I disagree. Undisputed Champion is only problematic due to the bad design of the 2-piece set bonus.
Of the 5 Frenzy runes, only one of them is useless to the build because this set doesn’t use a Fury spender.
Vanguard helps with mobility giving you 50% movement bonus at max stacks, Maniac is obviously great giving a 25% bonus to damage, Smite helps with APD, and Sidearm (assuming that it benefits from the increased damage to Frenzy) is also some good extra damage, with the caveat that certain monsters can reflect them back to us.
Again, Undisputed Champion is great, the 2-piece set bonus just sucks, and we’ve known that since the very first patch notes.
Alright, I was reading that Smite was interfering with freeze/fear as it pertained to cc. And that Cold Steel was inflicting heavy damage on us when kicked back my wreavers. Vanguard and Maniac are obviously great. If it’s more beneficial then we should definitely keep it.
and furthermore in future: “(…) We’re also planning, long-term, to do additional balance passes after we’ve finished adding all the new class sets to the game. We want to continue to make changes and tweaks for the foreseeable future based on both your feedback as well as on ongoing class performance”.
So, once more lets just sum up our thoughts in one clear post/thread
so that its more likely the devs will recognize it^^
i dont see any reasons not to do so.
and keep in mind that you allready had great succes with your petition not to nerf the Lamentation down to zero.
If the set goes live as is it’s just blackthorn’s 2.0. I think that a set that the art team made look badass getting auto sharded is just a slap in the face.
I eventually came to a few (somewhat tentative) conclusions. I’m putting what I think is the major takeaway for each point in bold.
1: Against a single target, you stack Stricken at the “expected” rate, i.e. the frame rate of Frenzy, taking into consideration your Frenzy stacks, attack speed on gear, etc. So If you have a 9F Frenzy, the ICD on Stricken will be lower than that (most likely 4F), but you will still stack Stricken every 9F, because that’s when Frenzy hits.
2: The chain hits first. So if you’ve got 2 enemies nearby, when you hit the first of them directly with Frenzy, the chain actually applies the Stricken stack to the other guy. This is why, in the video I posted, nearly all the stacks ended up on the adjacent skeleton, hit by the chain, rather than the skeleton I was directly attacking. If you attack at an artificially low rate (just clicking the button periodically, rather than attacking as fast as you can) the stacks will all go on the guy hit by the chain.
3: This is not the case, however, if you are just using a very slow weapon, and attacking as fast as you are able. I ran a test using a lower level crafted mace with 0.9 APS, and most of my AS on gear and paragon removed, giving me 0.95 sheet APS (and, I think, a 25 Frame Frenzy). Testing on 2 skeletons, and attacking as fast as I could, I counted out 50 Frenzy hits (unlike when dual-wielding with Oathkeeper, with this slow mace I was actually able to accurately count individual hits even at max attack rate). Afterwards, the directly hit skeleton had 34 stacks of Stricken (one of these was from my Rend check for initial damage, another from my final check), while the other skeleton had 30 stacks (final Rend check only). So that’s about 53% of my Stricken stacks on the directly hit enemy, and 47% on the other, hit only by the chain.
Compare this to my earlier tests in which, with a higher speed (12F), dual-wield Frenzy, if I attacked slowly, nearly 100% of the stacks went on the “adjacent” skeleton, and if I attacked as fast as possible, about 65% of the stacks went on the “initial” skeleton. So I think what is happening is that the chain has a limitation in how often it can stack Stricken. I’m still not sure whether this is because of an ICD on how often the chain can animate or because of an ICD directly on how often it can cause procs / stack Stricken, but in either case, it seems to be based on the Frame rate of your Frenzy. So no matter how slow your weapon, you never end up with zero stacks on the directly hit target.
4: I think that Stricken stacks on your main target result from direct Frenzy hits that happen before this ICD on the Bastion’s chain has elapsed. For instance: when fighting 2 mobs, you attack Mob 1 directly, using Frenzy. The chain zips over and hits Mob 2, applying a Stricken stack to him. The ICD on Stricken is triggered. The ICD on Stricken runs out, and then your next Frenzy hit happens, but this time the ICD on the Bastion’s chain is still running, so Frenzy applies a Stricken stack to Mob 1. On the next hit, the ICD on the Bastion’s chain will have elapsed, so the Stricken stack will again go on the guy hit by the chain.
So this divides up the Stricken stacks between Mob 1, who you directly hit with Frenzy, and Mob 2, who only gets hit by the chain. I think this is how it works.
5: Even if you set aside 3 hits from Rend in this test using the slow mace, I ended up with 61 Stricken stacks from only 50 Frenzy hits, so once you factor in multiple targets, it seems your Stricken stacking rate can increase beyond the rate of Frenzy, heading towards the ceiling provided by the Stricken ICD. In this particular instance, with the slow mace, I think it would be (floor) 25 * (0.9 / 1.75 (+movespeed)) = 12.86 = 12F ICD.
