So rather than screaming “make these skills usable on bosses” right off the bat I plan to start this thread differently
The original post is a just a few questions
Do you use either of these skills on any build?
If the answer to question number 1 is “yes” then do tell exactly how these skills are useful to your build and highlight their importance in your build
If the answer is “No” then exactly why don’t you like to use them?
Between Blade Trap and Olexra’s Flash Freeze which skill do you find is more practically useful?
Have these skills assisted you in Ashes of Malmouth content in any way?
Blade Trap has a lower cooldown and affects pretty much every enemy except bosses. Problem with most ranged builds is large enemies such as Flesh Hulks tend to run in and face rape you. Blade Trap holds them in place and keeps them at range (which is what you want from the skill).
OFF works in an AoE explosion around you but too many dangerous enemies are left unfrozen. Even Harbingers are unaffected. Having said that there are more RR Freeze options and OFF can work on certain bosses because of this.
As for the “let it work on bosses” debate. It would be broken if they allowed it to do so. I actually have a lot of fun using both these skills but I’m more of a casual player.
OFF is way more useful. Way bigger radius and way better effects. As for being useful on bosses, I think that all stun/trap/freeze/etc. effects should at least have an immobilizing or massive slowing effect on a boss. As it currently is, there’s really no “kiting” a boss without a huge DoT build because you can’t move and attack. So you either build to face tank or you die. I think that severely limits the build potential in this game, and that’s a shame.
To answer your question, yes I have used both. I’m not the greatest player or have the deepest understanding of mechanics but this is my understanding of both skills.
So my first build is playing around with making phantasmal blades a strong enough skill to complete all content in the game. The build is a shaman/nightblade because I thought bleed damage would be a very strong option for the build. I used blade trap through veteran and it was an excellent skill. I am going for a crit monster build with a shed load of cunning and the phantasmal blades skill that gives huge crit damage. Blade trap was amazing til I hit the end of veteran. Lots of ADcTH along with wendigo totem and phantasmal blades ripped through everything I put against it but then I hit the wall. Blade trap became clunky. The fact that it is a projectile that has to hit an enemy to proc was awful. The fact that it seemed if I hit a boss or something with it then it wouldn’t proc even in the aoe on normal mobs was either just weird or it was a bug. So blade trap was excellent for several reasons. It had really good bleed damage, has really high ADCtH and the best part of it (in my opinion) the minus to defensive ability allowing me to crit more often. Then I hit elite and it became a nuisance to try to use, especially when I was trying to dodge around and still hit with the missile that procs it. If you fire off the missile and miss you have to wait to use it again. I switched over to grasping vines and I was disappointed I had to because with some tweaks I can see blade trap being excellent.
OFF I used on a purifier with ignaffar’s. I got to level 77 with before I threw in the towel but that might be because I’m not good at building anything arcanist. The reason I found it excellent was because massive area of effect that locks enemies in place and the reduction to fire resistance made it perfect for ignaffar’s. Freeze everything in place, drop seal and then go to town with massive amounts of fire damage. Pair ignaffar’s with ele storm from crown and you’ve got a monster that can reduce resists impressively.
Of the two skills OFF is worlds better for one simple reason, it procs as an aoe rather than a missile that procs a smallish aoe skill. It procs instantly and you can’t miss with it. I believe it still affects bosses with the rr and occasionally it will freeze them for a very short period but not always.
When I hit ultimate with the blade trap I’ll switch back to it and see how difficult it is to use.
It’s funny you mention this. I cleared Ultimate with that exact build (except I went vitality damage). But this was before the expansion. Blade trap has a 2 second cooldown now. I was even using phantasmal blades (not frenetic throw) and still found it an effective tool.
I’ll take an old build out of retirement and see how it goes against end-game content. Mainly the end-game heavy hitters - Aetherial Titans/Colossus etc.
I use Bladetrap on nearly every Nightblade build i make, unless it really doesnt fit or i already have another CC ability (like OFF)
The only reason i use it is the DA reduction, which is mostly around 30% for me (i usually only put 1 point into it and devouring blades if i go that far into the mastery)
The skill is great for trash and just allowes me to clear it faster. id love to get the effect on bosses too but that would be maybe too strong idk. Only thing i wish existed is something that adds WPS to it, but afaik there is no gear in the expac that does that, would be such a nice skill to use if it dealt any % Weapondamage.
