Thread: Defiler Enhanced Blight skill OP? Working as Intended? Dev response?

Tonight I lead my first post ROI freep group and we encountered a group of 4-5 Defilers who had all bought the rank 10 Skill "Blight" as well as the skill "Enhanced Blight". What followed, in my opinion, is game breaking for group play in the ROI era.

This one skill completely neutralized all of our healers so much that I had them all go back and trait for damage as attempting to heal was useless. The base rank 10 skill, as you can see in the first picture, debuffs anyone within the cloud by -50% to incoming healing. As was the case with the weaver "Web the Earth" skill, the disease cloud is actually of a bigger diameter than the actual cloud appears by 3-4 meters.

These defilers had also bought the rank 15 enhanced version of the "Blight" skill as shown in the second picture. So in essence these defilers could almost spam this skill (30 second c/d) with only a 2.5 second induction and at a THIRTY METER RANGE.

Edits:
The main intended (I think anyway) component of the skill is that if you are hit with the disease cloud, a -75% healing debuff is placed on you. When you leave the clouded area (+the area still affected that you can't see), a moderate disease dot is placed on you. Fair enough, so you hit a disease pot right? As you can see the c/d is far less than the c/d for disease removal pots and in addition, the skill's duration is longer than the c/d when traited.

Now, when you leave the cloud and the dot is placed on you, if you then re-enter the clouded area ANOTHER debuff is placed on you and as far as I could tell the debuff could be applied up to three times on you by the same cloud. I believe this skill not only to be OP in it's current implentation but also NOT working as intended and as such would like a dev response to this issue. It's gamebreaking and should be looked into regardless of the dev response in my opinion.

Originally Posted by leekofthewood

The main intended (I think anyway) component of the skill is that if you are hit with the disease cloud, a disease dot begins to tick on you. When you leave the clouded area (+the area still affected that you can't see), a -75% healing debuff is placed on you.

The opposite. As long as you are standing in the pool, you get the -healing debuff. When you leave the pool, you get the DoT and the -healing debuff is removed. If you move in and out of the pool, the DoTs keep applying and stack on one another.

The DoT component of Blight also stacks to a max of 3 DoTs, no matter how many puddles there are.

Originally Posted by leekofthewood

Tonight I lead my first post ROI freep group and we encountered a group of 4-5 Defilers who had all bought the rank 10 Skill "Blight" as well as the skill "Enhanced Blight". What followed, in my opinion, is game breaking for group play in the ROI era.

This one skill completely neutralized all of our healers so much that I had them all go back and trait for damage as attempting to heal was useless. The base rank 10 skill, as you can see in the first picture, debuffs anyone within the cloud by -50% to incoming healing. As was the case with the weaver "Web the Earth" skill, the disease cloud is actually of a bigger diameter than the actual cloud appears by 3-4 meters.

These defilers had also bought the rank 15 enhanced version of the "Blight" skill as shown in the second picture. So in essence these defilers could almost spam this skill (30 second c/d) with only a 2.5 second induction and at a THIRTY METER RANGE.

The main intended (I think anyway) component of the skill is that if you are hit with the disease cloud, a disease dot begins to tick on you. When you leave the clouded area (+the area still affected that you can't see), a -75% healing debuff is placed on you. Fair enough, so you hit a disease pot right? As you can see the c/d is far less than the c/d for disease removal pots.

Now, when you leave the cloud and the -incoming healing debuff is placed on you, if you then re-enter the clouded area ANOTHER debuff is placed on you and as far as I could tell the debuff could be applied an unlimited number of times by the same cloud. I believe this skill not only to be OP in it's current implentation but also NOT working as intended and as such would like a dev response to this issue. It's gamebreaking and should be looked into regardless of the dev response in my opinion.

Wise man says: If you leave the puddle, the debuff goes away. The DOT effect is curable, and stacks only to 3x no matter how many puddles there are.

The puddle cannot be aimed at any spot, it must be placed on a target.

PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU DO AND WHERE YOU STAND (this applies also to in combat fire-traps and spider hatchling bombs once they are fixed)

Originally Posted by Sezneg

Wise man says: If you leave the puddle, the debuff goes away.

The other wise man says: If you knew where the puddles are, the debuffs might go away.

Originally Posted by Sezneg

Wise man says: If you leave the puddle, the debuff goes away.

^

And haha. Didn't take long for freeps to cry OP about blight. As the freeps on Brandywine LOVE to tell us BW creeps...


ADAPT!

It's your turn now

EDIT
Also, this is how it works.

