Combat Stacking... Yes/No?

So I have just really been power clicking my way way through, stacking when I noticed something close, but mainly using single glyphs. So I decided to try stacking to save my focus. What I found quickly was my deck was not set up for it, so obvious choice, I cut my deck down to 5 glyphs and controlled where they come up at.

Now this gave me the ability to stack spells but I found it very difficult, when playing in reticle view to get to 7/8 and back to the WASD. So, Restructured the deck again,locking the right side of the bar as unreachable. I found myself more focused on what was coming up and stacking then the fight itself. So I am on the fence about stacking, the benefit is there due to focus regen but dmg output wasn't much better and my defense spells did last longer.

I really like the concept of stacking and Combo's but I find myself with less hands then I need when playing in reticle view and trying to fight.

Pros:

• Use less mana
• Defense last longer
• Takes a lot of player focus to run and stack

Cons:

• Too difficult to stack and move with WASD on right side of keyboard
• Sucks to stack to level 4 and miss (a lot)
• Really limits the deck size to get glyphs to efficiently coming up
• Dmg stacks don't do more dmg

So am I missing something with this that can make it a little easier?? And what is everyone else's thoughts on stacking glyphs?

 

As a pure mage, I find stacking to be absolutely essential to maximizing your damage output and focus consumption. It's a little harder to do with melee or archer since your glyphs cast much faster than many of the magic glyphs.

I set my deck up specifically for stacking glyphs though. To do this, I only use keys 1 through 4 for stacking. I'm currently still working on my Earth deck, so I'll share what my old Air deck used to be below:
5x Chain Lightning
5x Lighting
2x Ring of Fire
4x Healing Touch
2x Healing Burst
5 Locked Slots.

Slot 1: Chain Lightning, Lightning, Ring of Fire
Slot 2: Chain Lightning, Lightning, Ring of Fire
Slot 3: Chain Lightning, Lightning, Ring of Fire
Slot 4: Chain Lightning, Lightning, Ring of Fire
Slot 5: Healing Touch, Healing Burst
Slot 6: Locked Blink (Q hotkey)
Slot 7: Locked Death Shield
Slot 8: Locked Shield of Ice
Slot 9: Locked Passive Stance
Slot 10: Locked Defensive Stance

This makes it very easy to reach the keys I use for stacking since they're all on keys 1-4. I always stack from left to right. I never stop casting though. While casting I'm simultaneously stacking the other glyphs during the casting time and global cooldown. I don't stack defensive skills since the increased duration isn't really worth the time imo or the fact that my deck would need to be much more open and therefore more random.

The most efficient way to stack, if you are unaware, is to hold down the hotkey of the first glyph in the stacking combo and then press the hotkey for the second glyph. This will stack them together without having to use your mouse at all or without having to add an additional step by pressing R first.

 

I reassigned 6-0 on the hotbar to be easier to reach, Q, E, mouse3, mouse4, mouse2 and it made it a ton easier.
I hear that "E" is a key people use to loot stuff now, but i never used it before so im not upset about it

 

Yeah unfortunately it looks like very customized shortcuts for specific deck builds are going to be an answer. I kinda don't like that, I think if they added to new controls for an auto combine stack and an auto combine combo, it would alleviate some of the pain of trying to reach keys.

 

I've made it easy for myself by assigning things that stack to adjacent keys, or by doign thigns like havign 2 skilsl i want stacked on Q and E, then having them both drawn in mouse2. So that i can hold down mouse2 then tap q or e

 

It is similar to what I came down to.

I set my stacks for 1-2-3 and a 4-5-6. With locks on 7,8,9,0

I never wanted to get stuck with a glyph that couldn't stack so I had:

Slot 1: Discharge
Slot 2: disicharge/lightning
Slot 3: Lighning
Slot 4: shield of ice
Slot 5: shield of Ice/Evasion
Slot 6: Evasion
Slots 7-0: healing locked and random to fill up to 20 glyphs.

Anything that comes up in 2 is stacked either with 1 or 3 and 5 stacks on 4 or 6. This Limited the combinations of keys I had to depress and allowed for quicker WASD return after getting use to it. But only 2 attacks/2 Defense allowed.

 

This is how i stack

 

I like the concept of stacking, but the UI implementation doesn't work when I spent 90% of my time looking at my bar instead of looking at the fight. I don't get to enjoy the fight... Stacking is an individual preference. Perhaps an ability to auto-stack cards is in order? I.E. instead of filling a new slot, just auto-stack, then when you reach the stack amount you like you could right click or something to lock that stack count.

 

I really like the concept if I am understanding you right.

So if obsidian arrow is in slot one and the obsidian arrow glyph is drawn then it would be conbuned with slot 1 instead of put in a new slot or discarded. This idea would really alleviate the finger cramps and if you leave your spells in your hand then they are charging to full strength.

I really don't see this as a huge developmental burden and all the other mechanics can stay the same. I would love to see this implemented. Who do I send money to?

