Potentionally you could run auras on mana pool without having to increase it for Clarity. You still need to take the aura nodes in the tree. I'm okay with that. Would be something like getting aura nodes, getting ES nodes and more ES on gear instead of aura nodes, mana nodes, mana and ES on gear.
Arctic Armour would be harder to sustain because you need to invest in mana for AA and ES for your actual skills.
Blood Magic would mean you can't use auras on your mana pool because it's gone. You still have your ES but it would not be spent for your skills since you pay with your life pool now. Hits you get from MoM on mana would still be mitigated by ES even if you're having 0 mana, useful or not.
To avoid the unfluent gameplay I suggest giving Eldritch Battery something like:
1) (x)xx% faster start of Energy Shield recharge
This way if you invest into faster recharge nodes your ES starts recharging under 3 seconds easily and MoM would still work good enough. BUT you're not able to face tank or cast skills the whole time and have a ES pool that has a fast and static regeneration for your skills.
OR
2) Removes the ES recovery delay, ES regenerates way slower, faster recharge is converted into regeneration (to not make it a useless stat) - Basically ES becomes mana without scaling with mana nodes and stay unreserved from auras.
For both scenarios Zealot's Oath and Ghost Reaver would act as 'mana' regeneration and you could 100% reserve your mana.
IGN: AgatheBauer
Last edited by Flysh#3223 on Apr 18, 2015, 7:21:12 AM
I don't like it. It turns your ES into mana, and that is all I want to see. Also, does this imply that ES will be spent before mana. This means that ES regen will be separate from mana regen when using EB. As such, it'll be harder to get a very large mana regen by making use of EB.
ya Im with you man.
Can I ask waht the thought process is behind this? Is this change for the sake of change or is the idea to completely destroy life based spell casters and wipe them from viability? Because thats what this is from what I can see.
I hope its not from thoughts like this...
"
Serleth wrote:
I think this change to EB falls back into that line. The EB/AA/CoD setup was easily the strongest defensive choice you could make, without really sacrificing a whole lot to get it done.
EB/COD/AA was one of the most investment intensive and weak defenses in the game. Compared to properly specced evasion, armour, ondars, endurance, acrobatics, lightning coil etc combos it is so terrible, absolutely terrible at mitigating damage. Thats good, because if it was anywhere near as good as a character in the melee area of the tree can get their defenses then casters would be absolutely overpowered because of how safe and easy to scale spells are. They need to be defensively weak and they already are, this is just going to absolutely destroy them.
How do you balance this? MoM is just gone, it was poor compared to proper dex and str defenses before now you just cant have any auras, you wont be able to get enough free mana or mana regen to make it worth anything. If you edit arctic armour to the point where you can actually sustain it now with a much lower mana regen to counter act butchering EB like this then you are gonna put it into a realm where non eb builds can use it a lot easier, and how is that going to be balanced? A lightning coil full evasion ondars guile phase acrobatics endurance charge attacker also now running high level arctic armour?
I dont get it, I just dont get why you would want to take one of the only things thats making life based casters defensively viable and completely trash it.
Is this to try and stop cloak being so pervasive? Is this a zeno "omg nerf cloak omg" thing? Cause I agree its way over used, I totally get why he says that, but surely theres other ways around that which dont involve just obliterating life based spell builds? You could balance that by moving mind over matter into the spellcaster part of the tree somewhere spell casters can actually get it easily and then edit the node itself as the chest is now just giving you the node. Change it to 20% of damage from mana or something. AA was already nerfed to the point where it feels like you are wearing 1k armour against any sized hit that matters even at extreme levels of inner force + lvl25 arctic armour.
Is this just trying to change the caster meta? Cause I mean I can understand a desire to do that but this... man, this is terrifying for life based casters. People think casters are op, theyre not, their damage is more often than not quite meh, defensively theyre a joke, an absolute joke. I have a lvl94 witch with a legacy cloak running a lvl25AA with inner force, vertex, some pretty serious gear, as good as you can really hope for on a cloak of D setup before you start hitting mirror level gears and I can tell you with some certainty shes the most defensively fragile character I have. Im not saying this because I dont want my build nerfed, I have so many builds across all spectrums of characters and for sure, for absolutely sure the idea that cod mom aa builds are some op defense is absolutely nonsense. Im first and foremost a physical attack guy, I have tons of attack builds thats my thing, what Im saying is honestly for the sake of game and casters at large.
Thats my thoughts looking at it, obviously we havent tried it yet, but if you want first impressions, there it is. Casters are already "if you want to have a viable build you need to go to the south side of the tree and take scion life wheel", do this to them and its going to be a case of casters needing to go get iron reflexes or ondars or god knows what else to be able to survive while theyre down there and thats just, imo, nonsense. Esp when you combine it with making them give up life leech or life regen to be able to sustain casting etc... from a distance it just looks like a nightmare tbh.
