Changes to roots and snares.

[heartless888]

- Cooldown should trigger only on landing.
- The chance to break on damage/debuff should be removed.

Discuss.

the point is to NERF them, not make them more OP

you missed the point.

[Shrubberyman]

An alternative solution to roots having a cooldown would be to give the target root immunity for a few seconds after the root runs out. This way the CC prof can root several targets, but unable to spam a single target with roots. The ability to root multiple targets is often essential to a CC profs survival.

That's the "Affected by..." running in target NCUs that was proposed by Xtremtech. As already mentioned, it depends on how it is implemented. Should it be a temporary complete immunity to the whole root school, in which case there's no benefit to have several rooters working in concert? Or should it be a more localized immunity, like "Affected by Specialized Burden of Atlas"? And if the "Affected by..." solution was chosen, then indeed, it's no longer a cooldown but a local lockout. As for the "multiple targets" part, it could be an arbitrary decision from FC to make the AoE roots casting professions outshine the other CC professions.

the point is to NERF them, not make them more OP

you missed the point.

As usual, you seem to selectively understand the bits you crave the most.

The point is to make roots unspammable and shorter, to avoid that we keep opponents to rot somewhere.

If you read the different CC professions balancing threads, you will notice the spirit under the revamp is to make them more efficient over a shorter period of time, not as you would wish them, shorter, unspammeable, easily breakable and easily resistable.

[Genie]

That's the "Affected by..." running in target NCUs that was proposed by Xtremtech. As already mentioned, it depends on how it is implemented. Should it be a temporary complete immunity to the whole root school, in which case there's no benefit to have several rooters working in concert? Or should it be a more localized immunity, like "Affected by Specialized Burden of Atlas"? And if the "Affected by..." solution was chosen, then indeed, it's no longer a cooldown but a local lockout. As for the "multiple targets" part, it could be an arbitrary decision from FC to make the AoE roots casting professions outshine the other CC professions.

I would say complete immunity to any root otherwise it could easily be circumvented. And AoE roots will always outshine single roots because they will root multiple targets in an area simultanously, while single rooters will have to wait for recharge of the first root before casting next root etc.

It will pretty much be like before except rooters cant spam roots anymore, thus unable to keep targets rooted "indefinitly".

[Shrubberyman]

Temporary complete immunity would be just as easily circumvented. Root yourself, deroot and enjoy... Or the immunity (and thus lockout) should be really, really short...
I think if the "Affected by..." solution is picked, it should be highly localized, "Affected by Specialized Burden of Atlas"-like, or perhaps, if the nanolines are reviewed that deeply, the temporary immunity should cover only the specific profession's roots.
Meaning get rooted by a crat, then enjoy a short immunity to crat roots. Several rooters should be able to keep someone somewhere if they actually work for it actively.

As for single/AoE roots, well, yea, you're right, but in PvP occurences in particular, defence checks do count also to determine what roots are "stronger" than others. Sometimes, it's just safer to cast three times that single root with 45% check than that the AoE one with a higher check. Or so I guess ^^

[Genie]

Rooting yourself shouldnt be allowed IMO. And with the root immunity it could easily be exploited as you already mentioned.

Take a look at some of the CC suggestions mentioned here (made long ago).

I have a feeling that immunities to profession root lines will make it a bit more complicated than it needs to be. Several rooters will then be able to keep a target rooted, as you say, if they are of different professions. Two crats for instance would then not be able to do the same. However with this solution we end up with a situation where someone can theoretically be rooted forever, and that is exactly the situation we want to avoid, IMO.

On the other hand, if the cooldown is on the caster side, then the crat can only root one target then have to wait for the cooldown to end before he can root another target. And that kind of defeats the whole purpose of "crowd" control. One single person does not equal a crowd.

From the viewpoint of the rooter: I want to be able to root multiple targets, thus keeping the "crowd" in crowd control.

From the viewpoint of the rootee: I dont want to be spammed by roots, and I dont want to be rooted forever regardless of how many CC professions are around.

That is why I would perfer to have a root immunity running per target instead of a root cooldown on the caster, and that the root immunity should apply to all roots regardless of profession/root line.

[Shrubberyman]

I think we're pretty much in agreement on what would be acceptable mechanics, although it will have to be readjusted as we will get more infos.
The only point where I strongly disagree is on the ability for several CCers, let's say of different professions for now, to keep someone rooted/snared if they work in coordination. Nothing prevents/protects anyone from being healed, damaged or debuffed by several persons. Why would it be different for CC abilities? Someone shouldn't be able to keep someone else rooted indefinitely, but several persons working their a$$ off to keep someone rooted should be able to, imo.

