Shield Charge

IMO this skill needs to be reworked so that it can be 5l or 6l to great effect just like every other top end build. This is a STR melee's only real skill that focuses on the shield. We should have something that is usable.

I like that skill,
its funny to use and works nice versus piety and other boss mobs. But it really often miss versus smaller mobs.
It stays a movement skill not a main attack skill.

To the unarmed wishers:

Suggest new unique sword!


"Pro Forma"
-base sword with same aps as unarmed
-50-90% less blade lenght
-50-90% less blade width
-XX-XX% of unarmed bonus applied to swords (duel wield balancing? or just applied with 1x 1H weapon)
- weapon deals no damage

flavor text:
"Size is second to talent"

Makes a tiny bit more sense to use one of the claws that look like fists. Otherwise a 2h sword might solve dw issues.
What is the width stat? Not so subtle joke?

"

soul4hdwn wrote:

Makes a tiny bit more sense to use one of the claws that look like fists. Otherwise a 2h sword might solve dw issues.
What is the width stat? Not so subtle joke?

seperate lenght and width for RNG-individualism.
could be reduced to "less blade size" or whatever.

Chose sword for broader skill selection.

Just off the top of my head.

-Reduce distance to reach maximum charge
-Make it possible to do "more" damage even if not at maximum charge distance
-Minor animation to notify maximum charge distance was hit so it can be gauged and used appropriately
-Make it track a monster possibly, it is only useful for attacking targets that stand still.

Shield charge with splash is heavily disappointing. The damage at close range is just an auto attack and stepping away for even 1 second of running makes the total damage it can do drop off horribly. Then there is the hard miss due to desync that can occur, especially against speedy monsters.

If it had shorter maximum charge distance this would work really well with hatred + added fire and physical dmg nodes due to the "More" scaling being non-specific.

By the sounds of it, Shield Charge doesn't give very good DPS when used on its own because of the need for a run-up. But maybe you could pair it with another skill, like this:

When enemies are in melee range, use Heavy Strike or something to knock them back. (A melee AoE or even Spectral Throw could also work to push them further away, if you're prepared to use the Fending passive and a knockback support. Fending flasks would also be fun.)

When enemies are not in melee range, charge at them with Shield Charge. (With a long enough knockback distance, maybe you could repeat-charge them like you could in Diablo 2.)

The idea would be to boost your stun and knockback abilities as far as they will go, so anything near you is constantly being stunned and knocked back, and anything far away can be hit for 'more' damage. You lose a bit of DPS, but you gain a lot of survivability by being basically untouchable in melee, because your enemies can't get near you. Or does this kind of play fall down because of a) the difficulty in having multiple main skills and b) desync means you can't actually tell if the monster is next to you or not?

A cruder approach would be to just spam Shield Charge all the time, but support it with Knockback and get the Fending passive, so even if you use it point-blank, it still has a good chance to knocks things back. A bit inefficient in terms of damage, but at least it's easy to use.

You could also have fun with Smoke Mine + Shield Charge, although this might be a bit slow unless you focus on burning damage.

"

recline187 wrote:

-Make it possible to do "more" damage even if not at maximum charge distance

I believe the skill already delivers More damage and stun at non-maximum range.
Last sentence of skill's description says:"Damage and stun are proportional to distance traveled."

"

Incompetent wrote:

But maybe you could pair it with another skill, like this

Tried lots of things like Smoke Mine, Lightning Warp, something+Knockback (Spectral Throw, Reave, etc). The only simple yet more or less effective combination is Shield Charge as main skill and Leap Slam + Faster Attacks or Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks to move away. All others are either too complicated to use in middle-end game environment or you'll end up dropping Shield Charge.


Now, problems and suggestions to make skill work better (and possibly even worth using as main skill in appropriate build).

1) Targeting
The skill only does damage when you charge at specific monster. If you missed (monster moves far away, teleports, desychs etc.), there will be no damage. More so, if you'll use Attack in Place (Shift key by default), there will be no damage at the end of charge.

Also, one legitimate option for Shield Charge is to roll between edges of monster pack and Melee Splash them. But then again, picking a (fast-)moving mob from a pack while you're also moving fast is much more complicated than, for example, Attack on Place + Split Arrow.

