Not to sustain, to ADCTH. There are lots, health per second, piloting, etc.
The issue with this thread or anything else (mostly) is a unwillingness to compromise in personal build philosophy. I hardly use ADCTH. If I do, most builds have sub 10%, more like 6-9% on average. I find alternatives.
For example people scoff at the Builder devotion. I have a jank warlock that has all elemental converted to aether for CT with agrivix and am using blind seer and builder. I constantly have over 3300 armor (unsure as to phys res) with only 6% leech from the helmet with HPS selections in some item slots plus scythe and chariot/behemoth and do sr 80 HC just fine. In other words I compromised to make stuff work.
That is something the OP is simply unable or unwilling to do even when told that the belt was over performing and resorted to insults. For all the chest puffing that occurs, they seem to really not understand why the belt took a hit.
“Builders” = tiny fraction of the entire GD playerbase.
“Retal builds” = small fraction of all “builders” builds.
So what, we are balancing the game around 0,01% of builds now? Like who cares if build X performs better than it should be? And wasn’t SR60 or something a high bar for build ratings anyway? And now it’s, what, SR80+?
Just raise crappy builds to the level of normal/good ones - you still gonna ramp up the challenge in Ascendant mode.
(I don’t care too much for retal though; this belt oftentimes isn’t worth the hussle of dealing with sudden drops in survivability and DPS. I personally was considering it once or twice, but obviously I discarded this idea since some +1 skills MI belt is better overall)
I fully agree on giving a hit to the belt because it was really OP to regular damage builds, mostly physical and cold ones. I fully agree on the duration increase, and if you think that’s still not enough, then increase its damage penalty.
But, it was NOT OP to retal builds. Why bother to give a hit to something mediocre?
I think the floor has been raised a lot because even my crappy jank builds that are thematically based (such as my before mentioned aether wisps warlock) can clear things really well. So in other words, everything was improved.
If I haven’t make my statement clear, I’d like to explain that again.
First, IMO we’ve achieved an agreement that:
if something is OP, it deserves a nerf. if something is not OP, then a nerf is not necessary.
better build diversity is a good thing. Our discussion should have a goal to enrich build diversity.
Then let’s go back to Chains of Anguish. Since my original statement is that the retal damage penalty is unnecessary, and the belt itself give decent % all damage but no % retal damage, discussion should be made based on different situations.
To regular damage builds, especially physical and cold ones. Chains of Anguish seems to be always an optimized choice, so it is the opposite of build diversity. Then it should be nerfed. Increasing proc duration has already been there. Along with the global phys res changes, the phys res penalty has also become more deadly. These nerfs are meant for a better build diversity.
To retal builds. This is what I cared about and what I did my tests on. I’ve proven that to retal builds it’s not OP and it’s not always an optimized choice. It works ok when you need ADCtH at a lower cost (in fact there is only 2% extra ADCtH because to control variable I used Dread Lord prefix) , but with lower damage and a sudden drop in survivability already. Keeping the -25% total retal damage modifier will just make it totally disappear from the belt-to-use list of retal builds, which with no doubt narrows build diversity.
EDIT:
If you just want to say no Chains of Anguish on retal builds, then here comes a bigger problem. Retal builds, particularly physical retal builds who share most of their devotions with physical builds (however, physical retal builds don’t use Dire Bear so they missed its ADCtH buffs), also lacks speed and ADCtH, due to devotion route and poor speed granted by gears. If the retal damage penalty has to be there, I would suggest to replace the 5% move speed on Autumn Boar with 6% total speed, and add 6% ADCtH to Autumn Boar. Its % physique or % phys res can be removed for compensation.
The same reasons as once physical builds put there.
Very simple question…currently in game, how many ret belts are there?
Epic ones?
Legendary ones?
As for MI’s, how many prefixes and suffixes for ret across how many belts?
Let’s say there are 20-30 various forms of useable endgame belts, losing chains would result in the loss of one of those. Even if there were 20, you have 5% less choices, saying this affects diversity is, at best, a poorly structured lie built around bias.
This doesn’t even account for anything coming from FoA or changes to items on a patch between now and expansion launch.
The belt, used on tanky characters (as ret usually is) should keep its penalty and asking for %ret dmg on the belt is akin to asking for 5% more damage which will never boost your time enough to make any noticeable difference.
