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Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: February 9th, 2016, 7:46 pm
by Quintessence
**NEW** (April 20, 2016): Additional pet tuning changes proposed. See the blue post here.
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A blue has posted on the official WoW Pet Battle forums about potential changes to a few Pet Battle mechanics in Legion.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20742234402

If you have any constructive feedback, please post in that thread! *pokes our resident pet-theorycrafters* ;)

Update: Yay EU-player love!
Paladance wrote:EDIT -- Now we have a sticky on EU forums aswell. Thanks Aerythlea! ♥

Feedback moved to EU forums:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/17610461417

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: February 9th, 2016, 9:17 pm
by Vakeetah
I think they may be overdoing it with the cooldown on [ability]Sleeping Gas[/ability] and [ability]Frog Kiss[/ability]. Chain stuns are terrible for the game (nothing on [ability]Screeching Gears[/ability], by the way?) but the 1 round cooldown on abilities that deal very low damage and must be spammed to become even decent fillers is a terrible change.

I think they should just add extra logic to CC effects so that they don't refresh themselves, or alternatively, spawn Resilience straight away, but without removing the present effects, just preventing application of new ones.

The only use-case where this would be a nerf (other than the target one) would be if you somehow chained different CC abilities, such as a [ability]Geyser[/ability] going off, then using [ability]Clobber[/ability], but I don't think anyone does that so it has minimal impact.
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Still need to evaluate the impact of the Undead racial. It's not a bad course of action, but I'm concerned about it still benefitting slow and powerful Undeads, over providing some benefit to Speed.
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As for [ability]Cleave[/ability]... bad change, imo. In AoE situations, it does more damage than things like [ability]Tidal Wave[/ability] (Base power 7, x3 = 21)- but the problem isn't so much that it's spammable AoE, the problem is it has that same base power of 24 on single target (so a tad above the standard 20 for spammable damage skills) and is also far more powerful than AoE on 2 targets, all while being smart damage (that in turn favors a dumb user :lol:)

I'd say the best course of action would be nerfing its base power to 18, and leaving it without cooldown. It'd become much weaker (despite what it may seem at first glance) and also be behind specialized AoE/single target moves. Essentially becoming a reasonable filler move, but not a go-to ability to kill everything.

On that same note, [ability]Dreadful Breath[/ability] also has a split-AoE effect with 21 Power, up to 26.25 during [ability]Cleansing Rain[/ability]. I don't know if that's fine due to being a channeled effect, or if they are just addressing [ability]Cleave[/ability] to explicitly nerf [pet]Weebomination[/pet]... My personal opinion is that a [pet]Scourged Whelpling[/pet] spamming [ability]Dreadful Breath[/ability] is about as bad as a [pet]Weebomination[/pet] spamming [ability]Cleave[/ability], but whatever.

Overall, given that [pet]Weebomination[/pet] is the only [ability]Cleave[/ability] user, the cooldown would just constantly force it into lockdown (in an even worse way than [ability]Bone Serpent[/ability]). The suggested damage reduction would allow it to keep going, while also making [ability]Diseased Bite[/ability] an alternative for the filler slot.
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The underlying core issue is, if anything, AoE in general and split-AoE in particular, and I don't think cooldowns will help that much on either front. Rather much make all AoE attacks work like [ability]Arcane Explosion[/ability], i.e. abilities dealing their damage to the primary pet, and reduced damage to the backline (which is a cheap tactic anyway, they nerfed [ability]Pheromones[/ability] for a reason...). Generally speaking, the active pet should be the one dishing and taking the damage. Adding some damage reduction to backline pets (to shield them from AoE) would be a quick shortcut, but it'd kill DoTs in the process - so they need to address AoE directly.

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: February 9th, 2016, 10:36 pm
by Drudatz
Vakeetah wrote:I think they may be overdoing it with the cooldown on [ability]Sleeping Gas[/ability] and [ability]Frog Kiss[/ability].
Sorry on the contrary I find this to be a VERY decent change. FINALLY no MORE chain stun....
(I personally have never been stuned so much by [ability]Screeching Gears[/ability], as I have by [ability]Frog Kiss[/ability] and [ability]Sleeping Gas[/ability] but Im only 40k pvp games down the road plus its been used less than the other two ofc)

Overall good to see that they FINALLY nerv AOE so we can hope to see some NEW game combos in Legion cause these days its all about AOE and its boooooooooooooooring.

And a HUGE huuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy on finally getting the looooooooooooooooooooong awaited GRAVES nern!

PS: Id love to comment in the blue thread but a) Im not in Alpha b) even then I couldnt try it out as you dont get your pets from live into alpha.

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: February 10th, 2016, 4:35 am
by Bloodykins
Taken directly from Blue:

Overall, this constitutes a triple nerf to Graves.

So explain to me why Blizz released this ridiculously OP pet, so OP that it requires a triple nerf to bring it back into line?

