I doubt it is possible with regular hit mechanic. Your idea is only appliable if we hit only by attack. But there are damage auras and other procs, DoTs etc that crits even without hitting. It becames a semi-auto ground stomp proc. Or, if devs undo it’s wps qualities; then every crit should proc it but then imagine savagery hit x feral hunger x upheaval multiplier at the same time 
In case you were wondering where the “irony” was coming from.
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Upheaval is strong. I don’t see the reasoning to buff it. It feels amazing with a 3.3 speed 2-hand.
This is why i think Upheaval work weird. You heavy investing in Upheaval, but you take another WPS wich conflicted with Upheaval just because it to good for not take it. If you just put one skill poin in Upheaval and it work sometime it’s fine, but when you put 10 skill points, investing in OA and take items for Upheaval it feel really weird.
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uhm, because i’ve used word “homogeneity” intentionally, to show how absurd all power creep argument is?
FG release was a power creep. Does that mean that releasing FG was a mistake?
Releasing new Items is a power creep. Introducing MI bias system was a power creep. Every single buff is a power creep. so, maybe it’s neither bad nor good? maybe terms like “homogeneity” and “power creep” are inescapable when it comes to seeking balance in game?
if have 20% crit chance and if you have
0% WPS then you have one in 20% chance to use upheval
20% WPS : 16% chance
40% WPS: 12% chance
60% WPS: 8% chance
80% WPS: 4% chance
??
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Not really, just that when we want to bring things in to a reasonable range, the screaming about nerfs begins, and when nerfs inevitably need to happen because the alternative is unconstrained power creep, screaming of dead game, builders leaving and devs never listen starts.
The standard clear time for the Crucible used to be in the 9-11 minutes range. Granted, that was largely due to it being a new mode and players needed time to optimize, but to now see times on the scale of 40% of that and then cries about how we are killing build diversity is bash head into wall worthy.
I wasn’t even referring to the irony of that though. Accusing us of seeking homogeneity is just absurd when we have threads like this one asking that a unique skill get turned into another standard WPS, or to normalize chance of CDR effects cause they are too unpredictable, or removing/nerfing mutators, or many other such examples, is exactly the kind of homogeneity we try to avoid, but the players pushing clear times want because they create consistent reliable results.
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because i wanted that message to be absurb. It’s as absurd as the one from you about powercreep.
i’ve never said about devs killing build diversity. It’s just about not buffing things that needs help, 'cause if sucр lucklasters hadnt’t been, well, bad, then the build variety would be higher. In this case, building around Upheavel makes about zero sense, granted that gameplay doesn’t change at all and the results are worse. There’s nothing unique in this skill, apart of gimmick proc chances.
thanks for subverting all the things that i’ve written it that thread.
But i’m still failing to understand, why making rotgheist DEE (for instance) not a piece of shit is considered a power creep? Because we should preserve this unique garbage for the sake of variety? Or what? Following this logic, there shouldn’t had been any buffs at all, because every buff kills variety. Which is just plain stupid.
And the second part of my question: why nerfing overperforming stuff is justified then? because nerf and buffs are apparently the same thing when it comes to “variety”. Taking something “”“uniquely”"" good and turning it into mediocre. Isn’t it a decrease in variety and homogeneity? I’ve just followed what seems to be your logic.
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probably I missed the part when unique started also meaning good or reliable. Upheaval is unique, yes. Is it good or reliable? No. It’s just a skill with a weird activation and weak support like just some extra WD.
Stun Jacks are also unique, e.g. Are they good? In terms of damage - yes, in all other terms they’re absolute crap as they’re a spam skill w/o any leech mods.
And there are some more examples of such situations.
'cause negative mutators are just 2,5 times stronger than positive? Is this designed to be so? And after RR system rebalancing, a plenty of builds resulted in a weak spot after losing a massive amount of RR.
and this is not as true as you think. this applies not only for Crucible but for SR too, where the danger is rather higher. And getting sth like +25% CC resists on mobs while playing with Olexra means your build turns into a complete pumpkin and loses its main strength.
and what about cases like moving +1 Wind Devil from Trozan’s Scepter to full set bonus? How did it help to avoid homogeneity?
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Kinda sweeps crucible aggro fix under the rug a bit here.
