Reduce 'Less Damage' penalty by 20 or 30% on 'Ranged Attack Totem' and 'Spell Totem' (good reasons!)

Or just do away with the Attack Speed penalty completely, that or lower the Attack Speed penalties... Either way, something should really be done to improve these two Support Gems.



While I understand why the penalties between these two Support Gems are in place, the penalties defeat the purpose, thereby hindering the effectiveness of these support gems.

It really is no wonder why players hardly ever utilize these two awesome Support Gems that, unfortunately, perform poorly during end-game because of the penalties that return no benefit.

How can anyone truly take a Totem build seriously if only just a select few Totem gems are useful?

Using only Flame Totem and Shockwave Totem after a while during end-game gets quite boring after a while, and those Totem gems have no penalties!

This is exactly what is putting a choke on build creativity when it comes to Totem builds. In fact, this is what is starting to keep me from ever running a Totem build again.

The problem between the Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem Support Gems explained mathematically:

Note: The Ranged Attack Totem Support Gem relies on a player's Bow or Wand for its Damage, that which is why I included Attacks per Second (APS) in the mathematical formula as shown below.

Let’s use the Ranged Attack Totem Support Gem as an example dealing 500-1,000 Damage with a base speed of 2.00 Attacks per Second (APS) from a Wand or a Bow.

In this case, to calculate the true DPS of 500-1,000, you must also factor in the 50% Less Damage and 30% Less Attack Speed penalties incurred by Ranged Attack Totem.

For the Attack Speed penalty, you would calculate: 2.00 APS – 30% Attack Speed penalty = 1.4 APS.

For the Damage penalty, you would calculate: 500 Min Damage + 1,000 Max Damage = 1,500 Damage – 50% Less Damage penalty = 750 Damage divided by 2 = 372 Damage x 1.4 APS = 525 DPS (Damage per Second)

Therefore, the true DPS for just 1 Ranged Attack Totem is 525 DPS after factoring in the Damage and Attack Speed penalties incurred by Ranged Attack Totem.

Note: For those who do not understand, since Ranged Attack Totem relies on a player’s Bow or Wand Damage, to calculate the true DPS of any weapon, you must always add the Min and Max Damage values together, divide by 2, then multiply by the Attacks per Second, which then equals your true DPS. However, since there is a Damage and Attack Speed penalty incurred by Ranged Attack Totem (as shown in the above mathematical formula), you must also factor in those numbers to receive your true DPS output.

With all the above stated in mind, if a player has Ancestral Bond allocated on the Skill Tree + the Soul Mantle chest piece equipped + the default number of allowed Totems a player can summon (1), that is 3 Totems a player can summon at a time.

Therefore, 525 DPS x 3 Ranged Attack Totems summoned at once = 1,575 DPS

At this point, you would think 3 Totems is better than 1 Player, right? Yes and no...

For lack of a better example, let's compare the above calculated with just the player's Damage at 500-1,000 Damage (whatever Damage Type) with a base speed of 2.00 Attacks per Second, linked with the Chain Support Gem, which incurs a 50% Less Damage penalty:

You would calculate: 500 Min Damage + 1,000 Max Damage = 1,500 Damage divided by 2 = 750 Damage x 2.00 APS = 1500 DPS – 50% Damage penalty = 750 DPS

Okay, so yes, the player is dealing 50% less damage than 3 Ranged Attack Totems, yet because the player is using the Chain Support Gem (or LMP or GMP, if you prefer those), the player would clear a mob of enemies faster than 3 Ranged Attack Totems shooting only 1 projectile at a time per Totem, whereas the player is chaining or hitting multiple enemies at a time.

Now do you see how 3 Ranged Attack Totems dealing 50% more damage than the player do not have the upper hand, after all? The DPS difference is even lesser with just 2 Ranged Attack Totems summoned at once since not everyone goes all the way across the Skill Tree to allocated Ancestral Bond, that or not everyone prefers to wear the Soul Mantle chest piece.

Furthermore, neither Ranged Attack Totem or Spell Totem in any of my examples are using Lesser Multiple Projectiles (LMP) or Greater Multiple Projectiles (GMP), and therefore, if you were to compare the player's single projectile damage without using the Chain Support Gem vs. the single projectile damage dealt by 3 Ranged Attack Totems, the player's damage would be 1,500 damage vs. the damage caused by 3 Ranged Attack Totems at 1,575 damage.

