Trickster Melee Rework v3.2 with Energy Shield and more trickery
" Haha, it's what I do for fun in my spare time. And you'd be surprised how much of my stuff has been added to other games. Kept me busy through my degrees. ^_^ As a theme the necromancer is queen of the undead. The scion is jack of all trades. The saboteur uses traps to kill. The trickster ... has energy shield. If we want to continue to dominate the ARGP genre and grow, we need to examine every system that can be made better. As of right now the biggest complaint from would be exiles is boring combat. Nobody is impressed by the streamers playing half awake with one or two buttons. The kits have been pushed too far into efficiency and the cool factor has been lost. Right now half the classes are bland and have zero identity or personality. The game has to continue to evolve, the minute it stops evolving people stop coming back. Last edited by PathxofxDante#1683 on Jan 24, 2019, 10:08:02 PM
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So here's some ideas about what I'd like to see with a theoretical not-happening-anyways trickster rework. I'm going to borrow some ideas I like from Boem and noodles and throw in some of my own changes. I'm also going to try to restrain myself as much as possible since i'd love to make trickster an overpowered unkillable melee poison monster, but I can't make any guarantees.
As to the noodles suggestions, some I liked and some I didn't like. I don't think shadows are intended to be a curse class, so I left those out. Double strike is also kind of broken already, but this can still help bleeds a bit. Also I didn't include anything about new gems because I simply don't think GGG will make any of them. I really liked the phasing ideas however, and I feel like GGG could do a lot with phasing for shadows. Those were some really interesting ideas. So here's what I decided to do with that idea: Harness the void +45% chaos resistance 50% of chaos damage taken applies to energy shield instead of life 40% increased chaos damage
Reasoning
I chose these mostly because
1. chaos resist is a massive hole in hybrid builds, this alleviates that and also acts as a pseudo-shavs, which I think could create some interesting combos 2. GGG seems to want this to be a chaos damage node, which is fine, but I'm not a fan of the existing one Patient reaper 50% increased damage over time Melee ailment damage leeches 3% damage to life, energy shield, and mana Life regeneration, life leech, and life gain on hit applies to both life and energy shield
Reasoning
I chose these mostly because
1. I'm ok with the dot dps buff, no need to change it 2. I don't think ranged/caster/bow builds need more sustain, and the current node doesn't sustain at all in many boss fights 3. The regen mechanics screw with hybrid builds, you can't regen both life and ES at the same time (or leech/lgoh), which is a problem for hybrid builds when compared to single-buffer types because you have to invest into twice as much regen/leech/etc. This fits with the theme of the node and solves that problem, while actually providing a "buff" to the amount leeched/regenerated by adding it to your other buffer. I would assume the best way to calculate the leech would be to calculate the total dps applied, assuming the dot damage fully matures (IE, assuming the target never dies), and count that as a "hit" for leech purposes, applying that to life, mana, and ES Escape artist +4 evasion rating per energy shield on gear +1 energy shield per 8 evasion rating on gear Stuns and ailments are based on life + energy shield If energy shield reached 35% of max recently, reduce incoming damage by 10%
Reasoning
This works better for builds that are actually being hit (melee) and less for builds who are not being hit (ranged/caster), which I feel is fine. It still provides ranged a bonus, and more often when they actually need it. It also makes hybrid easier to gear while focusing less on specific slots. Prolonged pain (changed into "Hide in the shadows" or something) Nearby enemies are blinded while you are phasing and for 2 seconds after phase run ends Regenerate 4% life and mana while phasing Blinded enemies take 20% more damage Phase run does not consume frenzy charges Deal no new damage while phasing
Reasoning
I really liked the idea of a shadow sneaking around and stabbing targets in the back, sadly that never materialized but this could partially emulate that idea/play style. It basically just provides a lot of bonuses centered around playing this way and borrows some of the blind from saboteur - but only if you're USING phase run/phasing flasks, not all the time like sabo. I also think it's really stupid that phase run uses up frenzy charges, partly because of boss fights and partly because it doesn't work with the concept of "lots of extra damage while phasing" if it consumes all your charges when activating. Lastly I think this would build too strongly for/break RF so I made it do no damage while phasing so as not to break RF, but RF could still make use of the regen if they wanted, which I'm ok with Let me know what you guys think my evasion is so high i only insta rip sometimes ----- Bug Fixes: People were using cyclone for actual melee builds, so we nerfed it and made blade vortex. Also, we went ahead and made cyclone great for CoC casters while we were at it. Last edited by Legatus1982#1658 on Jan 24, 2019, 11:25:48 PM
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" That seems pretty good to me to be honest, much better than the current keystone. " That could be nice but .... applying "leech" to "dot" might just be hard to implement due to technical limitations. I don't know what's in the entrails of PoE, but I don't think that you can easily apply leech to something that does not hit. Add some extra regeneration or recovery scaling on melee dot damage though, I'm not completely sure (the impact regarding map mods could be different then). " Those numbers are too strong, somebody going with bonkers ES gear, having 2k+ ES with a shield .... that would make 8k raw evasion, before bonuses, that would be quite insane honestly, especially with the other bonuses. Applying it to all gear is just too much. Having stuns and ailments based on the total buffer is also very strong already, if you add all things this would be way too broken. Prolonged pain, although a bit boring, fits well the idea of a dot based character. SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
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I didn't calculate the numbers too much for escape artist but I think it gives you similar free es and ev in total as the current node.