I have never made a build that puts more points into it, simply because it doesnt seem very useful but i havent made a Trickster yet, seems like this build and maybe any Phantasmal Blades build could benefit from putting more points into this skill, otherwise it is a nice onepointer but can just as well be completely ignored. OFF seems to have a bit more use because it is more likley that you play some kind of caster when you use the Arcanist, so the CC and freeze is always welcome, plus the skill itself has a nice fire res reduction and the Mod reduces physical res. If i had to change anything about both skills, id maybe allow the reduction effects to always take place but not the cc effects for anything that is resistant to it.
I had the same thought, Lumina. To make blade trap viable only requires two things in my opinion. Make it an actual aoe with a decent range like grasping vines. Make the rr apply even if it doesn’t actually entrap the enemy and make the ADCtH apply even if the boss isn’t entrapped. I’m going to run it some more today and see how it goes. Pretty much my only gripe with it is the missile aspect of it and that the rr doesn’t seem to affect bosses at all.
Duck: I pretty much find frenetic a must if you are using it as your main damage skill and so far I have found it is pretty superb. The massive energy cost though even with throw is an issue and you have to skill your devotions for energy rather than the bleeding damage support unfortunately. Even using components with energy regen and mog pact and such I still run out of energy, especially when I hit mobs with energy leech. I also think that more weapon procs that apply bleeding damage need to activate with it and blade trap. A lot of the best bleeding on weapon procs seem to be melee based. I’m gathering together the empowered blood reaper set at the moment as it seems the best option if you don’t go demon slayer. My other thought is the wildblood set.
There are two other issues with blade trap that come to mind. The first is the way it activates procs that happen either when crit damage occurs or % on attack skills. The other is the lack of interrupt in movement mechanic.
To address the first one it does not seem to proc skills like doom bolt on equipment or sigil of consumption on equipment as well as other AoE skills. I also can’t work out if the DA rr actually procs off the damage that trap itself does.
The other issue is more problematic in my opinion. If I am moving towards an enemy and try to use blade trap it won’t interrupt the movement and throw the trap it will wait until I’ve moved the full distance of the click before it will let me throw it. This makes it really pedantic and frustrating to use. Other AoE skills will either stop you and cast it or they will cast as you continue to move but their usage is much smoother because they are not a missile activation.
So if you take moneybag’s martin as an example. If I hit him with blade trap it lasts a second maybe less and as soon as it stops or breaks then the benefits stop as well. If I drop grasping vines under him it continues to proc and the benefits of it apply continuously.
If you are playing trickster then grasping vines is superior in every way and you don’t have to play a short click style which slows the game down so much.
I used Blade Trap in some of my older builds but then I stopped since I realized it didn’t work against anything I’d want it to.
I can see it having some utility on ranged builds against strong non-heroes though.
OFF I never use because practically every Arcanist build I make I prefer to get monsters to cluster in one tight spot rather than frozen all over the screen.
Arcanist already has a defensive button in Mirror so OFF isn’t really needed.
On softcore I’d never get it, but on HC the extra control I could see it be useful.
I like having OFF as a secondary cc-skill on my Sorcerer. With just two points investments I get 6/12 OFF and 6/12 in its modifier, and it’s a handy tool in Crucible even if you already have Flashbang. But it’s not a reliable skill to use as the primary crowd control tool and not worth a lot of points.
Actually all they have to do is what D2 did, turn the freeze into a slow when it hits bosses. Problem fixed. Would also allow us to profit from the -xx resists on it.
While OFF might not work against a lot of mobs, it’s cheap to skill up, and easy to use. If a group of Shamblers show up, all of them are going to throw a boulder at me, and that sucks if you fail to avoid them. OFF always works against them. Has a huge range, and doesn’t require me to aim anything. It’s not bad against hordes that charge you. Much of the time it stops them in their tracks and gives you a chance to clear them with AAR, or what ever you are using.
It just doesn’t work against a lot of mobs, especially heroes, but it is useful against some important trash mobs.
Yeah, right and I’m the president of the universe:p
Anyways, I’ll try my best to not dis any opinions that doesn’t fit my views and try to respond with some more questions :rolleyes:
Blade Trap-
[spoiler]-So it seems not many mobs are resistant to Entrapment and thus this is more useful
But in a crowded place like Valbury or Malmouth how well does this work? Doesn’t the low AoE hamper its CC potential?
