Leap Slam vs Lightning Warp

I don't think either skill needs a buff or nerf, except perhaps the same change as was made to Flicker Strike in the last patch (which fixed a bug where the character would continue walking to a location that is outside of the skill's range, rather than walking to the skill's range then using it). Don't recall it happening with Warp, but I know Leap occasionally just walks to the location.

Either way, I haven't really seen anybody spam leap slam. And if they do, it's no where near as op as using leap slam to position and spamming sweep or ground slam. Definitely doesn't need further nerfing. Warp on the other hand fit's a unique niche. Possibly has room for a minor buff, but I like it as is, without being "spam this for damage"

Stacking plenty of %chance to shock on LW is immensely effective on elemental damage melee types, to use LW to move in, proc shock, and inflict more dps. It's also very useful for evading packs of mobs, using the delay as time to pull them slightly away from the target location (example: lw -> enduring cry, land, and keep moving unobstructed)

Well, from my testing, Ground Slam > Leap Slam > Cleave. Cleave can give more DPS than leap slam spam, but it doesn't have implicit knockback and leap slam has a ton of defensiveness to it. When you leap, you often move out of the way of projectiles. With cleave, you're face-tanking everything.

My experience with leap slam has always, at some point in a fight, lead me to eat several projectiles mid flight. I don't stack much attack speed so it's not a particularly fast jump, but with recent updates its definitely nowhere near slow either. The reason is, if I want to use leap slam to close the distance with ranged mobs (and I do, after you start using it, why would you want to walk? That just takes too long!), I have to move in a straight line towards them. At some point, one pack or another will get a shot off mid flight.

Not saying this is a problem, a build who wants to use Leap Slam should be optimized for taking a more than a few hits. I'm just saying this is a distinct advantage Lightning Warp has over Leap Slam. It takes longer, yes, but you can effectively avoid 100% of any damage thrown your way from when its cast and when you arrive at the other side.

Edit: And I wouldn't advocate using cleave.. But I guess when you use 2h swords and can't use sweep, I guess you don't have much choice.. Not a problem for me though, even before PoE, I've never liked swords.. Always giant hammers!

Yeah, I have lots of attack speed, and I often charge archers at an angle with leap slam, avoiding most of their attacks mid-flight. But that can happen.

Leap Slam > Cleave -- at least with my builds. Leap Slam gets you into combat and out of combat quick and only loses a small amount of damage compared to cleave.

In regards to lightning warp, I've tried to use it as an offensive and support spell. I seldom use it for the latter and have not been able to use it for the former despite my best attempt. Oh well! I guess mages will need to utilize leap slam and flicker strike if they want good mobility.

"

onomastikon wrote:

It's interesting though that Leap Slam seems to be a no-brainer skill to get and use.
If something is a No Brainer = usually not good, because then there are no real choices to make (you do not have to think and assess your situation). More polyvalence is a sign of excellent design.

I think it is GOOD that Lightning Warp is NOT equivalent to Leap Slam; Witches should be as different to Marauders as possible. (And PoE could work on making these differences greater in some aspects.)

With that said, it looks like Leap Slam needs yet another nerf. Suggestion would be to raise the Mana cost significantly so that the user must think about when to use it and not just spam it non-stop. Also, Lightning Warp might have its mana cost reduced, so that the threshhold for deciding to use it be reduced slightly, without greatly changing its mechanics. Although a small possibility of a stun might be nice.

Thank you for listening.

Lets take a fun skill that works as intended and nerf it into the ground until most players don't want to use it anymore. Because this game really needs that. While we're at it we can get Blizzard to teach GGG the art of nerfing so that they to can become masters at it.

I know each of you has an own pet skill that you love, and you can interpret "as intended" as you see fit, but I would much rather have constraints placed on certain skill areas so that there becomes more viability for using other things. Game design is about creating polyvalent options, because those are fun. If I can use Leap Slam and Ground Slam exclusively, this detracts from my fun. (Similarly, by the way, to the D2 Whirlwind skill, which Blizzard did not do a particularly good job of making an different option for.)
Why must you be so aggressive?

I think it's unfair to be hard on Ground Slam and Leap Slam. How many other choices are there? There are basically only 3 main AOE moves for melee fighters right now. You can't nerf them. Not until we actually have some other choices to work with. The active skill count is something GGG needs to double, or triple, before we can begin to seriously consider nerfing the viability of certain major skills.

"

anubite wrote:

I think it's unfair to be hard on Ground Slam and Leap Slam. How many other choices are there? There are basically only 3 main AOE moves for melee fighters right now. You can't nerf them. Not until we actually have some other choices to work with. The active skill count is something GGG needs to double, or triple, before we can begin to seriously consider nerfing the viability of certain major skills.

The problem is GGG has the tendency to go with redundant skill generation rather than thinking them through. What, are we gonna see 2, 3 more fire balls disguised as "new" skills?