Erasing Strike vs. Void Cleave Node imbalances

So I tinkered around with builds using Erasing Strike or Void Cleave as a “main damage skill”.
And I two things were reallying annoying me. There is an imbalance of very similar nodes between those two very similar skills.

Both skills have a base cooldown and a mana cost, but ES has a higher base cooldown and mana cost with the same damage effectiveness and the possibilty to reduce the cooldown to a lower amount than VC with the skill spec tree (at the price of massive mana cost).
Also the damage projection of these two skills is very similar and I think it is totally warranted to compare them directly.

Here are the nodes that are imbalanced IMO:

1. Void Shred Nodes

(ES) “Mark Of The End” 25% void shred/point 0/4
vs.
(VC) “Fraying Strikes”, which gives 1 stack/point 0/5

Why on earth does ES only got 25%/point. ES has the potential to get a lower cooldown compared to VC, even though its base cooldown is higher and there are some other crazy nodes that make it hit a lot of times, but all of that comes with massive mana cost.

When I want to utilize ES as a main spammable damage skill you would expect resistance shred to be one of the most desireable things you want to have, but at a staggering 25%/point I just can’t justify getting it.

Even when speccing into all the possible CDR nodes in ES, which gives it 1,369 seconds cooldown, you only could stack 2 rotations of void resistance shred, so thats 2 stacks with 4/4 points investment.

Void Cleave can sustain like 3-4x as much void resistance shred stacks with roughly the same investment (all the cdr and void shred nodes)

Both skills have similar damage projections baseline and for me there is no reason why ES is inferior in this regard.

The only reason and situation where I can see use for the void resistance shred node on ES would be some Time Loop build, but even that is probably not optimal and pretty niche already anyway.

2. Crit Multiplier Nodes

(ES) “Certain Erasure” 25% crit multi/point 0/2
vs.
(VC) “Champion of the Void” 50% crit multi + +1 mana on crit 0/4

Both of the comparison nodes have similar cost of entry (skill points you need to invest until you reach them) and none of them is gated by weaker travel nodes or behind any other nodes that would justify this imbalance.

I totally understand that not every skill should have everything and that some skills excel at certain things, but if there is a nodes in the skill spec tree, at least make it so that there is a reason to use it.
Both of these nodes are not very desireable in ES, even when looking at them in a vacuum, but they look even more useless when comparing them against those insanely strong VC nodes.

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As far as the void shred node goes, I do agree with you that it’s not enough to really justify it, but one thing that I think sets it apart from Void Cleave is that the shred should be working for both the initial hit and for void rifts (haven’t tested this, but the wording suggests such and the alt text links to void rift). Theoretically, erasing a bunch of trash enemies next to a tanky one would apply a lot of shred stacks to it. I still don’t think this is enough to justify only 25% shred, but at least it’s some advantage over Void Cleave.

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This topic is as old as gaming. X is stronger then Y because of reason Z. Balancing LE and the skills and nodes will be a nightmare and will most likely never happen for real because the foundation is pretty flawed from my point of view.

There will always be a best way to skill and best skills to use on top of best equipment to use. It’s sad but with a class based system there are always downsides like in your example @Heavy . I’ll make up my mind about it if it is requested or heaviely tested in the future.

I never claimed that I want perfect balance.

I just want two very comparable skills that have similar “choices” within their skill spec tree to feel fair and worthwhile.

But what is that reason Z?

If the devs or someone have some reasonable answer I would be happy.

I understand that skill spec trees are complex and hard to balance.
And it’s impossible to look at specific nodes in a vaccum and compare them.

But having two skills that are so similar in application have so dramatic differences in similar nodes doesn’t make sense.

This is also not about “the best way” to spec a specific skill.
I simply want choices within the skill spec tree to be worthwhile and right now these two nodes are not worthwhile in ES.

I actually disagree.

I did not find that VC and ES have similar damage outputs. perhaps maybe if you just look at them on paper and not in a full build sure, but ES can be empowered by VC, and VC can not be empowered nearly to the same degree by ES.