Yep, very salty about the Graves situation. I am glad that Blizz are taking concrete steps to address this.

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: February 10th, 2016, 9:20 am
by Paladance
EDIT -- Now we have a sticky on EU forums aswell. Thanks Aerythlea! ♥

Feedback moved to EU forums:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 7?page=1#3
Overall, this constitutes a triple nerf to Graves.
I don't want to be smarter than a blue, but even quadruple, sort of. :)

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: February 10th, 2016, 3:59 pm
by Vakeetah
Drudatz wrote:
Vakeetah wrote:I think they may be overdoing it with the cooldown on [ability]Sleeping Gas[/ability] and [ability]Frog Kiss[/ability].
Sorry on the contrary I find this to be a VERY decent change. FINALLY no MORE chain stun....
(I personally have never been stuned so much by [ability]Screeching Gears[/ability], as I have by [ability]Frog Kiss[/ability] and [ability]Sleeping Gas[/ability] but Im only 40k pvp games down the road plus its been used less than the other two ofc)
Continue reading beyond the first line, please... Can't blame you, I know I rambled too much, but still :p

I DO agree with chain stuns being a massive problem, or chain-CC in general; and THAT is what they should address. A cooldown on those abilities just makes them flat out unusable, as they cooldown-lock the users (or in a best-case scenario, force a tight rotation, which again is unusable in PvP). It's a lazy approach to avoid tackling the issue, and we'll probably end up getting other chain-CC pets down the line, either by an oversight, or fully intending to power creep. They need to stop chain CC completely, present and future, not just slap a cooldown on two abilities... :roll:

It really is as simple as preventing CC from refreshing itself and/or triggering Resilience on CC application instead of expiration.

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: February 10th, 2016, 4:05 pm
by Paladance
Hi o/

Will you address that someone you-know-where, as they seem like a troll to me and I'm not the best at these deals? :p

Anyway, not for them, but for the other curious: the dragonkin racial is just technically broken, and mechanics are mechanics, they do always need taking care :p
but seriously, it wasn't a problem only because devs quite a carefully kept matching abilities to them.
I bet that if there was a dragonkin with Cleave-like ability, even Graves would look like a peaceful angel. 8-)

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: February 10th, 2016, 4:42 pm
by Noxiish
Bloodykins wrote:Taken directly from Blue:

Overall, this constitutes a triple nerf to Graves.

So explain to me why Blizz released this ridiculously OP pet, so OP that it requires a triple nerf to bring it back into line?
This. So much this. Graves has been such a negative impact on pet PvP in WoD, wish they had recognized it sooner.

The forum is actually pretty interesting to read. Some of the more in depth mechanics people are bringing up, I never would have considered.

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: February 10th, 2016, 6:19 pm
by Drudatz
Vakeetah wrote:Continue reading beyond the first line, please... Can't blame you, I know I rambled too much, but still :p
I did and I still think its a GOOD choice to set these two on a 1 round cooldown.
Yes, thats the easy way out and you might call Blizzard lazy for that but that has ALLWAYS been the route they take with pet battle: back in the beginning we had the FFF 1.0, nubs cried, it got nerfed. Now we have the Iron Starlette with the excact same ability and noone is cryin....

Fact is people will allways outsmart people and come up with stuff Blizzard didnt "expected".... and Blizzard will just slap a bandaid on the next problem again cause its cheaper.

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: February 11th, 2016, 5:32 am
by Paladance
@Quintessence -- Nice to be quoted, but my link refers to my personal post. You may modify the link to show the initial post. :)

@Vakeetah, I've read your answer, but can't address them now. I change ISP a lot over a day (I'm not even @ home now) and battle.net wouldn't like it. :P
While an enriched discussion is fine, especially while there are so few volunteers, I guess that we'd just talk to each other directly instead. I'll be waiting for you ingame in evening! :D

(EDIT: Nooo! (11:30 pm UTC+1))

About the "C'mon, it's Blizz". I was quite passive like that in the past. One day I addressed one of the least liked features of WoD, wanting to make it more useful that it looks like and telling things similar to "you can't fight it, follow it".
I was downvoted to the hell and beneath. :D
Now I'll admit that it's worth to try to get rid of the passive attitude! Look what a WoD hype and following appreciation have done.

They're giving a hand to us. Let's answer to it. :)

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: April 20th, 2016, 3:30 pm
by Quintessence
This is an older thread, but there are additional updates to the tuning coming in Legion that could use some discussion/feedback.

New: Cleave damage reduced (removed cooldown on it), and nerfs to Howl-Bomb. See the official blue post here (US; hopefully EU has its own official thread).
Hi all, thanks for all of the feedback both here and on the pet battle forum.

We have a few updates to share, feedback is welcome!

