Devs: A lengthy discussion on combat mechanics, POE vs D3

NO, god NO, please do not change the combat system like d3 with all of its cooldowns and spirit regeneration spells, if you want that go play Warcraft, leave poe alone, skills should cost mana and that's it! But I do agree that combat in d3 (and d2) was alot smoother than it is in poe, but they are working on it, a big change in the right direction was they fixed shift so now if you press it whilst holding down the cursor you attack

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yhateful wrote:

It's all in the thing that D3 threw in the garbage. The skill tree and build.

I agree with this. You can give me the smoothest combat around, but if I don't feel like I'm in control of the character's development behind it, I might as well be playing God of War. It's also very difficult to disengage the fact that the smooth, wonderful gameplay for D3 hangs over a skeleton of financially-driven devices such as the RMAH -- another argument exhausted to hell and back -- so I'll have to admit that I sort of view D3's gameplay as very elaborate, deliberately addictive window-dressing for a poker machine.

I should also note that there is a specific thread for discussion of combat-related issues on the feedback board here.

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cavemandiary2 wrote:

Okay, but I'd still go as far as to say that you would be gimping yourself by doing this. Often, that last rune can mean as much as 50% extra damage done, and I see no reasonable player wanting to do this just for versatility.

...as opposed to having a second skill that can (say) bypass their primary resistance (over 100% extra damage output if we're comparing 70% resist to 35%; if we assume a 50% elemental weakness curse, this only drops to 62% extra damage), or power through armor reduction (comparing Heavy Strike's 150% physical damage with Ground Slam's 88%). And that's just for damage skills.

Versatility isn't necessarily as "gimped" as you make it out to be.

Yuck, please don't make this game anything like diablo 3. Even if you lasted two months in PoE, it's better than the one week I lasted in D3. Long cooldowns are annoying and very mmo like. I already dislike the skills with cooldowns in PoE. It slows down the game, and isn't particularly fun. I don't build my character to have very high cast speed or attack speed so that I can wait on a separate cooldown.

I agree that PoE's combat needs a huge overhaul. What we have right now is simply not up to modern game standards. While D3 has an excellent combat system, it isn't the only way to do things.

Right now, I think PoE would benefit hugely from more utility skills. Stuff like Frost Wall are good because you aren't just spamming them all time; you use the skill based on your current situation. It makes combat less mindless and repetitive which is what PoE is suffering from right now.

A thing to understand.
Cooldown would not restrict you. If they add 3 kinds of fireball, 1 with no cooldown, 1 with small cooldown and 1 with a big cooldown.
How its restricting you? It just give you more choices.
If you don't want cooldown, just use the one with no cooldown.

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Strill wrote:

Fire Trap? Higher damage than fireball? What game are you playing? How could Fire Trap possibly out-damage fireball when it doesn't benefit at all from the typical +150~200% Spell Damage on a caster's weapons?

Common misconception. Fire trap is classified as a spell, thus receiving spell damage modifiers.

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Skivverus wrote:

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cavemandiary2 wrote:

Okay, but I'd still go as far as to say that you would be gimping yourself by doing this. Often, that last rune can mean as much as 50% extra damage done, and I see no reasonable player wanting to do this just for versatility.

...as opposed to having a second skill that can (say) bypass their primary resistance (over 100% extra damage output if we're comparing 70% resist to 35%; if we assume a 50% elemental weakness curse, this only drops to 62% extra damage), or power through armor reduction (comparing Heavy Strike's 150% physical damage with Ground Slam's 88%). And that's just for damage skills.

Versatility isn't necessarily as "gimped" as you make it out to be.

Thats somewhat true, but in all my builds i always was mixing as many possible dmg types i could. So what will give you resistance to one element, even 90% in it, when you mitigate with it only like 20% of the dmg done, since the rest of dmg is in other elements.
To block attack like this you need high all resists, monsters like that are rare and i doubt every player will pick max resists nodes/gear and go in ALL resists to survive build like that skill.

@Also to the the topic of defense and offense.

Well yeah its stupid to go 100% offense, though as we speak about support gems its mostly about offense mechanism. Defense is more concetrated on high armor/es/evasion gear and passive skills, flasks plus player skill.

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Targuil wrote:

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Strill wrote:

Fire Trap? Higher damage than fireball? What game are you playing? How could Fire Trap possibly out-damage fireball when it doesn't benefit at all from the typical +150~200% Spell Damage on a caster's weapons?

Common misconception. Fire trap is classified as a spell, thus receiving spell damage modifiers.

My god that's convoluted. So it's a trap, which means it benefits from trap laying speed and not casting speed, but it's a spell so it benefits from spell damage? The devs seriously need to update their tooltips with all the categories that apply to these skills.

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sharkh20 wrote:

Yuck, please don't make this game anything like diablo 3. Even if you lasted two months in PoE, it's better than the one week I lasted in D3. Long cooldowns are annoying and very mmo like. I already dislike the skills with cooldowns in PoE. It slows down the game, and isn't particularly fun. I don't build my character to have very high cast speed or attack speed so that I can wait on a separate cooldown.

But are you happy with the current system?

My suggestion tries to make everyone happy. It is clear that there is players on each side of the fence.

You do not "wait" for cooldowns, far from all skills have cooldowns, there will always be skills to use as long as you built your hero correctly. White mobs be white mobs, and are usually mowed down without the use of special attacks. And you do not encounter rares with 30 seconds interval very often.. Mind you, cooldowns in D3 can go as high as 2 minutes, I am suggesting 30 seconds as an absolute max for a "screen clearing effect".

The alternative is as it is right now, where everyone just picks one(at best two) offensive spells and stick with it. How can you now get tired of doing that over and over and over? Atleast my suggestion, "annoying as it may be" opens up some new doors.