Give power stats a real purpose, own keystones

General Discussion
1

I did cheer, when i read about the power stat system because an other member already suggested it and it is a cool idea, generally
But i was really disappointed by the implementation
As it is planned now, it will rather frustrate players by locking away random affixes and just serve the purpose of unlocking them

You could do much more with them and even make it fun, to chase after them, rather than just hoping, you will drop gear, without locked stats

Give them their own keystones, meaningfully increasing in power, the more points you reach
Players can go hybrid or focus and wont have to care about making their items useful, in the first place but still having a very certain goal, when grinding gear

It could look like

Angelic:
20: +10 to all res
40: +5% hp regeneration per second
50: +20 to all res
60: +40% CC recovery
80: spread all beneficial effects to nearby allies

Demonic:
20: +10% damage over time (ele/bleed)
40: +15% debuff power on enemies
50: +20% damage over time
60: elemental effects spread to nearby enemies (dont sue me gearbox)
80: you can stack damage over time effects to a certain ammount (5-10 times or so)

Ancestral:
20: +10% attack/cast speed
40: +15% critical hit chance
50: +20% attack/cast speed
60: 30% chance to double strike
80: triggering on hit effects, lowers the enemies resistance to those effects

1 Like
2

You mean you wouldnā€™t want +all res to be locked behind all 3 powers?!?

Meaning, the item requires you have an angelic, demonic, AND ancestral power accumulated to unlock the +all res affix

3

No
The way i see it, angelic is a defensive stat and when you want to focus on a playstyle like demonic, only having a lot of fire res, is just unbalanced and makes no sence

Res dont have to be such a mandatory like in PoE or D2 where you get nuked without them
It can just be something for tanky builds and i mean, you can still find them on gear
Its just some bonus from the heavens for you, just like the gift of hell would be, to increase all your elemental damage because its more agressive and evil (thats how they tried to introduce those powers)

1 Like
4

I feel like it is a misconception that resistances will be specifically tied to the powers.

Primarily because, there are 3 powers, and 5 resistances.

2 Likes
5

That also
It is generally not sure, how many or if all affixes of a certain type are 100% locked
But the locking idea is bad so i want them to get rid of it xD

6

The way I see it, letā€™s take the druid for example. Druid skills are:

Earthspike: Generate spirit, each time hit an enemy with earth spike chance to deal crushing blow increased by 10%

It wouldnā€™t make sense for any affix that deals with earthspike for the druid to be attuned or locked to any power other than ancestral.

Shred: generate spirit; has a 30% chance to strike twice, same as above, any affix dealing with shred will likely be tied to ancestral.

Storm strike: generate spirit; infuse your weapon with electricity dealing damage split between target + 3 other enemies, questionable which if any affix associated with storm spike will be tied to any power.

Maul: generate spirit; shapeshift into werebear, maul enemy and fortify self for X seconds. Any affix associated with maul would be tied to angelic. It wouldnā€™t make sense for it to be tied to any other power. Not saying they couldnā€™t increase the salvaged items in this way but hey, who knows.

Wind shear: generate spirit; conjure blade of wind dealing dmg and increasing movement speed by x% for x duration up to a maximum of xx% - any affix associated with wind shear would be influenced by angelic, either in the increased % of movement speed (unlikely) or more likely for how long, but perhaps even still enhancing the maximum movement speed that one can gain from this skill if you stack it continuously (assuming that the duration refreshes if applied again within the 3 second window)

Tornado: cost spirit; conjure a vortex that moves outwards and curves in a random direction dealing damage every second - likely influenced by demonic.

Landslide: cost spirit; crush enemies between x pillars of earth, dealing up to x damage. Has additional 10% chance to deal a crushing blow. Likely enhanced by ancestral so again any affix associated with landslide would be tied to ancestral in order to gain more pillars (wider aoe radius) and / or further increasing the % chance to deal a crushing blow.

Pulverize: cost spirit; shapeshift into a werebear and slam the ground, dealing dmg to nearby enemies. Unlikely to be locked to any power, but still possible that any affix that is associated with pulverize could provide any of the quantity of power (+angelic, + ancestral, OR + demonic)

I like the idea. It gives blizzard control over making sure items donā€™t become biased. They can fine-tune the power obtained from items absolutely with this system.

