Comprehensive Duelist feedback

"

Altnaharra wrote:

"

Moosifer wrote:

and stop talking about templars. Go write up your own 8-9 page feedback and talk about them there damn it!

The notion was about oddly placed crit nodes or lack of them.

I do apologize.

it was mostly a joke, not a serious attack, nor directed at you.

Well, I made a "why aren't there implicit mod critical strike variants of every weapon in the game (ie, an axe with reduced IPD and increase base crit)" thread - and the response I got from the devs then was that "staffs are the 2h critical weapon and should stay that way". In such an answer, it is no wonder there are no critical strike nodes available to the duelisst, except via the DW cluster.

I do like the synergy of rapier+dagger and it seems to be to not only make sense for the shadow/ranger, but shouldn't it also be the iconic combo for the Duelist? I mean... that's what you'd use a duel.

I'd like to see a high dex requirement staff, personally, there's a big difference between a magical staff and something like a Bo, at least conceptually. I don't get why we just can't make the Duelist a "weapon master" who is adept at weapons, not necessarily "intelligent" - but he can still get access to more critical strike than the Marauder? I mean, if we abide by intelligent people getting crits more often, why can only the Witch/Shadow get significant amounts of critical strike, via the tree? Granted, the Ranger gets the easiest access to critical damage... but I guess that's different.

It makes sense to talk about Templar melee focus, because if Templars are smart, why can't they build 2h crit builds? It's unviable.

If Templars can make 2h crit builds, why can't Duelists? I guess I'm just not feeling what kind of thing the Duelist is supposed to be. He's physically 'weaker' and less able to endure compared to the Marauder and slower and less agile than the Ranger, so what is he supposed to be good at? A weapon master makes sense to me - he is more deft than the Ranger or Marauder with a two-handed weapon, which would imply better critical strikes, or at least better attack speed or better "weapon combos" (such as rapier+dagger) something. The duelist is skilled in weapons; the Marauder or Templar is just whacking things over the head with them, they don't have any finesse with their attacks.

Also, rangers have a claw option because if they didn't then only the Shadow would be adept at using them, which would make them kind of niche. It's just a coincidence the Duelist has easy access to it as well.

"

Moosifer wrote:

So swords suck compared to the rest of the weapons out there. Wands are awesome, higher base crit chance w/ upwards of 20% spell dmg increase. Maces when combined with GS and the mace stun/dmg nodes makes stun a very powerful mechanic. Even staffs w/ block chance, a few passive and you can match what a DW sword user can get. Claws have LL, which will help alot with survivibility issues I'm crying about. Specters give +% elemental dmg, for a templar this is huge using spells and elemental based melee attacks.

Yeah... We have a class designed be fast and to dual wield, looking at the passive tree...
-Except, none of the str/dex weapons have mods that benefit from dual wielding. Axes have none. Swords have accuracy (anyone know how much a 2nd +X% accuracy thing increases chance to hit? is it enough to matter?).
-Except we have no keystones that help dual wielding.
-Few skills benefit from dual wielding. Attacking faster is useful too a point.

Another issue is the dex/cold bias. Cold damage is only useful if it proc's status effects. That requires meeting threshholds or crit, Dex is for faster attacks. Yet there is not a single passive node in the dex part of the tree addressing freeze duration/chill length. They are ALL up by the witch? WTF? All we have is a single 30% cold damage node and hatred, which everyone else has, and a few stray elemental damage nodes. Crit, as has been established elsewhere in the thread is non-existent for the duelist, so that method is out.

I don't believe that giving more crit nodes is the solution. I'd rather see the duelist attributes strengthened and relevant keystones added.

I think that for the sake of appearance and benefiting dual wielding, Axes should have a +%damage implicit mod and swords should have a +%attack speed & accuracy implicit so players at least feel that they are getting something useful from equipping them over other choices.

Axes do have +% damage. It's a hidden implicit modifier. They have the highest damage of any weapon.

Also, accuracy IS useful, especially in PVP. I wouldn't mind if there were swords with implicit attack speed, but don't get rid of the existing accuracy ones.

