Suggestions for Buff/Debuff Icons for specific skills

Feedback and Suggestions
1

So first of, this should not be a general " we need more buff/debuff icons" discussion.

I want to give specific examples, because IMO we don’t need buff/debuff icons for everything.
Only things that change our decision making or gameplay.

Some exmaples of already good implementation, to give you guys an idea what i am talking about:

  • We just recieved Buff Icons for “Fresh from the Forge” (FG), Patient Doom (VK) and Preperation (Mage), which actually can change decision making for your rotation.

  • Acolyte’s Bone Armor Node in Transplant, does have a 10 seconds cooldown, but transplant has lower cooldown than 10 seconds.
    The Node has a “debuff icon” dispalyed when it’s on cooldown, this icon disappears once the cooldown is ready again. This is a great implementation.

This are great examples of buffs, that actually do this.

Now to my suggestions:

Necromancer’s “Veins of Malice” Passive:

The buff last 1-5 seconds, depending on points invested and it has 10 seconds cooldown.
If you playing a summoner build that only uses one spell to buff your minions (like Dread Shade) you will trigger Veins of Malice with Dread Shade, but Dread Shade does last 20 seconds, but the cooldown of Veins of Malice is only 10 seconds.

IMO Veins of malice should get a similar threatment to Transplant’s Bone Armor Node

Knowing when Veins Of Malice is ready again would change my gameplay, since i would not use Dread Shade again, before the cooldown of Veins Of Malice is over, since Dread Shade lasts 20 seconds.

Speaking of Dread Shade,… Dread Shade:

Dread Shade does last 20 seconds and it’s pretty obvious when it’s on a minion.
But i played with Assemble Abomination yesterday for 8 hours straight on stream.

I used Dread Shade and Infernal Shade, both of basically the same VFX, but with different colours and they completely overlap.

It’s very hard to see when Dread Shade runs out.
Ideally we would want a buff icon besides the minion icon (in the top left of the screen), since that’s probably not a thing currently i think a buff icon showing how many Dread Shade are currently active would be a nice thing, this also could be abplied to Infernal Shade of course.

Not seeing when my Dread Shade has run out, because it’s overlapped by Infernal Shade would change gameplay, since i know when to recast Dread Shade.

I am sure there are plenty more things and i probably forgot about a few, where i alrady had the idea to give feedback on the forum -.,.-

If some of you guys have more suggestions, please leave them here, but try to make as specific exampels as possible and try to explain why exactly you want a specific buff, would it change your decisionmaking/rotation?

Let me know down below

2

So, because of the latest dev stream from today, i wanted to give this abump, because Mike said on stream that now is the best time to ask for stuff beign displayed as buff icon.

I think my suggestions are a very ncie addition and i am sure there are plenty of players with other particular ideas.

I want to emphasize here, that i really do like the idea of a “debuff icon” showing that a certain proc is currently on cooldown, like the bone armour buff from transplant.

Especially since debuff and buff icons are split to the right and left respectively.

I hope we have some more guys joining the discussion here.

And even if you are a newer player (i know there are alot of you out there), don’t be afraid to give suggestions, since the feedback/ideas from unexperienced plaer can be quite valuble too.

1 Like
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It’s not actually that simple. All debuffs from mobs are on the right, any “your buff is on cooldown” icons are on the left presumably because they relate to player buffs. Any debuffs from player skills (like armour shred from Aura of Decay) are on the right as well.

4

Transplant’s Bonearmour cooldown is displayed on the right side as a “debuff”
This is already in the game for as long as i can remember playing it (so at least 2 years)

https://imgur.com/Ya6vYoi

And of course if too much stuff use this system it can quickly become too much.

Maybe the system needs to be splitted into debuffs, buffs and “on cooldown indicators”

But the funny thing is: Bone Armour itself does not have a buff indicator, only a small visual indicator, on the character, that is not sufficient to give you informations mid-combat.

Also there are other sources of bone armour, that are not guaranteed, but rather a % chance.

So having a bone armour buff indicator would be another thing i suggest here.

Because it would change my decision making when to use Transplant’s guarantted “on demand” Bone Armour.

5

Ah yes, that one. And yet the Rogue (Concentration & Perfection) cooldowns are on the left.

6

Oh that’s interesting.

You don’t speak of the “buff” when those affects are in place?
But if there are temporarily disabled and are not active?

if that’s the case it should definitely be more consistent.

I personally don’t care where it is, but i really do like the red/debuff icon for the transplant one.

But given EHG will probably work on this stuff, according to Mike on the last Dev Stream that’s a great time to make all of that stuff more consitent.

7

New player here, so my apologies if ever my reply if a bit off due to not knowing the game enough.

I was considering the bone armor example here, and I think that both the active buff status and its cooldown could be merged into the same, but however smarter, icon.

It would only be displayed if it is either active or in cooldown, its border could then be green for the active buff “decounter”, and would afterwards change color to become for instance yellow (to distinguish it from an actual debuff), with the icon interior greyed, to then decount its cooldown time.

No to say this is the best solution, but I believe this could be intuitive enough, as we would of course want to avoid to 1) overload the UI, 2) confuse the players.

If ever somethink could bypass the cooldown to refresh the buff, it would go green again… I think you get my point.

Those icons could then be placed to the left, in the “buff” side of the UI, able to display both informations on the same spot.

Maybe some effects are already implementing something like this ?

2 Likes
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I think your idea is a very reasonable solution.

I hope Reimerh and Mike are watching this! :stuck_out_tongue:

9

So I’ll add my suggestion for buff icons here:

An UI improvement I’d like to see is with having several stacks of a buff, like Sigils Of Hope.

We only see the duration of the last instance cast, not the first stack that will expire first. So it’s hard to track when to recast. So maybe instead of showing the expiration of the last cast instance, show the info for the first stack that will expire.

This way you don’t need to reactively refresh your stacks when you see the number drop. You can proactively refresh your stacks before they run out.

This way you could save a lot of mana/time. Most of the time I’ll recast Sigils for the maximum number of stacks before entering a fight because I don’t know if my oldest stack might perhaps run out in 2 seconds or 12. This is getting even worse if you have the recast node.

10

To complete my previous post, I since started a Marksman and found 2 buffs effects that are interesting to list within this discussion :

  • The arrow storm buff
    It is effectively displayed in the buff side in a circular greenish interior icon with a green decounter border while it is active, and then is refreshed to be displayed in a new circular icon, with a redish interior and a green decounter border, as you can see in the 2 following images (3rd icon in the first, 4th in the second image).

https://imgur.com/vesHLox
https://imgur.com/VLZqYuM

  • The concentration buff
    In the complete opposite, this buff is mostly active until hit by an ennemy. It is never displayed when on, but instead displayed when in cooldown, with a green decounter border.
    (3rd icon)

https://imgur.com/7jsF6PA

Thoughts about those two buff displays :
the “smart” buff icon toggling between the active state decount and the cooldown state decount is completely implemented for the arrow storm buff. My main suggestion here however would be to change the decount border of the cooldown state from green to red and it could then be generalized to all buffs subject to the same pattern.

Then, the concentration buff could benefit from a equivalent display, with its active state displayed without any border (like the jade arrow buff, which is displayed without border until consumed), and could switch to the cooldown state near from its actual form, but using a red border for the decount.

In all cases, the buff display would, in my opinion, greatly benefit from a more homogeneous display.

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