Probably not going to be a popular topic since people don’t like nerfs but I feel this should be brought up.
I was theorycrafting a DK build and then I noticed how out of whack this combo is with the Krieg set. Yes, I haven’t made the build yet but even just on paper it’s already obvious the numbers you can attain are far higher than almost any other build.
Key problem points:
Blitz does too much damage
The amount of flat damage you can stack is extremely high. Between items like Will of the Living, Mindwarp, the +100 on the Krieg helm, +112 on Spectral Binding, Deadly Momentum and the damage on Blitz itself, you’re looking at 200-300k crits x2. It’s like a character carrying 3-4 extra weapons.
And in the build above you have Time Dilation which lets you use it twice in a row, that’s a good million damage in one second.
In the downtime between Blitzes you also have a massive Cadence that easily hits for 100k+ too.
Spectral Binding is too good and too easy to overcap
At 22/12 it gives 112 flat and 175% Aether damage, 3050 HP and 174 OA. That is insane for a tier 1 skill. No other skill with a similar role like Inner Focus, Vigor or Deadly Aim even comes close.
What compounds this issue is that it’s too easy to overcap this skill: the Krieg set + Mindwarp gives +7 to it already and you’ll have some +Necro elsewhere too.
Because the best items for this build also give those bonuses to the skill, the game doesn’t force you out of your way to get them even though its power is huge.
For many other builds you need to pick up items that don’t really fit it just to get the right skill bonuses, this isn’t the case with Krieg’s.
Mindwarp is mind warpingly good
Both resist reductions at unusually high levels, AS, perfectly fitting skills, etc.
I don’t think there’s any other weapon that fits a build as well as this one does. Maybe it makes up for years of Aether melee builds being niche, but wow.
Krieg set is strong both offensively and defensively
The item parts have heavy armor but also phys res on top of that on all parts but the shoulders—this is unusual if you compare it to other sets.
And then all the flat damage and conversion on it means it has virtually no weaknesses.
Build is both tanky and powerful
As a result of the above, the build is like that old Witchblade that was toned down significantly. Not only can it dish out top tier damage, it also has 18k+ HP, 2.5k armor at 100% absorb and a shield.
That 18k hp is like a normal character with the Crucible buff.
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With all that combined, this class combo is insanely powerful right now.
I mean don’t get me wrong: I don’t think it should be destroyed, but a few of the key points should be adjusted to bring it back down to sane levels.
For example:
A) Reduce the bonuses/modifiers to Blitz on the set slightly
B) Spectral Binding scales too much and should be reduced and/or force the player to use some different items to get those skill bonuses to it.
C) The RR on Mindwarp shouldn’t be that high, as per the other topic about the Master’s Spellblade. Or it shouldn’t give both types so you’re forced to get Manticore which means you can’t get that silly devotion setup above with points in 3 tier 3 clusters.
D) Krieg set shouldn’t have that much phys res, it gives 16% by itself with perfect rolls on items that you were going to use anyway.
Currently it’s like that bugged Stormreaver that I made a thread about before, it was so good that any powergamer can’t afford not to build around it.
Both that one and this are ones I want to play myself, but even so I’d want it weakened a bit for the health of the game to keep the power balance interesting.
I agree that Spectral Binding gives way too much. Compare to Reckless Power or Fabric of Reality. It gives almost as much flat aether as those two combined. At least Reckless Power got attack speed now.
Unless someone can post in-game screenshot with specific Mindwarp, I’ve seen 3 of them and they all don’t get past 30 reduction on both types.
Also, I really should try this devotion setup, I keep seeing it on Kriegs, but no one tries Attak Seru with the elemental->aether conversion.
Krieg set is also insanely difficult to get compared any set short of Lokarr. This is a pve game don’t think we need to nerf DK just because 0.1% of the player base are having too much fun with it (or having too much fun dreaming about t lol…? You don’t even have the build).
From a business angle imo I think it’s too early to nerf the highlights of the expansion lol. I have exactly one piece of Krieg armor and quite tired of farming for it, no need to pretend everyone has it. As hard as it is to get it must be objectively better than the other sets to be balanced, which it is.
Krieg’s set is extremely easy to get when it drops from three specific enemies only. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a “PVE” game, the game should be as much balanced as possible and Krieg’s set is probably the best set in the game at the moment.
After thinking about it for a little while, i think it was a bad idea to add Necro skills to Krieg’s set. The set was already better for Death Knight than Battlemage and the added Necro skills just made it worse.
Krieg set can be obtained in 12-20 hours of farming, its one of the easyest set to find. And you don`t need perfect rolls, rolls dosent matter unless its conversion rolls.
Find one helmet recipe you can literally buy the rest of the set off the vendor. Kriegs is harder to get and obviously meant to be more powerful; and it’s still only useful for a few specific builds.
LOL, do you have any idea HOW much time you will spend searching for recipes? Ive played 300 hours after expansion and still havent found half of them.
For Mindwarp, if you’re going to remove something then remove %reduced RR and no flat reduced rr. If need be reduce the flat value but don’t remove it. Like I said these items have always been used by Aether Battlemages and suddenly DK getting involved shouldn’t ruin the party for others
They’re not vendors but blacksmiths who can craft any Legendary in the game save for MIs, BP Legendaries and Secret Legendaries
Their crafting bonuses are unrivaled and for some weird reason the devs are making us waste our precious resources by settling for mediocre bonuses of the other smiths as in the expac we’re no longer allowed to craft non-random items at Etram
All right, but it is random and I cannot choose which legendary to buy. And it requires a lot of rare components to buy a random legendary. Pretty far from literally complete set imo.
Wasn’t long ago that people screamed how bad death knight is. Suddenly +1 to all necro skills on one set makes it “OP”?
And I think it is a very bad idea to balance one specific build by changing mastery skills, because every other build with that mastery, even other deathknight builds would become worse just because this one specific build is strong.
Let’s also remember that the krieg set is very much lategame, you only get it at the very end of elite at the earliest, most people don’t even play that far. That’s no reason to change anything about spectral binding for every necromancer.
People who said that were out of their minds, the only thing bad about DK was that it didn’t have it’s own set. Which was more of an identity crisis than a performance one
I do agree with this part
Doesn’t matter, major balancing decisions focus on late game.
+1 necro from 4 items slots that never roll +1? You can stack up to +7 to necro/arcanist/soldier with 4 items from this set, no other set in the game offer such a large amount of +skills. http://www.grimtools.com/db/itemsets/125
All items give flat life. Set can roll 12% phyz resistance, it aslo has good proc, %IAS and flat aether on gloves. And its heavy armor.
Imho the problem is not the set, which is balanced for a battlemage (i think that’s the only leg set for battlemage in the whole game). I won’t say that necromancer is overall OP, but some skill are way too good. Specifically, I am talking about spectral binding, ravenous earth and master of death. One OP skill is still good overall in mastery, but three i way too much.
