What We're Working On

Well I think the launch DID go very smoothly, and it's one of the best leagues yet! I'm loving the content, the sense of progression, the pacing. I'm happy with it all (especially as I managed to wrangle a couple of weeks off - couldn't have picked a better league to binge on!!).

Thank you GGG for all that you do, but GODS I look forward to rogues not being distracted away.

Shattering steel / splitting steel feedback
Currently level 85 max block split steel gladiator
Character: lewsplitkaj

Skills seem fine, but micro'ing around shards is tiring, especially with shattering steel as it eats shards twice as fast.
And using these skills without shards is a no-go as penalties for not having shards are too big.

Call of steel feels good as a support skill, it helps with clear as these two aren't the best for it, especially without pierce/fork/chain supports.
Also lord of steel jewel with increased use speed is required, default cast time feels too clunky.

Impaler - Call of steel combo is pretty great for clearing mobs, but on bosses it's meh as you consume impales faster than 4 secs, maybe it changes if you are using champion ascendancy.

I'd say leave call of steel as it is but somehow automate the shards.
Something like getting shards on impale + replenish them over time if not attacking?

TLDR:
Call of steel - good
Shards aka 'reloading' - bad

"Crackling Lance"
What the reason to reduce branching angle per Intensity stage? This is only affects skill convenience. It's pretty nice skill, but awful for mapping right because of radius reduction.
Please reconsider your decision about property "Less branching angle per Intensity".

I've been using Flame Wall as my main DPS with Armageddon Brand to provide ignites and -fire res%. While the skill itself does great damage and works like I hope it would, the graphics are hard to read. Sometimes it looks like the enemies are standing right on top of the Flame Wall but clearly aren't as they aren't taking damage. Also the flames fill the whole screen when standing on elevated ground in any layout.

Love the league, love the game. Keep up the good work!

Removing the "increasing of alert level" when killing monsters negates the whole idea of stealthy break ins.

It reduces the Heist to an "expensie and cumbersome to open map with one portal, with op Legion mobs, where you lose all loot when you die". Not fun, sorry.
Ironically, the only build that was fitting for the Heist idea was a "Darkness farmer" Delve build, which was "balanced" away.

I really like the idea of stealth, upgrading persistent NPCs with XP and gear though. I wish there was a way to salvage this, but not by removing the core mechanic, which sadly, is incompatible with every build concept of the core game.

My suggestion: introduce stealth as a defensive mechanism back into the game, like phase run, but more broadly and accessible to all classes. Maybe then Heist will have a place in the core game when you decide to incorporate it.

An simpler way to balance Heists is to make the number and difficulty of guards spawning after the alarm dependent on the number of chests you open. This way, it's be like Metamorph, where you 'choose' your difficulty level. Because almost all Heist deaths happen after the alarm, and then Heist is just a map with one portal.

First, thanks a lot for the fixes and the plans! I like Heists, but I would like to finish grand heists somedays without being locked out of buggy rooms.

Anyway, I'm playing crackling lance and coming from lightning ball & arc, it feels powerful to cast but actually the damage seems to be lackluster. Intensity lowering the spread feels a bit off since you want to spread most of the time, only at boss fights you don't want to - and even then you are constantly moving because guess what - bosses kill you if you stand still.

The worst scenario using Crackling Lance is in Delirium and in Alva missions. You need to ramp up the in-built intensity to have a decent damage boost, but once you go there it's literally do or run, otherwise you get killed. It feels very odd and would work more as a ways of introducing a skill to a archetype that is not caster but physical/tank.

So my idea was to remove the intensity from the skill and invent a different kind of buff like "charged" or "grounded", depending on the viewpoint.
The more you cast, the less piercing crackling lance becomes. Though if no pierce happens at max charged/grounded, the damage is amplified a lot.
This change will benefit for example intensify support as you can have both now, with extra damage on top.

Grounded/Charged stacks are removed upon walking/teleporting, but give +10% chance to block spell/phys dmg once stacks reach 0 for 4 seconds. This is to accommodate the strategy that has been in this game for a long time - re-positioning.

I would also consider Crackling Lance to be supported by fork.

Thanks for this league GGG! I like it a lot. The most fun league for me personally in years.

I'm playing archmage firestorm atm. Clear felt really off until I started comboing with void sphere and punishment.

There are some things I want to see changed. Single target damage is worse than ball lightning. Maybe some flavour on hit debuff will improve single target dps a little bit.

Another idea i have is to get rid of hard cap on storms. After reaching 3 storm reduce frequency for every storm. Or second big ball hit for 250% more third for 350%. The main idea is to give firestorm some way to scale it through cast speed.

TLDR: Give firestorm option to better scale through cast speed or add flavour debuff.

Glad you are working on the stuff... I've just been skipping all heist stuff after trying it out for a bit. Regarding the new skills I only really played crackling lance so here're my thoughts:

The damage is okay, not great, however it feels extremely clunky in some situations. The cast speed is too slow, since we're unable to use spell echo to make use of the intensify. The skill works great for clearing as long as the intensify isn't stacked, but when it stacks it feels extremely annoying. My suggestion would be to increase the cast speed by about 30%, maybe to 0.50 instead of the current 0.7 and keep the damage as is.
Instead of intensify for the skill dropping off every 0.25 secs, change it to 0.15 or 0.1 and losing two stages on teleport, even if the intensify gem is used on it. That way it has a more unique quirk to it and clearing while stuttercasting feels smoother.

Alternatively, spell echo/unleash should be supporting it and gaining stacks every cast, but I see why that would not be a good idea. Personally I think the skill is fine, but the cast speed is just too slow to make it feel good. In combination with not being able to control the actual intensify.

In my pov the issue isn't damage but just the handling of the skill that people dislike. Heck my Hierophant is clearing just fine, but when I have to focus fire an abyss, beast, or metamorph the skill is screwing me over slightly. For this it might be worth looking into giving the spell an effect similar to what divine ire has at higher intensify. It already has something like that with enough AOE scaling anyway.

I league started Archmage Crackling Lance, knowing that I'd deal less damage compared to using the freshly nerfed Ball Lightning. I was hoping to like the playstyle of an area skill converting to a single target skill.

The problem imo ist that it doesn't feel like that. The coverage for the first cast is so bad, even on packs that are already somewhat lined up that it feels more like a single target skill that starts with half its damage.

Also the dealing less damage than comparable skills (BL, Arc) after the windup is sad. The skill is missing scaling tools, so the base damage and damage effectiveness could savely be raised. Going from 90% to 120% would be BL territory. I'd top it off to 130% to reward players for the time spent standing still and casting.
I still wouldn't play it then because clearing with it feels bad. The coverage needs to improve too.