Legion Pet Battle Tuning - Feedback wanted

[Paladance]

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.

The wicked beauty of stacked [ability]Whirlpool[/ability] and [ability]Geyser[/ability] is that they combined both stun and root the opponent. You wouldn't want to put the [ability]Surge of Power[/ability] after the stun alone.
Indeed I don't want to get rid of the Howlbomb completely. I do agree that it shouldn't be "one team to rule them all", but I don't mind using more complex variations of the same method, especially differentating between the encounters.

Some people do suggest that there's a need to modify the Chrominius' moveset instead, but for most of TToT you don't actually need that Surge of Power.

However. If we should have defeated the opponents using no shattering defenses at all, don't nerf [ability]Howl[/ability] itself. Don't nerf the [ability]flock[/ability] attacks (if anyone does actually think about it).
Just fix the elite defense to either multiplicative calculation or some other means, because currently it causes SD to increase damage by 200% from your pets' perspective, and this is what I'd like to have addressed.

By the way, it was introduced to reduce the health of opponents because all what was used were [ability]Life Exchange[/ability], [ability]Explode[/ability], [ability]Corpse Explosion[/ability] etc. and Sunlight weather to trigger passives out of nowhere. Note that these can still be helpful because they bypass that passive defense aswell.

[Morazor]

Well yes, probably improving elite defense would do the trick.

PvE-wise, Howl Bomb mostly breaks battles vs a single opponent because you just have to massively nuke one target. Something like putting a cap to damage on a single turn instead of a single attack would do the trick probably. In 3 vs 3 battles is basically already like that: you can nuke 1/3 of the enemy team but you still have to deal with the other 2.

[Vakeetah]

Tee-hee! Spot on with the [ability]Cleave[/ability] nerf! :p

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.

24 power, with a 25% reduction = 18. Remains a decent move, doesn't cause lockouts, and makes [ability]Diseased Bite[/ability] a decent contender.

As for [ability]Shell Armor[/ability], a nerf was to be expected, and this one is probably good. Instead of going the [ability]Trihorn Shield[/ability] route and lowering its value, they chose to keep the larger damage reduction, but with a shorter duration. Helps keep the ability distinct.

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Now then, that's where my agreements end. I believe the proposed change to [ability]Howl[/ability] is terrible. As it is, it's a sub-par ability outside of stacking bombs - by nerfing it to get consumed on first hit means it'll be unusable with multi-hit abilities ([ability]Slicing Wind[/ability], [ability]Nut Barrage[/ability], [ability]Build Turret[/ability], [ability]Lightning Storm[/ability]...). Even for single-hit abilities, it'll probably end up below things like [ability]Black Claw[/ability], outside than the 40-50 power abilities like [ability]Surge of Power[/ability].

On that same line, Howlbombing is about as toxic for PvE bosses as [ability]Black Claw[/ability]+[ability]Stampede[/ability] (which also kills pretty much everything) so they would have to address that one as well. Hopefully in a more creative way.

The ultimate solution to shields and damage increases is a cap on how much damage they can prevent or cause over their duration. That is mechanically complex, so probably not something we can expect, but that's best idea right now. For example, if [ability]Howl[/ability] increased damage by 100%, but was consumed upon causing the enemy pet to take 600 or 700 extra damage, Howlbomb would be much less effective, with [ability]Howl[/ability] becoming an investment effect of sorts (deal no damage now, in exchange for maybe a lot of damage) that works with other ability combinations.

Other than that, if they go ahead with their proposed change, maybe removing the cooldown from [ability]Howl[/ability] (or reducing it to 1 round for that matter) would at least help it remain somewhat relevant.

Lastly, on the [ability]Pandaren Water Spirit[/ability] changes... I'm between two waters here :p He was the actual culprit behind Howlbomb, as he provided the largest nuke on top of the CC; so an ability swap is the easier way out - but I hope that's not the only swap they are planning on doing, because the alternative builds would be a mess.

