Shield Charge

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firemind13 wrote:

Please make this skill work with Melee Splash support gem.

I will take your argument a step further than you have.

If this skill is single target and it doesn't work with melee splash then it is worthless. In order to use this skill, you need to be able to have it be your main attack. You can't have a single target attack be your ONLY effective attack. If you use a 1h and shield, you only get one decent attack, on your 6L chest.

You can put whatever modifiers you want to put this attack on CD, or have it miss and have resolute technique not work with it. Or you could have it stun you if you miss. Or you could have it not work AT ALL if you are not farther than a particular distance. But you have to be able to have your 6L attack with a 1h and shield not limited to single target only with having it not work with melee splash. If you do, you might as well throw this attack away. It needs to be a niche attack, otherwise it becomes overpowered. So think of the limitation that you want to put on it, but it can't be that it doesn't work with AoE. There is simply no way with two of the support gems in so many builds being either blood magic and life leech, or blood magic and life gain on hit, or life leech and mana leech, that you can use this attack with a 4L and expect it to be comparable to a 6L attack without buffing it to the point of breaking everything in the game. Main attacks and spells in this game are designed around their use being in a 6L. For a 2h or for a bow, you can have a single target and AoE attack, but not for a 1h and shield build or DW builds. Those builds only get one major attack or spell and it has to be AoE capable.

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Vipermagi wrote:

You can make a single-target your main skill. Ignite/Shock/Proliferate is awesome.

Not a skill where you are planning on doing physical damage, where you use melee physical dmg + crit strikes + crit damage. Especially if you are CI and want to use melee dmg on full life. Ignite/shock and proliferate are still incredibly strong but rainbow elemental damage, not being procced off of elemental equilibrium is considerably weaker now. Aura damage is not as strong with the nerfs to inner force, and 10% less elemental damage in the templar tree and 6% less is the dualist/ranger tree, especially on top of physical damage buffs and weapon crit buffs. That doesn't even include how the nerf curses greatly affects rainbow elemental builds. Anyone can choose a single form of elemental damage and make it effective with dual cursing elemental weakness with flammability/frostbite/conductivity, especially if they use EE, and then use any fire penetration/cold penetration/lightning penetration. But curses are 40% or 50% weaker now when you need them and if you want to design your build for elemental damage and do all 3 kinds and if your only plan is elemental weakness to handle proliferating elemental damage alone with a physical attack, then you won't compete. It is simply not realistic or practical to be able to do all those things you propose and still have fire penetration, lightning penetration, and cold penetration. Perhaps that is the design intent and I am not arguing that it isn't good design, but that isn't the point here.

Let me put it to you another way. Consider DW builds. Why do you think EVERYONE is using BM cleave and NOT dual strike? You might say in response because melee splash is still weak and it still needs buffing, or that dual strike is weak and needs buffing, but you are arguing (albeit indirectly through saying mechanics like shock/ignite and proliferate are strong) against even allowing melee splash for shield charge, when it isn't even currently enough to make people consider dual strike as an alternative to cleave?

I am not saying that you cannot use the mechanics you propose to make an effective AoE attack off of ELEMENTAL HIT with an extremely fast but weak weapon and elemental equilibrium, by ignoring physical damage and emphasizing weapon speed with a very fast and weak unique melee weapon analogous to quill rain, but we aren't talking about elemental hit or the construction of a fast and unique melee weapon analogous to quill rain. We are talking about shield charge, a PHYSICAL based attack. Unless of course, you are proposing some sort of design where it it attacks with tempest shield? If that is what you are talking about, that does seem pretty cool, but if you were going to make that, not only should the attack miss forcing someone to take accuracy to prevent it from being OP, but if you miss, not only should you get stunned, but you should be shocked as well.

I am not saying that once you allow it (melee splash), something doesn't need to be done to make sure this attack has a niche and that it isn't for every build in the game, but single target is just not currently the way to go with the strength of melee support gems. You have so many great melee support gems that you have to give up if you want to use a single target attack and not an AoE attack.

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Vipermagi wrote:

Anger is not the only source of Fire damage, you know.

Shield Charge grants a large, multiplicative damage bonus to Physical damage. Added Fire damage scales with Physical damage. A weapon (Sceptre or Axe probably) with high Physical damage and preferrably some additional Fire damage can hit for a decent chunk of Fire damage.

Shield Charge with AFD, Proliferate, Crit Chance, Fire Pen. Get Anger because why the hell not, focus on Fire-damage gear, and get those stupid Wakes of Destruction plus Wrath for Shock. Sure, you won't be Shocking high-health targets, but you're dealing good Physical and Fire damage as well.


Never have I said I don't want to see Splash on Shield Charge. I don't even think that SC should change at all if they do allow it (seriously, physical damage with a one-hander? Not going to be an issue).

You said SC cannot be a main skill because it doesn't have AoE. I say you can get AoE on Shield Charge. That's all.


"Why do you think EVERYONE is using BM cleave and NOT dual strike?"
This is really unrelated to Shield Charge (really, why even bring this up?), but:
because Cleave has a larger range and doesn't require two Gems just to get AoE.

