Skills that have to be buffed in order to acheive a balanced game

Melee:

Melee splash. Dat 14 unit aoe, when accounting for desync issues, is so small it seems in a pack of 8 or so mobs you might hit 4 or 5 of them. It's not even worthwhile at that point when it's scarcely bigger than our character's hitbox, come on...

Elemental Hit. Did you guys forget about this guy when you did your 'early game mana cost rebalance'?

Frenzy. Same as above. Both skills have a mana cost of 11 at level one, nearly triple of equivalent level skills. In the case of frenzy, it gives frenzy charges which increases attack speed, and then the skill itself gets an additional AS bonus per charge! It's mana cost is completely prohibitive.

Dominating blow. 20 mana?! You what?

Sweep. If it pulls mobs towards you instead of knocking them away, it might be worth a damn. As is, nope...

Double Strike. Animation takes too long. It barely seems to add effective dps over autoattacks :/

Viper Strike. Can we have the old one back? New VS is boring as sin...

Bow:

Ahahahahahaha...poison arrow maybe?

Wands:

Power Siphon. Low level mana cost all over again.

Spells:

Poor Old Shock Nova... nuff said really.

Firestorm. Damage is too low at high level and too unreliable to be used outside of an 11 firestorm CoD build *Ahem*

Flame Surge. As cool as a spell as this is - holy fuck is it a tiny-ass aoe. Might as well be single target projectile with pierce change, that way we could at least shotgun the thing like freezing pulse! (or just LMP it for more aoe)

Storm Call. This skill is fun as balls and hits like a truck but it desyncs so damn badly I've been killed by monsters that have been dead for a second or two, they just don't know it yet.

Summon Skeletons. Dat elemental skelly, plz...

Great thread, and unlike the one it's satirizing, it's actual feedback.

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Melee splash. Dat 14 unit aoe, when accounting for desync issues, is so small it seems in a pack of 8 or so mobs you might hit 4 or 5 of them. It's not even worthwhile at that point when it's scarcely bigger than our character's hitbox, come on...

Disagree. First, the game should not be balanced around desync. Steps can be taken (mechanically) to minimize sync problems (like Cyclone), but actual game ballance should have absolutely nothing to do with sync. More to the point of balance, however, this is a skill that turns single target into an AoE; single target skills (should) have higher base damage, and thus the support should be balanced around single target damage potentials. If there is a problem with this gem--and I don't think there is--that's where I'd look. I would really like a toggle key that allowed me to target the ground, however. FB IB Splash's greatest enemy was whiffing to a mob that took a step back mid swing--which happened a LOT.

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Elemental Hit. Did you guys forget about this guy when you did your 'early game mana cost rebalance'?

IMO, this gem lost its niche. It was intended to be used as a fast attacking skill that emphasizes use of flat added elemental damage; however, the quantity of flat added elemental damage available has since been increased dramatically. This, and moreover, phys added as an element, has replaced that niche.

Something interesting could be done with this to return its function as a flat added niche--give it a flat added base attack speed modifier (different from frenzy's percent increased) that scales with level, and a static percent increased or more weapon elemental damage. Alternatively, it could go the easy route and jump on the phys added train..

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Frenzy. Same as above. Both skills have a mana cost of 11 at level one, nearly triple of equivalent level skills. In the case of frenzy, it gives frenzy charges which increases attack speed, and then the skill itself gets an additional AS bonus per charge! It's mana cost is completely prohibitive.

This skill used to be, I felt, balanced around its mana cost. It has potentially higher than normal damage output if specced for, but was prohibited by what could easily turn into ~450+ mana per second. It was an interesting and well balanced gem, imo, in that the better it performed the more damning its mana cost became--one of the few instances where I felt extreme stacking of damage multipliers was justifiable. This is no longer the case, by any stretch of the imagination.

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Sweep. If it pulls mobs towards you instead of knocking them away, it might be worth a damn. As is, nope...

Disagree. There are still some interesting, albeit very niche, things you can do with knockback. That niche may be overshadowed by Cyclone, however. If anything, I'd say maybe a mild numerical buff.

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Poor Old Shock Nova... nuff said really.

I'm fond of this skill as is, even if it underperforms at the moment. I'd really prefer they un-fucked shock stacks, because they're bland as shit now and Shock Nova Proliferation was the premier shock stacking skill.

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Firestorm. Damage is too low at high level and too unreliable to be used outside of an 11 firestorm CoD build *Ahem*

I am also fond of this skill. It is a lot of fun to spec for duration and cast speed, in order to self cast and stack a whole bunch of fireballs/second over one area. I agree, though, its damage is extremely lacking, even with the most glassiest theory crafts I can think of. It could still have a niche with Three Dragons if, again, GGG un-fucked shock stacks. IMO, this really needs a higher DE, so if nothing else, it can at least benefit from heralds / added damage supports.

