Lightning Thorns

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ExiledToWraeclast wrote:

Let's spell it out for everybody who doesn't want to understand WHY this LT change has borked a lot of people, and those who're having their moments of Schadenfreude and their Roman holidays over others' present misfortunes.

LT before patch:

Only affected melee. They could (usually) see it coming and prepare for the same barring lag or desync. They moved and fought slowly to prevent such problems, and if possible tried indirect damage such as summons, traps, or totems.

It didn't affect ranged or casters. To them it was pretty much a non-issue tantamount to a new graphical skin on the enemy for all the harm it could do to them. Which was zero, zip, nada, because it had no effect on them pre-patch.

LT after patch:

It got nerfed in terms of damage to an extent. But it now affects casters and ranged to.

What does this mean?

even a single hit with a pimped out skill like split arrow with chain/fork/what have you on a single monster off screen that just happened to have lightning thorns on, as well as buddies with the same effect, you'd be as dead as a freaking doornail without understanding how you died. Have I made myself clear?

While this is no different from offscreen reflect, it is in many ways poorly balanced by comparison as it is triggered by spells and attacks both, and will screw over anybody with a multi-hit attack.

You can still use indirect attacks such as totems and traps and expendable summons, but as it stands now it's pretty much bullshit death like in most Roguelikes, and trust me I've played enough of those to know where they come from.

Maps contain LT users? GG your map is now ruined.

I think this much is enough on the issue at hand at present.

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ExiledToWraeclast wrote:

Let's spell it out for everybody who doesn't want to understand WHY this LT change has borked a lot of people, and those who're having their moments of Schadenfreude and their Roman holidays over others' present misfortunes.

LT before patch:

Only affected melee. They could (usually) see it coming and prepare for the same barring lag or desync. They moved and fought slowly to prevent such problems, and if possible tried indirect damage such as summons, traps, or totems.

It didn't affect ranged or casters. To them it was pretty much a non-issue tantamount to a new graphical skin on the enemy for all the harm it could do to them. Which was zero, zip, nada, because it had no effect on them pre-patch.

LT after patch:

It got nerfed in terms of damage to an extent. But it now affects casters and ranged to.

What does this mean?

even a single hit with a pimped out skill like split arrow with chain/fork/what have you on a single monster off screen that just happened to have lightning thorns on, as well as buddies with the same effect, you'd be as dead as a freaking doornail without understanding how you died. Have I made myself clear?

While this is no different from offscreen reflect, it is in many ways poorly balanced by comparison as it is triggered by spells and attacks both, and will screw over anybody with a multi-hit attack.

You can still use indirect attacks such as totems and traps and expendable summons, but as it stands now it's pretty much bullshit death like in most Roguelikes, and trust me I've played enough of those to know where they come from.

Maps contain LT users? GG your map is now ruined.

I think this much is enough on the issue at hand at present.

I would like to point out that Lightning Strike is a popular part of melee builds that allows them to not die when a mob can't be facetanked.

Melee who use LS are in the same boat. And you know what happens when my chaining, lmp LS hits a pack? My health dips suddenly and I cease spammming/casting it.

So please, let's stop with the poor ranged rhetoric. I have an LA character (and my melee uses LS when Cyclone/Infernal would be suicide); and yes it is harder for my LA character with them now because he has to have a situational awareness I was able to ignore on him previously. He manages and all I had to realize was....

No matter how counter intuitive this may seem to the way LA is usually played. You are going to have to let yourself *GASP* SEE THE FRACKING MOBS IN THE GAME FOR ONCE!!!! Zomg! End of the world (it really changed how I played him).... Gain some bloody situational awareness, stop spamming to kill everything BEFORE you can see it. This one change improved my QoL on my LA a good bit. Interact with the bloody world the devs created, ease of your trigger finger and when you see LT, go Single Target.

You may have to actually use a single target ability. I know, I know, your bar is filled with Auras that could be used and moved out of active spots cause it makes you feel like you have skills on your bar, once I moved them off I realized how few skills my LA used. But those spots are also good for other active skills. Try out one of the other arrow shots the devs have built in. Add Frenzy. Single Target those bitches then let loose an even faster volley of spam death with your handy dandy frenzy charges. Add a trap to your build. There are a myriad of ways in which you could use situational awareness to dissemble the problem and make it a thing of the past.

Because of that my sympathy for people who are suddenly "unplayable" is pretty much 0.

