Here’s the full document, unedited.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W-Jo2HfRV1rBdM9yx4lJTm1YSer6Jv4UKdHyBmLxne8/edit
This thread will serve to talk about the devotion part, I will post another thread to talk about class feedback. We feel that devotions are the part of the game that currently needs the most improvement. Itemization, SR feedback, Crucible Feedback are planned and will come later.
Hello my name is Heapheaus, i’m writing this in the name of: Reak, Xervous and myself.
All three of us are prominent theorycrafters on discord, but as per the title this is only feedback from the perspective of very established players, for endgame. This is only taking into account end-game pushes, crucible clear speed, SR clear speed and pushes, and min-max theorycrafting. Some notes to superbosses as well. We will be talking about class balance, most of which is endgame. Some of the issues talked about effect other states of the game(IE not endgame) but that is not the focus. This will be broken down into sections.
“This collaborative work, whilst pointing out strengths and weaknesses within the game-design, we do not mean this to be a hard critique towards the game-designers; the fact that we put so much work into this is more or less a statement of love towards the game and it took hours to complete this.
I hope Zantai and the rest of Crate appreciates our thoughts and work on this and we look forward to feedback from them and the player base.”-Reak
Disclaimer:
Devotions; We will give a generic devotion setup for each element. THESE ARE NOT COMPLETELY OPTIMAL. THESE ARE GENERIC FOR THE POINT OF DISCUSSION. These are not mentioning retaliation. We haven’t tested retaliation enough to talk about it. These are in order of power, first being strongest, with some notes.
Talking about each individual element then devotions as a whole.
The devotion’s comparison is made 1 on 1 for their respective type setups.
A lot of the devotions pathing is based on the Sailors + hound + eel combo.
This is the “core blue setup”. Very high amount of defense for the minimum amount of devotion points possible. We’d love to see comparable per point value on other devotion-paths, especially Ascendant.
chaos > cold > lightning > vitality > bleed > acid > pierce > aether = phys > fire > elemental, *special note deep primordial defense will be listed last, as this isn’t specific to any element type.
Chaos: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/D2pmGaLV Chaos’s devotion setup is great, some of the skills and gear are what hold chaos back, in our opinon.
Tier 3:
triple t3 is very, very potent and chaos is one of the only elements that can use the full potential. Dying god + Hourglass for higher uptime + Korvaak for free damage + shred.
Tier 2:
Revenant: We consider rev a t2.5 devotion: It’s better than most of the other t2 devotions but not quite a t3 as it stands. It can be hard to fit in builds but when it fits it’s very powerful.
Solael’s Witchfire: It’s mandatory for most builds that use fire and chaos and whilst it low point value is reasonable for the high chaos shred it actually cripples fire-builds which struggle to get on par with chaos due to not having good access to the “core blue setup” and it’s per point value.
We generally feel chaos has the strongest devotion setup currently because it uses Primordial(Blue) and Chaos(red) to their strongest potential.
Cold: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2EpgeJN Generally a lot of cold builds are melee, this is more or less what we run on casters as well.
Tier 3:
Leviathan:
is never worth running on cold. Ever. We don’t run leviathan because of how much we lose pathing to levi. Deep Eldrich(green) is generally a dps or defense(or both) loss over primordial(blue) unless you’re acid. Not the t3 themselves, just what you have to take to get there. Secondly; Leviathan hits hard as an aoe, but you actually get more overall dps/ clear speed via Ultos + Amatok.
Dying God / Time Dilation:
Dying god in this case is taken for Crit damage(first and foremost) and total speed(attack speed usually.) Cold usually lacks crit damage(in our setups) so dying god is taken as filler there. Some specialty cold setups take Time Dilation or other defense nodes instead.Tier 2:
Tier 2:
Rumor:
Strongest t2 resist shred in game. Rumor also has the most synergeous completion bonus for its respective element / pathing.We like it’s application mechanics. We don’t feel rumor is overpowered in the slightest, we feel rumor is fine.
Amatok:
Is still great post nerf, cold generally has enough AoE to forgo Korvaak.
