If a nerf HAMMERS a build to oblivion, then yes - it robs from diversity. A great example of this would be transmuted AAR.
But the fact of the matter is this: octavius set is still miles better than most other sets.
In its current state, I’ll fucking wager my left testicle that most players using an optimized Octaius WL will have a VERY easy time handling most of the game’s content.
I was actually thinking about just using Octavius + Pummeler and rest of the items just some random blues, and then some non-optimal devotion route.
Just to see/show how good this freaking set is
When you ‘‘Honor’’ A Nemesis in the face with retal Warlord it’s plenty flashy
But we are REALLY missing the point here, which I don’t understand why everyone’s overlooking.
Leave octavius set alone - nerf freaking aegis. It does too damn much. It makes pre-nerf RoH look like this:
With all due respect this is nonsense. First and foremost, there’s always will be something that is better than others when it comes to pushing numbers and times to their limits. You can’t balance a game with so many variables unless you make it linear which nb would play it and Crate wouldn’t even release such game because it just doesn’t make sense, who would like to play a game with one class same items etc.
Secondly, this is a game around items, without items you’re non existent, your manual skills do not really matter, only items matter.
That’s being said I’m not saying that something is not definitely overdone and brigs 10 times more to the table than other things. Such obvious cases can be somehow tuned, however as you all know that usually not happens. More likely, things either stay or are destroyed which at the end reduces build diversity, makes your effort to get those items wasted, and at the end you ask yourself why the hell I spent so much time, now for nothing? I should’ve better read some book or play other games.
Yes. Agreed. But the octavius warlord happens to be one of those rare exceptions. So no, this particular nerf does not kill diversity
How about nerfing IT?
I do not think neither fire nor Acid aegis will compete with phys/IT Aegis
Ok so you are back to my old argument “nerfs hits middle ground players most”?
To answer your question, I’ll need to explain my perspective of the mechanics of each of the 3 aegis damage types and what makes them work
DoT damage after all is not very concerned with cooldowns.
This can be seen by the inherent %CDR stats the set offers + the flat CDR from blazeheart and the amulet.
Regardless, in the case of the first 2, 445%WD is too damn high. I would even go so far as to say that it’s better than cadence because you don’t need charges for it. You can toss-&-run, making you a tanky-kiting-DPS-machine.
Maybe retal aegis is fine, in which case, a nerf to the WD component of aegis still wouldn’t really affect it.
No Sir, aegis needs no nerf. There is nothing wrong with the %WD on it. Cadence can do more and you can spam it more. Korba has even more WD% and more consistent AOE and spammier. Also Blitz is DW with shield since you mentioned yesterday. It’s different And FW is just generally pretty weak now even for spammers. So that should be improved
The problem is the set is overpowered and crate refused to nerf it during testing and trust me, the signs were there…like…red flags all over the place.
Fire Aegis is just as strong, just not as tanky, which is where Octav is really OP. Fire Aegis will 500K crit and 300K Dot easy
I see. I’ll take your word on this fluff. I stand corrected - may I ask for the rationale behind their refusal to nerf octavius set?
So they refused to nerf it since they want ppl to play it, and then tease mid-tier players to try to level up a lvl 100 warlord under false premises? fun
No that’s not why.
My only sensible and objective explanation ( without going into personal opinion) is that sometimes they know they can’t balance everything at 100% so they ship a patch out and let the forum decide.
However with Octav there was plenty of time to chip away at it since it was plenty abused during testing and praised all the time so I guess it’s the one that got away…
I can expect other nerfs like Warlord retal(which idk when we’re allowed to post), but at least, there was a natural progression there. Phys retal was shit and after months of feedback it became strong. So this situation makes sense
Legendary - Ardor of Octavious Set: reduced Cooldown Modifier for Aegis of Menhir to -0.3s
Legendary - Visor of Octavius: reduced Internal Trauma damage to 11 / 5s
So do these hotfixes (just released) change much ?
Change much what?
hey guys i am late to the party ? 
gratz to op poster.
about being build broken or not?
1- aegis is fine… maybe needs slight nerf on its REPRISAL part… not its %wd aegis of menhir part…
cause you can pretty much deal X2 dmg of trauma variant of this build as poison spoiler monkahmm i guess people didnt try psn dervish or sentinel yet LMAO… might post psn variant videos soon maybe
also virtue set pally and sbreaker deal shitload of frontline dmg and can get 200 300k burn ticks while jerking around with perma 400 600 absorb with 600flat hp regen 3k armor goes on
for godsake you can mimick soldier with absolution relic, some shield recovery and such on defensive part
2- octavious is fine? oh hell no
any decent skill slapped by octavious build is not fine
a) trauma/phys res is not super common on mobs. therefore you deal massive amounts of dmg with decent RR
b) set gives absurd amount of flat trauma which other sets will never give? pls just remove flat trauma bonuses on set wil do the job.
c) soldier being soldier? i guess we cant do shit about it. class meant to be the ‘tank’ and doing its job perfectly… if you nerf soldier you take much from class. but on the other hand soldier being king of endgame/hard content since ages. i guess other classs needs some slight buffs lets say ?
also what i think about soldier is; i am fine with the class being tanky but i ma also not fine soldier dealing massive amount of dmg
conclusion; nerf octavius set a LOT esp flat trauma parts and %trauma on menhir and fwave.
nerf on reprisal? this part is questionable cause it might kill burn and psn variant of the skill… not sure about this part
nope, these do nothing.
