The current place that primary skills occupy in Diablo 3 is a curious one.Originally, they were meant to generate resource for spenders, or in the case of the Intelligence classes, to be cast while waiting for resources to refill. In the present time, this situation only exists at the lower levels of play, generally for new accounts and/or players.
At mid-to-endgame levels, the differences between primary skills and spenders become much more pronounced, eventually splitting into two different types of spec: one that focuses on primary skills as a source of damage (via legendaries, Depth Diggers, and the Simplicity's Strength gem) and another, more common type, that focuses on spenders. The second type of spec typically dispenses with primary skills (See Kridershot, Shotgun, Wasteland WW, Firebird's, Jade Doctor, Tempest Rush) and achieves resource regeneration through other sources.
While each type of spec on its own is certainly valid, and certainly fun to play, this state of things ignores the loss of potential build variety. The reason behind it is simple - because of having limited button space, primary skills fight for justifying themselves on a character's action bar. When most people generally build around their spenders, primaries are the first thing to go, for the obvious reason that two active damage skills cannot be cast at the same time. With that mindset, it is much easier and more logical to remove the primary and replace it with another skill that either generates resource, mitigates damage taken, or improves damage output.
Frequently, skills can be found that combines two or more of these, completely rendering primary skills outdated.
Blizzard's response to this has been to increase the damage output of primary skills in some way. In one patch, their baseline damage was raised. In another, legendaries were introduced to further increase it. In yet another, their baseline resource generation was improved.
Unfortunately, this still does not address the true issue, which is that primary skills suffer from too much competition as a damage output skill.
Keeping that in mind, it would seem that a more effective way to make primary skills more relevant is not simply to increase damage or resource generation. Rather, the UTILITY of primary skills should be improved, giving it SYNERGY with resource spenders in the same way Battle Rage or Conviction or Magic Weapon does. While that should be a primary focus, non-dps related utility is also a factor, as the higher levels of GRift now forces players to seriously consider damage mitigation. In a way, movement and healing is also a form of damage mitigation and should be considered in such discussions.
In other words, primary skills should provide more than raw damage output, and should directly synergize with resource spenders in order to keep them as a relevant option in high level play.
Listed below are a number of ideas for changes to primary skills.Keep in mind that the numbers are rough napkin math, and by no means should be taken as a concrete proposal. Nor do I claim that these ideas are perfect and cannot be improved or even changed. However, I do hope that they spark discussion into the idea of improving primary skills in way that goes beyond simply increasing damage numbers.
*****
Barbarian: Each hit with a primary skill grants the Barbarian Anger. The Anger stacks up to 100. Your next Fury Spender has its damage increased by 1% per Anger stack and consumes all stacks. You cannot have more than 1 Anger active at any time.
Bash -
Bul-Kathos' Anger: Your Fury Spenders deal 50% increased damage whenever it hits a single target.
Cleave -
Korlic's Anger: Your Fury Spenders deal 75% of your area damage whenever it hits 3 or more targets.
Frenzy -
Talic's Anger: Your Fury Spenders refresh your Frenzy duration at its current number of stacks.
Weapon Throw -
Madawc's Anger: Your Fury Spenders deal 50% increased damage whenever it hits a target more than 10 yards yards away from you.
*****
Crusader: Each hit with a primary skill grants the Crusader a Vow. The Vow lasts for 5 seconds. You cannot have more than 1 Vow active at any time.
Punish -
Defender's Vow: Your Punish skill increases your Block chance by 15% (This is simply the normal secondary effect of Punish, reworded using the Vow system). Your Wrath Spenders deal an additional 200% of your Shield Block chance as weapon damage.
Slash -
Champion's Vow: Your Slash skill increases your melee damage reduction by 10%. Your Wrath Spenders deal an additional 300% of your melee damage reduction as weapon damage to enemies within 15 yards.
Smite -
Militant's Vow: Your Smite skill increases your crowd control reduction by 20%. Your Wrath Spenders deal an additional 250% of your crowd control reduction as weapon damage split between all targets hit.
Justice -
Arbiter's Vow: Your Justice skill increases your ranged damage reduction by 10%. Your Wrath Spenders deal an additional 300% of your ranged damage reduction as weapon damage to enemies further than 15 yards.
*****
Demon Hunter: Each hit with a primary skill Marks a target. This Mark stacks up to 3 times and lasts for 6 seconds (The Mark does not refresh). You cannot have more than 1 of your Marks active on a target at any time.
Hungering Arrow -
Tracker's Mark: Your Hatred spenders causes the Marked target to bleed for 75% weapon damage for each Mark.
Entangling Shot -
Constable's Mark: Your Hatred spenders slows the Marked target's movement and attack speed by 15% for each Mark.
Bolas -
Raider's Mark: Your Hatred spenders causes the Marked target to deal your area damage to enemies within 5 yards. This range is increased by the number of Marks.
Evasive Fire -
Acrobat's Mark: Your Hatred spenders causes the Marked target to miss 10% of its attacks per Mark.
Grenade -
Demolitionist's Mark: Your Hatred spenders causes the Marked target to drop one grenade per Mark that deals 50% weapon damage. This grenade is affected by all passive skills and legendary affixes that affect the Grenade primary skill.
*****
Monk: The third hit of your primary skills causes you to go into a Stance. This Stance lasts for 4 seconds. You cannot have more than 1 Stance active at any time.
Fist of Thunder -
Flowing Serpent Stance: Your Spirit spenders creates a blast of energy that deals 300% weapon damage split among all enemies hit.
Deadly Reach -
Grasping Spider Stance: Your Spirit spenders deal 10% more damage to enemies under movement-impairing effects.
Crippling Wave -
Crashing Tiger Stance: Your Spirit spenders that deal damage to three or more enemies deal your area damage to each. The range of this area damage is increased by your Pickup Radius.
Way of A Hundred Fists -
Thousand Mantis Stance: Your Spirit spenders have 20% increased attack speed.
Passive Skill Change - Combination Strike
Stance Dance: Whenever you change from one stance into another, you deal 10% increased damage for the next 6 seconds.
*****
Witch Doctor: Your Primary skills summon a Fetish Assistant. The Fetish Assistant counts as a Fetish Sycophant for all skills and legendary affixes that affect Fetishes. The Fetish Assistant lasts for 5 seconds. You may only have 1 Fetish Assistant active.
Poison Dart -
Spirit Guide: The Spirit Guide attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Poison Dart. Your Mana spenders cost 10% less while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Corpse Spiders -
Dream Chanter: The Dream Chanter attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Corpse Spiders. Your Mana spenders have a 5% chance to Charm while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Plague of Toads -
Trance Healer: The Trance Healer attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Plague of Toads. Your Mana spenders have 1000 Life On Hit while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Firebomb -
Soul Retriever: The Soul Retriever attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Firebomb. Your Mana spenders have a 5% chance to drop Health Globes while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Passive Skill Change - Vision Quest
When you deal damage with Corpse Spiders, Firebomb, Plague of Toads, or Poison Dart, your Mana regeneration is increased by 30% for 5 seconds. Your primary skills are now considered to be resource generators.
*****
Wizard: Targets hit by your primary skill are affected by Malediction. Malediction lasts for 5 seconds. Targets affected by Malediction that are hit by an Arcane Power spender take 250% weapon damage over 5 seconds. You cannot have more than 1 of your Maledictions active on a target at any time.
Magic Missile -
Mystic Malediction: Your Arcane Power spenders have a chance to restore 1 Arcane Power when it hits an affected target.
Shock Pulse -
Boisterous Malediction: Your Arcane Power spenders have a chance to immobilize an affected target for 1 second.
Spectral Blade -
Phantom Malediction: Your Arcane Power spenders causes the affected target to deal 10% less damage.
Electrocute -
Thunderous Malediction: Your Arcane Power spenders causes the affected target to deal your area damage.
Passive Skill Change - Prodigy
When you cast a Signature spell, you gain 5 Arcane Power. Your Signature spells are now considered to be resource generators.
Thanks! I forgot to mention - I added the Passive skill reworks as well since Intelligence classes have problems with building primary skill-based specs. Things like Mirrorball and Carnevil have fallen by the wayside now that Zunimassa's and Tal Rasha's have been greatly improved.
Two of the top performing crusader builds use a primary skill. The top performing Wizard spec uses a primary skill (Electrocute woot). Monk uses a primary skill in top performing builds. Apparently top performing seasonals are still using bash on barbarian. Top performing WD on seasonals is using carnevil it looks like.
The problem with primary skills is that it's too easy to achieve infinite resources. Compounded with the fact that most sets focus on amplifying non-primary skill damage specifically this results in a situation where most builds simply have no reason to use their primary skills.
