I perhaps phrased this in a weird way but what I really meant is meteor comparatively to fireball didn’t get as big of a nerf to try to entice more usage out of it.
With fireball receiving nerfs to it’s synergies in the same vein as lightning and nova, fire builds may rely more on meteor since they are spending slightly more time clearing content and might now find that meteor does play a role in improving clear speeds.
That’s why I don’t want to alter their final stats, but those two runewords in their current state are still best in slot items for a lot of builds even if they don’t get perfect rolls anyway.
I don’t know… If a perfectly rolled rare melee weapon can barely compete with the strength of grief, then that sounds like grief is the item that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the picture. Still, it’s why I haven’t nerfed the stats on grief but just changed the required runes to roll one.
Even if grief required a Jah rune to roll, I think its strength still makes it worth it, and certainly more economical than say rolling a last wish or fury.
The idea is really to implement both approaches. Both approaches have the same higher level purposes but fill slightly different roles.
Skills with flat damage
This helps early game melee builds to be slightly less gear dependent in case they get unlucky with their item finds along the way to nightmare and hell.
Lots of melee based damage skills currently have enhanced damage only, but enhanced damage on a very small number still doesn’t help the situation.
This change also makes +skill gear or sinking hard skill points into skills more impactful, especially during the late game where that 7% enhanced damage per skill level does very little.
Weapons with improved damage
Improving damage on certain weapon types aims to bring more diversity in weapon choices that melee players decide to use.
Crossbows for example are not a great option for bowazons, but with buffs to crossbow damage, we might come across more situations where someone might choose to use a crossbow.
All good mate, thanks for the feedback