ALSO really unrelated is Elemental Hit. You're looking for Brightbeak for that, btw.

I'm not saying you can't do the things you propose. I am just saying that for all the inventiveness and thought, the damage just isn't there.

I am glad that you would like to see splash on a shield charge. It is a physical based attack and proliferation will just proliferate elemental effects (if they crit).

The problem that hasn't been accounted for is resistance. You have to figure that you are designing a build for the toughest monsters and that they can have 75+% resistance. That is to say they have 75% resistance and are over that value. An elemental weakness operating at 50% or 60% strength won't solve elemental damage problems. What you are basically saying is that proliferate will solve the AoE damage problems on an attack that by itself doesn't no elemental damage outside of auras (which are weakened and prevent elemental equilibrium for being of use), has a slow speed (you have to back up and do it again), and the only aoe damage is the collateral effect of the auras and support gems, not to mention that you are charging into close range, and forgoing life, ES, or armor and evasion or block, just to get that critical strike chance. It's a bad build.

It is NOT unrelated that everyone is using Cleave and not Dual Strike. It illustrates that point that to take a single target attack and make it into an AoE attack takes support gems. Compared to what it would theoretically take to make Shield Charge a viable AoE attack without melee splash, converting dual strike or frenzy would be a breeze. But the point is very few people do that. Why? Because it isn't worth. I have a frenzy/LA dualist that I benched (I am experimenting with a Templar build now to see if its good) and I said to a friend, "Hey, with the nerf to elemental damage coming and the coincidental nerf to rainbow elemental damage via curses, I am thinking of making a physical DW dualist. The question is: Since I already have an extra frenzy charge that I can't get rid of, would it be worth it to use frenzy as a main attack and put melee splash in there to make it an AoE attack, or along those lines, would it be worth it to use dual strike and make it an AoE attack with melee splash?"

Friend: Nah, basically if you are using DW, you basically use cleave.

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"Why do you think EVERYONE is using BM cleave and NOT dual strike?"
This is really unrelated to Shield Charge (really, why even bring this up?), but:
because Cleave has a larger range and doesn't require two Gems just to get AoE.

Why? Because when you decide to use Melee Splash, you do less damage not more on your single target anyway, just like any other AoE attaack, except that in this case, not only does your single target attack do less damage to basically make it equivalent to an AoE attack, you lose the assistance of a crucial support gem like melee damage, crit strikes, crit damage. So the entire point of using a single target attack to do more damage to a single target when you need it, not only becomes void anyway, but you lose a critical support gem in the process. If you don't believe me, go to the dualist forums and look for yourself:

"Is my BM DW cleave the most damage?"
"Tanky DW cleave, blah blah DPS, blah blah life, blah blah armor"
"Look at my DW cleave"

You don't see Cleave + Dual Strike because you only get one 6L if you use DW or 1H + Shield.

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ALSO really unrelated is Elemental Hit. You're looking for Brightbeak for that, btw.

Thanks for the info about brightbeak. I guess if someone comes here, maybe that will give them some ideas if they want that kind of build.

But this is not REMOTELY unrelated. Your entire point is that my point is null and void because ignite/shock/proliferate is awesome. Well, if you use an attack that is balanced based off of it doing, at least a substantial portion of the dps from elemental damage (especially from a really fast weapon that has weak physical damage anyway), you might have a chance at proliferating a single target elemental based attack like ELEMENTAL HIT into an AoE attack. But Shield Charge is not elemental based. It is physical based. The gems you named added fire damage, elemental proliferation, and fire penetration wastes every gem you get to use. Why? So that 39% of the physical damage you do in the event that you do get a crit (you take no crit gems BTW) will proliferate (and fire penetration won't necessarily take you down to 0% resistance by itself anyway). You could do way more damage with an AoE based attack with added melee damage (multiplicative), crit strike and crit damage. And you would still "proliferate" the damage/status of every aura better since you didn't sacrifice crit to get there.

And that is for an attack that does not have a cooldown or range requirement in order for it to be successful.

So when someone says:

"

Please make this skill work with Melee Splash support gem.

It does not even begin to do this argument justice.

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Vipermagi wrote:

"(you take no crit gems BTW)"
I'm pretty sure I listed Crit Chance! It's right there in the first quote of my post.

I purposefully made it a five-link setup (with Crit Chance thank you very much) because that's something people might actually see on a gimmick build. If you are rich enough to rock a six-link, you can even grab Crit Damage as well and ruin some monster's day. There's room for everyone. Don't see why you'd go without Crit gems.

"not to mention that you are charging into close range, and forgoing life, ES, or armor and evasion or block, just to get that critical strike chance."
Am I? (quick and dirty skill plan just to illustrate a point)
Crit Chance clusters don't suddenly disable Life/ES/Block passives, you know. Could even go Acro because you won't actually be in Melee range much anyways, similar to Leap Slam (1600 Life on Merciless hell yes).

"(you have to back up and do it again)"
Or you can Charge to a different monster to spread misery in a greater area. More efficient than chaining against the same monster. That said, you'll probably end up doing this for Bosses, but them's the breaks.

