In the various discussions for possible improvements to Paragon, some have put forth a skill tree concept to strengthen selected skills. Flat damage bonus or otherwise.
I was thinking about a system to activate additional skill runes at various Paragon levels. Lets say at every 100 Paragon level.
It doesnt cost any paragon points, just simply allows you to select an additional rune effect for any currently equipped skill.
The equipped skill/rune on your skill bar would be the primary, for determining element type. Just like the existing system for items that give all rune effects of a skill. So the UI for selecting additional runes would have to be part of the Paragon UI, so it stays separate from the Skill UI.
You could allocate the additional runes however you like, you dont have to evenly distribute between all skills. So for WD, if you are running Zuni set and want all the fetish army runes you could have 8 dagger fetishes + 2 tiki torchers + 2 blowdart head hunters = 12 fetish. Plus 15 from Sycophants belt or passive. 27 total fetishes for a healthy damage reduction from Zuni 4 pc bonus. Might be a little overpowered in that example.
So assuming you have no items that give additional rune effects, at 2400 Paragon you could activate all rune effects for all your equipped skills.
Do you think there are any skills where it would be totally broken to have all rune effects active?
One skill that would definitely be broken to have all runes active on is pretty much any of the large cool down buff skills (Akarat's Champion, Vengance, Wrath of The Berserker, Archon, ect.) because those skills are already considered OP with only one or 2 runes active (depending on gear) the only way blizzard could balance that power with only one or two was with a massive cool down (which most builds have a way to negate) so being able to have all runes active would be so broken OP that it wouldn't even be funny.
Just off the top of my head, Wiz ET with Raging Storm (ET merge) and Wicked Wind (spin on the spot) would retain the corner-hugging ET techniques currently in practice, while the Gale Force rune would further increase the dmg dealt by the skill and even open up options for more dmg bonuses (magefist/cindercoat) due to its fire element - so this would seem a little broken to me.
Another issue would be Crusader's Heaven's Fury, in that skilling all of the runes would not make any logical sense. The default skill (and 4 of its runes) chase mobs with 1 or more beams of light, while the Fires of Heaven rune completely changes the skill effect, removing the chase effect and turning the skill into a single use shotgun-like blast. In practice I would expect that if Fires of Heaven was selected as the primary rune, the other runes would simply add more (and wider) beams. The runes that would concern me in this instance are Blessed Ground and Thou Shalt Not Pass, as they contradict one another; The former creates a damaging pool/trail, while the latter essentially knocks the enemy back (such that they will not receive dmg from the former rune effect).
Another similar example of runes affecting skill animation/mechanics is Monk's Lashing Tail Kick, although this is less of an issue, as it has no contradictory runes. The skill has 3 variations in its effect; a simple roundhouse kick, hurling a fireball of sorts and a ranged attack which targets a specific area (as opposed to being a linear AoE). In practice this could work in a variety of ways, depending on which rune is set as the primary.
Let's say for example that sweeping armada is the primary, this would likely mean that the roundhouse kick is unleashed at the player's location, but what about Hand of Ytar? if you targeted a mob in the distance, it should be cast at that mob (as per the rune effect), and this could mean that certain rune effects are being wasted (mobs are at long range, so melee range sweep and all associated runes are being wasted).
Now let's look at this from the other perspective; what if Hand of Ytar is the active rune? This rune essentially acts in the same way as Tzo Krin's Gaze for Monk's WoL (changes the cast location for the skill). If all runes are active, this means that the Hand of Ytar rune designates the cast location, from which the roundhouse kick would be cast; this obviously seems more ideal than the 1st example, in that wastage from rune effects is minimised. There may still be one issue here though; what happens with the fire column emitted by the Spinning Flame Kick rune? if the cast location has been changed, the column would have to be spawned at that same location would it not? (obviously it would be preferable for it to simply travel from the player to that location)
All in all, it's just food for thought. My main point is that devs would need to perform an in-depth analysis of every single skill and where appropriate internally prioritise each rune (to ensure that any combination of runes always acts in the same way). There would also be need for a significant re-design of skills in their entirety, for balancing purposes (balance is not perfect atm, imagine how much worse it would be with 5 runes vying for a spot, as opposed to 1). Yet another issue, which would always remain present is that adding rune effects tends to add more animations, this in turn impacts upon system performance and causes lag (which is already an issue as it is - imagine it 5x worse).
Even though it isn't used much in builds in the current meta I'm imagining black hole being way op with all skill runes. Spell steal with the increased range of super massive and the affix eating ability of event horizon would be nuts. Honestly most wizard abilities would be crazy op with this. Having access to all magic weapon runes and all ice armor or energy armor runes. The 2.4 DMO arcane orb build with unstable sceptre and triumvirate increasing arcane orb damage and them firing twice having access to all runes would be disgusting. Flashfire wizard with explosive blast having access to all runes would be insane. It's definitely an interesting idea but there would need to be a crap load of adjustments to skills before it could go live.
Good points guys. So maybe if we treated it like the cube and you only get ONE extra rune effect for each skill. Maybe between 150 to 200 Paragon for each awarded extra rune.
But like you mentioned, there could still be mechanics conflicts with various combinations.
Maybe with enough playtesting, those conflicting combinations just wouldnt be selectable from the UI, grayed out or something.