At that point, it is only a 75 DPS difference, which does not amount to a hill of beans!

Now that the math is all out of the way, let's dig into the BIGGEST problem with the Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem Support Gems:

The biggest problem is when players want to try to have fun linking Lesser Multiple Projectiles (LMP) or Greater Multiple Projectiles (GMP) with Ranged Attack Totem or Spell Totem, guess what?! The 50% Less Damage penalty turns into a 80% to 100% Less Damage penalty...

Note: Even though the % Less Damage penalties from LMP and GMP when linked with Ranged Attack Totem or Spell Totem do not exactly stack additively, my argument still stands that the DPS output is lackluster for end-game.

And so at the end of the day, the player's damage alone outperforms the damage of 3 Ranged Attack Totems, because if the 3 Ranged Attack Totems were supported by Chain, LMP or GMP, the DPS output would be little to almost none due to the penalties.



Thank you for looking into this. I hope many of you step in to offer your feedback.
HeavyMetalGear

You do realize that the only thing that brought self-cast to life was the addition of the Spell Echo support gem, yes?

The penalties tied to totem supports are sufficient and not to hard handed. Buffing these, but nerfing the penalties, would just send self-cast back into its recently dug up grave.

"

Natharias wrote:

You do realize that the only thing that brought self-cast to life was the addition of the Spell Echo support gem, yes?

The penalties tied to totem supports are sufficient and not to hard handed. Buffing these, but nerfing the penalties, would just send self-cast back into its recently dug up grave.

Spell Echo and what Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem do are different. And Spell Echo doesn't even work with Ranged Attack Totems. Not only that, since Spell Echo would work with Spell Totem, even Spell Echo incurs yet another 10% Less Damage penalty, so it's not like Spell Echo would be doing Spell Totem much of a favor.

And if you want to know the truth, no skill gem should have a penalty of 80% total when adding two penalties together like in the Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem tooltips. It should instead be a 50-60% penalty total when added together. A penalty of 80% total is an absurd overkill penalty.

Anyway...

I never suggested a buff to these Support Gems. I only suggested a reduction (for logical reasons) on the penalty incurred by Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem for reasons already stated in my OP if you read it closely to the end.

What fun or good is a Ranged Attack Totem or Spell Totem build if you cannot at least support them with LMP or GMP at at least 50% effectiveness? What we have now are two Support Gems that already have terrible penalties as is, and then when you try to link LMP or GMP to those Support Gems, the 50% Damage penalty then turns into a 80% to 100% Damage penalty.

Furthermore, shooting only 1 projectile at a time (3 total) from 3 Ranged Attack Totems, is not sufficient enough for end-game without the LMP or GMP Support Gems.

And so at least if there was a 20% reduction to the penalty of Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem, there would only be a 60% to 80% Damage penalty vs. the now 80% to 100% Damage penalty. Or if the penalties were reduced by 30%, there would only be a 50% to 70% Damage penalty when linked with LMP or GMP.

That is not what I call a buff or a nerf; it is what I call balancing the Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem Support Gems where they should be so they deal at least some decent Damage during end-game while still maintaining a 20-30% Less Damage penalty even after lowering the current penalties as suggested in the OP.

There is plenty of headroom for the developers to tweak the numbers with either the Damage penalty or the Attack Speed penalty in the tooltips of Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem.

Conclusively, the big idea here is to make it to where Ranged Attack Totem and/or Spell Totem can be linked with LMP or GMP without too much of a % Less Damage penalty, because as of now, linking LMP or GMP to those two Support Gems does not increase their effectiveness, nor are they very effective in their current state without LMP or GMP with their 50% Less Damage penalties.

P.S. As stated in my OP, so long the Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem gems stay as they are, we will not see much build creativity regarding Totem builds beyond Flame Totem and Shockwave Totem, which after a while, get quite boring to use.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

The biggest problem is when players want to try to have fun linking Lesser Multiple Projectiles (LMP) or Greater Multiple Projectiles (GMP) with Ranged Attack Totem or Spell Totem, guess what?! The 50% Less Damage penalty turns into a 80% to 100% Less Damage penalty...

While I agree that the damage penalties on totem support gems are somewhat overkill right now, this is wrong, as you seem to assume the "less" multipliers stack additively with each other. That is not the case. Multiplicative modifiers of the same scope stack multiplicatively with each other, so it is impossible to reach 100% less damage by stacking "less" multipliers.

