Do we need ths gemstone?

[Travesty]

Ability Rating.

As far as I have found here on the forums, no one recommends socketing this gemstone. I'd suggest either making the gemstone more compelling, or change purple gemstones to something that is, like LoH, movement, XP, etc.

[Peacedawg]

+1 to gemstone for movement speed, especially with the advent of PVP.

Per prior threads, 52% AR from Mantle + maxed synergy seems sufficient for warrior & BH. IMO, mage is only true benefactor of a higher AR.

[narf]

This won't really change the overabundance of Amethysts, as only 12 can be socketed. Gemstones are mainly consumed in jewellery crafting, ranging from 3 to 15 stones for each stat in a 4 stat legendary.
Stats like Parry, Dodge, Block, Movement Speed don't have a ring/necklace, which would probably make them unappealing in jewellery crafting besides other problems I see with them.
Damage Reflect, Life Regeneration and Extra Gold are useless to begin with.
Extra XP may seem great, but would just increase the CL grinding, which I'd assume the devs don't want.

Leaving only LoH and Crit Damage as viable options. Both are already used in jewellery, the former usually for survival, the latter for DPS.

However, the in my opinion best option is to make AR a viable stat for PvP and PvE alike and all classes. This could mean adding and reworking skills and/or reworking AR itself.

[Xeros]

Honestly with my warrior attack speed tends to handle my ability cool down on its own. Why not scrap ability rate altogether and make attack speed and ability rate simply "cast speed" that simply increases the rate at which all attacks and abilities can cast. Attack abilities by default are 1 per second so having a cast rate of 5.00 would be the same as attack speed of 5.0 but for modifying ability cool down it would simply mean they can cast 5 times faster. With skills having longer cool down periods that would be best calculated by how many casts per minute one could normally do. I'll use deadly throw as an example. The base cool down is 15 seconds so 4 casts per minute. Cast rate of 5.00 making that 20 casts per minute would be a bit much so for utilities I think it would be a bit more appropriate for it to be a .5 modifier of the cast rate, meaning 4 per minute at 500% x 0.5 making the cool down timer on a 15 second base cool down utility 6 seconds, or 10 casts per minute. This would also render the 25% chance for 2 second cool down reduction unnecessary. An ability like battle rage with a 30 second base cool down would end up being a 12 second cool down with 5.00 cast rate. We'll call casts per minute after cast rate "x" and default CPM will be "y" with cast rate being "z" the reduction equation would simply be 0.5(yz)=x for utilities and a direct modifier for attacks.

That would rework the very "meh" stat of Ability Rate into Attack Speed which is king on any class and free up either amethyst or sapphire to be used for something else useful in crafting jewelry.

[CastDaddy]

Man you guys really undervalue AR. I think it's one of the most important stats and it's fine how it is. BH benefits from it tremendously... and I won't play with anything less than 50% reduction. usually like to play with 55-60% Cooldown. I'll scarifice 15-20$% DPS for a faster AR and the damage more than makes up for itself. Especially with some of the set bonuses. I'm saving up purples to craft my perfect AR jewelry - can't wait!

[Humus]

Man you guys really undervalue AR. I think it's one of the most important stats and it's fine how it is. BH benefits from it tremendously... and I won't play with anything less than 50% reduction. usually like to play with 55-60% Cooldown. I'll scarifice 15-20$% DPS for a faster AR and the damage more than makes up for itself. Especially with some of the set bonuses. I'm saving up purples to craft my perfect AR jewelry - can't wait!

Everyone undervalues it because you get more than 50% from synergy bonuses and cl points and an integralas mantel so why would you want it on gear and jewellery

[CastDaddy]

Have you ever tried playing a build with 65-70% AR cooldown? If not, I suggest giving it a shot. AR is going to be KING in multiplayer.

[Xeros]

The problem I see with that is the difference attack speed makes over abilities and how quick abilities are cooled down by the 25% chance at 2 second reduction. Did you ever play Diablo 2 and pvp? Smiter paladins and frenzy barbs with a good build who knew what they were doing ruled pvp. Every now and then a gnarly lightning sorc or javazon would happen by, but those were the dominant builds. We also have no idea how our offensive and defensive stats will balance against each other so saying "when pvp, this will be better" is just a wild guess at this point.

[CastDaddy]

We also have no idea how our offensive and defensive stats will balance against each other so saying "when pvp, this will be better" is just a wild guess at this point.

You are correct, PVP strengths are pure speculation at this point. I guess my point is more to the fact that the game is based around abilities, IMO, and a strong AR build allows you to utilize them more efficiently. I'm mostly speaking from BH standpoint, as I've played some Mage and very little Warrior. I've done quite a bit of testing with a high DPS BH ~200k dmg with limited AR vs a moderate DPS build ~160-170k with high AR and the results blew my mind. I can dish out WAY more damage with higher AR than I can with higher DPS.

The problem I see with that is the difference attack speed makes over abilities and how quick abilities are cooled down by the 25% chance at 2 second reduction.

