Manifest Armor is cool and has 1 or 2 fun builds, but I think it falls short of its full potential. The stat multiplying gimmick is very cool, but I think it falls a bit flat when you end up theorycrafting item combos that are all different ways of scaling essentially the same (Shield Throw) build rather than opening up actual different builds that play differently. These are some suggestions to liven up the Manifest Armor tree with a greater diversity of build paths.
Initial observations:
- The Shield Throw/Manifest Armour build is good (both strong and fairly nice interactivity) but there is a conspicuous lack of alternative ways to build the skill
- In particular, weâre missing
- Viable builds focused around the petâs subskills
- Viable tank/retaliation builds
- Interactivity + competitive synergies with melee builds
- Some minor stuff like ignite being at all viable in any form
- The 4 core stat multiplier nodes are super strong and set up a lot of cool interactions. The 4/5 points on the weapon path are also pretty obligatory due to the large damage multiplier and the number of important stats that can only be found on a weapon.
- That is to say, there are 20-21 amazing no-brainer points to invest in like the first 6 nodes. Itâs almost like you need an exalt +skill level helmet before you can even think about the rest of the tree.
- Itâs partly redemed since the itemisation interaction works out to be super interesting despite the lack of flex in the tree.
- But it means that nodes deeper in the tree need to be much stronger and more point-efficient to be compelling.
- Imo it might be good to make the Titan Mace (weapon) node more accessible since itâs hard to imagine being willing to skip it. eg. reduce the prereq to 1 or 2 points in the prior node.
- It might also be good to lower the point cap on some/all of the 4 big stat multiplier nodes, to encourage exploring the rest of the tree.
- Whirlwind Strike and the Dash boots Charge are just super clunky. Theyâre often even worse than no skill at all by causing the MA to run away from targets it could be hitting. Besides just buffing the skills, there needs to be a little thought put into how to make motion skills play nicely with a dumb minion.
- Itâs in the nature of MA that new uniques will open up lots of cool stuff, potentially increasing build diversity and node viability without any changes to the tree. However imo the gap between Shield Throw and any other way to spec MA exceeds the reasonable limits on what itemisation can/should do.
Letâs run the numbers on just how much of a gap we need to cross:
- Manifest Armour attack rate: (MA base numbers from LETools, may be a little inaccuracy depending on the interpretation of â20% less attack speedâ - does it apply to base AS or just IAS?)
- With Wing Guards: 3.2/s
- Exalt AS weapon: ~2.5/s
- Exalt AS glove: ~2.76/s
- Combine everything (including a legendary wing guards): ~~5.8/s
- Shield Throw interaction
- 2.4 AS â 3.8 throws/s â 11.4 procs/s with ricochets (reasonably achievable)
- 3.4 AS â 5.4 throws/s â 16.2 procs/s with ricochets (requires some exalts and/or buff stacking)
- 5.55 AS â ~8.8 throws/s â ~26.5 procs/s with ricochets (meme chase build, at or close to maximum AS attainable)
- Forgebreath rate
- Base: 0.33/s
- With BiS CDR helm: 0.6/s
- With helm + Anomaly CDR aura: 0.7/s
- Whirlwind rate
- Base: 0.1/s
- With helm: 0.18/s
- With helm + Anomaly: 0.21/s
All that is to say:
- Both the baseline capability and scaling potential of the Shield Throw interaction dwarf all other DPS sources.
- This is semi-reasonable, since you dedicate an extra skill tree + your characterâs actions to get there.
- On the other hand, altho MA scales with the same items as you, in practice achieving worthwhile MA DPS tends to require choices that significantly reduce your own. At that point youâre basically obliged to run Shield Throw to win it back. The multiplier is just so much bigger.
- Basic attacks/itemising melee AS are not awful, theyâd only need a moderate boost to be pretty good. It would be neat for a basic attack spec to be competitive wtih Shield Throw for overall DPS, but that needs to be balanced by requiring some interaction or very involved itemisation from the player.
- The subskills would need significant buffs to deal a relevant damage share relative to basic attacks, let alone the titanic Shield Throw output.
- Forgebreath in particular is really underwhelming due to the high point investment.
Changes suggestion: (not an exhaustive plan to perfect MA, just the ideas Iâve had that I thought were good)
-
Dash Boots:
- Move to the current position of Lethargy
- Replace Lethargy with a new node in the current position of Dash Boots. Slowing attackers is just not useful imo.