Example:
LMP + Ranged Attack Totem: 0.7 * 0.5 = 0.35 => 65% less damage combined
GMP + Ranged Attack Totem: 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 => 75% less damage combined

See the wiki page for details.

edit: added gmp example

"

cere_ wrote:

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

The biggest problem is when players want to try to have fun linking Lesser Multiple Projectiles (LMP) or Greater Multiple Projectiles (GMP) with Ranged Attack Totem or Spell Totem, guess what?! The 50% Less Damage penalty turns into a 80% to 100% Less Damage penalty...

While I agree that the damage penalties on totem support gems are somewhat overkill right now, this is wrong, as you seem to assume the "less" multipliers stack additively with each other. That is not the case. Multiplicative modifiers of the same scope stack multiplicatively with each other, so it is impossible to reach 100% less damage by stacking "less" multipliers.

Example:
LMP + Ranged Attack Totem: 0.7 * 0.5 = 0.35 => 65% less damage combined
GMP + Ranged Attack Totem: 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 => 75% less damage combined

See the wiki page for details.

edit: added gmp example

I made a few corrections in my OP I meant to clarify regarding what you pointed out. You are right. The penalties from Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem when linked with LMP or GMP do not exactly stack additively, yet my argument still stands that the DPS output of the Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem are lackluster for end-game (to which you agreed).

That is the reason why I suggest a reduction to the % Less Damage penalties on both aforementioned Totem Support Gems.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

Spell Echo and what Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem do are different.

No, they aren't. Totems tend to favor Ancestral Bond characters while Spell Echo favors self-cast. Before SE was introduced, self-cast was not a viable option in most cases.

Totems were broken. Even with LMP/GMP.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

I never suggested a buff to these Support Gems. I only suggested a reduction (for logical reasons) on the penalty

Wait, so reducing the penalty on something is not buffing it? Interesting. Last I checked that was correctly called a buff.

And for "logical reasons" I told you that all three gems are fine where they are. If you paid attention to this game before SE, you'd know that totems were brokenly good.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

What fun or good is a Ranged Attack Totem or Spell Totem build if you cannot at least support them with LMP or GMP at at least 50% effectiveness?

I've tried Flame Totem with GMP and it was almost better than a self-cast Incinerate with SE. I'm sure if I tried Incinerate and had AB, I'd be doing totems right now.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

What we have now are two Support Gems that already have terrible penalties as is, and then when you try to link LMP or GMP to those Support Gems, the 50% Damage penalty then turns into a 80% to 100% Damage penalty.

Correction.

If you use LMP, you'd go from 50% to 35%. If you used GMP, you'd go from 50% to 25% effectiveness.

The modifiers have the "less" modifier, meaning they stack multiplicatively.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

That is not what I call a buff or a nerf; it is what I call balancing...

And balancing is done by nerfing and buffing.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

As stated in my OP, so long the Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem gems stay as they are, we will not see much build creativity regarding Totem builds beyond Flame Totem and Shockwave Totem, which after a while, get quite boring to use.

I don't know how you search but I still see totem builds in the forums.

A search for all builds that are totems in the past month.

"

Natharias wrote:

No, they aren't. Totems tend to favor Ancestral Bond characters while Spell Echo favors self-cast. Before SE was introduced, self-cast was not a viable option in most cases.

Totems were broken. Even with LMP/GMP.

As I said, even with Spell Echo, it doesn't do much a favor for Spell Totem because Spell Echo itself incurs another 'Less Damage' penalty (which affects all damage globally on the player). And once again I say, Spell Echo has nothing to do with and does not work with Ranged Attack Totem, which was used as an example throughout my OP to show its ineffectiveness.

Furthermore, if Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem were/are broken, then we may as well just say Flame Totem and Shockwave Totem are broken, too, just because they're end-game viable all the way to Atziri, whereas Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem are not as end-game viable.

You keep forgetting... There is the old end-game content vs. the new end-game content, and Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem is just not sufficient enough for most of the new end-game content.

"

Natharias wrote:

Wait, so reducing the penalty on something is not buffing it? Interesting. Last I checked that was correctly called a buff.

And for "logical reasons" I told you that all three gems are fine where they are. If you paid attention to this game before SE, you'd know that totems were brokenly good.

I have been around since the beginning of Open Beta (my Forum Title proves it), and I am sorry, but I disagree with you.

