Let’s try to start with a point of the game that gives the greatest initial impression of poor quality and then I will propose a theory of an aspect of poorly oriented game design, and then I will attempt to orient that aspect and proceed to wring out a towel of progressive reasoning from the aspect to the point, metaphorically speaking. (some people have criticized my criticism for not addressing skill reworks enough)
DR: The skill Sacrifice impresses negatively and not only is there no positive impression to behold, it also falls short of identity to the point that you have to delve in to the lore to figure out what the mere premise of what it’s niche and usefulness may be.
Lore: “At what price glory? By sanctifying his weapon with some of his own blood, a Paladin of Zakarum is able to increase his efficiency in combat by forfeiting a portion of his own physical essence. This sacrifice is a symbol of faith that even the lowliest Paladin must submit before the Light, in order that he may prove himself worthy of victory.” - Arreat Summit
This sacrifice is a symbol of faith!!!??? Not even in the slightest! You can’t even reasonably associate it’s missing faith aspect literally to the fanaticism that has supported faith and zeal(devotion) concepts in the game.
TL:DR So not only is Sacrifice the most poorly established skill in the game(imo) but it’s also a problem that is part of a much bigger problem of confused and disoriented Hero classification involving the integration of Support, Soloist and Dependent roles(Trinity) with the basic two sided division of Mage and Warrior classification and involves the skills Sacrifice, Berserk, and Warcry.
TL: As you can see, two of these skills come from the Barbarian and I’m going to first attempt proving that the Barbarian is subtly Soloist and 1/3rd mage and I’ll start with some visual references.
https://ibb.co/rK9QPny
https://ibb.co/CsCTbtQ
https://ibb.co/FJfHZZY
If we say that the Barbarian is the Arch-Support and the Sorceress is the Arch-Dependent and the Amazon is the Arch-Soloist, and we know this is obviously the case, but we also know that it’s not an absolute fact then how is it possible to blend these roles for character sake when these roles would mostly conflict with each other? The Answer is ironically and properly; Sacrifice.
So if we say that there is Support in the Dependent, Dependent in the Soloist, and Soloist in the Support then how is it true? It’s true because of the genius of how Sacrifice is implemented to hold the 3 roles together as a whole. The Barbarian sacrifices his armor to gain access to magic damage, the Sorceress sacrifices high cost of mana(shield) to cast enchant, and the Amazon would be sacrificing something to achieve the “Power and Fragility” of a somewhat dependent role bowazon which is 2/3rds mage. But that’s something we haven’t actually seen in the game.
The fine point where the game design appears to have lost it’s orientation is by how it merged the soloist element of the barbarian with his 1/3rd mage classification. Class and Role do not need to be merged together here, but there does seem to be an undeniable fine line between magic damage and piercing physical resistance for the point I’m about to make. Berserk doesn’t have to be magic damage. Warcry can be magic damage and this obviously makes more sense. Berserk can decrease enemy physical resistance by an increasing % as you add more points in to it. This still retains a perfectly viable soloist element to the skill, and it’s one that we should have seen with the physical damage bowazon in my opinion. So the Mage and Soloist aspects of the barbarian would now be separated out, and not only does this make more sense for the sake of weapon and spell identification, it also establishes a better contrast of identity so that the barb can steal life when he’s absent of armor. It’s even recommended that the Barbarian not use a shield with berserk, so if the Barb is pushed in to two handed weapons with Berserk then he’s got to retain his life steal capability.
Now you might try to argue that the skill conflicts itself now unnecessarily, But I’m going to steam roll that argument with two points. First, have you seen the skill sacrifice? You literally immediately do more damage to yourself to immediately do more damage to the enemy. THAT is contradictory. The reworked Berserk skill would properly achieve a virtual quality.
If you have made it this far in reading my post, you shall now be rewarded with the bread, butter, the meat… AND the potatoes that nails down my final and returning point…
The Sacrifice skill, as clear and favorable it’s negative connotation is by itself, shows us that we’ve failed to both identify and understand the virtue that Sacrifice is part of. As you can see in image 3, it cooperates with devotion to attain a virtual quality. As a male, and speaking to a community of mostly males, it seems that we have not wrapped our minds around this virtue as to what it implies to our literal support to the very roles of our actual families in a classic sense. The Supportive Father sacrifices time away from his family to go out and hunt in order to devotedly provide his family with a continual and adequate amount of resources and the skill sacrifice with the Paladin totally fails in terms of a comparable function as that.
The skill sacrifice needs to apply as DOT(damage over time) and to distinguish itself from open wounds, it could be understood as a physical damage type open wounds that still works with physical buffs and debuffs. Blood for Blood.
This might not be a professional community by any means, but if they are not professional game designers it’s most likely because they are not cooperatively aiming with devotion and diversity towards restoring the shattered and desperate dependent back to a state of power and fragility, as they are most likely not a professional and self organized people. Not in the virtual world anyway. I feel as a victim of society of self worthlessness in one way or another.
Let’s go back to the physical bowazon and consider reverting back to old damage amounts but with a growing physical resistance pierce with added skill points. This is necessary for 3 reasons.
- The Amazon doesn’t sacrifice anything to achieve a mage/dependent/powerful yet fragile/glass cannon like capability.
- Here we are, having reworked the physical bowazon with buffs.
- The physical bowazon can still use an atmas scarab.
Conclusion? The physical bowazon is in a goofy spot now without sacrificing anything like the other heroes have. An example is that she could sacrifice life steal with atmas scarab on but that wouldn’t make any sense. Just revert back to old damages, put in a physical resistance pierce synergy for the physical bow skills coming from magic arrow and reduce life steal by a corresponding % to how much % physical pierce you are doing to bridge the soloist/mage role and class together remembering that the goal here was never to be able to lifesteal with spell concept in mage territory and that it’s the skill Magic Arrow that is the apparent gateway in to that mage territory. It is magic arrow that doesn’t actually require arrows after all…
Get the picture?
Stop ruining the original intended direction of the game.