[Drudatz]

I don't like it, BUT it should be done. It is brutal in PVP

in PVP? I have never seen anyone use howlbomb im pvp

[Paladance]

For example, if [ability]Howl[/ability] increased damage by 100%, but was consumed upon causing the enemy pet to take 600 or 700 extra damage, Howlbomb would be much less effective, with [ability]Howl[/ability] becoming an investment effect of sorts (deal no damage now, in exchange for maybe a lot of damage) that works with other ability combinations.

Other than that, if they go ahead with their proposed change, maybe removing the cooldown from [ability]Howl[/ability] (or reducing it to 1 round for that matter) would at least help it remain somewhat relevant.

How about dimrets applied not to Howl itself, but to stacked attacks in general, no matter if buffed or not? For example:

Original output (let's say that abilities are swapped. There's an RNG move but will skip that factor for the clarity's sake):

Your [ability]Dive[/ability] dealt 422 damage and your [ability]Geyser[/ability] dealt 490 damage.
Your Dive dealt 844 damage and your Geyser dealt 980 damage. (+ Howl)

Output with dimrets (set to multiplicative 60%, would need to think a bit about the additive way):

Your Dive dealt 422 damage and your Geyser dealt 294 damage.
Your Dive dealt 844 damage and your Geyser dealt 588 damage. (+ Howl)

I wouldn't include DoTs here as they're at the end and technically not full attacks. Not sure about the abilities like a [ability]Sticky Grenade[/ability], though.

Note that dimrets applied to attacks only would abusily promote the shield/sandstorm users like crawlers and whatnot, so the dimrets would be applied to the shielding aswell, shifting them a bit to the absorbing direction. Sounds like a big change, but actually weak damage against weak protection would probably balancing itself out to seem unchanged.

EDIT: Still, poor [pet]Cogblade Raptor[/pet]. ;p To avoid that, perhaps dimrets would be applied to a first attack after dealing non-racial 16*lvl damage?

[Shingetsu]

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?

To be fair, I would not count Tanaan as "real" tamer fights. They are way too random because of the randomized backline pets. And some are just a pain in the ... so I was actually happy that you could cheese some with Howl Bomb.

Don't get me wrong. I'm fine with them removing Howl Bomb. But Tanaan is IMO a bad example why they're doing it.

[Morazor]

I don't usually have many problems with backline pets in Tanaan... Emerald Proto-Whelp does the job most of the time. Which is also another thing I don't like about Tanaan encounters: after the elite dies, I always end up with the same pet doing the same thing (shield, sleep, wait for the buff to expire, chew them).

Tanaan encounters are pretty broken in general IMO.
Also the fact that you can do them with each character is pretty lame, basically the most efficient way of farming them is killing the easiest ones over and over with all your characters... which is arguably even more boring than Beasts of Fable.

About randomness: as far as randomness means that you must develop a new strategy, IMO it's fine. I mean, it actually gives something to think about instead of just reusing the same pets line up you used the last time with the same sequence of attacks. I think randomness is bad when it completely breaks a strategy for no reason (unlucky crits for example can turn a won game in a lost one). I'm a big fan of turn based roguelikes, where randomness is a big part of the game: if used in a good way, randomness can be fun.

[Gráinne]

PvE-wise, Howl Bomb mostly breaks battles vs a single opponent because you just have to massively nuke one target. Something like putting a cap to damage on a single turn instead of a single attack would do the trick probably. In 3 vs 3 battles is basically already like that: you can nuke 1/3 of the enemy team but you still have to deal with the other 2.

I said much the same thing, at more length, here: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... ?page=3#55

Reading it again, I am even more convinced that the problem is not HowlBomb or Bleed&Stampede as strategies, but the concept of a single pet opponent without a defence to counter them. HowlBomb is not effective in regular tamer battles, and HowlBomb was not effective in the Garrison before the nerfs.

[Paladance]

Thanks for bringing this thread up again. Perhaps we've gone too far with theorising.

