08-12-2020, 08:41 PM
"When you land a critical hit, 50% chance to erupt fireballs at all enemies within 5 Range of you, dealing unresistable Fire damage equal to this weapon's Power."
This is the current weapon effect for the Volcanic enchantment. I have a few things to say about it, since it's not really all that good.
It's an on-crit effect; so it's something that's meant for a basic attacker to use. The effect, however, scales off base power, which a basic attacker can't effectively build for, due to needing to select high crit or accuracy weapon parts and materials in order to have any sort of reliability. This means the damage usually ends up pretty lackluster. The fact it's an AoE is the only saving grave about that.
But, like. It's not even an on crit effect. It's a fifty percent chance on crit. So it's not even reliable. For damage so weak, having it only come 'sometimes' isn't really acceptable.
But it is still an AoE effect, right? So ranged characters can use it as a little bit of extra bonus damage....
...Except, the fire damage radiates out from the attacker. NOT from the target. So it's really kinda inconvenient to hit things with this unless you're a melee oriented basic attacker. Which, I can kinda like the theme of that, but let's compare it to two other popular basic hit enchantments.
Vorpal: Gives +10 crit chance, which makes crit combos much more reliable. Gives a 10% chance on crit to completely ignore physical defense.
^So, this is really nice. It just gives a good constant battle flow with that passive crit chance boost, and while the chance to apply a vorpal strike is a lot lower, the damage you can get out of a vorpal strike tends to be way more impactful than the fire damage you get out of volcanic- it can turn around fights in an instant. Doesn't always prove the best, but still a very nice pick.
Rampaging: A change in the other direction, this one is really easily compared to Volcanic. They both scale off weapon power, not SWA or anything else, and they both proc on hit- except volcanic also requires a crit, while rampaging only requires you to hit the opponent. Rampaging shreds a quarter of the weapon's power in phys def off of an opponent as a debuff, and stacks with itself once for half the weapon's power. This is, gotta be real, way more impactful than volcanic most of the time. A weapon with thirty base power occasionally doing 30 damage to 'some' foes, some of the time, if you crit is less consistent and effective than just 'on each hit, shred defense'. The secondary effect even has utility in team fights, since it allows for prioritizing and deleting a target in record time with the Rampaging effect weakening everyone.
That's pretty much all. I think volcanic should do at least one of two things:
>Change the on-crit chance to be 100%. Fire AoE ALWAYS procs.
>add some sort of passive effect stat. Samples:
>>+1/2 UL Fire Attack.
>>1/2 UL Fire Damage on hit.
>>Frozen status immunity on bearer.
AND a clause should be changed.
>"...At all enemies within 5 range of the target."
To make it so that ranged weapons cooperate better with this. Unless it's deliberately meant for melee weapons.
A more thorough rework of the effect'd be cool too.
That's my thoughts on Volcanic. I'd like to see it change sooner rather than later.
As a postscript:
I do want to note one case in the past that Volcanic showed mettle. Lead Storm with multishot weapons used to allow you to basic attack many enemies at once in PvE, and proc this AoE fire damage against all foes many, many times, making for fast grinding. This has been patched out as of Lead Storm's gutting. Multishot weapons might arguably still be effective with this, and if that's deemed to egregious, I'd be in support of simply making volcanic enchantment procs have a maximum of three from a given weapon in a turn. This would nip that 'issue' in the bud, if these changes go through.
This is the current weapon effect for the Volcanic enchantment. I have a few things to say about it, since it's not really all that good.
It's an on-crit effect; so it's something that's meant for a basic attacker to use. The effect, however, scales off base power, which a basic attacker can't effectively build for, due to needing to select high crit or accuracy weapon parts and materials in order to have any sort of reliability. This means the damage usually ends up pretty lackluster. The fact it's an AoE is the only saving grave about that.
But, like. It's not even an on crit effect. It's a fifty percent chance on crit. So it's not even reliable. For damage so weak, having it only come 'sometimes' isn't really acceptable.
But it is still an AoE effect, right? So ranged characters can use it as a little bit of extra bonus damage....
...Except, the fire damage radiates out from the attacker. NOT from the target. So it's really kinda inconvenient to hit things with this unless you're a melee oriented basic attacker. Which, I can kinda like the theme of that, but let's compare it to two other popular basic hit enchantments.
Vorpal: Gives +10 crit chance, which makes crit combos much more reliable. Gives a 10% chance on crit to completely ignore physical defense.
^So, this is really nice. It just gives a good constant battle flow with that passive crit chance boost, and while the chance to apply a vorpal strike is a lot lower, the damage you can get out of a vorpal strike tends to be way more impactful than the fire damage you get out of volcanic- it can turn around fights in an instant. Doesn't always prove the best, but still a very nice pick.
Rampaging: A change in the other direction, this one is really easily compared to Volcanic. They both scale off weapon power, not SWA or anything else, and they both proc on hit- except volcanic also requires a crit, while rampaging only requires you to hit the opponent. Rampaging shreds a quarter of the weapon's power in phys def off of an opponent as a debuff, and stacks with itself once for half the weapon's power. This is, gotta be real, way more impactful than volcanic most of the time. A weapon with thirty base power occasionally doing 30 damage to 'some' foes, some of the time, if you crit is less consistent and effective than just 'on each hit, shred defense'. The secondary effect even has utility in team fights, since it allows for prioritizing and deleting a target in record time with the Rampaging effect weakening everyone.
That's pretty much all. I think volcanic should do at least one of two things:
>Change the on-crit chance to be 100%. Fire AoE ALWAYS procs.
>add some sort of passive effect stat. Samples:
>>+1/2 UL Fire Attack.
>>1/2 UL Fire Damage on hit.
>>Frozen status immunity on bearer.
AND a clause should be changed.
>"...At all enemies within 5 range of the target."
To make it so that ranged weapons cooperate better with this. Unless it's deliberately meant for melee weapons.
A more thorough rework of the effect'd be cool too.
That's my thoughts on Volcanic. I'd like to see it change sooner rather than later.
As a postscript:
I do want to note one case in the past that Volcanic showed mettle. Lead Storm with multishot weapons used to allow you to basic attack many enemies at once in PvE, and proc this AoE fire damage against all foes many, many times, making for fast grinding. This has been patched out as of Lead Storm's gutting. Multishot weapons might arguably still be effective with this, and if that's deemed to egregious, I'd be in support of simply making volcanic enchantment procs have a maximum of three from a given weapon in a turn. This would nip that 'issue' in the bud, if these changes go through.