banners - the great veil and (faux) saviour (aka: you will want totems back)

just for reference, what you get from planted banner with no investment and MAXED out

(assumptions:
20% aura effect from other sources, no-investment means 50 stacks, maxed investment means 105 stacks/+35% inc banner effect)

War Banner:
min: 48% Increased Accuracy Rating / 24% More Melee Physical Damage
max: 130% Increased Accuracy Rating / 65% More Melee Physical Damage

Dread Banner:
min: 24% Chance to Block Attacks / 204 Life Recovered on block
max: 65% Chance to Block Attacks / 550 Life Recovered on block

Defiance banner:
min: 48% Movement Speed / 48% Suppress / -72 Damage taken from suppressed hits
max: 130% Movement Speed / 130% Suppress / -195 Damage taken from suppressed hits


first: the base radius is small but the multiplier is huge, so that might be enough

second: i kinda dont believe the math i did, which is strange because excel usually doesnt lie

these values are insane. it is possible, that patch notes confused 'more aura effect' with 'increased' and that makes the solution bad. but lets stick to what is given

comments:

- accuracy rating is made precisely for ONE build, jugg acc stacking. there is no other use for that. this is pretty damn bad design, would love to see something else here
- chance to block attacks does not specify condition. that means your two handed mace guy could get 60% block chance AND insane regen on hit. again, it might be patch typo. still, very good if true. glad to see that bows cannot actually benefit
- 100+ movement speed? why? if anything it is going to throw people off by jerking movement speed around. this one is really weird, albeit cool in concept
- capping suppress even with base version seems extremely easy

in general, 3 strong picks. i kinda cannot wait to use them.

BUT

the duration is make-or-break it. 10seconds base is like a flask. extending duration is going to be costly, hopefuly one can get it into 20+ seconds

then, there is the charging question - how long does it take to collect max stacks (im ignoring server ticks etc. it will round up over several seconds anyway). i know champion has his node, i know.

base: 2 stacks per second, 50 stacks, 25 seconds non stop hitting
max gain rate: 4 stacks per second, 50 stacks, 12.5 seconds
max stacks, max gain rate: 4 stacks per second, 105 stacks, 26.5 seconds


closing thoughts:
- the bonus values are solid, strong, and with one exception - interesting
- the duration is what will strictly determine its usage
- because you most likely wont get more than 1 use per big fight

it is great paper buff. i seriously doubt it will change anything. with how this stuff works it might be best to respec all banner nodes before doing ubers, because it most likely going to be 100% useless there.

:sad face:

tl;dr: totems werent that bad after all :) because this stuff looks great in trailers and POB. in actual game you most likely wont see it that much due to INSANE 'charging' time

few more titbits, so we get the entire picture:

1) Perfidy chest. it allows stack generation while banner is planted. that means that with full investment into duration and stack generation BUT with just base 50 stacks it might be possible for a pseudo perma upkeep. for a price of otherwise terrible chest..

2) role of %aura effect seems not obvious on the first glance. it is actually HUGE multiplier.

3) compared to totems:
- you cannot pre-plant banner because you start with 0 stacks
- bosses with transitions (elder guardians) or bosses that are mobile/force you to be mobile pretty much make banners pointless
- but the burst power is much, much higher

4) this change means we lost quite a few of 'perma' buffs from banners (and gained 10% reservation, true) - impale effect, phys taken, defences. these actually were VERY usefull. it is not strictly a nerf, but it is certainly closer to it

5) 'gain 5 Valour on Warcry' node is a help BUT: how often do you warcry? every how many seconds? remember - no instant warcries for you anymore, you have to click this shit (or use that auto-cry that eats half your mana and might even not count at all). i know many, many people secretly expect this to magically fuel their banner gameplay. it wont work without SERIOUS investment. and i do not see other archetypes having to stack this much crap to just work

6) i fully expect some degenerative form of gameplay where people spam them with minimal stacks just for SOME buffs. but that sucks even to type it.


in general, how banners were portrayed in marketing material does not match what is in the patch notes. this mechanic is close to being DoA - and yet all what people see is the 'MORE DAMAGE wooooooooo'

maybe it is because it is actually statistically unlikely to find someone ACTUALLY playing melee enough to understand what these changes mean?

if i play this league ill start locust mines PS. tankier, faster, cheaper than melee that got hugely (not) buffed.
im amazed that people havent seen that wanding got INSANE buffs this patch, actually INSANE (20% more crit, 20% more speed)

Interesting. They are considerably higher value than I thought (I estimated roughly 40% less than you posted without calculating the potentials). Nice work breaking them down.

