2014-05-19 Content Update (148101)

[H2N]

Elixir prices have returned to normal.
60 Minute Combo Elixir Kits are no longer available in Locked Grand Crates of the Watch.
Magmatic Totem's proc no longer pulls in the wrong players during PvP.
Ker'shal Scepter Arcane Staff changes:

The charged shadowball now charges in .75 seconds, down from 1.6 seconds.
Updated visual for the Ker'shal Scepter charged effect on the Sorcerer.
Damage output from the charged Shadowball has been reduced by about 25% to compensate for the decreased charge time.
The charged Ker'shal scepter attack now will autoface to the nearest target, like fireball does.
Chance to slow has been increased to 33%.
Chance to reduce critical chance of affected target has been reduced slightly to 14%.

[falmear]

Ker'shal Scepter Arcane Staff changes:

The charged shadowball now charges in .75 seconds, down from 1.6 seconds.
Updated visual for the Ker'shal Scepter charged effect on the Sorcerer.
Damage output from the charged Shadowball has been reduced by about 25% to compensate for the decreased charge time.
The charged Ker'shal scepter attack now will autoface to the nearest target, like fireball does.
Chance to slow has been increased to 33%.
Chance to reduce critical chance of affected target has been reduced slightly to 14%.



This is an improvement?

[Toogy]

1st

Sent from my GT-S6310N using Tapatalk

[Sultanking]

wow

Gesendet von meinem LG-P760 mit Tapatalk

[Cmrel]

Wew


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Uicheusa]

"Decreased" charged time?

[Crowsfoot]

Elixir prices have returned to normal.
60 Minute Combo Elixir Kits are no longer available in Locked Grand Crates of the Watch.
Magmatic Totem's proc no longer pulls in the wrong players during PvP.
Ker'shal Scepter Arcane Staff changes:

The charged shadowball now charges in .75 seconds, down from 1.6 seconds.
Updated visual for the Ker'shal Scepter charged effect on the Sorcerer.
Damage output from the charged Shadowball has been reduced by about 25% to compensate for the increased charge time.
The charged Ker'shal scepter attack now will autoface to the nearest target, like fireball does.
Chance to slow has been increased to 33%.
Chance to reduce critical chance of affected target has been reduced slightly to 14%.



Decreased*

[Dill1sHere]

Nice Ker'shal boosts :)

[Reunegade]

Woot, thx

[H2N]

"Decreased" charged time?

Fixed

[H2N]

Decreased*

Fixed

[Archerios]

lol at the Kershal

[Maalice]

Hmmmm... ill give it a shot i guess.. thanks for the buff... was hoping for a change in the proc though, but this may help the charge issues

[Energizeric]

This will certainly help, maybe good to lead with charged kershal attack for the debuff, then move to skills. I also like that it's directional as it will allow me to kite enemies like I did when I used a gun. Sometimes I think my biggest issue against warriors is that I must sit there and face them head on in order to land kershal attack.

[Maalice]

.75 sounds pretty fast... im eager to test it

[Nevhok]

Nice

[Uicheusa]

Fixed

Meh, I don't see no 'thanks' for my reply :P

[Schnitzel]

I was just wondering if it would be ok if all staffs can auto target like the rifles can.

Thanks

[Roberto077]

I was about to buy an elixir and then the timer started just as I hit the button, canceling the purchase :(

[Shadowcreeper234]

Cool

[Spell]

.75 sounds pretty fast... im eager to test it

Maalice your Sig doe! Sts look at them female mages huhu.I want to be one of those!

[Shadowcreeper234]

Lol

[Energizeric]

.75 sounds pretty fast... im eager to test it

I never timed charged attacks, but I'm guessing that is around what other staffs take to charge, and what our skills take to charge.

[Carapace]

it's quite a large damage boost in terms of the Ker'shal changes. If originally you can only do 1 attack every 1.6 seconds, that means with a .75 charge time players can cast a little over two shadow balls in the same amount of time as before, in addition to shooting backwards which allows better kiting. compared to the previous version the same amount of time will yield about 150% damage over the previous charged abilty of the Ker'shal Scepter, with an improved slow chance to boot.

[JaytB]

Thanks for listening to the community by buffing the Ker'shal scepter a bit. I'll have to test it out before making any further statements though.

