Will Molten Shell ever be fixed?

This is a semi-QQthread. In HLD(High Level Duel) there are alot of strong mechanics, though most of them can more or less be countered, while some cannot. One of these being Molten shell. Before someone complains and says it can be easily countered by

a) Go avatar of fire. I tried it actually, and also lowered my dps with almost 50%, so this not a good solution.

Also, majouirty of the players have and will most probably never have a problem with molten shell as they are never close to said player with molten shell, where melee's have to be closed to even have a chance to win. Rangers, trappers and spellcasters can just outrange and counter it that way.

So what problem am I talking about?

It's the armour it gives, it's insane. (No, no it's not). The damage it does when molten shell explodes is what I am talking about. If I as melee even try touch someone with molten shell I will see myself lying on the ground dead without my enemie will just re-cast their molten shell to get ready for the next hit they are taken. I have tried;

* Flickered to target with molten shell, but this wont help at all, will just trigger the molten shell and I am dead

Get insane aoe and leap slammed to target and try to cyclone them a slight bit from said enemie, so I kill the enemie and won't get 1shot by the molten shell. While this could work theoretically, it does not in reailty. First, how big aoe you take it wont help you alot, but this is not the hardest problem. This is almost impossible to pull off.

What could be changed?

I would suggest remove the damage it does when it explodes in PvP, but has a chance to ignite and the armour remains. That way they still get a nice flat armour boost, and it will not be as over powered anymore.

Please, LLD-devotee, if you haven't had any experience don't care to comment. I doubt this is even a problem there, as they can't use a high level molten shell

i agree that low life molten shell is totally lame in high level pvp, i give 0 respect to people who rely on it to win against a melee character.

however, it can still be countered in several ways:

first, u have to take acrobat passvies because it increases ur life effectiveness by 40% against attacks and 30% against spells.

second, use atziri's steps, combined with acrobat, you gain 46% of spell dodge.

third, use Daresso's Salute legacy amulet, take master of arena passive and use increased aoe effect instead of conc effect to out range molten shell.

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i agree that low life molten shell is totally lame in high level pvp, i give 0 respect to people who rely on it to win against a melee character.

however, it can still be countered in several ways:

first, u have to take acrobat passvies because it increases ur life effectiveness by 40% against attacks and 30% against spells.

second, use atziri's steps, combined with acrobat, you gain 46% of spell dodge.

third, use Daresso's Salute legacy amulet, take master of arena passive and use increased aoe effect instead of conc effect to out range molten shell.

Yes I agree on that point, that acrobatics can be used, but as a 2hander should you be forced to use a sword then? Because as an axe/mace it's sure worthless to go there, with all the wasted points and no good nodes nearby.

While I like the increased aoe gem swap, i'd have to change between it all the time, as soon a molten pops -> aoe, kills it -> conc. But as soon as I changed to conc said enemie has already re-casted molten

Increased range passives coupled with heavy strike and the knockback it entails, I've heard is an acceptable counter... with 2h axes anyways. Not sure what their range is compared to 2h swords.

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Firebrand76 wrote:

Increased range passives coupled with heavy strike and the knockback it entails, I've heard is an acceptable counter... with 2h axes anyways. Not sure what their range is compared to 2h swords.

7 vs. 6

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Range

heavy strike is a viable counter to molten but those casters can just chicken along the wall/at the corner to avoid being knocked back.

speaking from past experience in sarn arena.

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Fightgarr wrote:

7 vs. 6

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Range

Thanks. Also taking the Master of the Arena keystone, and Fending cluster (for knockback distance) would help a lot.

The Atziri's Disfavour axe has +2 to range. Not sure how the good the damage is, in a pvp setting. It looks pretty high. Hard to tell with all the mirrored weapons around. :)

Increased AOE gem will not counter molten shell, it's very easy for us ( casters ) to just throw in 20/20 increased AOE gem and the explosion will have a large radius.

However i do agree that it does too much damage, i disagree with your suggestions of making it do zero damage because then it will be simply useless and ignite on molten shell is bad.

I would simply lower the base fire damage and make it have a knockback effect, when it detonates everything nearby would be knockbacked by a good distance, this making molten shell a really good defense for casters against melee without 1 shotting them.

On the other hand i dont think molten shell needs to be adressed asap, there are very few people running around with a good pvp caster build and a ton of melee/ranger. I think GGG needs to work on balancing other bandwagon 1 shot skills that everyone uses in the arena before balancing molten shell. Here are some exemple of skills that are very good against everything, Puncture, EA, Flicker/whirling blades ( any skill with a crit dagger ) , crit traps, remote mines and i miss some. Molten shell is only good against one particular build which is melee where all those other 1 shotting skills are good against pretty much everything.

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hauntworld1 wrote:

Increased AOE gem will not counter molten shell, it's very easy for us ( casters ) to just throw in 20/20 increased AOE gem and the explosion will have a large radius.

However i do agree that it does too much damage, i disagree with your suggestions of making it do zero damage because then it will be simply useless and ignite on molten shell is bad.

I would simply lower the base fire damage and make it have a knockback effect, when it detonates everything nearby would be knockbacked by a good distance, this making molten shell a really good defense for casters against melee without 1 shotting them.

On the other hand i dont think molten shell needs to be adressed asap, there are very few people running around with a good pvp caster build and a ton of melee/ranger. I think GGG needs to work on balancing other bandwagon 1 shot skills that everyone uses in the arena before balancing molten shell. Here are some exemple of skills that are very good against everything, Puncture, EA, Flicker/whirling blades ( any skill with a crit dagger ) , crit traps, remote mines and i miss some. Molten shell is only good against one particular build which is melee where all those other 1 shotting skills are good against pretty much everything.

Yes, I agree on pretty much agree on everything you said, also a valid proof why good aoe wouldnt help vs molten. However, notice you only mentioned flicker dagger, I believe melee(in general) would need some love, while crit multi would need some change in PvP

The only things ive been successful with when going melee vs a MS user is either reave with increased aoe and knockback or using whirling blades. I dont think whirling blades would work if they used increased aoe on their MS though.

It used to not be so bad for a 1h shield melee character because you could use spell block but now that spells can get block chance reduction blocking isnt a reliable way to counter it anymore. So it seems the only other option is dodge like Jimicui said.