Celestalon
Alright, second round is on me as well, Brewmasters. Now that the weekend is over, we've had a chance to discuss all the great feedback you all have provided so far. Here's what we're thinking:
(Note that the below changes likely won't make it into the first PTR build.)
Stagger CapAs I said, the goal of this was cheese-prevention, not intended to impact normal gameplay. A Stagger cap of 100%*HP has a lot of value to us due to it functioning intuitively within the UI. We had hoped that the amount we need to buff HP/Armor would be reasonable in order to make that work, but looking at the numbers and your feedback, we don't think there's enough room there. Therefore, we're now leaning toward a 200%*HP cap, and that just won't be visible in the UI (but then, neither is the cap of
Guardian Spirit and the like).
Active Mitigation Duration CapThere has been a ton of useful feedback about this topic. Being able to carry over a ton of banked Active Mitigation (and
Ironskin Brew absolutely is AM in context) from tank swaps and low damage phases is extremely powerful, and contributes to imbalance between tanks. But we're also sympathetic to how it adds an additional complication that you need to keep in your mental space. We think that just loosening the restriction up a bit so that the window you can safely press
Ironskin Brew in is much wider will satisfy that, so we're going to try a cap of 3x Duration instead of 2x. And to clarify, calling this "base duration" was inaccurate; I meant the duration of a single cast of
Ironskin Brew, including traits (so 3x Duration would be 24sec with 4/4 of that trait).
Magic DRWe've talked about having armor and potentially HP as tuning knobs to use. We also have the % of
Stagger that applies to Magic to use. All of the changes we're discussing in this thread are for mechanical and playstyle reasons, and then tuning is a separate (but big and important) issue. Just to set expectations, Brewmasters with
Mystic Vitality are currently seen as extremely strong against Magic damage, sometimes overpowered. Guardian Druids are also overpowered against Magic damage, and that will be adjusted as well.
Thanks, and keep the feedback coming!
Another point of feedback is that Brew charges feel totally wasted when not tanking (or in a low damage phase), whereas on other tanks they can at least get some offensive value out of them.
This is rather experimental, but we're going to try adding an additional effect to Purifying Brew: "Also increases the damage of your next Breath of Fire by 50%." (tuning not final of course).
And FYI, it looks like we are going to be able to fit these latest changes (this one included) into the first PTR build.
A smarter approach to the cheesing problem, is a 'stagger-per-strike' limit.