Mortal Conviction - Another Look

The more I think about it, the more obvious its becoming that MC has turned into a notable designed just for low life builds, who can spam the (now stronger) auras to put them into low life, and use ES as their primary life pool

For this use, its very strong passive. With just a single node investment, you can run 3 auras without any cost to your life (since you are using ES as your "life pool").

This obviously goes into the viability of low life builds that don't run shavronns, but thats a separate issue

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ScrotieMcB написал:

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Islidox написал:

If that was the intended drawback, then why make the MC notable at all? Clearly it was intended for some sort of aura usage. I think your assumption is erroneous in this case. Using Conduit as an example doesn't work because the flavor text clearly states how this keystone will interact with your character and others. Conduit explicitly states that it benefits teamplay. Sure, BM may not explicitly state that it's only good for teamplay due to the inability to use auras, but then what's the point of having MC behind BM?

The better question is "why not?" MC doesn't really make Auras attractive for most BM users, but it doesn't hurt anything and does make things more tolerable for those who damn the torpedoes and go Auras anyway. You're expecting the notable to completely nullify a drawback, while I'm only expecting partial.

Making MC a 60% less mana reserved would bring it to a good place. Currently 40% doesn't help at all. I'm not expecting the notable to nullify anything - but if we're supposed to use MC as intended by design, then yes, I expect something marginally useful. It is not as it is. And if you could use more than 1 aura on anything other than BM/low-life/shavs, you're welcome to try. On that note, I don't see why ANYONE would use BM/low-life/shavs build when you can get better results putting auras on life and mana with shavs.

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ScrotieMcB написал:

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Islidox написал:

This comes back to the issue that most people agree that you either make BM/MC better to the point where it can support an aura (or two), OR you cut the connection with auras and drastically increase the defensive options BM-users can get, mainly an increase in life or life regen/leech.

They get that increase in focus naturally, since mana, mana leech, and mana regen become irrelevant. And wouldn't immunity to Curses be a "drastic increase in defense?" I believe it would be, and would also be a unique niche.

One, life-regen on items are useless because they don't scale and do not come in high quantities. Two, life leech doesn't apply to elemental damage builds, which in turn either requires LoH/LL gems, which is a socket used and not necessarily an advantage. Three, any life build would grab the same types of items/mods/passives with or without the mana/ML/regen so long as you can use the BM support. No, going BM doesn't mean you can "naturally" get the things I mention. Sure you spec for it and you gear for it, but it isn't exclusive to the BM keystone and you get nothing for defense when you use this keystone. There are plenty of builds that don't spec for anything related to mana and stick two auras on mana and use BM support for their attacks, and these are stronger than BM-builds.

If immunity to curses was locked behind BM, then I'm all for it. And it would be strong enough to nullify the map mods, otherwise there's no point for a keystone like to exist as no one would take it and opt of auras or the advantages you get in party-play. There's a reason why curse immunity mod on flasks are rolled for, and it's used quite often outside of map-mod curses.

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deteego написал:

The more I think about it, the more obvious its becoming that MC has turned into a notable designed just for low life builds, who can spam the (now stronger) auras to put them into low life, and use ES as their primary life pool

For this use, its very strong passive. With just a single node investment, you can run 3 auras without any cost to your life (since you are using ES as your "life pool").

This obviously goes into the viability of low life builds that don't run shavronns, but thats a separate issue

Well but then... you pay all your skills with life. I actually have never seen an ES based Low-Life Build with Bloodmagic^^. You could eventually use a combination of LGoH and Life-Leech to sustain ES and Life, but still even if you can get high amounts of ES you need to sustain a Life-Pool for Casting your skills and an ES-Pool for Survival.

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Making MC a 60% less mana reserved would bring it to a good place. Currently 40% doesn't help at all. I'm not expecting the notable to nullify anything - but if we're supposed to use MC as intended by design, then yes, I expect something marginally useful. It is not as it is. And if you could use more than 1 aura on anything other than BM/low-life/shavs, you're welcome to try. On that note, I don't see why ANYONE would use BM/low-life/shavs build when you can get better results putting auras on life and mana with shavs.

Well that would make PG-Auras essentially free. They already only cost 7% of your Life with reduced mana, a reduction by 60% would propably set them to 6% without Reduced Mana.

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Sever the Tie
You cannot be Cursed
You do not receive Buffs from Auras
That would be a very popular combo with Blood Magic keystone, useful in endgame maps, balanced, and overall improve the game.

