Guide Ability Tree Questions Thread

is it intentional that vengeful spirit requires acolyte? personally, i liked how before 2.0 shaman would stand out like this by giving the buff, but now that it's tied to the archetype it's kind of unfortunate, it's like shocking aura and dancing storm can be achieved with any archetype (with the exception of dumping very little ability points to shocking aura), it would be really nice if you could use it with all archetypes

additionally i'm wondering what you think about reworking a big chunk of trapper, i don't think it fits with how pve works in wynn..

and finally i want to note out 2 problems i think should be adressed:

sticky bomb works very little percent of the time, and it's even more noticeable with wall of smoke, you have to basically aim your smoke bomb directly on the entity to get it to attach, which is fine, but then essentially renders the "sticky" aspect completely useless when you use wall of smoke because the other 2 bombs just don't stick. this can be combated by just making the radius to stick bigger i guess but i don't know if that's how it's supposed to work or it's just a bug

and as it stands, the exploding puppets description claims that when puppets have 3s remaining, they will "charge towards enemies at high speed and explode", now they do explode when they die, but they just sit there and ignore enemies (or throw their swords at them)... i assume this is a bug?

 

Small bump to this thread! I will be getting back to answering questions soon, I was just quite busy making sure everything for 2.0.2 went smoothly involving the Ability Tree. Now that it's out, I'll be taking the time to clarify anything people have questions about again, and I'm especially excited to discuss the new changes that we made c:

 

When can we expect shadestepper to be nerfed even more? That seems to be the pattern here.

 

any thoughts on having chaos explosion not recast teleport?

 

For real though, can we stop adding more ability requirements and setup time to shadetepper? If you wanna get satsujin you're pretty much not allowed to take any non shade ability now. plus it just keeps getting longer and longer to setup a max damage shadestepper stab now, and the damage added by nightcloak hardly makes up for what was lost to the satsujin nerf. I like the new nightcloak ability, but please for the love of god change its activation method to not waste your vanish. The new dissolution ability also isn't really useful in the slightest, it should give resistance for a brief second when exiting vanish, not entering it.

 

1: why does lacerate lock out echo it prevents lot of Cool acrobat-trickter combos and I don't think combining those would be broken

2: I was curious how clones work with dancing blade

 

IMO, the archetypes are designed focused on doing continuous dmg with a pattern of spells. any mistake in the pattern will affect the combat so I think it just isn't bout flying but how well and long you can fly

 

so the setup is: smoke bomb on boss and minion (boss only if no minion) + vanish spin for nightcloak + smoke again + vanish backstab 90% chance your going to miss because your team is pullling greg away from you AND WHY IS IT SO HARD TO HIT GREG.

now this four step process doesnt seem like a lot for some people who just look at the words but it will take like 10 seconds+ to set it up and hit and my god you will only deal like 20% of the damage archer (idk if nerfed archer is this weak but im sure as hell it isnt) can do in that same amount of time.

and i think dissolution shouldnt give damage res but kb immunity and immunity from being knocked out of vanish for like 2 seconds instead of .5

 

Yeah the whole problem is it just takes like 10+ seconds to setup a single combo that can easily be messed up if even one thing goes wrong, and then all your damage is down the drain.

 

Hey, I'm alive!

The recoil is meant to fill the role of Arrow Storm's knockback pre-2.0. Arrow Storm was meant to be a quick damage burst that you couldn't use in quick succession because of the knockback, but this also meant that the spell just turned into more of a defensive tool than anything else, and there were also situations where you could corner enemies and then get way more value out of it than in normal combat by pushing them into a wall and using that to ignore the knockback. This also made Hawkeye super overcentralizing because it dealt severely less knockback (not to mention the damage and consistency benefits). Recoil wasn't my decision, but I think it's a much more consistent tradeoff that fills the same role of the old knockback, but way better. Arrow Storm no longer sends enemies flying away from you, there is no longer a huge disparity between attacking enemies with Arrow Storm against a wall vs an open area, and Hawkeye is still more consistent, but doesn't have the same feeling of necessity of use. It might not be tuned perfectly right now but I think this current design is way better than how Arrow Storm used to be.

Also, Elusive is a great option to ignore the recoil! This leads into a discussion about the weird design of Boltslinger's 7th page on the tree though, and the archer tree design as a whole, which... I think I have some work to do there still, haha

I assume you mean the change from 20 -> 100 max mana, and intelligence increasing your max mana as well as reducing spell costs? This is another change that wasn't solely my decision, but the main reason I prefer the new system (and a reason that I see as a massive benefit) is that intelligence sp always has a way more tangible effect now. With the old system, simply because of the low numbers and rounding, intelligence would only reduce spell costs at certain specific thresholds (68 int anyone?), but now it's much more smooth like the other four skill points are.

________________________________

I think there are a couple of reasons it might be designed this way.
-If the damage boost was tied to Luring, transferring the status with Hoodwink would also get rid of the boost (and potentially give that boost to enemies, though it could probably just be coded not to)
-Having the damage boost only be granted while in Smoke Bomb encourages the use of Smoke Bomb while clones are active to set up a larger area to play within while maintaining the boost
-Keeping the player restricted to a smaller area of play if they want to maintain the damage boost contributes to the risk-reward factor of Delirious Gas and Luring (if you want the damage boost from Delirious Gas, you have less room to maneuver while enemies are focused on specifically you because of Luring)

 

Could the dash stacking bug potentially be reworked to an ability with a cap (maybe 7 or so dashes)? Also why does teleport have a maximum of 6 blocks of vertical movement?

