"% chance to be useable" skills, aren't they kind of pointless?

[GetCatTonight]

Hey.

Reading through the full barb skill list, it's looking pretty decent (even if there are a lot of seemingly useless defence skills). However, there are some skills that just seem odd. Namely, Berserker State, Onslaught and Revenge.

All these attacks use a % chance for you to be able to use them. Entirely passive, but act like a toggle without you being able to toggle it. I think this would lead to either confusion on the players part as to whether or not they can even use these skills, but it also means that a player using a certain build may either not ever gain the benefits of these skills, but may even just not notice them. Plus, the random chance has the possibility of negating player interaction as a trigger and just lead to players hoping they'll be able to use the skills they want to.

The skills in question:


Berserker State
Passive
Rank: 1/5
Description: Hitting enemies has a 6% chance to cause a Berserker state for 4 seconds. while in this state, attack speed is increased by 5% and movement speed is increased by 3%.
Prerequisite of: Onslaught

This sounds like something that'll lead to players hoping it'll trigger, and be not very noticeable when it just randomly happens during a big fight with a bunch of critters. I think the only hope for this one would be to simply replace the random chance with some other player-dependant requirement. More on that later.


Onslaught
Active
Rank: 1/5
Requires: 1 point(s) in Berserker State.
Description: Increases Crit Chance by 15% and dodge chance by 15% for 10 seconds. Requires the Barbarian to be in a Berserker State to activate.
Cost: 1 Fury Orb

A skill that would require very keen attention on whether or not the barb has even entered berserker state. It sounds useful, but due to the rarity of the berserker state occurring, this skill may be unintentionally underused. It's kind of annoying - the usefulness of this skill relies entirely on how high the chance of getting berserker state is. Perhaps it should also lengthen berserker state rather than just giving a separate bonus? That'd create a much better synergy between the two.


Revenge
Active
Rank: 1/5
Description: Revenge has 10% chance to be usable when hit by an enemy.
Smash the ground dealing 110% weapon damage to all nearby monsters. You gain 2% of your maximum health for each enemy hit.

As pointed out in the article, this wouldn't really benefit dodge heavy builds. It also seems entirely built around the idea that you'll be using it when surrounded by a group. Couldn't it use a more viable requisite? The chance on hit means it's useable in any situation, but only 10% of the time. It makes it more useable, but then relies too heavily on random chance :/


So I'm gonna make a few quick suggestions for alternates requisites. Because I'm sure these skills aren't set in stone, and that there may be a way of getting rid of random chance when it comes to being able to even use a skill.

Berserker State: How about, instead of tying it to hits, tie it to fury gain? Say, "Triggers after gaining X% of Fury in X seconds". It's more complicated, but it'd mean that any build would get equal use out of berserker. It also ties the trigger of berserker to more combat inclined attacks. Say I just cleaved a whole bunch of enemies and got about half my fury back, that'd mean I'd enter berserker and would be able to take advantage of cleaving more enemies even more. Much more likely to seem useable than a simple percentage chance.

Onslaught: It's tied a little too heavily to berserker, but perhaps it should even lengthen the berserker states lifetime. If you use onslaught once in berserker, you'll be able to carry on taking advantage of berserker and onslaught. This not only means a player who keeps good control over his skills would be able to hulk out for longer, but also means onslaughts usability wouldn't rely entirely on how high a rank berserker is at.

Revenge: This one's a bit harder, as hits can mean either randomly getting the chance to use this on a big boss, or getting a good chance of using it while surrounded by a group. But how about it relies on even losing health first? Considering you'll only want to be using it when low on health due to the leech, maybe it should trigger whenever you lose a certain percentage of health. Say at rank 1 it triggers whenever you lose 10% of your health within X seconds. This'd mean it's useable and fitting for the low level play you'd be at by that point. But at rank 5, it's useable whenever you lose 5% health within a longer period of time.



tl;dr: random chance to use skills is kinda lame, relying on actions within time periods is probably better.

