Amazon Class Structure Topic / Fire Elemental Hate Thread

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HechtHeftig
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Honestly, I'm very much for class variety. But that also means build variety. And this is something amazon lacks. There was an attempt to partly fix that with the thunder tree that was introduced in Ultimate, since it offers both a caster option and a wdm option. There are still several issues with that, but the core problem wasn't fixed: You as a player are made to play a build in a specific way.

And that imho sucks. There is little variation between the builds of the same flock. Spearzons might use Fire elementals instead of Defensive Harmony, but it's always a trade-off for some stats you might need more. So in the end what works best will be the final build either way.

But what this little variation also means: It's the easiest to balance. So either way amazon is already really balanced and barb and the like just aren't, or amazon really was neglected, which I honestly doubt considering that several builds were buffed last patch. Bowzon's ele damage went up by 53%, Bloodtree was finally fixed, storm is still as strong as always, and javelin got a brand new skill (which I admit isn't balanced yet).

Either way, there have been cries from the community to remove the lockout and rework amazon's devotion system for several years now, but nothing happened because that would definitely require a complete character overhaul. And that often leads to 2 things: 1) Those who liked the present amazon will be mad that there's a complete rework and may or may not leave the mod forever. 2) A lot of work has to be put into in order to make it work out alright. And right now there are higher priorities.
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I have played mostly Bowazon on single player and I would say it's super healthy for the mod to have a simple type of char that relies on be devoted to one style of combat and passives. BUT such restriction has to be balanced. I like the description OP made of the weakest points of the Amazon and I would propose 3 possible changes (not necessarily all together):

1) Fire elementals should be one good Godzon summon like it was back in D2 and probably proactive with the passives of the Amazon.

2) Make the devotion passives more Powerful. I mean, melee Sorc with almost every combination can reach more Def good hp and on top of that the Uber armour that gives her super good stats.

3) Rework some skills (War Spirit in pointing at you) to change behaviour depending on the devotion you took making them Powerful/useful for the build.
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Cryzoke wrote:I have played mostly Bowazon on single player and I would say it's super healthy for the mod to have a simple type of char that relies on be devoted to one style of combat and passives. BUT such restriction has to be balanced. I like the description OP made of the weakest points of the Amazon and I would propose 3 possible changes (not necessarily all together):

1) Fire elementals should be one good Godzon summon like it was back in D2 and probably proactive with the passives of the Amazon.

2) Make the devotion passives more Powerful. I mean, melee Sorc with almost every combination can reach more Def good hp and on top of that the Uber armour that gives her super good stats.

3) Rework some skills (War Spirit in pointing at you) to change behaviour depending on the devotion you took making them Powerful/useful for the build.


I actually really like that summon rework you describe. Something akin to Neph spirit but more oriented towards survivability would be ideal.
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HechtHeftig wrote:Honestly, I'm very much for class variety. But that also means build variety. And this is something amazon lacks. There was an attempt to partly fix that with the thunder tree that was introduced in Ultimate, since it offers both a caster option and a wdm option. There are still several issues with that, but the core problem wasn't fixed: You as a player are made to play a build in a specific way.

And that imho sucks. There is little variation between the builds of the same flock. Spearzons might use Fire elementals instead of Defensive Harmony, but it's always a trade-off for some stats you might need more. So in the end what works best will be the final build either way.

But what this little variation also means: It's the easiest to balance. So either way amazon is already really balanced and barb and the like just aren't, or amazon really was neglected, which I honestly doubt considering that several builds were buffed last patch. Bowzon's ele damage went up by 53%, Bloodtree was finally fixed, storm is still as strong as always, and javelin got a brand new skill (which I admit isn't balanced yet).

Either way, there have been cries from the community to remove the lockout and rework amazon's devotion system for several years now, but nothing happened because that would definitely require a complete character overhaul. And that often leads to 2 things: 1) Those who liked the present amazon will be mad that there's a complete rework and may or may not leave the mod forever. 2) A lot of work has to be put into in order to make it work out alright. And right now there are higher priorities.


I see your point, regarding the lockout mechanic and balancing act. That being said, I still believe the addition of another passive to each tree (prior to the lockout passives) would potentially open up some creative neutral-Zon builds with the right handiwork. The Devs already introduced an Amazon helm designed for this very concept with Sigma so it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch. There’s already an overwhelmingly unused spell/attack in pretty much every Amazon specialization tree that could be replaced so perhaps another passive might not be that core-breaking (though this would admittedly hinder what little versatility one already had within the confines of said specialization).

