Current state of salamander and mana flame in PvE dungeon gameplay

[Aryn]

Dear dev and moderator team,

I would like to give feedback about the change to salamander and mana flames. Mainly the consequence this has on PvM dungeons. I am not involved in PvP so I am not able to give feedback on that. Anyone more experienced with PvP feel free to add to this.

I do want to start by saying it is disheartening to have an update focussing on balancing Player versus Player have such a big impact on the way I play and have build my character for Player versus Environment. Combining the role of healer and damage in a dungeon feels great and is a source of a lot of fun for me while playing the game. I believe that having fun is in essence one of the most important things while playing a game.

About me

I am currently maining a battle cleric which I have build out over the coarse of about 2 months. It has taking me a lot of time and effort to come up with the required items to make this build work.
To put this into the right perspective lets make a list of what is required to make an efficiënt battle cleric by my standards. (by no means this is the perfect build but this was the one I enjoyed playing).
- Gypsum Round [13]
- Summoner's Gift skill
- Purify skill
- Malachite Marquise [13]
- Hebarn Accessory set
- Peridot [7] x4
- Peridot Baguette [5]
- Courage Sun Propet valor set

I think we can agree it takes quite a bit of time and effort to build a character like this. The estimated cost of this build was around 400m at the time I bought the items.

The current problem

Let me preface this by saying that a battle cleric is unable to do every dungeon efficiently, out of the 4 dungeons currently in game 2 of them are impossible/inefficiënt.
- Halls of Oblivion with the current mechanics on the last boss makes it impossible to do due to overwhelming AOE damage.
- Sea of Dawn is also is challenging if your party is unable to kill the crystals within the raider stun.

This makes it so Cave of Ulverick and Sikuku Catacombs are the main dungeons a battle cleric is viable and useful in.

When doing dungeons as a battle cleric it is important to be able to set up flames efficiently as they are your only source of healing for the party.
The ramp up in order to set up flames before this update was 12.5 seconds. This could cause problems in certain situations but this could be resolved with healing potions.

Now with this update the ramp up has been increased up to 30 seconds which is problematic. Before it was challenging but now it is nearly impossible to set up flames during a fight where the flames get destroyed during the fight.

A few examples of these fights are:
- Shaman in Sikuku Catacombs destroys all flames with an AOE while also heavily damaging players, it is not possible to efficiently set up flames again in order to keep the party alive
- Executioner spawns adds that spawn green puddles which destroy/disable the flames. Repositioning is required in order continue the fight, setting up flames with a ramp up of 30 seconds is problematic here
- Both mini bosses in Cave of Ulveric do a party wide stun which also causes damages damage to the flames. Due to the damage of these stuns in combination with extra adds hitting the flames it is challenging to keep them up

The possible Solution

- Revert the changes back to 2.5 seconds
- Make the cooldown longer then 2.5 but more reasonable and in turn making the flames more durable (more HP/more defense)
- Make the skills have a different cooldown in PvP then PvE if this long cooldown makes it balanced in PvP

I would like to end this post saying that I respect the changes being made to the game and I respect the way everyone plays the game. I've made this post because I care about the game and want it to be a great experience for everyone.

Thank you in advance for reading the post and giving your opinion on how I see the changes.

Kindest Regards
Aryn / Cinder

[desertman00]

This 100%, even in PvP Salamander/Mana Flames doesnt last too long.

Edited March 27, 2023 by desertman00