Currently my sorcerer could cleanse a whole map without even seing the ennemy, what the fun is there ? I try not to use it because it removes the fun.
I think that it should be nerfed, either damage wise, or should last less or with a cooldown or no homing outside the screen.
Compared to Ice barrage the black hole spell is completely useless, huge cooldown and does not even do as much damage as ice barrage.
It is a pretty powerful skill if specād/geared for it but where are you testing this?
Normal campaign, Monolith runs (empowered?) or Arena?
Edit: Black Hole is one of those old skills that probably needs a rework so its perhaps not a good comparisonā¦ My Spellblade can clear a screen with Flame Reaveā¦ Static Orb can clear a screen tooā¦ I dont think ice barrage is alone in its āpowerfulnessā
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I think Black Hole is supposed to be more of a control skill rather than a DPS skill.
My sorcerer is in Monolith lvl75 maps, currently heās lvl71. I can even kill the boss from afar just by spamming ice barrage over and over. My main skill is glacier, which deals much more damage but in comparison you need to close up to your target and it kills only the ones in front of you. Problem with Ice barrage is that it even kills things outside your screen.
EDIT: yes flame reave is also overpowered, doing over 20k damage very easily on hit. But at least you have to fight closer to the ennemies and its AoE stays in the screen 
maybe, but its cooldown is too big, or its controlling aspect too bad, sorry but glacier freezes and stuns much more easily than Black Hole, cost less and on top of that kill things 
I think that you need to hold off on your overpowered opinion until you get to the higher levelsā¦
From my experience playing various builds, there are some that mature earlier and do a lot of damage in the mid levels 50-70 and then start struggling (or just not being as effective) in end-gameā¦ Others tend to mature later as your gear improves etcā¦ For example, my Spellblade is now on level 96, running empowered monoliths and very often I find myself having to run two waves of Flame Reave to clear rares (or having to tap them again with firebrand to finish them off)ā¦ and thats with it critting 500k on the dummyā¦
So I think its relativeā¦ and I just think your char is in the sweet spot at the moment with your passives/skill/gear matching vs the levels you are doingā¦ If its still clearing screens in empowered lvl 100 monoliths with 100 corruption then perhaps it is too overpoweredā¦
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I was not talking about end game for sure, but itās not really the damage that annoys me, itās the āAoEā which is too big. Like I said my glacier deals much more damage but I find it just fine, because it only kills things in front of me not 1,5 screens away.
But maybe my 1st post does not insist enouhg on that aspect! My bad!
Okā¦ so you are more concerned about the range of the skill (and re-reading it, clearing off-screen) than the damage specificallyā¦
That might be something validā¦ there are lots of skills that tend to do this (i.e. kill offscreen) - Rogue marksman especially and sometimes lightning chains in other builds to mention only twoā¦ Not sure if I have ever thought that this was āannoyingā thoā¦ I have always thought it was pretty cool to be powerful enough to be clearing screens as you move into themā¦ but thats just meā¦ and obviously it doesnt last for long as the levels get harderā¦
I think dealing with this - if its a concern for the devs eventually - might be difficult as its great to have that ability for ranged charactersā¦ On the flipside of this, its pretty much the exact same problem with Embermages and their off screen attacks being OP right now - just in reverseā¦
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Try Monolith Corruption 200-300+ first before yelling āIMBAAAA!1!!11!ā, then weāll talk more.
By the way, there are a whole bunch of abilities that you can use to kill enemies off screen.
ā Examples are Multishot, Devouring Orb, Fireball, Volcanic Orb, Flurry, Puncture, Detonating Arrow, Marrow Shards, Javelin and Ballistaā¦ and these are only the ones I can think of at the moment.
Lightning Blast (esp w/Chains)
Ok so thatās just fine that some skills are way better than others because you play at very high difficulty because you are obviously a very good player and so no balancing should be made
EDIT : most of the skills you are talking about require you to stay where you are and spam them which costs mana, at the exception of ballistas, but ballistas can die. Where Ice barrage last for a long amount of time and even follow you where you goā¦ and it has an āhomingā functionā¦
I played Ice Barrage once and I didnāt like its coverage of mobs behind me. If monsters get to me from behind Ice Barrage suckedā¦ maybe that was changed in one of those patches.
well it did not change and yes thatās the only weak point
and it is a very weak point in arena maps
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When using it in arenas, I put myself on a side or dead end, generally works well, just have to finish the mobs that pop on me with glacier for instance
You also turn it around as you need it right now, isnāt that boring never to respond to arguments of others?
ā Even if I repeat myself, try to play Corruption 300 with Ice Barrage and compare the result with any TOP builds. If you still like to weaken Ice Barrage after that, weāll talk more.
Why?
ā Because I like Ice Barrage very much, but the combination of Mage and Ice Barrage canāt keep up with my stronger avatars in all variants Iāve tested so far. Not in terms of damage and not in terms of survival chance either.
Yes, if you play in an area where you shoot away the enemies fast enough (even off screen), Ice Barrage is hard to beat in terms of speed and absolutely save. If you get into an area where you canāt do that so easily with too many enemies, it just gets very tough [my Ice Barrages have between 50K and 80K dps depending on the setup].
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You did not really argumented or answered to my own arguments. Others players argumented like Vapourfire or Garfunkel and they had strong and valid points that make me reconsider my opinion. But you just shown an aggressive tone and made the assumption that I was not playing in corruption 300 areas, you donāt even know me.
I was just giving my feedbackā¦ but you just seem to take it personally.
Well I was not really asking for your approbation, even if you feel so superior to me
I understand what you are writing.
What I donāt understand is how you can consider an ability āoverpoweredā without having tested it in the endgame [I would suggest Corruption 200+ here, since you can only get the last items from then on].
You can call it whatever you want, elite, superior and whatnot, if an ability is at most mediocre at the end it is not overpowered.
I donāt know how to make it more understandable, sorry.
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I take your point, it was maybe a little bit too early to judge of a skill balancing at lvl71. My bad was to compare to other skills or worst other classes that struggle in the same levels and areas but that may be just my build or my items. Anyway, I understand how hard it is to balance things in such a game, but like I said it was just my feedback and feeling after playing nearly 500 hours on the game. It might be useful to devs to get feedback from people like me as well, not only the top gamers
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Of course, everyone is allowed to give feedback at any time, no one says anything against that.
However, one could then at least in the thread headline a little shorter step and not immediately a maxime slam (OP, IMBA, Overpowered, EZ and the like).
A little humility has never hurt anyone.
Look, basically you could also go and compare on a character level 10 or so the skills available until then and directly mean: the one skill is currently almost twice as powerful in the game as the other! ā nerf it!
Of course, that was exaggerated and very childish. Nobody would want that, I hope. This is just an analogy for clarification.
Objectively, thereās just Corruption 200+ to get all items, for some still Arena 1000+ to represent a certain immortality and for others starts - admittedly - the desired procedure at empowered monoliths in general. The latter is also quite understandable. Act 9+ would still come to mind, if you want to believe some threads.
Personally, after all my attempts with Ice Barrage, I just couldnāt understand the āOverpoweredā in the title, let alone leave it like that. Must be a personal weakness of mine.
ā Iāll shut up for now, you can give me some more sugar if necessary.