Shock NEEDS to be changed

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Brigs wrote:

TLDR: WE NEED TIME TO REACT TO SHOCK!

I just killed sawbones in the multiple proj famine race. There were 3 lightning skeletal mages left in the room. 3 of their projectiles, no more no less, hit me all at once. We are talking less than 1/10th of a second. I instantly died from full life(132hp+14es). The 3 projectiles all shocked me...

Usually when you get a shock stack on you, you can back out of the fight until it wears off. In this scenario, there was no possible chance of backing off. In fact there was only about 10 milliseconds for me to react. It was pretty much impossible to even notice the shock stacks before the resurrect button appeared.

This has happened to me on multiple occasions, killing many of my HC characters, not just the above mentioned. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. The fact is 40% extra damage is WAY too much extra damage, and shock stacks can be applied WAY to quickly and simultaneously for even the tankiest of heroes to respond with anything other than "F&CK, I'M DEAD!"

In conclusion I propose one of 3 solutions:
-Lower shock bonus damage to 20-30%
-Scale it from high to low so first shock stack is 40%, second is 30%, and 3rd is 20%
-Or from low to high so first shock stack is 20%, second is 30%, and third is 40%

Furthermore, irl lightning doesn't strike the same spot twice or more AT THE SAME TIME! To which I offer a 4th option:

-Add a short timer after each shock stack in which you cannot be shocked, so we have time to react.

Well learn how to play better and use your log out button, also if there are mobs that do lighting play safe. Sometimes things happen like this and you can hopefully learn from it, also dont forget that lighting resistance.

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Dandanvapor wrote:

Well learn how to play better and use your log out button, also if there are mobs that do lighting play safe. Sometimes things happen like this and you can hopefully learn from it, also dont forget that lighting resistance.

Please read the thread first.

I try to learn something from every death. Some things cannot be accounted for. Instant death from triple shock stacks is one of them. And when I say instant, I don't mean 1-3 seconds from half health. I mean dropping from FULL HP+ES to NONE in milliseconds.

I retract my previous suggestions in this thread.

I've been thinking about this, and I'm not sure shock itself is the problem. If you look at all the complaints in this thread, the common elements are:
1) shock
2) the way that critical strike effects the entire attack, therefore all hits of one attack/cast crit simultaneously
3) spell shotgunning

The more I think about it, the more #1 is the least to blame out of those three things. Even if we nerf shock to 30% instead of 40%, you'd get hit for (1+1.3+1.6)*1.5/3=1.95x usual damage then be taking 90% more damage after... instead of (1+1.4+1.8)*1.5/3=2.1x usual damage, then 120% more damage after. Either way, you're dead. You'd have to overnerf shock in order to fix this specific problem. Maybe if we had five stacks of 30% things would be a little better, but it's not a priority change.

I think #2 is actually the thing that makes the most sense to change. Triple-crits would still happen, but much less rarely; a monster with a 5% chance to crit right now zero-crits 95% of the time and triple-crits 5%; if we made each hit check critical chance independently, it would be 85.7% zero-crit, 13.5% single-crit, 0.7% double-crit, and well under 0.1% triple-crit. This is much more manageable, and would essentially be a test if you can react appropriately to a single stock stack before it becomes a double a reasonable amount of time later.

#3 is also a decent fix, but honestly I'd prefer keeping the game how it is. Funny thing is, ask me a couple weeks ago and I would have said otherwise, but I've since built a Culling MF summoner and found that Splitting mages don't scare me at all (Zombies tank), while Splitting archers terrify me (arrows "pierce" and can hurt me directly); similarly, I'm using attacks because I want to hit each enemy once for Culling, and I'd actually be worse off using a spell with LMP. Having differences in mechanics like this, which happen to be pretty easy to understand, adds an interesting element to min/maxing which wouldn't be present otherwise. I understand it sucks for melee, but if we could change how criticals work, I believe the whole spell shotgunning thing would become a little less of an issue anyway; although I think it might also be a good idea to add 30% less damage (a la LMP) to Splitting monsters so that spell shotgunning doesn't do so much extra damage to melee, representing about a double-threat instead of a triple-threat.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

the way that critical strike effects the entire attack, therefore all hits of one attack/cast crit simultaneously

That would be the reason we get triple-shocked insta-killed. Changing to independent crits would fix it perfectly. Although I'm sure many builds will suffer from this. Sporkers come to mind.

