anyone done VeilKeep dual-wield aether Druid yet? 
1 Like
Wouldn’t it be similar to cadence, but less consistent/regular?
Well, it definitely require balance, but no more than trying to have Upheaval alongside other WPS right now. I guess you could say “If you also want other WPS besides Upheaval, you will have to live with the fact that whenever you crit, Upheaval will proc over anything else” Which sounds like an easier thing both to explain and balance out in my opinion.
Definitely in less words than trying to explain how it works right now.
Look, I’m not saying my suggestion solves everything, but it’s (on the surface at least) a minor change that improves both accessibility and understanding of the situation.
I’m not against Upheaval being a WPS. I was simply suggesting a less drastic rework that should bring positive results with minimal balancing efforts.
If Crate wants to make Upheaval into a normal WPS, then sure… but it sounds like a more complex fix under the hood that they might not want to do… In that case, what I’m proposing definitely alleviates the issue at least.
Plus, Upheaval working on crits is unique, I’m not sure the game needs yet another WPS that works just like all the others.
3 Likes
The builds for Upheaval (Veilkeeper, Avenger and Blazerush) all already lean heavily into hp regen, so I think it’s quite fine that the lifesteal for those builds is unreliable. There are less drastic ways to solve issues with them (such as reducing cd on defensive procs/actives) that don’t involve removing the only thing that makes Upheaval special.
It’s silly though that Avenger and Veilkeeper have a focus on both WPS skills Upheaval and I, being the single-minded Upheaval enjoyer that I am, would like to see these sets shift power from WPS into other places that don’t detract from that playstyle (Mark of Torment? Resilience? Fighting Spirit/Menhir’s Will?).
Anyway, the skill node layout is also very counterintuitive. For nodes connected like this, you’d expect anything else than the third node losing value from the second node. It took me years to realize it, and I think adding something to the orange text in the style of “Can only activate when no other weapon technique would activate” might help with the clarity.
Felt the need to correct myself: I didn’t know until the Berserker reveal stream that conversion for Savagery also converts Upheaval, so never mind this. I’m glad about the 120 added damage to it though, which I’m unable to test for GOG reasons.
Edit: It’s not as clear as WPS + Upheaval bad, rather each point put into WPS diminishes Upheaval’s value. If you look at it in relative terms, then every +1% chance of proccing a WPS diminishes Upheaval’s value more than the last until you reach infinity at 100%. A strong WPS proc isn’t automatically bad. While doing this math isn’t my idea of fun, another angle on this is that maybe the bonuses of Veilkeeper shouldn’t be split along both Necrotic Edge and Reaping Strike.
2 Likes
You were correct in your original thought.
Upheaval is not a typical WPS like what the stream was referring to. Typical WPS are changed by conversion modifiers to default attack replacers.
Upheaval’s damage (the flat damage and what is added from modifiers, but not WD%) needs specific listed conversions in order to be changed. Savagery conversions do not affect Upheaval. You either need to use global conversion or there must be mods for it like on the Chaos Upheaval Conduit for it to be converted.
My personal take is that I enjoy Upheaval in its current state and don’t think it needs altering. GD was “luck-based” in some of its skills in the very beginning and that was ultimately changed for the better. I like that you need to go only with Upheaval and deal with the hot streaks and miss streaks when playing. This is not different from focusing on any other WPS! On classes that only have access to 1-2 WPS total you will still see the WPS not trigger for long streaks or trigger 3-4 times in a row even when at 30% chance to activate!
If you watch RektbyProtoss’ skill reveal video for Berserker you will see multiple times when he didn’t get the WPS to fire off for quite long times when trying to demonstrate it for the stream.
RNG is gonna RNG!!
(And that’s a good thing in my mind…)
6 Likes
I have been lied to on Discord. My druid is thus getting more power out of this change than I expected to get, so it’s nice to be wrong.
2 Likes
Wouldn’t it be better to make it stop conflicting with WPS and become additive, akin to almost every single AA replacer? That way it’s still the big crit-based bonk, without forcing the weird choice. Not like there’s a special swing animation to it.
1 Like
That would be awesome but it might be hard to balance (dunno if it’s even possible to implement), like it’s like a third weapon damage modifier (first two being AA and wps). But really no idea, you should ask Zantai that question, it’s up to him, we are just making suggestions that sometimes get implemented. Iirc before he was against reworking Upheaval because banana’s suggestion isn’t really new.
I honestly like the idea of Upheaval being sth unique, but unfortunately it’s 1) very counter-intuitive and 2) very hard to get it going. Upheaval is more random than the wildest cazino of Ulzuin’s Chozen’s resets, and that solely becomes frustrating very fast. It’s simply not fun to put all your eggs in one basket and then see 8 blank hits in a row on white mob when you should’ve deleted them from existence with those OA and chance to crit numbers.
I mean, it could work if Upheaval was considered a supplemental skill, like Torrent, or Soulfire… just it’s own thing that procs whenever there is a crit with a 2-handed weapon, regardless of what skill led to that… basically a distinct proc, that doesn’t override or gets overwritten by anything… it just procs on top of whatever’s happening.
It would be much easier to balance
1 Like
This is the first time I’ve heard this. Could you explain why it behaves like it does? This engine being what it is it’s probably because of some limit but I thought I was aware of all of them. Apparently not.
the way i understand it upheaval is effectively a mix of cadence and secondary effect mechanics like “Cadence with Explosive Strike” from fire strike
unsure of the exact details/interactions/what’s really going on, or how to label it better, but seems to be a relative apt description of how it behaves.
Every non wps strike with Upheaval enabled but not discharged is basically counted as Cadence does on the first 2 hits, then when a non wps crit occurs you get a Savagery hit that crits and a secondary hit that’s upheaval/when savagery crits it “discharges” an upheaval hit (which will then do its own crit check/wont default crit just because the sav hit critted), giving you 2 hits in a single attack, like fire strike and explosive strike (upheaval similarly then also being aoe)
the “every non wps hit is counted as upheaval/similar to cadence” is then also how we can get 2 devo procs to occur in a single attack despite not actually every triggering upheaval/an actual crit
i’m guessing upheaval acting that weird interaction way “sorta like a secondary effect mechanic” is why it would require direct Upheaval conversion or global conversion, similar to how Cadence conversion doesnt’ convert first 2 hits, or fire strike conversion doesnt’ also convert explosive strike/fire strike mod doesnt’ apply to explosive strike as it’s a secondary effect
quick demo
https://imgur.com/a/x9jB7Xx
edit, baboon that i am i didn’t show removing the upheaval points removes the lightning dmg present on clearly non upheaval triggered hits
non-upheaval upheaval lightning override https://imgur.com/a/yQP7u3H
3 Likes
What gnomish said is how it works as far as I know. It is a secondary skill or something along those lines. Somebody who mods will know exactly what type of skill it is, but it does require mods to the skill itself to work.
I had forgotten it worked like that until my Aether/Vitality Upheaval Ritualist was still doing Lightning Damage with the current live version of the Aether Savagery Conduit. I needed to try and convert it globally, but with the PT changes it’s all good! 
1 Like
ye i think aether sav conduit was when i learned about it/upheaval interaction too back when
1 Like