The person you’re responding to in the above quote isn’t wrong; this thread is really nothing more than you pointing out popular constellations and spurting “these need nerfs.” At no point do you actually say how these will improve the game, you just baldly assert so with nothing to back up your claims. And when people point this out to you and ask you to put thought behind your claims, you lash out at them and tone police them for not responding the way you demand they do. Pro-tip, it’s not a “discussion” or a “conversation” if you’re going to harangue them for saying something outside your approval. It simply becomes a one-sided lecture.
The new expansion will come with new T3 constellations, so color combos that aren’t popular right now - like the blue + purple combo - may be more popular if the T3 constellation requires those colors. Constellations that grant OA (like Viper) and DA (like Solemn Watcher) are always going to be in high demand because most equipment sets (the main driver as to what’s going to be used) don’t grant much of those stats, so it makes sense that people will go towards those nodes to get the stats that they need. Not to mention that 5 devotion points is a perfectly reasonable cost to get a decent proc like Flame Torrent - in most cases, the preceding 4 nodes are virtually worthless, so if you’re going to sink those devotion point costs, they better be worth it.
For things like Viper and Hawk, most builds already have a good amount of %OA from a combination of Arcanist’s Inner Focus + Necro’s MoD, Survivor’s Ingenuity, and multiple equipment pieces that grant %OA, so these last nodes aren’t as powerful as you think they are. Constellations that grant a large amount of flat OA, on the other hand, will always be valuable, so an underused constellation can always have that if more node variety is what you want to see.
I would look at some of the green + purple constellations and improve them so they would make more sense. Alderon’s Phoenix costs 6 blue and 3 yellow and gives out only 2 green and 2 purple? Something like Blind Sage costs a huge number of affinity points, and going out of your way to get the 6 blue necessary to take it definitely hampers the constellation. Affliction costs 7 nodes to complete and only gives out 1 green and 1 purple? Why would a Vitality + Poison build need purple anyway? They’re going for Dying God and Rattosh, none of which need purple. Huntress is at least aligned with Mogdrogen, but again you’re spending 7 devotion points just to get 1 green + 1 purple. I would definitely bump some of these constellations to give more affinity, either that or they should be like Revenant where they give out large OA / resistance / damage bonuses that make it like a mini-T3.
I think the problem is more about some tier 1 constellation procs than constellation like vulture and crane.
Tier 1 Procs
There are a few ways to make them better:
1- adding more damage : Flat or Dot
2- adding weapon damage % to those that don’t have it
3- If needed reducing or adding a small CD
4- adding more skill to be assign : For exemple I can assign Curse of Frailty on Flame torrent but I can’t assign the same skill on Bull Rush.
Now on constellation like Vulture or Crane:
Usually when you build a character on grimtools I personnally chose tier 3 constellation(s) and constellations I really want and then I try to chose the best overall constellation to have the affinities needed for the ‘‘wanted’’ constellations.
The problem being that there are a lot of constellation that are interesting that give 2 types of affinities, making Crane and Vulture less interesting, that combined with the limited 55 devotion points.
That being said, Vulture and Crane are more for ‘‘out of the box’’ builds. Even though the expansion could possibly change that buy adding constellation that gives interesting constellation bonus i’d say that there are 2 ways to make constellation like these more interesting for most builds. First one being adding more interesting stats to them, second being to change the constellation bonus by giving 2 types of affinities instead of 5 for one type. Constellation bonus could be 2-3 like viper or maybe 4-1 ?!!? (would be new but I dunno if it would help or not).
Again the expansion could change that just by the added constellations and the affinity needed of the new tier 3 constellations.
Crane is very useful for builds that use off-hands by virtue of its Reduced Spirit requirements. Putting that aside, having +5 to an affinity for just 5 points is incredible for people trying to fit multiple T3 constellations in one build, especially when you’re fitting something like Dying God and Ishtak: Crane gives you most of the Order you need, so you take that and use the other devotion points to full the Chaos + Primordial necessary to get both T3 constellations.
Once the expansion hits and people try to find ways to get multiple T3 procs, constellations like Crane will only get more valuable later on as they are. Reducing their affinity rewards by spreading them out among affinities you might not need will decrease, instead of increase their value.
I would have to see your build with those 2 tier 3 constellation. You also do not need Crane to get both (dying god + ishtak). So it’s really a matter of your build and if it’s optimal.
Many vit builds get dying god+rattosh and that usually involves crane + yellow crossroad to get 6 yellows (and reduced spirit costs on offhand. Check Fluff’s Radaggan build (will fetch link in a while).
Yup that one is interesting
I’ve made 2 melee vit dualwield build.
My best one having that devotion : https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZo1GMB2
I get why he went for Crane since he wanted more procs for damage because of the elemental to vitality conversion. As a caster he also didn’t need as much Time Dilatation because you already get CDR as a caster. Could be if he wanted more DA, but he went for damage/proc instead. Kinda ok considering it’s a caster (kiting) and the elemental to vitality conversion.
My point was that not a lot of builds go towards Crane or vulture. That’s all. Or it’s me that ‘‘almost’’ never got them on builds that I’ve done. I didn’t say that I want them (devs) to change the constellation bonus but it was a possibility if ultimately you want the constellation to be used ‘‘more’’. I would keep it as is, and if people think the constellation is not strong enough I wouldn’t mind a small buff to them. That said, I see them as affinities ‘‘filler’’ for higher tier constellations, even though not a lot of builds use them.
Imo, both of these devotions aren’t used much because the other options are much efficient in terms of affinity. Green/red builds can just go fiend, viper, behemoth/chariot/hydra etc., Solael and that’s your 8 red points. Blue/red builds will go fiend, viper, jackal/ghoul + crossroad for 8 points. Blue/yellow can go panther, watcher, lion+crossroad for 8 points. Add something like harp for 10 pts. Imo, unless Crate introduces some constellations in FG that require around 15 yellow or 15 red, vulture/crane won’t be popular ni matter how good the nodes will become.