Enigma or Phoenix - Zealot

Hi,
i have a dilemma. I have almost everything for my zealer and deciding what to build next. Now i have all pieces needed for Phoenix to enjoy enhanced damage. But i am not far from Enigma.
Does zealers need Enigma with bad fcr? I am not convinced i will be much faster when farming, especially in split runs.

Enigma allows freedom of movement so you can jump straight to a particular enemy and take them out.

Other than teleporting, you can just

Charge+

Vigor anywhere.

Zealots/smiters are one of the very few builds for which I for one would never consider an Enigma over other armor (specifically Fortitude in this case).

Sure,

Teleport is always nice to have. But once you learn the ways of curve-charging, you really won't be any slower than some low-FCR

Teleport.

Obviously, that excludes areas where you just need to skip wall after wall but that's rare enough to not outweigh the benefit of not wasting your chest slot on an Enigma.

Thanks. I already have Fortitude on myself so i will keep it as is.

Enigma might be interesting for pvp as Charger though. For pvm

Zeal I would also recommend Fortitude or coh. I currently play

Zeal with Fortitude and Phoenix. It’s quite some damage but the delay is kind of annoying, I personally can’t get used to it. Fcr makes it slightly better but not significantly.

Mboc wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:14 am

Enigma might be interesting for pvp as Charger though. For pvm

Zeal I would also recommend Fortitude or coh. I currently play

Zeal with Fortitude and Phoenix. It’s quite some damage but the delay is kind of annoying, I personally can’t get used to it. Fcr makes it slightly better but not significantly.

Actually, especially for charger PvP Enigma is or at least used to be a bad choice by comparison. In theory, it'd make sense. In reality however,

Charge used to desync you so hard that noone ever saw you coming until it was too late. Not exactly working as intended but beyond effective. Can't say I've confirmed that still works the same way in D2:R but if the desync while charging to mini ubers is any indication, I dare say it does...maybe even worse now.

Schnorki wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 10:51 am

Mboc wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:14 am

Enigma might be interesting for pvp as Charger though. For pvm

Zeal I would also recommend Fortitude or coh. I currently play

Zeal with Fortitude and Phoenix. It’s quite some damage but the delay is kind of annoying, I personally can’t get used to it. Fcr makes it slightly better but not significantly.

Actually, especially for charger PvP Enigma is or at least used to be a bad choice by comparison. In theory, it'd make sense. In reality however,

Charge used to desync you so hard that noone ever saw you coming until it was too late. Not exactly working as intended but beyond effective. Can't say I've confirmed that still works the same way in D2:R but if the desync while charging to mini ubers is any indication, I dare say it does...maybe even worse now.

Can’t say it’s bad, works just fine not least since you can keymap now anD quickly cast Port and

Charge right after,NOW you actually don’t see him coming

This btw doesn’t only apply for Pala but for many other builds. Especially we barbs who Port right near you and we right on I Enigma got way to powerful with keymap imo

You mean quick cast? We've always been able to map keys.

Quick cast actually made things worse/slower, thanks to the broken, phoned-in, half-baked implementation of it.

Without quick cast, you just keep right click down and toggle through what you want to do for instant switching and casting (going for example from

Teleport into

Whirlwind with 0 delay beyond cast frame completion).

With quick cast as it is, it switches to and from skills and actually "untoggles" your mouse buttons when it switches back. And since the game, or rather that half-baked switch-click-switch implementation, is actually slower at toggling than many players are at clicking, it means you actually have to wait for your prior skill to have cast and toggled back before you can hit the button for the next one. This introduces an artificial lag and/or the risk of not casting the next one at all if you pressed the button too early. Plus you constantly have to re-click the skills you would otherwise have just held down for. As a result, if you're someone who is actually quick on their controls, you're repeatedly stuck either not casting at all and/or forcing yourself to slow down so the game can keep up with you.
It's more comfortable/convenient, I give you that. But it certainly isn't better/faster/more powerful. It isn't even equally as fast. Sadly.

Schnorki wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:00 pm

Without quick cast, you just keep right click down and toggle through what you want to do for instant switching and casting (going for example from

Teleport into

Whirlwind with 0 delay beyond cast frame completion).

That's how I used to play but if you keep your keyboard key down with quick cast it works exactly the same way.

Zelym wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:23 pm

Schnorki wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:00 pm

Without quick cast, you just keep right click down and toggle through what you want to do for instant switching and casting (going for example from

Teleport into

Whirlwind with 0 delay beyond cast frame completion).

That's how I used to play but if you keep your keyboard key down with quick cast it works exactly the same way.

Sadly, it really doesn't. Keeping one held down blocks every other quick-cast to begin with so there is no switching without some form of release. And if on that release you're too quick for the game, you end up doing nothing.

Example (literally just tested because I figured maybe keyboard behaves differently from mouse and I just didn't realize because I use the mouse for nigh everything):
F1 =

Battle Command
F2 =

Battle Orders
Selected skill on right click = literally anything other than the 2 above,

Teleport in this example

Holding down F1 keeps casting BC as expected. Clicking or holding any other

Key while F1 is still held does absolutely nothing and BC keeps being cast.
Releasing F1, then holding F2 nice and slow does exactly what you would expect, it casts BO.
Releasing F1, then holding F2 quickly (before the slow-motion "skill switch back" from quick cast completed) does the same thing it does on mouse clicks, your F2 hit is "untoggled" for the game as the BC skill is de-selected and you end up with F2 held down,

Teleport selected as your right skill and nothing being cast. This is where the artificial lag/forced wait period comes in because some dev was too lazy to add a toggle-state check after the skill switch-back.

In the same scenario without quick cast, you'd simply hold down your right mouse button, hit F2 to switch from BC to BO and it'd keep casting with 0 waiting required and hence 0 (forced) delay.

