why is fortify so bad?

whats up with this new fortify?

im running the lvl83 eternal lab, fighting izzaro with a character who uses cyclone and does about 4 million damage, my fortify stacks against him are like 2, 3, maybe 4 at points?


what is this? why is this a thing? am i to be judged a spell caster who shouldnt be able to stack fortify only doing 4 million sustained attack damage to a target?


this needs fixed. did you guys even test these changes before you added them? i should be able to maintain max fortify stacks against a single target, regardless of what that target is, if i am attacking it with 200k+ sustained attack damage. the idea that 4 million damage isnt enough to provide fortify is actually absurd. no caster is doing 200k sustained attack damage to single targets using shield charge + fortify, i get that you want builds that should have fortify to have it, but thats not what youve done. some dude with a crap build doing 200k dps on an attack build should be able to fight literally anything in the game and get full fortify stacks from a sustained attack against it, thats the sort of attack build who needs fortify more than anyone.

this buff should also last at least 10 seconds before it begins falling off, and people shouldnt need to invest anything to have that duration. fortify is needed in order to make melee decently playable, thats why it was added, that you have to invest 4 passives just to get the buff in the way i have on the build in question is about as much as should be asked at all, otherwise its not a buff, its just an option that comes at a cost and hence fortify doesnt actually buff melee, it just gives them an option to be absolute shit compared to ranged/totems/summons etc in another way, by losing something else essential to get this and hence being left in the same underperforming spot they were before.

a buff is not a trade off, a buff is getting something and not losing something to get it. melee needed a buff, thats what fortify is, make it a buff and make it actually work against bosses when you need it.



this is the first time im really trying out these fortify changes on actual endgame stuff with a reasonable, realistic mid range melee build and its not good.

its not for casters?

and what else? maybe you want warcries too?:D

Because in a moment of insanity developping demon world (aka scourge) they thought that hit more mobs to build up stacks would be better than the damage dealt... I don't like how fortify works now, and probably won't like it until they change it again...

Knee jerk reaction to the Shield Throw / Shield Charge meta that broke out during Expedition.

I’m using static strike and I have no issue keeping up 20 stacks…. Also invest in the nodes south of the duelist starting spot … it helps with damage and ramping vs uniques

ive invested 4 nodes into fortify, and thats 4 nodes more than melee should have to invest to have fully functioning fortify.



the devs said d3 has 50% damage reduction for melee classes, this is our version of that where we are gonna add this thing thats a buff for melee and it will let them take less damage than ranged.


if you have to invest a ton of nodes in it to make it function its not a buff, we already had things we could invest in to become more tanky, the point was that the sum total of investment = not good enough. its not a buff if its a trade off at an opportunity cost where you remove ur damage to make fortify work, youre just trading melee being shit in one way for melee being shit in a different way. a buff is where its actually a buff, as in you end up better off, not that you lost 5 things here to get 5 things there.



saying you keep up 20 stacks... ok, so what? i can keep up 20 stacks against trash mobs, does that mean fortify is fine because we can point to an instance where it works? the point is that against this boss as stated a build that does between 3 million and 4 million attack dps doesnt get beyond maybe 3 fortify stacks at best. i dont need fortify against trash mobs, it doesnt matter what you get, it doesnt matter what joe blogs gets on a different character against different content, it doesnt matter what happens if i change X skill or drop X nodes and invest in this other thing...

none of that matters because the statement in the original post is true, doing 4 million dps to this boss does not provide fortify, that is broken, that is bullshit, that needs fixed asap. not fixed so that 4 mill dps provides max fortify against that boss, fixed so that 150k dps provides max fortify against that boss, so that any conceivable melee build that someone in endgame might end up with using any melee skill gets max fortify in that situation, otherwise its not functional as a mechanic. the new fortify is literally trash and doesnt work. if you are going diving and your scuba gear only breaks down and kills you once every 2 hours, and the other 1 hour and 58 minutes its completely fine, thats not ok, it doesnt work, its fked, throw it in the bin and get gear that works.




this is a change because spell casters were getting free fortify using shield charge or whirling blades since forever because their initial fortify implementation was terrible. this is arguably worse now because before it worked but it also worked for the wrong people at the wrong times, now it doesnt work for the right people at the right times.

one has to wonder why cant they just add fortify as an implicit of the skills that need it...

say:
single target melee skills max of 30 Fortification stacks and double Fortification gain rate

aoe melee skills max of 20 Fortification stacks and 50% Fortification gain rate

melee movement skills and semi ranged melee skills would have its own max fortification stack and gain rate.

right, there you go man, all melee hits fortify and then on a skill by skill basis decide the max fortification they can stack to. absolutely, thats a great idea, why isnt that what it always was?

lets have nodes on the tree to increase its strength and duration and blah blah while fortified etc, sure sure, lets have all that. but this is a defence buff for melee. it should be a buff on top of what they had before, not instead of. the baseline effect should be good and it should be something melee just have.




maybe im wrong here, but i feel like ggg has this sadistic streak and every idea is then reconsidered with the '..but how can we make it awful on the player?' point of view. heres a way to craft a bit of gear thats good, ok, but how can we make it do something that also ruins the gear? how can we make this defensive mechanic have a downside where it gets you killed? its like every up side theyre looking for a way to add a down side instinctively, it HAS to come at a cost if they can work it in there, it has to potentially be bad, potentially lose all ur work, destroy your stuff, involve a sacrificing something else of value, be an opportunity cost investment.

the original fortify, coming from an idea of buffing melee so they had more damage reduction, came on a gem that had no 'more damage' multiplier... so hey, were buffing melee, you now lose all your 6 links and only do 5 link damage on a melee build now thats invested in a 6 link item. THIS IS A BUFF!!


like... wtf? what is this? they had this idea of adding fortify and have then done everything they can since that idea to make sure they dont add fortify essentially. lets give melee a buff, except lets make sure its absolutely not a buff and the net result is that they gain nothing.


and now i literally lost an entire damage wheel to get fortify on the tree and im attacking a lvl83 endgame uberuber boss and i dont have fortify?




its not only an investment i had to lose something for, i lost something and didnt even get it.

i didnt even get the fking thing i paid for, lolol

this has been brought to GGG's attention right after the start of the scourge league but all those threads are in the void now without - as usual - gaining any traction let alone a reply from GGG (that I know of).

Sometime i'm asking myself why GGG has invented negative return on investment...

Investing in tree nodes = negative return in 3.16 with more investment than in 3.15.
Investing in gear (crafting) = negative return because it deos not sell at the price you crafted for.
Investing in maps = Negative return if you're not lucky and you sell everything you've got in that map / play SSF...

Why GGG WHY ??? It does not takes a PhD to understand that negative economy is not sustainable in any way...