[falmear]

it's quite a large damage boost in terms of the Ker'shal changes. If originally you can only do 1 attack every 1.6 seconds, that means with a .75 charge time players can cast a little over two shadow balls in the same amount of time as before, in addition to shooting backwards which allows better kiting. compared to the previous version the same amount of time will yield about 150% damage over the previous charged abilty of the Ker'shal Scepter, with an improved slow chance to boot.

Yes if you are a mathematician this sounds good. But you can do even more damage by using a normal attack because you can spam this way faster. The auto targeting & reduced charging time is the only good thing in this change. Everything else made it worse in my opinion.

[Madnex]

Nice, now using it in clashes after fireball doesn't sound like a very bad idea anymore.

[Maalice]

Maalice your Sig doe! Sts look at them female mages huhu.I want to be one of those!

Lol thanks lia ; )

[Zapix]

I'm sorry but the bad proc is still bad. Instead of fixing the proc change it to something useful please. I've said this multiple times but what would one more time hurt.
1. Remove Shadowflare.
2. Replace Shadowflare with a chance on cast of Frosbolt, Fireball, or Lightning to duplicate that spell. Like a 10% chance.

There we go problem fixed and a Mage with Kershal is actually something to be feared just like a maul or hook toon.

[Energizeric]

I like the change, but I agree it is not a huge bump, but useful nonetheless. Before nobody was using shadowflare at all, so you can't really compare and say that by using shadowflare you are causing way more damage than using shadowflare before. Nobody was using it before.

If you are after pure damage, then I agree that using the regular attack is much better. The whole idea of shadowflare is the debuff it offers, so in clashes it is very useful now to use it as your lead attack after you put up your shield.

I do have one question: Is the 33% chance to slow applied per enemy, or as a whole? If I cast it into a group of 4 enemies and it hits them all with its AoE, are they either all slowed or none? Or is the chance to slow applied separate for each of them, so on average I will slow 1 enemy if I cast it into a group of 3?

Either way it would now make sense to use this as a lead attack, and then follow with your other attack skills followed by regular non-charged kershal attack. Same goes with using it in PvE. Get the debuff first, then use your damage skills. I do wish that it was an armor debuff instead of a speed debuff. As sorcerers, our biggest problems in PvP is causing enough damage to warriors to defeat them. What we really need is an armor debuff. Warriors are already slow, so slowing them down does not really help us very much.

[FluffNStuff]

Glad the Kershal got some much needed attention. Now how about the "Arcane" pet with Dearies Arcane plus minimal damage? Changing his non existent stun to Slags panic which actually works in Tindren would be a great start!

[falmear]

Either way it would now make sense to use this as a lead attack, and then follow with your other attack skills followed by regular non-charged kershal attack. Same goes with using it in PvE. Get the debuff first, then use your damage skills. I do wish that it was an armor debuff instead of a speed debuff. As sorcerers, our biggest problems in PvP is causing enough damage to warriors to defeat them. What we really need is an armor debuff. Warriors are already slow, so slowing them down does not really help us very much.

Why would you lead with an attack that does now 50% less damage then a normal auto attack? That has 66% chance to do nothing and 86% chance of doing nothing. Both rolls are independent of each other so you can get one, both or none. Abaddon's passive attack has a chance to reduce crit by 10% and its only mythic pet and its free. No mana cost! And how can the chance to reduce crit be any lower then 14%? Also from my testing the snare effect is barely noticeable. The only thing that is good is now it auto targets on charged attack. So if you are in a boss fight where you would get 1 hit killed, you can use the charged attack. That's about the only benefit I see. Everything else just go in and spam your auto attack you'll do more damage. If we had a higher chance of anything happening then I would say it maybe worth it but I'd get a few more hits in with my auto attack then waste my time doing less damage.

[Kakashis]

time to buff the maul!

[Medicman]

I agree the charge time is nice and the auto aim is useful. The procs, however, are still a joke and the shadowflare now does less damage. Kershal is starting to equal Kerplunk. If I wanted to make things slower, ice and time do a wonderful job at this. I don't need a staff to "maybe" do it too. I'm sure this could have been a really good change for us mages, but again, seriously disappointed.

