Duelist sucks, let's make it better

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zharmad написал:

+1, although I would like keystones in general to be attractive enough to be worth considering its passives cost for other classes. E.g., I would imagine a witch wielding a Queen's Decree (Midnight's Bargain doesn't allow CI) would want to snake over and steal some Parry. It's not going to be that easy, but I don't want to make it impossible either.

We're still considering placing it where +15% all resists are (and bump it of somewhere else), so Duelists can charge straight through the frenzy nodes and get it?

That would be a good place, but like hex master put some sword passives in front of it so you'd either get dex going around or IPD/ACC sword nodes going through.

I'm currently looking at the beta skilltree. There's already 4 connections between the inner circle and the outer-circle, from endurance charges, Golem's Blood, Frenzy charges, and the pure dex route.... :/
- Personally, I've usually taken the Golem's Blood route (and the Frenzy route once or twice). Most of the charges routes are designed to provide short-cuts to encourage people to take up the second node.
- The direct placement of big sword cluster below the duelist himself is also thematic. We'll have to modify if we want to replace the Frenzy link with the sword link. It's right next to our current path, so we can't cluster them all too closely. There is the possibility of swapping the big Axe and big Sword spheres. The weapon clusters from left to right here are sword/axe/sword/axe.
- Between the Frenzy route and the Golem's blood route, do we need to add another one? (Also, for the sake of inclusiveness of things that don't have access to ground-slam I'm contending that axe-wielders have a secondary claim to Parry and could also use a shortcut.)
- An alternative is to place Parry directly beneath Golem's Blood (at the cost of putting it closer to Mara who doesn't need it, and further from Ranger who might want it).

So, quickest routes for Duelist to the outer ring at the moment:
-1H Melee Damage -> Might -> Water Dancing -> Golem's Blood (14 nodes, ring on 15th.)
-DW: Attack Speed -> Agility -> Dervish -> Frenzy (13 nodes, ring on 14th. )
-2H: Melee Damage -> Might -> Executioner -> Endurance (12 nodes, ring on 12th.)
- Inner ring is areached on 10th node.
- Stat highway -> Frenzy/Endurance ( 8 nodes, ring on 9th. )

Placement under Frenzy will tend to benefit dual wielders a little bit more than the others. I'm tempted to move it to Golem's Blood, but that puts it closer Maras who don't need it, and further from Rangers who do - not that this matters in the long run since they'll all come to get Golem's Blood anyway.

Due to Golem's Blood/Beserking and everyone wanting them, it's much of a muchness... the standard Mara route takes them past Blood Magic to get Beserking/Unwavering Stance, and from there it's a short hop to Parry's location. The outer-ring here directly connects keystones to each and it's a little too fast, whereas the inner ring takes you painfully slowly through offshoots that you may or may not want (gripe for another day).

Duelists still have their place, it is still a top contender in short term races at least, just look at grindis123 and his race history, one of the most consistent racers around and he plays duelist, i won my demigod in a solo turbo race and I played duelist, so they definitely have their place and are not weak, especially not for short term races.

But obviously the issue is complicated when talking about duelist in relation to standard hardcore ladder and long events, and their lack of identity etc. I think it would be cool to see some changes but I just wanted to note how they are still viable and competitive in short races.

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Desbris написал:

Duelists still have their place, it is still a top contender in short term races at least, just look at grindis123 and his race history, one of the most consistent racers around and he plays duelist, i won my demigod in a solo turbo race and I played duelist, so they definitely have their place and are not weak, especially not for short term races.

But obviously the issue is complicated when talking about duelist in relation to standard hardcore ladder and long events, and their lack of identity etc. I think it would be cool to see some changes but I just wanted to note how they are still viable and competitive in short races.

Melee is viable in short term races, not limited to duelist. I won my demigod in a week race with duelist and barely missed getting a 2nd on the month. Viable doesn't mean optimum nor good.

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zharmad написал:

Let's leave all armour/evasion topics to the other threads for now. We should refine what we have and make a push for it.