[Insane666]

Roots should be used as an attempted emergency escape.

Snares should be used by melee to keep in range, to avoid doing no damage at all. This is how it works in pretty much every other game in existence..

with the exception that in ao meele profs are in general doing more dmg then ranged profs, if meeles had snare's, it would be a dissaster for most if not all support profs,,, the way it is in most games as you say, wouldnt work in anarchy ( well )

unless we'd nerf meele profs AR and dmg by a lot

the point is to NERF them, not make them more OP

you missed the point.

half the player base believes it was to MAKE EM WORTH CASTING ( see all the: my only working roots are root grafts threads, made by many tl7 crats )

[Mavritanic]

nice. And how NT can kill any melee profs if all CC tolls be very short and cooldowned?

[Shrubberyman]

nice. And how NT can kill any melee profs if all CC tolls be very short and cooldowned?

Well, I think it's safe to assume that we will get some love in the defence department to actually be able to survive melee users in between roots and keep fair chances to win the fight. NBG reworked, winning comeback of blinds, ability to nuke and cast defencive measures at the same time, maybe some other kind of debuffs linked to nanoweaving. It's a bit early to tell.
The important part for now though is making sure however short will be roots and however long the cooldowns, that they do serve a purpose while they are active.

[Ocene]

Roots and Snares are ridic long atm. Too easy to land too.

I kept a soldier rooted for the 15 minutes of a Battlestation, from beginning to end. He was upset at me.

[Koizumi]

Roots and Snares are ridic long atm. Too easy to land too.

I kept a soldier rooted for the 15 minutes of a Battlestation, from beginning to end. He was upset at me.

heh, cmon, u know perfectly well that using soldiers as an example of cc tools landrate is lolworthy.

[Lisergia]

Roots and Snares are ridic long atm. Too easy to land too.

I kept a soldier rooted for the 15 minutes of a Battlestation, from beginning to end. He was upset at me.

Too easy to land on docs, soldiers and shades but thats about it. For shades i go with root graft cause thats reliable. Noone needs to root docs and soldiers anyway.
It wouldnt even matter to give those 2 100% root resist.
Whats sad about roots is that against the profs who need to be kept in place they barely work. What i got in mind here are specially advies, NTs and enfs.

[Djantro]

Too easy to land on docs, soldiers and shades but thats about it. For shades i go with root graft cause thats reliable. Noone needs to root docs and soldiers anyway.
It wouldnt even matter to give those 2 100% root resist.
Whats sad about roots is that against the profs who need to be kept in place they barely work. What i got in mind here are specially advies, NTs and enfs; at least the enfs with MR.

No1 need to root doc n sol ? Well from a NT's PoV playing w/o LE nukes rather often, rooting is a very effective way to manage those 2 professions. ABout solja, i tought it was a very valid tactic to kite their AMS. The possibility to root a solja is what makes a NT vs soldier fight interesting if the NT doesn't have piercing reflects nuke. The 110% blind resist is the reason w/o root in count, or in duel, def focus NT vs Solja is a very very uneven fight in favor of the sol.

Doc i root cause i can't solo em. So dunno what you ve been smoking

And last, i find root being very effective to fight other NT as well, since the best method solo is to kite their NBG (since very few prof can pierce the shield and deplete their pool before the 25 second mark after which it depletes by itself).

So ye, can't say i aggree with what have just been said.

On a more general note, escape strategies are a big fun factor and what makes PvP interesting in BS, and root plays a strong role in this. I think it should stay in this spirit.

About the other role of root and snare, which is about spanking a melee profession while you are invicible at range, i agree it looks totally retarded. But again, from a NT's PoV, there are no melee profession we can spank toe-to-toe w/o rooting once, while in off focus mode (LE nuke mode, no NS2), cept shade, but they automatically makes us cast NBG with its 2 min+ cooldown of refilling pool. Personnally i consider in most case that if you made a NT cast its NBG, you half won the fight even if you die. The key here would be to give valid defense versus melee profession while toe-to-toe. Melee's profession CCing, ie stuns for shade, chain stunning + fear combo for enfos, stuns + init + nano interruptability debuff for MA (none for keepur ofc), are as retarded as roots and killing from range. This sytem must be revamped to stop being so one sided.

Note, i m not saying NT have no defense at all versus melee's CCing, but the odds are in melee favor heavily once they caught you. Altho, it works well the other way around too, since good melee players have means to escape / resist rooting, etc, in the same scale.

