Guide (Wynncraft 2.1 Beta) Ability Tree Changelog Commentary

Hello again! Something I decided to try for this update was releasing a version of the changelog with comments on the changes I made, to give some insight into my design philosophy and hopefully help players understand why I make the changes I do. It's a little late, but I've finished my commentary now, so feel free to take a look if you're interested!
Ability Tree Changelog (with Commentary)
If you just want a clean view of the changelog without my yapping, you can read it here.

As usual, I'm taking feedback and willing to answer any questions players have.

 

big huge ginormous

 

Thank you Xavier, very cool!

 

Literally giving explanatory content that I actually benefit hugely from, thank you AGAIN, it seems.

 

YOOOOOOOOO WHAAAAATTTTTTTTT

 

Why do you say that base Arrow Shield has been weak for a very long time? It has traditionally been an exceptional support tool for the class, pretty much entirely negating all forms of melee damage from non-CCI enemies so long as you can cast the spell. Guardian Angels damage has not been particularly high since early days of 2.0, and so pretty much all non-Boltslinger players will opt for normal Arrow Shield as it provides way more survivability. Expanding it to now also give an incredibly high-uptime 20% resistance, when archer also received a base resistance buff the previous update, and with Sharpshooter and Trapper being generally pretty survivable archetypes as is, does not make a lot of sense. Arrow Shield isn't the only "forgotten" fourth spell either, with base Ice Snake and Uproot being arguably much worse, and War Scream being even more of a "cast once and forget about it" spell. Obviously, all those spells can now get much stronger or serve different purposes via choices in the ability tree now, so I think it would be more logical if this was something you had to unlock on either the Sharpshooter or Trapper side, rather than apart of the base spell.

I don't understand the notion that Bomb Arrow has become the "everything" spell for archer whatsoever; this was something that you could validly argue prior to Spellbound, but with the way the class is now, I think it's impossible for it to be the "everything" spell due to Boltslinger and Trapper inherently entirely focusing on either buffing up Arrow Storm or Bomb Arrow respectively, and Sharpshooter having their usage split essentially 50/50. You even explained in a previous thread of mine, that the purpose of creating Coursing Restraints was explicitly to incentivize using Bomb Arrow on Sharpshooter even more. I still don't understand why Bomb Arrow has to keep its self damage, as it remains the sole base spell in the entire game to come with an inherent negative downside, which is completely unnecessary.

Blood Sorrow no longer restricting other spells is good, but increasing the amount of blood needed to cast it seems pointless. The problem is that Acolyte has no ways to gain blood outside of totem health siphoning, meaning that you constantly have to either cast Aura to self sustain, or rely on other outside forms of healing and refrain from casting Aura while you siphon your health, which leads to lots of damage downtime. This makes it very difficult/impossible to actually build up enough blood pool for Blood Sorrow whilst in combat, and so you can only really ever get enough either by going out of your way to use Furious Effigy, or just having a filled blood pool prior to entering combat. This could be solved by either reworking the ability entirely or adding more to Acolyte as a whole to gain blood, but as is, it seems unnecessary to increase the cost of Blood Sorrow.

There are other things I find questionable, like doubling down on wanting Trapper to become a "chaotic" and uncontrollable archetype, which I don't think makes for well designed gameplay, but would have to test playing them with the new changes to truly form an opinion. Overall, I am happy that the absurd damage creep from 2.0 has been somewhat tamed, but there are still plenty of other design problems in many of the classes that I worry will continue to go unaddressed.

 

banger post

 

SIIIICK!!!!

 

music man made a video about silly superpowers lets go

 

okay i ignored this for a while so i guess now i'm gonna give feedback
here we go:
(wall of text alert, subway surfers maybe required)

A question about the Sacred Surge changes:
It says that now it uses Sacred Surge by spell cast and not by enemies.
Does this mean that all hit enemies get hit by a Sacred Surge?
Or does it mean that it chooses a random enemy like before, except instead you just lower Paladin's ability to hit the things you are trying to kill?