A suggestion that calls for 'balance' vs. a 'buff' are two different things... A buff (in most cases) is like beefing up certain Skill Gems that are already borderline end-game viable to make them more viable vs. a balance like I am suggesting by reducing the % Less Damage penalties just to make Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem, at the very least, borderline end-game viable. And that's the thing; Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem are not even borderline end-game viable.

Sure, some players may have pulled it off to make Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem end-game viable, but at what point in end-game truly? Sceptre of the Gods where Dominus rules?

That is not today's true end-game where builds are benchmarked for their effectiveness.

Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem are just no match for most of the newest end-game content, and it will especially be no match for whatever bosses are planned for Act 4, and I am sure of that.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

What fun or good is a Ranged Attack Totem or Spell Totem build if you cannot at least support them with LMP or GMP at at least 50% effectiveness?

"

Natharias wrote:

I've tried Flame Totem with GMP and it was almost better than a self-cast Incinerate with SE. I'm sure if I tried Incinerate and had AB, I'd be doing totems right now.

*Facepalm* Except you forget that Flame Totem is not the main topic here in my OP since, obviously, there are no penalties on Flame Totem or Shockwave Totem for that matter.

That is a very poor example to use in an attempt to evade the fact that Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem are not so end-game viable like Flame Totem and Shockwave Totem, because 95% of the time (to be fair), that is all you hear players running are those two main Totem gems.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

What we have now are two Support Gems that already have terrible penalties as is, and then when you try to link LMP or GMP to those Support Gems, the 50% Damage penalty then turns into a 80% to 100% Damage penalty.

"

Natharias wrote:

Correction.

If you use LMP, you'd go from 50% to 35%. If you used GMP, you'd go from 50% to 25% effectiveness.

The modifiers have the "less" modifier, meaning they stack multiplicatively.

I am quite sure I addressed what you are pointing out in my updated OP (before your latest reply) in some way, shape or form, because I forgot to add that information.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

That is not what I call a buff or a nerf; it is what I call balancing...

"

Natharias wrote:

And balancing is done by nerfing and buffing.

As I have said 2 or 3 times before, there is technically no nerf or buff by suggesting a 20% decrease to the 'Less Damage' modifiers on Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem. It is simply balance so that those two Support Gems can perform at least a little better than do they do currently.

"

HeavyMetalGear wrote:

As stated in my OP, so long the Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem gems stay as they are, we will not see much build creativity regarding Totem builds beyond Flame Totem and Shockwave Totem, which after a while, get quite boring to use.

"

Natharias wrote:

I don't know how you search but I still see totem builds in the forums.

A search for all builds that are totems in the past month.

*Sigh* You can't be serious... Link me a proven-to-be end-game viable Ranged Attack Totem or Spell Totem build capable of even coming close to touching Atziri, and then we will talk. All I see in that link is Flame Totem, Shockwave Totem, Flame Totem, Shockwave Totem...

And just maybe (a big maybe), a dedicated Ranged Attack Totem or Spell Totem build can solo Dominus, yet the true measure of a build's effectiveness is how it performs in a Party, and I can assure you Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem do not perform very well in a Party much less trying to effectively kill mobs solo in most of the old, newly implemented and upcoming end-game content.

"

Atziri isnt endgame, its an optional boss fight, thats it, get real, act 4 is the new end game and in the mean time its doing maps over and over.

You not only read a half instead of a whole regarding almost everything I have pointed out, but I am beginning to think you want to argue just about anything for the sake of arguing...

So since you want to get technical regarding what end-game is, there is technically storyline end-game, and then there are technically end-game Maps (that is why they are called end-game Maps!) But wait a minute... Last I checked Atziri is also mentioned in the storyline, so wouldn't that mean she qualifies as an end-game boss?

You tell me to get real here, and now I'm getting really real... Real technical.

If the above quoted from you is your best comeback, it is a very poor one, since it is quite obvious that decent/good builds are benchmarked by how effective they are in monster areas above Level 69 like in 70+ end-game Maps. But even in a Level 69 area, Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem perform poorly, especially in parties (Now I am sounding like a broken record now, repeating and repeating these facts).

Furthermore, I am quite sure Act 4 is going to have area Levels above Level 69, so yea, you can bet I am going to provide a solid argument on why Ranged Attack Totem and Spell Totem (and other ineffective gems) are not viable for end-game, not even borderline end-game viable.