Lunge
I think Lunge tree has some solid potential to add quite a bit more diversity to Sentinel builds. Particularly I’d like it to have more diverse and powerful ways to develop as a direct damage build, and some more fun and interesting use-cases as a buff. So here are some elaborated comments and suggestions.
Basic analysis of Lunge
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It’s a solid mobility spell. Using it to travel around and fight crates feels good.
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The utility/self-buffing aspect of the tree is strong. However getting the most out of lunge buffs requires casting it extremely frequently to abuse the fact that the buffs stack. This doesn’t feel very smooth to play.
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The more your build is centered on lunge, the less you benefit from its mobility as you have to put points in the damage aspects instead. Maximising Lunge frequency also eats a whole 5 node points that you want to use for damage as well. I don’t think the existence of these tradeoffs is strictly bad, but I think it’s fair to throw at least something on this front to builds that are strongly specced around the skill. Blade Stream in particular feels like it’s pretty punished for the fantasy it’s trying to deliver by a huge cooldown that reduces not only its own DPS but the basic mobility available to Sentinel.
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Damage focused lunge builds somewhat lack payoff and identity. The skill doesn’t have enough multipliers to keep up with the strongest primary damage abilities. It only has one node that seriously changes its behaviour as a damage skill. So, many of my suggestions below are how to introduce strong and distinct primary-damage uses for this ability.
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The animations and sounds are visually satisfying but they don’t communicate the area of effect well.
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The distinction between “travel hits” and “final hit” feels a little strange, and it’s not immediately intuitive that travel hits also hit the final target (altho it does make Blade Stream much stronger than it first appears). Would consider treating all hits the same & removing the potential for double hits. (buffing Blade Stream a bit accordingly)
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The mana cost is very lightweight, making the Mana Efficiency nodes not feel that important & leaving very little dilemma about when to use it.
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The several health on hit on hit nodes seem very unimpactful. The other sources of health in the game are simply far more powerful.
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The base cooldown is already so low, if you’re just using it for mobility it doesn’t feel at all bad to have it non-specialised. This particularly relevant for certain proc builds that can use a specialised skill without having it slotted. I’m not sure that the existence of these “value point” skills is strictly a good or bad thing, just thought it’s worth observing. (the Stance skills are even stronger in this capacity)
General suggestions
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The buff aspects of Lunge should use the “recently” behaviour rather than being stackable
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Increase the mana cost significantly. A handout to heavily lunge-focused builds and a gentle nerf to builds that just brainlessly use it for the mobility/buff.
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The skill should either have better base added damage % or some decent multipliers in the node tree.
The following specific node suggestions are some starting points for discussion & thinking about how to add some more exciting directions to the ability. I think there is some very solid potential without necessarily big FX or technical work.
Node reworks
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LANDSKNECHT - Removes cooldown but adds an extended windup animation. (Think about 0.8s of posing up and leveling lance before the actual lunge begins). The duration of the cast animation is affected by cooldown efficiency, and all cooldown adjustment in this tree, rather than cast or attack speed.
I think the theme of Landsknecht as a lethal pike-wielding full-damage Lunge build is super cool but +base crit is a lost stat given there is already +16% in the tree and the node is locked to the best base crit weapon anyway.
The idea here is to support a high frequency DPS Lunge builds with its own distinct style and the fair tradeoffs of losing the space to weave in other attacks & a big delay on a moblity skill. And big flamboyant windup animations are a good time.
One way to achieve an extremely similar functionality without the punishing animation lock is “you channel before Lunging, to a max duration of half the cooldown, and the cooldown is reduced by twice the duration you channeled.” -
WOUND REVEL & RALLYING BLOW- per the comment that HP on hit seems a bit unhelpful in the world of life leech, I suggest these give different effects. My first thought is like 2% Cooldown recovery speed per hit for Wound Revel (affects Lunge Only?) and Ward for Rallying Blow.
