Exactly, your complaint/objection is not even consistent!
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You can put that on my gravestone.
Do we really want 10 000% cast speed in GD? Yet another AAR buff???
Blade Spirits are hardlocked to hitting once/second.
The nerf is pre-designed!
Obviously we need do cut our losses. Just delete pierce and blade spirits from the game.
You know what, delete the whole game.
4 Likes
During the last version i’ve tested, observed and tweaked so many builds involving Blade Spirits, i have nausea every time i see them. Here are some prominent builds for other dmg types that are not as sensitive to BS:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/wV19EyBV - Ill Omen based Reaper. Spirits play a small part in build’s performance, some 7-8 sec off the timer
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/m23O8dn2 - melee based Reaper. Compromise needed to take 24/16 BS with enough conversion is not justified, they do not increase the performance
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/DV9OB6QN - aether Reaper. Despite sufficient conversion and access to 24/16 with minor gear tweaks, BS don’t improve the outcome because the build has enough AoE
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/aZq0z3AV - chaos Witch Hunter. Has access to 24/16 converted BS with gear tweaks but losing even some WD doesn’t pay out
In general, a lot of melee builds, even pierce ones, that have single target focus and enough AoE to kill white mobs don’t benefit too much from diving deep into BS if they need significant compromises. Belgo Infiltrator is a good example.
On the other hand builds that have mutlutarget focus and require less compromises to achieve 24/16, like pierce/cold Blade Arc, see higher benefits from BS.
There are certain platforms where you spec into BS and suddenly feel more powerful. And then there are platforms where you take them and expect to be powerful but they are kinda whatever…
As much as i’m sick and tired of BS i can’t possibly say that this skill is a bane of balance. It’s a free dmg, no brain dmg, it’s big dmg. It’s definitely a little OP. But it’s not as broken as to nerf it by 33% for the majority of builds.
While the use is definitely niche, cunning stacking is very possible with legit play. Magic suffixes like “of Prowess”, “of the Eagle” or “of the Wolf” in many cases of cunning stacking give the same dmg boost as rare suffixes if not more.
You can see that the fastest pierce build (caster variant) has 7 singlerare MIs and only one doublerare. Legit player with enough farming can come relatively close to the gear in that build which is simply impossible for the vast majority of the fastest builds.
3 Likes
Sure but have fun balancing resists in a legit build that’s using 3-6 magic suffixes.
You said it yourself just yesterday:
In here “fantasy” refers more to the rolls and more spesific magic stat suffixes where you just about cover your spirit and physique requirements and dump the load into cunning.
With legit farmed items it will be significantly less cunning but still a lot. Check out the second build listed in the OP. 7 singlerare items, resistances are sufficiently balanced. Basically the only thing the build is missing is some more leech which you can get from switching the relic to powerful Bane.
FWIW, in response to no particular comment whatsoever, my personal outlook on “fixes” to this “problem” is as follows:
There are “big changes” and “small changes” when it comes to the adjustment of a skill. Small changes are numbers changes, ranging from damage to area of effect to, yes, spawn counts. Big changes are more mechanical things that are significantly harder to plug into a calculator beforehand without actually trying one’s hand at them directly. Put another way, big changes usually aren’t “player facing.”
At this point in the game’s life cycle, small changes are going to be preferable so that neither Crate nor its playerbase needs to reinvent the wheel when it comes to buildcrafting.
The simplest small change that I like is a reduction to % Pierce Damage (possibly to % Damage in general) offered by Cunning. % Damage from stat bonuses, traditionally, varied from a 5-20% improvement to overall damage. The builds shown above show situations in which stat bonuses put forth 33-50% damage improvement, which is way out of line. Any reduction to Cunning yield will squeeze the range closer to the 5-20% that was customarily seen anyways, and while some “normal” builds already operating at the 20% point of that range will see themselves squeezed down nearer to 5%, it is impossible to bottom out at 0% with this methodology.
I’ve already outlined above why I do not like a stat cap. The biggest problem I see with caps is the necessity in reaching them. A stat cap is merely a shift in paradigm that doesn’t actually address core fundamental gameplay issues.
A reduction to Blade Spirits’s spawn count I don’t think is very optimal because it hits far too many possible builds in the game with the same nerf potency, but it is also a change that doesn’t “bottom out” and does cleave off the top a bit. But the core issue of substantial stat investment remains.
It’s not out of the question that other components of Cunning should be re-examined either, for one stat giving Health, OA, and % Damage is really quite a lot of benefit. Now that the meta has so thoroughly shifted away from a defensive Physique/DA meta and has, for several years now, found a home in an offensive one, it’s not impossible that some of the stat theory of prior balancing is now invalidated.
Now, comes down to it, the “big changes” that are available I think would actually be the best solutions to this issue, but they are also the least-immediately comprehensible.
