Remote Mine

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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RysanMarquise wrote:

It is rather annoying that this gem aims all projectiles in a fixed direction unless enemies are immediately near it.

I would like to see it inherent where you are aiming, allowing you to effectively 'charge' several projectiles at once using it. I understand that it might be good if done that way, but I have trouble believing that it would be 'too good'.

As it stands aiming in the same direction all of the time just feels bad.

If there are no enemies in the mine's trigger radius, it target's itself - the 'always fires projectiles in the same direction' is a side effect of how projectiles are handled when not given a direction (because from self to self isn't a direction).

It's unlikely that mines will be changed to allow you to get around the trigger radius only for projectiles by telling them where to aim at things the mines themselves can't detect.

I don't believe that they would be too good in that case, but lets assume that they would be.

Then remove their ability to fire at anything, or make them target the player. The current functionality of mines is at best awkward and sloppy.

I seriously do not care what your solution is, but leaving them as-is diminishes the game as a whole and makes an already underutilized ability seem incomplete and glitchy.

Surely the best solution is to have the Detonate skill target an area for the mines to detonate on. Cold Snap style point-casting where the effect is that all your mines target that spot (if they require a target, else themselves as normal).

I think being able to give the mines a vector would fix things. When you plant a mine, you can designate a point and an angle with the 'f' key or something, which will then tell the mine to orient itself and fire in a given direction.

sorry for rant, srsly. i just have to. i like the idea of mines being in the game for niche builds, but they need some work. it's pretty funny that they can do stuff like summon 50 totems, and i like having that kind of stuff in the game, but i think they need some adjustment so that they can be used for serious builds too.

the biggest problem is detonation. for one, it's bugged. it double fires if i try to do ANYTHING within a second after i detonate. i have to stand completely still and perform no actions for a full second after the detonation (i can't even click to move), or else it will cast detonate again. so it's either i stand still for the duration of two detonates, or i mess up the timing and cast a second detonate AFTER standing still for awhile. it's really painful.

the second problem with detonation is the fact that it cuts into the dps gain pretty severely. if you drop 3 mines, you get the damage equivalent of 3.9 regular casts. but it costs you 4 casts, including the detonate. to get into the range where there's a actually a dps benefit, you have to cast 4 mines, and it's still pretty insignificant. on paper it sounds fine to just make sure you always cast 4-5 mines. but the way monsters spread out, and the fact that white mobs die so easily means you'll generally find yourself putting down a couple mines in one spot and killing a few mobs, then moving somewhere else and dropping a few, and so on. then you ask yourself, "why am i using mines again?"

the whole "drop some mines when it's safe and lead enemies into them" might sound like a niche use, but it's just too slow and clunky to base a build on, or even to gem up for occasional use IMO. mines are just too situational, and they have too many drawbacks. there's the limited positioning. there's the damage you might take while standing still laying mines for 4 seconds. there's the gem slot you had to use for remote mines (which could possibly have been replaced with a gem that adds 30% damage, or more - this is a big concern considering that one of the main attractions to mines is supposed to be the damage increase). there's the double-firing detonate. and there's the fact, really, this game is about clearing shit as fast as possible, and mines just don't feel like they fit well with that

IMO detonate either needs a super-fast cast time, like curses, or no cast time at all. another change i think would help is to make the gem green or red. since mines only support spells, you need 2 blue slots just to get a basic mine setup. the problem there is that most of the good spell support gems are also blue. this really cuts down on your armor options, since it's pratically impossible to get all blue sockets on dex or str gloves/boots/helm. it's just another huge block you run into when trying to use this gem. i'm just guessing here, but i got the impression that mines weren't just intended to be used by pure energy shield casters. yet they're actually even moer oriented toward pure energy shield gear than spells are, since you need 2 blue slots just to get started. if they were changed to green or red, non-ES chars would have a much easier time using them, and ES users would still be able to use them just as easily (since it's much easier to get a couple non-blue sockets on pure ES gear than it is to get 4 blue sockets on non-ES gear).

I'd really like mines to have a different visual or at least color so I don't get confused on which are mines and which are traps.

I like the skill itself, but I don't really understand the boosted mana cost at 150%. While it does boost the immediate damage of a skill attached, it increases the delay to activation and the skills are still cooldown dependent. In addition, it removes strategic placement of ranged AoE like curses since mines are always placed directly beneath. With the cost increase, it makes a slow strategy that much slower, especially when one is in an active battle.

As to deciding a direction on activation, why not use the mouse pointer upon activating the mines? It'd help with planting spread out mines while still aiming for a single target that may not be in all their respective radii.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Clock_Keeper wrote:

As to deciding a direction on activation, why not use the mouse pointer upon activating the mines? It'd help with planting spread out mines while still aiming for a single target that may not be in all their respective radii.

They are specifically not supposed to be able to aim at anything outside the trigger radius. This would be very powerful, and also make the trigger radius stat useless for many mined skills.

The trigger radius increases still greatly help conversion trap, bear trap, fire trap, and the trap support gem.

Also, aren't there only a total of like 6 nodes that directly affect traps? And since mines are manually activated, how can a player tell the desired monster is in the radii of all mines?

I don't think it makes sense to have a trigger radius on a skill that doesn't trigger by things entering the radius.

I've been playing with Spectre Mines (most awesome skill name ever) and I'm not sure if it's a latency thing troubling me coincidentally at the same time or a bug but I keep getting disconnected within a minute of starting to toy with them.

Regardless, does remote mine increase the damage of minions summoned by it?