Arrow Shield changes, my take:
Arrow Shield is not a weak spell. People don't forget about it. Like others have said before me, its utility function is very high and prevents basically all melee attacks. Additionally, in Trapper it serves the role of summoning the most useful summon: The Hound. Sharpshooter and Trapper don't want to be as close as Boltslinger, so them having a knockback ability makes sense. (Recoil doesn't make sense, but whatever.) Boltslinger sacrificing all of that for more hits also makes sense. But giving Arrow Shield Mantle of the Bovemist capabilities doesn't really make sense. Not every class needs a way to lessen damage. Archer is generally high mobility, high damage, and high range, so if ranged mobs are giving you a hard time, you just take them out or avoid the attacks. This solution is to a problem that when it exists (which is isn't often) shouldn't be fixed. Archer's whole thing is being the high range, high mobility glass cannon.
However, this doesn't mean I don't appreciate the trapper changes. I hope that one day we will live in a world where Boltslinger, Trapper, and Sharpshooter are equally used (pipe dream).

Arrow Bomb changes, my take:
We don't need to nerf Arrow Bomb, in all cases Arrow Bomb is not by choice unless it's Trapper (the archetype most in need of a buff). Playing Boltslinger? You want to use Arrow Storm because all of Boltslinger's buffs are for Arrow Storm. The only reason I cast Arrow Bomb at all in Boltslinger is to avoid infinitely stacking spell costs and because you have to wait for Arrow Storm to finish. Playing Sharpshooter? You want to cast Phantom Ray a few times before even considering Arrow Bomb (It has Coursing Restraints, which is nice, but Decimator and Focus both benefit frequent Phantom Rays a lot more.) Trapper is the only Archetype where Arrow Bomb is frequently used, BUT! YOU ARE LITERALLY TRYING TO HIT THE GROUND AND THEREFORE NEVER TRIGGER HEART SHATTER! Additionally, Arrow Storm is already used by Trappers because of Bryophyte Roots and Ivyroot Mamba anyway.

I don't have any major issues with Mage. (woo-hoo)

Blade Fury Change Questions:
Does this mean there is more distance between you and held mobs, or am I not getting it

Shadestepper change, my take:
Shadow Siphon is a step in the right direction, but it's not nearly enough. I think that Shadestepper's mechanics should become similar to pre 2.0 (no Vanish cooldown, mana drain while vanished (encourages strategic vanishing), and 1 second of damage boost instead of one attack(encourages more interesting gameplay while keeping current gameplay intact)) or we need to implement abilities to replace Silent Killer entirely so that Vanish cooldown isn't more than one second. However, I am a fan of Nightcloak Knife buff and Marked application buff and if that buff means more cursed Acrostepper then I'm all for it.

Acolyte changes, my take:
Blood Sorrow not locking out your kit is great, but I feel that increasing the requirement will end up with more players not being able to cast aura. The constant -hp + no aura allowed is going to be brutal for what is already the glassiest archetype of the glassiest class.

I don't think buffing Twisted Tether will fix the ability, but okay.


Chant of the Fanatic changes, my take:
Personally, I just unlocked Chant, but it feels meh. It's useful in a situation where you emergency change from Lunatic to Fanatic, but I don't think that decreasing the duration is the right thing to do because it's already got a cooldown (unlike Chant of the Coward). You have to keep in mind that any time this ability triggers, the player was just in a situation where they in a lot of danger and reducing the duration may stop it from actually doing anything. However, I could be wrong on this, but here's how I would approach nerfing it:
Cooldown: +2s
Duration to Allies: -1s
That way, it triggers less often while keeping its strength, and makes it less powerful for others. Ritualist should have a few ally buffs, but they shouldn't be as powerful as Acolyte or Summoner.



What I like:
Fallen Changes - They look nice.

Sacred Surge Changes (maybe) - Only if it empowers the spell instead of doing the janky smite-the-one-enemy-you-don't-care-about.

+ Traps Spread Across Tree - This will make leveling a trapper a lot more dynamic and will make the power gain from levels much more tangible.