Generally speaking we feel cold has the second strongest devotion setup in game, we only feel it’s stronger than lightning because rumor’s quality of life (application mechanic).
Rumor should act as a role-model/standard archetype for these kinds of devotions.
Lightning: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZoxRmGN this is geared towards wind devils / storm totem. Behemoth is for non melee lightning builds. If you’re kiting behemoth is actually a ridiculous amount of survivability.
Tier 3:
Ultos: S-tier t3 devotion. Every lightning build and most cold builds will run this.
Eye of Korvaak: another S tier t3, lots of damage even for single target. The OA/ DA shred is very nice.
Tier 2:
Arcane bomb: We already pointed this out when talking about Rumor but it’s “Mine” application mechanic has a low quality of life.
“A mechanic that makes the mob, that’s been hit, become the “bomb” would add quality of life and fun design.” - Reak
We currently think of Lightning as the 3rd strongest devotion setup in the game (generally speaking) and doesn’t need changes other than arcane bomb’s implementation. Heapheaus feels strongly that lightning is better than cold aside from arcane bomb, and that if arcane bomb was easier to apply that lightning would be without a doubt stronger.
Vitality: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrAX8jV Vitality almost always runs better as a caster setup, melee usually takes twin fangs.
Tier 3:
Dying god: used how it’s “supposed” to be. No further comments from chaos.
Will of Rattosh: This is the vitality shred node and it’s great, for it’s damage type this is on par with ultos. Life leech resistance shred is very nice and helps the survivability of all vitality builds and that’s a great addition mechanically and thematically. The only downside is the aether damage is hard to convert, but as direction damage is not the main point of the skill, this is just a small gripe.
Tier 2:
Revenant: Covered in Chaos.
Wendigo: “Just good game design” - Heaph,
“Great per point value in terms of stats, constellation bonus and the application mechanic is overall very well designed.”-Reak
Overall vitality is very strong and it’s devotion setup is very synergeous and “flows” well. Nothing really feels like a filler.
“Probably the best designed and balanced devotion-path.” -Reak
Bleed: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eVLPKb5V There’s two or three different ways to setup bleed, even though I don’t take a few things I’m going to mention them because they’re important. Note; Bleed is the only build we find running deep Ascendant(purple) / Eldrich(green) to be worthwhile. For A type we /usually/ run this with unchained grasp for the RoS shred. Fitting A type shred into this build isn’t easy, you lose unknown soldier.
Tier 3:
Mogdrodgen the Wolf: Strong for what it does, no synergy to be abused outside of bleed builds(like dying god is sometimes used). Amazing per point value
Unknown Soldier: More or less the same as wolf, not quite as strong.
Tier 2:
Huntress: no comment, great node.
Berserker: *Special note; we don’t have this in the example setup, but many bleed builds take the right side of berserker for the bleed and crit. The left side and right side contradict each other. Physical is bound to trauma, and pierce is often paired with bleed. It’s not synergeous and we feel it the left side should be resigned. We’d like the node to be completely synergeous like Blades of Nadaan.
Overall bleed has a very strong devotion setup, but it’s devotion setup is mostly offensive, not defensive. Bleed generally has defensive issues not easily solved with defensive devotions.
Acid: There’s two different ways to build acid. Pure acid (without conversion taken into consideration) is decent, not great. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZoxvoBN But, if you can convert chaos or ele(or both, looking at you dervish) then acid would be on par with vitality(2-3 placings higher) Here’s the example devotion setup for that: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4NOnbYOZ this is the setup I use on my dervish.
Tier 3:
Abomination: Left side is nice, right side is not usually viable. It’s well designed but chaos has no reason to take that much green. We don’t run abomination on chaos builds. For Acid, there’s enough support and “Good” green nodes that you don’t lose anything pathing to abom.
*Ulzuin’s Torch: when you convert fire -> acid meteor shower actually performs better as acid. There’s more support in the green nodes for acid than fire. The crit damage and OA on torch means that torch used to be used for the three points (Crit + OA) more than the actual proc. Yugol being introduced changed that though.
