More physical damage in exchange for less attack speed or no non-physical

One area I've felt has been lacking diversity is "keep it simple" style builds. Builds centered on Attack skills always seem to use high APS (to max DPS) and some elemental component in order to deal big damage. But what if I want a pure physical Attacker? What if I don't need all this fire lightning ice nonsense to help me chop the heads off of monsters? What if I want each of my hits to be impactful, rather than watch my character have a seizure into a group of monsters?

Here's where 2 new mechanics could come in. In my view: One as a keystone, one as a support gem.

Impact
Support, Attack, Melee?
Mana Multiplier: 1.2
50% More Physical Damage (at level 1) +1% per level
20% Less Attack Speed

With this, DPS multiplier would be 1.2 at level 1 and 1.352 at level 20. Compare with MPD which grants 1.3 at level 1 and 1.49 at level 20, and WED, which grants 1.4 at level 1 and 1.59 at level 20. The idea behind providing less of a boost than the other, similar support gems mostly has to do with me not wanting to upset current balance. MPD and WED both have their drawbacks - in most cases, WED doesn't apply to 100% of the base damage, because there is almost always a physical component to final damage, and MPD often doesn't apply to second-phases of Attacks, such as Lightning Strike's projectiles. Additionally, higher damage per hit has a benefit in case of status effects - Status effect duration/damage-level is dependent on Damage per Hit, not Damage per Second, so this gem wouldn't have its 20% drawback apply to status effects.

Anyway, the numbers can always be tweaked. It's the heart of the idea that matters most: More physical damage, less attack speed. Maybe if it is decided that this is too bland for modern support gems, throw in something about Stuns (for better or for worse, like Elemental Damage does not contribute to Stuns, or 20% increased/decreased Stun Threshold/Duration).

The benefit of this gem would be mostly for flavour - like I said, I'm personally not a fan of always watching my character flip out like a squirrel on cocaine when I make an Attack build and reach high level. However, as mentioned above, it could give the highest possible bonus for elemental status effects and Stun. So, here we have a gem with clear strengths and weaknesses:
+Better for status effects
+Allows diversity in aesthetics
+Versatility in damage type boost
-Less base DPS boost than comparable gems
-Weaker for on-hit playstyles, like Frenzy or Reave

And here's what I think would do well as a keystone:
Martial Purity
75% More Physical Damage
Deal no non-Physical Damage

Simple, but elegant. Immediately, a wide class of Attack skills are excluded or at least heavily discouraged, as per a Keystone's habit of having a crippling drawback (Avatar of Fire, anyone?). For reference, DPS boosts from various Elemental damage sources: HoA grants +15% phys DPS. Hatred 20 grants +36% phys DPS. AFD 20 grants +44% phys DPS. These three, all told, grant +95% phys DPS added as elemental damage. Naturally, WED also presents as an opportunity cost - Assuming Hatred, HoA and AFD, but no other elemental damage source, 59*95/195 ~= 28.74% more DPS is lost from no longer being able to use WED.

Given all of those calculations, the bonus from the proposed Keystone could actually stand to be buffed, to 100% More Physical Damage or more. But, like our dear developers, I'm wary of potential unforeseen min/max loopholes. Already, the loss of AFD and WED allows for the use of 2 more support gems, such as Fortify and the above proposed Impact gem, which would make up some of that lost DPS. Addditionally, the Clear Mind unique jewel would likely see more use as a result of this keystone.

This proposed Keystone could be too complicated to boil down into a series of strengths and weaknesses, but I will say that it would open up build diversity to non-Elemental builds. Not everything has to be soaked in fire, ice, or lightning in order to get slain in Wraeclast! Or at least, that's what I would like to believe.

That support gem when combined with MPD and multistrike would be the biggest no-brainer of all time, even moreso than Added Fire. Combined with the keystone you could amass enough damage to break the game easily.

Then there's all the unforeseen consequences of such a keystone: if you thought chin sol point blank puncture was OP, wait til you see it with 75% more physical damage and Impact (which, right now, is literally a more powerful physical projectile attack damage gem).

It could also be used extremely potently with Ethereal Knives for a low-investment and massive damage boost. No more fiddling around with heralds or auras, just whang a keystone in and do 75% more damage.


The reasoning behind them is sound, but the implementation is lacking. Right now this would power creep the game like nothing before.

Good ideas in the OP, though proposed numbers would be excessive but something needs to be done to physical dmg. Currently the only thing going for pure phys builds is that leech is easy to come by and mobs don't resist phys as much as elemental dmg. Even worse is that many pure or majority phys builds are RT so don't crit, making the additional elemental dmg that may be added lack ability to apply status ailments without getting lackluster "chance to shock, ignite or freeze" passives. Just throwing an idea out there but why can't phys also have a status ailment attached? maybe chance to bleed when hit?

