Can we talk about porcupines?

What is the point of those monsters? They deal quite an insane amount of damage, their projectiles are very fast and most of all, they have a huge travel range, so offscreen deaths can easily happen in a map with porcupines if you don't move in zigzag, that excluding other gameplay aspects that may render you unable to do so sometimes.

What's the argument for those existing? They are much more deadly against melee characters because ranged ones can more reliably dodge them. The projectile speed and travel distance combined leads to a lot of unaware deaths. If we are punished for killing stuff offscreen, why do our projectiles travel so far in the first place? That's a huge inconsistency that makes no sense.

Several suggestions would be to reduce their travel distance, speed, make porcupines release less spines, make them release the spines uncentered (so you don't get shotgunned by an entire pack but rather have the damage spread out; however, this would nullify current counter play), reduce damage, put a delay between porcupine death and spine release or just straight remove them completely.

If you put me in an uber elder fight, there's an extremely high chance I would reliably dodge everything and kill uber elder deathless. Put me in a map with porcupines and 2 damage mods? I'd probably die more in it.

It's a gross gear check with a very small opportunity of counter play that may not be present at all times. If reflect was removed, why isn't this removed as well? Or at least tweaked?

their point is to slow people down or take proper action for it in order to survive or make them slow down.

I think their purpose is to punish glass cannon builds because those are pretty much the only ones who have problems with them. (Good) Melees can pop entire packs at point blank without even noticing the damage and ranged builds can avoid most projectiles.
I honestly can't even imagine how you can die to them offscreen, there must either be a shitload amount of damage mods on the map or your build lacks any meaningful defenses.

Cyclone Berserkers with Abyssus and other nonsense like that will most likely get blasted into oblivion in porc maps but honestly, they deserve it.

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satanttin wrote:

their point is to slow people down or take proper action for it in order to survive or make them slow down.

Now GGG just needs to take that logic and apply it to reflect map mods. :P

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Pizzarugi wrote:

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satanttin wrote:

their point is to slow people down or take proper action for it in order to survive or make them slow down.

Now GGG just needs to take that logic and apply it to reflect map mods. :P

they did...

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What's the argument for those existing? They are much more deadly against melee characters because ranged ones can more reliably dodge them.

Physical mitigation does help for characters that don't have block, evasion, and/or acrobatics.

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VolcanoElixir wrote:

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What's the argument for those existing? They are much more deadly against melee characters because ranged ones can more reliably dodge them.

Physical mitigation does help for characters that don't have block, evasion, and/or acrobatics.

or just make them explode so u don't need to worry about anything nor the corpse after.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

I think their purpose is to punish glass cannon builds because those are pretty much the only ones who have problems with them. (Good) Melees can pop entire packs at point blank without even noticing the damage and ranged builds can avoid most projectiles.
I honestly can't even imagine how you can die to them offscreen, there must either be a shitload amount of damage mods on the map or your build lacks any meaningful defenses.

Cyclone Berserkers with Abyssus and other nonsense like that will most likely get blasted into oblivion in porc maps but honestly, they deserve it.

To be honest, I have no idea either. It was just a map with one damage mod. I have 7k hp, had 4 endurance charges + fortify and a good amount of armor + steelskin proc. Still died to 7-8 of them. I don't know what happened. The damage mod was crit. Maybe all of them crit me? Still unfairly high damage if you ask me.

Crit damage mods are really bad for non-evasion based characters so that was most likely what killed you.

Hate porcupines but love them. They have to be here.
It is just one of many many things in game which are testing you and your build. If you are unable to run reflect/no regen/ailment avoidance/hight resistance map - you dont run it or make it very slow. You a kinda fucked up bcs no way to know are porcupines in map or they dont.
It is the whole point of the game. It offers a risk and reward. You take it or you dont.

Or from another perspective... Shit like porcupines is making game fun. You see porcupines and you hate them. Do you hate skeletons in this game? Bird monsters? Necros? Zombies? I dont care about them all. But then after 10 maps full of something.... WILD PORCUPINE APPEARS. And you have to play around them.

Like... Diablo 2 was cool bcs of running away little guys in act 1, jumping frogs in act 2, another small fks in act 3 and so on.
How much monsters you have in Diablo 3. None? => Game is boring.
Wolcen? Cannon beasts maybe... All other monsters are decorations that don't bother anyone