Hey. I hate passive procs so here are some thoughts how I would make them better. This is not a small change. This is just an idea and I know I have not taken everything in consideration and all the numbers are just to give some kind of picture what I´m trying to say. I do think that if this would work perfectly it would be very healthy for the game. Or at least I would be extremely happy. :P
This would only effect powerful defensive procs from traits with kind of long cooldowns cos I think they are the biggest problem and would keep this pretty simple. Like Self-Regulating Defenses, Defy Pain, Last Stand, Soothing Bastion, Eye for an Eye, Hunter’s Determination, Shared Anguish, Desperate Decoy and Last Refuge. There is not all but you get the point.
All runes that have a defensive proc that would reguire the attacker to react to that proc (nightmare) would be reworked. Something like giving few seconds of protection or small heling would be ok. No vampire rune kind of things or runes that give you stealth at some health treshold.
When the traits conditions are met a skill would get unlocked for 3-5 seconds. It might flash a bit so it would be more easy to notice and then you would have that 3-5 second to deside if you want to use that prock or not. If you would not use it the cooldown would be ~50% less next time. If you use it it would get on full cooldown. Maximum amount of procs at the same time would be 2. If there would be even more then lowest base cooldown procs would just go for ~50% cooldown.
This would make these traits more reactive and would reguire lot more skill in form of consentration, reflexes, decision making and would not be just life saving procs that reguire you to do nothing. This would allso make few traits more usable cos they would not interrupt skills and would not prock when not wanted. This is a big problem with traits like Desperate Decoy and Last Refuge.
The 3-5 second time is to make it a proc that needs to be used right there at that moment not just an extra skill that you can use when ever you want. There would be enough time to wait your current channel to end and then use the proc.
The ~50% cooldown reduction when you dont use the prock is to make it possible and worth it to save it on some different moment when you really need it. You dont want to endure pain some random auto attacks but you might want to endure pain a burst that might happen a bit later in the fight. This would make decision making a part of this and make a higher skill cap.
Maximum amount of unlocked proc skill slots is 2 to make it simple as passoble but not make less important procs overwrite the more inportant ones.
The traits should be categorised in 2 so you could key bind the other procs on one key and other ones to another key to keep it simple but make the same proc allways appear at the same skill slot. So you would allways know witch key to press. The categories migt be procs that activate on health treshold and the procs that activate on control effects. Like soothing bastion would be in one category and eye for an eye would be at the other.
The proc slots could have a timer that shows the cooldown of the proc. If there would be many different procs on the same category then the current lowest cooldown would be shown.
This is looking pretty complicated but I dont think it would be that in action. So thats pretty much what I figured out so far. Ofc you could just remove these traits from the game and thats it but I think improving is better than just giving up. Allso I am not sure if this amount of work put in to these traits are worth it. These changes would be awesome but you dont get stuff for free. I dont know how much effort this kind of thing would take tho and how big the positive output would be game wide.
There is a lot of different balance things in my mind but I think we all have and they can wait for now. I just wanted to put this out from my mind cos it was growing too big and wanted it to either get shot down or to get somewhere. :D And sorry for the typos.
Tell me what you think.