So ranged support has been steadily improving and I’m happy to see that. There are some things that I think should be addressed
Menhir’s Will
In light Brute Force getting unlocked for 2h ranged I would like that Menhir’s Will receives the same treatment.
It’s not like doing so would make ranged builds suddenly broken. If anything it adds to QoL of these builds and reduces circuit breakers item usage on builds. This has always bothered me as Menhir’s Will is accessible with 2h melee weapons but locked to 2h ranged weapons
Searing Strike
So after a year of playing this game today I realized that Searing Strike doesn’t work with ranged weapons. Don’t blame me I rarely read tool tips of skills. I especially ignore the yellow highlighted potion because I find it useless (yes).
Anyways, it feels weird that Searing Might supports ranged play. But searing strike doesn’t support ranged
I am not sure if this is some sort of oversight or not but this should be addressed. It doesn’t make any sense that Searing Strike is locked for ranged builds especially when Searing Might supports 2h ranged
Honestly I don’t think DW Gunslingers need another damage boost though, instead making Searing Strike support shields will help G&B style alot and it makes more sense given it’s a transmuter i.e it still needs some kind of requirements/penalties.
If you added pistols to Searing Strike, then there would be transmutors for all weapons, which would be redundant. If the default is underperforming, then something should be done about that.
Having transmuters for all weapons types would only make sense, if the default would not become obsolete then, but added a unique playstyle to the skill.
Looking at the opinions in this thread, I can agree the modifier doesn’t need to be changed to support 1h ranged
I do however agree that G&B playstyle could be augmented this way, I’d say currently Cadence is vastly superior to Fire Strike and on top of that Soldier has shield passives
So some bonuses for G&B Fire Strike would be nice
And on the topic of Searing Might, some attack speed would be nice
Btw, no one has anything to say about Menhir’s Will not working with 2h ranged?
“terminal”? :undecided: That’s a very old school way to call a keyboard.
Nah, the cause of death wasn’t this mistake - I actually spotted it early. It was such a perfect idea - to reliably proc Ghoul (40%) and heal back with Menhir (33%). But the fact that I haven’t noticed this till lvls 40-ish and actually relied on that was facepalm worthy.
The real cause of death was shadowstriking into the group of three wraiths summoned by Avis. They instantly used their blood ring which shotguns. I was in the middle of them, eating 9 projectiles. One of the most instant and unpredictable deaths I ever had. This was midway through AoM betatest though, a lot of stuff was quite overtuned.
i think the purpose of Menhir’s Will is to support melee 2H/ 1H&B builds with less effective aoe clear or infrequent damage (hello stonefist rebuke :rolleyes: ) to give them more breathing room on very tough situations.
2H Ranged build do not really tend to stack the hp values likes a melee so the heal of that isn’t really that useful and hp regen i think there a alot of better options to get that for a 2H ranged build
One of the problems I have with ranged is the lack of ranged WD% nukes as most of these skills are melee only or short ranged only.
I find that the only good ranged damage nukes currently are Cadence, PB and Oleron’s Blood. Primal strike might qualify but its only really good with a melee set. With PB only really working with caster offhand and cadence bound to solider I find that most 2H gun or dual gun builds are quite lacking in such skills.
ABB is in a bit awkward spot. While it deals decent damage for its CD and its AoE, it quite lacking compared to skills like cadence and SS in terms of single target damage nuke capabilities. This by its self is not bad, but if add that these are just the kind of skills you are lacking as a ranged infiltrator or spellbreaker it is a problem.
I had hoped that the inquisitor would add a good WD% based ranged skill, sadly this was not the case.
You might think that there is no problem with this as even without these skills a number of ranged builds can do good dps. This is true, but:
1)It makes stacking of DoT more difficult compared to melee builds.
2)Makes it more difficult to adopt a hit and run style as the damage you do is spread out over a larger time frame requiring you to stand still longer to do the same damage.
3)Have a lesser ability to deal with damage spikes due the amount of healing with good ADCtH these skills bring.
Especially point 2 hits hard on many builds.
