One of the most controversial OP melee skills in the game is vengeance for its impressive 66% Damage reduction and 48% increased attack speed, as well as if built around for damage can hit like a truck. While all of this sounds good, it makes skills like Rive and Erasing strike harder to use because vengeance can carry any class further just due to its specalization tree.
Now reworking every skill(melee) in the game to offer comparable stats would makes them 1) way to similiar and 2) less fun since they would always be built the same way. So what i recommend is:
Remove Damage reductions from vengenace and add a different interaction or build onto the blades.
Add Passives in the base Sentinel/mage/primalist/acolyte that give generic damage reductions for hitting with a melee skill
This will do several things, skills like harvest for the acolyte that people have a hard to time building around because as necro/lich standing using melee skills is an early grave. This is the same for primalist (except for druid, mostly werebear who has a lot of defensive boost) but try running an EQ, swipe, tempest strike melee hit damage build as shaman or beastmaster and its the same tell.
I would even like to see interactions for stacking a damage reduction buff in your passive trees such as
10% Damage reduction per different melee skill used in the last 4 seconds,
10% Damage reduction if youāve blocked a melee attack last 4 seconds
10% Damage reduction if youāve been hit by a necrotic type attack last 4 seconds
10% Damage reduction if youāve dodged an attack
10% Damage reduction if youāve dropped below half health last 4 seconds
10% Damage reduction if you have 0 dodge
10% Damage reduction if you have 0 Health Regen
10% Damage reduction if your not wearing a shield
10% Damage reduction if you have at least 200 mana
I mean the possibilities are endless but i would like to see this interactions in the passive tree to build around and not on skills that make them almost mandatory in order to go far on the character.
Vengance and the new gear/affixes finally brought Sentinel to the ladder, compiting vs range and spell builds. I think thats great, people play and enjoy seninel and its finally represented on the ladder.
Boardman is right here, we need the DR for melee to be more accesible, without it, there is no point so play melee over range. Melee needs some benefit over range, due to range beeing safer and able to kite.
If melee had access to base DR for most skills (with different values), it will feel better to use other skills without feeling you are just making yourself worst.
Currently, Rive can do bigger hits than Vengance, but having no DR makes it not viable to compete with range builds.
If Rive had 40% DR and vengance 60%, it would feel nice to use one skill or the other, te get more DPS in exchange for some tankyness.
Iām 95% in agreement. The only thing I would say is, having some melee skills that are designed to be tanky is a good thing, so stripping vengeance of its inherent tankiness would remove that playstyle. However, Vengeance currently can perform just about as well on DPS as other melee skills plus still has that massive defensive advantage. What if we did all of the things that Boardman suggested, plus Vengeance had an additional (albeit smaller) damage reduction, but also a global decrease in damage output? For example, using vengeance gives a 20% DR for four seconds but also decreases Global damage by 20% for the same period?
I like it and even better if the duration is closer to 10 seconds. Imo if skills can give their own unique and longer durations buff like that builds will use more of them in combat.
Iām totally behind this. I actually donāt like to play Vengeance as a skill. I prefer Rive even knowing that Iām gimping myself it terms of damage output/damage mitigation. But I keep trying. Things like having some of Vengeanceās damage reduction removed and added to the sentinel tree would help this.
I use Reave, 40% DR and have specced 5/6 into Bolster, 30% DR, and Zealotās Technique, 10% DR. If Iām looking at this right, thats 80% DR.
I use Juggernaut stance, 15% DR and use the unique body armor, Titan Heart for another 10% DR.
My math says that 105% DR. I tested it. I run straight to the end objective in monolith 15+ and kill every mob while I just stand there. I lunge/reave and keep my 4 sigils of hope up. I move ONLY when thereās poison on the ground. I take what seems to be about 20-50 dmg but regen it back instantly.
Is this working as intended?
P.S. when I block, 70% block%, add in another 7% DR for the mod ā% reduced damage takenā
Those Damage reductions work multiplicatively not additively so when you use Vengeance(I believe you mean this not reave) with maxed out nodes you only take 66% DR not 40+36+10.
Total DR = 100% Damage Taken - 40% DR(Vengeance) = 60% Damage Taken - 30% DR(Bolster) = 42% Damage Take - 10% DR(zealot) = 37.8% Damage Taken - 15% DR(Juggar) = 32.13% Damage Taken - 10%(Titan) DR = 28.92% Damage Taken -7%(Block DR) = 26.89% Of original Damage is taken.
With all your sources you have 100 - 26.89 = 73.11% Damage Reduction Before or after (Not sure which comes first) Protections/GB Reductions.
What about a simple change to the node? (maybe iā'm over simplifying):
Bolster: You take less damage (multiplicative with other modifiers) if youāve hit an enemy with vengeance in the past 2 seconds.