Yugol: The nodes are nice, it’s expensive to get to. The proc feels weak. I don’t actually notice the black pools that much and their damage feels lack luster. I’ve never seen all 6 spawned at the same time.
Tier 2:
Rumor: Covered at cold-section, all comments for it apply to acid as well.
Manticore: Supports a lot of flat, and it’s Type A resist shred is good. It was the go-to Type A RR shred and now many builds would prefer to take revenant or build the Type A RR through items. Manticore is still great for acid / poison. No changes needed.
Special Tier 1 note:
Rat + Akeron’s Scorpion + Wretch is on par with the sailor’s guide + eel + hound setup. The point cost is higher, but acid builds get more out of this setup overall. Fiend in this ONLY works for acid builds that convert most of the fire or chaos.(IE if you can convert chaos > acid or fire > acid, fiend becomes a great return) Most element types do NOT have a t1 setup this good. We would like to see more comparable t1 setups like these for other elements.
Acid feels fine overall . Abom might want a change or two but acid’s devotion strength depends on your conversion. If you don’t have conversion acid feels “okay.” If you do have conversion acid feels great.
Pierce: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RZRzJAxZ This is Superfluff’s belgo setup. We have not yet tested running Scales of ulcama. “I don’t expect it to perform better”-Heaph. Generally speaking pierce has issues with type A resist shred, manticore is very far out of the way.
Tier 3:
Unknown Soldier: The proc isn’t a big dps gain for pierce, the nodes are very nice though. That point that would normally be spent on the proc is usually better spent elsewhere.
Azrakaa: This t3 is hit or miss. You must be able to proc it frequently, and very few skills can proc it every .5 seconds. It would feel much better to have it proc every second, and have each proc do double the current damage. IE: instead of 2 procs per second at 100 damage, do 1 proc per second at 200 damage.
Tier 2:
Ulzaad: This node is actually what pushed us over to run purple / yellow on pierce. Pre ulzaad + azraaka we used to run enough purple to grab Nadaan, then run dying god.
Blades of Nadaan: For all of the “requires x weapon” constellations, this is the best. It’s synergeous, it feels great. Please design them to feel more like Blades of Nadaan.
Inspiration: This is an expensive constellation to take, we don’t normally run it. It’s good for what it does, but not great.
Assassin: This would feel much better if it gave 1 more constellation point. IE +2 purple +1 Yellow, currently when compared 1 to 1 to magi, it’s slightly worse and magi is already a very niche constellation. Other than that it’s fine. Our biggest gripe here is the completion bonus. It’s very hard to fit in because of its completion bonus.
Tier 1:
Tier 1 order(yellow) nodes are either A. Strong but not “mainly” an order node. IE panther. Or B. Weak on their per point value. IE Crane. There’s no t3 devotion for yellow, we assume that makes yellow a stat stick / support path. Yellow / Blue feels fine, everything else(mainly yellow purple) feels awful. Purple / Yellow ONLY feels good if you’re pierce.
We generally only feel pierce devotions feel good on DW belgo setups, we don’t find this to “feel” good on 2h or ranged pierce builds.
Aether: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZoxvrvN We feel that aether is on the same “powerlevel” as the next damage type (physical), but we will talk aether first. Aether’s strength is in it’s itemization and skills, not it’s devotions and overall suboptimal in comparison.
Tier 3:
Korvaak: Already mentioned
Aeon’s Hourglass: Aether builds typically use Arcanist, or Necromancer and either way you benefit pretty highly from running hourglass.
Tier 2:
Revenant: Already talked about
Arcane Bomb: Already talked about
Tier 1:
Imp: Im’s strength is it’s low CD. Imp’s CD is .1 second, this ends up being a huge amount of damage for aether builds.
General: there’s 3-4 ways to take t1s/t2s to get to the endpoints. We find this setup is generally a good way to talk about this, but t1s/t2s vary greatly.
Overall aether’s devotion setup doesn’t feel good. Lackluster is the word i’m looking for. No true devotion “identity.”
