Trickster / Arcane Archer Active Skill Distribution

[vyvexthorne]

Mainly looking at Aracana, Stealth and Mechanics I guess.  Don't think I need to worry about anything else as I can have other party members do those things.   In POE1 I'm easily getting away with a 5 in stealth.. (with gear boosting it to 8)… I can sneak / steal / scout around quite easily.  No idea if that's sufficient for POE2.  Mechanics obviously need to be the highest. Have no idea how much skill boosting gear there is in the game for mechanics.  Arcana is the one I have no idea about. How much Arcana should I think about having? (and how much could I maybe get from gear?).. I'd mainly be concentrating on the rogue aspect with some nice ranger archer boosts and a little bit of pet boosting so the pet isn't a complete waste. (play dead looks pretty fun.)  

Build I've come up with so far - 

Cross Passives: 

Fast Runner, Potent Empower, Tumble

Ranger Active:

Marked Prey, Wounding Shot, Evasive Roll / Evasive Fire, Concussive Shot, Play Dead / Deadly Surprise. 

Ranger Passive:

Marksman, Resilient Companion, Protective Companion / Stalkers Link

Rogue Active:

Escape / Shadowstep, Crippling Strike / Arterial Strike, Blinding Strike, Withering Strike, Finishing Blow / Eliminating Blow, Sap

Rogue Passive:

Backstab, Dirty Fighting, Deep Wounds, Deathblows.

 

Suggestions would be welcome.  I've just been playing around with CC and haven't even started yet as I'm still playing POE1.. Current character is a rogue archer that uses lots of magic scrolls so just trying to build off that.  Trickster and Arcane Archer seem like the logical step and feel like they'd be a fun combo.  (also get a pet companion so that's fun as well.)

 

Edited January 23, 2020 by vyvexthorne

[Boeroer]

If you use Spearcaster against single targets you want to put everything into Arcana. Your ACC, especially with imbue shots, will be enormous.

Shadowstep and Sap are crap (sorry - but it rhymes).
Finishing Blow is mediocre.

As a Ranger I would always pick Takedown Combo. Its +100% dmg bonus stacks with Backstab, Sneak Attack, Deathblows etc. It also raises DoT dmage and will not get removed by pure DoTs (e.g. Disintegrate).

What is really good is Toxic Strike with Watershaper's Focus + Driving Flight. You'll create 3 AoE projectiles which will apply Toxic Strike in a huge area, hitting every enemy more than once. Same is true for Arterial Strike as an opener from Stealth. Also works well with Fire in the Hole+Hand Mortar. In case of Watershaper's Focus you can often expect Ondra's Wrath to proc (which is devastating as a Rogue because it profits from the weapon enchantaments like superb etc. and also from Sneak Attack and Deathblows etc.).

I had a Trickster/Sharpshooter and did this build with it (scroll down to see some animated gifs of the char in action) :

Ondra's Wrath got nerfed after I posted that. But I tried this build again and it still rocks.
Trickster is supernice because you can lure enemies to a spot with Arkemy's Dazzling Light (as if throwing Sparkcrackers). Then, when they all stand tehre in a tight group looking around like idiots you go *boooom*  It was a lot of fun.
 

Also note that Arcane Archer's imbue effects will proc with every jump. So an imbue Fireball will proc 3 times from one shot if you use Watershaper's Focus or Fire in the Hole + Driving Flight. Even 4 times if you use Kitchen Stove with Wild Barrage (but that's per rest). Also note that Arcance Archer's imbue effects will not scale properly with Power Level. E.g. the PEN of Fireball and Missiles will not rise which makes them rather bad at some point. This was acknowledged by the devs but never got fixed. You can fix that with the Community Patch (see my signature) which lets the PEN of imbue effects scale with Arcana (it was the easiest solution and works fairly well). 
 

 

Edited January 23, 2020 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Shadowstep and Sap are crap (sorry - but it rhymes).

Finishing Blow is mediocre.

Taking notes for my Balance mod (that was my opinion, but it's good to get some confirmation).

I would say that Sap isn't so bad IMHO (upgrade is stupid though) due to its cheap cost, long duration double debuff (even if said debuffs are meh) and interrupt on Graze, but it is melee only anyway, so it has nothing to do in a ranged build.

