D4 - Gear and Spell design idea/discussion (functionality)

Hello everyone, as we “ramp up” for a new Quarterly update, would like to point out a one thing I’ve noticed recently playing some RPGs

1 - Skills should not (almost exclusively) depend on builds, they should be gear-dependant, the only question of dependency is HOW (rather than IF). That’s a very nice “niche” to define but don’t think the “way to go” is a bunch of separate “spec trees” for each/specific skill

This idea is mainly based upon the idea/fact of = no ability should be felt SAFE BET to kill things either safely or efficiently (unless well combined with gear for specific purpose/s) even early/er in the game

2 - Gear should not be too specific, but it’s IMPACT should be really felt when a piece of gear changes


So based upon those TWO core ideas/concepts think I’ve found a “way” to incorporate “everything” be affected by gear (or not) depending on playstyle rather than opponent types or environment specifics

That being said, here are 6 main/core DAMAGE TYPES by playstyle (that a game could provide)

1 - Hit-Effects
2 - Ramp-Up/Stackable
3 - Close-combat/Multicast
4 - AoE/Channel
5 - Buff/Debuff

Since we defined types of skills by playstyle (or damage inflicted by a certain playstyle), we can go onto the next step and that’s define TAGS for skills:

1 - Stackable/Ramp up (repeatable, fast damage, can be stackable for damage or some buff)
2 - Close-combat (abilities that are mostly skillshots but aren’t designed to go far, Caltrops, FoK, Ancient-Spear, Arc lash, CoC, e.t.c.)
3 - Projectiles (self-explanatory, these can’t get a multicast/shotgun damage bonus but can gain distance/speed bonuses)
4 - AoE (can be targetted and melee, targetted get affected by cast-range bonuses as well, for ex. Meteor distance cast, most often affixes for these would be Radius, Overload bonuses, Corpse-effect chance)
5 - Wind-up (abilities that usually have mid/larger CDs but become stronger at certain phases, either by having them channeled longer or waited longer to cast)
6 - Buff/Debuffs (pretty self-explanatory, Overload could be considered a form of buff but decided for the sake of balance decided to have skills that do buff/debuff things Overload-separated, at least not if not talented)

And ofc, we got the “generic” categories for spells such as: “melee”, “defensive”, “spell-primary”, “physical-primary”, “summon” and similar…


Based upon the basic tags above a skill can have we can go onto the next step of defining possible affixes for each:

Stackable/Ramp-up:

  • X (or X%) bonus physical/spell damage per stack gained
  • X (or X%) bonus physical/spell damage per stack on target
  • Stackables/Ramp-ups gain +X extra-gained/target-maximum stacks
    • X% stack duration (mostly/especially usable for DoTs)
  • +X% Overload/Overcharge bonus per stack gained/inflicted
    • X% Overload/Overcharge bonus while/vs maximum stacks gained/inflicted
  • +X% hit-effect chance/power increased per stack
  • +X% hit-effect chance/power increased on maximum stacks

Close-combat:

  • % chance to gain X Life
  • % chance to gain X Resource
  • % chance to inflict X% Hit-effect frailty (reduce target’s hit-effect % “dodginess”/CC-resistance/s)
  • % chance to gain Shield/Ward on successful hit
  • % chance to inflict Shield/Ward nullification on successful hit
  • % chance hit-effect increase on successful hit/s
  • % chance hit-effect power increase on successful hit/s
  • % chance to Multicast for X% on successful hits (for ex. extra cast can be 50% original spell damage)

(NOTE: Successful hit = more than 75% of maximum skill damage done, some “generic” affixes or Uniques may increase/decrease this threshold ofensively/defensively by quite a bit)

Projectiles

  • +X% maximum projectile distance (can also be affected by “generic” cast range increase)
  • +X% travel speed and damage (can also be affected by “generic” cast speed increase)
  • +X% chance to pierce/corpse-effect on hit
  • +X% chance to hit-effect target-hit
  • +X% chance to gain ward on successful target-hit
  • +X% chance to multicast for X%
  • +X% damage from close distance hits
  • +X% hit-effect chance on long distance hits

AoE:

  • CDR by targets hit
  • Bonus damage on next cast by targets hit [Overcharge]
  • Radius increase
  • Corpse-effect (explode or freeze/solidify corpse) on hit
  • % Chance to gain-buff by targets hit
  • % Chance to debuff-target on hit
  • +X% hit-effect chance on successful single-target hit
  • +X% chance multicast on successful single-target hit

Wind-Up:

  • +X% chance to hit-effect on a “well-channeled” ability
  • +X% chance to gain buff/target-debuff after a “well-channeled” ability
  • +X% primary stat X while channeling
  • +X% secondary stat X while channeling
  • +X% bonus damage/AoE/hit-effect-power on fully-channeled ability
  • +X% bonus damage/AoE/hit-effect-power per wind-up %

(NOTE: Well-channeled ability means 50% wind-up/duration or more, Fully-channeled means 100%, or more with bonus/es)

Buffs/Debuffs

  • +X% Buff/Debuff power on first/last stack (if stackable)
  • +X% Radius/Duration on cast
  • +X% Primary stat X per targets affected for X
  • +X% Secondary stat X per targets affected for X
  • -X% Primary stat X per targets affected for X
  • -X% Secondary stat X per targets affected for X
  • -X% Primary stat X per single-target successful hit
  • -X% Secondary stat X per single-target successful hit

Hit-Effects:

