Why is Tempest Shield infinitely better then Riposte/Reckoning

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benjaminbona wrote:

still no real feedback to my feedback or response from GGG explaining why tempest shield is so much better


Either nerf tempest shield so its fair for melee or buff melee thats all im askin

Wut ? Are you expecting an answer from GGG here ?
Have fun waiting then.

Or maybe you could be failing to understand that it's not so much better ?
But I don't even know why I am talking to you anyway, it's not like you listen to others after all.

I don't play spellcasters, so I know nothing about Tempest Shield. However, I am intelligent enough to see that those people who have replied to OP's legitimate points have made nothing but garbage retorts of their own. I already have the opinion that this game has always heavily favored Range and Spell Caster builds. I would like OP's findings to be wrong, but nobody so far has refuted him in a cogent way. All I see in this thread are people giving the OP attitude because he's not asking his question in a calm way :rolls eyes:

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AlMcFly wrote:

I don't play spellcasters, so I know nothing about Tempest Shield. However, I am intelligent enough to see that those people who have replied to OP's legitimate points have made nothing but garbage retorts of their own. I already have the opinion that this game has always heavily favored Range and Spell Caster builds. I would like OP's findings to be wrong, but nobody so far has refuted him in a cogent way. All I see in this thread are people giving the OP attitude because he's not asking his question in a calm way :rolls eyes:

Did you even read the responses or did you already draw your conclusion before reading anything? It seems like that is what you are doing.

I use Tempest Shield when I play a build with some block. This means for any caster character I use, Tempest Shield is not used, there are far more important gems to use than Tempest Shield. Unless for some rare reason, I am speccing into block as a caster.

When I play melee with block, that is when I use Tempest Shield, as it supplements nicely to Reckoning and Riposte. However, unlike Riposte and Reckoning, Tempest Shield takes an extra gem to trigger it and that is Cast When Damage Taken.
You could self cast it, but that means you are re-casting it every couple of battles. If you were going to do that, there are far better survival spells to do, like Enduring Cry.

Now with that said, when I play melee without getting block nodes, I will not use Tempest Shield. There are better gems to slot than that.

What the OP is comparing is nonsense. He is comparing a trigger gem to a non-trigger gem. One automatically activates, while the other requires manual activation. You can cause auto activation by linking it with a trigger gem, for example, Cast When Damage Taken. All of this is already mentioned on my response earlier, if you even bother to read it.

Yes, I read what you wrote. OP is unhappy about the potential ridiculous damage disparity. The output of damage he explained in his 5L and 6L Tempest Shield completely outclasses any similar melee-oriented gem setup. I don't know much about Tempest Shield, but I always play melee, and I do know quite a bit about Reposte, Vengeance, and Reckoning. Their damage is shit really.

OP is mad about the vastly higher potential damage a Spellcaster can get with this setup.

You came in from left field with the comment:

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I would use Vengeance, Riposte or Reckoning over Tempest Shield any day of the week. The prior requires nothing else to auto trigger it, the latter requires something to trigger it, like Cast When Damage Taken.

As if that has any relevance to his argument. He didn't ask for alternative setups, nor did you provide evidence why your setup gives a higher damage output than the Tempest Shield setup he is complaining about. It was a waste of words on your part. You began arguing with him about something that matters very little.

This argument about Trigger vs Cast is something you began and are arguing with yourself about. OP doesn't care about that new argument you brought, nor is it relevant. The point is, OP can sit and cast his skill all day at the same, if not faster, rate than your "trigger" gems, and perform 4x the damage. Your argument has nothing to refute on that point.

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AlMcFly wrote:

The point is, OP can sit and cast his skill all day at the same, if not faster, rate than your "trigger" gems, and perform 4x the damage. Your argument has nothing to refute on that point.

Or, the OP could stand around casting Blade Vortex all day instead, and do even more damage.

The passive vs active argument for Tempest shield *is* relevant to the OP's point. Tempest shield needs to be stronger than the other on-block options, since it requires casting. It takes up time, concentration/attention and hotkey space that could be used for something else.

