Non Crit build idea utilizing Imbues

[Crustbucket]

Hello again im here with another idea pertaining to NON-CRIT melees and alternative methods of dealing damage here. When imbues came into lamania i posted my suggested feats for Hybrid builds to get some shine but also trade off crits in the process. What this ends up encouraging is high to hit and additional damage sources becoming more prominent. Now how to balance this out is something i would need to do more math on but TWF and SWF would have a nice field day with this as well as some imbue lock shenanigans, Sacred Fist, some EK light splashes, Druid elemental form support and some more of the niche side of melee.

Proposing some new feats for folks to experiment with! the Mystical Attunement Line!

1d6 Imbue as an example as it is the weakest variant.
Lesser Mystical attunement (level 1, Magical training) - +1 Imbue Dice
Mystical Attunement (level 9, Magical Training and LMA) - +2 Imbue Dice - you can no longer critically hit.
Greater Mystical Attunement (level 18, Magical Training, previous stuff) - +2 Imbue Dice
~~~~So as of level 18 you now have 6 additional imbue dice or 5d6 to then boost with spellpower .... no one is gonna melee power this out~~~~
Epic Mystical Attunement (This would replace Overwhelming Crit) - +2 Imbue dice, bringing the total total to 7d6.
Legendary Mystical Attunement 31 - +3 Imbue dice for a total of 10d6.

Now 10d6 may not seem overwhelmingly powerful but take into account an EK spellsword toggle which gives 1d8 as its scaling.

10d8 with the feats excluding additional from the tree. With an average spellpower ending up 600 plus you have a x6 modifier.
6(10d8) now with spellpower taken into account
Say you have a nice high doublestrike and reliably hit them.
2(6(10d8)) now with both spellpower and doublestrike taken into account
10d8 is around 40 damage on average
40x6 = 240 with the option to Doublestrike making it a chunky 480 damage a swing.

Pair this with vuln, mrr removal and more and boom nice chunky hits that really enjoy attack speed. I think it'd be a very cool system, would still never compete with pure physical builds but could be a nice low reaper flavor build. Weapons would also be chosen for what they could do for you aside from their crit profile allowing for certain CC modifiers to possibly shine/ stand out.

Would this need revision and some builders to test ... of course, BUT i think its a neat direction to add a playstyle in that can avoid the crit spikes and opt for a more uniform linear damage table. Wanna be a Druid elemental with flameblades ... let em rip with the built in fire imbue. Things like this.

Let me know your thoughts, im not concerned with r5+ viability as i think a large % of the playerbase isnt pushing skulls unless they have a party running.

 

[droid327]

I think you're undervaluing how much added damage crits do, even for hybrid melees.

A typical 16-20/x4 +1 19-20 adds 85% to your base damage. That means you'd be doing ~45% less damage if you gave up the ability to crit entirely. Ain't no way anyone is going to do that for 10d6 imbue dice

I think no-crit builds are an interesting idea and I want them to be viable, but you have to put something on the table commensurate with what you're giving up

Also consider the opportunity cost of the feats themselves...most physical builds just take IC and OC, some add in a third like KT or S2P. You're proposing five feats for the alternative.

Then also consider that without crits, you wont be able to make use of on-crit procs (or on vorpal, since that requires you to crit), so that's another tradeoff

 

[Crustbucket]

Hmmm i didnt know vorpal was directly tied into it and i do hear you on the feats front .... hmmm so what do you reckon would be a good bar to aim for ? Or should it just lock out IC/OC feats instead to allow for base crit mods ? That would kindve defeat the purpose though. Also im realizing these builds would need to be a spellpower imbue, id need to add melee power or something onto them to allow for higher scaling of most melees and some base damage scaling as well. Good points

 

[droid327]

I think a non-crit system would need to create a comparable output, but just with different build priorities. I think it should stay physical (ie not just spellpower based imbues), though, or else you're just dividing builds along existing lines of demarcation.

Crit is always going to be good...so its not about discouraging people from taking Crit, its about empowering non-crit build options so people are able to take them. Specifically, things that are active tradeoffs from crit choices, like T5s in trees without crit bonuses, non-Adrenaline Epic Strikes, etc.

I think the best way to do that might be by lifting the Doublestrike cap and allowing it to Triplestrike like Ranged, though you'd need to also pair that with more sources for Dstrike (maybe "adds your highest stat mod to your Dstrike" in the same source)...or maybe adding in special mechanics like "chance on hit to immediately process all remaining tics of any DOTs on the target"...and/or something multiplicative like "your imbue die get +1 damage", ie d8 becomes [d8+1]

I also think the penalty shouldnt just be a straight "you can no longer crit", but maybe "-1 crit range" or "-1 crit mult" or "-25% crit confirmation chance", so its more stepwise between crit and non-crit.

 

[Crustbucket]

Thats an idea ive been pondering as well to be honest, triplestrike and helpless damage bonuses maybe ?