[available by close-combat, projectiles, melee]

  • Stun, Knockback, Shred-Armor/Resist, CB, Blind, Bleed

[available by AoE/Wind-up/De/buffs]

  • Shred-Armor/Resist, Blind, Slow, Re-stack (reset duration of all buff/debuff stacks to full duration back)

GENERIC

  • Increased Hit-Effect chance (addition, from basic and weapon/talent-tree)
  • Increased Hit-Effect power (additional with basic/talent values and then multiplied as %… some, say stun affects duration, knockback affects distance, shred-armor/res affects % amount, Corpse-effect means AoE-affected or HP%, e.t.c.)
  • Gain X% primary stat while moving/standing still
  • Gain X% secondary stat while moving/standing still
  • +X% Cast range for skills of tier (1/2/3/4)
  • +X% Cast speed for skills of tier (1/2/3/4)
  • X% reduced cost rate for skills of tier (1/2/3/4)
  • +X skills of tier (1/2/3/4)

e.t.c.

Notice that there’s no “+X% fire damage” or “+X% physical”, it’s all/more about “skills of tier X”, or melee/projectile/wind-up/stackable/AoE

And the REASON of that is simple: can afford greater fluctuations in numbers for those and as a result AFFECT a build/skill more rapidly, for example:

Staff 1:
+35% Overload bonus damage
+35% chance to root on melee or close-combat hit
+5% of damage done by wind-up and AoE is returned as a Ward for up to 3 seconds
+5 to skills of tier 2 (temporary bonus, player choice to assign those 5 temporary bonuses for skills of tier 2)

The cool part is that this is obviously more impactful (at least per certain playstyle/skill) than something like:

Staff 2:

  • +20% Fire damage
  • +10% chance to root on hit
  • 15% of damage absorbed goes to mana
  • +1 to Fire skills

EVEN THOUGH the first staff has more “Specific” bonuses, they’re obviously catered towards a certain playstyle (regardless of class or if high the possible variety, build), and the best part of that is that the player knows UPFRONT what/why/where/how are they gonna use it the moment they see it… The last affix itself even if say that there are multiple classes (which should be the case) that have skills marked as “Fire skill” primarily, it’s LESSER of an impact than having the player choose to assign to WHICH

That’s the basic idea I wanted to share: don’t “overload” us with “trees” for each skill, instead combine them with a nicely-defined/separately-categorized system for skills on a more shared/generic level (across multiple classes/builds) but have the IMPACT of those affixes targetted more specifically

(such as +35% hit-effect power to Close-Combat skills, rather than a more “generic” stat as +15% stun/slow duration for ex., it’s a hit-effect that has an “inflated” value but has a very OBVIOUS/well-defined and yet relatively highly-impactful usage), similar to this instead of having things like +2 to Frost-bolt (or tier 1 skills whatever), can afford to “start” with a “gimped” Frost bolt that has smaller range and the player can choose which direction do they go (higher range and projectile speed, or keep it more “closer” and gain some close-combat bonus/es), and ALL that being INTERCHANGEABLE by gear (as opposed to one tree-click and then have gear almost not affect anything, at least not as impactfully as one would like a gear impact to be I think :thinking: )

NOTE: Didn’t focus on Armor or Jewelry to “keep it simple”, even though it turned out to be a true wall of text at the end lol

Either way, wanted to share this “approach”/view of a bit higher/specified variety of skill/gear synergy (without going all on D3 exclusivity) for a bit… :slight_smile:

For better readability I divided my feedback to you into two parts. This is Part 1 of 2.

I think that these affixes are and should not be mutually exclusive.
There should be a good mix of more “specific affixes” and more “generic/universally useful” affixes imo.

Furthernmore, if there are no affixes like x% increased Fire Damage, then you can’t really create Legendaries that have a specific theme, like a Fire Sword/Axe, or a Wand that is specifically designed to help out a Frost Sorc.

So for example weapons like these would not be possible:

https://imgur.com/daZFIXV
https://imgur.com/6FhVIof
https://imgur.com/Rd5qfGr
https://imgur.com/WBpg48W
https://imgur.com/XjjynOn
https://imgur.com/qiA9nhK

and neither would be other elemental-themed Legendaries
https://imgur.com/348wk5E
https://imgur.com/X3RNNtH

=================================

I think that Skill-specific Skill Trees with Skill-specific Points are great and the new industry standard for a good reason, however, I agree with you to the extend that these Skill Trees for each individual skill should not have all of the available affixes in them.

E.g. not every Skill should have Crushing Blow, chance to Stun/Freeze/Fear/Root on them, but just the more basic stuff like:

  • x% increased Damage per Point
  • x% reduced Resource Cost per Point
  • x% increased AoE per Point
  • x% reduced Cooldown per Point

and a few Special Modifications that that can change how the skill works that you can unlock for several points at once, like e.g.

  • Enemies now are being pulled towards the center of the Meteor Impact before it lands
  • Fireball now also leaves behind a Pool of Flames on the ground
  • Multishot shoots additional target-seeking Rockets
  • Rain of Arrows now rains down in several smaller Areas that seek enemies, instead of one large zone
  • etc

These more specific affixes like the ones you mention here should not be on a Skill-specific Skill Tree, but rather on the items. I personally would find that too sandbox-y.

I think it would be good to elaborate on that a bit further with what you mean by that.

You wanna say something that is on a very deep and basic level and you do that in simple terms, but that might be too difficult for some people to understand.

