This was one of my suggested Akkhan updates several years ago, before everything just became “increase x y z skills by 10,000%”
I liked the old legendary item designs that actually changed how an item behaved instead of just increasing damaging through the roof. Made for a more interesting game play imo. Of course some of those designs were just an indirect way of increasing skill damage by x%, but they still felt cooler! haha
Still significant Phalanx dmg would add to the Condemn dmg.
I think the simplest and easiest buffs to the set would be to do something like
A2: add Phalanx increased damage, maybe try 400% for starters
Unrelenting Phalanx: make Phalanx increased damage part of the legendary power, and increase it to 400% to start
I’d like them to revisit their concept somewhat, incorporating something like Blessed Shield would be awesome. But they typically don’t do redesigns like this in the limited window that is the 2 week PTR.
So the easiest solutions would be buff actual Phalanx damage. Or just slap another Condemn damage modifier somewhere. But that is boring, and it would be nice for Bowmen/Bodyguards to be able to do damage without Condemn. Might open up different playstyles (unlikely since Condemn’s AoE is so important), but maybe you could use Unrelenting Phalanx and Baleful Remnant if the Avatars did more damage instead of BoP/FW being the obvious choices as they are right now.
could we please get rid of doors? it’s kinda silly that one of the issues with the build is “have to carry a skill to deal with a map dynamic that only slows everyone down”
I also support consecration over judgement. We already have judgement and falling sword used for the hammer set, we don’t need it in Akkhan (feels like necromancer and bone spear tbh…what is their fascination with that spell?)
The problem with Akkhan’s right now is that no matter what ability you tie it into, Phalanx already dominate the number of legendaries we need. I see a lot of support for blessed shield, and I agree that does seem like a fun ability to use with your phalanx army. But the problem then falls into the same issue with condemn: we need legendaries to buff that ability up, but then Akkhan’s also wants us to use Phalanx.
To be frank, I think Akhan’s needs to be reverted and left alone. It can already use condemn and blessed shield builds. If they want a knight-commander Phalanx build, then it needs to be a new set outside of what the Crusader has.
Honestly, the Lord Commander type setup should be Legacy of Dreams and not a set.
I would change Warhelm of Kassar legendary power to basically the 4-piece of this reworked Akkhan. Eternal Union makes the CDR on summoning Phalanx less useful. Obviously resummoning them for a better positioning can be beneficial, but not really needed imo.
Change Kassar to basically be “Summoned Avatars now cause a 15-yard explosion” when they hit an enemy. Don’t make it a Condemn explosion, just a regular old fire explosion that is based on Phalanx damage. Thematically it would basically be turning your Bowmen into Archers with flaming arrows.
But ya. Highly unlikely they do any of that. At least this PTR/Patch.
So I’m just hoping they buff the current design and make it less clunky.
I too was puzzled with the Phalanx decision, but I think the A4 mechanic is at least unique. The visuals are flashy too, a little blinding but a stand out.
My Phalanx hits for 15B w/ F&R, no Phalanx Damage mods, your suggestion makes those hits ~800B, if I optimize the element for Physical, maybe 1.1T, add in Kassar’s it’s 1.8T. It’s too low, maybe the each at 800% with the aim to make single target stronger. If we can get the Condemn damage up, you won’t give a crap about the Phalanx hits.
So far I’m up to GR136 after optimizing affixes without AD and augmenting.
My ceiling is looking more like GR138. If they somehow fix the lag with the manually casted Phalanx, this build needs about 200% more damage to compete with the Bomber.
yup i tried it and was no fun. way to clunky. gave up on it in five minutes. Thats how much i disliked it.
Just going to add a couple more notes on what I am seeing in regards to the set mechanics:
Think I’ll wait and see if we get any information or if there is an update next week before doing anymore testing myself.
Still very interested in knowing whether or not Baleful Remnant Avatars should be receiving increased Condemn damage; and also whether or not they should be affected by Eternal Union.
Second…Tried it out for hours, its boring, clunky.
Although the old Condemn build is no engaging, but at least you can choose different runes, and have a smooth playstyle.
Yes, just make Phalanx a LOD set.
I agree with this sentiment and i do not think it is the best of fits.
LoD Lord Commander does make more sense… you can rework the 2 smite legendary items to work with it ( referring to Armor of the Kind Regent and Golden Scourge) since those items are useless as it stands.
Add multi shots for bowmen way better than condemn. Rework Akkhan set and make damage % for Phalanx. Lord commander would not ask Phalanx to cast condemn. And I need to wear my sunglass to play this build???
I agree, pure LoD Phalanx is a logical path with 5 legendary effects to draw from. We do need to be careful what we wish for.
We have a set at the start of the PTR that produces a ton of lag. It sits at around GR135 for a 5k paragon player.
