Update 1.71.2

Are there already plans in place for reimbursing the guilds who lost out on 3000 Guild Points during these last two weeks as a result of the bug?

is the sinistro AP removal based on the caster's willpower?

Nice tweaks for Xelor spell. Thanks in current hour. Yes, just within this hour. 

Xelor uses the dial as a tool to move and to increase damage to himself. The new passive effect of the Dial Master is better than the previous one BUT it cancels the whole point of using dial for Xelor. With this passive, Xelor imposes a penalty not only on allies and enemies but also on to himself, which makes this passive unnecessary, useless. Why should I sacrifice damage and my movement? So that only for the enemy who gets penalty IF start turn in dial cell? <_<
It was much better this way: Dial Master

• New effect: The combatants (allies and enemies) starting their turn on an hour cell transmit their resists to dial (25 res from each combatants).

We have as a minus (enemies and allies and Xelor lose their resists) but dial becomes more tenacious. 

it is wrong to penalize Xelor for using his main instrument. we can fine allies, because they need to be careful with the cells of the dial, but why use this on Xelor? 
 

 

[Ankama]WAKFU|2021-03-30 04:35:10

Hi DamienFireheart,

We've checked it with the team and there are no plans for the missed out guild points.

[Flatops]

"We made a mistake that set back the guild community a full week's worth of progress, but you're just going to have to deal with that," is the sentiment? Has the team considered that a situation like this might be as good an impetus as any to remove the arbitrary weekly limit on guild points?

Initial testing:

Dial Master:
Currently, Clockmaking will teleport the Xelor, then Dial Master's debuff is applied on the Xelor. Will the developers consider swapping the order of the triggers, so that the passives work synergistically (debuff is applied, then Xelor returns to current hour) when taken in the same deck, rather than negatively?

Course of Time:
Still does not remove AP or  grant armour when taken with combat mage if Momentary Permutation triggers. Still does not remove AP or grant armour with tempus fugit and against the clock. I have to assume all three are intentionally designed to work this way at this point?

Slowdown of Time:
Penalty is still too severe compared to benefits. Will developers consider the previous suggestions of making the dial "switchable" between huge and normal mode by casting Dial on the Dial again with added AP cost when you have the passive instead? The penalty can be then "turned off" by spending more AP on the Dial.

Specialised Mechanism:
Since Cogs now explode upon death in a 2 cell radius, will developers consider changing cogs back to them causing each other damage, and the explosion upon death causing damage to cogs in addition to enemy entities? That way you speed up their deaths if you are willing to invest in both Remanence and Specialised Mechanisms, a hefty 2 passive slots. There is also currently no animations other than a small pink cloud when the death explosion triggers, same for explodoll. Consider adding some effects for it?

Sinistro:
Currently no animation for the light attack at the start of Xelor's turn.

Sandglass:
Still turns the Xelor's facing direction towards the enemy target when the state triggers, is this a bug or is this intentional? The damage at end of state bearer's turn remains situational.

Clock:
Essentially a free damage spell that bypasses invincibility, but remains too situational to take up a slot in the spell deck. Non-boss enemies can be killed easily and faster via other means, while you will want to use higher ticks for bosses which may not pay off if you die suddenly (compared to direct damage, which the boss already will incur, rather than potential future damage)

Underhand:
Mentioned by many other Xelor players, but the trigger at the beginning of the Xelor's turn remains too situational to take up a spot in the deck (also has weird cast restrictions given its situational use). Perhaps can consider trigger at the end of the Xelor's turn, at the beginning of an enemy's turn, when an enemy cast a spell that costs AP, etc.

Distortion:
Does not cause damage when you use a weapon, or with active spells. I have to assume this is an intentional design at this point.




 

 

[Siu]|2021-03-30 20:19:45

Hello,

"Dial Master: Will the developers consider swapping the order of the triggers, so that the passives work synergistically (debuff is applied, then Xelor returns to current hour)?"

• Yes, we probably will.

