you say that because you don’t like the idea or you think it’ll break the game due to lag issues?
edit: got it now. it’s the lag.
still unplayable. It was actually one of the main things I thought they listened to a degree . that’s at least a good sign.
I really don’t understand. were the servers so much better in 2016?
back then we stacked 9-11 Raging storm twisters in a corner. It could lag out sometimes but overall it was more stable than 2 big twisters now? …
I’ll wait a tad longer. But it does seem inevitable.
At this point, that seems to be nothing but a pipe dream.
I think it would’ve been better to swallow if they had chosen a skill that almost never had a chance to shine offensively or had little to no item support, such as Blizzard or Wave of Force. The change would’ve still stunk but at least I would’ve understood it more. But no, they chose energy twister instead, a skill that already had three supportive legendaries (which is more than what most skills of our arsenal have). No matter how much I rack my head, I just don’t see the logic of it.
Completely forgot about that. So yeah this change is also a heavy indirect nerf to Firebird and Tal-Rasha.
I actually thought they were going to revert etched sigil change. I guess it’s too much to expect anything decent from the classic team. All these login errors and whatnot doesn’t bode well for this seasons launch.
5$ says this season is going to be the worst in terms of a buggy start
Saw this video from Raxx; Twister is apparantly unplayable in groups and apparantly is bugged and Raging Storm only doing half damage
I actually loved the recent changes.
Thorn sader changes are great for Invoker RGK where you actually are able to gain the full potential of the set with not much effort. The damage of the 2-piece Invoker 6-piece Akkhan bombardment is completely destroyed however the 6 piece Invoker RGK build is way more viable now.
The wizard’s Energy Twister build has real potential now with the Raging Storm rune automatically applied to Energy Twisters and choosing the wicked wind rune makes them stay in place but still the topic of lag is on the table.
Bone spear nerf is also very small 20% to be exact where in my opinion was unnecessary as it is only strong due to seasonal extra cube slot.
Sure Energy Twister has potential (although I hate that skill), but the issue isn’t the buff to Energy Twister, but the ruination of our other builds that relied on etched sigil. It’s even worse that such a thing wasn’t even necessary just for buffing Energy Twister.
@Sure Energy Twister has potential (although I hate that skill), but the issue isn’t the buff to Energy Twister, but the ruination of our other builds that relied on etched sigil. It’s even worse that such a thing wasn’t even necessary just for buffing Energy Twister.
ES is not the solution. The skills should work without channel-autocast. Whats the point of having different skills, when everyone of them is used by Channeling+autocast?
Before this season i thought only DW is the Problem. ES is a Problem as well.
Oh? So autocasts are an issue? True, I agree with you, essentially. But why go for Twister autocasts, then? Doesn’t make sense. They just want wizards to be clowns with all this skill juggling and questionable mechanics that make them look funny but are incredibly weird. I mean look at Winter Flurry? WFT? So why the heck did they change Etched Sigil to the most horrendous and random attack spender wizards have? It’s beyond me…
I let you in on an open secret - wiz channeling in itself is bad design that has been a pain in the rear since like start of the game. They just never found a viable solution to fix this mess the original team had created by designing all these skills the way they are.
Thanks to that you can even say the whole class is flawed by desing from bottom up, having five channel attacks (including Archon DW) while all are slow poking and none of them is a viable dps option, not even remotely. I repeat NOT A SINGLE CHANNELING SKILL wizards have is usable beyond like GR80-85 on its own.
That’s the issue underneath the Etched Sigil crap and also it’s raîson d’etre. Again, they seem to have no idea how to fix this. Etched Sigil was an approach to do something about it and it worked as a proxy. It was a band aid because channeling in itself was lame, powerless and not fun. Alas, it worked… and backfired, because of how they implemented the whole thing. They now break a working mechanic for all spenders to instantly reuse it for a single spender. Huh? Some other player called ES Meteor “Meteor by proxy”… that’s true. Now, where’s the difference to what they did now? There’s none. Instead we now have “Twisters by proxy” and that’s as bad, if not worse. It solves nothing, just creates more mess.
Instead of trying band aids they should address the basic design flaw of all wizard channeling skills to make them useful. Or find a better way to make them powerful without autocasts.
You say it’s bad to play with autocasts. Yeah, gotcha, essentially right. But channeling simply does not allow you to play otherwise. Ah, wait, how’s this then:
Etched Sigil:
+Min/Max damage
+8-10% CHC
reduces all resource costs by 25-35% [additional blue affix]
+3 random magic properties
Legendary Power:
Casting your other Arcane Power spending skills while channeling Arcane Torrent, Disintegrate, Electrocute or Ray of Frost no longer interrupts your channeling. All channeling skills now deal 450-600% increased damage and have their ramp time up removed.
There, done… active gameplay at your service.
EDIT:
Oh, for those fearing Star Pact now… that one obviously WILL break your channeling by natural means as it drains all arcane power and thus stopping you from channeling. Then… what about Electrocute? Not a problem either, since Deathwish does not work with it unless they change it. If that’s still too powerful, just add “Electrocute drains xx AP per second” to the effect and done.
Still wouldn’t fix the stutter step gameplay, but it’s a start until they let us do damage while moving like other classes can. Or until we get compensattion through better mobility.
