Thread: The Post-RoI Champ's Questions and Clarifications Thread

Originally Posted by Wilkens

I'm gonna double check tonight, if its off my guess is another one of the recurring issues I've had with the bard in Galtrev (but those don't really belong to this thread ).

Okay Vigour of Champions issues, went and played with it a bit so here goes:

Untraited you get 40 power per tick regardless of your power level (40 per tick at 2153 power, 40 per tick at 1957 power)

Traited you get 79 power per tick regardless of your power level (79 per tick at 2153 and at 1957)

The problem is that the tooltip states: "Your second wind skill now restores 2% of your max power every 2 seconds for 10 seconds."

ScreenShot00028 by cmdrwilkens, on Flickr

Now 79 is 2% of 3950 so clearly the tooltip is wrong. The problem is it appears the skill is giving those values (40 and 79) for every champ regardless of power level. So if the intention was to make Vigour of Champions return power based on a percentage then it isn't working, if the intention was to make it a default doubling of 2nd wind then the tooltip is wrong. Basically this is an either/or/both situation. Either the skill is not-WAI OR the tooltip is wrong OR Both are not correct but regardless something is definitely up with Vigour of Champions.

Excellent. I'll add this on my next round. Good find!

Sorry to keep harping about it, but I'm still really curious about the absence of the pip-return in Fervour on Merciful Strike. The dev diary explained that not only would Fervour Merc. Strike be more powerful than in other stances and do damage-per-pip, but that it would also return 3 pips one second after skill use. It doesn't appear to do this at all, though. Is this WAI? Does it return pips for anyone else?

Originally Posted by Gylve

Sorry to keep harping about it, but I'm still really curious about the absence of the pip-return in Fervour on Merciful Strike. The dev diary explained that not only would Fervour Merc. Strike be more powerful than in other stances and do damage-per-pip, but that it would also return 3 pips one second after skill use. It doesn't appear to do this at all, though. Is this WAI? Does it return pips for anyone else?

I think you're referring to an older diary. As it is now, Merciful Strike in Fervour consumes whatever pips you have, and returns none in Fervour. Its damage scales with the amount of pips it consumes. It works like it used to in the other stances. It is WAI, although a few people have pointed out that the damage doesn't scale all that well beyond 2 pips.

I've noticed that Sudden Defense seems to have the same "issue" as Merciful Strike. It returns less and less to the morale shield per pip of fervour. While it does increase from 1 to 5, it doesn't seem to be all that much different from 1 fervour to 5 fervour. Unfortunately, I really don't know a way to figure the exact changes per fervour, especially since the tool type does not update depending on the fervour in your pool (see what merciful strike does) even though it TELLS you that it increases, it does not update the amount. some clarification would be great if i have some of these things wrong, it's just what i've observed.

Originally Posted by Jamers

I think you're referring to an older diary. As it is now, Merciful Strike in Fervour consumes whatever pips you have, and returns none in Fervour. Its damage scales with the amount of pips it consumes. It works like it used to in the other stances. It is WAI, although a few people have pointed out that the damage doesn't scale all that well beyond 2 pips.

Nyet, the Dev Diary for RoI Orion stated

Originally Posted by Orion

Merciful Strike: While in Fervour stance, Merciful Strike will now consume all fervour the Champion has, dealing an increased amount of damage for each pip of fervour consumed. After 1 second, 3 fervour will be restored to the Champion. This turns Merciful strike into an effective finishing skill. The damage is not so high that it outweighs other marquee skills and the power consumption is still pretty high, but this feels more like a real finisher than it has in the past.

In the Patch Notes Merciful Strikes is referenced twice:

There was an issue with the Champion's Power Mod for strike skills where it was not applying to “Merciful Strike.” This has been fixed.

Trait: Bountiful Mercy will now increase the health threshold for the use of “Merciful Strike” to 50% health. This skill is being watched closely because of the significant and spammy damage that it can apply.

In the Patch 1 Patch Notes it is only referenced once:

Bountiful Mercy will now bestow and advance when using Merciful strike regardless of stance.