"Course of Time, Distortion"

• The behaviors you're describing are intended, yes. Although, for Momentary Permutation, it's debatable (because of the possibility you describe). But at this point, if Course of time triggers on Momentary, players might lose an AP that would have been converted into WP otherwise, we'll have to be careful about that (in a no combat mage/shrivelling passive scenario).

"Clock, Underhand, Slowdown of Time"

• No changes are envisioned on these spells/effects at this point.

"Specialised Mechanisms"

• These are actually applicable suggestions to say the least, I also agree both the passive and the sinistro require visual effects too (but it was a little too short to implement in a Hotfix).

"Sandglass"

• Yes, it's a bug. The Xelor should not turn towards the target cell. I suspect it's only client-side -> it will be fixed in a future hotfix or patch.

Thanks for your feedback.

For Course of time triggering from Momentary Permutation without Combat mage, the only application I can imagine would be a defensive +10FoW, which I am not sure if you can use for your next ap removal turn. It is sort of situational, but course of time doing -AP on the self for FoW buffing has its use but is situational in the first place 

"Clock, Underhand, Slowdown of Time"

• No changes are envisioned on these spells/effects at this point.

WHY? Seriously guys, WHY? Nobody liked those spells, get over this idea already! The Xelor is not going to become broken if Underhand have an early trigger or Clock have more range!
Also, because of how Underhand works, the Xelor is useless to move bosses like Koko the Nut or gain levels of Spotted through the small blightopard in the Blightopard Canyon bossfight. Sometimes all we need is a push, not a teleport.

Dial Master is probably the worst passive in the game now lol

Are there any plans to add anything related to mummification? 
Elio not healer but can revive. Panda can heal but cant revive. It would be great to return revive for Xelor. Without a real healer mummified anyway dies. 
If dev don't want to return revive, please do something with mummification. 
also during beta testing, the developer mentioned that he wants Sinistro be friendly but comes back old effect and worse. Sinistro 1.70 was much more useful than this. 
It was possible to dwell on the fact that Sinistro gives resistance and 1 AP for allies only. And everyone would be happy. Because it expensive summon. 
If you wanted to do friendly summon it is shouldn't be friends with our enemies

Further feedback:

Symmetry
As it stands, Symmetry is currently the Xelor's version of Sram's Wily. after testing, it is found that backstab is applied upon cast if you hit from the front, despite the Xelor reaching the rear only after the the visual animation resolves. This is a nice touch, however, symmetry still heavily limited in usage due to 1 per target cast restrictions. This prevents a Xelor from teleporting to behind enemy lines, attack, and escape back to safety (Srams have invisibility to circumvent this problem)

If used for utility, would recommend reducing AP cost by 1, and lowering damage to compensate

If used for damage and skirmishes, would recommended adjusting to 2 cast per target, so that a Xelor can return to safety via the same enemy, rather than try to look for other targets to escape.

If 3AP cost and 1 cast per target is kept, recommend to increase range by 1 to facilitate its movement purpose, or remove it's line of sight requirement to boost escaping lock when an enemy is next to you.

Desynchronisation:
Will there be a consideration for the AP granting to trigger in the state bearer's start of turn, rather than the Xelor, so that they can use the AP earlier?

Sinistro:
Will there be a consideration for the light damage to apply ST damage or AoE damage depending on which mastery is higher, similar to shrivelling?

Momentary Permutation and Dial Master:
There would be a larger incentive to use them if either of these passives reduce cooldown of Dial by 1 turn as both more often than not results in placement of Dial near enemy lines that may cause their quick destruction

Dial Master:
Alternative to applying a one turn debuff on entities on hour cell, how about giving the dial 3 cell circle debuff aura instead? (i.e. all entities within the boundaries of the hour cells suffer damage penalty) This prevents a distance Xelor from using their distance mastery while still on current hour (unless they also take Remanence), but gives a better AoE field for applying the debuff via Momentary Permutation, without suffering the penality while on hour cells. The penalty also stops applying if an enemy destroys the dial, but you can take Momentary Permutation to boost its resistance.
 

