Completely broken mechanics/design

[Anaztazioch]

Well, ive spent 140h on this game to care enough to point out things i believe arent just "balance issue of EA", but actual design that will carry into release with nothing but minor alteration.

Initially - Sorceress:
1) You have no weapons !!!
I have not noticed any "quality" of a staff to providing a thing.
You cant insert runes into staff/wand
Higher level of a staff only provides free mana ability that underperforms other spells
Modifiers are out of whack, you can get + levels to spells, which is +12% dps per level, or get +100% spell damage. If you roll a weapon that has both +lvl and +100% spell damage, than getting another staff with those two modifiers will happen maybe once in next 60 hours. When i was lvl 42 i got a staff, that until entering endgame content by evel 67 i didnt get a staff that was even close to what i have.

2) Bad spell mechanics/damage
First is firewall - sounds good, doesnt work. It is there to buff projectiles, not deal fire damage. while the dps values are good, its completely unreliable, even when placed under frozen/nonmoving enemies. It just... doesnt work.
Spark - this thing is designed to work with firewall and with firewall its good even in endgame. But solo it becomes useless around level 25.
Orb of Storms - nice idea but lacks damage, has a big gap between min and max damage, so by default it does unsatisfactory damage and eventualy becomes a waste of casttime.
Ice Nova - this... is weak. Does hardly any damage, chill and knockback is decent, gets a nice gem to boost it but... due to low damage becomes near obsolate.
Ember Fusillade - this is something i dont get... Basicly you dont shoot, you accumulate "embers", which are fired after not casting/channeling the spell for 1sec. End result, each ember deals damage comparable to... firebolt which you get for no mana from a staff. Seems the idea is to gather embers, drop a firewall to buff your projectiles, but the casttimes makes it that you fire embers before firewall is up... and its dps is slightly better than firebolt... and which channeling you move are 50% speed making you easy target... and you cant chose your targets as embers fire at nearest... and they can miss...
Solar Orb - fun idea, an orb that deals dps burning when enemies are near it and releases fire novas every second. Bad is, both dps and nova damage is weak and most enemies need to stand in its full 10 second duration to recieve damage every other spell can deal in 4 seconds... and its area is small even with many upgrades.
Incinirate - same as in D4. Deals DOT and sets enemies ablaze, but DOT is WEAK and requires you to channel, which "self-roots". Many enemies in the game can almost instantly jump from edge screen in your face and interrupt your channel, many ranged enemies can just hit and kill/interrupt your channel. Many enemy casters will force you to dodge, abandoning your channel. And you have to channel the spell for like 4 seconds for it to start dealing damage... From level 30+ the channel requirement makes it obsolate, from 50+ its damage and self-root makes it suicidal.
Fireball - ehhh... Its weak. Just weak, underballanced. Hard to kill anything with it. And just like in D4 - even tough it explodes on contact, it is still bad at dealing with multiple monsters... Currently its useful in breaking frostwall...
Firestorm - basciluy a screenwide rain of fire that.... does no admage... chances for its bolts to hit enemy are low and the damage is even lower. Literally lowest dps spell of all.
Flameblast - another channeled spell as it deals damage depending on how much its charged. Low charge = no damage, Max charge = barely noticable damage. And its needs to be charged... its targeted on caster or solar orb. So to have any efficiency with it you need to use underperforming spell with another underperforming spell, while the latter also self-roots you. This should be a nuke usable on damage windows when bosses cant attack to buff your dps, or be a cool wave clear. Currently it cant even drain your mana.
Curse debuffs - there is a debuff for fire/ice/lightning damage, which lasts only 6 seconds and reduces reistance by -30%. Its good on bosses, but... it cost like half your mana.
Mana Tempest - Good buff, but mana eater. Starting level 50+ you are getting mana problems, so basicly its balance issue, as there are abilties that cost less mana and are more effective.
Lightning Warp - This is... both great spell, but its mechanic is broken. It requires enemy to be low on health, other wise, casting this spell will cost mana and have NO effect. Alternatively you can wait about 9 levels until you unlock the next tier of spells that has Ball Lightning. You can use Lightning Warp on Ball Lightning, thus finaly letting it deal damage... Problem is it can expose you to melee damage and is useless in boss fights without ball lighting. With proper use it can out dps Arc even on single target, but it literally throws your mana out of the window.
Ball Lightning - deals no damage. Useful only as target fort Lightning Warp. ITs meant to shock enemies, but shock value is tied to damage which is non-existant. End result it shocks comparable to arc.
Cold Snap - this is the strongest damage spell in the game. Problem is it can only be used on "frozen" enemies - including bosses. Without freeze effect, this spell only costs mana. Other spells may not deal as much raw damage, with can be used with gems that totally outclass Cold Snap. For instance Comet with +50% damage when removing frozen and echo gem that makes 2 extra comets to fall.
Lightning Conduit - This spell... deals slightly more damage than Arc, but requires a extra 1 sec cast time, which self-roots you. During Endgame you get interrupted by almost any damage, which means window to cast this is small, its damage is subpar and thus the spell has no place in the game. Without the "cast time animation" it could be useful, but that mechanic is what trashes it.
Other spells, Arc, Frostwall, Icebomb, Comet are in a good place and currently dont need any tending. Its not that they are "meta", its mostly the others are falling behind on being useful.

