Hi i dont know whit you but after testing the new skills it feels like vk is still speced towards going the spell route. they have tried to fix the scaling of smite by giving it vitality scaling insted of going attunment. but if we look on the new skills like void cleave there you have raviging aura that scales of spell void dmg and you get free cast of abyssal echo that also sclaes of spell void dmg. and if we look in the javeline tree there you go the banner and free smites cast. for me it feels like vk desing philosophy is towards spells insted of 2h mele builds. paladin feels like more of a caster type of build then vk and forge guard.
dont know how you guys feel about vk being a caster spec.
I like it.
I also like VK to be a Melee crusher, but I really like how he does well with magic.
I donât fully understand his mastery bonus, because for me heâs a pure hybrid (!).
Hes kinda supposed to be both, the changes seem to be meant to make the spell parts not as useless when going melee.
What makes it feel kinda strange/clunky is the huge mana cost of some vk skills paired with a skill tree that is all over the place and has lots of âafter killâ effects that everyone so loves in arpgs.
On the other hand hes quite unique gameplay wise which is a good thing.
The Void Knight has always been a mix of melee & caster. If you look at the skills you unlock from his passive tree, theyâre mostly spells (4) plus 1 melee (Erasing Strike). Iâm not sure why the devs think that the Void Knight is a melee mastery.
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i agree on vk is all over the place but i found a build i rly like right now thx to a node in your talent tree that makes smite scale of vitality it seems like abyssal echo also gets the vitality tag.
but he feels more like a caster then mele thx to all of its skills. and alot of the skills have proc chances on them and i rly like the new skill voidcleav but it has one node that dont make sense to me and its a echo node but it cant echo thx to having the momvent tag on it.
they shuld rework voidcleav so it can be used whit all wepons and not just 2h axes and swords so you can go more of a tanky shield build or more of a pure caster build whit a staff or wand.
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After a first test with a level 85 VK Caster, Iâm still happy with his damage, but not at all with his survivability.
Iâll have to think deeper and see how others do, but right now he dies and diesâŚ
I donât feel difference in playstyle after 0.8.3, to be honest. Void Knight remains squishy with high damage output, and his melee itâs poor. The echo passive bonus itâs something unique and reinforces a playstyle with spells.
Thatâs how I feel playing with Void Knight. I like it, but I would like a lot to play him as melee emphasis.
VK used to be very weird, but in the last 2 patches melee got more viable:
2 patches ago it received the void sword that is now imo must have for melee*,
then this patch it got the new void cleave plus erasing strike has become viable.
(*before you unlock the sword, that is lv77, just add melee void dmg to your weapon, or use the unique Dreamthorn, and put âadded void/melee void dmgâ everywhere you see it in both the tree or skills passives)
With cleave + E-strike you can spec for more melee than before. Donât forget that also for example that the reworked abyssal echo can empower both cleave and e-strike, or that other skills like multistrike or lunge have some pts for cleave/e-strike.
Iâll post my own VK to give but one working example, there are more melee options than my own setup,
The main damage is all melee and it hurts for real. 1 Patch ago it had ~250k tooltip on Rive 3rd hit, this patch it lost dmg on Rive but now can spam cleave + e-strike to compensate (from my âfeelingsâ i confirm that it got more burst and sustained dmg, i would dare say that the overall damage has almost doubled).
It is much more varied than 1 patch ago for sure.
Hopefully more skills will get reworked to make skills more synergic
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I am using both melee/caster skills together (hybrid) and it is working well. I have all 5 skills able to use one of the others to trigger another specialized one. Like Devouring Orb (DO) triggers, abyssal orb. With a DO out it triggers my abyssal echoes (AE), with a 45% chance to directly trigger a void rift and procs abyssal decay with instant DoT damage. The javelin banner triggers smite which in turn is void damage by means of passives and able can be self-cast to melt bosses/heavies. Then to top it off using warpath to move around in difficult areas while it triggers AE every 5 seconds for 0 channel costs (except when AE triggers).