Alright, now that it seems the Xelor is getting better I did a second run on it and found a good Fire/Air build I am sticking with.. Now regarding the new changes.

The Good:
- The Slowdown buff was not very significant but it's still a buff nonetheless.
- Hammhour is pretty good now, the main problem was always how limited it was and how it loses it's potential as the fight progresses and enemies are killed but now it's just good.

Indifferent:
- The buff on Clockmaking is good but it doesn't fix the fact that it's still a pretty limiting passive, forcing the Xelor to constantly play in the CURRENT hour cell and that can be a bit difficult still.
- The new Specialized Mechanism is good, don't get me wrong, the problem are the mechanism themselves..

The Bad:
- Since the beta, what was the main complaint on Sinistro? "Why does it also buffs the enemy?!".. For some reason you guys just simply REFUSE to do this very simple fix and keep dancing around it adding new effects and such and now you made them even worst.. So they do damage now? That's cool, that's cool.. But say.. Why do they still buff the enemy with +1AP? So I place the Sinistro close to the enemy so it can do damage to them (a very weak damage BTW, SInistro does damage related to a 2AP spell while also costing 2WP) but in return it gives them +1AP? This isn't a fair trade to me.. Why not just go back to the +1AP and +50 Resistance and just don't let the enemy benefit from it? I don't understand.. Why is it so hard? That has been the main complaint for every-single-patch, why are you refusing to do it?
- Can we just give up on this Dial Master gimmick? Since you guys decided that Dial Master would remove damage on hour cell I can only see this effect backfiring.. The same way a Xelor or a positioner can place an enemy on a hour cell to debuff them so does the enemy.. Just completely change this already.. I don't see why people would waste a passive slot for a passive that can backfire this badly..

Suggestions (If you care):
- Like I said above, Specialized Mechanism is a good passive now, the problem is the mechanism themselves, I literally just talked about Sinistro, it's redundant, it does little damage and buffs the enemy with +1AP.. Just simply roll it back with the +1AP and +50 Resistance buff BUT remove the fact it also buffs enemies so only allies benefit from it, I don't see why should I waste 2AP and 2WP for a summon that benefits my enemy more than helps me.. Cog is another story, there is potential here, the main problem is just that it is too costly, previous Hydrant used to cost 4AP too but it didn't need a trigger to activate and it wouldn't wither itself everytime it was used so "my" simple fix would be to just lower the AP cost to 3 without touching anything else, don't lower it's damage, don't add any gimmicks, just lower the AP cost.
- Dial Master in the other hand needs a total revamp, "my" suggestion is this:
Dial Master

• Old effects have been removed.
• New effect: The Dial costs 1WP to be placed instead of 2AP.
• New effect: Moving around the Dial costs MP instead of WP.

It's ultimately a freedom of choice passive, if you want to use MP to move around the Dial instead of WP, pick this (this could also fix the constant complaint of Xelor being too WP hungry). The removal of the AP cost was to resemble something like the previous passive and since the Dial before used to cost 1WP along with the 2AP I decided to add that as a possible negative for it so it wouldn't be totally free.

