Disintegrate - 20 point skill in Sorcerer

I just missed the previous Disintegrate thread by one day, so unfortunately, I need to add a new one. (Previous Post: Disintegrate)

Disintegrate has the tags of Channeled and DoT(Damage over Time). I feel there is a failed logic with the tags on the skill. The main difference is that a channeled skill is a skill that deals damage, over a period of time that the user directly controls with usage of the skill. A DoT-effect, by standards in the game, is an effect that user does not have the same level of control over.

Current DoT-effects like ignite, poison, shock, have a standard four-second course that they run when they are triggered. Once the DoT-effect is triggered, it will run the four-second course and either expire, or be refreshed with an additional trigger from the player. There are certain passives and skill nodes that can increase the time a DoT-effect can be active. By design, a DoT-effect is a secondary damage type that rewards the player’s investment with additional, passive damage. I consider the damage passive, as once it was applied, the damage runs its course without further input or control from the character. A DoT-effect cannot critically strike the enemy. The DoT-effect cannot trigger additional DoT-effects, nor any other effects. It is a passive circumstance of damage.

A channeled, Damage over Time, skill is an active input from a player. Channeled skills, in retrospective observation, have always come with the downside of a resource-drain to prevent an abuse, or prolonged use of the active skill. Sometimes, as is the case with Disintegrate, a channeled skill locks a player into a stationary position, which is another down-side as the player is no longer mobile and avoiding the enemies skills and damage. Disintegrate does its damage over a period of time, hitting the enemy in roughly one-second intervals (although hard to determine, and seems slightly less than one-second). The skill is not blocked by other enemies, granting it access to hitting multiple enemies (if they lined up).

While using the Disintegrate ability on a Training Dummy, the Channeled-tag should make a player think that they will have to hold the skill down. This proves true; a quick press of the button will yield a small tick of damage, and nothing more. Holding down the button begins a satisfying experience of mana-drain, and damage, over a period of time as the skill is activated. All of this is true for disintegrate, and also applies to other skills when you specialize them into the Channeled-nodes. They gain the channeled tag, and act appropriately.

The DoT-effect tag correlates that a damage over time effect will be triggered, and should continue on the Target (Dummy), after using the skill. Except, this does not prove true. No additional DoT-effect is actually triggered on the target, and no passive-damage ticks away once using the skill.

This leads to a bit on confusion. Why is there a DoT tag on the skill, if it does not apply a DoT? Yes, it does deal damage over time, but only as long as the skill is used, thus the channeled tag is appropriate. Is the DoT-tag added as a way to mitigate the damage that the skill provides by having no collision with enemies?

The Disintegrate ability take 20 points to reach in the Sorcerer’s passive-tree. This will be a natural course for anyone who is going spell-caster, but is arguably not worth the investment of specializing in the skill. The game has a great feedback-loop system with decisions on skill-specialization, and passives to create a variety of gameplay options. This skill is severely cut off from that experience, currently.

As was argued in the previous post, removing the DoT tag, and allowing the skill operate normally as a channeled skill (critting, triggered other sources of DoTs, and effects) will greatly increase the effectiveness in the skill. Perhaps it would need a change in the damage it deals during its intervals.

Another possible solution to fixing this skill without removing the DoT-tag, is to increase the rate at which this skill triggers while also adding in a default DoT-effect per element of the skill. I am not a math-wizard, but if the skill is hitting at every 0.9 seconds, perhaps an increase of effective-rate to 0.65 seconds would create a much greater shift in the skills damage.

The previous post pointed out that since the DoT-tag does not allow the skill to trigger innate DoT-effect chances, and the specialization of the skill has a much smaller percentage of possible DoT-effect chances, and increasing their possible trigger-rate would create a better feedback-loop for the end-user of the skill.

Thank you for your time, and consideration of my design feedback.

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I think Disintegrate has a number of problems:

  • the DoT tag
  • the very narrow AoE compared to other AoEs (Ele Nova for example) for it’s damage
  • tic rate
  • interesting nodes

Removing the DoT tag would help, as it could then crit, proc ailments at the cost of removing a potential affix that can increase it’s damage.

It’s damage feels low compared to other skills (Ele Nova as a a channelled ability hits way harder) and this isn’t helped by the fact that it can’t crit. But I’d like to see some more mechanically interesting ways of allowing it to do more damage than just increasing the numbers it does. Perhaps it could debuff targets hit such that they take more damage (either generally or just by Disintegrate), perhaps it could proc other skills (Meteor for example, Lightning Blast or Volcanic Orb), perhaps it could proc Spark Charge to give it a bit more area coverage.

I think the damage increase/stages should be moved to the base line part of the skill, at least the tier 2, then you could have tier 3 as nodes but probably with some nodes to improve the mana cost, possibly returning mana on hit or on kill.

Some nodes that I think would make it either more useful or a bit more interesting:

  • Proc other skills every x seconds while channelling, I like the idea of having elementally thematic skills in that area of the skill tree, such as meteor/volcanic orb in the fire area, or lightning blast/static orb in the lightning area.
  • Increased AoE, either a chance to chain to other mobs or make it a cone to give it more AoE at longer range.

I am sure you are aware, but it does most of those things already. I currently run Disintegrate with proccing Lightning Blast, and I used the multi-chain double/quad chance proc, with the Spark Charge, and Aegis skills. Shock chance, and slow do make enemies more vulnerable, although shock is still a little lack-luster. Problem is that they cast from you, and seem to have less range than the actual skill. They should cast on/from the enemy. I cannot see it casting meteor or volcanic orb, unfortunately. That would be too strong IMO.

I agree with the rest of your statements below. Adding a two-stage to the baseline is an interesting idea. Perhaps the tree for Disintegrate could be split into Fire and Lightning with chances for upgrading either side for fireball and lightning blast. Chances at upgrading to stage 3 (if 2 is baseline), to have different effects like they’re already trying to go for.

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