6: Because the Bastion’s chain seems to animate a bit irregularly (i.e. it doesn’t seem to hit all enemies within 15 yards at the exact same time, instead it zips around) the more enemies you have within 15 yards, the more likely it is that, when the Bastion’s ICD is inactive, one of those chain hits will “beat” your Frenzy attack, and stack Stricken faster than expected.
So for instance, using that slow mace, Frenzy stacks Stricken every 25 Frames, but the ICD is only 12 Frames. The more enemies there are close to me, the more Bastion’s chains there are zipping around. And the more Bastion’s chains there are zipping around, the more likely it is that one of them will stack Stricken on an enemy at Frame 13, Frame 14, Frame 15, etc, rather than having to wait all the way to Frame 25, when Frenzy would apply a stack.
So I think that as mob density around you increases, the closer your Stricken stacking rate will get to the Stricken ICD, which is considerably faster than your Frenzy attack rate.
Conclusion: I’m not 100% certain on all these points.#1 “Stricken stacks at expected rate vs single target”, and #2 “Chain hits first”, I’m very confident about. The rest of these hypotheses I’m less sure of, but they would explain the various weird stuff we’ve seen happening.
What do you guys think? Does all this seem reasonable?
I know this has really nothing to do with how the set is preforming but why in the world of Sanctuary is the chain effect so darn ugly? The worst looking chain effect in the whole game and some of the chain links can get as big as my Hero’s head! No wonder the chain effect has no idea where it is supposed to go.
All kidding aside, the H90 Set needs a major tuneup in both Damage and Damage Mitigation. In higher GR’s it seems like I am fighting the build instead of the Monster’s most of the time and with the limited CDR the Set IMO is very frustrating to play.
I do hope the Dev’s will take a look at some of the great ideas mentioned in this Topic and give this Set some loving it deserves.
It is back to “Spin To Win” for me.
I’ve read Justin and Rage both comment on the stricken stacking rate & possible mechanics at work, but I am curious on a single target (say GR with adds after clearing out adds) what would be the difference of stricken stacking rate per second for 7f, 6f, 5f & 4f frenzy? Would it just be the Ticks per second with an additional stack for the bastion cycle (IE tps x2)?
I should just not be lazy & go back and re-read formulas, but respectfully request your input. Thanks!
I see, so with multiple targets it would still be the rate of frenzy, just spread out on the targets in range (presumably.) IE for a single second on a 4f frenzy with 15 hits on the main target and two others, each of the three should have 5 stacks?
Been meaning to ask a nub question as well as I am out of date & couldn’t find a precise reference. When at a frame for frenzy are the actual hits the calculated attacks, breakpoint attacks or ticks per second? Referring to the codepen calculator
There’s the rate of your Frenzy, and then there’s the ICD (Internal CoolDown) of Stricken. If, say, your Frenzy is at 9F, then the ICD is 9F * (0.9 / (1+ Bonus Movespeed)).
Which, since Vanguard gives you a bunch of movespeed, would be:
9F * (0.9 / 1.75) = 4.62 Frames. And this ICD also apparently uses the “Floor”, i.e. it rounds down, so that’s an ICD of 4 Frames.
Which means that you can get a Stricken stack as often as every 4 frames, theoretically.
Now, if you’re fighting just one guy, then from my testing it seems that even though the ICD is way shorter, you’re still just getting Stricken stacks at the rate of Frenzy (every 9 Frames, in this example).
But, once you start adding in more targets, then you start to get hits from the Bastion’s chain, and these can come after the ICD has expired, and before the next Frenzy hit, giving you a faster Stricken stacking than by Frenzy alone (your actual stacking rate will get a bit closer to the ICD, which is 4 Frames, but it will never get all the way there). Many of these Stricken stacks will, as you note, be spread out among the various targets within 15 yards.
You might want to go back and re-read my longer post from earlier today. Without getting into too many numbers, I think I summarized my thoughts on how all this stuff works. My apologies if it’s a bit confusing, but this is confusing stuff! JF and Seiya liked that post, so they may agree with me, or perhaps they’re just collecting their thoughts as they prepare to tell me I’m dead wrong!
I’m a little unclear on what you mean here… D3planner will show you frame rates for Frenzy hits, taking into consideration things like your attack speed, Frenzy stacks, Oathkeeper, etc.