I also have said things like “Items should not determine your gear, but rather enhance it”, but some people might not know intuitively what you mean by that.

Part 2 of 2

I think this might get a bit tricks when different skills have different amount of Maximum Stacks and/or how fast they gain Stacks, so some Channelling Skills would benefit from it much more than others…

… so I would say that these particular Affixes are more Skill-specific Affixes that would fit better on Skill-specific Skill Trees (tuned for every skill) rather than on items.

I see no reason for why these shouldn’t also work on Ranged Attacks like Arrow Attacks or Spells to be honest.

These on the other hand make perfect sense, as they are specific to Ranged Attacks, but overall still generic / universally useful for all kinds of Ranged Attacks.

You mean like that if your Meteor Skill has a Cooldown and it hits eg 5 enemies, its Cooldown is reduced by x% for every enemy hit, I assume?

This can also be too powerful for large AoE Skills.

These are very basic, I like them.
They are basically a different way of saying “x% Chance to gain X on Hit” or “x% Chance to gain a Stack of X on Hit”.

Rename this to “Chance to cast X on Kill” / “Chance to cause Enemies to Explode when you Kill them”.
But this sounds more like a Legendary Special Affix, rather than a Common Affix, to be honest.

I think that these Affixes are also more Legendary Special Affixes, rather than Common Affixes that could spawn on Magic and Rare Items.

It is just my opinion, but I would rather make a few Legendaries that cater specifically to Channelling Skills that have these Affixes as their Legendary Affixes (+ a few others to make them more cool), a bit like The Mantle of Channelling in D3.

I personally think that for Buffs and Debuffs these two Common Affixes are enough:

  • x% increased Effect of Buffs / Debuffs
  • x% increased Duration of Buffs / Debuffs

Anything more specific can be a Legendary Special Affix.
but again, that is just my opinion.

=====================================

So to very basic summary of my feedback to you: I agree and like some of your suggestions, other I disagree with for various reasons.

Ok, I guess I should put some ideas/thoughts to what I think Legendaries/Uniques could/should be in order to make more sense (generally)

Well I was thinking in terms of like 4 categories

1 - Stat modifications (based, or not, on State)
2 - Skill modifications
3 - Damage-type thematic/modifications
4 - Hit-effect alterations

for ex.

1A - Your primary attacks now become spectral hits and gain 2 damage components based on your 2 highest resistances. 50% of those resistances become added to your primary damage per hit
2A - Gain 35% from your total hit-effect % chance as CC reduction
3A - Ward and Buff effects now last 25% shorter but while winding-up/channeling stack twice
4A - Gain 25% of your ATK/Movement speed bonuses as Dexterity. Gain that same bonus as while impaired/slowed as Str instead

It can get tricky but usually the type A of legendaries basically is based on: Gain X% from Y (Dex from movement or ATK speed bonus, Str or CC reduction from hit%-power, Warding from Resource%, or make stuff happen/echo twice, or gain extra damage vs moving targets and increase chance/distance for displacement effect like knockback/fear or something)

1B - Multicast and pierce effects now “spawn” an additional hit (pierce splits projectiles, or adds one more if it already did, and multicast casts 3x instead of 1 additional hit)
2B - Your close-combat abilities deal 25% less damage but nullify wards immediately and gain 15% chance to inflict 15% CB on successful hits.
3B - All your projectiles now travel parabolically and land from up above resulting as AoE hits. These projectiles also gain 50% hit-effect-power bonuses from your gear that resembles hit-effects for AoE
4B - Your wind-up/channeled abilities now apply a displacement effect on successful hits (Knockback on well-channeled and fear on max-channeled skills)

Damage-type thematic:

1C - Skill that deal primarily fire damage but affect less than 5% max HP of target now disperse/explode instead and deal 50% more damage to every minion nearby except the one you initially targeted
2C - All frost-damage abilities now also applies 35% armor reduction vs physical hits
3C - Combining Frost, Fire, and Lightning damage in a quick succession onto a target applies an Ignore-Armor debuff for the next few hits
4C - All your melee/projectiles/close-combat/tier-X skills now deal primarily fire/frost/lightning/poison/e.t.c. damage. Damage done is increased by 25% of it’s respective resistance

Hit-effect alterations:

1D - Instead of displacement effect now you levitate your opponents (increase damage taken from projectiles and ranged hits)
2D - Instead of on target hit, root effect is now cast on ground in AoE affecting everyone but root is applied with 1 second delay and duration is decreased 35%
3D - Your Lifesteal is doubled but only applies while Warded. If/while not warded you gain Resource instead
4D - Your freeze/stun now ethereals/knocks-down target, Ethereals/Knocked-down targets take 50% more damage from any AoE ability but can’t be targetted directly (i.e. hit by projectiles or melee)
5D - now you float all the time and take 50% less damage from melee but all your hit-effects applied are either Blind (by AoE) or Critical hits

Those are the “lines” I thought of putting Legendaries/Uniques into… Either alternating/buffing stats based upon another, or alternating skill to behave/hit-effect like something else, or “juggling” around with elemental damage types, or simply alternating the hit-effects (into something else) or making them do additional triggering… :thinking:

That’s the kind of affixes I’d put on legendaries/uniques, it’s kinda D3-esque but since a good part of “damage management” is done by regular affixes think can afford/focus more on those thematic bonuses or theme-alternating effect on these :slight_smile:

Agreed but the idea is that those would be a lot more costly compared to other skills or balanced by delays/wind-ups/channel or simply CD (depending on the skill)… For example wind-up on Elemental arrow (travels further and is wider and deals more damage the longer winded), Meteor on the other could have a cast-delay and a high-cost of some kind… A fire-cone could be channeled (or Blizzard for that matter), abilities like whirlwind could be both (winded-up for greater initial speed bonus/hit-effect-power, and then channeled throughout the rest for lesser effect for the rest of of it’s “lifetime”), upheaval could be winded-up for extra AoE/Damage e.t.c.

