The Oculus - why?

Sorcerer
1

Why does it need to have an annoying function to it? Yes, it’s an annoying mechanic. It’s definitely a great idea for the Teleport Enchantment slot, but poor execution for a unique item.

If the Dev team wants there to be a negative to a unique item, making it annoying is not the right answer. This doesn’t have any great build altering power to it, it’s basically a Teleport enabler, which would be a defense booster and farm/speed increaser. But instead of being a speed increaser, it can teleport you backwards twice in a row or get you stuck, wasting your time, or slowing you down ~80% of the time you use evade while causing other bugs in S2.

On top of this, the big negative based on the power contribution of The Oculus, is that we lose a legendary aspect for very little compensation. Combined with the annoying unique power, it’s a very average item overall. Yea, yea, you get more uptime buffs because everyone specs teleport, and it can potentially save you, it’s faster, yada yada. It’s not really an end-game item, it’s a gimmick that isn’t always bad, and doesn’t feel “game-changing” like uniques should be. I understand that “game-changing” can mean different things, but enabling Teleport to be a little faster, discounting random evades messing you up, it feels like a Legendary power you use when you want to farm faster, not a unique.

The Best suggestion I can give is, completely remove the random part of Evade Teleporting and add a slightly beneficial effect but in negative context (like D3 Oculus) In a perfect world, D4 was setup so that ALL uniques should be S or A tier items. Obviously it’s no fun if everyone is running around with a full setup of uniques, but having decent rolled legendaries with B-C tier aspects as best-in-slot for pretty much every sorcerer build that doesn’t need another unique weapon, is not good.

Ideas for negative driven beneficial effect:

Whenever you take damage of 15% or more of your maximum health from a single attack, increase the your Teleport damage by 200%[x] for 5 seconds.

or

While Injured, casting Teleport or Evade reduces your Ultimate cooldown by 2 seconds.

Alternatives would be:

When you Evade using Teleport Enchantment you have a 20% chance to be taken to a random location.

or

When you Evade using Teleport Enchantment you are randomly taken 10%-150% of the distance in that direction.

or

**Evade now costs 10 mana."

1 Like
2

It’s sort of fixed for season 2 thanks to the Metamorphosis vampiric power and well, without the random destination thing it’s great, very hard to drop once you get used to it. Hopefully they’ll change it or it might become kinda useless again once the season ends

3

It’s not as bad as you think it is. I had the same bad impression when it first came out in S1. Also the same impression with most folks back in S1.

However, the more we use it, the more we found unique ways to take advantage of it. If you look at vids in S1, there’s folks pairing it with Chain Lightning builds with great success.

In my personal experience, it was fun using it along with my Hydra in S1. It essentially made my Sorc unkillable and paired it with that defensive heart that deals explosive fire whenever you use a defensive skill.

So for example, I enter an NM 100 room packed with Banshees and Wraiths. All I had to is do is drop Hydras and then constantly teleport, they had no chance of hitting me at all while my Hydras delete them. Against Stormbane though it’s a 50/50 because you can land under him lol.

If I was just using a normal wand, I will have to duke out with these ghosts and my survivability even though is still good but it wasn’t as comfortable with the Oculus. I did stop using Oculus because the constant teleportation had made me dizzy a lot of times.

I know some folks in PvP are having a great time with it as well

In S2 pair it with Metamorphosis and you can remove the randomness part.

4

I didn’t try it with Metamorphosis but I have played with it enough to know I dislike the random power immensely. The Oculus was probably my favorite D2 item on Sorc, so having some built in randomness isn’t the problem, it’s being on every evade. Even if it were a random area within 25% of the screen for destination, it would be bearable. Teleporting backwards twice in a row consistently is too much for a game that’s supposed to be fun and an item designated with unique status that’s supposed to very good. The only reason they’re not salvaged on the spot is because of Esu’s boots.

2 Likes
5

secretly hoping for a metamorphosis offhand after season ends :stuck_out_tongue:

6

The randomness totally ruins it for me also :frowning: but hey… maybe one day we’ll get a third enchantment slot from an aspect/unique, seeing the trend of trading for things… for now I’m using the teleport enchantment… the feel is that for the sake of retaining control over mobility I have to give up half my build because there’s only 2 enchantments slots… >.>

7

Movement speed is basically the #1 stat in this game, oculus is the only item that essentially has negative move speed. Why? Yes it would likely be BiS without the negative for most builds, but would it really be broken? For BL sure, but that’s already busted beyond hope.

Some mention metamorphosis but that completely nullifies the unique feature of oculus (granting teleport enchant - which then synergies with other teleport buffs) and basically turns them into another set of boots. It’s a pretty big loss of an offensive aspect given that.

8

Those who hate it havent truly used it. Without oculus i coudlnt run t100 as easily as i have with it.

1 Like
9

I thought Oculus and Esu’s were bugged such that you don’t get the movement speed from evade on the boots when using Oculus. Or is that only with metamorphosis in the picture? The interactions with those three are… Complicated.

