'Puncture' skill -- Make status more obvious.

Recently while running Maps, I've increasingly encountered more monsters who can use the "Puncture enemies" skill (makes you bleed when you move).

The mechanics of the skill is completely fine. The problem with this skill is, many times when I get punctured, there is already so many things happening on-screen that it is very difficult to tell when I am punctured, until half of my life has already been depleted.

When players get damaged, the natural reaction is to run back (often times, with a Quicksilver Flask). I feel that if the game doesn't let the player know very clearly at the instant when the skill is being cast, the skill becomes very "cheap" in a sense. In its current state, when a player is punctured, there is only a small icon at the top left of the screen (quite cluttered already if you're running a ton of auras), and the character only shows a subtle blood gushing animation.

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Suggested change: Make the initial cast of the Puncture skill more obvious. Either make the sound of Puncture louder, make the animation more prominent, or both.

If any of you have played the game, Heroes of Newerth, the Blood Hunter hero has a nearly identical skill to PoE's Puncture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhj19zXBk4I

As you can see from the video, there is a very loud 'ripping' sound when the Hemorrhage skill is cast, and the skill makes itself immediately apparent. It presents the player with an immediate decision: 1) run and take damage, or 2) stay and tank hits. On the other hand, in PoE, the Puncture skill is overly subdued, and doesn't immediately present the player with a decision -- essentially granting free damage to the caster of Puncture.

Bump

A unique sound is a good idea. More skills need that in fact, there's very little feedback in general on whether you hit/been hit and by what.

Visually, if you take a step or two, there's a hilariously large red spray of blood (Quentin Tarantino is tame in comparison- we're talking 1-2x your body volume of blood every second lol) that makes it pretty obvious.

Agreed. I'm a CI character so puncture is especially deadly for me. There should be some clear warning that I'm dying (and being CI means I don't even get the "low health" warning).

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Rhyse wrote:

A unique sound is a good idea. More skills need that in fact, there's very little feedback in general on whether you hit/been hit and by what.

Visually, if you take a step or two, there's a hilariously large red spray of blood (Quentin Tarantino is tame in comparison- we're talking 1-2x your body volume of blood every second lol) that makes it pretty obvious.

Yeah, my eyes are always focused on the mobs I'm trying to fight, and if I move while Punctured, the gushing blood is pretty much lost in my peripheral vision. I'd much prefer an immediately recognizable audio cue for being Punctured.

Audiop clue and/or "screen flash" style efects are far better than on-character animations.

I'm running two auras right now, and especially if you have vitality aura, the on-charactr particle is simply not visible enough even when moving to grab my attention.

Starting around A3, Cruel, I noticed that puncture can get you really, really fast. So fast, you can pretty much WTF it. They need to work on this, possibly by toning down puncture a bit. Also, perish the though, but I think that if you are moving while puncture, the death aura ought to be applied right away. Maybe that would be a better clue. Although I dunno. My first reaction to anything like that is to move, and that's what gets me.

Puncture is at its core an attack with no counterplay. It's all false choices. The choice is never "stand and fight or move and take damage"

It's usually "stand and die or move and die" and is inherently flawed. It was a flawed mechanic in DotA, it's flawed in DotA2 and PoE. There's no changing inherently bad mechanics.

The fact that it has little audio announcement, and a subtle standing effect (often lost in auras and background color) just makes it even less fun than it would be even prefectly executed. And perfectly executed its still not fun.

I think I agree with you Autochton. I'm not really sure this skill can be saved.

Perhaps we could split how Bleed behaves. On monsters, it would have its current behavior. On players, bleeding would convey a high chance of skill interrupt.

Of course that's one of things I think burning should do. So how should bleed be different than burning?

I dunno.