I tried to make a “pure VC” where I get big meaty VC hits, and it was strictly inferior to ES as a “Big ass bonk” button. Even if you tried to turn it into a spammy style skill, it feels less rewarding then even building Rive as you main skill.

but then if you look at VC tree, it makes total sense. A majority of VC tree is dedicated to support, or buffing skills after its use. the left fire branch is all about buffing other fire attacks or buffing minions, the right side stacks void/armor shred and gives damage/stacks of ailments for your next attack. the bottom right procs an entirely unique skill which you build differently, and the bottom left is the most useful for pure VC as a damage skill, but is still dropping short duration ailments like crit vuln which you can hardly take advantage of even if you stack VC cooldown.

it feels like VC was designed as a skill used to buff while also being able to fit into rotations as a medium damage. You can do Warpath(Warblade) → VC → ES and buff them in that combo manner, or you can drop a VC for decent damage that then crit vulns and buffs your next juiced forge strike etc.

This feels like one of those cases where ES could shred a similar amount to VC but then I would ask the question, what does VC do better then ES? ES has more damage potential, more AoE potential, and can also be used as a shred tool?

I think VC is fantastically designed because it offers so much utility while not strictly sacrificing damage. And I think it would lose a lot of that identity if we slapped utility into ES.

I would accept ES getting more utility if VC was offered more damage or more ways to be the end tool in a damage rotation.

It is not. If you really want VC to be your main dmg skill it deals waaaaay more dmg then ES, while also costing a fraction of its mana (to make ES your main damage skill, you need to lower the cooldown, which comes at a very high mana cost baseline already and if you want to make the cooldown even lower with Hastened Catalysm it forces you into a Time and Faith 0-mana spammer to constantly regain that mana), allowing you to focus on other things without the need to invest heavily into mana generation.

I mean to this day VC has the most broken node ever (together with warpath): more damage per stack of timerot, that nodes gives a 300% more damage for 5 points (another 5 points for traveling to the node)

ES has the superior damage projection for sure, so it might feel better as a main damage skill.

I totally agree that VC is a very interesting skill tree and its designed very well.

But ES is very oudated and the recent overhaul only touched one half of the tree a little bit, which was IMO not a strict improvement. I am fine with how VC is currently, but ES lacks interesting options, there are very few ways to build ES and if you want to build it as a main damge skill there is very little room for choice.

As I mentioned in my OP, I understand that not every skill should do everything or should excel at everything.
But VC offers so many unique support and buffing functionality, that giving ES better shred capabilities would not make VC feel worse in anyway.
Especially because ES will be rarely used as a “supportive” skill in a build, due to its high cooldown and high mana cost. Just slapping ES into a build for some shred would not be something people would do.

How much damage are you getting from your VC? Current top end for ES is around 2.5 million on dummy.

I was not talking about per hit damage, but as a main dmg skill for sustained damage.

I just skimmed over the build planner for the build you posted and as expected its a setup where you dedicate literally all other skill slots into boosting ES.

Last time, when VC was relatively new to the game and I dedicated some time into pushing it as a main dmg skill I think I got around 1-2 milion damage hits maybe, can’t remember correctly, but that was consitent with every VC and you could do that while keeping it in cooldown without any crazy rotation.
On this build you posted, you will not do ES on cooldown, because there are so many other cogs that need to line up.

And in my testing with VC I didn’t even bother to “min-max” that with using akward skills like Sigils Of Hope, since I refuse to use that skill just for the sake of how objectively good that is.

I just want to empasize: I don’t think ES is bad, in fact I love the skill.
But I just feel that with how few damage opportunities it has in the skill spec tree its very boring and linear.

Of course there are some crazy ways to build ES with lasers or time loop, which are pretty niche, but if you want to go for a regular melee hit based ES, there are not alot of options and especially with Hastened Catalysm, which is a node that I absolutely love to make ES a spammable skill, the opprotunity cost for that is so massive that its not even realyl worth it and there are no other nodes that really support a more spammy ES playstyle, hence why I critize two of the ndoes which I thin kare objectively inferior to a very compareable skill.

I just don’t want this thread to de-rail into a “what is better” debate, becuase both skills are excellent, VC just is way better designed and more “modern”, like a lot of the rogue skills, that have so many different branches.

A lot of the older skills in LE fall into the same scheme, were they have 1, maybe 2 branches that everybody takes anyway and then there might be a few little deviations.
I just think that the “Erasing Strike overhaul”, that happened with the last Sentinel/VK patch overhaul was not really successful. Still there are lots of outdated nodes, that are not worthwhile.