[Shrubberyman]

No1 need to root doc n sol ? Well from a NT's PoV playing w/o LE nukes rather often, rooting is a very effective way to manage those 2 professions. ABout solja, i tought it was a very valid tactic to kite their AMS. The possibility to root a solja is what makes a NT vs soldier fight interesting if the NT doesn't have piercing reflects nuke. The 110% blind resist is the reason w/o root in count, or in duel, def focus NT vs Solja is a very very uneven fight in favor of the sol.

We so far had the very general info that "immunities would be looked into" and "it won't be possible any more to get more than 100% blind resist". There's the whole world of nuances and possibilities here, of course. That's the very reason why I was proposing that immunities should be capped at about 30-40%, for roots and snares which we're talking about, but also for every possible immunity ingame.

Doc i root cause i can't solo em. So dunno what you ve been smoking

Hear hear. I've made myself very unpopular among Clan docs for my habit to root them somewhere to rot. It's nothing personal, it's just very unlikely I will manage to kill them before they wear me down through DoTs and AS (or through sheer damage, I recently encountered a particular doc who claimed he had about 3,2k AR and he was indeed pwning me through my evade setup and dwl /offtopic). So, if I can't kill them, I try at least to keep them far from where they would be useful healing.

And last, i find root being very effective to fight other NT as well, since the best method solo is to kite their NBG (since very few prof can pierce the shield and deplete their pool before the 25 second mark after which it depletes by itself).

Being opi, I find it a lot more usual occurence than you do I guess, thx to lack of dread coon and worse hp-to-np ratio. That said, yes, rooting NTs works wonder when they have already casted NBG.

About the other role of root and snare, which is about spanking a melee profession while you are invicible at range, i agree it looks totally retarded. But again, from a NT's PoV, there are no melee profession we can spank toe-to-toe w/o rooting once, while in off focus mode (LE nuke mode, no NS2), cept shade, but they automatically makes us cast NBG with its 2 min+ cooldown of refilling pool. Personnally i consider in most case that if you made a NT cast its NBG, you half won the fight even if you die. The key here would be to give valid defense versus melee profession while toe-to-toe. Melee's profession CCing, ie stuns for shade, chain stunning + fear combo for enfos, stuns + init + nano interruptability debuff for MA (none for keepur ofc), are as retarded as roots and killing from range. This sytem must be revamped to stop being so one sided.

Note, i m not saying NT have no defense at all versus melee's CCing, but the odds are in melee favor heavily once they caught you. Altho, it works well the other way around too, since good melee players have means to escape / resist rooting, etc, in the same scale.

That's prolly the most difficult part in the Balancing of roots and snares. Melees need to get in range of their opponent to do damage, and CCers need to keep their melee opponent far enough to keep their odds high. If CC is made less efficient to reach that goal, it will prolly need to be compensated either by added defence or damage for the CCer, in a manner that is not perceived as a nerf for melees.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I think we're pretty much in agreement on what would be acceptable mechanics, although it will have to be readjusted as we will get more infos.
The only point where I strongly disagree is on the ability for several CCers, let's say of different professions for now, to keep someone rooted/snared if they work in coordination. Nothing prevents/protects anyone from being healed, damaged or debuffed by several persons. Why would it be different for CC abilities? Someone shouldn't be able to keep someone else rooted indefinitely, but several persons working their a$$ off to keep someone rooted should be able to, imo.

I dunno man. this type of thing is what breaks the game imo. for instance, last night in TL5 BS, there was 1 NT, 2 fixers, 1 crat and 2 agents all at the BS whompa coming out of spawn.

They were covering both hallways, and just root-snaring every single person who came out of omni spawn point. It was brutal and stupid. I was on my keeper and it was tons of fun, I just rolled up, lagged back 20 feet and spammed FM's till I died. Then did it again, same with everyone else.

Are you serious that this is what you want? If thats what you want, try playing against it for a while, and see how you feel.

The problem with roots and snares is that they are currently a defensive tactic instead of an offensive tactic. Sicne almost all profs have OTHER defenses than roots/snares, it's retarded. If they were used offensively, it would make profs utilize their other defences, allowing progression of fights with both profs utilizing all parts of their toolset, instead of one prof utilizing thier roots+snares+offensive toolset, and the rooted/snared prof utilizing FM's and their defensive toolset.

It's totally imbalanced with ranged profs. specifically fixers, crats, agents, and NT's. Traders aren't as bad, since their defences rely on draining, which means they have less time to be spamming roots.

