I have not been tracking PTR changes. But… Am I reading this right?
New Talent: Supercharger – Shiv/Roll the Bones/Symbols of Death supercharges [1/2] combo points. Damaging finishing moves consume a supercharged combo point to function as if they spent 2 additional combo points. 2-point talent.
You supercharge a +3 combo point, and it only functions as +5?
Currently, supercharged combo points function as if =7, not +2 …
And it’s a 2-point talent?
Seems like big tax for small gains.
Seems like even more randomness in the kit.
Can I supercharge a +7 to +9?
How will it feel to see a +3 blue vs a +6 blue?
Will I be happy to engage with it?
Or will it feel like pulling a slot-machine arm every time?
Or is that the point–this game is simply designed now for gamba?
Trying to be positive:
Echoing Reprimand is being redesigned as a situational Unceasing Chain Link (Torghast power). I like that, but everything is built around the obnoxious loop of hitting the blue button instead of the natural loop of:
max your CPs and spend
Hitting the blue button is fine, if all the random point generation is removed and we’re slowly building again. Especially real when Broadside procs and you simply cannot land on even/odd sometimes, regardless of play. (If evens=2k, odds=2k-1, then min-2 cannot guarantee even-to-odd transition, it’s simple math.) Slowing generation also kills the flow of resource-spend critical builds (like Bonezz points out about AR needing 90% uptime, from RB), and should not happen unless significant buffs are planned to compensate.
So then what seems to make the most sense is that supercharging should continue to function as =7 and Echoing should simply be whenever 5+ spend with an internal cooldown and reset ICD when hitting a supercharge (like how Summarily Dispatched operates). This keeps the spirit of the talent alive, as a reward for hitting the blue button, but limits some of the degenerate scenarios where the talent is quite literally a zero-gain event.
Seems smoother. Seems more welcoming.
Quite obviously easy to learn, though still being hard to perfect.
As it stands now though, hard to learn, and harder to perfect.
(Or simply skip it entirely–feels like an “I told you so” in the works…)
Afterthoughts:
If ER damage is huge? Maybe it won’t matter. But knowing Blizzard, and the opportunity to back-to-back on a 2x supercharge, the damage will be “nice, cool, wow, that’s non-zero ig?” instead of “feels good.” Also, the competing choice talent being a small +1 combo point delta means ER damage will most likely feel lethargic on its own. (I’m not particularly motivated by a +0.5% delta at the end of a 5-minute fight–I would rather have each button press feel great, and if I need to land a supercharge, I want it to feel better than a normal spend. That’s just not how it’s designed though. It’s a forgettable event, despite being locked behind a struggle against class design.)
