Suggestion: Fortify on trigger attacks

Melee builds don't need more damage, though, they need supports that give their primary attack better usability and/or application and they need better ways to leverage gem slots that aren't linked to their primary attack. You have almost a half-dozen ways by now to trigger a battery of useful defensive spells either in reaction to taking damage or proactively when you use your primary skill, but still precious few ways to reliably trigger Fortify without just sticking it on your primary attack.

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XCodesLIVE wrote:

Melee builds don't need more damage

Let's have melee deal just less damage than pretty much everything else and call it balance then ?

I know, "pretty much everything else" is a bit of an exaggeration, but if anything melee should not have less damage than ranges because they are melee and they need to use fortify socketed in their primary setup.

You're high, melee builds right now do extraordinary amounts of damage with not a lot of effort. This has been the case since even before the legendary 6% Glacial Hammer buff.

The problem? Single-target melee attacks are ass to use. Ancestral Call or Melee Splash helps that a bit, but that's a link. One damage support (a real damage support, not some mythical "19% more damage Fortify") offsets the penalty of Ancestral Call/Melee Splash, but that's a link. Attack speed of melee attacks is crap and often made worse by Less Attack Speed penalties on gems, so that needs to be fixed with Faster Attacks or Multistrike, but, you guessed it, that's a link.

The few attack skills that don't have copious amounts of stupid crap to fix with supports can probably run Fortify as it is on a 4-link. Putting a more damage multiplier on Fortify won't change that. The other attack skills that do have copious amounts of stupid crap to fix with supports need to wait for a 5-link at least, and again, a token 'more damage' multiplier on Fortify won't change that, either. All the while there's probably some useless 4-link somewhere on the typical melee character's setup that's probably just waiting to get replaced with a Kaom's Roots or something.

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XCodesLIVE wrote:

[...]

Burnt Tencent, 5th on the SSF HC Incursion ladder, Sunder Jugger
Nori_IncursionSSF, 6th of the SSF HC Incursion ladder, sunder Jugger
KjWeGoAgain, 16th on the SSF HC Incursion ladder, sunder gladiator

Do you see a single of these character with fortify in their sunder setup ?
Of course not.
But I guess you just know better, they obviously didn't need that extra dmg gem at all.

Just wanted to point out I don't think counter attacks EVER triggered fortify or was ever intended too. Even in the closed beta for 2.0.


That being said in regards to fortify, I like to call melee movement skills like, shield charge, WB and leap slam "mobility" skills as they are almost always just used for that purpose. There was one league where shield charge as a clear skill was something, but now that it has been nerfed even further I doubt its an issue to just classify it as a melee mobility skill.

That being said it simply should not work with those 3 skills at all. Yes let it work with flicker (because of the random positioning) and yes let it work with cyclone (because of the movement speed penalty you get and the very small aoe you have)


I'd be OK with them just removing the interaction with melee mobility skills and if needed, adjust fortify to be a 10-20% more multiplier, meaning you are trading off to use it in a slot, but you aren't sacrificing so much. It shouldn't be something that non melee builds get, unless they are preforming a specific action to get it. Like vigilant strike.

They all have it on leap slam? Two of them have unsupported counterattacks. There's a lot of Hatred + Herald of Ash with no aura nodes which, given the rest of their setup, isn't actually doing that much for them. I am actually slightly surprised the guy with CwDT Assassin's Mark isn't putting Fortify on their main attack just out of laziness, though.

For real, though, I think the gladiator you linked in particular has a lot of examples that support my argument, and I'm picking this guy out specifically because I think his build is the one making the most sense overall. Ruthless and Melee Physical are two damage supports that make sense with this guy's build goals. Multistrike kinda functions as one, kinda doesn't. I feel like it actually works against the rest of what's going on a bit as it works in favor, but Sunder is one of those 'less attack speed' attacks so you need to offset that so the skill doesn't feel like ass to use. Maim and Chance to Bleed are both core to the build, maybe Chance to Bleed is functioning a little bit like a DPS support given that the guy's weapon is bad -- if built slightly differently there might be an opportunity to swap in Fortify for Chance to Bleed.

As for the other part of my argument, more ways to leverage gems outside his main 6-link... The guy has no aura nodes and is still running Hatred and Herald of Ash even though the marginal benefit of those things is, like, half what they would normally be given his off-hand. He's got a random Ancestral Warchief probably just for the minor damage buff. His Enduring Cry is giving him 3 endurance charges with no synergy. He has a Portal gem.

These are all things that look janky and barely do anything for the build, but at the same time they still do *something* and there's not really much in the way of better options. That's my point.

If they are all using 6L chests with 5 damage support, it is because they want the damage.
If ( like you are pretending ) damage isn't needed at all ( and instead of an additive modifier on fortify, a multiplicative one would not make it more attractive ), why are people looking for damage and damage in their main setup ?
Because that IS what is attractive, killing targets the fastest way possible is what gives you speed and also increases your survivability since what you need to deal with becomes a minimum.
(Im not completely sure why they are not using conc effect and added ele though, like the first Juggernaut is using, but it's all about damage at the end pretty much anyway )

Saying that adding damage on fortify won't make it more attractive is just obvious wrong, and I'm just calling you out on it.
It's as simple as that.

Sure, there could be other ways to have fortify trigger on X and Y conditions ( many could potentially work with casters ), but increasing the damage would be an obvious buff, while not game breaking. It would actually make it more attractive on primary setups.


Sunder feels like ass to use without multistrike ? Have you ever played it ? do you have any clue how many attacks per seconds those guys have ? ( I personally find it quite retarded, I'd rather have less attack speed because the character looks less stupid to me and it's still very fast with inc attack speed ).
Multistrike is the biggest damage multiplier they could have, it's that simple, again ( Plus it synergises very well with Ruthless ).

Sunder is pretty much the best melee skill out there too, which is exactly why it is getting nerfed.


Fortify is not option on main setups because : it does not boost the damage.
This is why there is no better options.

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Frostride wrote:

-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.

You don't have to apologize, it's a debate :)

However, what movement skills are 'supposed' to be used for is irrelevant. They are mostly used to travel from one mob pack to the next - triggering fortify on the side. There is no 'choice to deal less damage' involved.
You're painting a picture of poe in 2014 where you wouldn't one-shot the entire screen in half a second.

On the other hand: A randomized chance to trigger a counterattack after taking a hit is not free at all - even disregarding the opportunity cost for sockets/links.
If everyone switched to counterattacks to trigger fortify... well RIP clips inc. ever been hit by a rare vaal fallen?

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XCodesLIVE wrote:

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

I disagree, simply because there are lots of melee caster builds (flame surge, lightning tendrils aso.) and they should have access to fortify.
As far as I know fortify is already checked against accuracy its just not very hard to land a single hit with 50% chance when you attack 5 mobs at once.