I hate how prevalent Spectral Helix is

While it's not 'op', the numbers AND QoL package here is just dumb. The lack of restrictions and has it screw with every niche of melee-weapon wearing build.

Really shitty design. If I was okay with constantly playing a helix skill, I'd be playing the unbalanced relic that is D2.

Why do we always have to make our own restrictions in this game... Fuck all these go-to meta skills.

Say you wanna play a 2h-build: Okay, so you pick a 2h skill. Okay, nothing's as good as Helix (if you also consider the QoL), so you pick Helix. Okay, so now you're playing a Phys based helix build - but this particular skill is better as a 1h skill with a faster weapon, crazy damage from Awakened Added Lightning, Trinity, etc. Okay, so now you're wearing a 1h in your 2h build. Not great.

On a side note, this melee-playing-non-melee only amplifies how many fucking Champions there are. Leaving Fortify on that class during a rework was a mistake. The whole fucking idea was to make Fortify melee-only, which CLEARLY failed miserably.


Gotta admit, I think this scenario is worse for balance than the Slam meta. At least you didn't have this pidgeon-hole behavior, due to mere restrictions. Shit was stupidly overpowered, but at least you got the impression that more than 2 skill existed (namely Helix and LS).

it just casually does ~TWICE the damage of an average Strike skill

oh and its ranged BTW.

same story with other abomination - Poisonous Concoction that scales like mofo out of nowhere, benefits from both +skill AND regular scaling AND hits ~4times on average on a poison-related build.

same story with Toxic Rain and few other dumb outliers that just happen to mysteriously survive patch after patch.


How is it ok to have Heavy Strike and Spectral Helix in the same game?

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sidtherat wrote:

it just casually does ~TWICE the damage of an average Strike skill

oh and its ranged BTW.

same story with other abomination - Poisonous Concoction that scales like mofo out of nowhere, benefits from both +skill AND regular scaling AND hits ~4times on average on a poison-related build.

same story with Toxic Rain and few other dumb outliers that just happen to mysteriously survive patch after patch.


How is it ok to have Heavy Strike and Spectral Helix in the same game?

poisonous concoction caps out in damage way before other melee skills and some other poison skills to, it just reaches reasonable numbers easy.

spectral helix isn't very prevalent either... top of the ladder is .5%(so roughly 50 people), its really only a good starting skill that falls behind in the end.

that 'cap' is not a problem because it is absolutely enough for anything in this game

there is no prize for OVERkilling harder. your char wears rather modest gear (excluding neck) and i bet it wipes the floor with any melee build on a similar budget

allowing shotgunning (equal to hidden '300% more poison damage' on the gem) on this skill is just CRAZY numerically. it is just insane comparing it to likes of Pestilent Strike and such that also require really good weapon

Okay

It is OP its why its prevalent, just go do the maths on it

Tbh though it isn't the problem, the problem is all the other skills that are mechanically clunky but don't receive a damage boost for it

i mean numbers aside its not the safest skill mechanic-wise

yea you can cheese strongboxes and harvests or w/e but overall when it comes to clearing maps, the skill is basically a melee skill for the first second or so. its not like youre insta blasting the screen in front of you. theres a kill window for mobs to do something

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sidtherat wrote:

that 'cap' is not a problem because it is absolutely enough for anything in this game

there is no prize for OVERkilling harder. your char wears rather modest gear (excluding neck) and i bet it wipes the floor with any melee build on a similar budget

allowing shotgunning (equal to hidden '300% more poison damage' on the gem) on this skill is just CRAZY numerically. it is just insane comparing it to likes of Pestilent Strike and such that also require really good weapon

well if you want to compare my build... which is roughly an 80ex+ budget...

that amulet was insanely expensive... I think I paid like 50ex for it, I wanted something similar but weaker but they simply didn't exist and I didn't feel like spending 30+ex crafting something weaker. removing the amulet and I lose nearly 30% of my damage.

also don't under estimate the cost of crafting something like my helmet, T0 life +t1 hybrid, forced defense prefix for last one of decent tier, -chaos aura can't be simply forced as it has lower weight compared to resists and getting the veiled mod on top

and here is the POB so you can see what kind of damage its doing... you can tell it isn't that much even when factoring in multiple hits.
https://pastebin.com/5CJm8aWb

vs some pestilent strike build I found, who knows how optimized it is, looks like a little more invested than I am. I only adjusted config to deal with stats not calculated/stuff that needs to be set for things like the ascendancy passives to work.
https://pastebin.com/kSzTYZ4R

pestilent strike clearly wins where it matters, single target damage, everything clears great with decent investment, bosses need to die fast to.

while it does require weapons... its top amulet is significantly cheaper... poisonous concoction top amulet is going to be closer to a mirror(+1 dex, +1 chaos, double dot multi suffixes with res or attributes and open prefix or veiled for AOE)... also the shotgunning isn't some crazy thing, its what the skill is designed around.