Improving the FEAR status effect and all related skills

[GNTH]

Fear, as a status effect, is currently weaker than status effects that can be applied continuously. Especially in longer encounters and for melee builds.

But most importantly, fear nodes on specialization trees or fear chance on idols are never worth picking over other options.

Recommendation for fear in general: Feared enemies cannot dodge

Fear on “Warcry”: Duration of “Frightful presence” increased to 3 seconds. “Apprehend” makes enemies run towards you when they are feared.

Fear on “Summon Raptor”: “Primal Rage” gives the raptor 50% increased movement speed for 0.5 seconds upon ability use.

Fear on “Transplant”: “Squeamish” now also applies 2 stacks of slow to feared enemies. “Thanatophobia” has 12% increased fear duration per body created on arrival.

Fear on “Summon Volatile Zombie”: “Army of Nightmares” now adds +120% area of effect and + 6 seconds of cooldown at 3 points to zombie explosions, but zombies deal up to 90% less damage based on distance.
(Note: This reinforces the use of zombies as a utility skill, in line with most of this part of the tree (stun + mark for death))
“Corpse Bane” and “Army of Nightmares” are now directly attached to “Pull of the Grave”.
“Horrific Vessels” takes the place of “Rite of the Grave”.
“Rite of the Grave” is now connected to “Grave Attunement”.

Fear on “Summon Bone Golem”: Cooldown of fear reduced to 3 seconds for “Spectral Golem”. New node linked to “Spectral Golem” that increases the fear radius and the cooldown by 50% per point.

"Fear on “Aura of Decay”: “Aura of Terror” now costs 2 points at 50% fear chance each, and also activates when you deactivate the aura. They share a 6 second cooldown.

Fear on Acolyte idols: In addition to fear chance on hit, the affix also grants the same fear chance each second against nearby enemies.
(This allows the affix for damage over time builds)

All sources of fear that aren’t mentioned are actually powerful as they are!

Share your experience! Do you ever specialize these skills for fear? How often do you choose other control effects such as knockback or freeze?

[vapourfire]

Your suggestions seem fine in general, I personally however have hated the Fear concept in almost all arpg games…

I dont want command and control that makes the mobs I want to kill run away randomnly… It makes it frustating when you want to actually kill them but the buggers have run three screens away… even in instances where you are a squishy and need some breathing room its less than ideal… I especially dislike fear because its effect is also almost always reduced for Bosses…

I always prefer other mechanics like Stun/Freeze/Slow/Interrupt/Knockback instead of fear.

The only time I have enjoyed Fear as a mechanic is when it comes with a secondary effect like your “cannot dodge” idea… Fumble attacks, unable to attack with nukes, confusion (attacks other mobs) Interrupt attacks etc…

Fear on its own is always a bit of “nevermind” mechanic for me.

[Llama8]

I don’t now, they all sound very powerful. The other CC effects (freeze/stun) have downsides in that applying them is usually difficult (calculation based on either current or max hp) while fear is always applied (unless it’s a % chance to fear). I know fear is only supposed to be able to be applied once to any given mob, which makes it pointless, IMO, if you aren’t able to specifically control it’s application (for boss fights).

Though I liked these ideas:

@GNTH

Recommendation for fear in general: Feared enemies cannot dodge

Fear on “Warcry”: Duration of “Frightful presence” increased to 3 seconds. “Apprehend” makes enemies run towards you when they are feared.

Fear on “Summon Raptor”: “Primal Rage” gives the raptor 50% increased movement speed for 0.5 seconds upon ability use.

Fear on “Transplant”: “Squeamish” now also applies 2 stacks of slow to feared enemies. “Thanatophobia” has 12% increased fear duration per body created on arrival.