So basically YES there is reason to question whether Merciful Strikes is in fact WAI. The last definitive word we had was "returns 3 fervour" and "skill is being watched for spammy damage." So while there may be reason to suppose it is WAI there should be some sort of confirmation that the fervour pip return was in fact eliminated. Conversely this may in fact be an error where it is not WAI since the stated last stated intention was still for the skill to return fervour pips.

Ah, my mistake then.

Another couple issues for True Heroics:

1) In no stance it provides no bubble, not sure if this is WAI or not but its odd that the bubble would require a stance.

2) When in no stance and using True Heroics the heal on it states
"Exalted Combatant applied a heal to Cedrowald restoring 393 points to Power."

ScreenShot00033 by cmdrwilkens, on Flickr

Originally Posted by Wilkens

2) When in no stance and using True Heroics the heal on it states
"Exalted Combatant applied a heal to Cedrowald restoring 393 points to Power."

I have noticed this as well

Originally Posted by ShadowTH

I've noticed that Sudden Defense seems to have the same "issue" as Merciful Strike. It returns less and less to the morale shield per pip of fervour. While it does increase from 1 to 5, it doesn't seem to be all that much different from 1 fervour to 5 fervour. Unfortunately, I really don't know a way to figure the exact changes per fervour, especially since the tool type does not update depending on the fervour in your pool (see what merciful strike does) even though it TELLS you that it increases, it does not update the amount. some clarification would be great if i have some of these things wrong, it's just what i've observed.

Sudden defence adds a base amount to the morale shield regardless of fervour pips. Fervour pips only build off of that base by a certain amount per pip. So in an emergency, you can hit sudden defence at 1 pip and possibly be just fine, but hitting it at 5 won't yield 5x the morale, it'll yield the (base amount) + 5*(increment amount). This is actually to our advantage.

Tossed a round of updates. Added four items.

Hooray and stuff. Quite a few here now, hopefully a Dev somewhere is keeping notes at the very least even if they're not replying.

If you have anything to add, drop a note for us!

Originally Posted by Feybobiam

Tossed a round of updates. Added four items.

Hooray and stuff. Quite a few here now, hopefully a Dev somewhere is keeping notes at the very least even if they're not replying.

If you have anything to add, drop a note for us!

Not sure if you noticed or wanted to include but the bit above where True Heroics in no stance has its heal recorded as coming from "Exalted Combatant" as well as not granting a bubble at all in no stance. Again I'm not sure if the later part is WAI but the heal coming from exalted combatant rather than true heroics seems to indicate a combat logging error at the least.

It does that in all the stances, or at least some of them. I'd like to do a bit more investigation as to WHY the user is getting ANY power from the skill at all. It's supposed to give power to people around you, not to yourself. It COSTS power.

Originally Posted by Wilkens

1) In no stance it provides no bubble, not sure if this is WAI or not but its odd that the bubble would require a stance.

As the bubble is a variable linked to stance, same as the other stance-based benefits of the skill, then it's definitely WAI for it not to provide a bubble outside of stance. A problem exists however, when you switch stances (particularly to glory I've noticed) wherein using true heroics within 3-5 seconds of switching will cause it to perform as though you weren't in any stance. Could be a hidden balancing act, and a somewhat appropriate one at that...

Added the bit about TH restoring power to the Champ. I also edited the 'missed crit' from ISB as well, as my experiences regarding it have changed somewhat.

What I'd like to do is find out if the Glory/Ardour versions affect fellowship members AS WELL as mob targets, since it's a max of 20 targets. If it doesn't, I'd like to find out if the mobs get POWER as well as the fellowship. The skill has some weird 'affects fellowship' and 'affects enemies' effects going on at the same time, it seems like. If anyone can confirm before I can, by all means, let us know!

Originally Posted by Feybobiam

It does that in all the stances, or at least some of them. I'd like to do a bit more investigation as to WHY the user is getting ANY power from the skill at all. It's supposed to give power to people around you, not to yourself. It COSTS power.

Oh it still costs power. I didn't post the SS but (and this was in no stance but I believe it applies to all stances) the power cost is ~725 while it returns ~350-400. Even at the top tier of return its still ~325 net power used so I'm not worried about the power cost so much as the oddball that the power "heal" portion is listed as coming from Exalted Combatant.

