I went ahead and tried it without any area damage% as that is going to be removed for the LIVE version of 2.6.9!
Here is the result and I must say it is still WAY to strong for solo pushing but feels underwhelming for torments, bounties, speed runs and group META - So basically everything else!
But animated pictures say more than a thousand words - Judge for yourself. Enjoy!
This video was my first key of testing the theme on stream with no ad% and it is still a very easy to clear 150 as a zdps. That is not good!
To me this breaks the core concept of the game: Progressing and improving your character!
Paragons levels, gear, gems, augments, it all wont matter with this S21 Theme!
I dont have a good solution to fix this myself right now. Maybe you people have some ideas and we can gather some feedback? It needs to be meaningful in most aspects of the game but not completly overpowered in solo pushing.
Please share this to raise awareness so we can have a S21 the people can enjoy. Thank you! The players want a proper S21 and no full zDPS GR150 all classes nonsense!
They might have to (1) implement a scaling with char-dps, (2) fine tune the effects so they are kind of same good and (2) change something about the timer.
1: set a needed dmg for GR-LVL and if it isn’t reached the dmg from season-buff will be reduced
f.e. player has 1m dps and starts GR with nedded 1m dps the buff will do 100% dmg and nearly kills everything no prob
if player has 1m dps and goes in GR with 3m dps needed the buff will only do 1m/3m dmg so ~ 33%
dps is snapshoted at the start of the GR without any buffs too avoid insane scalling abuse from gems, buffs and so on
2: snowball and meteors are a bit over the top with killing paks oneshot
3-4 hits should be fine
tornados dmg is fine
but they need to pull enemys into ore move to enemys
firewall and lighning just is too weak
3: The season buff will be triggerd by player aktions
for every 0,5% gained in the GR-pregression you gain 1 stack of Elemental Power X
this only counts for progress due to killing enemies not for picking up the globes from paks
At 20 stacks the season buff will start
The X stands for the element that will spawn, so you know beforhand what you get and can adjust for it
then the GR-Boss is spowned you get 1 stack every 3 seconds
Thanks for reading and have a nice day.
edit: changed some thing in (3) to cancel out any use of chars that will deal no dmg in solo-GRs
The season theme needs to be scrapped not tweaked.
I would rather wait another month for S21 then have a theme that does the damage for you or worse a theme that does nothing at all in order to avoid the season from being OP.
Waiting 1 month would be preferable to waiting 3 months for a new season.
I play strictly solo. And say screw it. If the devs are lazy and this goes live I’m playing zbarb for pushing.
I don’t agree with it, I think it’s stupid and lazy (both the season theme and this playstyle). But at this point in the games life I’m just playing for fun.
Yea the easy fix might be just to change the theme completely, like allowing you to reforge your primal items to another primal of the same? Simple to implement and bug-free
Simplest take is that the solution must be based on something zdps characters are unlikely to achieve solo.
Storm spawn could be based on:
Kill stacks.
Progression percentages.
Elite pack kills.
Pylon activations. Exclude early progression pylon spawns.
Having a second set of pylon spawns, one pylon for each storm type. Would spawn independent from current pylons, but with the similar rules. Clicking storm pylon activates the effect after a short delay.
Would all fit this. The timer activation appears to be the core problem.
Didn’t like the set timer idea either. Too dull and predictable.
Of the above, I like the pylon activations triggering a storm and second set of pylons activating storms ideas best, though I bet there are other great ideas.
…Or we could drop the storms theme entirely, and implement a previous legacy theme or themes as a stopgap. Triune and RoRG would be cool to see again as legacy themes.
You can’t have it scale with player power. This would be too beneficial for people that grind paragon all day long and the players that play casually, which is the majority, will not benefit from the theme very much.
I am close to 2100 this season and about 22k strength. Now look at someone that runs METAs all day long and has 3k more paragon than me has 15k more strength so the theme will hit a lot harder for them.
There needs to be something else done. If you implement that idea, a ton of people won’t even bother playing this season outside of the journey.