Physical: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYx3DJZ Special note: This physical build assumes the user takes a shield, and gets it’s type A resist reduction from either Shattering Smash or Break Morale. Being forced to take a type A RR node(manticore or scales) is a huge detriment to a physical devotion setup. The “best” physical setup for this example is a shield setup, internal trauma is even better but much more niche, in our opinion. This setup was used to highlight the issues with this damage type. Builds without shields get even less out of a deep physical(IE olrun) build. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/JVlRdYXN This is the generic build we’d run for physical damage, It’s better to build your devotions defensively and just gear for pure offense, we will talk about this devo setup itself later.
Tier 3:
Oleron: One of the weaker T3 devotions, this procs often and hits okay-ish. The biggest problem with oleron is the pathing to get it. You end up taking a lot of blue / yellow nodes. It’s actually more ideal to run pure blue / yellow and forgo oleron completely. In our opinion the Type A RR on olrun should be changed to Type B to help with Oleron’s current issues. When we actually run physical we run deep blue/ yellow, and avoid purple as much as possible.
Obelisk: One of the strongest T3’s in the game. No changes needed.
Tier 2:
Shieldmaiden: Fine, almost required if you run a shield.
Ulzaad: Phys has more issues pathing to Ulzaad than pierce does.
Rhowan’s Scepter: The per point value on this is pretty bad. RS doesn’t make me want to run a mace like Blades of Nadaan makes me want to run swords.
Fire: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/gZwebKl2 Fire has many issues, mostly with pathing and per-point-value. Fire also usually runs 4-6 different procs which can hurt builds without many good proccing abilities.
Tier 3:
Ulzuin’s Torch: The half physical portion of this hinder’s it’s viability in many fire builds. Caster builds are seriously hindered, melee not as much but I can’t think of a melee that fully converts the physical to fire.
Ultos: Ultos being used in fire shows the lack of options for fire as ultos is mostly used just for the resist shred and OA. There’s no point in running viper here as you don’t have enough leftover points to invest in another deep t2 / t3 node after investing in torch. You either deep invest in blue and then end up gimped because you have to go out of your way for solael’s or you deep invest in green and take ultos because it’s there and you have no better options. “I hate taking ultos on fire builds, but I end up doing it anyways.” - Heaph
Tier 2:
Solael’s Witchfire: Just to restate; this feels awful for pathing and constellation bonus on fire.
Magi: we think this should have the fire shred solael’s current has, this would streamline and help fire build’s devotion setups.
Alladrah’s Phoenix: The constellation bonus given and the requirement to get this make it unviable for most fire builds.
Tier 1:
Fire has a lower per-point- value on t1 constellations compared to primordial - whilst also having a worse return in constellation completion value.
We feel fire is weak overall for devotions, as it currently stands you take a lot of “general” nodes that lack defense whilst being very weak compared to primordial and its respective hybrids.
Fire’s T3 are underperforming compared to Ultos, DG, etc and it has an obnoxious pathing for fire builds (looking at pierce and bleed devos) when it comes to hybrid completion constellations.
Elemental: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrAQvGV The three points unused here are intentional. Some elemental builds convert part of the elemental damage to a “main element” IE 50% cold 25% fire 25% lightning, and would want that element’s type C resist shred. This really only applies to cold because fitting solaels or arcane bomb is a pain.
Tier 3:
Ultos: already covered.
Blind Sage: Blind sage is very good in crucible and very medicore everywhere else that matters. In SR it’s nice on the mob dense levels for clearing, but lackluster on boss shards(where it would count) Pathing is kinda icky.
Tier 2:
Rhowan’s Crown is the only “True” elemental t2 worth taking.
Hyrian: This is half retal, half elemental. I don’t find it worth taking, it has a low per point value.
Overall elemental builds only really work in crucible for reasons we’ll talk about later. Generally Ele res shred is easy to come by making up (slightly) for issues in devotions. Ele has overall the weakest devotion setup. We actively avoid ele builds for this reason. Any build that would consider running elemental is theorycrafted to attempt to convert to something else (IE physical via beronath).
