Question more for clarification on the devs long term view on this current mechanic:
When proc’ing a skill from an idol (e.g. Keen idol - Smite) or via another skill (e.g. Superconductor node in Arcane Ascendance Sorceror skill procs Lightning Blast), these currently inherit the skill tree of the skill proc’d… irrespective of if the skill to be proc’d / specailised is actually a currently active skill or not.
The question I have is related to the skill being active - i.e. on the skill bar … or not?
Is the current mechanic (as above) intended by the developers and will it remain so?
Reason I ask is that this gives a kind of loophole to get an additional Active (albeit unspecialised ) Skill for the player to use… E.g. you can add Teleport instead of LB for the sorcerer for a movement bonus… On the same vein, other skills REQUIRE the skill to be active - e.g. Minion summon skills and auras etc… - to gain its benefits…
The proccing thing (idols in the case of Smite, Arcane Ascendance for Lightning Blast) needs to be equipped/active & yes, it would allow you to have 1 unspecialised skill on your skill bar. IMO, it’s nice but not “overpowered” since not having the 6th skill specialised means it misses out on quite a bit of damage/utility. If a skill procs itself (eg, the Sigil on Kill node in Sigils of Hope) then it needs to be on the skill bar.
Whether it’s “intended” or will be allowed in the future only the devs can say but I suspect/IMO it’s intended.
Thanks… my gut feeling is that its not that “bad” a mechanic as it is right now because, as you say, the 6th skill is fairly weak vs a specialised version…
What worries me is the potential for “clever” application of this because there are some default skills that are pretty good without specialisation that you could then activate as your 6th skill… this “clever” application could get the devs to change the mechanic if they dont like how people are using it - thereby nerfing other builds which dont specifically try to abuse it.
A quick example with a Shield Throw Paladin build… You could specialise Smite (with using the Keen idol), leave it off the skill bar and use Holy Aura without any specialisation to get 30% increase damage & 30% elemental resistance passively. To me this may well fall into the overpowered category…
Granted there are limited real uses like the one above but its possible…
Yes, Holy Aura is powerful by itself, but you’d be missing out on a lot of buffs from it’s skill tree. The same could be said for Lunge (it’s good unspecialised but significantly better with a skill tree for the crit buff), Shield Rush, Anomaly, Volatile Reversal & most other skills I can think of.
