Path Of Exile Only Has A Few Skills In This Category

    • 16 posts
    April 18, 2018 11:57 PM EDT

    One of the core goals of future skill development will be enabling new styles of gameplay. Similar to how Essence Drain and Contagion introduced an entirely new style of play, we want more skills to feel like a whole new poe items for trade. This will include taking existing skills that don't see much use and giving them unique twists or mechanics that separate them from the rest.

    Charged Dash was a skill intended to fill a primary attack role that has built in movement. Path of Exile only has a few skills in this category and only Cyclone and Flicker Strike see much use later in the game. Charged Dash was intended to fill a similar role for Elemental conversion attacks with a unique twist on the gameplay. The skill was balanced toward having an enemy in a position of maximum overlap, while rapidly moving back and forth across them. Complex end-game boss encounters and the rapid precision targeting required in this situation made the skill a sub-par choice for many major boss fights. The damage output just didn't feel worth the effort and risk.

    We're trying out a new setup for this skill where the areas of damage don't overlap so you don't need to worry about getting enemies in the zone of greatest overlap. We can then also turn up the skill's hit damage. We're experimenting with having the skill pulse damage repeatedly when fully charged so that having a higher movement speed doesn't result in you having to click repeatedly against enemies. This will come with major changes to how the damage output is modified by attack speed and poe orbs buy.