I think I’m against that one, grief is WAY too powerful, particularly on a ranged character. It would blow Windforce, Faith, everything out of the water. Not even close.
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I’m with Venaliter on this one, Grief is too powerful for ranged characters.
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And for melee as well, at least at its cost.
It should also be usable in orb and spear.
Not sure if that would promote mace mastery. But i think replacing DS from mm to stun/cb effect would be good idea.
I could see making the Crescent Moon in a spear, not sure about the orb.
Should definitely be in an Orb; at least ONE runeword in an orb. The literal best it could really be is +3, -35% resist with no other real stats of note. Which is, I think, a balanced item.
Technically there is one, Venom (and new incoming Hustle), but most do not work, since orbs are classified as weapons (not melee or missile weapons), which combined with low number of sockets heavily limits the RWs available.
No FCR?
crescent moon doesn’t have FCR, no. I think it has IAS.
Spears seems fine as a “mini Infinity” for Spearzons. Crescent Moon orbs seems riskier, since it would allow +3 Lightning Mastery, +3 Nova/Lightning/Chain Lightning (whichever), -35% Lightning Resistance orbs.
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I’m proposing this instead for wands & orbs…
Leaf
- Can now be made in Wands & Sorc. Orbs
- Sorceresses more likely to use in a staff for staff mods, but Leaf would be useful in a wand for a low-level Fire Druid, and even potentially useful for a full Fire Necromancer (e.g Full Trang’s running Fire Golem). Lastly, should be possible to create Leaf in sorceress orbs as well
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Orbs spawn with automods (life or mana in this case) and staffmods (skills; the name of this property is misleading…). Leaf in an orb would mean +6 skill in an one-handed weapon, outclassing Eschuta + Spirit combo (or at least comparable with it) for a fraction of their cost.
It’d be more balanced to limit Leaf to staves (for sorceresses) and wands (for other classes), but not orbs. Or, for simplicity, to rods (item type containing staves, wands and sceptres - Holy Fire paladins would appreciate that too).
In case of Paladins, staffmods would not be that unbalanced, as most endgame firedins use HoJ (or Grief).
While I’d normally agree with you, Eschuta’s is a less than ideal example and Leaf is kind of a weird edge case.
Eschuta’s isn’t an ideal comparison because it’s just not that great to begin with. The +% fire damage it contributes is mediocre since Sorceress already has Fire Mastery. That said, even Eschuta’s has 40% FCR that a Leaf orb would not have.
A more direct comparison if you’re just maximizing damage is instead a magic orb with +3 to Fire Skills, and staffmods for +3 to Fire Mastery and +3 to whichever main skill you intend to use (e.g. Fireball, Meteor, Hydra). So the difference with Leaf would mainly be the other properties Leaf gives vs. a suffix and ability to socket a Rainbow Facet (for -5% enemy resistance). The big suffix loss would be “of the Magus” for 20% FCR. In exchange you’d get +3 to Fire Bolt, +3 to Inferno, +2 to Warmth, 2 Mana After Each Kill, 33% Cold Resist, and +2-198 Defense (based on character level).
Unless you’re specifically using Fire Bolt or Inferno, it’s probably worse overall than 20% FCR and -5% enemy resistance, since 200 defense isn’t that important, and +2 Warmth and 2 mana/kill isn’t really needed for an endgame build either (since we’re talking about getting specific staffmod rolls, etc we’re well past reliable speedrun strategies or casual playthrough concerns). 33% Cold Resist can be made up much more easily than 20% FCR and -5% enemy resistance.
If you are using Fire Bolt or Inferno… the High Heavens bless you… but even if those were good skills, I think I’d be fine with those two skills preferring a Leaf orb over a magic orb, HOTO, etc.
Also, to the point about “a fraction of the cost,” finding a good base is quite difficult itself. I wouldn’t underestimate how hard that is when it comes to staffmod items.
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It may seem risky for Crescent Moon on Orb on the book, however, as you mentioned earlier, finding a perfect roll on orb is quite difficult, those usually won’t show up until mid/late game anyways. Besides, out of the 5 types of orbs available(excluding the exceptional and elite level), there’s only 1 that would have 3os, making the whole process even harder to archive.