Some other Suggestions unrelated to this patch:
- Clock is still quite difficult to use effectively and I barely see anyone even picking it, even if the close combat range gets increase I would still think this skill isn't really all that great to be used.
- Desynchronization still removes allies AP before giving them the buff which contradicts the way it's suppose to be used since to give AP you need to use with Tock when you have -20FoW while, at the same time, it's only effective offensively when you have +20FoW making it kinda hard to use it's full potential and since the damage of the spell is very weak to it's cost it should be useful in this sense at least (damaging enemies while buffing allies close to them) or have it's damage increased a bit.
- Sandglass, in my opinion, should NOT hurt allies or the caster itself, Xelors are very easily locked due to the lack of an instant push so having this spell hurt you as well is just salt in the wound on top of being hard to play around in parties.
- Underhand's push is too situational and depends a lot on the enemy's movement making it quite random to be used effectively, I would rather the push be nerfed to just 1 instead of 4 but be instant than this..
- Paradox does very little damage, it's already a pretty situational spell to use for mobility and the damage being this low makes it also weak offensively while being expensive, the best situation I can see this being used for damage is by combining it with Cog but since both spells are quite weak but also expensive I wouldn't recommend either..
- (Passive) Dark Dimension is still a passive no one would pick because, again, no one is going to trade +30% damage, a certain increase, for +30FoW, an increased chance, in the current hour cell, it need to either be revamped or be given another positive effect since trading the damage for FoW can be seem, mostly, as a negative.
- Remanence is still a pretty boring passive with no real reason to pick it, specially because, like I said above, the mechanism aren't good to justify wanting an extra of them on the field and even so, the passive is still quite weak to spend a slot on.
- Deja Vú and Assimilation have pretty good pros but the cons are way too harsh and restrictive, I would lower the WP penalty of these, maybe to -3WP on Deja Vú instead of -4WP and -4WP on Assimilation instead of -6WP

Well that was a long post..

 

Thothus|2021-03-30 05:58:38

Initial testing:

Course of Time:
Still does not remove AP or  grant armour when taken with combat mage if Momentary Permutation triggers. Still does not remove AP or grant armour with tempus fugit and against the clock. I have to assume all three are intentionally designed to work this way at this point?
 

[Siu]|2021-03-30 20:19:45

Hello,

"Course of Time, Distortion"

• The behaviors you're describing are intended, yes. Although, for Momentary Permutation, it's debatable (because of the possibility you describe). But at this point, if Course of time triggers on Momentary, players might lose an AP that would have been converted into WP otherwise, we'll have to be careful about that (in a no combat mage/shrivelling passive scenario).

 

 

Things like this directly contradict where we were told the rework was intended to make the class easier to understand.

The passive says swapping two things removes AP from both, but you specifically ensured the most reliable tool for causing a swap did not trigger it and call it intended. This makes the passive a trap. It appears to be good, but with no indication to the user otherwise, it does not do what it says.

And for what? you're concerned it could be too impactful? Then why does the passive exist at all? We have 20 passives, but most of them seem to be too concerned with the idea that there might possibly be a good way for them to interact. We'd be better off with half as many passives that had a little more care into designing them to be useful and intuitive.

Dial master is another example of being too concerned with something being possibly good. -15% damage inflicted for a damage dealer using a mechanic so core to them that it's on the third bar, for an oportunity to remove damage inflicted from enemies, which it's much more likely that the xelor is the only person on the dial by nature of what the dial is for the xelor. A simple thought about the way they play out reveals these, it doesn't even hit them mark of "well I'll need to see it in action" or "if the numbers were different", so without the developers explaining further their intent behind some of these changes, I'm left to speculate that the developers felt like the dial needed to remain part of the class, but did not want it to. As a player, if this is an accurate guess as to how the devs feel about it, I would have preferred to lose the dial than have so many negatives tied to it and then core gameplay designed around it.

But I can only guess. All we've gotten for dialogue is "We're considering more changes" (vauge response to another thread where issues with passives were brought up, without a dialogue about what direction those changes might be) or "We disagree" (usefulness of a passive that removes your range on a ranged damage dealer in the beta discord server) or "We won't change this" (clock, underhand despite players not finding either useful in their current state) and no actual explanation of intent. This lack of explanation precludes any ability to provide feedback you may be more receptive to, and just leaves us frustrated because from a player perspective, you are intentionally designing things against the feedback on usability without any obvious reason as to why.

I'm not asking you to bend to every bit of feedback you get, but if something has more downside than positive, people won't use it, and if players don't have enough information to understand your intent, it becomes easy to wave it away as "developer ego" or "selling class changes", neither of which are constructive to people who want to see the class they have been playing reach a revamp state they are happy with.

Give us more info into the why of your designs and you'll give us the ability to tailor feedback that is informed from actual gameplay with the current state toward the goals of that design.

