What the upcoming changes mean for Renegade in PvE (Heal Renegade and Diviner's Renegade)

[Janitsu.6284]

 

 In this post, I will try to give a relatively good overview of the changes that are planned and what they mean for support Renegade (Diviner's gear) and Heal Renegade in PvE (Raids, Strikes and Fractals of the Mists). Diviner's Renegade will be referred to as "Alac Ren" or similar and Heal Renegade will be referred to as "Heal Ren" or similar. Without further ado, let's take a look at the changes that are suggested in the Game Update Notes for May 11th.

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We’re improving the strike damage of the Renegade’s Kalla’s Fervor effect by changing it from a ferocity bonus to a bonus to all damage dealt. This change will allow Renegade power builds to be more viable for general play in open-world and mission contexts, although it is unlikely to create a Renegade power build for high-end PvE content.

 

Soulcleave’s Summit was a skill we had been watching; its ability to grant uncapped healing per second limited only by how many times someone can hit while under its effect resulted in unintuitive gameplay—when Soulcleave’s Summit was active, players were incentivized to use the skills that could hit the highest number of times. This unpredictable rate of healing is not something that can be balanced. As a result, it created situations where it would allow groups to ignore intended fight mechanics. We’re now limiting Soulcleave’s Summit to trigger once per second per player, similar to Razorclaw’s Rage. We’ll still keep an eye on this skill; now that it’s rate limited, we can safely improve it in future patches if needed.

 

This is the description and reasoning behind the changes as seen in the notes. I have not included the part about torment changes as that is related to condition Renegade more than anything else. As we can see, the planned changes would make Kalla's Fervor a lot stronger than it currently is. Currently, Kalla's Fervor grants you 30 Ferocity and 2 % Condition Damage per stack, up to 5 stacks. In total, that's 150 Ferocity and 10 % Condition Damage. With Righteous Rebel taken in the Renegade trait line, it also grants 7 % Damage Reduction against Condition Damage. With the changes coming Kalla's Fervor would no longer grant you Condition Damage and Ferocity but instead would increase all damage by 2 % per stack, up to 10 %. This is strictly a buff that is welcome for both Heal Ren and Alac Ren.

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Soulcleave’s Summit: Life stealing can now trigger a maximum of once per second for each affected target.

What's more, if you take Lasting Legacy, the Kalla's Fervor buff will be 3 % per stack instead of 2 %. The real deal is the Soulcleave's Summit change. While I acknowledge that Soulcleave's Summit is ultimately broken and can be abused on both Alac Ren and Heal Ren, putting a 1-second ICD on it is not the way to fix it. Right now, you can have synergy with SS by having fast-hitting skills be cast with it and it requires pre-emptive gameplay rather than reactionary gameplay. If you are only casting SS after the damage has come or when the damage phases have already begun, you will lose a lot of the efficiency from it. It has a long cast time and it drains a lot of energy so you simply cannot use it efficiently if you do not think about 5 seconds into the future. It is a very proactive skill that was extremely useful for running no-healer groups in fractals and even in raids.

 

Soulcleave's Summit is an extremely strong and supportive skill that can deal a noticeable amount of damage and heal for a large amount at the same time. Here are some quick facts from it:

 

• Costs 10 energy to cast and -8 energy to upkeep
• Has a 1 second cast time that can be interrupted
• The spawned spirit can be interrupted by CC
• Healing and damage is life steal that scales with the caster's Healing Power and Power, respectively
• Has no internal cooldown on the life steal mechanic
• Has huge synergy with fast-hitting skills

 

What the change means is that if you go above 1 hit per second (which all classes will) you are not getting anything out of it from SS anymore. What that in turn means is that there is no longer a synergy between fast-hitting skills and therefore you lose a lot of the class synergies in raids and fractals alike. On top of that, it will make Heal Ren go from one of the best secondary healer (or even main healer) specs to almost sub-par in almost any way to other healing specs. It definitely needed a nerf and that is not up-for-debate at this time, but I think that nerfs focusing on its healing capabilities rather than its life steal capabilities would've been a better course. If the base healing was reduced by something like 90 % you would've ended up with a rather low-healing skill on an Alac Ren, but with the Healing Power scaling it would've still been a really good skill on a Heal Ren and offer a different kind of support. If the change goes through, there is absolutely no reason to use Soulcleave's Summit because it is essentially a slightly stronger Regeneration that costs -8 upkeep and has a casting cost.

