Allow Vaal skills to be used without souls

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Short answer: they're cooldown-ish skills, not spam skills. Get out of the design space which isn't for players like you and go to the design space which is, so players who like cooldown-ish skills can enjoy their cooldown-ish skills.

Or to return the question: why the burning desire to make the unspammable spammable, thus obliterating its niche?

It's not about making them spammable. The numbers can be tweaked for balance.

It's about making Vaal skills usable when fighting certain bosses / tough mobs. Not all of them have adds. And it's these specific times that you really need the Vaal skill.

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SponTen wrote:

It's about making Vaal skills usable when fighting certain bosses / tough mobs. Not all of them have adds. And it's these specific times that you really need the Vaal skill.

You mean: need it another time. You already get it (at least) once.

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SponTen wrote:

The numbers can be tweaked for balance.

Famous last words. Meaning: I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's very tricky. If I was making an ARPG I wouldn't even attempt it, because the payoff isn't worth the work of balancing, or the risk of failing to do so properly. There are more cost-effective ways to add content.

At best, a "triggers on good" plan would work the way the current "triggers on good" does. By which I mean Cast on Crit. Support gem, link a Vaal skill to a non-Vaal skill, using the latter somehow charges the former. Something like that. Again, numbers (rate of charge) is the big issue.

But as a dev you'd look at that work and ask: why? I guess the niche would contain at least a few people, but I'd rank many things (such as a better melee experience) as far more important to the health of the game.

Reading this thread and I wasn't sure about you as you have a rather smarmy way about your wording things but now I am. Here, let me demonstrate.

I thought you were ok Until I read re: D3 DH Discipline as resource:

"their Disciple resource, or even more specifically their Blood Vengeance passive... but it plays well. Very well.".

www.Nope.com.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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SponTen wrote:

It's about making Vaal skills usable when fighting certain bosses / tough mobs. Not all of them have adds. And it's these specific times that you really need the Vaal skill.

You mean: need it another time. You already get it (at least) once.

Not necessarily. You may have already used the Vaal skill against a tough yellow boss, and then 20 seconds later come across the act boss, or an exile. Bad luck? Perhaps... but it wouldn't hurt to have it again.

At the moment, your rate of acquiring souls is in proportion to the ease of mobs - you charge Vaal skills faster against large trash mobs, but don't get any charges versus most exiles, for example. This seems kind of the wrong way round. Maybe the rate could be balanced so whites gives less than one soul?

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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SponTen wrote:

The numbers can be tweaked for balance.

Famous last words. Meaning: I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's very tricky. If I was making an ARPG I wouldn't even attempt it, because the payoff isn't worth the work of balancing, or the risk of failing to do so properly. There are more cost-effective ways to add content.

Haha yes, definitely difficult. But they've already added this mechanic, and it just feels so clunky... at least to me. And as I quoted before, GGG agree to some degree.

They're already adding other content. It looks amazing based on the small amount of teasers we've seen so far. How bout a little love for the content that's already here? :)

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It's about making Vaal skills usable when fighting certain bosses / tough mobs. Not all of them have adds. And it's these specific times that you really need the Vaal skill.

I am not quite sure if you realize this or not. But adds do not charge up your Vaal skill, nor will enemies that resurrect.
When you fight a boss, if there are enemies in the room, that is pretty much all the extra charges you will get. Any adds that the boss summon ala Brutus or Merveil, they will not be charging your Vaal skill.
They will, however, be charging your flasks.

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2.2 - It allows you trivialize content by having free Vaal Skills purely by going to town.

Why would it allow free Vaal skill by going to town? As I have mentioned, Vaal skills would begin on cool down, not fully charged. Kind of like how they are right now, where you need to charge them.

1. First point of this alternate suggestion is to not cause another damage is king scenario.
2. Second point is to not have it screw with other build types.
3. Third point is to have it be available against a boss, since it is a ultimate skill and all that. But of course, it should not be readily available.
Having a cool down allows for this. You can kite the boss until it charges and then engage.

There are probably better ideas, but those suggestions really need to take into consideration of the first 2 points, since those are really important.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Short answer: they're cooldown-ish skills, not spam skills. Get out of the design space which isn't for players like you and go to the design space which is, so players who like cooldown-ish skills can enjoy their cooldown-ish skills.

Or to return the question: why the burning desire to make the unspammable spammable, thus obliterating its niche?

I'd like to understand how you managed to come to the conclusion that I want Vaal Skills to be spammable, when I have multiple times told you that I just want us to be able to use them regardless of whether enemies have adds or not.

I provided a non-numeric suggestion.
In no way did I ever give you an exact proportion of soul generation through damage dealing/taking compared to killing.
I did, however, indicate in many different ways that it should be less efficient than killing.

But your whole argument continues to revolve on the idea that my suggestion would somehow make Vaal Skills spammable.
In fact, it is the ONLY way your counter-suggestion has any merit.
Which is why you're not discussing, but monologuing.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

The key difference here is that these are additional effects rather than actual skills. A standalone skill should be significantly stronger than an additional skill effect. This is particularly true with damaging effects, side killspeed is king. (Admittedly leech and ignite are both very strong, which is why I believe both should be reined in a bit.)

Although Life Leech may be a little too accessible, it is Life Gain on Hit that is OP.

You see, the Life you gain from Life Leech is limited by the damage you deal and the damage the enemies are able to take.
You deal X damage, you gain Y life.

Life Gain on Hit, however, isn't limited in such a manner.
It's merely limited by the amount of hits.
Which means if you have insane attack speed and/or # of hits, you will gain absurd amounts of Life regardless of the damage the enemies take or how long they take to die.

And Freeze/Stun/Shock? Well the more damage you deal, the better you Freeze/Stun/Shock, and that makes it even easier to do more of the same, except safer/better.

So you actually pointed out the 2 least OP of all the effects. Bravo.

If you think lgoh>leech, and burn<shock/freeze, you're playing a different game.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

If you think lgoh>leech, and burn<shock/freeze, you're playing a different game.

The game is the same.
Improper analysis leads to wrong conclusions.

For example: You consider leech>lgoh.
In truth, it is some builds that deal too much damage or have access to too much Life Leech.
Doesn't make the mechanic itself OP.

The mechanic of LGoH, however, is OP.
You can easily abuse it with high attack/cast speed & multi-hits.