Iâm doing VK time rot, so scaling void/dot. Does not play like a caster at all. Itâs not really different than playing a bleed style build, tbh. I like it, feels good.
it feels like the devs want the abyssal echo to be on of the main skills for the spec and the echo mechanic is rly fun to play whit. if they will rework more skills for vk then i think doing synbergies whit abyssal echo culd work rly well for the playstyle thx to the echo mechanics on free cast you get.
right now i play a hybrid sort of build whit javeline smiote voidcleave and free procs of abyssal but died more times then i can count on majelka but thats just becasue i dont have any ress and rly bad gear.
That doesnât sound like you are playing a synergistic build at all. Abyssal echoes isnât a focus, no skill is. Some skills work well together and have synergy. I trigger abyssal echo on my warpath, but itâs just extra for me.
I played Warpath VK for example. I removed the echos asap after I toyed arround with it for a while because the dmg isnât worth the heavy point investment to maintain them because the dmg is abyssmal.
My issue isnât with the melee/caster hybrid kind of thing but that the melee just isnât competitive compared to Paladin or Forge Guard. Youâd expect to sacrifice it a bit when going a hybrid but it feels tacked on and doesnât synergize well in most aspects.
The bigger issue is mana, though. Mana is an issue in this game more than most because you canât simply spam a mana pot and call it a day, nor can you leech it all away. Either you sit there and wait - which is boring - or you hope your setup has a means to generate it.
For VK that pretty much just means âuse Reave and the one passive lolâ because the other solutions are awful. VK caster feels bad because you naturally want to spam the attacks but youâll never have the mana to do so, and I donât think the latest patch has really fixed the issue with using the generator-spenders combo because really, it doesnât feel good to begin with.
Either the spender works fine on its own and doesnât need a generator, or it doesnât do anything but generate mana at which point itâs a huge waste of potential.
Imho mana & especially soft cooldowns are necessary otherwise you end up like in PoE where you perma spam one skill only to the win.
About VK, yes one patch ago melee VK used to be Rive only with excess unspent mana.
But not anymore in this patch, now that Erasing Strike finally does good damage and can function as a mana dump.
If you have both Void Cleave and Erasing Strike slotted (and spamming Dev Orbs) you will need the prefix +mana on Rive/Vengeance use on the chest to keep it up (it is a game changer).
My only doubt is whether the mana sustain should be tied to the Sentinel âon hitâ passive (thus tied to attack speed) or not. Slower weapons like maces are penalized by this compared to swords, maybe a fixed 4s duration added mana regen buff would be more fair in this regard.
Anyway this patch melee VK with Rive/Vengeance + Void Cleave/Erasing Strike (or both) surely feels more dynamic than just Rive + just self buffs
For anyone interested Iâve quickly recorded one monolith run, granted it is 95% cookie cutter (imo), iâm currently farming lv100 190+ corruption monolith using a pure-ish melee VK: Cleave + Erasing Strike + Rive + Dev Orbs + Anomaly.
I will leave it just here, build planner:
Video:
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Why did you decide to use devouring orb over abyssal echoes?
I donât find it useful in a pure melee spec (that is packed with +melee dmg)
Echoes is a spell, it scales with damage over time & added spell dmg that a melee VK shouldnât be using, and DoTs donât scale with crit of which my VK has a lot, it has only one passive that buffs Estrike or Cleave
Orbs with Abyssal Emission + 9/9 Dark Torrent shoots a gazilion balls that I personally think are OP for on hit effects, like ~400% armor shred ~90% inc shred effect + Black Sun monolith 50% Void Shred + Age of Winter 50% Chill + Spirits of Fire 50% Frailty
(Also Orbs gives a good 20% movespeed & small 50% global dmg buff and spams 4+ Void Rifts on kill)
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My hammer void-knight hammer thrower disagree with that statement.
Which statement? Devouring Orbs are good for applying ailments if youâre not using them for damage.