[Leonut]

it's quite a large damage boost in terms of the Ker'shal changes. If originally you can only do 1 attack every 1.6 seconds, that means with a .75 charge time players can cast a little over two shadow balls in the same amount of time as before, in addition to shooting backwards which allows better kiting. compared to the previous version the same amount of time will yield about 150% damage over the previous charged abilty of the Ker'shal Scepter, with an improved slow chance to boot.

This is obviously a Pve buff. Compared to the maul, this is a nerf since shadow flare does less damage now. Procs should be on all staff attacks.

[Rean]

I am simply amazed the Shadowflare damage can actually be further reduced.

Might as well just remove the damage component in this spell totally and make it a 100% debuff spell just like Curse but increasing the slow %, reduce crit % and maybe some armor reduction %?

What about some changes to the +10 mana proc?

Please consider.

[faefaefae]

Thank you for listening to players.

I will try the new charged attack first and then give my feedback.

[Instanthumor]

Please, this has been suggested MANY times. Why can't you guys just get rid of Shadowflare?

We've heard feedback in PvE and in clashes, now hear some 1v1 perspectives. Basically, you would want the most damage output you can achieve. Why the H, E, double toothpick would you need to use Shadowflare? It gives way less damage than a regular, non-charged staff attack, and Frost does a 500% better job of slowing the opponent. Against a warrior, you wouldn't need crit reduction since most of them have a small amount anyways, and for rogues, you have Fireball's 25% chance to reduce hit chance. It's a 14% chance to reduce crit... You'd die from the rogue even before you have a chance to reduce crit... Fully equipped rogues with Expedition Bows can one combo 4k hp mages on their shields! Imagine the chaos once mythic bows arrive.

After getting rid of it, buff the proc. I'm sure 95% of other mages would rather have the proc buffed than Shadowflare, since most mages are still not going to use it. Get rid of the +10 mana regen. I don't care if anything is replaced with it, just get rid of it. It's absolutely nothing. Nothing's probably going to change your mind anymore, since obviously, simply reducing charge time of Shadowflare took 6 months.. All I'm trying to do is make the arcane scepter live up to its "arcane" name.

[PuFF3N]

Glad the Kershal got some much needed attention. Now how about the "Arcane" pet with Dearies Arcane plus minimal damage? Changing his non existent stun to Slags panic which actually works in Tindren would be a great start!

+1 !!!

[Leonut]

OK I've tried it. Shadow flare rocks in pve. Pvp wise... Use a broom stick. It might be better.

[Rean]

Just tried the revamped Shadowflare in PvE. The cast time is so much better, but...

- The 33% chance snare from Shadowflare does not help since I have charged clock (roots 100%) and frost (freezes/snares 100%).
- The 14% chance crit reduction from Shadowflare does nothing for me because I have charged fire (stun 100%/reduct hit 25%) and frost (freezes 100%).

Also, for the same cast time, I do more damage with my regular spells/normal attacks. In short, Shadowflare still does nothing for me.

[Maalice]

So in pvp i see no difference in vs and minimal difference in clash... it wasnt like my team was thanking me for throwing some shadowballs into the mix, even tho i was.

[Instanthumor]

In short, Shadowflare still does nothing for me.

My point exactly.

[Maalice]

Ran some elites and testes it... still not seeing anything major... cam we plz just get this staff to be on par with other seasons arcane weapons.

[cooletzzz]

nice improvement. thnx!

[puresai]

it's quite a large damage boost in terms of the Ker'shal changes. If originally you can only do 1 attack every 1.6 seconds, that means with a .75 charge time players can cast a little over two shadow balls in the same amount of time as before, in addition to shooting backwards which allows better kiting. compared to the previous version the same amount of time will yield about 150% damage over the previous charged abilty of the Ker'shal Scepter, with an improved slow chance to boot.

Dear DEV

1. Arcane staff was a last season gear and no major changes until now. those changes should be made months ago.
I felt STS do not care about mage players in a very disrespectful way.
2. The currently proc is not helping mages,(I dont know how many time we have to say it) please give us armor buff or lower opponents armor or Heal regain
3. I dont wnat to get in to how warriors farm mages, everyone knows.......