And if you put those not “pay off” to not be wound-up like say Upheaval doesn’t apply hit-effects if not wound-up on hit or have really small chance/s for it (or even have CD), they’d be well-balanced I think… :thinking:

Yes, these kind of Affixes I also like a lot.
I think you will probably like these specific concepts / mockups for Legendaries that I made, as they have powers that are exactly what you talk about here.

The Executioner
https://imgur.com/297aTov
° Gain additional Flat Physical Damage based on your Life per Kill
° Gain additional %increased Weapon Damage for each 1% of Lethal Strike Treashold you have (Lethal Strike is similar to PoE’s Culling Strike(

Messerschmidt’s Reaver
https://imgur.com/daZFIXV
° Gain x% of your Current Life as additional Fire Damage

Spellsteel
https://imgur.com/Ezp5nTN
° For each x Strength you have gain 1% increased Spell Damage
° %increased Melee Damage now also increases %increased Spell Damage

Thundergod’s Wrath
https://imgur.com/qiA9nhK
° Add x% of your Lightning Resistance as Flat Lightning Damage to this Weapon

Nokozan Relic
https://imgur.com/X3RNNtH
° For each x Fire Resistance you have, gain+1 to All Attributes
° x% off all Damage Taken is taken as Fire Damage

A few more examples that fall into that category:
https://imgur.com/sNzuvo8
https://imgur.com/24Uz8SB
https://imgur.com/XjjynOn
https://imgur.com/hPBY8qX
https://imgur.com/6FhVIof

And my favorite one would be Windforce
https://imgur.com/yLEVBR5
° Gain x% of your %increased Movement Speed as additional Flat Cold and Physical Damage
° For each x% increased Movement Speed you have, gain x% increased Attack Speed
° x% Chance to cast Sprint on Attack

I also have things on my concept art like these (or at least written down in my many documents of ideas), though not exactly like these.

I think the one that comes the closes to that is this one:

Spell Weaver
https://imgur.com/mt0Wuwt
° Doubles Spell Echo Chance
° Spells created by Spell Echo are echoed +x additional times

Maybe this one as well

The Guardian
https://imgur.com/shaKGWj
° Enemies in Melee Range have their Elemental Resistance reduced (on a Caster Staff)

So what I basically wanna say is, I like these kind of ideas from you.

I like these as well. Kind similar to the ones I have show above.

A bonus one
https://imgur.com/eqnjGlu

Yeah, I like these a lot as well.

Vampiric Embrace
https://imgur.com/cABZXXA
° Doubles Life per Attack, but reduces al other Sources of Healing by x%

Kira’s Guardian
https://imgur.com/usNIvz9
° While Energy Shield is not Critical, your Elemental Resistances are increased by x%
° You can not get Stunned or Frozen while Energy Shield is up

I think some more generic stuff is also okay, like
° after you send x Mana, you gain a powerful buff
° it periodically rains down Meteor around you,
° oSkills
° gain Aura X while the Item is equipped
° Reanimate Slain Enemies as Monster X (that fights for you for a while)

https://imgur.com/8G3LDrg
https://imgur.com/xqLsTTH
https://imgur.com/dh1ihlw
https://imgur.com/UtdxVxl
https://imgur.com/46xmNyk
https://imgur.com/OR1zOow

I would not say at all that these effects are D3-esque.
D3’s Special Affixes are more like “Fireball deal 400% increased Damage and explodes twice”.

I think I still haven’t fully understood this “Wind-up” thing, which is maybe why I can’t get behind it currently.

You mean that e.g. if I press and hold the Right Mouse Button to “Charge-up” an Arrow Skill for lets say 3 seconds, then it will travel further, deal more damage, etc than if I would just have pressed and hold the Mouse Button for 2 seconds before releasing it?

Yes, that’s what wind-up is, probably not ideal for a RPG but think adds a lot of nice gameplay/combat complexity. Kind of reverse from channeled ability, wind-up gains extra power the longer “pre-channeled” it is and most of it’s impact is done “initially”

People’ve been discussing to add “rechargables” instead of CD-based abilities (i.e. 25% damage/effect before 20% CD, 40% before 50% CD and fully “refreshed” CD ability gains it’s original/full 100% effect/damage), so kinda decided to go one step further, perhaps it’s not the CD but the channeling that might make it more satisfying to “nail” the right timing (not only timing but also place)

And you don’t even need to necessarily hold it for 2 seconds, could even release it immediately but the damage/effect you’d gain would be “reactionary” to say the least (say about 25% of total power of the ability)

And the concept also has some nice potential to reward well planned/timed comboes I think :thinking:, say for example you could play a Barb and summon a pike-wall (shield-wall variant) and then “wind up” your Whirlwind for it to cause nicely-controlled knockback/CC for the first few seconds of the spinning and knocking foe right into that pike wall for maximum effect/damage

Stuff like that basically

1 Like

I agree with this, but I absolutely hate your affix ideas. I would suggest you think of affixes that tweak spells in interesting ways, without relying on +500% damage multipliers. That’s what D4 is going for.