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AlMcFly wrote:

Yes, I read what you wrote. OP is unhappy about the potential ridiculous damage disparity. The output of damage he explained in his 5L and 6L Tempest Shield completely outclasses any similar melee-oriented gem setup. I don't know much about Tempest Shield, but I always play melee, and I do know quite a bit about Reposte, Vengeance, and Reckoning. Their damage is shit really.

But this is just plain wrong, this is a lie, facebreaker has a big damage output on single hit, which makes it perfect for reckoning, with reckoning, the monsters that you hit with it get often stunned ( it interupt their attack, which is already far better than just let them potentially hit you, in most cases ), and often it just kills them.

And he is taking a ridiculously dumb example of blocking 50 hits in 2 seconds ....
So maybe in that very niche case which does not happen to anybody unless you are standing in front of a boosted specific type of mobs trying to take as many hits as possible, tempest shield could have an edge ... but then again :
- no leech from attack
- 0 leech from physical damage

And the comparison is even more stupid, beyond stupidy when he gets blocks 50 times within 2 second but his reckoning only hits 5 targets, how stupid is that ???
I will answer for you : it never happens.
Not even taking inc area of effect in this case if he wants to maximize it is plain stupid.
My level 90 fb witch has reckoning + melee phys + added fire + LGoH ( because the builds realy likes it ), and the damage is very significant, never I would drop that to get tempest shield on this char.

Plus, you can proc on attack hit effects with it ....

And the argument about self casting tempest shield or taking a slot versus doing nothing in case of the other setup that we are talking about is relevant, it's part of the whole balance of those skills.

a) trigger gems' intention was to boost 2h and slow-attack speed in general. at the time when they were introduced bases slower than 1.5 were not even considered. trigger gems work on the 'damager per hit' not 'damage per second'. in that it succeeded. players stacking high attack speed cannot really feel the effect. 2h melee guys can pack a hefty punch with them

that seems to be intention of these gems - to close the gap between 1h fast attack speed and 2h or slow attack speed in general. it semi-worked in my opinion


b) examples OP listed are absurd as is his napkin math. the tone he uses to convey his message is also disgusting and repulsing.

50 hits in one second is possible - sure. in theory. in some obscure circumstances. and even if - so f.. what? clearing thrash really makes no difference.

mechanics like these have negative feedback loop: the stronger they are the weaker they are as they kill stuff that triggers them so they are no longer triggered. so even if the Tempest Shield is such a great thrash killer dishing millions of daka - it can do it only once in a while. there are no medals for overkill damage

this makes '50 blocks a second pretty magic argument' - havent seen a single instance when this kind of situation happens despite running red corrupted maps. this is the problem with 'potential' damage - it is only potential and reality differs a lot. skills are not judged by their potential but on their application.


c) the only real point being made here is that there is only ONE melee more multiplier. and this is a real issue - for melee in general. spellcasters have several, melee has ONE - all other are 'elemental of sorts' that do jack sh.. when one has to go full phys for whatever reason. this is the root cause of this situation - not the tempest shield.


d) tempest shield adds 3% block (and this is good for a 2 link). the damage it does.. tried it on my full lightning specced crit caster with ~55% block. wasnt impressed. i killed so fast that it rarely triggered and when it did it killed some white mobs i couldnt care less about (used 4 link self cast with somewhat respectable damage i cannot remember)


e) melee trigger gems are nice to deliver 'misc' - blinds, ECoMS, knockbacks etc. and that added damage adds up. melee's problem never was the damage.


f) the %block can be utilized by melee as well. pretty much every melee shield user i have uses it. because the 3% block is nice for 2 (or 1) gem slot.


g) dealing damage while taking damage is cool concept and can work with stuff like VMS/scolds (or could as GGG gutted it heavily this patch) or CwDT builds but it still puts you at risk and fails short vs bosses. esp the tempest shield '1 mil damage' build would fail horribly vs singular strong enemy..