The simplest fix is to add item sets with high synergy but without infinite resources. Tal's and Roland's are both good examples of this. They both rely on items which make resource ups and downs an important part of the playstyle. Contrast with Wrath of the Wastes and/or every demon hunter BiS weapon or offhand ever where you just have infinite resources through pure mechanical power.
Adding more layers of "utility" (which apparently means "damage buffs) to primary skills is unlikely to get them seeing any use, and if it did it's just to press for a damage buff. That's not the correct way to address the lack of builds which rely on primary skills. Also apparently primaries aren't being ignored by at least one build for most classes.
I'd respectfully disagree on a few key points. I'm using DiabloProgress to take a look at a sample of the builds being used for non-Seasonal, where people have had enough time to build the sets that they want. I don't really look at the Seasonal boards because of the smaller amount of time involved, where more people get "what's good now". The top barb on hardcore does use a Primary skill, but he uses the Frenzy-Vanguard rune, which goes with my argument that people are looking for more utility from primary skills rather than just pure damage output. Meanwhile, on Softcore, there's a grand total of 5 people who aren't Demon Hunters in the top 20, the only 1 of which who uses a primary is a Carnevil doctor who's number 17 as I write this and 8 places below the Primary-less Jade Doctor.
I do agree that the sets coming out, with the possible exception of Thousand Storms, have been spender heavy, as well as resource being much too easy to get these days. However, spenders do seem to be more popular with people, probably because they're much flashier and visually more impressive. This is fine, though, and I'm not arguing that we go back to early vanilla D3 where the idea was to use Primaries half of the time and spenders just as a resource dump. Your mileage may vary, though, and if you don't think that utility is the answer, then what is? Nerf all resource generating non-primary skills? I'm not scoffing at the idea, though, I'm just genuinely curious if you have a concrete proposal.
As an aside, it's interesting that you've brought up Tal Rasha's - my main is a Wizard, and the Triumvirate/Tal set is what gave me the inspiration for this skill rework to begin with.
Barbarian: Top 4 slots are Leapquake / Waste barbs sets designed specifically to eliminate resource production. Of barbs in the top .0001% of progression (I'm not going to get into how skewed sampling can be because RNG) 1 is at 59, 6 are at 58. We'll assume for simplicity that that's an RNG disparity (it probably is). 7 Barbs, one of which is using Bash (+% damage, Wrath/IK combo). The other 6 barbs are using the aforementioned sets. We can reasonably say from the performance sampling that as far as non-seasonal is concerned Wrath/Leapquake/"IKWrath" (possibly IK proper) are comparative with each other. We can also conlude from sampling across a wider number of players (involving S3, where barbs are roughly equivalently geared) that Bash is a preferred skill for builds including IK pieces because they don't have Bul-Kathos resource regen.
Barbarian Conclusion - Of the top 3 performing builds they all perform similarly in the "established" environment and 1 of them relies on a primary.
Demon Hunter: We all know that spenders are terribad for DH due to MANY factors. Moving on.
Monk: 3 monks are in 57. One of which is using Raiment w/ WotHF. The others are using Sunwoku. Further sampling concludes that the two are performing similarly and Raiment prefers having a primary.
Witch Doctor: Three similarly performing builds. Two are using primaries. Note that WD is skewed toward primaries due to lack of their seasonal belt on the "established" community.
Wizard: Every single top performing player non-season uses a primary.
Crusader: Sweep Attack is the top performing non-seasonal build. It does not use a primary. Condemn performs similarly and does use a primary. From my recollection Shield Bash should be performing similarly to both of those builds and does use a primary, however everybody keeps screwing around with their gear trying new things and changing their minds so I'm not going to commit to that.
Final Conclusion: Your assertion that builds using primary skills are underrepresented or underperforming is flawed. They are only underrepresented on a per-class basis at the highest levels of progression within any given class. In reality most classes have both spender and primary builds performing similarly and the primary difference in representation is driven almost entirely by itemization (and some primaries being weak). Both paradigms are seeing significant representation in solo. Group play skews representation due to several factors (mostly involving free resource generation) so relying on group leaderboards for information will provide significantly different data compared to solo and the accuracy becomes dubious (highest 4man barb is 10 levels behind highest 4man WD for instance).
Now if you think having utility on primaries would get them a slot in "spender" builds then actually suggest some utility effects (rather than free damage, which is what every one of the suggestions I read are). In reality though primaries are seeing plenty of use for non-DHs and group play skews loadout due to class role idiosyncracy (spam CC with no costs, fill slots with buff, if you're DPSing you're a DH of course you have no primaries).
Final Conclusion: Your assertion that builds using primary skills are underrepresented or underperforming is flawed. They are only underrepresented on a per-class basis at the highest levels of progression within any given class. In reality most classes have both spender and primary builds performing similarly and the primary difference in representation is driven almost entirely by itemization (and some primaries being weak)....
Now if you think having utility on primaries would get them a slot in "spender" builds then actually suggest some utility effects (rather than free damage, which is what every one of the suggestions I read are)...
I don't have the hard data that Blizzard has, and I've be very interested to see your own sources so I can make comparisons. Saying that the highest levels of progression isn't a valid sample doesn't strike me as entirely correct, though. Many people in this game want to progress, and the top performers are an example of the kind of skills and items that make it to the leaderboards. Not everyone will have their gear and skills, but people will want those gear and skills. While the so-called majority of people playing may still use primaries in the traditional way, I've already made the point that it's typically the lower-end or very casual player that does so in my post. By definition, these people would be the majority (at least I haven't seen any data that says something to the effect of "75% of D3 players have all placed in 50+ GRifts").
The secondary effects I made up for the Intelligence classes, if you read them, are mostly utility - life on hit, damage mitigation, immobilize, charm, etc. The Crusader Vows are tied to damage mitigation (i.e. the tank fantasy), while the DH Marks have a movement/attack slow and a damage debuff. Like I said in the post, I'm neither wedded to the numbers and I don't claim the effects are the perfect solution. If removing the damage synergies to spenders would be an improvement, so be it, but it seems to me that whatever button a player would choose over the primary is typically something that enhances DPS anyway. I don't see why, with such a binary choice, giving a player a wider selection is in any way a negative thing.
In any case, I see that you don't like the ideas, which is perfectly fine. Again, I'm just wondering if you have any concrete proposals of your own, which would be interesting to see. Otherwise, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
I'm pulling form the exact pool of players you are - The top performing per class limited to the top 1/2 rift levels. And the reason they tend to be a little skewed is because at the point where you're doing 50's for GRs you're looking at relatively fractional differences in clear speed and the general progression made is 100% RNG based (did you get the right rift? wait is that an ancient Serpent Sparker?). Basically you have skew due to the way progression works at levels 50+. And in the top performers are every build I've said. Which is averaging 1 non-primary and one primary skill per class (ish).
With regards to your secondary effects: None of the primaries will be taken for those. Realistically you've just piled on enough free damage to make having a primary maybe attractive depending on just how hard your spenders are hitting. The problem with that is equal parts power creep and design intent. The intent is that baseline performance involves resource highs and lows. Sets change how spenders work. Some sets equalize the highs and lows (Wrath, Unhallowed) some sets increase the frequency of oscillation (Roland's, Akkhan's) and some sets just reward flowing properly (Tal's, Raiment). What you're doing is "forcing" primaries into play by converting them into damage buffs, which messes with the way sets change design focus. In your world not using a primary is giving up your largest damage buff. What that means is "equalizer" sets now need to make up for that and "reward" sets need to account for it. "Oscillator" sets won't care one way or the other most of the time unless the primary skill buff relies on buildup.
Now. Many primaries do need some tweaking but so do an appalling number of spenders. This is a consequence of the way "power" is apportioned. Sets generally focus on one or two skills, which means that if the skill doesn't have set support it's bad and if it's over-supported it's mandatory. Queue DH having literally no usable primaries and every single Wizard running Hydra.
My proposal is simple - Focus on expanding available skill support through items. Buff some of the terrible outlier skills (primary and spender alike looking at you Justice and Arcane Orb). Address the actual core issue within the constraints of the design framework and actually recognize the fact that 50% of top performing builds are actually using Oscillator/Reward scheme sets rather than Spender sets.
Analyze sets based on how they reward a player with regards to resource. Start designing "flexible sets" built up from legendary parts rather than greens. Expand itemization to support more things at similar power to what currently exists.
It's an interesting thought. You make some valid points - primaries and spenders do need tweaking, and Mammoth Hydra is a massive outlier in terms of free dps - but I still think gameplay and build diversity is better served with examining and reworking the primaries, which seem to be the foundation for the rest of D3's design.
