Duelist sucks, let's make it better

Epsi talked me out of this "add more life" thing. Life works, which is good but the problem is evasion and armor don't work as good so we lean on what does work while ignoring the fact that we should be fixing what doesn't rather than leaning heavier on what does.

Turning dex into str doesn't solve the fact that armor and eva both separately aren't great, in small quantities together they are even worse. The thing is both in huge numbers are great, something not easily done though.

There's been many threads on armor and evasion, I rather keep this one to how to fix duelist in particular, rather than dex altogether.

Yeah, I agree, We're getting a little off-track and there are thousands of threads on the separate topics. I'm pretty sure GGG are well aware of them (despite Chris reiterating that he thinks Evasion works fine, and that Slurms is backing him up).

So back on Moosifer's topic:

OK, so we have Parry and Riposte. Does this synergize with Block? replaces it or adds to it? Will it have a ceiling percentage like Evasion (in which case you need another fallback in order not to die when missing your chances - Still clinging on to life)?

In our now utopia of a tree, How does a duelist keep himself alive and well in a hybrid manner?

I like the idea of parry/riposte working without DW or a shield, possibly without an axe as well. Something that's completely restricted to 1h weapons w/ nothing in off hand, or 2h swords.

I think it should open up new builds rather than just stack on top what's already there.

Although adding it as a mechanic to block (basically a physical tempest shield) wouldn't be a bad idea either.

don't die little guy

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flab wrote:

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Moosifer wrote:

Epsi talked me out of this "add more life" thing. Life works, which is good but the problem is evasion and armor don't work as good so we lean on what does work while ignoring the fact that we should be fixing what doesn't rather than leaning heavier on what does.

Turning dex into str doesn't solve the fact that armor and eva both separately aren't great, in small quantities together they are even worse. The thing is both in huge numbers are great, something not easily done though.

There's been many threads on armor and evasion, I rather keep this one to how to fix duelist in particular, rather than dex altogether.

This.

People get too focused on certain things because it's hard to see the real problems, evasion and armour is in a bad spot in terms of value (for high investment), yes, but that's not strictly a duelist thing.

There are bigger issues obscuring problems with duelists (melee in general, defensive situation NOT relating to armour or evasion).

The idea of making duelists more unique (with parry and riposte) is far more meaningful than discussions about armour and evasion.

I am not specifically getting side tracked, but rather, my point on the issue was, by "fixing" duelists, through adding block, riposte, etc, are we REALLY FIXING the problem, or simply applying another band-aid solution.


I think the latter, though, specifically, I believe it is not duelist specific, but that duelists have the worst end of the stick, due to ES being an HP stand in, therefore boosting the viability of ES related hybrids much better then armor/evasion can. Reason being, if a duelist DIDN'T have to spend 9001 nodes traveling to get the HP and other nodes that are required, due to armor/evasion both together, and alone, being bad, I believe duelists would be in a much better spot.

It's my same issue with people adding life to the eva problem. Hit/Miss defenses are normally defenses for high dps classes, usually based on the assumption "You will die, this just makes that time come a little later". At least in my experience with other MMOs

Epsi's armor/eva war is bleeding over here.

The only reason I'm choosing not to address it here is I'm under the assumption something will change, hopefully soon with at least armor.

While fixing armor and eva would help duelist alot, it's not completely their problem. Also if it was fixed it would do nothing to make duelist stand out as a class really.

Also I still think that mara should be the DR class while duelist is the life tank.

Personally, I think Duelists are the DW class, all of mine have been (DW ele wand duelist was fun for a while, boring after a while though) As most of the DW block nodes are located here. Quite interesting as a build concept, but due to the low amount of DW block passives, simply not worth the travel and transversal to get them from other classes, and simply not worth the cost of starting somewhere else.

Perhaps an issue with the devs getting a bit too ambitious on making duelists the jack of all trades, due to the many differing weapon-type passives located within a quick reach, but not enough passives for them to utilize to a high enough potential to compete.

Had an idea while thinking about duelists just a moment ago and I'm sorry if it has been mentioned before. I don't want to forget it but don't want to read through this entire thread right now =P.

I was reading a post about how duelists should be more evasion focused and how they lacked interesting passive nodes that could define the class.

This got me thinking about a couple possible nodes for the duelist section which would promote a evasion, melee based play style.

Riposte
- Node - Removes all armor and gives a 50% chance to strike an enemy (autoattack) after evading it's attack. Melee only

OR

- Node - 50% chance to strike an enemy after evading riposte deals 50% weapon dmg.

OR

- Removes all armor whenever you evade an attack your next ability will automatically critically strike

OR

(a more HP/EVA focused idea) - Removes all armor, Whenever you dodge an attack your next ability will leech an additional 5-10% life

OR

- Node - Removes all armor, +50% max hp

- Node - Removes all armor, +25% max hp +25% eva rating

Another idea, instead of iron reflexes why not the opposite?

- Converts all armor to evasion rating and adds 5% to base evade chance

This also got me thinking about flasks mainly that we are lacking an evasion one.

- Shadow Flask - Gives a 50% chance to evade incoming attacks for 2.5 seconds
Maybe this is OP? It doesn't feel like it would be though.

One final suggestion, remove accuracy from swords and replace it with increased EVA rating or a flat 5-10% chance to evade.


The flask and the iron reflex like node were both afterthoughts, but just thinking about the possibilities these things would bring to the class is giving me a PoEner. Again sorry if these have been suggested and sorry if they make no sense whatsoever. All I know is if these things were made available to duelists I would for sure be rolling a sword duelist. Which I wouldn't even consider with the current duelist class.

Thanks,
Sorien

Sorien, I like some of the ideas, hate others, but I do have to throw this out there; Duelist is a hybrid class, removing armor, opens the identity to lend itself to being one that specifically ignores half of it's intrinsic identity. While that itself isn't good, or bad, it's still there.