Not sure if this has been addressed before but found something interesting and thought I’d share my opinion on how these 2 items work. If what you are about to read sounds like utter nonsense, apologies in advance as I am being caffeine deficient atm and it happens
Eye of Dominion:
You how how the skill from it lets you control enemy units temporarily right? While it works fine in campaign, using it in crucible is a pain since the round won’t end until the units you have taken control of are dead. Not sure if that is working as intended, but my suggestion would be to make the converted units instead act like temporary pets that die after the duration so as to not pause the round till they are dead.
Black Scourge:
It is a pet based item that spawns pet scaled pets, but the proc only activates if the enemy death is caused by the player. In other words, if you are relying on your pets to kill, you will never see it proc. Seems counter intuitive to me. So perhaps make it work regardless of how enemies die or make it proc on hit/attack like Primal Instinct and maybe nerf the Granted Skill to compensate for it if needed?
Eye of Dominion: Another user already made a thread about using this item in Crucible, and Zantai personally responded to it by saying there wasn’t much he could do about that item short of lowering the duration of the mind control. The mind control is pretty worthless anyway with the rare exception of capturing a healing trash mob who can help heal you. The damage mind-controlled mobs do is garbage.
Black Scourge: This item and Bonescavenger Grips must certainly be the record for people asking to remove the proc being from player kills even though Zantai repeatedly explains that is explicitly what these items are designed to do. I’m trying not to be snarky, but every devstream video near a patch has someone asking to change these items to make it off pet kills, and Zantai directly responds by saying they’re meant for player kills.
I know Zantai has attempted to promote hybrid play for a long time, but it’s better that these items keep their niche. I’ve already written a feedback thread on improving hybrid summoner play where the player does damage as well. For example, Fiendgaze Tome would be very interesting when used with this item. However, Reap Spirits don’t have Physical damage, so the conversion for pets is pointless, if you’re using Possession Pyromancer, you’re giving up on the Reap Spirit modifier completely, and Defilers can’t take advantage of Reap Spirit’s Cold + Vitality damage at all.
Regarding Black Scourge specifically, we already have this item that gives you little Chaos bugs without having to worry about player kills. Let the hybrid build item stay a hybrid.
Long story short: they have been addressed before.
I have already seen the thread on Eye, but since Zantai did not go into details I am not sure if it is an Engine limitation or simply him talking about the easiest solution. Because if it is doable, I think it would still be pretty neat to have a mechanic like Diablo 2’s Revive (even if it is mind control rather than reviving corpses). It doesn’t need to be for damage, extra bodies serve as a pretty good distraction, bodyblock and yes, healers. They could also let the mind controlled units get some benefit from pet bonuses if they want to go for damage. Inturn reducing the duration and/or number of units that can be MC’ed could balance it out. And if it is hard/impossible to change how it works then simply lowering the cd and duration of the skill would make it much better than its current state.
As for Scourge, I am almost never online when they live stream so I wasn’t aware of that. That said, I still think it should be changed as imo, the proc is pretty worthless in its current state. Hybrid pet builds are simply not viable in the current state of things and unless they have something in mind to change that in the future, I’d say change the skill.
On that topic, I would also argue for changing how Bonescavenger’s Deathgrips works too (ty for mentioning that actually, I knew I was forgetting something). Atm, if you are going for a pet build, you pretty much always go for Overlord’s in terms of Gloves. Having more options would be nice.
Also if the two items above share a record for people asking to change how they work, I see no reason not to listen to their request. No use trying to force something if the majority don’t like it, in my opinion.
Poor Eye of Dominion. Fucks with Crucible, didn’t get support for AoM pets and didn’t even get a Mythical version.
Kind of a shame really, the whole Badge of Mastery style random prefix/affix thing it had going on was pretty cool. Don’t think I ever saw many people really use it though.
Iirc someone asked in a stream a while back if Eye of Dominion could have a Mythical and Zantai said no.
As for the Deathgrips, from the 7th December stream.
"mordecai_mike : Any chance we can get bonescavenger death grips to proc off of pet killing blows, or a chance on attack to proc the pets. I think it would be a good change for pet builds.
I’m sure certain pet builds would be very happy with that, but that is not the purpose of that item. That is to reward a more hybrid playstyle where you the summoner are actually contributing to the damage."
Fyi the streams are usually available on Twitch TV as recordings for a couple of weeks after a stream (7th December one is still there atm) and some of them end up on Crate’s YouTube channel. Zantai showing off Shattered Realm and Oathkeeper mastery are both on there.
And the text from all the dev streams since Zantai announced FG are to be found in these two threads.
Ty for the links Medea, the hype for FG just got hypier.
If they want to keep the hybrid items as they are, then I atleast hope that they will look into Eye. It doesn’t need a mythical or anything, just a usable skill in the crucible.
