Is there ever a reason to help Alira on normal?

Even 1% max res I don't think would clearly be too strong. I would probably get it a lot of the time, but it's not immediately the best choice. How come? Well let's look at how much damage it prevents: For every 1000 points of elemental damage you get hit with, it reduces the damage taken by 1% of this, or 10. In terms of mitigating damage when you would be killed from full, let's say 5k life, to zero, the 1% res is only gaining you 50 HP. Compare that to oak which, if you're life, gives 40 life + % life modifiers (usually ends up being close to 100 total life). And, that HP is good to prevent physical and chaos damage too. % res might be better in a prolongated fight, but let's face it, most of the time deaths come from damage taken in a short period in this game.

I think changing the normal bandits in this way would be good. Mana regen is very valuable but tough to get. With the new tree, 50% is a bit high; there's only three nodes on the whole tree that give you +40% mana regen in a single node. I think 30-40% would make more sense.

Cruel bandits need to be improved a bit. With the new tree, 4% cast speed is the same as basically all the cast speed nodes; this should be bumped to at least 6% to make it more worthwhile. Kraityn at 8% is okay, but I think 10% would be more appropriate given how many powerful AS nodes are scattered around the tree. Oak at 18% phys is probably fine, but it might be better as a little more given how easy % physical damage is to get for weapon-based builds.

Bandits are one of those things that feel very outdated, especially in normal. Buffing the never used bandits might lead to interesting choices. Normal is bad, everyone except CI builds will take Oak (and CI will take skillpoint). Cruel is meh, Alira could use a buff to 5-6% cast speed maybe as 4% is like the average node, while 8% attack speed and 18% physical is above average node. Merciless doesn't need a change.

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morbo wrote:

If you already have high chars in a league, then all flasks are irrelevant.

If you don't have high chars / twink gear, then you would still pick QS, for the MS boots recipe.

yup