Heavy strike, it exists but it doesn't.

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bananapanama1 a écrit :

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MortalKombat3 a écrit :

Single-target skills like Heavy Strike arent meant to be used for killing packs. They should be used as boss-killers.
So, you should ask first - is Heavy Strike good to kill a boss?

Decent, I would say. But for me, I will always drop a totem, switch in conc effect and use vaal lightning trap.
Even many people say it's a single target-intended skill and how strong it can be with the right set up, I still believe that the skill would remain on the bottom of the list for everyone. Like self cast Arc, Glacial Hammer, Double strike, and the worst of all-mentioned by a comment somewhere above, Elemental Hit, completely unappealing to touch.

Heavy Strike sucks because it lacks damage.

In current PoE realities, skills like Heavy Strike should deal 500% weapon damage to be relevant (not puny 190%) for what they're made for (boss killing).
Pack clearing with those skills will still be too slow, because that's not their purpose (you have AoE / multiprojectile skills for that).

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鬼殺し a écrit :

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bananapanama1 a écrit :

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sofocle10000 a écrit :

If anything is to be taken from the 3.0 Beta change of doubling bosses HP, having a optimised 5/6L for single targeting when playing even namelocking melee will be extraordinary impactful, as long as you can clear all the other monsters (normal and magic ones) with a 4L/pseudo 5L.

It will improve the experience of the the single target focused skills by allowing them to keep fights shorter that your regular 5/6L to kill everything. And that is a great improvement already.

Not to mention that even on my main build, I could hover around 100K dual wield RT Heavy Strike damage, with more than 200K fully buffed (when flasked + dual cursing -Vulnerability on Hit + Punishment - I could end up with a flat 500K), and up to 52% chance to hit 400K damage (or up to 1M damage) on a goddamn dual wield RT Juggernaut. And that amount per each second of the fight will still make short work of even double health pool bosses, maybe even feel better than my current Static Strike + Lightning Strike combo...

Single target namelocking melee don't need intrinsic splash, they need you to encounter worthy rares - like 5 modded essence ones - scary Exiles and bosses, so that you will be encouraged to have a great single target melting option that is DIFFERENT from your regular "trash mobs" disposal skills.

That's it. Those skills need to get their identity back. And be the best at what they do, and killing difficult single targets in a visceral plethora of impactful hits, should have been their purpose all along...

I think this answer satisfies me. Thanks :D

I'm not convinced honestly. So far I haven't seen anyone struggling with the bosses using their usual aoe spam.

Of course Charan. But maybe GGG will slowly address the sad difference where your "supposed" boss killer skill will become more useful for killing the bosses instead of the "usual aoe spam".

Spamming AoE should just take longer now with doubled HP on bosses, hopefully in contrast to single target namelocking...

And I always liked playing PoE with Hard mode on aka playing single target namelocking melee. If you're patient, you can manage, the problem is that it feels subpar to have a dedicated "kill difficult stuff" when you can instead rely on every other goddamn AoE spam with little difference...

heavy strike is very good for full keyruns in lab. i use it a lot on my earthquaker. same with glacial hammer and other single target skills.

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kompaniet a écrit :

heavy strike is very good for full keyruns in lab. i use it a lot on my earthquaker. same with glacial hammer and other single target skills.

Only because Izaro is immune to nasty knockback. And it still doesnt offer significant DPS increase over AoE skills, just an "utility" to kill izaro properly (without touching Gargoyles, Lietenants, etc). But single-target skills shouldnt be used only to kill izaro properly or make Vorici missions... They should offer significant DPS imrovement over AoE skills.

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MortalKombat3 a écrit :

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kompaniet a écrit :

heavy strike is very good for full keyruns in lab. i use it a lot on my earthquaker. same with glacial hammer and other single target skills.

Only because Izaro is immune to nasty knockback. And it still doesnt offer significant DPS increase over AoE skills, just an "utility" to kill izaro properly (without touching Gargoyles, Lietenants, etc). But single-target skills shouldnt be used only to kill izaro properly or make Vorici missions... They should offer significant DPS imrovement over AoE skills.

i agree.

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kompaniet a écrit :

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MortalKombat3 a écrit :

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kompaniet a écrit :

heavy strike is very good for full keyruns in lab. i use it a lot on my earthquaker. same with glacial hammer and other single target skills.

Only because Izaro is immune to nasty knockback. And it still doesnt offer significant DPS increase over AoE skills, just an "utility" to kill izaro properly (without touching Gargoyles, Lietenants, etc). But single-target skills shouldnt be used only to kill izaro properly or make Vorici missions... They should offer significant DPS imrovement over AoE skills.

i agree.

And Heavy Strike offers 193.7% dmg multiplier at level 20, Sunder goes for 181.8%, not much less, since we can put in concentrated effect I believe it would be stronger, and still AOE, and no unique jewels required.
After all, I do agree that heavy strike is not a weak skill, but it is just not worth playing.

Came back to this after using it once again on my Beserker with Disfavor Axe. I ended up using Cleave and overwhelming odds, as expected.

Heavy Strike is for single target stun builds but really it falls flat because of melee splash being so hard to work into a build, and the nerfed aoe one is just terrible :/

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Draegnarrr a écrit :

Heavy Strike is for single target stun builds but really it falls flat because of melee splash being so hard to work into a build, and the nerfed aoe one is just terrible :/

Couldn't agree more.
And the best stun build is Berserker warchief totem with Warden's rings I think. Waaaaay safer and easier to play.

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鬼殺し a écrit :

I'm not convinced honestly. So far I haven't seen anyone struggling with the bosses using their usual aoe spam.

In a meta where competitive players skip bosses because they'll earn currency and XP faster by opening the next map instead. Or, that's what the perception is; nobody with good mechanics has enough determination to go find something else that's competitive and showcase it.

I mean, you might be right. I just hope for an arrangement of all the various things such that killing bosses is seen as good practice, except perhaps the ones that represent a large obstacle for your build.

In the present arrangement on both live and beta wave 2, bosses up to t16 get 1500% of base quant and 2000% base rarity, but boss HP about doubled. We've seen this in recent topics. Boss HP went up, XP for killing bosses went up, did drops change? We actually can't see it on poedb (we don't know the value for base rarity or quant) but it's reasonable to guess that boss' loot drops didn't change.

It's a complex change to get players killing most bosses again, not all. Part of it might be giving players a way to put a single target attack on their hotbar again without hurting their aoe clear speed, and making that a desirable choice. Brutality+maim+ruthless contribute here in different ways to different builds. But there has to be enough juice in boss drops before doing that will ever be an optimal choice.

This is one of those odd things where just because some practice is meta (chaining T11 shaped maps and skipping bosses) doesn't necessarily mean it's strictly the best choice. Because it's perceived that way, fewer and fewer people will experiment - best racers will try to find some way to apply the established formula faster. IE zizaran and his VS/VF builds. So, is there any incentive to kill bosses? You'll never be REALLY sure because long leagues weed out players who live outside the meta.

I all honesty, this game has gone so far away from those kind of skills to function properly. I'd rather just see a full rework of all targeted skills into something else. Ditch the need to combo melee splash and multistrike to make these skills work.

I like that they say that some skills were meant for low levels and yet most of those low level skills aren't even being used for anything anyway. Like what.. 6-7 zones at best. Not to mention they exist in a game where one of the prominent features is to experiment with skills/supports/skill tree/ascendancy/uniques/etc... it just feels bad to even try with these older single target skills. I was extremely disappointed that they slightly changed the targeting line for single target skills.

Maybe in beta these skills worked, but not now. The game has moved away from these skills.