u/Saint_yy

Dear GGG, please buff Hollow Palm Technique

Since we are getting the Martial Artist ascendancy in 0.5, I wanted to make this suggestion in advance:

Please buff Hollow Palm.

Hollow Palm has been nerfed into oblivion in 0.4, as it stands right now there is zero reason to ever go Hollow Palm over a Quarterstaff aside from early leveling.

Hollow Palm should be a viable alternative playstyle centered around attacking as fast as possible but with way less damage per attack, favoring Tempest Flurry + Staggering Palm type of combo, while Quarterstaffs should hit way harder but way slower, favoring Falling Thunder type of skills.

After 0.4s nerfs to Hollow Palm, and also nerfs to the support gems that Hollow Palm was built around, Quarterstaffs can basically attack almost equally as fast but deal way more damage, the balance is simply off.

I think it's completely fine for high end Quarterstaffs to be higher DPS, but Hollow Palm should still be the faster attacking style by a long shot if you want them both to co-exist as alternative playstyles, otherwise 1 will always be better than the other for everything which is the case right now.

And for the folks reading, nothing so far indicates that the Martial Artist ascendancy has any particular synergy with Hollow Palm, if anything, changing flat damage on gloves for extra damage as with Fists of Stone is better for Quarterstaffs that have way higher flat damage already than for Hollow Palm.

Anything else is speculation, the only lifeline for Hollow Palm aside from direct buffs would be that the last 2 Martial Artist nodes we don't know of have great synergy with Hollow Palm, or that at least 1 unique glove (hopefully Thunderfists) buffs Hollow Palm particularly hard through Fists of Stone.

Even then, this would mean Hollow Palm would only be usable for the Martial Artist, and every other ascendancy is way better off going a Quarterstaff, which is pretty bad game design if you ask me. Thats why I think a direct buff is due.

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u/Saint_yy — 8 days ago