Edit addendum: They can always fine tune every skill for every class to be modified by any or all of the powers all together. So essentially it truly becomes ā€œwhichever stat you care about will be the one youā€™ll want to focus onā€

Not a bad thing in my humble opinion unless Iā€™m still missing something on why this approach is bad. It lets you calibrate your build with meaningful customization based on how you want to play as depicted by how the powers enhance modify and influence gameplay.

7

Your opinion is not bad
But thats just not what blizz is planing
They take something fundamental to any character lets say cooldown, lock it behind angelic and bye bye
It has nothing to do with playstyles
You can always benefit from certain powers for your playstyle
But why locking affixes behind it?

8

So that the meta doesnā€™t surface after 2.5 days?

Iā€™m not entirely certain what blizzard is planning, but Iā€™m pretty sure what they donā€™t want is for everyone to immediately only hunt this item or that item.

Assuming that powers attuned equates to locking which feels like a dangerous assumption. For the sake of debate letā€™s assume that they are intending to ā€œlockā€ affixes behind powers.

Why would you want a skill that would be empowered by demonic to be locked behind angelic?

So to answer the question, to make sure that this doesnā€™t happen.

9

That was my first interpretation of the system
I thought like you until i saw the screenshots
And balancing the game can be provided through itemization you dont have to lock away half items to ā€œbalanceā€ them xD
Just dont create BiS in the first place but many equal choices

1 Like
10

Iā€™m not sure what changed your mind? Given that the screenshots were just visual representations to exemplify the conceptualization behind the new stats.

The only gripe I can see people having with locking affix behind powers is they donā€™t want RNG to determine how much power they acquire from items. Which is already the case since as far as Iā€™m aware loot drops are determined by RNG anyway?

At any rate, given how early it is in their design process for it, the whole newness of it all, couldnā€™t they just have a MF modifier that allows players to ā€˜useā€™ magic find to say, focus on ā€˜magic findingā€™ a type of power? For example, Iā€™m going full demonic, so I want all my extra MF to be used on finding demonic. Or, letā€™s say Iā€™m going half ancestral half angelic - I could split the focus of MF that way.

To be honest Iā€™m still not entirely certain that I understand what is bad about ā€œlockingā€ items to certain powers even if we assume the worst case scenario aside from the idea that RNG determines a portion of your power. Which from items is already the case anyway, so it doesnā€™t bother me personally.

Edit addendum: As far as why is concerned, it creates a puzzle out of itemization which requires problem solving and critical thinking which I fancy solving puzzles and feel like it is fitting for the genre. RNG being fundamental to the RPG genre, including and especially itemization (not just drops but the actual mechanics of how items determine their range of functionality). For example, the classic #d# system to determine the range at which how much damage a sword can connect for.

11

Lets say, you go full demonic
You will probably have 70 fire resistance, 0 cold resistance, 0 lightning resistance, +50% critical strike chance and +5 devastation, even tho, you dont even want to run this skill
Thats my concern
Going for a power is locking you into affix sets and the only way to avoid that, is to go hybrid always

12

Are we to deduce that because the screenshot has fire resist shown associated with demonic, and another screenshot associates cold resist with angelic, that well pattern shows that lightning resist must be ancestral and ā€˜itā€™s anybodyā€™s guess where what poison resist gets assigned toā€™?

Thatā€™s my concern, with assuming that resistances themselves will be locked behind specific powers. You see in those same screens that there are other alternatives that such as movement speed that arenā€™t tied behind powers.

I think it is more likely that in this particular example, these two items simply had cold resist on an item that cold resist was tied to angelic, and fire resist that was tied to demonic, and therefore you will likely see both cold resist, fire resist, and any resist including lightning and poisoning happening to be rolled on items tied to any of the powers of angelic demonic and ancestral. Iā€™m not quite seeing why that wouldnā€™t be the case.

Can you explain your deduction for me?

1 Like
13

I like the idea of the powers, but Iā€™m not a huge fan of whatā€™s been shown or whatā€™s being proposed here.

In both cases they create breakpoints that cause the stat to primarily only be useful at very specific values. Call me crazy but I think getting more of a stat should always be valuable, not only valuable when you get it in increments of 20.

On top of that a stat ought to stick to what it is, not something that changes what it is every +20 you have in it. If Angelic Power is going to make healing/buffs stronger, then all of the affixes associated with it should be healing/buffs that are made stronger by the stat itā€™s associated with.

