Weapon requirement for ranged totem, etc. is still lame
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Came back for the expansion like the addict I am, and rerolled my Poison Arrow mine + Freeze Mine character.
The requirement to have a bow or wand equipped in order to use Ranged Attack Totem or ranged skills linked to mine/trap supports is not okay and it will never be okay. It's not a "feature"; it's a cop-out. It's non-intuitive, it hurts build diversity, and it takes away a lot of the flavor of a character built around these supports rather than the base skills. This is a problem you can solve, and I hope you do some day. Thanks for reading. The Amazon Basin: A Community of Friends Playing Games
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Bows skills on ranged attack totem must be based off something. Since the skills themselves are. There's no way around this.
I'm not entirely sure why you think it's a cop out either. | |
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The skill should use a virtual weapon with base stats that scale with character level. Any local bonuses on the equipped weapon should be ignored and any global bonuses should be applied to the skill. This is completely straightforward.
The current behavior is a cop-out because the devs have chosen to make the weapon requirement a feature rather than put the work in to make these supports work as they should. The Amazon Basin: A Community of Friends Playing Games
http://www.theamazonbasin.com |
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And to what extent does it scale? I guess it seems less natural to me to have an imaginary weapon be used for the purposes of scaling. It seems more straightforward for the skill to use a real weapon over a fake one.
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Simply make a table of bows or wands, similar to real weapons but normalized (i.e. no variants with implicit mods), and use the best weapon a player can use at their level.
I don't think there's anything natural about a character who builds traps that fire arrows while carrying around a bow and quiver without using them. The virtual weapon is a concession to game mechanics, but it's a much better one than the current weapon requirement. In terms of stats, this takes the emphasis off of the equipped weapon and places it on supports and passives, like a hybrid ranged spellcaster. I think that exactly how it should be. The Amazon Basin: A Community of Friends Playing Games
http://www.theamazonbasin.com |
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So you think the totem should utilize the best weapon for the persons level? Doesn't this seem OP?
Another question. How do you control for things like PA, which works best with +1/2 mods, people who want to use phys, and those wishing to use ele? | |
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I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I'll start over:
There are tables for bows and wands that give base damage, base crit, and attacks per second for each character level, and those values roughly correspond to the base weapon type a character would typically find at that level. So for example, at level 1 (if it were possible to use these supports at level 1) indirect bow skills work as if the character is using a white Crude Bow, and then a Short Bow a couple levels later, and so on. Or, rather than these base values being innate to the character, they could be attributes of the support gem and scale with gem level. So you would mouse over your ranged totem gem and see damage/crit/aps in the tooltip. I think this might be the most intuitive approach. Gem level affixes are effectively global, so you could still use a +3 bow for PA. Using a bow or wand as a stat stick might still be the best thing for some characters. You could also use a one-handed weapon with the +1 Paragon affix and a shield, or dual Paragon weapons, etc. You would lose local damage affixes on the equipped weapon. Base phys, base ele, and percent ele affixes are easily made up for on other items, but percent phys would be a big loss. I'm not sure about the math here, but the multiplicative bonus on trap and mine supports might make up for it and ranged totem could be un-nerfed. If necessary a scaling percent phys bonus could be added, so it'd be as if you were holding a blue weapon with just a +x% phys damage affix. The Amazon Basin: A Community of Friends Playing Games http://www.theamazonbasin.com Last edited by OnmyojiOmn on Sep 1, 2014, 2:04:33 AM
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" I'm sorry, but you lost the right to use the word 'intuitive' when you brought up Virtual Weapons. “Demons run when a good man goes to war"
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Here's a handy solution: Have the totem work off the weapon in your alternate weapon slot.
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How about an arrow equivalent of the Flame Totem? Plant a totem that shoots an arrow that deals a gem level-determined amount of physical damage? It can co-exist with Ranged Attack Totem. Don't see any issues since we have fire trap / bear trap / trap support are all happily in game as well.
Last edited by dlrr on Sep 1, 2014, 7:31:34 AM
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