[vyvexthorne]

Wow.. Lots of good info... Unfortunately I haven't played through POE2 yet so I don't know what a lot of this is.  I'll just have to figure out some stuff as I go.  Basically I just don't want to get through half of the game and go  "oh crap, I shoulda, coulda, woulda!"  Knowing that Shadowstep, Sap and Fnishing blow might not be worth it is good info though. (although I might still take shadowstep just because it sounds fun  .)  Sap and Finishing blow can be substituted for Takedown Combo and Driving Flight as I definitely liked the sound of those.  More stuff for the pet companion to do is good.  

Edited January 23, 2020 by vyvexthorne

[thelee]

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

I would say that Sap isn't so bad IMHO (upgrade is stupid though) due to its cheap cost, long duration double debuff (even if said debuffs are meh) and interrupt on Graze, but it is melee only anyway, so it has nothing to do in a ranged build.

I agree. Sap also has the hidden bonus that its interrupt is a prone. I actually think Confusion is a pretty good debuff on a melee rogue, because my main problem with Confusion is that my normal confusion-casters (cipher/wizard, very rarely priest) rarely are in range of the targets I really want to confuse (druids, priests far behind the enemy lines, though occasionally barbarians are ok), but a melee rogue can zip around much easier.

 

but man, that upgrade. (for the unfamiliar everyone hit by a perplexing-sapped enemy, including your own party, gets confused) I reported it as a bug a long time ago, and a dev mentioned that it was one of the abilities they needed to retool significantly, but i guess they never had the spare engineering time for it.

Edited January 23, 2020 by thelee

[thelee]

5 hours ago, vyvexthorne said:

In POE1 I'm easily getting away with a 5 in stealth.. (with gear boosting it to 8)… I can sneak / steal / scout around quite easily.  No idea if that's sufficient for POE2.

depending on your difficulty settings. stealth is based in part on enemy level, which means to sneak around harder enemies you need progressively higher stealth. there are diminishing returns once you get really high above enemy levels, so it's mostly about not being insta-detected by hard foes. the difficulty settings comes into play because if you enable enemy upscaling, there's sort of an arms race to keep your stealth up, or else it'll fall behind enemies as they level up with you (though they only go up to like +4 levels).

 

i had to do some touchy stealth in my ultimate run, and the hardest one I was at like 13-14 stealth, and I still didn't think that was enough (i feel like 3-4 more points would have increased my margin of error).

[Boeroer]

Dudes! Sap is bad!

Perplexing Sap is not only bad, it's a joke. But Sap alone is not good to begin with.

It costs 1 Guile - ok kind of cheap. But for 1 Guile you can also use a Crippling Strike which has 25% bonus damage, interrupts on hit, +2 PEN(!), is a Full Attack and has a 5 Power Level advantage over Sap - even if you upgrade it.

Sap adds Confused to Hobbled, has 10 bonus ACC, interrupts on graze but is only a primary attack. I mean as low level ability: ok. But as PL 6 ability, competing with Toxic Strike? 

So why spend an ability point for something that's hardly an improvement over Crippling Strike?

Here again the disadvantage of non-replenishable resource pools unstealthes: active abilites compete for the resource points and thus you tend to pick only a few. PoE's per-encounter system was less flexible but it also meant that every active ability you took gave you more uses of abilities per encounter. 

So in order to make higher level actives worthwhile you need to make them appealing (meaning more powerful or cheaper or just more insteresting) than the low level stuff. Sap is none of that.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Boeroer

[vyvexthorne]

I haven't really done any stealthing past enemies.. I just like to stealth into rooms to get a look at where enemies are and what I'll likely be up against.   Then I usually set up my party out of the room sneak attack with the rogue and run back to party. … (and a lot of the time block the doorway with the fighters.)   Of course this game now has pick pocket but I'll most likely be relying on another party member for that... If at all. I tend to largely forget about pickpocket in just about every game that has it unless I've played it so many times I already know what to pickpocket because of tips given through walkthroughs or forums. 

Oh also.. Which do you folks prefer playing on.. Real Time or Turn Based?   Most likely I'll stick with Real Time for my first playthrough and try out Turn Based later.  I also noticed there's a difference in base damage between the two modes which isn't at all stated in the description.  Why is that?

