Arctic Armour
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How about 0.1 - 0.15% of (melee) physical attack damage leeched back as mana?
Giving 2% - 3% at lvl20, this opens it up a lot better for melee fights while still being a major pain to travel around with. Do it!!! And so something about the chill, make it work for melee. Almost every damn melee mob hits out of range. You have to link it to increased are of effect and still there are melee mobs hitting you out of range not getting chilled. The fact you got to link this up as melee and not when ranged is already bad enough. Last edited by Ozgwald#5068 on May 21, 2013, 5:01:13 AM
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as of the latest patch, Inner Force now modifies the mana drain while moving too. This is a MASSIVE increase in the cost to maintain AA while moving. be aware.
i wonder, is it even intended that we even be able to maintain a max-level arctic armour? i have eldritch battery, 5 passives for mana regen, 3 pieces of equipment with >50% regen each, level 20 clarity and discipline (with EB)... and now there's the catch-22: given all that dedicated mana and mana regen, I still need to run inner force for the clarity and discipline just to reach the regen / second needed to maintain level 20 AA before this change. you would need absolutely god-level equipment to have a chance now, and if you can afford god-level equipment, you dont need this defensive buff anyway. i think the mana costs for this skill need reexamined and reigned back into the realm of mere mortals ign: ThePerfectDefense; Time Zone: UTC-4 Last edited by infelicitas#6119 on May 21, 2013, 8:22:43 AM
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" While standing still? Yes with the right build. While moving all the time? I doubt it. The devs obviously decided it would make life too easy if you could just leave it on all the time without having to think about it. |
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" the movement speed quality bonus is decidedly unspectacular if you were never intended to move while using this skill ign: ThePerfectDefense; Time Zone: UTC-4 Last edited by infelicitas#6119 on May 21, 2013, 8:21:23 AM
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Before patch I was running level 15 arctic armor permanently. Now I can run level 11 arctic armor permanently. That drops me from 125(*1.3) damage reduction to 65(*1.3) damage reduction. Almost a 50% nerf.
I'm really not sure why AA needed this. It already cost a boatload of mana. I gave up a lot of potential defense to get and gear eldritch battery, and AA was the way I was (at least partly) making it up. Last edited by magicrectangle#3352 on May 21, 2013, 10:02:07 AM
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BIG RANT (again)
Exactly!!! I am investing just as much in mana regen as you are and despite the words from Chris about doing stuff for melee (which were ushered just before introducing Arctic Armour you mind) we have a skill that is a major boost to ranged casters. Just stick it on at level 1 with the MS bonus from qulaity, just lvl it to where you can handle it, but PLS DO NOT BUILD AROUND IT AND USE IT FOR MELEE!!! There really should be a way to properly use this on the move and in melee combat. Right now the sacrifice you make to acquire this skill (mana regen and mana from gear and nodes) doesn't pay out for melee. There are no big mana consuming melee attacks that do wonders, non that wouldn't also be run by blood magic anyways. EB is mandatory and that pays off in the aura department. It is piss annoying to read ranged caster players talk about how great this skill is and how strong it is for them, when they sit still and give 0 about the chill effect. Why was the skill added as it is? My damn casters get more use out of it than my melee characters, but why? My casters didn't need another buff towards immortality and free movement speed. You take the classical dungeon crawler frost armour, designed for melee in every dungeon crawler to date and you manage to make it godlike for ranged and a pain in the ass for melee. To get some proper feedback what this skill needs is a lightning thorns move. That only got fixed after the "ranged only" crowd in this game became verbal. Here is a new suggestion, swap the mana stand still and move around. Let everyone suffer the same mana penalty, see how many get pissed than. Oh snap the free buff I was given, got to take it off again. I am glad that Innerforce players (roll a templar) feel more of the burn. Maybe one day there will be a proper "frost armour." The freeby skill for melee that gives that playstyle some free points of damage mitigation and a MS bonus.
Spoiler
" " Just waiting for some pricks to comment again how powerful this is for them and how powerful it can be. While non of those are a combination of melee and using the skill at max level. The conclusion must be it was designed for ranged classes, that suffered maybe too much from the dogs and the tentacle shooting woman. Yes the buff was in at the right time, too many ranged classes dying from interesting mobs. Would love for once to see people mention that this skill working out way way better for ranged classes instead of melee, is remarkable and has been against the design philosophy and promises made by GGG at the time of introduction and maybe when you figure that out you might also wonder and ponder if this doesn't deserve a redesign. Last edited by Ozgwald#5068 on May 21, 2013, 10:23:43 AM
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" The movement speed bonus is designed so that if you MUST move with it on, you are moving for a smaller period of time, and consume less mana as a result. I'm a claw warrior, and just on mana leech alone, I can keep this skill up when not moving. I turn it off if I need to move a large distance, and I only turn it on when I'm being swarmed. I feel it's working as intended. |
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Ozgwald's rants remain as nonsensical as ever - though to be honest, I didn't bother reading the entire post this time.