No one said that death wish or etched sigil isn’t a problem. They are, but Blizzard’s choice of action for dealing with them is even more of a problem than the two items. Simply changing Deathwish and Etched Sigil damage multiplier to affect only channeling skills (followed by buffing their numbers) would’ve been a better solution imo.
For example:
Death Wish:
Arcane Torrent, Ray of Frost, and Disintegrate now deal their maximum ramped damage. Arcane Torrent, Ray of Frost, Disintegrate, and Disintegration Wave all deal 300-400% more damage.
Etched Sigil:
Arcane Torrent, Disintegrate, and Ray of Frost damage is increased by 250-300%, and while channeling them, you also cast one of your other damaging Arcane Spenders every second at 80% their damage.
Afterward, Blizzard could then buff our other arcane spenders through their respective items, or give them items in the case that they do not have any (for example, Wave of Force). Doing it this way would’ve accomplished ridding wizard’s of their channeling dependence, while still keeping and creating new builds for the class.
Tbh, I don’t see the autocasts as an issue. After all, for some builds that relied on etched sigil channeling, you’d still manually cast your arcane spender on top of the autocasted ones as well; otherwise you’re losing out on some massive damage. If necessary just have the autocast skills deal out lesser damage than manually casting them.
They are, to some degree. But that’s not the point. The issue is, these autocasts are band aids like Aetherwalker. They cover something without really adressing the issue. Why do we even need autocasts?
I would rather not be forced to rely on them, but thanks to how these channeling skills are, I have to. And I like my Etched Sigil the way it is - for now, since there is no better alternative on the table - for now. I like channeling, I like mowing down trash with Disintegrate, but still… these skills are flawed by design decisions of the team.
They are weak and have no viable, dedicated item support itself up to this day. Only general damage stuff and that’s a core issue with them. Their inherent damage ramp actually punishes active gameplay (break the channel = loose 95% of your damage buffs). They force you to stand still to deal damage which causes stutter stepping and slows the player down… in short all this going against everything you want for end game playstyle and farming. This is also a reason we need autocasts and trust me, I have nothing against them right now. In fact I want them to stay, until there is a viable alternative.
I get your idea (seen it often enough by now)… but it won’t happen. That really infuriates me, because the solution is so damn easy and obvious - it’s not them ignoring or knowing about it… I think they actually don’t want to fix it. Honestly, your Deathwish (with 1000%) paired with my Etched Sigil idea from the prior post would be nice.
Yeah, I’m literally a broken annoying record at this point.
I think that the only autocasted skill from Etched Sigil that is really problematic is Meteor, right? The other autocasted skills are not really a problem, or are they?
None of them were a problem, since they changed ES to not cast meteor at “full” AP, a la Starpact.
Not even Meteor itself? Sure, for the Meta, but the way I see it is that Meteor is still by far the best skill you can have proved from Etched since you can have a legendary item that buffs this skill in a slot where no other skill has one: the boot slot via Nilfur’s Boast.
All other Wizard skills have damage multipliers on legendaries in slots like weapons, off-hand and/or bracers, but no other. The only exception to this is The Magistrate Helm, but that gives a buff to Hydra which is useless for Etched-based builds.
So Meteor has Etched, DW and The Grand Vizier which buff it by large amounts.
True enough. There is another multiplier on Ranslors, but the Meteor one is far higher.
Right, I forgot about that one.
You then also miss out on the Energy Shield Bracers.
Meteor is by far the skill that benefits the most from legendaries.
My thought was that if the Damage Multiplier to Meteor from the Nilfur’s Boast boots should be placed on a new legendary Wand or 1handed Sword, because then you could not equip The Grand Vizier, Etched, DW and this new Legendary Wand/1h-Sword at the same time, even with the cube.
Excellent, then you will struggle doing GR 110 after that. We need the exact opposite - more/bigger modifiers on non-weapon slots for the other spenders. More variety, not less. Bazooka is nerfed to death already (and that’s good), there’s no need to kill Meteor completely.
Also, I may remind you, Nilfur was designed as a complementary item for Tal Rasha…
You mean with a set build or a LoD build?
It is either that (new legendaries for all other spenders aside from Energy Twister, Hydra and Meteor, or Nilfur’s and Ranslor’s having to go and we getting one or two other, more universal useful legenadaries.
That means we need new non-weapon/off-hand legendaries for:
FYI: Twister Corner stacking appears to be back. I tested in a few other locations as well in town, both with and without Twisted sword in the cube, and Twisters definitely last full duration when stuck on terrain now.
Also confirmed that Wicked Wind’s damage is about half that of the Unruned, and Raging storm rune.
Kind of an odd way to fix the build; but I am definitely a fan of the corner stacking challenge!
I’m a little more excited for this now. Emphasis on little.
As to why Wicked Wind isn’t getting full damage from Twisted sword’s applied raging storm rune, that’s another discussion, feel free to chime in on the bug report as linked.
Already did; I even replied to FilthyRich with the post link. I will bump the bug report tomorrow.
That said, I fully expect to get screwed. I mean, we’re wizards, right? “We’re taking away ES, one of the best legendary items you have, but you have have this bugged build with half damage and unplayable group lag instead. Cool?”
Also, we’ll give you Winter Flurry with one of the awkward mechanics we could think of.
Thanks, Lexy, for being up on the bug report so quickly, maybe we have a ghost of a chance.