10

YOu are correct it breaks the 75% movement speed on evade when you use occ and meta together. It is why I cannoot use it since im used to that 75%. If they fix it though OOOOOO babi.

11

I got inspired with all these Oculus talk to try it again. It’s actually even more fun when you’re not really chasing any completion goals or maximum DPS from your build.

Btw right after this vid, I tried farming Boss Ice for like 40+. And he didn’t drop a single Oculus at all!!!

When you don’t need it, he drops plenty. When you want one, he decides not to lol.

12

I wanna give you a tip about oculus on controller and generally playing sorc on controller.

It might be hard for you to change because you may have been using these keybinds forever.

Put evade on Right Bumper.
Ice block Left Trigger.
Fire Shield Right Trigger
Potion Left Bumper. (Ez to pot under iceblock. With buttons side by side)

Teleport on Y (far away but there if you need it
Frost Nova on X (quick access)
Flame Wall on A (spammable)
Inferno on B (long cd out of the way)

This may change your life or you wont be able to get used to it.

What this keybind does it lets you be reactive with your oculus teleport and shields when you need them. While easily managing all your skills with your right thumb.

Pick up is Right Thumbstick Click.

1 Like
13

I’ll try but knowing myself, when it comes to key binding, it’s gonna take months before I unlearn my habits.

Pretty sure once I switch bindings, I will be pressing the wrong keys

Also real players use controllers lol. Just kidding. How are you doing your evades with Lilith with a controller? I don’t find it easy. I envy those folks where I see their pointers and can drop any skills anywhere with a keyboard and mouse.

1 Like
14

That doesn’t really contest what I’m saying, a few people enjoying the annoying feature doesn’t suddenly make it a good choice or a desirable function. The point is, it’s a unique wand in a game where uniques should be premium items. Adding annoying components to premium items is a poor choice.

Developer’s Note: Our goal for Unique items is that they feel impactful to your build and create a moment of excitement upon dropping. Some Unique items were falling short of this goal, so we are updating them in a few ways to ensure that these items feel distinctly different from other items and are appealing:

How does that align with the developer’s intent of unique items? I understand that some players will be satisfied with whatever item blizzard throws their way, but not everyone is. A gimmick function is a gimmick function, making it annoying is not compatible with the Dev team’s notes on what unique items should be. I love gimmick items that can be turned useful, but I don’t like items that add garbage mechanics that serve no real purpose but to be irritating for some people.

1 Like
15

That’s what they write, but that doesn’t mean they follow it.

Does Oculus align to their goals?

  1. Is it impactful to your build?
    Do they mean all builds or certain builds that take advantage of the unique? I would think it’s the latter but some uniques have more widespread use like Tal Rasha, but if you consider Illuminator, you’re pigeonholed to Fireball.

  2. Does it create excitement?
    I think this is more a personal thing. I don’t think any unique has made me excited so far. Still waiting for Shako though. Oculus doesn’t excite me for sure. It’s just another unique just like everything else (except for Shako maybe since I don’t have one yet).

  3. Items feel distinctly different
    For sure Oculus is one of a kind whether you like it or annoyed by it. It’s different and distinct

  4. Is it appealing?
    I think only a handful players find this appealing. When it first came out and learned about its randomness, I dismissed this unique as nothing but a joke, but when I gave it a second chance and tried using it on certain builds, I found some unique strengths with it. I have to change my playstyle to match with the unique’s special property

So if I am gonna rare it based on these 4 points, I would give this item a 2/4 score.

  1. 0.5
  2. 0
  3. 1
  4. 0.5

2 points

I would rate this higher than Flamescar because I found more use with Oculus even though I am more into Fire/Burn builds. Oculus has more uses for me.

16

@ Toclmi, please read the replies from others. It does not teleport you to random places. It goes exactly where you want it to go with Metamorphosis.
It makes NMD 100 easy. There is a comp to go with this wand for farming NMD 100
I eventually dropped Oculus, because item level was 845. If I can find one with 925, I will be back on it.
With this Oculus, you are getting a permanent 30% damage deduction. Use it with Raiment, it is a faaaaaast NMD 100 run.

17

How does a seasonal theme justify your point? Sure, for S2, it works great because the negative effect is overridden if you take a vampiric power, (that’s going away.) How about Eternal, not everyone plays Seasonal? And, we don’t even know if that’s intentional, it seems like it isn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that a temporary bug or feature is required to fix a dumb component of an item.

18

Even without meta, oculus is free positioning and dodge with a shield. Just because its random doesn’t mean the place you teleport to is not an advantage.

Sure for traveling in 1 direction quickly its not appealing and you gotta walk. But in a big room or event, you can spam oculus and be untouchable. With teleport DR mind you. And a ridiculously low cooldown teleport slotted.

I love it. Works perfectly for me.

19

I was wondering … is there any other class that has such a bs unique? The sorc is kind of a joke class. Of course it’s gotten better, but looking back … incredible.

20

If it’s that great of a feature, then remove the function from The Oculus and put a little checkbox in Options “Change Evade to randomly choose your direction.” Then we can see how many people use it and get the real picture of just how many people want it.