The AoE debuff is often considered to be the most useless debuff because it's only situationally useful. Only a couple classes will benefit from it on a single ability because it's not one of the main damage types and many fights don't have anything to AoE. Several of the specs that do provide the AoE debuff are also completely crippled by not providing a different debuff for the sake of variety. Pyro PT really needs the internal/elemental damage debuff just as much as most other specs need the armor debuff. Hatred and Lightning only have two abilities each that aren't affected by armor and yet they don't provide the armor debuff or have anything in their discipline related to armor penetration unlike many of the specs that do provide the armor debuff.

I think it would be best for the AoE debuff to be removed and have all specs that currently provide it give something else they would benefit from instead.

Lightning, Hatred, and Fury should provide the armor debuff

Madness and Pyro should provide the internal/elemental debuff

Engineering should provide the tech debuff

Totally agree with this. AoE debuff is basically useless. There already are specific specs that do very good AoE damage, debuff or not. You just bring one of those if you need to deal with adds. For single-target rotation on the boss this debuff is way too weak. Except for Engineering, there are no specs that have more than 2 (most have just 1) rotational AoE skills. I think originally devs had that in mind, as it gives a 10% boost compared to 5% on Force/Tech/Melee/Ranged and 7% on Internal but it is still not enough.There are just not enough abilities that are affected by it.

Armor debuff, especially, is just so good and it's monopolized by a handful of specs. Lightning, Engineering, Fury (this one at least has very high personal DPS) are the prime examples of specs that are by default unfavored. Even if in 6.0 they will have comparable DPS to the top dogs, they are still going to be held back by their debuffs. As it stands, you just have to have at least one DPS with an armor debuff in an optimal group. Jugg and AP PT are pretty much the only good picks for that right now, as most other specs that bring an armor debuff are subpar (Carnage and MM being okay-ish).

There's a 30% damage reduction combat proficiency for certain classes and I like it. I'm sure my threadbare health (rather than needing a rezz) at the end of a boss fight with a lot of AoE-tossing adds probably more than once had something to do with that.

No they’re not talking about the defensive utility. They’re taking about the debuffs that players can apply with certain attack abilities to targets, like “Beat Down”, “Marked”, “Susceptible”, Vulnerable, Sundered, Unsteady, Weakened, Impaired. There’s one that makes a target more susceptible to AoE but the OP is saying that debuff is useless. I’m not sure that’s true for Underlurker or the droids during Izax, but that’s what the thread is about anyway.

No they’re not talking about the defensive utility. They’re talking about the debuffs that players can apply with certain attack abilities to targets, like “Beat Down”, “Marked”, “Susceptible”, Vulnerable, Sundered, Unsteady, Weakened, Impaired. There’s one that makes a target more susceptible to AoE but the OP is saying that debuff is useless. I’m not sure that’s true for Underlurker or the droids during Izax, but that’s what the thread is about anyway.

Well, the adds at Izax have a 90% aoe dmg reduction. So if you are aoeing these adds more than dot spreading, then you're doing something wrong.

Is the AoE debuff actually useless though?

I don't do enough high-end raiding to be sure of the numbers, but I favour dot-specs in pve and every one of them has at least one aoe ability in their single-target rotation.

Is the AoE debuff actually useless though?

 

I don't do enough high-end raiding to be sure of the numbers, but I favour dot-specs in pve and every one of them has at least one aoe ability in their single-target rotation.

Short answer Yes.

Long answer: It is inferior to other debuffs particularly the armor Debuff in the amount of abilities it affects. Also, without going into too much detail no fight has a profile for that would benefit from this over the other I.e No fight where your perpetually using mostly AoE abilities for the entire duration of the fight. So yes it is vastly inferior to the others. On a side note I think the other issue is that it makes Lightning and Madness along with Lethality and Concealment have the same exact debuffs. Concealment and Lightning imho should get the Armor Debuff to have more raid utility.

Well, the adds at Izax have a 90% aoe dmg reduction. So if you are aoeing these adds more than dot spreading, then you're doing something wrong.

No I know about that, which is why I thought maybe it has a use in that scenario to somewhat counter that buff they have.

Short answer Yes.