Ankama does listen 
just a few more fixes on the obvious flaws of Xelor like Underhand delayed push, Time Theft slow & impractical WP->AP build up, impractical Clock applying method/short range, and some more other mentioned in Beta.

 

cody5|2021-03-31 10:33:13

Desynchronisation: if you use it on a tick when you have + damage - will, you can do damage to enemies and debuff allies less, if you don't mind not removing enemy AP as much, since if you are going for buffing you won't have a lot of willpower anyway

Remanence: Yeah I agree, imo they should allow you 3 of each summon since you still have to summon them and they all have a cooldown

Sinistro: Well yeah it's still not great but honestly +1AP doesn't really help monsters much, dead in PvP tho

Dial master: Yeah it can backfire, but so can feca glyphs, so it doesn't seem that unfair, a bit weak tho imo

Clock: I'd totally use it if it had a higher range, if you cast it at 2 or 3 it's basically free damage and if you use it on an invincible boss early, it can do some decent damage by the time you cleared the other mobs

Dark dimension: honestly I am probably gonna try using it now that hammhour isn't linear anymore, would love if it got buffed tho

The Sinistro +1AP on mobs might help the mobs if you previously remove their AP since it will refund it plus the damage is literally garbage for a spell that costs 2AP+2WP (Same damage as a 2AP spell in fact), since it cost that high AND buffs the enemy as a negative the damage should, at least, be quite decent (Something like a 4AP spell perhaps)

Comparing Dial Master to Feca's Glyphs is just dumb, I am sorry.. Both these classes are MASSIVELY different in both gameplay and roles to begin with but if I MUST compare them to make a point, fine.. 1) Feca's Glyphs should be used smartly, you don't need and SHOULDN'T place one every turn and if you do place them you do in the enemy lines, not the allies (Unless it's a Wave Glyph), the Xelor Dial however is almost a requirement for Xelors, increasing their reach and mobility AND you will place them in your side of the field since you don't want mobs to destroy it; 2) A Glyph stays for one turn, two at best with a passive, a Dial stays in play until destroyed or replaced somewhere else; 3) The Glyph isn't a passive that is consuming a slot, it's a basic spell, they have many different ones for each and every situation, the Dial Master consumes a passive slots just for a damage debuff that I see being more harmful than good due to, again, Dials being placed in your side of the field, not the enemy's.

If you would use Clock, that's up to you, I still feel like having to match your own AP to use it at a reasonable time while having to wait until it triggers being clunky and just dumb.. If you try to trigger it too early (1-3 turns) the damage won't be good enough to justify the wait and if you trigger it too late (3 turns or more) then you could had just attacked directly and killed the mob.. Even if you do that to a boss most of them have invulnerability triggers so it's all up to luck if he will be invulnerable when it triggers or not.. Or you can ask your team to just delay their plays just to allow that to work, good luck on that..

I wouldn't suggest using Dark Dimension because of the way FoW works, Hammhour can only potentially remove -1AP, sure the chance will be better if you get +30FoW to do it multiple times but isn't having +30% damage MUCH better than this? And if you get lucky you can also remove AP too so no reason to get the extra FoW, the only way I see this being useful is in a defensive way since it will protect you better from having you AP/MP drained but for that to happen you need to be in the CURRENT hour and if the current hour is in a undesirable position then that won't work very well either on top of only being useful against enemies that do remove AP and MP while a +30% damage is universally good..

 

MiiiiKy|2021-04-01 05:19:47

Not totally..
Like I said in my own post, everyone has been complaining about Sinistro giving buffs to enemies too and instead of just removing that from the mechanism they just keep adding and changing things BUT the ONE THING that everyone is complaining about since the very first beta..

I totally agree about Sinistro. While the small damage does deter incentive for enemy to stay near Sinistro, doesn't change the fact that it's still expensive for what it can do, plus still buffs enemy. In it's current state, it feels like a 3AP spell, or 2AP 1WP. But I prefer Reg's suggestion since it sounds fairer and the player has more control over the build & playstyle. Here's a quote from him again.


and to add to this, a lot of people are ignoring the fact that Sinistro's effects are delayed, meaning you don't get to reap it's reward until 1 turn later unlike other Summons that can do better on the same turn and cost less. (Coney, Osa Summon, Sadida, Masq, Sram), do more, cost less, capable of aiding in dungeon mechanics unlike Mechanism summons that doesn't have a turn & MP to trigger tiles.

