Suggestion: change the LMP/GMP drawback

Yeah, that is because a skill gem that was perfectly fine (Pierce) got massively buffed for no obvious reason.

So here's my thoughts on LMP and GMP penalties.

LMP

1. Let's say an LMP projectile deals 1/sqrt(3) times the damage of a single unsupported projectile. If so, hitting with all three projectiles would deal 3/sqrt(3) = sqrt(3) times damage. This is a good baseline because you divide your damage by a constant if you hit only one target, but multiply your damage by the same constant if you hit with all.

2. However, that's only a "fair" effect. Pretty much every support these days has a little extra damage. So for level 1 gem we'd want to multiply by 1.2 (20% more Damage) and for level 21 gem multiply by 1.4 (40% more).
1.2/sqrt(3) = 0.6928
1.4/sqrt(3) = 0.8083

3. Rounding those results, I'd give LMP 30% less Projectile Damage at gemlevel 1 and 20% less Projectile Damage at gemlevel 21. This would be a slight nerf to the current support; LMP-supported skills would do 93-94% of their previous damage.

GMP

The GMP concept would be similar, except 1/sqrt(5), and the damage multiplier at the end should be more generous because it's harder to hit with all 5 projectiles and single target is worse.

1.3/sqrt(5) = 0.5814
1.5/sqrt(5) = 0.6708

Rounding those results, I'd give GMP a penalty of 40% less Projectile Damage at gemlevel 1 and 30% less Projectile Damage at gemlevel 21. This would be a slight nerf to the current support; GMP-supported skills would do 92-93% of their previous damage.

ACTIVE SKILLS

To compensate for the above, I'd buff the base damage of all single-projectile Spells by 10% at all levels, as well as increase their Damage Effectiveness by roughly 10% in most cases (Ice Spear damage effectiveness to 90% from 80%, etc). This would be a net 1.5-3.5% damage buff to LMP and GMP supported Spells, and obviously make single-target uses of those skills 10+% more effective.

I think bows are strong enough, so they would just get a slight nerf. Exceptions would be Caustic Arrow, Elemental Hit, and Explosive Arrow, which would get the same buff treatment to their flat damage as Spells.

Wow Scrotie, you seem a scholar ^.^ Good idea of yours

Scrotie - your argument is only about single-projectile skills. If you have any additional projectiles from any source, the utility of those support gems you propose drops massively. For your LMP argument, one additional projectile makes the multiplier pretty low, and with 2 additional projectiles LMP would actually reduce overall damage in the case where all projectiles hit.

Also note that because there is no shotgunning, using LMP with pierce (even if all 3 projectiles hit), especially with larger projectiles (FP, Ball lightning), doesn't mean 3x the coverage.

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dudiobugtron wrote:

Scrotie - your argument is only about single-projectile skills. If you have any additional projectiles from any source, the utility of those support gems you propose drops massively.

This is true regardless of any decision I could possibly make. It's inherent to the support. What's important is balancing LMP/GMP for single-projectile skills.

Also, 5*.7 > 3, so the other stuff you said is flat-out wrong.

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Wispo wrote:

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Jackinthegreen wrote:

If LMP and GMP were changed to reduced cast speed then you'd also have to do reduced attack speed too.

But it might not be necessary, though their Less numbers could definitely use another balance pass as can the underperforming projectile skills. In State of Exile 51 Chris mentioned that he'd be talking to the dev team about another form of shotgunning that's possible with explosive projectiles like Kinetic Blast.

A new shotgun? Cool :)

They actually said the opposite. Chris was being made aware of the fact that they introduce more and more shotgunning back into the game. Revenants, Multiple Projectiles Lantern Bearers etc. and he says that they will look into removing or reducing these kind of effects.

So he did actually say the opposite. And making Revenants less punishing to Melees is something that has to be agreed to.

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Yeah, that is because a skill gem that was perfectly fine (Pierce) got massively buffed for no obvious reason.

Well ranged attacks had very few multipliers and often had to use Physical to Lightning and Added Fire to get one. However it wasn't really necessary to make just another spell multiplier. I also think they wanted to make the use of Pierce easier. You can get 50% from the tree and the gem and get 50%.

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Nah, LMP and GMP are fine, i would like to see changes to chain and fork since it seems everyone is on the pierce bandwagon

Chain and Fork don't really need penalties. In single target situations they do nothing and for Coverage Fork is not that much better than Pierce and even Chain can be worse than Pierce. Pierce can in theory hit an unlimited amount of enemies, which means it outclasses Chain and Fork easily.

By the way, my previous posts in this thread have been somewhat realistic. If I had unrealistic time-revision powers, here's what I'd do... I guess the TL;DR would be: to preserve some semblance of melee versus ranged balance, the AoE capabilities of long-range projectile skills would be greatly diminished, although some meager offerings would remain.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

5*.7 > 3, so the other stuff you said is flat-out wrong.

My apologies, you are correct.

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Wispo wrote:

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Jackinthegreen wrote:

If LMP and GMP were changed to reduced cast speed then you'd also have to do reduced attack speed too.

But it might not be necessary, though their Less numbers could definitely use another balance pass as can the underperforming projectile skills. In State of Exile 51 Chris mentioned that he'd be talking to the dev team about another form of shotgunning that's possible with explosive projectiles like Kinetic Blast.

A new shotgun? Cool :)

No, not a new shotgun. It's a current type of shotgun that the devs might not want in the game.

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Char1983 wrote:

Yeah, that is because a skill gem that was perfectly fine (Pierce) got massively buffed for no obvious reason.

Chain is a sad sad gem now :(

OP, on LMP/GMP, do you want to buff Voltaxic LA? What about CoC? Gotta think these things through... Not like I have any ideas, I agree that the Less Damage mod on LMP seems outdated nowadays.