Duelist sucks, let's make it better

Oh my point is the only people who can even think of running blood rage comfortably are CI and duelist. I don't think that's very good, especially early on when blood rage's leech is nothing.

I think the chaos damage and leech both scaling up would help. Also a node that follows a frenzy charge that gave more leech would work beautifully with it. Maybe something like .25-.50% life leech per frenzy charge?

Great thread, has been interesting to read since duelist is my favorite class. Here's some of my thoughts, though take em for a grain of salt because I'm pretty fuckin newb at this game.

1. Crit - It's very hard to get as a duelist in the passive tree. Only option seems to be the dual wield wheel around iron reflexes, grabbing the small section near Ranger start, or to go really far into Dex near the Shadow starting nodes... would love to see more crit access for duelist considering even Marauder has better access to crit.

2. 2h Sword - Why can't they use sweep?? So many nice sword nodes duelist has access to, but 2h sword seems to be the weakest 2h weapon available. Would love to see some skill gem changes to give 2h sword builds more love, if not given sweep, perhaps 2h sword being useable with Whirling Blades.

3. Crystal Skin - I love this node, and would love to see the Duelist have easier access to it. I would suggest moving it to the wheel under Mana Flows, giving a Duelist early and easy access to it.

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Moosifer написал:

In efforts to keep this alive until Qarl gets back, as it seems we have this riposte shit wrapped up.

Someone suggested that duelist should specialize in all weapons. How about a notable node that gives 15% IAS for 2-5 seconds after a weapon switch?

I'd like to know what people's experiences are with weapon-switching here. There are a small percentage of occasions that weapon switch failed to take after I pressed its key, like the known flask usage issue. I also think the most likely scenarios for using +IAS on switch will be fall-backs such as Poison arrow or viper strike on an off-hander, which won't need damage nodes but only IAS nodes. That's certainly good, but doesn't promote a broader weapon flexibility.

I think it's difficult to proper-spec for more than one weapon types given the amount of defense melee builds will need. This is stacked on top of needing a specific weapon for gear. Thus, when I suggested it last, I was envisioning having 50%-bonuses of specific weapon nodes apply to other melee weapons. While I'm keen on having this kind of gear flexibility, would probably revise that since, e.g., some axe acc-nodes give 24% accuracy, which at 50% is still better than standard acc nodes! :P

Also like to discuss the idea of encouraging dual wield builds that use two different base weapon-types to access more skills, or an optional shield-build. Hence:

"

Keystones:
- Arena Lord
- 50% of passive bonuses that apply to a specific melee-weapon apply to other weapons.
- 50% of passive bonuses to any form of blocking applies to other forms of blocking.
- Malus: Not easy to get to. Located in the center of the trio 2-H/1-H/DW clusters, meaning you need to get 6 bonuses in there.
- How may I end thee? Oh, let me count the ways.

I have not used weapon switching at all right now besides a place to level spare/quality gems. I simply saw no reason. I did use weapon switching before auras got switched off from alt weapons, but that's as far as i found a real use for it other than a gimmick. Sadly, this is almost the same way with flasks for me with the basic life-life-life-regen duelist. Aside from cheesy diamonds and granites, at least.

We mentioned this a little before in the thread, But i agree about prolific dual wielding. I'd like to see a push for, lets say, Sword and Dagger dual wielding, As some did in real life dueling.

I agree that running bonuses for TWO weapons is almost impossible when even running one AND maintaining a defense is hard right now. We could synergize them with something like your suggestions, or a BIG keystone that enables similar effects on multiple weapons. It should, of course, have a negative.

I've noticed a problem sometimes with weapon switching, not sure what the cause is but sometimes you hit 'x' and nothing happens.

Typically though, I see weapon switching as most useful to switch between 'area clear' and 'boss/mini-boss' fight modes. It can be useful while leveling if you gear for it, but I have no idea if it would be of any use whatsoever in the end game.

Your post explains exactly why I play as a Templar.

BTW: Templar should be the shield class :p

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zharmad написал:

Also like to discuss the idea of encouraging dual wield builds that use two different base weapon-types to access more skills, or an optional shield-build. Hence:

"

Keystones:
- Arena Lord
- 50% of passive bonuses that apply to a specific melee-weapon apply to other weapons.
- 50% of passive bonuses to any form of blocking applies to other forms of blocking.
- Malus: Not easy to get to. Located in the center of the trio 2-H/1-H/DW clusters, meaning you need to get 6 bonuses in there.
- How may I end thee? Oh, let me count the ways.

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ransagy написал:

We mentioned this a little before in the thread, But i agree about prolific dual wielding. I'd like to see a push for, lets say, Sword and Dagger dual wielding, As some did in real life dueling.

I agree that running bonuses for TWO weapons is almost impossible when even running one AND maintaining a defense is hard right now. We could synergize them with something like your suggestions, or a BIG keystone that enables similar effects on multiple weapons. It should, of course, have a negative.

I would definitely like to see something that makes dual wielding separate weapon types more interesting. It would fit perfectly in the Duelist area.

I'm not sure what the bonus should be, though. I like the idea of pooling together the passives for both equipped weapon types and applying them to both, but I'm not sure how balanced it would be.

Perhaps the downside could be removing the ability to block while dual wielding.

Oh, and the cluster design a few pages ago is very interesting. It may need some tweaking, but I like the overall idea a lot and hope the developers heavily consider Parry, Riposte, and Blindside.

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Iao написал:

Oh, and the cluster design a few pages ago is very interesting. It may need some tweaking, but I like the overall idea a lot and hope the developers heavily consider Parry, Riposte, and Blindside.

I really don't expect GGG to take what I did in stone (hope at least) I just wanted to give a rough idea how I think it should all come together. I much rather than model it around how THEY feel it should fit in rather than how I should, prefer that actually. I rather not be responsible if it fucking blows >.>

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Moosifer написал:

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Iao написал:

Oh, and the cluster design a few pages ago is very interesting. It may need some tweaking, but I like the overall idea a lot and hope the developers heavily consider Parry, Riposte, and Blindside.

I really don't expect GGG to take what I did in stone (hope at least) I just wanted to give a rough idea how I think it should all come together. I much rather than model it around how THEY feel it should fit in rather than how I should, prefer that actually. I rather not be responsible if it fucking blows >.>

Their mistake for not refining it then. ;) Besides, is Charan going to come on board with the Parry suggestion since we're going to be using his sword a bit more?

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zharmad написал:

Their mistake for not refining it then. ;) Besides, is Charan going to come on board with the Parry suggestion since we're going to be using his sword a bit more?

I mentioned it quick to him but I think he was busy writing haikus or something.