That's propably a good idea. Although it would give some very easy very beneficial map-mods :P

Also running one Aura for free with MC was a suggestion that could be used if you really want to get BM + Aura into a usable place.

However there is no reason why. The Keystone can't be so good that it is better than Mana-Usage for Auras + BM-Gem. If you want to fix BM you have very limited options:

1. Forbid any benefits from Auras for BM completly and buff it otherwise.
2. Change the BM support-gem.

Just changing numbers on MC means that either you can run at least one Aura without much trouble, which propably means that a char specced into Auras can run a bunch without losing too much life (and you can afford loosing life with all Auras... since you get a lot of defensive benefits from them if you run defensive Auras, 8% max Resists on LvL20 with the Aura-Passivs and Inner Force or double Armor with Determination), which would make using the BM-Gem less attractive. Or the other possibility is that Auras are still too expensive and most people still favor the BM-Gem.

As Mortal Conviction is now it is not in any form useful for a build that is not specced into Auras... and I doubt that any number-changes would solve this. Even with 60% reduction you spent about 15% on hatred.

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If immunity to curses was locked behind BM, then I'm all for it. And it would be strong enough to nullify the map mods, otherwise there's no point for a keystone like to exist as no one would take it and opt of auras or the advantages you get in party-play. There's a reason why curse immunity mod on flasks are rolled for, and it's used quite often outside of map-mod curses.

Well I would take it for my summoner... instantly. I don't really care if I get the buffs the Auras provide. Right now I only run Grace/Determination... well I wouldn't even have to, just to run in front of my minions without having to worry, but running purely offensive Auras + Vitality for Minions or maybe Discipline would still be an option. Actually I think there are a lot of people out there who might think about that keystone if it comes to mapping. Elemental Weakness already is one Aura gone if you don't have high-end gear to compensate the loss of resistance not to mention that it would give the ability to actually run (not crawl) temporal chains/chilled ground maps.

And after all having a keystone openly avaible is always better as locking it behind another keystone. Even if only one single person that did not already have BM takes it, it was worth it. Right now there is only one keystone behind another and that should not be a keystone at all. But placing this keystone between Sentinel and the Scion-Life-Wheel would put it into a position which most BM builds and propably a lot of other builds can reach fairly easy.

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Emphasy написал:

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deteego написал:

The more I think about it, the more obvious its becoming that MC has turned into a notable designed just for low life builds, who can spam the (now stronger) auras to put them into low life, and use ES as their primary life pool

For this use, its very strong passive. With just a single node investment, you can run 3 auras without any cost to your life (since you are using ES as your "life pool").

This obviously goes into the viability of low life builds that don't run shavronns, but thats a separate issue

Well but then... you pay all your skills with life. I actually have never seen an ES based Low-Life Build with Bloodmagic^^. You could eventually use a combination of LGoH and Life-Leech to sustain ES and Life, but still even if you can get high amounts of ES you need to sustain a Life-Pool for Casting your skills and an ES-Pool for Survival.

Which is fine, because even with reserved life you can support casting your skills with life no problem, and there is always vaals pact/life leech if you have issues

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deteego написал:

The more I think about it, the more obvious its becoming that MC has turned into a notable designed just for low life builds, who can spam the (now stronger) auras to put them into low life, and use ES as their primary life pool

For this use, its very strong passive. With just a single node investment, you can run 3 auras without any cost to your life (since you are using ES as your "life pool").

This obviously goes into the viability of low life builds that don't run shavronns, but thats a separate issue

Although I doubt that was the intent, I'll readily agree that it's MC's primary use.

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Islidox написал:

Making MC a 60% less mana reserved would bring it to a good place.

No, it would be OP for the use described earlier in this post. 40% less means instead of two pools of 100% you get one pool of 166%; 50% less means one pool of 200%; 60% means one pool of 240%. The first is inarguably safe from a game design perspective, the last is obviously overpowered, the middle is somewhat daring but still sane (one 200% pool is more flexible than two 100% pools, and the BM support gem normally taxes the 100% life pool extra, although Prism Guardian can get around that). I understand that use of MC isn't the use you're thinking of, but it's important not to make notables degenerately powerful for any use.

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Islidox написал:

If immunity to curses was locked behind BM, then I'm all for it.

What's next, demanding that Unwavering Stance and Iron Reflexes be moved within one node of each other? The idea that BM keystone needs to combo with a node immediately next to it is ludicrous.