Everyone likes more legendaries, but I'm afraid that working from that angle would render the pace of change to be glacial, as Blizzard comes out with them every season, it seems like. I also think that using this method, the usage of primary skills would feel much more interesting and fun than they currently are. But you clearly don't seem to agree, and that's perfectly fine.
What I disagree with is not reworking primaries, many do need some work, it is simply piggybacking damage onto the primaries. As it stands the rate of change for builds is approximately one set for each class every other season (plus reworks of existing sets) and one legend per class each season (plus reworked legends).
If the primary focus every season was to include one primary enabler per class (whether as a legend or as a set) then we could have "enabled" builds for every primary in as little as 4 seasons (just over a year depending on season length). That's about the timeframe I would expect for the kind of rework you're proposing, especially given that the large-scale rework you would propose also requires revisiting every legendary and set item in existence (so they don't break) as well as a lot of tuning.
Stuff like Mirrorball and Omnislash is currently quite fun IMO. Some more interesting affixes wouldn't hurt (BLESSED OF HAULL!) but as a whole there are a lot of currently existing "enablers" and just so few sets that actually leave room for an enabler.
Your analysis is not really true/flawless, either. When you went through the classes, you're forgetting that the reason there are spenders is not because spenders themselves are extremely attractive, it is because of specific item/build choices. The reason to use primaries (in the case of Barbarians) is because Bash is a perfect candidate for FnR, the time intervals are close and it offers another source of a damage buff; for non-seasonal, it was optimal out of the remaining bad choices for a damage increase. DH's use spenders primarily for this reason, I didn't quite get that comment about spenders (or even if you meant primaries..) on DHs, unless even this comment is kept to the old DH set, exclusively. WD's tend to be more skewed towards group/buff/minion play and require cooldowns to be as low as possible (which also makes quick parsing of their gear pretty irrelevant since it will most likely change from solo to group play), which involves the use of primaries....and so on and so forth. I can pretty much counter all of those arguments, as the point of his post is about improving primaries to be of value for using them outside of secondary or tertiary reasons, much like spenders are. One of the game tips literally says "find a legendary you like and build a character around it", the problem is that a lot of skills are not good enough as a base to justify using them, even with a legendary buffing them.
The op is trying to suggest that we strengthen our primaries so that they are attractive at the early game as well as at the late game. The reason for using them is for a secondary reason A) to proc this B ) to keep this buff up C) some combination. I think your reading into the use of the word outdated is not the same thing as underperforming. When he speaks of representation, he is not referring to people outside of the top; as he has stated.
Perhaps you read up to a certain point and made your own assumptions, which is a little disappointing honestly. "rather than free damage..." ->
Plague of Toads -
Trance Healer: The Trance Healer attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Plague of Toads. Your Mana spenders have 1000 Life On Hit while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Unless this is expected to be used in conjunction with that loh legendary, I do not see how this is damage oriented. A lot of his suggestions centre on utility effects.
I don't think you realize how complicated 'your simple' solution is. First, Blizzard appreciates making new items with different kinds of legendary powers. On top of that, there is also the compounding of current and future legendaries. Just on these two points alone, making 'new legendaries that support skills' is not an easy task. Then there is the balancing act of playing around with each individual new item to see its potential. The amount of development time required per item for your solution is pretty substantial. Expanding the set pool to legendaries only exacerbates this problem. Blizzard is going for, as much as they possibly can, a balanced experience. You're suggesting Blizzard gives every class a steroid version of Royal Ring of Grandeur ("Start designing "flexible sets" built up from legendary parts rather than greens. Expand itemization to support more things at similar power to what currently exists."), then suggesting that this would be a simple solution. Not a very coherent or thought through response, honestly. Just for one class, this would have incredible ramifications, and for reference's sake there are six classes with access to a variety of items that buff all classes. That's an insanely difficult task to balance, especially for such a small development team. I don't see this happening anytime soon and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't happen until season 5 or later. Seriously, the suggestions the OP is mentioning are at least a possibility and are interesting. Yours are beyond the foreseeable future and really lack foresight.
I mean no disrespect, but I do not have a lot of faith in someone who makes claims about a piece they clearly didn't read, but decided to offer their analysis on said piece regardless of taking the time to read it :/
Your analysis is not really true/flawless, either. When you went through the classes, you're forgetting that the reason there are spenders is not because spenders themselves are extremely attractive, it is because of specific item/build choices. The reason to use primaries (in the case of Barbarians) is because Bash is a perfect candidate for FnR, the time intervals are close and it offers another source of a damage buff; for non-seasonal, it was optimal out of the remaining bad choices for a damage increase. DH's use spenders primarily for this reason, I didn't quite get that comment about spenders (or even if you meant primaries..) on DHs, unless even this comment is kept to the old DH set, exclusively. WD's tend to be more skewed towards group/buff/minion play and require cooldowns to be as low as possible (which also makes quick parsing of their gear pretty irrelevant since it will most likely change from solo to group play), which involves the use of primaries....and so on and so forth. I can pretty much counter all of those arguments, as the point of his post is about improving primaries to be of value for using them outside of secondary or tertiary reasons, much like spenders are. One of the game tips literally says "find a legendary you like and build a character around it", the problem is that a lot of skills are not good enough as a base to justify using them, even with a legendary buffing them.
If the goal is getting primaries represented in use then the method of attaining that goal is irrelevant. That's why FnR exists in the first place (to have primaries existing). Additionally I only parsed top builds in solo, which is more meaningful for quickly determining build power due to the reaosns we have both outlined in group play. In solo there's been more use of primaries on DH since S3 primarily because FnR exists, though the top performing builds are still using Kridershot over generators when possible. If some promaries need buffing specifically you buff those primaries. You don't rework the entire system because a few runes stand out.
The op is trying to suggest that we strengthen our primaries so that they are attractive at the early game as well as at the late game. The reason for using them is for a secondary reason A) to proc this B ) to keep this buff up C) some combination. I think your reading into the use of the word outdated is not the same thing as underperforming. When he speaks of representation, he is not referring to people outside of the top; as he has stated.
Which is why I specifically parsed top performing builds and showed that primaries are not being ignored. Yes different classes are using them for different reasons, no not every class is just using them for a damage buff.
haps you read up to a certain point and made your own assumptions, which is a little disappointing honestly. "rather than free damage..." ->
Plague of Toads -
Trance Healer: The Trance Healer attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Plague of Toads. Your Mana spenders have 1000 Life On Hit while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Unless this is expected to be used in conjunction with that loh legendary, I do not see how this is damage oriented. A lot of his suggestions centre on utility effects.
I read the entire thing by the time I wrote my last analysis. And reread both the effect of that bonus (+1 primary skill damage worth of weapon damage with all spenders) as well as the initial effect (+1 free sycophant). Both of those are direct damage buffs. That HP regen? That's a joke compared to adding a minimum 130% weapon damage to every one of your spenders.
I don't think you realize how complicated 'your simple' solution is. First, Blizzard appreciates making new items with different kinds of legendary powers. On top of that, there is also the compounding of current and future legendaries. Just on these two points alone, making 'new legendaries that support skills' is not an easy task. Then there is the balancing act of playing around with each individual new item to see its potential. The amount of development time required per item for your solution is pretty substantial. Expanding the set pool to legendaries only exacerbates this problem. Blizzard is going for, as much as they possibly can, a balanced experience. You're suggesting Blizzard gives every class a steroid version of Royal Ring of Grandeur ("Start designing "flexible sets" built up from legendary parts rather than greens. Expand itemization to support more things at similar power to what currently exists."), then suggesting that this would be a simple solution. Not a very coherent or thought through response, honestly. Just for one class, this would have incredible ramifications, and for reference's sake there are six classes with access to a variety of items that buff all classes. That's an insanely difficult task to balance, especially for such a small development team. I don't see this happening anytime soon and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't happen until season 5 or later. Seriously, the suggestions the OP is mentioning are at least a possibility and are interesting. Yours are beyond the foreseeable future and really lack foresight.
My simple solution follows the current development schedule and does not in any change the effort the design team will be putting into itemization. It's not asking for more sets or legends per patch and can achieve saturation in as few as 4 seasons (or if the design team wished to push hard it could take two seasons). What you're backing is a concerted design effort in addition to current development allotment of itemization expansion which will not only be replacing current itemization design progress but require going over all existing itemization to ensure that there's no significant set or legend balance disruptions (case in point proposed Crusader changes). This sort of overhaul would be appropriate for an expansion, and since any next expansion is already well into development at this point it would be expansion 4. Which would have a similar ETA to adjusting itemization each season as blizzard has already said they intend to do to promote build diversity. That is not to say primaries shouldn't see change, just saying that change should be focused on making them attractive for the playstyle originally intended. Many sets have begun supporting builds which rely on the "outdated" generate -> burn playstyle and they're some of the top performing builds for their classes in solo. Continuing to iterate in this manner will produce build diversity at least as quickly as any giant rework and will do so with active playtesting instead of limited internal alphas.