Since you pointed out the reviews were justified on steam, I can only surmise that there is something about that belt that affects your clear times because the situation with chains has no influence on sunder damage (which should have stayed imo since sunder doesn’t kill, the hits after generally do).
At bare minimum you are being disingenuous. It is also the only item that has a negative proc (IIRC) and should not be changed. The negative side should affect whatever character it is on, regardless of build. That is the pay off for the base stats of the item.
what, why would you not take bear on phys retal now after armour bypass got fixed? what single devotion can offer the same fat dmg boost as reducing the impact of armour when retal is tons of separate small sources?
I beg you again stop playing devil’s advocate and leave.
In v1.2.0.5 when there is no retal penalty, Chains of Anguish is just working fine on retal builds, quite moderate. No OP Chains of Anguish retal build appears. In PTR the penalty is a net 6% damage loss. It is you who never figured out what really happened and made frivolous quibbling here.
You are not welcome here.
Original physical retal damage is not reduced by armor (And thus pure original physical retal builds won’t have high retal damage sheet). Only those phys retal damage converted from other types is reduced, to restrict too many flat retal damage sources. A physical retal build (except Beronath) does not have quite much conversion-based phys retal damage and thus taking Dire Bear (which does not have % retal damage at all) is to a great extent useless to the retal damage part. Targo, the Builder for 120% all retal damage is better.
Another reason is that Dire Bear doesn’t work fine on conversion-based physical retal, either. Let me do a mathematics: Imagine you have a 350 physical retal converted from fire, you have 2000% all retal damage, and you can reduce your enemis’ phys res to -60%. No matter it is a RtA DE or a RtA RF, the major RtA percentage is around 15% (DE 17%, RF 13%, and Targo’s Hammer 15%), and then here are two situations:
being melee hit. the retaliation itself is 350 x 2000% x 160% = 11200
use the RtA to attack a ranged enemy. the damage is 350 x 2000% x 160% x 15% = 1680
Then you’ll find that, the retaliation itself doesn’t really need the armor reduction, while the RtA is too low to really harm your enemy even with the armor reduction. The great gap between retaliation itself and RtA results in such a condition.
And IMO this is exactly why original physical retal damage is not reduced by armor. Otherwise physical retal builds will end up like, taking 1 second to kill a Fabius but 1 hour to kill a Zantarin.
yes it is, that’s why the armour bypass change affected phys retal so much, huge dmg dropoff post patch “build killer”; and why prior most phys retal builds relied on conversion because regular phys retal is affected by armour but converted phys retal was not
it’s also why phys retal is no longer top retal bulds, but lightning/acid etc “magick” retal, when prior it was phys, because now every single individual slap of phys retal goes against armour
Indeed, original physical retal damage is not reduced by armor. conversion-based physical retal damage is. We’ve test that in our community.
You may have made a mistake in your memory. Regular phys retal is not affected by armour but converted phys retal is.
What really made phys retal no longer top build is in fact soooo many % and flat phys retal damage decreased. of Blade affix, Dread Armor, Blacksteel gloves, and so on. Once there was like 150k original phys retal and 70k conversion-based phys retal (ele2phys, beronath), or 90k original phys retal and 130k conversion-based phys retal (acid2phys), and back then conversion-based phys retal was not reduced by armor. Now it’s like 130k original phys retal and 20k conversion-based phys retal (ele2phys, korvaan shoulder armor), and now conversion-based phys retal is reduced by armor.
Heavily-conversion-based phys retal builds can still have 280k total retal damage, but because of conversion-based phys retal damage being reduced by armor, its damage is very low.
if you don’t think regular phys retal is affected by armour; all i can say is you haven’t played Phys retal DE after armour patch
*you’re also mis-attributing the quote from zantai, he’s not saying only converted retal is affected by armour, but that converted is finally affected (because it wasn’t before)
that was secondary; remember they also go increased after armour bypass change (by your request even as i recall?)
150k phys retal build was slower/worse than 120-150k acid retal build, because so much of your dmg now was affected by armour, every hit, proc etc lost so much dmg over night
LOL. Nope, not really. I only asked for some compensation to retal damage when some physical damage nerfs affected physical retal at the same time. (For example, 2% global phys res increase of all enemies).
