It has surely been long enough to form opinions on the new skills (but not enough for nordic to finish atlantis
), what do you think? Generally I think they are quite good with some significant outliers, I divide them into the Good, Bad and the Ugly:
Good as in good additions:Defense: Unyelding PhalanxIt has been criticized that another ghost summoning skill is too much for the martial masteries, but I like the Phalanx. After Normal, the ghosts become rather powerful although they are no match for the menhirs in terms of blocking monsters. The maximum point amount is small and the cooldown reasonable even if you don't have a lot of CDR. With 80%, you can basically have a phalanx active at all times. Good skill, I like it a lot. Bonus points for not requiring a shield but still being thematic.
Defense: Perfect BlockThis is like an "active block" which is unusual for a game of this genre; the skill has no associated casting animation and goes off instantly when you use it, much like Nightmare or scrolls. With PB you can avoid damage from some choice attacks or spam it while running away. The movement speed bonus is rather strange and I don't know what its purpose is, and it doesn't allow you to go past the usual 166% cap. The skill description in the tree is unclear, but the uptime ratio does go up with more points. With ultimate level and 80% CDR, you can spam this and be invulnerable for most of the time. Since casting speed is easier to increase than attacking, a PB caster is quite viable. Once upon a time I thought this was the ultimate endgame of defensive building but now I see it's just another (new) choice among many. Another thing of note is that this is good for blocking Surtr's melee attacks if you don't have a high physical resistance, but I would leave farming Surtr for the PR characters.
Storm: Arc DischargeThis was nerfed a bit, but it still does a nice deal of damage and cements the Wisp as a very desirable and low-maintenance pet for any Storm character. There is an implicit requirement to put in a few points into the Wisp itself to unlock Thunderclap but this is still a very nice deal for Storm and compensates for how troublesome Lightning Dash is.
Nature: EarthbindGenerally, this is like Ensnare from Hunting but a lot better and easier to use. Its duration is very short unless you invest points into it though, so it's not a one-point wonder. The DA reduction enables some builds that otherwise have trouble getting enough OA. For ranged characters, the root itself is more useful. The poison seems really useless to me, because the duration just increases.
Earth: Fire NovaI would think that a rather low-hitting burn would not be too impressive, but for some reason Fire Nova just works for me. The ring expands slowly but has a very large radius which works to wake up surrounding enemies and weaken them so following attacks kill them quicker. It never gets old using this in the skeleton ruins in Greece and watching the bones fly, revenge for Diablo burning up all my skeletons in D2
The impaired aim does not seem too significant to me, but is welcome for almost any Earth character.
Rune: Rune FieldNow, this isn't an easy choice. I don't actually go to 40 points on most of my Rune characters, but if you do want to use Runic Mines, I think this makes them worth the effort, although it is a point and energy hog; it's not crystal clear whether you want to increase the skill to its maximum level, I like that. Mostly, it's just funny seeing the enemies trip up on the runes even if they'll likely do only little damage each.
Dream: Psionic BeamThis is excellent, and really salvaged PT in my eyes, for any weapon. The skill says it only works for staves, but this is a half-truth. The different attacking animation and rapid-firing double tapping is only for staves, but the reduction of charge levels (down to 2 at level 8; every second attack is empowered) and the projectile speed and piercing for the empowered attack work for any weapon that applies.
For staves, I actually prefer this to Ternion, really, and they are more similar than you'd think, because both are more effective at melee range. Ternion bolts can all hit the same enemy, while PB's charges are built at maximum speed when travel time to target small enough. See, if you shoot a projectile with PT, and then shoot another before the first one has hit an enemy, the second one isn't empowered because the charge increments only when the attack hits. So by reducing the travel time, by either being closer to the enemy or having increased projectile speed, you can unleash charged attacks more often.
For thrown, this is kind of interesting, but I haven't tried it much to be honest. One thing you can do is a Dreamkiller attacking with a Gorgon's Edge and PB, so up to every second hit will pierce and have the increased total damage, which also increases the poison damage.. in theory..
This might be good for bows too, but to be honest, I think they are always too slow to be bothered with unless you have Hunting, in which case you'll likely want to use Marksmanship instead. (barring Onslaught or Rune weapon for building charges).
For melee, the piercing and projectile speed don't apply, but since there is no travel time, every second hit (at slvl 8+) is empowered, guaranteed. I think this is very decent and you might prefer it over Batter on a Templar, for example.