When a freep is in the yellow puddle, the traited blight puts a -75% healing modifier or w/e, and once the freep leaves the puddle, she or he gets a DoT which can stack up to 3 times (No matter how many puddles are down) if the freep is dumb enough to run in and out of the blight. The DoT is curable as well.

Originally Posted by Prancey

^

And haha. Didn't take long for freeps to cry OP about blight. As the freeps on Brandywine LOVE to tell us BW creeps...


ADAPT!

It's your turn now

If you deem me to be crying then consider one thing. If this skill is indeed working as intended AND properly implemented then answer why Web the Earth was changed so players can see the skill's actual diameter.

-75% is really HUGE magnitude. You don't just give a skill with this much magnitude to a single creep. The only skill incoming healing debuff on freepside is from RK. Rest comes from moors armour for mini and burg. You have to get three classes to get a debuff of that size on creepside vs one class that can use store bought item to use it. Not to mention area effect vs limited target effect.

This is probably one of the best skill you can give to anyone really. The area is pretty huge and if you get rooted, knockedown, stunned, mezed in the debuff: you are dead before you get out of the pot animation.

Originally Posted by witchking782

-75% is really HUGE magnitude. You don't just give a skill with this much magnitude to a single creep. The only skill incoming healing debuff on freepside is from RK. Rest comes from moors armour for mini and burg. You have to get three classes to get a debuff of that size on creepside vs one class that can use store bought item to use it. Not to mention area effect vs limited target effect.

This is probably one of the best skill you can give to anyone really. The area is pretty huge and if you get rooted, knockedown, stunned, mezed in the debuff: you are dead before you get out of the pot animation.

The graphic is oblong, and there does appear to be a slight overlap on the "short" side of the ellipse where the debuff applies despite being visibly "off" the puddle. This should certainly be looked at for improvement the same way web the earth was (and tar SHOULD be still).

If you get CC'd in the puddle? Well captains can get a 2 minute bubble cooldown now... minstrels and RKs can both give temporary morale bubbles. An LM can keep you from getting stunned at all... and rooted? seriously? rooted? There IS no animation on the root pot for crying out loud, the damage itself will free you form that... ADAPT.

You do continue to overestimate the size of the puddle, and the ability of the defiler to control where it is placed (it centers on the defiler's target, if they are moving during that induction.... well good luck getting it placed where you want).

It IS extremely powerful for keep defense and fights against a lot of people in very tight spaces... two areas that creeps have been SEVERELY at a disadvantage since book 11 SOA... sounds like someone doesn't want to give up this advantage... Why, you who have been known to spend hours in a stacked AOE heavy freep ball sitting under the TA waterfall or up against the cliff behind TR AOE grinding creeps... I'm SHOCKED!

Originally Posted by leekofthewood

If you deem me to be crying then consider one thing. If this skill is indeed working as intended AND properly implemented then answer why Web the Earth was changed so players can see the skill's actual diameter.

It's already being worked on

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...pdated-9-28-11

Defiler: Graphical representation of the “Blight” skill does not match the size of the skill’s created hotspot.

But I suppose you also want the skill itself nerfed already? Just like the warg's rabid bite? Lol.

Time to think of a new strategy freeps. Freep balling won't work anymore =)

Originally Posted by Prancey

^

And haha. Didn't take long for freeps to cry OP about blight. As the freeps on Brandywine LOVE to tell us BW creeps...

LOL, I was wondering how long it would take too...

Originally Posted by witchking782

-75% is really HUGE magnitude. You don't just give a skill with this much magnitude to a single creep.

Totally...

Like chainable 70% snare on RK, or +75% inductions on burglar's legacy'd addle, or an AoE +50% inductions on LM traited frost lore, or even the LM's AoE -50-60% ranged damage, RK +100% power cost debuff, .... and so on....

Freeeeeeeeep goggles make me lol!

Originally Posted by witchking782

-75% is really HUGE magnitude. You don't just give a skill with this much magnitude to a single creep. The only skill incoming healing debuff on freepside is from RK. Rest comes from moors armour for mini and burg. You have to get three classes to get a debuff of that size on creepside vs one class that can use store bought item to use it. Not to mention area effect vs limited target effect.

This is probably one of the best skill you can give to anyone really. The area is pretty huge and if you get rooted, knockedown, stunned, mezed in the debuff: you are dead before you get out of the pot animation.

It is a very powerful skill, and I would say it's probably the most dangerous skill out there right now. Its current implementation is a variable length -75% AOE healing debuff plus a guaranteed high damage AOE dot (since even people staying in the pool get the dot when it disappears). To adapt to it freeps would have to switch to more open combat, spreading out a lot more and avoiding tight areas. Often, that's just not possible.

