I’ve started a Devastation character in Ultimate. It’s playable, but it is not awesome in any way.
Grimtools. I went to FG after act 1 to get the off hand.
Problems with Devastation: low damage, long cool down, stationary and no way to scale it in early/mid game. And it doesn’t damage terrain or loot orbs, making it look anemic.
Damage: It’s not terrible but I’d say it’s below average compared to other builds doing an Ult start.
Long CD: Every boss and half the normal enemies spawn 15 minions per second in the current version of the game. Having to wait multiple seconds until you can do damage again and clean up the screen is stressful. Also you need Star Pact because waiting around for your damage just sucks.
Stationary: Often we need to be precise and nimble in which enemies we attack. You gotta snipe the healers. And you have to prioritize high damage enemies before they kill you. A mid damage stationary attack with a long CD is not good at that. I have to run away a lot.
No way to scale: Devastation bonuses are hard to come by. There’s nothing on low level unique items. The MIs are really high level in Ult so they’re not accessible either. My character got a level 70 Gaze of Ungoliax at level 55. I need damage now. The only accessible Devastation skill bonus is the Magi affix. I got one on this character, and it’s level 70 too! Got unlucky with these early on, so now I get to do 0 damage forever.
What to do about all this? I don’t know, I’d drop the CD to 10 seconds. And I’d add massive RR to Devastation. Something like -30% Elemental and Aether at level 16, 40% at level 26. The downsides of Devastation should come with some upsides.
That would absolutely make it mandatory in almost every class including arcanist.
I could see a slow effect, to keep monsters in the AoE, but most bosses are pretty much immune, so that’s not incredible either.
A little drop in CD would be appreciated. It’s similar to War Cry, in that regard, it’s really not usefull without the CDR mod that almost every Devastation item adds.
Being able to have more than one Devastation up (with Aeon for example) would also be great.
is it even possible to add stackable rr to devastation, like, it’s that age old “can’t do it - has to be on debuffs template only” right? so would just be moot as usual anyway.
Devastation CD vs CDR probably stands out a bit, not even sure i’d compare it directly to war cry but probably more like a hybrid of WC and Doom Bolt, as it likes more than just a single item (unlike WC helm) to get potential rolling. Where ex Grenado you can fairly comfortably invest in as filler with just the medal whether you’re maining it or using it as bonus.
unsure if availability matters that much for early campaign content tho, like what are you going to do, cram in 3 MIs in act 1 to ensure 1 skill gets endgame style playable before FG/Ungoliax/Immolation unlocks ? - seems like might be a bit much if so
Idono, so like a "what’s his face"hero/boss helmet with a different early game modifier option perhaps, +projts tdm (so it can’t be paired with usual ana etc helmet later/endgame)
That’s a lvl 94 item though, @MagpieMcGraw is talking about early/mid game. For that range there’s Terrnox’s Aether Tome which has -4 seconds Skill Recharge to Devastation and is available at level 40.
During leveling, Devastation is nice to have when you get swarmed or when you fight a big boss, but I wouldn’t rely on it. You really need something that is less stationary so a filler skill is pretty much mandatory. I haven’t tried leveling a pure devastation build but I can imagine the long CD can be quite annoying, even with the Terrnox offhand.
Here’s an idea, what if the +5 seconds Duration on the Ascendant Hood changed into -5 seconds Skill Recharge? That would make Devastation much more usable in midgame (lowest available Ascandant Hood is level 40 as well) but I don’t know how much that would affect existing endgame builds with this helmet.
Wdym nothing? This would allow you to cast Devastation more often, which in turn allows you to be more mobile. The +5s duration on the other hand does much less, you rarely need that long duration unless you fight bosses or nemeses.
- seems like might be a bit much if so