If the rooting/snaring profs had NO defences other than those to keep you rooted/snared, sure, then it's balanced. But, as it stands, once you get close to an agent, for example, good luck killing him. I mean, seriously, agents need so many nerfs it's just ridiculous right now.

[Shrubberyman]

I dunno man. this type of thing is what breaks the game imo. for instance, last night in TL5 BS, there was 1 NT, 2 fixers, 1 crat and 2 agents all at the BS whompa coming out of spawn.

They were covering both hallways, and just root-snaring every single person who came out of omni spawn point. It was brutal and stupid. I was on my keeper and it was tons of fun, I just rolled up, lagged back 20 feet and spammed FM's till I died. Then did it again, same with everyone else.

Are you serious that this is what you want? If thats what you want, try playing against it for a while, and see how you feel.

First let me remind you I fully know the world of difference there is between professions sensible to CC (my keeper, to a lesser extent my NT) and professions having an easy time with them (my enfo). When you're on the rooted side of such a CC zerg, I guess it can be disheartening.

However, if you go that way, if they had been 1 Doc, 2 advies, 1 MA and 2 agents, they would have had the healing potential never to be taken down. Does it entitle me to ask right away for any kind of healing to trigger a blanket "heal lockout" on the targets? Well yea, I guess I could, but I don't think it would fit in the team-based pvp perspective FC seems to work upon.

In the same way, if only one CCer can do his magic, what's the point of another one in the team? And more importantly, if no one sees anything wrong in the fact one individual can be healed, debuffed, nuked, simultaneously or in succession by several professions, why should CC be treated any differently?

The problem with roots and snares is that they are currently a defensive tactic instead of an offensive tactic. Sicne almost all profs have OTHER defenses than roots/snares, it's retarded. If they were used offensively, it would make profs utilize their other defences, allowing progression of fights with both profs utilizing all parts of their toolset, instead of one prof utilizing thier roots+snares+offensive toolset, and the rooted/snared prof utilizing FM's and their defensive toolset.

It's totally imbalanced with ranged profs. specifically fixers, crats, agents, and NT's. Traders aren't as bad, since their defences rely on draining, which means they have less time to be spamming roots.
If the rooting/snaring profs had NO defences other than those to keep you rooted/snared, sure, then it's balanced. But, as it stands, once you get close to an agent, for example, good luck killing him. I mean, seriously, agents need so many nerfs it's just ridiculous right now.

Roots are both offencive and defencive tools, and in the current situation whining about them is a bit silly, apart in some very specific cases (at TL7). From that, there is definitely something to realize : if roots and snares were to be significantly less useful than they are now, it will have to come with a tradeoff. Either in killing power or in the defence department. This will definitely reshape CC reliant professions into something new and (I will hazard a guess) highly likely to trigger a whinestorm by the very same anti-CC crowd.

As a side note, I can't help but notice CC tools have of recent started to be handed to professions whose strengths had always been in other fields. Enfos and MAs with fears, Snare proc on soldier weapon, MA Rebalanced nemesis nano on pets, Keepers who just received 1 root every 60s, 1 snare every 30s and a reversed knockback every 30s. I certainly hope other professions will also get the chance to make incursions into these professions' territory.

As another side note, with now two professions whose perks and nanos Rebalanced spirit are known, I can't help but notice both of them can (still) stack up to 65% and 70% passive immunity to at least roots, among other anti-CC goodies. I hope FC knows where they are heading...

[Moonbolt]

heh, cmon, u know perfectly well that using soldiers as an example of cc tools landrate is lolworthy.

heh ive had NTs do exactly the same to my enf so nope....

[Shrubberyman]

A NT doing that to an enfo is neutralizing himself in the making, cause any root breaking from damage is potentially the one chance the enfo will get in range (less now that they don't have 4500 strafe running exploited RS though) and just stomp you while keeping you in stun thx to this fantastic unworking lock on 1hb/1he.
If by any chance the NT does kill you using this strategy after about 1 full minute of unwavering switczerland enginneered timing, I can only prompt you to visit IS and get a brand new goodie named Might of the Revenant.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

However, if you go that way, if they had been 1 Doc, 2 advies, 1 MA and 2 agents, they would have had the healing potential never to be taken down. Does it entitle me to ask right away for any kind of healing to trigger a blanket "heal lockout" on the targets? Well yea, I guess I could, but I don't think it would fit in the team-based pvp perspective FC seems to work upon.

In the same way, if only one CCer can do his magic, what's the point of another one in the team? And more importantly, if no one sees anything wrong in the fact one individual can be healed, debuffed, nuked, simultaneously or in succession by several professions, why should CC be treated any differently?

