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(post deleted by author)

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Actually these two things aren’t exclusive:

  • Situational = minimise incoming damage
  • Rotational = maximize output of damage

The problem is in the way how the game’s done, the highest damage sources in game aren’t hits by mobs, nor even their abilities, instead some pools and disco balls that appear

The more correct division IMO should be:

  • Mob swipes as a damage source, vs
  • “Ground waves” as a damage source

That’s why I had a huge incentive to make some of the following things as a stat in D4:

  • Remove Dodge (if exists) and put a telegraph duration and frequency as a stat (say Dex, the higher Dex the earlier the swipe will be seen, the lower of that stat could have more armor with another or say take less damage from AoE, especialy on edges)
  • Damage taken reduced based on duration from center of AoE (it’s not the same if an AoE hits you right in the gutter or just scratches slightly)

But also:

  • Stamina bar (even if not taking a damage hit, still hits fill a combat bar which if emptied/fulled would cause a hit-stun effect, i.e. incentivize players not take necessary hits even if they have high sustain or survivability)
  • Mob AI as opposed to preprogrammed “rotational” behavior on mobs

All those things to once again bring back the Swipe and hit as a main source of damage suffered as opposed to some telegraphed attacks based on AoE (don’t get me wrong, they should still be significant, but not at the edges as much I think)

And one more thing, that problem can be fixed super easy IMO, the “status bars” (i.e. buffs and debuffs) should be placed on the player, literally right above (or beside) your character up to say 3 icons/images (or could go to full “Sonny/2” experience, but think screen would be cluttered quite a bit) :thinking:

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The best way I can explain it… with CoE you adapt and ‘feel’ that 16 second window to the point where you automatically glance at your icon about 2-3 seconds ahead of cycle.

If I had an eye tracking heat map, you’d see bouncing attention towards the CoE icon and cursor for about 3-4 seconds BEFORE the cycle. Next there’d be heat spots on the mini map, and sides of the playing field paying close attention to the next pull for 6-8 seconds, checking the density for the next 2-4 seconds. If the build is fragile and there’s deadly affixes, the eye prioritizes those ground effects/mortar/beams, health meter, potion refresh and even health globes while winging the targeting/pulls from memory.

With F&R, it’s pretty easy to hit that generator every 4-5 seconds as needed - a shorter rhythm.

Some builds are lucky to get away with not using either of those rings. (AoV Valor Ivory Tower w/ Justice Lantern)

SoJ would have been a great ring if it increased your elemental damage by more than 20%, a solid substitute if it pumped this affix by 50%. CoE is really just awesome because of density / area damage – i believe nets more damage than 50%.

Really, a few other ring choices would greatly help this game.

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Ideally you’d want to be the perfect rotational character type that remove every bit of obstacle, but that doesn’t exist out of group play where you can hit each cycle without any misses. Since support characters cover your need of tankiness, all you had to do was focusing on cycles.
That’s why people think it’s overpowered but it’s teamwork and absolutely it has to be rewarding as long as sustain is provided. However, these kind of classes always bound by their long cooldowns or slow building resources on the background. Season theme can impact this for a nice change but core of the stakes hardly budge.

In solo play, rotational model is not idealistic and limited to a few build where they have high sustain but has short effective range. These builds are usually tanky and can shrug off elite abilities while having little to no problems on their cooldown or resource replenish, but the area of effect of their skills are rather dense and small.
These are the builds that people think they “automatically benefit” from CoE cycles without doing anything extra. However, there’s always a catch. In case you don’t have to do anything special to benefit from the chronometer of CoE as it periodically increase your damage, you still have option to buff it at the time of your elemental cycle. That’s a required interaction as well, but this model only fit to very few builds if you think about it.

The situational is the generic type you’ll see; any common CoE based build has this situational type character where they build up Stricken, have small problems with cooldowns or try mass crowd control until their cycle come up.
As much as rotational type characters, their retaliation largely depend on their position but they’re more mobile instead of committing to combat until their time to shine has come. They only settle down when their crowd control is a success or their cycle come up. That’s a reaction check and you may fail when you push too hard. Usually those are the types that has to keep a tempo from the moment they enter the Greater Rift for their cast cycles and cooldowns to align together.

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Rotational players practiced so much it’s a reflex now when playing CoE. I for one hate anything, that keeps me waiting for casting my skills, be it a CD or a buff to come up. Let me choose when and where i see fit, which skill to use and how often.

