Continued…
Q: I just rolled a melee Primalist and none of the melee skills felt any good besides swipe. Any reason why Tempest does not use increased attack speed?
A: Yes, definitely. I’m using Tempest Strike right now. Tempest Strike has a lot of proc’d abilities when you hit and if you’re attacking really fast with something that has a lot of proc abilities that are based on hit triggers – say you’re using a weapon with really high attack speed, you’ve got a one-handed sword with increased attack speed and you’ve cranked your attack speed on all your items to the max and all that sort of stuff – these proc’d abilities would be coming out at an incredible rate and the game performance would tank. That was the original reason why we capped the attack speed bonus on Tempest Strike and added it to crit instead because crit works with those abilities as well and it’s an attempt to also keep the skill feeling mechanically unique and distinct from the others. It’s trying to give it that space of like okay there can be a big hit with them and I think it has potential right now. It’s definitely not perfect and especially with an ability like this and all those proc’d abilities the performance will get a lot better with the optimization improvements we’ve been talking about.
Timestamp: 1:00:46-1:02:08
Q: Do you planning on adding more unique items?
A: Tons, always more unique items. Yes, unique items take a little while to build and test and all that sort of stuff. Every time we make one they get a little bit more complicated it seems but yeah, we do plan to add more uniques. Every patch they come, there’s more coming this patch.
Timestamp: 1:02:10-1:02:30
Q: Are potions in a finished state or are you thinking about adding more stuff to it?
A: I think potions are actually in a fairly good state. There are certain things that aren’t fantastic with it, but for the most part I think they’re actually pretty good. We will continue to keep an eye on them if it becomes a problem. We want to avoid having a potion be an equipable slot. Usually when we have potion affixes or effects it goes on your belt slot because your belt holds your potions and there’s that thematic link there. We like putting different potion effects in your belt slot.
Timestamp: 1:02:48-1:03:36
Q: Any plans for joke weapons like the totally normal shield from Grim Dawn?
A: Yeah, I really like things like that. The Alchemist’s Ladle was a bit of a joke originally. I can see there being nods to things like that, like the Doublet of Onos Tull – that’s a bit of a joke.
Timestamp: 1:04:00-1:04:45
Q: How happy are you with the default proc rate of Tempest Strike? It always felt really RNG with proc rates and not consistent when you want it to happen in group battles, especially early.
A: Yeah, I’d say Tempest Strike is something we’re going to continue to look at. It’s definitely not in a finished state right now. I really like the skill and I’m actually having a ton of fun playing with it right now. However, I know it’s not everyone’s favourite and it’s still something that we’re going to keep an eye on. There’ll be some changes to it, I think. I think the proc rate becoming more consistent would be a very positive change.
Timestamp: 1:04:52-1:05:40
Q: Do you guys have plans to expand each class and Masteries skills pool?
A: Yes. We’ve got tons of plans for everything. If we could clone ourselves and have a second set of people working on all sorts of things simultaneously we would. Looking at the Skills & Specializations window you can get a good idea of how many skills are going to exist at launch from how full this is. We do plan the UI with things like that in mind – there’s lots of skills we’d like to add for all classes – and we want room to expand that post launch as well.
Timestamp: 1:05:46-1:06:42