Suggestion: Fortify on trigger attacks

So Fortify was banned from triggered attacks (counterattacks) way back when it was added.
Considering that literally everyone gets fortify on shield charge/leap slam/whirling blades it seems high time to remove that restriction.
1. A counterattack that is being triggered actually means ppl are getting hit so...
2. This together with the improved caster movement skills could make staves viable...

I don't know - I can't think of any reason this should'nt be changed.

Edit: To clarify, Fortify was originally meant to support melee builds
which, at the time, had few defensive options available. The restrictions on counterattacks was in place from release on the grounds that it would make the buff 'free'.

I agree.

But also make fortify support gem do 19% more melee damage at L20 instead of the crap it does now. It'd still be a big sacrifice to DPS to use over many other gems, but at least it wouldn't be utter trash.

This is, btw, one of the many examples of why I'm one of those people who still harps on numerical changes instead of thinking we always need huge overhauls for everything. But knowing GGG they won't make these fixes, they'll just do a huge "fortify overhaul" which makes everything unnecessarily complicated.

While its illogical that you can get it with movement skills, its also illogical that it would work with counter attack skills as well.


GGG is making a step forward in the right direction by nerfing shield charge, but they could have easily removed fortify from working with shield charge, leap spam and WB.

agreed

-1 sorry.

Movement skills are activated abilities; you are supposed to actively use them to try to mitigate damage, while stopping with damage dealing. You have an active choice between staying vulnerable but dealing more damage, or using another skill to gain damage mitigation for some time.

Putting fortify on a trigger ability just means everyone will switch to that and would have a fortify for free. Might as well just reduce the damage of every monster by 20%, remove the support and be done with it.

If you want a free fortify, play a Champion.

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Frostride wrote:

You have an active choice between staying vulnerable but dealing more damage, or using another skill to gain damage mitigation for some time.

You're implying that there's a choice as to whether you want to avoid telegraphed one-shots? Yep, you TOTALLY have a choice on whether you want to just take Elder blasts, Shaper Slams, or Atziri empowered flameblasts...

Fortify on Whirling Blades or Shield Charge is pretty damn free as far as investment goes; you're always using those skills ANYWAY, with the fortify itself pretty much never being a consideration. As far as I see it, you can't really justify saying it's "a-ok and totally not free" on a BV character or other caster, while turning around and saying that it's "outright free with no risk" for a retaliatory attack.

There's two solutions, and I honestly don't care about which is picked. Either let triggered attacks apply it, or prevent movement skills (excepting Cyclone and Flicker strike, which already have Haku exceptions) from working with the Fortify Support.

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ACGIFT wrote:

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There's two solutions, and I honestly don't care about which is picked. Either let triggered attacks apply it, or prevent movement skills (excepting Cyclone and Flicker strike, which already have Haku exceptions) from working with the Fortify Support.

Or boost it's damage a bit and lower the duration to lets say 1s.

That would make it more attactive as a "real" support gem for your attacks and make it crap for movement skills except when those are used as main attack.

The change to remove Fortify from Counterattacks actually nerfed Melee builds more than casters, and that should be reverted.

If we want builds that use melee skills only for utility purposes to not benefit from Fortify and for Fortify to be a very melee-centric bonus, then add an accuracy confirmation to the Fortify skill gem. This causes the following:

1) Casters need to path to RT or invest in Accuracy to get Fortify. The former restricts other build options and the other is a substantial investment for a category of characters that generally uses cheap equipment.

2) Melee crit characters probably still use Fortify on a movement skill because they don't want to rely on blocking/getting hit to trigger a counterattack. They still get fortify very reliably because they have accuracy for their crits already.

3) RT melee characters auto-get Fortify with the gem, same as they do now, plus they can put Fortify on a counterattack, which they couldn't do before. This gives them an extra damage link on their primary skill or an extra utility link on their movement skill.

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ACGIFT wrote:

There's two solutions, and I honestly don't care about which is picked. Either let triggered attacks apply it, or prevent movement skills (excepting Cyclone and Flicker strike, which already have Haku exceptions) from working with the Fortify Support.

You know some builds are using Shield Charge as a dps skill I'm sure.

A solution would be to have fortify's base duration reduced to 2 sec, and each successive hit that triggers it could refresh its duration + extend it ( by let's say 20%, just a random number thrown here ) up to a maximum of .. 4 or 5 seconds ? Base duration still.

For very fast clearer it might not change much, I'm not sure, melee actually using it would often just get the maximum duration.
But, the gems needs to be more attractive, the 9-19% more damage (lvl1-20) instead of the increased damage is a good suggestion I think.

No, I disagree.

The right way to fix Fortify is not to include it in more skills, but less.

It should not work with counterattacks, it should also not work with movement attacks, only with actual attacks. It should also be buffed to a moderate "more melee damage" multiplier, rather than increased, so that it's not a "defensive only dead gem" in a melee skill setup, as it is rather necessary for melee to run this as they are always in the face of danger.