Invoker Feedback

PTR Feedback
1

Overall the Slash/Omnislash build is solid. I like how you solved the fishing problem with Slash.

My previous best non-season clear on Invoker Punish was GR135. At 6400 paragon I am able to complete GR140 with Slash/Punish.

We’re too far behind Bombardment & Heaven’s Fury, I don’t think this build will be popular without a 2GR buff.

THE GOOD
Consistency is the best part of the reworked 6pc set bonus. No more skipping 7 floors packed with trash and blues. Mission accomplished.

The upgrade raised max clear ceiling by 5 GRs and the average clear by about 10 GRs.

I REALLY like equipping Punish AND Slash at the same time. There is a cool fighting strategy which involves apply stricken stacks to a fresh yellow elite with Punish, then swapping to Slash on the physical CoE cycle. It performs better than holding down Slash. This trait is kinda like using Johanna’s Argument to cast Hammers with Heaven’s Fury on boss fights, the cool thing about Punish is that it can work everywhere since it’s super precise. A very unique play experience.

THE BAD

Players without good CDR/LPH gear will get frustrated when they die due to Akkarat’s Champion fading more often. Because Slash is killing trash, there are fewer procs from Akkarat’s Awakening so key buffs may drop midfight or while traveling.

Using Norvald’s is no longer practical.

We lost TWO(2) skills on our bar.

  1. Manually cast of Bombardment is required because we now equip Omnislash in the cube instead of Belt of the Trove. Steed Charge is no longer on the bar – this results in less mobility. 10k+ paragon players can get away with not using Bombardment.

  2. Punish now occupies a slot previously taken by Provoke.

There was no effective buff to Punish, but it still serves a purpose.

RECOMMENDATION
Please edit edit the 4pc bonus like this:

Invoker 4pc Bonus
You take 65% less damage for 10 seconds after damaging an enemy with Slash. Enemies hit by Punish take 40% more damage from all sources for 3 seconds.

The goal is to make Slash a required skill, while making Punish an optionally advantageous one. We force the use of both Primary skills to help expose and guide them towards the ideal way to dish out the most damage. We remove Bombardment to free up a slot on the skill bar for either Mobility (Steed Charge), Survival (Provoke), Herding (Condemn). We want to add 2.5GRs to this build.

VIDEO OF GAMEPLAY

7 Likes
2

Maybe make bombardment kind of ‘cast on its own’ default rune unless one is selected. That would free up a button for ppl not worried about bombardmwnt as dps.

3 Likes
3

Slash is slower than Punish. We can achieve a better attack speed with Punish. But Punish can’t hit several targets :frowning: .

1 Like
4

I just modified my answer to embrace Bombardment more since it has its own buff icon. Please re-read the suggestions and let me know what you think.

Punish:Celerity is a little faster than Slash:Zeal and provides the extra block chance. Punish is very binary, all or nothing when it comes to targeting – greatly depends on stricken. Slash is more forgiving on targeting.

5

I havent had a chance to try yet. Ptr was crashing every 10 minutes last night. I will let you know when i get home from work.

6

okay, tried it. I did a 125 by killing 90% trash, lol. Big change. The build could use a little pizazzaz though. Running around spamming primaries is a little…

1 Like
7

I downed GR138 earlier today, I tried multiple variations:

  • Pig Sticker + Furnace (excellent choice as usual)
  • Pig Sticker + Echoing Fury (turbo hits, very fun and works in push)
  • Echoing Fury + Furnace
  • Sun Keeper + Furnace
  • Sun Keeper + Echoing Fury
  • Norvald’s + Akarat’s Awakening
  • Norvald’s + Furnace
  • Norvald’s + Echoing Fury

I mixed up the skills too:

Condemn, Provoke, Steed Charge

I prefer Provoke for the uptime of Akarat’s Awakening. I’m also dying more often in GR139, with 53k strength.

I agree, it plays a little flat compared to other sets. Here’s a NEW idea for how to fix it.

NEW MECHANIC
What if we had to use both Punish and Slash on the skill bar? Punish buffs Slash – let’s go back to needing to be precise with targeting.

We have to switch skills mid fight to maximize our damage.

Switching to Punish in the Physical cycle is a pain in the butt, that’s why Punish should debuff the elite, then you Slash on the Physical cycle. If you missed your target with Punish it’s not going to cost you the game… the CoE cycle won’t go to waste.

The mini game is to try to give yourself the most time attacking with Slash, but you absolutely wouldn’t want to just hold down the button – you want to land Punish like 1-2 seconds before switching back to Slash.

Punish as a debuff has to be double damage for this to be worthwhile, and you could try to land it on multiple targets… fighting blues, quickly apply Punish to all 3. Hurry don’t miss the 3 second window!

  • 4pc: Take 50 65% less damage for 20 seconds after casting Bombardment.
  • 6pc: The attack speed of Punish and Slash are increased by 100%, and these skills deal 67500% of effective Thorns damage. Targets that you Punish take double the effective Thorns damage from Slash for 3 seconds.

