Set reworks always seem to be ,,,

… pet based.

And every time we have to “enjoy” some overly complicated pet AI not doing the things we would like them to.

And far too often we are seeing some mechanic that is intended to be a “so stunning and brave” innovation, that ends up to be too complicated or similar so that it’s not enjoyable.

Arachyr with its ray of infestion … so the spider queen always has to stand at the very end, we on the other side, to trigger infestion on the targets in between, but oh boy never let the spider queen somehow end up in the middle? Running around the pack and trying to somehow getting the invisible spider queen and you in the rightfully aligned constellation. Urrghh… Can’t wait to not even touch this rework on live servers at all.

Same goes for this ground effect based defense bonus. On the one hand, we want the spider queen to be away from us to trigger the infested bonus, but on the other hand we have to stand on top of her web trails to get our defense bonus. Stuff like always ruins the quality of enjoyment.

I like that you try to bring in “new and cool stuff”, I really do. But please… this isn’t an MMORPG, it is an ARPG. Overcomplicated positioning kills fluid gameplay.

Edit: Changed some wording that might sound too harsh.

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I do agree it’s a bit frustrating seeing non-pet classes get pet mechanics while the actual pet classes have such weak pets.

Arachyr, however, is not a pet set. This is just a damage link mechanic, nothing more. In actual play you’re just going to herd up enemies and spam an attack.

It works. It may be overtuned now, the corpse spiders get a ton of bonuses, but who knows what the tuning standard even is anymore. The only significant feedback I’d give is it’s hard to the spider effects through all of the visual clutter.

Corpse spiders completely behave like pets — even get pet bonuses…^^

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It is now. All of the pet buffs to in the PTR update are geared towards making spiders pets.

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Of course, but it doesn’t play that way at all.

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Corpse spiders completely behave like pets


Again, it is not about “how it is played” (directly played) but about HOW Corpse Spiders BEHAVE — and they fully behave like pets.
You can’t even throw them on your chosen target so that they attack that, they will still chose their own target. Have already seen moments where I threw them into the center of a Piranhado with 20+ enemies in and around that, while all Corpse Spiders ran away from them to attack 2 Exarchs in 2 different locations far outside.

You can even look up on youtube @Raxxanterax’s last video (or ~ 2nd to last maybe already) where he is fighting Saxtris with like 3min ahead of the timer, 15sec or so for 100-75% and he then fails the GR due to Corpse Spiders attacking anything but the desired target. (On top of that, the annoying infested mechanic didn’t seem to work, or atleast wasn’t able to stay active on the right targets in the right moment.)


So, my point is: Arachyr is now pet AI dependent like so many set reworks already, and neither was this good in the previous ones, nor is it this time.

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I definitely read your opening post to be more about how it’s played, particularly in reference to how other sets have been handled recently.

I saw that video. Probably something Blizz needs to look at because something doesn’t seem right there.

Of course it doesn’t blizzard doesn’t know what they are doing, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are now pets. :wink:

I agree. And that, is actually not in the best interest of the Witch Doctor. I say that only because much of the WD toolkit is catered to pet builds and yet here we stand with “creatures” that aren’t pets, nor are truly Nuke spam/attacks akin to a Wizard or such. It’s definitely not a melee class, and really not a ranged class either.

I feel like The Arachyr set is a prime example of the culmination of the “lost identity” of the Witch Doctor class.

I’d like to see this fixed. there are already numerous threads out there but as far as class identity is concerned a general guide for me would be more of a crowd control/damage over time/support. Which doesn’t work well in an ARPG setting but here we are. Blizz tried something new though and are just trying their best to make it work from past regimes.

Life is hard.

Every “creature” is not a pet. Only the spiders. Frogs, piranhas (bogodile), locusts, bats all got the shaft. Even the mass hallucination that is oft forgotten about is classified as a creature with absolutely no support to speak of. skill may as well not exist and that’s my favorite skill tbh.

EDIT: I’m still unsure if Hex is a creature or a pet… I believe its a creature though.

In the Current PTR patch “SPIDERS” are now pets…

Meanwhile wizards got their own pet based build (Mirrorbird) axed and I’m asking myself why they did that. Had they balanced the damage and improved on the lousy AI then this one would have been fun. I fail to understand their reasoning…

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I did a quick test of this.
Technically, Hex is not a pet, however:
With the new “pet hits add damage bonus stacks” dregs shard. Each lick from the Toad of Hugeness added a stack. But, Tasker and Theo and Mask of Jeram do not appear to affect Hex in any way, even the toad.
Did not test: Enforcer, Rank 1 Damage bonus from Dregs.

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