Dream: Dream ImageWell, it's a doppelganger. The summon time is short and you need maximum slvl and lots of CDR to have a good uptime, but if your character has a good doppelganger, then the dream image will work too. Dream is otherwise lacking in big cooldown skills for CDR characters. The dupe bug works for dream image as well, in 2.8 and before
Hunting: Spear DanceThis is basically a spear-only War Wind without the charging component, but hits the same enemy twice much like WW while dual wielding. There is also some fear proc in here. Hunting was lacking in AOE attacks for spears, but of course, we mustn't think that every mastery should be totally self-sufficient in every sphere of their specializations. Still, I like this. It is strange that both of the new Hunting skills are basically melee-only, but maybe the idea was that a ranged Hunting character would weapon swap to a spear and use this when enemies get close. I could think of better things to do with the weapon swap though, as a hint it begins with "C" and ends with "ooldown reduction".....
Warfare: Lasting Legacy10/10 name. This does little to merit a whole new skill, really, but between lowering the CD on ancestral horn and increasing duration, I'll take the duration, because I want to be refreshing as few buffs as infrequently as possible. With the default lifetime, a good uptime on the ghosts is impossible with 80% CDR cap and this obviously works to correct that. Well, the ghosts still do garbage damage without boosts, but they are useful as distractions, since Warfare is a mastery with low defenses (in theory). I make it an effort to get switch CDR on a warfare character, but 100% uptime on the ghosts isn't a dead-set priority for me.
Rogue: Blade BarrierA nice bit of crowd control, an alternate way to convey Envenomed Weapon effects and maybe even some damage, all on a reasonable CD. At first I was worried this was like the blade shield skill in Diablo 2, as in another buff that I have to refresh constantly, but the blades occupy a set space on the ground which works nicely and acts as a low-investment "trap". Good skill, I put 40 points into rogue every time just for this.
Rogue: Poison MayhemLet's be honest here, poison has little to do with the uses for this skill: while additional bombs really just increase the poison radius, and with the way that the aim is randomized, Shrapnel on the other hand works fantastically with brutal results. The classic is to throw a point-blank bomb with as many shrapnel bits hitting the target as possible. So all in all, a force multiplier for Shrapnel, strengthening the pierce or bleeding rogue, while ironically being not too useful for a poison rogue (in my opinion. Change my mind?)
Spirit: Soul VortexLife leeching was kind of a small aspect of Spirit previously, in contrast to its mission and description. This adds another way of doing that, and energy leech should you need that with Dark Covenant. The cooldown is reasonable as is the skill's overall power, much unlike Soul Drain.
The Bad, merely disappointing:Nature: Sylvan ProtectionSo Earthbind was like a better Ensnare.. but Sylvan Protection is like a worse Earthbind, and both were introduced in the same expansion, and are at the same tier...
? To be honest, I scarcely even notice this skill being used, and it might just as well have been a pet skill built into the main one, like Thunderclap or Soul Blight, but for some reason it is a separate one. Maybe with the Piercing boost from Hunting, this could be good, but this really just has a presence of nothing to me. Some people still think the Nymph is bad, but I think Overgrowth works just fine.. well, I believe. So some addition to the nymph, considering it's supposed to be a powerful pet in a pet-focused mastery would not be a bad idea, but Sylvan Protection I just can't understand.
Earth: Meteor RainThis is much like the Armageddon skill in Diablo 2, which is like a sustained buff that randomly fires some meteors in the general area around you. Only this one summons a volley of them, each doing HUGE damage. I can't emphasize the damage enough, seriously, it does so much damage. But the accuracy is very very random, and the cooldown a bit unreasonable. Well, if you are surrounded by enemies, maybe, but does that really happen that often in TQ? Moreover, it's not like Earth is really lacking in good AOE spells. So, since this does huge amounts of physical damage, and tiny burn damage, like a joke, it's better for strength characters, but for those, CDR is also harder to come by. So I think this is an awkward skill. I would like it to be targeted on a specific area, with a smaller radius of where the meteors drop, with a reduction of damage to go with the increased accuracy.
Also, I recommend not to use this during the Hildisvini fight, because he is liable to run off to the right and use the reflect shield while the meteors are falling, before being hit by two of them and instantly killing your character... Well, I heard from a friend that can happen...
