While the intent behind synergy system was noble, it ruined a lot of aspects of the game
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it kills skills with bad synergies
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it kills skills with too many synergies
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it kills skills with too low synergies
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it greatly weakened the concept of Hybrid build
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it killed most of charges skills
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it’s heavily flawed paired with immunity system , one forces specialisation and the other hybridazation
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it killed most of Oskill
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it killed most of Trigger skills
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it greatly weakened build diversity
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The current synergy system is bad, By “bad” I mean the damage only aspect of synergy system. By being damage only it make it so skills that get low total %damage synergy or decent total damage synergy but with too many synergy are doomed, they can never be good or take too much investment to even be decent.
Also the way synergy system got implemented was bad because it mostly add synergies on the same branch of the tree, so if you make a fireball sorc, your synergies are also fire which sucks in terms of tactics against immunes. So if you want to be hybrid it will most likely suck/be impossible because you would need 2 skills with few synergies and high total damage% from sysnergies
The way they added synergy system also killed item granted skills… those skills were already balanced by being low level in a mindset of not requiring synergies, but since they added synergies they have been kept at the same low level and cannot benefit from synergies on other classes.
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A better approach to Synergies would have been skill effects based on general skill type rather than Class and damage restricted
- projectile
- melee
- cold
- fire
- magic
- physical
- lightning
- poison
- area
- buff
- summon
Here’s a quick display(fine tuning required) of what it would look like based on what i started to do for a Mod i wanted to make before Blizzard cut mod support
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mRk7BNo9Mf5HciVSb0aFXuZcU1joQhPbSesyrHTmqJI/edit?usp=sharing
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Then the synergy bonus from each skills is special perks proper those skills
Ie: magic arrow’s synergy bonus:
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Gain 1 additional projectile per 10 projectile skill hard point
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Gain 5%attack rating per attack skill hardpoint
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gain 5% magic damage per Magic skill hard point
That way a sorc/pally/barb/necro/assassin using a bow could invest in their projectile/attack/magic skill to get that bonus on Witchwild String
Other example of what could be done with such system , take Vengeance
Ie: Vengeance’s synergy bonus
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gain 5% fire damage & 1% chance to cast firestorm(same level as vengeance capped at 20) when striking per fire skill hard point
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gain 5% cold damage & 1% chance to cast Glacial spike on striking per cold skill hard point
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gain 5% lightning damage & 1% chance to cast shock web on striking per lightning skill hard point
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gain 5% attack rating per Attack skill hard point
This system also makes it less reliant on “same type skills”. Ie: fireball being synergized by fire bolt which are both pretty much the same skill. But with this system you could buff your fireball through aoe,projectile and fire skill … allowing you to synergize fireball with a plethora of choices that aren’t just a projectile fire spell like it
rather than being forced into random useless synergies just to make you waste points
this system allows you to synergise your mainskill through all the trees and skills at your disposal based on those skills properties
Fire,cold,lightning,magic,physical,melee,attack,projectile,buff,poison,aoe,summon
its only logical that if You skill into smashing monsters with your weapon… then other skill that makes you smash monsters with a weapon become better…You skill into fire skills, then you become better with all fire skills
Skills that share properties buff and get buffed when hard skill points are invested in skills with those properties
this also fixes what 1.10 killed, which is triggers, oskill and charges
by being based on properties, it allows cross-class synergy
So a paladin can now make a viable Dragonscale shield hydra build by investing in projectile& fire skills (fire resist, salvation, vengeance, holy fire, holy bolt, FOH)
always wanted to make a Trang-oul Meteor build, now you can, spec in fire and AOE skills (corpse explosion, curse, fire golem, etc)
Buff up magic arrow and guided arrow… congratz! if you use Brand it now synergize with the triggered Bone spear
you now encounter barbs running around with 2 horazon tornado because their physical skills buff the triggered Tornados
TLDR: by changing specific synergy skills to more general type synergies you
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revive ctc
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give some love to cross class oskill
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improve viability of builds that use more than 1 tree type
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give a lot of flexibility in your choice of synergy
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allows you to customize your skills
