Arcane Rift needs help

[Gipsy Dragon]

Already a really hard skill to use correctly as it forces you to move to it, which can either be risky or straight suicide. However the one thing it absolutely NEEDS is that it needs a restriction that it can NOT spawn in areas that you cannot reach. As in, in the cold biome, the rift constantly spawns on the snow bank islands that block you. Half the rifts are useless because of this. If instead it could only spawn in "clear" areas, then it would actually be a benefit, you could use the terrain to funnel enemies into it. As it currently is however, it's worse than worthless.

[Thrrax]

Sure, it's worthless if you're planning on soloing with it. However, nothing beats Hailstorm when it comes to worthlessness.

[Nanashi]

Originally posted by Thrrax:

Sure, it's worthless if you're planning on soloing with it. However, nothing beats Hailstorm when it comes to worthlessness.

Actually Hailstorm is surprisingly strong with the spikes. you dont even have to move. The spikes form around you and demolish everything. I didnt know that actually works but if you pushed your frost damage enough it actually does.

Much nice than Arcance Rift which needs both upgrades to be useful at all.

[OH! MY CAR]

them upgrades though

[Ulyaoth]

Hello there,

the issue you are describing happens with many "Drops" in this game.

I would also agree that w/o Upgrades Arcane Rift is almost useless.
But just pick Wandering Rifts, pick "Bloat" and "Blast" and turn AR into a contact Bomb,
that clears the entire screen.

IMO If the Rifts would spawn always in "reachable" positions, it would still be a bad Ability at start.

Cheers!

[Thrrax]

Originally posted by Nanashi:

Originally posted by Thrrax:

Sure, it's worthless if you're planning on soloing with it. However, nothing beats Hailstorm when it comes to worthlessness.

Actually Hailstorm is surprisingly strong with the spikes. you dont even have to move. The spikes form around you and demolish everything. I didnt know that actually works but if you pushed your frost damage enough it actually does.

Much nice than Arcance Rift which needs both upgrades to be useful at all.

Not really. The ability has a long windup, and the satellites can't be aimed. It's also a soft destroyer and the spikes also don't damage objects. If you stand still, the area in which the spikes are deployed narrows. This severely reduces XP farming. If you move, the spikes and the vortex have a drop off, completely turning off until you let the satellites drop, so you can restart. Sure, it deals a lot of damage, but on higher Agony runs it's almost insignificant as you can't afford to really stand still unless you're cheesing with the Maiden, which can use much better skills anyway, and you have much more useful skills anyway with other characters.

On the other hand, Arcane Rift can be upgraded to Wandering Rifts and Rift Splinters. If you focus on spawning as many as possible, the entire area around you will be filled with rifts and shards, as they will spawn in the middle of approaching enemies.

[Error404]

From my testing, Area modifiers Do Not affect Arcane Rift now for some reason, which is why it's radius is so small.

Arcane Rift needed a nerf, but now it plain doesn't work. Arcane Rift has Traits that can dramatically affect how big it's blast radius is, but as of 1.0 and on, those do nothing.

I tried it the 1st thing when 1.0 comes out, neither the -30% Area nor the +30% Area traits affect it's radius and I suspect Area does not either.

[Ulyaoth]

Originally posted by Error404:

Maybe you run into a bug then.
Did you tried to restart the game and give it another shot?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3345805619

[Nanashi]

Originally posted by Thrrax:

Not really. The ability has a long windup, and the satellites can't be aimed. It's also a soft destroyer and the spikes also don't damage objects. If you stand still, the area in which the spikes are deployed narrows. This severely reduces XP farming. If you move, the spikes and the vortex have a drop off, completely turning off until you let the satellites drop, so you can restart. Sure, it deals a lot of damage, but on higher Agony runs it's almost insignificant as you can't afford to really stand still unless you're cheesing with the Maiden, which can use much better skills anyway, and you have much more useful skills anyway with other characters.

On the other hand, Arcane Rift can be upgraded to Wandering Rifts and Rift Splinters. If you focus on spawning as many as possible, the entire area around you will be filled with rifts and shards, as they will spawn in the middle of approaching enemies.

No idea what you mean. I usually am able to stand around the map in the second half of the run regardless of build. At least on runs with 5 artifacts. Rifts never did as much damage as hailstorm for me but that might indeed be related to choosing the wrong traits I guess.

I didnt even manage to make rifts work in low artifact runs. So I dont see how they would be of much help in even bigger difficulty. On top of that, as I mentioned, you need both upgrades to make rifts work. So if you make that a negative on hailstorm then the same goes for rifts as well :/

Which leads me back to my initial train of thought. With hailstorm I was actually able to go AFK (on huntress with disabled main-attack). With rifts I never was able to because rifts just didnt kill fast enough and certainly not safely enough (as in keeping enemies away from my position).