I agree with fluff here. Aegis itself is fine. The problem is that Octavius buffs aegis so much that it gives warlord incredible speedclearing while still having that trademark tankiness. Remember, when AoM was released and Octavius still gave a bunch of Inq passive bonuses instead of Kalastor, it was already one of the best sets. It lost popularity after the DA meta cause it can’t keep up with binder/RoH speeds, even after Kalastor mods were added in 0.7 (if you read the entirety of veretragna’s build thread). Now we’ve got a new class with phys RR, and Octavius supports it’s strongest skill and here we are.
I propose removing all of aegis support on Octavius. Change it to be like pre-0.7 Tactician where the Oathkeeper bonuses are on the passives (Divine Mandate), or better make it more defensive on the OK side (Warlord won’t gain much cause it’s already made of steel) and give bonuses on something like Resilience or Haven or Safeguard. Will still be one of the deepest realm builds but it won’t be as fast as your glass cannons in cruci if the numbers are adjusted accordingly.
But hey, It’s still a week after FG release. Some things are bound to be broken this early. Remember release RoH? The only thing different with that is that rune wasn’t as hyped. This is fucking shield throw and everyone loved that.
Wow, loving the debate. I wanna pitch in with a mail I just wrote to one of the members of our community when he/she asked me to compare King Octavius with Acid Fisting dervish.
[i]Sure, basically, there is no comparison. Octavius warlord is the strongest build posted up to date and - in a more offensive setup - it’s even faster than the dervish but incomparably more tanky and easier to play. Dervish has serious problems with the shards as shallow as 40-50. The warlord can go to any depth - that is until you meet Kaisan in the boss stage.
Crate seems to have some serious problems with balancing the game and is greatly overreacting with nerfs and buffs. In last patch (7.1) meta was dominated by very fast but not too robust dualwielding melee nightblades. I made that dervish following that meta. But that meta, if you’re looking for all-round builds that can handle most content including the shards, is basically dead. Crate went out of their way to shut down everything that was fast in Crucible trimming down many elements that were most characteristic of the “kill 'em before they kill you” meta (Dying God, Fiend, Blizzard, RoH, CT, etc.).
However, what’s most important is gameplay. Even though that dervish can’t handle deep shards and needs at least 3 buffs and a banner in crucible, it is sweet to play with his fast paced high-risk high-reward gameplay. But it must be said that there much more risk and not so much reward now due to how things were handled in the balancing division.
As for the warlord, I honestly see no reason to play it. For everything in the game under shard 75 taking Octavius is like switching to god-mode. And with everything above shard 75 it doesn’t really matter how strong Octavius is - you see Kaisan and you know you go no further. Another thing about balance - enemies.
If you don’t mind I’ll post this mail in my thread. Ask away if you got any other questions.[/i]
Also I updated op with a GDStashed BiS setup that I wanted to go deeper in the shards with but I’m seriously giving up on that shit. Deep shards are even less balanced than classes and builds in GD. After shard 80 you can as well roll a dice. Roll Kaisan and you die. This is the most unbalanced enemy in the game ever. He basically nullifies your kiting game by 1) making large areas of the boss stage inaccessible due to his crystals, 2) one-shooting you with his acid bolt (it’s dodgable but it’s like rolling 19-20 on d20).
But for anyone interested in taking Octavius for a deep shard spin - 100% block recovery, transmuted Overguard, 30-40% overcaps on ele and aether res and like 40% on acid and somehow better slow res - those are minimum requirements. But you can’t totally drop dmg because Kuba will be immortal. The all-round setup (the one that I recoded the vids with) didn’t need those things.
All in all I agree now that there are better builds when it comes to the shards. Passive heals with no need to attack anyone are essential and Octavius doesn’t have that.
You should prioritise tankiness and retall above anything else in SR 85-88 Kaisan is manageable, you should focus his shards first, his AA do no dmg, so don`t even try to kite him. Avatar of mercy is mandatory as is 60% overcap on all resistance and at least 3500 DA.
Aslo, drop forcewave to onepointer, it does nothing for this build.