Use this to test. No damage float. Perfect thing to conduct a damage test. Dummy has 0 all res and 1418 armor and 70% armor absorption, in Normal difficulty.
First I used a shield with 102% aether damage and 13% phys2aether, which means the retal damage part is 87% phys and 13% aether.
The second time, I used a shield with 102% aether damage and 16% phys2aether, which means the retal damage part is 84% phys and 16% aether. Non-retal part was the same as the first time.
would appear to be so - i stand corrected
then why the hell did phys retal DE literally die overnight after armour bypass change?
*and it didn’t really rely on converted phys
along with the aforementioned 150k (raw) phys retal became worse than 120-150k magick retal
that would make no sense then, since final sheet dmg would still be adjusted for retal buff/nerf %, and only enemy armour could impact it
Because v1.1.9.2 also has some phys retal nerfs (Goddamn Dread Armor) along with armour bypass change. Besides, the previous strong RtA DE in fact involves ele2phys with Korvan Spaulders and vit2phys with Gladiator’s Distinction. This part is not negligible. vit retal on Dread Armor was even totally removed. Sheet retal damage drops from ~190k to ~170k, and the ele2phys and vit2phys part were almost dead. That was about 20% total damage loss. You know, 20% loss is quite enough to destroy a top build to some trash.
Calculate how bad the RtA percent gap is and you’ll find the answer.
Let me give you some examples.
RtA DE DK, 150% cast speed = 5 channels per second, 17% RtA per channel. altogether 85% RtA per second.
RtA FOI Purifier, 200% cast speed = 6.667 channels per second, 30% RtA per channel. altogether 200% RtA per second.
RtA RF is even worse. (~40% RtA per second). Acid RtA Aegis is around 100% (in v1.2.0.5) but that sentienl has over 200k acid retal damage sheet.
Those magic retal builds you refer to have very decent % RtA per second. While RtA percentage of physical RtA DE is just moderate. Neigher does DK have RR advantages over Purifier or Archon or Sentinel or anything else.
PLUS: if you play acid retal sentinel, but with RtA RF rather than RtA Aegis, you will definately suffer, even if there was over 220k acid retal sheet. It’s just the % RtA per second issue.
that would be from an “optimal” standpoint, i’m more referring to a direct 1:1 comparison
phys, specially when not affected by armour, should have a higher base reference; because enemy base resist is lower than for magick
so 80 phys RR goes a longer way than 80 acid RR, assuming same sheet dmg
but it also begs an entirely different question: what is the point in “fixing” magick retal, when phys retal already wasn’t affected by armour, it just creates a new weird mechanical disparity, and the whole point of the patch was to remove that mechanical discrepancy so phys was treated equal and without the need of special knowledge/hidden mechanics
but in fact it would just switch than and introduce one for retal
As is mentioned above, conversion-based phys retal being reduced by armor was definately aimed to restrict too many flat phys retal resource. Leaving original phys retal not reduced by armor is some kinda compromise to game balance IMO. Otherwise physical retal will be in a very strange condition:
If you don’t pump sheet retal up, it will take hours to kill a Valdaran and even years to kill a Seeker of the Damned. However, if you increase sheet phys retal high enough to kill these ranged enemies in a moderate time, the builds will be able to kill Fabius in a second. Finding a balance point is almost impossible when RtA % from skills and devotions and gears are 15%ish.
If you increase RtA to ~ 40% per hit, instead of increasing sheet retal damage, to solve the discomfiture above, those magic retal builds will be too powerful or lose the characteristic of retal play style (relatively fast when fighting melee and relatively slow when fighting ranged).
I didn’t say phys retaliation converted from other types isn’t reduced by armor. I said, it is.
My test is to prove that original (regular, raw, whatever you name it) phys retal is not reduced by armor. Otherwise the 13% phys2aether try should have lower damage than the 16% phys2aether try. Keep the damage lower than dummy’s armor will make the difference even more clear if it was reduced by armor.
PLUS: I don’t think this is something need to be fixed. It’s just fine now. “Fixing” it will make phys retal’s kill speed of melee and ranged differs too much and is hardly possible to fix then. As is described above:
- i stand corrected 
