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  1. #1
    Agent_Ares's Avatar Senior Member
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    The Reason Skill Builds are Terrible

    While people may Argue "Skill builds are totally viable" the question is really is it?

    If you go against Black Tusk with an EMP jammer exactly how useful is that skill build going to be when you end up having no skills and a gun that does 70k damage against a 5 million HP opponent? Or getting hit by an EMP grenade, or being hit by EMP blast from an exploding around?

    While skill builds "feel cool"
    they suffer an extreme amount of down sides

    1. Cool Downs
    2. Can be disabled
    3. Vs melee opponents, you are forced to 1 damage ability and 1 cc ability. Or just sit and die.

    As I said before
    Weapon damage and Skill damage needs to be moved into a Single Group.

    Player Damage

    This will allow skill build users also buff weapons with their skills.
    Will also allow DPS users to use skills without it ending up being a Cheap knock off of a Dollar Store toy.
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  2. #2
    Trippul G's Avatar Senior Member
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    You bring up a very good point that's always bothered me: if you're running a skill build, your entire build (and thus your ability to defend yourself or effectively contribute to your group) can be completely nullified by an enemy EMP tower or skill deployment.

    Yet no such situation exists in the game for players running "gun" builds. Never at any point do you come across a situation where you need to fire your guns to survive but are physically unable to (except, I suppose, if you run out of ammo...but that's extremely rare in my experience).

    I enjoy using my skill builds because they're fun to mess around with, but when it comes time for me to do "serious" content, I pop on my all-red White Death / Baker's Dozen build.
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  3. #3
    Auztinito's Avatar Senior Member
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    In other words, we'll only have armor and weapon damage. In other words, a shooter with meaningless RPG elements. At that point, this will be no different than GR. Armor Plate is a natural deterrent to gun builds. You're looking at Skill Builds as though they should one-shot rooms like TU7. Melee Opponents are first and foremost the weakest enemies in the game hence you can easily gun them down or stop them.
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  4. #4
    Originally Posted by Trippul G Go to original post
    You bring up a very good point that's always bothered me: if you're running a skill build, your entire build (and thus your ability to defend yourself or effectively contribute to your group) can be completely nullified by an enemy EMP tower or skill deployment.

    Yet no such situation exists in the game for players running "gun" builds. Never at any point do you come across a situation where you need to fire your guns to survive but are physically unable to (except, I suppose, if you run out of ammo...but that's extremely rare in my experience).

    I enjoy using my skill builds because they're fun to mess around with, but when it comes time for me to do "serious" content, I pop on my all-red White Death / Baker's Dozen build.
    I have non optimized 1 red 5 yellow firestarter blind firefly build as technican, the blind last for 23s, my burn dealt 260k per tick for 10s, my rifle use eyeless and my backpack use wicked. I can melt rushers after blind with burn, while eyeless + is wicked buff my weapon damage effectively to about 3 red tier as well.

    I can takr on lv4 cp alone without issue.
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  5. #5
    It's almost like the people knocking skill builds don't understand how to use them or what the intent is behind them. It's like they actually think skill builds and red builds and tank builds should all = the same TTK. LOL. If that's what you think, then perhaps stop playing this game? Skill builds requires more thought, situational awareness and understanding of which ones to ... wait a second, I think I'm starting to understand why people don't like them.
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  6. #6
    CptCombatGamer's Avatar Banned
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    Originally Posted by ksubs80 Go to original post
    It's almost like the people knocking skill builds don't understand how to use them or what the intent is behind them. It's like they actually think skill builds and red builds and tank builds should all = the same TTK. LOL. If that's what you think, then perhaps stop playing this game? Skill builds requires more thought, situational awareness and understanding of which ones to ... wait a second, I think I'm starting to understand why people don't like them.
    And you just proved again, you KNOW NOTHING about gaming....

    This is to be an MMORPG Looter/Shooter....

    RPG = ALL Builds are EQUAL, otherwise nobody plays them, case in point....

    SKILLS SUCK
    "TANK" SUCKS

    DPS is KING....

    Where in there do you see RPG????

    UBI screwed the pooch by allowing/making sliding scale drops....

    Every piece, for everyone, should be exact same stats....

    Then PvE AND PvP would actually boil down to Player SKILL, NOT...who's got the better gear....

    And all builds would be viable....

    They aren't.....

    So this game becomes a PURE SHOOTER, since the LOOT SUCKS, and the RPG factor is ABSENT!

    Seriously, all you young gamers are delusional!

    Come talk to us old timers once you've played Pong on a black & white, once you've played Intelivision, Atari, Atari 26, Commodore, Tandy, Apple 1, Apple II, Apple IIe, Sega, Nintendo, The Cube, Genesis, PS 1, 2,3, and now 4, or one of the other Dozen PC's since Gaming was created....