My 63 LA does fine with the changes. My mates 70 LA does fine (and he still farms A3 primarily) . My 65 Lightning Striker/Cyclonist is fine with the changes and still prefers LS to take them out. Adapt. Or die a lot and complain. I personally, choose the former.


Alexis
*smiles*

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Duskbane wrote:

I'd like for you to tell me how either of these situations is fair. At least for melee vs LT, they had to be directly in the enemies' face to kill them anyway, so they had a very fair chance of reacting to the situation. I have the potential to kill myself without ever even knowing what I died to.

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Duskbane wrote:

I don't even have to counter your 'holier than thou' parts of your post, but I'll tell you my FULL situation even though I've done so multiple times in the past 3 or 4 pages... nobody bothers to go back and read that though.

I am a physical bow user who uses Frenzy and Split Arrow+Chain. Obviously, I don't EXPECT to be able to fire split arrow into a group with lightning thorns. I don't want to. I'm not stupid, I can tell that will kill me, and I've tested it. It does kill me. INSTANTLY.

MY two issues are as follows:
1) If I fire a split arrow at a group that is not even close to a lightning thorns user, but one or two of the arrows happens to fly offscreen inadvertently and hits a lightning thorns user and chains a couple times (because I am in a party with friends, the enemies ARE capable of buffing themselves with LT before I can see them!) then I will die instantly to something I never knew existed. At level 83, even in softcore, this is a severe pain in the ass, especially when it's happening on LV66 maps.
2) Let's say I see the LT users and maneuver my way to the back of the group to attack (this is assuming I can even reach them, indoor areas may make this hard or even impossible to do). I begin to fire Frenzy at the enemies CAREFULLY (I could go full 7 APS on them, but that's a stupid idea and you and I both know that.) One of the LT casters casts LT on his buddy caster that I am beginning to fire at. ONE SHOT FROM FRENZY will take 1500 hp from my 3100 hp, 75% lightning res self. TWO SHOTS will either KILL ME or leave me at incredibly low health EVEN WITH capped life leech and level 19 life gain on hit.

I'd like for you to tell me how either of these situations is fair. At least for melee vs LT, they had to be directly in the enemies' face to kill them anyway, so they had a very fair chance of reacting to the situation. I have the potential to kill myself without ever even knowing what I died to.

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raics wrote:

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Duskbane wrote:

I'd like for you to tell me how either of these situations is fair. At least for melee vs LT, they had to be directly in the enemies' face to kill them anyway, so they had a very fair chance of reacting to the situation. I have the potential to kill myself without ever even knowing what I died to.

Then play melee if you think we have an easier time, broaden your horizons.

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Duskbane wrote:

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raics wrote:

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Duskbane wrote:

I'd like for you to tell me how either of these situations is fair. At least for melee vs LT, they had to be directly in the enemies' face to kill them anyway, so they had a very fair chance of reacting to the situation. I have the potential to kill myself without ever even knowing what I died to.

Then play melee if you think we have an easier time, broaden your horizons.

I've been playing this since around this time last year, I've played melee before and I admit that LT was too powerful against it. Now it's too powerful against ranged, and melee DO have an easier time. I don't want to have to change to "flavor of the month" because of these changes... I understand it's a beta and there will be changes, but for one to completely invalidate my character? That's unfair.

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Voidtek1969 wrote:

As far as the LT buffing & GGG saying the mages have to be closer to use it, this is incorrect. When they coded the new changes, they made the mages start buffing whenever a mob in their pack within the mages' vicinity got hit with a players' attack.

This means any stray ranged attacks off-screen will prompt "preemptive" buffing offscreen, which means the next volley of attacks on the pack thats actually close to the player will either kill them or near kill them when their next ranged attack goes off-screen.

This was tested & proven multiple times yesterday by several players.

The off-screen stray attacks themselves are preempting buffing whether the players are near the mages or not.

This is a problem since obviously the players cant see the off-screen mages yet.

I don't have a problem with the changes per-se as long as I can see the mages before they buff up. As it stands, they are already buffed up by the time you get to them in many cases.

I see people on here saying, "well use your eyes & if you see a mage, stop using your attack that may kill you". I actually agree, but if you can't see that mage pack off-screen that is already buffed up because of the unintended buffing by proxy to your last attack off-screen, there is absolutely nothing you can do.

The off-screen buffing due to proxy of stray ranged attacks is bugged, and is what is causing most of these problems I surmise.