On a personal note, I get people enjoying zdps. People enjoy different playstyles. I don’t run METAs, zdps does not interest me at all in an aRPG. It is an MMORPG feature with tanks and healers. If I was told that WW damage was buffed to do solo target dps and/or area dps in 150s in group play, I would do group play then.
I think when a zbarb cleared 150 solo there wasn’t enough time for the devs to make any changes for the 2nd patch/update. I’m assuming they will fix it somehow before S21 goes live.
Had a thought where seasonal skills are more of a CC skill:
Meteors rain from the skies around you. - Enemies hit deals 50% less damage for 4 seconds.
Breathe lightning. - Enemies hit are stunned for 4 seconds.
A wall of flame engulfs everything. - Enemies hit take 50% additional damage for 4 seconds.
Release twisters of pure energy. - Enemies hit has their attack speed and movement speed reduced by 50% for 4 seconds.
Crush your foes under the weight of rolling snowballs. - Enemies hit are frozen for 4 seconds.
Additionally a passive CoE is added as a commnity buff.
Agreed. I should’ve specified more that the CC duration is 4 seconds, the actual skill duration would be longer like how it is now. The 4 was just a provided suggestion, the duration could be anything really, as long as it’s “balanced”.
If the theme did 75% of “current” monster damage across the board, to anything it hit, no exceptions, it would solve pretty much everything. It would work kind of like Crushing Blow in Diablo II did. You can’t kill with it but it packs a huge punch. ZClasses would still have to figure out how to finish it off, and it would work for all players, regardless of paragon or damage capability.
I suppose a well placed conduit might break it, but nothing is 100% fool proof.
Anything that activates as a result of progression is likely to activate after killing a pack, making it useless. While I agree it’s too strong, it should’t be made useless.
Honestly scrap it and start over. There’s only two ways to go from here: You nerf Meteors and Snowballs, buff Firewall, Diablo flame thingy then you’re left with a theme that’s only beneficial for 1-5% of your gameplay. Or you just delay patch a week, add another PTR week and give us a new theme.
It would be the biggest case ever to actually go NS this time as at least with S19 you gained damage and movement speed w/o the events so it was useful for speeds and other gameplay modes besides GR push. Also S19’s themes would last quite a bit, some of these themes are literally over in 5 seconds, they’re just so underwhelming and too RNG based.
Oops your Firewall got stuck on a bridge, your snowball is rolling off screen, rip 2 minutes like seriously hate to be so negative but this theme is so bad on so many levels!
IMO since we’re unlikely to see a major change to the theme, I think the most attractive available change would be to scale the damage so that it can’t be reliably used to clear rifts, but is still meaningfully impactful.
My recommendation is to split the effects into “trash kill” variants and “elite assassination” variants.
"Elite assassination" variant: 200% of current damage. Has an affix of -20% damage for every 5 enemies hit, down to a minimum 20% damage (40% of current damage).
Result: First 5 enemies hit are hit for 100% of it’s damage. Next 5 are hit for 80%, next 5 = 60%, so on. It’d be increased damage for packs of 15 or less, and reduced damage for packs bigger than that. Unable to clear trash, but helps significantly with elites and rift guardians, probably killing elites if they are isolated.
Important note: effects that hit multiple times (like snowball) should have a fixed %-damage to a given target. The first 5 enemies hit should always take 100% damage from the effect ; full damage on each hit.
(Or, for easier implementation, 60% of current damage, but +150% damage to elites)
Trash Kill Variant: 120% current damage. -50% damage to elites. Will not help kill elites, but can be used to kill whole masses of trash.
Not knowing which one you will get means that attempts at fishing are severely punished. You’d set up a single elite and could get the trash-kill variant. Or you’d set up a bit pile and get the elite assassination variant.
But they’d still be relevant sometimes, creating an exciting seasonal mechanic where “oh dang we’re not going to complete the rift in time” but then you get just the right seasonal thing to help you kill that juggernaut.
