Destroyer: new talents and skills issues.

[VincentBari]

Greetings, warriors!    [For any info I don't remember, or I remember in the wrong way, please Des players with the game open feel free to correct me]

I was really excited for the new specialization skill tree and I was really hoping that the Destroyer could be reborn with it (I always considered an average class, both in PVE and PVP); so even if I still haven't used all the talent modifications from both the playstile (I generally use Reaper, aka old Shadow Des for PVE, considering I don't do much PVP), I think I am quite satisfied by the buffs they give and the new functions (I miss Emberstomp granting Willpower, tho), like Galeforce, Eradicate and Wrath boosted damage, Fury time increased and Annihilation boosted damage. But there are some specs about the new skills/talent tree I don't approve so much:

-Scar debuff, it's said that Des can apply this debuff to the enemy and if Des uses Annihilation or Stone Shield attack on an enemy with 5 stacks, you deal bonus damage or drain life; the problem is I tried every skills and I didn't see the Scar applied on any enemy at all, so I don't know what are the skills that put that debuff (description doesn't help, I read everything);

-Grim Executioner, it's said that Des have a 4% chance to reduce cooldown of Emberstomp and Annihilation as he attacks: except for the Annihilation cooldown reduction that is good (Annihilation deals a lot of damage, it's like a finisher), the Emberstomp is a little disappointg, because even if it deals a good amount of damage, your target must stay in the area of it, and for example n PVP is not gonna get much value (if you grab people and use emberstomp, they will try to use an escape to avoid damage); also, 4% chance is NOTHING, and it would have had the same effectiveness if it had been 1% (compare 4% with 25%, it's 0.04 and 0.25, the difference is of a 10 factor, and it's huge), so if you had attacked like 100 times between many Eradicates, the CD reduction would have happened 1 time...completely useless;

-I don't remember what the lvl 60 passive did, but I recall I was very disappointed by that as well.

To conclude this, I think during the trailer of the patch I heard that the Force Master passive was a buff on his skills, so he could deal more damage...are the other classes passives more useful than Des' one, with more damage or useful effects? Let me know what you think of the Des and what about the other classes passives/talents/skills, if there are some changes that buffed them or nerfed them.

[Arohk]

They need to nerf the red spin much more again , it cant be that a destroyer spins red unstoppable for a whole minute and kills everything without getting interrupted ever in 6vs6.

[Centhron]

Greetings, mate! Fellow "Reaper" destro here, i want to share some of the things i found out until now, I hope they may be of use to you.

1. Scar debuff: In order to stack this debuff on the target, you need to have your shield up and get hit. When you stack it up, your spins and execute/annihilation restore hp equal to 20-30% of the dmg they deal. Keep in mind, that you can stack it by getting hit, that means for example last boss in desolate tomb does his fire breath attack, you stand in it and it's instant 5 stacks, because it consists of multiple small hits. In pvp it's harder to pull it off, because you can activate some nasty skill on the enemy when you get your shield up. If it stacks while you have iron plating up (haven't tested it yet), then it should be easy to stack it to 5 in pvp (stand in aoe and do V-V fast to get invul. ) and at 5 stacks you can spin or annihilate to heal up (don't forget to hold annihilate for 2 sec, the last hit deals huge dmg). But ye, i agree that the tooltips are not very useful ...
2. About the passives, the one that gives you 100ap and 35% mystic dmg while fury is up is overpowered in my opinion, since now you can reset fury with grab (instant reset on massive enemy, -4sec cd on LMB while grabbed), soo this is very good dps boost, paired with the +2 sec duration on fury it seems very strong. The other one is good for pve, keep in mind that rmb is 2 attacks, so 4% is not that low, since you deal a lot of them already, and if you happen to hit multiple targets, it gets some decent resets :D (don't forget rmb is aoe).Useless for pvp, but not big deal... especially since we both don't do much pvp ...
3. Emberstomp: it's not a dmg skill, never was serious threat. Tho you can spec into "Umbrastomp" or whatever it's called (pink stomp), then it deals all the dmg instant, gives you better modifiers on RMB, and stays as a buff, not area on the ground that you need to stay in. BUT - you loose the overpowernesnes of the non-talented spell, that has merged the dmg bonus and the +400% defense and most cc immunity, and in pve even tho you get +30% on RMB over the default stomp, you loose on possible weapon resets from the dot. So, if you can force someone to trinket your grab because of emberstomp, then it should be good times for you (you can stunlock and use the real dmg skills like annihilate. If they don't, just use it like temp cc immune and dmg reduce.

@Arohk I think they will nerf them, both spins look op now, blue spin combines all 3 talents from before (+500% bonus defense, +XX% flat dmg reduce, +80% movespeed, parry multiple attacks), and red spin got serious buffs too, and it has badge that makes it pull enemies to the destroyer. Sadly, i'm super low on gear so i cannot tell if they really are OP in pvp. 