There are two that I like:
- Blacklist Bladespirits from Blades of Wrath/Shifting Sands. Very large, immediate shift in paradigm. It’s ironic that I like this idea, because ultimately it is an arbitrary thing like a stat cap (and Devotion assignment limitations, inherently, lead to confusion for new players) but I don’t think the original design of these constellations was very conducive to the intent and usability of Blade Spirits. These Constellations don’t strike me as options that should be constantly firing off on builds, as they do when placed on permanent pseudo-summons. (Guardians included…)
- Increase the pathing collision radius of Blade Spirits so that Blades of Wrath can no longer shotgun as much as it does. Self explanatory, but impossible to visualize without actually testing it. This would have compounding effects, I think, in the sense that Blade Spirits wouldn’t be able to overlap as much as they do presently. I’ve seen comments of suggestions to convert the Blade Spirit ‘aura’ into an actual aura that is inherently nonstacking with itself, and I think that’s a far harsher nerf. At least with a collision radius change, Blade Spirits could theoretically still overlap somewhat, like a Venn Diagram of dps.
5 Likes
Ah yes. I remember the good old days when there was no cap and AS was everywhere - way back in those glory days when components were still in pieces and had component bonuses, including AS. I don’t really do salt over all this balancing stuff but if I did I suppose it would be for that 
Slow down the attack rate of BS a bit. And add AS to Blade Spirit focused sets, gears to compensate it. (Or add damage accordingly.)
Then;
Change Blades of Wrath to %15 chance on attack, so hard cunning/OA bump won’t affect proccing rate. With 2 sec CD even 3 BS won’t proc that often with %15 chance on attack.
Make Shifting Sands %100 Chance on Crit and increade cooldown to 1 sec.
1 Like
BoW ban for Spirits might be a good idea. Shifting Sands is not a big offender because it has on hit chance and doesn’t shotgun.
% decrease from cunning doesn’t feel right. It’s already lower than magic bonus. The problem is only with builds with huge cunning stacked. However the bonus from cunning to phys and pierce builds is very imbalanced. What about shifting 1/3 of % dmg bonus from cunning to physique? It’s thematic, it will nerf the biggest offenders and people will be incentivesed to make more tanky builds.
Not sure if this is that punishing since you can then just swap your spam attack, i.e. Chillspikes / Reaping Arc / Melee Attack with Blade Spirit on Assassin’s Mark and BoW. Isn’t it good too?
I have mixed feelings about introducing such limitations after years of adding more possible bindings to devotion skills and sometimes having troubles with binding skills in a good way on some builds.
What makes Blades of Wrath + Blade Spirit good is the the Spirits are able to move close to/inside of a enemies hitbox, proc Blades of Wrath and the 16 projectiles fire out from the Spirit’s epicentre usually on top of an enemies hitbox hitting them instantly. It’s an insanely powerful shotgun.
Other than Blade Spirit, other player-scaling pets make excellent bind options on BoW for the same reason - Rune of Hagarrad as mentioned above and Inquisitor’s Seal in a build I played a while ago is also pretty good for it.
2 Likes
Ok, thanks for explanation. I didn’t quite get this shotgun thing before. Seems broken.
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Hm, Hagarrad was pretty OP some time ago because of the same exact shotgun effect, wasn’t it? What they did is added damage penalty at shotgun range. Can the same thing be done to BoW I wonder?
I would consider preventing Blades of Wrath to bind with pets such as Blade Spirits to be the nuclear option. It’s really not enjoyable to find your devotion setup to suddenly be invalidated.
It’s something I think we’ve only ever done in beta (I can’t remember anymore if Canister Bomb restrictions happened before or after Early Access) and since then we’ve only reenabled devotion assignment options, not disabled any.
A shotgun penalty for the proc could be considered.
5 Likes
Can it be implemented that Spirits simply don’t enter the target’s hitbox? Maybe invisible physical model or different attacking behavior?
1 Like
That is how they used to function and that creates all sorts of other pathing issues.
wow this thread is making me sad 
i know it was raised in the Reaping Arc release thread, but i really really hope it wont be the case Zantai
belt might give a handful of melee builds an actual edge, but it also opens up a huge amount of “niche”/silly pierce approaches, which is impossible without, and would not be much better using 2x bladetwisters
main point is that you lose dot on ele conversion, and the amount of pure flat ele dmg skills aren’t exactly plentiful, so losing half your conversion on something stupid would basically kill any approach of “meme’ish” pierce builds, like piercing pets trickster, aar, etc etc
this would basically ruin any non-pierce Bladespirit - which as noted are not demolishing
and yet we are talking about nerfing and limiting based on fantasy greens here? when as noted “regular” pierce setups doesn’t have that performance, much less outside Crucible - good example would be trying to take cruci “glass” pierce belgo setup through SR, heck or even just MC against Morgo on a suboptimal mutator
again, this is only on a handful of builds, mostly fantasy greens, that 24/26-26/26 piercing blade spirits perform that way. Any other regular pierce build, or stupid/silly pierce build, 3 piercing blade spirits doesn’t behave like a “game killer”
this
already isn’t outside Cruci, at least i can’t pilot the 24-2500 DA cruci “glass” belgo setup in SR without constant 1shots, heck even against Morgo just in MC it can be a dice roll if he hits you bigger than you can heal backup during his second application of damage reduct
i think it’s even more silly because with limited sources of bonus dmg, i feel the player should have that option/choice to do a “glass” dmg dump if they wish - fantasy greens or not. Specially since it’s not like we see the same benefit on non-pierce builds, even on phys builds going heavy on cunning
this +, again, it’s a pure Cruci advantage, you wont survive in SR on cruci glass setup, so there the consequence of 3 blade spirits becomes even more negligible, yet it’s still a third of your point investment
i do that quite often, or if a build is struggling big time for that tiny bit of extra pierce resist on top too
ridiculous thought, ofc they should, not like every build has an easy or free source of life leech, sacrificing a valuable component slot just to get 5% and some armor is completely a fair trade - and not like it’s a universal “OP” stat boost
what’s next, we suggest removing resists on seal of might because it has aether conversion too?