I mean no disrespect, but I do not have a lot of faith in someone who makes claims about a piece they clearly didn't read, but decided to offer their analysis on said piece regardless of taking the time to read it :/
I read. I analyzed. I concluded that deviating from current design maxims (items with seasons) would only slow development times and result in significant need for testing and balance on the live (PTR) servers because such a change is beyond the scope of the relatively limited development team to test.
Needs some testing and tuning as said before (Witch Doctor and Wizard especially) but this seems reasonable for bringing primaries back into the realm of useful.
I respectfully disagree and no matter what your post hoc comments are, it is right there in plain English. I think you need to think through and analyze a little more coherently, with a much more open mind. Adding new items is not as much of a drain as changing something that affects all of the current items. I don't think you even read thoroughly what I suggested. I wonder if this close mindedness is a product of the newly 'educated' youths that universities and colleges are producing these years. Everyone thinks they're correct 100% of the time without allowing any new ideas or thoughts to be introduced into their thinking. Makes me sad, really.
Having been involved in the development of multiple video games, I can say that your analysis of the development process is quite off. Since there definitely seems to be a problem with reading everything, I won't bore you with details you don't care to read. So, I could go on and try to point out the miscellaneous mistakes, but the conversation is very clearly not open and with that said I wish you gl on your thoughts and you'll see what is being talked about happen in the future.
Ps: I wouldn't say relatively limited development team. It is literally a limited development team by definition
maybe Lezard conclusion is flawed, but this topic is still good, primary skills could be better in many ways. people on leaderboards have primary skill on them doesn't mean they enjoy using it. and there is at least 4 primary skills each with 5 rune, if 60% of them are useless or under perform, I would have to agree with Lezard.
Quote Lezard "In other words, primary skills should provide more than raw damage output, and should directly synergize with resource spenders in order to keep them as a relevant option in high level play."
I would see primary skills in this way, blizzard should find ways to separate primary skills and spender skills, not only by the damage %. for example, spender focus on AOE and primary focus on single target. or like Lezard point out, primary focus on utility like CC, maybe Addling toad. primary skill the generate A LOT of resource, not 4 to 8, at least like 30. primary skill that heals you without using simplicity, etc.
from my experience, blizzard somehow going in the right direction, but the proportion are wrong, for example barbarian skill like bash should generate 15 fury, witch doctor spider could slow for 6 seconds instead of 2, etc.
Thanks to everyone that supports the idea (and even to everyone that doesn't, because you're keeping the discussion going)!
I wanted to share a few more thoughts on the concept. Originally, the idea was an outgrowth of 'wouldn't it be cool if Monks had stances?' While the Mantras already in game might make that idea seem redundant, the fact is that Mantras were originally an outgrowth of the Paladin Auras concept, not to mention something that affects your allies, which logically a martial art stance wouldn't. It might have been easier to just make it a skill, so you could press a button and go into that stance, but it seems much more interesting gameplay-wise if it involved having to perform a certain number of attacks, first. An obvious source of this concept is Lei Wulong from Tekken (and to a lesser extent, any stancedancing character from any Namco fighting game).
It's entirely possible to just make 'stances' a passive, too, but again this would have high competition from other monk passives, exacerbated by the fact that you have even less passive slots than actives.
A valid and logical objection to this idea is complexity - introducing such an idea to primary skills, which are an integral part of low level play, could intimidate the casual and/or beginning player. On the other hand, I'd argue that the average casual these days are capable of handling such a concept. The usual gamestyle in the beginning is 'generate -> dump' anyway, and the beginning player would be reaping the benefits of the primary rework regardless of if they're doing it consciously. Besides, the typical casual these days is capable of much more advanced gaming concepts than what was possible even 3 years ago - if you don't think they understand resource management, just look at Plants Vs. Zombies or even Clash Of Clans.
Another objection to the idea is power creep. Unlike the previous one, this is a much more reasonable worry. While I believe that keeping the related damage bonuses reasonably lower than that of 'true' damage buffs will mitigate this issue - there are only so many dps skills you can keep on your action bar before survivability becomes a problem - it's a relatively valid concern. Who knows - new legendaries may be built in the future that will throw numbers all out of whack.
I still believe that being forced to choose between the current primaries and a damage buff, a high level D3 player will always come down on the damage buff if he can get away with it. It's less button management, for one thing. Even if this proposed system is implemented, I doubt this will completely change that mindset, but it will at least promote build diversity, which is really all I'm looking for. Wyatt Cheng himself once said that, all the way back in 1.05 vanilla, that one of his goals was to promote diversity.
I still need to reiterate this: I'm not chained to the numbers. If the damage buffs/secondary damage effects can be proven to be excessive when compared to an existing buff (Battle Rage, Breath of Heaven - Blazing Wrath, Wolf Companions, etc.), by all means, remove them. I like the idea of a secondary damage trigger, if only as another source of LoH/effect proc, but again, it doesn't have to be set in stone. If the solution is in improving healing/utility/mitigation/movement synergies with spenders instead of damage, then let's focus on that. Whatever it takes to make primaries much more interesting and relevant to the game than being 'just the resource generator'.
I respectfully disagree and no matter what your post hoc comments are, it is right there in plain English. I think you need to think through and analyze a little more coherently, with a much more open mind. Adding new items is not as much of a drain as changing something that affects all of the current items. I don't think you even read thoroughly what I suggested. I wonder if this close mindedness is a product of the newly 'educated' youths that universities and colleges are producing these years. Everyone thinks they're correct 100% of the time without allowing any new ideas or thoughts to be introduced into their thinking. Makes me sad, really.
Having been involved in the development of multiple video games, I can say that your analysis of the development process is quite off. Since there definitely seems to be a problem with reading everything, I won't bore you with details you don't care to read. So, I could go on and try to point out the miscellaneous mistakes, but the conversation is very clearly not open and with that said I wish you gl on your thoughts and you'll see what is being talked about happen in the future.
Ps: I wouldn't say relatively limited development team. It is literally a limited development team by definition
I have no problem reading actually. At no point do you make a statement suggesting anything but agreement with the OP's general design idea (change the skills themselves). However the math of actually making large changes is very simple.
You have X developers who have to get Y done. If we assume they all have to work together for balance than any changes to one system need crosstalk to communicate and test for balance in all other systems. You could argue that the team working on skill balance is different form the team working on item balance (and they could be) but when it comes to actually implementing a large scale change (a complete rework of the design intent and purpose of primary skills) you not only have to get "Skill team" working on the actual rework of the skills but "Balance team" has to go and check every change made by "skill team" to make sure nothing breaks. Then since there will definitely be something broken (any change similar to the OP's suggestion is a massive net buff for builds that already use primary skills) then either "Skill team" needs to compensate by making changes to skills or "Item team" needs to address item issues.
On the other hand everything in the OP could be added through the itemization system in utility/defense item slots. "Skill team" more or less gets a pass unless "Balance team" finds a problem and the biggest difference is "Art team" has to do visuals. However there's a lot of empty real estate in the legendary item pool and that real estate can be co-opted by "Item team" during their already planned design cycles.
It's literally the difference between using an already planned cycle system and already allocated development focus and refocusing manpower on a completely new development focus. There's a huge difference in how much effort it takes to retask an ongoing effort (updating old legendaries) vs starting an entirely new rework of part of the skill system. Unless Blizz is internally looking at reworking large portions of the skill system I feel it's highly unlikely we'll see a primary skill rework. On the other hand since Blizz is already updating items with legendary affects it's much more likely they will respond to requests for new legendary effects making primary skills more fun. Hell look at the seasonal patches so far. Triumvirate, Delsere's, Omnislash, Blessed of Haull, Leonine Bow, Spirit Guards, Raiment, Depth Diggers, etc.
I'm not saying there's no benefit to be gained form working on primaries. I'm saying that there's already development time devoted to creating new legendary effects which make primary skills useful/fun. I am saying that the OP's "rework" would be just as effective as a collection of legendary affixes. And as a bonus if implemented as itemization it creates an opt-in situation (choices are healthy) as well as creating an itemization moment "I just found this set of pauldrons that does X for Y skill time to test it".