-6% damage taken per point
-3% melee damage per point (just pulled 3% out of my butt).
This is the part i want changed. 10 seconds not 2 seconds. Put it in a rotations add 5 second CD to Vengeance if any DR node is taken. make it synergize with other melee skills
So to clarify, youāre suggesting that in order make the other melee skills more viable, you want the damage reduction to last longer on venganceās ābolsterā so we can apply the damage reduction then switch to another melee skill (and then back again?)
I can say what would would probably happen on my end, is that Iād just continue to play the heck out of vengeance, knowing now Iām covered for 8 more seconds.
Thats the lovely part of the game. You can do what you WANT. But right now having rotation is not an option unless you wanna die from not using vengeanceā¦
Are you hell bent on the idea of switching back and forth or would you be up for giving the other skills some of their very own damage reduction nodes instead (that last 2 seconds)?
I personally donāt want to have that much damage reduction on melee skills. Thereās only 1 or 1.5 different way to skill vengeance right now.
70% of the tree is not used because of the damage reduction being so strong. Add similar mechanics to other skills you make the rest of their trees obsolete, too. Look at lunge. Who uses something different from protections buff. At a point where attack and mobility skills become mandatory buff generators there is something wrong.
Iād rather see damage reduction for melee classes in the passive tree. Maybe trigger a protection buff when using lunge or damage mitigation for using vengeance. Make the nodes split into more damage reduction for vengeance or longer duration.
Melee builds (no matter what class) needs damage mitigation mechanics that actually work. Balance this with choices like more mitigation, less damage and vice versa. Put this into the passive tree. Sentinel already has some nice damage mitigation passives that also stack with being hit. These passives alone just donāt do it so imho they need a buff.
Single target skills need a damage advantage over aoe skills
channelled abilities that lock you in place need a damage or cc advantage over other skills. And maybe some passives that say āincreased protections while channelingā in addition to the gear affixes. It has to be worth using a channeling skill despite its huge disadvantage that leaves you stationary. Drain life has a nice build option to make it non channelled. But itās also mandatory for this skill because itās not viable to use it as a channeling skill.
Make those passive tree choices affecting general mechanics not only certain skills. E.g. hitting an ignited enemy with a melee skill grands 5% more fire resistance for 6 seconds.
What also could help would be more or more impactful debuffs on melee hit. Add passives like āhitting a chilled enemy with a melee attack weakens that enemy so it does 5/10/15% less damageā
Make skills synergize more with ailments just when they are applied independently from stack numbers. Smelters Wrath and Rive both have nodes that deal increased damage for ignite stacks applied. It feels a bit clunky because you never really know when it is the best moment to use that mechanic. Would be nice to say it increased damage not for each stack but for hitting an ignited enemy in general.
Thatās not all about damage reduction but I for tweaking gameplay mechanics in general.
If you use a melee skill with a range not further then pole weapon length + furthest melee dmg skill area improvements available get another layer of 50% DR. Remove all other def buffs from melee skills and be done with it. Skills with a further range get no built in DR. Stupid simple way to handle this and make every skill viable and not only the once with built in def mechanics.
This would open a hell lot of room for interactive skill nodes.
Are there any melee attacks that donāt have such a āshortā range?
Wasnāt the first build to go over ~1,000 waves a spellblade? Do you feel the spellblade is hard done by in terms of the defences available to it? They get mana spent converted to ward, Ice Ward & Flame Ward.
How about melee masteries get % damage reduction while under 500 ward, tapering off to 0 @ 700 ward or something so it doesnāt just stop leaving you with your arse hanging out?
What about making ward and damage reduction both viable defensive mechanics for a Spellblade. You either go ward or damage mitigation or hybrid.
What about passive skills that split up where you can spend 5 points in summary. You can choose to put all 5 points into ward generation or into damage mitigation. Or you make 2/3 or 3/2.
I would also like to see some passive nodes interacting with a certain group of skills for that class.
For example a node in the sentinel tree which interacts with letās say lunge/shield rush/(maybe even volitale reversal) and give small damage reduction if you used one of them in the past 6-8seconds.
This not only could apply to DR gain through passive tree, but also to other stuff which now would get a bit of topic.
I think giving some of the inherently more tanky class choice like sentinel, and especially forgeguard/paladin, probably even spellblade(with some ward related defensive nodes) means of gaining damage recutions(or other defensive class fitting stats) via some passive nodes, we could have more variety within skill spec trees. We could still keep some identity to skills like vengance having a little bit of extra DR within itās tree, but not to the degree it currently has.
EDIT:
I really like the idea of some exclusive passive tree stuff, maybe in certain rows as some sort of āmilestone achievementā(where you only can choose one out of 2 or 3 possible choices).
