The end of cwdt and enduring cry

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Prisus a écrit :

Just a quick comment on this. One of the issues (at least once again in my noob opinion) is that the evasion nodes on the southeast corner of the tree are OP for ranged builds and "okay" for melee builds. As in most games like this, pure mitigation (armor/res) > chance to mitigate (evasion) for melee based builds. (Let's forget right now that armor sucksfor this argument)

Evasion works great for ranged classes and can be OP, but for melee classes it seems counter intuitive. Playing a melee shadow isn't easy and requires quite the stretch from the starting nodes to do it decent.

That being said, I do feel that a lot of the balancing issues stem from locations in which the character starting points have been set up.

Right now, the North and East side of the tree are have the Witch and Ranger...both classes which (all things held equal) will most likely lean towards some sort of ranged build. Right in between those, you have the shadow which (from a lore perspective) would yield more of a melee/dagger/speed build.

The Southwest corner, by contrast is 100% melee focused with res/armor/life readily available for the more tank/melee based characters in the marauder/duelist trees.

This, in my noob opinion, is the crux of most of the difficult balancing issues I have seen in this game. If shadows would relegate themselves to "casting or ranged" builds, I don't think we would see as many complaints in regards to changes that effect defensive skills...

but I'm a shadow...I want to get up close and knife or claw things...I don't want to use a wand or a bow.

The only point of there being "classes" though, aside from "lore", is their starting locations in the tree. Shadows that use daggers are very much viable (Reave crit anyone?). I know my level 70 Reave crit shadow does a lot more dps than my level 86 templar using Resolute Technique, but you're telling me that the Shadow should be equally durable on the front line, despite having a huge dps advantage? The difference is 70k dps versus 40k dps. Pretty asburd. I think the whole point of the current tree's layout is that dagger builds should kill things quickly, not be able to stand there and face tank, which again is an argument against the current Cast When Damage taken meta.

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OldmanBlackdragon a écrit :

How many people use a flask that removes bleeding? How many people use Specho/multistike? How many people try to get their main damage spell in a six link? and last but not least how long has everyone been pointing out that Crit is overpowered GGG agrees and does... well I guess they did nerf multiplier a tiny bit.

As long as they come up with a good way to reduce phys damage it will be fine but removing something that works well just because it does is a bad idea. A better idea would be give us other options. So some builds use cwdt others stack armor etc. And yes I am too lazy to self cast it.

A flask mod versus a gem are like comparing apples to oranges though. That's like saying, "everyone uses shampoo, so remove it from production!", rather than, "everyone goes with Goldman Sachs, because they're the only viable stock option." There's a pretty clear difference.

Also, they didn't simply nerf the crit multiplier, they also removed a lot of crit chance for mace/sceptre users on the left hand side of the tree.

I've been playing with Tasalio's Sign in Bloodlines (a huge boost to evasion characters) and I never once found myself thinking that I need to set up immortal call setup, because nothing ever hit me

It opened my eyes of how powerful evasion can be when you truly commit to it

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A flask mod versus a gem are like comparing apples to oranges though.

I don't agree, but what about the other two examples of gems I gave specho and mandatory 6-link for most main attacks?

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Also, they didn't simply nerf the crit multiplier, they also removed a lot of crit chance for mace/sceptre users on the left hand side of the tree.

Is this sarcasm? I bet the dagger, bow crowd were all about to riot on those nerfs. I guess I should have been more specific when I said crit.

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OldmanBlackdragon a écrit :

I don't agree, but what about the other two examples of gems I gave specho and mandatory 6-link for most main attacks?

6L mandatory? Not really, you can do okay with 4L and fine with 5L. But of course 6L is the best and the goal.

Spell Echo is the aquivalent to Multistrike, they are both mandatory in most builds because they are easily obtainable.
Yes, something that everybody uses is overpowered most times but the game is balanced with those 2 support gems in mind. And they add the most important thing in a game - SPEED.

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BearCares a écrit :

I've been playing with Tasalio's Sign in Bloodlines (a huge boost to evasion characters) and I never once found myself thinking that I need to set up immortal call setup, because nothing ever hit me

It opened my eyes of how powerful evasion can be when you truly commit to it

I have one character that has an evasion rating of about 35k (it was 38k at one point), and that is just not enough for endgame, at least for melee characters. Obviously you'll have dodge/spell dodge too, but you need something more to protect you from mob physical damage, and that something is at least Enduring Cry.

I could do without Immortal Call (with a lot of potion popping), but the loss of auto-cast Enduring Cry will be terrible. To manually cast something that's so basic to every build out there is a nuisance (especially if you have to swap skills around every time you login because you stack auras or other abilities). Enduring Cry isn't op, there just aren't better ways for most builds to deal with physical damage. Sure, aside from dodge and evasion there's armour (which sucks), Arctic Armour, MoM, and uniques (Lightning Coil), but none of those things are enough on their own to make you feel good about a high level mapping character, so people turn to Enduring Cry or Enduring Cry + Immortal Call.

To generate endurance charges, you could also try the unpopular Endurance Charge on Melee Stun (mostly for big hit melee characters), Warlord's Mark (charges are not guaranteed), or Romira's Banquet + Voll's Devotion (not affordable).

Maybe GGG will decrease spike damage or buff defensive/life nodes to help with the loss of auto-cast EC... but I don't really see that happening. The company wants the game to be a struggle in every way. Maybe we'll be given extra skill slots at the bottom right of our screen? I am cautiously optimistic about the 1.4 update, I just hope it attracts more players than it drives away.

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OldmanBlackdragon a écrit :

I don't agree, but what about the other two examples of gems I gave specho and mandatory 6-link for most main attacks?

6L is far from mandatory (doing 50k dps with Resolute Technique on my 2 hand axe based templar with a 5L). As far as Multistrike and Spell Echo goes, I've had mixed feelings about both of them, but at least they each have their downsides.

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OldmanBlackdragon a écrit :

Is this sarcasm? I bet the dagger, bow crowd were all about to riot on those nerfs. I guess I should have been more specific when I said crit.

The loss of some crit multiplier for the right side of the tree was paltry in comparison to the butchering of crit on the left side of the tree. The left side of the tree lost ~130% crit chance.

Actually I found the flask comparison to be apt.

There's a large pool of different flask mods you could roll, and many of them are not utter crap and can justifiably be rolled for a variety of specific builds.

But because of some questionable game mechanics, staunching belongs in every flask belt full stop. There's maybe only one build I can think of that doesn't auto-rip to corrupting blood without staunching flasks.

No biggie. You can get 70% phys mitigation in this game.

LC + Hate Flask + 100% resits = 70% phys mit = 272,000 Armor vs 10K hit = face tank Atziri Vaal smash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmPe2a5XgMg&t=2m38s

cwdt-en cry-imm call-inc duration setup is my no1 savior against desync rips.I'm really tired of ggg's style nerf evertything good in every patch.