This skill needs a serious look at it. I don’t know if it suddenly becomes amazing if used with a 2h ranged, but as a melee skill it’s just… awful. The base damage of the skill at all ranks, The base area affect, the weapon damage multiplier… it’s all just no good. I can’t even justify taking it to get Lethal assault, because that skill is almost as bad with its tiny duration, meh multipliers, and inconsistent damage type.
Could this skill please be reexamined?
It’s sad, this skill had literally just been redone completely like 2 patches ago. And I almost think they managed to make it worse somehow.
I’m personally 100% for flat out deleting it, not bothering to rework it yet again, and using the two skill nodes from it to make an actual NB exclusive skill, and another passive based on dual wielding that grants bonus dodge chance when dual wielding (perhaps at the cost of -%Total damage, similar to Maven’s?). The skill itself just isn’t worth saving as is, both versions of it have been total trash, and it offers nothing to how you want to play just about any build.
oh, really? what was the old skill like?
The idea i have is to flip the two skills, blade burst and lethal assault. Lethal assault is a melee replacer which causes all subsequent melee attacks (ie, triggered strikes) to inflict additional cold/piercing/frostburn damage.
Amarasta’s Burst is a passive enhancer to this skill, causing the initial strike to inflict extra frost/burn damage and release blades which seek out nearby enemies within a small radius (say 5m), dealing additional damage to the primary target for each blade released (ie, each nearby enemy).
There could also be a function alterating skill coming off lethal assault, which adds on a % bonus to cold/piercing/frostburn damage (lets say 40/75/100) to all skills for the duration of the lethal assault but makes the skill melee only.
Old version was effectively a roulette type of deal where you had 3 different possible outcomes when you cast the skill, on top of a very weak base set of damage/stats. It would either…
A. Have massively increased base cold damage
B. Massive crit damage amp on the strike.
C. Some other affect. I think it was a higher weapon damage ratio? No clue. The skill was bad, however you looked at it.
The old name was Lethal Gambit, and it pretty much always was. For you, that is. I honestly can’t remember the modifier’s effect on it, I think part of it was making it AoE like the current blade burst is.