Edit: I definitely won't be taking Sap. don't have room for it anyway since I switched it out for driving flight..   (unless I lose the piece of paper I just wrote everything down on and totally forget it was discussed by the time I get to that point in the leveling process.)

Edited January 23, 2020 by vyvexthorne

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Dudes! Sap is bad!

Perplexing Sap is not only bad, it's a joke. But Sap alone is not good to begin with.

It costs 1 Guile - ok kind of cheap. But for 1 Guile you can also use a Crippling Strike which has 25% bonus damage, interrupts on hit, +2 PEN(!), is a Full Attack and has a 5 Power Level advantage over Sap - even if you upgrade it.

Sap adds Confused to Hobbled, has 10 bonus ACC, interrupts on graze but is only a primary attack. I mean as low level ability: ok. But as PL 6 ability, competing with Toxic Strike? 

So why spend an ability point for something that's hardly an improvement over Crippling Strike?

Here again the disadvantage of non-replenishable resource pools unstealthes: active abilites compete for the resource points and thus you tend to pick only a few. PoE's per-encounter system was less flexible but it also meant that every active ability you took gave you more uses of abilities per encounter. 

So in order to make higher level actives worthwhile you need to make them appealing (meaning more powerful or cheaper or just more insteresting) than the low level stuff. Sap is none of that.

Just don't pick Crippling Strike (or respec) if you don't want it to compete.  Indeed, you don't need both.

Sap + WotEP/Citzal is nice. AoE Prone on Graze + Confusion/Hobbled for 30s for 1 Guile ? The duration of afflictions is much higher than Crippling (even if PL mitigate it). It may be good to enable Deathblows on Perception resistant foes.

Toxic Strike is mehish anyway. You know it, even if it can be impressive sometimes. If not, why did CP buffed it to 2 Guiles  

Again, I don't say it's a great ability, just that it can work fine for some builds. There are much much much bigger offenders.
https://pillarsofeternity2.wiki.fextralife.com/His+Laughter+Rang+Through+the+Halls
Or even simply overrated stuff :
https://pillarsofeternity2.wiki.fextralife.com/Barbaric+Blow

Edited January 23, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

11 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Just don't pick Crippling Strike (or respec) if you don't want it to compete.  Indeed, you don't need both.

Haha, you sly old fox.

 

11 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Sap + WotEP/Citzal is nice.

I'd argue that Arterial Strike + AoE is nicer. At least in party play. I can see where a prone could be the better option than raw dmg in a solo playthrough. Still it doesn't justify 5 PLs in my opinion.
Also: classic edge case. How many rogues will multiclass with wizard, pick Spirit Lance and then discover that Sap does prone? How many rogues will max out INT for WotEP?

I'll give you that: if I would make a CC-based rogue/something with a rod+blast I would take Sap over Crippling Strike. Maybe...

 

11 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Toxic Strike is mehish anyway. You know it, even if it can be impressive sometimes. If not, why did CP buffed it to 2 Guiles  

Sacrilege!

It's not impressive on a normal-INT single target rogue. But it is very impressive with higher INT and the possibility to bring it into stellar heights with enfeeblement and crits - in a AoE. 
Sap can never have such an impact and thus loses the (general) competition by a big margin in my book.

Afaik the cost was brought down to 2 because of the base ability "Withering Strike" which is way too expensive for a mere weakening ability. Toxic Strike just inherits the guile cost then. I guess you could bring up the cost of Toxic Strike back up to 3. On the other hand I think it doesn't work on poison-immune foes which are numerous, so...?

11 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

There are much much much bigger offenders.
https://pillarsofeternity2.wiki.fextralife.com/His+Laughter+Rang+Through+the+Halls
Or even simply overrated stuff :
https://pillarsofeternity2.wiki.fextralife.com/Barbaric+Blow

I agree that there are even worse abilites. But that doesn't make Sap any better. As I said: totally fine as a low level ability - but not at PL6 (in its current form). It would need a little buff - for example a Guile refund mechanic. Or maybe a draining effect. It's called "Sap" after all - so what are you sapping there?