Look, I personally think that BM's inability to use auras (which are now much more powerful) is something that needs to be addressed, and the most balanced way to do this is to have some %life increase, %life regen or leech mods behind BM (where MC is)

This won't have any real significant effect on low life builds, since they are going to be reserved a critical amount of their health so the difference is negligible, however it may actually allow BM uses to offset the use of one aura with increased node investment

BM keystone should never be able to viably run high powered auras. What is the point of BM gem in that case? This should not degenerate into a number crunching game to see if bm gem or bm keystone can output the most life and dps ratio.

MC needs to be reworked completely instead of seesawing back and forth between potentially broken and absolutely useless or used as another abuse tool for shavs.

BM key in general is very viable even for endgame as evident by the tremendous popularity of a certain bow based build.

Maybe they can do one the following:

- Add an increased effect modifier for auras (15-20%) on MC that can make up for taking up so much health.

- Add a More Life modifier, similar to the CI Energy Shield node to offset the health lost from the aura a bit.

- Double the life gain rate from leeching.

These are off the top of my head.

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Vegnarus написал:

Maybe they can do one the following:

- Add an increased effect modifier for auras (15-20%) on MC that can make up for taking up so much health.

- Add a More Life modifier, similar to the CI Energy Shield node to offset the health lost from the aura a bit.

- Double the life gain rate from leeching.

These are off the top of my head.

All of those are bad design. Inelegant at best, metagame-stifling OP at worst.

BTW Inertial Shield is horrible design and doesn't deserve to be copied.

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ScrotieMcB написал:

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Islidox написал:

Making MC a 60% less mana reserved would bring it to a good place.

No, it would be OP for the use described earlier in this post. 40% less means instead of two pools of 100% you get one pool of 166%; 50% less means one pool of 200%; 60% means one pool of 240%. The first is inarguably safe from a game design perspective, the last is obviously overpowered, the middle is somewhat daring but still sane (one 200% pool is more flexible than two 100% pools, and the BM support gem normally taxes the 100% life pool extra, although Prism Guardian can get around that). I understand that use of MC isn't the use you're thinking of, but it's important not to make notables degenerately powerful for any use.

In simpler terms with a 60% aura for the base, 40% LMR means 36% of life reserved, 50% LMR means 30% of life reserved, and 60& LMR means 24% of life reserved. Considering that BM builds can only rely on armor, block/dodge, and life (regen/leech), any percentage greater than 20% of life reserved is unacceptable for a damage buffer/sponge. Taking a look at the skilltree, there's only two sets of RMR passives that are even near BM, which include the cluster behind Sovereignty and the 5% RMR near BM, making a total of 21% RMR. Unless you're a Scion and can access the RMR passives in the Int/Dex area, the 21% RMR passives are all you'll get within reasonable reach. With a lvl 20 RM gem, MC, and 21% RMR, you'll be using up 21% of life for a single aura. With Alpha's Howl, you can reduce 21% of life reserved to 19% of life reserved - not really much of an improvement.

Regarding PG, I don't even understand how this unique enters the situation. PG is a bad unique for a pure life build as it has crap armor/ES/block and offers no life as a shield. Also, most users of the BM key are NOT shield users. Mainly builds with extremely high mana costs or high attack speed opt for BM key, otherwise going EB or ML or BM support are the other viable alternatives. I'd like to see a build that would use a PG while using BM key, really. If you weren't specialized in auras (meaning picking all RMR passives around the tree), at most you'd be able to support 2 auras without cutting into your life (30% of life reserved with MC, lvl 20 RM, and 21% in RMR) with a PG shield. And the entire low-life shavs build utilizing BM key is also baloney. You can EASILY stack 4-5 auras with shavs + mana... why would anyone go BM key AND cut into their resource supply?

Bottom line: Shavs/PG has nothing to do with BM key at hand. At least not from what I see nor from the builds I've seen.

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ScrotieMcB написал:

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Islidox написал:

If immunity to curses was locked behind BM, then I'm all for it.

What's next, demanding that Unwavering Stance and Iron Reflexes be moved within one node of each other? The idea that BM keystone needs to combo with a node immediately next to it is ludicrous.

Any more ludicrous than having MC, a notable that hasn't done any favors for BM key builds, behind BM? Using this keystone to counter the downsides of the BM key located in a completely different location is just inelegant as putting a life multiplier notable behind BM like the Infused Shield notable. Moreover, it doesn't fix the weakness of the BM keystone (of which I and many others have mentioned) but adds another dimension to gameplay, nothing more. Plus, that keystone would be ridiculously OP for low-level PvP and be hard to balance with PvP in mind, especially considering 1:1 PvP, or being at a disadvantage in a group PvP.