If nothing else, I just hope the devotion tree gets looked at.
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HechtHeftig
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I don't think adding more passives is the way to go. Passives are nothing but a skill point sink. Assa used to have a skill that reduced all cooldowns as a passive. Aside from the Perfect Being and the ways you had 5 skills you always wanted to enter points into, plus 10 points into Queen of Blades. And that way every build was skilled the same and it was just stupid. So I really don't think that'll work out.

What I personally see as a problem: Many builds have the exact same playstyle.
1) Buff yourself with a short-duration buff
2) attack with skill 1 for AoE or skill 2 for single target
3) repeat.

That's especially true for melee builds. Unholy melee paladin, Holy melee paladin, spearzon, melee sorc, Nagi sin, Clawsin, Wolf Druid, Tree. It's all the same. And that's what repels me from any melee builds at any given time. It's all the same anyway, so why bother with build A if build B is known to be a lot stronger?

So if you only need 3 skills for a build to work, why do you have 5 possible skills per tree? That only makes 1 skill a lot worse than the others since you can't balance that skill. And usually at least 1 skill really sucks. Look at Black Sleep, Hyena Strike, Retaliate, Batstrike, Crucify, Thundercrack... They all fall off endgame so much that you wonder why those skills even exist (though Crucify is really great as a proc imho. And Retaliate is kind of okay-ish for the player, but completely broken as an attack skill for enemies since it can potentially deathlock you. It's a skill you can't balance so it should imho be removed from the game).

So what I want to see here is a rework of those bad skills while giving the player a better option/alternative path. Clawsin has TFS for example, which is great since it requires not an entirely different playstyle necessarily, but it offers a different path with different gear and stat allocation. Something along those lines would be awesome for any of the skills I mentioned.
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HechtHeftig wrote:I don't think adding more passives is the way to go. Passives are nothing but a skill point sink. Assa used to have a skill that reduced all cooldowns as a passive. Aside from the Perfect Being and the ways you had 5 skills you always wanted to enter points into, plus 10 points into Queen of Blades. And that way every build was skilled the same and it was just stupid. So I really don't think that'll work out.

What I personally see as a problem: Many builds have the exact same playstyle.
1) Buff yourself with a short-duration buff
2) attack with skill 1 for AoE or skill 2 for single target
3) repeat.

That's especially true for melee builds. Unholy melee paladin, Holy melee paladin, spearzon, melee sorc, Nagi sin, Clawsin, Wolf Druid, Tree. It's all the same. And that's what repels me from any melee builds at any given time. It's all the same anyway, so why bother with build A if build B is known to be a lot stronger?

So if you only need 3 skills for a build to work, why do you have 5 possible skills per tree? That only makes 1 skill a lot worse than the others since you can't balance that skill. And usually at least 1 skill really sucks. Look at Black Sleep, Hyena Strike, Retaliate, Batstrike, Crucify, Thundercrack... They all fall off endgame so much that you wonder why those skills even exist (though Crucify is really great as a proc imho. And Retaliate is kind of okay-ish for the player, but completely broken as an attack skill for enemies since it can potentially deathlock you. It's a skill you can't balance so it should imho be removed from the game).

So what I want to see here is a rework of those bad skills while giving the player a better option/alternative path. Clawsin has TFS for example, which is great since it requires not an entirely different playstyle necessarily, but it offers a different path with different gear and stat allocation. Something along those lines would be awesome for any of the skills I mentioned.


Can’t say I agree on the idea that an extra passive would be a “wasted slot” when we already have a wasted slot but I can somewhat agree on revamping those unused skills. If devotion got tweaked and they made those unused skills note viable, that might just be the fix Zons need.
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DacianDraco
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I think you need some summons even as meatshields that die in one hit, at least it's one hit that does nothing to you. Maybe the elementals can have an aura with a synergy with some other skills (or tweak the current synergies that i don't really know) maybe something like gift of inner fire on death instead of cannonade or whatever they have now or maybe they could leave a "sign" when they die like those "frog prince" type of enemies but instead when you pass through it you get a buff in the same vein of sacred armor, short duration but significant.

cron