Barbaric Blow is just too expensive. It has twice the cost of Crippling Strike or Flames of Devotion or Knockdown - is it really twice as strong? No Sir Nopington.
If the upgrade would refund on crit instead of kill it would be really good (see Stunning Surge which is awesome). The other upgrade (no recovery in kill) makes no sense for me since it clashes with Blood Thirst (they don't synergize): why would I spend an ability point to skip recovery with a special attack - if I can have the same effect with every kill (including DoTs) as a passive? If this was on crit it would be too good I guess? Especially if combined with Blood Thirst... That could be some Action-RPG stuff I reckon.  But if I think more about it: it costs 2 non-refundable Rage then. Maybe it wouldn't be too powerful after all. I guess I would still prefer the refund-version (if it were on-crit). What do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

 

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

I'd argue that Arterial Strike + AoE is nicer. At least in party play. I can see where a prone could be the better option than raw dmg in a solo playthrough. Still it doesn't justify 5 PLs in my opinion.

Also: classic edge case. How many rogues will multiclass with wizard, pick Spirit Lance and then discover that Sap does prone? How many rogues will max out INT for WotEP?

I'll give you that: if I would make a CC-based rogue/something with a rod+blast I would take Sap over Crippling Strike. Maybe...

PL of an ability isn't that significant IMHO (except for PL scaling), as long as it is below Tier VII (where MC starts to be limited) and it adds possibilities. I still think that it okay as an unique source of Confusion for Rogue (-5 INT on its own Worth it) 

Huh, Sap is melee only, doesn't even work with blast

 

Quote

Sacrilege!

It's not impressive on a normal-INT single target rogue. But it is very impressive with higher INT and the possibility to bring it into stellar heights with enfeeblement and crits - in a AoE. 
Sap can never have such an impact and thus loses the competition by a big margin.

Afaik the cost was brought down to 2 because of the base ability "Withering Strike" which is way too expensive for a mere weakening ability. Toxic Strike just inherits the guile cost then. I guess you could bring up the cost of Toxic Strike back up to 3. On the other hand I think it doesn't work on poison-immune foes which are numerous, so...?

I agree that there are even worse abilites. But that doesn't make Sap any better. As I said: totally fine as a low level ability - but not at PL6 (in its current form). It would need a little buff - for example a refund mechanic. It's calles "Sap" after all - so what are you sapping there?

I have no plan on modding Sap for the moment (maybe clarifying that it prones though ?).

My plans for Perplexing Sap is to add Shaken and Distracted (and remove current weird effect), for a total of 4 Tier 1 afflictions (which also translates to -20 reflex and -20 will). 

4 afflictions at the same time for 30s would be nice, I think. Even close from OP, but you'll have to switch target to avoid redundance with Persistant Distraction (switching target is some rogue stuff though).

Also, it won't work fully on resistant foes, but there would almost always be some that would go through (and enables Sneak Attack/Deathblows).

That said, I think Sap would remain situationnal for MC Rogues, but would worth considering for SC. That sounds good enough for me.

EDIT : That's a recurring problem with Tier VII or below abilities that have a Tier VIII or Tier IX upgrade. They have to be good enough for MC, but should not become OP when upgraded. The upgrade itself has to be significant because it costs a High Level ability point. Tricky equation.
 

Quote

 

Barbaric Blow is just too expensive. It has twice the cost of Crippling Strike or Flames of Devotion - is it really twoce as strong? Nopington.
If the upgrade would refund on crit instead of kill it would be good (see Stunning Surge which is awesome). The other upgrade (no recovery in kill) makes no sense for me since it clashes with Blood Thirst (they don't synergize): why would I spend an ability point to skip recovery with a special attack - if I can have the same effect with every kill (including DoTs) as a passive? If this was on crit it would be too good I guess. Especially if combined with Blood Thirst. Taht would be some Action-RPG stuff I reckon.  But if I think more about it: it costs 2 non-refundable Rage. Maybe it wouldn't be too powerful after all. What do you think?

 

My plan for Barbaric Blow is to greatly increase the crit chance. Something like 75-80% so still benefit a bit from various passive.

Almost guaranting Crit is not so frequent (Gambit is the only thing close), have some synergy with Interrupting Blows and has pretty good possibilities for Itemization. Not to mention Skald.

