state of slams (hit slow and hard) - it is sadly rubbish
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after reading 'melee 2h is dead' tread (that i agree in general with) i wanted to try something 'slam' and 'non-meta' and 'melee 2h'
2h Mace (non STR stacking! this is important) Consecrated Path Chieftain SLAM way (relying on Fist of War/exerts for damage, not attack speed)* * - please do not say 'slams are fine, people are successfully playing 105rage Sunder' or whatever. it is about SLAM PLAYSTYLE, not slam skills. General goal of the build was to: - test warcries in practice - test 'exerted' mechanic and math behind it - see how slam playstyle fares in current game - check Tawoha Forest Strength (auto-slam that deals 100% more now) - NOT using this new auto-win helmet. playstyle should NOT rely on one item Long Story short: it is terrible. Like literally revolting and i seriously pity anyone who tried to play like this on their initial POE playtrough. That player for sure left the game and wont be returning. It is this bad. Warcries: - 'stupid tax' for not exerting travel skills. noone uses Leap Slam for damage, just make it non-exertable. Any and all 'slam builds' are 1 passive point short or one jewelry affix short. -> make Leap Slam non-exertable. remove this passive/affix completely. - base stat values (warcry speed/cooldown) are ATROCIOUS and FORCE into passive tree investment (gear options are very limited, luckily). yet another 'melee tax' (+strike/splash for strike skills says 'hello'). 60% of these stats is one cluster. it feels terrible to build a slam character given that bottom-left part of the tree is horribly bad anyway. so you path among dead passives and wonder your build choices. -> make warcry speed/cooldown progression with levels better so lvl20 warcry is 25% faster to cast/reload - warcry buff effect should be called fluff effect. warcry buff effect mostly does nothing important or is capped with a fixed, unscalable value -> warcry buff effect -> 'warcry power multiplier'. end effect is very similar but we have one less stat in the (already stat bloated) game. or remove it altogether, noone would notice - warcries that actually have a buff, have laughable duration that - yet again - requires investment to actually do something. in some cases - cannot be invested into (taunt duration on Intimidating Cry, thing that grants Intimidate - is 3 seconds and I cannot find a way to change it) -> double all buff durations so you can actually fit in 2-3 fully charged slams in that time. otherwise it is just a bait and people think that they have certain buffs while in fact they are long gone. To make it clear: with default duration/cry-speed values you CANNOT warcry 3 times and slam before your initial effect expires. IT IS THIS BAD. - passive clusters are placed weirdly, are 'specialised' forcing you to either spread thin or use warcries that are just 50% usable. cluster jewel notables are just weird and in general not enticing -> go wild with passives. double the values? cut the filler ones? give more sources of +exerts etc. - bonus effects granted by warcrying.. mediocre. Debilitate is a great stat. but if it lasts for unmodifiable 1 second.. like seriously? minimum 10 power? that should be a baseline! 20% increased damage per recent warcry - so AT MOST 60% increased damage. on a 500% increased damage build it is what, 6% more for 2 seconds standing still? seriously? -> make the bonuses from masteries relevant. right now timed ones ARE NOT. make each warcry multiply the duration (so summoners cannot abuse it) - first one 2seconds, if refreshed 4seconds, if refreshed again - 6 seconds. this should help melee yet not be easy/cheap to abuse Warcries are in general cool idea but.. they are very, very finnicky. They lack power (yet they pretend to give you some), they force abhorrent piano playstyle - mostly for nothing. This is a big problem because 'slam' playstyle relies on warcries for damage. Rallying Cry (20-25% more with Herald of Purity), Intimidating (intimidation + doble damage + phys penetration), Infernal Cry (ash effect) - I tried to stack all 3, really tried. And you have to stack them, it is the only damage source for slams that might compensate for no-attack-speed gameplay. Exerted attack damage bonuses: - these values are just too low. I think everyone here knows that %increased damage values are mostly worthless in endgame. a semi-decent character has upwards of 500% of that already. 