I’ve mentioned this in other places but I’m specifically creating this topic so I can bring it too Gearbox’s attention.
Phaseslam’s action skill cooldown is too long.
Phaseslam is a one and done action skill which should do heavy damage to an area before moving on. I used it for the duration of the story and had a fantastic time. The skill was actually part of the reason I bought the game and I think it deserves to be one of Amara’s defining action skills. With the recent patch, I think we are one major step closer to this happening. However, we still have further it go if Phaseslam is to become a shining example of an action skill.
The skill falls off for a number of reasons in late game.
Compared to other action skills like Gamma Burst, Barrier, Digi-Clone and her own Ties That Bind, Phaseslam has a rather lengthy cooldown. It is longer than all of those and, in the case of Ties That Bind, the cooldown is practically twice as long.
Furthermore, Phaseslam struggles to benefit from Topped Off. That Guardian Perk is arguably one of the best and for many of the action skills it puts in a lot of work. Unfortunately, melee builds receive relatively little from this since you will normally be up in enemies’ faces and not at max shield. So while Ties That Bind’s cooldown fades nicely, Phaseslam remains too long.
Moze and Fl4k have flat ways of taking solid chunks of time off their cooldown through Eager To Impress, Head Count and Grizzled. This is normally a far more reliable way of decreasing cooldown. Phaseslam cannot benefit from this.
One of the marvellous things about how Phaseslam is designed where you risk being close to your enemies but then get to trigger your action skills which triggers boosts which enable you to fight harder and stay in the fight longer. Built well, Phaseslam gives you access to boosts from Clarity, Samsara, Helping Hands, Find Your Centre, Soul Sap, Rush stacks, Laid Bare and Wrath. It’s a fun and worthwhile loop. Unfortunately this loop breaks down a little in late game because of the length of the cooldown compared to the amount of damage you receive. A change to the cooldown could make the playstyle far more rewarding and satisfying.
I have two ideas for how we could restore the action skill without unintentionally effecting the balance of the rest of the game too much.
Change the cooldown from its current 35 seconds to, I would say, 25 seconds. Still a decent length but not as punishing as it currently does.
Many melee players would agree that Blitz could do with a boost. It’s a wonderful idea but in late game you cannot rely on your melee strikes to kill enough to retrigger it and then the cooldown seems long here as well. I would change this skill so that, a) any melee kill can end Blitz’s cooldown and b) any melee kill takes a flat number of seconds off your action skill cooldown. Fl4k has a similar thing simply for critical hits in tier 2 of the Hunter tree so I think it would be perfectly reasonable having this on a capstone. Additionally, since it would be further down the tree it would be less likely to buff other playstyles which do not need it.
I think if one or both or a mixture of these were done then Phaseslam would feel a lot more satisfying. What do you think?
With you here. Rakk have a cooldown of 5 or so seconds with multiple charges and launch up to 4 at once. Slam and cast could both use some love in this department.
I would like to add that the main problem with Phaseslam is not only it’s long cooldown, more so the fact that you are locked in an animation while performing it. Now I don’t mind animations, and the Phaseslam animation has some nice quirks to it (being able to jump across the battlefield, if done correctly), but for some reason you still take damage while not being able to control your character.
An simple fix would be to add invincibility frames to the animation, basically the same way they did it with the Release the Beast animation of Krieg in BL2. That would add an additional layer of gameplay as well because a good player could use Phaseslam defensively to ignore a large chunk of damage.
Just be aware that I don’t expect Gearbox to address something like this any time soon because their main focus will still be to produce additional content for the game, rather than mechanically fixing it. This is mainly due to the commitment of selling a Season Pass, that promises a set amount of content in a fixed time frame. Maybe once all the DLC’s are out, they have time to actually work on game balance and action skill diversity.
You make some good points. Phaseslam could really do with some invincibility frames. I think it could be a while before we get anything like this. As far as I can tell, the next changes we can expect will be around anointments, drop rates and spreading out the loot pool - all welcome changes which, if done well, will be a really nice QoL improvement.
I always like to start thinking from the final result, then go backwards.
Let me elaborate: what did the devs want when they designed the skill? It seems to be a mobility skill to close distance from the target and deal massive aoe elemental damage, so powerful to require a huge cooldown.
Does the skill do that? Not really…
They could enhance its damage by A LOT (numbers should be in the millions, enough to oneshot lower level mobs with a little investment of skills and gear and elemental choice) and keep the long cooldown.