[stillman]

I was just about to make a thread like this, but you beat me to it. Yes, so the active skills that have some sort of condition before becoming usable are a bit worrying. It seems it would lessen the number of builds. For example, an onslaught build won't exist because you can't rely on it. But if they let us use it all the time, we sould have, well, an onslaught build. Why lower the number of builds? In fact, shouldn't onslaught be a passive? From the description, it sounds like a boring normal attack that gives you some passive bonuses...some of the time.

It lasts 10 seconds AND you must be in a berserker state to use it? Jeeze, if it's going to be that much of a hassle then I won't bother with it. I would want reliable skills that you can use all the time as long as you have the fury.

Also note: if there are going to be "states" then there would have to be numerous skills that depend on these states, not just 1 skill. So now here is what all is holding us back from using some skills:
-fury cost
-timers
-state required like berserker state or getting hit, etc.

The barb will have to be a nerd barb.

[Runestar]

Seems like I will be playing a barb and assuming that none of those passives will ever factor in. If/when they trigger, I will treat it as a welcome, albeit unexpected christmas present...:crazyeyes:

really wacky way to play, IMO.

[konfeta]

1. They are just boring, not pointless.
2. You are underestimating how much 5% on hit or getting hit is in this kind of game. That's basically occuring every major fight with a pack of monsters.
3. Blizzard has a history of systematically ensuring that "random" events on skills are designed to occur every x hits or x times per minute.

For example, in WC3, the skill critical strike may say 15% chance to do a critical strike, but it in reality, it's something closer to 7% at first hit, 14% at second hit, 21% at third hit, and so on until you actually crit. Then the timer resets. You are basically guaranteed a crit every x hits, with a chance to actually score it earlier.

I wouldn't be surprised if these chance to activate skills work similarly. But then again, given the number of attacks you will be landing and the amount of times you will get hit, this system might not even be needed.

[Autti]

For example, in WC3, the skill critical strike may say 15% chance to do a critical strike, but it in reality, it's something closer to 7% at first hit, 14% at second hit, 21% at third hit, and so on until you actually crit. Then the timer resets. You are basically guaranteed a crit every x hits, with a chance to actually score it earlier.
.
Sorry but your reasoning is wrong here. The skills work exactly like they say they will with a 15% chance to critical strike. It works of a simple binomial distribution probability, you do have 15% chance to crit with the first strike, but all calculations are independent of each other so this timer your talking about doesn't occur

It is perceived that way, but that is simply because getting a crit out of 2 hits with a chance to crit of 15% is higher than 15%, it is actually 27.75%, i could give you a full rundown of the maths if you want, but simply the game is right in saying 15% chance to crit, so out of 100 hits 15 will crit, but with some variance.

[Runestar]

2. You are underestimating how much 5% on hit or getting hit is in this kind of game. That's basically occuring every major fight with a pack of monsters.

One issue is that there is no way to control when exactly it occurs.

It would be much more useful if it triggers off your 1st hit at the start of the fight, rather than towards the end of the battle, when the foes are almost all dead, and you end up with a few excess seconds of haste with no one left to fight.

Might end up making a fight even more unpredictable.

[Autti]

It would be much more useful if it triggers off your 1st hit at the start of the fight, rather than towards the end of the battle, when the foes are almost all dead, and you end up with a few excess seconds of haste with no one left to fight.

What is more important is the way that it will be triggered, do you have to be hit (as in lose health) or do blocks and armor deflection count as well? THAT would make a massive difference to its occurrence.

Did some rough math, this is for what u want a "hit" to be, i.e sheild blocks included. At 15% the chance to go into fury is as follow

1 hit, 15% 2 hit, 27.7% 3 hit, 38.5% 4 hit, 47.6% 5 hit, 55.6%
6 hit, 62.3% 7 hit, 67.9% 8 hit, 72.75% 9 hit, 76.8% 10 hit, 80.3%

If you want explanation of this math i would be happy to give it, but the idea im trying to show is that with fury at 15% it would happen at 4.7 (roughly) hits, with some variance, but on AVERAGE at 4.7 hits.

The more important part isn't the chance of it to happen, but what the what events can trigger it.