 

Long answer: It is inferior to other debuffs particularly the armor Debuff in the amount of abilities it affects. Also, without going into too much detail no fight has a profile for that would benefit from this over the other I.e No fight where your perpetually using mostly AoE abilities for the entire duration of the fight. So yes it is vastly inferior to the others. On a side note I think the other issue is that it makes Lightning and Madness along with Lethality and Concealment have the same exact debuffs. Concealment and Lightning imho should get the Armor Debuff to have more raid utility.

1) But Hive Queen has a lot of AoE phases. Or maybe some of the fights for the new op.

2) Maybe there would be a tactical or set bonus that would make these attack abilities that place this aoe debuff on targets more rotational?

I mean Force Sweep/Smash is rotational for guardians/juggs even in single target encounters. I'm not sure its good ability design to have to create a tactical or set bonus just to force an AoE ability into a single target rotation, but isn't that sort of the point of this new horizontal progression? To change your gameplay in meaningful ways?

I'm just brainstorming I don't really have skin in this game, but I always hate the idea of taking stuff away from players. I don't even have an updated list of the debuffs per advanced class, since I prefer to tank or heal.

1) But Hive Queen has a lot of AoE phases. Or maybe some of the fights for the new op.

2) Maybe there would be a tactical or set bonus that would make these attack abilities that place this aoe debuff on targets more rotational?

 

I mean Force Sweep/Smash is rotational for guardians/juggs even in single target encounters. I'm not sure its good ability design to have to create a tactical or set bonus just to force an AoE ability into a single target rotation, but isn't that sort of the point of this new horizontal progression? To change your gameplay in meaningful ways?

 

I'm just brainstorming I don't really have skin in this game, but I always hate the idea of taking stuff away from players. I don't even have an updated list of the debuffs per advanced class, since I prefer to tank or heal.

I’ll go to your last point so we are on the same page, I agree I don’t like taking away either a better one or have AoE be sort of a tertiary Debuff to the primary and secondary (Primary being -Melee, Ranged, Force Tech and Secondary being- Armor, AoE, I/E debuffs with each spec getting a Primary and Secondary, note tanks and heals have their own 3 Primary’s which is another topic.)

On the topic of add fights there’s plenty but in all those cases there’s still a primary target for most part and my point is that for it to be worth it would have to be a fight where the majority is AoE on to enough targets to warrant it vs providing Sunder or Assailable. Not including the fact of BW design of making AoE unsustainable for long periods but that’s a minor point.

Like I said, I hesitate too for complete removal but if having a choice I would give Lightening Sunder and Madness Assailable in lieu, Concealment trade out Assailable for Sunder, and Hatred Get Assailable. I think something unique for the classes with a third dps spec something unique to fit both the flavor and had some uniqueness would be give them two primary debuffs in that Fury would provide Force and Melee and Engineering providing Ranged and Tech debuffs. This would serve the goal to make it unique and at same time flavor since Fury is suppose to use both force and Melee in their flavor text and same with Engineering. But like I said I would want to keep the Debuff if possible but I have no idea how to without upsetting balance. Then again it’s not that big of an issue with class variety. I too have not much stake in this as a visitor just checking PTS forums. So whether they remove or keep isn’t really a big deal for me if done right to maybe promote more class diversity as was original intent with this but heh lol. (Writing in phone super tired so apology for spelling or grammatically mistakes).

Off topic, Personally I was hoping the Tacticals to be things that modified abilities to be AoE or single target but looks like that’s

I agree with OP.

In intense aoe situations targets 9/10 times die very quickly regardless of aoe debuff or not.

Simply boost the dmg of abilities that would suffer from this removal on one target (engineering, lightning, madness not sure what else).

It also only affects AOE abilities, not stuff that can be aoe spread as well such as corrosive dart e.g. The inherent ability needs to hit several targets by default.

Pretty meh, would be nice if those specs brought something more useful to the table.

I don't know... is it that big of a deal? I feel bad for Sorcs/Sages, and Sabo slingers, but not so much the others. What about bumping it up to 12% or 15%?

For everyone's reference:

Marked: +5% incoming Ranged damage

Beat Down: +5% incoming Melee damage

Susceptible: +5% incoming Tech damage

Vulnerable: +5% incoming Force damage

Assailable: +7% incoming Internal/Elemental damage

Overwhelmed: +10% AoE damage

Sundered: -20% armor rating

Pub: https://thefanaticalswordsman.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/damage-debuffs-chart2.pdf

Imp: https://thefanaticalswordsman.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/damage-debuffs-chart-imperial.pdf