Don’t worry, it’s still useless. Health Reduction is a stat that’s only useful on bosses, and yet doesn’t work on them. It’s like CC all over again. When will Crate learn?
Completely useless : Cannister Bomb, Counter-Strike, Infernal Breath, Storm Totem, Demon’s Breath (Devil-touched Ammo), Blade Trap
Useless most of the time but can be okay-ish in some builds : Mortar Trap, Ulzuin’s Chosen, Doom Bolt, Bloody Pox, Ring of Steel, Grasping Vines, Wrath of Agrivix (CT transmuter)
And I’m not even mentioning set and item-granted skills.
Come on…
- Cannister Bomb passifies the whole screen in one cast, just like OFF.
- Ring of Steel provides either a great CC for two points, or with a heavier investment huge flat bleeding damage and survivability through %chance to fumble.
- Grasping Vines gives again lots of bleeding damage, a very good CC, a solid amount of life leech, and it’s spammable.
- Wrath of Agrivix is a cheap CC.
- Bloody Pox is strong as a defensive skill due to -OA and %confusion.
If your build needs OFF or Canister Bomb to survive… Rethink it. If you really need CC on anything that ISN’T a boss, then you’re almost certain to die TO a boss, when CCs do not function.
Mirror is not a 1-pointer, the CD goes down considerably with rank and bringing the skill to soft cap is very valuable in every build that has a decent amount of CDR. Crucible-oriented Arcanist builds should all consider maxing it for example.
Nullification is also a 1-pointer because it works at 100% effectiveness with a single point. It’s still one of the better utility skills in the game and hard to replace.
Also Proliferation isn’t the only node in PRM that does Aether, Distortion also does. Meaning that PRM has more Aether base damage than Elemental. The itemisation completely fails to account for that, so your rant about PRM needing its items to work is kind of off the mark. And frankly many skills are item dependent, the way non-weapon abilities scale mostly with ultimate ranks makes this a general issue of caster builds.
Doom Bolt isn’t amazing but has strong builds using it as a core skill, so that’s out of the list already. Ring of Steel is a useful CC especially with a few points in CoS, and maxed CoS is a powerful Bleed source that can be central to Trickster builds. Wrath of Agrivix is niche but very strong in Burn builds as transmuted CT with Inferno is the strongest Burn source in the game.
OFF is better at it really. As CC stun is inferior to freeze from what i’ve noticed.
Not just because of that, OFF is one pointer while for canister to do the stun you need 4 and canister has higher CD.
Tho canister is great for early leveling and if noting more just because of that its not useless.
I agree that multiple skills are dependent on their specific items. That doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. And yes, Distortion has base Aether… And % Fire. Supercharged has % Elemental, and then base Electrocute, for some reason. Now, what items support base Aether, Elemental, and Electrocute? The skill’s an insane mish mash of unsupported, unsynergistic damages. Fun, but held back by its own nature.
almost 3 pages and no forcewave.
attack speed already
Maybe because it’s not even remotely close to true? And god please no, keep the cast speed.
how autistic you have to be to enjoy forcewaving against the stairs 
Don’t make your case a generalisation?
not a generalisation if its the truth.
the delusion required to defend a subpar skill, seriously…
And what does changing Forcewave to attack speed have to do with that? Being cast speed based is probably the best thing it can have, it means it doesn’t get the speed penalty weapons based on attack speed get.
Also, the issue of skills like Forcewave not working in terrain with an up hill will be fixed in the expansion.
Forcewave is subpar? Give this build a look: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49754
Forcewave looks like an attack. More than once, I’ve had to tell new players that no, it ISN’T a bug… This thing that uses your weapon, and in every way appears to be an attack, in fact uses cast speed. Not a bug, just really weird design that nobody has made gameplay or thematic sense out of.
Also, the issue with Forcewave and elevation is still ongoing, as far as I’m aware… So no, nobody enjoys using a skill and seeing that it SHOULD hit, but doesn’t, because of an ongoing gameplay issue.
That said, the skill isn’t useless, just really tetchy, and IMO not worth the effort when there are similar wave style skills and things if that’s what you want.
Mortar Trap. I did try the wierd build focused around Mortar Trap and Storm Totem, as there are a few items in the game that support it (Dread Mask of Gurgoth, Celestial Stone of Halakor), but good lord relying on Mortar trap to kill something is an exercise in frustration.
It’s been buffed already, but i still think Bloody Pox needs some work. I still notice it fails to apply itself to mobs pretty regularly, and PLEASE move more of it’s damage away from %health reduction to something else more reliable against stronger tiers of enemies.
:p…
Seriously now if FW depended on AS you could delete it. Cast speed has no diminishing returns while AS for 2h after 160% it’s pretty bad
It looks and acts like an attack in every other way. Cast speed makes no sense for it. The change wouldn’t be enough to make the skill particularly good, but it’d be a start, along with the elevation thing getting fixed.