After testing different playstyles at different dungeons, I'd like to suggest the implementation of a separated active spell dedicated to destroy mechanisms.

Gear is currently a very good positioning spell and, because of that, it has a veeery limited range of 1- 3 cells, this ultimately affects the repositioning of mechanisms and, specially, the destruction of the Dial if you are a Slowdown of Time user considering how unforgiving the passive can be. If a dedicated spell was created it would ease the process of moving mechanisms around the map and it would give Slowdown of Time users a viable and solid non-elemental teleportation combo to get back to safety after being teleported away from the Dial or even being stabilized by a monster.

------

About the Sinistro, I like the AoE support that it provides but, as some have said before, the fact that it is a delayed support spell, meaning that it triggers at the start of the Xelor's turn, doesn't let it shine as it should. There are 2 things that can be done here:

• Trigger the Sinistro as soon as it is summoned
• Give the Sinistro an aura similar to the Standard-Bearing Whisperer, this means that the buff would trigger at the start of the ally turn or if they enter in the AoE of the Sinistro.

Personally, I think the option 1 would be the most efficient. The delayed buff of the Sinistro is the reason why I don't use this summon at all, not even on my support deck.

 May I add that despite the buffs to Specialised Mechanism, taking summons in a build is still not very viable due to:

1) Cogs only being able to be swapped near enemies in the same turn via Paradox and Tempus Fugit, one which has a once per target cast restriction, the other with a 2 turn cooldown. Gear is only able to move a cog towards an enemy for damage, or away from 1 enemy to another, instead of around the same enemy.

2) High AP cost and WP cost of both sinistroes and Cogs, when they crumble from being attacked easily

3) Linear restriction on Cog resulting in the Xelor using MP or WP (to move on hour cells) to position the Cog suitably near an enemy, which messes up your current hour

4) Summons and mechanisms of other classes serve their purposes by 1) having their own spell deck and turns, 2) providing utility by their mere existence (cat tree/rails/portals), or facilitating damage in some way (bombs/beacons/barrels/wisp-o-wills).

Cogs fall under 3), but have high AP cost to summon. Sinistroes fall under 2) but are interactable by enemies and takes an entire round before granting their effects, which means they die quickly. Mechanisms under 2) and 3) are also either quickly replaceable when they die via low ap cost (barrels, beacons), or have class-build-in means of being moved (panda throws, elio-repositioning portals). Most repositioning tools by the Xelor have their own restrictions (high AP cost and linear cast of Paradox, 1 cast per turn and 3 cast range of Gear) that prevents the summons from being utilised properly.

Alternative to fixing the tough positioning of mechanisms via modifying the summoning spells, Tempus Fugit can also be modified thus to better facilitate the movement of Mechanisms (and improve its positioning utility):

Reduce the cost, damage and glyph summoned, lasting duration and cooldown by half. So tempus fugit will instead cost 1AP 1WP,  summon 1 glyph on the targeted cell (can be self targeted), do half damage, and has a 2 per turn cast restriction and no cooldown, and only lasts 1 round rather than 2.

This lets a distance Xelor place two glyphs at 5 cell range max rather than be forced to move near the enemy to put the glyphs down as the current version places one under the Xelor. It also allows the Xelor’s teleports to move allies rather than the self while at a distance.

This has two important benefits:

1) allows summon of glyphs near enemies so that cogs can be placed and teleported for damage without the xelor engaging in close combat or leaving the dial.

2) Allows sinistroes to be moved to cells that are not the ones the Xelor is on.

To prevent casting two glyphs to move an ally ten cells apart, a max teleportation range of 7 cells can be enforced, like the old underhand time rift.