Realistically, given Turbine's history and their general attitude towards MP, I expect it will be nerfed quite quickly. As a creep I love it, but you can see what's coming. Hopefully while they're nerfing us back to oblivion they can get around to fixing all our bugs too :-)

The problem isn't freep balling, the problem is that the area is taking up too much room. You can't simply cut off rooms of the battlefield and simply state that if you come here you die. That is a horrible way of designing skills. There is no skill in the game that comes close to the magnitude of that SINGLE skill. It should be AoE but it should be for limited targets.

And honestly? farmed under waterfall? I'm sorry that vyxe likes to suicide into raids and just continue using rezes and Capt bubble isn't on 2 min cooldown its 5.

Atleast try to compare similar aspects instead of going to slows and inductions...

You guys do realize it takes the rank 15 trait for it the magnitude to increase from -50% to -75% and the duration from 15s (30s cd) to 45s duration.

Originally Posted by witchking782

The problem isn't freep balling, the problem is that the area is taking up too much room. You can't simply cut off rooms of the battlefield and simply state that if you come here you die. That is a horrible way of designing skills. There is no skill in the game that comes close to the magnitude of that SINGLE skill. It should be AoE but it should be for limited targets.

And honestly? farmed under waterfall? I'm sorry that vyxe likes to suicide into raids and just continue using rezes and Capt bubble isn't on 2 min cooldown its 5.

Atleast try to compare similar aspects instead of going to slows and inductions...

Like middle floor in TR/Lug or any small corridor where freep aoe tears creeps to shreds? This is the only thing to force them to MOVE, otherwise we have to deal with the invincible meatgrinder.

Edit - God help us if they zergball, sit on their ###, and pew pew/aoe anything in range. This is the only counter we have.

Oh noes creeps have a useful skill NERF THEM! Come back when all creeps have the same dps/cc/healing output as freeps and then your point might be valid.

Originally Posted by Moejo

Oh noes creeps have a useful skill NERF THEM! Come back when all creeps have the same dps/cc/healing output as freeps and then your point might be valid.

Then nobody would play because freeps would lose their easy-mode and creeps would lose their ability to be martyrs.

here's the deal, we creeps FINALLY have decent AoE skills. We can FINALLY disrupt freep balling. You freeps have always been able to disrupt creep balling, and have always had decent AoE. Now that we do, it's OP? Nope. It's evened up.

As the one guy said, ADAPT!

Think up new strategies as we creeps have had to do.

The skill is incredibly powerful, yes.

The only thing I don't like about it is how often it can be places, and its a game breaker to smaller groups trying to defend larger groups. There were 6 of us defending TR tonight against a group of 15+ creeps, 3 of them being defilers that had this skill. As we were backing into the keep blights were placed along the front corridor forcing us to run through 3 blights and get the 3 powerful DoTs with them...thats pretty huge right there, no way could our healer keep up with that stuff...

Don't mean to sound like i'm QQing, but it is an extremely powerful skill, and if used correctly will turn a fight into a creep favor very very quickly...

It's going to be interesting to see how it works out with RvR fights...lots of tricky maneuvering I imagine are coming to the freep future!

Originally Posted by Ursaking

here's the deal, we creeps FINALLY have decent AoE skills. We can FINALLY disrupt freep balling. You freeps have always been able to disrupt creep balling, and have always had decent AoE. Now that we do, it's OP? Nope. It's evened up.

As the one guy said, ADAPT!

Think up new strategies as we creeps have had to do.

Funny...I don't see a skill on freep side that forces creeps to ball up yet u want to force us to spread out? Creeps always have the advantage in the open ground while freeps had the advantage in keeps. Now you want to have advantage at every location of the battle field? Ya sounds like balance to me.


Bottom line there is not a single skill in game that can match up to that skill.

The one skill that somehow makes freep zerg ball touchable and people want it nerfed.

They better not nerf it, I paid money for this skill and trait.

Originally Posted by witchking782

Funny...I don't see a skill on freep side that forces creeps to ball up yet u want to force us to spread out? Creeps always have the advantage in the open ground while freeps had the advantage in keeps. Now you want to have advantage at every location of the battle field? Ya sounds like balance to me.


Bottom line there is not a single skill in game that can match up to that skill.

Actually freep AoE has always made creeps spread out. The problem you go into your IWin middle floor and tight spots to tar and nuke like creeps in seconds.

So many creeps die for every freep kill yet we persist and come back. Freeps now have the ooc res to deal with more deaths. Use it.