Special Defensive setup: In terms of power this is somewhere in between vitality and acid.We elluded earlier to a build that has its uses but for niche reasons. That would be the Deep Blue + yellow defensive devotion setup. This is mainly used for superbosses, or some deep SR pushes. A “generic” version of this is https://www.grimtools.com/calc/JVlRdYXN in actuality this is never what you run. You end up pulling points for your damage type’s resistance shred, usually dropping light of empyrion, assassin’s blade, and possible ishtak. This setup is almost always best if you’re running shield, and this setup is very strong for non shield users anyways. This is niche, it’s only really needed for deep SR pushes (above 75), superboss tanking / soloing(and mostly callagahdra at that), and some other application. There’s a modified version of this that runs tree + obelisk + dying god + aeon’s for support and that works very well too. This is a good baseline to compare builds to. “Does this build have options better than just taking every defensive constellation available?” With the way things line up, this build can usually grab everything physical usually wants which is one of the reasons it’s run over oleron setups. Retal runs this with messenger, more or less.
Tier 3:
Obelisk: this is the /actual/ reason we run this build as is. Flat absorb is king in SR because it helps against the dots that hit so, so hard.
Tree of Life: Behemoth on steroids, you take this because it’s there, you don’t go build for it. IE: I’m not building tree, i’m building obelisk and thus get tree. Tree of life is a great devotion in general. It’s an added bonus for this build.
Ishtak: A pet constellation that gives the user 25% damage absorb. Taken only for the absorb, everything else is bonus.
Light of Empyrion: Normally dropped for other things, lack luster.
Tier 2:
Shieldmaiden: Already talked about
Solemn Watcher: We (surprisingly) haven’t talked about this yet. When we have the extra points for it, we take this over hound. 5% DA is big, we love it. We actually take this very often.
Ulo: this can also be dropped, the cleanse is nice but the points can better be spent elsewhere. It’s a long CD and debuffs are usually A. Not long enough to matter or B. Reapplied anyways. The nodes themselves are nice, we’d like to see a general “reduce debuff duration” instead of the cleanse. Maybe make the user immune after using it? Oh look I cleansed the resist shred I was hit with……and there it is again. Oh ulo is on cooldown? What’s that falling from the sky? Who’s Aleksander?
General devotion feedback: We’re going to talk about some of the other constellations, most are fine but we’ll try and touch on everything. Overall we find the biggest problem with devotions to be pathing. If purple pathing and green pathing were as good as blue, we’d run those T3s more. Right now it’s A. Easier to get Blue constellation bonuses, and B. The blue constellations are more generic and easier to apply to any build. For example; after throne, what would my cold build take for purple? Owl? Lack luster. Harpy? Wolverine? Has 2 worthless nodes in it. Guess I take throne + harpy and maybe quill but that nets me less actual bonuses than taking something like Sailors + Eel + hound. The only build we build deep purple on is pierce, everything else loses too much from lackluster t1 / t2 nodes attempting to get the tier 3s. The exception to green is acid. Acid gains enough going deep green to warrant taking deep green. Pierce can go deep purple.
Tier 3: Most of the t3 devotions are fine. A few overperform, a few underperform but not enough to warrant their own post. This feedback is based on the node alone unless stated. Overall tier 3 devotions are not a problem as a whole or really individually.
Vire’s - Not current in favor, some retal builds run this, and I’ve had an IT build run it. There’s other defensive options that are great in blue and those often win out.
Ishtak - The premier pet constellation, most of the pet builds I run now run ishtak. My current issue with ishtak is the generic 25% damage reduction to the player. Non pet builds take this constellation even though the nodes are not anything unreasonable just because the damage reduction is so high. Pet builds need that damage reduction as they’re pretty squishy but the tank builds that run this with Obelisk usually end up over performing because of how much defense they achieve.
Light of Empyrion- Fine for what it does, I do not personally ever run this. I’ve seen other builds run this very well.
