GGG, when you balance, do you actually test or do math?

It gets boring now, but let's see...

- Crown of Eyes nerf: Totally justified
- Inc Crit Damage gem nerf: justified
- Acuity nerf: Also totally justified but why did it ever exist this way?

But then we also got

- ES nerf in tree
- crit multi nerf in tree
- Reduced Mana nerf in tree

No wonder people call it Path of Nerfs.

Basically when you play lowlife now, you're fucked. Either you play Mjölner Discharge aka GPU-Killer aka NoOneWantsToPartyWithYou, or you have a load of mirrored gear and play Spec Throw or Wander... not really what I call diversity for a build enabling item like Shavs and Solaris Lorica. Please, don't take the stats of level 100 characters with 5 mirrored items as a base for the thoughts.


Then, instead of reworking armour, you bring out new gems.

- Flameblast... still as OP as before
- Static Strike.... sure... absolutely not op.... [/sarcasm off]
- Kinetic Blast.... well.... Frost Wall anyone?


Honestly, with crap like this that looks like no one ever tested or calculated the outcomes of the tree changes and the effects of new skills you just make people leave. Not even mention changes that could have been done and weren't, like a Tornado Shot nerf, less rain, REALLY NEEDED REWORK OF DEFENSES (so not every build runs Cloak of Defiance, Lightning Coil or Belly of the Beast), rework of drops especially for single players compared to parties (maps and others).

Also, no one wants to play the same maps over and over again and hardly level at all. Especially when you cannot play the highest maps because you simply don't have the gear for it. The availabilty of endgame maps and gear should not be that low. If you want to make the game harder, add more endgame content.


You've taken the road to ruin for this great game. PLEASE test and calculate your next changes better. New content is fine, but balancing is the key!


Hope it will change for the better in 1.4.

Answer is: they do some testing, but they do not have a dedicated mathematician to crunch the numbers and test the scaling, so every league there is at least one important aspect that falls through.

Most recently: the ice storms in Bloodlines.

No, they dont.

Few points that need to be worked on by GGG

- bring block back to be a bit more accessible to the average guy
- rework armor formula to get less diminishing returns (when items like LC and cloak of flame are more attractive than 100k armor you know somethings wrong)
- improve evasion, give it something that helps vs spells
- bridge the gap between RT and crit, reduce / cap max crit multi, or introduce crit permanently and universally into the game like D3 does
- improve / rework leech and just remove VP.
- do something about this broken mjolner / coc / lowlife garbage, limit the procs of mjolner with lightning - molten strike like you did with kinetic blast + pierce
- look into monster damage, the inconsistency and spikes are ridiculous.

"

mazul wrote:

Answer is: they do some testing, but they do not have a dedicated mathematician to crunch the numbers and test the scaling, so every league there is at least one important aspect that falls through.

Most recently: the ice storms in Bloodlines.

Yeah it went from stupid spikes to another joke affix. A shame, this league is already bland as it is.

"

- bring block back to be a bit more accessible to the average guy

Its at a good spot, block is extremely strong and should be an investment in both passives and items.

"

- rework armor formula to get less diminishing returns

Yeah armor can use some improvements for sure.

"

- improve evasion, give it something that helps vs spells

Why armor doesn't give anything that helps vs spells, most evasion builds go for acro\phase, that is more then enough. Hell there is even

"

- bridge the gap between RT and crit, reduce / cap max crit multi, or introduce crit permanently and universally into the game like D3 does

Told you this in another thread, just no. Right now there technically is build diversity some that use crit, some that don't, even though the majority of crit builds out DPS non-crit ones, the non-crit ones still have some advantages.

"

- improve / rework leech and just remove VP.

Like what? Leech used to be extremely broken in this game, pre 1.0 ES builds were king, they have zealots oath, vaal pact, ghost reaver all easily accessible to them.

"

- do something about this broken mjolner / coc / lowlife garbage, limit the procs of mjolner with lightning - molten strike like you did with kinetic blast + pierce

Yeah lets nerf 1 item because in standard league players are doing 1 million dps with it. /s

"

- look into monster damage, the inconsistency and spikes are ridiculous.

If there was no threat of death at anypoint the game becomes unchallenging and un-fun.

"

Yeah it went from stupid spikes to another joke affix. A shame, this league is already bland as it is.

You just aren't a happy person are you?

"

ancalagon3000 wrote:

No, they dont.

Few points that need to be worked on by GGG

- bring block back to be a bit more accessible to the average guy
- rework armor formula to get less diminishing returns(when items like LC and cloak of flame are more attractive than 100k armor you know somethings wrong)
- improve evasion, give it something that helps vs spells
- bridge the gap between RT and crit, reduce / cap max crit multi, or introduce crit permanently and universally into the game like D3 does
- improve / rework leech and just remove VP.
- do something about this broken mjolner / coc / lowlife garbage, limit the procs of mjolner with lightning - molten strike like you did with kinetic blast + pierce
- look into monster damage, the inconsistency and spikes are ridiculous.

+1 to EVERY word

"

goetzjam wrote:

bla bla bla

You lost all my respect, you have not responded to my challenge in the other thread. (http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1165605/page/8) Please stop talking to me.

Flameblast OP?
Please, it may do a lot of damage, but you also have to stand still to charge it and try to get enemies inside of the circle. High-risk skills should deal more damage than low risk skills.

"

Obliviongamer91 wrote:

Flameblast OP?
Please, it may do a lot of damage, but you also have to stand still to charge it and try to get enemies inside of the circle. High-risk skills should deal more damage than low risk skills.

When most people call flameblast OP they are talking about doing 2-3 stacks and burn prolif the rest of the mobs.

As for standing still its a downside, but by endgame your cast speed should be fast enough to not stand for long.

I don't think its OP only strong throughout the whole game, supporting gear goes a long way with the build and people seem to forget that.

Flameblast does well because it works with minimal effort compared to other builds and scales well throughout the game as mentioned before.
Also almost every new skill outclasses previous skills:

Static Strike, Kinetic Blast, Tornado Shot

All 3 outclass previous skills that can be used (some may argue Molten Strike > Static Strike for single target, but Static is more consistent).
I would argue Static Strike is even better than Cyclone in most situations.

What was the last time you saw someone use Infernal Blow / Glacial Hammer in a party?

"

Mannoth wrote:

Flameblast does well because it works with minimal effort compared to other builds and scales well throughout the game as mentioned before.
Also almost every new skill outclasses previous skills:

Static Strike, Kinetic Blast, Tornado Shot

All 3 outclass previous skills that can be used (some may argue Molten Strike > Static Strike for single target, but Static is more consistent).
I would argue Static Strike is even better than Cyclone in most situations.

What was the last time you saw someone use Infernal Blow / Glacial Hammer in a party?

I think KB is better then PS when leveling, but in endgame scenario you get a pseudo 8 link from using PS.