EDIT: nah you guys are right it's a lot. Maybe 2 evasion per es and 1 es per 17 evasion, something like that. Patient reaper I guess would depend on whether ggg could implement it, idk if they can or can't. I'm not too sure what to do about stun and ailments or prolonged pain. I'll try again tonight, still kind of interested in this my evasion is so high i only insta rip sometimes ----- Bug Fixes: People were using cyclone for actual melee builds, so we nerfed it and made blade vortex. Also, we went ahead and made cyclone great for CoC casters while we were at it. Last edited by Legatus1982#1658 on Jan 25, 2019, 8:07:27 AM
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So after looking I'm just going to tweak the numbers to address concerns, also with a few other changes. The major concerns were:
1. Dot leech might be impossible to implement due to technical limitations 2. es/ev numbers are too high 3. Phase run is too compulsory/ranger has it already So here's my rev2 trickster rework suggestions: Harness the void +45% chaos resistance 50% of chaos damage taken applies to energy shield instead of life 40% increased chaos damage Patient reaper 50% increased damage over time Regenerate 4% life and energy shield per second and 8% mana per second if you have inflicted damage over time on an enemy recently Life regeneration, life leech, and life gain on hit apply to both life and energy shield Increased damage over time also increases life, mana, and energy shield regeneration Escape artist +2 evasion rating per energy shield on gear +1 energy shield per 15 evasion rating on gear Stuns and ailments are based on 50% of life + energy shield If energy shield reached 35% of max recently, reduce incoming damage by 10% Prolonged pain (changed into "Hide in the shadows" or something) Inflicting ailments on enemies blinds them Blinded enemies take 20% more damage 10% reduced damage taken from damage over time 20% increased skill effect duration I'm not sure about the numbers on patient reaper but I feel it's better than "gain x on kill" because of boss fights. I was never a fan of "gain x on hit/kill" because it is there when you don't need it (clearing the trash) and isn't there when you do need it (difficult boss fights). So I tried to alleviate that here. As for prolonged pain I am a fan of the phase run idea more and I feel like phase run should be a shadow thing and not a ranger thing, but this one would maybe appeal more to people who don't want to phase run if it were decided to keep it as a ranger thing. I'm really kind of puzzled why they went with ranger as the "phasing class", most of the background and dialog seems to fit shadow more as a phasing character. my evasion is so high i only insta rip sometimes ----- Bug Fixes: People were using cyclone for actual melee builds, so we nerfed it and made blade vortex. Also, we went ahead and made cyclone great for CoC casters while we were at it. Last edited by Legatus1982#1658 on Jan 25, 2019, 5:47:19 PM
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" Still just an assassin. Still bland. You can literally add a ES node and combine this with the assassin class. Energy shield as a theme is lame compared to the rest of the roster. Last edited by PathxofxDante#1683 on Jan 25, 2019, 6:28:18 PM
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" Except for the part where there is almost literally nothing defensive in the entire assassin ascendancy tree. There's like one anti-crit taken thing and one regen-on-kill thing. It just doesn't work defensively. If you wanted a "spellblade" type character like you're suggesting, which I'm fine with, I'd much rather they convert the assassin tree into spellblade and modify trickster to have more useful defensive hybrid nodes. They aren't really doing much interesting stuff with the assassin tree right now, it's just a bundle of damage. Part of me thinks you're right - I'd love for the assassin tree to be more "phase run and stab this dude in the back" with some more sustain and defensives on it. But right now it's just "more damage", which isn't really interesting or generally useful particularly in HC. Any build is going to need generalized survivability and sustain that actually works against difficult encounters to be useful to me and many of the HC crowd. Either way, I think something needs to fix hybrid defenses and melee, whether it originates from the shadow ascendancies or not. my evasion is so high i only insta rip sometimes ----- Bug Fixes: People were using cyclone for actual melee builds, so we nerfed it and made blade vortex. Also, we went ahead and made cyclone great for CoC casters while we were at it. Last edited by Legatus1982#1658 on Jan 25, 2019, 9:11:56 PM
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" I get it, as an assassin/combat main in like every game, haha. Somewhere we are fucking up. I think it's at the class level. If you play melee you have experienced a completely different game than everyone playing the rampage builds. Every encounter with monsters is nuanced because they have time to actually do the things they were designed to do. Building classes that allow players to have fun with these nuances is what RPGs are all about. Diablo III sucked because the character customization was shallow in favor of an arcade experience. The naunces were lost, the genre was lost. PoE has a long way to go in terms of polish, but if we are going to push this homogenized sterile playstyle then we are going to lose. I do quite a bit of shilling for PoE and on the various forums the biggest complaint is boring combat. We do not have a giant ass skilltree and a modular skillsystem for boring combat. RPGs have shown us we can continue to throw more ascendancies at the game and it will only make it better and more customizable. Don't treat us like bayblade dickheads. Give us the tools we need to actually play the game. We didn't waste all these resources designing dozens of cool monsters just to steamroll everything before an encounter has even begun. Last edited by PathxofxDante#1683 on Jan 25, 2019, 11:54:22 PM
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" *snicker ;x Dys an sohm
Rohs an kyn Sahl djahs afah Mah morn narr |
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" I just realized this is actually a retarded idea because it would be less good than just using life lol. Rookie development mistakes Actually I'm not sure why Fruz has a problem with ES+life as the stun base. Now that I think about it there's a low chance you'll get more "stun buffer" than a regular life or regular ci build using this. And most ci builds just get "stun immunity" anyways. I don't think it'd be broken at all. Maybe in the context of the rest of the node if that's what he was getting at, but I feel like this needs to be part of anything that might fix the ev/es hybrid thing. my evasion is so high i only insta rip sometimes ----- Bug Fixes: People were using cyclone for actual melee builds, so we nerfed it and made blade vortex. Also, we went ahead and made cyclone great for CoC casters while we were at it. Last edited by Legatus1982#1658 on Jan 26, 2019, 1:15:43 PM
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