Flat damage is in such a laughably bad state

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Immoteph wrote:

People are playing Lightning builds with a cold gem.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

The issue is that stacker builds can reach higher values due to being an iterative growth rather than a defined one.

Take Brutus's lead sprinkler for example, clearly based around ~1000 strength which is an achievable number with basic gearing and produces a decent outcome.

But what about 2500 strength?

That is really the entire difference between the sources of flat damage. If i'm adding lightning it has a fixed value (and usually an increasingly hard one to get) but for attribute stacking which i'll include Archmage in you can just continue to scale.

For Archmage specifically you only have two ways to scale, you can add flat damage, or you can add gem levels. As above Archmage lets you have linear growth as you continue to accrue mana whereas gem level slows its growth down substantially post 30 (and can be a pita to get there already). Again Archmage eclipses any flat damage sources available on gear just like stat stacking etc does - rings would have to be able to roll +1/2 gem level to compare in this manner.

So we've already established that stackers have superior scaling and that's before we even touch on the fact that fundamentally stackers get at least partial scaling for offense from defence.

2500 Str gives more life than if you have T1 life on every piece or might be pretty close now they buffed the mod values, Int stackers get 500% ES, Archmage characters frequently have an EHP sponge pool 3-4x a regular character etc. Won't even go into Ephemeral edge because Trickster gotta be in the crosshairs already.

Its just a can of worms, only dex stacker feels thematically correct for its stacking methodology but really its just because dex is the weakest stat.

Now the issue with all those is that they continue to scale with investment whereas most methods tap out/tail off substantially early on. It IS expensive to get 2500 strength no doubt about it but if you want to push into where we now consider builds to be "powerful" you don't have much choice.

Mist reflecto jewellery can do wonders for attack skills as a new scaling option for example if you really want to get your wallet out but whats the real issue? Those still work for attributes too and are frankly easier to make as attributes.

Problem is I have no idea how to change this that is more fun for the game, they could add diminishing returns to stacking methods for example but its then totally different to how anything else scales and becomes hard for players to understand without a spreadsheet or to even write as a mod description. GGG do slap "up to" on items fairly often in order to cuck potentially OP builds so maybe they should just be consistent with this instead of applying it arbitrarily.

Edit: won't go into Ralakesh as I think they are dumb from the get go, just dragbox delete would solve that one and then look into the Maven belts as nobody wants to wear one without Ralakesh (Ok they sometimes wore the brutal charges one)

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

im so bored of seeing 'stacking' builds man, i havent played one in ages because theyre just so broken and boring. look for a broken build doing something idiotic and 9 times out of 10 its stacking something, int, str, es, whatever. the numbers are so stupidly out of balance with other methods of scaling in the game and they have been for so long, for years and years.

for a game that likes to have a shifting meta i dont understand how an area of builds so broken has been left to be like this for so long.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

Why is Katabasis using awakened added cold/ice bite?

This is not sarcastic btw genuinely don't understand

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Xzorn wrote:

I just hope stacking gets abolished.
I can't think of a dumber way to create a build than "I'll just stack this stat high as I can".

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666lol666 wrote:

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Xzorn wrote:

I just hope stacking gets abolished.
I can't think of a dumber way to create a build than "I'll just stack this stat high as I can".

I haven't played a stacker in years but I don't understand why some people hate it so much? I mean it's not like 99% of all players play a stacker.