Seraph vs Baleful: Rework and Balance Suggestions

[Jannie]

Hallo BnS community!

 

Seraph is no alternative to Baleful since Baleful offers a DPS buff "on-hit" which triggers a lot, followed by even a Cooldown Reset, while the "when-hit" trigger is a GHOST trigger since it will NEVER trigger in any PvE environment and therefore practically the Seraph weapon comes with NO Seraph Effect while Baleful benefits from the Baleful Effect, and that regularly and consitently.

It is obvious how these two weapon paths are supposed to work:
The Seraph is the righteous path while the Baleful is the unrighteous path, the paths of light and darkness.
While Baleful is supposed to buff the DPS of a characters main DPS-skill, the Seraph is supposed to increase DPS of a characters by reducing the Cooldown of a characters main DPS-spell with an iron-frame that is by default not affected by cooldown reductions and cooldown resets. 
This described above should be the ONLY difference between the two PvE legendary weapon paths.

The Baleful Effect triggers a lot while the Seraph Effect is a GHOST-trigger that is NEVER witnessed.

The when-hit trigger of Seraph is not only absurd and absolutely irrelevant in PvE, it is also literally non-existent in-game IF 10 stacks are required to activate the Seraph Effect. I am using the Seraph for a while now and I have NEVER had more than one stack, I hardly ever even see the green when-hit icon pop up. With all the blocks, evades, and iframes in the game it is literally impossible to trigger the when-hit stack more than once within 30 seconds. Reaching 10 stacks is impossible, even reaching 2 stacks is an occurrence that might be witnessed once in a week.

 

Here are two logical solutions to the problem and the balancing of the two weapon paths:
One solution is that Seraph and Baleful SHARE the very same on-hit damage and cooldown reset trigger that the Baleful weapon is currently having.
The other solution would be that the required Seraph when-hit HP recovery and cooldown reset trigger activates after one single stack, this trigger cannot reoccur for a set period of time after its last activation, be it a time period of let's say 60 seconds. So, the when-hit reactivation timer should be 30 seconds of the Baleful plus the average 10-stack stacking time of the Baleful weapon. Since I have a similar on-hit trigger on my Galaxy weapon, the Galaxy Effect, I know that it does not take longer than 30 seconds in average to reach the 10 stacks in a PvE environment.

 

Thank you for your posted contributions and ideas in advance.
 

Seraph vs Baleful comparison image on imgur.com: http://imgur.com/a/n8BAY

[Laura099]

However seraph is by far the better in such cases as this.

1: you're a tank. There are people who have to take hits at times. These people will undoubtedly stack seraph. The heal helps.

2: The bonus effect. Baleful, upon upgrade, is a lesser to True ivorymoon. True ivorymoon increases damage of dragon helix/call, cant remember which by 20%. Baleful raises it by ONLY 2%. and thats for 3-4 stages.

The seraph razor, however, has an automatic 10% cd on leech. For locks who cant properly use their rotation, this is far more superior as it allows for an increase in the amount of mini-bursts (leeches) you can use.

 

In other words is the play style and class, not the weapon.

[FrozenB]

B&S G.M. has stated many times before that they have no plans to change the effect on Seraph and Baleful Weapons. If you have good skills rotation on PVE, you don't need to rely on Baleful bonus set. Plus, now there are legendary PVE soul shield that can lower the CD of some of the class skills. For the additional damage bonus buff, that's so little that you won't even see the difference.

 

11 minutes ago, Laura099 said:

However seraph is by far the better in such cases as this.

1: you're a tank. There are people who have to take hits at times. These people will undoubtedly stack seraph. The heal helps.

2: The bonus effect. Baleful, upon upgrade, is a lesser to True ivorymoon. True ivorymoon increases damage of dragon helix/call, cant remember which by 20%. Baleful raises it by ONLY 2%. and thats for 3-4 stages.

The seraph razor, however, has an automatic 10% cd on leech. For locks who cant properly use their rotation, this is far more superior as it allows for an increase in the amount of mini-bursts (leeches) you can use.

 

In other words is the play style and class, not the weapon.

That's why if you play WL, you go for Seraph, not Baleful. After stage 6 Seraph, Seraph is definitely better than Baleful. Also, True Ivorymoon = true scropion weapon. If you do a little bit of research, people have been saying that you only gain more power after stage 4-5 of legendary. Below stage 3, it is DPS lost.

[Jannie]

29 minutes ago, Laura099 said:

However seraph is by far the better in such cases as this.

1: you're a tank. There are people who have to take hits at times. These people will undoubtedly stack seraph. The heal helps.