 

Compare Soulcleave's Summit to Facet of Nature - Assassin. Shiro Facet is 10-man, has no cast time, no casting cost and is -2 upkeep. It deals slightly lower damage and has slightly less healing, but it has an ICD of 1/2 rather than 1 second. It also scales with the affected player's stats rather than the Herald's. Soulcleave's Summit heals slightly more and deals slightly more damage but is only 5-man, has quite the cast time, can be interrupted, the Soulcleave can be interrupted, has a casting cost and has an upkeep of -8 with 1 second ICD. For an elite skill, that is quite weak in comparison to a profession skill.

 

I wish that these changes are not made in a way that makes yet another elite skill for Renegade completely useless. I personally like playing Renegade for its supportive capabilities rather than personal DPS, but if the changes go through and I still want to play the game, Renegade will become much less supportive and much more about its own personal DPS. What's more, is that medium-tier Fractal groups might not be able to do without a healer anymore since a lot of the survivability in Fractals comes from the conjoined defensive layers from a Firebrand and a Renegade. With the upcoming change, you will lose out on a lot of healing and that will lead to awkward situations for medium-skill groups.

 

Now the changes to Retribution, Invocation and Devastation are a topic for another time, but with the Soulcleave change we might end up seeing Devastation/Retribution/Renegade Renegades, which might be a fun change. But at the cost of Soulcleave's Summit, I simply don't think it's worth it.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Janitsu.6284
The first iteration had a mistake in the ICD of Facet of Nature – Assassin, fixed it from 1/4 to the correct 1/2 second ICD.

[Virdo.1540]

Dont forget the fact that Soulcleave Summit works with all the Salvation heal-modifiers, almost doubling the healing. 

 

And Facet Of Nature - Shiro has an 0,5 sec internal cooldown.

[Janitsu.6284]

29 minutes ago, Virdo.1540 said:

Dont forget the fact that Soulcleave Summit works with all the Salvation heal-modifiers, almost doubling the healing. 

 

And Facet Of Nature - Shiro has an 0,5 sec internal cooldown.

Do you have a source for the healing modifiers working on Soulcleave's Summit? Because as far as I know, it's life steal and life steal isn't affected by outgoing healing modifiers, only by healing power. I tested it just now before sending this reply in game, and having Salvation only increases healing due to Life Attunement trait that gives you healing power.

 

And thanks for the note, I was thinking ½ but instead my brain decided to write 1/4 for some unknown reason (maybe I was thinking of OWP or something).

 

EDIT testing also other combinations on the golem rn

EDIT2 tested with allies, healing modifiers do not affect Soulcleave's healing

Edited May 2, 2021 by Janitsu.6284

[Icetea.3204]

53 minutes ago, Janitsu.6284 said:

Do you have a source for the healing modifiers working on Soulcleave's Summit? Because as far as I know, it's life steal and life steal isn't affected by outgoing healing modifiers, only by healing power. I tested it just now before sending this reply in game, and having Salvation only increases healing due to Life Attunement trait that gives you healing power.

 

And thanks for the note, I was thinking ½ but instead my brain decided to write 1/4 for some unknown reason (maybe I was thinking of OWP or something).

 

EDIT testing also other combinations on the golem rn

EDIT2 tested with allies, healing modifiers do not affect Soulcleave's healing

 

You are 100% right. It doesn't work with any outgoing healing modifiers.

As far as I know (and I tested this more than a year ago, so this might be completely wrong) it does get affected by firebrand tome 2 skill 5,which increases incoming healing.

[Infusion.7149]

Can't the summons be killed in competitive modes by random AOE as well? That was one of the major drawbacks before Feb 2020 competitive patch.

[Janitsu.6284]

13 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Can't the summons be killed in competitive modes by random AOE as well? That was one of the major drawbacks before Feb 2020 competitive patch.

