Spectral Binding flat Aether is really 44 base, while Possession flat chaos is 42 and Reckless Power is 34 flat Aether? Yeah, Reckless Power needs to be the one with 44 and Spectral Binding 34. Seems backwards for an early buff to have more flat damage than an exclusive rank 50 buff.
That’s actually a very nice idea since Necrosis hasn’t really been incorporated into a top tier build since…forever.
Actually, Crate has many ways to implement changes such that -20% Life Leech reduction can still be stacked without that amount being easily available on one source alone. They can:
- Make a Necro Conduit that puts -5% LL on Ill Omen (i.e. a skill that nobody is using).
- Replace a bonus on one of the Pestilence of Dreeg amulets. Let’s be honest, here, nobody used any of those except for Shattered Souls and Plague of Consumption. I’d happily take a -5% life leech reduction on Plague of Corruption instead of the confuse effect.
coughs
-You do realize you sent 9 plagues right? 7 are on that amulet, 1 is on relic Blight and the so-called “crowning achievement” i.e your 9th plague is on Plaguebearer of Dreeg
I do like the idea of adding LL RR to Pestillence of Dreeg but I don’t want the theme of the amulet to be broken
-Ill Omen is surprisingly good for devotion procs, but that’s all it is good for. It’d be a good idea to make Necro Conduit do something worthwhile, currently Necro Conduit’s skill mods are horseshit
I don’t know if I necessarily agree with this. This has been the game’s logic for a while and it’s largely been working out. Solael’s Witchfire, for instance, gives 55 Chaos at 12/12 but Possession only gives 42. Second Rite, the modifier for SWF, actually gives 59 Vitality at 12/12. Both continue to give more flat damage than Possession into Ultimate Ranks.
You’re comparing one stat of several different skills that do different things.
If I understand things correctly then I think the issue is that Spectral Binding gives other bonuses such as OA and HP that are universally good where as Witchfire only gives AS which affects only Auto-Attack builds
They shouldn’t touch the HP and OA on the skill at all which leaves the flat aether damage, as it’s the only thing they can reduce without hurting anything besides Aether Necro
If they don’t reduce Spectral Binding’s Aether damage then the flat bonuses of Krieg need to be significantly reduced penalizing Battlemages in the process
That’s even worse in my honest opinion, specially when those skills do very similar things (boosting damage primarly). Shouldn’t the exclusive skills have better stats by default and that includes flat damage? Since they are rank 50? I don’t know, the logic of early buffs having more flat damage than a rank 50 buff is backwards to me.
Except Possession does other useful things too, like damage absorption. Possession is universally more useful than SWF, flat damage or no.
Not really. Second Rite+Witchfire are good for only one thing i.e flat damage and nothing else. The AS bonus is only beneficial for Auto-Attackers
When you compare it to Flame Touched the flat bonus on it is low but the OA boost on that skill is universal as every build will benefit from it. This why there’s such a huge difference in flat bonuses between these two auras
Let’s not forget that currently we only have two masteries with actual flat chaos damage and the thing that matters most here is that these skills have existed in this game for a long time and I have yet to see any “broken” chaos build. So the flat damage on them is fine
I hope this made sense outside my head 
Then what’s the point of them being exclusive skills when they have lower stats than early buffs? I’m sorry but that’s really stupid and makes no sense. To me, exclusive skills need to be better at EVERYTHING than an early buff does and i mean everything. Not just be a little bit better than an early buff.
Heck, Spectral Binding is flat out better than Reckless Power. Isn’t that a little sad?
But if you want Possession and Reckless Power to keep sucking (because they do), then by all means, don’t ask them to be buffed.
It has lower flat damage but provides skill disruption resistance (useful in crucible) and damage absorption
These two things are good for every build including DEE hunters
But Witchfire+Second Rite is only good for flat damage. The AS is beneficial to auto-attackers. So no matter how you look at it, Possession is superior to Witchfire in every way
This is true for the most part except one minor detail that I will break down here, immediately.
Usually, you judge an exclusive skill not by the +x% bonuses it gives you to some damage type, but by what it gives you besides that. This is because those linear bonuses are not that great in the end-game where you stack +1500%-2000% of your preferred damage type(s).
The %absorption on Possession is massive because percentage absorption happens almost last in the reduction chain (right before flat). But there is a minor detail here everybody is forgetting: 22/12 Spectral Binding gives you almost 2.5k HP and with Krieg it is actually easy to go 22/12. On a character with around 2000 armour and 20% physical resistance for example, that 2.5k HP IS in terms of effective HP (EHP) the same thing as 12% absorption vs physical damage, at least (which is the most dangerous type in Ultimate). But it does not end here… Because it is not an exclusive skill, you can take Menhir’s Bulwark also, which you can’t on a Witchblade.
This means that against physical damage, that 2.5k HP bonus is basically Possession or, at the very least, the thing that makes Possession important. Sure, you don’t do battles only vs. physical damage mobs and bosses, BUT, the fact that at 22/12 the EHP provided by Spectral Binding is essentially the same as the %absorption of Possession in the cases that matter should raise some questions. DK is far tankier than Witch Blades have ever been…
Dude, one is an exclusive skill and the other isn’t. And yet Possession is hardly better than SWF. SWF also has attack speed and Vitality resist. I’ll take attack speed over Skill Disruption any day for melee attacks
I’m sorry but no, Possession isn’t better in every way. It’s hardly better and that’s the problem. The fact Possession is an exclusive should gives it the right to have higher flat damage than an early buff, when it has to compete with other exclusive skills.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
I think it expedites the leveling process without really changing much of anything lategame. I mean, once you have 50/50 points in a mastery, do you really care where anything is? If you’re taking Possession and SWF, you’re winding up with the same amount of flat damage regardless of where SWF is in the mastery or the ratio of damage between the skills. Reducing the damage on SWF but buffing it on Possession slows down leveling, potentially make the game harder for new players, and ultimately hurts diversity as it relegates a larger chunk of damage to a skill which you can only have one of. Sure, you get a “choice” of more damage vs…probably more damage, but that feels a little artificial and unimpactful to me.