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"It illustrates that point that to take a single target attack and make it into an AoE attack takes support gems."
That sounds familiar...! Because that's what I said.

You might deem it 'not worthwhile' to turn a single-target skill into an AoE skill, but then again you (or your friend?) are probably someone who cares about how strong your character is compared to the best possible outcome. Me? I use Warp to kill shit. I don't care it's slower than using Spork Totems, because I'm having fun with Warp and don't like Spork Totems that much.

Similarly, I like the idea of using Shield Charge to apply Ignite/Shock. I don't care Cleave with Melee Phys is stronger. My Witch uses Cleave with a two-handed Sword, that's plenty Cleavin' for me (although admittedly I'm looking to grab a Mace and go Ground Slam or something; those Mace passives near RT are really cool now).

This also relates to "You have to figure that you are designing a build for the toughest monsters". I am not, strictly speaking. If I complete Cruel and make some headway into Merciless, I'm fine. Fuck grinding maps.

You have no life leech or blood magic or mana leech?!? So you either go blood magic in your tree and take a bunch of +10 strength nodes and don't life leech, have considerable less defensive auras, while charging into a mob pack. Or you use mana for 4 support gems and either go oom after using all your mana pots. I suppose you plan on having blood magic in your tree and using life leech for 6th and final gem. You can do that, but if you do, you have to make up for the fact of a lack of defensive auras with more dps on your blood leech.

There are more than a handful of viable builds in this game. I will give GGG that. Also, people can define fun in many different ways. Do what you enjoy because after all that is the point of life, but recognize that if you want to argue about something, a spec is not valid simply because you enjoy it. The 39% fire damage off of the added fire damage support gem is not enough without:

1) taking weapon elemental damage
2) emphasizing weapon elemental damage on your amulet/rings/belt or build.

And even if you do that, you really would still be better off with an attack that is elemental based. And if you want to use crit, it really synergizes better with crit damage. Point is there are only so many support gems.

That being said, it is true that the most relevant thing IS that you enjoy it, but lots of people that spend time theorycrafting builds don't just look for something that is different and unique and fun, but something that is on par with the run of the mill mundane spec.

Without this, you might as well tell me you fight unarmed without a facebreaker using the elemental damage on your rings because you find it fun and a valid spec and don't care if you die. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but there is something wrong with saying it is valid. Could one of the top players make it as far as the average player using that build? Probably, because they are that good. But that doesn't validate the argument either.

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Vipermagi wrote:

You can get Leech from gear, you know. The plan is, after all, to get a decent Physical weapon and Crits. Honestly, the build doesn't hit much at all anyways (a single-target punch every second or so? Lol), so Flasks are the way to go for the most part, but managing Mana shouldn't be an issue at all.
SC + AFD + EP + CC + FP costs 10 * 1.3 * 1.4 * 1.15 * 1.4 = 29.302 Mana per use. Regen takes care of a fair chunk with the low attack rate, 2% Leech will cover the rest.


"The 39% fire damage off of the added fire damage support gem is not enough without:
1) taking weapon elemental damage
2) emphasizing weapon elemental damage on your amulet/rings/belt or build."
That's kind of a given if you want to make an Elemental-damage build (with a dash of Physical in this particular mix), so I figured that Elem gear went without saying really. *shrug*
The lack of a WED support would hurt though, I'll give you that.

Well if you can skip blood magic, life leech, and mana leech supports, you should be able to have 5 support gems. You should be able to do crazy dps with that, but I can think of so many more abilities that I can crush that kind of dps with that could be pretty interesting as well

In general, if you have a physical dps ability, it should melee splash, unless it isn't melee. You can certainly get away with having a single target ability only with a bow or 2h, but for a DW or 1h + shield, your main attack should be AoE capable. But if you wanted to sacrifice that much leech, I suppose you could use leech from gear, provided there wasn't some other prefix you wanted more. If you could leech from your gear, then you could afford to 4L or 6L that ability and either 4L or 6L a separate AoE ability. Maybe an AoE puncture, then run to max distance and repeat.

The problem is that I sort of wanted to run this with a CI shadow with really high block and evasion, and using vaal pact. I see no reason to limit my life leech with a vaal pact build, particularly with no armor. I would like to cast molten shell and proc immortal call hit before I hit with reflect mobs. It might be tricky, but with slow attack speed, and the basis of attack being shield charge followed by a brief AoE puncture followed by a run, I might be able to skip mana leech and make a second AoE attack viable even with a 4L. I wouldn't go with elemental damage with this one though, unless they enable damaging with tempest shield on the charge. That would be worth proliferating.

Shield Charge isn't a strictly physical attack, given it provides "% More Damage" which affects all damage types, not just physical. If built focusing on elemental damage it can proliferate quite powerful status effects. I personally combine it with Adder's Touch since Shield Charge is the strongest skill for daggers on a per-hit basis. I simply charge in, whirl out and keep picking targets while the proliferated burns kill the other targets. A physical based build could still combine Added Fire Damage with Chernobog's Pillar for 39% added and 25% converted fire damage.