Regarding Teleport, there’s three things that could be looked at for improving it.
The Teleport Skill itself
The Illusionist Passive
Aether Walker
Personally, I would change the Illusionist passive so that it works similar to the firebird 4 piece bonus whereas teleport’s cdr is tied to combusition stacks. Then change Aether Walker so that teleport offers a damage bonus to wizard skills. I wouldn’t really touch teleport itself, unless we’re talking about changing the reversal rune.
For example:
Illusionist:
Attacking or getting hit grants an illusionist stack for 10 seconds, up to 10 stacks max. Each stack reduces the cooldown of Teleport, Slow Time, and Mirror Images by 10%. For each stack, add an 2.5 arcane cost to Teleport.
Then change Aether Walker to:
While the Illusionist passive is active, the amount of illusionist stacks you gained is doubled. Teleporting increases the damage of your skills by 12-15% for each illusionist stack for 10 seconds.
But at this point, I don’t think teleport will be removed from Firebird (as such this suggestion is mostly for fun). That said the animation speed change will likely be a plus for me.
I miss Etched Sigil too; would have preferred a redesign of this sort instead.
ES had that same feeling as MI; a second level of build design. You have to mind what you place on your bar to optimize usage, but what you place can be made highly effective.
First of all sorry if that seemed hostile. In no way was that intended .
I highly doubt any such changes will happen now, I would super glad to be wrong though
First, let me say that my point is not to be combative, but I am pushing back. We are pulling in the direction of a better game for all.
If the devs just buffed the other skills/runes and items then they would be somewhat forced to rebalance DW and maybe Sigil. This approach should lead to a proper balancing. It’s like using a lint roller instead of pinching at bits of lint 1 at a time. If we simply call for nerfs the devs will respond and when there is a tidal wave of calls for nerfs they go overboard. If we say “hey devs channeling is too prevalent, please fix”, they are going to break or destroy all channeling builds. Their knee jerk reactions tend to end up as surgery by sledge hammer versus a tiny insition with a scalpel. This is why I disagreed with the approach.
The strength of bazooka32 isn’t just DW/sigil, it’s the accumulation multipliers. Many of the multipliers have been around for quite a while. A direct fix would have been to redesign the star pact rune. Even if they gave SP a flat damage value temporarily as a place holder it would have halted bazooka32, which they claim was either over performing or an unintended interaction. Yes, it would most likely break all SP builds, but that would be the point. 31 days should be more than enough time to sort out a redesign of SP and/or the interaction between the multipliers, and then get it on a PTR. Instead we have folks assigning blame to 1 or 2 items and ignoring the multipliers and their interaction as a whole.
I get that is easier to blame DW and offer it as a sacrifice. The problem is the devs are likely to destroy it and leave it broken without any further efforts.
If Wizards think DW requires a toning down or redesign then where are the calls for toning down Shadow Hook and Scythe of the Cycle?
How far behind are the non-mirror image variants? I’d imagine that if they reduced it to 2 or 3 mirror images, each more durable than before, it would even out the power level between the different builds, and maybe allow for reining in some nerfs.
Three durable images with the life runes would mean we could possibly run a third dps gem, after some life%, VIT optimization.
That would make the build stronger, or at least on par, not weaker. It would make for an interesting build decision though!
Flame blades with Furnace is about 4GR behind the non shielding, EW MI build.
Squirts+Zodiac MI+EB Hybrid is more powerful even than this build, but requires boocooes of paragon to sustain Squirts. So on the top end there will be even more separation.
I’ve been advocating, in general, nerfing death wish for at least 18 months. I still think it should have been nerfed over etched sigil. Blizzard screwed the pooch. Unfortunately, Wizards need that 325% multiplier to be effective, so maybe that’s why it’s unchanged despite requests, pleas, howls and screams from Wizards.
Honestly, this is blizzard. I expect them to buff the 6 piece to 4000% damage. That’s the easy fix. In this case, it happens to be the most logical and elegant fix. Blizzard has my full support here.
Make the 6 pieces bonus 4000% again just like on live and change the stack back to 100 on the 4 pieces, that would leave it in a good position. Why going through the hassle of redesigning the FB set just to get a mediocre performance out of it in the end because with the current nerf, that’s what it is- mediocre at best.
Firebird’s Finery 2-Piece Set: Disintegrate Ignites enemies, causing them to take 7500% 3000% weapon damage per second until they die. When you die, a meteor falls from the sky and revives you. This effect has a 60-second cooldown.
Firebird’s Finery 4-Piece Set: Casting Disintegrate adds Combustion stacks that reduce the cooldown of Teleport by 1% 2% per stack. Stacks up to 100 50 times. You gain 80% damage reduction while maintaining Combustion stacks.
Firebird’s Finery 6-Piece Set: You gain 4000%2000%5000% increased damage while Ignite is applied to a target. Hitting an Ignited enemy with a non-channeling fire spell deals Ignite damage multiplied by Combustion stacks.
Developer Note: With the bulk of patch 2.7.0’s focus being on the single-player experience, we recognize that the set reworks and balance changes are some of the most impactful and important to the group play experience. We’ve heard the outpouring of feedback from the community and have decided to increase the Firebird’s Finery 6-piece bonus.
We hope these changes will allow players to explore new strategies in high-end group play compositions for Season 23. We hope you enjoy Firebird’s this season, but we will keep an eye on its power and adjust balance in the future.
Should perform even better than FB MI non-shielding at higher paragons.
Rough Estimates:
FB Mirror Image should be slightly better than LoD Twister and Vyr Chantodo, in that order. These will be slightly better than FB Flame Blades though, assuming a non Shi Mizu LoD Twister build with WoF Attunement. N.B.: Casual LoD Twister is below FB Flame Blades now.
Typhon’s Veil should be just below FB Flame Blades+EF. Not sure where LoD Hydra lands nowadays.
A lot of these historically mid teir builds are higher than I was expecting due to the FoT+Nems.
Edits: Updated GR values to be more exact 51/21, not 5/2.
It was like that earlier this week too. 2% teleport CDR, 50 stacks (vs. 1% teleport CDR, 100 stacks on last iteration of PTR)
And just FYI the 2% isn’t damage, it’s teleport cooldown. The only thing that matters for the damage is the total stack count (since that gets multiplied with the 6p). They just adjust the teleport CDR so that you get 100% at full stacks (2% x 50 vs. 1% x 100). The teleport CDR portion doesn’t affect damage in any way.
would have preferred a redesign of this sort instead.
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