Hi All,
This is my first post! Currently, there’s a majority who are funneled to rely on limited family reforge choices: eg. vengeance(proc doesnt suffer from strife) and wildfire(updated with quicker-firing hydras), but what about the other reforge family? How do you raise excitement filled with convincing rationales, which then enables a richer variety of builds/gearing/playstyles?
Can each reforge family pros and cons, their niche/ideal-use case be made more simpler/readable so people adopt them intuitively? Examples:
Tremor reforge Family
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There are no official documentation on length of slow CC for tremor reforge, stun is 1.5 sec, but what about the other effects? Does “reduce enemy healing” coincide with the cooldown reduction? If that’s the case, being able to automatically reduce enemy’s life every 13 sec by 20%(strife debuff est.) seems ideal. But in my server we just needed one high res vocal ‘expert’ to dismiss the possibility just because effect gets nullified by healing(duh–if it procs, healing is reduced in the first place!). If I don’t know the duration of the slow effect on attacks/movement before and after strife, then this doesn’t empower reforge like “increase damage to the CC’d” to a more enlightened state.
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If people are aware of the specifics, as indicated by tooltips/notes/disclosures, they can substantially be armed with knowledge that have intuitive next-actions>>next-target>>next-plan/decisions, which adds to more deliberate strategies, making choices richer and clearer and grows a community destined to diversify rather than get trapped into believing and adopting what works for the top 1%. Sure, it’s understandable if the top 1% can simplify the mechanics into their purpose for more damage = top results. But if all family reforges have been thoroughly tested and documented by the Devs themselves for pros and cons, then that should intuitively apply to give each reforge family a fighting chance depending on the “purpose”/“niche case”.
This brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum of Offense, which could be ultra Defensive in nature to result in being at the top as equally as possible as the “more damage/glasscannon-driven” counterpart is adopting.
I think the Devs did a great balancing attempt giving us the “gold sown” set, which act against knockbacks and promotes the use of channelling skills. But this remains rusty for certain classes like the DH–awakened slot for Strafe for example, all increase damage(2 of them), and last slot “reduces the cooldown” when it should have been “channels slower x 10%”/‘enables the meter to reset to neutral faster’ better wording needed. Did the Devs account for the short range knockback flamethrower range that might affect adoption rate? If so, there should be a clear strategic use for it–short range, but kills faster; not short range, hard to aim, and not very reliable to point and shoot. In parallel, the Barbarian Cleave channeled, is more powerful than the whirlwind that’s widely used, but in practice, there’s a lack of gear/skills/CC that would would enable it to be practical and get rangers Cleaved before they escape or recover from CC (and sadly, the finger motion required is very straining compared to whirlwinding from point A to B).
Lastly, this might lead to a niche of defense-for-offense users that will benefit from a unique skillset/gearing/playstyle: The Barrier reforge desperately needs a makeover and intuitive synergy with the gems already in the wild/market. For example, I’m one of the rare few who likes to believe, cause testing is insufficient, that there is great potential for Heartstone users if the 24% (10%, with strife debuff est) is documented to stack with gladiator Paragon benefit (in total, gladiator 10% + 10%ish heartstone = 20-25% reduction to loss of control.) This gives free to play, and strategic minded users a fighting chance to even the field against users with significat raw damage from Resonance alone. But this should be a sensitive feature with balance and checks that doesn’t overpower those already Resonance-overpowered and be a decisive feature instead where a combatant can still excel in the defense as best offense faction.
Why not make the Barrier perk unique and competitive against other alternatives? Reduction from nearby enemies is way too low at 2, that it might as well be replaced by Jolt 1% dmg reduction, so how can we make this barrier reforge family be as viable as the upgraded/reliable ones as wildfire and vengeance?
Other: Also this needs clarifying and balancing, why is Vithu overused in Raids and why does it has stacking speed benefits that synergize with skills and not all class has the same benefit? I can understand if damage is more because it makes a skill last longer, but on top of that, it raises the speed of variety of gears/skills to invisible highly effective levels that overshadows other sets in terms of damage. If Vithu speed stack with primary speed booster, can we have indicators exactly revealing that stacking happens? And can we have slow firing sets be empowered with balancing skills/gears so they’re not left in the dust?
Thanks for reading and hearing me out! Let there be more variety and strategy please! Thanks for your great work so far Devs! I appreciate it, let us appreciate it better!