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

I think putting a notable behind EB saying mana regen applies to ES would go a long way to help it.

"

Rory wrote:

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

Spoiler

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.

Yeah no, it's garbage, I'm sorry. Cool concept, but makes extremely mana intensive builds impossible.

Stop wrecking existing builds please.

So I got curious, with EB I am 425 mana regen, without I drop all the way down to 290...sigh, no way for a RF char to use the new EB either, so I be fucked I think...I would have to ditch CoD/AA just to be able to use incinerate...bah

dont worry guys Invalesco is making EB builds on the beta right now to prove that its bad ☺

If anyone can, its him.

Invalesco has tested it in beta:

http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/33k0g6/spoiler_a_glance_at_the_new_eb/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN5UI3irSAo&feature=youtu.be

It's shit.

"

toyotatundra wrote:

Invalesco has tested it in beta:

http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/33k0g6/spoiler_a_glance_at_the_new_eb/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN5UI3irSAo&feature=youtu.be

It's shit.

Shocker?

"

Rory wrote:

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.

Why is it too low a cost though? ES on gear, ES otherwise virtually useless on a lot of caster gear to anyone going life-based. If its truly too much for too little why not have it give a fraction of ES to mana instead?

Honestly I've use AA without MoM and effectively going near glass cannon I guess, with just life. I've found it solvable (mana regen wise) with EB though I wouldn't personally call the experience 'easy', merely workable - accessible. Additions and changes here and there as AA leveled up. To me it seems like just another path to what can be achieved with mana regen, i.e. it could be feasible for the same character to still run AA with more mana regen on gear, though also maybe being forced to squeeze more out of the tree. Meanwhile with either some minimal crummy ES shield or ditching it for...armor...I guess?

Not at all sure you'll solve your 'problem' with this 'solution'. And Inner Force is already gone right? That's quite a bit of AA down the drain, already, basically, in terms of maximum gain.

What (direct, personal) defense exactly does GGG expect casters to have or go for then? Because everyone is always going to seek that kind of defense out and desire it, to improve the basic survivability of the character. Or is the design philosophy to simply make it more 'painful', if you will, to get to what is already expected?

I think the problem simpler, though. That it is too popular, and too wide-spread, and that's the real reason it is targeted. To alleviate the *feeling* of existent imbalance, and to see greater variety. The true solution there, to that, is more comparable options and that's not easily solvable with snappy nerfs and eradication of nodes, now is it? It comes from things like this new stuff designed for Melee...

This particular idea seems less a solution and more a shot in the dark while hoping for the best. Deceptively interesting? :)

Since grandmasters will now get beta access I will be testing this out too, on sunday or monday whenever we get it.

WIll be testing as an arc caster running AA/EB with 3 auras hopefully more. WIll also be a build for HC.

Let you guys know how it goes.

Rory, if you are still out there mate I have a thing here Id like you to look at


http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1249958/page/1


This is a thread where a fairly new player is asking for help on how to survive because ehs getting gibbed by mobs. Hes playing a life based spell caster, here is Vipereques response to him...

"

viperesque wrote:

The other problem is that you need to be using your mana better. You don't have Arctic Armour (which is basically mandatory for EB builds to survive).

mandatory for EB builds to survive. Mandatory. Hes not wrong.

Now look at the guys gear, hes wearing what you would expect people to wear, ES gear with life on it. If you make this change to EB, the ES on his gear will not help him run AA, AA being the ONLY form of defense this guy can actually have. So the question is, if the ES on his gear now only helps him sustain casting spells by making it shield his mana and then investing even more points into Zealots and then life regen... what is his defense? What is a player like this going to do to defend themselves?

You are taking away all their defenses, you are asking them to wear gear with no defenses, ES gear, and then turn it into mana, but even though its turned into mana it wont be able to help him with the only mana defense that is realistic without a Cloak Of Defiance, Arctic Armour, the MANDATORY defense for EB casters because there is NOTHING ELSE.

and guess what? AA absolutely sucks as a defense, its awful, it was never that good and you guys nerfed it hard now youve stripped inner force. So what is this guys ES good for? He now has to not only find a way to spec ES, Es recover, ZO and life regen to turn into ES regen... he also has to spec a ton of mana and mana regen to attempt to run AA. Even if you greatly reduce the cost of AA, its still an investment. He doesnt even have enough points to spec a decent life pool, and now youve just put a ridiculous amount of investment on his plate to be able to get the same shabby AA defense.



this change is making ES on gear for a life based class useless unless they are hybrid life + es, because you still need to invest in proper mana to run AA, and that has nothing to do with ES. Once you can run AA you can fuel your skills from mana, you designed AA to work with moving and non moving degens to allow people to cast and sustain it, its in the design of AA with the standing still vs moving. So what is his ES for? Its useless, absolutely useless.

So whats the answer? You make AA easier to sustain? But rory didnt you say the whole reason for this is that AA was too easy to sustain? And now the only way out of this mess is to make AA easier to sustain. If EB doesnt help you sustain AA, then actually it makes it harder to sustain, because you are investing points in EB, ZO, GR, ES Recover, %ES, a ton of things that are not working towards AA. So if non EB characters have an easier time sustaining AA than EB chars due to having a lot less to invest... doesnt that just open the floodgates? Now you dont need EB for AA, doesnt this mean more people will use it? People who dont have to invest in all the crap EB currently demands will be able to run AA, its working completely against what you said this is for which is to make it harder to get so much out of AA and MoM.

Furthermore, as Ive said, you basically destroy ES hybrid gear, now mana sustain is more important, Cloak Of Defiance has more mana than u can get on a rare chest, it has mana regen which you cant get on a rare chest, so isnt this making COD even more needed to actually use the ONLY defense open, AA? + it gives you MoM... So now if you use Cloak then your ES buffer not only helps you cast your spells but its also acting as life, so you have EB casters using rare ES gear = you now have absolutely no defense and Cloak chars = you have more of what u need to sustain AA and you get MoM so if you spec into ES sustain like you are expecting other EB casters do you can fund spells from ES, have that MoM buffer being ES, reserve more % mana than you previous could with a cloak as you now have the buffer, you can run a higher AA than rare chest users...


dont you think this makes everything worse? I beg you not to reconsider this change, it is so bad for the game, so bad for rare ES gear, the reasoning that AA and MoM are too strong is imo highly questionable to start with and the only way to 'fix' the problems that this brings with it is to make AA and ES easier to sustain which is doing the exact opposite of what you are actually trying to do. Please mate, if you want to nerf AA then taking away inner force and devotion did that, if you want to nerf MoM then nerf it, if you want to end cloak dependency then move MoM somewhere rare gear casters can get it, those solutions actually work towards what you are trying to do, this doesnt, at all, everyone in here trying to fix the idea to make it work are suggesting things that ruin the entire reason you guys came up with this... so why bother doing it at all when its just destruction without actually solving the problem?

@Snorkle:

Guy called Vexcid played his hybrid 5k life+5k ES Flameblaster to level 100 in Beyond running max AA. With the reduced drain on AA this will be much easier even if Rory is intent on keeping EB in the dumpster.

I think the root of the problems is the 6+3 sec base recharge time on ES which is terribly outdated with the pace of modern PoE. ES is supposed to offer mitigation via this recharge but right now it is only able to function as a replacement for life (CI/LL) because it's not reasonable/efficient to stay away from damage for such long periods of time.

I also think if they think CoD is too strong they should just nerf CoD directly. The keystone MoM is already nerfed by its position on the tree. Though I suspect the EC/IC nerfs will have made these builds undesirable enough.