Javelin has 2 nodes “Perfect Setup” and “Sacred Forge” targeted at a combo with either Judgement or Forge Strike. Both of these nodes are strictly based on alternating casts of either skill.
This works fine for the Paladin spec since both Holy Trail Javelin and aura Judgement both have cooldowns and casting them one after the other is no problem.
Trying to use these benefits with Forge Strike is a very different case, because Forge Strike does not have any decent spec around low-frequency casting. The flat mana cost reduction on Perfect Setup also clearly supports a spamming playstyle.
So you need to take the 0 cooldown Forge Strike node and alternate the skills at a precise match to the (high) attack speed. In short, it’s not viable to do this manually. I wrote a quick Autohotkey script to automate the inputs and the combo works great, it seems to be a fairly strong build. But a major spec that doesn’t work without a macro seems unfortunate.
I’d really like to see this fixed to support a more human-friendly play pattern and more generally to make genuine switch-hitting playstyles viable. For instance:
Let Sacred Forge and/or Perfect Setup bank uses as stacks - if current input pattern is spam ABABABAB, this would be a much more reasonable AAAABBBB.
Replace Perfect Setup with a way to actually generate mana with Javelin, while retaining the connection with switch-hitting. Maybe something like “+X mana if you used Forge Strike/Judgement recently”. Or even better, “Grant 20% of the cost of the last melee attack you used in 4 seconds”
(also fix/nerf/delete Volatile Reversal so there is some more purpose to other ways of generating mana, )
This would work particularly nicely if Forge Strike had a “big hit” pattern that spends a lot of mana in one go, like Judgement and Erasing Strike already have. (AAAAB) Eg. a node behind Eagle Strike that bombards extra strikes on random targets for 25 mana each. and/or make Anvil Blow’s stun chance bonus a multiplier in exchange for +X mana cost, etc.
Good Catch, but this doesn’t only affect Javelin with Forge Strike.
Shift → Velocity, Head Trauma, Braskula’s Hesitation etc.
many Dark Quiver mechanics
I only mentioned two, there are more of these strange mechanics.
I would suggest that instead of generating a bonus for an attack/spell you have at least one [two, three?] seconds of something depending on your attack/spell speed.
→ A single attack is simply too little in this game.
I look at it the other way - rather than working around the fact that low frequency attacks are bad, it would be better to resolve the root issue and make them more useful. As you observe there’s a great many mechanics designed with them in mind, so the current situation of “spam or don’t bother” is clearly not as originally intended.
Particularly, the mana economy needs a serious pass IMO. Right now it’s way too common for high-cost skills to end up being spammed, and also for naturally spammy skills to match DPS of far more expensive ones. These things need to be toned down a bit or slapped with some opportunity costs to make room for a more significant role for the low frequency, hard hitting archetype.
Noooooooo, i literally made a build yesterday to start with at the new update which is Javelin Sacred Forge and Forge Strike. Can anybody else confirm it isnt worth my time?
I wont go judge since iam forge guard so judge is sub optimal and i like Forge Strike more.
Well, my personal conclusion was that you can’t properly use a 0 cooldown Forge Strike/Jav build with human inputs alone. However this Autohotkey script worked well. I did find you need to tune the timings depending on your attack speed which is a little awkward.
#NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
; #Warn ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.
#IfWinActive, Last Epoch
$r:: ; Jav on R, Forge Strike on W, hold R to autofire.
While GetKeyState("r","P")
{
Send, r
Sleep, 350
Send, w
Sleep, 350
}
Return
I don’t think singleplayer Early Access is the time to worry about stuff like that. The point of writing a 6-line macro that can play the mechanic 200% better than a human is to demonstrate how clunky it is. I want them to replace stuff like this with things that play smoothly without assistance.
I understand your approach and the limits of its impact on anyone else, but its still treading a very fine line which could end up getting your account revoked… and in my experience it tends to get devs backs up if you try use third party tools that effectively take advantage of problems in the game to illustrate the issue.
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