Rune: Rune StormThe effects are not very strong, unless maybe for the rare Strength Rune character, and the duration to cooldown ratio is unreasonable. The CC procs don't really seem to do much, especially skill disruption which overall seems useless against monsters to me. At least it doesn't require many skill points to max.
Warfare: SlamI'm kind of torn between deciding whether this is a good skill or not, but it hasn't really impressed me. I think the main problem is that the projectile is very thin which makes it difficult to hit many monsters. I guess you could do some kind of Strength caster with this, building onslaught charges and then attacking with this and something else from the second tree, but I think it's simpler to just smash the monster with the usual attacks.
The Ugly, either unreasonably crappy or very overpowered:Storm: Lightning DashWell.. where to begin? On paper this seems like an interesting skill. Dash from enemy to enemy, kind of like using Charge in Diablo 2. The movement mechanics in TQ just aren't fluid enough for this to work, as after you charge to the target, the character stops dead in his tracks and then performs a regular attack. As of now, doing this with LD is very janky. I don't know how the avoidances are supposed to work either, because if they only work while moving, they don't seem very useful to me because you'll rarely be hit while moving at +444% or whatever speed anyway.
The biggest problem though, is that LD is NOT A LMB SKILL despite what the description claims; procs like Volley don't work with it. This outright removes hopes of interesting synergies with classes such as Sage and Paladin, because LD itself is not strong enough to warrant abandoning the procs. So nordic's ridiculous ghetto fix was to add a 0.5 sec cooldown to LD... so every second strike is normal and therefore works with procs. Really??? Why not just make the skill itself work with procs. Engine limitations? The last bit is the effect. Now LD has some weird proc, at ultimate level, 32% chance of +200% total damage and some silly freeze. So is this supposed to be a LMB, a 0-cooldown charge, or what? If you want to use LD viably, there is a laundry list of requirements, implicit and explicit:
-class should not be clearly stronger by using a different attack, which would undermine the use of LD to begin with
-must have enough cooldown reduction so every strike is a LD
-must not attack fast enough so LD has time to cooldown (natural conundrum with archmage's clasp...)
-must have good OA for melee
Among others, which I'm surely forgetting. As a small good point, LD can be used with staves, which might potentially be interesting. But overall, I think LD should have been immediately scrapped in development when it was first tested in-game and it became apparent that it just doesn't work on a conceptual level in this game.
Hunting: FinesseCOTH gets a HUGE OA boost, and a useless life reduction proc... Well, a hunting character should have 100% uptime on COTH anyway, so basically just a HUGE OA boost. This doesn't really do anything for ranged characters, Spear Dance doesn't either. Why is this? I think that there should be at least one desirable skill in a tier for any character, especially for the last tier. As for melee, this is just a massive overkill. Hunting already could deal with OA by Ensnare and Flush Out, but this is just ridiculous. Well, I'll be sure to take screens of the crits on a spear brigand after I find a good Blacksteel Spike, but this still just feels like a skill that makes the strong stronger instead of buffing previously disappointing aspects or creating new playstyles.
Spirit: Soul DrainOh dear. While previously I was wholly unimpressed with Life Reduction, then came along Soul Drain. The concept of buffing Life Drain is good, since it's theoretically a mastery-defining skill but which dealt disappointing damage and the healing was huge overkill compared to the max life of most characters, while not being very useful because you can bet I'll instantly drink a potion instead of casting Life Drain if I'm low on health.
But the problem is that Soul Drain is not as much about draining but nuking. Eradicating. Annihilating. Destroying. The synergy is so childishly obvious I'm amazed it wasn't and still hasn't been changed: Necrosis reduces Vitality resistance a huge amount. Soul Drain does a huge amount of AOE Life Reduction. Get the hint? So right now, with ANY spirit character, the salient question is this: how does the second mastery help my playstyle of running next to the enemy, using Spirit Drain and looting the corpse? The funniest part is, because the damage is Life Reduction, you don't need any stats for it. I have a Soothsayer character relying on pets and Soul Drain, and notably having ALL stat points put into health, and he still basically kills everything in one hit with Soul Drain.
The fun of character building in TQ for me is combining disparate aspects to synergize them, whether it is different masteries or items. But with Soul Drain, the ""synergy"" is entirely contained within the same mastery and is so very, very easy to do on any applicable character that it becomes ridiculously, tastelessly OP. While Finesse is on the same "tier" as Soul Drain, I do think that SD deserves an entirely separate tier of cheesiness.