[Thrrax]

Originally posted by Nanashi:

No idea what you mean. I usually am able to stand around the map in the second half of the run regardless of build. At least on runs with 5 artifacts. Rifts never did as much damage as hailstorm for me but that might indeed be related to choosing the wrong traits I guess.

What I mean is that Hailstorm is a slow ability to build up to optimal efficiency, compared to others. And 5 artifact runs are easy, since I'm assuming you only use artifacts with no severe drawbacks. Try more and see the difference. The idea is that overall, Hailstorm is much less useful than Arcane Rifts. When I say overall, I mean usefulness in the worst possible scenario. For example, when doing a 30 artifact run and since you cannot afford to stand still, if you don't get Vortex and Spikes as your upgrades Hailstorm is virtually useless. It was useless without those upgrades even when we had the old Blood Catcher. If you get both of those, Hailstorm becomes one of the best abilities to have in a 30 artifact run. With Arcane Rifts, even if you don't get the optimal Wandering and Rift Splinters, you can still have them spawn in your path.

[Postman Pat]

Originally posted by Thrrax:

Sure, it's worthless if you're planning on soloing with it. However, nothing beats Hailstorm when it comes to worthlessness.

hailstorm with spikes/vortex is insanely powerful.

arcane rift at no point ever comes close to doing the damage hailstorm does. the damage from ice goes absolutely insane on anything that exists on screen. You'll pick up hailstorm mid or late game and it will often end up doing the most dam/dps in your loadout.

BUT... it's tedious to use, just like rift. arguably "win more."

[Postman Pat]

Originally posted by Thrrax:

Originally posted by Nanashi:

No idea what you mean. I usually am able to stand around the map in the second half of the run regardless of build. At least on runs with 5 artifacts. Rifts never did as much damage as hailstorm for me but that might indeed be related to choosing the wrong traits I guess.

What I mean is that Hailstorm is a slow ability to build up to optimal efficiency, compared to others. And 5 artifact runs are easy, since I'm assuming you only use artifacts with no severe drawbacks. Try more and see the difference. The idea is that overall, Hailstorm is much less useful than Arcane Rifts. When I say overall, I mean usefulness in the worst possible scenario. For example, when doing a 30 artifact run and since you cannot afford to stand still, if you don't get Vortex and Spikes as your upgrades Hailstorm is virtually useless. It was useless without those upgrades even when we had the old Blood Catcher. If you get both of those, Hailstorm becomes one of the best abilities to have in a 30 artifact run. With Arcane Rifts, even if you don't get the optimal Wandering and Rift Splinters, you can still have them spawn in your path.

With 3 rerolls and books there's no universe where you ever need to take hailstorm or rift early in a run unless you're chasing some kind of achievement or experimenting.

[Thrrax]

Originally posted by Postman Pat:

With 3 rerolls and books there's no universe where you ever need to take hailstorm or rift early in a run unless you're chasing some kind of achievement or experimenting.

Yes, the whole idea was that overall, as a skill, Hailstorm is worthless, EVEN if it deals a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of damage in a normal scenario. And in the others, there's no point in using it since every single skill (including Arcane Rift), is better.

The utility of an ability is not determined by how good it is in the tamest scenario, but by how it scales towards the worst.

[Postman Pat]

I simply don't see how rift is better. Both require a bunch of investment to make them useful and "optimal hailstorm" does a billion damage a second to the entire screen, and also causes the game to want to nearly buckle under its existence (which is kek).

Whereas rift simply comes nowhere close to this at any point. If both are weak, and both require investment to be "worthwhile," and one investment absolutely gutter-stomps the other in its peak functionality, how can that investment possibly be considered the worse of the two?

[Drop]

I'd like for the trigger spot (the spot in the center you walk on to make it explode) would scale with area. Naturally you scale area with the skill, it would give it some nice QoL for the user for when you manually step on the trigger spot, but also when it comes to enemies triggering it if you use the 'Wandering Rifts' upgrade.

[Thrrax]

Originally posted by Postman Pat:

I simply don't see how rift is better. Both require a bunch of investment to make them useful and "optimal hailstorm" does a billion damage a second to the entire screen, and also causes the game to want to nearly buckle under its existence (which is kek).

Whereas rift simply comes nowhere close to this at any point. If both are weak, and both require investment to be "worthwhile," and one investment absolutely gutter-stomps the other in its peak functionality, how can that investment possibly be considered the worse of the two?

You still don't get what I'm saying. I'm saying that in the worst possible scenarios, like using Obsidian Dice and being swarmed while being forced to constantly move, you can't pick your abilities and upgrades. And while Rift can still be useful even with Obsidian Dice with its worse upgrades, Hailstorm is the worst if you don't get the exact combination of Vortex and Spikes.