Faster Hit Recovery should return

General Discussion
1

I’v seen discussion about this in other threads just wanted to give a humble opinion on it.

First off I feel like it is just a realistic aspect of combat. If somebody clobbers you with a huge club over the head why would somebody seamlessly strike through it.

Secondly it adds a bit more strategy to combat especially before your character is totally geared out where you actually have to be aware of the mobs around you and understand positioning so you aren’t getting stunned and stuck in a swarm.

Thirdly it adds to itemization as a logical and important consideration. It could even come into play with skills/passives/talents.

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2

One idea I discussed here on the forums was similarly to bosses adding a “stagger bar” to players, whenever you take a hit it goes up and when filled it knocks your character down temporarily.

Different hits could raise the stagger bar faster than others and some enemies might even be specialized about staggering the player.

A bunch of stats could influence how the bar works, how fast it fills, how fast it goes down, the duration of the knockdown…

I think it could be a cool mechanic overall.

12 Likes
3

Staggerbar is good
fhr is too frustrating for many casual plebs

4

Well if they brought it back I would not complain.
One thing I noticed during the Rhykker demo video at Blizzcon - He was playing a Barbarian, he was talking to a developer and not playing the character and he got mostly surrounded and lost hardly any health - I also did not see the toon move much, like almost unaffected by all the little hits from the fallen. Hope that changes before release, surely. No hit recovery would of meant that barb would have been nearly stun locked! It’s definitely a stat that would keep you from wanting to get surrounded unless you had enough hit recovery. Heck they could change the name of the skill for all I care!

9 Likes
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Don’t we already have this? It’s called control impairing resistance (found as a secondary affix on several items like helms, amulets, and rings). Also, it’s relatively moot since a LOT of builds use a transformation skill that renders the character immune to all control impairing effects (i.e. Wrath of the Berserker, Vengeance, Akarat’s Champion, Epiphany, Archon, etc.).

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Well sot of, hit recovery was (that I recall) was to keep from being stunned repeatedly by being surrounded by mobs, the game at the time did not have a universal immunity to all control impairing effects. But it sure could be adapted in a similar manner along with all the other types of impairing effects.
Now that you mention it I hope all that other complete immunity skills get the big nerf or go away. Or somehow get redesigned to create a little more tension and danger.

3 Likes
7

Depends on how many mobs have stun, freeze, slow
Thats not the same as, every crowd of weak enemies can lock you like in D2

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Well, I’m not a developer, I don’t want to tell them what to do, but what I saw in the demo was not good, maybe they just made it stupid simple for the demo, IDK. In a real game that is halfway challenging that should not happen, the player should be taken down pretty fast in those circumstances.

6 Likes
9

Personally I find the whole stagger mechanic is neither fun, nor does it add anything to the game.

If mobs in Diablo 2 were both capable of staggering you and they had you swarmed, you were likely going to die anyway.

The strategy was not letting yourself get swarmed when you didn’t have very high max HP. The addition of stagger didn’t really add anything in my opinion.

10

It doesnt lock you instant and gives you time to replace, cc, heal, what ever

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You don’t really have a lot of time to do any of that though in the scenario the OP presented.

In order to be staggered, something had to deal 1/12th of your max HP or higher which meant if you were being staggered that meant you weren’t going to last more than 12 hits which isn’t a whole lot of time to begin with when you’re being swarmed.

I never once found that it changed my strategy in how I played when I didn’t have FHR.

12

The problem is that bosses are immune to CC spells. That makes some builds unefficient to them. I like the idea of a stagger bar too. It allows all builds to be playable.

Stacking Crowd controls could also decrease boss resistances.

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well it just depends on how fast this bar fills
you dont have to rely on diablo 2
they can balance it how ever they want

1 Like
14

Its not just Faster hit recovery what is missing… its also faster cast rate… with the possibility of casting getting interrupted and faster block rate breakpoints.

It hurts to see a wizzard necro or wd using faster cast rate with “attack speed” of any weapon instead.

15

A cool idea that accomplishes the same concept !

Uhh I mean kind of similar concept but really not that similar in the actual effect it has on how the games played or the mechanics at all IMO.

Yea again for me this is the important concept. The game and combat involve moving away from and into opponents not just mindlessly plowing in. It can still be a hack and slash and have these considerations.

