Runemage Triplicity Talent Rework

We will be rolling out a change to the Triplicity talent on Tues Oct 1st so we can gather information from the community ahead of the Oct 8th Shard dungeon level increase, as well as gather information to see how this revised talent will affect the overall class balancing before making the next phase of balancing through the other classes.

The way the revised talent will work will be on a diminishing returns system. With the revised talent any spell after the 5th will still do additional damage, but on a diminished scale. For mages who can cast spells at an increased rate during the triplictiy window there will still be a boost to damage, but this change will bring the talent more in line with the original intent allowing us to balance content without having to make the damage requirements too high for some and too low for others. This diminished returns will only apply to the second and third projectile damage not the original spells damage.

We are hoping this change will allow the veteran runemages to have an advantage when practicing and casting spells faster, but will also bring that advantage within a consistent range. We’ll be sharing specific details about the amount of reduction as they are finalized from testing closer to the patch date.

9 Likes

I’m very disappointed that you all chose to take the easy way out on this one.

You’re normalizing everyone who plays runemage because of ~4 people who can beat the top rangers in dps. Instead, you could’ve made changes like adding faster weak point spawns to reward rangers who can react quickly and accurately enough. You’re also making it near impossible to beat our pre-nerf dungeon/raid speedrun records, instead of improving the potential of ranger and thus encouraging us to get better new times.

I have a lot of technical issues with the implementation too, like what it sounds like it will do to make mage rotations far less important and more basic, but it depends on the implementation and I’ll wait until then.

8 Likes

I was also hoping the other classes would get some love and having more skill added to them, also disappointed to see this

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??? Logically speaking if a runemage with a good rotation does 13 casts in triplicity with a good rotation they can do 40k dps sustained. And a good ranger will pull about the same. Why is it 5 of all numbers?

I also agree that other classes should have seen more skill and reward…

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So I read through some of the original posts regarding this particular request and issue. At first, I was all about restructuring the mage to be more in line with the other classes. But after mulling it over and considering how I and how I know others play the game (not just those top tier mages) I feel that this was not the right solution to the issue at hand. I understand that the devs need consistent numbers to tune content, but I don’t think setting everyone to those numbers by force is the right answer. I think that ALL of the damage ‘caps’ in the game should be skill based as opposed to being restricted by the mechanics of the class (i.e. the precision timer).

I quite literally just had a fellow player tell me “Just another thing to hate. Makes less of a reason to try and practice casting”. It helped me affirm even more that I would much rather have to work my butt off and practice at a skill to achieve a high tier status over having those high tier folks brought down to me. It feels cheap to me, like cheating. If there is a wall preventing me from reaching my goal, shatter that wall, don’t bring my goal inside of it. That is the response of someone who is willing to settle for less, which I am not, and I know many of my fellow players are not either.

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Which is why this change comes together with the higher lvl shards. Makes perfect sense.

Long term upping all other classes skills is a good plan but short term this is actually the best thing they could have done. Because now out of nowhere the other talent Contanimation can maybe be a contender. This might make the class even more interesting because of the option now again…

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I don’t think this was a change to “nerf mages” but a change to nerve a talent that was out of proportion with the other talent. If only they would do that with other talents of other classes xD

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Many of the potential changes for other classes are very short term in scope and should take a similar amount of effort to implement.

Contamination is terrible in its basic design. Assume that you get the most of it and extend the duration of 3 afflictions on a target. You then don’t have to cast 1.5 afflictions as a reward for casting contamination. However, contamination costs 2 spells with 0 damage to cast. Furthermore, mages have to refresh afflictions early anyway to keep the weakness debuffs up. Contamination only has potential (maybe?) to work with true affliction, which was nerfed into obsolescence last time people hated on mages. Even if true affliction was viable again, contamination would barely be useful in spreading DOTs to trash because the non-elites would be dead before the afflictions wear off. It would only help by extending the fire/frost debuffs by a couple seconds each.

That talent is a fundamental part of the class. But it’s not so much as a “nerf” as a dumbing down of the basic mechanics of the class.

