Musketeer Class Changes

Suggestions
#1

As part of the raid patch we wanted to make some changes to the musketeer class. Our goal was to give the musketeer something more interactive to do during their down time between shots and while their orbs were on cooldown as well as providing a way for them to manage cooldowns a little more effectively for better burst in critical situations.

Our solution comes in the form of turret gizmos. Gizmos are small packages that spawn in a radius around an active turret every few seconds. Once the gizmos spawn the musketeer can collect them and toss them at their turret to upgrade it. After being upgraded for a 5th time (progress tracked by the class bar) the musketeer will have the cooldown for a subset of their orbs reset and and will gain a damage and healing boost for a short time afterwards.

Here’s a prototype video:

The orbs that will have their cooldowns reset are as follows:
Turret is in damage mode - Poison, Frost, Gravity, Impact
Turret is in healing mode - Shield, Renew, Cure Wounds, Decurse

In addition to this we will be making a few more changes to the class to increase its viability in the Reborn world.

  • Add a charged shot stun to the class (expect this to function similarly to the Scoundrel charged shot)
  • Buff potency of renew and cure wounds
  • Reduce the cooldown of cure wounds
  • Reduce the cooldown of decurse
  • Combine weakness and frost orbs into one orb that will significantly weaken and slow the opponent over a short time
  • Replace the current weakness orb with an Impact Orb that does damage to all enemies within its range. This can be used against a solo enemy for a larger amount of damage or that damage can be split among multiple enemies.
  • Lifewell will now be a permanent class ability and will be located on the player’s body instead of requiring an orb slot
  • The Total Recall talent will be made an innate class ability
    • Will be replaced with a shield orb related talent. Small healing along with shield as one choice, small AoE explosion on expiration as the other choice.
  • The Empowered Turret talent will be made an innate class ability
    • Will be replaced with a talent that moves the current default turret/orb interaction to the charged shot
9 Likes
#2

I want to say that weakness effect should be a separate icon or it will be useless. Because only 2 weaknesses can be stacked and for example 1 mage will occupy all weakness spots already. While the Bard dps boost is not affected by other classes rendering their boost useless. Just want to make sure this will be the case.

#3

The current weakness effect will be replaced by one that is unique to the musketeer and will stack with the others.

6 Likes
#4

Also I don’t think the Gizmos is a good solution for the musky play style. Walking around and grabbing and throwing doesn’t feel musky style. But I think active Musky users can have a better opinion about it.

(Actually it sounds more like a Shaman thing. You grab something, you throw something xD)

#5

Is the turret better throw-able now again too? :sweat_smile:

And lastly I want to stress that the musky dps boost vs Bard dps boost in total over a fight needs to be about equal. Otherwise for shards at-least the more expert view is always take a Bard for dps boosting.

1 Like
#6

Eehhhmmmm… seriously? When I see the clip, i dont even want to try that with my musky, i mean i have to look for the ppl who needs healing, need to look and time the orbs, need to look for green and purple balls flying through the air, and then I should jump and look around and grab thingys and throw them to my turret , in my imagination that’s (sorry) awful, maybe we need to try it but atm in fight?! Nahhh

7 Likes
#7

I’m with you on this.

The other changes look great and I’m excited for them, though! Especially moving lifewell to a separate slot and making some of the necessary talents an innate part of the class.

Will you be removing the gravity well interrupt or will that remain as well for a sort-of group interrupt?

#8

Yes the other changes needs to be tested but it looks great so far btw

#9

I don’t play musky much but just a short while ago a lot of healers were complaining that they did not have enough to do in fights. Also a few muskies were complaining that they did not feel impactful enough next to bards. So, if this all works the way the dev team wants it to work, it’s a positive change. DPS also need to dodge orbs and manage cooldowns.

Also, big fan of reducing the decurse cooldown, seems like that one has become super important as of late and facing down poison-floaters without a mage in the party is a pain.

2 Likes
#10

can ya give musketeers a week to practice with it before releasing raids? Otherwise we have musketeers in the raid who have to learn to play at the same time and its kinda crazy to do that.

5 Likes
#11

Otherwise people are just going to continue using bards until they are able to figure out musky, and since the point of these changes it to make musky more viable, letting us play test it for a while would be the best solution if possible

#12

also i think a good question is what exactly the devs are trying to change about musky.
Is the goal to make it heal more? if so then why? are raids gonna be tuned so that only muskies can main heal it?
Is the goal to make the musky have a DPS increase like bard? then are they both meant to be interchangeable with each other? or is one still supposed to be support while the other main heals?

1 Like
#13

I like the look of the changes however I’m concerned about the Gizmo thing, from the look of the video, you have to move a lot to get them, adding extra unnecessary movement can be deadly, also it says they spawn around the turret, there are a lot of times where you will leave the turret with either the tank or the group and you will run off with the opposite to heal them while the turret takes care of the counterpart

6 Likes
#14

Seems like they are buffing damage and heals from what I can see. However, I might still want a bard for that damage boost… unless the boss fight calls for a musky of course

#15

yea the only thing they actually mention as the goal is to add more interactivity, but then is this less of a balance change then a class rework? and then does that subsequent healing increase coming in for another not yet revealed reason(higher boss damage in raids) or is it just to give meaning to the interacting? as it is now the extra healing isnt needed in shards, so it must be one of those 2

and on balance with bard, is the damage increase supposed to be a direct match between bard and musky or is there going to be situations where tanks require musky over bard, making the damage loss worth it

#16

I guess we will have to see when we are able to play around with it

#17

I don’t usually post my opinions, and this change of musketeer is looking real good.

My only concern is exactly what Rick is saying… Sometimes in fights I’ll leave my turret with the DPS, stick with the tank and snipe DPs for extra support or vice versa. With this Gizmo/Turret it seems you’ll have to stick by your turret almost all the time to upgrade it for the cooldown and damage/healing boost.

To me this seems like to gain the most from it you’d have to stand midway between DPS and Tank to gain these benefits, with rangers added in to the group I’m pretty sure you won’t reach them with the distance they require when in combat.

The additional changes/rework to the orbs seem really promising and I for sure will be trialling them out. I’ve missed playing my Musketeer! <3

5 Likes
#18

what about instead of gizmos, you give them multiple turrets that do different things that they can have out at once in different sections of the battlefield?

3 Likes
#19

Or drop ‘gizmos’ that have some kind of pulse effect?

Currently, the turrets are single target, either heal or harm. If you have it drop some colored ‘gizmos’ that will push a pulse effect to nearby players or enemies, like:

  • Red - aoe damage burst to all enemies in turret range
  • Green - light poison to all enemies in turret range
  • Blue - healing pulses to everyone in turret range
    Etc.

Or to have a stronger empowerment:

  • Red - doubles range of turret for 15s
  • Green - doubles healing for 5s
  • Blue - applies shield effect to allies or weakness effect to enemies on hit for 10s

That way the loss of maneuverability and the added activities are balanced out with some more potential that isn’t just cooldown based?

2 Likes
#20

can you make it so that gizmos kinda float around the musketeer and can be picked from the air or something like that? Itll be RNG as to whether or not a musketeer has given gizmos available otherwise.

3 Likes