3) Locked out of STR and DEX - you need INT for spell level and mana/mana regen so you cant focus on other stats, resulting in being locked to a very narrow equipment options. 90% of items you find will be unequippable due to lacking STR/DEX. With the way Staffs work, Sorc has almost no equipment action, only inventory tetris.

4) Stunlocks - this is the worst of all... In late game every attack stuns you. When stunned you cant cast, cant dodge, so even with high life/ES you cant do anything than be zeroed.

5) Frostwall leaks - Its mostly bugged, as sometimes the wall is stuck in reforming, recreating ice crystals over its duration. Also it makes maps and enemies can easly sneap through it. It also has ridiculous high amount of HP. I often see enemies mass aggro on it and are unable to break it...



Warrior:
Where is my tankiness ? All dmage goes to health, no ES due to no INT, armor loses its efficiency with level progression too fast to be a viable choice, DPS is so weak you are basicly locked into a single build.
Its a terrible shape Warrior is in, when his abilities appear to be nice and interesting and gameplay fun. But no damage and no survivability...


Witch
Here my problem is only with curses... Witch deals DOTs... dots are damage over time... but...
I cast, Despair
I cast, Drain Essense
I cast, Contagion
I cast, Archer to shoot poison cloud arrow
I cast, Enfible with gem that gives it a DOT
My despair duration ended, so i recast Depair
My Drain Essense duration ended, so i recast Drain Essense....
...
Dots and curses have 6 second duration by default, which eventually means you have to recast them. The long run is that you are forced into 5 different sources of DOT to be cast over and over and in the end give the same DPS as other class with just 1 or 2 spells the cast over and over.
Dots should have a long duration and should provide DPS while you do other actions, eventualy applying multiple DOTS and than using "filler" attacks are meant to give edge over just DPS classes.


Closing remarks:
Trials... after quest related 2 ascendancies you can repeat until completed, you are given an item that can be used only once. If you die its lost.
One trial, forces you to undergo 7 small maps and a boss, than another 7 small maps and a boss, than another 7 small maps and a boss. Eventualy the trial lasts half an hour or more, where you basicly just run... and if you make a mistake its all over and you need to grind for hours to get a new item to start another trial attempt.
The other trial is RNG debuff. You get 7 debuffs where some are game over or ignored. Like a debuyf that places a rune on ground which deals lightning damage if you stand on it for 2 seconds... The rune has small radius and i have never been hit by it. You can "upgrade" this debuff 2 times... Or give enemies 30% movement speed and buff it to make them immune to stun. Sorceres has no ability that stuns so this debuff doesnt affect her. So yeah, 5 debuffs that dont affect you. Than you have one that reduces your resistances which is nothing as during trials its Physical damage thats the problem and resistances dont affect that... Or a debuff that reduces your armor and sorceress has no armor... So 7 debufs that dont affect you.
Or you can get a spell to be cast on you, which deals massive physical damage on almost screen wide radius after 3 seconds. While this is not a biggie, it restricts your movement, allows enemies to surround you, or make avoiding boss mechanics impossible... Or get statues that can petrify you if you stand close, which are basicly game over during boss encounters as once again, you cant dodge his abilities. And those are just 2 FU debuffs.

