Suggestion for a D&D inspired affix - Vorpal: melee hits below X% life threshold kill targets, similar to certain class/skill passives. For balance the percentage would probably have to be low. Any thoughts?
Iād be extremely wary of a % based effect like that because itāll scale really well the tougher the content is and any type of attempt to balance an effect like that would likely overnerf the proc chance for it to be worthwhile or flat out make it not work vs certain types of mobs (i.e. bosses, elites).
Maybe it could work if itās based on a flat HP value.
Regardless of balance though and just going off personal taste, Iām against save or suck type effects because of how binary and swingy it is.
There are already equivalents of this on some skills (eg, Serpent Strike can get up to 24%, ie, a target is killed if their HP is below 24%) and passive trees.
Exactly, I think that such a powerful affix should be very limited and not available for every build.
The whole kill enemy at X% threshold mechanic is nice, when kept to skill spec tree or in rare cases passive tree(like VK passive tree). This mechanic should not become so easily accessable that you can do use it on any build, because itās avaialble on so many different sources.
Passives(for masteries where it fits)/Skill Spec Trees and Unqiues are fine for me.
Those mechanics can become way to strong and mandatory for really high level play, when mobs start to having loads of HP.
Itās also available in one of the Acolyte skills, canāt recall itās name, itās the floating skull projectiles oneā¦
What I like about this mechanic is that it scales differently from flat/% damage: Itās almost useless for low HP mobs, and great value for Bosses / high level content. This adds dynamic to the otherwise boringly predictable āhigher content = larger numbersā thing I see everywhere else.
Since this ability comes with the cost of skill point investment, I think itās ok to have in the game, and yes, every class should have it then ( to keep it fair).
Restricting it to an unique item is dangerous and possibly unfair:
- most uniques are only suitable for a specific build or class
- you can just swap an item for unique without cost (see the hot discussion about respeccing cost).
The mechanic is on multiple skill spec trees for various classes/masteries. And thatās good, since such strong mechanic should be avaialble on various different skills, so many builds can utilize it, if they want to.
As you already said, itās value increases with higher content and especially for high health mob types.
I didnāt meant to restrict it to unqiues, but give some unqiues that mechanic. And item slot is a huge opporunity cost, compared to a few passive pointās, so it can be balanced properly. (which it is atm IMO). For example the 2-H Sword Unique āThe Last Laughā has up to 25%, which is very powerful.
My main point was, where every you make it available, always try to give it some opportunity cost that is balanced. Otherwise each and every build will have to to take it for endgame.
This can be done by keeping a good balance between general accessability and opportunity costs. (For Passive Skills just put it relatively high into mastery trees(not baseclass) and possibly, depending on how strong the effect is put it behind a predeccessor node for like 3-5 point costs.
All those effects, donāt stack and just the highest value is accounted, which is already a good system. So devs can balance the one that have really high opportunity costs(like uniques) and make them a little bit stronger.
And for some class identity, like the VK, which has relatively easy access to it(on all hits not just specific skills), it is really nice.
Completely agree with this.
1 Like
Last Laugh - is really fun on my warpath paly
Lich passive tree also has kill threshold notes. There are many of these in the game.
1 Like
To an extent they already do, their inflexibillity is an opportunity cost, they tend not to be particularly well rounded items (lacking protections, glancing blow, dodge, etc). Sureyou , you can geck your character out in uniques, but youāll be squishy. I tried that on an ignite Paladin (due to ignite having the most number of uniques that support it) & yes, I could get ~1,100% chance to ignite, but he was squishy as ****.
1 Like
Agreed.
But those threshold mechanic is particularly interesting, since it doesnāt āstackā.
So depending on how high the exact value is on a certain item(or in that case also passives of course) there needs to be a exceptional good balance compare to other similar things.
Argghhh. I still have never gotten one of these to drop. Yeah, yeah, I know. GAMBLING. DUH.
Leave me alone. 
But I use the nods on my Rive Paladin and itās immensely satisfying to watch them pop when the reach that threshold.
I use one of these on my Erasing Strike VK and it is so satisfying.
1 Like
Nahā¦ Iām never gambling for uniques. All farmed by killing mobs 
This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.