'exerted attacks deal 28% increased damage' implicit is just a spiteful joke. All exerted attack bonuses found on passive tree/clusters are %increased. They are slightly higher than regular passives, true, but these are nowhere near required values. -> change all %increased into %more (lower the values ofc, but not TOO MUCH! even with 1:1 transition that would barely make people consider slam playstyle). Tawoha Forest Strength: - it is not worth using. that 100% more is exactly what it ignores from Fist of War. then there are all warcry buffs, exerts etc. it is very, very lacking in practice. and ofc it is triggered by Leap Slam making it offline most of the time anyway. -> remove this passive or at least make it ignore Leap Slams. NOONE uses Leap Slam for damage, not since it got +.5sec attack time Slam playstyle in general: - are you feeling lucky? because LUCK is what you need to play this style. you hit once per 2-3seconds. you better hit like a truck. my weapon has 300-600 range and my char is around 50% crit chance with 300%+ multi. so I can hit between '300' and '2000' depending on my luck (napkin math). you know how that feels? like sh.. there are very few sources of lucky damage and even less of 'damage linearization effect'. the feeling when you low roll 5 times in a row.. and no, it is not compensated by max-rolling 5 times in a row later. the bad FAR outweights the good in this case -> Fist of War should roll very lucky damage (3 times, including CRIT ofc!) - slam numbers in general are not there. Fist of War deals ~100% more but forces you to hit once per 1.7seconds. it is trivial to replace this support with ie. Faster Attacks and get net more damage. Bonuses from exerted attacks are EASILY compensated with downtime wasted on warcrying. Ive made some excel napkin math and slams are missing exactly what Seismic Cry gave them. The initial balance was correct number wise. The playstyle was revolting (but.. it still is) but the numbers were good. Sadly all the damage was in Seismic that is now just a Useless Cry. -> Distribute %more damage among slam skills based on attack time. there are some cases already in masteries. slams are numerically around 80% too low to make any sense. less if the lucky damage is implemented but still A LOT - Fist of War timer is unscalable. this is a serious mistake, it closes damage scaling vector (slam playstyle already forgoes Attack Speed completely as a damage multiplier) -> Fist of War cooldown is scalable with cooldown recovery and the values stay the same (no nerfs, no no no) - Fortify is STILL broken, esp for slams. due to hit variance I frequently end up with 3-5 fortify stacks after a slam vs bosses. on a SLAM that can hit for 1.5m per HIT. something is very, very wrong with how fortify is generated -> implement lucky damage for slams There is a reason why ~10 people on ninja uses Fist of War support - it is because slam playstyle simply makes no sense to play. Numbers are not there (and by a LONG shot), the mechanics that are supposed to be relied upon are mostly smoke and mirrors (im sure most players assume that warcry effects/buffs stay for FAR longer than they in fact do) and the playstyle is simply dangerous AF in current degen/get-zerged from every direction meta. Character in question: https://pastebin.com/YPRB4cpz Why no Avatar of Fire? That cold/lightning damage actually makes a difference. I think that Inquisitor + Brainrattler is the go to setup for ConsPath with 50/50 fire/lightning split for massive shocks + cons path synergy. Maybe next time. I still could replace Warcries with anomalous versions, buy even better weapon (not that easy - i want high top end AND crit!) but i had back luck with trade and simply gave up. It is not massively invested char. But a meme bleed shield crush char that is even cheaper is also way, way tankier while dealing FAR more damage with less variance. Slam playstyle needs help. Right now the only reason is to make something even more meme than 1->100 with Cleave Last bumped on Dec 2, 2022, 8:45:03 AM
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In the current state it is: Hit slow and soft.
After the Seismic Cry nerf in 3.15 i stopped caring about Melee as i dont think GGG play tests their game with real humans but uses instead scripts. Was fun for a short time though in Ultimatum. Masterpiece of 3.16 lore
"A mysterious figure appears out of nowhere, trying to escape from something you can't see. She hands you a rusty-looking device called the Blood Crucible and urges you to implant it into your body." Only usable with Ethanol Flasks |
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Not to devalue your post, but, there is a warcry mastery that stops your movement skill from exerting your attacks (on top of 25% inc damage to those)...