In response to interactions with block, I would prefer parry to be a separate layer of defense like how acrobatics and shield-block can be combined. An incoming melee attack will go through:
- acrobatics (passive tree, keep in mind that rangers can probably get both with our current location)
- parry (passive tree)
- block (shields, DW, staff)
- evasion

I don't know how the game engine orders each of these, but on-parry effects and on-block effect should not activate at the same time. One of them has to have priority. Here, I would prefer to trigger Parry first, and then block. Although this decreases the minor utility of Tempest Shield reflection and increases the effective lifetime of Molten Shell, it also ensures players are getting their worth out of the deeper passive effects.

To answer definitively the difference scenarios, I'm going to rehash & refine my last relevant set of nodes.
= = =

Keystone descriptions

Parry, gateway keystone
- For a light investment, offers chance to "block" melee damage (acrobatics-like), and decreases accuracy. Differs from acrobatics in that you don't parry arrows, and it's a much easier keystone to access.
- Requires a sword or an axe in the main hand.
- 20% chance to parry melee attacks, -20% accuracy rating.
Not every swing is meant to strike at an oppoent.

Blind-side, deeper choice #1.
- Here, we want to encourage non-mace builds to accumulate and benefit from stun mods. This path does not lead to extra parry chances, but directly benefits the user when triggered without needing a counter-offensive.
- Requires something that prevents players from obtaining Riposte. Say, a axe, sword, dagger or shield in the off-hand.
- 50% chance to stun attacker on successful parry with your off-hand item.
- Cooldown of 0.5 seconds, just in case?
I'll give you a hint, it's not my blade that you should be looking at.

Riposte, deeper choice #2.
- Here, we want to encourage a pure 1-hander by vastly improving his offensive potential. This path grants a significantly larger chance to parry and improves counter-offensive. Player must keep-attacking in order to gain benefit of this path.
- Requires 1-handed swords and nothing in the off-hand slot.
- Successful parry gives attacker a short debuff of -50% armour, -50% evasion, and -50% movespeed just for those pesky serpents!
- Debuff lasts 1.50/base-weapon-APS seconds (actual duration hidden from player, like power siphon and dominating blow).
Your over-confidence spells your defeat.

= = =
The available paths for different duellists are thus follows:
- 1-hander sword and nothing off-hand. Can have %-parry. Can Riposte. Cannot blind-side.
- 1-hander axe/sword holding a shield. Can have %-parry. Cannot Riposte. Can blind-side with his other hand (preferable a bucker or spiked shield :D, but I guess shield bashing using a mega tower shield is okay too.)
- Dual-wielder axe/sword main. Can have %-parry. Cannot Riposte. Can blind-side if correct weapon is on off-hand.
- 2-hander axe/sword. Can have %-parry only. Cannot progress to either.

Are we happy with the current compromise solution?

Draft path:

Скрытый текст

The defensive plan inside these keystone cluster is thus either:
- to parry much more as a pure shield replacement (aiming to be reliable melee blocking alternative)
- to delay future incoming attacks by stunning opponents

Both the above are compatible with life-regen. Actual values will need some adjustment!

I quoted this so people can get some context.

Zharmad you are basically just talking about where to throw it in and I think it should eat up some of the surrounding stuff.

First put it where the big circle of sword passives is, put that where hatchet master is now.

Next eat up hatchet and blade master. Make a dex pathway (going through blade master) and str pathway (going through hatchet master) leading to one node that's just before parry. I couldn't decide what it would be as you are getting damage before hand, stat doesn't make sense, accuracy is counter productive, block is stupid, maybe just IAS? (wishful thinking how about berserking as it should be a duelist node rather than shared with maras anyways.

So here's how these changes effect the current tree.



Then here's a very rough mock up of what the new circle would look like.



Everything around it stays the same (I was gonna do this, hence the golem's blood ring but got lazy). If a ranger wants this stuff it's a 3 skill req of dex to get in, same for mara so it's more efficient to do it as a duelist. It also doesn't limit ranger DW builds by making gallantry a pain to get as it's basically in the same place, just inside the parry circle to make parry area stand out more rather than having a dingle berry hanging off the outside of it.