I like this idea, but only for certain skills where it actually would make sense, like a single ability for the Rouge where she is charging up an arrow/pulling the bow back to give it more impact so that it deals more damage depending on how long she pulled back the arrow/bowstring…

… or for the D3 Monk something like a changed up Kame-Hame-Ha or Spirit Bomb.

However, I think that these things should not be implemented into the skill itself, but rather be unlocked by a Skill-specific Upgrade that now instead of releasing the skill immediately, you can now charge it up over a maximum of x Seconds.

And it has to be on skills that fit, e.g. on Upheaval or HotA (and I would also argue Fireball, Meteor or Blizzard), it would not make too much sense.

A chargeup-esque Perk for Melee Skills and Bow/Ranged Skills would imo be more like “x% reduced Attack Speed with this Skill, but x% more Damage”

I had a similar idea for some Druid Skills, like an Earthquake/Tremor that gets created at the targeted area, which has like 30 Charges, and when used, it consumes all charges and deals bonus damage for every Charge consumed.
Every Charge could have a Recharge Time of 1 Second and Cooldown Reduction would reduce this time.

That is basically the same idea of what you are describing, just with with more incremental steps.

oof, you need to be careful with the words that you are using when you describe something like that.

Channelling and Wind-up (or as I would prefer to say “Charge up”) are very different things.
Channelling is when the effect is already happening while the button is pressed, while for a Charge-up or Wind-up the effect is going to happen when you release the button you pressed for x seconds.

I am saying that this can just get a bit confusing when you mix up these terms.

…but back on that topic.
I like this idea of skills that can be charged up, but I think it only fits on some very specific skills.

imo in a fast ARPG it would feel weird to me to charge up a Meteor for 3 seconds (or even more) and then release it. I’d rather have a Meteor with a 15 second cooldown and lower resource costs (but a larger AoE like the D3 Molten Impact rune or more), so I can spam Fireballs while Meteor is on Cooldown.

However, a specific Bow Attack or a Kame-Hame-Ha that you can Charge up (which both maybe have xx Charges that need to regenerate over time) is something that I can totally get behind.

If these skills don’t have xx Charges that need to recharge over x seconds (like for the Monks Dashing Strike, just with more Charges, like 30 or so, of which each refreshes after 1 Second), and these Charge-up Skills would your main skill, then you constantly would either only deal very minor damage with that skill or all you would do is charging up the skill constantly.

So I’d rather have them as Support Damage Dealing Skills (aka a skill that you can not use as your main skill because it has a cooldown or charges that are being consumed by a windup/charge up) but not as your main skill.

To make an analogy, if you could spam these wind-up skills constantly as your Main Skill, even if it makes the attack less powerful, it would be like a battle in eg Dragonball or a Dragonball game just with constant Energy Attacks and no punches in between, if that makes sense.

Why tweak specific skills via Legendaries when you can do the same via the Skill System (eg Last Epoch or Wolcen which both have Skill-Specific Skill Trees with their own individual Skill-specific Skill Points)?

Putting Skill-specific Special Affixes on Legendaries just reduces item diversity.
Having them on the Skill System does not do that and allows for more choice in what items to use.

1 Like

I respect you disagree with me here. Regardless of which one of us is right, this is the path Diablo 4 signalled it is going on. Make of it the best we can.

I also respect that we have a difference in opinion here.

Non of us is right. It is just a difference in taste and preference, or at least that is what it could boil down to.

They are asking for feedback and everything is still subject to change.
It would not be wise for me to not give feedback on this when I think that there are better ways to go about this…

D4 hasn’t really gone that way… What they have gone for is the following:

Skill effects are unlocked by so-called Skill-Nodes, and the only/most-often way to “unlock” a perk from a skill is via manipulating/tweaking the primary stats (Str, Dex, WP, Int) from your character

Whilst this is not a bad idea by it’s own, think that people that are gonna “fish” for a specific unlock are gonna get hugely gear-locked in terms of investment for a certain Str/Dex/WP/Int ratio and I think that some of the affixes could (or should) “prematurely” reward such a dedication, say something like the following:

  • Whirlwind: Fast delivery [200 Str and Dex]: Whirlwind gives you now additional speedboost and attack speed bonus of 20% for 3 seconds after finished

You might as well have an affix (general for all classes on gear) that is something like the following:

  • +15% movement speed while channeling

And then unlocking that certain skill/specific node will “nicely define” what you’re going for

Perhaps there will be some other player that gets a node like the following:

350 str: Overwhelming force: Whirlwind now knocks back targets with each hit for first 5 seconds of channel, but have to be wind-up for a second. And then have a basic/generic affix on Gear that goes something like:

  • +25% range and damage displacement effects & skills (something which is guaranteed during first 5 seconds of your WW)

or

  • +25% hit-effect power while channeling

A third player might as well unlock a SkillNode that resembles more Int:

300 Int: Thread with the elements: Whirlwind now puts a fire/ice/poison/shadow/charged-bolt (depending on which of your resistance is highest) trail on the ground

And then have a gear/affix which empowers DoTs, i.e. something like:

  • Stackables (in my case) apply one extra stack
    or
  • AoE & DoT effects remain 50% longer on the ground

Stuff like that…

Perhaps someone else might go for the following:

200 Dex & WP: Spin 2 win: Whirlwind now spins faster resulting in higher 25% frequency

And then have an affix that says:

  • Channeled abilities gain increased frequency of procs by 50% of ATK (or MS) bonus/es

Then you can take such a piece of gear and combine that with say a “Frenzy” (ramp-up) ability that gives you MS/AS bonus/es anyway, and then that affix will empower EXTRA your “Spin 2 win” Skill-Node of WW

The downside ?, when you swap a piece of gear that gives you either Str/Dex/Int/WP into something that doesn’t you lose that node, but ALSO even if it retains the same stuff, perhaps the new piece of equipment will empower something else (say AoE instead of channel) so you might consider swapping your main source of damage to be Upheaval (or HotA) but only WHILE holding that gear piece, until you find something that WW benefits most from (again)


To conclude - the goal here is NOT to “gimp” a build, the goal is to make it more obvious (and more impactful) when a piece of gear swaps, and have it be the case from EVEN EARLIER… Make it so that EVEN EARLIER you’ll feel like “meh”, do I go for the extra safety (cast range) or oomph (bonus damage from up close) and the very moment you swap a gear piece (for example a Wand into a Staff) you FEEL immediate/impactful difference (not only with a physical hit but also with skills, such as Projectiles in this case)

Or in simpler words the GOAL here is:

Have EACH affix be more impactful/usable/more-immediate-rewarding but at the COST of never being able to have everything (and as a tradeoff if not having any then have your skills be weaker than usually and that be felt quite a bit in actual gameplay)

The reason why I think those things should be ALSO dependable on Gear is well, simply put experience… Even in games like LE or GD for example you don’t gain a nice felt IMMEDIATE IMPACT on a gear swap (for the most part)

You might have a wand that does:

Physical damage: 2-5
Fire damage per hit: 8-10
+25% elemental damage

and a sword that does:

Physical damage: 10-12
Fire damage per hit: 3-5
+8% elemental damage

And LITERALLY never even use that Wand, the ONLY time where you might experience (some) difference is when you’ll cast a “max tier” spell like Meteor (maybe)

But even that won’t be as impactful to simply justify you going for the Wand instead of the Sword (9 times out of 10), however

If your Wand has a great projectile-only bonus (+30% maximum projectile and cast range and say a mana-cost reduction) that a Sword (most of the time) won’t be able to provide you THEN you might wanna consider the Wand for more than just a “highest tier” of spells (projectiles in this case). Perhaps you could find a Wand/Staff/Sword that gives +1 Extra ramp-up stack and have it do +25% power for each stack while max-stacks applied and then swap to “Frenzy” that now has 6 stacks (with a 25% more powerful bonus from each stack of it) while being on 6 stacks (even if it’s a staff/wand)…, maybe

On the other hand the Sword will give you a higher melee-safety effect (5% Lifesteal or Ward gained for 10% of damage done from melee and close combat spells for ex.)

The one aspect I GET that people wouldn’t like is the Naming (ramp-ups & stackables, close-combat & melee, Channeling/Wind-up, Projectile, AoE, Buff/Debuff, Summon, e.t.c.) but don’t think it’s THAT bad tbh, think most people would realise these relatively intuitively, the only part that’s bad is again, the name (if someone can think of better naming/convention then even better)

BUT the one thing that should remain intact is the feature of: Each of those affixes to be SHARED accross multiple builds (and classes) (so there aren’t Barb-only, or Sorc-only affixes on gear) [Unless maybe at some rare/certain cases…, legendaries or uniques]

The WAY I went for is “affixes by playstyle” (or affixes by skill/casting type), and think it has a really nice potential to reach all those goals, EXCEPT (again, naming convention/s, maybe)


@Clueso - the reason why I don’t put all the hit-effects on AoE spells and tend to target them more on physical hits (or single-target spells) is PURPOSE

GD has that super high impact of “sideeffects” (IMO) that often your main source of damage becomes something you didn’t even plan for (Doom Bolt or Steel Nova or whatever the name was, for free as a hit-effects for ex.)… Think that having a “3% chance to launch meteor on hit” isn’t a good thing (cause there are things like Ray of frost or disintegrate), BUT, if your certain Skill-Node says it specifically (for Ex. Ray of frost has 10% chance to launch meteor vs Chilled., then I’d consider it super WEIRD, but also fine)

That’s why I think there should be a separate category for hit-effects that happen only on Curses/AoEs so that stuff doesn’t “overproc” all over the place and one doesn’t just end up stunning a whole screen of stuff “by mistake” (unless it’s YOUR skill node that you targetted/unlocked purposely that does it), that’s why I prefer to “limit” hit-effects to single-target spells and melee (or tweaked/different hit-effects that are usually less powerful on other stuff like AoEs)

  1. Not having some sort of synergy between skills in some way is not a good idea. Also having every skill gear dependent is not a good idea. That can lead to another D3 where gear makes the build instead of just enhancing the build or covering the weaknesses of the build.
  2. No, don’t have it where to use WW in D4 you must have glove slot with glove x or it won’t be good at all. That is just leading to the same problem with legendaries in D3 where gear piece x gives skill y 100+% damage buff.

I want D4 to be like what Blizz said it will be where 50% of your power comes from your character and the other fifty comes from the gear. But that doesn’t mean I want it where you must have a special gear piece for a special build. That would mean we have a recreation of D3’s gearing system which I don’t want. I want good alternative pieces of gear for D4.