This whole change speaks of a shift in focus regarding class design to me. The devs are choosing to remove rewarding mechanics to make balancing easier and to narrow the distribution of damage. I’m much more worried about this than about basic class tuning and balancing. We have all proposed plenty of alternatives to give all the classes more depth, but that’s not what the team chose to focus on.

This change just makes me feel like my dedication and effort to mastering my class is going to be rendered worthless. Even though “veteran runemages will have an advantage when casting spells faster”, putting an artificial cap on the most rewarding class feels like disregarding that effort.

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If runemages werent top dps, and rangers were the top dps in this lets say universe, this is equilvent to having dimishing returns to consecutive critical spots hit. Meaning the more you hit without missing, you have dimishing returns.

I dont understand why the class needs a nerf when other classes have a much lower skill ceiling. Players want higher skill ceiling in return for higher dps.

If this is a temporary fix it sure sets a bad tone for a permanent one. If scoundrel was top dps in another universe the more times you get rank 5 curve, the less damage multiplier it gives.

Why punish players for putting in effort? Is this a tax bracket? The more we do the more we get taxed for it?

Please devs reconsider this option and think about revisiting other classes… Shaman needed a rework/buff and they got a slight one. Now look at ranger.

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“is this a tax bracket”

You capitalist mages, share the top 1% with we socialist scoundrels!

/s

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So with the upcoming new difficulty of shards and the runemage taxation (nerf), This means that there will be overall less dps. Two top tier runemages and the best ranger and a healer swap ranger got crypt 10 done in under 15minutes mind you just little under. Does this mean that the devs intend dungeons to be looked at to be reworked as well? Or will people be doomed once they get a crypt 10 knowing that they’ll only ever get a shard 11 or even back to shard 10? Also with hardmode raids, will bosses such as boss 1 shield need to be looked at to be lowered as well? What happens if that shard turns into a crypt 10 again?

Endgame will need to be looked at as well then the current content we have.

That’s the devs fault for waiting so long to do anything, and will only get worse if they waited longer

I’d like to re-emphasis this fact as well.

Not all classes should do the same dps under different skill levels.
If a ranger can pull 40-50k But the next ranger can only ever pull 30k, there shouldn’t be an equalization factor in place that makes the ranger that pulls 40-50k dps do less dps (via dimishing returns) so they’re more even with the 30k dps ranger.

All this means is that the 40-50k ranger is more skilled and practiced.
Now lets say the 30k ranger has lagg that doesn’t allow them to pull 40-50k but would if they wouldn’t lagg.

Remove the lagg.

Add skill into the game not remove reward for it.

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No one cares about beating them really, they are impossible for groups without mages anyway and the handful who did em are all in one guild, so…

There’s even now-patched “records” registered like Laughin Coffin doing all on normal then putting in a shard; I am glad the game moves on, steadily…

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Second fastest shard in the game is mageless :expressionless:

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Even more an argument that it does not matter if mages are nerfed or not; if that even is a real “nerf”, I mean, it’s not all about triplicity, or… (and tho I dont really wanna know how that shard was done)

Sorry, I for one like improving myself and even just beating my own times.

Then why is mage getting dumbed down? Though this shard is a unique case, because broken halls is full of non-elite packs that shaman AOEs can take care of just as quickly as we do. Though other dungeons have even larger packs, the elites slow down the shamans and the tanks.

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Does that mean I won’t be able to sit in Wastelands with my beer and watch Mages mow down multiple red mobs in quick fashion to fill their grinder? Always impressive how it takes them 5-10 mins max to fill the final ring!

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I also think triplicity might had too much of a reward for casting faster. It was a:

  • high damage boost
  • possible to charge on downtime bosses. Better pre charge then other classes by far.
  • how faster you cast how faster you get it again.
    And how faster you cast how more you make use of it those 8 seconds. So that is an exponential-ish dps increase instead of steady (we still have the start cast downtime and affliction downtime but that won’t stop the exponential increase to be honest)

And I think it is still very powerful with the change. Maybe need to be looked at for balancing if 5 spells might be too little or much.

1 Like