Check out the improvements to Tectonic Slam

Every revamp so far has been not just a nerf to their power, but also made the items / gems feel worse.

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Ashriel wrote:

No one wants something that's this inconsistent, even if they're a Jugg running multistrike and odds are they'll experience it every pack. That's just not good design (pendulum of destruction, anyone?).

*raises hand*
Hi! I'm perfectly happy with inconsistency! The whole game is built on randomness in the first place in a number of ways, and "larger effects happening unpredictably some minority percentage of the time" is the whole idea behind the concept of a "critical hit" since it arrived in RPGs.

Sure, I also like games where you can plan everything perfectly. But I don't need every game to be that. Unpredictability has value too, it leads to surprises, it forces you to be able to react. It creates a layering of the possibility space - optimal play becomes about putting yourself in positions that can manage/make use of any of the outcomes that could occur.

(Also, Pendulum of Destruction is entirely consistent)

I don't like this change. The inconsistency is kinda bad here. It would be a lot better if some support gem could nullify that, but that isn't possible here.
Why not make it consume an endurance charge every 3rd time it is performed? That way you could use it with ruthless support for some huge stuns or with multistrike to consume a charge with every use.
Or you could add a threshold jewel that gives it an additional 35% chance to consume an endurance charge and converts 25% of physical to fire on tectonic slam with 40 or more str in radius and increases fire damage by 10%-15%.

This looks even worse lol unless you also buffed the damage to stupid levels.

not only do you need to spend a resource to get the clearspeed other skills get for free, but it only works 35% of the time, inconsistency is not fun.

Tectonic Slam will continue to be a dead skill, meanwhile betrayal is looking like it'll be league of bows... again.

This does not fix underlying issue with tectonic slam being too weak to begin with. Why would you ever pick this over basically any other skill? For single target it's useless, even if you assuemd 100% usage on the endu charge consumption.

I really wish you all would learn that inconsistency in skills and effects just isn't fun. I know the rest of the game is pure RNG, but by making skills and effects inconsistent, you take away any minor control we have. That isn't fun.

This is pretty disappointing. I think GGG has fundamentally misunderstood the problem with Tectonic Slam. They think the issue is with the charge consumption, and yet the builds that played it pretty much generated charges constantly, so reducing the usage to just 35% of the time is pretty much a shafting to them. While everyone else still isn't going to like a 1/3rd chance of losing your charges, when they could just as well play another melee skill that works as well (say, Ground Slam) without consuming them at all.

First off, let me clarify that I don't think the issue with T.Slam is that it's not the most powerful skill. Not every skill needs to be the most powerful skill, or most efficient or meta or whatever. There are also skills that survive by way of simply being fun, or interesting. T.Slam was underused, but fundamental problem with it isn't simply that it's not more powerful while having a downside, it's that it's that, while **also** not really having much of an identity. Why bother using T.Slam anyway, when you can just as well use another area melee skill and play pretty much the same? The fire conversion? Physical damage is the easiest damage to convert away already. T.Slam has nothing to set it apart, apart from its downside.

So to fix it, you're gonna have to *completely* rework the skill to make it more unique. Here's just one idea for doing that (and I'm **NOT** saying it's the best idea, just that it's different and so lets it have an identity).

Remember that D2 Druid skill Fissure? - http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Fissure Well, this game is filled with old Diablo fans. So how about giving us memories of that skill, with a melee component? Imagine if Tectonic Slam was a melee area skill (as it is now), but also has a chance to ignite and leaves a field of volcanic vents behind that deal burning damage (so, sort of like Caustic Arrow). Just like CA, these aren't necessarily meant to be all the damage potential of the skill - it can also hit pretty hard (only if you use a good weapon, of course). However, you also have a, say 35% (upto 50% with helmet enchant), chance to consume **ALL** the endurance charges you have to get a *massive* boost in both damage and area coverage. The boost is proportional to how many endurance charges are consumed, so 1-2 charges provide a reasonable benefit, but 6-8 charges consumed hit harder and larger than anything in the game. This caters to the builds that have their endurance charge generation sorted out already. If they've generated a bunch of charges, then the proc hits like a truck. The boost affects not only the hit damage and area (as charges affect the skill now, but more so), but *also* the ignite chance as well as the damage and duration of the volcanic vents it leaves behind. So when you get that big hit, it hits harder but also likely ignites the enemy with that hit and surrounds them with a hot burning zone that degens them. That also means you can afford to disengage from combat if necessary and still be damaging the enemy. The numbers are subject to balance, of course, and it is intended to only feel good if you've got a decent endurance charge generation system going. As you might have picked up on here, this goes in the opposite direction from what GGG seemed to have chosen for the skill - instead of being great for clearing, it instead focuses more on single-target (competing with Molten Strike, rather than Reave), while being somewhat decent for clearing (imo, melee will always lose out to ranged for clearing). It's great for tough boss encounters where you might have to disengage from time to time. And it reminds D2 veterans of another beloved old skill (obviously, change the visuals as well to make it actually resemble volcanic vents).

Is this the best idea for a rework of it? No idea. Probably not. But it at least makes it distinctive from its competition. Maybe it'd be popular, maybe it'd be niche. But the point is that right now T.Slam really appeals to neither - even hipsters want a skill that's fun or interesting to play with. And right now both old and probably new T.Slam is neither too efficient nor much fun.

Oh so you must now pray to RNG to actually not consume charges if you want to smoothly kill a boss. The main problem with this skill is low damage/no good utility such as area and I don't see this will solve it, because it's not a real a problem for a only THICC class that is actually used with this skill, sounds like nothing's changing.

Gotta say this is fairly disappointing.

I have found zero reasons why I would run this over EQ or Ground slam which also have vaal versions or just plain sunder.

Only thing making Tectonic slam semi viable in this league is stat sticks which we all know will probably get shafted next league.

oof