Hi guys.
First I just want to say this is a great mod and I am really enjoying it and appreciate the hard work that has gone into it.
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been toying around with all the classes and have noticed a few things. Mainly, that the Outrider is so far and away above all others in power. (At least through normal and most of the way into elite).
Take the Cadence line for example. 36 points to max out the skill line (plus mastery investment). You can do this by about level 25.
Cadence itself is a very powerful skill at 12/12 and better than most other classes attacks. It’s 180% main hand damage and adds over 100 each acid, cold and vit damage. And all for 16 energy. Yes 16! Wow, so low, much nice.
Moving onto the next skill in the line, Shotgun. At 8/8 it adds a 50% chance to release 4(!) projectiles and adds even more flat damage.
This is quite insane if you think about it. If you hit a monster with all the projectiles (which is quite easy to do, they are quite focused, just stand a few metres away) you absolutely melt them. This is particularly noticeable when fighting bosses. I have absolutely destroyed every single boss/hero pack so far into elite difficulty. The shotgunning mechanic on such an already beastly skill just trivialises encounters.
Next in line you have 8/8 Shrapnel Shot and 8/8 Suppressant. These just pile on more AoE and even MORE damage modifiers on top of the already insane damage output.
The best part is, Shotgun, Shrapnel Shot and Suppressant have no downsides at all. They don’t add any more to the energy cost of using Cadence. You get all of this power for 16 energy. You can spam this skill all day long and never, ever come close to running out of energy. I have not used one spirit potion while playing this character.
Now couple this with what I think is the most over powered aura in the mod, the Engine of War line. At 12/12 this aura adds over 100 cold, acid and vit damage, 118 offensive ability and regenerates 18 energy per second. For a cost of 110 (next to nothing) energy reservation.
This is another huge DPS boost and basically guarantees you will never run out of energy. From there you can get Engine of Peace which boosts your resists and defensive ability quite significantly and again, no extra cost to the aura.
So, what is the result of all this? Well, I can clear entire screens, wreck every boss pack with shotgunning mechanics, never run out of energy and basically kill 100x faster than any of my other characters, pretty much right from the get go. The act bosses for example, I kill in < 10 seconds on this character. Those fights took minutes on my other characters.
Let’s compare the Cadence line to a few other skills.
Take Fireball from the Elementalist tree. At rank 1, this skill alone costs 16 energy to use, which is as much as the entire maxed out Cadence skill line.
The Fireball projectile itself is rather slow moving (compared to Cadence, which is almost instant.) It also costs 36 skill points to fully upgrade, shotguns with the +projectile nodes (although is much less focused and hitting a mob with every projectile can be difficult unless you are right in their face), has a 100% damage modifier and yet it still doesn’t come close to the raw damage output of Cadence.
And the real kicker is the energy cost. Full upgraded this skill will set you back nearly 150 energy per cast.
Now let’s take the Marksmanship line in the Hunting mastery. Fully upgraded the skill doesn’t cost much to use which is good, but it does nowhere near the damage of Cadence and has no AoE. The added passive AoE of Gouge only has a 25% chance to trigger but can only hit 3 targets max and it does pretty poor damage (comparatively).
I could go on about other skills for days but you get the idea.
When you compare all this, a Cadence Outrider ends up ripping though pack after pack while never slowing down and your poor little Elementalist is left running around like a headless chicken on the first pack, waiting for his spirit potion to come off cooldown.
It’s rather hilarious in multiplayer actually. My mate and I did a playthrough of normal and into early elite. He was on a Cadence Outrider, and me playing a Fireball Elementalist. Well, by the time my Fireballs had made it to the monsters, they were already dead and it was time to collect loot. It was like running around with my own personal gatling gun that never ran out of ammo. I probably did about 1% of the overall damage over the course of the playthrough.
The problem here is two-fold. The sheer amount of damage increases in the Outrider skill tree and the huge AoE shotgunning mechanic that Cadence receives on a very high proc chance (1/2), along with the next-to-nothing energy cost and small investment required in both skills and items, puts Cadence far ahead of any other skill I’ve tried. (By orders of magnitude).
Oh I almost forgot. You can add a devotion skill to the three passive skills in the Cadence line. Three devotion procs off one attack? Yes please.
Admittedly, playing a Cadence Outrider is the most fun I’ve had in the game. The screen meltiness is awesome, and it is hard to go back to playing another mastery after being so powerful. Again, I have only played this into Elite difficulty so I can’t speak for Ultimate.
Anyway, I really feel like this mastery could do with being brought down a few pegs (and/or other masteries seriously lifted). Removing some of the damage increases and increasing the energy costs on the skills would be a good start.
As for other masteries, removing the max target caps on their AoE abilities could help close the gap. I have many ideas for other skills to help bridge the balance gaps but this post is getting really long.
Thanks for the great mod, keep up the good work.
Snrub.