 

Overall, i'm pretty happy how shadow destro awakening is, i spec all 1 from the talents, give Repulse,galeforce,awakened galeforce +5 hm points, and enjoy the lazy gameplay :) (I'd advise not to spec annihilate for pve, yes, it deals x3 times the dmg of the execute, but still is far worse in my opinion - you need to stand still for 2 sec, it doesnt refresh your badge as it says in the description, which leads to dps loss in the end - according to my testing). Don't forget that now every third galeforce resets and enables galeforce :D (RMB->RMB->F->RMB->RMB->F->RMB->RMB->F->F->...).

 

P.S. Don't take anything i say for granted, i may have played destroyer for a while, but i'm casual f2p, sooo i'm open for corrections and additional information too.

GLHF 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Centhron
I say too mutch "in my oppinion" ...

[VincentBari]

Quote

Scar debuff: In order to stack this debuff on the target, you need to have your shield up and get hit. When you stack it up, your spins and execute/annihilation restore hp equal to 20-30% of the dmg they deal. Keep in mind, that you can stack it by getting hit

I read that Scar debuff was triggered by Stone Shield, but I use Iron Plating almost immediately everytime I see the red AoE from bosses; also, I kept an eye on the bosses debuffs to see if they got Scar (if what you said was correct, I would have put at least 1 Scar debuff when the boss hit me with the AoE while I was doing Iron Plating), and I think there was no debuff whatsoever, I don't know; in addition, even if it worked somehow the fact that Scar is bounded to a defensive skill like Stone Shield, instead of an attack skill it makes it not viable: if you don't get hit while on Stone Shield (possible in PvP), no Scar, and also most of times that skill will be broken by some KFM skill; if you get hit, you will put 1 or 2 Scar debuffs, so you will not be able to get full stacks.

 

Quote

About the passives, the one that gives you 100ap and 35% mystic dmg while fury is up is overpowered in my opinion, since now you can reset fury with grab (instant reset on massive enemy, -4sec cd on LMB while grabbed), soo this is very good dps boost, paired with the +2 sec duration on fury it seems very strong. The other one is good for pve, keep in mind that rmb is 2 attacks, so 4% is not that low, since you deal a lot of them already, and if you happen to hit multiple targets, it gets some decent resets

I read again the lvl 60 passive, and it's good, so I have nothing to say about that; but still, even if my RMB cover a large area and it can hit multiple targets 4% CD reduction still seems too low for me, because even if you hit multiple targets the probability is 1 over 100 attacks, and most of times the fight is already over when you reach that count...and what about the quest runs to kill bosses, 1 big target?

 

20 hours ago, Arohk said:

They need to nerf the red spin much more again , it cant be that a destroyer spins red unstoppable for a whole minute and kills everything without getting interrupted ever in 6vs6

I disagree. Why would the Red Spin be OP? Sure, you are immune to every CCs, but you are forgetting a simple detail: Des is MELEE. Everything about Des is getting near his target to deal damage, to heal, to recharge focus, EVERYTHING. Ranged classes deal insane burst damage to the Des, and they can also CC him with KD or Airborne (Blue Spin doesn't prevent both, Emberstomp doesn't prevent Airborne), and at least 4 of them have at least 1 KD or Airborne skill, and that is why Red Spin comes at handy for that; also, even if Des is using the Red Spin to prevent those, he still has to get near the target even to recover focus, so the enemy can just keep a distance, wait until Des run out of focus, and then he's done for (this without that soul badge); finally, Red Spin doesn't make the Des immune to damage, and again FM/GUN/SF damage vs Red Spin = Des is DEAD!

 

With that said, thank you for your honest responses, and have a good game. 

[VincentBari]

5 hours ago, Centhron said:

(don't forget to hold annihilate for 2 sec, the last hit deals huge dmg).

I forgot to ask you about this: you can hold Annihilate to deal more damage? I mean I have to keep pressing X for 2 secs for the final hit? I didn't know that, I tried to do as the tooltip said (holding X), but it seemed like it was the same, the UI for the X skill didn't show any feature as what would happen while holding X. Also the talent tree said Annihilation had 3 Stages, but I still don't understand how to get to the final one, unless it's the thing you said.

[Arohk]

1 hour ago, VincentBari said:

I disagree. Why would the Red Spin be OP?

Because i have seen a destroyer wowing down a dozen people in 6vs6 never stopping spinning, every time i tried to get near him and use KD the spin glowed red again and he was immune.

I could SS out once but because of the bonus movement speed he cached up and all i could do was stand in there stunned, dying, Attacking him is pointless as melee, you can only run away which is simply stupid, if you run away he jumps on you, great.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Arohk

[Centhron]

Alright, did some more testing.

