Dark Magic skill line losing Minor Force

allochthons · August 18

From the patch notes.

Dark Exchange

Dark Deal: This morph no longer grants Minor Force. This morph’s Minor Berserk is no longer half as long as the base ability.

Then just below that. This bit is from a spoilered developer comment, but the part I want isn't a spoiler, really:

Blood Magic:<snip>
We know this isn’t a silver bullet to making Dark Magic a desired skill line – but we’re using this as an experiment to see if this sort of shuffling of power is seen as a good thing or not in the brave new subclassing world.

The spoiler text isn't about Dark Deal, but how is taking a buff like Minor Force from the Dark Magic skill line, and not replacing it anywhere else, in line with the goal of making Dark Magic a desired skill line? AND decreasing the time on Minor Berserk? (Although it's not clear how long berserk is going to last? Maybe it lasts for the whole length of the skill, that'd be good.)

This is not logical.

nadrokal · August 18

My patch is still downloading, but I'll admit when I read "this morph's Minor Berserk is no longer half as long as the base ability" I assumed that meant it was going to last the whole duration of the skill, not the previous half length. I'm not usually an optimist, but I thought if it was being reduced to more than half that someone would have rung an alarm bell or two from the PTS stage.

MincMincMinc · August 18

Dont worry, just choose assassination like everyone else. It gives you every crit related buff possible along with a skill that does more than most ultimates in the game every 5s in a meta where there are no counters for the amount of crit damage possible.

Major_Mangle · August 18

While I don´t get them removing minor force from dark deal (personally would´ve preferred the duration to be increased a little), dark magic is still an S-tier skilline for PvP at least. Not sure what could be done for it to become more attractive in PvE, but it´s still a very very strong skilline for PvP.

MincMincMinc · August 18

Major_Mangle wrote: »

While I don´t get them removing minor force from dark deal (personally would´ve preferred the duration to be increased a little), dark magic is still an S-tier skilline for PvP at least. Not sure what could be done for it to become more attractive in PvE, but it´s still a very very strong skilline for PvP.

Cant say I have been hit by a single crystal frags this patch, but i have to dodge merciless procs about every other second

YandereGirlfriend · August 18

This, along with the destruction of Dark Cloak, is truly a baffling nerf.