What would you guys think of more high-skill-cap Skills?

So, as most of us are aware, Blade Flurry is... really, REALLY strong compared to other melee Skills, even after the love tap nerf it got in 2.5.0. But the balance there is for another thread - what I'm after is the higher skill ceiling on its use. It gets a little over 400% of base damage with perfect channeling, but how often can you get perfect channeling? Not always, that's for sure. There's always the possibility of the enemy teleporting, running, or even walking away before you can properly react with a channeling cancel, causing you to lose out on over half your damage.

Now, since the base damage times speed boost times stage bonus is so high, you really don't lose much in practice even if you whiff. Whether that's balanced......

Anyways, what if we gave other skills the same kind of treatment? If we could add an opportunity for clever ir well-controlled play to be rewarded?

Examples:

Cyclone. Gain 10% more damage for each 15 units you travel. Cyclone aficionados should see what I'm getting at here: in Path of Exile, Cyclone is an ability that locks you in a set path when you click. The farther you click, the less control you have over canceling Cyclone.

This change could also open up new possibilities of scaling Cyclone DPS with movement speed in the same way Attack Speed adds strategic flexibility for Blade Flurry.

Storm Call: skill builds up 5% more damage every 0.5 seconds that the skill is not detonated. This hearkens back to the core design of Storm Call. Before the Clear Speed Meta, I enjoyed how Storm Call made you try to think and predict where enemies went. A build up bonus for Storm Call would enable this style of play again: Increased Duration builds that rely on prediction for massive damage - when the prediction is right.

What do you guys think of such things? Too complex? A good excuse to buff underused skills?
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Last bumped on Dec 7, 2016, 6:40:41 AM
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Sounds good for me.
Have some more!

Heavy Strike. 80% more melee damage if Knockback fails. This rewards you for putting an enemy up against a wall, or helps you against enemies that cannot be knock-backed. As a bonus, it deals significantly less damage than Blade-Flurry-perfect-channeling, so it will not disturb any meta.

Reave. 100% more melee damage if you have had at least 4 stacks for 4 seconds. The design here is similar to that of Blade Flurry's; deal more damage if you commit to DPSing. It has a slight Attack Speed synergy as Reave was originally designed to have. As a bonus, it still deals about half the damage of Blade-Flurry-perfect-channeling.

Cleave. 60% more melee damage if exactly 1 enemy is Hit. 50% Chance to cause Bleeding on Hit if 6 or more enemies are Hit. I thought it might be cool to reward proper player/monster placement (such as via Knockback), so there's a buff to Cleave's single-target there. It made sense to me, because fewer monsters Hit means less obstacles blocking your swing trajectory. However, it occurred to me that Cleave was originally designed to be a multi-target skill, so I thought about what happens when you cleave through multiple enemies. In order to do that, your swing must strike with some pretty strong force, which might make the swing cruder - hence, chance to bleed. Inspired by Blade Flurry's "best of both worlds" approach, I decided that both bonuses would make sense for Cleave.

Frost Blades. 10% Chance to Freeze. Frost Blades already has some reward-active-play in its auto-targeting if nearest enemy is targeted by player. Chance to Freeze will just give it some utility. Give it a general damage buff if you'd like.

Sweep. Knockback distance is increased by 1 for every 2 Weapon Range. Sweep is a hard one to add active-play elements to. Knockback distance plays well with Sweep's theme.

EDIT: Spectral Throw. Hit Allowance Cooldown is halved when Projectile's speed is 5 units/second or slower. I really like the "get that perfect distance, not too close, not too far" play with Spectral Throw. This will allow double DPS at that perfect distance.
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Contact support@grindinggear.com for account issues. Check out How to Report Bugs + Post Images at: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/18347
Last edited by adghar on Dec 7, 2016, 5:19:20 AM
The reward-active-play is what i like about Frost Blades.
Nice ideas in general :)

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