Hello. This topic is about addressing a problem with the icons that show up above your skillbar while in combat and how they limit a certain play-style’s functionality.
So as we all know, when you are in combat, you will get various icons that show up above your skillbar based on the many effects you have from your armor/weapon pieces and possibly paragon as well.
There is a glaring problem with this system. It is possible to have TOO MANY active effects, some of which do not need to be constantly seen, which fills the available space you have above your skillbar where the icons for these effects are displayed.
If you run a build that makes heavy use of knowing when you are going to activate a certain effect (think overpower-oriented builds), your build’s functionality can be very much harmed by not knowing when your effects will take place. This is due to the fact that you can have so many icons already being displayed above your skillbar, that the one or two icons you REALLY NEED TO KEEP TABS ON SOMETIMES DO NOT EVEN DISPLAY.
I myself made good use of an overpower barbarian build that used the aspect based on swapping weapons 8 times to trigger an overpower. However, outside of just fighting bosses, I find that this build is limited in its functionality when it comes to general combat for the reasons I’ve stated above.
To emphasize, if I am doing the vampiric syphon in the blood harvest, and have 3 blood seekers trying to kill me on top of the rapid hp drain from the syphon itself, waiting for all the useless icons above my skillbar to disappear so that the two icons I REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT can show up is not practical. I NEED the icon that shows how many times I have swapped weapons. I NEED the icon that shows if my next mastery skill is going to get that sweet 200% damage increase. However, if my space above my skillbar is already flooded with useless icons like “basic skills grant 20% damage reduction for six seconds” and “gained berserk for four seconds” then sometimes I literally have to stop attacking and wait for the space to clear up so that the icons I really want to see can finally show up.
Blizzard, I am always using basic skills. I am always gaining berserk. I do not need to see these less important icons being displayed all the dang time.
Please Blizzard, do something about this problem. One suggestion is to let us manage which icons will even get displayed in the first place. Give us another tab next to our abilities page, or crafting materials page that will tell us what icons ARE POSSIBLE for us to activate based on our current setup, and then give us the option to toggle which icons we want to see or not see.
Or perhaps you could extend the space in which icons currently show above the skillbar. If we have more icons active that the space allows, then maybe make another row show up above the first row of icons so we can see everything that’s going on and not miss out on the few things we really want to always see.
My current solution to address this problem is to change my build to not rely on seeing icons. It means I’m no longer swapping weapons to overpower, using the skill deathblow, or the unique weapon “overkill.” I would perhaps be using all these things even in general combat, but for all the reasons I’ve said so far, it just isn’t functional. So please Blizzard, read this message and give us a solution to icon clutter. Thank you.