Cleave damage reduced by 25% (no longer has a 1 round cooldown).
Dev note: We heard your concerns about adding a cooldown to cleave and agreed that this felt like a better solution.

Shell Armor duration reduced from 3 rounds to 2.
Dev note: Shell armor was very powerful compared to other flat damage reduction abilities, this should bring it more in line with them.

The damage bonus from Howl now only affects one attack.
Pandaren Water Spirit's Whirlpool and Geyser now share the same ability slot.
Dev note: This is our first iteration at disarming the Howl Bomb strategy in PvE, which has proven to be very powerful in too many situations. The goal is to make PvE battles more interesting and encourage the use of a wide variety of pets.

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: April 20th, 2016, 4:13 pm
by Paladance
Thank you, Quintessence.

A bit tired now so it's not definitive.
  • [ability]Cleave[/ability]: Probably fine.
  • [ability]Shell Armor[/ability]: The shield reduction was more expected because of the cooldown and a [ability]Trihorn Shield[/ability]. But I won't be picky.
  • [ability]Howl[/ability]: Seems too forced to me. As far as I know the related debuff is identical with the stampede ones, what means that they'll have to create a separate one or strange things would happen during each swarm. Not to mention the DoTs that would break the point.
    The thing is that a mere fragility debuff isn't the only reason for performing howlbombs -- it's also an additive character of the debuffs rather that the multiplicative, what causes the elite status of BoF or TToT not working as intended. I won't ask for the whole system change, because you know, too late and harder to calculate, but I want to point out the direction.
  • PWS: Why not? But only if the original Spirit we have to fight has another ability aswell! ;)
And there is my hunter who tends to run the dark and gloomy Unborn Marionette (D&D not always required) for laughs while can't look on the Chromipups any longer. Though the elemental damage can be sometimes nasty.

Edit: a typo :)

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: April 21st, 2016, 3:28 am
by Milotha
I don't think howl is the problem. It was howl in combination with Pandaren Water Spirit and Chrominius (or other pets with his ability). Once again they had a problem and then solved it by overnerfing with a double nerf. They should have just changed the Water Spirit. If they nerf howl then they need to buff the damage on the howl pets or reduce the cooldown on howl.

I am glad I already farmed my Celestial Tournament wins and my Tanaan pets, as it was originally hard to beat with the limited number of leveled pets I had back then.

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: April 21st, 2016, 8:20 am
by Paladance
Milotha wrote:I don't think howl is the problem. It was howl in combination with Pandaren Water Spirit and Chrominius (or other pets with his ability). Once again they had a problem and then solved it by overnerfing with a double nerf. They should have just changed the Water Spirit. If they nerf howl then they need to buff the damage on the howl pets or reduce the cooldown on howl.
I agree that the ability swap would be enough. I suspect that (in general) it's easier for the testers to check several changes at once instead of one after another. What doesn't have to mean that this particular n-bat won't be tempting to some restrictive developers. :v

Nerf the nerfs!

Europe blue post.

No more Howl Bomb in Legion?

Posted: April 22nd, 2016, 11:10 am
by Riddley
How do folks feel about Howl Bomb being nudged out?

In the "Blue Posts" section here:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/563 ... o-BlizzCon
  • The damage bonus from Howl now only affects one attack.
  • Pandaren Water Spirit's Whirlpool and Geyser now share the same ability slot. Dev note: This is our first iteration at disarming the Howl Bomb strategy in PvE, which has proven to be very powerful in too many situations. The goal is to make PvE battles more interesting and encourage the use of a wide variety of pets.

Re: No more Howl Bomb in Legion?

Posted: April 22nd, 2016, 12:20 pm
by Morazor
IMO, it's a good thing. One of the fun things of battle pets is finding a good strategy, not reusing the good old Howl Bomb :D

When I found out that the Tanaan battles are mostly winnable by an Howl Bomb, I was very disappointed. I mean, what's the point of adding new content that can be beaten with a 3+ years old strategy?

Re: No more Howl Bomb in Legion?

Posted: April 22nd, 2016, 2:56 pm
by Paladance

Re: No more Howl Bomb in Legion?

Posted: April 22nd, 2016, 5:17 pm
by Nikkip
I don't like it, BUT it should be done. It is brutal in PVP

Re: Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

Posted: April 23rd, 2016, 1:17 am
by Morazor
I'm not so sure that just the ability swap would solve this. You can still stack Curse of Doom, Geyser and Surge of Power for example.

I don't do much pet PvP, but I think that Howl Bomb is mostly used for PvE. I mean, any pet with a 1 turn immunity can defuse the bomb.
For PvE it's a good thing that they are nerfing this IMO. It just works too well for too many encounters.

I agree that it's less time consuming to give a big nerf and then a small buff if needed instead of progressive small nerfs. It may be ugly and hurt the balance of the game but I guess that as far as development time is concerned, it's the way to go.