[udgard]

Sorry but your reasoning is wrong here. The skills work exactly like they say they will with a 15% chance to critical strike. It works of a simple binomial distribution probability, you do have 15% chance to crit with the first strike, but all calculations are independent of each other so this timer your talking about doesn't occur

It is perceived that way, but that is simply because getting a crit out of 2 hits with a chance to crit of 15% is higher than 15%, it is actually 27.75%, i could give you a full rundown of the maths if you want, but simply the game is right in saying 15% chance to crit, so out of 100 hits 15 will crit, but with some variance.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, they actually do exist. While diablo 2 engines does exactly what it says (15% chance means 15% chance, calculated independently), the wc3 engine actually has a different coding that increases a critical strike's chance with every hit that doesn't crit, and the percentage increases is calculated so that on average, it does a crit on 15% of attacks. I was surprised when I first found out about this, as I also think that they are independently calculated, but it appears that wc3 has a different method of proccing crits.

[Echod16]

The % chances to activate probably go up with rank

if it even hits 15%, that's ALOT. I found the barbarian typically averaging 4 hit enemies per SWING (granted, cleaving attack was very prominent at Blizzcon as the default "goto" skill). A barbarian could easily find himself in an almost perpetual state of "berserker mode"

if anything, it looks exciting to me, it'll keep me on the edge of my seat while playing, though I can understand why some would want more passive skills

[Autti]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, they actually do exist. While diablo 2 engines does exactly what it says (15% chance means 15% chance, calculated independently), the wc3 engine actually has a different coding that increases a critical strike's chance with every hit that doesn't crit, and the percentage increases is calculated so that on average, it does a crit on 15% of attacks.
Sorry, i haven't played WC3 and don't know the details of its system and i was assuming it followed the D2 engines binomial distribution for critical hits.

With that in mind, the WC3 system if it isn't binomial, would replicate a binomial distribution nonetheless so my comment is somewhat relevant. I would like to find out more on WC3 system if someone has a link so i could analyze it in comparison to D2.

But as i explained the D2 system does achieve an average of 15% with increasing chance of critical hits in cumulative distribution following an unsuccessful hit.

[Typoko]

Hi!

WHAT!? Those passives are insanely good. In normal creep situations they won't glow but you can bash them anyways. If the % gets high enough you could be having berserk on for the whole boss fight and this stuff can double your damage. Attack speed and critical % scale really well with gear! Also extra dodge will be really good if you are tanking the boss.

But yeah, they are boring as hell in the long run and there can be streaks where there aren't any berzerking going around. I just hope they don't introduce internal cooldown to these kind of stuff so it can be a bit more interesting.

[Moonfrost]

tl;dr: random chance to use skills is kinda lame, relying on actions within time periods is probably better.
Why is it lame? With the amount of skills found in each tree, there needs to be some variety so as to not end up with 30 very similar skills or whatever the amount is. Between passive skills and active skills, you need hybrid skills.

You need something that requires a bit more interactivity from the player to benefit from, e.g. skills that occur when certain conditions are met and can only be used in a short time frame. These type of skills reward player skill and awareness, so they're all good. We can call them semi-active skills.

Then you have skills that only occur when certain conditions are met but also occur automatically and last a short amount of time. This creates a change of playstyle for the player because you'll obviously want to benefit from the temporary bonuses, so you can pop other cooldowns or use more devastating/expensive skills before the buff timer runs out. We can call these semi-passive skills.

In other words, you could list them as such, ranging from high level of interactivity to low:


Active skills
Semi-active skills
Semi-passive skills
Passive skills

The downsides of the "pure" skills are evident: too many passive skills and player interactivity is low, too many active skills and the player is overwhelmed with choices. There needs to be a balance and hybrid skills help sort that out.

I don't see where this "lameness" or "pointlessness" you speak of is, as it's a far more interesting system than anything D2 had. You've obviously welcome to come up with a hybrid skill type of your own, though, as I'm sure it would be interesting reading material.

[konfeta]

It's called Pseudo Random Distribution.

http://forums.dota-allstars.com/index.php?showtopic=245439

Have fun. My actual numbers were off, but the principle of it is the same.