Leviathan - Centric around flat cold damage, the entire ascendant(purple) path doesn’t really support it. Leviathan’s damage itself is underwhelming, and the nodes in the constellation are sub-par to current t3 standards. The whirlpool doesn’t do enough damage to really warrant taking purple. “I’d love to see this function like a cold judgement.” - Reak
Attack Seru - The nodes are very lackluster, the bleeding res is too easily found in other places making that node almost entirely worthless. This constellation is only useful if you’re running ele to aether or aether to ele. Aether builds, like cold builds with leviathan, don’t want to run deep green / blue as most of their t1/t2 nodes are blue / pink. Elemental can run this, but very few ele builds actually convert the ather to ele. Elemental seekers outperform attack seru anyways.
Spear of the Heavens: The only issue with this skill is the proc. Most builds would rather take another point elsewhere. Lightning already takes ultos, and many builds opt to take korvaak over finishing spear. The proc is very lackluster, too bad too because it looks so cool.
Tier 2: The resist reduction tier. The pathing to, the application of, and the constellation bonuses of resist reduction abilities is what sets most devotion builds apart. We’ve already talked about them though, here’s the other T2 nodes that should be mentioned for some reason or another.
Messenger - Fine, niche retal.
Tempest - way too expensive for what it does. Never mind the purple cost that many lightning builds arn’t looking to spend, it’s 7 nodes with a 2 bonus given. That’s -5 net cost. The proc is absolutely not worth a valuable proccing ability, 3 target limit is too small, and even if this had a higher limit it doesn’t hit very hard at all. I have personally been advocating for this constellation to be changed and think it’s the absolute most worthless constellation in the game next to harvestman’s. - Heaph
Harvestman’s Scythe - The nodes for this are worse than many t1 nodes. The biggest issue is that this is based around mainstat and energy regen. In a perfect world you’d take this if you had energy issues, in reality almost nobody has energy issues and there’s better ways to remedy energy issues than take harvestman’s. This entire constellation should be redesigned.
Typhos - No identity, it’s all over the place and it’s out of the way for builds that would like it.
Crab - The proc is fine, the nodes on crab are lackluster and overall it’s too much of an investment to be worth taking. The yellow cost is arguably the biggest issue.
Affliction - The nodes are better than the proc, it’s very good on vit decay builds. It’s a little costly, and can be hard to fit in.
Pheonix - Pathing is weird, the actual constellation is fine. The bonus is nuts and not in the good way.
Staff of Rattosh - 3 Yellow is a problem, makes this very hard to fit. It feels arbitrary in terms of getting there and doesn’t offer enough to go out of your way.
Dire Bear - The completion bonus is a big problem here. We feel it should be a purple / yellow node, not blue / purple. The nodes arn’t great, the proc is fine.
Scales - This would be fine if it was on hit not when getting hit. Lifesteal could be tuned down, but having res shred on getting hit isn’t consistent enough to warrant taking.
Tier 1: We feel this is where most of the problems actually lie. The difference in constellation bonuses here and the applicability of the stats given are what set blue apart from the other colors. Green is largely acid / elemental, purple is mostly physical. Yellow is often paired with blue, as is red. A few nodes of note
Vulture; We avoid taking this as much as possible. The generic bonuses arn’t good enough compared to other constellations to warrant the 5 for 5 point investment(net 0) when many other nodes have a positive net. This is more of a problem on blue than green, and is absolutely a problem for purple.
Tsunami - Not worth the proc, doesn’t hit hard enough to warrant taking. This is a leveling constellation at best.
Lizard - the defense lizard gives is always inferior to hound as the current meta stands. We only take lizard when we are point starved going deep blue.
Dryad - too expensive usually.
Crane - Too expensive, the only reason to run this is straight yellow, and it feels awful needing this. Trivia; 3 pt crane is used more than 5pt crane. 3pt crane is worth over 70 spirit when you run a 724 req offhand.
Most of the purple T1 nodes are lackluster. Throne is worse the better your gear is, but is probably overall the best purple. Wolverine has 2 worthless nodes that are retal, it would be nice if it was more generic.