Change Kraityn's reward (normal difficulty) to % global defense.

I see that in the beta, Kraityn's reward on normal was changed from +8% all resist to +10% all resist. This is not much of an improvement because players will still cap their resists with gear and not pick his reward. To make him attractive, he needs to give something that doesn't become obsolete by endgame.

My suggestion is to give some percentage to global defense (i.e., armour, evasion, and energy shield). The exact % is open to debate, but I think 8-10% would be reasonable. This would actually be a competitive option with the +40 life or +60 mana you can get from the other bandits. It doesn't seem overpowered either.

On a slightly different note, nice change with upping Alira's mana reward from 40 to 60. I was hoping something like that would happen.

I certainly can't speak for everyone, but in my case the bandits are more or less no-brainers:

Normal:

Krait's not worth it, elemental res from gear is easy enough.

Alira's not worth it, base mana is pretty much pointless when almost any build that actually requires more regen uses Clarity and few builds actually care about mana pool size.

Oak's worth it if you're going life. The exact numbers depend on your other flat life bonuses, and exact % boost, but for every character that I play which uses life, it's been worth it (since last patch, at least).

Cruel:

Krait's a no-brainer if you're using attacks.

Alira's generally worth it for casters, though it does depend on the build.

Oak's generally not worth it even if you're going physical damage -- but it is worth it for some builds.

Merciless:

Does your build use charges? If yes, take them, if not, take the passive.

As for your proposed change, I don't think that anything even remotely balanced is going to deter me from Oak on a life build. Granted, it might be viable if you significantly nerf Oak's bonus, but frankly few life builds need much bonus to armor/es, and life builds will generally have enough armor as is, while they always want more life, so Oak's is more appealing even if they are 'balanced'.

Where it would make a difference is for my ES builds. At 10%, 8%, 6%, heck even 5%, I'd take it every time (and sometimes even at 4%). So it would meet your goal of making Krait more attractive in norm. However, I would argue that any bandit bonus that I pretty much out of hand always take or reject isn't very "interesting" from a design perspective.

I'd much rather see them be more notable or keystone-esque in terms of being something that you can't get anywhere else and thus can't just be weighed by an equation, or something that is a binary solution (like the charges) in that you either obviously need it, or definitely don't. Of course, actually accomplishing that would be a herculean task...

Giving more "interesting" reward options would be cool, but it would take a serious design effort. I just suggested this as an easy way of making Kraityn a viable option instead of a noob-trap like he currently is.

I disagree about +60 mana not being worth it. Life-based builds would generally go with Oak for the +40 life, but +60 base mana is worth 1 skill point on a CI/low-life build I'd say. Especially since EB is nerfed.

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BurnedInEffigy wrote:

Giving more "interesting" reward options would be cool, but it would take a serious design effort. I just suggested this as an easy way of making Kraityn a viable option instead of a noob-trap like he currently is.

I disagree about +60 mana not being worth it. Life-based builds would generally go with Oak for the +40 life, but +60 base mana is worth 1 skill point on a CI/low-life build I'd say. Especially since EB is nerfed.

early on it may help but is quite pointless to take 60 mana knowing later on mana can be sustained with clarity, leech or blood magic.

for alira, flat ES seems a better reward in general, that or 10% damage goes to mana

for kraitin i think the best would be to make him give 10% chance to avoid elemental status and stun.

I agree. Oak is really the only good normal reward. Cruel is almost always a passive point, and unless builds need the point they grab a charge for Merciless.

How about 8% extra global resistance? (physical, elemental and chaos)
It would be simple add resistances to physical and chaos aswell.

phys res would be crazy OP, chaos res would be worse than elem since CI doesnt even need it on their gear.

I think it'd be nice if krait gave something like 15% increased damage.

that's an interesting idea (though it breaks the theme of the acts' bandit requests -- cruel rewards are the damage increases).

Kraityn should give 12% reduced mana cost to skills