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COE is just another example of how horrible the base UI is in D3. The devs tried to make D3 gameplay closely follow WoW gameplay. That means a heavy reliance on cooldown, important short term offensive buffs and improtant short term defensive buffs. Your indicator for these buffs is a tiny icon or a bar on top of your action bar button, both of which are in horrible locations.

For those who have played WoW, imagine instead a customizable action bar button with a timer on it movable anywhere on your screen, such as in a convenient place near your in-game character model. You can adjust it to track stuff on you or stuff on the enemy.

The horrible UI has flown under the radar for so long in D3 and is a huge source of frustration for many players that at best is struggled through, not enjoyed or accepted. How many wizard firebird players enjoy staring at their explosive blast button every few seconds to ensure a cooldown is not wasted?

I won’t even mention the attempt at D3 to use dot based gameplay like locust swarm and haunt on jade witch doctor. Visual indicator on the dotted enemy ? Barely visible. Visual indicator on the dotted enemy in graphical hell on a screen filled with enemies ? Forget about it. Timer available for said dots on enemies? The UI provides nothing.

You create a game in which the player’s success is heavily reliant on tracking short term offensive and defensive timers, yet at the same time you provide NOTHING convenient to track those timers. As a player who has played both D2 and D3 heavily for years I’m pretty sure a big reason (among many others) for D2’s success is that it’s basic UI works fine for combat that is not reliant on cooldowns and timers.

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Muscle memory and awareness. CoE buff shifts the placement as it hits certain elemental types and its position goes back and forth between other status effects. If you can keep your head at a nice distance from the monitor to notice that, you can give a guess which cycle you’re going through by following that counting in your head. I’m not that good, but that must be it, honestly. In a non-crowded fight you can always pay attention to the color circling around your character.

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Yes something like that. I’m not that good with it either. And as I said i don’t like to be handicaped by timers, so i just don’t use it. I’m not competitive, just play for fun, when I can.

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Good points from several people about UI being the problem here. I like the rotational features of the coe, as it gives possibility to push a little higher while requiring more skill. But the UI for it is really terrible. It’s totally impossible for me to see the effect near my character and the tiny moving logo is really bad.

These problems could be fixed by refactoring the whole legendary power so that it doesn’t need to show 3-5 different things. New description: +200% to all elemental damage for 4 seconds every 16 sec. Then a clear graphical effect on top of the character could first show the power is coming soon and finally show it happens now.
This would also even out the cycle length between different characters. As I see it, nobody really uses more than one element for real dmg. So basing the rotation on elements is not really needed.

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Lol, let’s just have the screen blink and with giant text say:

3… 2… 1… FIRE
3… 2… 1… LIGHTNING

The whole screen is a CoE rotational icon, you can’t miss that right? Maybe throw in some audio effects… how about we bring Michael Buffer in to do the countdown?

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Nonononono… It has to be Morgan Freeman.

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@dmkt and @Indian

No, no just no. It should be someone with Turrets Syndrome. Of course I wouldn’t be able to play for long, hard to play if you are on floor. :wink:

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Now imagine… Morgan Freeman with tourettes. :laughing: Or even better! Samuel L. Jackson :rofl::rofl::rofl:

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I don’t pay attention to the cycle or the skill bar mainly because the icons look too similar to each other when I even notice them and I don’t have vision capability to really distinguish them anyway, so when I use CoE, I just use it and if I happen to hit the right element, great… most times I probably do not. I’d probably be better off with Stone of Jordan.

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I don’t love it or hate it but I tolerate it because it’s a necessary evil for most dps builds. Especially for pushing

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Turrets?

They randomly create castle corners, gun positions, or large mollusks?

I believe you mean to say Tourettes… spelling is sort of important with things.

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I don’t even know how to write it in my own language. :laughing: Probably the same, and thanks for the correction, i’ll edit it.

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Hogwash. There are simply good and bad players.

Your “rotational player” would also be able to handle the things a “situational player” could do. The same cannot be said for vice versa.

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If you’re really bad at counting in your head, at worst you can open maxroll’s CoE counter that used to synchronize cycle of other teammates and synchronize it for yourself.
Without it, you can easily watch the placement shift of status bar at the below of the screen by the corner of your eye and count in your head to nail the cycle. If you’re not in a crowded fight you can always see the orbs circling around your character clearly.

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