    Then we can talk....

    Buhbye!
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  7. #7
    Originally Posted by CptCombatGamer Go to original post
    And you just proved again, you KNOW NOTHING about gaming....

    This is to be an MMORPG Looter/Shooter....

    RPG = ALL Builds are EQUAL, otherwise nobody plays them, case in point....

    SKILLS SUCK
    "TANK" SUCKS

    DPS is KING....

    Where in there do you see RPG????

    UBI screwed the pooch by allowing/making sliding scale drops....

    Every piece, for everyone, should be exact same stats....

    Then PvE AND PvP would actually boil down to Player SKILL, NOT...who's got the better gear....

    And all builds would be viable....

    They aren't.....

    So this game becomes a PURE SHOOTER, since the LOOT SUCKS, and the RPG factor is ABSENT!

    Seriously, all you young gamers are delusional!

    Come talk to us old timers once you've played Pong on a black & white, once you've played Intelivision, Atari, Atari 26, Commodore, Tandy, Apple 1, Apple II, Apple IIe, Sega, Nintendo, The Cube, Genesis, PS 1, 2,3, and now 4, or one of the other Dozen PC's since Gaming was created....

    Then we can talk....

    Buhbye!
    First of all, skill build don't suck, only the hand behind the keyboard sucks.

    Second, you cannot make all build equal, it is because shooting game involve a huge variable which is the player itself. A smart Tank player knows how to manage damage can actually save the team from a wipe in some tight spot and even carry the more average red build players to succeed. Same goes for dedicated healer build, CC skill build or even DPS skill build. These roles are not suck, they are not as easy to use and be effective as a gun build, and that is normal.

    This is a game for killing foes, npc or players, damage will always be king, because there is only 1 rule in the game, who get the kill and stay alive is the winner. Tank, healer, CC are tools to get the job done easier when the most simple solution, 4 x gun builds cannot get it done.
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  8. #8
    I'm no expert. I've only recently started playing D2 while I wait for some other games to come out.

    I have noticed some glaring problems with the game; that has nothing to do with "Skill Builds" at all.
    - It it the way I prefer to play.
    - As someone pointed out: It takes good situational awareness to make the most use of skill build. Otherwise Red and Blue build will probably get Rolled Over Repeatedly.


    Rolled Over Repeatedly
    - I don't expect many of you with ADHD to even begin to understand why I would make such a statement.
    - Perhaps you have not noticed the recent addition of DIRECTIVES.

    Instead of making enemies more bullet spongy and tying loot to WORLD DIFFICULTY: hard, legengendary, etc...it should have been tied to DIRECTIVES.
    - The more of those you had activated; the better your chances would be to get those elusive loot drops.

    Directives
    Directives are additional difficulty modifiers that players can activate manually after having finished the Warlords of New York campaign, both for Missions and the Open World. The more Directives you activate the harder the challenge and the greater the end-of-activity XP reward! Five Directives will be available once you reach the Level 40 endgame:

    Ammo Hoarders
    Reduced starting ammo & excess ammo is lost on reload. Enemies don't drop ammo & ammo is not shown on the mini-map.
    Cool Skills
    When one Skill is activated the other is put on cooldown.
    Fog Of War Revisited
    Mini Map and directional threat indicators are removed.
    No Regen
    Armor never regenerates after an encounter. It can be manually healed.
    Special Ammo
    Enemy bullets may be of special types. What type depends on the enemy faction
    .

    Those are the current known directives.
    - Add a few more of those and it won't matter what world setting you are playing on.

    It really won't matter what Build you are using.

    The only thing that should matter is:
    - The combined Directives of all groups members should be active.

    So...you may suddenly find your self in a group..and not able to find ammo, or your skills not cooling down properly or god forbid, your Armor nor auto regening after combat.
    - Now let's talk about what build are viable and which ones are not.
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  9. #9
    desrocchi's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by Feren_Wulf Go to original post
    So...you may suddenly find your self in a group..and not able to find ammo, or your skills not cooling down properly or god forbid, your Armor nor auto regening after combat.
    - Now let's talk about what build are viable and which ones are not.
    This is funny because these are the directives I use with my full red build, they don't hinder a red build in any way.
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  10. #10
    Originally Posted by ksubs80 Go to original post
    It's almost like the people knocking skill builds don't understand how to use them or what the intent is behind them. It's like they actually think skill builds and red builds and tank builds should all = the same TTK. LOL. If that's what you think, then perhaps stop playing this game? Skill builds requires more thought, situational awareness and understanding of which ones to ... wait a second, I think I'm starting to understand why people don't like them.
    Thank you people have no idea how to built skill builds you dont just equip **** and call it a day. Idiots.
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