| Amiar #1992 | Why no one uses Area Damage. 5 Problems.(1) | Category: GeneralApril-4-2015 9:55 AM PDT (10 years ago)  |
For a long time I have been a huge proponent of Area Damage and how awesome I thought it was (that was a while ago though). Here is a list with some explanation of why I think AD is an underused stat and why it is perceived as (or is) underpowered.
1. It's a pretty complicated mechanic.
Recall if you will that it took an entire guide to adequately explain how AD works (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/14220263). Due to AD's complexity, people look at it at a glance and dismiss it as being bad, even though it can be really good for some specs.2. It's almost impossible to get it on gear without sacrificing every other stat you need.
AD rolls on almost every piece of gear, which is rad. But, it is a primary affix, which means I need to lose another, and most times more valuable, resource in order to have AD. Most of the time the stats that a person would sacrifice are vital to make a spec work--like cooldown reduction, resource cost reduction or skill damage. For this reason people only use like 50-70% AD (paragon+that one piece of gear that didn't roll perfectly so you're forced to use AD when you don't want to) and 50-70% sucks.3. Most skills don't allow AD to shine/function correctly.
AD shines best when there are several single target attacks in a small frame of time. The best example of this was the old Blessed Shield build with crusaders. You could get like 27 attacks/second, which was about 5 AD procs/sec, which did noticeably massive damage. Now, however, most builds fire off a skill once a second (or slower) which allows for 1 AD proc/5 seconds, which is hardly noticeable or in the RNG realm of averaging out to reliable damage (as it was with the Blessed Shield build).4. The range is so small on AD.
The 10 yard range is killer, and if you don't have a spec that pulls monsters in, you're pretty much wasting a mainstat since the AD is not going to be doing reliable damage.5. No one knows when AD is working.
Due to AD's extra damage appearing as a white number, which most people have turned off (and the numbers disappear so fast it's hard to even catch them on frame by frame recording playbacks) no one knows they are doing area damage. A solution to this would be to change the color of area damage to be completely different than crits or white damage. This would let people know the mechanic is 100% working and how well it's working--giving them real time feedback.**6(ish): AD has zero single target DPS.
Presumably, when you take AD you know this, but a stat that requires you to invest into it in several pieces of gear while having zero benefit to single target dps is a huge letdown, especially for me as a crusader who struggles with single target dps to begin with. I'm not sure what could change here (if anything) but it is something to think about in the cost/benefit scheme of things..
So these are five problems I came up with. There are a couple sub-problems/solutions that go along with these:
- AD could roll as a secondary stat (gasp!)
- AD could roll higher on everything
- AD radius could be 15/20
- AD % proc chance could be 30/40% (up from 20)
- AD could have a chance to do X based on the element of damage that caused the AD proc (stuns, freeze, confusion, charm etc.)
- AD could show up as an extra primary affix on some legendaried (so people still get their 4 needed primaries and extra AD)
- Buff blessed shield out of oblivion!
I love AD as a mechanic, I think it's really cool, but it needs some work!
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