Flicker Strike

Can Flicker Strike, hit behind rocks/obstacles?
Can it hit off-screen, or does it have a range?

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bkboggy wrote:

Yeah but then Paladin got their Enigma to just teleport to enemies. You didn't see everyone just all of a sudden reroll to play paladin. PvP is skill based, there will be a way to counter flicker strike, you just have to find it. If this is such a huge concern, let's look at GW series, the mother of all PvP as far as I'm concerned. GW2 has lots of abilities that imitate FS, yet there are bunch of ways to counter them as well.

Did you completely lose track of your own argument? I said instant/aimless skills were bad, you replied with pally charge from d2, which I then explained to you doesn't even fit into your argument because it wasn't instant and required aim/set up. Is English not a good language for you and something was lost in translation that we need to clarify?

As for Enigma it was terribly broken for everyone which is why what you saw was every class getting Enigma because they realized how over powered teleporting is, which is the same reasons devs and mods have said before that they wouldn't be adding teleporting, yet here remains Flicker Strike which is teleporting + a free attack even in D2 you had the casting delay between teleporting and being able to use your spell plus the extra player input required.

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starsg wrote:

Can Flicker Strike, hit behind rocks/obstacles?
Can it hit off-screen, or does it have a range?

Yes it can hit behind rocks/obstacles as it teleports you onto the target then attacks, it has long range but not big enough to do it off screen.

The skills allows a player to do large damage while making his or her character hard to hit, also potentially allowing it to dodge attacks and projectiles.

Using Flicker Strike on a single target like bosses is almost always beneficial compared to anything else because it does exactly that. You will dodge Ice Spears and slow attacks with little to no work. It will be almost impossible to follow an enemy player spamming the skill and it will end up being a guessing game with the FS user coming up on top because it will always be hitting.

FS isn't a teleport skill like Enigma provides. For one, ranged classes can't use FS as an escape tool. They have skills like Lightning Warp to get away, with the option of Whirling Blades and Shield Charge after switching weapons. All of the skills I mentioned aren't as instanteanous, quick, nor damaging as FS. Both LW and WB have delays whils FS is instant. Their usefulness towards what they are supposed to do (escaping) isn't as strong as what FS does to a player who uses it (closing gaps/doing damage). Adding a cooldown or making it build up charges like the traps wouldn't be the end of the world, because like I said skill like Shield Charge, Whirling Blades and Lightning Warp do exist as gap closers.

The argument that since it will be low hp duelists and shadows that will be using this skill, then it's somehow fine as it is now. But there is no stopping a marauder to get enough dex to equip a FS gem. The stat requirement for skill gems are so low.

There is ways to defend FS (though that requires a good positioning sense)

1) that is going to tight space, like a tunnel,
2) stay at a corner.

<however if the player that use FS has very good position sense too, then the advantage goes to the FS player>

That said, yes i would agreed that FS is too spammable. Dev have to be careful not let this skill ruin the balance, especially in PK league. The last thing is to see a league where everyone use FS.




Personally, i suggest to replace the auto-mode, into manual aiming mode, for the skill gems. But the FS from the mob can be as it is.

I think this skill has way too much bonus damage/attack speed, especially given the fact that it has a special effect. Both this and double strike does 140% damage per use (70%x2 vs. straight out 140%), but flicker strike has a massive attack speed bonus. The damage of flicker strike should be lowered to 120%, at most.

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bkboggy wrote:

Yeah, but the DPS on it is mediocre.

You couldn't be more wrong about that, I think it's the DPS that's more overpowered than anything. It shouldn't be doing significantly more DPS than double strike, which is a plain attack without special effects.

The problem with Flicker Strike is:

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If no specific monster is chosen, one is picked at random.

If they removed this, then it would require really good targeting to be effective.

I just got FS for the first time on my Shadow. What makes it even worse, is the fact that you can hold down shift and the attack button with no target, and then proceed to kill everything, drinking potions along the way for those few hits that do land on you.

