Channeling skill : still the same targeting problem

Hey there

TLDR : the important part is in bold, the rest is mostly contextual, showing how this can be problematic, and how it has gotten worse with new additions to the game.

I think that I voiced that complaint a long time ago, but since nothing has changed regarding this ....

So the game has gotten more and more interesting (and out of balance in a way imo, but that it not the topic), we got more and more gameplay elements and various things that spice up the encounters.
This also led to the screen getting more and more cluttered with effects, items, mobs ... harder to see.

Especially in Delves, which is most of the time pretty fun, even if it can get really hard to see what is happening.


Now, there is one thing that was (or at least it felt very) wrong when channeling skills were introduced :
When you start channeling, it "locks" your target ... until that target dies.
And it does not matter how many times you are going to be hovering on different targets, you won't see them as your "target" ... until you release your channeling.
Which means that in the chaos of the battle, unless you stop channeling ( which can be dangerous for obvious reasons depending on what you are channeling ), you can't read that f*****g "lightning mirage" or "volatile blood" mod on one of the nemesis modes in the brawl.

At least, now, we can hear the volatile blood coming ... if you're killing stuff with a channeling skill, you can't really decide to kill it somewhere else to have an easier time to dodge it ... because you cannot see it unless you stop channeling.
And for the lightning mirage one, you can't see it with hovering, and on top of that you can't hear it either ( This mod is not bad honestly, it's dangerous, and it's kind of interesting in a way ... but it's still fucked up if you can't see it and can't hear it .... and sometimes, with all those effects, you can't see it before it's actually stacked on your face .)

Same for .... bearers, or any other things that you would rather want to kill a bit farther away, or not kill separately from its pack (=herald of the obelisk).


I do not know what technical implications are linked with how to fix this, but I can't quite see how this could be a design decision honestly, what it would bring to have targeting while channeling behave this way ...
But yet I don't feel like this is a topic to be opened in the bug report section, as I can't be 100% that it's just a simple bug, especially since it's still this way, and channeling ... is not a new concept anymore at all.

Edit : just in case that would not be clear enough, I'm saying that we should be able to get the same information when hovering on mobs while channeling as if we were not channeling.


Cheers

I noticed this 'target locking' issue with the new Incinerate. Except that it's even worse for that skill, because it's an AoE and you usually start channelling it without targeting any specific monster. And then you can't target anything while channelling! Moving the cursor over enemies just won't target them! This is so annoying!

Pls fix it.

I think the best way would be to add an option to disable namelocking entirely (ideally for each individual skill like the current approach to attacking in place).

I'm sure there are skills that ben fit from it, but there are numerous problems as well. Other than channelling skills in general, it can cause retargeting of movement skills, walking to arbitrary chests while clearing, and following a single moving enemy with a spammed or channelled skill instead of continuing to hit the middle of the pack.

This has annoyed me as well.
It should not be working this way.

Flameblast completes itself if the target dies. Throws off timing.

The namelocking issue happens to me with tormented spirits as they try to run away, it's annoying

This thread just reminded me that this is still a thing ...