It would be way better if we got sometimes to the direct communication, like by a private chat channel (need to make a rant on WPets one day :p), but this is just my way.

I've summarised my constant via Xu-Fu blog.
I can also agree that a lot depends on what in reality is the current direction in the pet battle content. Know thy enemy!

[Digem]

I don't like it, BUT it should be done. It is brutal in PVP

Any multiple turn set up move(s) are near useless in pvp. They are just to easy to dodge. The move did make some pve pet battles easy though. Just seems to me to be a fix by blizz of a non-problem. They let graves dominate pvp this whole expansion but a move that makes pve easier and gets more people like pet battles they nerf. I know many a guildie I got into pet battles showing this team. It is an overaction to a non-problem which blizz is famous for. It only effected pve not pvp and people who want more of a challenge could choose to use other teams. Sometimes I just don't get blizz at all

[Quintessence]

RE: Howl

The increased damage is only applied to your next first hit on the target. So for multi-hitting abilities like [ability]Flurry[/ability], only the first hit of flurry will benefit from Howl.

I haven't fully tested it, but I believe that if you miss or the opponent dodges, the debuff will not be consumed and will continue for its 2 round duration or until you manage to land a hit.

Makes Howl less useful, but doesn't completely neuter it. Still, I will miss the original version.

[Paladance]

I haven't seen any opinion that approbated that change. Even among people liking some flamewars here and there.

Do you know if:
1. damage over time breaks it aswell,
2. are the [ability]Flock[/ability], [ability]Stampede[/ability], [ability]Hunting Party[/ability] etc. affected aswell or does the debuff become separate?

EDIT: Thanks :3

[Quintessence]

1. Yes, DoTs consume Howl (first tick only). Both when the DoT is applied before Howl and when the DoT is applied after Howl.

2. The debuffs are two completely different things. [ability]Flock[/ability] and other similar abilities apply Shattered Defenses, while the new Howl in Legion applies the Howl debuff.

[Jerebear]

Does it at least give some extra damage (like prowl or supercharge) since it only affects one hit? If no, that might be some feedback to pass along. It already has the negative of being a debuff (so it can be cleansed or swapped out), so maybe a 125% or better might be a good compromise?

[Yazhi]

This is one of those double edged swords for me... I love the whole pet collecting, and feel that I have to beat all the tamers and challenges each time something new has been released...BUT...I am kinda lazy with the research sometimes xD

Howlbomb was a nice quick little thing that blew up 95% of my opponants whilst on auto pilot...and lets not even talk about how many times it saved me in the celestial tournament and my plushie adventure...

That saying, I think it's EXACTLY the reason why they have and kinda needed to make the change, lets all get our thinking caps on and hope for some real strategy in legion

Kinda tempted to try it all out how without howlbombing and see how far I get by myself haha

[Paladance]

I feel obliged to bump this…

EDIT: That was posted when the thread was not merged, now the post no longer has to provide that function.
Thanks, Quintessence, for clearing it up.

[Quintessence]

I've moved the discussion on Howl from the PTR section to this thread for more visibility, and it's just more appropriate here.

Discuss away!

Does it at least give some extra damage (like prowl or supercharge) since it only affects one hit?

New Howl does not. It still only increases the next hit by 100%.

I've added a note on the official forum Legion Pet Tuning thread with the suggestion to up it to 125%, or at least change something else to offset the nerf.

[Paladance]

What has happened to the official feedback?
Is the brainstorming passé because the art of discussion starts to fade and nobody wants to get hit by a brick? :F

Here, luckily, we are free from these fears I believe.

#savethehowl

[Quintessence]

What has happened to the official feedback?

The official thread in the Legion Alpha section on Bnet forums doesn't see much activity simply because there probably aren't that many alpha testers interested in pets. Or they don't see battle pet tuning/balancing as high a priority compared to other aspects of the game.

Between the forums here, Bnet Pet Battle forum and Legion Alpha forum, my impression is that the general consensus for Howl is that it's an over-nerf and additional adjustments should be considered.