If this attribute were removed, then you would have to target each target separately, reducing it's spammability drastically.

You could still auto-fire it on a single target once you locked on (a good thing, I think), but you wouldn't be able to switch targets automatically the way it does now.

For me FS is fun, its deadly but at higher difficulty, it's no longer great. Stopped in the middle of mob group then you'll wish you have enough time escaping. Players concern about this skill mostly for the pvp part of it. I dont really care about pvp anyway (if any nerf coming, just add cd for the skill - on pvp mode).

Please, dont nerf it to be useless. I'll just change to range atk if it happen. Why care about how other people play?

BTW, what the difference, mob can't hit bow ranger spamming lightning arrow or witch spam ice spear from far, with FS user zapping around them.

Add more dex requirement for this skill.

Aside from damage on the skill, it's a free teleport on to a player and as is melee tend to 1-2shot range classes once they get close enough, Flicker remove any effort required in that and there is nothing the opposing player can do about it, other than pray you have a bad string of misses which is really anti-intuitive game design.

As I've said before, Flicker strike needs some sort of cooldown mechanic. Be it costing frenzy charges to use, or just a simple cooldown timer (for a skill that casts x flickers, or has a cooldown every x times used).
This way it wouldn't be strongly abuseable in PvP or even PvE. Requiring it to have a target would be pretty good too.

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bkboggy wrote:

My huge concern with this is that sometimes it won't activate for some odd reason (it's not a mana issue). My duelist will just run to enemies. Other time it works flawlessly. I notice this usually happens when I run and then try to use it. Maybe it has something to do with animations of running not allowing FS to execute. The animation delays are a huge annoyance and concern for me. I wish skill executed instantaneously with animation continuing unless interrupted (like most other games).

I don't know what you're asking in the last half, but it sounds like you don't understand how the skill or game works, or you're asking for something unreasonable.

Anyway, the reason why the skill doesn't activate is because you're out of range. Right now there's an annoying issue where if you use the skill on a target that's out of range, it will walk up to the target to attack them regularly instead of walking towards them until in-range and then using the ability from there.

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bkboggy wrote:

Yeah, but the DPS on it is mediocre. On top of that, usually low hp builds use this skill, thus, by using it they get less life leech if they continue using it. At this point it's only good for closing in distances, but then I'm sure they'll come up with a spell that let's you teleport away or something along those lines. Flicker strike is not mediocre damage. It's one of the best single-target DPS skills in the game for melee, particularly for non-dual-wielding.

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Or if the person uses FS on you, and god forbid they accidentally hold down the button for two long, it goes for the second round. During all this time you can cast a few powerful spells right where you are at, and due to low life leech, that FS user will be dead.

You're assuming that the flicker strike attacks aren't interrupting the target, and/or that the target isn't slowed by temporal chains or something.

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bkboggy wrote:

There will be a way to counter flicker strike, you just have to find it. If this is such a huge concern, let's look at GW series, the mother of all PvP as far as I'm concerned. GW2 has lots of abilities that imitate FS, yet there are bunch of ways to counter them as well.

Just because one game has certain mechanics similar to another mechanic in another game doesn't make the mechanics equal. Just because the mechanic in that game has counters doesn't mean it would have counters in the other game.

If you're saying Flicker strike SHOULD be counterable, I'd certainly agree, but you cannot simply presume that it WILL be fairly counterable.

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NotSorry wrote:

Aside from damage on the skill, it's a free teleport on to a player and as is melee tend to 1-2shot range classes once they get close enough, Flicker remove any effort required in that and there is nothing the opposing player can do about it, other than pray you have a bad string of misses which is really anti-intuitive game design.

Flicker's certainly a potential problem, but you're not going to be 1-2 shotting any reasonable player in this game at the same level — at least not at the higher levels that I've used it with (20+).

I just realized that Nova's of any type, and possibly some strength based PBAOE skills (Cleave? Ground Slam?) could be good counters to FS.

Also, to balance it, I think all it needs is this removed:

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If no specific monster is chosen, one is picked at random.