Serious discussion: viability of Amazing Reflexes in endgame raiding

firamas · 01-25-2008, 11:10 AM

So, there's a lot of uproar over the continued nerfing of AR. I want to present my opinion of this ability here and see what you guys think...

I very rarely rely on AR to stay in through AE's, I almost always joust. To reliably stay in you need to save up 4-6 combat arts and then drop them all in the 6 seconds prior to the AE. This relies on two things: that the person calling the AE's has a spot on ACT timer, and that reflexes will actually proc off those arts. If not, you will eat dirt (at least on most mobs). Additionally, the penalty for dying is NOT worth it. The mob triggers Bolster Confidence and heals 2% (unfortunate), your DPS is 0 while you get ressed, rebuffed, and sent back in (also unfortunate), you distract the people in your group to rebuff you (annoying), and your debuffs are all gone (could be a moderate to serious effect). Why? Because you relied on a low % proc to keep you in.

Oh, and by the way... you're losing a lot of DPS by saving CA's just to use before an AE... all the nice "+ability reuse time" items in game for casters and shit are laughable to me when you consider that brigands essentially have to self-impose a negative 20-80% reuse time on some of our CA's just to make AR work even halfway decently.

The exception to my use of AR is when the fight is reaching a point of critical instability and I need to stay in to keep debuffs up and intercede ready for the MT. At that point I just use whatever CA's I have up and pray to god that AR saves me. Sometimes it does, sometimes it screws me.

The ability as it is coded now is unreliable, and after LU42 it'll be even more so. Without a MASSIVE boost from some future effect (preferably from modifying our AA for it, or an effect attached to an item), I consider AR to be effectively useless on raids. If I can't rely on something to keep me alive through an AE with >98% effectiveness, it's not worth using in endgame raiding. Either massively increase the base duration of the proc, massively increase the proc chance, revert it to its original state (perhaps with a small, acceptable self-debuff like a snare or something like that), or GIVE US SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AS AN ANCIENT TEACHING.

Tell my why I have to sacrifice DPS by crippling the effective reuse time on my CA's just to stay in through an AE... to supposedly increase my DPS? That's straight retarded. With Tenure and our long natural duration on debuffs, there is virtually no argument for "maintaining debuffs" on the mob either. With the exception of our 10sec recast quick strike that debuffs haste (which is usually capped at -50% from a host of other classes debuffs anyway), jousting under most circumstances does not noticably impair my ability to keep a mob debuffed.

The ability as it stands now just feels worthless. Either give us something completely different, or make us believe that this is worth using.

Kicks · 01-25-2008, 11:24 AM

Though i think it's very annoying to have a buff nerfed again and again, the anounced nerf of AR does not really bother me.
After the first nerf AR was unreliable and I never made any experiments with safing up CA's to spam them just before an AoE goes off.
With the ridiculous lags german servers suffered from it was pointless and my raid leader would probably kicked me in the ass if I had told him why I was killed of an AE.
For me AR in its present and upcoming state is a bonus that I sometimes have when fighting Trash and everybody is stunned kicked whatever except for me. Helps to some dps when I'am not kicked etc.
That's all.

Camryn · 01-25-2008, 11:38 AM

If AR stays in the game, It really needs to be turned into a toggle-able buff.

AR was the FIRST AE avoid ability in the game, and now, a bunch of other classes get AE avoid abilities that are far superior because they aren't "chance" things.

IMO,
Change AR to a temp buff.
1 min recast.
10 sec duration.

And change the EoF Tree to increasing the duration by 1 sec for each point, for 15 seconds total.

Mathematically, that is "less AE avoid time" that the current AR. Yet, its actually dependable and not reliant on the fucking RNG.

So we can use it to avoid AEs on occassion, but will still have to joust out on others. Seems fair to me. And its single target, and not a group avoid, so it deserves a shorter reuse timer than other classes' avoid abilities.

Tholar · 01-25-2008, 11:43 AM

well AR is worthless, especially on those killer AE's like wingbeat, gotta joust that every single time, even now with proc increasers (sometimes i need to stay in for TS and just pray to god that safehouse wont trigger). but if avatars gonna have some CC dmg shield crap again, and then such hard AE's aswell... well then we are practically forced to joust every single time.

atm i think it is pretty worthless for endgame raiders. t1 to t3 mobs dont have any ae which hit hard as hell, and the vp ones can be jousted easily, but is that really the intent of AR? to joust AE's all the time? or just pray a lot so it procs in the right moment?

either we get something relyable (short term buff) or something new.

*edit* dont make it toogleable for god's sake, just a damn short term buff, also not only 10s duration, which is still too short duration for most ae calling (ae beeing late coz of cc effects from chanter on the mob or something else)...

Rhymez · 01-25-2008, 12:00 PM

I still dont understand the reasoning behind the nerf anyone ccan seriously tell me why the 5% proc increase fronm Luck of the Dirge for example made this ability so overpowered ?

and yeah seriously i WANT a complete new spell in exchange since a long time this skill truely sucks in a raid enviroment and i really hate stuff that is luck based

Paperclip · 01-25-2008, 12:36 PM

I wouldn't mind making it into a temp buff like some of you suggested. It would definitely be a reliable ability.

Nalvest · 01-25-2008, 12:47 PM

I have no idea why anyone believes AR is overpowered - especially the developers. It makes no sense to me.

I don't see the point of AR to non-raiders and hardcore raiders basically don't rely on it...

If a lot of jousting situations your dirge may end up too far out of range for LotD anyway and now you are back to your original proc rate...

I'm not sure why we have spawned another thread for the same discussions as the other one.. but basically it's a non-reliable ability - you can get a slight bonus from it but that's about it... Personally I'd rather another offensive debuff or something.. maybe reduce Double Attack rate

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firamas · 01-25-2008, 12:52 PM

I really like the proposal to change it into a 1 min recast, short term (10 sec) duration, personal AE avoid.

After the continued thrashings with the nerfbat, this ability is generally considered worthless by most brigands. Many other classes have been given some form of person or GROUP avoidance for AE's... why does ours (the original one), keep getting stomped on by the devs?

Rhymez · 01-25-2008, 01:40 PM

i think the bard self ae immunity spell is better and theirs is gained by AA

Lord Pantz · 01-25-2008, 02:36 PM

I joust maybe 5% of the time... maybe. And thats usually cuz safehouse is down... other wise I don't.

I rarely leave the mobs asshole. This change makes me joust a lot more and this saddens me.

I usually have a dirge or a templar or both.

important edit: mind you its not that i never have to joust because its always up, its up when i need it to be i make it happen because the way i have had my cas timed since the first nerf.