Rider of the Apocalypse - Improved 100x

Inspired by posts from Malchior and Sievre

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Rider’s Champion
Talent
Spending Runes has a chance to empower one of your abilities.

Empowered abilities calls forth the aid of a Horsemen for 10 sec depending on the ability used. If a Horseman is already summoned, using the same empowered ability extends its duration by an additional 10 sec. Using a different empowered ability summons a different Horseman.

Edit: Empowered abilities can be castable at any time regardless of cooldown, and does not cost any resource.

Note: When Rider’s Champion procs, ALL 4 of the following abilities light up. So you get a choice on which horseman to summon.

Empowered Death & Decay
Summons Mograine - Casts Death and Decay at his location that follows his position.

Empowered Outbreak / Empowered Howling Blast
Summons Whitemane - Casts Undeath on your target

Empowered Chains of Ice
Summons Trollbane - Casts Chains of Ice on your target slowing their movement speed

Empowered Death Coil
Summons Nazgrim - Gain Apocalyptic Conquest, increasing your Strength by 5%.
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The improvements suggested by Malchior and Sievre makes Rider of Apocalypse much more interesting to play. It provides players with the choice on which Horseman to summon depending on the situation.

Example, when fighting a group of mobs

  • Use Empowered Death and Decay to Summon Mograine
  • If Rider’s Champion procs again, use Empowered Death and Decay again to extend the duration of Mograine
  • As the number of mobs diminishes, use Empowered Outbreak to bring out Whitemane to clean up the rest
  • When one target is left, use Empowered Death Coil to summon Nazgrim for 5% Strength

During a boss fight, it provides a less toxic version of Breath of Sindragosa gameplay where the player will try to keep Nazgrim summoned at all times by using Empowered Death Coil to continually extend Nazgrim’s duration.

2 Likes

Bad. Rejected.

No. It is 100x better.

It really isn’t.

It is 100x better.

Like needing to cast Chains of Ice or needing to cast Death Coil as Frost are just atrocious ideas that would feel like crap.

It’s perfectly fine as a passive proc. You don’t need to have total control over everything.

Oh, I see. The reason why you dislike it is because you don’t have those keys bound. Got it.

I do, irrelevant as that is. But I don’t want to waste a GCD on a useless ability in a raid fight just to summon a Rider.

Not like this gives you any real control over summoning them. Outbreak and Death Coil are rotational abilities for Unholy, you’re not going to not press those just so you can summon a Rider at the perfect moment.

Okay, what if:

Empowered Death Coil / Empowered Frost Strike
Summons Nazgrim - Gain Apocalyptic Conquest, increasing your Strength by 5%.

And you don’t have to use Empowered Chains of Ice if you don’t need it, then you won’t summon Trollbane. It will be a choice.

In regards to those buttons being rotational, you can just delay your next attack to summon the proper Horseman. In fact, that is what every player should be doing anyway. If a player is suppose to Scourge Strike next, and the player needs to Interrupt, the player would then prioritize using Interrupt next. That is the gameplay choice versus it being mindlessly passive.

Horrible idea.

This is not functionally different from them being a random proc.

Considering Trollbane’s actual effect, you do not get the option of just not summoning him.

And why the hell would you want to summon Mograine for his DnD when you just cast your own?

You’d still summon Trollbane through Army, yes. But if you don’t want to cast Chains of Ice, then you can opt to never summon Trollbane.

Mograine provides additional area for DnD. Mograine’s DnD is also mobile. So if the mobs move out of your DnD, Mograine will still be on target.

It is quite different than what the current talent is now. You’d randomly get Trollbane slows mobs down which might be detrimental. You might get Mograine on single target. With the proposed change, you can always have Nazgrim up at all times in single target, or have Mograine up at all times in AoE situations.

Whoooooosh

Don’t say “Whooooosh” when your original message is unclear. It is up to you to explain your position properly. Reiterate what you are trying to say with Trollbane.

“Press the button when it lights up from the random proc” is in no way meaningfully different from the Riders popping up on their own from the random proc.

And of course you’re going to press the button immediately when it lights up, otherwise you risk wasting procs. Same result, more annoying implementation.

I think maybe there is a slight misunderstanding on the implementation.

When Rider’s Champion procs, ALL 4 abilities light up. So you get a choice on what to press.

So you summon Nazgrim 99% of the time cause you’re pressing Death Coil/Frost Strike when it procs, got it.

Alternatively, you’re playing Breath and literally never see Nazgrim.

No, when it procs, the player can cast DnD if the player encounters an AoE situation.

It seems like the root cause of why you dislike this implementation is because you think players will mindlessly mash Death Coil because it is next in the rotation.

That’s fine. They can just use the next best single-target horseman. Maybe spec into Cold Heart and summon Trollbane.

And you’re not going to do that, because you will literally always want Nazgrim.

When it is 5+ targets, Mograine will be better 100%. When it is 2-3 targets, Whitemane will be better. It’s a matter of tuning. So you have to choose which Horseman is best for which situation.

Compared to the current implementation, where you can randomly spawn Mograine on a single target boss fight multiple times, meanwhile, someone else on your raid team gets lucky and gets Nazgrim the entire fight; this type of randomness is not great.