Kongming's Stratagem disappointment

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Dan_GGG wrote:

It was neither Zhou Yu, nor Zhuge Liang's intent to allow Cao Cao to escape his defeat at Chibi. Rather it was the intervention of Guan Yu, whose honour and gratitude compelled him to disobey orders.

In this analogy Guan Yu represents a bug in Kongming's Stratagem's smoke cloud duration causing it to not last long enough. It's definitely not intentional and we're working on fixing it at the moment, along with the 3D art's orientation. Hopefully that'll be ready soon!

Kongming approve!

Seriously though, that shield has exceptionnal potential so I'm glad that the smoke part is getting a fix.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

Smoke cloud on trap global would be a grenadier's wet dream.

The slot competes with, primarily:
- Jaws of Agony
- Saffell's/Aegis/Prism/Lioneye's
- A heavily defensive rare shield (life, +defense, %defense, resists, block chance)
- An offensive caster shield (spell%, spell crit%, spell crit multi%)
- (along with the weapon) a caster staff, rare or unique

Any of those are good, and the opportunity cost of not using them is palpable. Giving up all your block chance is, in addition, a very fucking hefty downside on top of that. Enemies run out of smoke clouds, smoke cloud AoE is limited, and traps have cooldowns; it's not even a permanent "less attack damage, less spell damage, increased fire damage" effect.

I think this has more to do with GGG's growing insistence that a unique's required level and rarity are the only determiners of power. Mid-level, mid-rarity (or lower) stuff like Facebreakers, Quill Rain, Blood Dance, Aurumvorax, Soul Mantle, Belly, Voll's Protector, Edge of Madness... what happened to that? Stuff you can find before maps, equip, and wear comfortably into maps and beyond? Or build around?

Meanwhile if you just say "make it rare, Jim", you can put whatever crazy shit you want on the unique (like, stun immunity, free power charges, and reduced aura reservation for some reason) and they don't even blink. Granted, it's a bit of a waste since only 0.01% of the playing population will ever have one, but it's theirs to waste and GGG is happy to fast-path it through the queue.

It's frustrating to watch a designer actively try to create something interesting and versatile instead of yet another generic power item only to have GGG underpower it, force it into an overly small niche, possibly release it buggy, and then likely never come back to it.

It's really frustrating to watch this happen repeatedly.

I proposed a global smoke cloud effect instead of just limited to the item. However last time I mentioned this, I believe it was shot down for being too powerful. I proposed it again however because I do wish it were universal.

Glad to hear at the very least they are going to adjust the smoke duration.

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pneuma wrote:

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Mokihiki wrote:

Also, an interesting use of this shield is socketing raise spectre into the shield and raising Undying Alchemists or Undying Incinerators with the skill. They use traps quite often and while socketed in the shield their traps create smoke clouds.

Sadly not true. Raise Spectre is not a "Trap" gem and thus doesn't summon smoke clouds. It might work with Raise Spectre + Trap, but I kinda doubt it.

I really wish the "smoke cloud on trap" effect was global, both because it makes the shield infinitely more usable late game and because you could then gift it to your trapping spectres via Necromantic Aegis.

It definitely does work. I wouldn't say something like that wihout having actually tried it.

Here's a picture just for you though :3

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Mokihiki wrote:

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pneuma wrote:

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Mokihiki wrote:

Also, an interesting use of this shield is socketing raise spectre into the shield and raising Undying Alchemists or Undying Incinerators with the skill. They use traps quite often and while socketed in the shield their traps create smoke clouds.

Sadly not true. Raise Spectre is not a "Trap" gem and thus doesn't summon smoke clouds. It might work with Raise Spectre + Trap, but I kinda doubt it.

I really wish the "smoke cloud on trap" effect was global, both because it makes the shield infinitely more usable late game and because you could then gift it to your trapping spectres via Necromantic Aegis.

It definitely does work. I wouldn't say something like that wihout having actually tried it.

Then... they really fucked up the implementation.

Spectre is as much a Trap Skill as Firestorm or Sweep.

Not that I want the item to be weaker, but it's pretty clearly another bug (or they need to reword the effect correctly, such as "Traps generated by skills socketed into this item...").

its only a 3 link and your giving up a crit dagger or wand as a trapper

this would be much better straight up and with better blinding

Duration was fixed and I was told it is strong enough. So that is that!

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CliveHowlitzer wrote:

Duration was fixed and I was told it is strong enough. So that is that!

*claps* Woohoo!

im glad that they fixed it... mb i get my 2nd character up and running and ill try to build a trapper and try out YOUR unique :) if its stable ill give it a guide in your honour :D

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XRacKS wrote:

im glad that they fixed it... mb i get my 2nd character up and running and ill try to build a trapper and try out YOUR unique :) if its stable ill give it a guide in your honour :D

Let me know how it goes. I don't have time to play much right now so I haven't tried to do anything with it yet. I am curious if anyone can make use of it properly. I know I have some ideas that'll mesh with the Ascendancy classes revealed so far.