With recent experiences with the relic annihilation i am convinced that Crate placed this item just to troll us.
It requires Ulzuin’s Pyroclasm as crafting material which is vastly superior, and it’s inferior in every way to pyroclasm.
The granted skill has mediocre damage for all the energy it consumes. One would achieve better results on a low level skill points starved Grenado which hasn’t hit Soft cap (max level before ultimate ranks)
Either delete this item or relegate it to an epic item or a low level legendary tier cause quite frankly it’s very sad to see a high level item being this bad.
Onto traps - Mortar Trap, Storm Totem and granted skill of LD set need their base damage buffed.
They do some decent damage in an AoE situation and i don’t intend for them to become single target damagers. But Storm Totem in Ultimate Ranks has really bad damage output.
Storm Shard is a free skill so even if the damage isn’t buffed i think the “fire rate” needs to be.
Storm Totem and Storm Shard seem to have decent on paper damage but their slow fire rates really hurt in a boss fight. Nukers do help but nukers shouldn’t be relied on imo. Slight buffs to these underused skills would help them become more user friendly and might make people consider using them.
Mortar Trap still is in a better place than the rest but one trap skill being somewhat good pretty much highlight the sorry state of trap users.
I am deliberately not going to talk about Herald of the Apocalypse cause after so many patches the skill continues to remain donkey shit and i am convinced the skill was made to deliberately miss the target.
I’m going to disagree with you about Annihilation. I use it on my Infernal Knight BWC build, and its a great nuke, twice over if you include the fact herald of blazing ends also procs it. I have no problem outright nuking any debuffed target with a meteor (this includes heroes and bosses), nor do I have any issue with energy consumption on this skill, although that may be biased because I have mental alacrity to reduce costs. Also to address your statement that grenado would be a superior choice over meteor, I also have to disagree with that. Meteor is a “free” granted skill which requires no investment to achieve damage on par with max rank skills, also unlike grenado which is susceptible to being shot out of the air in its arc, wasting it, meteor will almost always hit its target due to coming from above and having a higher blast radius, the only point I will concede is that in underground areas it often hits walls and ceilings.
I will however agree with you that Apocalypse needs work, it both takes too long between the cast and for the meteors to fall and deal damage, so much so that my cocktails and procs usually clear the screen before they even hit anything, and the energy consumption it requires is a bit high for what ends up amounting to nothing.
I agree with the8anarchist on Meteor. It’s a no-investment skill that deals damage that is nothing to scoff at, applies a decent burn for builds that want to stack those and is great for proccing devotions.
The only downsides are the energy cost but it’s nothing an elixir of spirit every now and then can’t fix and the fact that granted skill cooldowns don’t scale with cooldown reduction.
The relic itself though is pretty bizarre, i can’t think of many physical/fire spells that will gain from the flat fire damage besides the Meteor skill itself.
Oh i agree for zero investment the skill is nice, but i think you guys missed the part about Ulzuin’s Pyroclasm.
Annihilation vs. Pyroclasm-
On a whole Annihilation is a badly designed relic, the granted skill is for casters and the flat damage is meant to support LMB builds. The relic even lacks %total speed bonuses
Ulzuin’s Pyroclasm despite being meant for Casters is usable by and is used by 90% builds.
Pyroclasm goes off enough number of times and wipes the screens clean and isn’t too shabby against bosses either
Grenado vs Meteor-
Now, you say Grenado can be shot down in mid air right? Did you miss the part where Meteor can miss its target and go kiss the nearby wall? Even in an open situation it is sometimes unfriendly versus smaller hitboxes
False Advertisement-
The status of the relic irks me, it is currently advertised to us as the highest level Demolitionist relic and yet Demolitionists go for Pyroclasm since Annihilation has design flaws (both relic and the skill)
Damage
Also, the on-paper damage is cute and all but it isn’t really needed in a build. I went for it on a trap build and realized the DPS gain (based cd, energy cost and damage done) while good isn’t substantial enough for me to consider using it
To put it to perspective.
Soldier, Arcanist, Nightblade - each of them have two relics both relics support a respective build type.
Nightblade in particular has Belgothian relic which once was preferred in almost every other nightblade build. Now the Nemesis relic is also getting used in builds due to proper buffs
I think what bothers me more about Annihilation than the power level (which doesn’t seem too bad for a “free” ability) is how misleading the name and flavour text are.
“Rip through the fragile barrier between the nether and the mortal realm as you conjure a massive burning rock to drop upon your enemies.”
“The skies shall tear asunder, and fire shall rain from crimson heavens…”
For something with that much build-up, I was expecting some kind of Sephiroth-esque monstrosity that would at least result in an explosion on par with the The Big One’s 10 meters. Instead, we get this…one single tiny pebble? The skies had to tear asunder to let that thing through? Heck, I could go to the park and see bigger rocks than that just lying around. For a top-tier relic called “Annihilation”, I was hoping for something a little more than a tiny 4 meter explosion.
So yeah, a visual increase in size and/or an explosion radius buff, they’re my biggest wishes. Though I admit, making the explosion too big would probably necessitate a damage nerf, but we could probably squeeze a couple of extra meters out of it for free.
Well, if it’s big enough, it’d be hard to miss. Though… If we did make it, we suddenly have a flood of people calling themselves xxxSephirothxxx or something, like other games do.
Neither am I, but seeing that name in like eighty formats gets annoying. Seriously, is an original name that hard for people? You know how many times Nssheepster has been taken on me? None, that’s how many.
I’ve the same feeling toward most things you said.
These are my opinion.
Annihilation : The granted skill energy cost isn’t going well with physical&fire base. Physical&Fire user usually not caster those have plenty energy sustain.
And I see good builds especially commando which is suitable for physical&fire choose to play only pure physical or pure fire. These are conflict and make the concept goes wrong.
Annihilation should mean more than a huge meteor. It can be any thing that create very huge destruction or massive man-made things like missiles barrage etc.
Mortar Trap : Need a small set especially design for it. May be like invoker’s set or smaller. Also I beg for the option to play in sorcerer, elementalist and combination with new inquisitor too.
I don’t have things to say with storm totem cuz I rarely play shaman. But from my druid experience. Storm totem is underpower.
Herald of Apocalypse : I hope it’ll get the upgraded version at high lv and better concept. I’m looking forward to nuke-like granted skills or many fire pillars exploding from ground immediately. (according to Chthon said. Meteor version miss targets very often. Low efficient screen clearing)
I’d like to play it, but the concept, efficient and granted skill isn’t good enough to make ones satisfy enough compare to other good amulet.
PS. if crate’s idea stuck in design animation and skill art. may be can looking for inspiration from eastern MMORPG(Korean is good option to see). // Sorry to say that, I guess from many meteor-like skills. May be it’s personal preference.
This, this is what “Annihilation” makes me think of.
Of course, that then leaves us without a “high damage, low range” fire relic, but Sun Spot is a fancy effect just waiting to be reused. (and given a more menacing sound effect than “gently blowing on a pillow”)
For a top-tier relic called “Annihilation”, I was hoping for something a little more than a tiny 4 meter explosion.
(and given a more menacing sound effect than “gently blowing on a pillow”)