QoL for Wind Devil by making it a Toggle skill?

[Ceno]

@lMarcusl

You’re an ass.

James Lokarr is an ass, and we won’t be working with him again.

[Boze]

That will be part of one of my next build !

[Maya]

@Zantai

reasons I’ve given in the past for this and other design choices “make no sense”

Because we have Guardians of Empyrion. So I see no reason why they can be permanent, but not Wind Devils. Balance wise, numbers can always be tweaked.

@Zantai

The obsession with Wind Devils as pets is tenacious, I’ll give it that. Wind Devils are a spell, an AoE that happens to also move. They are only pets in the sense that they can be relocated.

Same argument can be made for all player scaled pets.

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But, nice changes though

[Lokarr]

Who will be doing loot giveaways from now and onwards then?

[Jabarto]

As someone who championed the whole permanent Wind Devil option pretty hard, I’m really pleased with those changes. The increased speed in particular is going to be great, and the buffs to Codex of Eternal Storms will make it more competitive with Rolderathis’ Tome for Trozan’s Druids.

[banana_peel]

Very cool changes. One question, i assume Spark of Ultos and Cyclone set wont result in a 6 winds spam, it’s still limited by 4 max summon?

[pewsquare]

I never really saw them as pets honestly, its just like a homing spell. The changes do look like they are gonna help them a lot tho, since so far i only ever used them as a debuff, as they seemed way to unreliable for dealing damage.

I do have a question on that end tho, can you stack them on an enemy? As in every single one of them should be dealing damage right?

[Norzan]

@pewsquare

I do have a question on that end tho, can you stack them on an enemy? As in every single one of them should be dealing damage right?

Yes, every single one deals damage. Or else stacking more through summon limit mods would be kind of worthless.

[pewsquare]

Well for single target yes, but for coverage it would still work.

[Zantai]

@banana_peel

Very cool changes. One question, i assume Spark of Ultos and Cyclone set wont result in a 6 winds spam, it’s still limited by 4 max summon?

This attribute is not a summon limit increase, just how many can be summoned in one cast. So correct, that will not result in a summon limit of 6.

@pewsquare

I do have a question on that end tho, can you stack them on an enemy? As in every single one of them should be dealing damage right?

Wind Devils apply a debuff to the enemy and thus do not stack their damage. Maelstrom targets individual enemies around them however, so multiple Wind Devils can deal Maelstrom damage to a single target.

[Serious_Stan]

@tqFan

I tried two times to mod Inquisitor Seal so that it follows the player (i.e. giving it Hellhound controller) but I couldn’t make it to move or even bark. Whereas giving Seal buff to cosmetic pets didn’t look well iirc. Perhaps someone else would like to take this challenge.

Have you tried editing the movement parameters in the dbr, it has movement as disabled?

[RektbyProtoss]

These changes benefit casters more than expected and are very welcome! Time to play more Shaman.

[Maya]

@RektbyProtoss

These changes benefit casters more than expected and are very welcome! Time to play more Shaman.

@RektbyProtoss

On the other hand all the builds using Wind Devil’s purely for RR can cast them once and forget about them, so they feel like Guardians of Empyrion. This would be huge QoL for all the 2h Primal Strike and Savagery builds out there, which aren’t OP in any way afaik (apart from maybe Vortex). Imagine having to resummon guradians on an EoR build… that’s how it feels like spamming Wind Devil’s on Primal Strike builds rn.

Since the permanent Wind Devil mod is on the off-hand, does that mean the changes will still fall short for PS builds?
I know there is that 1h wep that allows you to use the skill without requiring a 2h, but I assume it is not as simple as simply changing to that weapon on PS builds.

Or do the rest of the buffs make up for it even without permanent WDs?

[eardianm]

Won’t be totally carefree but if the speed and ai improvements pan out, you hopefully won’t feel like you have to spam at cooldown to keep them on target. Getting extra time to live as well, so I don’t see a major issue although tbf casting them never really bothered me

[Maya]

@Zantai

reduced max distance before Wind Devils follow the player / snap to their location

Hm… just realized something.

Can we um… leave the max distance as is and not change it?

Because while non pet builds might like the change since they are fighting near enemies anyways (even casters), on pet builds, you want to be as far as possible from the fighting and so this will be a nerf.

Perhaps make the shorter leash a part of Maelstrom? Since Pet builds don’t take that and non pet builds will. That way, both are happy.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

even if the leash is blade spirit or empy bros distance you should still have plenty of safety distance with pet command

(heck that’s much farther than i currently can get away with because of wendigo totem’s puny heal radius )

[Maya]

@Gnomish_Inquisition

empy bros distance

I have never been a fan of it. One of the reasons why I hated my Ok/Necro Ghol builds.

@Gnomish_Inquisition

pet command

using another button just when wind devils became perma (and even that requiring an item)?

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

@Maya

using another button

wait, you never use pet command on any of your pet builds - am i doing pets wrong??

[Maya]

@Gnomish_Inquisition

wait, you never use pet command on any of your pet builds - am i doing pets wrong??

It um… wait, first things first… Here is a relevant post from Sigatrev: Pet Conjurer - Moggy the Puppy! - #77 by sigatrev

While that is old, my building methodology hasn’t changed much and if anything only got lazier. So… my builds essentially become worse when you try to micro manage your pets

[tqFan]

@Maya

Hm… just realized something.

Can we um… leave the max distance as is and not change it?

Because while non pet builds might like the change since they are fighting near enemies anyways (even casters), on pet builds, you want to be as far as possible from the fighting and so this will be a nerf.

Perhaps make the shorter leash a part of Maelstrom? Since Pet builds don’t take that and non pet builds will. That way, both are happy.

When I read this change I immediately thought of this too. Guardians have it set to 15.0.
I’m assuming this is TeleportToLeaderDistance (I just tested it and changing it from 15.0 to 1.0 literally stuck Guardians to my character). Wind Devils have it set to 20.0 now, before this update.

Here you can see me kiting with Dreeg’s Evil Eye and charging away from Sentinel. My Guardians lose aggro and teleport to me. Personally I’d like if they didn’t so that I don’t lose their damage, aura and devotion proc chances:

I guess it depends on a player / their preferences / whether kiting or not / playing Crucible or SR if aggressive teleports are beneficial.