You’re using a different definition of homogeneity here (which I’d characterize as homogeneity of gameplay style/elements). At least as I perceive it, one of the issues that players have (and what I think is an undercurrent here) is a grievance with an apparent insistence on homogeneity of clear times (arguably independent of how glassy or player skill-intensive builds are). I realize there’s an apparent contradiction here, given that players generally ask for buffs to “underperforming” builds/skills often using the same clear time measuring stick, and maybe the crux of the issue is that some players would rather you tackle clear time balance by lifting up the lagging builds/skills rather than pushing down the frontrunners. (And of course such an approach necessarily leads to “power creep” in the sense that (a) average build performance obviously goes up, and (b) buffing via itemization in particular in a game where multiple builds share items is going to set you up for collateral buffs.)
The title of the topic presents TWO suggestions, and turning Upheaval into a WPS is not the first one listed. That said, I haven’t yet seen in the thread a testing-driven case that the Upheaval status quo needs changing. I think some people don’t like the design premise of a set of numbers like this:
but I don’t see anything inherently wrong with it, particularly in the context of Savagery being used as a player stat buff. (This creates a situation whereby you already use an autoattack without necessarily investing in multiple WPS, so Upheaval can proc more frequently.) On the other hand, such a situation doesn’t necessarily mean you should be dumping multiple points into Upheaval.
If Upheaval needs changing, I think it should be because of a compelling case that it’s pretty much never worth more than a point or two. What happens, for example, in a build using an Upheaval skill mod, when you take your Upheaval skill points and dump a portion of them into Feral Hunger instead? And (to measure the extent that item skill mods might be providing basically all the incentive to invest more than one point into Upheaval), what is the state of builds that try to invest in Upheaval without item skill mods? Would they be better (or comparably) served with other investments?
I get what you’re saying here, but the way the skill works leads to unfavorable and counterintuitive results. It’s technically a WPS skill*, so you want to take it alongside other ones to really amp up your basic attacks…except you actually don’t, because it conflicts with your other WPS skills in ways that aren’t obvious at all and need 3rd party testing and reference materials to even be aware that it exists.
I also want to reiterate that my point was less about the power of the skill (although that is a concern) but more about internal consistency. The Avenger set that I mentioned is literally explicitly built around stacking WPS skills with Upheaval, it doesn’t make sense for anyone to have to choose between its given bonuses to optimize some bizarre technicalities.
*I’m granting this point for the sake of discussion. Upheaval works separately from and in conflict with every other WPS in the game; putting it in the same category is misleading at the very least.
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No offence, but situation when player need use Savagery as buff very wrong itself.
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None taken. I don’t mind the state of Savagery’s buff-embedded nodes myself, but to each their own.
It makes way more sense to nerf 10% of all builds instead of buffing the other 90%
I suspect losing FH is probably never worth it, but I’m not sure you would need the lifesteal from FH since Upheaval is the 2H version of Execution. With a decent amount of adcth from gear/devotions it should heal a lot; when it procs a total WD% of more than 600% occurs (assuming Blazerush or Avenger). It’s quite a lot more damage than FH.
So using this build, dropping Feral Hunger should result in a damage increase.
With a 35% crit chance, FH 27%; Upheaval has a 25.5% chance(0.73x0.35).
Regular Savagery hit = 152 x1.18 x1.15 = 206 WD%
FH + Upheaval: (0.27 x 206 x 1.7) + 0.255(206 + (206 x 2.11)) = Average WD% of 257.9
Upheaval by itself: 0.35(206 + (206 x 2.11)) + (0.175x206) = Average WD% of 260.2
Overall a tiny increase (flat damage was ignored but will be another small boost). I guess if you put those FH skill points into attack speed the gains could be greater, but that is much more complex to calculate.
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Main reason why i liked that the DA in Tenacity of the Boar went into Oak Skin, even if it caused some Shaman builds to lose some DA. Having to keep up Savagery just for stats is absolute cancer.
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In a world where literally every single update we’ve ever released has had a vastly higher number of buffs than nerfs, suggesting we are not buffing things that need help is just…
I mean, that literally goes back to my earlier point, if a few individuals in the community weren’t pushing for changes based on their own meter stick that nobody else is using, would the things that are “shit” even be an issue?
Talk about subverting what I said. 
A rather black and white way to describe it, don’t you think? Buffs and nerfs are both tools to be used judiciously in the pursuit of better balance.
And here is where we’re gonna need clarification, you know, so everybody’s on the same page. So by pursuing balance, we are apparently interested in homogeneity. But at the same time, if there are things in that game that are underpowered and they are not immediately addressed, we are doing a shit job.
