Spell Totem nerf -- isn't CoC the real problem?

I see that Qarl did indeed make good on his promise to at least look at self-casting. That's appreciated.

But I don't see why Spell Totem had to be nerfed further -- from what I understand it's Cast on Crit which nowadays trivializes self-casting, and the passive changes in 1.1 help CoC too. I realize the "Dual Totem" archetype is intended to be niche, but now there's little reason to actually use those supports while totems with in-built spells (Searing Bond, Flame Totem [not Shockwave Totem, T_T]) remain viable. So really it's more like "Dual Totem using Spell/RA Totem" subcategory that's niche now, rather than the whole domain.

Meanwhile CoC will continue its pressure on self-casting, now with greater effectiveness.

Thoughts?

Targeting totems was a weird choice.
CoC will be as strong as ever.
Self-casting is still a loser's bet.

I'm at a complete loss as what to play next league. tons of unexpected changes and no passive tree to even begin trying to piece a new build together

It depends on what they mean by multiplicative cast speed/atk speed penalties. If the added % reduced cast speed is changed to multiplicative it'll actually be a buff for most builds. If it's an added multiplicative reduced cast speed on top of the current reduced atk/cast speed, it will be a huge nerf.

As a spell totem user with only 1 toon, with extremely expensive gear fit to this exact build I will probably quit if it's a huge nerf.

Technically they also said they are redoing the crit passives too so CoC could have been nerfed alot too.

I'm just glad they didn't nerf Searing Bond. That skill is so OP.

Yeah I don't get the totem nerf,overkill, totems are on the weak side now in most cases, unless you're using a default totem skill, like flame totem.

Yeah, sometimes I wonder about their decisions.

Chris did say searing bond would get a leveling nerf, (I'd guess probably similar to how they rebalanced ST), in the future.

On the other hand, the crit changes leave me deeply troubled. CoC could have been nerfed without touching the crit nodes. Now you are nerfing EVERY CRIT BUILD just because of a gem you introduced recently that proved OP. The gem could have been nerfed instead and everyone would be fine.

Doesn't make any sense to me at all.

What's more troubling, is that (as I indicated in another feedback thread) shadows are in a really bad spot right now, and are continuing to receive nerfs despite crit being the only thing shadow was good for. And crit wasn't even that good in HC to begin with, SC characters that go crit-based probably die to reflect often as it is. Plus the vaal pact nerf is as much a crit nerf as any other build, if not more so.

So what are shadows supposed to do now?

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Legatus1982 wrote:

So what are shadows supposed to do now?

Re-roll Marauder, since "Shadows are getting looked at" apparently means re-doing the Marauder start.

I feel like they enjoy making us dumbfounded.

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ggnorekthx wrote:

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Legatus1982 wrote:

So what are shadows supposed to do now?

Re-roll Marauder, since "Shadows are getting looked at" apparently means re-doing the Marauder start.

I feel like they enjoy making us dumbfounded.

Lol :D My thoughts exactly.