h) i wouldnt oppose adding .5sec cooldown to tempest shield. for the sake of consistency, not because im agreeing that this non-issue is important. it is a potential damage output disparity.


g) despite some theories - tone is far more important than the content of the message. dear OP - calm down and try to not be rude to others. even if you THINK they are wrong - you being angry makes you a looser of this conversation already, regardless of facts or who is wrong/right

I'm not 100% sure, but I think Tempest Shield DOES have cooldown. If I recall correctly, it was given cooldown when it was reworked. Can't quite find information about it, tho. :C

EDIT: Found it
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1290302

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Rory wrote:

The Awakening has provided us with a great opportunity to take a look at Path of Exile as a whole, and make improvements to many areas, ensuring all the parts fit together nicely. Part of this has been a game-wide review of skills. One of the skills receiving a rework in the next Beta content update is Tempest Shield.

Tempest Shield was intended to enable a defensive shield-using spellcaster build, but supporting it with most damage increasing support gems increased the reservation cost. This made investment in the skill too expensive.

Here are some changes we're making to the skill:

• We've changed Tempest Shield to be a duration buff with a cast cost, rather than having permanent mana reservation. This should make the skill much easier to support with damage increasing support gems, and enables interesting synergies like Cast on Melee Kill.
• Tempest Shield's duration will be refreshed whenever you Block. This will mean that you'll only have to refresh the skill very occasionally if you've specialised in block.
• Tempest Shield now unleashes an arc-like beam at enemies you block. This will help the skill feel more active and let users know what they're damaging or why they're taking damage when facing enemies with the skill.
• The beam from Tempest Shield now chains once. This will help improve the skill when fighting groups of monsters, and give more opportunity for investment as you can further increase the chains with the Chain support gem.
• We've increased the damage, and added a very short cooldown on the damage trigger. This will make the skill more reliable, without being too powerful against very fast attacking monsters or players.

More changes may be coming, based on our continued testing, usage on beta and feedback from players using the skill.

Not sure why it isn't in the patch notes, and not sure how long this cooldown is. Quite sure that it cannot trigger as much as pre 2.0 Tempest Shield, where you could run into 100 monsters and every single hit was countered.

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Perq wrote:

"

Rory wrote:

The Awakening has provided us with a great opportunity to take a look at Path of Exile as a whole, and make improvements to many areas, ensuring all the parts fit together nicely. Part of this has been a game-wide review of skills. One of the skills receiving a rework in the next Beta content update is Tempest Shield.

Tempest Shield was intended to enable a defensive shield-using spellcaster build, but supporting it with most damage increasing support gems increased the reservation cost. This made investment in the skill too expensive.

Here are some changes we're making to the skill:

• We've changed Tempest Shield to be a duration buff with a cast cost, rather than having permanent mana reservation. This should make the skill much easier to support with damage increasing support gems, and enables interesting synergies like Cast on Melee Kill.
• Tempest Shield's duration will be refreshed whenever you Block. This will mean that you'll only have to refresh the skill very occasionally if you've specialised in block.
• Tempest Shield now unleashes an arc-like beam at enemies you block. This will help the skill feel more active and let users know what they're damaging or why they're taking damage when facing enemies with the skill.
• The beam from Tempest Shield now chains once. This will help improve the skill when fighting groups of monsters, and give more opportunity for investment as you can further increase the chains with the Chain support gem.
• We've increased the damage, and added a very short cooldown on the damage trigger. This will make the skill more reliable, without being too powerful against very fast attacking monsters or players.

More changes may be coming, based on our continued testing, usage on beta and feedback from players using the skill.

Not sure why it isn't in the patch notes, and not sure how long this cooldown is. Quite sure that it cannot trigger as much as pre 2.0 Tempest Shield, where you could run into 100 monsters and every single hit was countered.

Thanks for the quote.
The wording would indicate that Nullifier does nullify it, next time I encounter a Nullifier rare, I will try this out.
Edit : nop, nullifier does not nullify it, so it is a buff, but not a buff.