Good point on no recovery on kill upgrade. It stacks with Blood Thirst but is indeed strictly inferior. Mmm "on kill" effects are a bit Barbarian signature, even if I don't like them.
No recovery on Crit would have too good synergy with my current plan, so I have to think about it.

EDIT : What would you think of :

Barbaric Blows :
- Crit Chance 30%->50%
- Bonus Crit Damages 50%->75% (for a total of +100%)

Crushing Blow :
- Instant Recovery on Crit

Barbaric Smash :
- Refund on Kill

Refund is better than instant Recovery, so the trigger has to be more complicated to get. 
 

Edited January 24, 2020 by Elric Galad

[UltimaLuminaire]

I'm going to have to really try the sap + rod idea. That sounds amazing.

 

On Barbaric Blow & friends
I have had no trouble with Barbaric Blows in all my playthroughs. The move is designed for lucky executions in conjunction with Bloody Slaughter, and with Rage refund you can rapidly and reliably execute multiple low HP targets with ease. This leads to my playstyle of nuking everything with Spirit Tornado to low health and then proceeding to execute everything with rapid Barbaric Smashes. Even before Barbaric Smash, the damage increase in general is still enough for an unarmed Barbarian to 1 round a caster in most mob encounters in Nekataka.

As a reminder, Crushing Blow has more problems than the instant recovery on kill. It is wrongly coded to deal 20% extra damage twice, and because it's an active damage buff, they do not stack. This is at odds with the move's description which says it offers additional crit damage just like Barbaric Blow/Smash. I've already fixed this in my personal mods. This requires you to have both Crushing Blow and Barbaric Smash in your override. I've tried modding one but not the other and this lead to problems for some reason.

 

As for Buffs
That said, I have messed with increasing just the bonus crit damage on Barbaric Smash and even that felt overtuned since double crits are very likely to happen on a high Perception two weapon Barbarian. I also experimented with altering Crushing Blow to be a gatecrasher style +damage on full HP targets. This gave it a purpose, bolstering 2h builds and prioritizing its use first in combat to nuke a standard mob enemy to critical health or death, but it still fell behind Barbaric Smash for my playstyle.

I would caution against giving the Barbarian refund on crit since I feel that it overtunes the move. I would struggle to come up with any way to give Crushing Blow an identity in face of that change, too. This goes especially for SC Barbarian since they have a chance to gain Rage on kill, and combined with any sort of refund the results are nasty to say the least.

 

State of Barbarian
I think it's more important to first address what you want out of a melee Barbarian. Right now, there are many ways to play a Barbarian. Boerer plays SC Barbarian like a utility swiss army knife that can eventually vocal canon enemies to shreds. I play SC Barbarian like a holy hand grenade, leaping into a group, nuking them with cold damage, and then executing all low hp targets for massive amounts of rage cycling. Others play Barbarian like a prybar, using a classic MC berserker build to maintain melee DPS and tankiness.

In most cases I value Boerer's contribution to our understanding of SC Barbarian far more. Pure melee DPS SC Barbarian tends to fall behind Boerer's swiss army knife approach by large margins (for difficult content). I've personally tested different buffs and modifications and have overtuned Barbarian every which way to Sunday in the process, so when I say that certain buffs can overtune the Barbarian, I really mean it.

 

PS. Well, I'm way off topic now. My apologies. I'll stick to responding in the community patch thread on barbarian stuff. I just couldn't help myself since two people jumped into the topic of Barbarian buffs haha.

Edited January 24, 2020 by UltimaLuminaire
Clarification, addendum, and format

[Boeroer]

I agree that Barbs are in a good place generally. I just think that 2 rage for Barbaric Blow is a tad expensive when compared with other classes' low level(ish) bread-and-butter attacks.

But it's correct that you have to watch out so you not overpower it. 

The problem I have with refund on kill is that you then tend to only use it on near death enemies which automatically means a lot of wasted dmg due to overkill. And if you don't kill it's quite the waste of Rage to pummel a near death enemy.

Refund on crit is like Stunning Surge (which also has a build-in higher critchance with Full Attacks if the first one stuns which leads to -10 deflection). So maybe that's not too powerful if one doesn't change the base ability or even brings the crit chance down a bit?

