Change Reduced Mana and Additional Accuracy

As they currently stand, Reduced Mana (RM) and Additional Accuracy (AdAc - AA is Arctic Armour) support gems have very niche uses. I have never, ever seen anyone recommend RM as a link for anything but auras - which it is mandatory for. And AdAc I have seen recommended once - for use with Raise Zombie.

RM
Why don't we cut to the chase? I propose changing all RM gems into something like "Aura Enhancement", where it only affects mana reservation. The numbers could be similar to what they are now, or perhaps slightly tweaked. For example, it could start at 85% mana cost multiplier and reduce to 65-70%. Or the quality could become reduced mana reserved.

Or even, my favourite - buff effect. I believe this could be balanced easily as we have now lost the buff effect from the Passive Tree. Maybe 0.5% buff effect per level. It would give people an incentive to link AA, but it's still costly due to requiring immense luck from a GC strongbox, tons of GCPs, or tons of time levelling an AA to 20 + vendor recipe + levelling again (now that level 20 gems take even longer).

And since everyone already uses the gem only for auras, completely changing the gem wouldn't really affect anyone (well, a very very few number), so everyone will still already have the gem they want.

AdAc
Move the old RM mana multiplier to AdAc and make it accessible at a very low level. This will not only provide new players with a smoother levelling experience, but also give everyone a chance to lower their mana costs without spending passives, even temporarily. The mana multiplier could even be reduced further, to really make the skill have a solid place in the game. Perhaps its quality could be a small amount of crit, so that it remains viable even in the very late-game?

Please comment on the theory, not the numbers or names, as they can always be balanced properly :)

Indeed, RM is rarely used for reducing cost of skills, even my summoner hybrid that spends horrifying amounts of mana with dominating blow chooses to deal with that in other ways. I've got a certain build that depends on RM quality bonus but I could live with it getting kicked in the nuts.
Still, there's probably no reason to change it if it would end up functioning the same way and I don't think reduced reservation should be the quality bonus, who would use RM without it?

I don't think mana cost multiplier could save additional accuracy, you don't get a decent support by combining two useless ones. I propose combining increased crit strikes and additional accuracy into one gem called 'precision' or something, with slightly lower numbers, I suppose.

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raics написал:

I don't think mana cost multiplier could save additional accuracy, you don't get a decent support by combining two useless ones. I propose combining increased crit strikes and additional accuracy into one gem called 'precision' or something, with slightly lower numbers, I suppose.

Yes, except for crit build that don't use power charges, a 20 quality increased crit strikes is quite strong as it is. Would need to be balanced, but I do like the idea of combining these gems and making it a Int/Dex hybrid.

It just makes a lot of sense, you either want none of them or both. Builds that don't pick either crit or RT are few and just accuracy will never be worth the slot.

There's an ~easy way to make RMC usable for attacks and spells without giving it an unnecessary aura buff (over what it already is).

As it levels up, have it give -X mana cost (ala Elreon jewelry) in addition to the Y% multiplicative reduction. X can either scale linearly (-1 to -20), or decreasingly (-1 to -10 to -14), etc.

For AddAc, I'd much rather see it focus on the crit aspect and be combined with Increased Critical Strikes. If needed, could be kept separate, both because of gem color and because that way it can give GGG a lever to balance between crit spells and crit attacks.

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pneuma написал:

There's an ~easy way to make RMC usable for attacks and spells without giving it an unnecessary aura buff (over what it already is).

As it levels up, have it give -X mana cost (ala Elreon jewelry) in addition to the Y% multiplicative reduction. X can either scale linearly (-1 to -20), or decreasingly (-1 to -10 to -14), etc.

Hmm, I'd say it still wouldn't be worth the slot as long as BM is in the game, you can't go lower than free, and BM makes your skills practically free.

I'd personally be up for removing BM as a support, keystone or nothing.

Why would you want to invite GGG to muck around with something as useful and straightforward as Additional Accuracy?! To my knowledge, no one has ever complained about it, it's in no way OP, and it works exactly as documented with no undesirable side-effects. I use Add Acc to boost the reliability of Lightning Strike in proccing shock effects with critical strikes. Q20 Add Acc improves both my chance to hit and my chance to crit with just one gem slot. That makes it a better choice than Increased Critical Strikes.

I really have to ask, why would you want to monkeywrench my build with a gratuitous "fix" to something that's not broken in the first place? This game is loaded with things that are actually dysfunctional you could complain about instead.

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RogueMage написал:

I really have to ask, why would you want to monkeywrench my build with a gratuitous "fix" to something that's not broken in the first place? This game is loaded with things that are actually dysfunctional you could complain about instead.

And I really have to ask why are you complaining about something that benefits you? Removal of reduced mana cost from RM will actually mess up my summoner, not improve it like new precision gem would your build, but I'm still up to doing something creative with the gem, or at least less one-dimensional.

If it's out of habit you have a problem there, well, maybe not you but people hanging around you. Might be just highly concentrated human nature, every village has its surly uncle Bob that frowns and complains be it rain or shine. He isn't exactly loved but he's nice to have around as a rural tourist attraction, along with a phallic-shaped rock and an old oak stump that looks like an unshaved vagina :)

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raics написал:

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RogueMage написал:

I really have to ask, why would you want to monkeywrench my build with a gratuitous "fix" to something that's not broken in the first place? This game is loaded with things that are actually dysfunctional you could complain about instead.

And I really have to ask why are you complaining about something that benefits you?

Because if GGG added a Reduced Mana mod to Add Acc, they wouldn't just leave well enough alone, they'd feel compelled to nerf the existing mods on the gem in order to "rebalance" the new version in light of its enchanced capabilities. While this is not quite an inevitable outcome, GGG's track record makes it by far the most likely expectation.