You're welcome to actually talk about my general PoV on the design process. I actually do read everything you say and think about it. Obviously far more than you think about what I say because obviously you're completely right and I'm completely wrong, why else would nothing I say have any affect on your stance.
I'm willing to change my stance if you can come up with an actually compelling reason to do so. I have yet to see such a reason.
My impression is that You are trying to make primary skills NEEDED, when They should be an option. I mean, prymary skills should give that feeling of "i can rely on this skill", not the idea of "i have to use it".
I don't think giving them legendary effects (why legendaries?) is an option, because the answer would be "why the other skills doesn't have an extra effect? Why my fire skills don't have a burning effect on enemies?".
They should cover one of the main points a nice build must have. For example:
A good build needs: output damage, defensive skills, skills that buffs us, extra effects one enemies or us (like passives do), movility, resource generation, etc...
Now, primary skills should be the answer to one of the previus specs.
- In DHs, Evasive Fire is used because of the resource generation, why would them need a legendary affix???
- Wizards use 2 of them.
- Monks use them
- WDs use them when playing toads.
- Saders don't
- Barbs do and don't.
To sum up, the idea of turnig them into a better option is good, the idea of buffing them is wrong.
To sum up, the idea of turnig them into a better option is good, the idea of buffing them is wrong.
How would you accomplish this? If by 'buffing them' you mean simply tuning their damage upwards, then I am in complete agreement. Are you saying though, that they shouldn't provide non-dps utility either? If so, then in your opinion, how would you make them better?
To sum up, the idea of turnig them into a better option is good, the idea of buffing them is wrong.
How would you accomplish this? If by 'buffing them' you mean simply tuning their damage upwards, then I am in complete agreement. Are you saying though, that they shouldn't provide non-dps utility either? If so, then in your opinion, how would you make them better?
I'm trying to say that there is no need of legendary affixes on them. They can simply generate more resource (one way of buffing them), they can have a defense effect on us (creating shields, etc), or they can have their damage buffed. I'm not happy with this last option, because You can have really much more damage from other skills, and right now that's what is happening.
Primaries are not covering anything, They don't deal too much dmg, They don't generate the resource builds need, They don't give anything more than wasting time casting them.
Make them useful for one of these specs and that's it. No need of more power for us such as IAS, more power, etc (looking at monk's idea You threw).
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This post is originally taken from my blog - http://archmagelezard.blogspot.com/2015/05/primary-skills-reboot-idea.html
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Primary Skills Rework Idea
The current place that primary skills occupy in Diablo 3 is a curious one. Originally, they were meant to generate resource for spenders, or in the case of the Intelligence classes, to be cast while waiting for resources to refill. In the present time, this situation only exists at the lower levels of play, generally for new accounts and/or players.
At mid-to-endgame levels, the differences between primary skills and spenders become much more pronounced, eventually splitting into two different types of spec: one that focuses on primary skills as a source of damage (via legendaries, Depth Diggers, and the Simplicity's Strength gem) and another, more common type, that focuses on spenders. The second type of spec typically dispenses with primary skills (See Kridershot, Shotgun, Wasteland WW, Firebird's, Jade Doctor, Tempest Rush) and achieves resource regeneration through other sources.
While each type of spec on its own is certainly valid, and certainly fun to play, this state of things ignores the loss of potential build variety. The reason behind it is simple - because of having limited button space, primary skills fight for justifying themselves on a character's action bar. When most people generally build around their spenders, primaries are the first thing to go, for the obvious reason that two active damage skills cannot be cast at the same time. With that mindset, it is much easier and more logical to remove the primary and replace it with another skill that either generates resource, mitigates damage taken, or improves damage output.
Frequently, skills can be found that combines two or more of these, completely rendering primary skills outdated.
Blizzard's response to this has been to increase the damage output of primary skills in some way. In one patch, their baseline damage was raised. In another, legendaries were introduced to further increase it. In yet another, their baseline resource generation was improved.
Unfortunately, this still does not address the true issue, which is that primary skills suffer from too much competition as a damage output skill.
Keeping that in mind, it would seem that a more effective way to make primary skills more relevant is not simply to increase damage or resource generation. Rather, the UTILITY of primary skills should be improved, giving it SYNERGY with resource spenders in the same way Battle Rage or Conviction or Magic Weapon does. While that should be a primary focus, non-dps related utility is also a factor, as the higher levels of GRift now forces players to seriously consider damage mitigation. In a way, movement and healing is also a form of damage mitigation and should be considered in such discussions.
In other words, primary skills should provide more than raw damage output, and should directly synergize with resource spenders in order to keep them as a relevant option in high level play.
Listed below are a number of ideas for changes to primary skills. Keep in mind that the numbers are rough napkin math, and by no means should be taken as a concrete proposal. Nor do I claim that these ideas are perfect and cannot be improved or even changed. However, I do hope that they spark discussion into the idea of improving primary skills in way that goes beyond simply increasing damage numbers.
*****
Barbarian: Each hit with a primary skill grants the Barbarian Anger. The Anger stacks up to 100. Your next Fury Spender has its damage increased by 1% per Anger stack and consumes all stacks. You cannot have more than 1 Anger active at any time.
Bash -
Bul-Kathos' Anger: Your Fury Spenders deal 50% increased damage whenever it hits a single target.
Cleave -
Korlic's Anger: Your Fury Spenders deal 75% of your area damage whenever it hits 3 or more targets.
Frenzy -
Talic's Anger: Your Fury Spenders refresh your Frenzy duration at its current number of stacks.
Weapon Throw -
Madawc's Anger: Your Fury Spenders deal 50% increased damage whenever it hits a target more than 10 yards yards away from you.
*****
Crusader: Each hit with a primary skill grants the Crusader a Vow. The Vow lasts for 5 seconds. You cannot have more than 1 Vow active at any time.
Punish -
Defender's Vow: Your Punish skill increases your Block chance by 15% (This is simply the normal secondary effect of Punish, reworded using the Vow system). Your Wrath Spenders deal an additional 200% of your Shield Block chance as weapon damage.
Slash -
Champion's Vow: Your Slash skill increases your melee damage reduction by 10%. Your Wrath Spenders deal an additional 300% of your melee damage reduction as weapon damage to enemies within 15 yards.
Smite -
Militant's Vow: Your Smite skill increases your crowd control reduction by 20%. Your Wrath Spenders deal an additional 250% of your crowd control reduction as weapon damage split between all targets hit.
Justice -
Arbiter's Vow: Your Justice skill increases your ranged damage reduction by 10%. Your Wrath Spenders deal an additional 300% of your ranged damage reduction as weapon damage to enemies further than 15 yards.
*****
Demon Hunter: Each hit with a primary skill Marks a target. This Mark stacks up to 3 times and lasts for 6 seconds (The Mark does not refresh). You cannot have more than 1 of your Marks active on a target at any time.
Hungering Arrow -
Tracker's Mark: Your Hatred spenders causes the Marked target to bleed for 75% weapon damage for each Mark.
Entangling Shot -
Constable's Mark: Your Hatred spenders slows the Marked target's movement and attack speed by 15% for each Mark.
Bolas -
Raider's Mark: Your Hatred spenders causes the Marked target to deal your area damage to enemies within 5 yards. This range is increased by the number of Marks.
Evasive Fire -
Acrobat's Mark: Your Hatred spenders causes the Marked target to miss 10% of its attacks per Mark.
Grenade -
Demolitionist's Mark: Your Hatred spenders causes the Marked target to drop one grenade per Mark that deals 50% weapon damage. This grenade is affected by all passive skills and legendary affixes that affect the Grenade primary skill.
*****
Monk: The third hit of your primary skills causes you to go into a Stance. This Stance lasts for 4 seconds. You cannot have more than 1 Stance active at any time.
Fist of Thunder -
Flowing Serpent Stance: Your Spirit spenders creates a blast of energy that deals 300% weapon damage split among all enemies hit.
Deadly Reach -
Grasping Spider Stance: Your Spirit spenders deal 10% more damage to enemies under movement-impairing effects.
Crippling Wave -
Crashing Tiger Stance: Your Spirit spenders that deal damage to three or more enemies deal your area damage to each. The range of this area damage is increased by your Pickup Radius.
Way of A Hundred Fists -
Thousand Mantis Stance: Your Spirit spenders have 20% increased attack speed.
Passive Skill Change - Combination Strike
Stance Dance: Whenever you change from one stance into another, you deal 10% increased damage for the next 6 seconds.
*****
Witch Doctor: Your Primary skills summon a Fetish Assistant. The Fetish Assistant counts as a Fetish Sycophant for all skills and legendary affixes that affect Fetishes. The Fetish Assistant lasts for 5 seconds. You may only have 1 Fetish Assistant active.