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Brigs wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

the way that critical strike effects the entire attack, therefore all hits of one attack/cast crit simultaneously

That would be the reason we get triple-shocked insta-killed. Changing to independent crits would fix it perfectly. Although I'm sure many builds will suffer from this. Sporkers come to mind.

Scrotie somehow forgot to mention that you also often get hit by multiple enemies simultaneously.

Shock is the one true common factor in all situations where you get insta-gibbed by - you know - shock.

In a game with build freedom, it makes no sense that you would think of ruining creative gameplay, by changing rules with specific effects in mind.
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That being said, I'm not completely against the League of LEgends treatment to "shotgun" effects.
In League of Legends, some skills deal reduced damage when additional projectiles that hit the same target.

So let's say Fireball with LMP, if all 3 projectiles hit the same target, the target takes 100% from the first projectile, but - hypotetically - 50% from EACH of the other 2.
This would - arguably - not apply to the AoE that Fireball produces.

Nurvus, the actual LMP support gem has "30% less damage" right on it. I'm just talking about having the player LMP penalty also apply to monsters.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Nurvus, the actual LMP support gem has "30% less damage" right on it. I'm just talking about having the player LMP penalty also apply to monsters.

Oh, I completely agree with you on that :)
I didn't know it doesn't.

Spark and lightning strike still triple shock on crit without LMP/GMP.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

1) shock
2) the way that critical strike effects the entire attack, therefore all hits of one attack/cast crit simultaneously
3) spell shotgunning

The more I think about it, the more #1 is the least to blame out of those three things. . .
. . .I think #2 is actually the thing that makes the most sense to change. . .
. . .#3 is also a decent fix, but honestly I'd prefer keeping the game how it is. . .

I agree with number one, but think you have 2 and 3 backwards here. Changing the way critical strikes work would be changing the game on a fundamental level.. and I too would prefer to keep the game how it is. Shotgunning, on the other hand, only triple stacks shock simultaneously. Burning and chill / freeze only apply one at a time, shotgunning only adding more effects in line thus increasing duration--a nonissue given thawing and dousing flasks. Changing it so each use of an attack or spell could add only one application of each status ailment would mean each shotgun crit could add only one shock while leaving all else virtually unchanged. Would also stealth nerf sporkers while leaving all other totems unchanged--also not a bad thing.

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CanHasPants wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

1) shock
2) the way that critical strike effects the entire attack, therefore all hits of one attack/cast crit simultaneously
3) spell shotgunning

The more I think about it, the more #1 is the least to blame out of those three things. . .
. . .I think #2 is actually the thing that makes the most sense to change. . .
. . .#3 is also a decent fix, but honestly I'd prefer keeping the game how it is. . .

I agree with number one, but think you have 2 and 3 backwards here. Changing the way critical strikes work would be changing the game on a fundamental level.. and I too would prefer to keep the game how it is. Shotgunning, on the other hand, only triple stacks shock simultaneously. Burning and chill / freeze only apply one at a time, shotgunning only adding more effects in line thus increasing duration--a nonissue given thawing and dousing flasks. Changing it so each use of an attack or spell could add only one application of each status ailment would mean each shotgun crit could add only one shock while leaving all else virtually unchanged. Would also stealth nerf sporkers while leaving all other totems unchanged--also not a bad thing.

That would totally nerf my Lightning Arrow build. :( But I guess that is a fourth option I didn't explore, and it's good of you to bring it up. I'm sticking with my original opinion, though; I think the synergy between Static Blows and Chain is cool, and I'd rather see a numerical nerf on that notable than a complete "scorched earth" nerf which destroys the interaction. Personally I'd lower the nearby 10% shock chance node to 5%, keeping Static Blows at 10% itself, while simultaneously buffing the shock chance on Conductivity (as well as similar effects on Flammability and Frostbite) to 9% plus one every odd level thereafter (18% chance at level 20, 19% at 21, 20% at 23).

The current mass-critical system isn't flawed only in terms of monsters multi-shocking players; it also has a huge impact on reflected damage, making all kinds of crit builds more dangerous and much less consistent than they should be. No disagreeing that it would be a big change, but I think it's for the best.