A new Trigger Support Gem to counter Cast on Crit: Cast on Melee Stun

Recently I've been looking into Cast on Melee Kill and with the 1.2.2 update increasing it's effect chance to 100% and providing bonus spell damage per level, I can't help but feel that Cast on Melee Kill (CoMK) is still much less effective than Cast on Crit (CoC).


Comparing CoMK to CoC:

1. CoC can trigger multiple times per second/ CoMK Triggers once per enemy death
2. CoC does not require weapon damage / CoMK requires weapon damage to be able to kill
3. CoC can trigger on difficult targets like unique monsters / CoMK requires the target to die before triggering.
4. CoC Benefits from targeting groups, CoMK benefits from killing targets one at a time (very slow)


Scenarios:

1. Single enemy: CoC triggers multiple times, the target being killed by linked spells /CoMK triggers post enemy death and hits no additional targets with the linked spell.
2. Multiple enemies: CoC triggers multiple times and hits multiple targets, defeating the group of enemies quickly /CoMK requires a target be killed, triggering a single cast from the supported gems.
3. VS a Unique enemy: CoC triggers multiple times, damaging the target/ CoMK does not trigger during the fight, and triggers once the enemy is defeated.


How do we fix this?:

CoMK is near ineffective in comparison to CoC, melee builds need a similar trigger skill that will focus on something that Melee has the ability to do better than ranged combat: Stuns.

Cast on Melee Stun (CoMS)
Trigger chance: Either 100% Once per Skill Use that results in a stun OR low % chance for any stuns (similar to CoC chance per crit).
Level Bonus: Reduced Stun Threshold
Quality Bonus: Stun Duration

Stun builds have a few requirements that still make CoMS less powerful than CoC, but much more viable than CoMK. Here are the similarities and differences between CoMS and CoC.


Similarities:

1. Both require specific builds
2. Both benefit from some skills over others (CoC: Spectral Throw, CoMS: Ground Slam/Heavy Strike)
3. Both can trigger multiple times per enemy
4. Have a support gem to encourage the trigger (CoC: Increased critical strikes, CoMS: Stun Support Gem)


Differences:

1. CoMS requires a more specific build
2. CoMS requires reasonable weapon damage due to the behavior of the Stun mechanic, CoC can be done with a weapon that only has high base critical chance.
3. CoMS would likely require Resolute Technique to be Effective, the opposite force of CoC (Crit/Accuracy).
4. CoMS is specific to melee attacks
5. CoMS benefits from slower heavy attacks, CoC benefits greatly from increased attacks speed with disregard for damage dealt. As a result, it is self-balancing, as increasing speed in lieu of damage decreases stun chance, meaning it will not cast nearly as frequently as CoC has the ability to.
6. CoMS has the ability to be nullified by enemies or entire maps with the "Unwavering" affix. CoC works at all times.


Issues with CoMS design:

1. Many Stun nodes are entirely specific to the Mace weapon type, unlike crit which is available on multiple weapon types such as claws and wands. Addition of Stun nodes for weapons such as Staves and Axes and/or another Stun specific cluster would likely balance this; Gem levels of CoMS also balance this.
2. Endurance Charge on Melee Stun is less potent than CoMS linked to Enduring cry for generating Endurance Charges.
3. Potentially abuse-able for the “stun lock” effect. Possible balance: Reduce Stun duration on enemies to from 300ms to 200ms OR apply bonus 33% Block/Stun Recovery to enemies for the same effect without manipulating base stun duration. This makes it much harder to Stun reliably, balanced by the extra stun reduction available, and makes Stun Duration a much more important statistic for Stun builds.

I've spent a lot of time and effort constructing this and I would like a serious review of the suggestion, it is open to discussion for balancing and changes, but the general idea should remain the same: Trigger support designed around Melee Stun would counter the prowess of Cast on Crit, and provide players with an entirely new trigger gem to work with.

Edit: Typos and missing data.

Crit-staff-flicker with CoE and a hybrid staff should in theory do pretty decent for aoe-clearing if you manage to push the flicker damage into oneshot on white/blue monsters with multistrike in a 3 or 4 links and attach a spell or 2 to it with comk, would be even better with buffed comk. Shitty single-target tho, but if you manage to push the phys into oneshot range, it would cast at your attack speed. Looks decent on paper with sick staff at least. Needs testing tho.

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Fluffcakes wrote:

Crit-staff-flicker with CoE and a hybrid staff should in theory do pretty decent for aoe-clearing if you manage to push the flicker damage into oneshot on white/blue monsters with multistrike in a 3 or 4 links and attach a spell or 2 to it with comk, would be even better with buffed comk. Shitty single-target tho, but if you manage to push the phys into oneshot range, it would cast at your attack speed. Looks decent on paper with sick staff at least. Needs testing tho.

I agree, but there's not much that can push the full potential of Cast on Melee Kill, and again, against unique enemies and bosses, you'll likely end up not having the assistance of cast of melee kill, making it two sockets that do nothing to assist you against the boss/unique, unlike Cast on Crit, which works at all times.

imo there should be an:
"Cast on Malee Hit" Gem!
let it be like a max chance of 10% (+0,5% Quality = Q20/20 => 20% Chance to trigger)

Therefore u would have to build a fast attacking build which would give more options!

Thats just an idea... Imo there is nothing that beats a coc - i dont like it myself...

Back to Topic:
If u would do a Cast on Stun, you still need a lot of dps to stun them and then u would have the problem, that your spells wouldnt do much dmg. Since u are a malee stunner u need:
- high res
- high ev and/or armor
- enough dmg to stun
- enough hp to survive the monsters

compared to a coc build:
- high as
- high crit
- high def

I like this idea, but afaik we need more stun skills. Groundslam is boring at one point.

I've yet to experiment with the buffed version, so I can't actually be sure how useful CoMK will be, but I'm fairly sure that one of your assumptions - that it'll be useless against unique enemies - doesn't really hold water, since I don't think there's a single unique enemy in the game right now that doesn't come with some sort of adds.

That said, Cast on Melee Stun sounds like it could be a very interesting support gem regardless of the viability or lack thereof of CoMK, and your analysis of effects it would have is pretty darn good. I like it.

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TherosPherae wrote:

I've yet to experiment with the buffed version, so I can't actually be sure how useful CoMK will be, but I'm fairly sure that one of your assumptions - that it'll be useless against unique enemies - doesn't really hold water, since I don't think there's a single unique enemy in the game right now that doesn't come with some sort of adds.

That said, Cast on Melee Stun sounds like it could be a very interesting support gem regardless of the viability or lack thereof of CoMK, and your analysis of effects it would have is pretty darn good. I like it.

Thanks!

I agree about the adds, they do add an element where CoMK is somewhat helpful, but at times I've noticed that by the time all the adds are gone, the boss/unique is still at roughly 75% of it's life. Those that have ways to bring back more adds make it even more effective though, so I can definitely concede that uniques aren't as big a negative for CoMK simply because you can chain their deaths into direct damage to the boss via the spell.

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D4wdl wrote:

I like this idea, but afaik we need more stun skills. Groundslam is boring at one point.

I agree. Personally, I think that adding Stun Threshold Reduction to Sweep would make it very viable as an alternative to Ground slam. Though, they would end up very similar as a result, so that is another issue.

I would also say that Shield charge used with this support gem would require no damage reliance whatsoever, but I do notice that shield charge is not a relatively quick skill, so it may balance itself out by it's unruly control behavior.

Seems silly and inefficient... why not cast on knock ed back? There's new knock back wheels, no gems make use of it, why not?