Skills Overhaul
They have done an overhaul of all Skills and in particular how they interact with Skill mods – how they get buffed and get more effective. The most viable skill-builds revolved around explosive skills – now they are even stronger, while the other like the Turret or the Shields are on par with that.
Intend
It basically started with looking at the DPS meta and how much damage you can do with weapons. At the moment you can do up to 3 Million DPS with an assault rifle build. They then basically used that as a benchmark and started working on the Skill Builds so that they can keep up with that. The goal was not to nerf the weapons – but to buff, a 100% Skill focused build up to that level.
What has changed
Skill Mods
The Skill Mods got a big buff in how much impact they have on the Skills:
For example:
- TU4: A 3k Skill Power Turret Mod will buff the damage by 25-30%
- TU5: A 3k Skill Power Turret Mod will buff the damage by 150%
Cooldown Reduction becomes Skill Haste
They also looked at cooldowns and how effective the current cooldown system is. It was very easy to get 90% Skill Cooldown Reduction and get it down to 10 seconds. This is a problematic situation.
What they basically did is, that they changed Cooldown Reduction into Skill Haste. Skill Haste goes way above 100% and is a healthier system for the long term health of the game.
- So as of Title Update 5 Cooldown Reduction has been changed into Skill Haste on all your items.
- The current values will also be buffed by 33%
- There are also very powerful Skill Haste Mods – so when you have 3k Skill Power you can have up to 200% Skill Haste on those mods.
Damage Buffs to Skills
The damage Skills were also buffed to do a lot more damage to the NPCs - even before the buffs from the Specialization are added on top of that. So when you have 3k Skill Power you can do a lot of damage even on challenging difficulty. But on heroic difficulty, it will still take some effort.
Weapons are still very much viable
While the Skills got a big buff – the king of continuous damage are still the weapons. This rework is not about “replacing weapon builds with skill builds” but to make them a viable option on the battlefield.
Shields were also buffed
The Shield-Skills also got a big buff to become more usable on the battlefield