2: The bonus effect. Baleful, upon upgrade, is a lesser to True ivorymoon. True ivorymoon increases damage of dragon helix/call, cant remember which by 20%. Baleful raises it by ONLY 2%. and thats for 3-4 stages.

The seraph razor, however, has an automatic 10% cd on leech. For locks who cant properly use their rotation, this is far more superior as it allows for an increase in the amount of mini-bursts (leeches) you can use.

 

In other words is the play style and class, not the weapon.

Blade Masters and Kung Fu Masters are "Tanks" and I have never seen a Blade Master with a Seraph in my entire life! 

I know only ONE Kung Fu Master who actually made a Seraph  weapon and I believe that he made the Seraph Gauntlets merely for aestetic reasons.

There is NO justifiable reason to always go for Seraph, it is not even THAT beneficial on a Warlock, at least a Frost-Warlock. Possibly on Darkness-Warlock but I don't play dark so I cannot judge that since I am not familiar with any dark skill rotation on Warlock and have no feel nor experience for it.

As a Frost-Warlock myself I don't need the Leech Cooldown Reduction at all if I can pull off my rotation which always occurs when I am the only Warlock in party and can therefore control the moment of Soulburn Skill reset. I personally as Frost Warlock would rather go with Baleful Razor than with Seraph Razor.

Warlock Seraph or Baleful discussions exist in this forum already and the opinions are always divided, the Baleful Warlocks even saying that the Seraph-Razor-only mainstream opinion is only a myth. The lacking Skill Reset of the Seraph Effect is no big deal for Warlocks either since they come with a Skill Reset through Soulburn which is a "controlled" skill reset whenever it is needed.

The top Warlocks use Baleful, check the rankings in-game.

Anyway, please discuss the Baleful vs Seraph Razor discussion in other already existing threads and not here.

 

Back to the thread subject here.

The topic discussed here is about the Seraph EFFECT being non-existent in game while the Baleful EFFECT being triggered all the time.

The Seraph Effect is a myth, it does not exist, it is a ghost.

FACT is that the Seraph weapon offers LESS than the Baleful weapon, it basically comes with a ghost Seraph effect that does not exist in-game.

ANY Cooldown Reset is welcome and desirable and GM's stating that they would not even consider any rework nor discussion concerning this matter is more than ignorant and absolutely unjustifiable. I would need a GM tell me this in my face for me to believe such a folly.

[CrimsonDuskEU]

Yes seraph reset never proccs and baleful proccs often. Adressed the issue already, nothing gonna be done about that. Only in KR do they care about balance, where they made seraph on-hit and not when hit. If you're from NA, just play on KR. And EU play on TW. 1000X better than this broken western versions.

[Mirryn]

2 hours ago, Jannie said:

Blade Masters and Kung Fu Masters are "Tanks" and I have never seen a Blade Master with a Seraph in my entire life! 

WHAT?!

 

Not sure where you're looking but Fashion & Souls makes quite a few BMs choose Seraph.

I've also been told that Seraph is actually worthwhile for one of the KFM specs, and that Blade Dancers can use either with relatively good efficiency.

/nitpick

 

But yes, it is interesting to wonder why the F2P White/Black weapons are so weird ...

[hyperbolicj]

I think it's more a covert way to tell players that the path of darkness is ultimately better.

I mean think about it. Who's the strongest character fighting for the light side?

Every last one even the player character has suffered countless humiliating defeats.

So really the light side should reflect determination to keep going. Which you know it kinda does. Seraphs weapons heals you when you get hit.

While the dark route is strictly about power.

[MushinKFM]

Someone tell me why I have so many seraph FM haters in my block list. No, answer me.. why am I doing so much dmg? My gear is not even that high I only have leg ring.

[HieuHoa]

Why I build Seraph as BD ? 

1. Flicker duh duh duh

2. It looking guuudd man (Don't you dare say to me baleful look better seraph >.<)  > ping > AP > Skill

[Mirryn]

17 hours ago, MushinKFM said:

Someone tell me why I have so many seraph FM haters in my block list. No, answer me.. why am I doing so much dmg? My gear is not even that high I only have leg ring.

How many times do I have to tell you that if you're doing more damage than another FM, it's either better ping or better rotations, because Seraph is doing you absolutely no favors.

 

Seraph FM *smh*

 

Why is Seraph so bad for FM?

- Short Fuse is a DPS loss if you are specced Blazing Beam, so it's definitely not helping you there.

- Short Fuse isn't a DPS loss if you're specced HM Dragonchar, but it's still nowhere near comparable to resets on Inferno+Meteor