Very satisfied with the new passive tree, but 2 problems remain

As a long time player (closed beta) with a billion characters and a billion hours invested into this game spent playing the game, theorycrafting and posting on forums I must say that I am extremely happy with the new passive tree. It solved many issues.

One of them was aura stacking; I've made multiple threads and posts in the past about this (who I just briefly tried to dig up but gave up because I realized I actually can't be bothered to sift through all of my shit). Auras were simply too strong on most builds. Running Clarity + Discipline on an aura build? I guess that's a free arctic armour for you if you get EB because the bonuses to both the mana regen and flat mana are unreal. Running IR? I guess grace now allows you to run around nude and grace + determination allows you to run around even nuder. Another thing about auras was the increased incentive for party play (because auras truly shine their retarded light in teamplay), meaning solo players had not much chance of winning any racing events that's longer than 1h (it's no surprise I finished top 50 with a full aura char in the 1 week domination race but barely reached top 200 in the 1 week nemesis and 1 week onslaught race). The flat nerfs to some auras (anger wrath clarity... probably more) is also very welcome.

There are still two problems though:

1. Class balance not always as effective
Witch is still overpowered and there's still little incentive to pick up a Templar or Duelist. Scion got a bit better but still remains a little underwhelming. Ranger is now grossly outclassed by Shadow thanks to the Shadow's superior early game, decreasing incentive to start Ranger. Shadow also has more gem variety.

2. Still too much incentive to go IR
With the changes to thick skin, it seemed to decrease incentive to go IR. Sadly the flask nodes (which were previously 4x8% life nodes) give retain this incentive. Additionally, some parts of the game (i.e. Haku's falling rocks) punish evasion whereas there's nearly nothing that punishes armour (even tanking a vaal hammer smash or touch of god is better with armour if you're playing HC because you can't rely on the x% chance to dodge there).

Most high end builds don't go IR because they have permanent ICall anyway.

Also it has been my experience that bosses during the leveling stage are easier with evasion. Class balance needs another pass, but Ranger has kept superior bow skills (shadow has essentially no support for bows outside of going down to ranger).

IR is overrated and has been for a long time. It's great for certain builds, but a lot of people just take it as a lazy option, like how they used to take Blood Magic keystone (back when there were more flat cost auras).

As for what punishes pure Armour: projectile attacks with 'added elemental/chaos damage'. Ondar's users don't care because they're pretty much unhittable with projectile attacks, but IR users will feel it, especially with the repeated nerfs to max resist bonuses.

Also, being able to dodge 30% of *spells* with Phase Acrobatics is quite a big deal, especially if spellblock is not an option (e.g. because you're using a bow).

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Incompetent wrote:

IR is overrated and has been for a long time. It's great for certain builds, but a lot of people just take it as a lazy option, like how they used to take Blood Magic keystone (back when there were more flat cost auras).

As for what punishes pure Armour: projectile attacks with 'added elemental/chaos damage'. Ondar's users don't care because they're pretty much unhittable with projectile attacks, but IR users will feel it, especially with the repeated nerfs to max resist bonuses.

Also, being able to dodge 30% of *spells* with Phase Acrobatics is quite a big deal, especially if spellblock is not an option (e.g. because you're using a bow).

Yah this too.

IR hasn't been deserving of the hype since they disabled Dex Evasion bonus applying to the armour you gain.