1. 4sec shield generates stacks on blocks and dmg taken. sadly, you can get cc-ed out of it...
2. 8sec shield is a bit strange, you can't be cc-ed (sadly i had no partner with "cancel defensive skills", so this will be tested later on), you have 70% dmg reduce, but you don't do stacks on blocks, only on dmg (soo, they have to hit you from the sides or the back), but the good news is that when you cast it and press lmb, it removes the static defense but leaves you with the small shield with the same buff (status resist, 70% dmg reduce) and you can move around with it . Can't test if it continues to apply buff to party, need to make more friends first
3. both spins heal you for 20% dmg done passively, that was from the talent for them. if you have 5 stacks they start draining 30% (30% additional dmg and heal) on top of the 20% from dmg heal
4. Execute doesn't benefit from scars, only Annihilation (and ye, i tried to press it once, tried to spam it like the old execute, only holding it until the last hit yields results, and i still think it doesn't reset the shadowstorm buff on last hit, so it'll be a dps loss in pve)
5. Iron plating doesn't generate stacks, tested it with 4 and 8 sec shields

Soo, with the 8sec shield it's kind of possible to get fast to 5 stacks in pvp, but good players probably will only make 1-2 on you trying to cc, and then they will stop and wait for it to drop. Probably in 6v6, but it's kind of useless aganist better players, and no real use in pve, because you'll never spin on boss for dmg ... so practically scars are pretty useles as far as i'm concerned ... i still hope someone can prove me wrong, because they sound like a good idea, just bad implementation ... it'd be cool if they applied on wedge and affected more skills  About the 4% passive, i agree that it's underwhelming, since we do slow attacks. Nothing i can do about it tho, so i'm glad at least it'll get used in rare occasions (spiders on spider boss in HH), unlike the G ult that is best used to impress low lvl with awesome animation 

i was about to test the stun shield, but the server decided to die, so i will do it tomorrow night along with the "cancel defensive skills" on the 8sec shield ... additionally i want to test if you cast 8sec shield and then use stun, for example, will the buff from the shield stay up (dmg reduce and status immune), tho i doubt it, it'll be too op if we had a skill that makes us immune to cc and almost immune to dmg AND allows us to attack in the meantime ... but still, fresh patch, it's possibility ...

 

P.S. i can live with one passive, one ult and scars being useless, but the fact that they removed the "cancels and blocks defensive skills + 16yrd approach" knee and put "cancel defensive without blocking them" on kick ... that killed the last part of me that enjoyed 1v1 as shadow  i guess i have to use earth for 1v1, seems to be quite more op (additional 50% dmg reduce on top of the flat 40% on 4s shield, wrath enabled from emberstomp, +10% additional ap on fury, demolition hits harder than annihilate and seems easier to cast and so on ...)

 

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Centhron

[VincentBari]

10 hours ago, Centhron said:

i can live with one passive, one ult and scars being useless, but the fact that they removed the "cancels and blocks defensive skills + 16yrd approach" knee and put "cancel defensive without blocking them" on kick ... that killed the last part of me that enjoyed 1v1 as shadow

So Scar is useless, the passive with that 4% is meh, and they even removed the ONLY way to strip players from their defensive skills and counters with the Kick? How am I supposed to use this class in PVP seriously? People could cancel Stone Shield by snapping their fingers, the Kick was the easier way to do the same (3rd move Knee was another, but it was hard to use it, and also IMPOSSIBLE vs KFM block, because you had to have insane reactions), and half the changes they made for Des were to no avail, because you will never stack Scars with a defensive skill. It's like if they decided to make finally something good for the Des class, and then they changed their mind and they said 'Nah dude, too boring, let's leave this as it is' and they stopped midway, so right now Des is half developed. 

[Centhron]

Don't loose hope yet, mate, i'm still only theorycrafting for pvp side of things, nothing is tested in real pvp scenario, and i don't know what other classes lost or gained yet (defense blocking skills could be removed for everyone). 8sec shield is not that easy to stop and if you press wedge you can move with it, and it's a ton of heal (plus 70% dmg reduce and status effect immunity). Also, for 1v1 we now have the chance to do 3 piledrivers in succession, and that's some decent aerial dmg (grab+air->piledriver,44->piledriver, and if specced -> stun with V and then 1->piledriver). also if you're earth, you can 44->X (i need to test if the launch in air and drop down animation will be enough for demolition to stack to full, if it is -> it's insane burst combo. i'm sure there's way to make 1v1 work. And i still think earth is top tier 1v1 with all the talent merges that happened and crazy bonuses and uptime on fury ... it'd be awesome if some competitive player shares some stuff too, but alas - i still cannot find any info about destros, so it'll take time to understand and make our heroes work :D

[VincentBari]

On 20/3/2019 at 11:55 AM, Centhron said:

Also, for 1v1 we now have the chance to do 3 piledrivers in succession, and that's some decent aerial dmg (grab+air->piledriver,44->piledriver, and if specced -> stun with V and then 1->piledriver). also if you're earth, you can 44->X (i need to test if the launch in air and drop down animation will be enough for demolition to stack to full, if it is -> it's insane burst combo.

3 Piledriver in rapid succession? How is that possible? What combo do you use for that?

[Centhron]

There's a talent that changes your stun on 1 to immunity. With it, if you use it on stunned target, it will air the target. So, grab+4 to launch in air -> piledriver, quick 4+4 to launch in air again -> piledriver then stun with shield (you can use other types of cc, it's not limited to stun only, so you can use for example kick or 2 or knockback spin or whatever, just to air him with 1 you have to have shield up, so stun with shield works fine) and then 1 to launch -> piledriver. It's not exactly rapid, neither super strong, but it's fun to slam your enemy into the ground over and over again