The reason why your leap slam wouldn't happen, is, who knows, maybe some crazy dude is using oro's sacrifice and leap slapping people :D Can't really follow the rest of the post too much since limited knowledge about Chieftain and marauder in generell |
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i know about this mastery - i precisely called it 'passive tax' as it (or jewellery roll) is 100% mandatory to not go insane
you start with -1 passive point if you want to play slam playstyle. and no, you literally cannot play Leap Slam as a damaging skill since GGG added +.5sec to attack time. It is very slow, deals half damage of any other slam. Just no. |
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Tried to make The Impaler work as my main spice for Sunder pie. Tried to theory craft a Tectonic Slam Ignite since it's the only aspect where Tawhoa is better than Fist of War. What can I say? I feel your pain...
1) It is very hard to have an attack time slower than 0.6 sec and not die. 2) Even if you live to land the slam, the damage is not exactly groundbreaking. 3) The cost of a mistake/lag spike/suboptimal play is extreme. And yeah, Tawhoa is not used for the same reason as Fist of War: both the playstyle and the damage are subpar at best. So here is my take on Tawhoa specifically: 1) Remove Tawhoa's Chosen* 2) Exchange names between Tawhoa and Valako.** 3) Valako, Storm's Embrace now grants +5 Power counted by Warcries*** and Thundering Warcaller skill: Trigger this skill when you use a non-instant Warcry This skill triggers two other random Warcries that you can use.**** Warcries triggered by this skill are counted as being used by you. * One Fist of War is enough. ** All this endurance charge theme does not resonate with storms in my head. *** Not minimum so you can have 25 power on the boss (30 with Deep Breaths) **** so it can trigger Warcries granted by items, not only gems It is now unique, not limited to Slams, and unfucks a multi-warcry playstyle at least partially. Also, here's my (not very elegant) idea on how to help slow attackers in general to not die every time they try actually to do damage:
Spoiler
The way I see it is this:
The Bad Spot is where monsters can do damage to you. Most monsters are melee, most bosses have big slams around them, AN auras are around monsters, etc. So generally, the Bad Spot is around the monster. The more "real melee" you are - the more time you have to spend in a bad spot. In fact, with Strike skills like Boneshatter, you'll have to actively enter the bad spot to do anything at all. That's how melee is, and that's ok. Now, there is a cap on standstill time in the bad spot. If you overstay - you die. The amount of time you have depends on the tankyness of your build, but really no more than 0.5 seconds against a strong monster in challenging content. Think of it. You need to disengage only after half a second. This is no combat. This is crazy hares on crack! So to me, the problem here is encounter design. 2H just highlights it brighter because, well, 2H bases are slower. In order to fix that, GGG needs to take a very long look at the fundamentals of combat interaction. Those are straight Diablo 2, so no wonder that power overdose throughout the years smashed down the Bad Spot cap to the point where melee cannot be fun. Two ways to deal with the current situation are: reduce attack/cast time and, well, not be in the Bad Spot. But Melee cannot do damage without actively entering the Bad Spot. it's Melee after all! So the only solution for Melee is to reduce the Attack Time. And 2H Melee has an awful combo of being Melee and having bad base Attack Time! No wonder it sucks. Since the base combat dynamics cannot change without a complete rethinking of PoE's combat, we can only focus on Attack Time. So here's my take: 1) Introduce a new defensive buff called "Readiness" (or whatever) that scales with the Attack Time. 2) Readiness gives (0-50)% less Damage Taken, scaling proportionally to the Attack or Cast time, with 50% at Attack/Cast time of 1 second.* 3) All Strike skills and most real close-combat Melee skills now have "you have Readiness while Using this skill".** * This gives 25% less Damage Taken at 2 APS and 5% at 10 APS. The Less Damage numbers and minimum/maximum Attack Time can be tweaked. ** Different skills can have different caps. For example, sorta close-ranged Bow skills like Galvanic Arrow and fire-and-forget Melee skills like Rage Vortex can have something like (0-10)% across 0-0.5 sec Attack/Cast Time. Basically, you're tankier while swinging, and the slower you swing - the tankier you are.