The only way to not lose time while using quick-cast is if you happen to reliably time your next button press to that fraction of a window you have between the quick cast switch-back having completed and the cast animation for your last cast having completed. And while that is improbable to begin with, I'm not sure it's even actually thoeretically possible, especially at higher cast rates, as the switch-back feels so slow it may just be slower than the cast animation itself (though I can't claim to have timed those down to the exact frames).

Schnorki wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:32 pm

Example (literally just tested because I figured maybe keyboard behaves differently from mouse and I just didn't realize):
F1 =

Battle Command
F2 =

Battle Orders
Selected skill on right click = literally anything other than the 2 above,

Teleport in this example

Holding down F1 keeps casting BC as expected. Clicking or holding any other

Key while F1 is still held does absolutely nothing and BC keeps being cast.

Yes.

Schnorki wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:32 pm

Releasing F1, then holding F2 nice and slow does exactly what you would expect, it casts BO.

Yes.

Schnorki wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:32 pm

Releasing F1, then holding F2 quickly (before the slow-motion "skill switch back" from quick cast completed) does the same thing it does on mouse clicks, your F2 hit is "untoggled" for the game as the BC skill is de-selected and you end up with F2 held down,

Teleport selected as your right skill and nothing being cast. This is where the artificial lag/forced wait period comes in because some dev was too lazy to add a toggle-state check after the skill switch-back.

In the same scenario without quick cast, you'd simply hold down your right mouse button, hit F2 to switch from BC to BO and it'd keep casting with 0 waiting required and hence 0 (forced) delay.

I'm a bit confused here, not sure I understand what you are trying to do.
I think you want to use mouse click for

Teleport and quick cast for BO / BC and you are right, that doesn't work. But why are you not using the quick cast hotkey for

Teleport ?
i.e with F3 as your

Teleport hotkey, F1 -> F2 -> F3 (and keep F3 down to keep teleporting).

Zelym wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:23 pm

Schnorki wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:32 pm

Example (literally just tested because I figured maybe keyboard behaves differently from mouse and I just didn't realize):
F1 =

Battle Command
F2 =

Battle Orders
Selected skill on right click = literally anything other than the 2 above,

Teleport in this example

Holding down F1 keeps casting BC as expected. Clicking or holding any other

Key while F1 is still held does absolutely nothing and BC keeps being cast.

Yes.

Schnorki wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:32 pm

Releasing F1, then holding F2 nice and slow does exactly what you would expect, it casts BO.

Yes.

Schnorki wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:32 pm

Releasing F1, then holding F2 quickly (before the slow-motion "skill switch back" from quick cast completed) does the same thing it does on mouse clicks, your F2 hit is "untoggled" for the game as the BC skill is de-selected and you end up with F2 held down,

Teleport selected as your right skill and nothing being cast. This is where the artificial lag/forced wait period comes in because some dev was too lazy to add a toggle-state check after the skill switch-back.

In the same scenario without quick cast, you'd simply hold down your right mouse button, hit F2 to switch from BC to BO and it'd keep casting with 0 waiting required and hence 0 (forced) delay.

I'm a bit confused here, not sure I understand what you are trying to do.
I think you want to use mouse click for

Teleport and quick cast for BO / BC and you are right, that doesn't work. But why are you not using the quick cast hotkey for

Teleport ?
i.e with F3 as your

Teleport hotkey, F1 -> F2 -> F3 (and keep F3 down to keep teleporting).

Teleport isn't the issue here. It was just the example skill used that isn't BO or BC. I.e. you have some skill assigned to right click, whether that be

Teleport, attack, unsummon,

Whirlwind, whatever. Doesn't matter what that skill is. Then you look at any 2 other skills that you use via quick cast on the right hand skill slot (same goes for left-hand though), in this case BC and BO.

When you cast BC and then switch to BO, basically, what happens is the following:

1) Initial state:

Teleport (or whatever other skill) selected for right click, no buttons or keys pressed, nothing being cast
2) You hit F1
3.1) Game shifts your right-click skill to BC
3.2) Game starts casting right-click skill (now BC)
4) You let go of F1
5.1) Game stops casting right-click skill
5.2) Game changes your right-click skill back to

Teleport (or whatever it was set to)
5.3) Game clears all button states
6) You hit F2
7) Game shifts your right-click skill to BO
8) Game starts casting right-click skill (now BO)

The above is the chain of events that works. However, that is only because step 6 happens after step 5.3 in that example. If you hit F2 (step 6) after step 4 but before step 5.3 completes (which happens quite a lot if you're of the faster sort because they are separate steps and not one instant thing), then you get stuck at the completion of 5.3. This is because at that step, the game clears all button states and does not re-check them. That is, the game no longer knows that you pressed and are holding down F2. As a result, none of the F2 actions are executed and you get stuck with F2 physically held down,

Teleport (or whatever your base right-click skill is) selected and nothing casting because the game thinks you aren't actually holding any keys/buttons. That issue is only avoided by waiting for step 5.3 to complete before moving to step 6/hitting F2, meaning you are forced to slow down so the game can keep up with you.

If the dev building this hadn't been so lazy and just added a toggle/button-state check as a step 5.4, as should have always been an obvious part of it, then you could hit F2 anytime after releasing F1, including before step 5.3 completes. Hell, then you could even hold down F2 before you release F1 and as soon as you release F1, it would shift to BO. But since they didn't, it doesn't and you are forced to sit there and wait for the game.

I see what you mean now, you have to hit F2 between step 5.3 and the end of your cast animation or you'll lose a few milliseconds.
That can definitely be annoying with high fcr.

Indeed it is.

Side note: Sorry for derailing the thread, hehe