Thatā€™d be like if in Diablo 2 after you got 100 strength it stopped increasing melee damage and started giving you block chance. It makes absolutely no sense. Either make strength always do both, or have 2 separate stats.

and resistances should always be their own independent affixes. They shouldnā€™t be connected to a power at all(regardless of locked elements or not).

14

From my understanding this is what was meant when it was stated that each power will have a list of affix attuned to it. Which also seems to be the source of the disparity.

Iā€™m not against adding extra flavor to items in the form of resistances, that may not be suitable for your particular build. Some people donā€™t want this though. They want to ā€˜be able to hit things really HARDā€™ while not leaving themselves open to being hit really hard. If I want to maximize my damage, like literally place it above any other priority, then it is natural that I be susceptible to lacking in other areas, such as defense. Which equates to, yeah, I can hit harder than anyone else, but then, others can hit ME hard too.

15

i mean, the powers already have their own stats, that are increasing with every single point
buff duration, debuff duration and on hit chance
those are just kinda useless, except for ancestral on hit
so everyone will just use them, to unlock stats on their gear and not for their own purpose and the stats, that are locked behind them, dont seem to really fit to their theme
so i created themed breakpoints to further increase the motivation to collect them

Each of the three Powers will have a list of affixes that are attuned to it, so depending on which stats you care about, you might want to focus on Angelic, Demonic, or Ancestral Power.

  • david kim
16

The thing is they provided us examples where this isnā€™t the case(each power having only affixes relevant to them), because resistances have nothing to do with ANY of the 3 powers and yet they were on both items.

Iā€™m all for defense and offense trade-offs, but why do the resistances need to be locked at all?

The solution to this is to make each stat useful as stats, not create an entirely new system designed specifically to make them more useful.

All your system does is create a bunch of stats that are ā€œkinda useless, but then you get spikes in power in random areas every X amountā€.

Iā€™m saying the stat should simply not be kinda useless to start.

17

then, you have to overthink the whole system
i mean, it would be much more usefull, if the buff POWER and the debuff POWER would be increased with each of those powers
but i still think, there should be a little extra, that you can get, for reaching a certain number so itā€™s a bit more of min maxing and rewarding loot experience, than just: ā€œok 5 more angelic power, niceā€
and the whole ā€œlock affixes awayā€ is just aweful so i wanted to suggest an other system where you get rewarded for reaching treshholds

18

If Blizzard keeps these 3 stat system i believe that there should be different kind of locked affixesā€¦

  1. The kind that is locked globablly for all 3 powers (like any type of resistances)
  2. The kind that is only locked for 1 kind of power - benifiting that kind of specialization (say for example Angelic stat requires 50 Angelic power to unlock: 10% extra duration of buffs).

Do not split the 3 powers for different builds that could hugely break your character.
Let there be those 2 types of locked affixes - and that will deliver a safe direction regardless of what kind of power or rather said build you strive to go.

1 Like
19

You donā€™t really have to rethink the whole system as much as you just need to ensure each power is balanced so its useful. They can still do more or less the same things they do now.

The reason why Iā€™m against those little extra things is because years of playing WoW showed me what breakpoints do for stats.

They donā€™t encourage build variety. They just get everybody to build around those very specific numbers so they can get the power spike that occurs at them, and make you re-arrange half your gear whenever you get an upgrade just to maintain those very specific values.

Iā€™d rather not have a system with very specific thresholds like that. Iā€™ve seen how it plays out, and it leads us down a road of less gear diversity.

20

Which one would then make the observation that, resistances wonā€™t be specifically tied to any particular power. For example, demonic can unlock fire resistance on this item, it can unlock cold resistance on that item, it can unlock poison or lightning resist on that item, and so on and so forth.

They donā€™t. You could very well have items that have prerequisites for certain affix and still have items that donā€™t have said prerequisites for those very same affix. For example, some items may have resistance on them included, without requiring any amount of the powers to use said resistance. It transforms usage of item variance into a puzzle of sorts. I think this is a really neat idea.

This is not a universal statement.

Depending on which skills youā€™ve selected to use, each stat is useful as a stat as they will either enhance your skill associated with the power or they wonā€™t? The creation of the new system is invigorating. It demonstrates that it is not going to be a remastered version of d2 or d3 but rather more a blend of the two, with so much more. Thatā€™s promising for a lot of folks, or maybe thatā€™s just me?

Items in WoW are static and the items in diablo are not?