Conversion talents shouldn’t be gated behind other too-specific nodes, for example Necrotic conversion “Misery” in the specialisation tree for Bone Curse is too hard to access. My Lich build already has Marked for Death application from Reaper Form (which is a better source for bossing, as it has 100% uptime as opposed to the 2 (+2) seconds from Bone Curse on cast, but I am required to take Sigil of Mortality and Reaper’s Mark and so am forced to have dead points to get there. Any Necrotic build (which many Acolytes are) would want to take this conversion node, but not every Necrotic build wants Marked for Death from this source or the duration nodes following it. It feels bad to spend several points on useless nodes just to get to something that enables my build’s use of Bone Curse.
My suggestion is that conversion should be relatively easy to access, as it enables build variety, and if not, the preceding nodes should not be dead for specific builds (i.e. they should be more generically applicable benefits, or relevant to the end node, in this example being related to Necrotic Damage).
On a separate note, the node doesn’t seem to be working or the tooltip is incorrectly reporting, with 1400% necrotic damage bonus, 1000% spell damage and 660% phys, if I select Misery the tooltip of Bone Curse reports the same damage as before.
Thank you kindly for your wonderful work and this incredible game that brings me so much fun!
Edit: I am NOT saying that we need MORE conversion types, just that the pre-existing conversion nodes need better pathing, specifically in the case of Bone Curse (though I am not familiar, I imagine there may be other examples).
The devs have said before that they generally don’t want every skill to have every conversion, presumably because this would remove any theme with the skill. Additionally, each mastery has certain damage elements that they concider as primary & some as secondary (phys/fire are primary for Paladin, lightning is secondary for example) & they do occassionally “break” these rules via uniques (Yulia’s Path giving Primalist pets necrotic damage for example).
I’d be surprised if the devs changed much from this viewpoint.
To be honest, I wanted to raise this topic for a long time.
The question is not how to give more number of transformations. And in the fact that those that do have, were more easily accessible and did not tie the player to a specific build.
Could you clarify why this is? To be clear, like Llama’s response, I am not advocating for more conversion types. I agree emphatically that skills need to have their identity, and you would dilute that by adding more conversion options. What I am advocating for is the pre-existing conversion nodes being easier to access and not having potential “dead points” before them.
I think that the conversions can add a fair bit of power to a build, as your first post (which I didn’t really read much to be fair) detailed with Bone Curse, if it were easy to access that conversion then your build would be a lot more powerful (which I presume is what you want, which is fair enough).
The “dead points” before significant nodes represent the cost for that significant node.
For example, Fireball has a node that makes it channelled. Before that is the node that requires 4 points to give cast speed which doesn’t affect channelled spells. Most people view that as 4 “dead” points but the devs balanced the power of the channelled node with those 4 cast speed points in mind.
I’m not saying that this is going to be the case in all cases, but it’s one example that’s been explained before about how they go about balancing node power/cost.
Please take the time to read my threads before replying I put a lot of time into these suggestions and when you respond based on a misunderstanding you dilute the chances this will be taken on board by the devs, which I really hope they are.
I don’t think Necrotic conversion would be overpowered at all for Bone Curse were the preceding points not dead for my build. The preceding points are also regarded as the most powerful in the whole tree, and for many are the reason they take Bone Curse to begin with (Marked for Death’s -25% resistances), it’s just that in this case I have zero reason to invest in Marked for Death due to the nature of my build. It isn’t that it’s an investment trade off, because for most builds they are getting an amazing few points and then a cherry on top. These very specific powerful nodes should be in separate places on the tree IMO.
It’s quite odd to have a specific modifier for a Curse (Marked for Death +duration) being the pre-requisite for Necrotic conversion for the base skill. The +duration that modifies the Marked for Death node should be an offshoot from Marked for Death, not linked to Necrotic Conversion, which it is independent from).
Also many conversions are easy to access and I can’t find many others that have dead points before them, even. As I’ve only really played Acolyte significantly my knowledge of other classes is limited, so maybe this is a suggestion more specifically needed just for Bone Curse.
Why stop at dead nodes- there are nodes that actively wall off conversion for no reason, mainly having to add +15 mana cost to punture to convert it to poison. On both of my builds using poison and flurry (one is a blademaster, the other is procing multishot) I’m forced to leave puncture as nothing but a utility skill, with basically no damage, cause adding +15 to the mana cost completely removes the entire reason I took the skill (to gain back mana).
My different view is theres no issue with conversion node placement at the moment. Its design is intended and purposeful.
For example, they could have taken the easy route and design conversion nodes right upfront, and all the nodes behind it follows the converted damage,
But thats a braindead design
Instead they want you to make choices, like “should i give up some bonus from previous nodes to convert?” “do i get a net increase in damage if i do that?” Etc
Well, if we contain this example specifically to Blood Curse’s Necrotic Conversion, the nodes it is “gated” behind are considered to be the most powerful in the tree and are a huge part of the reason many players take Bone Curse to begin with (easily applicable Marked for Death). So there’s no trade off consideration at all, it’s a “brain dead” decision as you get 2 powerful effects for the price of one.
However, in my case, with the unusual non-meta build I’m running, I want to get Marked for Death from Reaper Form, and I am penalised for doing so by then having to take 3-4 dead points in Bone Curse if I want to have my skill do Necrotic damage.
The Necrotic conversion also aesthetically ties my build together, otherwise Blood Curse is red where all my other skills are that ghostly blueish green that thematically identifies Necrotic.
I think for the specific case of Bone Curse, the current placement doesn’t make sense. 95% of people using the skill are taking the Marked for Death node it seems, so for them it’s an easy addition of +1 point. Whereas I with my divergent build (and what are ARPGs for if not build creativity) have to make my build significantly worse by wasting several points.
I’m incentivised not to use Bone Curse at all, and thus forced towards certain decisions, reducing creative possibility.
As for other skills, I think overall having conversion nodes be easier to access increases build variety, because you’re able to synergise the skill with more builds, then. In a world where all conversion nodes are hard to access, we would have less builds.
I think it’s really important to the devs for people to express why they like or dislike a suggestion, it helps them to know what’s good or bad about a change.
I also initially had this thread be specifically about Bone Curse’s Necrotic conversion, and then changed the wording to be more general as it felt too specific a point. I’d hate for the change I’m suggesting to Bone Curse to be disregarded because of the larger point for conversion, which as someone who has only played Acolyte so far, I can’t really speak so much on.
I put a lot of time into these suggestions and when you respond based on a misunderstanding you dilute the chances this will be taken on board by the devs, which I really hope they are.