Originally Posted by MaroonDragoon

As the bubble is a variable linked to stance, same as the other stance-based benefits of the skill, then it's definitely WAI for it not to provide a bubble outside of stance. A problem exists however, when you switch stances (particularly to glory I've noticed) wherein using true heroics within 3-5 seconds of switching will cause it to perform as though you weren't in any stance. Could be a hidden balancing act, and a somewhat appropriate one at that...

The bubble is only partially stance dependant. Ardour and Fervour share the same bubble size while Glory has a larger one (by ~1500 morale). Given the situation it seems to me that the bubble should be a baseline effect that is improved in Glory stance. However it could be WAI so I just would like to know for sure.

Added the bit about Reprisal's tooltip not explaining the pip-gen and a note about Swift to Anger's Red Haze in Ardour not giving pips over time, potentially making it less effective than if you didn't have it equipped.

That CBR is able to kill you now is intended and it's not a bug.

There is a major change here and that change is to the capstone. Continuous Blood Rage now costs 10% of your Morale to enable. You will no longer suffer a 90% penalty to incoming healing. Instead, the taxing nature of the ability places a DoT on the caster that becomes more potent as the damage increases. This damage starts out low and increases by 20% for every 2% of bonus damage earned through the skill.Being low on morale will not disable the effect. Use at your own risk.

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdia...diary-?start=4

It may or may not be WAI. Certainly its clear from the Dev Diary that it was intended to be potentially lethal but I'm not certain that it was intended to be lethal if kept on OOC. There is also this from the patch notes:

Skill: Continuous Blood Rage: Was dealing too much damage to the Champion. We have made adjustments to the damage dealt by the skill. These numbers may not yet be final, but they are far more friendly to the Champion now.

It certainly seems that there have been, and may still need to be, some adjustments to the numbers. The DOT continuing regardless of morale level and the 10% requirement to kick start should mean it is potentially lethal but I can't imagine that the intention of the skill would be for a 100% morale champ to kick off the skill and die while OOC.

Originally Posted by Feybobiam

• Why was Deathstorm renamed? It makes many of us sad. It's a tiny thing but was very awesome regardless, and having it changed to 'Improved Great Cleave' just felt like an emasculation, and more importantly completely unnecessary. If this is not going to be changed, can we have an explanation as to why, and if it may be changed, what can we offer feedback on to clear things up?

Because we were confused, when great cleave went into DEATHSTORM. We all ran around like headless chickens, because we didn't know were our GREAT cleave went! And what was this DEATHSTORM skill? ###, I ain't kno no nothing about a Deathstorm skill!

Looks like a couple things are gonna be addressed in U5:

Bullroarer patch notes

Improved Great Cleave will now reset AoE skills when it is activated.
True Heroics should now apply all of the beneficial effects when it is activated regardless of an enemy being affected or not.
Champions can no longer use Merciful Strike without a cooldown when four deep in The Berserker Trait line and not in Fervour stance.

Most of the rest of the fixes seem to be tooltip or descriptive issues that were not directly referenced in the OP listing.

Originally Posted by Traur

Can someone post what a leveled 75 rune gives in terms of inc healing and the common dps legacies? I found that a level 72 rune provided quite a bit less inc healing than my old 65 2nd ager.

I cannot say that I have a leveled 3A 75 rune but I do have one slotted and it appears that the Incoming Heal caps out the same on all 3A, 2A and 1A runes regardless of their level: 3A at 1440, 2A at 1720 and 1A at 1920... and the legacies seems to have the same max numbers across the board, which is why I went ahead and bought a 1A level 60 rune because technically the only disadvantage to it is not being able to use better crafted relics in it. In return for that I get a higher inc healing and also 2 more "above the line" legacies that a 75 third age is just not gonna give me. It seems that there is basically no reason to be gung ho about replacing any 1A class slots you might have, at least not on a champ where it doesn't really do anything for you DPS wise... so save those Worn Symbols for your weapon, or other toons...