Its like asking for the troll to be nerfed because it aoes the hell out of you in tight spots. The puddle doesnt hurt you if you are not being hit, the dot it gives only stacks to three and can be cured and can also be mitigated against.

The number times we've had to concede ground to freeps bacause of the tar, and zerg ball.

I wonder how somebody can rank to R14 and have absolutly no idea of game mechanics

I like how this is game-breaking but not how OP certain things are about other classes...

Originally Posted by witchking782

Creeps always have the advantage in the open ground

If you truely think that blanket statement is true then you really gotta learn better tactics with various group compisitions.

The skill is fine imo.

I said in tribe vent last night that this skill wouldn't make it 4 weeks after the freep crying started. It's too effective at breaking up the ridiculous ezmode tactics that freeps have been doing for 4 years: stand in huge ball, mash AoE, everything dies. And we can't have that change now, can we?

Don't worry, poor freeps. I'm sure Turbine will nerf it into complete uselessness like they do with every other good skill we get, while giving freeps the same thing in the next update and making it 3 times as powerful.

I'd like to know if the -75% inc healing stacks with the -25% inc healing from a wargs critted maul. That would be truly awesome to be able to make a freep unhealable.

So many freeps QQing, get over yourselves. It's a legitimate skill that creeps get to break up the freep ball. Besides, the freep ball was always boring as hell to fight with.

Already on BW we have raid leaders telling us to fan out and adapt to the tactics, we've had some pretty freaking epic RVR in the past couple days with both sides getting roughly even kills! Though some fights the freeps did wipe the floor such as in LC and such.

As Prancey already stated,

ADAPT

And learn how fun RvR can be without the freep ball.

~Thrandurin R9 Hunter

The fact that so many creeps AND freeps saw the QQ coming should be a huge indicator to as whether this skill needs some adjustment.

I say let it go as is...the crying from creepside about OP freep skills over the last 4 years might lessen a bit and the zergball mentality freepsides might also lessen.

Pay2Win in PvP at its best!

Originally Posted by AroJay

Don't worry, poor freeps. I'm sure Turbine will nerf it into complete uselessness like they do with every other good skill we get, while giving freeps the same thing in the next update and making it 3 times as powerful.

this....

moarchars

Originally Posted by defrule

They better not nerf it, I paid money for this skill and trait.

They better give me a refund if they nerf it

It's an interesting skill.
It is really going to change the way Freeps raid up so freep balls will no longer be the be all and end all. Maybe Freeps will start deploying more melee trains.
Regardless, hidden range of the skill needs to be fixed or it'll make defilers invincible in 1v1s against melee/close ranged classes. I don't want to move 5 metres to the right of the pool yet somehow still get the DoT because it is bugged out in that aspect.

Originally Posted by witchking782

Funny...I don't see a skill on freep side that forces creeps to ball up yet u want to force us to spread out? Creeps always have the advantage in the open ground while freeps had the advantage in keeps. Now you want to have advantage at every location of the battle field? Ya sounds like balance to me.

We are FORCED to spread out by your overwhelming AOE superiority, always have been.

This puddle is only powerful against stacked foes. SPREAD OUT.

STOP JUST STANDING 24 PEOPLE IN ONE SPOT, HITTING AOE BUTTONS AND ACTUALLY USE TACTICS!

No matter which server I went to freeps always used the ball up + AOE technique. The last good raid leader I played under (Leon from E) recognized this, as he also leads raids on freepside, and would remind us constantly that if we (creeps) balled up we would be dead.

This skill will cause people to actually adapt tactics which is what has been needed for years. It is not even a new skill. I would like to remind freeps that if they don't keep running through puddles, they can cure their disease. If someone does it anyway, there is a class that can remove diseases (LM): At level 10 you can now train “Knowledge of Cures” – a skill that can be used in combat, cures up to 3 Disease effects and 3 Wound effects, and has a 10 second cooldown. If you have the 3-set bonus from The Keeper of Animals, the cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds. At level 62 you can train “Improved Knowledge of Cures” which eliminates the induction time from the skill.

And remember, this is only cast on one target every 30 seconds, so if everyone isn't balled up, and people have disease pots, LM's are doing their job and curing diseases, what is the problem?

I can see it.

The only way a creep raid is ever going to beat a geared up freep raid is by stacking Defilers. Blight + Stacking HoTs, the way to go. Defiler's might actually be on par with most of the freep classes now.

Btw I was kinda shocked someone even dared to call anything on Creepside OP. This deadly DoT you speak about... How much does it hit? 300-400? Did you check your own skills yet?