Maybe, to allow BM riposte duelist an easier time to use swords, as my current set up they either get an extra dex node or go from the bottom getting 4 dex to the sword area, maybe for duelist is they meet at one stat node then break off to the weapon specific nodes, then again, it's 1 extra node for a duelist going from golem to sword passives.

The weapon specific nodes should be IPD/IAS then IPD/ACC (also think blade master should be similar to hatchet, in otherwords giving IPD/IAS). Another option would be axe giving IPD/Acc while sword gives IPD/IAS, taking advantage of the implicit acc mod.

I'd like for this to be a ring that even non-parry/whatever branch of keystone builds feel the need to swing in here for DPS reasons.

I like that very much. I think we need to make some sort of statistic on some of those circles because i think the duelist start area has quite a few ones that are NEVER picked. No one. No build at all. if so, a clean up is needed.

On a side note: I was really hoping the Duelist would turn up as THE swordsmen class. I know it limits the options with the character somewhat in the way GGG is trying to prevent, But it really works for me with the current story of the Duelist.

Maybe it's because i haven't played anything else, though.

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ransagy написал:

I like that very much. I think we need to make some sort of statistic on some of those circles because i think the duelist start area has quite a few ones that are NEVER picked. No one. No build at all. if so, a clean up is needed.

On a side note: I was really hoping the Duelist would turn up as THE swordsmen class. I know it limits the options with the character somewhat in the way GGG is trying to prevent, But it really works for me with the current story of the Duelist.

Maybe it's because i haven't played anything else, though.

If you give axes acc and swords IAS on the way to parry people will rather use swords. Also most people DW swords over axes already. So I think you'll be good.

Regarding the riposte duelist, I would swap the axe and the sword paths in the Parry sphere. They will most likely exit at Water Dancing trying to get towards Golem's Blood, and not Leather and Steel.
IMO it's not going to be big problem for them to get one extra stat node while outside the ring for both Golem's Blood and Parry/Riposte.

What I'm much less keen about is connecting the inner and out rings with stat nodes. No other class will have it this easy, although some are given logical nodes to go through like the templar life ring. It's also sightly superfluous since (1) I haven't seen a Duelist build yet without Golem's Blood the next node over, and (2) I'd like to maintain GGG's policy of making charge-nodes the standard short-hand to get to things like Diamond skin.

As for the content of the ace/sword passives, I've always lost my internal debates over whether to get Hatchet Master precisely because taking Headsman and Slice & Dice instead allows me to not need any specific accuracy nodes (prefer certainty).

How about, Axes give 8%Acc-/2%-IAS and Swords 4%-Dmg/2%IAS? Hatchet and Blade Masters remain the same at Dmg/IAS with minor adjustents to values. The joining node in the middle can be an 3%-IAS node or a +5-Dex/+5-Str node just to be slightly aggravating... >:)

I put stats around the outside because it makes it a little more difficult for a non-duelist to go through the trouble of getting it. It's similar to dual totem node, mara's can't really get full use out of it and how it's set up witches/shadows have to go way out of their way to grab it. Figured anything besides stat nodes 1) would border on OP, as any more damage and you are clumping alot of DPS in a small area 2) putting life, armor or more DPS would make it appealing to other classes and also appealing for duelist to head down that way rather than through golem's blood or frenzy charge.

Rather than being the class it's designed for duelist end up getting the same nodes a ranger would doing a similar build. I purposely want other classes doing a riposte build to be punished for doing so. I'd put 10 attribute nodes on each side if it wouldn't look completely stupid.

edit: with the axe nodes you need to give DPS somewhere, and a good bump. Not many people will want to lose the stats/ehp/dps of their offhand if it means they can't match it in anyway. TBH I think those notable axe/sword passives should be buffed while the other ones should be nerfed, further encouraging people to head in there.

And here i thought im the only one ever grabbing blade master for the +8% IAS.