Completing trials is mandatory to progress ascensions - one of strongest passives for the class and major DPS/survival buffs, locked behind a cancer mechanic.

[Just Wyvern]

Honestly that covers most of my gripes as well; generally if you aren't going some ultra-meta build path your damage falls off end act 2/start act 3 with basically all classes on *normal* difficulty.
Personally I've been trying to get a arc/chain lightning critical damage/ailment build going but by act 3 you couldn't even see the damage on the boss bar. Basically had to rely on other classes to help with bosses - and that's with every bit of spell/lightning pen/curse I could get my hands on and +5 to level of all spells! My supposed Arc DPS is 800 but it seems more like 40 on anything less than a common ad.

[Chris]

your complaining that you found an amazing item early, and didnt have to upgrade it for awhile? thats an actual complaint?

not every spell is intended to be a spammed max damage spell, cold spells have always had lower damage.. because they have extreme utility with freeze.

what is happening in this world..

[thestile]

That's a really good breakdown of spells. (as well as other things) Hopefully there can be a re-balance.

It would be great if incinerate could be done on the move because it does seem terrible to have to DPS standing in place, in a game that absolutely requires that you move.... or die

[Saiso]

when a publisher makes their second game and can´t even balance the 6 starting characters, or even test the endgame or even better make the worst trading system ever, again Second game GGG Go Guck Gourselfs for the state of the game

[Just Wyvern]

Originally posted by Chris:

your complaining that you found an amazing item early, and didnt have to upgrade it for awhile? thats an actual complaint?

not every spell is intended to be a spammed max damage spell, cold spells have always had lower damage.. because they have extreme utility with freeze.

My problem is with the fact you have to follow a META or be useless post *normal* (if you even make it past normal). Not everyone wants to go play with multiple elements - I personally just want to play a lightning mage but I guess I can just go off myself for wanting to have fun in my own way right?
Good games make every playstyle viable. They have the ability to do it, just look at the passive skill tree. It isn't hard, nor a big step.

[Chris]

lightning spells.. are the meta though.
there is nothing unplayable about your choice..

[Medicles]

Somehow i have the feeling you arent doing any damage with the skills because you arent supporting them properly with affixes, passive skills and gems. Ember Fussilade is melting bosses in my game and Incinerate does massive DoT damage, but is infact rather difficult to use.

[them4pples]

i just skimmed through your post, so not gonna go too deep, but a lot of your points are literally game knowledge issue:

1. spark is probably the best skill sorceress has. you don't need to combo it with flamewall to do good damage. my spark rn has over 30k dps in the tooltip. that's not counting the extra damage i so with double shock and lightning exposure. look up any sorc vid on youtube and you'll see even crazier dps from this skill.

2. orb of storms isn't about dps, it's about applying ailments easily. chain more shock magnitude or lightning exposure. you wanna use it to apply debuffs.

3. i don't use mana tempest that much except on bosses is combination with sigil of power. mana tempest eats you mana, which makes sigil of power go to the 4th stage faster giving massive damage buff. if you're stacking mana with archmage, you'll have crazy high mana regen so you'll be back to full in no time. my mana regen is over 800 per second.

4. stun locks punish you for not having defense. if you're playing a sorc, then you want high energy shield. there are nodes on the skill tree that give you %max es as stun threshold. get these nodes and you won't be stunned as much. you can even annoint your amulet with something like briny carapace to give you more stun threshold.