As a whole, I’ve never liked Possession because it just didn’t do anything other than act as a numbers increase to things you already had numbers for. The Damage Absorb is really the highlight of the skill, and what makes it unique…except Menhir’s also has Damage Absorb. Something like Oleron’s Rage at least has Movement Speed and % OA, which Soldier doesn’t possess elsewhere (sure, it has flat OA on Field Command). Stormcaller’s Pact has % Crit Damage, not found anywhere else in the mastery. Possession just really doesn’t have a tangible impact in taking it, and it’s not because the numbers are too low, it’s because the numbers are just numbers. The Disruption resist is far too situational to make a difference.
Anyway, I could rant about Possession for pages upon pages, but my point is this: for singular, focused stats in a vacuum, Exclusives probably shouldn’t be more powerful than anything else as that cuts down on the potency of trying to hybridize a character. Instead, Exclusives should be more interesting because of the combination of stats and synergies they can offer to their related mastery.
As for how this relates to the thread, I honestly don’t see a problem with Spectral Binding either. In testing, Necromancer was weak because it had Health and OA problems. So SB had its Health bumped up and had OA added to it. Necromancer had trouble killing things, so a lot of its instances of damage were increased.
I don’t think Spectral Binding, or anything else in the Necromancer mastery, is overpowered. If anything, I still think Necromancer as a whole is pretty bad and in dire need of greater support.
I also don’t think Soldier is the issue here either.
I do think Haunt needs to be tweaked.
I also think there was no reason for Krieg set to support Necromancer any more than it already did. Initially, this was something I was in favor of in testing but it seems I misjudged, to some extent, how many people would hop on the bandwagon of DK Krieg. Although, part of me wonders whether that’s being done because previously DK was just utterly awful otherwise and so people wanted to try it out because the name sounds cool.
All that being said, I maintain my previous statement:
Still stand by my statement to not touch HP and OA bonus on Necro. I don’t care for one retarded set, delete the damn thing (I don’t care if I have to throw my own Krieg DK in the dumpster). There are other Necro builds that’ll be punished for no reason because of this
And that 2.5k HP isn’t too bad when one considers AoM’s defensive requirements. If it’s a problem that it’s equivalent to possession then buff possession (heck it’d even benefit the Witch Hunters) rather than nerfing the HP bonus on SB
I’m up for this - buff Possession !!!
So buff possession then, i guess?
I don’t think some buffs would break that skill, if it’s comparable to an early level aura then it means the problem more likely lies with possession
I agree on the part that they shouldn’t touch HP and OA bonuses on the skill but Necro is a pretty solid class. I do however think some extra gear support would be nice (defiler set when?)
Who keeps bringing this up? It’s like that other thread where someone called Inquisitor class the strongest one
I am still up for them removing Necro bonuses from the set and designing a brand new set. Even if it means DK remains w/o an actual exclusive set for a bunch of patches
I’m not asking to remove flat damage from SWF, i’m asking Possession flat damage to be upped to be higher than SWF, an early buff. Sure, it most likely won’t make it better but to me, the logic should be for a rank 50 exclusive skill to have higher flat damage than a damn early buff.
The case between Reckless Power and Spectral Binding is probably the worst. Spectral Binding is just flat out better, with RR from Spectral Wrath, flat OA and a lot of health.
While Reckless Power has cast and attack speed, so much better than the stats in Spectral Binding. /sarcasm
I guess it’s the fate of Reckless Power, Possession and now Harbinger of Souls to wallow in mediocrity for all eternity. While Menhir’s Bulwark, Oleron’s Rage, Star Pact, Stormcaller Pact (i actually think it’s good), Master of Death and Aura of Conviction sit inside their mansion on a hill, having a party all day.
It’s not that those skills are bad, it’s just that with the release of AoM and the important changes it brought to DA/armour and physical resistance levels, those exclusive skills lack behind…they haven’t adapted yet so to speak.
Possession for example, would need around 20%-25% absorption to reach pre-AoM functionality. That or give %damage to aetherials. We have +% to eldritch and ch’thonics (inquisitor), beasts (shaman), humans (nightblade), but nothing vs undead and aetherials. I’m joking, ofc, they won’t put +% damage to aetherials with Theodin f*****g around as the end boss.
It’s already one of the best exclusive skills, lol (if not THE best!). It gives not just damage absorbtion, but also 100% disruption resist, chaos resist, damage bonuses and even flat chaos damage!
I’m going to throw out my own thoughts based on suggestions that I’ve read throughout the topic:
-I think Spectral Binding’s flat Aether scaling at Ultimate ranks needs toning down. I don’t know by how much but my gut tells me that it could drop down to IEE levels (~90 at max rank instead of 112).
-Krieg’s set has +2 to Spectral Binding on 2 pieces and +1 to Necromancer so right off the bat, it has an easy +5 to the skill. I would replace one or both of these 2 bonuses with something else from the Necromancer tree like Harbinger of Souls so it’s not as easy to stack Spectral Binding into it’s Ultimate ranks.
Both of these changes limit Death Knight’s damage potential without effecting Battlemages and still keeping Krieg as a DK set without too many goodies (though I would also like to see another set for Death Knights around Physical/Cold/Vitality, surprised this wasn’t done really with Cadence/Bone Harvest and/or Deadly Momentum/Soul Harvest).