Elemental Proliferation is fine.

"

Boem wrote:

Ok let me reverse my thought then for you.

How do you balance spells towards the content when a single gem turns them into a screenwide CC/AOE.

If we can dig deeper, we could say the same for the new "mini auras" (I like to call them that), namely the "Herald of Thunder" ability that triggers when you kill a monster, but unfortunately cannot apply shock. Of...Flame Surge, which cannot burn. I'm not saying that every new gem should have some negative trait to it, all in the name of Elemental Proliferation...no, but what I can say is that the newer gems should take into consideration of the gem, as with all other gem possibilities and start from there. I am pretty sure that the power of Flameblast was talked about heavily when it was made, but alas, was never foreseen to be as popular as it is today. I have seen times where the develepoers themselves would sigh as they had to rework/rebalance things because they simply did not see players use the gems as they saw (CWDT). Which brings me to....

"

Boem wrote:

How do you balance around players who don't want to use proliferation when it exists and potentially quadruples it effective damage output for a single gem slot.

You can't.

Those same players would be the ones who avoid Multistrike or Echo? Those are the go to gems whenever one wishes to futher expand their personal power over the dangerous island. It's a good thing and a bad thing, but a smart player would not ignore the potential of that or Elemental Proliferation. Melee Splash was introduced to help with Melee AoE and Echo and Multistrike to help with self casting or Melee potential. Elemental Proliferation is the crème de toute of AoE but strangely during the old times when Hardcore still had parties, barely anyone used it. Even in the new leagues, at least during Beyond time, I would barely see that being used until it became widespread as the gem to link with Flameblast. Gotta maximize that burn baby. For all we know there is already a nerf in place at the office and everything written here is for naught, but I need help understanding what is the limit for in which players are to have in terms of power; I want to see the invisible roof that bars the player away from maximum potential.

Don't worry, I did not avoid your question, as far as I know, I know little of what is discussed at the office in terms of how they go about to balance new gems and old. However, I would like to think that they are fully aware of each and every combination, or at least the main used gems in terms of what is the most efficent support gems, and go from there. It can be done, when one goes into the use of fire damage I am pretty sure they stack as much burning potential as possible. The more burn damage they do, the better they are for the sweet Proliferation to tear apart the screen. The initial hit and the burn to follow. Again, Elemental Proliferation just happens to be; useless on it's own, dangerous in the right settings. New gems do not have to be nerfed because of it, we have to account for the passives that increase whatever gimmick a player is going for, and account for how much damage they can achinve via the initial hit of the Proliferation.

"

Boem wrote:

And with the absence of a prolif nerf, every skill gem in the game is getting toned down in relation to it.

Flameblast got nerfed by 20%, are people bothered by it? Hell no, you can still spread it's damage output over an entire screen so who cares.

They could nerf flameblast by 60% like mirror arrow and it would still "work" as long as you have prolif in your links.

Now is flameblast at fault? Or is the prolif gem at fault?

Prolif is a More multiplier that only increases in potency exponentially to creatures on the screen, if that doesn't sound fishy to you, then i don't know what's left to say.

Peace,

-Boem-

I am deeply bothered by Flameblast being nerfed yet again, it was the most amazing skill I saw them come out with. It had the potential to kill you if used incorrectly, and it gave you a open spot to get killed if not channeled correctly. This brings me to another video I saw, at the Grandmasters...I was honestly a bit peeved that the player used Flameblast to kite the exiles into the burning radius of the Proliferation. I wanted them to die so badly when they entered that map with all the exiles created by players and implemented by the devs. By the issue at hand was not the Proliferation, it was simply that those exiles created did not know to avoid the burning radius...thus, they died like the mobs we so tenderly slaughter in the fields. Whatever nerf might come to this gem, players will always look for more power.

Time vs. effort. Today is my last day to enjoy PoE before I return to work Monday, and each time I play this game I am constantly trying to figure out how to obtain more power, through items or gems. If Flameblast was nerfed by 60%, I can garuntee players would change over to something else that gave an impressive initial hit, so that the Proliferation and burn damage could futher tear the screen down...and possibly crash the servers if that kinda power is your thing. Hell, playing a ice witch that froze the entire screen had me giggling like a 10yr old school girl, it is greatly satisfying. How would a nerf to Proliferation change that? A damage reduction wouldn't matter because I'd just keep freezing the screen with Echo. Look, I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong or you're right and I'm wrong. I'm just so tired of players complaning to something that does not really hurt them, nor does the gem itself warrent a nerf in my eyes.

I do agree with the sentiment that Prolif is absolute; it's either effective, or it's not. Any nerf will (imo) render it the same--either effective, or not.

If the nerf leaves it effective, then what did the rebalance really solve? High damage will still make the same use of it, and there will just be a higher floor before a "lesser" build might consider its use.

If the nerf leaves it ineffective, then why have it in the game? If the perceived abuse cases cannot make good use of it, then who can?