The only possible downside is if people use that 15 yard radius AoE rune, Roar, or Retaliate. There ARE already statistical benefits to keeping punish on the bar though… (block % and 15% attack speed)… they could just negate the debuff on those rune effects.

8

Yea nearly boring as a build gets. But that’s crusader in a nutshell. Spam a skill, horse to travel, akarats on cd with law/steel skin. Really really wish blessed hammer was a channeled ability.

1 Like
9

I would be down with that

1 Like
10

Man BH have so many items to shove into one build, specialy if you want to use Seeker of the Light set. There are 3 1H weapons, a shield and a belt that supports BH, have 2 2H weapons and a belt also, that supports Falling Sword in the set, where FS supports BH and gives DR. I wish they could mash the 3 1H weapons for BH to be 1 item, and the 2 2H weapons for FS to be 1 item also, makeing SotL set even better. And casting BH while moveing would be nice too.

11

How about moving the entire damage multiplier to the 2-piece bonus? It looks half-done with that 15 yard thorns effect, like the Barb’s Wastes set did with the rend bonus before it’s rework.
As it currently is, it won’t deal any noticable damage even on moderate difficulties.

On the 6-piece, punish & slash could still get the increased attack speed, but instead of further damage bonuses would trigger the 2-piece 15 yard thorns field.
(Ex: Before you acquire the 6th piece, you can kill slowly by letting the monsters commit suicide by hitting you; After you get the 6th piece, you can kill quickly because you no longer have to wait for them to hit you for a thorns proc.)

We might even go as far as not tying the 4-piece 50% damage reduction to bombardment hits, rather something universal? Like… Casting provoke? While also making Provoke more useful with a way larger area?

12

Yeah me and my friend hieluff were trying to rank some invoker when u were doing it, my max was like 133 with 6400 para also, with 52k strenght i feel difficult my friend hiel was like paragon 7k and a 139 costed a bit for him… is impressive u were doing gr138+ with a set not as much different as mine, i guess im not so tryhard like u lol, but yeah slash kills everyhing now with is cool, but punish kills elites a lot faster… i think the set is more cool now, i dont think they’re going to buff it tho.

1 Like
13

They deliberately did the opposite of this in a recent patch because the Invoker’s 2-piece bonus was granting far too much power to the hybridised Akkhan-6/Invoker-2 Bombardment build, i.e. they specifically want the damage multiplier on the 6-piece to avoid making the Akkhan hybrid a better thorns build than pure Invoker.

2 Likes
14

I had originally requested adding this to 4pc: Provoked enemies take 50% damage from all sources.

They can alternatively edit Vo’Toyias Spiker shield with this effect. It has to 100% damage from all sources because we’re trading out cubed Furnace. (zCru would be pretty strong like zDH).

It would affect LoD Bombardment by +2-3GRs. And… we practically spam Provoke for 100% uptime, no real change in gameplay there.

Yes, Meteor is correct. There is a bad side effect to swapping 6pc and 2pc. It is generally best to keep the biggest damage bonuses gated behind the highest worn set piece bonus.

15

A combination strike set up might be fun using both slash & punish. Even better if they synergized to proc something fun.

16

Yes, I see what you mean.

What if we go about it differently, then?

2pc remains unchanged, same as on live.

6pc changes in one aspect; Atacking with Punish & Slash triggers the players Thorns as if they were hit. Thorns damage is increased by 67.500%

-Now it’s just as resistant to combined set shenanigans as the current version, but you’re free to use punish, and still damage everything around you in 15 yards, saving the 2-pc extended thorns “aura” from being a mere line of text with no consequence.

17

The 2pc or Consecration could have been the source of AoE damage but Slash w/ Omnislash performs just as well.

This morning I put Slash and Punish on the skill bar and tried GR139 and almost won without a Conduit.

It might be the strongest setup.

For yellow elites use Punish at the start of the fight, bring them down to about 80% then switch to Slash. While Slashing, tap Punish every 3 seconds to keep the 15%AS and block chance up.

Definitely makes it more interesting than strictly Slash.

18

Im going to try that later too

19

If I understood Grim correctly, I agree that the 2p should give splash damage to Slash and Punish (15-20y). I love Punish but he does nothing in AoE damage. Slash would still have the advantage with his belt in the area of AoE damage.

I think we need another trigger for the 4p because Bombardment does not bring anything to this build. Bombardment forces us to put his belt in the cube or lose a skill slot. It could be inspired by the monk’s Spirit Guards : Punish and Slash reduce the damage taken by 50% for 3 seconds. Something that takes into account the useful skills that are usually used in this build.

20

Consecration is part of the Invoker set dungeon, that’s a good skill to use — it isn’t used elsewhere, it has the Bed of Nails rune.

Provoke and Iron Skin make sense too, but they are more commonly used.

Really though, these cooldown abilities are up almost 100% of the time, what are they really adding to the gameplay?

I am for replacing Bombardment with Punish for 65% DR lasting 5 seconds — that’ll force players to right click, while freeing up a slot to put back Steed Charge for faster paced gameplay.