Fixing burst damage in pvp

[Honnycorns]

I was thinking about it the other day, most burst comes from critical attacks. If you dont crit, you dont actually/usually do much damage.

I gathered up some ideas of mine, and decided to make a post about it to see if there are other ppl who thinks like me, please tell me what you think of them.

Do you think it would be bad? If so which point do you dislike and what would be the negative impact in the game if it went live.
I couldnt think of any except maybe it would make most class look a bit more alike, but personally id stick with that for more balance in pvp.

If you think it could be good but could be better, please add any suggestion you may have about changing some aspect of my idea.

Thank you everyone for reading.

Blizzard is currently trying to fix the burst problem by nerfing the overall damage and setting a steady amount of resiliance.

back in BC/Wolk, resiliance reduced the damage and crit chance of critical strikes, thus making crit a weaker stat over the expension and making haste and armor pen more attractive.

If instead of doing something similar, we would make crit do a partial of its damage over time? I dont personally like the theory behind this idea, but I feel it would solve the burst issue if tuned right.

Exemple: A paladin fighting another player.

My Templar's verdict hits for 100k non crit. on a target with 65% resil

35k Damage is dealt 100*(100%-65%)
+7k mastery 20% mastery from Hands of Light

My templar's verdict hits for 200k crit on a target with 65% resil.

35k damage + (100%-65% resilience = 35% of 35k= 12.25k)

Templar's verdict would deal 35k+12.25k= 47.25k

And additional Dot damage equal to the resiliance of the target being 65% of the bonus critical damage = (35k-12.25k = 22.75k) over time ( 5-8 seconds could be more of less, defining this number would require testing )

And the normal mastery damage 14k.

So, my templar's verdict would deal

47.25k damage initially
14k Hands of Light (Mastery proc)
22.75k over 5 to 8 seconds

A total of 84k damage

Of the 70k from Templar's verdict, about 31.5% (22.75k) of its damage would be dealt over time, thus reducing the burst damage without reducing actual damage. The mastery proc, being a proc, does not go into the dot, (It could but I dont feel like it would be fun because it would require rogue poisons, windfury, shadowy apparitions, warrior mastery etc to also go into the Dot)


In short, it would reduce the burst damage done depending on the resilience of the target. Gemming into resil will reduce the initial damage but increase the dot potency resulting in a less effective burst but same damage overall

Some procs and effects would not be affected by this rule in order to keep the game fun and abilities unique, so I made 5 rules to try to balance the debuff towards that.



RULE1: it is important to know that it would only affect critical abilities, but not all of them. Namely any procs: Paladin mastery, rogue poison crits, shadow priests shadowy apparitions, Shaman windfury procs, Paladin's seals, Warrior's mastery and pet basic abilities(Water bolt, Claw, firebolt etc.)

RULE2: Critical dot or critical channeling damage would not be affected as they are already a Dot, Melee auto attacks would also not be affected.

RULE3: That damage over time shouldn’t be affected by resilience or any defensive mod as its initial component was already affected by it.

RULE4: That damage over time shouldn’t be increased by any damaging mods since its initial component was already affected by it.

RULE5: The damage over time should behave like the Fire Mage mastery Ignite, all following critical strike that respect the conditions should simply add itself to the dot and reset the duration so the damage is never lost but always spread.


There you have it, waiting for your feedback guys and girls =)

[Xaxina]

Mabye they will fix it in the next 2 explansions... if they remember

[Nicola]

If a fix was really that easy, it was already done. There are 2 problems however.
1) Some speces will be hit a lot harder by this than other speces. Frost mages and destruction warlocks for example rely a lot more on landing crits than say an affliction warlock.
2) Healers are currently too strong. Due all the changes to scaling, burst is already made weaker. Making burst even weaker will turn healers into supreme overlords that won't let anyone die unless you trow a massive cc chain on them.

[Honnycorns]

You are right Niberion, healers are currently too strong, they want to reduce burst damage and also reduce burst healing. So if burst damage goes down, blizzard with follow it up with reducing burst healing. So that shouldn't be a problem.

As for Dot damage, I could see that being something difficult to deal with, but only two classes would really be affected by it. Affliction locks and shadow priests, and their damage mainly come from dots. Affliction would be the worst one. Since haunt is a Dot buffer.

I dont see how classes will be nerfed more than others. A warlock casting fear on your healer and getting a 94.5k chaos bolt + 44.5k extra damage over 5 seconds along with a mage Bomb shattering you for just as much feels much more better than tacking the full damage right away. The goal here is just not to die in one second.

