Shifting Stones keystone feedback!

Speaker of the Dead (Torment)
Fun, but problematic. The second biggest issue is that the specific effects of each ghost are never clearly stated, even when you have the buff, and that's a huge missed opportunity. Changing the buff bar icon mouseover from a generic "Player possessed by a spirit" to something specific and useful, such as "Arsonist's Grip: physical damage gained as fire, chance to ignite," would make this a much easier sell. If not, of course, for the big problem here:

This keystone is objectively worse than the notable right next to it in the Atlas Passive tree.

I get that not a lot of people are probably specing into Torment on the Atlas Tree, but anyone who is wants Unrelenting Torment, by far the single best Torment node on the tree, and something which is mutually exclusive with this keystone.

So overall score is an D: I probably wouldn't take this keystone, because right next to it is a notable which is objectively better. It's a fun idea though, so I might take to mess around at the end of a league.


Cassia's Pride (Blight)
Let's get this out of the way quickly: I don't like Blight. I block it every league because I have no interest in it; mechanically, I don't enjoy playing it. I'm glad it's in the game, others seem to like it, but it's not for me.

Overall score: Not rated. I wouldn't take it, but only because I would never not block Blight, so there's not really a fair way for me to evaluate the keystone itself.


Timeless Conflict (Legion)
Pure unadulterated shit.

I love Legion and spec into it heavily almost every league. I would never take this keystone, I don't even know who it's FOR; if your damage is so low that you break out more Legion rares and generals with this keystone than you do with Protracted Battle, your damage is so low that you would never be able to kill those rares and generals anyway.

My grade is an F-minus for this garbage; absolutely nobody benefits from this who wouldn't benefit more from just blocking Legion from their maps entirely via Sealed Domain. And because it's not bad enough already, it's also in a terrible place on the Atlas Tree. This keystone genuinely feels like a noob trap and needs to be straight up deleted or reworked from the conceptual level into something 100% different.


Unending Nightmare (Delirium)
Not bad, but has a similar issue to the Torment stone in that the downside of this keystone is a loss of access to one of the main reasons for running Delirium in the first place. It does, however, have some niche uses I can see: it's extremely useful for farming cluster jewels, for one.

Overall score: C. I'd probably take this again in a SSF event or league where I needed some specific jewels to make my build work, but would pass on it in any trade league because forgoing the Simulacrum is just setting money on fire.

And as a minor note, the placement of this keystone in the Singular/Descent cluster genuinely annoys me, because taking it would require me to completely waste at least one Atlas passive point. This keystone really should be moved to somewhere else, such as That-Seek or Pathological.


Endless Tide (Beyond)
I don't know that I have anything negative to say about this keystone. It's got a clear upside and downside, and it's located behind the Beyond Experience nodes in the tree which makes sense and synergizes with the cases in which you'd want to use this keystone (unlike the Delirium example above).

I am absolutely going to start taking this in future leagues. A+.

I agree with everything you wrote, although I would be a bit harsher.

Torment node is an easy F for me due to spirit behavior being a HUGE pain in the ass. When I'm chasing the ghost halfway across the map, only for him NOT to possess me and disappear...there is a problem. The second I get in aggro range, that bastard should fly right at me.

Delirium node is a D for me. The fact that you lose delirium orbs AND splinters is one punishment too many. This is a pure gambling node: if the rng favors you when you get a mirror, you can profit very well. But far more likely is you get at least 3 layers of total garbage, when you COULD have gotten a currency, scarab, or actual useful orb that would immediately pay for itself upon use. The actual DROPS from mirrors are not great to begin with: its the delirious maps crafted with orbs and the simulacrum that provide the majority of delirium value.

Cassia's Pride: F. Anything in the game that shoots your own hard-worked build in the foot (or in this case, the face) is an easy No Thank You. The towers will NEVER EVER EVER be better than a blight-tuned build. This is why I hated ToTA with a passion, and also why I hated Sanctum. If someone is exclusively running blighted maps...they aren't running this node (as far as I know...).

Timeless Conflict: I would give this one a little higher than you, B. If you aren't playing a ridiculous clear build, the ability to target every chest and reward, while also ALWAYS getting the general(s) is pretty darn good. It just slows you down considerably overall, so you need to get used to the new "playstyle" that it requires. Basically the node removes all chance from the mechanic and allows you to always maximize each conflict. But its true that if you are speccing into legion, chances are you don't NEED this node.

Beyond: Easy A. The boss is the worst part of Beyond and ruins the whole beyond run if it spawns too soon. A node that I will always take if I'm speccing beyond (which I probably am).

Torment node is really good for not dying to tormented rares. It's a favourite of mine for HC actually

Delirium is nice early for the extra mobs and easier access to clusters, but useless if it's Simulacrums you need

Cassia's Pride is very mediocre as some layouts will give you few towers in awkward places that make defence that much harder

Timeless Conflicts has its pros and cons. Slow builds or build with little AoE will have a better time with it than others

Beyond one is S-tier as bosses are just meatbags that end more Beyond mobs from appearing, which are much better with some investment to their drops

Aren’t people running the torment keystone for MF?

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DichotomousThree wrote:

Aren’t people running the torment keystone for MF?

People can run whatever they want...doesn't change my opinion.