If you don’t know how NHD works, check out my detailed thread about it: How Next Hit Delay Actually Works (another essay)
With Macro’s sneak peak at S4 patch notes, we have the information that NHD is being reworked in accordance with my (and Childe’s) suggestion on my How Next Delay Impacts Martial Arts (an essay) post.
Check out his video to see the full sneak peak (there’s only 2, but I’ll leave the other change a surprise): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xnchamo3Hg
The text that’s relevant is this:
The Next Hit Delay system now only applies to missiles created by casting the same skill.
Now, this is slightly ambiguous, and we don’t know definitively what this means. I can interpret this in two different ways.
The first way being my suggestion in the above post, where NHD is only shared amongst a function spawning missiles for a single skill cast. This would mean all the Ice Bolts from Frozen Orb share the same NHD (poor example cuz Frozen Orb doesn’t actually have NHD, but should convey the point), but separate skill casts such as Claws of Thunder and Phoenix Strike for the Martial Arts Assassin do not share the same delay, and instead each skill has its own delay. They provide extra clarification to say that each charge-up is considered its own skill, so Claws of Thunder 2 and Claws of Thunder 3 also each have their own NHD.
So, Warren, does this have any future implications anywhere? Maybe, I’ll explain in the next paragraph. This introduces healthy changes to the Martial Arts Assassin, but has almost no impact anywhere else. Fire Druid also sees a reasonable buff, since a lot of skills have NHD. Wait, they’re buffing MA sin again??? Technically, yes. But believe me when I say that this will have negligible impact on her already insane damage output. She already one shot everything. Now she simply one shots things. However, future modifications (including potential changes (aka nerfs) to MA sin in S4 that have not been shared) to MA sin are easier and more healthy for the character build.
But, if this change is also per execution rather than per skill source, then 3 frame MA sin will actually be fully effective and not highly redundant in every other kick. This would end up being a decent buff, but once again, she already one shots everything. This change could likely be coming in ahead of some nerfs to the damage/AoE of her skills.
Most importantly, this would also mean that two people playing NHD builds (think a Strafezon and a Mosaicsin playing together) will not cancel each others’ skills out.
I assume this is the direction they chose to redesign NHD. My other idea of ‘NHD is now shared only between each skill, but the source of the skill does not matter’ implementation doesn’t make much sense, as two people playing the same NHD builds will cancel each other out still.
This also opens up more complex skill possibilities in modding. So rejoice, this is a very good and healthy change for the game.