5. just skimming through the part where you said sorc has no ability that stuns. why does she need to stun when she can freeze? freeze is OP af compared to stun. also, electrocute stuns. there are unique gloves you can get on trade site for cheap if you really wanna stun with lightning damage. they're called kitokos

again, i didn't read through everything, just some stuff that jumped out at me. a lot of your complaints are because you lack game knowledge. that's not a bad thing. it's a new game so a lot of ppl also lack game knowledge. the more you play, the better you'll get and the more you'll learn about how things interact with eachother.

[Just Wyvern]

Originally posted by Chris:

lightning spells.. are the meta though.
there is nothing unplayable about your choice..

Originally posted by Medicles:

Somehow i have the feeling you arent doing any damage with the skills because you arent supporting them properly with affixes, passive skills and gems. Ember Fussilade is melting bosses in my game and Incinerate does massive DoT damage, but is infact rather difficult to use.

I dunno what I could even remotely be doing wrong, everything in the passive and even the ascension tree I have is aimed towards either buffing spell/ lightning damage, ailment chance, ailment duration, spell pen, spell crit, and spell crit %. The only deviation I had was early on for a single major node for more mana regen (because +5 spells are hungry). I have done the best I can with the item drops given to me.
The character is level 46 at this point and I physically can't get past the act 3 viper lady because my dps to her with full lightning resist debuffs applied is maybe maybe 200/s. I eventually get spammed to death by their billion and a half AoE abilities and run out of heals before I can kill them.

So yes, I would LOVE some help understanding how I'm doing it wrong if everything I could possibly spec into dps is doing nothing for me.

[Chris]

99% of these posts are actual skill issues..

the game has problems.. but this list isnt it.

[Chris]

Originally posted by Medicles:

I physically can't get past the act 3 viper lady

and this is possibly one of those real problems.. the shrinking arena is definitely questionable..

[Chris]

not knowing anything about your build or items, there isnt much help that can be provided..
other then make sure you have a poison immunity charm for that fight and as much choas res as possible even if they are blue amethiyst rings

[Kimahn]

sorry bro... this is actually a skill issue. work that tree of passives, find the percentage values on gear, understand how to maximize synergies, try to not trying to do too much and focus on one strong mechanic.

that said it's not your typical hack n slash. outside of divine tier gear or a few totally degen builds, you can't really run through maps, but you can t15 with quite some ease.

also .. armour is broken, prefer max resist fire, go to 90% resist, equip cloak of flames. really.

[Medicles]

Originally posted by Just Wyvern:

I dunno what I could even remotely be doing wrong, everything in the passive and even the ascension tree I have is aimed towards either buffing spell/ lightning damage, ailment chance, ailment duration, spell pen, spell crit, and spell crit %. The only deviation I had was early on for a single major node for more mana regen (because +5 spells are hungry). I have done the best I can with the item drops given to me.
The character is level 46 at this point and I physically can't get past the act 3 viper lady because my dps to her with full lightning resist debuffs applied is maybe maybe 200/s. I eventually get spammed to death by their billion and a half AoE abilities and run out of heals before I can kill them.

So yes, I would LOVE some help understanding how I'm doing it wrong if everything I could possibly spec into dps is doing nothing for me.

Well, i dont know your overall build, but i am pretty sure that if you are going for crit then you cant really go for ailments as well. If you wanna go crit then you have to focus on crit, if you want to go ailments then focus on ailments.

I also dont know what skills you are using, i hope the curse for lightning pen. is one of those and i dont know your gear. Do you have a staff with at least 60% spell/lightning damage and +1-2 Lightning Skills?

The only thing i can really suggest is that you should focus on dodging when Viper does her aoe attack and when the spears come out. No need for attacks. In my experience, Viper does the aoe event once and the spears maybe two times.

[Chris]

accept that you will die repeatedly also in a new game..
go into the boss, and do no damage and focus on moving and dodging the main things that need dodging to learn the fight.

as annoying as the arena is with its size, there are really only 2 things that can ever hit you.
and one of them is bad rng on the choas ring zones, hence the need for choas res.

once you learn the fight, killing it is a cake walk even if it takes 15 mins