Spoiler
DR - Less Damage taken value that we need to calculate;
minDR - minimum DR for the skill; maxDR - maximum DR for the skill; UT - Use Time (Attack time for Attack skills, Trap Throwing time for Trap skills, etc); minUT - Buff does not apply if UT lower than this threshold; maxUT - Buff reaches maxUT at this threshold; if UT < minUT then DR = 0 else DR = minDR + (maxDR-minDR)*(UT - minUT)/(maxUT - minUT) Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. Last edited by Sarganis87#5959 on Sep 12, 2022, 3:56:38 PM
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fun observation - that char i built has ~4.5k HP yet dies very, very rarely. all i miss is +2-3 max all res and 40% shock effect reduction that I could get from a shield. but 2h.. it sucks to play 2h because of just how much defences shield could have given you
one thing - stun/chill/freeze/slow immunity is 100% mandatory. it is so important that i actually for the first time ever bought flame/flesh jewels paying trough my nose so the tankiness.. it was much better than i expected. mainly because of Overlord (fortify for maces from cluster jewel) allows for 29 fortify for 5 passives (it is still very expensive but at least it DOES work) about Impaler - Ive tried to make it work in the past and went with a skill that hits once (VAAL Ground Slam) and Heralds of Purity to 'eat' the impales. It is important that only the first hit counts (so no EQ or any similar multi hit/splash skills). Sunder deals lower raw damage than VAAL Ground Slam. sad to see it capped at 5 (Pride jewel/champion does not apply here) and be sure to NOT have glove lab enchant that attacks neither use Leap Slam. only Dash. even one stray hit ruins the entire Impaler setup Last edited by sidtherat#1310 on Sep 11, 2022, 2:07:10 PM
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GGG, OP did a good job. Please carefully read his findings.
I would like to propose specific items where OP hasn't or where I have something to add. " Simple: - All Warcries now exert non-Travel skills; - Warcries cannot Exert Travel Skills Mastery and Affix are removed from the game. GGG, this is exactly why you've made a Travel tag. Nobody exerts Whirling Blades with Intimidating Cry! " We either invest in Warcry Speed to use multiple Warcries or take Call to Arms to use just a single one. So masteries should probably reflect that. Here are some: - Exerted Attacks boosted by Fist of War have 30% reduced Attack Time.* - Warcries Debilitate Enemies Taunted by a different Warcry for 4 seconds.** - 3% increased Action Speed if you've used a Warcry in the past 10 seconds. Warcries grant 3% reduced Action Speed for 10 seconds if you've used a different Warcry in the past 10 seconds*** * This is my pet peeve. Slow attackers need a way to spend less time landing their super buffed omega hit. ** Real debilitate, but only for multi-cry users. Dunno if it's technically possible to check the source of debuff... *** This is for single-cry users. " " Given the weird pathing, I assume it should be possible to obtain a significant portion of % increased Damage from just Warcry nodes. Warcry Speed nodes should give damage per Warcry to better suit multi-cry users. Other Warcry nodes should give general Melee damage to be competitive. Here's how I would change passives on the tree: - All sources of % increased Warcry Buff Effect for all or specific Warcries are removed from the game; - Small nodes in Measured Fury cluster no longer grant Exerted Attacks deal % increased Damage; - Nodes in Deep Breaths cluster, nodes in Natural Authority cluster, Measured Fury, the first and Cooldown Recovery small nodes in its cluster now also grant Melee Skills deal 10% increased Damage; - Deep Breaths now grants +5 total Power counted by Warcries instead of 20% increased total Power counted by Warcries*; - Nodes in Admonisher cluster and Warcry Speed small node in Measured Fury cluster now also grant Skills deal 20% increased Damage for each Warcry Exerting