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UNSTOPPABLE - I would like to see “You are channeling Rebuke while Lunging”. Similar basic power level but much more interesting.
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DOUBLE STRIKE - For the alt Landsknecht node: this node makes every 2nd Lunge windup ~80% faster (ie. 40% windup reduction). Think this gives a fun rhythm to this build’s attack pattern, and supports build diversity by keeping compatibility between different nodes strong.
New nodes
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POINT CHARGE (after Blade Stream) - Lunge is ground target. Just a feelsgood flexibility increase. I think with the cooldown increase of Blade Stream the map-traversal power is basically balanced especially given Shield Rush exists.
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TACTICIAN - When you cast Lunge, your minions charge instead of you, using all the benefits of this tree. Void Charge uses your own mana, and Iron Onslaught use your own armour, but any other effects of Lunge are applied to the minions, not you. Seems like a resource-efficient way to add a lot of interactivity and visual spectacle to Sentinel minion builds. Might be necessary to apply a damage penalty, not sure
P.S. It would be really fun to have a Ring of Shields node or Unique affix that allowed Manifest Shields to Lunge when you used this ability. -
HEARTSEEKER (req. Reckless Lunge x3) - Lunge has +200% cooldown. However adjustments to Hit Damage, Base Crit and Crit Damage provided in this tree apply to all your melee attacks for 4 seconds after you finish Lunging.
Some nerfs possibly necessary. The basic idea is to provide a strong, sub-100% uptime buff (there are currently very few) that particularly favours direct damage builds that otherwise find it a bit hard to increase their crit chance. It can be put deep in the tree so you can’t easily stack it with every other self-buffing option.
Potentially, if you took Double Strike or my alt. Landsknecht, you could Lunge twice in a row to make 1 Lunge that double dips the affected modifiers. Personally I think that’s actually an interesting synergy that should be supported - it’s not necessarily all that broken since you are getting 60% less lunges overall to do it -
IRON ANNIHILATION (req. Iron Onslaught) - The bonus from Iron Onslaught is multiplicative with all others. If you have used Lunge recently you have 50% less armour and attack speed, multiplicative. For Forge Knights that really wanted to make their whole build about this spec. The AS reduction is to make this favourable for builds that are serious about using lunge for primary damage rather than as an easy dip to supplement something else. The damage/armour/as mults might need some tweaking, not sure.
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VOID CHARGE - Lunge consumes all of your mana and deals additional damage based on the mana consumed. (either added dmg, or a multiplicative effect??) I like the fantasy of blowing whole mana pool for a mega-hit, and I think it has some of the most potential on classes like Sentinel who has some interesting ways to get mana but not an overwhelming supply, and won’t be twiddling their thumbs during the downtime to regen
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BLUE PHANTOM - Instead of Lunging yourself, you launch a phantasm that can travel through terrain (but uses your own damage rather than that of a minion). This removes the movement tag, allowing the skill to Echo.
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BLACK PHANTOM (req. Blue Phantom & Void Charge) - Instead of sending a phantom you temporarily become one, allowing you to Lunge over terrain. However, the skill is still eligible to Echo - in that case you send a phantom, rather than becoming one, per Blue Phantom.
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PHOENIX WING - You cast FLAME WING as you lunge, leaving wings of fire behind you on either side that deal spell damage to enemies hit. (additional mana cost?) fun and profit for Staff Paladins. Eruption/Lava Burst on Shield Throw is a very satisfying transformation of that ability & I think a couple more similar options would be nice
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PHOENIX SLASH (req. Phoenix Wing) - You slash your wings at the end of the charge, hitting targets in a cone in front of you for two instances of Flame Wing. (Phoenix Wing + Slash together may not apply more than 2 instances of Flame Wing to a single mob) boss clear for phoenix wing
I think there is also potential for some debuffing focused utility on Lunge since it’s one of only 2 Sentinel skills that lends itself to a single target use case. However post is already pretty long so I’ll hold off on that one for now.