Personally speaking I think that the risk/reward would be pretty good if we are to allow Crescent Moon on orbs
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I think you may be misunderstanding the context in which I was making that comment. Staff mod rarity was specifically addressing a cost concern. In terms of balance, while rarity can be one factor, it shouldn’t be the only or even primary factor. One of the most important considerations is the archetype’s existing performance. Lightning sorceresses are already very strong. Increased rarity should not be used to justify an even higher power ceiling.
Running the numbers, it would be BIS for Nova against any targets with 50%+ base lightning resistance. For a 50% resistant target it would be a narrow advantage, but significantly higher against higher resistances.
It would be very marginally worse for Lightning against targets with 50% base resistance (-2.7% DPS), but better against targets with higher resistance (e.g. hell enemies with Spectral Hit, Lightning Enchanted, or Magic Resistant; or any enemies that are normally Immune).
In each case I’m assuming a mercenary with Infinity. Without that, the advantage increases in favor of the Crescent Moon orb.
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Personally I still don’t see it as too much of a problem…even without Crescent Moon Orb, lightning sorc are self holding Infinity anyways, the difference ain’t really that great, all it really does is to offer an extra option for a char that’s already OP…beside, one good thing for Cresent Moon in Orb is it will function better with sunder charm.
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Exactly. It’s a different gearing option. That’s what we want. It’s not OP, it’s not even that good unless you find a god-tier base, but it is good enough to make a Lightning sorc to start out without infinity.
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Based on feedback, updated OP…
Crescent Moon
- Can now be made in Claws, Daggers & Orbs
- This runeword is a perfect candidate to be made in claws and opens up build diversity for assassins. Don’t forget about dagger barbs. Lastly, should be possible to create Crescent Moon in sorceress orbs as well to start out without infinity
Some are. It’s not an open-and-shut case to do it.
The pros:
- Don’t need to worry about mercenary moving around. However, if you’re tele-stomping with Nova, this is pretty irrelevant, because your merc returns to you every time you teleport and Nova’s radius is 5 yards less than Conviction’s.
- Immune enemies. Self-held infinity can give +23% DPS vs. an optimal merc-held setup against immunes.
- Can have your mercenary equip Insight for mana regen.
- Mercenary is going to be dead in PvP anyway.
The cons:
- Significantly less damage against non-immune enemies.
- Slower teleport unless you switch other gear slots to FCR at the expense of even more damage/+skills. Given how much of the game is actually just teleporting, this matters quite a bit.
If we were just talking about adding another case like self-held Infinity where it has a real tradeoff, that would be one thing. But because it can neatly combine with merc Infinity, Crescent Moon Orb would be the best option for Nova and basically on par with current peak Lightning damage as well (and then more vs. immunes). So it’s not really a choice, just a stretch goal for even more power for one of the most powerful builds in the game. The only loss would be Insight/Meditation, but you hardly need the +% regen when everything melts before it can even hit your Energy Shield and takes less mana (because of fewer casts) to kill as well. Sorceress already has plenty of regen from Warmth and +skills for general sustain.
Personally I think it’s a bad idea in terms of which builds need options to get even stronger. We can agree to disagree.
I understand where you are coming from; there certainly would be trade-offs on one vs the other, but that’s a good thing. Sure, you could equip a Crescent Moon AND A spirit shield. You would gain resists. 35% fast cast, +2 to all skills, up to +3 on a single skill, but this would be a very rare item. There is only one orb that can roll 3 sockets as well, so you can right away rule out 80% of orbs from qualifying and we haven’t even calculated the odds of the +3 automod yet.
But the ability to equip a +0 crescent moon and just play lightning because you want too is something I think is worth advocating for. With this kind of change, you don’t have to wait for endgame Infinity. It’s a lot like Hustle and Faith; some people oppose Hustle in bows because Bowazons won’t require end-game top of the line gear to make anymore.
I think letting people play a bowazon at level 30 because they WANT to is a worthy goal. Same goes for a Lightning sorc.
And there are still advantages to using Infinity over Crescent Moon. I imagine that Chain Lightning proc can be significant with Sunder and Lightning Mastery.
I’m saying there are not significant enough trade-offs to justify it. It’s more of a “best of both worlds” situation for a build that already performs tremendously well.
I already addressed the rarity argument.