Item Development - Threshold Jewels

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Inarion1986 wrote:

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WiseGuard wrote:

That means if your damage with Heavy Strike is 6, and you have Crit Multi Mod of 150%, you will do 15 damage with a crit.
If by any chance, Crit and Double damage occur at same time, your 15 damage will be doubled, end result is 30 damage.

Make these numbers 6/9/9/18 instead and I agree.
(The critical strike multiplier is what it says: A multiplier. So 150% crit multi result in 50% more damage over a non-critical hit.)

I'm sure WiseGuard meant "150% increased" as it is much more common to see in-game.

Finally some usefull radius gems!
These really will make for some interesting builds and cool situations :)

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Wiesl_1404 wrote:

- Spectral Throw:
Might be powerfull, especially against single target but can't tell before testing (good)

How would you get more than 4-6 hits on a single target? (Keep in mind that each projectile has its own hit counter for the damage increase.)
The only reason I can imagine for the jewel being as presented: GGG found a borderline-broken usage scenario, where this jewel even trumps 4-stat rare jewels. Something with slower projectiles and a lightning-fast Whirling Blades to kite the projectiles through as many mobs as possible maybe?

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Wiesl_1404 wrote:

- Fireball:
Only works while offscreening mobs or while in greater range to mobs. Fireball damage is already sufficiant to clear trash. Overlaping AO makes the single target better. Unfortunatly Fireball gehts outclassed by many other skills like Incinerate, Flameblast etc. (might be at least ok)

Don't make the mistake of underestimating the damage potential of overlapping AOEs. I was playing a self-cast Arctic Breath caster in the flashback league and it was basically one-shotting (with GMP) white packs and most blue packs as well. And should a rare or unique monster ever make the mistake of lingering close to a wall (or worse: In a corner!) - well, that would reduce its remaining lifespan to about 2-3 seconds.
To compare a overlapping-AOE-Fireball with other skills:
- Incinerate: You need to invest in some projectile speed, otherwise you will never have the range that fireball offers. And this skill will certainly be "adjusted" in the next balance patch...
- Flameblast: Cannot off-screen. You need to channel it for maximum damage. I fail to compare the two in any reasoable way.
I think this jewel is just what fireball needed to be competitive again (along with a slight damage buff maybe).

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Wiesl_1404 wrote:

- Pitch Darkness:
The burning ground effekt is cool, but we have to see how much DPS it will do before we can judge if it is good or not. If the damage is low, it is not vaible, if the damge is as high as a fire trap => ranged firetrap :P.
The tar effect is really cool and unique and could fit perfectly in a support build. Problem: Ice Shot does already the same trick for support builds without the jewel (not convinced)

Fire trap is ranged as well - although you can't throw it to the edge of the screen. (only about half way there, maybe?)
Regarding the DPS, I think I saw it mentioned that the burning ground basically spreads the inital ignite.
So possibly it will do way more damage than fire trap's burning ground. (Although with a crit fire trap, I don't know how it will compare...)
Regarding the tar on ground vs. Ice shot: The ground ice effect has a base duration of up to 1.65 seconds at level 20. Which is quite short. I imagine the tar on ground to stay as long as the burning ground would. So 4 seconds scaled by ignite duration (and possibly skill effect duration).
And of course, as Mark already pointed out, the mechanics are not really the same: Chilled ground slows targets by 30% (so that is 30% less overall speed) while tar on ground reduces movement speed by 50%. (So it's less effective on targets with increased movement speed. The most important thing though is: They can both apply at the same time.

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silumit wrote:

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Inarion1986 wrote:

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WiseGuard wrote:

That means if your damage with Heavy Strike is 6, and you have Crit Multi Mod of 150%, you will do 15 damage with a crit.
If by any chance, Crit and Double damage occur at same time, your 15 damage will be doubled, end result is 30 damage.

Make these numbers 6/9/9/18 instead and I agree.
(The critical strike multiplier is what it says: A multiplier. So 150% crit multi result in 50% more damage over a non-critical hit.)

I'm sure WiseGuard meant "150% increased" as it is much more common to see in-game.

150% increased crit multiplier would lead to a final crit multiplier of 150%*(1+1.5)=375%, so I'm not sure how that number would fit in here...

So many cool new jewels! There will definitely be a high demand in jewel slots.
Looks like there will be an overwhelming number of Scion characters in a new league :))

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Inarion1986 wrote:

150% increased crit multiplier would lead to a final crit multiplier of 150%*(1+1.5)=375%, so I'm not sure how that number would fit in here...

Hmm, yes, looks like I was wrong (if you didn't just change the wiki to fool me, haha).

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Inarion1986 wrote:

- Pitch Darkness:
And of course, as Mark already pointed out, the mechanics are not really the same: Chilled ground slows targets by 30% (so that is 30% less overall speed) while tar on ground reduces movement speed by 50%. (So it's less effective on targets with increased movement speed. The most important thing though is: They can both apply at the same time.

I already considered that. Tell me one situation where Ice Shot (chilled ground) + CoH + Temporal Chains isn't better than Burning Arrow (tar effect) + CoH + Temporal Chains for support builds, PA builds or bow builds.

The fact is that chilled ground + Tempoaral Chains is already "strong enough" in slowing down enemies movement speed that the difference between 30% and 50% isn't that much. Chilled ground even slows down cast and attack speed which reduces the damage potential of mobs greatly and make your charcter and your group more safe. so chilled ground > tar in every scenario i can think off (except monsters are immune to chill, which is only Atziri at this time and there movementspeed reduction doesn't matter at all since she doesn't move that much)

Chilled ground + tar + Temporal Chains + Abyssal Cry + Wither would result in a extreme movementspeed reduction which makes the mob almost freeze in place, but i don't think it would be practical or efficiant enough to play with. I rather shoot another Arrow for PA clouds or create more burning ground etc. because it is easy to do and faster.