These are good points. but, honestly, I'd rather fight an impossible to beat team, than stand in stasis until they've peppered me to death without even having the chance of taking one down.

As a side note, I can't help but notice CC tools have of recent started to be handed to professions whose strengths had always been in other fields. Enfos and MAs with fears, Snare proc on soldier weapon, MA Rebalanced nemesis nano on pets, Keepers who just received 1 root every 60s, 1 snare every 30s and a reversed knockback every 30s. I certainly hope other professions will also get the chance to make incursions into these professions' territory.

yes. well, I'm not sure about these. I think they will be more balanced than these long ass 8 minute roots/snares we have to deal with now.

better to use it, lose it, use the alpha, if you don't kill them then you have to defend. Better to have to use your full toolset than just one part of it over and over.

As another side note, with now two professions whose perks and nanos Rebalanced spirit are known, I can't help but notice both of them can (still) stack up to 65% and 70% passive immunity to at least roots, among other anti-CC goodies. I hope FC knows where they are heading...

I don't know how you get this number. I'll tell you, so you know, what is within the range of possibility, from a realistic standpoint on toons that I know:

170 keeper: Enervate. 20% root/snare resist
If I was 171 I could replace four NCU with nmemonic fragments for 4% root/snare resist, bringing the total up to 24% (can't do more than 4 or not enough NCU to buff)
Using an exarch cloak is not a reasonable option, so it's not worth talking about.
Using 4 perks in SD is not an option, so thats not worth talking about (in case you'd like to argue this, please refer to the numerous threads in which are complaints about the shortage of perks for shades/keepers sub SL levels.)

So, all in, 20-24% root resist, that is in a setup in which you will be competitive.
plus OSB's like boon of the wanderer or whatever... +16% I think?


At 220, I don't know, I don't pay attention too much, my MA has reasonable NR and ok survival so I don't worry too much about roots/snares.

[Shrubberyman]

yes. well, I'm not sure about these. I think they will be more balanced than these long ass 8 minute roots/snares we have to deal with now.

better to use it, lose it, use the alpha, if you don't kill them then you have to defend. Better to have to use your full toolset than just one part of it over and over.

To be honest, I don't find the addition to Keeper toolset infuriating, it will elegantly help in circumventing the "not in range" syndrom.
But it's still an incursion into CC professions territory, and not a little one even with defencive checks being around 50% (though the SA based special might be harder to optimize than the others), one of those incursions which makes me think CC tools are gonna be more widespread over the professions, but also made more secondary for everyone. Which in turn also means professions so far relying heavily on CC are gonna get off or def lub as a trade off.

I don't know how you get this number. I'll tell you, so you know, what is within the range of possibility, from a realistic standpoint on toons that I know:

170 keeper: Enervate. 20% root/snare resist
If I was 171 I could replace four NCU with nmemonic fragments for 4% root/snare resist, bringing the total up to 24% (can't do more than 4 or not enough NCU to buff)
Using an exarch cloak is not a reasonable option, so it's not worth talking about.
Using 4 perks in SD is not an option, so thats not worth talking about (in case you'd like to argue this, please refer to the numerous threads in which are complaints about the shortage of perks for shades/keepers sub SL levels.)

So, all in, 20-24% root resist, that is in a setup in which you will be competitive.
plus OSB's like boon of the wanderer or whatever... +16% I think?


At 220, I don't know, I don't pay attention too much, my MA has reasonable NR and ok survival so I don't worry too much about roots/snares.

My point was more that so far caps on innate immunities haven't been announced by FC, and their implementation seems to me even more doubtful now since neither perk sheets nor MA/Keeper nano sheets mention them. So we're still supposedly speaking about parts of toolset which in the future will have to cope with high amounts of unbreakable, unreducable, undebuffable innate immunities. Hence my question, how uber should be CC tools to justify such an amount of potentially achievable %immunity?

PS : About my numbers. As far as MA and keepers are concerned, I think we can agree SD and Unstunnable are two perklines which use is widely spread among MAs, for a neat total of 70% immunity to roots (selfed). I won't comment on the specials attached, this thread is not a "nerf SD" thread.
Obviously, SD perked Keepers are rare at best at all level range. However, average joe will still be running with 20% immunity and the certainty no roots will last longer than 19s on him, 19s if he's really unlucky. If CC were redesigned in such a way they would become a real mean threat, they are left with the option of perking SD, for a total of 65% flat immunity.
And then again, as you mentioned, options like IS ncu or cloak, motr, tacky hack, boon can come and enhance that score.