Item Development - Information

Alright, I see a bit more clearly now (and wish that Nick would have said this outright).

Making it an oskill is at least partially about disabling Empower (and corruption and quality bonuses) so that they can still do this fun thing but without having to fuck up their code elsewhere (such as introducing a max level 1 gem that says "cannot be Empowered, cannot be corrupted to be +1, has no quality").

Only that level of that skill will be available, ever, with 0 quality. This fixes (like a nail to a board) a lot of the design space and allows them to still have levers in the form of the unique item itself.

---

So, a skill-gem-less skill. There's other information on the skill gem other than its base damage, of course.

These can all be calculated manually, but:
- Where do you find the base mana cost of the skill?
- Where do you find the base cast speed of the skill?
- What's the damage effectiveness of the skill?
- What keywords apply to it?

There's always only been one place to see those things before and they've always been readily available before. I'm certainly closer to the powergamer camp of wanting to see all the data in every item all the time (which I know is a UI no-no), but at least this information is stuff that people are already used to getting.

How bad would the UI fuck up if you were to place that information (in its standard gem pop-up UI form, minus the level, quality, and requirements fields) inside the staff?

---

"

Recomposed wrote:

yeh. very weird of them but why knock it until release

I'm sure the item will be fine, and the build that uses it will be fun and relatively strong.

The knock is ultimately some fear that they're allocating design resources (i.e. man hours) to introducing this super-limited "thing" when they could make something that crosses with lots more existing content instead.

I don't have any skin in the game w.r.t. the player-designed uniques, but certainly I can understand some people being a bit miffed that they were told "No oskills" only to see an oskill pop up later.

I just can't wait to Vaal Orb this thing :D

why are people so up in arms over this yet this aint anything new.
you state you like the fact you can use skill gems with a weapon of your choice but in reality you dont especially if say you go fist only you essentially are forced to play facebreakers which to me is in same context as this skill.

i dont see how its bad that a unique essentially is needed to use a specific skill as lets face it 99% of builds out there have this exact specification anyway.

im all up for new and interesting idea's using uniques and look forward to the amazing job GGG do everyday.

looks great to me, I feel like all the negativity is misplaced. As has been said, items have been granting skills for quite a while now, the only difference here is its an exclusive skill. Its not like its going to be the best skill in the entire game and everyone will have to have this staff to use it, its just a fun little addition, might even be quite powerful but I just cant see it being this 'must have' item thats going to crush diversity because of how restrictive the uber powerful skill being attached to a particular item is. In a game with Shavs, Acuity etc in play, actual retarded items that really are essential to doing a lot of the most powerful builds in the game the reality is that all these proposed negative impacts, theyre already in the game and result from items that dont actually grant skills and are almost certainly not going to be added to by this item. Atizirs Acuity is actually a game breaking item, has destroyed some of the game and majorly hurt the build/item situation, should not ever have been allowed to exist, this staff is truly trivial in comparison and i dont see it causing any real harm at all.

"

shadowraiden wrote:

why are people so up in arms over this yet this aint anything new.
you state you like the fact you can use skill gems with a weapon of your choice but in reality you dont especially if say you go fist only you essentially are forced to play facebreakers which to me is in same context as this skill.

i dont see how its bad that a unique essentially is needed to use a specific skill as lets face it 99% of builds out there have this exact specification anyway.

im all up for new and interesting idea's using uniques and look forward to the amazing job GGG do everyday.

Someone missed the fact that a new facebreaker item is coming in A4.

Spell damage AND base damage scaling with intelligence, awesome. I assume this can get huge with Black Sun Crest, Astramentis and Perandus/Shavronnes rings. I'm totally looking forward to it.


I'm probably too casual to see the bad effects of unique skills, but they sound to me like "more possibilities" and imo that's one of the things PoE needs bladly atm, taking into account the new item's impact over item and build diversification. I don't mind a world where a single unique drop can make a whole new build possible.

Please don't leave the highly anticipated Icestorm skill gem as a unique skill only available with this item, that's a terrible idea. Sure, it'd be fun to use the staff, but an Icestorm build would have absolutely no choice in their weapon if this is the final decision.

A perfectly acceptable solution is to make Icestorm a world-drop only skill gem, and have a high level requirement at level 1 (negated by the staff). As is, we'll never know the skill's potential through levelling or via quality.

Personally, I want a ton more world drop only gems. They have wonderful value and make you feel truly blessed when you find them. Just scale the drop rate by how impossibly rare you want the gem to be. Don't make it exclusive, that's just constrictive design.

"

shadowraiden wrote:

why are people so up in arms over this yet this aint anything new.
you state you like the fact you can use skill gems with a weapon of your choice but in reality you dont especially if say you go fist only you essentially are forced to play facebreakers which to me is in same context as this skill.

Barehanded is basically a weapon type that you can use different skills/items with. I believe Chris even recently posted that they are expanding on barehanded stuff in the future. It isn't really comparable to what's being discussed.

I was excited for a new ice skill, then I learned it was tied to the staff. My build uses ice/lightning skills, and would be really hard to swap in a staff instead of wand/shield.

Difficult but not impossible, but mainly I'm annoyed that for the first time there will be a skill (and not a support gem like empower) that I won't even get to try out unless I get a lucky unique drop.

Maybe it will end up being a common drop.

I never liked firestorm, but it also didn't slow mobs down like this skill will.

I've pretty much stuck with Ice Nova and Cold Snap since I started, they are the only skills I seem to never swap out. Currently I also use Ball Lightning because I prefer it over Freezing Pulse and Lightning Tendrils.

Any spell that pierces frost walls, has aoe, and works with my ice/thunder heralds is a spell I like.

As for the item description of the staff, I think its fine as is. People are going to try the skill out regardless, so they will ultimately decide if its cool or not.

Considering this is just some free respecc spent while being half-asleep I'm pretty sure someone can get much higher int.

If Icestorm hits as often as Firestorm then the damage seems likely to be quite end-game viable.

Pretty exciting.