Freezing Sigil - Thank you! Thank you so much! There is now an actual reason to use ice snake for Lightbender, as well as the thematic double with Burning Sigil and it literally freezes your allies in place (ish), this is going to be amazing.

Sunflare (ish) - So I found the description on WynnBuilder, but I'm not very pleased with the absurd health healing requirement. While the actual contents of the ability itself are Very Cool, I don't think that requiring 250% of your max health to be healed is Very Cool. The problem is inherent to the system, rather than the number, it's just easier to ignore the system with Lightweaver and Fortitude. The thing is, it encourages using having a low health which means glassy healer. The smaller your health is, the smaller 1% of your max health is. The problem then stems from requiring Lament if you want a shot at actually healing your orbs and allies with a low max HP.

Increased Arcbender Synergy with Freezing Sigil - I'm always excited when there are new pathways connecting Arcbender.

Wind Slash + Arcanist - Cool all around! Riftwalker's teleport never being applicable to Arcanist never really made sense to me.

Nerfing Thunderstorm + Arcanist while buffing Arcanist - Arcanist's gameplay relying on a single Riftwalker ability was weird to begin with. I'm happy that it's gone (and that Ice Snake Arcanist keeps getting buffed)

Windsweeper Cooldown Changes (ish) - This will benefit higher attack speeds while leaving slower ones in the dust, I understand this change needed to be made for Trance to have a chance at 100 winded on enemies but I would rather have melee be more interesting. (Both other archetypes have melee abilities that are interesting.) To me, this looks like shortening an essential but boring aspect of the archetype's gameplay so that people don't complain about it as much.

Blade Fury Changes (maybe) - If it means I will never be meleed again by a Heart of Darkness, Titanium R4T, or Mechorrupter of Worlds.

Trickster Dynamic Damage - Bamboozle Buff. Yay.

Frog Dance Buff - Totemless Haul yay. (and Coward Mask damage) Does this mean that it doesn't go toward totem when you have totem active? Or does it still default to your totem but it's successful even if you don't have one?

Blood Sorrow No Longer Locks Everything - Usable now.


Request: Add this as a forums emoji:

 

From what I can tell, it not only allows you to hit multiple mobs at once but also allows you to retrigger it multiple times on the same enemy through abilities like quad Bash and Fireworks, which is a w

 

I wanted to say this, I posted it on my status, but your changes to warrior are large part of why I'm enjoying the beta, specifically to fallen.

I've been of the opinion that warrior has had alot of issues since 2.0, but they largely aren't strength related, monk is really good and paladin, if nothing else, can stay alive. No, largely my issues with warrior have been the feel of the base spells, a large inability to muilticlass, and what felt like an insane need to take at least some monk spells for it to be playable.

Alot of the changes you made not only make fallen feel far better, but also make the base class feel alot better and address alot of those issues head on.

Plus, I like having blood pact on my regen warrior, it's just kinda fun.

 

On Discord people were complaining about Battle Monk being nerfed too much and Paladin being outclassed by healers. Fallen was fine though.

 

Can some explain how multihit and to some degree blood sorrow fit into acrobat and acolyte’s kits?

From my experience trying to wrap my head around both abilities for a while, they just seemed like two high-risk meager-reward suicide buttons

Exp: Multihit drags mobs with me while im moving around: if that’s a mob with fair melee range or god-forbid a ranged mob, I’m eating a lot of health that is already a nightmare to get back.

Exp: When you talked to me about blood sorrow acting like insurance for my blood pool.. I was pretty underwhelmed, considering that it was the final node in the acolyte tree yet it didn’t do much.. not even doing what it was supposed to do well enough from my tests. On paper, it gives a lot of extra health that can be converted into blood pool but in practice where there’s mobs posing a challenge, that health gets taken away in just 1-2 hits while you’re down 70 points of blood. When you outta spend health to get health.. that leaves acolyte a sitting, fleeing duck in scenarios where it matters most.