them; - Natural Authority and the first small passive in its cluster now also grant Taunts you inflict have 60/40% increased Duration respectively. - All Monsters cannot be taunted modifiers are replaced with Monsters are unaffected by Taunts**; * 24 power against bosses is trolling. Also, saves you a Minimum Power Mastery. ** Unaffected by X enables flexible balancing by using "X also does Y" and "Enemies affected by X have Y" wordings. Hexproof instead of Curse Immunity gave Hexblast a chance against such monsters. That's the right move! " I say this is where we fix Seismic Cry: - Seismic Cry now has Exerts the next 4 Melee non-Travel Attacks;* - Seismic Cry no longer has Exerted Attacks have 30% increased Area of Effect or Exerted Attacks have 30% increased Area of Effect per previous Attack Exerted by this Warcry**; - Seismic Cry no longer has Buff grants 5% reduced Enemy Stun Threshold per 5 Power, up to a maximum of 30%**; - Seismic Sry now has Exerted Attacks have 10% more Area of Effect;** - Seismic Sry now has Exerted Attacks deal 40% more Minimum Attack Damage;*** * Because there's nothing wrong with Sun-sized Melee Splash from a Dual Strike! ** To simplify the skill. It still counts Power for other applications but does not gain anything from it. *** Maybe even 60%... It helps with Stuns making them more reliable. And if Min > Max... just let the system choose between two numbers as nothing changed! Weird, I know, but it should not break anything. " I think the idea of handicapping a scaling mechanism to facilitate a particular gameplay style is generally OK and unspecific Cooldown Recovery is overall powerful, but boring. Fist of War is numerically comparable to other supports on every third attack (33% more damage, 20% increased AoE on average) and superior on every second attack (50/30 respectively). But with current numbers, it constrains the build to have an Attack Time of about 0.6 sec for FoW to be mediocre and 0.9 sec to be top tier. And we need to hit very close to those numbers. Everything between 0.61 and 0.8(9) is suboptimal. Try that while juggling God knows how many buffs/debuffs, some of which players don't have control of! With that many constraints, "every second attack" for 50% more damage on average is an adequate number. But, back to reality, no character in PoE lives through a 0.9-sec standstill. The realistic number is 0.5 tops. Well, 0.6 if you're tanky and have good sustain, but slow attackers have no leech before they land the attack... Concluding all that, here are the specifics: - Fist of War no longer has Ancestrally Boosted Slams deal (70-98)% more Damage with Hits; - Fist of War no longer has Ancestrally Boosted Slams deal (50-69)% more Damage with Ailments; - Fist of War no longer has Ancestrally Boosted Slams have (40-59)% increased Area of Effect; - Fist of War now has Ancestrally Boosted Attacks* deal (70-98)% more Damage**; - Fist of War now has Ancestrally Boosted Attacks* have (40-59)% increased Area of Effect; - Fist of War now has Attacks with Supported Skill are Ancestrally Boosted, no more than once every 1 second at all levels; - Earthbreaker Support is now called Ancestral Warrior Support***. It now supports Melee Attacks instead of Slams****; - Slam tag is removed from the game. * Once again, there's nothing wrong with the occasional half-screen Cleave. ** Ailments need adequate fisting too! *** Consistency! **** Gimme my Lightning Strike totems! I mean, GGG, why have you restricted it in the first place? Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. Last edited by Sarganis87#5959 on Sep 12, 2022, 6:09:04 PM
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Very nice suggestions from experience. I hope GGG will try to fix melee, especially slams because they need it. Spells are better in any way you can think of at this stage of the game. But every once in a while I get an urge to play good old one bonk Tectonic Slam build and I get that urge again this league unfotunately.