Or they could reduce the cooldown by a lot, like 10/15 seconds and keep the damage average to allow it to be used to zoom between enemies and feel nimble, maybe adding a few invincibility frames.
They could even be two options to choose from by changing skill enhancements.
Invicibility would be very nice, i hate dying while phaseslam…
The thing is that to phaseslam and hit enemy, you have to :
Run toward the group of enemy > take damages
Phaseslam > take damages
Recover from phaseslam > take damages
Aim the first enemy to kill > take damages
…
Wait … you are dead
So yeah, we need invicibility there or damage reduction while animation
If no invicibility frame, then it should knock enemy down, so they stop shooting for a while, fiving you time to take amara’s control back (out of animation)
Thing I don’t understand is why do all of her action skill augments (except soul sap, which just adds life steal) reduce her action skill damage. If they do add a fourth skill tree, I’d love to see an augment that INCREASES damage, but also increases cooldown or something as a balance. Just something I can equip that won’t make my action skill even weaker. (And yeah, I know, they all add stuff, so increase damage in other ways, but I want a straight buff to the skill itself.)
And yeah, totally agree that the cooldown on phaseslam should be lowered and a few invincibility frames added.
I just tried Phaseslam with the 300/90 anoint and I think they synchronise. I didn’t test it enough but the damage certainly felt/looked higher than it did yesterday. Can anyone confirm?
Fracture has a 7 seconds shorter CD and the animation is relatively short + it doesn’t stop or change your momentum.
It used to not be able proc phaseslam anointments but it’s no longer the case, it’s probably the best phaseslam variation to use atm.
The long phaseslam CD is the price to pay for the 300 weapon damage and 200 melee anointments, but considering fracture is already as fast as phasecast and the anointments are better I wouldn’t expect them to make it any faster.
Well that’s pretty exciting. My Phaseslam just got a boost. Right now I’m alternating between a DLC2 run with a Fl4k pet builds and a DLC3 run with melee Amara. Both builds need work like we’re mentioning here but I’m glad I can finally do this.
I think they “tried” to address this with the Golden Rule in DLC 1, the same way they addressed Zane’s issues there with Seein’ Dead. The trouble is the COM doesn’t add much by way of any additional damage, you’d need to get it to roll a +3 to Laid Bare and use all 300% after Phaseslam Anoints to get any real use out of it, so the concept of the COM doesn’t really stand on its own.
Fracture is a good augment and it changes up the use of the skill significantly, but people who like the normal Phaseslam or using Downfall are left in the dust, and as mentioned above, all the augments but Soul Sap increase the cooldown duration, decrease damage dealt, or both. For a one-and-done Action Skill, it really is way too long of a cooldown.
Having played DLC3 now and tweaked my Phaseslam/melee build about as much as I can, I still stand by everything I said. Even with full points in Restless, the Phasezerker mod and cooldown in the stats for both my mod and Relic the cooldown feels a little too long. A boost to damage is less necessary but invincibility/heavy damage reduction frames during it would be be super appreciated as well.
The breaker com with as cooldown is great for phaseslam due to the damage reduction on the com. If you go down the green tree you get helping hands, arms deal and one with nature, all damage reduction skills. Clarity and Samsara give health regen.
amara in general needs a lengthy rework of many abilities and has cooldown issues with multiple abilities, but i think putting a cooldown reduction bonus on blitz would be bad, it should be a skill somewhat early into a tree, my thread goes into further detail
My issue with it being in the shallow end of the tree would be it would unintentionally buff other areas of her kit which really don’t need it (i.e. Ties That Bind) so I wouldn’t put it above tier 4.
i disagree simply cause while end-game TTB wouldnt really need it and the bonus wouldnt really be very noticeable for it, IT WOULD HOWEVER would make mid-to-end-game amara with other skills a much better experience, phasegrasp + phasezerker, restless and cooldown rate bonus on artifact and COM is enough to get about 3-4 seconds of cooldown, less with topped off active, this is basically the downtime between encounters since most will end with 1-2 grasps(assuming one has Avatar), and thats assuming minimal weapon usage, this doesnt apply to tandava or slam or FoM
it would then benefit the longer cooldown variant of grasp that is Fist Over Matter and variants of phasecast/slam which are also in need of help beyond just cooldown, i list many changes i thought of in this thread
or damage reduction while animation