They will be good for things like similacrum it seems. Likely potent for ritual and maybe have some ultimatum potentials if your ultimatum isn't too too nasty. I can see potentials with blight maps as well.

Anything where you move around a lot doesn't seem as useful. Mostly good for condensed areas, as leaving the banner invalidates it. Champion will have the potential to restore roughly (55%?) of the valor per banner, so they should be able to have a near consistent banner upkeep time with that ascend passive that allows them to gain valor while the banner is up. For someone like that it's basically just a permanent bonus, so they can pretty much run everywhere if they want due to the 2 second buffer window, reclaim percentage of valor on leaving zone, and automated warcries giving valor.

Slower builds and stationary builds like sweep or sunder, benefit a lot from these banners even without heavy spec into valor. You don't really move around too much while sweeping so stationary abilities and any defensive bonus is helpful, while you hop around quite a bit more with sunder so you'll need a bit more valor to make full use.

I could see a couple of these having practical applications with staff on a map clear capability, due to staff's inherent block capability and the survivability of block. Properly spec'd, you should be able to absorb most other threats along with it, while spec'd into attack and move speed in the process. Cycling and careful use of banners on a champion could very well make a staff a choice weapon for a champion with builds like shockwave cyclone, but the damage will be lacking if you aren't careful with increases. There's quite a bit of MORE damages now, but I seem to be overlooking increases, so I'll need to play with (updated) POB for a while to be sure.

You should be able to get max block for spell and hit if you're within your banner's radius using these numbers, using a shield and a strike as well. Strike being quite appealing currently, as the nodes for splash, multi-target, and the various abilities attached to those are all quite potent in .25. The pandoras box seems to be opened with a ton of melee builds due to these banners, so the strike shields definitely have some real potential even on the lower investment counts. You don't really need too good of a weapon or shield I think, so it should be a decent way to run the campaign. Will need testing, but I think it's possible to speed run with a bit of careful planning.

(uncertain about bossing atm)
Estimated working 2h Champion + Inspiration for t16:
* suggested phys skill route; phys damage + impale > banner > (rage|warcry|aura?)
* warstaff, slam/cyclone/sweep/aoe, shockwave
* >>>Bannerman, Renowned Deeds, Awe and Terror, Rallying Icon

Estimated working 2h Slayer + Masterful Form
>>> FIXATE ON FRENZY CHARGES.

* 2h sword, ele skill route; generic attack + trinity > banner > rage|warcry > aura
* Convert your phys to an element if required to balance trinity.

* 2h axe, phys skill route; phys damage + impale > rage > banner|warcry|aura
* Heavy impale + phys damage spec, should work with most gems if carefully built.

Strike champion concept; likely to work, needs additional data:
* suggested skill route; impale|banner <=> (rage|warcry|aura?)
* shield + club/sword/axe, strike ability

These are pretty messy but I can't work more on it currently. I have other tasks to perform for the day.

Seeing the banner change was one thing that made me go like "Huh?".
Why remove totems from the game, and then in that same patch add Totems V2?
Well, I know why - they want the gameplay loop to be more than just "hold right click" but there are better ways to do that than have a "Banner Totem".

When it comes to power, it indeed might save the DPS nerfs and allow some interesting 10 second clips.

"

Kiss_Me_Quick wrote:

Seeing the banner change was one thing that made me go like "Huh?".
Why remove totems from the game, and then in that same patch add Totems V2?
Well, I know why - they want the gameplay loop to be more than just "hold right click" but there are better ways to do that than have a "Banner Totem".

When it comes to power, it indeed might save the DPS nerfs and allow some interesting 10 second clips.

i know that i wrote quite a wall of text, so it might got lost somewhere but:

- banners take FOREVER to charge up.
- you start with ZERO charges
- you cannot gain stages while banner is planted.
- base duration is 10 seconds. (increased duration support got nerfed this patch.. i wonder why)

this is exactly, precisely, something you DO NOT want to take into boss fight. sure, someone will stack 5 warcries and pump banner more often but in effect sacrifice everything else and still barely touch the level of one click caster builds


banners are DoA. they are irrelevant for clear and inaccessible for boss fights. totems at least you could spam. i presume that all 10 players who actually give it a shot instead of starting mines/minions/bows/WANDS will get rude awakening. dont be one of them. banners are sh..

You no longer have to place totems every other seconds but you now have to place your banner every other second. Not sure if cruel joke