With the recent release of scaling missions, there’s been a lot of feedback complaining about the high health of enemies, especially in higher tiers. But an interesting point I’ve noticed often being mentioned among those complaints is, despite their high health, the enemies aren’t challenging at all because their damage is never a threat, because Signet of Cruel Delight keeps the player at full health.
The issue is, it’s impossible to balance solo content to be challenging for both players who use Signet of Cruel Delight, and players who don’t, due to Signet of Cruel Delight’s ridiculous scaling and healing (chance to trigger is scaled by crit chance, and base healing is scaled by signet level; however, the healing can also crit, which means it’s scaled again by crit chance, as well as by crit power[1]).
With max legendary glyphs and all passives, a player is expected to have 42.5% crit chance and 140.1% crit power (as well as +7.5% crit chance and +30% crit power from max weapon expertise)[2]. A max Signet of Cruel Delight triggers for 1400 healing[3]. This means, on average, every two seconds, Cruel Delight provides 2233.595 healing. With max capstones and all passives, a player has 7512 health. This means the healing from Cruel Delight is approximately 29.734% of a player’s health; in other words, every seven seconds, Cruel Delight restores over 100% of a player’s health.
Show/Hide Calculations
Non-crit amount: 1400
Crit amount: 1400 × (1 + 1.401) = 3361.4
Expected value of non-crits: (1 - 0.425) × 1400 = 805
Expected value of crits: 0.425 × 3361.4 = 1428.595
Expected value per trigger: 805 + 1428.595 = 2233.595
Expected value per second: (0.425 + 0.075) × 2233.595 = 1116.7975
In comparison, Soothing Spring active restores 29.5% health, and Reconstituting Shells active restores 16–26% health, and only every 20 seconds; a weapon with 3-pip “of Restoration” attachment restores 2.25% health every 2 seconds. Furthermore, the healing from Cruel Delight is automatic, and doesn’t require sacrificing an active or passive ability slot.
I feel Signet of Cruel Delight should have its healing reduced greatly, and changed to no longer benefit from crit chance and crit power, to bring it in-line with other sources of healing. Additionally, its healing should be changed to a heal-over-time effect, or given a recharge/cooldown, to help balance it for both players who have low crit chance, and players who have high crit chance (and bring it in-line with Signet of Thirst).