Knockback

Hi there,

Knockback Support is ok, but I have some Ideas to improve it.

old funktion:


my idea:


kind regards
JeckNoTree

Hello,

During the teasers of this league, I had the idea that drop would be unified like Delves or Incursion was. I made a build pivoting around that.

Time proved me (very) wrong, but I liked the build and went with it.

I wanted to make a build that off-screened enemies as main defence method. You can check it in my character ESP_Arky.

The plan was:

He cyclones, triggers Sparks with CWC, and due projectile speed, skill duration, and several sources of additional projectiles releases a "mantle" of approximately one screen and a half. Also he can hit behind obstacles and take cover. Being always in movement, manually avoiding things is easy. And high life enemies (like bosses) would be pushed against a wall, increasing the concentration of the "mantle" of sparks (this didn't work so well).

The closer to the centre (the character) the more concentration of sparks, and because of that, more hits. More hits = more knock back. And eventually their movement speed and the knock backs reach an equilibrium at a certain distance.

The results:

With 3 jewels, 1 curse (Projectile Weakness), and 1 gloves (Winds of Change) I have 53% chance to knock back.

I barely ever see any normal or magic monster to die on screen, this works great. Rare monsters do die on screen, but high life or high movement monsters are stopped at cyclone range.

I have a problem with unique monsters, which can't be kept at a range at all. They are mostly unphased by my shenanigans. Because of the reduced curse effect and even many are directly immune to knock back. Which sucks great time because if I could push the enemies to a wall I will deal more damage (and pushing).

The reason I post all this text, is for you to understand how seriously I took the knock back mechanic, and even realizing that I'm lacking knock back chance, I didn't use the Knock back Support gem.

For most builds, knock back is a big downside. Nothing wrong with that, for most builds reduced skill effect duration it's a downside (except for Lightning Warp and Storm Call). It's impossible to change this fact, but some builds (like mine) can use it. All the builds that want to knock back will go for high frequency hits and wall synergies (like Explosive arrow, Fireball, Spark, or Kinetic Blast).

Because of the high frequency requirement, this support will mostly be used on the main skill link. This lacks a more damage to compete for that, you even made a point of this on a manifesto when you remade chain/pierce/fork.

The way to make it "feel" more frequent without actually competing with faster casting/faster attacks, I think you should add a couple mods:

-"Monsters have 1% reduced action speed for 4 seconds"
-"Monster take 1% increased damage for 4 seconds"

The Increased knock back distance and the chance to knock back will still be build enabling for clearing. But these new mods would stack and be used for single target, and should be balanced for that purpose. Increased damage taken is additive with shock and other similar sources, not a purely multiplier. Because it needs to ramp up, I would cap this effect at 60-80%.

Many bosses directly have the mod "Cannot be fully slowed down", and because of the necessary ramp up, and as there are already many pop-up enemies (Beyond bosses, beyond monsters, strongboxes, delirium, legion, breaches, etc), I don't think think a cap is necessary at all. Or tie the restrictions with the existing for freeze. Alternatively, you can make it a "2% less action speed" (and open the opportunity of use for Orb of Storms links or CWDT and such).

Any way, the "smart" use of knock back is to keep enemies in your range but outside of theirs, be it because you use a wall, because you have an incrementing frequency of hits like my build, because you use Projectile Weakness on a blasphemy, or anything else. This support gem doesn't synergy significantly with the things a knock back build could want.

I'm also posting a small suggestion on Projectile Weakness and Volley Support, but the truly broken unusable gem is this.

Thank you. Love your game guys.

A small update on my previous post.

Thunderstruck Cluster node completely erases the need for knockback support to stay in the game, even after the nerf of Projectile Weakness. This also applies for other jewels with knockback rolled in. The amount of effort required to have any build enabling chance to knock back is immense any other way.

I don't know why I didn't play a crit spark build back then, I was dumb (it was a delirium starter build, I didn't know well all cluster notables). I plan to re-roll this build, provably as an inquisitor.