With introduction of the Mosaic runeword, I was hyped to do a Claws of Thunder MA assassin using 2 charges of Phoenix strike for even more lightning destruction. I’m disheartened that the fantasy is completely undercut by antiquated limitations of the game like next hit delay. Basically, only the nova damage from COT will hit, which will cause a 4 ms NHD which causes the charged bolts from COT to deal no damage unless the target is 4 ms away from me (so not the target I am kicking with Dragon Tail, most likely, unless I can knock them back far enough). The chain lightning from Phoenix strike is completely lost, so those are just dead synergy points. So now I’m basically a nova sorc that has to charge up to do 6k novas every 7 frames (ignoring knockback problem from dragon tail) vs a nova sorc which does 9k novas every 8 frames and can self-wield infinity for huge -lightning res.
Unless they fix NHD, MA sin is still gimped but it did get cooler. I just wish they would remove this NHD nonsense from the game.
Mosaic drastically reduces the chance for a next-hit-delay fix. mosaic is insane as it is and the NHD removal on assassin’s skill would buff it even further.
Mosaic is a massive failure design-wise and llama and dbrunksi are morons for suggesting the changes it received.
To all the people confused about how NHD works, see this thread:
Agreed. Some (by no means all) of its functionality would have been better off baked into the skills. Making the item be the “fix” for a skill tab is terrible design.