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In the various discussions for possible improvements to Paragon, some have put forth a skill tree concept to strengthen selected skills. Flat damage bonus or otherwise.
I was thinking about a system to activate additional skill runes at various Paragon levels. Lets say at every 100 Paragon level.
It doesnt cost any paragon points, just simply allows you to select an additional rune effect for any currently equipped skill.
The equipped skill/rune on your skill bar would be the primary, for determining element type. Just like the existing system for items that give all rune effects of a skill. So the UI for selecting additional runes would have to be part of the Paragon UI, so it stays separate from the Skill UI.
You could allocate the additional runes however you like, you dont have to evenly distribute between all skills. So for WD, if you are running Zuni set and want all the fetish army runes you could have 8 dagger fetishes + 2 tiki torchers + 2 blowdart head hunters = 12 fetish. Plus 15 from Sycophants belt or passive. 27 total fetishes for a healthy damage reduction from Zuni 4 pc bonus. Might be a little overpowered in that example.
So assuming you have no items that give additional rune effects, at 2400 Paragon you could activate all rune effects for all your equipped skills.
Do you think there are any skills where it would be totally broken to have all rune effects active?
One skill that would definitely be broken to have all runes active on is pretty much any of the large cool down buff skills (Akarat's Champion, Vengance, Wrath of The Berserker, Archon, ect.) because those skills are already considered OP with only one or 2 runes active (depending on gear) the only way blizzard could balance that power with only one or two was with a massive cool down (which most builds have a way to negate) so being able to have all runes active would be so broken OP that it wouldn't even be funny.
Just off the top of my head, Wiz ET with Raging Storm (ET merge) and Wicked Wind (spin on the spot) would retain the corner-hugging ET techniques currently in practice, while the Gale Force rune would further increase the dmg dealt by the skill and even open up options for more dmg bonuses (magefist/cindercoat) due to its fire element - so this would seem a little broken to me.
Another issue would be Crusader's Heaven's Fury, in that skilling all of the runes would not make any logical sense. The default skill (and 4 of its runes) chase mobs with 1 or more beams of light, while the Fires of Heaven rune completely changes the skill effect, removing the chase effect and turning the skill into a single use shotgun-like blast. In practice I would expect that if Fires of Heaven was selected as the primary rune, the other runes would simply add more (and wider) beams. The runes that would concern me in this instance are Blessed Ground and Thou Shalt Not Pass, as they contradict one another; The former creates a damaging pool/trail, while the latter essentially knocks the enemy back (such that they will not receive dmg from the former rune effect).
Another similar example of runes affecting skill animation/mechanics is Monk's Lashing Tail Kick, although this is less of an issue, as it has no contradictory runes. The skill has 3 variations in its effect; a simple roundhouse kick, hurling a fireball of sorts and a ranged attack which targets a specific area (as opposed to being a linear AoE). In practice this could work in a variety of ways, depending on which rune is set as the primary.
Let's say for example that sweeping armada is the primary, this would likely mean that the roundhouse kick is unleashed at the player's location, but what about Hand of Ytar? if you targeted a mob in the distance, it should be cast at that mob (as per the rune effect), and this could mean that certain rune effects are being wasted (mobs are at long range, so melee range sweep and all associated runes are being wasted).
Now let's look at this from the other perspective; what if Hand of Ytar is the active rune? This rune essentially acts in the same way as Tzo Krin's Gaze for Monk's WoL (changes the cast location for the skill). If all runes are active, this means that the Hand of Ytar rune designates the cast location, from which the roundhouse kick would be cast; this obviously seems more ideal than the 1st example, in that wastage from rune effects is minimised. There may still be one issue here though; what happens with the fire column emitted by the Spinning Flame Kick rune? if the cast location has been changed, the column would have to be spawned at that same location would it not? (obviously it would be preferable for it to simply travel from the player to that location)
All in all, it's just food for thought. My main point is that devs would need to perform an in-depth analysis of every single skill and where appropriate internally prioritise each rune (to ensure that any combination of runes always acts in the same way). There would also be need for a significant re-design of skills in their entirety, for balancing purposes (balance is not perfect atm, imagine how much worse it would be with 5 runes vying for a spot, as opposed to 1). Yet another issue, which would always remain present is that adding rune effects tends to add more animations, this in turn impacts upon system performance and causes lag (which is already an issue as it is - imagine it 5x worse).
Even though it isn't used much in builds in the current meta I'm imagining black hole being way op with all skill runes. Spell steal with the increased range of super massive and the affix eating ability of event horizon would be nuts. Honestly most wizard abilities would be crazy op with this. Having access to all magic weapon runes and all ice armor or energy armor runes. The 2.4 DMO arcane orb build with unstable sceptre and triumvirate increasing arcane orb damage and them firing twice having access to all runes would be disgusting. Flashfire wizard with explosive blast having access to all runes would be insane. It's definitely an interesting idea but there would need to be a crap load of adjustments to skills before it could go live.
Good points guys. So maybe if we treated it like the cube and you only get ONE extra rune effect for each skill. Maybe between 150 to 200 Paragon for each awarded extra rune.
But like you mentioned, there could still be mechanics conflicts with various combinations.
Maybe with enough playtesting, those conflicting combinations just wouldnt be selectable from the UI, grayed out or something.