 

I have to agree that with a fully unlocked deck, I find myself looking at the bar most of the fight.

Stacking stuff on the right with my mouse while executing mostly single moves via keyboard on left.

Once in a while I will drag, drop, click stack. Or keyboard stack 1-5.

For those with cast times, there's a little more room to stack without any loss whatsoever.

There's also many tricks to building a good shuffle deck, to not have long pauses or times without your main skills up.

Definitely a learning curve.

Sometimes its good to gustball and use a 18 glyph training deck to get a feel for it.

Draw speed enhancements are very strong.

Low CD you can lock, or long CD that has an equally long duration.

But mostly, having 4-5 copies of each glyph, and having them spread out correctly, is the optimal setup

 

Unfortunately you still have a cap for efficiently getting the glyphs you need. The more you add the probability that it will not come up next will be higher. So slower to get the glyphs you want to stack.

 

I am loving the spell weaving system more and more each day. Personally I use 8 unlocked "random" slots, one locked for training new skills and one locked for buffs. Once you learn your glyphs by heart it only takes a glance at the bar to combine them I've found. It definitely requires some effort to hit the right keys though, which I find disrupts the monotony and is fun

 

I would love to have stacking that makes sense. But with the caster stance they gave us it makes even less sense and somehow it feels like noone ever thought about how it is intended to play out. No real concept here and were fishing in the dark trying stuff that will most likely get revamped anyway. Stacking needs to be done differently... stances for casters need to match that... No concept to be found here.

 

That is exactly why I stopped deliberately stacking. Except I'd set up 5x whatever-- and miss. On the few occasions when a 5x hit, it didn't do any more damage than a 1x. So, it's a waste of time and effort for me. I might stack or combo by accident now. It is no longer try to do it.

 

Im not a fan at all of the stacking. I usually at least try to stack once but as a melee its just a pain in the arss to stare at the bar. Ever since mobs started running all over the place (archers and mages), it very hard to stack. I was also finding that for some reason, I crit way less when stacking. I fight cultists in Seq Colossus and the fact is that I have to mash them down most the time with chain stuns so they dont run off and pull 3 more archers on me. I find it easier to burn focus fast and kill them fast then waiting 10 seconds for focus to regen vs going slow, stacking slow and having them run off and pull 3 more mobs on me which ends up making me burn my entire bar then run off from the remaining mobs still attacking me. Its all about how efficient it is. In EMP's video he stands for quite a long time stacking. I would have had the mob dead already and be standing there the same amount of time waiting for my focus to regen. This is actually good for me since Ill just flip over to my alt and find the next copper ore to harvest in the mine.

 

What would be really nice is a "uoassist" for SOTA "SOTAassist" that actually looked at our bars and stacked them for us.

 

I don't stack my melee (Thrust) ever. I use multiple draws to machine gun it for hard frontal arc damage.

Coup de Grace I do stack, unless using excessively to level it up. Stacking it also leaves more Thrusts in the deck to draw.

Corpse Explosion stacks until I have a nuke and a target. This also shorts the deck.

Same with my buffs once active. Then I pop those stacks at the end for a long potent buff.

Death Field is similar. It's more effective half way through. Due to HP lost and need of recovery. Stack shorts deck, adds potency and drops focus cost.

Discarding does not short the deck, and I find it far poorer action

 

I have a G13 game pad and set it up to do exactly this. I use my thumb to move (wasd) using the joystick like a console game, then have 22 programmable keys. You can set them up to do individual keystrokes or macro keystrokes for stacking. Works great, and rather than spend a huge amount of time looking at the bar I just glace at it and hit the appropriate key to stack.

MIND LOCK is huge too. Train that bad boy up to 110-120 and you can permanently lock your 5-stack. Which also means your non-stacked cards come up a lot more frequently as your 5 card stack is no longer in your deck. At 120 it has a 10s cooldown so you can permanently keep your stacks until you need them.

 

I would rather see them incorperate a usable fix in the game instead of having a 3rd party program do it for them.

 

I really do believe it depends on whether you have cast timers and cooldowns as to how much time you have. But I also don't play in mouse-look mode. That being said, I follow the same formula many others here do...

Slot 1/2: Ice Fist, Ice Arrow, Searing Ray
Slot 3/4: Ice Fist, Ice Arrow, Searing Ray, Lightning, Earthquake
Slot 5: Douse, Healing Touch, Shield of Ice, Blind
Slot 6: (Locked) Evasion
Slot 7: (Locked) Dodge
Slot 8: (Locked) Deflect
Slot 9: (Locked) Soothing Rain
Slot 0: (Locked) Healing Touch

My Summon Elemental spells are on my non-combat bar.

I am very frequently stacking glyphs from the 1-4 areas, which is quite close to WASD.

I also prefer spending my time making decisions in the hot bar and not running around like an idiot in combat as many games tend to devolve into.