Oh and lol at the incorrect visual size of the puddle, anyone familiar with the skill Sticky Tar?

Originally Posted by Turukano

I can see it.

The only way a creep raid is ever going to beat a geared up freep raid is by stacking Defilers. Blight + Stacking HoTs, the way to go. Defiler's might actually be on par with most of the freep classes now.

Btw I was kinda shocked someone even dared to call anything on Creepside OP. This deadly DoT you speak about... How much does it hit? 300-400? Did you check your own skills yet?

Oh and lol at the incorrect visual size of the puddle, anyone familiar with the skill Sticky Tar?

Difference is that the Defiler Skill is much more powerful than the LM Slow.
You accidently walk into the LM Puddle, you walk out with no lasting effects, walk into the Defiler puddle, walk out with quite a big DoT. I hope they will fix that though, I believe it's in the known bug's section.

Originally Posted by defrule

The one skill that somehow makes freep zerg ball touchable and people want it nerfed.

They better not nerf it, I paid money for this skill and trait.

Well it is your decision to spend money on anything in this game. That does not mean the "subject to change" does not apply to you.

We had quite a few of the puddles yesterday. While it is the most dangerous creep skill ever to be implemented, a correct placing seems to either be very hard or the defilers were just too stupid. If played right and put into the freeps tar you can easily wipe out a freep raid.Still it seems to take a lot of coordination to get it right. The cooldown might be a bit on the short side.

Originally Posted by Sezneg

STOP JUST STANDING 24 PEOPLE IN ONE SPOT, HITTING AOE BUTTONS AND ACTUALLY USE TACTICS!

I find this comment particularly hypocritcal. To say "spread out" and stop mashing buttons to win on one hand to freeps then stick up for players on your own side who are going to "smash buttons" to win is the very definition.

It's more than clear to me now than ever that certain people are more interested in getting the other side back than they are having balanced pvp and quite frankly this suprises me. Some of you veteran creeps out there who've seen the moors for years know full well how unbalancing this skill is and yet you are sticking up for it. THIS MAKES ME LAUGH!

So many have cried "QQ more" and "adapt" here when honestly not one of you has any basis to do so. People have complained about things far less than this skill over the years so I feel zero regret over pointing out exactly how powerful and game breaking this skill can be. Make no mistake about it, this is THE most powerful single skill the moors has ever seen on either side.

Take a long hard look at the skill and think of all the other skills out there that have been complained about.

-Sticky tar has been complained about yet it slows you when you walk through it. No comparison.

-Sticky Gourde has been complained about yet it only hits an area with a decent initial damage and decent dot. You can always move out of it and the affect is GONE. There's no residual lingering effect attached to it as Blight has.

-Web the earth has been complained about yet it's only a slow and is removed after a few seconds after leaving the area.

-Fire trap has been complained about yet when you move out of it the effect is gone without residual effect as well.

Those are just a few skills that could be compared to Blight but PALE in comparison to this skill's effects in a HUGE way. HUGE.

Some of you think that I should take off my "Freep Goggles" yet I had veteran creeps in my raid, some who had been creeps since SOA beta who all agreed this skill is OP.

Yes, I'm saying this skill needs to be nerfed and it needs to be HEAVILY nerfed immediately.

It's really not a suprise that there's a flaw present with this skill because none of us have seen it before until now. So a few people went and spent ~10 dollars in the store to get a skill that has really never been thouroughly tested. On the flip side, I spent almost the same amount of money over the weekend to get one legacy on one of my weapons from tier 3 to tier 6.

Simply put, the developers didn't think this one through. To my knowledge there are no rank 15 defilers on any servers US or otherwise, let alone a single creep group where 4-5 players all had the skill. So there's been no testing because rank 15 for a class that was introduced far later than all the others seemed a long way down the road. In today's moors it's not down the road, it's in our faces and I'm saying nerf it.

Originally Posted by VincentVanPort

Well it is your decision to spend money on anything in this game. That does not mean the "subject to change" does not apply to you.

We had quite a few of the puddles yesterday. While it is the most dangerous creep skill ever to be implemented, a correct placing seems to either be very hard or the defilers were just too stupid. If played right and put into the freeps tar you can easily wipe out a freep raid.Still it seems to take a lot of coordination to get it right. The cooldown might be a bit on the short side.

The puddle itself cannot be placed where you want it, it can only be placed on a target.

So to get a puddle on top of the tar, they need to be targeting someone standing on the tar.

Of course, if you insist on standing a bunch of people in one small area this update you are going to get blown up horribly lol.

Some freeps seemed to be scared of this skill that is very easy to counter