I am mostly playing PoB instead of PoE this league because of league problems everyone know of and my experiences while trying to theorycraft are: - If you want to deal damage you have to go crit with melee. And scaling crit chance is hard as melee. Base crit chances are low plus need power charges and getting them may be hard depending on your build. You also need accuracy. You have to give up a weapon affix for Hits can't be evaded mod or multiple item affixes for accuracy plus precision which takes a lot of mana for a melee build. Spells don't need accuracy and usually has more base crit. - You need attack speed more than you think. Even if you want to wait for fist of war and warcry rotation you want to attack fast and wait while moving because staying still means you are dead in poe. Most spells get 0.30-0.40 seconds cast time without investing cast speed at all, even some of them are instant while most I can get for slam builds without sacrificing anything and overinvesting with mirror tier items are 0.75s attack time, plus I also need warcry speed and some warcry cooldown recovery speed. - Mana. You need reliable way of recovering mana, you can go leech, regen, -mana cost of skills but most of them feels just enough to cast reliably. Sometimes you can't if there are nothing to leech and you rotated all of your warcries recently you are OOM for a while. Instead they can recreate Blood Magic to something like "Your non-spell non-reservation skills cost life instead of mana" This way you can cast attacks and warcries using life and still use mana to reserve things. Melee builds usually have high health recovery to overcome this. And nothing changes for spell builds. - Clusters. Notables feels lackluster but you can not go clusterless just using tree because tree is also lackluster. Marauder part of tree really needs a rework with all attack related clusters. - You need to solve all aforementioned problems PLUS also stack as much of these to have a small fraction of DPS of an average spell build -Exposure(if going elemental) -Covered in Ash, Frost(if going elemental) -Maim(Enemies maimed take increased damage notable) -Debilitate(Survivability) -Crushed(if going physical) -Impale(If you feel adventurous) -Curses - Also agree on Leap slam must be made non exertable and don't use Tawhoa. Additionally on tawhoa and fist of war should be used together. I used all my pob warrior skills to create mirror gear Tec Slam build (can't crit cap it 75% chance at best) and it has 30 mil dps. But that is conditional and that conditions are 100% uptime of warcries and attack non-stop assuming all attacks use fist of war which is not true because I attack 1.5 times in a second. On the other hand my Poison BV build only has 2xCold Iron Point plus a unique belt and it has 11 mil dps with 9s BV duration which means I cast every 4.5 seconds and move nonstop. No need to worry about warcry rotation, or conditional things that affect damage. If I gear my Poison BV with mirror gear I can easily reach DOT cap and even 2x 3x of Dot Cap. Cap is about 35-36m DPS with 11s BV uptime. It is with dual rune daggers which means I can improve that even more with bow or maybe squire. I'm not even trying. See the difference with melee. And that is with a DoT build which are infamous for low DPS. Think about other builds. I do not even say anything about CoC. |
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" The astronomical damage disparity is pretty obvious if we look at the base damage. Let's pit Fireball - a spell with really strong base damage against Sunder - a strong melee skill. Let's give the spellcaster a wand with +1 to all Fire skills and the fighter - a mirror tier 1200 DPS 2H axe. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that axe's crit chance and crit multi from suffixes are nullified by the need for Accuracy. Fireball deals 1845 - 2767 Damage and a cast time of 0.75 That's 3047 DPS. The axe has 1200 DPS, Sunder has 325% Damage and 75% Attack Speed. That's 2925 DPS. Basically, one affix on gear (or a corrupt) for Fireball means more than a mirror tier 2H axe. And Fireball is an average spell while Sunder in 3.19 is better than most attacks. Oh, and a lvl 20 Blade Vortex with 10 blades has about 5300 DPS without crits. So it is not even close. Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. Last edited by Sarganis87#5959 on Sep 15, 2022, 6:07:24 PM
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To throw my hat in, I've been playing a warcry slam build a bit this league, doryani's touch - battlemage cry - shock nova to be exact. Leveling it with ice crash was fairly pitiful for starters, then it got a power boost when I got the fist and level 21 nova, which lasts for a while in maps but kinda starts fizzling out.
It has pretty good coverage with both skills so it clears trash well if you don't mind taking your sweet time for every swing and making yourself tough enough to survive that sweet time, but single target still sucks ass despite being able to shock very reliably. Especially if that single target is wearing an industrial grade rubberized, grounded hazmat suit, as rares often do these days. All in all, not a very enjoyable experience, hell if I'd want to put time in this one even if I saw the potential to go somewhere. Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs. ◄[www.moddb.com/mods/balancedux]► ◄[www.moddb.com/mods/one-vision1]► Last edited by raics#7540 on Sep 27, 2022, 5:28:36 PM
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