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Flame Surge. As cool as a spell as this is - holy fuck is it a tiny-ass aoe. Might as well be single target projectile with pierce change, that way we could at least shotgun the thing like freezing pulse! (or just LMP it for more aoe)

I disagree about the projectile tag. If we wanted a burning freezing pulse, we could just slap on The Pyre and call it a day. That this spell is not a projectile is what makes it unique. I do agree though that its AoE, especially width, should scale much higher. As is, I cannot theorize any good way to self cast it; instead it seems solely to be Molten CoC fodder.

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Storm Call. This skill is fun as balls and hits like a truck but it desyncs so damn badly I've been killed by monsters that have been dead for a second or two, they just don't know it yet.

I have no experience with this skill except dabbling for a few levels with ST CoC in Dom (before settling on GMP Fireball + Ice Spear--amazing combo ^-^). Does it namelock? Its mechanics seem like it'd be perfect to receive the Cyclone treatment, whereby it'd target the ground and not the mob.

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Summon Skeletons. Dat elemental skelly, plz...

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Do you mean like skele mages? If so, hells yeah. I'm not a fan of summoning in PoE so I'd never play it.. but I do think more summon types that compete for "max number of skele/zombie/spectre" slots would be interesting, and in the case of skele mages, they could break away from the usual ele aura summoner since they'd (presumably) cast spells.

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Spoiler

Dominating blow. 20 mana?! You what?

Double Strike. Animation takes too long. It barely seems to add effective dps over autoattacks :/

Viper Strike. Can we have the old one back? New VS is boring as sin...

Bow:

Ahahahahahaha...poison arrow maybe?

Wands:

Power Siphon. Low level mana cost all over again.

No opinion

Edit: Also, disagree with everything Helpmegod had to say ^-^ It's not the skill gem's job to distinguish crit/non crit. Also I've gotten some damn good DPS out of my melee theory crafts lately (e.g., ~36k dps DW cleave, or some full phys conversion/added builds with the outrageously stronk PTL).

+1

Add Infernal Blow (higher aoe and buff Damage effectiveness 150% = Base damage),
Determination (and Armour as type of Defense pretty bad),
Vitality (make it work for solo players (like Heralds) or ONLY players (not work to monions)),
Hatred (buff for non crits and high physical damage),
Vulnerability (buff physical part),
Life Leech (buff leech rate non crit and non VP),
Melee Physical Damage and melee as the problem (why not buff melee phys damage support gem?)

EDT:

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Melee splash. Dat 14 unit aoe, when accounting for desync issues, is so small it seems in a pack of 8 or so mobs you might hit 4 or 5 of them. It's not even worthwhile at that point when it's scarcely bigger than our character's hitbox, come on...

Special this! +1, would like to see it.

While this isn't much better than the other thread, a bunch of random skills thrown together with little thought beyond their use. I'll bite anyways.

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TikoXi wrote:

Melee:

Melee splash. Dat 14 unit aoe, when accounting for desync issues, is so small it seems in a pack of 8 or so mobs you might hit 4 or 5 of them. It's not even worthwhile at that point when it's scarcely bigger than our character's hitbox, come on...

Big problem is having to hit each thing individually to proc the AOE, so as long as that's true it won't be top tier. The AOE is piss poor though and among the lowest of them all, almost the same size as fireball. I have no idea why it was introduced so poorly (already had a 20% buff to AOE) nor why it's stayed so lackluster for so long. Especially introducing static strike which is almost a shining example of how splash should work.

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Elemental Hit. Did you guys forget about this guy when you did your 'early game mana cost rebalance'?

Frenzy. Same as above. Both skills have a mana cost of 11 at level one, nearly triple of equivalent level skills. In the case of frenzy, it gives frenzy charges which increases attack speed, and then the skill itself gets an additional AS bonus per charge! It's mana cost is completely prohibitive.

My only thought with both of these is there's some insane build for both that the builder hasn't released.

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Dominating blow. 20 mana?! You what?

How else do you balance it? There's exactly 2 ways, reduced duration which makes it less fun or high mana cost which makes that the angle which you have to build around. There's 55% mana cost reduction from tree + vertex makes it free, also there's soultaker.

This is an extremely powerful skill, the mana cost is what prevents it from being OP. This is definitely a skill you need to give an alternative nerf to rather than just claiming it's unused therefore buff.

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Sweep. If it pulls mobs towards you instead of knocking them away, it might be worth a damn. As is, nope...

One of my favorite builds was my sweeper from CB that got me my demigod in the week race towards the end of CB. Every chance I get I say that if there was a way to pull in mobs, it would be a top tier skill. Because the KB works counter to how the skill works, sweep only really shines when you one shot shit as there's no way to get the groups tight enough to really apply the same DPS that GS can.

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Double Strike. Animation takes too long. It barely seems to add effective dps over autoattacks :/

I thought the tooltip was double what it actually showed? I haven't really used double strike is for fucking ever, so I don't have much of an opinion on it.

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Viper Strike. Can we have the old one back? New VS is boring as sin...

