It's time. Raider Feedback.

Ok, after a somewhat long deliberation on my end, I'm ready to give my thoughts on the Burn Raider playstyle, or, now commonly just referred to as -Raider-. 

The DoT's are too much.

Now, bluntly, that could be taken several ways but I mean it is far too strong in combination with several factors.

1- They have too many Damage over Time effects.

2- Raiders were known for having horrid accuracy, and yet were given the most abundant number of DoT's which don't require accuracy to hit. This immediately took away a disadvantage they had, and made it an advantage.

3- Skill Power is extremely high when you take into account the amount of sustained damage when stacking the burns. If you look at any other class, you'll notice that their DoT's direct impact damage %'s are lower than their non-DoT skills of equal tiers.

So, with that said here's some things I feel are necessary.

1: Remove 2 Burns. Period. They have 6 DoT's if you count the PvP Variant, which I am. The next closest thing is a Fire Mage with 4 Burns, then an artisan with 3 if you count the Acid Grenade, which I am.

So even removing 2 DoT's they'll still have 4, equal to a Fire Mage, but it's necessary in my eyes.

2: Reduce the Skill Power %'s of the DoT enabled abilities direct damage by roughly 30-40%. Seeing a Raider with 2 Skill's that have 375% Skill power, and the remained all very high number as well, used to make me smile before the DoT update. It meant you could go AP/Accuracy and just assassinate most people if you played it right. Now even if you miss those skills half the time, the DoT's make up for it in spades. It's a build with no offensive weakness anymore.

Lastly

3: Reduce the Base Damage Amount per Tic on the remainder of Burns. I'm recommending Burns, because reducing the Poison Knifes would inadvertently be reducing the Dual Raiders DoT's, and they don't have much in the way of DoT Damage. Don't go heavy handed on these, as the removal of 2 Burns and deflation of Skill Power %'s on the remaining DoT Abilities will be almost enough. a small 5%-10% reduction in the base amount should do the trick.

Final Acknowledgement.

Yes, I know I'm asking for the most popular class in the game to be -nerfed-.

No, I do not care about your pixel superiority Raider's. You've had the spotlight due to bias feedback and collective screeching long enough. It's time to play fair like everyone else.

Am I open to input on my personal proposal via the community? No. I've been watching and playing and testing long enough that these are my final conclusions. You may post your opinion, but I will not be altering my initial post based on input from responses.  

Edited by Feuer, 18 March 2017 - 01:08 PM.

Good idea

I've removed any posts that are not on topic. If you disagree with the OP, please feel free to post a counter argument, however generally attacking other players and derailing the topic is not allowed on the forums. Further off topic comments will be removed. 

Skill: Raiders Reflexes ... don't see too much of a nerf needed on this seeing as 350 Dex would give you 245 dodge rate with all of the dodge passives

Skill: Cunning ... 25% Dodge, and 25% Dodge....... There is absolutely no need for this many dodge rate passive for Raiders, it is absolutely absurd. This enables raiders to get an insanely high amount of dodge, while using chivalrous for a higher HP pool. They are the only class in the game that can benefit the most by doing this right now because of how many dodge passives Raiders get. Give a Raider Glorious and you'll see 10k dodge rate for days. A scout averages 4.5k-5.5k.

Skill: Blind ... I see this needing a nerf, especially because of how Raiders are built now after the skill/stat changes \ dot implementation. I have 26% accu down on my level 217 raider. That is insanely high and it would be even higher if I were maxed level and had a correct stat distribution setting.

Skill: Mystic Knife: I never understood why this wasn't removed after the paradigm shift update, or at least reduced from a 100% sleep chance. Especially with dots never missing, and the amount of damage over time raiders can dish out. If you are a class that has 10-14K health pool, a raider can use his 3 main DOTs on you, and then sleep you. Depending on the amount of crit defense you have, there's a good chance you're going to die, if you hadn't already from the initial 270-370% skill power direct damage before the dot starts to tick. DOTs do not wake you up from sleep.

Crazy Style Slash: The debuff of defense down with this is too high in my opinon, it matches Blinds accuracy down %, but it's also a skill that does damage. Again, it's an incredibly high debuff.

Raiders DOT Skills: Please, nerf the damage over time, or reduce the skill power % so the initial damage isn't doing your max HP % that the game allows (damage cap) .. Right now Raiders have two skills that are identical to a scouts impact, but they also have a DOT after the initial damage and a much lower cool down. Please also look into decreasing the skill range \ casting range of some dots that Raiders use, with runes they can be incredibly far and still hit you with skills, thus making kiting unrealistic.