That way I can have a WW build that is about high speed, low crit, has a high life leech and life regen. Along with being good at sustaining the resource you are using. The next one could be about high crit and high defense with little to no heals at all. Each could use different pieces of gear based on need instead of based on skill x.

tbh, I think that your idea of Windup does not fit on a skill like Whirlwind.

When Windup means that you first have to stand still for a second (or even more on some other skills), do nothing during that period and then it unleashes the effect, then I think that WW is not the right skill for such an effect.

For WW I would rather say:
After you used Whirlwind for at least x seconds continuously, enemies hit by Whirlwind get knockbacked.

This I would say fits better thematically / fantasy-wise, which is what I mean that a Windup does not fit on every skill.

Sure, mechanically speaking a Windup mechanic can work on every single Offensive Skill, but if it fits thematically / fantasy-wise is another question, which is why I do not like this (almost) sandbox-y approach to skill customization like in PoE.

What is ‘GD’, ‘Doom Bolt’ and ‘Steel Nova’?
You mean Grim Dawn?

I know what you mean and I can relate to the “Overprocing Effect”, but there are very simple solutions to prevent and/or mitigate overprocing, some of which are already implemented into Diablo 3, so I don’t think that a separation between procs for Single Target Skills and AoE Skills is necessary.

1) Proc Coefficient, aka Proc Chance Multiplier

A Skill-specific multiplier that determines how often a Proc can occur from a specific skill.
You could also call it a Proc Chance Multiplier

Some Skills have a Proc Chance Multiplier of 0.2 will only proc an effect half of the time.
E.g.: 10% Chance to cast Meteor on Striking becomes a 2% Chance to cast Meteor on Striking (10 * 0.2 = 2).
This would be for larger, more spamable AoE Skills like Frozen Orb or Seismic Slam or Multishot.

Some other Skill can have a Proc Chance Multiplier of 0.8, and a 10% Chance to cast Meteor on Striking would have an 8% Chance to occur.
This would be for medium large AoE’s like maybe Fireball, etc.

Some Skills might have a Proc Chance Multiplier of 1.6, so a 10% Chance to cast Meteor on Striking would turn into a 16% Chance for these Skills.
For skills with a really small AoE like Hammer of the Ancients maybe or Bash or Magic Missile (though since Bash and Magic Missile are Primary Skills, the Proc Multiplier might be lower).

2) On Attack VS On Hit/Striking

Some Skills/Spells/Buffs/Debuffs can proc “on Attack”, while others do “on Striking / on Hit”.

For me that means that “on Attack” can only proc once per Attack, regardless of how many enemies get hit by it.

“on Striking / on Hit” means that the Effect can occur on every single enemy that got hit by the Attack.

I have an example of that in my reimagining of the Windforce Bow

https://imgur.com/yLEVBR5

It has a 6% Chance to give you the Sprint Buff on Attack, which means everytime you attack, there is a 6% Chance to gain that buff (not factoring in Proc Multiplier).

It also has a 7% Chance to proc a Tornado on Hit (not factoring in the Proc Multiplier as well), which means that every enemy hit by an attack has a 7% Chance to spawn a Tornado (and with Proc Chance Multiplier it will be lower).

Tornados will happen much more frequently, while gaining the Sprint Buff happens less frequently, although the proc chance is nearly the same.

==================================================

Sidenote: when you would use something like 10% Chance to cast Meteor on Attack with a Skill like Multishot, the Meteor would proc where your Mouse Cursor is, while if it would be On Hit, it would be casted on the the enemy that triggered the effect.

3) Internal Cooldowns / Internal Charges for Procs

That is also something that is already in D3.

Some Procs have an internal Cooldown, which means that they can not proc more that once every x Seconds, whatever the internal cooldown is.

Internal Charges would mean that for example a Skill can only proc e.g. 5 times within 3 seconds. After that, a charge first had to recharge.

It means that you e.g. can only spawn a maximum of 5 Tornados within 3 seconds (or whatever numbers else you choose).

4) Different Proc Multiplier for Spell Procs and things like Life per Hit/per Attack

Some large AoE Skills like Seismic Slam can give e.g. 140% of yor Life per Attack on the first enemy you hit, and then 30% of you Life per Hit for the next 5 enemies you Hit, and then for the next enemies after that, you either gain no additional Life per Attack or only maybe 5%…

… While they have a separate Proc Chance Multiplier for procing things like Meteor.

The same can be done with CC Effects.

5) Compiling the power of several procs into one

This is also currently in D3, like with the Shield that procs Heavnly Fury when you block an Attack. Instead of countless Heavenly Fury Ray’s going off, iirc up to 20 of them that could go off within 1 second, are compiled into a single ray that has the power of all of these 20 rays combined.

Conclusion

When you combine all of these things together, then overprocing isn’t an issue anymore and you don’t need to have separate procs for Single Target and AoE Skills.

The difference is you don’t have a clear winner (for the most part)

Take projectiles for example, here’s a list of stuff you could get from an affix (regardless if Projectile-specific or more generic one)

  • X% cast range [Generic]
  • X% cast speed and CDR [Generic]
  • X% chance to gain Life or Resource back on hit (or Shield/Ward) for X% of damage dealt
  • X% chance to gain Resource back on hit or ReduceCost [Generic]
  • X% damage [Projectile specific or generic in form of Fire/Frost/Lightning/e.t.c.]
  • X% chance to crit/pierce [Projectile specific] (or just Crit, Generic)
  • X% hit-effect power [Generic]
  • X% hit-effect chance or power based on distance (or lack of) [Projectile specific]

e.t.c.

