A potential change I'm keen to hear your thoughts on

What this is gonna enable are attacker EBs. Pure elemental attackers get to skip Blood Magic gem because they can just wear Shav's Ring and spam all day long, and AT THE SAME TIME get to run 4 or 5 auras/heralds in mana ALONE. Which is good for these types of builds so far. Skipping 1 gem opens up another boost in DPS.



The downside there are casters, i was NEVER a fan of casters overall because of how fragile they are, erratic DPS especially for crit casters, a small bug's bite stuns me for over a month, also the fact that it has absolutely abysmal amounts of HP available overall in tree. So making another layer of a spendable mana that doesn't get recharged as you... Oh I don't know, cast your 120+ mana cost per cast skills? is a huge deterrent considering EB casters atm rely heavily on mana for survivability (what's left of it for casters) after you guys have cut off everyone's defenses over the past few patches. For casters all I see there is another reason why Pledge of Hands is going to become BiS if that is deployed and there are no changes to AA drain.

Kesytones and Goelms. The amount of typos surrounding Act 4 are growing in number. I've noticed them, probably before anyone else, therefore I think my prowess as a beta-tester is apparent, Bex? : )



Onto my opinion...
This would be a great addition to the game.

Onto my concerns...
Would the function of Zealots Oath and Eldritch Battery + % Life Regen be disconnected by Vaal Pact?

Onto my real opinion...
This would be an amazing addition to the game. If there's one thing I believe in it's "death to mana problems"

Onto my actual opinion...
I feel the suggested change offers one more super complex (non-generic) interaction that both bewilders noobs and rewards pros. That's not a bad thing. This game has always been that overwhelming monster with it's high level of obscurity. Understanding PoE: The True Final Boss of Act 4.

Onto my fake opinion...
Mom users get to run up to 3 additional auras, sustain their resource pool easier, and... yeah, Nickleback rocks.

Not a good idea in my opinion. All it does is make MoM a pretty much mandatory option if you were to take EB, which kinda negates the initial purpose of EB, which was to allow ppl to run a higher number of auras (which has gotten nerfed by the % changes anyway) and to increase mama regen. At this point, I'm sure there are still ppl who choose EB without choosing MoM, so all this change will do is further limit build variety.

If a nerf is needed, a simpler solution would be to just change EB to 50% of ES converted to mana, leaving the player with some ES to protect life, while also promoting mana regen and at the same time making MoM less of an automatic choice for EB users. Another option would be to just have a 20% less ES modifier on the keystone. No need or change things too drastically. MoM should be balanced around EB, not vice versa

I absolutely hate this change, you've forced players to take EB, it's the only reliable way to run cloak of defiance/AA/MoM, after you've nerfed block into a shit defense, armor into a shit defense, and you've pumped mana costs up to the state you have to get eb to run them, c'mon GGG don't go through with this, you've nerfed all possible defenses, EBs problem is it's the only defense you haven't nerfed, it's a sign you need to buff other defenses, not nerf the one remaining.

This kills EB, it's not even worth taking.

Shavvrone ring with mana regen, and ghost reaver? How would this add up?

Or Shavvrone ring with ES regen. Hmm... ?

"

Rory wrote:

This is one of the Keystone changes we'll be trying out in the Beta soon:



Edit: I suppose I should note this character has Eldritch Battery. Her Energy Shield is now paid before mana.

Edit edit: All the usual effects on Energy Shield will still apply to this ES - Recovery delay, Ghost Reaver, Zealot's Oath, etc. You'll not have any more base mana than you would have had prior to taking the keystone, though. Damage won't interrupt ES recovery any more, only losing mana or ES will.

Edit edit edit: Stun avoidance will no longer apply. Arctic Armour will still drain mana, ignoring Energy Shield, as will Mind over Matter. You can't reserve energy shield, so you'll just reserve the mana underneath.
Edit by Mark: Mind over Matter doesn't take from mana like AA, it damages it, which would be protected by ES in this case, since damage is what ES protects from.

More background: This change has an interesting history; I suggested it offhand as a strange idea, but it solved a few key factors we were investigating, like AA/MoM defense being too high for too low a cost, so it was decided to go ahead and try it out. It's quite likely we'll see other changes to the kesytone as testing progresses, but because it's such a big change to one of the most popular Kesytones, any sweeping change won't be made without testing the waters carefully. The change isn't intended to 'kill' any mechanics, but will give us the opportunity to reassess some. Edit: Like the mana drain amount or mechanic on Arctic Armour

Edit: Thanks for your thoughts, everyone! The team will definitely be discussing it on Monday, and we'll keep you abreast of changes as they're made. Keep your concerns and suggestions coming.

FUN DETECTED!!!! LETS NERF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please more nerf :)

Wouldn't an alternative to be to reduced the amount of mana you get from the converted ES. Acrobatics has a drawback, CI has a drawback, why doesn't EB? Maybe you only get 30% or 50% of your ES as mana. Making it so players need mana regen on both rings and neck and possibly dagger/wand/shield seems fair. You have itemize 5 items to have high regen.

Also why doesn't MoM have a drawback, like 50% less mana regen. Maybe you just need to bring down the level of the skills without totally changing them.

No. Just no. This is a terrible idea from every point of view.

"

Menoman wrote:

Jesus christ I can barely even read this thread there's so many people who have no reading comprehension at all.

I am in favor of this. EB/AA/MoM is much too easy as a defense for what you gain from it, it's become the standard for far too many builds.

yeah but why is it the standard? Because its this super defense mechanism? No, not at all, its a comparatively shabby defense mechanism, its used because its the ONLY defense mechanism open to most life based casters.

Guess what? After this change it will STILL be the only defense mech most of them have, and you will still use a cloak, and you will still take eb, but now you also have to take either ZO and a ton of life regen or GR and get a load of life leech on top of even more mana regen to run arctic armour at 1/3 of the level you used it at before to end up a build that just doubled its point investment in defense to end up even weaker than before and guess what, you are still a COD EB AA life based caster build...

We solving problems here or are we just nerfing life based eb casters? Seems me me like its a nerf that doesnt come with a meta shift, because theres no other meta to shift into, and that is the reason why we have the COD EB AA MOM meta in the first place, theres no real alternative for keeping these sort of characters alive unless they chrome a BBBBBR coil or say hey, fuck it, Im gonna go carcass for the dips and just rely on AA... oh wait ya they nerfed AA and now EB wont help you run AA hence the Carcass es wont help you out with that so actually weve just fucked over that option and made it even more of a COD meta because now thats the only way your es is actually going to add to your survivability with EB unless you take a trip to the other side of the tree entirely to actually get the mom node and then hey presto, your an EB MOM AA caster again... So good that were finally getting away from this thing where everyones an EB MOM AA caster right?




I feel like a lot of suggestions in this thread are trying to fix problems with the idea that the devs are actually trying to add. This is a nerf, I dont think they want to make this change and then flip it on its head so that it still works out the way it worked before, I feel like introducing these problems IS the idea, not a consequence of the idea.