At the best least we need a melee skill that scales well off the +melee lvl mod. This was the only one now there's nothing.

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Bow:

Ahahahahahaha...poison arrow maybe?

While I haven't personally seen it in action, I thought raizqt's PA trapper was really strong?

If you really want buffs for bows, how about LA being buffed after receiving nerf after nerf when you could get shock stacks. Now it's lackluster to all the other options.

Also shouldn't burning arrow be the best option for burn builds? Pretty sure ice shot + HoA takes the cake

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Wands:

Power Siphon. Low level mana cost all over again.

It's EXTREMELY powerful. It has 2 support gems built into the skill and is associated with the high mana portion of the tree. Not sure how it compares to kinetic blast but for single target wand, not sure PS will be beaten.

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Spells:

Poor Old Shock Nova... nuff said really.

When is this going to be reworked? Shouldn't it be above and beyond the strongest skill if it's going to have such a bad drawback?

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Firestorm. Damage is too low at high level and too unreliable to be used outside of an 11 firestorm CoD build *Ahem*

I thought I saw people using firestorm at high levels? Like, double piety shrine to be exact. . It's also one of those skills that's never going to be top tier because of how it applies it's DPS. A skill like this shines in excellent gear when it can quickly take shit out though so buffing it could turn out poorly.

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Flame Surge. As cool as a spell as this is - holy fuck is it a tiny-ass aoe. Might as well be single target projectile with pierce change, that way we could at least shotgun the thing like freezing pulse! (or just LMP it for more aoe)

The highest damage skill in the game, it's meant to have all the drawbacks you listed. It's also being used by RF and fire trapper builds. From the damage, and how it works, I don't think it's intended to be stand alone. As it's already strong as fuck I don't think they want to make it easier to use.

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Storm Call. This skill is fun as balls and hits like a truck but it desyncs so damn badly I've been killed by monsters that have been dead for a second or two, they just don't know it yet.

Another high damage skill that won't be buffed through higher damage. Reflect is already a problem for storm call builds, especially because sometime you can't avoid putting large bursts into reflect packs. Stuff like warped timepiece are good buffs for stormcall, ways to get reduced duration beyond the support gem. A couple more uniques like it, or a good reduced duration, like shield that does 25-50%, and storm call will be nice.

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Summon Skeletons. Dat elemental skelly, plz...

I think GGG has decided this is INT's decoy totem. I'd like to see it as a main damage source though.

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Helpmegod wrote:

+1

Add Infernal Blow (higher aoe and buff Damage effectiveness 150% = Base damage),
Determination (and Armour as type of Defense pretty bad),
Vitality (make it work for solo players (like Heralds) or ONLY players (not work to monions)),
Hatred (buff for non crits and high physical damage),
Vulnerability (buff physical part),
Life Leech (buff leech rate non crit and non VP),
Melee Physical Damage and melee as the problem (why not buff melee phys damage support gem?)

EDT:

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Melee splash. Dat 14 unit aoe, when accounting for desync issues, is so small it seems in a pack of 8 or so mobs you might hit 4 or 5 of them. It's not even worthwhile at that point when it's scarcely bigger than our character's hitbox, come on...

Special this! +1, would like to see it.

Most of what you suggest is game breaking or so vague I'm not sure what you want. Like determination, what about it would you change? I don't get your point with vitality.

Lightning arrow, it was nerfed many moons ago so it's one of the only skills with a limit on how many monsters the explosion can hit, and at the time it was because it was way to easy for it to stack shock.

Now that shock stacks have been nerfed the could revert it back to hit everything

Although I see the point regarding Melee Splash AoE (a lot of its 14 radius is squandered bouncing back on the player), the damage is very good (almost no loss of single-target DPS). I wouldn't be comfortable with a pure buff, because MSplash is too good at "tight clump AoE" right now to allow it to be truly good at "real AoE" without a damage adjustment. It's not underpowered so much as defying player expectations, which is still bad and all. I think it could benefit from a simultaneous AoE buff and damage nerf.

Perhaps something like
AoE: from 14 units 360° to 20 units 270° (does not splash back on player, similar to Molten Strike)
Deals AoE even if no main target
35% less damage to main target
60% less damage to other targets @glvl01
40% less damage to other targets @glvl21
No increased melee physical damage from glvl

Agree with CHP on everything else.

dp

+1

I really cannot stretch enough how dissapointed i was with the frenzy nerf. It was for me one of the best designed skills in the game(melee perspective). You had to really build for it, and it costed(rightly) a shit ton of mana. Nowdays you need 8 frenzy charges(meaning all from the tree +1 from bandits +1 from gear-corrupted or unique) with a comparable tree to match the damage of double strike(maybe surpass it by a tiny bit). And you need 9 charges to match the damage of heavy strike. Absurd, especially considering their mana cost.

Cyclone needs it's mana cost lowered promptly. This skill is almost on par with Dominating Blow with mana costs thru the roof.