Poison Dart -
Spirit Guide: The Spirit Guide attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Poison Dart. Your Mana spenders cost 10% less while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Corpse Spiders -
Dream Chanter: The Dream Chanter attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Corpse Spiders. Your Mana spenders have a 5% chance to Charm while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Plague of Toads -
Trance Healer: The Trance Healer attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Plague of Toads. Your Mana spenders have 1000 Life On Hit while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Firebomb -
Soul Retriever: The Soul Retriever attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Firebomb. Your Mana spenders have a 5% chance to drop Health Globes while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Passive Skill Change - Vision Quest
When you deal damage with Corpse Spiders, Firebomb, Plague of Toads, or Poison Dart, your Mana regeneration is increased by 30% for 5 seconds. Your primary skills are now considered to be resource generators.
*****
Wizard: Targets hit by your primary skill are affected by Malediction. Malediction lasts for 5 seconds. Targets affected by Malediction that are hit by an Arcane Power spender take 250% weapon damage over 5 seconds. You cannot have more than 1 of your Maledictions active on a target at any time.
Magic Missile -
Mystic Malediction: Your Arcane Power spenders have a chance to restore 1 Arcane Power when it hits an affected target.
Shock Pulse -
Boisterous Malediction: Your Arcane Power spenders have a chance to immobilize an affected target for 1 second.
Spectral Blade -
Phantom Malediction: Your Arcane Power spenders causes the affected target to deal 10% less damage.
Electrocute -
Thunderous Malediction: Your Arcane Power spenders causes the affected target to deal your area damage.
Passive Skill Change - Prodigy
When you cast a Signature spell, you gain 5 Arcane Power. Your Signature spells are now considered to be resource generators.
Thanks! I forgot to mention - I added the Passive skill reworks as well since Intelligence classes have problems with building primary skill-based specs. Things like Mirrorball and Carnevil have fallen by the wayside now that Zunimassa's and Tal Rasha's have been greatly improved.
Two of the top performing crusader builds use a primary skill. The top performing Wizard spec uses a primary skill (Electrocute woot). Monk uses a primary skill in top performing builds. Apparently top performing seasonals are still using bash on barbarian. Top performing WD on seasonals is using carnevil it looks like.
The problem with primary skills is that it's too easy to achieve infinite resources. Compounded with the fact that most sets focus on amplifying non-primary skill damage specifically this results in a situation where most builds simply have no reason to use their primary skills.
The simplest fix is to add item sets with high synergy but without infinite resources. Tal's and Roland's are both good examples of this. They both rely on items which make resource ups and downs an important part of the playstyle. Contrast with Wrath of the Wastes and/or every demon hunter BiS weapon or offhand ever where you just have infinite resources through pure mechanical power.
Adding more layers of "utility" (which apparently means "damage buffs) to primary skills is unlikely to get them seeing any use, and if it did it's just to press for a damage buff. That's not the correct way to address the lack of builds which rely on primary skills. Also apparently primaries aren't being ignored by at least one build for most classes.
I'd respectfully disagree on a few key points. I'm using DiabloProgress to take a look at a sample of the builds being used for non-Seasonal, where people have had enough time to build the sets that they want. I don't really look at the Seasonal boards because of the smaller amount of time involved, where more people get "what's good now". The top barb on hardcore does use a Primary skill, but he uses the Frenzy-Vanguard rune, which goes with my argument that people are looking for more utility from primary skills rather than just pure damage output. Meanwhile, on Softcore, there's a grand total of 5 people who aren't Demon Hunters in the top 20, the only 1 of which who uses a primary is a Carnevil doctor who's number 17 as I write this and 8 places below the Primary-less Jade Doctor.
I do agree that the sets coming out, with the possible exception of Thousand Storms, have been spender heavy, as well as resource being much too easy to get these days. However, spenders do seem to be more popular with people, probably because they're much flashier and visually more impressive. This is fine, though, and I'm not arguing that we go back to early vanilla D3 where the idea was to use Primaries half of the time and spenders just as a resource dump. Your mileage may vary, though, and if you don't think that utility is the answer, then what is? Nerf all resource generating non-primary skills? I'm not scoffing at the idea, though, I'm just genuinely curious if you have a concrete proposal.
As an aside, it's interesting that you've brought up Tal Rasha's - my main is a Wizard, and the Triumvirate/Tal set is what gave me the inspiration for this skill rework to begin with.
Though this would need a lot of fine-tuning, I really love the idea!!!
Let's take a snapshot of SC sampling...
Barbarian: Top 4 slots are Leapquake / Waste barbs sets designed specifically to eliminate resource production. Of barbs in the top .0001% of progression (I'm not going to get into how skewed sampling can be because RNG) 1 is at 59, 6 are at 58. We'll assume for simplicity that that's an RNG disparity (it probably is). 7 Barbs, one of which is using Bash (+% damage, Wrath/IK combo). The other 6 barbs are using the aforementioned sets. We can reasonably say from the performance sampling that as far as non-seasonal is concerned Wrath/Leapquake/"IKWrath" (possibly IK proper) are comparative with each other. We can also conlude from sampling across a wider number of players (involving S3, where barbs are roughly equivalently geared) that Bash is a preferred skill for builds including IK pieces because they don't have Bul-Kathos resource regen.
Barbarian Conclusion - Of the top 3 performing builds they all perform similarly in the "established" environment and 1 of them relies on a primary.
Demon Hunter: We all know that spenders are terribad for DH due to MANY factors. Moving on.
Monk: 3 monks are in 57. One of which is using Raiment w/ WotHF. The others are using Sunwoku. Further sampling concludes that the two are performing similarly and Raiment prefers having a primary.
Witch Doctor: Three similarly performing builds. Two are using primaries. Note that WD is skewed toward primaries due to lack of their seasonal belt on the "established" community.
Wizard: Every single top performing player non-season uses a primary.
Crusader: Sweep Attack is the top performing non-seasonal build. It does not use a primary. Condemn performs similarly and does use a primary. From my recollection Shield Bash should be performing similarly to both of those builds and does use a primary, however everybody keeps screwing around with their gear trying new things and changing their minds so I'm not going to commit to that.
Final Conclusion: Your assertion that builds using primary skills are underrepresented or underperforming is flawed. They are only underrepresented on a per-class basis at the highest levels of progression within any given class. In reality most classes have both spender and primary builds performing similarly and the primary difference in representation is driven almost entirely by itemization (and some primaries being weak). Both paradigms are seeing significant representation in solo. Group play skews representation due to several factors (mostly involving free resource generation) so relying on group leaderboards for information will provide significantly different data compared to solo and the accuracy becomes dubious (highest 4man barb is 10 levels behind highest 4man WD for instance).
Now if you think having utility on primaries would get them a slot in "spender" builds then actually suggest some utility effects (rather than free damage, which is what every one of the suggestions I read are). In reality though primaries are seeing plenty of use for non-DHs and group play skews loadout due to class role idiosyncracy (spam CC with no costs, fill slots with buff, if you're DPSing you're a DH of course you have no primaries).
I don't have the hard data that Blizzard has, and I've be very interested to see your own sources so I can make comparisons. Saying that the highest levels of progression isn't a valid sample doesn't strike me as entirely correct, though. Many people in this game want to progress, and the top performers are an example of the kind of skills and items that make it to the leaderboards. Not everyone will have their gear and skills, but people will want those gear and skills. While the so-called majority of people playing may still use primaries in the traditional way, I've already made the point that it's typically the lower-end or very casual player that does so in my post. By definition, these people would be the majority (at least I haven't seen any data that says something to the effect of "75% of D3 players have all placed in 50+ GRifts").
The secondary effects I made up for the Intelligence classes, if you read them, are mostly utility - life on hit, damage mitigation, immobilize, charm, etc. The Crusader Vows are tied to damage mitigation (i.e. the tank fantasy), while the DH Marks have a movement/attack slow and a damage debuff. Like I said in the post, I'm neither wedded to the numbers and I don't claim the effects are the perfect solution. If removing the damage synergies to spenders would be an improvement, so be it, but it seems to me that whatever button a player would choose over the primary is typically something that enhances DPS anyway. I don't see why, with such a binary choice, giving a player a wider selection is in any way a negative thing.
In any case, I see that you don't like the ideas, which is perfectly fine. Again, I'm just wondering if you have any concrete proposals of your own, which would be interesting to see. Otherwise, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
I'm pulling form the exact pool of players you are - The top performing per class limited to the top 1/2 rift levels. And the reason they tend to be a little skewed is because at the point where you're doing 50's for GRs you're looking at relatively fractional differences in clear speed and the general progression made is 100% RNG based (did you get the right rift? wait is that an ancient Serpent Sparker?). Basically you have skew due to the way progression works at levels 50+. And in the top performers are every build I've said. Which is averaging 1 non-primary and one primary skill per class (ish).