I think we can agree on that, I mostly disagree with the idea that to buff ES would be to buff its shred options, I think if anything they should buff what makes ES well… ES. it should be a damage skill, be it through lasers, echos, or the typical rotation into big ES build.

Just remove the shred options on it and give it nodes that actually make sense for its design. That branch/area sucks because it buffs void rifts which only work on kill, and is stun based. Remove the shred, and make that node a chance to proc rifts on hit on uniques/rares with rift damage behind it and make the stun node into something else.

I think for the most part most of ES nodes are fairly good but potentially blocked by bad nodes. For example, there is a massive 25% more melee damage to slowed enemies node locked behind the echo node, as is the no cooldown node. And that echo node is FAR too expensive and probably a major roadblock in why ES is played almost exclusively as a mega bonk. For comparison, removing the cooldown of forge strike require you pay an extra 10 mana for each cast which is around a 33% increase in mana cost, for you to remove the cooldown of ES you need to eat a 200% increase in mana cost going from 30 to 90. You get an echo sure that is an upside, but I think that echo should at most cost you 30, which is the default cost of ability…

ES is designed as a “Spender” for VK, but tbh if you cut the echo node in cost the skill would maybe see play as more then the “Big bonk” style.

Sure, so 2.5 mil over about 4 seconds of setup is 625k dps. That’s the sustained damage (obviously a bit lower because not every hit will be 2.5 mil, but still well into the hundreds of thousands). What’s the sustained damage on Void Cleave?

In the vid, Dread is using it on CD

Of course, but you also made a definitive statement that VC did better damage than ES, so if we’re going to fairly compare the two then we need to verify that statement. It doesn’t negate your other points, but when you say

in a conversation about imbalances between the two skills, then it becomes something that we need to talk about if we really want to get to the truth of the matter.

The maximum damage can only be achieved with consistent 12 stacks of time rot, which he is not doing all the time. (inconsitent without 2 charges of void cleave)

I rarely ever do this, but because its you I did it anyway (at least partially).
I slammed together my old VC build that I played ages ago.

This is not even remotely min-maxed, no legendaries, some useless prefixes, no +to void cleave relics (I think I trashed mine xD) and suboptiomal blessings etc.

But here is some dummy madness for you.

(For everybody that doesn’t want to watch the video, the damage from VC, excluding the very first one, because the setup was not complete yet was ranging from 1,3 million to 3,8 million)

Obviously this is a pure dummy showcase and not necessarily indicative of a real combat situation, but with so many parts of the build literally just being slapped together in 5 minutes and quickly leveled all skills to 20 I think its enough for a quick showcase I guess.

This can be easily made into even bigger numbers or maybe even make it less reliant on constantly attacking with vengeance to keep time rot up.

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Yep definitely great damage. I think it should be pointed out that since it’s only dummy damage and you’re getting some of your time rot from vengeance that there might be issues maintaining Time Rot for this build as well, but still, it’s clear that they are at least comparable, and this does make me want to test it out myself…

Edit: I’m also wondering how much Eternal Eclipse is carrying that damage. It would be possible to setup ES in a similar way. Either way, good work and appreciate you showcasing the damage.

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As I already mentioned :smiley:

This is not even close to a finished build. It’s literally items from my Stash slapped together.

With 2 more points in VC and a void shred blessing the dmg would go beyond 5 million for sure.
Also I don’t have any legendary and getting 1 LP Eternal Eclipse is super easy, I actually have a couple of 1LP ones, but since I rarely use sword I barely have any 2H exalted swords for crafting.

Also as I mentioned with other idols I could get way more time rot uptime and application relying less on Vengeance.

My EE is 80-90% rolled on the flat damage rolls, so that close to 500 flat damage every single VC.

ES unfortunately can only benefits from the Void Skill part of EE, so you would definitely want to use a Fire Melee Skill inconcuntion, that would still be good dps, but not big nukes with ES from EE.

Apathy’s Maw or any good exalted Eber Head or Terror Mace are way better.

EDIT: another really important thing to mention is, that you lose 100% more dmg on ES if the target has 11 instead of 12 stacks of time rot.
While for VC having 10 or 11 stacks instead of 12 only is 25 or 50% less damage.

And not having 12 stacks of time rot consistently on the target was the case, even for stationary boss fights for the ES Build you showcased earlier.

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