The problem is about burst. Affliction warlocks don't have burst issues, so that change will not affect them as much unless they crit with a haunt. I have never being killed under 5 seconds by an affliction lock, I have by a mage and a shadow priest. For shadow priest, their big burst comes from Devouring plague and insanity. If DP initial damage doesnt crit, the damage is survivable by using CDs, trinket silence or use defensives beforehand. Blizzard changed DP damage scaling between initial damage and dot in 5.2 to fix Spriests burst problem, Im not sure what the real statistics are, I would need to look into them to place my opignon on how bursty Spriests are. I dont see them often in arena and when I do it doesnt feel like they do much.

[danightryder]

The thing is, some classes rely on crit/fast bursty damage to score a kill due to their low consistant damage. So for some classes this would totally nerf the crap out of them. I think lowering the damage overall of those specific classes (ie mages, desto lock, frost dks) is a better idea and allow them to get their kill with their team mates help or cc chains, not just globalling someone solo.

[Nicola]

I dont see how classes will be nerfed more than others. A warlock casting fear on your healer and getting a 94.5k chaos bolt + 44.5k extra damage over 5 seconds along with a mage Bomb shattering you for just as much feels much more better than tacking the full damage right away. The goal here is just not to die in one second.

The deal is that it will not hit every spec equally. A mage with 75% crit with shatter is going to be affected way harder than say a rogue with only 20% crit. Having 3/4 of your spells being turned into a dot is far worse for burst than having only 1/5 having turned into a dot.

On top of that, what about spells that always crit such as choas bolt? Turning it into a weaker version of devouring plague with a 3 second cast time will make the warlock community want your head. :/

The whole idea would be perfect, if every spec and ability had an equal chance to crit. With one class being balanced around 20% crit and another around 30% and another around 70%, something like this doesn't work without making a ton of other changes.

[Verain]

I don't think complex changes are important at all.

The first change is the that they need to separate pvp and pvp. THEY ARE DOING THIS.

5.3's gear normalization should finally address the biggest monkey on the back of pvp- totally excessive and uneven inflation of damage done, healing, and defensive stats, as well as "that naked feeling" when you are missing just a few pieces, and being utterly blow up like tissue paper in the face of a bowling ball cannon. I'm a raider, and in PvE all these stat inflations accomplish a goal (I think they are too much even there, but I get what they are going for), but dragging PvP along and expecting it to conform is just stupid.


The second change is to design around an appropriate amount of damage and healing. A single leaked heal during LK was far too punishing to the team that couldn't chain CCs perfectly (aka, it would select for comps that could). In Cata and BC, a single heal made a difference, but it wasn't essentially a full life bar. MoP is more toward's LK's powerhealing style. What should happen at item level 496 with substantially nerfed pvp power and healing? Will a deep from full life always threaten as it does on live? Will health pools bounce around so vigorously, or be more of a fight?

[Itisamuh]

If a fix was really that easy, it was already done. There are 2 problems however.
1) Some speces will be hit a lot harder by this than other speces. Frost mages and destruction warlocks for example rely a lot more on landing crits than say an affliction warlock.
2) Healers are currently too strong. Due all the changes to scaling, burst is already made weaker. Making burst even weaker will turn healers into supreme overlords that won't let anyone die unless you trow a massive cc chain on them.

This is the problem. As out of control as damage is, healing is more out of control. It would take a massive overhaul, all at once, to solve the issue. Fixing one problem, without fixing the other at the same time, would only make the other problem worse.

[Kreeshak]

from my point of view, burst damage is the counter to UNLIMITED crowd control that even 1500 mmr teams can chain effortlessly

[Glurp]

from my point of view, burst damage is the counter to UNLIMITED crowd control that even 1500 mmr teams can chain effortlessly

I played Junglecleave for my first time in 3s and we very much enjoyed not letting people play their classes.

MoP PvP is built around CC and burst damage, there are very few comps that rely on constant pressure, and they are often counted by Wizards instantly. That's just how it is. Burst is already being nerfed by about 20% for every class with the PvP Power nerf so it should calm it down a little bit but huge burst damage and CC chains are still going to be the ways to get kills.

[Kuniku]

if you get rid of burst, it becomes more a case of outplaying, CCing and OOMing the other team to win. I'm pretty sure back in TBC we would play with pressure to get someone sub 50% before then hitting cool downs and bursting the kill, now days most of the vids I watch are people dying 100-0% in one set of unobstructed cool downs =p

[skitzin]

To be honest I think burst is good to a point. You shouldn't be able to global someone but you should still be able to pop cds and increase you damage enough to get a kill on a target.