But I was wrong on thinking that WoW also guaranteed these things. I was thinking about Procs Per Minute system which allowed the "chance to occur on hit" effects to be just as effective on slow weapons as they were on fast weapons.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Procs_per_minute

[GetCatTonight]

I don't see where this "lameness" or "pointlessness" you speak of is, as it's a far more interesting system than anything D2 had. You've obviously welcome to come up with a hybrid skill type of your own, though, as I'm sure it would be interesting reading material.

I, personally, just find the idea of a skill happening randomly to be pretty uninteresting and unreliable. It could happen when I'm just fighting one guy in the middle of no where, it could just not trigger when going up against a whole group of dudes. It could just not occur when you want it to, meaning you're hoping that the skill you put points into just isn't happening when you want it to.

I know that having a high rank in the skill will make it more likely to activate, and that D3 will have you getting attacked by a lot of things, but I just find the idea of a skill randomly activating to just not be reliable enough for me to want to put skill points into it.

By "lame" and "pointless" I was mainly referring to the trigger being a random chance. It could literally be anything but a random chance mechanic and I'll probably enjoy it more.

[Moonfrost]

I, personally, just find the idea of a skill happening randomly to be pretty uninteresting and unreliable. It could happen when I'm just fighting one guy in the middle of no where, it could just not trigger when going up against a whole group of dudes. It could just not occur when you want it to, meaning you're hoping that the skill you put points into just isn't happening when you want it to.
To me, the randomness is what makes it interesting. Since there's no guarantee it'll occur, you can never have a truly set plan when heading into battle. This makes combat a little bit less about routine and more about adapting to whatever happens. If the skill procs then you react to that and change your strategy accordingly (e.g. use skills that synergize with the procced skill for a bigger bonus). If it doesn't then better luck next fight.


By "lame" and "pointless" I was mainly referring to the trigger being a random chance. It could literally be anything but a random chance mechanic and I'll probably enjoy it more.
I can understand your concern, but if it is anything but a random/conditional mechanic then it's too similar to the already present passive/active skills. Perhaps there is some way to introduce a skill type that is neither passive/active nor random/conditional but I can't come up with any.

If you feel like trying out these random skills before D3 release, I suggest you give Titan Quest a try. It has plenty of random skills that give you a good idea of how they work and how much they add to the game. Plus it's a pretty decent game.

[acceleration turkey]

if youve played titan quest, youll agree that the idea of passive skills with a % chance to activate actually work really well with a melee character. blizzard has borrowed a lot of the good things from titan quest, such as inventory expansion and respawn waypoints, in addition to passive attack skills.

[Brother Laz]

The downsides of the "pure" skills are evident: too many passive skills and player interactivity is low, too many active skills and the player is overwhelmed with choices. There needs to be a balance and hybrid skills help sort that out.

The downside of too many active skills is actually that people use the best ones and ignore the others.

[redrach]

Revenge is awfully similar to a skill called Retaliate in the Diablo 2 mod Median XL. It's a weapon-damage nova with knockback that can be used 100% of the time when you get struck, and lasts for a few seconds (which can be boosted by another skill).
It might seem like you can use the skill rarely when your ctbh is only 5%, but there's an easy way to increase that to 100% - just toggle Run. When running in D2 the entire hit formula is disregarded.

If anything I'm pissed that the chance to use Revenge is so low. Maybe you get hit a lot more often in D3 than D2. We know nothing of how defense works, anyway.

[Moonfrost]

The downside of too many active skills is actually that people use the best ones and ignore the others.
I see that more as the consequence of having too many skills to choose from, but it's true nevertheless.


If anything I'm pissed that the chance to use Revenge is so low. Maybe you get hit a lot more often in D3 than D2. We know nothing of how defense works, anyway.
Titan Quest has several very similar skills with equally low proc chance and they work just fine there. Proc chance is generally a function of how strong the proc effect is, so if the devs increased the proc chance they would likely tone down the effect in return (assuming the skill was balanced to begin with). If the proc chance is too high then the skill becomes too similar to a passive skill, which it's supposed to be different from.