GGG mentioned in the q&a they did a few days back that they would like to buff pure physical and chaos dmg builds.

I like your ideas but feel like they should be merged a bit. Something along the lines of a support gem that gave a good deal of more physical attack dmg multi but at the cost of a less elemental dmg multi.

As far as the keystone goes, I'm to tired to really think of all the ways that would or would not be balanced so I will instead just say this. The keystone you suggested dosen't really open up options for different or unique styles of play. While not all keystones need to do this *cough* iron reflexes *cough* many do make the attempt.

Perhaps instead a keystone that removed your weapon elemental dmg but causes your physical dmg to always bleed your target? While this would idealy sit on the left side of the tree it would slot well with a few standard builds such as cyclone but could open the door to some more interesting combinations with abilities like EK as well as bow builds. Not to mention would allow us to finally have a reliable way of placing aoe bleeds.

Your keystone is too strong and a bit boring.

I'd go for:
"Deal no elemental damage. Immune to reflect."

Your support gem is the same I've suggested a couple times.
I'd settle for even less speed and the multi being 1.3 at lvl 20.

Well I'm not really sure about that. Doesn't seem like something that should passed by I think. But I think it's also fair to point out that although attack speed is definitely a favorite among almost everyone; it also has a good secondary effect. Which is that you can attack and move on quickly. Sometimes I notice it's actually a good defensive attribute to be able to attack and then move away from your attacking position quickly.

I say just globally nerf every single Attack speed(all including elemental) into half, then bump the attack to double.

DPS is kept, but less spammy = less laggy.

I've been thinking of something similar for a while now, and I think that I have a couple of ways around the issue of Attack speed and cast speed multipliers when used with this kind of gem.

Option 1:

Impact (Skill Gem)
- Attack, Spell, Support
Attack and Cast Speed Cannot be Changed
Attack Speed is Always 1.5 APS (Moving to 1.3 at level 20)
Cast Speed is Always 1.5 CPS (Moving to 1.1 at Level 20)
All Attack and Cast speed modifiers are changed to alter physical damage
Cannot deal elemental damage

Option 2:

Impact v2 (Skill Gem)
- Attack, Spell, Support
70% less attack speed
40% less cast speed
120% more Physical Damage (moving to %140 at level 20)
Spell Echo Will not Effect Supported Spells
Multistrike Will not Effect Supported Spells

Something like this would be cool for high damage, low APS skills like heavy strike, making them into a more hit-and-run style of move where you would move in for one massive strike, and then use a movement skill to escape.
Or, you could even link it to a movement skill like leapslam and use it as a primary attack skill, and then have a secondary leapslam for faster movement after you've obliterated the pack of enemies.

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Peterlerock wrote:

I'd settle for even less speed and the multi being 1.3 at lvl 20.

Hi i need to point out the math here that the OP provided.

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adghar wrote:

With this, DPS multiplier would be 1.2 at level 1 and 1.352 at level 20. Compare with MPD which grants 1.3 at level 1 and 1.49 at level 20, and WED, which grants 1.4 at level 1 and 1.59 at level 20.

if there is some mistake in understanding this = a level 20 this gem would provide a damage multiplier of 1.69*0.8 = 1.352, or 35.2% more melee physical dps as stated by adghar. This weaker than melee physical damage gem and more prone to crushing your own armor on reflect :), and gives about the same dps bonus that multistrike provides. Balanced by having a smaller mana cost I guess but in this day and age were there are no shortage of support gem options, it is a fairly average gem and in terms of numbers, is currently balanced. In short having even less attack speed and dropping the multiplier to 1.3 at level one would also need the mana multiplier to be something like 1.0 and only act only as a 'modifier' gem with no real upside. Though I'm not sure on interactions with cyclone as attack speed with that skill has always been funky.

The keystone is too strong though for real. You would gain more damage than a normal hatred and herald of ash that also provides leech (one of the key reasons to build physical) with 0% mana reservation!

Though I like the ideas here in general. I also like to build pure physical melee characters and avoid any gems such as added fire and conversion based skills if I can :).

I like the theme of the ideas but I feel theyre coming from the wrong angle. Theres already a lot of non ele supports, mpd, mpd on full life, phys proj, faster attacks, multistrike, bloodlust, conc effect, crit chance, crit damage, pcoc, fortify even gives some phys...


think about it though, wheres the ele usually coming from? Its hatred. Sometimes I use added fire in a phys build, more often than not I dont but ive always got ele damage because Im always, without fail, using hatred. If you add a phys gem or a phys passive, Ill use it... and then ill use hatred too cause if u buff phys u buff hatred and what is your alternative? Haste? Its shit, thats never a viable alternative to hatred for a phys build. If you want to make pure phys a thing you need an alternative to hatred that offers roughly the same damage bonus, maybe slightly less because phys is more damaging point for point and it leeches etc, but it has to be roughly as effective as hatred is maybe a better way of putting it.