But wait! We also shouldn’t nerf things that are overperforming because they are unique. Meanwhile what I said about the elite players pushing for power creep is apparently absurd and subverting what you said.
But do tell, what have we taken that’s unique (which apparently is the equivalent of overpowered in your book), and made it mediocre. Mediocre again being by some metric by which the rest of the world doesn’t function and was never intended to.
Frankly, caving to that mentality was another mistake on our part as endgame geared builds now steamroll the campaign content so hard that it lost all value as a challenging place to farm loot and being a “Cronley farmer” is used as an insult.
You’re right, we should pursue further uniqueness by just giving everything all the same strengths and no downsides.
Massive amounts of RR…all 5 of it. In before Thermite Mines, which were frequently featured in overperforming builds and historically had higher RR because of how difficult they were to use. Emphasis on were.
Yes, I am keenly aware of that specific instance.
Unfortunately we can’t disable a mutator based on a build you are playing and changing Olexra’s functionality would require significant tech changes and rebalancing, which would also throw its identity right out the window, but that is an entirely separate discussion on how we’ve unfortunately allowed damage to get so out of control that killing trash mobs is an afterthought and anything that doesn’t reliably destroy bosses is automatically trash for cutting edge endgame.
A fix that happened only a few months ago and resulted in maybe 30-60 seconds off of top clear times. A bit dramatic to suggest that it resulted in a 60% difference in Crucible times over 3 years considering it happened very recently.
Players will always find grievance with nerfs because it is easy to take such things personally. Some angry people in the community even went as far as suggesting that patches personally targeted their builds. Because that’s what we do, just sit in the builds section looking for things to snipe with changes, along with usernames to expedite the process!
A perfect balance would by definition be homogenous, because any variety means there is a range of results. That is, and never was, our goal.
There is a vast range of build factors that go under consideration and I feel like a broken record going over it when we have this same discussion on the forum every few months.
I’m not sure what is misleading about it. The skill states that crits on basic attacks trigger Upheaval. It would then be ascertained that a WPS proc is not a basic attack as those trigger off of basic attacks.
Is this an advanced mechanic? Yes. Does it require building differently than stacking a 100% WPS pool? Yes. Is that a bad thing? For some, no doubt, otherwise there would not be a thread suggesting a redesign.
Nobody’s denying that there are builds and items in the game that don’t perform as well as other options for cutting edge endgame. Although I would say there are some individuals that will happily cover their ears when something is on the other end of that spectrum.
In a perfect world, everything would be performing within a certain reasonable range based on player skill, gear support and stats. I’m not sure anybody’s ever gonna get there in a lifetime given the complex web that is balancing an ARPG.
But given how increasingly nitpicky complaints about balance have become, I would say we’re not far off from “good enough”.
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A good part of those times falling could be attributed to the introduction of movement runes as well as passive damage becoming a much more prominent source of damage (Blade Spirits being permanent, Mines being easier to use, Wind Devils receiving multiple set support so that maximizing them is more beneficial, not to mention the omnipresent Cold Infiltrator with VoS + Aura of Censure). Oathkeeper support also contributes to the times declining as Vire’s Might is a very good movement skill that leaves a fiery trail that’s great for devotion proccing.
On the other hand, the aggro fix means that a player is taking much more incoming damage than before the patch, as there were very few players that stayed in the middle of the map and facetank everything Crucible threw at it. Even now, with all these buffs, fighting Reaper + Kaisan + potentially Korvaak on Wave 170 is no easy feat, and even a small damage nerf could be the difference between barely getting through the fight and dying. Every small damage nerf means that those stupid healers heal a Boss encounter to full before you can kill it and focus on the other 20+ Heroes you have in front of you.
It also doesn’t help that it took years before a good number of equipment + skills could be even seen as usable, much less good. It took years before I could make a functional Hellhound build that didn’t involve taking it at 1/16 and maximizing the Hellfire buff. I’m not talking about beating Crucible in 6 minutes - I’m talking about beating Crucible at all. I can understand that people get jaded when most of a patch buffs involve some numerical tweaking, but the one nerf was removing a conversion or dumping on a particular skill which made more builds unusable than functional.
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The end is coming, finally!
No more salty feedbacks and ungrateful comments after every new patch! Only technical support will remain. Will it?
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