A lot of skills feel functionally garbage, just to have legendaries that make the skills usable.
This problem is somewhat notable in Sorc, getting 100% dmg multipliers for skills like Hydra, Frozen orb, Chain lighting, and Ice Shards, braking said skills when you factor other multipliers because they actually start with good numbers.
It is nearly non-existent in Rogue, because most of the modifiers just give utility things like stealth, or additive bonuses to grenades, or caltrops, or other nonsensical things. Even when it’s for some skills, like Flurry, it caps at 20%; or Twisted Blades where it caps at 40%.
However, Druid (and Barbarian) is an entirely new ball game, with ridiculous stackable multipliers.
For example, Druids’s wolves. They have one legendary that gives you 1 more companion. That means 25% dmg for Ravens, 50% dmg for wolves, and 100% dmg on Vine. On top of that, this legendary also rolls a whopping 150% multiplier to all companions, and if used on a two-handed weapon, it becomes 300%. Since these are multiplicative, that means Vine gets literally 600% extra dmg from a single item.
However, vine is not even the most broken companion… because wolves have an extra legendary that gives them another 100% multiplier. If put on an amulet, that makes it 150% multiplier. If you combine the weapon + amulet, you now have 675% dmg multiplier. But that’s not all of it… because, of course… there’s another legendary that gives them a keystone passive (which you should have in gloves because it doesn’t get larger for weapon or amulet) that multiplies an extra 20%. It all ends up on a tiny little bow of 810% dmg multiplier.
810%!!! WHY?!!!
WWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! !!! !!! !!!
You don’t have to watch this, but here’s an example of companions build in action:
All this means is that companions are basically hot garbage unless you stack THREE key legendaries. This means that the skills are balanced to be very weak on baseline, to account for the super large scaling. Moreover, this leaves Druid (and Barbarian) feeling like utter garbage until you acquire the RIGHT gear, not just any gear.
The only one of those 3 powers that is acceptable is the one that gives them the key passive. The other two NEED to be scrapped immediately and their power should be allocated to the skill tree.
If you are unluck, and don’t get the “right” powers, here’s an example of most people’s experience of Druid gameplay:
That was one example, but other skills like Pulverize and Upheaval share the same exact problem.
Small 20% to 30% dmg multipliers are OK, and feel good. Instead of getting an overall power increase of 10%, you can opt for 30% to a single skill. Seems like an OK choice to make. But anything about 100% dmg multiplier is way too much, and that power should just be on the skill tree.
However, I would argue that legendaries should ONLY have additive dmg increases, even for the more balanced ones. Otherwise we’ll just be stacking multipliers into oblivion like it happened with D3… and we know how bad that has been to balance over 10 years.
Instead of Vines, getting 600% dmg from one item, they should do baseline 550% more dmg, and then instead have a legendary that adds +200 poison to their attack.
In fact, MOST of the legendary modifiers should be on the tree itself:
- Pulverize having an earthquake
- Earth spike attacking everything in a line
- Double companions (heck Ravens have this on the tree, why double dip with an item?)
- Double Hydra heads
- Double Orb explosion
- Piercing Ice Shards
- Blood Mist triggering Explosions
- Blood Mist having reduced CD (separate from explosions because that is broken)
- Twisted Blades returning to you
For example, Hydra’s 2 choice nodes could be:
- You can now have 1 additional Hydra but they last 9 seconds (the 2x dps option if this is your main dps skill).
- Hydra now burns for an additional 30% of its base dmg and lasts 60 seconds (the mana sustain option if Hydra is only a support skill in your build).
- ***Legendary power could stay as "Hydra now gets the power of one unchosen modification. (similar to D3’s “X skill gains the effect of Y runes”) – assuming that type of legendary would exist for EVERY SINGLE skill and all classes.
TL;DR
All those crazy modifiers should be replaced with additive bonuses like "X skill deals +100-500 dmg." Those bonuses may sound "boring" but they are easier to balance (for developers) and they still feel exciting to drop (for the player) when you high roll for a skill you like using.
UFF!
That was long…