16

Thanks for the topic ev1. The idea of stagger bar mechanic was (I suppose ?) mine :slight_smile:, and despite the itemization changes, would still like to see some “revolutionary” changes when it comes to “survivability” mechanics in the game (other than RNG) and that’s like one (if not the exact main) reason to suggest it

ALSO - it’s better to have less mobs being more effective… Being swarmed isn’t fun (well, for some classes), as well as being 1-hit by an Ogre producing instant stun isn’t fun either. Stagger brings both of those to a certain “moderate CC” manner and plus does something (IMO more important) and that’s not relying on RNG procs to survive-or-die “mechanic”

IF the stagger mechanic works well as intended, then neither do “swarmlings” need be in too much of high numbers, nor the archers would need to be in packs, nor the “ogres” would need hit as a truck in order for those experiences to “differ” in combat-perception of things

Might be over/imagining things but think it’s for the best of both worlds… Namely:

IF such a mechanic is implemented properly/smartly then mobs get “effectiveness rate” in other ways than in primary stats or numbers (namely HP and damage per hit or per ability)

Again, might be slightly “overinvention” of things but since the mechanic is there for the bosses, don’t see why not try it out on players as well. By doing so (IMO) you’d solve 3 potential problems (in parallel) I think:

  1. Mob efficiency goes mid-way for all classes (instead of high numbers of swarmlings to seem like they’re “doing” something, nor archers would need be in “greater packs”, nor, again, Elites would need hit like a truck just so they be a challenge)
  2. Game would (IMO) be more interesting this way cause it’s up to you to “estimate” how many shots you can “tank” before using a certain skill or retreat instead of be RNG-ed (in D2 sometimes one arrow hits you and about 10 more fly-in, ok, not arrows but skeleton mage missiles, but also sometimes 20 arrows “miss” you in a row based on RNGs)
  3. Chances are your survivability overall becomes interactive experience (on screen movement and reaction) rather than gear-stat based “aftermath” that you end up choosing to ignore mid fights (largely)

ALSO, think that PvP should not rely upon RNG procs either when it comes to applying CC

Overall I think it’s a good mechanic to try out before deciding for the “cc by RNG” already-known route of things… Though I could see how such a mechanic might “trigger” extra-safety by some players (HC or newer/inexperienced players) to basically go AFK/OOC more often in order to “reset stagger” before continuing. THAT is (IMO) something that is kinda fixable by applying a few notches up to Mob AI behavior (or limiting amount of times to how often can a player go to town while in dungeon/s) kind of thing

And yes - pretty sure NEITHER of the “extremes” (CC proc by RNG as in D2 or never get CC-ed by anything that isn’t a telegraphed/affix proc as in D3) was a good option overall, hence why the stagger bar solves both of those problems, as well as offers a much-more intuitive (potentially more dynamic on the long/er run) in-combat experience I think

1 Like
17

It’s a cool idea! I just would love to see something at least somewhat similar to up the complexity of combat.

Personally I wouldn’t want to see anything like this implemented if it wasn’t on a per fight/engagement basis. So if it was done that way it shouldn’t be an issue because if there was a “stagger bar” or whatnot instead of the FHR concept I would hope it kind of reset quite quickly when you weren’t immediately engaged with enemies.

1 Like
18

The possible ideas to “balace things out” are things like the following:

Ofensive CC affixes

  • % increase per first hit
  • % increase projectile or telegraphed attack hit
  • % increase per skill (Frostbolt or Bash for ex.)

Defensive CC affixes

  • % Faster decay rate
  • Reduction per hit received (both - flat or %)
  • Unstoppable procs per skill (think of WotB, Whirlwind, Trample, Conduit…)
  • % Reduction per peel or mobility skill

Not quite the much RNG per-hit possible affixes, but think it’s “still branchable enough” to allow making of builds. For ex. someone might want to build Meteor do more damage, others might want the higher stagger/freeze per hit, or, one might want to build faster fury buildup and damage, other might want to be not as easy slowed/stunned/freezed…

The good part is that every class has both types of abilities (mostly) and even if not quite the case, can make those things be buildable by talents/gear (or skills)

19

Ideas:

  • Dash could have various iterations, with damage reduced
  • They could transform Stamina into fatigue, with various consequences.
  • they could introduce a new affix for physical properties based on how fast your character attack with a weapon or a wand with your first attack.
    Currently there is no attack speed for the first attack: It’s instant damage.
  • There could be a property for consecutive damage taken. Consecutives damage could be reduced with certain attributes or affixes.
  • They could make the character’s physique influenced by the sun and weather
  • They could make the character’s physique influenced by terrain, slopes, having feets in the mud, water, walls explosions, objects explosions
  • There could be a resistance to resist to be slightly pushed back while taking damage.
  • some spells could have a cast delay that could be slowed down when taking damage
20

Moving freely among mobs is one of the shttiest things in D3 (and D4 demo too). Damn. These are monsters. Hell beings. They must grab you and tear apart as soon as you get close.

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