True there are a few skills here and there but they are too few, specially mobility ones.
Not so low of a CD, 15 is too much, 3 is too low, something like 5.
The shield skill could actually protect from all the hits taken for a small ammount of time after it’s been triggered. And even with a low CD, failing that would still be very punishing for GC chars.
Yes it would be too strong with tanky builds abusing it but there is always a way to prevent them from using it, like those passive that change how skills work?
That’s what find strange in GD. There isn’t much difference in dps like you said. The same can’t be said about defense. As I said, we either play as half-tanks or as tanks without that much difference between them.
off topic: Diablo 3… is another matter entirely, the balance of that game is too crazy at it’s core, but what I can’t stand are the shallow itemization and cheesy dialogue… dear god I want to kill myself everytime someone opens their mouth in D3.
That said, I like the “feel” of most of the combat in D3
you have mirror and blade barrier for that, granted, not a lot of skills, but then I am not sure relying on reflexes for survivability is a good idea for a HC char
Different playstyles for different builds but since we don’t have these options we either play at least as half-tanks or tanks in HC, anything else seems like an exercise in frustration.
yes, but that is because you neglect defense too much then. Your GC is just too much on the glass side of things
IMO the only WRONG choice someone should be able to make in a ARPG would be something like investing a lot in + cold damage if you barely use cold skills or neglecting like 90% of defenses when playing solo.
there are a lot more wrong choices, like picking skills that do not synergize.
If you want to play HC, you should have decent defenses, you are not allowed to die after all and relying on your skill for that sounds like a recipe for disaster no matter what skills the game offers you for that
I don’t think there is nothing wrong in wanting GC to be viable in HC, they are a valid playstyle just like any other.
my problem here is HC, for SC I agree but for HC you just are asking for trouble
That’s not strange, that’s good game design. You think your build through and through on all levels and get ultimate satisfaction when all things click, like procs that patch some offenses/defenses, circuit breaker with just enough cooldown so you don’t have to sacrfice skill points from your offensive skills, enough RR that triggers in time, solving issues with mobility by getting enough movement speed and Slow resist or/and getting mobility skill like Blitz or Chaos Strike, etc. etc.
For me it felt very satisfactory when I made my Sorcerer gunslinger work in Ultimate Vanilla without a singe hard to get MI item (by work I mean faceroll everything). It is kinda glass cannon but it destroys anything in vanilla and only Fabius was giving me a lot of trouble. I figured a solution: same set of pistols on switch but with Haunted Steel in one of them. Worked like a charm, could face tank and didn’t have to use Haunted Steel everywhere else (since it’s a dps decrease for unnecessary additional survivability).
Combat and action felt nice but it really couldn’t keep me hooked to stay for another season of this one-build one-trick pony game where they killed off trading completely. Blizzard tried to patch it with good old power creep, which is like printing more money where your currency is in an inflation spiral, shorterm solution that made experience more frustrating in the end.
And storyline and dialogue (and general vibe), yeah, it still tilts me off when I remember it. To butcher it in a Diablo universe with the budgets and time they had, maaaan. But yeah, it’s off-topic
If it would be possible to go full glass cannon with zero defensive stats just a few circuit breakers / cheat death abilities without dying if you pay attention (thus being HC viable) then why would anyone ever investing in defensive stats?
Making half of the game’s stat’s useless would be bigger of a design flaw than anything Crate ever did with GD (and they admittedly did some).
I dont’t think i would play a game like that if it would ever exi… oh wait…
Spirit for example only exists to be able to equip rings or some items. Aside from mana regen required caster builds they cant just invest in spirit because they need to survive. This is a design flaw in my opinion.
While this is true, i personally got over it a long time ago.
I mean attributes (phys,cun,spirit) are just a drop in the ocean of stats in GD, theres plenty of room to diversify.
IMHO the problem is not about the design but the balance.
These atrributes are giving some derived stats, and the “opportunity cost” of getting those stats via attributes vs. via other means is not balanced amongst all three of them (physique gives you the most bang for your buck).
And even if they were perfectly balanced physique would be the most “spent” attribute statistically since - as of now- the highest req. on items is 970 phys. for lvl75 heavy armor and only 714 spirit for off hands (highest cun. req. even lower.)
Not to mention that most likely more builds use some kind of heavy torso/legplates than a caster off-hand.
And then there’s the thing that almost all of these stats can be raised to an amount where getting more would be useless but there’s no such thing as “too much health”.
