Quote (Aaronoob @ Nov 20 2021 08:31am)
Hey wanna pick ur brain on this
There’s so many different opinions on what and if cold stack limits should be used. Recently we heard the community and went with 410/385 1 raven since that had been tested and agreed in some rule sets, and the majority is in favor but I’m getting a lot of strong views against it
Have you tested or calculated to see what an appropriate balance is? It’s build specific too so I’m gathering the problem is although 410 seems correct for some builds like the HOTO sorc who won last week and took a couple blizz to kill, 410 enables fathom pure damage builds to do too much damage. I don’t know though, haven’t been able to test and not smart enough to calculate it myself
The hardest part about balancing cold stack is due to variation on the sorces build itself. Finding the appropriate "maximum stack" amount is really a function of the sorces effective -res, which menas cold mastery level, facets, and other sources. Its really the "other sources" that had more the variability which makes it hard to make a 100% solid rule. Items like fathoms are considered BiS and can be used a the "meta build", but there are x-factors like a 3 cold/3 cm orb, or doom runeword which effectively dropped the +30% dmg to pierce way more. The SvS old ladder has dealt with for a long time, as the math/match specific setups can actually make or break a rule set. For the longest time, theyve been allowing 399 cr + 1x raven, or 450 max cr, no raven. (Iirc, 450 is the better of the two, as vs the typical build it will mitigate all pierce) Anything more and blizzes are so weak its unplayable, but anything less and you cannot lose unless the blizzer is full l8z and just trying for lucky hits 24/7. Granted, blizz play style tends to be that way more or less, they opted for the 450 numbers which make a blizzer tank far less fb's than a fber would blizzes, but for good reason imo. This again, does break down if the blizzer uses a perfect orb or doom, and turns a 10x hit kill into a 4x hit kill.... Also on the other hard you can get sorces like mine when I used es on the svs ladder who take so little dmg to life from blizz that it was nearly 25x hits to kill me, and theres no chance your breaking my mana/es in blizz vs fb ever if I was trying not to suicide.... Silly match up to be honest.
All in all, I believe that is why the general rule has always just been, "unlimited stack", 1 piece sorb, as it is just easiest to balance/work around enforcing that type of rule. You could maybe drop the raven/max res thing for unlimited stack too, if you wanted. Again, allowing it the way it is gives the sorc a chance to skip CM entirely and focus on pure+dmg, and even build in a really stong es setup if they wanted. I think other mentioned this before, and its a totally viable build in 1v specific matchups where you expect cold res to be maxed. People usually just dont do it b/c CM is strongin pubs,pvm,etc + really name 1 cold sorc thats considered a top dueler in the last 10 years lol. Its like the hypothetical zon vs xx matchup, who wins - complete different if talking on east or europe.
Feel free to share my thoughts, but I think most people would agree with leaving it how it is, as it havnt been changed in a long time for good reason. Just to much variability to account for.
At most, added a stack limit w/ % sorb/max res, vs non limit no sorb is a decent alternative I think.
I do have a summary/tool I made for this, let me post the results for damage per blizz depending on the 3x BiS setups I had mentioned above.
The key is to compare the likely blizz dmgs vs different levels of cold res and/or sorb, and make a summary of "xx hits to kill" for a typical, say 4k life character. That way you can try and determine the optimum limits based on how much dmg a blizz should really do per hit, maybe 500 = 8 hits to kill? Who really knows.....
A good example to be to use a static dmg kill like fireball as a starting point, do the same and say maybe +2 blizzes from a fber? The final problem again being, you would need to either ban the use of cheese -res setups (limit total -res as well?) or balance around the 3x different builds with different rule sets for each... As well as the "no" piece setups
As i'm typing this, I think blizz really just isnt a true "competitive" skill due to the way it fundamentally works. I know its against the spirit of pubs, but Id almost say if you wanted really good tours and matchups, the allowed character builds should be limited more to the top tiers, say b+ classes/setups.
For which I think blizz is not one of them! Anyways, I could do more here if people really want, but honesttly I dont think blizzers are considered good or fun enough to make with/vs to bother. I'd rather just throw on 450 cr 102 w/s setup on my sin and stand in 50 blizzes while she cannot move :evil:
Typical fathom blizz setup:
https://i.imgur.com/Y38LFvi.pngBuild using 6 CM orb:
https://i.imgur.com/iYeMUvt.pngBuild using Doom:
https://i.imgur.com/Rnsmmbd.pngWow this is actually super helpful, thanks so much. I'll need some more time to digest the info but it seems like:
Zero stack limit brings blizzard damage down so that you can break 1k damage is using doom
I've come to consider that 'no stack limit' is common because people consider (as you are saying) for blizz to be a pub build, and have not bothered to balance it for competitive settings other than for SvS.
D2:R