Puncture

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HexenLord wrote:

Since puncture doesn't stack with itself its useless as a main damage skill. You'd be better off using that crit build for cleave and 2 shotting the mobs anyway. Also your math is way off on your increased damage, as some of those modifiers are additive, and you stacked them and multiplicative.

You're wrong about that. All of the modifiers I mentioned specify "more" damage, or they apply in a separate instance from other "increased" damage modifiers (like damage over time on vulnerability).

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And relying on melee damage on full life is useless.

CI dagger builds are quite common actually

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On top of that your math for increased crit multiplier is even more off. 400% extra from passives? Not a chance. You would struggle to get over 200% on a non dagger build from passives alone, and any character besides shadow would have to stretch to get anywhere close to that. Increased crit multiplier gem at max quality max level gives just a bit over 140 bonus crit multiplier. Even on a shadow build, your looking at 400% at best, with daggers from passives and gems. Any other class or weapon can say goodbye to that multiplier. You MIGHT get another 100% from gear.

Yes, and why wouldnt you use daggers on a build that relies on crits? It is doable, and you seem to agree with me.

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So basically you're saying that a CI shadow dagger build focused way too heavily on crit might be able to pull off a puncture build until he hits merciless and is useless.

So basically after all of that you're saying you agree with me?

I was saying that you're trying to say that puncture is actually useful as is because it MIGHT fit well into one very specific build. If the skill can only be used for that build with very little room for variation, its not useful on any type of spectrum and needs changed.

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Vipermagi wrote:

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HexenLord wrote:

I was saying that you're trying to say that puncture is actually useful as is because it MIGHT fit well into one very specific build. If the skill can only be used for that build with very little room for variation, its not useful on any type of spectrum and needs changed.

So what you're saying is, because you can't just slap it on any random build and make it work, it should be changed? Never been a problem for RF!

Righteous fire requires work, yes, but this is apples to oranges.

RF builds can be done with any character that can get the appropriate nodes for Life Regen and Max resists (Witch, Templar, Marauder, or Duelist can all get these fairly easy), however its a little bit harder to do with Shadow and Ranger because of their location on the skill tree, although not impossible.

It can also be combo'd with almost any other skill because its main purpose in a RF build is to double spell damage, while providing the added benefit of burn damage to anything that comes within range.

With puncture, you're stuck with a CI Crit Dagger Shadow, although a witch might work if you're feeling ballsy. And since puncture doesn't stack, it'll be used as an opener on groups when supported by Melee Splash, before you switch to something else. You could probably kite bosses around with it pretty easy, though. And since it won't be your main damage skill, just an opener, it probably won't be whats taking up residence in your 5/6L armor, meaning your CI Crit Dagger Shadow won't actually be a CI Crit Dagger Puncture Shadow, it'll be whatever you actually use to follow through with your kills and put in your chest armor for the most benefit.

If puncture was a support gem, any character using almost any physical based skill could benefit from it. If it was the effect that proc'd from physical damage crits, physical builds wouldn't be greatly underpowered compared to elemental builds, especially if the puncture stacked a few times like shock charges.

I'm just saying, as a skill, its vaguely useful or effective. As a support or crit effect, its usefulness magnifies.

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HexenLord wrote:

I was saying that you're trying to say that puncture is actually useful as is because it MIGHT fit well into one very specific build. If the skill can only be used for that build with very little room for variation, its not useful on any type of spectrum and needs changed.

Quote me where I said that please.


As far as I recall, all I did was inquire as to whether anyone had tried making a puncture splash build.

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BRavich wrote:

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HexenLord wrote:

I was saying that you're trying to say that puncture is actually useful as is because it MIGHT fit well into one very specific build.

Quote me where I said that please.

GREAT IDEA!!!

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BRavich wrote:

Has anyone successfully concocted a puncture splash build?

The goal would be to aim for as high of a crit multiplier as possible, and then use that in conjunction with critical weakness.

400% increased multiplier from passives and supper gems means 600% crit multiplier, which means 500 added from quality critical weakness. 1100% crit multiplier.