âImpetus: 50/100% chance to reset Dash Boots cooldown when the Manifested Armor kills an enemyâ (alternative: Smaller chance to reset Dash Boots CD when player hits with an attack. The key thing is that the dash should be getting used a lot when MA is rushing from enemy to enemy in a target-rich environment) - Remove the area damage component of Dash Boots (making it a more Lunge-like dash)
- Rationale: Dash Boots would need to be quite strong to be worth the points since the pet gets very good mobility from multiplied boots. But in practice itâs quite weak since the minion wonât save the CD for the most useful moment. Providing a way to bypass the CD solves that issue, in exchange for giving up the AoE damage which isnât super useful in practice.
-
Warstomp:
- Add â100% to taunt when using Whirlwind or Forgebreath.â
- Rationale: For something like a taunt that you may want to account for in your tactics, per second random procs are awkward and unsatisfying due to their inconsistent interval. This change adds a predictablee pattern and potentially increases the value of these weaker subskill buildpaths. In tandem with the suggested Whirlwind changes, melee builds will be able to access the taunt most frequently, which seems fair and adds some build differentiation.
- Also, taunt should probably be a 1 point wonder since itâs generally useless in the hardest combats with bosses.
-
Whirlwind
- Each melee attack used by you or the Manifested Armor advances Whirlwind Strikeâs cooldown by 0.3s. (triggered attacks do not count)
- Make the movement component more like Warpath, so the MA can stop at/orbit the target itâs currently hitting rather than rushing through targets and reducing its DPS relative to not using it at all.
- Rationale: Whirlwind weak; MA autoattacks too weak relative to Shield Throw triggers; player melee has little synergy/interactivity with MA. This is an attempt to fix/improve all these things in one go.
- Whirlwind might need some buffs on top of this, not sure - itâs quite hard to test as it stands right now.
-
Forgebreath nodes
- Forge Fire to to: âForgebreath causes existing bleed and ignite stacks on affected targets to deal their damage immediately. +100% Forge Breath CD.â (or just double in speed would be okay too)
- Rationale: 100% ignite chance on a 4.5s CD is nothing. And the idea of increasing the CD is unappealing for a DPS spell - even if it you didnât lose DPS overall, less frequent casts would make it awkward while clearing. On the other hand a strong utility effect could justify a CD increase.
- Add 100% ignite chance per point to Bellow. (retaining existing benefits)
- Rationale: This node has to be really strong to be worth 5 points in such a deep part of MAâs point-starved tree.
-
Thornmail
- Change to: âOn hitting at least one enemy with an attack (including basic & triggered attacks), Manifested Armor is damaged according to its own damage reflection stats. This damage can trigger Fire Nova.â (maybe just the flat reflection, bringing in % reflect probably works out to be quite messy)
- Rationale: You already have an interesting + strong source of Damage Reflect from the chestpiece stat multiplier, you donât need 2 further nodes dedicated to obtaining it. Rather whatâs really lacking is a way to use this stat + make it a workable basis for a build rather than a very niche gimmick. This specific approach has several perks:
- Complicated build dilemma with diverse scaling parameters - you need reflect, you need to be able to survive the self-damage, you want spell scaling for Fire Nova. It makes currently neglected the tank nodes interesting & itâs not free power for the more attack dmg focused builds that are already good.
- The mechanic naturally has lesser synergy with Shield Throw without the need to strictly exclude it, since attacking too fast would just overwhelm the MAâs ability to heal the self-damage.
- The resulting spec still retains significant funciton as a reflect build and will excel the most when a reflect build should, when itâs getting hit a lot/very hard.
- There may be some tuning required to the triggered Fire Nova to balance this spec + to make sure there is a benefit to investing in reflect stats (can you trigger multiple Fire Novas from a hit that deals >200 damage? Maybe the nova damage and area should scale if the hit is large enough? Self-damage should probably count towards Fire Nova at reduced rate, so that achieving 1 nova per attack requires some investment)
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Misc
- US and UK spellings of âarmo|u|râ are used interchangeably throughout the game. You gotta commit, people.
- <Facetious demand that all unique affixes & procs are implemented for MA.>
- If MA could use procs, someone might actually use Alluvion. In a build. Imagine that.
- I can imagine this or something like it is already on a to-do list, but it would be really great if the character panel had a way to show our minionsâ detailed stats, so that itâs possible to see which affixes are working without extensive testing.
- It would be interesting to have some totally new nodes focusing on MA as more of an assistant rather than a damage-dealing independent unit. For example allowing the player to trigger the Fire Nova on receiving damage while MA is alive (using MAâs offensive stats or their own?) Or a new subskill related to healing/sacrificing to save the player.
- Hopefully the buffs/aura skills can also be developed in ways that produce interesting interactions and affect how you think about your pets. This is some very valuable work since it can do a lot of good for multiplayer too. Whether itâs with players or minions, I hope support skills can introduce some distinctive gameplay and not just be stat inflaters.
). Like if you also consume at least 5 forged weapons you get buffed and also get a bigger, shinier and just more bad-ass version of your weapon.