Sharpened Blades\Katar Swiftness\Critical Strikes: Raiders have three attack speed passives, two critical damage passives, along with two critical % passives. Because of how you've made critical def work now, these are crucial passives now to have, is two 25% critical damage passives really necessary when they already have a normal attack critical damage passive, same goes for attack speed passives, they can get up to 50% attack speed just from their normal attack passives, ontop of the 80% attack speed passives, totaling 130% attack speed from passives (what?...) ... Same thing goes for Critical Damage, they have a critical damage normal attack passive which can stack up to be a total of 100% critical damage. That's not even the worst yet to come though, you guys have also gave Raiders a passive debuff for critical defense down, which inherently stacks together with all of the Critical Damage / Crit % passives that they have now after the way you have re-worked critical defense. That is a 20% critical def down passive. You use that 375% skill power DOT on somebody that has a few stacks of that? You will crit your dot almost every time because of how the critical defense system works now, they also have a normal skill debuff called "Katar Upper" for crit defense.

This is the reason why Raiders are the most common class you see in PvP.

Almost every single skill raider has at level 1 that's a castable damage skill, is stronger than a scouts skill power skill at level 1, and so on.

I know I am comparing it to a scout, but I don't play any other characters in PvP other than a scout, so I can't compare it to anything else, I just feel it's wrong to have a melee based class higher skill power than a ranged class which depends on it's skill casting.

Edited by Snuwfer, 23 March 2017 - 04:38 PM.

I think what you're trying to point out is,

1: They have superior DoT pressure.
2: IF DoT Pressure get's countered, they have superior Skill Power %'s to counter back.
3: IF BOTH DoT Pressure AND Skill Power %'s get countered, they have auto-attacks that are enhanced to be the strongest in game.

In a sense, there is no class in-game that has the ability to Counter all forms of damage, none. So when you made a spec that has the highest potential of all forms of damage, you made a class that cannot be countered. That is truly what makes them imbalanced.,

If that is your opinion, Snuwfer, then I concur. Which is why either all forms of their damage need to be reduced, or 1-2 of their methods need to be flat out nerfed so it's not the strongest in the game. Every class has a fall-back method of dealing damage, but only a Raider's fall-back damage is just as good as another classes main-damage. 

Sadly I think this thread is going to be buried and never taken seriously

So yeah this should probably be getting more attention. Draconis Peak games end up being like 70% (katar) raiders, 20% scouts, and 10% champs/knights/clerics. Very few mages, and practically 0 bourgeois or artisans. This ends up being a result of a combination of 3 things though: 

1. Raiders have always been a popular class.

2. The are very strong in pvp.

3. Updates over the last couple years have made it extremely difficult to gear/play multiple characters so people are inclined to play their favorite/best.

Anyway, the points you guys made are valid, but I'd also like to suggest changing the mechanics so damage over time effects can't crit . In no game I have ever played was a poison effect able to crit, that is the ticks over time not the skill itself. It doesn't really make sense that it works this way and also would help mitigate raiders damage somewhat due to their high crit rate/critical damage passives. 

Another thing that could be done is that secondary effects on skills could only work if the skill itself hits, however this leads to other issues with making dodge stronger so it's probably safest not to take this route yet.

Edited by Phish, 26 April 2017 - 03:03 PM.

You actually used to be able to block DoT's at one point. And the Damage Reduction Static amount greatly reduced their damage potential, but did require several slot investments to work properly. The 'fixes' they did however, just made it impossible to defend against them. 

dot damage should be blockable and you should be able to dodge it imo. all you see raiders do in pvp is spam dots which is gay and lack skill. 

I myself am a Raider main but I do feel that this class needs a huge makeover at least in terms of their DOT skills. Another thing to consider about the nerf is the range of these skills. I do love my raider but it seems that end game pvps  (I actually haven't done a single pvp arena) will just be a swarm of raiders because they will almost be superior in all terms if the devs do not review the class.

My few ideas if there will be a rework on those skills

1. DOTs should only trigger if the initial damage hits

2. DOTs should not crit

3. Reduce the range of the Fire property DOT at melee range (flame hawk and pvp flame falcon)

4. Remove the DOT on Poison Knife (1st job skill) but increase its initial damage (around 300% at lvl 5?)

This way those annoying dots can at least be countered by range 

Edited by DrJoe, 08 May 2017 - 11:28 PM.

DoT's should still crit, not only Raiders have them, and not only Raiders use Crit Damage. This would only nerf Axes further, and also would slash Artisans Damage immensely. [Which is the only thing they do have...]
Also, no, take one of the burns off the Katar specific skills, having the DoT's for Dual Wields is nice for certain mechanics. They already only have 2, don't take a poison away. 

The rest, I agree, valid options to consider. 

I just want to throw this in here, if DOTS are allowed to crit so should HOT's and normal Heals.

Just saying 

I know this has nothing to do with the raider feedback so please dont hate 

Edited by Cortiz, 09 May 2017 - 05:24 AM.

Just nerf the damage of DoT .... and the damn debuff %s

having 40-50% accu down is NOT OK

having a 20-30% crit def down is NOT OK

having 75% dodge passives with a dex to dodge passive is NOT OK

literally, you gave raiders a high % debuff for crit def down, and a passive stack for crit def down, along with 10% critical from passives, this is broken logic.

don't even get me started on the amount of attack speed passives, critical damage, 100% success sleep, skill power %, and cooldown rate for attack skills.

FIX THIS CLASS ALREADY, it's been OP meta since p2p NARose