Maybe bringing it down to 1 Rage is too good as well. Maybe it just needs something else. Something small yet interesting that justifies the double resource cost (compared to Flames of Devotion, Knockdown etc.). Higher crit chance could be it but it's kind of... same same (by the way there's the Debonaire who has 100% crit chance on charmed enemies)?

That dmg non-stacking needs a fix, I agree.

I totally dig the term "vocal cannon".

[UltimaLuminaire]

Good point on the wasted damage. I have a point to add in case it matters.

The wasted damage doesn't come into practice as often as it seems. For unarmed or two-weapon SC Barbarian, the first hit tends to send the enemy to near death. The second hit can then benefit from massive modifiers via Bloody Slaughter. The risk, however, is that as of the last few patches, if you kill the enemy with the first hit, and the second attack goes off without you being able to cancel it in some way, you loose the benefit of Blood Thirst and suffer full recovery. Conversely you can also fail to crit both times, letting you enjoy the flavor of one of the worst full attack outcomes in the game. Ouch.

Edited January 24, 2020 by UltimaLuminaire
Clarification

[thelee]

9 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Barbaric Blow is just too expensive. It has twice the cost of Crippling Strike or Flames of Devotion or Knockdown - is it really twice as strong? No Sir Nopington.
If the upgrade would refund on crit instead of kill it would be really good (see Stunning Surge which is awesome).

I speculate that Barbaric Blow is bad because the game designers fundamentally just didn't understand how carnage worked. If carnage had the area of effect of PoE1, was capable of critting, and picked up (weapon-based) damage bonuses like a normal attack, maybe it's fine at 2 rage. Instead you get an ability that is essentially a full attack, with a +20% damage on those attacks with a slightly higher chance to crit, and maybe you get like an extra enemy in carnage for 8 extra raw damage. Maybe that's worth it at 1 rage, but definitely not 2 (and god help you if you're a corpse-eater). Hence the only worthwhile upgrade is the one that eliminates the cost if you land a killing blow, then you could use it as a really crappy version of finishing blow that is occasionally free.

 

22 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Sap adds Confused to Hobbled, has 10 bonus ACC, interrupts on graze but is only a primary attack. I mean as low level ability: ok. But as PL 6 ability, competing with Toxic Strike? 

i'm not going to argue that sap is amazing, but 30s base duration on an affliction that the rogue doesn't over-index on (rogue has too many perception afflictions and dexterity afflictions) for only 1 guile isn't bad. 30s is a really long time, and getting it in early on a critical enemy can really eff with the fight. Also it's 1/3 the cost of toxic strike and other abilities, and 1/2 the cost of everything other than crippling strike. i've been frustrated enough with a rogue trying to proc deathblows against perception resistant/immune enemies that it makes me value the abilities that provide something different a little more (smoke bomb, the bell attack that staggers/dazes, withering strike even without toxic strike upgrade, and sap).

Edited January 24, 2020 by thelee

[Elric Galad]

Ahhh Driving Roar Vocal Cannon

The obvious solution would be to lower Barbaric blow's cost to 1 rage (and tune accordingly what's necessary). But it would be aligning barbarian on other Martials, and I don't like it too much. Feel like we would have failed to find a better idea, but as thelee says, the basic principle didn't translate well to PoE2.

You don't like my idea of super high crit chance , aww, too bad. I was already thinking about all these nice weapons to use with it. It was a bit pumping numbers, I admit.

Still, if one upgrade refunds and the other cancel recovery (on second blow apparently), I still feel like refund is better if they have the same trigger. I admit that if barbaric blow was 1 rage, it would feel more comparable though.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

I was just thinking how a Monk/Barbarian can apply Carnage to the initial target with Force of Aguish - because it hits-->pushes enemy in Carnage AoE-->Carnage hits.

What if Barbaric Blow did a mini-push (+interrupt) as well? Just enough to break engagement (nice side effect) and to shove the enemy into the Carnage area? That would fit the theme ("massive" blow the description says), it would give some freedom of movement and a bit CC because you could cancel engagement with the push and interrupt attacks and also some "hidden" bonus damage because of Carnage shenanigans.

[UltimaLuminaire]

My problem with 1 point Barbaric Blow is the impact it has on MC. If I had to choose between Barbaric Blow or Crippling Strike on a Barb/Rogue, I'd choose Barbaric Blow every time because of the insane crit damage it can do. It would be a more potent source of overpen than any other 1 point costing ability, even Penetrating Strike.