Just something important to keep in mind when suggesting rebalance.

Dude, lvl 20 prolif has 31 range, ice nova has 30 range. It's a support gem that you attach and suddenly you can have the largest range AOE in the game at the cost of no damage reduction at all.

Flameblast, MA, LA, and freeze mine are all nerfed because of how good they become with prolif.

Ice as an elemental has to be carefully balanced because suddenly the game gets easy as everyone picks up a freeze prolif character to make all encounters a joke.

Shit, shocked was completely reworked because of how it worked with prolif. It was changed a couple times before they just said fuck it and changed it to 1 stack for 50% as the only people getting consistent triple (4 stacks way back when) stacks were people using prolif, shit it was easy because 2 mobs shocked would prolif to each other going from 1 to 3 stacks instantly.

All of this damage done by prolif. Imagine if all projectile skills were balanced around a 0 damage reduction GMP. Anything too powerful with it they have to nerf down and stuff like FP shotgunning just has to be removed because it's too powerful with GMP.

I'm usually pretty cool and expect GGG nerfs, how they've been tiptoeing around prolif without putting a DR on it is quite unbelievable. Even if it doesn't work 100% of the time, a build like flameblast can get high chance to ignite without using the gem called that.

Maybe because of this potential inconsistency it doesn't deserve the 50%/70% treatment most AOE supports get but 80% and a reduction in the AOE seems reasonable. Maybe 60-70% to start and the gem gives a bonus either "chance to..." added or increased damage.

There's way to do it without ruining the builds but allowing strong builds to not blow everything out of the water. From personal experience the most OP thing about MA was the prolif. The AOE on it's own wasn't great, even with all the tree AOE and 20/20 IAOE. I also couldn't one shot rares w/o the burn, for something grossly OP, if it's only OP with prolif maybe we should be looking at that more than the source of damage.

I didn't realize it's AoE was so large (or rather, I forgot about that). That is definitely one area it could be rebalanced without suffering from the "all or nothing" paradigm.

Any actual DE penalty would, as I said, merely raise the floor. It would not balance the perceived abuse cases because it is difficult to balance around overkill without addressing the actual problem--reigning in the extremes.

I wonder if an actual mechanical change might be more effective, e.g., treating Prolif more like a contagion, which would spread to nearby enemies at a rate of n units of distance per second. Enemies n/2 units away from an active ailment would receive that ailment (it's current duration/damage/etc) 0.5s after impact, while enemies 2n units away would receive that ailment after 2s. This would scale naturally such that enemies nearer to the source would suffer worse effects, while those further away less so, or potentially, not at all.. I.e., targeting Prolif's problem at its core--that it's all or nothing.

They could just turn off the proliferation on corpses... Just sayin.

Well your previous comment is going over bad balancing. What really needs to happen is they actually need testing done on it to figure out where the sweet spot in DR is, rather than seeing it does high damage and nerfing it heavily like MA.

I mean it took a while for something like GMP to get balanced, I remember that being adjusted quite a few times. The fact that prolif didn't get balanced along with it leaves us in this spot where it's clearly too strong and it's going to take a bunch of time and work finding the right spot it needs to be in.

But it shouldn't just be left as it. Right now it's the best AOE support for it's comparable build. No support gems gives that much additional AOE along with no DR reduction from ST to AOE.

Imagine how good melee would be if splash was the same AOE as ice nova (ignoring the fact that it can be larger) and did single target damage to everything in that AOE. You'd still need to punch each pack but how would you ever match the DPS and effective DPS on a dual strike dagger build, one shotting the entire screen?

I totally agree with you, I just don't think numerical rebalance will really solve anything. There will be new cases where EP's "sweet spot" is simply too inefficient, but there will still be the top few that abuse it the same as now. It'd become more of a decision, but ultimately still a decision that makes itself.

Purely opinion/gut feeling, and I'd be happy to be proven wrong. If it'd take plenty of work either way, then I'd still be in favor of reinventing the mechanics, though. I rather like my suggestion, but I may be biased--I usually am in favor of balance through behavior rather than balance through numbers.

They could also tack on a X% reduced status effect duration. Just sayin.

Proliferation is a unique mechanic, so if it needs to be rebalanced (and I am not convinced that it does) I would rather see it done in a unique way (reducing duration, not proliferating from corpses) than just a simple damage/AOE modifier.

Because prolifs work best from a single target skill is why it probably needs a DR. While it's a unique mechanic it is doing the same thing as LMP/GMP/splash/IAOE for it's builds.

If it did not prolif on corpses it'd turn instantly garbage tier, I use prolif with Oro's and without burn prolif the way it is, I don't think I'd even considering using burning damage of any kind, I still hate burning damage because of Atziri, I mean come on why can't I ignite her...
Also, there is still HoA that'd be the fallback after any nerf on prolif.