Yes, the summons can also be killed. However (from personal/anecdotal evidence), it seems that they take reduced damage and can't be affected by certain skills in PvE environment. I don't think it's been too much of an issue that they die, moreso that they just happen to get CC'd.

[Shao.7236]

1 hour ago, Janitsu.6284 said:

Yes, the summons can also be killed. However (from personal/anecdotal evidence), it seems that they take reduced damage and can't be affected by certain skills in PvE environment. I don't think it's been too much of an issue that they die, moreso that they just happen to get CC'd.

They're immune to Taunt, I'd say also not viable to individually CC or kill. Only AoE skills. IE: Jade Winds is a great counter to Renegade.

[Nephalem.8921]

1 hour ago, Janitsu.6284 said:

Yes, the summons can also be killed. However (from personal/anecdotal evidence), it seems that they take reduced damage and can't be affected by certain skills in PvE environment. I don't think it's been too much of an issue that they die, moreso that they just happen to get CC'd.

Flux bombs and similar other effects ignore the damage reduction and will kill spirits and ranger spirits aswell. Sometimes adds even directly attack and kill it. They dont have a lot of health.

Sometimes it was longer cc'd than active in fights like mai trin.

 

I get where they are coming from but unless they quadruple the base values it will be a complete noob trap never worth casting. It is weaker than spirit of nature in a 10 player environment by quite a huge margin. And that spirit can have a 100% uptime and doesn't cost anything.

[JRZTT.1824]

Cry in Herald T.T

 

Herald need more buff.

[Orion Templar.4589]

Great post Janitsu. I think you've summarized well why the proposed change to Soulcleave's Summit is not a good way to approach things. If SS needed a tone-down for groups, at least the ICD shouldn't be applied to the casting Renegade. If the over-nerf of SS rolls into production as proposed, they really need to consider reducing the energy cost (both initial and upkeep) since the skill will be significantly weaker.

[Janitsu.6284]

3 hours ago, Orion Templar.4589 said:

Great post Janitsu. I think you've summarized well why the proposed change to Soulcleave's Summit is not a good way to approach things. If SS needed a tone-down for groups, at least the ICD shouldn't be applied to the casting Renegade. If the over-nerf of SS rolls into production as proposed, they really need to consider reducing the energy cost (both initial and upkeep) since the skill will be significantly weaker.

Yes, I like SS because it has synergy with different classes and it's extremely strong if used properly and lacking if used in a wrong situation. After the change it will become as neglected as other elite skills on revenant (apart from Mallyx elite).

[Kuba.8715]

The way they decided to nerf SS is terrible. There are so many ways to do it, for example my approach would be giving the life-steal hit a percentage rate to proc, like 50% or so. Kind of like windfury in WoW but with higher rate as effect is much weaker. It would leave the elite skill interesting and powerful, but not as reliable. If they go with ICD 0.25s is the way to go, but it’s such a boring nerf. 1 sec is making it useless.

[Infusion.7149]

They buffed soulcleave this minor (May 25) patch in terms of healing, but it still probably isn't enough to bother using unless you are playing full on heal renegade. The interval hasn't been adjusted so effectively for a whole group auto-attacking it is still a net nerf (assuming <0.5 second attack interval , i.e. any group even without quickness on meta weapons).
 

Quote

Soulcleave's Summit: Increased healing by 50% in all game modes.

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Janitsu.6284]

4 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

They buffed soulcleave this minor (May 25) patch in terms of healing, but it still probably isn't enough to bother using unless you are playing full on heal renegade. The interval hasn't been adjusted so effectively for a whole group auto-attacking it is still a net nerf (assuming <0.5 second attack interval , i.e. any group even without quickness on meta weapons).
 

 

It's going to end up being around 1k HPS, I think. It's hardly anything so I think it will remain the same. Either the numbers need to be really really really good or the ICD needs to get buffed for the ability to be worth it again.

[Virdo.1540]

On 5/4/2021 at 10:36 AM, JRZTT.1824 said:

Cry in Herald T.T

 

Herald need more buff.

They like kicking dead things.