[will0]

sell it .. use mythic everyone happy :)

[Zapix]

I would at least like an explanation of why getting rid of Shadowflare isn't on the board from a Dev?

[Iliketolol]

Singe 2.0

[FluffNStuff]

I realized that while replacing Singe's stun with Slag's panic is a great fix, and I am sure the developer's already know that, they also know that it is too dangerous at this time. Having Slag's panic would definitely make Singe too powerful for those who abuse the current bug that allows Arcane Spamming! I do hate that the cheaters ruin it for the rest of us, but I can accept it if we have to wait for a fix to Singe to come out with the new client to prevent him from becoming over powered.

[JaytB]

After playing around with shadowflare in PvE, I have to agree that it's still pretty useless. The chance to slow or reduce crit aren't worth charging your normal attack for.

It would be nice if we got a a proc for PvE that would actually make the staff worth charging for. Currently, you'd sacrifice damage for a barely noticeable and fairly useless debuff. I can understand it could potentially have its uses in PvP, but PvE is completely overlooked here.

Let's take a look at the current state of shadow flare...

It deals about xxx dmg on x targets. You guys make it sound like it's just like fireball, but it's nowhere near an upgraded fireball skill. Compared to fb, it takes around the same time to charge, deals way less impact damage, doesn't have any dot component or any useful debuff (see further down this post for details). Sure, it deals AoE dmg, but so does my non-charged weapon attack. To make matters worse, the damage is even lower than a normal attack now. Why on earth would anyone charge an attack in PvE if it deals LESS damage as compared to an uncharged attack? For the additional benefits? Let's take a look at the procs...

33% chance to slow. As a PvE sorcerer, one of the thing you need is crowd control. Most sorcerers group up mobs until they are tightly packed and drop time on their butts. Where's the use of a slow proc there? It would only slow down the time before everything is nicely grouped together.

14% chance to reduce crit. Maybe could save you a death here and there, but nowhere near enough (or even noticeably) to warrant loosing damage output over.

My suggestion would be to add something that would make it worth charging for in PvE. Sorcerers already need to charge most of their skills (in PvE), risking their squishy lives every time they do so (unless they use some hotkeys on PC to spam health pots). Unless it's something worth charging for, nobody will charge. I know I won't.

So what would make it useful for PvE?
I could think about a ton of thing like some slight crowd control (similar to the magmatic staffs), stuns, armor buffs, a dot component, higher impact dmg, enemy armor debuffs... You name it. I understand PvP balance should be considered with any buffing of weapons, but that doesn't mean it should have totally useless charged procs in PvE.

So yeah, it's nice of you guys to seemingly make the staff a bit better for PvP, but it would also be nice if PvE would get the same kind of attention.

[falmear]

So yeah, it's nice of you guys to seemingly make the staff a bit better for PvP, but it would also be nice if PvE would get the same kind of attention.

Charged attack is just as useless in PvP. You don't win by doing less damage. You don't win by having less of a chance to reduce your opponent's damage. The staff was only made better for PvE when fighting a boss because it auto targets now. But in PvP this has very little application. If you lead with a charged staff attack, then you are giving up other options. The two most obvious is leading with a charged fireball (stun your opponents = 0 damage inflicted on you) or charged shield (2 seconds of invulnerability = 0 damage inflicted on you). Why anyone would give up canceling your opponents attack to charge the staff to do significantly less damage and having an extremely low chance to do anything is beyond my comprehension. So the design is an absolute failure in my opinion by having two separate procs.

[Haligali]

Kershal Scepter is the biggest disappointment in the history of AL without a doubt. As a mage, you have been always underpowered, but unlike the former seasons, you need now an arcane weapon just to be decent vs rogues with crate bow and still running away from warriors.

[Thorluffy]

after watching the livestream few days ago, i got to say: ' sts don't really play their own games. What else do you guys expect from them?