i’m not good on the math side of things, but how does that change anything in regards to nerfing the overall dmg approach of non-pierce blade spritis? - seems like “any” type of hit to spirits will just hurt cold fire etcetc spirits, or legit/“non-fantasy green” pierce spirits, while doing minimal for the fantasy green pierce spirits?
unsure how it would even affect “any” build attribute requirement-wise, since the highest cunning requirement is what, 511/552 for 1h/2h? which you get more easily on flat cunning stats than the %amount on Cutthroat at that low level cunning investment
it’s only in conjunction with high flat cunning investments that Cutthroat becomes a significant compounding contribution, at that low amount where we’re reaching min cunning attribute requirement for equipping 5% cunning/adjusting Cutthroat should not be a significant amount to replace.
and that is if you even need it, as most pierce builds should reach 552 fairly easily on its natural path
which wouldn’t hurt leveling builds or most legit builds, since they aren’t stacking 5+ sources of it, so wouldn’t be a terrible consideration i think
i’d still not aggree with Blade Spirit reduction, since i think it would hurt non-cruci or “meme”-pierce builds more than the handful of builds doing sub 4min, tho it might ofc also just be considered the “nature” of doing out of the way/silly non-standard cruci-meta approaches 
only changing the endgame affix lvl amount wont affect people leveling tho, which would kinda partially deal with both of those issues
i’d argue it actually makes something like max resist a very valuable stat and a fairly significant consideration to some builds especially when dealing with ex higher SR, where it might “force” you to default to the same Avenger of Cairn necklace over and over again 
tho in regards to attributes cap, i think it’s silly to entertain that notion based on fantasy greens. I’m sure if a cap were to be introduced that it would bay due consideration to reasnoable/legit builds, but on the other end of the spectrum is the consideration to “let things exist”, ie let stasher have their “fun”/entertainment with “what is theoretically possible withing the game” instead or applying arbitrary borders on something only a handful of people do
i’d almost consider fantasy greens akin to modding, even if it’s a technicality that such builds could exist in the vanilla game. And balancing around it would only hurt those crazy few that farmed long enough to get their double rare/cunning magic+rare MI legit
i think this might be a nice solution too, as it wont affect the dmg bonus of leveling, realistic, or legit cunning dump builds that much,
tho ofc it depends on the preexisting bonus dmg of the build, but i doubt most end up with near sub 2k pierce dmg like some of my silly stuff
so i think that change has my vote too if it had to come down to it 
this would affect fairly few builds i think, at leas mainly only builds that directly take advantage of it
as it sits i think i have/am abusing it currently on Seal of Inquisitor, Storm Totem etc/ basically any “placeable” pseudo pet that deliberately lets you shove/place or spawn the skill inside the targets box
on non-“placeable” spawn objects like blade spirit i don’t even take advantage of it that often, as outside moshpit rumbles of aoe hordes; it requires pet commanding to make spirits go inside the box, which i’m too lazy to and thus already only get the regular handful of projectiles on my spirits
overall i think reducing %pierce dam after X amount of cunning and/or fiddling with the BoW proc would be “stomachable” solutions; that wouldn’t make me depressed each time i wanted to mess with a pierce build.
Even with BoW tweaks i think Assassin is still overall so good/fitting a pierce devo it still would be included almost by default.
And/or reducing %pierce dmg gain from cunning, either overall or after ex 1500 cunning, would impact less and less builds, as it takes a special kind of focus to get a significant portion of your bonus dmg from cunning, legit or GDstashed fantasies
touching blade spirits i think would be a too hasty solution, like a trap that seems “easy”/simple but will end up hurting more than a handful trying to be reeled in
likewise killing conversion on pack of treacherous means will just completely end any form of non-meta/“cruci optimal” pierce building, which i think will be even sadder, tho i might just be fairly on my lonesome in that silly corner
aye aye, but i can still pout when i see supposed or proposed changes i don’t like/agree with right? 
i don’t envy you the headache and task of keeping up with balancing Z, appreciate all your efforts 
,
just don’t nuke my builds plox 
4 Likes