We have 5 legendary items that don’t amount to much on pure LoD Phalanx. In the example I shared maybe they hit for 200B on LoD. The peak clear is unknown. Also, Phalanx can be mixed with LoD Bombardment We have to be careful there.
Which direction will deliver the most fun build that we all want to play?
Figuring out the ‘fun’ part requires some thought.
IMHO it seems the only fun Crusader builds are those which carry a 1hander. Everything else is clunky, unless it has an AS boost or some passive play thing going for it.
That said, when we attack holding Blade of Prophecy, it is clunky. When we go perma Bowmen, the clunk is less obvious, but it feels boring because we aren’t engaged.
They should fix the latter by making it more of an active. We should be doing SOMETHING to raise the damage output of our Phalanx.
Or just scrap the whole Condemning Phalanx and just buff Phalanx when AC is active, buff the supporting legendaries for Phalanx and call it a day. Add a higher Phalanx bonus dmg multiplier to enemies who are hit by, Smite, Blessed Shield or Consecration.
I want to elaborate on this a little bit. Archangels cast exactly one Consecration Shattered Ground, one Heaven’s Fury Blessed Ground, and one Holy Condemn (either unruned or Eternal Retaliation). Their damage does not appear to be influenced by any of your character’s multipliers. I’ll add it’s extremely annoying to test because their damage scales with difficulty so tends to kill everything quickly. Furthermore, ground effects are notoriously difficult to gauge because damage numbers will combine for multiple effects and will split damage based on time intervals.
Their damage does become quite significant while pushing. I saw Eggman on stream yesterday nearly clearing (he may have cleared it eventually) a 150 in 2p purely with the Archangels.
Thus my final feedback on the angels is that they are strong when pushing, and I believe this build is only usable while pushing, so this is fine. However, their damage being independent from your own feels a little bad. As a pet Sader, they could be benefitting from all your damage bonuses including Enforcer, while having their difficulty dependent base damage toned down a little.
Additionally, needing to use Falling Sword in this build just to proc Angels also feels bad. Rise Brothers must be fixed to incentivize including it.
Hey,
I got a little update to share. I’ve chatted with a good friend Abella this morning. We talked about AS breakpoints for Bowmen. We ran some cool 2-player stuff. Afterwards, I built and augmented a fully optimized version of the Bowmen build, all the way down to the AS breakpoints. Tasker’s Cubed w/ Warhelm of Kassar + Strongarms has more value than combining anything with Eternal Union.
Eternal Union is just not needed when you have Warhelm of Kassar and can recast Bowmen every 5 seconds. I’ve managed to clear GR140 in 12:37. Can I go higher, probably 1-2 tiers.
TitanNova has a slightly different variant where he cubed Kassar and wears Aughilds.
Both are excellent builds. When evaluating the chronology of progress, it’s clear that the build is reaching maturity and the meta for this iteration is Bowmen with all of the Phalanx % supporting goodness:
Day 1: GR133 (Unruned)
Day 2: GR136 (Unruned)
Day 3: GR140 (Bowmen)
The clears on Season confirm the Akkhan meta too, low paragon players take Unity + Eternal Union.
Am I satisfied with the resting strength of this build?
It isn’t as bad as expected, but it’s still low compared to Bombardment. My final request is to give us 75-100% damage somewhere.
Stick it anywhere:
Buff Eternal Union with 100% Damage.
That’s my 2 cents and final recommendation after playing so far.
That seems more like 75 cents to me. =)
The PTR leaderboard should be taken with a massive grain of salt. Almost every front page clear I see has bad stats or bad skills or passives based on what is currently working.
Eternal Union is entirely useless at all levels. You want to recast Bowmen constantly anyway to reposition them, so having them last forever doesn’t accomplish anything while pushing. As I see it, the only use for Eternal Union is perma’ing Rise Brothers and Baleful Remnant which don’t work right now, or using Bowmen without Warhelm of Kassar.
If the devs want players to use Eternal Union, it is my opinion they could simply fix the melee pets so the effect makes it the de facto best in slot. Throwing a multiplier onto it sounds lazy to me if the primary effect doesn’t do anything. I will say that if they want to both fix the melee pets and throw on a multiplier, that would be ideal.
No. The rest i’m fine with, but not this. I’m so tired of pony. Better to find another way to achieve this.
I agreed the dmkt’s proposal,phalanx Union need 100% buff,now it can be replace by Bastions of Will easily.Some high paragon just like PTR Ladder Cru No.1 TitanNova,he said in GR145 the body is toughness(I know him,he is Asian too),but many of the low paragon(below 2000para) players complained the Akkhan body is fragile,it needs promote toughness urgently.I think the Akkhan 6p set need at least 60% damage reduction rather than 50%.In additon,the condemn skill from the shoulder and clothes can’t act on the Phalanx Avatar,it must be a bug need fixed.At last,Warhelm Kassar often replaced by Aughild in the PTR Ladder,I am sure it need buff from now double 60% to double 80%.Thx.