The difference is that EACH item will give you SOMETHING (or few of those somethings) that will be useful, and the only difference is HOW…

It’s player’s choice to either to double-down on a strength, or make up for a weakness, the only question is whether or not that’s the same/exact build (i.e. SkillNode) they’re aiming for

Definitely NOT (even remotely close to) D3 area

The reason why I think it’s important is cause don’t want to end up gear not having any effect what-so-ever (other than damage) IMO, as people will just always go on for a certain route (usually the safest option, such as the sword over the wand in abovementioned example)

It doesn’t matter if it is identical to D3 or not. But it still means it is like D3 in the fact that the gear makes the build. That is what I don’t want for D4. Even if you have many different alternatives it still shouldn’t happen. Gear should never make the build. It should only enhance the build where the rest of the power is with the character. How a players utilizes their skill points and any other points they spend on the character. That is what, along with the gear and skill synergies that should make the build. Then you can add in things like the skill of the user at playing the build.

Look you can still have gear that has an impact on a build even if it only provides around 50% of the power of the build. But put it at 100% then forget it that would be like D3 regardless of how many different choices you have.

Hmm let’s see:

Fan of Knives: Throw 5 knives in a frontal arc, hitting up to 5 targets (each target once)

  • Str 200: Puncture: Each target can be hit with up to 2 knives at once. Each additional knife lowers target’s armor/defence ratio by 5%

  • Int 200: Feedback throw: Hitting more than 3 targets at once increases your spellpower and cast-speed (per target hit) by 5%

  • Dex 200: Focused throw: Increase range and Damage of each knife by 50%

  • WP 200: Static throw: Equip a lightning coil to each knife and while on the ground they deal a single burst of shock damage to each target nearby

  • STR + DEX 300: Machette: instead of knives now you throw Machettes, Machettes have a chance to execute targets, or those not executed suffer bleed damage based on distance traveled

  • STR + INT 300: Arc of the Witcher: Throwing knives now Sap target’s Resource (Fury/Mana/Energy) with 33% chance to Silence for 1 second

  • DEX + WP 300: Charged throw: Throwing knives now explode for a greater knockback and damage done

  • INT + DEX: Bonuses (per stack) from Feedback throws also increases AS and Lifesteal

  • INT + WP 300: Barrier throw: Throwing knives now are connected each other with a forcefield that can’t be passed for 1.5 seconds after landing down

So, those are your skillnodes for that one particular skill, now you could…

  • Increase range by X% (especially useful if went for DEX node cause you gain THAT much more)
  • Increase hit-effect power (Bleed damage per distance: STR+DEX, Knockback distance: INT+ WP, Sap % or target-defence reduction: STR or INT)
  • Increase power of stacks (INT for higher Spellpower/Cast-speed gain or even AS if taking the INT+DEX node)

e.t.c.

That’s nowhere near D3 tbh… The ONLY difference is that (probably) skills should be weaker baseline (which is yet another think I’m highly advocating of tbh, regardless of what a skill does it shouldn’t be a “complete” material baseline by it’s own) :thinking: :slight_smile:

Look anything that copies D3 in the form where a good portion of the power comes from the gear then that means the build is made by the gear. The total combat power of the build would be mostly based on the gear itself, thus making the build.

This would be true even if the ratio was 70% gear and 30% character. I want D4 to become what the devs have promised which is a 50/50 split. 50% of the power with the character and the other 50% with the gear.

Honestly, think you’ve got just an upfront decided mindset

The most ironic part is that you think you’re advocating for some “50%” power differential but in reality it’s closer to 5% (if even that) :stuck_out_tongue:

Therefore make anyone has some ideas/freedom for re/designing content/design of things to be more dynamic as if “reinventing the world” or something

But it’s really just an extremely minor scaling (i.e. overly sensitive to scaling changes) by your part tbh

@Lostariel,
Silly me what i said is what the D4 devs are wanting to do. But what do they know, now hear this devs you must remake D3’s system of itemization where it has wide variety of ways of boosting our power for D4. Where the gear will be the true source of the character’s power. Putting on a big two handed mace for a sorceress is what should boost her power by tens of thousands of percent. After all it has to be impactful and it can’t be impactful without boosting power.

Also we don’t need points to spend, silly me and the rest of us that don’t want D3’s perfect systems recreated. They must be recreated because that is what will make D4 the greatest arpg of its time.

Even giving players points to spend in D2:LOD didn’t really have any impact on the character’s power. The items gave them all of their power right. After all it is the weapon and the rest that matters. Having all damage scale with weapon power is the most and perfect system possible. Just change it where it has a lot of variations. If you don’t then the weapons are meaningless. Also to make this one happy you would have to have some affixes that are superior to others.

Because if there are ways of doing the same amount of damage by changing affixes then the piece of gear is not a big change. So make it in D4 where crit chance and crit damage along with the rest of the stats in D3 to be the kings of damage. Even though he seems to say otherwise.

Now do you see what I am and the rest that would agree with me are saying. We don’t want one variation to be hands down superior to the other. Where one would boost our damage and defense by 10,000s% like D3, which it seems you are saying here but not elsewhere.

I want many different ways to play the same build. Where there are different ways of using gear, skill points, possibly attribute points, etc… to play the same build. Where the true difference is how that build accomplishes the same tasks. Where the differences are not in the tens of thousands of percent.

So you see that anything that attempts to copy D3’s system by simply disguising it as a system with more variations but still having one that will be vastly superior is a bad idea.