That said, if reading skill descriptions from a game with another 2 years left to release pisses you off, you're probably taking it too seriously. :)

[redrach]

Haha, perhaps "pissed off" wasn't the best phrase to use. More like "bothered".
And the reason I don't like the low proc is that it makes the skill depend more on the RNG and less on your skills. You can't just run at an enemy and be assured that you can bash their heads in the moment they attack you, you have to hope that you get lucky.
That isn't so much of a problem for the "semi-passive" skills like the ones that boost your movement and attack speeds, but I'd expect it to be so for active attack skills.

[lumpor]

I kinda agree with the op. One of the reasons (at least for me) to play the barbarian is because it's brainless. No strategy, no thinking, just hitting everything in sight.

This makes it all complicated, having to pay lots of attention, not reaching your full potential in fights etc...

[Moonfrost]

You'll still be able to play brainlessly if you like, you just won't reach your full potential. Then again, if you're not paying much attention to the game, why should you? ;)

[lumpor]

Well, of course I meant the barb should reach full potential too :P

And come on, do you always like to click everywhere and cast curses etc all the time?

[Moonfrost]

Yes, I click and curse everywhere!

Nah but seriously, once you had good gear D2 became pretty easy, so you could breeze through it despite not paying much attention. D3 will likely be more difficult for a number of reasons, so I think that will matter more than your barbarian's resource system in regards to how attentive you'll have to be while playing.

Even so, it would be a bad thing if those who didn't pay much attention to the game performed just as well as those who did. That would just mean the class has a very low player skill cap because player awareness doesn't affect performande in any meaningful way.

[Deckard Cain]

I would have to disagree that % chance to use skills are worthless. The OP addresses these skills as they are at level 1. Sure a level chance to use skill might not be great, but neither are a lot of level 1 skills. Just look at a level 1 WW in D2.... not too great. Yet nearly all barbs use this skill as a main attack.

Granted we do not know the actual percents per each level, but we can examine the assumed levels from the wiki and see how good they appear at level 5.

Revenge - 30% chance to use. That means if you are surrounded by 3 monsters that all hit you once, you will most likely be able to use this move.

Berserker state - 30% chance to activate when you attack. Same thing as above... most likely every 3 attacks will grant you berserker state. Say you WW into a group of enemies, you will probably enter berserker state.

Onslaught - Now this one just seems extremely OP to me. No I'm not complaining.... I'm sure the skills will be tweaked etc. Anyways... Increase Crit and Dodge chance both by 55% (WOW). This means half your attacks will be doing over double damage, and if you get the other crit passives possibly more. You will also be dodging half of all attacks. Sure you need to be in berserker mode, but that will happen nearly every 3 hits....

Not only do these sound like good moves, but also fun to use? Just think how crazy it would be to use onslaught and then WW into a large group of enemies... decimating everything. Not to mention i could see building a crit barb with all the other crit passives that are available.

[Dimmu]

I agree with the OP.
If they were all passives it would be fine, but onslaught and revenge being active is pretty rediculous. It's just way too much micromanagement.
Even the barb skill fury in D2 was a pain in the *** and too much of a hassle, and you were garaunteed to get the bonuses for every hit. As long as the other actives are even decent compared to the pros of using onslaught, nobody will even bother.

The assassin martial arts charge up skills can be compared to this. Sure, they were kind of fun to mess around with, but at the end of the day it was just not worth the hassle to use them when you have active skills that are actually reliable and still do decent damage.

[Gamekk]

I disagree with the OP.

You will probably be able to beat the game without using these skills, but each of these skills can increase your tanking capacity by different means and the optimal way to tank in hell will probably be with using a certain combo, if not all, of these skills.

It's also not only about surviving a fight but keeping fighting non stop since the town portals won't be there anymore. This will help going faster if you can take more damage (more exp and loots).

[Rashiminos]

You will definitely notice when the barb starts berserking... Drool flying everywhere, spastic grunting, weird auras, etc...