 

Half-Moon Swipe is meant to be a trade-off. Battle Monk has a lot of mobility and range, as well as Generalist to help keep spell costs low. It hits a lot, but each individual hit isn't as strong as some other archetypes' attacks. I think Half-Moon Swipe's design of -damage, -cost, +range, and +angle is very fitting for Battle Monk, and you can get the lost damage and more back by taking Axe Kick, though at a steeper mana cost. Generalist helps avoid that too though! There's always a balance discussion to be had, some people might dislike the trade-off and others might think the specific numbers make it not worth the damage loss, but I think the concept behind the ability is solid and honestly I think the numbers are in a decent place right now as well.

Manastorm on Riftwalker is meant to be hard to reach, and I personally think it makes sense that you'd have to skip a couple other key things to get such a powerful node from Arcanist. However, I think Manastorm's increased Arcanist ability requirement didn't account for how high of an opportunity cost skipping Thunderstorm was for Riftwalker at the time. Skipping Thunderstorm and unlocking Manastorm allows you to get Cheaper Meteor I and Stronger Meteor, but that trade-off might still be too large. I'm not going to guarantee or commit to anything here, but I think you have a point and this is something I should spend some more time looking into.

________________________________

You are 100% right! This is something I and many others on the team have thought for a while. Martyr is frankly horrendous and Paladin is one of the archetypes I plan on taking a closer look at for the next major ability tree patch. It's still early days and I can't promise anything, but for context, Martyr has been on my radar (and a list I have on my own personal discord server of things I wanted to address regarding the ability tree) since September 11th of last year. This is way before I was leading the ability tree balance myself, so... yeah, we know Martyr is bad lmao, the reason we haven't done anything to it yet is simply because we want to spend more time on Paladin overall and reworking/replacing Martyr would be a part of that larger plan.

 

I agree that Crepuscular Ray was both weak and antithetical to Sharpshooter's design. The change in 2.0.2 that allows you to choose to not use it helps with both of these factors a lot, however I haven't yet taken the time to think about the damage output of Crepuscular Ray itself. I think a lot of people still feel the ability is underwhelming as a whole and is mainly just a blockade for More Focus II, which is something I want to address in the future. It should definitely feel rewarding to use, and worth the loss of Focus, while also not always being the best option. Balancing abilities that cost a resource that provides a damage buff like this has been and will continue to be challenging, and I don't think Crepuscular Ray is quite where it should be yet (The same goes for other abilities of this sort, like Timelock, Nightcloak Knife, maybe Blood Sorrow too, etc).

________________________________

I think you both make great points about these respective archetypes, so I figured I'd just respond to both of these posts at the same time. Trapper and Ritualist are two of the archetypes that I think have the most issues now that Assassin is in a much better place, and they're both on my hitlist! I don't have a ton I can share yet about what I'm planning to do with these archetypes, just know that we're aware of their weaknesses and I want to elevate all the archetypes that are currently underwhelming as best as I can, just like I did for Assassin!

________________________________

This is definitely something I can't share yet, sorry x3

 

good sir why is it called nightcloak knife? its so hard to say easily because its "n" "c" and "n" again. why cant it be called nightcloak dagger? honestly it might just be me so whatever

 

What I always thought, and I know I've seen this idea pop up other places too, is that crep ray should just be either a massive deathray, or a high damage single snipe. Right now crep ray just feels like a boltslinger ability that got mixed up in the sharpshooter tree, and I personally feel like giving sharpshooter more single shot damage options would certainly help give it an identity it otherwise feels like it lacks.

 

Couple questions about trickster:

Does tricksters last laugh ability get nerfed by echo damage reduction.

Can sandbagging reduce the cooldown of hop.

 

After 2.0.2 out, i found a issue about Assassin, although it has buffed.

And it’s the archetype tree.

Absolutely, Assassin had huge buff and changes which really improved the game experience, and new abilities which are so great that i cannot stop using them, but I found the problem while making build.

Compared to 2.0.1 and before, Assassin now has less choices to combine the archetypes(The only playable I know is Trickster+Flow State, but it is just a normal Trickster with damage buff ), which i dont think it's a good phenomenon cause it will encourage people to play major archetype and throw away those combined playstyle, what i mean is not they cant not combine, but after combining they just not better than the major archetype(Also you have less AP to combine them after 2.0.2 if you wanna get strong abilities).
(Edit: Tricobat even became the meta... still, even i tried to combine other playstyle, Tricobat still stronger then any of them.
And yeah pls buff shade i love to hear nightcloak knife's multiple atk soundihgwuihwgewuhg)

So my question is, will this issue get improved in the future? i really liked to play marked trickster because it's fun and strong in 2.0.1, but now if i really want play it again it just getting worse.

The reason i propose this question is I think archetype tree is a thing that encourage you not only play the major but also combine them together, which I can enjoy a lot.

Thanks.

Edit:
Btw please fix the bug that Vanish's speed can't cover over Windy/Stromy Feet and can't keep Windy/Stromy Feet after leaving Vanish.

And makes them able to combine.

I don't understand why Arcane Speed can do this while Vanish can't since 2.0 came out.

Thanks.

 

• What is the 'best' overall archetype for warrior?

• What archetype should i use when using xp bonus weapon and armor combination in the level range of 70-105?

• What is the best archetype for the late game strong and independent warrior?

 

This thread is less for recommendations on what to use and more for people to ask about the logic behind certain effects on the ability tree or to provide feedback. Try asking in the discord, or putting these questions up in Class Builds(I'd answer anyways but it's late and I can't think of any answers offhand, especially since I apparently play super weird).

 

It's okay, thanks for advice.