Another thing I was thinking about: if you have either bubble up, if you activate the other bubble, you get nothing from it. I feel like either the bubbles should stack or, if that would be too powerful, you should maybe get some sort of error message rather than blowing both cooldowns.

Another issue regarding Second Wind that I haven't seen mentioned yet:
Before ROI this was a defeat event (and rarely needed) so I am unsure if this is a change, or simply unobserved because of the difference in use: when Second Wind is activated, it interrupts ranged auto-attacks and causes the champion to draw his/her melee weapons. Since it is not an attack skill and is not tied to a range, it seems like it should not change the champion's weapon. Is this (part of the skill -- the animation and weapon change) working as it was pre-ROI? Is the attack-interruption and change in weapon under post-ROI working as intended?

How does one gain access to Swift Blade?

The tooltip doesn't say anything, which is confusing, but you get Swift Blade by traiting Swift to Anger. This turns Swift Strike into Swift Blade, which is just the same except it's a 90-degree frontal AoE that does the normal SS damage with the same power cost, speed, cooldown, etc. It works in any stance, though, so I use it in my 4r/3y Fervour build as a co-pip-builder with Blade Wall on multi-mob pulls and switch to Wild Attack/Blade Wall for single target. Unfortunately, just as how Swift Strike doesn't benefit from the strikes power reduction legacy or other things things that benefit strike skills, Swift Blade doesn't benefit from legacies or anything else that would affect blade skills. The only thing that affects it is the specific SS/SB power cost legacy on runes.

Originally Posted by Gylve

The tooltip doesn't say anything, which is confusing, but you get Swift Blade by traiting Swift to Anger. This turns Swift Strike into Swift Blade, which is just the same except it's a 90-degree frontal AoE that does the normal SS damage with the same power cost, speed, cooldown, etc. It works in any stance, though, so I use it in my 4r/3y Fervour build as a co-pip-builder with Blade Wall on multi-mob pulls and switch to Wild Attack/Blade Wall for single target. Unfortunately, just as how Swift Strike doesn't benefit from the strikes power reduction legacy or other things things that benefit strike skills, Swift Blade doesn't benefit from legacies or anything else that would affect blade skills. The only thing that affects it is the specific SS/SB power cost legacy on runes.

Strike Skill Power Reduction does effect Swift Strike, it costs 218 power with my Rune unequiped, 124 equiped. that is a 43% reduction, 30% from Swift Strike legacy, 10% from Strike Skill and 3% from the above the line bonus.

Firs toff, Arkham City and Skyrim were stealing my soul. Updating this thread now.

Originally Posted by bibby042

Another issue regarding Second Wind that I haven't seen mentioned yet:
Before ROI this was a defeat event (and rarely needed) so I am unsure if this is a change, or simply unobserved because of the difference in use: when Second Wind is activated, it interrupts ranged auto-attacks and causes the champion to draw his/her melee weapons. Since it is not an attack skill and is not tied to a range, it seems like it should not change the champion's weapon. Is this (part of the skill -- the animation and weapon change) working as it was pre-ROI? Is the attack-interruption and change in weapon under post-ROI working as intended?

This is purely cosmetic. Autoattacks are designed to fit in underneath skill play. Think of it as skills being the roads in your cities and autoattacks being the sewer lines. The sewer lines run independent of the traffic on the road above. Second Wind will 'sheathe' your bow, but you'll go right back to shooting as soon as you normally should be able to. There are options to tweak how those are displayed to you in Combat Options, the two at the very bottom.

Originally Posted by Gylve

The tooltip doesn't say anything, which is confusing, but you get Swift Blade by traiting Swift to Anger. This turns Swift Strike into Swift Blade, which is just the same except it's a 90-degree frontal AoE that does the normal SS damage with the same power cost, speed, cooldown, etc. It works in any stance, though, so I use it in my 4r/3y Fervour build as a co-pip-builder with Blade Wall on multi-mob pulls and switch to Wild Attack/Blade Wall for single target. Unfortunately, just as how Swift Strike doesn't benefit from the strikes power reduction legacy or other things things that benefit strike skills, Swift Blade doesn't benefit from legacies or anything else that would affect blade skills. The only thing that affects it is the specific SS/SB power cost legacy on runes.