Here is your quote about a crit build.

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BRavich wrote:

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And relying on melee damage on full life is useless.

CI dagger builds are quite common actually

Here you mention CI dagger builds when I asked about your suggestion of Melee Damage on Full life with puncture.

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BRavich wrote:

Yes, and why wouldnt you use daggers on a build that relies on crits? It is doable, and you seem to agree with me.

Here you confirm that you were talking about a dagger crit build for the bonus crit chance/multiplier.

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BRavich wrote:

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So basically you're saying that a CI shadow dagger build focused way too heavily on crit might be able to pull off a puncture build until he hits merciless and is useless.

So basically after all of that you're saying you agree with me?

Here I am mentioning that you were talking about a CI shadow dagger crit build as one of the only ways to pull off a puncture build, and then you obviously agreed with me.

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BRavich wrote:

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HexenLord wrote:

I was saying that you're trying to say that puncture is actually useful as is because it MIGHT fit well into one very specific build. If the skill can only be used for that build with very little room for variation, its not useful on any type of spectrum and needs changed.

Quote me where I said that please.


As far as I recall, all I did was inquire as to whether anyone had tried making a puncture splash build.

And then here you are already forgetting everything that we both confirmed and trying to disagree with me. Then you say you only inquired about someone making a puncture splash build, even though you went on to mention a crit build, daggers, chaos inoculation, and then finally agreeing that it was a niche skill for a specific build.

Exactly what part are you confused about again?



NOW can we get back to discussing whether puncture would be better as a support gem, crit effect, or actual skill gem?

What I don't get is why on one hand people complain so much about reflect mobs and whine about how unfair it is to die with a glass canon build (a wonderful build they spent weeks to polish) and on the other they fail to recognize a skill that is designed to survive reflect packs encounters.
Puncture and viper strikes are not meant to be primary attacks in a sense that they are not spammable.

But would you rather kill yourself with your EK crits reflected or would you flicker/puncture ?

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Roxley wrote:

What I don't get is why on one hand people complain so much about reflect mobs and whine about how unfair it is to die with a glass canon build (a wonderful build they spent weeks to polish) and on the other they fail to recognize a skill that is designed to survive reflect packs encounters.
Puncture and viper strikes are not meant to be primary attacks in a sense that they are not spammable.

But would you rather kill yourself with your EK crits reflected or would you flicker/puncture ?

I use puncture as my single target opener. With a huge crit change and multiplier I hit brutus or another heavy hitter and kite them around. Takes time but its fool proof. With critical weakness and 5 power charges I have a 75% chance to crit with a 800 multiplier. if I use winds cream they also get vulnerability.

But since the bleed is per second it ends up doing less damage alone than it would if I sat there and used double strike with hatred.

I guess it would be a good bit more viable in hardcore.

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BRavich wrote:

As far as I recall, all I did was inquire as to whether anyone had tried making a puncture splash build.

Actually, I did try that with a duelist, took it to merciless then decided to rework it as a crit shadow with Adder's touch for some added flavor. You play it guerilla-style, curse a group with vulnerability, puncture them and sheld charge to another small group or casters in the back. I used chance to flee and Blackheart ring to make those move but it was kinda unreliable. Bosses are killed rather easily if you mix it with viper, it was pretty safe to play for a melee build.

The main difficulty, surprisingly wasn't kill speed but the iffiness of Splash, desync being the main culprit as the enemies mostly aren't there when you swing. Now, that's not a problem when using cleave or such, you hit an area regardless of the target being there or not, however, with splash you have to hit to get an aoe. It mostly ends up in dud shots, and they sound similar too, you swing and instead of normal hit get some type of hollow sound like 'dud' doing no effect whatsoever. It happens pretty often for you to swing 3 or 4 times around until you manage to nail a guy that actually is there to take a hit, pretty crappy.

So I noticed this was on the list of the first group of skills to be rebalanced with the total rebalance going to be happening in future patches. I wonder if the balancing changes will actually be worth it, or if this skill will remain on the list of skills that would better serve as a support, or in the case of puncture, a crit effect.