100% agree
It would be a good idea however to introduce this change as an alternate keystone. The tricky mechanic behind it will most certainly be put to good use by imaginative persons.
Ranger builds list: /917964
When two witches watch two watches, which witch watches which watch?
If the witches watching watches watch the same watch while you watch which witch watches which watch, they switch watches; then, the watch switching witches watch which watch you watch.
Watching witches watch watches is not for the faint of heart...
It's not "free". You still need to invest in mana regen if you want to run high lvl AA.
Well I've run high AA without elderich battery, but I like having my es for defense. But if I could fully reserve mana, then I'd be thinking about running 3 purities... and AA.
Last edited by DragonsProphecy#4593 on Apr 18, 2015, 7:14:32 AM
not a fan of this idea. it will make gearing for many characters super costly to impossible, like for life based SRS.
suggestion: rather than changing the EB keystone, chance MOM: Like this:
Mind over Matter
30% of damage is taken from mana before life when hit. Eldrich battery does not convert ES to Mana (but functions like in the screenshot)
that way, non-MOM users wont be touched and can still run their AA while using spells ( AA is their only defense now, since no more CWDT EC IC !!!!)
The new Eldritch Battery currently being tested has two stats (wording not final): Energy Shield protects Mana instead of Life and Spend Energy Shield before Mana for Skill Costs
Energy Shield protects Mana instead of Life means that your ES is over your mana, and not over your life, as seen in the screenshot. Since it's not over your life, damage that's doing to your life isn't intercepted by ES. Since it's over mana, damage going to mana (Mind over Matter, etc) will hit ES first, except in the case of Chaos Damage, which bypasses ES and would go straight through to mana.
You will no longer have the 50% chance to ignore stuns for having ES, as that's a property of ES protecting life and doesn't apply when it's over mana instead.
Life being lost will no longer impede the ES refresh, but Mana being lost for any reason will, as of course will losing ES as it always does.
Effects which just make you lose mana, such as Arctic Armour or Sapping flasks, will not be affected, just as ES doesn't stop Caustic Flasks from removing life.
If you take the Blood Magic Keystone, you'll have no mana, and ES will be protecting your empty mana globe. Mind over Matter will still try to divert some damage to mana, and this will be able to be absorbed by ES, but once ES is depleted of course, no damage can be taken from mana and will will all go to life.
Spend Energy Shield before Mana for Skill Costs means that for skill mana costs (not reservations) you pay with ES until you run out, then start paying with mana. Mana reservations are not costs, and will still be paid directly with mana.
Blood Magic still switches you to spending life "instead", so you won't be able to pay with ES if you have blood magic and this stat.
In all other respects, ES behaves exactly the same - it still has the refresh mechanic, and anything that references ES still applies to ES.
Why is this not in the very first post asking for feedback? I mean feedback was asked for a skill that was never actually explained, what are we supposed to do to provide feedback on this unexplainable thing? It wasn't until this post of yours that the keystone, the very thing you want feedback on, was explained.
The very first post rambles on about stuff to do with the keystone, but never explains the keystone it self, it's dumbfounding.
I can't see how "new EB" would be good for trappers. I wouldn't pick it up at all. Just get a lot of mana/regen and run AA the hard way.
well i guess the main thing i was thinking about was the (in comparison) high mana cost of traps/totems. Currently you can just take EB and your unreserved mana + clarity is enough to compensate that cost. But im not so sure if that will be possible in act4. I'll do some math on that i guess.
I've been playing trapper without EB all league (I know, I am silly sometimes) and it works well enough. You do need a lot of mana and mana regen, but it works just fine.
I just tested it out myself, seems to work just fine, but AA is sth that needs rebalancing if they implement the EB change.
To include some stats here:
586 Base ES from stats and gera
92.2% increased ES (from int and tree)
66% increased mana
137% increased mana regen
level 19 clarity, Discipline and purity of lightning +reduced mana
that gave me (on level 85 shadow)
without EB (no CoD):
1.2k mana (130 unreserved)
126 mana regen
1.6k ES
with EB and CoD:
3.8k mana (1.1k unreserved)
290 mana regen
You have to consider that in the first case i also gained life and resist slots, because i was able to wear a rare chest. As i said before AA prpbably needs a rebalance but everything else is fine, maybe we'll see more Life/ES hybrids or CI casters in act4 if this makes it into the game.
Oh and another thing i'd like to mention:
Why would I take EB+MoM then? just leave the ES on life and get some mana reg, the combo doesnt grant that anymore and therefore u will need to get reg anyways in order to run AA.
The only way i currently see the new EB being good is with either zealots or possibly ghost reaver if u can use mana leech with GR. The base recharge delay is just too long to be mapping efficiently (at least thats what i think).
