What can I say, a cool looking skill which does what it’s promised, however…
Very few items support it - below single-digits, very hard to hardcap it to 22/12, which would make this skill very enjoyable to use (as 12 sec recharge instead of 30 or so).
While fighting against arcane enemies you often (don’t?) want to use this skill because high chance you will be nullified while doing-so, which defeats the whole purpose of using this emergency skill such as is.
I am not really use about the 3rd point which is this one, but what I really would like is 1 sec immortality to react on escape once the barrier depleets. Of course this begs to question if it cna get abused in such way but in those 10 - 12 seconds of recharge I don’t think it will pose a giant risk of balance shifting.
I like the skill and definitely would love to use it on more characters rather than few and those few who got access to it, often times skip it completely due to more of a nuisance rather than help.
I have never tried to get Blade Barrier to a very low cd. I suppose you could do some shenanigans with Eternity relic. But in general I just use it as a one-pointer. A panic button for when I inevitably get stuck in between million monsters in high SR or something.
With my Spellbinder I have Mirror or Ereoctes at very low basic cd and with all the cooldown procs I have, it can be very quickly refreshed. I just don’t think Blade Barrier is good enough to invest that much.
Your third point is interesting, but instead of 1 sec full immortality maybe have it be like an Aether Cluster instead.
tqFan?, someone, did a retal build with Blade Barrier, but the change to the BB modifier pretty much removed that being possible, unsure if there are/were other setups focusing or building around barrier directly as such.
But defensive drawbacks is why i still don’t like Blade Barrier even after evade was added. Legit feels like it’s the only “panic button”/defensive supposedly lifesaver skill in the game, that is actually liable to kill you vs saving you
I don’t know if BB can be made to counteract nulli at the very least, so buffs present while barrier is active dont’ get nullied, or reduce nulli duration to 0.01 so they toggle back on faster, or if you can evade cancel out of itc so you can’t get killed the split second barrier ends but before you gain iframes/“perfectly time hit evade button as barrier expires”.
Either way/as it is now, i’ll probably keep skipping that 1pt on most builds
The problem with this skill for me is that you’re still stuck between a million monsters when it expires, except now there’s also a million pools of death underneath you. So you die even harder than before you used the skill
am, (but not just for pools) - being rooted and unable to get out/“stuck” in surround can just be lethal when barrier expires, vs mirror where you can waltz away first, so you don’t get hit by 300 mobs the second barrier is off before you can frantically hit evade button.
It would absolutely be cool if there was some more payoff for investing in the skill. I’d be hesitant to extend the invulnerability window, as that’s kinda stepping on Mirror’s toes, plus with the lower CD it could possibly be abusable with Belgo relic and Time Dilation. Maybe the health regen could linger after the duration ends? That way there’s incentive to invest to get that regen higher. Possibly achieves the same result as the increased invulnerability window, but creates space to build around it by trying to focus on regen amplification.
It would also be cool if BB became a focus point for Nightblade retal building. Would make a nice contrast to Mirror. In one you let enemies die on you, in the other you have to do the killing yourself. With BB as it is and with the lack of item support, there really isn’t much you can do to spice any aspect of it up (neither the regen nor the retal) to make it worth investing in. Nothing really builds on top of it. With Mirror there are at least some interesting (if dubiously useful) mods peppered around that you can meme with, like Spark of Reality or Ascended Diadem.
If the problem is being surrounded after the duration ends, couldn’t a one point transmuter be added to make the skill auto-cast something similar to a Disengage rune after it ends?
