In line with many of the other QoL improvements to come in Season 2, I suggest adding a 1-point node behind Anomaly’s “Time Lord” node that either automatically recasts anomaly on cooldown, or changes it to be a permenant buff with equivalent mana cost spread out over the expected duration (ie ~2 mana/second).
The design of the skill is already such that it expects one to essentially have permanent uptime of the Time Bubble at this point on the tree with very minimal investment in cooldown, so it’s basically just an extra button we have to push if we spec this way, and automating it would be a nice QoL improvement.
You can already do that with the num lock strategy. I doubt the devs are interested in making an auto-cast in the game (although they haven’t tried to prevent players from doing so with num lock).
Some (very old) skills tend to work very well with permanently auto casting them when they come off cooldown.
This is not intended and the devs try to actively design and change existing and new skills in a way, that it would not entice players to do that.
I think the autocast node for Devouring Orb that is coming to 1.2 is the first true autocast implemented by the devs and I would say they will try to use these type of nodes very sparingly as it tends to mean that the skills are not design in a good way.
Anomaly is a very old skill that only got a few modernizations and overhauls over the years.
I woudl expect a rework/overhaul before getting a second auto-cast node, especially because Devourign Orb and Anomaly are on the same mastery.
I got the sense that these kinds of changes will be more common moving forward, and Devouring Orb isn’t the only skill to have a change along these lines in season 2. Since the spec in Anomaly I described essentially allows 100% uptime on Time Bubble, the suggestion makes sense to me and it seems to be in line with their philosophy of bringing more QoL changes to the game.
I can’t, as I don’t have numlock on my keyboard and last time I looked there wasn’t an option to remap that functionality to a different key binding. So yeah, I’m disadvantaged by my hardware. It’s not in my budget to buy a new keyboard just so I can play one skill in one game… and I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to use macros.
Apart from the Enchant Weapon autocast node & the idols that cast Maelstrom every 3 seconds.
Yup. Your only other option is to hold down the button Anomaly is mapped to which is basically what Numlock does.
I believe the new Symbols of Hope also autocasts the symbols, so you only have to tap it if you want to consume them. That’s in the same vein of QoL improvements coming to 1.2 as well.
That is not an autocast, the whole skills changed fundamentally.
You basically accumulate charges over time and on casting the skill you get benefits based on teh charges. It always consuems all charges. The new baseline funcationality also opened up a coupel of new skills nodes in the tree and is exactly what kind of rework soem skills will probably receive in the future.
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Yeah I forgot enchant weapon.
Maelstrom is something very different through, because its not a cooldown skill and essentialyl is a skill that wants to achieve a certain nubmer of isntances to get variosu different bonuses or stack bonuses as much as possible. You can still cast Maelstrom on your own. Most builds that used these effects from the Idol, Uniques and Relics also casted Maelstrom manually and these auto triggers helped them reach more stacks.
Not if you do what I do … I also don’t need numlock.
I remapped all my skills to the # keys;
I often build my characters for the following setup, put your movement ability on key #1, put a buff or ability that you want 100% uptime on key #2, and then any ability that you may actually want to activate yourself (not always a 100% uptime ability) I put on key #3. Key #4 is a free agent …
What this allows me to do is hold down keys #1 (ring finger), and key #2 (middle finger), and then have my index finger holding or floating over key #3. Key #4 is also mapped to one of my mouse buttons.
Example; Voidknight specced into spells - key 1 = lunge, key 2 = anomaly, key 3 = devouring orb, key 4 = volatile reversal. Lunge, anomaly, and devouring orb are being held down perpetually so those skills constantly fire off on their own, with no need to think about casting them. Then i hit key 4 on my mouse whenever i need volatile reversal.
I really enjoy this setup, because over time you will naturally learn to let go of certain keys when you need to for mana, or timing, or w/e… And you can focus more on where your cursor is, avoiding attacks, and targeting enemies. Lunge naturally goes off on whoever your cursor is targeting. It works well, feels natural, and increases the speed of the action.
It’s not the num-lock method, but I haven’t had any need for that with this setup.
This also solves for having 100% uptime on anomaly.
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How so? It has a cooldown & if you’re using it for dps, surely you want to cast it on cooldown?
Maelstrom does not have a cooldown… It is a stack based skill, so fundamentally very different then Devouring Orb or Enchant Weapon.
Sorry, I meant cast time/stuff, like DO/Smite.
That sounds like it would work pretty well, except for the fact that I plan to use the new WASD movement… I tried it in PoE2 and much prefer it over click to move. This is a big part of the reason I’m posting about this now, because if you’re using your left had to move the extra unnecessary button press is a much bigger issue, and it just seemed to me the devs might be receptive to the idea.