Let me start by saying that, overall, I think the Frenzy skill is in a decent place. My only real gripe is with Battle Frenzy in that the attack speed bonus to other skills is… boring.
Frenzy Duration is moving from a Weapon temper to a Utility temper, meanwhile Flay Duration is moving from a Utility temper to a Weapon temper. These two changes are, taken together, counterintuitive and kind of contradictory. They’re functionally the same temper, they should be of the same temper type. Other than the seeming categorical disconnect, moving Frenzy Duration to a Utility temper presents two additional problems (really, they’re two sides of the same coin):
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Now, there are no viable Weapon temper options for Frenzy. You’re either stuck with Elemental Surge, or potentially buffing a supporting skill (and, we’ll get to this last part below when discussing Battle Trance).
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Frenzy Duration now has to compete with other highly valuable Utility tempers, like Crowd Control Duration and Lucky Hit: Crowd Control effect. Don’t get me wrong, having meaningful decisions to make is generally a good thing, but I’ll refer back to #1 above and, again, the fact that you essentially removed that same decision from Flay for the equivalent temper effect.
Okay, on to Battle Trance. The S5 changes to Battle Trance are an improvement, but the whole item design is still confusing; it’s not clear to me what your design intention is. For the base affixes, the crit chance and dual passives are much, much better, but the DR is something that Frenzy can already do on its own–it’s not bad, it’s just lackluster. But, the unique affix does two things that confuse the whole design strategy:
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The increase to Frenzy’s maximum stacks is fine. I understand that the intent is to add power to Frenzy, but, it does so very awkwardly. Increasing the maximum stacks means that getting to maximum stacks takes longer. Also, stacks accrue individually, but dissipate en masse–meaning, if for some reason, I’m not able to maintain maximum stacks for the base 3-second duration, you lose all stacks simultaneously and have to start all over. This makes the Frenzy Duration temper incredibly valuable, and arguably more valuable with regards to the base mechanics of the skill (Frenzy having stacks to maintain) than Flay Duration is to Flay. (Additionally–and this a semantic nit-pick–being more frenzied isn’t what is usually meant by being in a “trance,” so the function doesn’t fit the name of the item.)
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Most of the base affixes, and the first sentence of the unique affix, all to add more power to Frenzy–which makes sense if you’re attempting to make a Frenzy build more functional and “viable.” The second sentence of the unique affix, however, is now doing something entirely different in that it’s buffing my other skills (while, yes, also providing Frenzy with the damage buff). The worst part is that Frenzy, through Battle Frenzy, can already provide an attack speed bonus to my other skills–so this effect isn’t unique even within Frenzy itself.
So, help me out: is Battle Trance intended to be a build-defining unique for a Frenzy build, or is the intention to make Frenzy a support skill for other skills? If it’s the former, then it needs to do more and build fully into Frenzy–a 30% damage bonus on an amulet is quite small, considering I could put Moonrise or Adaptability on a legendary amulet, gaining a 120% damage bonus, while also adding Crit Chance, Wallop, Duelist and tempers and probably get much more out of that amulet. If, however, it’s the latter, then Battle Trance builds too much into Frenzy, and doesn’t do nearly enough to support your other skills–first of all, the vast majority of builds using non-basic skills as their primary damage output do not also need to use a basic skill because you’ve added so many solutions for resource management in the late- and end-game; second of all, it suffers the exact same problem as above–a legendary amulet with more relevant passives and a more impactful aspect will vastly outperform this in every case.
I’m going to take a couple shots at redesigning Battle Trance for specifically a build-defining Frenzy build:
- Affixes
- +25% All Res
- +[7.0-10.0]% Critical Strike Chance ← this could stand to be slightly better than the base affix you can get on a normal amulet
- +[100-150]% Frenzy size ← this value is set this high because the affix doesn’t exist anywhere else. I set it at a roughly similar value to the combined value of similar tempers if you were to put them on all four weapons
- +[2-3] to Frenzy
- +[4-6] to Duelist
- Power
- Attacks with Frenzy explode, dealing [4600-9500] fire damage to surrounding enemies.
- Increase Frenzy’s maximum stacks by 2. You are always at maximum stacks. ← the idea here is like the Hulk in The Avengers: your secret is that you’re always angry
This next one is a bit wild, but stick with me…
- Affixes
- +25% All Res
- +[7.0-10.0]% Critical Strike Chance
- You don’t generate Fury and can’t gain Fury
- +[2-3] to Frenzy
- +[4-6] to Duelist
- Power
- Frenzy gains 4%(x) additional damage for every point of Fury missing from your maximum.
- Killing an enemy or hitting a Boss with Frenzy increases your maximum Fury by [1.0-5.0], up to [10-25].
You might read that last one, see that it provides 400%x base and 500%x at max stacks and think that’s absurdly overpowered (and, that’s without also factoring Maximum Resource you can gain from legendary helmets and Paragon nodes). I would like to point out that the 3rd affix means you will also always be at 0 Fury, meaning you can’t use a Core skill (if you even wanted to), and cannot functionally use Shard of Verathiel, Crown of Lucion, Ring of Starless Skies, Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus, and neither Edgemaster’s nor Adaptability legendary aspects. Most of these are staples, if not down right near-mandatory, for end-game basic builds. This second reworked Battle Trance not only compensates for those losses, but also gives you new things to consider for both skill point allocation and gearing for the build (grumble grumble something about build diversity).
The idea for this last one was a direct reflection on my previous semantic comment about being “more frenzied” doesn’t jive with being in a trance–now, you are IN A TRANCE. You’re not angry or “furious” (because you can’t have Fury). You are serene, caught in the “music only you can hear”–to paraphrase from the flavor text–and you are now more dangerous for finding this trance state-of-mind.