Wolcen Hype Release!

As is well known, I hate how pew-pew shmuppy PoE has become. And yet I love it in Wolcen. Just discovered a build that's basically firing red (rend) Arctic Spears all over the shop exploding like some sort of rock candy nightmare. Fun stuff.

So why the seeming hypocrisy? Probably because it was never actually the presence of pew-pew in PoE that pissed me off; it was the supremacy of it. The feeling that this was absolutely the way to play the game, close quarters combat be damned. Wolcen, on the other hand, has given Close Quarters Combat (CQC) a massive fucking bump with Bloodtrail** and was already, thanks to a strong passive dodge defensive mechanism and built-in aoe to CQC attacks, quite viable in that regard. In other words, take my feeling of choice away and I'll resent whatever you force onto me. Especially if it's a style that seems divorced from the ARPG tradition. Give me a choice and I'll explore all the options eventually. Especially if they're viscerally satisfying.



**A node that gives every fourth basic attack combo hit a damage bonus went from +50% pre-Bloodtrail to +500% now. It's fucking insane as far as buffs go BUT it still doesn't make CQC even vaguely competitive with other, more obvious builds that tap multiple projectiles and damage splash (such as Havoc Orb). Which tells me Wolcen Studio figured something out that GGG never quite did: you can buff the shit out of CQC and still not break the game overall. Players who seek power will almost always stick with ranged/aoe spam, and those who choose CQC should be compensated for that riskier choice.

I should note that the damage buff node mentioned above is after one that turns every fourth hit from a one-handed basic combo (including dual wielding) into an automatic crit. Crrrrunch.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

Spoiler

As is well known, I hate how pew-pew shmuppy PoE has become. And yet I love it in Wolcen. Just discovered a build that's basically firing red (rend) Arctic Spears all over the shop exploding like some sort of rock candy nightmare. Fun stuff.

So why the seeming hypocrisy? Probably because it was never actually the presence of pew-pew in PoE that pissed me off; it was the supremacy of it. The feeling that this was absolutely the way to play the game, close quarters combat be damned. Wolcen, on the other hand, has given Close Quarters Combat (CQC) a massive fucking bump with Bloodtrail** and was already, thanks to a strong passive dodge defensive mechanism and built-in aoe to CQC attacks, quite viable in that regard. In other words, take my feeling of choice away and I'll resent whatever you force onto me. Especially if it's a style that seems divorced from the ARPG tradition. Give me a choice and I'll explore all the options eventually. Especially if they're viscerally satisfying.



**A node that gives every fourth basic attack combo hit a damage bonus went from +50% pre-Bloodtrail to +500% now. It's fucking insane as far as buffs go BUT it still doesn't make CQC even vaguely competitive with other, more obvious builds that tap multiple projectiles and damage splash (such as Havoc Orb). Which tells me Wolcen Studio figured something out that GGG never quite did: you can buff the shit out of CQC and still not break the game overall. Players who seek power will almost always stick with ranged/aoe spam, and those who choose CQC should be compensated for that riskier choice.

I should note that the damage buff node mentioned above is after one that turns every fourth hit from a one-handed basic combo (including dual wielding) into an automatic crit. Crrrrunch.

Try Darkest Dungeon, if not yet.

A nice rogue like experience which makes you feel the tension in every step.

PoE is an old game by now and evolved in a direction that some early backers / supporters would disagree. I as well, but i dont care anymore since there are no real contenders in this genre.

Maybe even Terraria ;)

"

gandhar0 wrote:

Try Darkest Dungeon, if not yet.

A nice rogue like experience which makes you feel the tension in every step.

Played the bejesus out of DD back in the day. Even double-dipped it onto ps4 for when playing at the PC wasn't an option. At one point, I was going through it with indefatigable purpose. But it's a whole different experience to Wolcen, so I'm not sure why you'd make that recommendation. A turn based side-scrolling party rogue-lite with a town base that uses characters like expendable resources...not exactly a short, logical step from a real-time, single character isometric power fantasy ARPG.

Watching a giant Mortarbeast slide down a muddy hill in the new Ashfall area has to be one of the cutest things I've seen in an ARPG. Wheeeee.

__

It's incredibly important to pay attention to the new 'Ailment Chance Multiplier' (ACM) statistic. Certain skills that used to be very good for stacking ailments are now much less apt to do so: annihilation, for example, was an excellent way to lay down ailment stacks thanks to its very quick damage pulses. Now it has an ACM of 30%, which gives drastic ROI in terms of Wisdom and other ailment chance sources. It's still okay at it but several of my old builds were scrapped due to this change.

Conversely, Consuming Embers (the game's basic fireball skill) now has an ACM of 250%, which is fucking ridiculous and awesome. It's not unlike PoE's fireball gaining some inherent chance to ignite, except that Consuming Embers can be converted to Toxic, Shadow or Lightning damage. So it's pretty easy to keep Embers above 60% chance to lay down an ailment per hit. Throw in some stacking from Cabalist and maybe a Sarisel item and you've got a very efficient means of delivering ailment stack. Grab the dual ailment node and it's party time. A secondary ailment of freeze at that ailment chance would keep mooks frozen for good, and bosses almost constantly broken...

I've yet to go through all the skills to check their ACM, but you can bet I'll be paying attention to it now. My guess is single hit skills got a decent ACM while multi-tickers were bopped with a nerf bat a little.