Can you explain a bit more about what you mean here? Are you referring to the Mantle Proc? What I've seen is that applying 100 CL points into AR gives you 500 AR. Using no other AR stats on gear along with a decent Mantle gives you a 36% cool-down with a chance for Mantle to bring that up to 45-50ish% (I don't fully understand the proc reset but it's unlikely this is stacked 5 times at all times, probably averages 2-3 stacks)? To me that just isn't enough. Especially when I'm relying on things like Rapid Fire to do the majority of my DPS against bosses. Also relying on Smoke Screen to bail me out. 60%+ cool-down is a much, much easier play style for me and far out-weights the extra stats toward AS (which I'm applying the majority of my offensive CL toward).

[Peacedawg]

CastDaddy really enjoying this discussion. Makes sense that the faster a player can activate damage, whether it be through attack speed or ability rate, the better the result in PVE. One concern with building high AR for PVP, one-shot-kill DPS. Do I want to go into battle with a machine gun & 5 clips, or a bazooka & one well-aimed shell? Of course this is all rhetoric because we don't know the dynamics yet, but nevertheless it's fun to dream of Eternium PVP. If it's setup similar to Dungeon Quest PVP, I'll likely be going for DPS. Many DQ matches last only seconds.

[Xeros]

Can you explain a bit more about what you mean here? Are you referring to the Mantle Proc? What I've seen is that applying 100 CL points into AR gives you 500 AR. Using no other AR stats on gear along with a decent Mantle gives you a 36% cool-down with a chance for Mantle to bring that up to 45-50ish% (I don't fully understand the proc reset but it's unlikely this is stacked 5 times at all times, probably averages 2-3 stacks)? To me that just isn't enough. Especially when I'm relying on things like Rapid Fire to do the majority of my DPS against bosses. Also relying on Smoke Screen to bail me out. 60%+ cool-down is a much, much easier play style for me and far out-weights the extra stats toward AS (which I'm applying the majority of my offensive CL toward).

Each attack has a 25% chance to reduce skill timers by 2 seconds. With high enough attack speed, you can match or exceed the DPS of most burst skills that prevent you from using regular attack while they are active, such as warrior's Devastate, while resetting skill timers faster than AR can, dealing more hits with higher damage per hit due to not sacrificing damage values for AR. And thats on top of the shortened cool downs you get from CL, synergy, and Mantle. So high attack speed and simultaneous use (fire and forget like immolate or DT) skills end up allowing for greater DPS overall.

[Peacedawg]

Each attack has a 25% chance to reduce skill timers by 2 seconds. With high enough attack speed, you can match or exceed the DPS of most burst skills that prevent you from using regular attack while they are active, such as warrior's Devastate, while resetting skill timers faster than AR can, dealing more hits with higher damage per hit due to not sacrificing damage values for AR. And thats on top of the shortened cool downs you get from CL, synergy, and Mantle. So high attack speed and simultaneous use (fire and forget like immolate or DT) skills end up allowing for greater DPS overall.

Makes total sense. I crafted my 1st DPS ring yesterday & immediately noticed significantly faster cooldown of warrior abilities. I guess it was from the increased AS, as u suggested.

[CastDaddy]

Each attack has a 25% chance to reduce skill timers by 2 seconds.

Great to know, thank you! Can you tell me where you found this information? Any more detailed on the cooldown/reset of the proc? I can't imagine that every 4 attacks, 1 of them is resetting cooldowns by 2 seconds. Does it take 20 seconds to reset or something? I did notice this happening on a new Hero I was leveling up and was wondering how cooldowns were dropping without a Mantle equipped.

[Xeros]

Great to know, thank you! Can you tell me where you found this information? Any more detailed on the cooldown/reset of the proc? I can't imagine that every 4 attacks, 1 of them is resetting cooldowns by 2 seconds. Does it take 20 seconds to reset or something? I did notice this happening on a new Hero I was leveling up and was wondering how cooldowns were dropping without a Mantle equipped.

It's in one of the sticky threads I believe. I'm on my way out so I don't have time to look right now, I'll find it later and drop an edit. And I don't know if there is a cool down on the proc, but the 25% number I'm quoting might not be extremely accurate. What I do know is I only have synergy AR on my warrior and I can pretty much keep Battle Rage active constantly if I have mobs to fight, especially when dual wielding.

Edit below:

https://forum.makingfun.com/forum/et...ssion-ab/5013- The 25% chance is mentioned here, and not sure where he got it from, but I am like 95% positive there is no cool down, as I've seen my timer jump down by 2 second increments multiple times one after the other, while sometimes it takes a while to drop even once. I do believe if anything is inaccurate it is the chance % not being 25

[IPNEIP]

Man you guys really undervalue AR. I think it's one of the most important stats and it's fine how it is. BH benefits from it tremendously... and I won't play with anything less than 50% reduction. usually like to play with 55-60% Cooldown. I'll scarifice 15-20$% DPS for a faster AR and the damage more than makes up for itself. Especially with some of the set bonuses. I'm saving up purples to craft my perfect AR jewelry - can't wait!

Totally agree! My BH also runs with 55-60% AR (but no mantle). I've noticed that normal attacks' chance to reduce cooldown may also be related to AR% (if not, it should be!). In any case the cooldown on rapid fire ranges from 5s (base) to 2s (most of the time) to 0s (sometimes). Yes I also crafted AR into one of his jewelry (decent-grade only). Rest of it from eq and cp.