-Also, some enemies might not be immune to entrapment but might be highly resistant so this means they won’t be held down for long while. How many dangerous mobs can this thing hold down for a considerable duration?
-If CC is the main point of this then isn’t the “projectile” mechanic a little clunky (as WoofKnight mentioned) and disruptive to regular playstyle?
[/spoiler]
Olexra’s Flash Freeze-
It seems Olexra’s wide radius makes it very useful as a CC skill. I honestly can’t think of anything to counter whatever’s been said about Olexra
So my thoughts on the subject of these two skills
[spoiler]-I’m fine with certain skills not being useful on bosses as much as the rest. But I don’t like skills being useless on bosses under any circumstance. Let’s look at Blood Pox, the damage isn’t all that great but it’s very excellent for Retaliation tanks. With skill mods Canister Bomb is now great, large hitboxes, Siphon Souls is a great way to leech off bosses. So some low damage skills can still prove to be quite useful
-My solution for Olexra would be to remove those odd RR bonuses and simply up the damage of the skill to make it perfect for CC. I also would suggest that freeze resist of Titans, Hulks and Heroes be reduced to the point they can be frozen abet for a small interval. This might add some QoL to some people who like to play glass canon builds
OFF in its current state makes sense as it is an early skill in the mastery bar very useful at low levels
-Blade Trap, my biggest gripe is that unlike OFF which is unlocked at Level 5 of the Mastery Bar, Blade Trap gets unlocked after a 25 point investment into the mastery bar and doesn’t contribute much (imo)
My solution for Blade Trap has always been to revamp the skill entirely. IIRC Petrify works just as well as Entrapment. So make it a trap skill with an AoE petrify effect. This would mean it won’t piss off those who use it for CC and it’ll justify the skill’s placement deep within the mastery
OR
Move the skill to Level 5 of mastery bar :P[/spoiler]
I use both skills with my highest pre-expansion chars. I use OFF with Fissure and Blade Trap with Guardian’s Gaze. As long as bosses are accompanied by other mobs, which can be crowd controlled, you still benefit.
I find it hard to compare these skills with each other - even if you play a Spellbreaker, it still depends on the rest of your build (although OFF seems to be the more “natural” choice). But the cool thing about Blade Trap is the health regain.
I like the idea of it being a petrify AoE. I’ve been using a weapon on another character that does that and it is pretty strong as an effect. Not sure how you’d make the effect work on bosses though?
No, not currently. I had never used Blade Trap on a character higher than 40 level, but that was before a few buffs. I had used OFF before on CT Sorc, AAR Sorc and Coldbreaker. I think I haven’t used OFF for almost a year.
They weren’t that important. The role of OFF was to a) clear the screen of trash ranged monsters, because I can’t be bothered walking up to each one with a melee build; and b) to CC some of the yellow enemies that are a pain to deal with, like stonehusks and riftscourge. Both points were especially important for AAR Sorc, I even used Canister (and it’s damn strange that you decided not to include it in the poll) with Aetherfire just so that I had enough AOE to clear trash w/o wasting energy for AAR.
If a character doesn’t need more trash clearing potential then I won’t get OFF. And I won’t get OFF just for CC. CC is a bonus.
OFF.
Haven’t tried them in AoM yet. And why OFF if I can get Rune of Hagarrad instead.
Hmm… good to know. I guess it does indeed depend on the build. But in tight spots like Malmouth which one would you prefer?
The thing is entrapment or any CC doesn’t work on bosses so the best thing is to use the Rune of Kalastor skill template/ Steps of Torment traps skill template and add Petrify AoE to it. This won’t disappoint people who use it for CC and would make the skill finally useful for being so far in the mastery line
Petrify isn’t meant to work on bosses. The altered skill would be similar to any trap skill like Rune of Kalastor or something else. It’ll deal damage to bosses and Petrify crowds
I only suggest a complete rework for Blade Trap as its too far in the mastery to be this useless (imo)
For OFF imo they can either remove RR and make it a trash cleaner skill or remove the prerequisite of OFF requiring to freeze enemies to deal damage and debuff them. This would make those RR skill mods to OFF useful as well
I have not been to Malmouth with any of these chars. I think the combination of health regain and the DA debuff makes Blade Trap the mechanically more attractive CC-skill.
I think the combination of health regain and the DA debuff makes Blade Trap the mechanically more attractive CC-skill.