Both archetypes were tested on witness church, with builds with higher than average bulk:


https://hppeng-wynn.github.io/build...1G1J161J1g000010009I0V0z0E0705030-1Tl7sgOlTU1
WynnBuilder build:
> Morph-Stardust
> Far Cosmos
> Demon Tide
> Curador Boots
> Agave
> Moon Pool Circlet
> Succession
> Contrast
> The Specialist [w6w6]
> (Has Tomes)

https://hppeng-wynn.github.io/build...60j010-1R1g00001007lU0V0z0709070F0-1TjdtsHuRt
WynnBuilder build:
> Ornate Shadow Cowl
> Wanderlust
> Dark Shroud
> Revenant
> Dispersion
> Impudent
> Vortex Bracer
> Contrast
> Panic Zealot [a6a6a6]
> (Has Tomes)

Ignore the -sp, wynnbuilder 2.1 is screwing with the build a little bit. Additionally, prior to lunatic I was testing with fanatic and also noticed that blood is harder to come by under lunatic even though I’d say that I was dodging attacks decently..


Aside from this concern list, I really am appreciative of the breakdown for the changes made. It makes understanding where you are coming from a bit easier, if that makes sense.

 

I agree that despite the massive change of Blood Sorrow no longer blocking aura/main attacks, it's massive blood pool cost tends to paralyze the player for a while especially with how little it leaves the player with. Like Nip Nop mentioned, it's already pretty hard to get a lot of blood pool unless you're using Absolution, and once you get enough blood for blood sorrow, using it just brings you back to square one. It's damage was considerable, sure, but combined with it getting nerfed and the blood cost being increased, I don't think blood sorrow is worth using than just using aura which has a more consistent output.

 

A bit disapointed that Paladin got no substantial changes, while the change to sacred surge is nice, that was basically a bug fix.

Meanwhile the class continues to see almost no use and its full of many issues.

Where are they other ways to support our allies?

Where are the benefits in the tree to justify using items that make you slow and do no damage? (In a tank role)

Why is the ultimate skill of the Paladin only usable when the user dies, not only being completly useless for people playing on their own, but thematically innapropriate since if your tank died it means all the others teamates are already dead.

Mythil Skin also ends up being a very weak skill, considering who many mobs can ignore the anti knockback effect and how a few points in DEF (I think 8?) already give you the same EHP bonus as the 5% base resistance.

Why is Raganarok a Fallen Skill when it would fit thematically better as another support tool to Paladin.

Why Radiance is weak and easily acesssable to other classes as it is.

I enjoy playing Paladin, but after using bmonk I can't help but feel utterly underpowered. I hope we get signficant changes in the future because currently its easily the worst class.

 

Totally agree.

Warrior and Assassin got hit hard by 2.0 and haven't recovered - Fallen and acrobat are great, but the other two archetypes of each class feel underwhelming or bad or unfun (Paladin/Shadestepper).

 

I wouldn't call Bmonk underwhelming (at least not before the nerfs), but from what I heard Shadestepper is also in a very bad spot rn.

 

this is very much the case, unfortunately. Shadestepper is just full of problems, such as: Backstab doesn't work consistently (enemies literally turn their head to avoid it) and can't even hit TCC or The Eye, no matter how thematically cool it is. Vanish Cooldown, well, it causes problems such as: extended vulnerability, literally nothing to do except cast smoke bombs, and feeling powerless compared to other archetypes who just zoom in (like bmonk). Marked Application is getting a buff, but it's still slow and you have to use Nightcloak Knife, which consumes all your marks, or it won't be worth going for Satsujin. Many people (such as myself) want Shadestepper to function much more like pre-2.0 Assassin, but that has yet to happen. I clump Shadestepper, Riftwalker, and Paladin into collective last place, though I think Paladin (despite its many, numerous flaws) is the best simply because there is stuff to do besides melee stuff and dying because of the Vanish Cooldown. With Sacred Surge, there is at least some decision making and skill involved. (okay not really.). Shadestepper is conceptually the best out of all of these, however it needs a big course correction.

 

You actually can; I’ve tested with Shadow siphon and it does work. The catch is that you need to stand inside the eye and face the arena