BotS is a great gem that has helped a lot of builds climb to greater rift stardom but has become essential because of this. Also BotS has killed build diversity and made a lot of other gems useless. I suggest that they remove the gem from the game or make it another bonus and add the current effect to all grifts 75+. This opens a lot of build paths and possible slots for other legendary gem use in a lot of builds. If it wasn’t such a necessary gem I wouldn’t suggest these changes. But as of right now it feels forced which isn’t fun.
Almost half the gems only provide a damage boost or reduce damage in various flavors and don’t do anything like add thorns, attack speed, reduce cd’s, etc… they don’t enable builds. By the very same argument if you removed BotS for that reason, you would need to remove all those other gems for the very same reason.
6 Likes
The point is almost every single build uses it. Why make a necessary gem for climbing instead of simply fixing the problem with climbing?
Instead of nerfing or removing a legenary gem, they should instead buff the existing ones as there are plenty of underused gems that either lack the power, defense, or utility to even be relevant.
9 Likes
BotS getting overused is a different argument from “it kills build diversity”.
How many gems are actually only usable with specific skills? How many builds actually require specific gems?
The answer to both is not many.
When you don’t need a gem to enable a build a player will pick the best damage buff or damage mitigator he thinks he needs.
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How is it different? If you have one mechanic in a game that’s so powerful, there is no viable alternative to using that mechanic, how can you argue that this doesn’t kill build diversity?
I’ve been looking at a lot of builds and I see a lot of themes that seem to keep popping up:
- Mandatory displacement skill (can’t survive without it)
- Mandatory defensive items (1-shot kill balance in GRs)
- Extremely common to use high CDR (Akkhan’s, LotD, Vengeance, WotB, etc), so you’re seeing Capt Crimson’s, ORotZ, etc all becoming essential
I could go on, but the point is that some items are simply so powerful there isn’t an alternative to using them. You gimp yourself too much to not use them. With Bane of the Stricken, it’s the go-to damage gem for the end-game. Bane of the Powerful simply doesn’t gain in power. It’s 20% at lvl 1 or lvl 100. Gem of Efficacious Toxin can’t compete. Even with it’s defensive bonus, it’s only 10%. The damage is simply too low. Etc.
When there is only 1 option, you don’t have a choice. Lack of choice is the opposite of build diversity, and it’s something game designers should be looking very keenly to avoid.
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Bane of Stricken is not the worst offender here. At least it is useless when running low level GR.
Bane of Trapped is literally the worst offender when it comes to diversity because it is useful in all situations.
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Remove CoE first, its the most limiting item in the game.
3 Likes
Remove CoE first, its the most limiting item in the game.
Agreed, but I think people didn’t read or are missing the add it to every rift level 75+. There is no reason for it to be a gem when everyone benefits from it and can’t climb without it.
COE is my most hated item in the game actually. Nothing is worse than sitting on an elite waiting for your element to come up so you can kill it and move on.
Bane of the Stricken is not in every build…Bane of the Trapped though is.
Why not include it in your OP.
4 Likes
I d like to see BOTS and BOTP moved into baked in effects. Or make it so that augmenting also grants the effects of the gem in addition to the mainstat. Effects at level of gem, not auto maxed.
The OP claimed it kills build diversity but no one has actually shown there are possible builds that could be made except that that you have to use the gem slot for this gem.
There are simply no builds like that.
There are no combinations of gear, etc… that would have resulted in a 1+1=3 synergy that aren’t being used because the final thing that made it possible is instead being used to slot this gem. No one is chosing skill X instead of Y, or gear set A instead of B because they felt compelled to use the BotS.
Ultimately, BotS doesn’t make your build function and if its missing, your build isn’t broken. Your build works 100% and it has at least 1 free gem slot. What are you going to put in it?
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I don’t think it would create build diversity to remove it, but I see his point about BotS (and necessarily BotT) killing build diversity in the first place. BotS became less of what it was intended for (helping AoE builds deal with single target) and more of just a way to push to the max GR.
Never understood this attitude. Buffing is not a simple fix all method. The effort to balance multiple item buffs would require a lot more testing.
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Given that BotS is a gem that mostly activates on Guardians and somewhat on elites, it is a very limited gem. So the fact that so many builds use it, says more about the rest of the gems.
Very often the majority adds nothing or cannot ve properly activated leaving you with very few options.
No one said that buffing is simple. But nerfing or removing stricken isn’t going to help those gems, it’ll just cripple builds that rely on stricken.
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I only play casually but every season seems to be the same thing. Constant buffing between items and skills. I guess that’s the problem with infinite scaling.
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Best to be consistent for the Devs and stick to the power creep model.
I would t be opposed to OPs suggestion though. Baking stricken into GRs at some point would be a positive with a similar outcome.
The only time I consider buffs to be problematic is when the item or skill in question aren’t really in need of buffs; otherwise buffs aren’t too much of an issue imo. That said, I’m not against nerfs as they can be necessary at times. I just don’t think that removing stricken is necessary at this time.
So even if they got rid of it unless all gems do the same thing and damage another one would just replace it that would be best in spot