IGN: Thorluffy,Thorluffybolt,Thorluffysama,Thorluffyris e

[Sceazikua]

I dont think Kershal Scepter is worth the "arcane" red color. Carapace said arcane weapons should make the user a "bad mama jama", it happens with Maul and Hooks at their levels but I dont think Kershal Scepter did get sorceror to anywhere with the proc or (75% damage than normal attack) shadowflare. Lets compare with other arcanes
-Maul of Ollerus: 60 STR, -50% AOE armor along with panic on them, a charged attack that deals about doubled damage than the normal attack which is already super strong
-Black Beard's nefarious hook: Chance to jump to others, -15% Armor, -20% Movement Speed, and Bleed Effect. Charged attack does about doubled damage too.
-Kershal Scepter: 60 INT, 10 mana regen (which is basically nothing in the mana pool of 5000) <--- wtf? Now it has a charged attack which casts shadowflare dealing 75% damage than non-charged attack. "Chance" to slow (which is nothing compared to ice and time shift skills), "chance" to debuff 14% crit, while only 1 shot of aimed shot gives rogue 10% crit and it stacks. All these debuffs have high chance not to do anything.

-Suggestion 1: give it a "good chance" to stun/panic, or at least make the debuffs noticeable. Even the expedition recurve from crates do a "powerful snare" and it comes from spammed normal attacks.
-Suggestion 2: make the uncharged attack a chance to cast shadowflare (5% maybe), and get rid of the 100% cast shadowflare from charged attack and let it deal doubled damage like any other weapons.

[Medicman]

After using the "arcane" staff since the update, I still have to admit that the only thing that has had a positive change has been the charging time and the auto aimed charged attack. Other than that, I still consider this very unworthy of being considered an "arcane" weapon. I don't know about everyone else, but I still feel that the only good thing about this staff is the stat boosts. The procs are pathetic, the damage it does is even worse, and it's still not worth the time charging this thing. Please make this staff worthy of being "ARCANE". Hopefully devs will take another look at this staff and try to make it live up to its name. Of course, we may be waiting another 6 months.

[Energizeric]

Yeah, after testing it out I'm back to just using it non-charged.

Shadowflare sounded like a nice idea, and now that it auto-targets I could see it being useful IF it had a decent proc and decent damage. But with such low damage, even lower than a non-charged attack, and such a low chance to proc a pretty useless debuff, I don't see the point really.

What it really needs is a armor debuff like the maul, something that would actually help me fight a warrior.

[JaytB]

What it really needs is a armor debuff like the maul, something that would actually help me fight a warrior.

An AoE armor debuff would be great for PvE too.

[Kreasadriii]

Kershal Scepter is the biggest disappointment in the history of AL without a doubt. As a mage, you have been always underpowered, but unlike the former seasons, you need now an arcane weapon just to be decent vs rogues with crate bow and still running away from warriors.

This who made mage with arcane staff still hard to winning PvP 1 vs 1 against rogue (mythic dagger) and warrior (legend weapon)

[falmear]

I wish they would remove the proc on charged attack and just move everything to non-charged attack proc. No matter what they do no way I will be charging to do less damage given how low the chances are to do anything. They can just leave the charge attack as the shadowflare with no proc.

[Haligali]

This who made mage with arcane staff still hard to winning PvP 1 vs 1 against rogue (mythic dagger) and warrior (legend weapon)

From my experience, dagger rogues in pvp are not so deadly as bow rogues, that why you can see arcane ring on rogues mostly. Sell dagger use bow, buy a ring.

[aarrgggggg]

An entire thread of complaining about how the very best and most expensive mage weapon is not good enough. Now imagine how the legendary players feel. To those who are actually fortunate enough to own a kerschal, Stop whining and go play outside kiddos

[Sceazikua]

An entire thread of complaining about how the very best and most expensive mage weapon is not good enough. Now imagine how the legendary players feel. To those who are actually fortunate enough to own a kerschal, Stop whining and go play outside kiddos

lmao

[Haligali]

An entire thread of complaining about how the very best and most expensive mage weapon is not good enough. Now imagine how the legendary players feel. To those who are actually fortunate enough to own a kerschal, Stop whining and go play outside kiddos

You are right sir, those kershal owners just crybabies, they have no idea how we legendary players feel. (i sold my kershal)

[Instanthumor]

An entire thread of complaining about how the very best and most expensive mage weapon is not good enough. Now imagine how the legendary players feel. To those who are actually fortunate enough to own a kerschal, Stop whining and go play outside kiddos

Sometimes, I prefer my Expedition Rifle over a Ker'shal.