I would suggest changing:
Scourge to work with ranged.
The Bane relic to have a elemental WD% based skill .
The skill of the Amulet of the Darkblaze set to be a ranged WD% nuke skill.
Changing ABB to either have longer CD but deal more WD% and DoT damage or add more WD% boost in the form of item mods.
Other then that I hope that if they ever add another mastery they would consider adding a good WD% based skill that works well with 2H and dual guns.
To be honest I always thought Searing Strike should work with ranged as well because they already have far lower damage and attack speeds than their melee counterparts. And then they have to pay Piercing Tax on top of that which is really bad if you want to make a physical gunner.
But I haven’t made a pistol char yet in AoM (had a bunch of Pyros pre-XP), so I can’t speak from experience how boosted they are.
I’m eyeing that Dagallon set though, the pure Fire/Light base damage on those looks tasty.
I’m not sure why Menhir’s Will has restrictions on it at all. Most Blademasters won’t have the Devotion spread to get the devotion circuit breaker-ish procs (Dryad’s proc is nice last I knew but I don’t think it can be called a CB, it’s just a heal proc I think) and if they’re DW which they PROBABLY are (not always, but most of the time I imagine) they can’t get Menhir’s Will, which leaves them with unenviable choices. Mark of Divinity, Mercy amulet or… what? Nice pieces of equipment, if you can get them and if they don’t interfere with other important gearing… Then there’s the ranged Tacticians, and while Inquisitor gives at least two neat toys for staying alive neither are a CB and if they go Pierce they probably won’t end up with a devotion CB-ish thing.
I do agree that Menhir should work with everything, IIRC the restriction was made when DW melee was the top dogs, with MW available for them they can pretty much loldps themselves out of any situatation. That’s not true anymore, so it makes sense that MW should be changed accordingly.
About Searing Strike however, at the current state it seems like DW gunslingers have enough clear power to sweep out dungeon floors in a blink, they need more ways to survive in the Crucible than 10% more dps. That said, I haven’t tried a full tank setup for DW in AoM so I may be wrong, nevertheless it still doesn’t make sense mechanics-wise: Transmuters need restrictions/penalties or else they’re not transmuter.
A significant number of people on this forum have pointed out that Soldier is one of the strongest, if not the strongest mastery. In fact, they have even called for nerfs in the “DK is OP” thread. OFC, I do not adhere to that idea when it comes to Blitz, Cadence and/or Overguard, but…to tell you the truth, they are 90% right because soldier works superbly as both a support and dps class.
Menhir’s Will working with 2h weapons is basically in place in order to counterbalance the fact that 2h are not only inherently inferior to dw in terms of components, auguments and even damage output, but also massively restrictive (i.e. forcing you to take Kraken most of the times). If anything, it should work with 2h weapons (including, thus, rifles), because between dw guns and rifles, it is the last category that drew the short stick.
You are right, for some reason I always think MW worked with both melee and rifles, maybe because I don’t really enjoy rifle commando/tactician. If anything this is the change I definitely welcome.
then the health restored on MW needs a change to something % + flat health like WoR from inquisitor,
or the activation treshold needs be somewhat higher then the 33% mark but both changes impact all melee builds aswell then so thats not really an options.
unless it is possible to put those changes as an item skill mod
was already a subtle hint that it doesn’t suit ranged all too well from my experience with 2h ranged builds. either the build lacked clearspeed and got overrun despite having decent defense or defense was too low in favor of clearspeed but then even the smallest things will kill you anyways.
Also MW trigger does not prevent death if the hit that puts you below the 33% mark deals more damage then your remaining hp you die and have that thing on cd for nothing
Uh, what? Menhrir’s Will is a circuit breaker because it’s a thing that can help you survive. That’s what circuit breakers are, skills that go off on their OWN when your hp is lowered below a threshold.
Next you are gonna tell me Divine Light from Mark of Divinity is not a circuit breaker.
Mirror of Ereoctes and Blade Barrier are not circuit breakers, they are “oh shit” buttons.