And yes, the "nerf" is substantial, but it was (still is? probably) by far the best defensive skill in the game - naysayers are invited to throw some random incoming damage numbers at the armour damage reduction formula, and then run the results through arctic armour damage reduction. (spoilers: a LOT of incoming physical damage is reduced to zero, yes this means going afk safely in some places while surrounded by an entire instance worth of monsters (spoilers: when you are surrounded enough to not have any room for anyone to come punch you anymore any monster not doing already so just walks away)) | |
" Just because you are too simple, but hey not my issue. I still haven't come across the person that invested so much in mana nodes and on gear bonuses to regen to run this skill on the move at maximum level. You're just the prick I predicted that would come in and talk how great the damage reduction is and how he has the spare mana to put it on and get an extra boost. You don't answer about the imbalance there is for getting to run this at max level and skipping the damage and survivability in terms of nodes and mods on gear. You don't answer the question why this is so good for ranged compared to melee? If you take mana leech, high mana regen (220%) and EB (pays off itself due to auras) you manage quite well, but it is big f'n investment. Please also be so kind and show me some footage of how your melee benefits from the chill against melee mobs. The fast majority of melee players gave up on PoE. It is quite evident if you got both melee and ranged characters that your ranged classes get far more out of arctic armour than melee. Great design, this is what was missing and what was needed? Picture perfect game design and logic in your fantasy world, perhaps. The classical "frost armour" would have made more sense, but it takes idiots like you to not see that. What is wrong with adding the mana cost for on the move with standing still? Let everyone always feel the max mana consumption. No freebie damage mitigation for any class. You want to use AA? Go and invest, put on a leech gem, WORK FOR IT. No free movement speed either, please! Want to bet that the taste of salty tears will fill this thread just as it did with lightning thorns, when range got affected by that? If the movement costs prevent this skill being too Op for ranged, than why not add a melee physical mana leech to the gem as I suggested? Start to actually answer stuff and tell me why this is such a great skill and stop being one of the f'n pricks that beat around the bush and talk about the great mitigation. I know it is great that is why the spare mana of my templar goes into this skill. So for once stop talking about the mitigation, because I clearly have no issue with that. It is funny how I predicted a prick response in my rant an I got exactly that. Here is a summery for you short attention span: 1. Why does range benefit more from Arctic Armour than melee? 2. Why when fighting as melee are most melee mobs not affected by the ground chill? Why are even many of them unaffected when you use increased area of effect? 3. Why not add a melee physical mana leech to this skill, if the "on the move penalty" is to prevent ranged classes from benefiting too much? 4. Why not combine the movement speed penalty mana degen with the stand still mana degen? Make people invest to get this great mitigation, why is there even a freebie ranged option? ... 5. Why was this skill added as it is? While at the time there was so much development response on melee being reworked and hints toward skills that would help out melee (february/ march). I have only seen 1 skill: Cyclone and 2 supports (not skills), targeted at melee in that 3 month period. My feeling is that arctic armour should have been a frost armour, but it is not it achieves quite the opposite. So I conclude that despite what was supposed to be done for melee, ranged classes got a tailored skill made for them. This was the intended design, but you just don't read it anywhere. If not than this skill needs work. |
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I find it difficult to appreciate why you have the need to be insulting and so vitriolic, nevertheless I'll attempt to engage in a productive fashion despite expectations that it will fail to achieve that.
My intention, not yet realised, is to run AA at max level always on. Currently I run level 18. I built my (ranged) character totally around EB and AA as the main defensive ability beyond capped resists. I omitted life in the previous sentence as in making my choice, I also gave up huge amounts of additional life nodes. In fact not only have I constructed my passives around using this skill, my gearing has incredibly specific requirements, so much so that I currently use a Vaal Regalia on my life based EA Templar. Yet another choice with negative consequences for me. This I feel makes for an interesting gameplay choice, and a legitimate design offering. Your opinion may differ, but opinions often do. If you could remove your blinkers for a minute or two and read through your post in something approaching an objective manner you may find the following questions worthy of consideration: Why should this not favour ranged classes? Why should this be the solution to melee survivability concerns? Your opinion and expectations that it should, are exactly that, your opinion. As is your statement that "The fast(sic) majority of melee players have given up on PoE" (source?) That it 'should be useable and useful for melee' is an opinion, sure it may be a valid one but I fail to see the direct correlation. Melee has a set of buffs incoming; sure they need it but the game is still undergoing huge design changes on a frequent basis. I believe the skill is decent as is. Constant toggling (along with all the other input requirements of say, mapping solo, as I do) is a significant downside, in order to avoid this you need to make another set of decisions with severe consequences and have crazy mana regen, which leads to significant sacrifice in other areas. I guess I could have just followed the exilepro guide on EA and gone Marauder with the skill run on BM. No, instead I chose to support the insane mana cost of EA and AA, making a build which few, if any others do. For fun. To see if it could be done. I have little doubt that a melee character could run a high level AA, but the build would need to be tailored around it, and would undoubtedly lose key survivability. That melee generally speaking needs greater survivability than ranged is an issue with the overall design philosophy rather than one individual skill. |
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