What's your opinion about stat sticks?

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Shagsbeard wrote:

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They might never fix it. They might think it's cute. I think it makes their game look silly and is an embarrassment.

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BundesHeinz wrote:

On weapons they work when your build is based on physical damage (with or without conversion) but those builds don't benefit as much from flat added damage from abyss jewels. Then there are builds like Windripper that use flat ele damage as base and benefit incredibly from those jewels but can't use shaped stat-sticks. So yes, there is some kind of counterweight going on.

Nah, stll disagree. As long as you are able to utilize both coverted damage AND jewels in a build, there's no counterweight.
And that's what current top tir ele builds look like - investments in jewel slots + free conversion.
Jewels support better attack builds, it's not hard for the player to make his choice between spells or attacks.

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torturo wrote:

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BundesHeinz wrote:

On weapons they work when your build is based on physical damage (with or without conversion) but those builds don't benefit as much from flat added damage from abyss jewels. Then there are builds like Windripper that use flat ele damage as base and benefit incredibly from those jewels but can't use shaped stat-sticks. So yes, there is some kind of counterweight going on.

Nah, stll disagree. As long as you are able to utilize both coverted damage AND jewels in a build, there's no counterweight.
And that's what current top tir ele builds look like - investments in jewel slots + free conversion.
Jewels support better attack builds, it's not hard for the player to make his choice between spells or attacks.

Physical Attack builds benefit more from standard jewels than from abyss jewels.#

/edit: except unarmed of course but unarmed builds can't use stat-sticks.

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Th3c0r3ok wrote:

You forgot bow builds, Poet's pen builds, all kinds of frost blade / molten strike builds, all kinds of elemental spell builds... There are only 2 "archetypes" of build that actually profit from stat sticks which is BF/Reave/Sunder "Melee" characters and phys spell builds (EK, GC, BV). Those are not even the meta builds.

Stat sticks are very strong / OP for a couple of builds, but even more OP stuff outperforms them in terms of fast map clearing and bossing imo. So yes, there are kinda OP in the sense that there is no real alternative to those in specific builds, but not OP enough on the grand scale of things.

True, there're more builds than I mentioned initially. But my point was more about how it forces some builds into using them.

As you mentioned, BF, Sunder etc. are simply gimped without dual-wielding/stat-sticking. And sure, you do not have to compare yourself to other builds but I like the idea of creating strong/maxed out builds and as soon as you start this way, there's almost no way around them.

E.g. my warchief facebreaker totem build could gain a lot of dmg, range and survivability if I would switch from facebreaker to varunastra/stat stick. Could drop the rigwald's amu, facebreakers and use even stronger jewels.

Pure phys as well as two-hand weapons are almost not existent anymore.

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DerDave wrote:

Pure phys as well as two-hand weapons are almost not existent anymore.

That is something I also find quite shameful. Pure phys really isn't an option anymore. There's just too much phys gained as ele to grab.
Now that I'm saying it: what DO Starforge builds do these days?

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BundesHeinz wrote:

Physical Attack builds benefit more from standard jewels than from abyss jewels.

I can't understand your point.

Pure phys attack builds don't benefit much from abyss jewels if at all (brutality).

Phys to ele convertion builds benefit by a lot from abyss jewels, much more than from conventional jewels.

Both pure phys (without brutality) and phys convertion attack builds benefit from stat sticks.

And?

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torturo wrote:

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BundesHeinz wrote:

Physical Attack builds benefit more from standard jewels than from abyss jewels.

I can't understand your point.

Pure phys attack builds don't benefit much from abyss jewels if at all (brutality).

Phys to ele convertion builds benefit by a lot from abyss jewels, much more than from conventional jewels.

Both pure phys (without brutality) and phys convertion attack builds benefit from stat sticks.

And?

Phys to ele conversion build DO NOT benefit more from abyss jewels than normals ones because they don't make use of flat added ele dmg.
Build that use shaper stat-sticks don't get to use crazy abyss jewels. Build that use crazy 100 flat ele dmg abyss jewels don't use shaper stat-sticks.
Counterweight.

Not gonna explain that further. I'm either horrendously mistaken or you just don't get it.

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BundesHeinz wrote:

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DerDave wrote:

Pure phys as well as two-hand weapons are almost not existent anymore.

That is something I also find quite shameful. Pure phys really isn't an option anymore. There's just too much phys gained as ele to grab.
Now that I'm saying it: what DO Starforge builds do these days?

Starforge 1.5ex, Disfavour 2ex ... Used to be 5-7ex. Due to stat sticks or because more players do endgame now?

Honestly? I hate the very idea of them. All the skills that benefit from them were already easily strong enough.

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DerDave wrote:

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BundesHeinz wrote:

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DerDave wrote:

Pure phys as well as two-hand weapons are almost not existent anymore.

That is something I also find quite shameful. Pure phys really isn't an option anymore. There's just too much phys gained as ele to grab.
Now that I'm saying it: what DO Starforge builds do these days?

Starforge 1.5ex, Disfavour 2ex ... Used to be 5-7ex. Due to stat sticks or because more players do endgame now?

No its because they aren't that desirable anymore, fake dual wield crushes both and feels better to play.

As to the OP's original question I personally agree with shags, I think it was unintended and they will fix them at some point in the future but are letting the players have their fun first (exactly like ES meta, double dipping etc)

Should they be nerfed? I'm not really sure they can probably fix most of it with the skill rebalance if they choose too.