Generally, simpleness of skill usage is extremely underestimated factor in so many games I played. If time, effort and/or concentration of skill usage grows too big, people will call it unreliable and will use something simplier. Oh, and it's game after all. Playing piano-like solo on keyboard every single time we use the skill will just suck the fun out of gameplay for most people.
For exaple, Shield Charge => Leap Slam (2 keys) is fun for me. Smoke Mine => Shield Charge => Trigger Mine (3 keys) is already pain in the ass. Lightning Warp => SHield Charge (2 keys) is also a mess for my brains because while it's still 2 keys, it also involves a calculation: Charge should be landed before I teleport back.

So, here is my solution:
At the end Shield Charge creates a front area (90 to 180 degrees, can even go wider to fight desynch) circular segment with radius equal to Weapon range+Character radius at the centre of character's current position. This is pure technical and will not be seen by players, but since Reave and Ground Slam already work like that, it should not be too hard to implement.

Then 2 options:
a. Skill remains single-target.
If the target is still in that range at the time of impact, it will get a hit.
If not or no target was choosen at launch (Attack in place), the target is then choosen randomly from an area described above.
That way, the skill will not cause as much pain in ass as now to squeeze some impact out of it.
b. Turn the skill into AoE.
Initial target is only needed to calculate the impact point.
When one is reached, the skill creates AoE mentioned above (range and degree can be adjusted) and damages all enemies in AoE. Damage Effectiveness can be reduced to compensate AoE capabilities.

2) Damage
This skill can deliver quite some damage, but in order to do so you'll need some preparation.
But for so many times it just caused pain in the ass because some weaker on-farm mobs are worth time and effort. To solve that issue, skill's non-prepared damage should be boosted (but not too much - it should be worse than dedicated face to face skills).

Just add a 2-3% increased Damage for each level of gem and reduce More Damage to compensate. THis way, the skill will be more usable without preparation while still remain valuable if prepared against stronger enemies.

3) Range
I believe Maximum Range of Shield Charge should be archievable if monster is in the center of bottom of screen. This is about max lengh of Whirling Blades and certanly shorter than Leap Slam's maximum jump distance.

Camera position should not in any way affect damage of skills.

4) Specifics of skill
The skill works with distance traveled. That's the thing and I believe it can be further explored.
By adding a simple more Knockback Distance at Maximum Charge Distance (proportional to distance travelled) property you'll allow players to perform 2-3 consecutive charges.
The player who positioned himself correctly and invested in Fending passives will now be rewarded not only with mere damage, but also with the ablity to bang some mobs around. And believe me, THAT was the fun of Charger Pally in Diablo 2.
Ofcourse, this parameter should be balanced so that even if player charged from max distance, the resulting knockback would not allow him perform a max-lengh charge again. Ideal number I believe is 1-2 (weaker) follow up charges.

That is it, sorry for bad English and wall of text.

Sorry for double post, but I have more radical idea of how to make this gem usefull.

Here's skill description:
Charges at an enemy, bashing it with the character's shield while striking with a melee weapon. This knocks it back and stuns it. Enemies in the way are pushed to the side. Damage and stun are proportional to distance traveled.

Change the skill into support gem so that when you use supported non-movement skill, character charges and performs that skill instead of just striking with melee weapon.
To make this balanced, play with max distance, Increased Stun Duration and More Damage modifier and probably add Modifiers to Attack Speed apply to Movement Speed instead.

This way, you'll give a choice for all shield bashers and automatically allow some unarmed skills to have a Shield Charge option.

"

Shield Charge
Support gem

Attribute: Strengh
Keywords: Support, Melee, Attack, Movement
Required Level: 12-68
Mana Multiplier: 170% (dunno here, something between Melee Splash and Multistrike)
Per 1% Quality: 0.75% increased Damage

Charges at an enemy, bashing it with the character's shield while striking with supported non-movement melee attack. This knocks it back and stuns it. Enemies in the way are pushed to the side. Damage and stun are proportional to distance traveled.

Modifiers to Attack Speed apply to Movement Speed instead
x% increased Stun Duration on enemies at Maximum charge distance (raises with gem's level)
x% more Damage at Maximum Charge Distance (raises with gem's level)
x% increased Movement Speed (raises with gem's level)

Imagine:
Puncture - run up before thurst. Seems logical and effectieve.
Heavy Strke - greater damage, better stun.
Elemental Hit - and option for slow, but strong elemental hits instead of commonspread weak, but fast.