they could work as a set.

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

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Posted by: InsaneQR.7412

InsaneQR.7412

Sounda well structured. The diabolic Inferno trait would be interesting if would deal a stack of burning per energy consumed. Mallyx could pulse burn this way and ventari condi builds would benefit from this too.
This would need some major balancing but it would increase mallyx compatabillity with other skills like abyssal chill does with swords.

Pale Raiders united.
9 Sylvari, 9 unique Builds.

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

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Posted by: ShadowRain X.8159

ShadowRain X.8159

Demonic Defiance at the start of HoT had no 5 sec ICD effectively giving me 100% resistance uptime. It was in the middle of PVP Season 1 that the 5 sec ICD was added. Then after that before Season 2, the elementalist trait Diamond Skin was nerfed from immune to all condi above 90% health to is current iteration now.

I haven’t done the math yet but I’m pretty sure even with the reduced resistance per skill, removing the ICD will give revs almost near 100% resistance uptime even if you swap legends every 10 secs. With already having 70% resistance uptime with the new concentration items and the ability to give 20 stacks of torment or more, rage whispers from condi spammers have increased for me. Plus giving torment by effectively using any 6 to 0skills to proc DD will eventually turn us to a PVE/WVW shout reaper with runes of reaper, a 50 stack Torment monster instead of bleeds.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea. I’m all for no ICD with Demonic Defiance but…

TLDR: Anet doesn’t want any class to be immune to condi 100% since condi is thier new meta since Colin left.

(edited by ShadowRain X.8159)

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

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Posted by: ShadowRain X.8159

ShadowRain X.8159

“Right now I am currently conceptualising the Mallyx legend as being about three things in particular: dealing close range condition damage; having resistance and benefiting from having conditions on self; and stripping boons from foes. You can see each of these three ideas expressed in the 7-9 Mallyx utilities and with the my proposed changes two of these ideas have a 3 trait sequence:”

This was Mallyx in beta weekend 1 and 2. All Mallyx skills gave the rev conditions as well. With the elite transfering all condi you have to foes instead of just torment.

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

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Posted by: InsaneQR.7412

InsaneQR.7412

Demonic Defiance at the start of HoT had no 5 sec ICD effectively giving me 100% resistance uptime. It was in the middle of PVP Season 1 that the 5 sec ICD was added. Then after that before Season 2, the elementalist trait Diamond Skin was nerfed from immune to all condi above 90% health to is current iteration now.

I haven’t done the math yet but I’m pretty sure even with the reduced resistance per skill, removing the ICD will give revs almost near 100% resistance uptime even if you swap legends every 10 secs. With already having 70% resistance uptime with the new concentration items and the ability to give 20 stacks of torment or more, rage whispers from condi spammers have increased for me. Plus giving torment by effectively using any 6 to 0skills to proc DD will eventually turn us to a PVE/WVW shout reaper with runes of reaper, a 50 stack Torment monster instead of bleeds.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea. I’m all for no ICD with Demonic Defiance but…

TLDR: Anet doesn’t want any class to be immune to condi 100% since condi is thier new meta since Colin left.

I think he wants to streamline the whole thing. So you know you get resistance uf you want but you are limited from the energy part. It wouldnt give 100% resistance uptime as i perceived but rather resistance on demand without ICD.

Pale Raiders united.
9 Sylvari, 9 unique Builds.

Suggestion: Demonic Defiance

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@ShadowRain X Sounds like Demonic Defiance (even in its current incarnation) would be a good candidate for split skill balance across game modes. Resistance is one of these weird effects (like Taunt) that’s inherently unbalanced across game modes: in PvP you can’t gear for maximum power and condition damage at the same time, so permanent resistance will shut your build down if you choose the latter; whereas across different attacks a PvE challenge will often deal deadly direct and condition damage, so permanent resistance only shuts down a couple of threats.

Also, although I wasn’t there for beta I’m not surprised I am unconsciously apeing earlier designs: from what I hear the old Mallyx had greater cohesion of design that was compromised over time by tweaking ::)