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silumit wrote:

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Inarion1986 wrote:

150% increased crit multiplier would lead to a final crit multiplier of 150%*(1+1.5)=375%, so I'm not sure how that number would fit in here...

Hmm, yes, looks like I was wrong (if you didn't just change the wiki to fool me, haha).

According to the history, the last modification was 3 days ago. So that would have required time travel or some other means of changing the past / predicting the future... ;)
And additionally, it's not necessarily my intention to be right, but to reflect the game's behaviour correctly. :)

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Wiesl_1404 wrote:

I already considered that. Tell me one situation where Ice Shot (chilled ground) + CoH + Temporal Chains isn't better than Burning Arrow (tar effect) + CoH + Temporal Chains for support builds, PA builds or bow builds.

The fact is that chilled ground + Tempoaral Chains is already "strong enough" in slowing down enemies movement speed that the difference between 30% and 50% isn't that much. Chilled ground even slows down cast and attack speed which reduces the damage potential of mobs greatly and make your charcter and your group more safe. so chilled ground > tar in every scenario i can think off (except monsters are immune to chill, which is only Atziri at this time and there movementspeed reduction doesn't matter at all since she doesn't move that much)

Chilled ground + tar + Temporal Chains + Abyssal Cry + Wither would result in a extreme movementspeed reduction which makes the mob almost freeze in place, but i don't think it would be practical or efficiant enough to play with. I rather shoot another Arrow for PA clouds or create more burning ground etc. because it is easy to do and faster.

I wouldn't even go as far as trying to place one above the other. They rather have different purposes:
For a support build, that can actually afford (regarding the time spent) to use a Ice Shot + CoH combo all the time, I doubt Burning Arrow would be a worthwile alternative.
But now think of a damage-oriented build that utilizes Burning Arrow to spread burning ground with capable ignites. Occasionally not igniting an enemy will lead to tar on ground which then keeps the enemies in the (prior to that spawned) burning ground for longer. (The low chance of that happening on the jewel probably needs some attention...)

Sure you could argue that apples > bread in most cases. But why would you use apples, when your intention was to make a sandwich?

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Alabamak wrote:

So why did you nerfed heavy strike with changing quality from attack speed do stun? 10% of double dmg? Its same like critical strike, same mechanic...

The thing is Heavy Strike usually is a niche skill in its own right. The stereotypical Heavy Striker usually invests in Stun and a LOT of base damage, RESOLUTE TECHNIQUE which doesn't allow to miss (for stunlocking) and maces are their weapon of predilection.

Mace = big damage but lowest crit(5%).
Resolute Technique can't crit.
Player maxes out Strength and Melee Physical damage.
Player doesn't invest in crit chance or multiplier.

That basically means, in these conditions, that a player is given a free "100% more" damage 10% of the time, which is twice the base crit chance(5%) without a chance to miss your target. To me, this sounds extremely nice.

Well,I have few concerns regarding the idea.

1) I hope you won't balance skills based on assumption that a skill jewel will be used.This will make work on them much harder,but that's the only way.

2) The right idea with the jewels is to modify behavior of the affected skills significantly,and better not based on RNG - if I invest points to acquire a jewel socket,and finally get a skill jewel I expect my investment is returned,not just getting shitty 10% chance for something.Not mentioning there are additional requirements for allocating base stats around the socket which makes the presented jewels even less playable.Devs be aware that average,but sure effect without any additional requirements beats every time RNG-based,conditional powerful effect.
Also,about designing jewels it's better to assume that more than one is excessive,that will make designing them easier.Soo,in short I'd design these jewels as such:
a) global modifier part.
b) skill-only affection.
c) perhaps a bonus for stacking them in the tree,but that's imo redundant.

And how is how I'd design these jewels:
Steel Spirit
"10% increased projectile damage.
Changes path of Spectral Throw's projectiles into spiral starting from your character to outside,but they no longer return back to you.LMP/GMP allows them to shotgun one target"
No dex allocation shit required,skill changed entirely in a way which allows to create builds opportunity.Stacking them is possible,but gives just +10% projectile damage.

Weight of the Empire
"12% increased physical damage.
Knockback direction for Heavy Strike is reversed.Heavy Strike has additional 10% reduced Enemy Stun Threshold."
This is I think much more interesting than your version.It also stacks pretty nicely,as each jewel will add 12% damage and 10% threshold reduction.If you think 10% stacked is too much then make it lower,say 7.5%.

Rolling Flames
"14% increased fire damage.
Fireball now explodes three times after hit.Each explosion has 15% increased area of effect.Explosions from LMP/GMP can overlap each other."
Well,if you think 3 explosions are too powerful make it 2 and 25% increased aoe for each.The stack effect for the jewel is fire damage and increased aoe for each fireball - just as you planned.

Pitch Darkness
"14% increased fire damage.
Spreads tar on hit by Burning Arrow.If you ignited enemy which stands on tar it becomes burning ground which still counts also as a tar ground.Burning enemies that stand on tar ground has 15% increased burning damage."
Well,this I think fits better into the theme of Burning Arrow,and is way more enjoyable than your design.Also it has better interaction with other skills,as in my version the ignition does not have to be started by Burning Arrow.Also stacking the jewels is pretty nice,as each one gives 14% fire damage and 15% increased burning damage.Imagine what'll happen if you use Burning Arrow + GMP + Cast on Critical + Fireball with the corrected Pitch Darkness and Rolling Flames?Damn,a brand new and interesting build!

I hope you'll find this feedback inspiring.