Originally Posted by MikeA

Strike Skill Power Reduction does effect Swift Strike, it costs 218 power with my Rune unequiped, 124 equiped. that is a 43% reduction, 30% from Swift Strike legacy, 10% from Strike Skill and 3% from the above the line bonus.

Like Tara points out, it actually does benefit from the legacies and power costs and stuff. But it does NOT benefit from Deadly Strikes, Vicious Strikes or Deep Strikes, which is kinda weird.

Originally Posted by batttje

That CBR is able to kill you now is intended and it's not a bug.
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdia...diary-?start=4

Good enough for me. I'll update it.

Originally Posted by Wilkens

Looks like a couple things are gonna be addressed in U5:

Bullroarer patch notes

I'll toss what fixes are in that that are on my list. Good stuff.

EDIT: Stuff is fixed. Answered are in green, unanswered are in yellow.

Thanks for staying on top of this Fey

the tooltip for ardour doesnt include the information about extra damage % when 4 deep (the effect is there but imo the tooltip should tell it as well, not just the traitline)

So the tooltip for Vigour of Champions is STILL somewhat deceitful. It adds 39 to your power per tick regen (going from 40 per tick to 79 per tick) regardless of your power pool.

I know part of the plan for VoC was to have it add power based on the default pool but its pretty clear that this is not the mechanic in the game and the tooltip should reflect that the added power per tick is NOT in any way reflected from your base power pool.

This thread is two months old and there are still way more unanswered concerns than those that have been addressed. A dev really needs to take a pass at some of this. Even an honest "we'll look into it when we have time but we're focusing on polishing the new content atm" would be a appreciated a lot more than silence.

Originally Posted by Feybobiam

[*]Sudden Defense activates the bubble at the end of the animation - this can cause deaths, since while the skill is Immediate, you do not receive the protection from it until a half-second later, which can be enough to kill you, especially if you're tanking (it's happened to me once or twice). In addition to deaths, you can hit the skill and get stunned during the animation, lose the cooldown and the pips, and get no bubble from it. On the other hand, True Heroics does not share this problem.

There was a workaround for this, you could skip the animation by double clicking the skill, however with Update 5, the double click no longer works for any class (I know Reavers and Burgs used the same trick), is that the way the skills are intended or just a bug?

Originally Posted by Kyalwen

There was a workaround for this, you could skip the animation by double clicking the skill, however with Update 5, the double click no longer works for any class (I know Reavers and Burgs used the same trick), is that the way the skills are intended or just a bug?

Some of the skills, when the fix came, had their effects placed before the animation and some had it placed after.

My thinking, until I hear/see otherwise from Turbine, is that it was a bug/exploit that they just recently removed.

But, like I've said in other threads, there's no evidence on Turbine's side either way so we'll probably just have to wait for all the Reavers to start their QQ after being stunned a few times and not receiving their "Charge!" benefits.

Originally Posted by Kyalwen

There was a workaround for this, you could skip the animation by double clicking the skill, however with Update 5, the double click no longer works for any class (I know Reavers and Burgs used the same trick), is that the way the skills are intended or just a bug?

An skill like Sudden Defense that is hit dozens of times in a serious tanking situation should not require a 'workaround' something that is dangerous. It should start from the beginning of the animation, as soon as you hit it. Period. It's 'Immediate' for a reason.

Completely agree. The workaround i use to get the bubble instantly is now hitting Sudden Defence, then Hedge. Afaik you need an attackable target for this to work, but you don't have to be facing your target or in melee range range with it.

If Hedge works, I'm sure Frenzy would as well.

Yup, it does. But it doesnt if it's on CD (which in my case is 90% of the time).

Originally Posted by Kristianur

Yup, it does. But it doesnt if it's on CD (which in my case is 90% of the time).

Same for me with hedge, as long as there's at least one reaver around.

did some testing tonight and I'm just using clobber to skip the animation now, I already have it bound to a thumb button for Brutal Strikes so it makes things real fast again