With regards to your secondary effects: None of the primaries will be taken for those. Realistically you've just piled on enough free damage to make having a primary maybe attractive depending on just how hard your spenders are hitting. The problem with that is equal parts power creep and design intent. The intent is that baseline performance involves resource highs and lows. Sets change how spenders work. Some sets equalize the highs and lows (Wrath, Unhallowed) some sets increase the frequency of oscillation (Roland's, Akkhan's) and some sets just reward flowing properly (Tal's, Raiment). What you're doing is "forcing" primaries into play by converting them into damage buffs, which messes with the way sets change design focus. In your world not using a primary is giving up your largest damage buff. What that means is "equalizer" sets now need to make up for that and "reward" sets need to account for it. "Oscillator" sets won't care one way or the other most of the time unless the primary skill buff relies on buildup.
Now. Many primaries do need some tweaking but so do an appalling number of spenders. This is a consequence of the way "power" is apportioned. Sets generally focus on one or two skills, which means that if the skill doesn't have set support it's bad and if it's over-supported it's mandatory. Queue DH having literally no usable primaries and every single Wizard running Hydra.
My proposal is simple - Focus on expanding available skill support through items. Buff some of the terrible outlier skills (primary and spender alike looking at you Justice and Arcane Orb). Address the actual core issue within the constraints of the design framework and actually recognize the fact that 50% of top performing builds are actually using Oscillator/Reward scheme sets rather than Spender sets.
Analyze sets based on how they reward a player with regards to resource. Start designing "flexible sets" built up from legendary parts rather than greens. Expand itemization to support more things at similar power to what currently exists.
It's an interesting thought. You make some valid points - primaries and spenders do need tweaking, and Mammoth Hydra is a massive outlier in terms of free dps - but I still think gameplay and build diversity is better served with examining and reworking the primaries, which seem to be the foundation for the rest of D3's design.
Everyone likes more legendaries, but I'm afraid that working from that angle would render the pace of change to be glacial, as Blizzard comes out with them every season, it seems like. I also think that using this method, the usage of primary skills would feel much more interesting and fun than they currently are. But you clearly don't seem to agree, and that's perfectly fine.
What I disagree with is not reworking primaries, many do need some work, it is simply piggybacking damage onto the primaries. As it stands the rate of change for builds is approximately one set for each class every other season (plus reworks of existing sets) and one legend per class each season (plus reworked legends).
If the primary focus every season was to include one primary enabler per class (whether as a legend or as a set) then we could have "enabled" builds for every primary in as little as 4 seasons (just over a year depending on season length). That's about the timeframe I would expect for the kind of rework you're proposing, especially given that the large-scale rework you would propose also requires revisiting every legendary and set item in existence (so they don't break) as well as a lot of tuning.
Stuff like Mirrorball and Omnislash is currently quite fun IMO. Some more interesting affixes wouldn't hurt (BLESSED OF HAULL!) but as a whole there are a lot of currently existing "enablers" and just so few sets that actually leave room for an enabler.
@Auto
Your analysis is not really true/flawless, either. When you went through the classes, you're forgetting that the reason there are spenders is not because spenders themselves are extremely attractive, it is because of specific item/build choices. The reason to use primaries (in the case of Barbarians) is because Bash is a perfect candidate for FnR, the time intervals are close and it offers another source of a damage buff; for non-seasonal, it was optimal out of the remaining bad choices for a damage increase. DH's use spenders primarily for this reason, I didn't quite get that comment about spenders (or even if you meant primaries..) on DHs, unless even this comment is kept to the old DH set, exclusively. WD's tend to be more skewed towards group/buff/minion play and require cooldowns to be as low as possible (which also makes quick parsing of their gear pretty irrelevant since it will most likely change from solo to group play), which involves the use of primaries....and so on and so forth. I can pretty much counter all of those arguments, as the point of his post is about improving primaries to be of value for using them outside of secondary or tertiary reasons, much like spenders are. One of the game tips literally says "find a legendary you like and build a character around it", the problem is that a lot of skills are not good enough as a base to justify using them, even with a legendary buffing them.
The op is trying to suggest that we strengthen our primaries so that they are attractive at the early game as well as at the late game. The reason for using them is for a secondary reason A) to proc this B ) to keep this buff up C) some combination. I think your reading into the use of the word outdated is not the same thing as underperforming. When he speaks of representation, he is not referring to people outside of the top; as he has stated.
Perhaps you read up to a certain point and made your own assumptions, which is a little disappointing honestly. "rather than free damage..." ->
Plague of Toads -
Trance Healer: The Trance Healer attacks targets hit by your Mana spenders with Plague of Toads. Your Mana spenders have 1000 Life On Hit while your Fetish Assistant is active.
Unless this is expected to be used in conjunction with that loh legendary, I do not see how this is damage oriented. A lot of his suggestions centre on utility effects.
I don't think you realize how complicated 'your simple' solution is. First, Blizzard appreciates making new items with different kinds of legendary powers. On top of that, there is also the compounding of current and future legendaries. Just on these two points alone, making 'new legendaries that support skills' is not an easy task. Then there is the balancing act of playing around with each individual new item to see its potential. The amount of development time required per item for your solution is pretty substantial. Expanding the set pool to legendaries only exacerbates this problem. Blizzard is going for, as much as they possibly can, a balanced experience. You're suggesting Blizzard gives every class a steroid version of Royal Ring of Grandeur ("Start designing "flexible sets" built up from legendary parts rather than greens. Expand itemization to support more things at similar power to what currently exists."), then suggesting that this would be a simple solution. Not a very coherent or thought through response, honestly. Just for one class, this would have incredible ramifications, and for reference's sake there are six classes with access to a variety of items that buff all classes. That's an insanely difficult task to balance, especially for such a small development team. I don't see this happening anytime soon and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't happen until season 5 or later. Seriously, the suggestions the OP is mentioning are at least a possibility and are interesting. Yours are beyond the foreseeable future and really lack foresight.
I mean no disrespect, but I do not have a lot of faith in someone who makes claims about a piece they clearly didn't read, but decided to offer their analysis on said piece regardless of taking the time to read it :/
If the goal is getting primaries represented in use then the method of attaining that goal is irrelevant. That's why FnR exists in the first place (to have primaries existing). Additionally I only parsed top builds in solo, which is more meaningful for quickly determining build power due to the reaosns we have both outlined in group play. In solo there's been more use of primaries on DH since S3 primarily because FnR exists, though the top performing builds are still using Kridershot over generators when possible. If some promaries need buffing specifically you buff those primaries. You don't rework the entire system because a few runes stand out.
Which is why I specifically parsed top performing builds and showed that primaries are not being ignored. Yes different classes are using them for different reasons, no not every class is just using them for a damage buff.
I read the entire thing by the time I wrote my last analysis. And reread both the effect of that bonus (+1 primary skill damage worth of weapon damage with all spenders) as well as the initial effect (+1 free sycophant). Both of those are direct damage buffs. That HP regen? That's a joke compared to adding a minimum 130% weapon damage to every one of your spenders.
My simple solution follows the current development schedule and does not in any change the effort the design team will be putting into itemization. It's not asking for more sets or legends per patch and can achieve saturation in as few as 4 seasons (or if the design team wished to push hard it could take two seasons). What you're backing is a concerted design effort in addition to current development allotment of itemization expansion which will not only be replacing current itemization design progress but require going over all existing itemization to ensure that there's no significant set or legend balance disruptions (case in point proposed Crusader changes). This sort of overhaul would be appropriate for an expansion, and since any next expansion is already well into development at this point it would be expansion 4. Which would have a similar ETA to adjusting itemization each season as blizzard has already said they intend to do to promote build diversity. That is not to say primaries shouldn't see change, just saying that change should be focused on making them attractive for the playstyle originally intended. Many sets have begun supporting builds which rely on the "outdated" generate -> burn playstyle and they're some of the top performing builds for their classes in solo. Continuing to iterate in this manner will produce build diversity at least as quickly as any giant rework and will do so with active playtesting instead of limited internal alphas.
I read. I analyzed. I concluded that deviating from current design maxims (items with seasons) would only slow development times and result in significant need for testing and balance on the live (PTR) servers because such a change is beyond the scope of the relatively limited development team to test.
And I very clearly did read it.
Needs some testing and tuning as said before (Witch Doctor and Wizard especially) but this seems reasonable for bringing primaries back into the realm of useful.
