Server-Side Patch 4.79

Announcements
#1

There’s a new server-side patch going out this morning in around 30 minutes. In particular:

  • The looting system has been re-worked such that loot that is assigned to you (e.g. loot bags and Boss Chests) will now still be visible even after you log out and back in order leave the zone and return. This should hopefully make it easier for people to collect loot if they get disconnected for some reason.
  • Changed the way the stacking works on several of the new buffs for the talents. These talent buffs still won’t stack multiple times for the same player, but they can now stack up to 3 times for different players, to help alleviate any restrictions about group composition. This applies to the Warrior’s Bleed effect on Rage, and the Runemage’s Frost and Fire DoT effects from the Tormentor tree.
  • In addition, the Runemage’s Affliction DoT can now stack up to 3 times, either from the same or multiple Runemages.
  • The Ranger’s Overcharge was re-worked such that the base benefit of the 7% per globe boost is now applied to any special arrows that you are using before the globes are used up by the Overcharge shot.
  • In addition to that, the Ranger’s Poison arrow behavior has been standardized such that the number of globes that you have charged up when you originally fire the arrow determines the tick damage, rather than the number of globes that you have charged up when the arrow strikes the target.
  • A bug was discovered with the Runemage Ice Lance where it was sometimes striking the same target twice instead of once. This was happening with the base Ice Lance and also when the Ice Lance received its bonus damage when a Slow effect was on the target. This bug has been fixed, so Ice Lance will now only strike a target one time on each cast.
  • This puts us in a weird position because on the one hand, this was more damage than was originally intended for Ice Lance, but on the other hand it’s been a bug for so long that it’s pretty much baked into game at this point. Therefore, we have increased the base damage of Ice Lance as well as the bonus damage applied. So you will see larger numbers appearing for the Ice Lance casts, but this was not actually a buff to the real amount of damage that was being done previously.
  • The Musketeer’s Empowered Turret will now apply its own Poison effect to the target even if you have also applied Poison.

Thanks!

9 Likes
#2

All factored in together can you give a rough ballpark on the overall damage reduction we should expect when using ice lance against a single frosted target with these changes? (It’s always been really difficult to test Ice Lance due to the overlapping numbers bug on the floating combat text)

#3

It’s hard to know exactly due to the nature of the bug. It didn’t happen every time you used Ice Lance, but it did happen sometimes. I don’t know of anything that could cause it to happen every time, but who knows maybe someone had something figured out in that regard and just wasn’t sharing. If it was happening every time then it’s certainly a decrease, but I basically tuned it so that the damage is the same assuming it was happening about half the time.

Basically those of you who have been around since launch may remember that we originally nerfed Ice Lance quite a bit when the game first started because it was considered “OP”. At the time I was very confused by this because the numbers seemed to indicate it should be balanced, but in the end we decided just to err on the side of caution and reduce the damage on it.

At this point I’ve re-increased it back to where it was at launch. Which is where I think it pretty much always should have been. So I’m pretty comfortable with where it falls right now relative to the other spells on the Runemage, and now that we can actually rely on the math working out and not a random bug throwing it off, it’s where it should be.

2 Likes
#4

Nice work!
Thank you for the nearby, transparent support and open ears for the community!

2 Likes
#5

nice runemages are getting a poison arrow:)

Did you happen to fix the overlapping numbers with ice lance so we can see the dmg?

2 Likes
#6

Wanted to see the new values of ice lance… with my true affliction ability the frost debuff isn’t being placed on the target which means frost/ice lance combo doesn’t exist for me. If debuffs are meant to be combined then my debuff lasts an insignificant amount of time.

#7

Looking forward to testing Overcharge again. I was disappointed when my initial test showed Charge Pierce had less damage on Overcharge than it did with Globe Master. I’ll provide feedback here after some more testing tonight.

1 Like
#8

You’re saying using Frost with True Affliction active isn’t putting a Slow on the target anymore? If so that’s definitely a bug, but I didn’t mess with that so not sure what’s going on there.

#9

Johann will be sending a video here shortly with what we saw

#10

Okay I see the problem, I will fix that in just a moment.

#11

nothing is stacking, just the afflictions. And the frost and burn DoTs are over-riding each other. The DoTs also over-ride the frost debuff. I have a video if you want to see it. And if you have true affliction, the frost does not put the slow debuff on.

#12

There’s also a bug currently crashing the Wilds when tradable loot is dropped, I will fix that as well in about 5 minutes.

1 Like
#13

Okay, I believe the issue with the debuffs getting removed should be resolved, and the Wilds should stop crashing :slight_smile:

Thanks!

1 Like
#14

The base value of ice lance is lower than it used to be, so no longer are the stacks of damage occurring but it’s overall weaker. At the moment it’s proving better to cast 2 fireballs than frost/ice lance combo. The internal cooldown and reduced damage rough

#15

The base value of Ice Lance is now 2x what it was before…? Where are you getting the values that it’s weaker?

#16

I would do 6k dmg multiplied by how many times it hit its target as long as I had the frost debuff on. Now I’m getting 4k and 8k if it crits.

Just my personal values on the lvl 20 target dummy
I did see that the damage without the frost debuff was doubled. Just not the combo attack

#17

Well the base damage of Ice Lance is the damage it does without the Slow debuff on the target. And it’s definitely 2x what it was before today’s patch.

The buffed damage was also increased although not by double, as I said it’s now where it was originally.

It’s kind of hard to have this discussion without specifically knowing what you’re talking about when you say 6k daamage. Is that just the bonus damage? Are you adding together both of the numbers (the base and bonus number) that appear? And are you comparing that to all 4 numbers that would have appeared before when the bug happened or just the previous two numbers?

All I can say is that for sure the base damage on Ice Lance and the bonus damage were both increased, so unless you are comparing 2 damage amounts now, to 4 damage amounts before (which as I said, was the bug) then it should definitely be higher now.

#18

It looks like just one number. It’s near impossible to see what is going on b/c the numbers are overlapping.

1 Like
#19

Yeah I think there may be some confusion about how this all works and I’m sure the damage numbers overlapping doesn’t help.

There is a base damage amount of Ice Lance, and then if the target has a Slow effect applied there is a secondary damage bonus that is also applied (in addition to that base damage, not replacing it). So if you are comparing the “total” damage of a buffed Ice Lance blast, you have to add both numbers together.

Since I boosted both the base damage of the Ice Lance as well as the bonus damage, the total buff would only be seen by combining both numbers together.

Now as for when it’s best to use Ice Lance or not, I guess that depends on if you were basing your numbers previously on the damage that was showing up when the bug was present or not. I can tell you that the current balance is that a buffed Ice Lance blast does about as much total damage as a Fireball 3 spell. And that’s where we intend it to be approximately.

#20

The 6k value was the only one able to be read in the stack of numbers of ice lance w/ frost applied. Currently, with frost applied is hitting 3.7k (rounded up to 4K). I assumed on the description that without reduced multiplicities that the buffed ice lance would maybe be bumped up to 8k or so to compensate.
Ice lance with the delay and weaker value has made fireball 2 a better option and put a damper on my new tilesets.