JagexSponge

I'd say these were one of those synergies that were just over tuned. Ancient effects were 100% on autos due to autos inherently being weaker than most abilities and so this translated over to the FSOA spec too.
The excessive healing from the barrage is not something that we'll be looking to add back as it was particularly egregious, and reduced what we could do with the staff.

In general, I'm against dummies being used for cheesy mechanics like drawing extra crits out of the staff. I think there are bigger things to fix first, but yeah i'd like to remove that interactions with dummies in boss encounters.

Hoping to throw up a comparison later if time allows (currently a whole lot here to get through)

IIRC the damage value per hit is slightly above what you would've fired for a mainhand staff auto previously (so a buff under gconc, if you weren't staff switching after firing)
I'm very aware that the damage value could be pushed up slightly, however, if we go too far it again limits what we can do in the future with the play style (or we'd have to nerf again, something i'm categorically trying avoid)
Which is in part why we're fishing for feedback here, to see what the community wants from it.

Are there going to be more regular balance/numeric changes in the future? Some examples below:

I'm not going to promise this, as often things get in the way of intentions. But speaking to the combat council, it is fully the intention to hit numeric changes more frequently, especially with lighter changes so we don't give players whiplash.

Core damage types are your standard damage - magic: (fire,water,earth etc) Melee, Ranged etc.

Both soft typeless and hard typeless will no longer be reduced by AD. This is something we're aware of as being confusing(soft and hard typless being different things), we'd like to update their hitsplats when we're able so it becomes apparent which is which.

Damage of the spec should scale depending on wielding the staff or dual wield - as it currently does in game whilst also considering the damage bonuses from inquisitor staff if players choose to wield that. It also just feels boring to wield the staff for the spec then swap off it (or eof it lmao).

Appreciate the feedback.
We're aware that getting the damage per hit here is going to be the hard bit to get right (both for release and for the long-term health of the game), so we'll absolutely be taking feedback on this.

The reason we're suggesting these changes is because it essentially lets us do more with the staff - if we find the staff isn't performing well enough (or feedback suggests this) we COULD move the damage lever up now if needed, or increase the consistency of the effect (e.g, flat crit chance buff whilst it's active) something that wasn't possible with the previous effect due to it essentially having no cap on the effec...

Was hoping to get Animate Dead ported to ranged and melee tank armour as well with the toned down version.

This is one that I see fairly frequently. This is something I'm personally trying to avoid - in the past, the combat styles have been (imo) too similar to each other, with alot of abilities being carbon copies of each other, resulting in styles feeling 'samey'.
I think that's something that has been resolved (at least partially), in particular with range and mage moving playstyles towards multi-hit & crit. The hope is that this can be extended to the tank halves of each of these styles, where ranged/melee could get some nice buffs in a different form. Appreciate it's not entirely satisfying, but we're hoping to improve combat in the long term, not just make short-term feel good changes.

It would be great if you posted a table for fsoa (Similar to what you did for AD) comparing the damage dealt from 25,30,35, and 40 crits from FSOA, vs the damage post change (as well as math on the approximate number of crits youll get while under this new spec) so we can get a sense of the capacity of the nerf

Hoping to get the chance to do this, this evening - in which case i'll get it added above.

I think the best way to go about it is buff the other styles to be able to compete with the numbers that FSOA puts out.. (it's not restricting future content its actually giving you a good path to go down for other combat styles and a good ballpark number to have other weapons put out similar numbers and get the dopamine you get with a FSOA)

The issue isn't wholely with the damage fsoa was currently able to put out (whoever it was VERY) strong, but rather that any future upgrades pushed that number way higher, essentially roadblocking us on what we can do with mage.
Other things absolutely could do with buffs, however I don't think just flat-line buffing everything up to FSOA's level is the way forward and just leads to more issues further down the road.

Will tank armor viability be forever tied to Animate Dead?Will future rewards be beneficial to players who may not utilize near or at the best combat gear?Will old bosses be modified to be more consistent with any design themes?

Finally what other combat equipment are up for consideration of being changed (buffed, nerfed, or modified)? For example the Ring of Death has been a big focus of discussion by the community yet we've seen very little of that from Jagex.

It's absolutely not the plan for AD to be tied to all tank armor viability going forward. A large part of this going forward in my personal opinion is making defensives and other styles tank gear more satisfying/reasonable to use. We've got a lot of defensives right now that are... underwhelming, and I think improving tank from the bottom up is the way to go there.

As for gear that's up for consideration to changes, I don't want to promise anything but I'd say theres a...

fsoa is going to use alot less runes is there any plans to make ranged ammo cheaper aswell

So there's nothing concrete right now. However it's definitely something that's near the top of the list - in particular, runes/arrows only being drained through autos.

An example would be if we can get to a nice, reasonable drain rate for runes/arrows through abilities we could remove the dinarrows custom consumption, making a consistent drain rate for all ammo from lv 1-99

Would it be possible to allow magma to critically strike again with these FSOA changes? /u/JagexSponge

It's a good question.
Part of the issue I personally had with magma crits was the huge swing in adrenaline from tsunami.
I'm not going to say it's a no - it's something I'd want to re-look at more for consistencies sake than anything.

Will the new FSOA hits be affected by Sunshine?

Yep, it'll be affected like any other standard ability.

First.

Hey, looking to get a hotfix out shortly. - My bad!

Hey, just jumped in to let you guys know this was resolved by Mod Fowl this week. Going forward there will be a toggle to have bladed dive pick-up scenery or not so you can have it active as/when you need it. I'm not certain if it'll be in Monday's build, but I'll try to expedite it, as I know this issue is particularly annoying.

:)

Hey feel free to dm me over details and I can pass the details over so someone can investigate if this is a legitimate issue.

Needs engine work.

This is fantastic, I'm a big fan of your work here.