How is it good game design if a tanky class that does not have to worry about all that and can survive easily in ultimate has nearly equal DPS to one that struggles just not to die…
Just compare the Blademaster with Spellbreaker and Witch Hunter with Witchblade. The Blademaster and Witchblade can survive easily in Ultimate, while the Spellbreaker and Witch Hunter frequently struggle to survive against large groups of hard hitting mobs. The Spellbreaker and Witch Hunter have a DPS advantage but it is to small compared what they lack in defense.
Why play low defense class at all if every class can reach comparable DPS.
Don’t know which Spellbreaker and Witch Hunter you are talking about but mine survive quite easily in Ultimate, just as easily as my Witchblade and Blademaster.
All of them are offensive and have the same gear quality.
Good post. I could care less about tank vs glass cannon since both are extremes I’m unlikely to enjoy, but I’d like to be more creative about stat distrubution.
Considering pierce bm, technically all-phys is 2000HP & 320 DA, while all-cunning is +320% pierce and 320 OA. 2000HP vs +320% pierce isn’t that bad of an exchange, but the game is quite a bit balanced around player having at least 9-10k hp on ultimate. Pretty much a player is faced with a fork - either defensive stats and offensive devotion setup or offensive stats and defensive devotion setup. Going both offensive stats and offensive devotions will result in hp much below most player’s comfort zone.
All stats besides OA/DA are technically subjected to inflation, since gear bonuses just scale better overall. But yeah, compared to Cunning Spirit lacks some “oomph”. It has increased mana regeneration, but mana costs being the limiting factor of damage output later in the game isn’t current game design.
Fun thing is, there was a chinese player that once posted his HC build (and was trolled a lot). It had just slightly above 5k hp (and around 1.5k total spirit IIRC), but it did survived through ultimate HC. It was a Sorcerer with Time Dilation that abused circuit breakers (mirror, blast shield, giant’s blood and wayward soul). Ironically, because he went so defensive on devotions he had a quite puny damage output.
I also once did a 50% phy 50% cunning build on HC that felt fine. But it was a physical Warder.
EDIT:
Sadly you have to facetank everything in this game, which forces you to invest heavily into defenses.
CDR and DoT builds don’t have to facetank, at least not that much. They still prefer phys-heavy stat distribution.
But they have a very special status because attribute and mastery points are the only way to really “build” your character. They are the only facet of your character you have real control over so distributing them should have meaning.
Items and everything related is something you don’t have true control since you did not design the items (like their stats and skills) so you have to use what the devs thought of, before that you also have to find them first. They are also not permanent.
That said before mentioned points are your unique chance to design your character, even though they often get distributed with a simple ratio or rule of thumb but as I said they are special.
so all glass, no cannon Not sure that build would still work, but I am pretty sure it was not a good idea at any time, the fact that one person once did it does not contradict that
I also once did a 50% phy 50% cunning build on HC that felt fine. But it was a physical Warder.
I am not saying you have to go completely defensive, only that going all out offensive in HC is not a good idea and you should not blame the game when you do it and die. Warder is pretty defensive to begin with, or at least can be.
I haven’t personally played any of those classes, but some of my steam friends have Spellbreakers that easily surive in Ultimate. Moreover, Drizzto have postead a thread in this section where he showcased different Crucible Gladiator builds, one of the best ones was two-handed Spellbreaker with Soulrend - it annihiliated Gladiator in record time. I am not sure about Witch Hunter, but I’ve seen a Dreeg Set build somewhere in build compendum whose performance is similiar to that of Witchblade’s Dreeg set build.
Low defense builds main line of defense shouldn’t be their stats, but defense skills that reward timing to avoid/mitigate damage, which sadly are non-existant in this game.
It seems that most ARPG devs avoid timing mechanics like the plague, wich limits playstyle options…
I remember a mod in Torchlight that added new classes, one of them was a mage-like class that had a barrier-reflect skill that lasted for 1 sec and had a low cooldown, it was interesting.
For example SB has Mirror and Blade Barrier; take Tortoise with Turtle Shell and some gear with “Oh-Shit”-Skills/Proccs and you have your CDs ready, when you need them.
Glass cannons work just fine in this game, no one makes you put all points in physique. You just choose to for what ever reason you tell yourself. And no glass cannons shouldn’t work solo in hardcore 100% of the time, as if they did then game would be to easy. Now in a group then yes glass cannons are great in hardcore (especially if you have a team mate wearing the Empowered Apothecary set plus BoD & Tree of Life.
Can you play solo hardcore glass cannons? Sure but you better know all the boss fights and have really good kiting, but that’s how it should be.
Not sure that build would still work, but I am pretty sure it was not a good idea at any time, the fact that one person once did it does not contradict that