JF gave this for calculating the Stricken ICD, if that’s helpful:
It does indeed. Just riffing, but is it possible that the strange spread has to do with Bastion’s rate of hits failing to sync with Stricken’s application and ICD? Not sure if I’m phrasing that correctly. What I mean is, let’s say you have two, oh, I don’t know, SKELETONS within range. You hit the first, apply Stricken to that one, and the Bastion’s chain then links to the second. As you wail on the first, there are moments when Stricken’s ICD is active, and when it’s off cooldown, the hit that is proccing is a chain hit, and not Frenzy, because both Frenzy and the Bastion’s chains may be counting as “hits.”
Does that make sense? Your discussion of the irregular animation of the Bastion’s chains, something I’ve also noticed, made me think of that.
I don’t think so. If that were the case, my first video would have shown all the stacks on the guy hit directly by Frenzy, not the guy hit by the chain. And the ICD in that test would be very low: not more than about 6 frames long (about 1/10th of a second). So there should be no ICD running when I executed each hit with Frenzy.
lol, …, based on my fishing experience: although I didn’t hit some blues or yellows, there maybe still decent amount of stacks on them. In other words, when I target those mobs, they die pretty fast.
I am about >70% sure, the Frenzy stricken stacking theory is correct. But it is really hard to test. T**D may help, but I avoid touching those 3rd party hackerware.
That makes sense. I don’t have the planner downloaded, will have to wait till I get home to register; been using old references which leads me to want to confirm with you all.
So theoretically, if you could get the ICD under 4F, and the icd to expire before the duration of the 10 bastion hits (before the next frenzy swing), could you stack stricken on multiple targets at the same time?
Where my mind is I ditched EQ to try WotB and found something interesting. With 21 ias from gear and 7% ias on oath keeper and Azure, with wotb (or speed pylon without wotb), Gogok (instead of trapped) and cubing EF instead of CoE, you can have a 4F frenzy with the 5 EF stacks; 6F with 1.”, 7F with 0.
With that in mind and the bonus move speed from vanguard, EF, Wotb and paragon (+145) that has left me curious.
Giving up trapped & CoE are huge, but I wonder if there is a terminal point where the stricken stacks plus aps will outpace a slower swing setup with CoE and trapped.
Edit: and you would need a chiropractor. Orthos work on joints and tissue. I do medrecs, I know this!!
First, assume that you’ve got stacks of Frenzy, so the chain will fire.
1: When you push the button to hit a guy with Frenzy, there’s an animation. It’s not like you push the button and the enemy is instantly hit. It’s easier to imagine with a slower attack, like if you’re playing Leapquake and swinging a big 2H weapon. When you press the SS:Rumble button, your Barb takes a big swing, and hits some enemies. There’s a delay in-between when you push the button, and when the attack actually deals damage. This delay is present for Frenzy, too, even though it’s shorter.
So, it’s possible the chain shoots out before you actually hit with Frenzy, like maybe one frame earlier or something. So in this case, you’re basically hitting Mob 1 with Frenzy on frame 0, but Mob 2 is getting hit by the chain on frame -1.
OR
2: The game has a system for determining “priority” between different things that happen on the same frame. I think this is the more likely scenario.
Again, imagine a Leapquake Barb. There are 8 or 9 EQ’s on the ground, ticking away. There are Avalanches raining down. You’re hitting things with Leap, with SS. A lot is happening, and some of it will be happening on the same frames. So there’s got to be a system for determining what happens if, say, both EQ and Avalanche hit the same guy, or different guys, on the same frame. Who gets the Stricken stack? And how long is the ICD? Each of those skills will set a different ICD, so which one of them sets that ICD makes a significant difference.
It’s the same here. I’m guessing the game just gives priority/preference to the chain in this case.
How “chain shoots first” happens is a bit up in the air. That it happens is pretty certain, I think.
BUT: I think the chain also has its own ICD, which is why you don’t end up with ALL the stacks on guys hit by the chain and NONE of the stacks on the guy you hit directly with Frenzy. I went over this in points #3 + #4 of my post this morning.
Nope, you can’t stack Stricken on multiple targets at the same time, that’s the whole purpose of the ICD. In the example I gave before, if you hit with a 9F Frenzy, you get a 4F ICD. If you had a 5F Frenzy, then you’d have a 2F ICD. However long it is, anything that happens before that ICD expires won’t proc Stricken.
D3 planner is a website, here: https://www.d3planner.com/
No I get 1 hit cannot create 2 stacks, absolutely accurate, but I was under the impression bastion is 10 hits each with the ability to crit, proc AD and bloodshed.
What I’m wondering is if you are right and bastion is stacking first at -1F, then frenzy stacks at 0F, and you are able to get the icd to one frame for a 4F frenzy, would one of the other ten hits of bastion between frames 1-2 (3 being the next bastion after the 4th frame frenzy hit) have the ability to stack it as well? Or would fall in line with other attacks over time, like rend, where only the first tick applies stricken?
Edit: or possibly all ten hits are calculated at -1F?