(Uh, I seem to be having trouble posting this. The submit button is resisting. If this gets double posted, my apologies.)

[Powerotti]

So maybe keep the cost of barbaric blow and upgrades, but buff them a little?

Crushing blow - make it stack with blood thirst for 2 no recovery hits on kill

Barbaric smash - refunds only 1 rage, but works if you reduce enemy health by a tier instead of on kill (full - wounded - bloodied - near dead)

This way it is usable on both forms. As a finisher move or a cheap source of damage during full fight.

[Boeroer]

Why is the crit damage insane? It's +50% additive from weapon base damage. So in case of a sabre or sword for example that would be 8 slash damage on average.  I mean it's nice - but insane?

Let's compare:

Crippling Strike:

• Power Level 1
• costs 1 Guile
• bonus damage: +25%
• bonus penetration: 2
• interrupts on hit
• applies Hobbled for 15 secs

Barbaric Blow:

• Power Level 2
• costs 2 Rage
• bonus damage: 20%
• bonus penetration: 2
• +30% hit to crit conversion
• +50% Carnage area (not radius)
• +50% crit damage

I don't know but doesn't seem to be too far of given that Crippling Strike also has the 1 PL advantage. 

2 Rage is too expensive if you look at that. 1 may be a bit too cheap. Don't know... 

[UltimaLuminaire]

It's the 30% hit to crit conversion. The overpen comes from crit. That in itself is a huge damage boost. The 50% crit damage is icing. Penetration is such a deciding factor in higher difficulties that by default I will value the chance to overcome armor over the hobble.

This is all, of course, still on the idea of reducing the ability to 1 cost with no other modifications.

Edited January 24, 2020 by UltimaLuminaire
Clarification

[thelee]

12 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Why is the crit damage insane? It's +50% additive from weapon base damage. So in case of a sabre or sword for example that would be 8 slash damage on average.  I mean it's nice - but insane?

 

2 minutes ago, UltimaLuminaire said:

It's the 30% hit to crit conversion. The overpen comes from crit. That in itself is a huge damage boost. The 50% crit damage is icing. Penetration is such a deciding factor in higher difficulties that by default I will value the chance to overcome armor over the hobble.

30% hit->crit is not a lot for something you actively spend resources on (versus a passive or item buff); the expected value of the bonus crit damage from barbaric blow is still pretty mediocre, only barely above crippling strike in terms of damage potential and ignoring the other benefits to crippling strike. you get way more form the bonus pen as a situational underpen ability than trying to rely on critting.

 

1 minute ago, UltimaLuminaire said:

This is all, of course, still on the idea of reducing the ability to 1 cost.

even at 1 cost, alluded above crippling strike serves several other in-class synergistic functions, including enabling sneak attack when needed, and debuffing reflex, so it's even more than just it's on-paper effects.

barbaric blow only barely has that - with interrupting blows the hit to crit can be useful, but still worse than just "interrupt on crit" which itself is already extremely mediocre compared to "interrupt on hit." more to the point, spending resources for just a little bit more damage is not an ideal use of limited resources - you really want either a lot of extra damage (finishing blow, gambit) or synergistic enablers (wounding shot, all the upgrades for flames of devotion) so i think the risk that it's too good at 1 is not very significant; it would be on-par with fighter's penetrating strikes, or un-upgraded flames of devotion e.g. niche extra damage ability.

probably the bigger concern is that a barbarian has very little in terms of active offense, so at 1 cost it becomes a brain-dead easy default pick because what else are you going to spend it on until heart of fury?

[Elric Galad]

If you want to consider a pure Damage ability, you should use Accurate Wounding Shot (especially the CP version that removes stacking issues).

All other abilities have side-effects which makes comparison harder.

That's just my 2 cents. I think I will code whatever you decide anyway (I also noted the Crushing Blow need of cleaning).

[Elric Galad]

I've just given you a bunch of (already working) potential changes to review on another thread. I'm ready for tuning.

Barbarian was among the first class on my list, but I admit I had no clear idea of what to do with Barbaric Blow, so it's nice to read some brainstorming.