"

anubite wrote:

Axes do have +% damage. It's a hidden implicit modifier. They have the highest damage of any weapon.

Also, accuracy IS useful, especially in PVP. I wouldn't mind if there were swords with implicit attack speed, but don't get rid of the existing accuracy ones.

I mean it should be shown as an implicit to allow for bonus from dual wielding, as maces/daggers/scepters implicit stack when dual wielding, as well as to make it obvious what the benefit of axes are.

RE: Accuracy swords, yes accuracy is useful, but its benefits are obfuscated. They should have both mods on swords.

I'm very happy there's a good discussion going. I really thought this thread would die like my last feedback thread on duelists. A ton of good things are being brought up. I only hope to see some changes in 9.13

Another excellent feedback post, Moose. Well done.

Some great discussion here. Learned a good bit about dualist too.

On a side note, thanks Moose for the link to Panda's race build thread. That was also very helpful!

"

FriarJon wrote:

Another excellent feedback post, Moose. Well done.

Some great discussion here. Learned a good bit about dualist too.

On a side note, thanks Moose for the link to Panda's race build thread. That was also very helpful!

Panda put that out there for people to learn and improve upon. It should be over 200 pages of responses, pity it didn't get more.

Wow, Just noticed this. Moosifer, You're my best new pal. This is a great discussion and one that very much interests me. Kudos!

Like moos, I'm devoted entirely to the Duelist. A dual wielding swordsman is just my kinda thing in these games and in PoE that means a Duelist.

As Zakaluka and moos might have suggested, I've been trying a few variations of a HYBRID duelist, that is, sans IR/Unwavering and all-evasion gear.

What i did notice, As well as with my previous, IR-evasion-gear based Duelist i had before migration - Is that a Duelist needs life to survive. and oodles of it.

That just seems wrong, from what i see. A lot of points regarding that already came up here, So i won't repeat.

Right now, I kinda agree with both Mark and the entire duelist populous on the server about Rapiers.

If you go to fantasy you get your cliche dual wielder - Drizzt Do'Urdan - Which used Scimitars (and i suppose the Cutlass and similar are fast enough to compensate no rapiers) and in anime territory you have Roronoa Zorro from One Piece which uses (three) Katanas. Also borrowing from Drizzt's world, We have Artemis Entreri which used a sword and a dagger combo. He might be more of an crit assassin build (Shadow?) but the other two are definitely Duelist territory.

The problem is that i tend to agree that accuracy seems near useless as a property of the WEAPON rather as something built from the Duelist's own skill - Essentially leveling up and accumulating dexterity. It just does not add up in a lore and fantasy kinda sense - With notable exceptions being sentient weapons that improve a wielders ability, But that's aside from our scope.

Some of moosifer's changes are incredibly interesting and im very anxious to see what Mark/GGG has to say, or add, about the duelist and his current situation.

Until then, I'm pretty much a dual wielding swords mara-wannabe with near useless related stats.

Now that I've had some rest I'd like to make a few comments from my experience with dualist the first week of the HC reset (RIP L45 in ruthless Dark Forest to a rare pack of aura supported chaos snakes):

* No early access to life nodes: makes dualist very squishy early on. Especially if you go right into the dex tree the first health nodes are the thick skin and might clusters. These are accessible in act 1 only if you rush along the pure dex highway ignoring all the damage and armor clusters. If you take the dual wield and Leather&Steel nodes the earliest is 16 points (usually act 2).

* Blood Magic seems mandatory: I agree it was a halleluiah moment when my dualist finally got BM! With all the attack speed and fast dual wielding weapons my dualist had a severe (mana) drinking problem (even with only 1 support gem).

* Cleave: this skill felt much better when I had access to flasks with the knockback mod. Cleave needs some love to shine. While knockback may not conceptually fit with the skill, a chance to proc puncture does. From an efficiency standpoint cleave was only useful on large packs, otherwise it was better to pick them off using dual strike- the DPS of cleave is just too low for the mana cost otherwise.