Devs: A lengthy discussion on combat mechanics, POE vs D3

Disclosure: I don't have Diablo 3 for reasons I won't elaborate upon here (but others in this thread would have touched upon at least one). This said, I will point out that my experience has proven that having multiple skills working in concert is pretty much a necessity.

As a non-'tanky' character, there are many things I don't want to hang around in melee range of for long: bosses, champions, and certain mundane enemies (i.e. goatman shamans). These tend to need 'care packages' that stick around for some time even when you're not trading blows with them - enter Viper Strike and Puncture. Yes, both inflict DoTs, but VS is more useful against shielded enemies (chaos damage ignores shields); on the other hand, Puncture is especially fun on fast-movers (it uses a higher DoT while its victim is moving). What I would like to complement this pair are the Vulnerability curse (which among other things increases the DoT values) and the Improved Duration support gem...

Another situation: being swarmed. This is where Cleave comes in; like Sweep, it's a natural partner for Life Gain on Hit; in the meantime Warlord's Mark comes in handy for when additional leeching (some of my armor/trinkets add LGoH) is needed. Now, this particular curse could be called a 'generator' in that it doubles the flask charges kills yield, as well as adding life and mana leech.

Having opted for a sword-and-board build, Shield Charge was a natural choice for getting into (and out of) Dodge quick.

Now, one of the beauties of mater- er, skill gems - is that it's easy to change things up for specific situations. For example: swapping out Tempest Shield for Detonate Dead for areas where necromancers are present - they become much less annoying if you choke off their 'ammunition'.
White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
"Destroyed overnight, or the next one's free."
Like many others, I bought and played Diablo 3. A LOT. I had over 300 hours couple weeks ago.

Then I got burnt out and I thought: "Well, I played too much. I'll get back to D3 in a few days". But it's almost 3 weeks now and I still don't wanna play it.
- - -

I hope PoE keeps true to its awesome, singular and at the same time traditional ARPG view (huge skill tree, choices matter, etc.).

I also believe and hope PoE can find a healthy balance between Skills which have no cooldown ("spammable") AND also skills with a short to average cooldown, like 3 to 10 seconds at most. Too long cooldowns like 60-90 seconds create balance issues that don't go well with the Skill Gem system and they also lead to stupid and not fun kiting of enemies too much.

I'd like to add that if PoE is able to have more fluid and overall faster animations and basic walking speed for characters, it would go a long way to solve what I believe is PoE's only "serious" issue: animations' fluidity and walking/moving speed.

SUGGESTION OF A SUPPORT GEM:
"Timed Intensity"
Only works on Skills which already have a basic cooldown.
> Increases cooldown by X seconds. Increases potency by Y%.

That would be probably quite popular in PvP... Burst damage pew-pew.
>> Allow Home and End keys to quickly travel through the Stash!!!
Last edited by markus7 on Jul 30, 2012, 12:16:56 AM

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