I respectfully disagree and no matter what your post hoc comments are, it is right there in plain English. I think you need to think through and analyze a little more coherently, with a much more open mind. Adding new items is not as much of a drain as changing something that affects all of the current items. I don't think you even read thoroughly what I suggested. I wonder if this close mindedness is a product of the newly 'educated' youths that universities and colleges are producing these years. Everyone thinks they're correct 100% of the time without allowing any new ideas or thoughts to be introduced into their thinking. Makes me sad, really.
Having been involved in the development of multiple video games, I can say that your analysis of the development process is quite off. Since there definitely seems to be a problem with reading everything, I won't bore you with details you don't care to read. So, I could go on and try to point out the miscellaneous mistakes, but the conversation is very clearly not open and with that said I wish you gl on your thoughts and you'll see what is being talked about happen in the future.
Ps: I wouldn't say relatively limited development team. It is literally a limited development team by definition
maybe Lezard conclusion is flawed, but this topic is still good, primary skills could be better in many ways. people on leaderboards have primary skill on them doesn't mean they enjoy using it. and there is at least 4 primary skills each with 5 rune, if 60% of them are useless or under perform, I would have to agree with Lezard.
Quote Lezard "In other words, primary skills should provide more than raw damage output, and should directly synergize with resource spenders in order to keep them as a relevant option in high level play."
I would see primary skills in this way, blizzard should find ways to separate primary skills and spender skills, not only by the damage %. for example, spender focus on AOE and primary focus on single target. or like Lezard point out, primary focus on utility like CC, maybe Addling toad. primary skill the generate A LOT of resource, not 4 to 8, at least like 30. primary skill that heals you without using simplicity, etc.
from my experience, blizzard somehow going in the right direction, but the proportion are wrong, for example barbarian skill like bash should generate 15 fury, witch doctor spider could slow for 6 seconds instead of 2, etc.
Thanks to everyone that supports the idea (and even to everyone that doesn't, because you're keeping the discussion going)!
I wanted to share a few more thoughts on the concept. Originally, the idea was an outgrowth of 'wouldn't it be cool if Monks had stances?' While the Mantras already in game might make that idea seem redundant, the fact is that Mantras were originally an outgrowth of the Paladin Auras concept, not to mention something that affects your allies, which logically a martial art stance wouldn't. It might have been easier to just make it a skill, so you could press a button and go into that stance, but it seems much more interesting gameplay-wise if it involved having to perform a certain number of attacks, first. An obvious source of this concept is Lei Wulong from Tekken (and to a lesser extent, any stancedancing character from any Namco fighting game).
It's entirely possible to just make 'stances' a passive, too, but again this would have high competition from other monk passives, exacerbated by the fact that you have even less passive slots than actives.
A valid and logical objection to this idea is complexity - introducing such an idea to primary skills, which are an integral part of low level play, could intimidate the casual and/or beginning player. On the other hand, I'd argue that the average casual these days are capable of handling such a concept. The usual gamestyle in the beginning is 'generate -> dump' anyway, and the beginning player would be reaping the benefits of the primary rework regardless of if they're doing it consciously. Besides, the typical casual these days is capable of much more advanced gaming concepts than what was possible even 3 years ago - if you don't think they understand resource management, just look at Plants Vs. Zombies or even Clash Of Clans.
Another objection to the idea is power creep. Unlike the previous one, this is a much more reasonable worry. While I believe that keeping the related damage bonuses reasonably lower than that of 'true' damage buffs will mitigate this issue - there are only so many dps skills you can keep on your action bar before survivability becomes a problem - it's a relatively valid concern. Who knows - new legendaries may be built in the future that will throw numbers all out of whack.
I still believe that being forced to choose between the current primaries and a damage buff, a high level D3 player will always come down on the damage buff if he can get away with it. It's less button management, for one thing. Even if this proposed system is implemented, I doubt this will completely change that mindset, but it will at least promote build diversity, which is really all I'm looking for. Wyatt Cheng himself once said that, all the way back in 1.05 vanilla, that one of his goals was to promote diversity.
I still need to reiterate this: I'm not chained to the numbers. If the damage buffs/secondary damage effects can be proven to be excessive when compared to an existing buff (Battle Rage, Breath of Heaven - Blazing Wrath, Wolf Companions, etc.), by all means, remove them. I like the idea of a secondary damage trigger, if only as another source of LoH/effect proc, but again, it doesn't have to be set in stone. If the solution is in improving healing/utility/mitigation/movement synergies with spenders instead of damage, then let's focus on that. Whatever it takes to make primaries much more interesting and relevant to the game than being 'just the resource generator'.
I have no problem reading actually. At no point do you make a statement suggesting anything but agreement with the OP's general design idea (change the skills themselves). However the math of actually making large changes is very simple.
You have X developers who have to get Y done. If we assume they all have to work together for balance than any changes to one system need crosstalk to communicate and test for balance in all other systems. You could argue that the team working on skill balance is different form the team working on item balance (and they could be) but when it comes to actually implementing a large scale change (a complete rework of the design intent and purpose of primary skills) you not only have to get "Skill team" working on the actual rework of the skills but "Balance team" has to go and check every change made by "skill team" to make sure nothing breaks. Then since there will definitely be something broken (any change similar to the OP's suggestion is a massive net buff for builds that already use primary skills) then either "Skill team" needs to compensate by making changes to skills or "Item team" needs to address item issues.
On the other hand everything in the OP could be added through the itemization system in utility/defense item slots. "Skill team" more or less gets a pass unless "Balance team" finds a problem and the biggest difference is "Art team" has to do visuals. However there's a lot of empty real estate in the legendary item pool and that real estate can be co-opted by "Item team" during their already planned design cycles.
It's literally the difference between using an already planned cycle system and already allocated development focus and refocusing manpower on a completely new development focus. There's a huge difference in how much effort it takes to retask an ongoing effort (updating old legendaries) vs starting an entirely new rework of part of the skill system. Unless Blizz is internally looking at reworking large portions of the skill system I feel it's highly unlikely we'll see a primary skill rework. On the other hand since Blizz is already updating items with legendary affects it's much more likely they will respond to requests for new legendary effects making primary skills more fun. Hell look at the seasonal patches so far. Triumvirate, Delsere's, Omnislash, Blessed of Haull, Leonine Bow, Spirit Guards, Raiment, Depth Diggers, etc.
I'm not saying there's no benefit to be gained form working on primaries. I'm saying that there's already development time devoted to creating new legendary effects which make primary skills useful/fun. I am saying that the OP's "rework" would be just as effective as a collection of legendary affixes. And as a bonus if implemented as itemization it creates an opt-in situation (choices are healthy) as well as creating an itemization moment "I just found this set of pauldrons that does X for Y skill time to test it".
You're welcome to actually talk about my general PoV on the design process. I actually do read everything you say and think about it. Obviously far more than you think about what I say because obviously you're completely right and I'm completely wrong, why else would nothing I say have any affect on your stance.
I'm willing to change my stance if you can come up with an actually compelling reason to do so. I have yet to see such a reason.
I agree with You up to a point.
My impression is that You are trying to make primary skills NEEDED, when They should be an option. I mean, prymary skills should give that feeling of "i can rely on this skill", not the idea of "i have to use it".
I don't think giving them legendary effects (why legendaries?) is an option, because the answer would be "why the other skills doesn't have an extra effect? Why my fire skills don't have a burning effect on enemies?".
They should cover one of the main points a nice build must have. For example:
A good build needs: output damage, defensive skills, skills that buffs us, extra effects one enemies or us (like passives do), movility, resource generation, etc...
Now, primary skills should be the answer to one of the previus specs.
- In DHs, Evasive Fire is used because of the resource generation, why would them need a legendary affix???
- Wizards use 2 of them.
- Monks use them
- WDs use them when playing toads.
- Saders don't
- Barbs do and don't.
To sum up, the idea of turnig them into a better option is good, the idea of buffing them is wrong.
How would you accomplish this? If by 'buffing them' you mean simply tuning their damage upwards, then I am in complete agreement. Are you saying though, that they shouldn't provide non-dps utility either? If so, then in your opinion, how would you make them better?
I'm trying to say that there is no need of legendary affixes on them. They can simply generate more resource (one way of buffing them), they can have a defense effect on us (creating shields, etc), or they can have their damage buffed. I'm not happy with this last option, because You can have really much more damage from other skills, and right now that's what is happening.
Primaries are not covering anything, They don't deal too much dmg, They don't generate the resource builds need, They don't give anything more than wasting time casting them.
Make them useful for one of these specs and that's it. No need of more power for us such as IAS, more power, etc (looking at monk's idea You threw).