GGG, with the balance changes in beta in mind...

... could you please fix some of the issues that drove players to the things you've nerfed to begin with? From the hardcore perspective.

1) We are facing level 80 content with level 60s gear. The power creep on the mob side continues to scale, but most of us are running around with gear we started using in our 50s-60s. The desire to not "outdate" mirrored gear is being harmful to the game because we aren't scaling past 70 like we do 1-70, but content scales up very quickly. This largely contributes to players relying on gimmick defenses like coil, MoM, etc... Trying to defend yourself with the same chest you used against merc piety when facing aztiri is kind of the suck.

2) Awful flask mechanics. Why doesn't anyone want to use mana flasks? Because the mechanic of the flask turning off if you hit full mana is so frustrating that it almost makes it useless to carry them past early-mid game.

This is also part of the reason everything but seething health flasks aren't used at end game. This game is either you are gouged for health and dead almost before you can react, or you get your seething off and live/evade the danger.

Who is going to use a flask that heals 5,000 over 10 seconds or something in that kind of environment that will also expire you if you hit full health at any point during that 10s.

3) Leap Slam is OP as hell on mobs, especially PACKS of mobs. This is why everyone began running CWDT+EC+IC to begin with. Basically if you are anything but a block tank, you ARE going to eventually rip when a pack of 8-12 extra fast leap frogs shits all over you from off screen before you can do anything about it.

Leap Slam should be a movement skill that allows mobs to close distance, not a tear your face off alpha strike LOLURDEADNEWB skill.

4) Devourers spawn in too big of packs. Part II of why everyone run CWDT+EC+IC. Devourers are just too strong. Bloodlines really showed how GGG can't even really add new types of mods because on devourers they become insane (see: cult of elements, otherworldly). Devourer maps were basically just "ehhh screw it abandon ship and roll a new map". Devourers can be scary without begging to RIP your character for even being dumb enough to attempt the content.

5) ES recharge mechanics need a rework. These weren't so bad in CB, but as you put more and more fights with complicated mechanics that damage the player constantly, finding 5 seconds to stay undamage to regen is pretty unrealistic. This makes CI basically REQUIRE either ZO or ghost/VP. You simply can't survive on the default mechanics alone and it's kind of lame.

I don't necessarily agree with #1, but the other points are well made.

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Zaanus wrote:

3) Leap Slam is OP as hell on mobs, especially PACKS of mobs. This is why everyone began running CWDT+EC+IC to begin with. Basically if you are anything but a block tank, you ARE going to eventually rip when a pack of 8-12 extra fast leap frogs shits all over you from off screen before you can do anything about it.

This, a 1000 times this ! Leapers are the 16t weight dropping on your head from out of nowhere.
I was long against the popular opinion of cwdt being mandatory, but because of these buggers, unfortunately it´s true. Have a cwdt safety net or rip to leapers, it´s just terrible.

That all contributes to part of the reason why I don't play any more. The loot gets very sparse as you get further and further leveled, not to mention people are pretty quick to leave any ladder after a month or so, so trading becomes fairly impossible as well.

I don't think they're going to tweak flasks, as it remains, they're a choice, just one that people rarely take as far as mana flasks are concerned. Granted, I think they need to be changed, but I feel no one at the GGG office has concerns about it.

Pretty much any surprise physical damage needs to go away, I understand the need for spike damage, but making it as hard as it is to mitigate the damage received from it, I think it needs tweaking. I kinda wish armor worked like resists, where depending on the armor you get a certain % armor reduction, like cloth robes give 1% and Glorious plate gave 20% or something along those lines, but eh, they don't play their game enough to realize how bad armor is or just don't know how to fix it.

IMO, they are adding several extra damage choices for the player (slower proj gives more dmg, more melee dmg with bloodlust,more damage scaling attack gems, etc) to balance out the lack of gear.
Also, in 2.0 you will be able to (or maybe even, HAVE to) go more tanky in your passive tree because of the abovementioned extra damage options from gems.
So, imo, it will balance things out.
As for the flask mechanics you pointed out: i find them clunky as well. Especially mana flasks could benefit from a change in order to stop being worthless in mid-end game.

I am with you on #2 and #5.

I'm curious what peoples' suggestions for ES recovery may be, beyond just "it has to change."

Also, I think it's kind of funny that I've been saying this since practically the first day of 0.10.0, but not many people really cared... until the change to EB ^-^

One good suggestion I saw for ES recharge is to make it start regening immediately at a low rate, then have the regen scale up to the current recovery rate over the 6 seconds (or whatever delay you have based on passives/items). Since the regen would start slow, I don't think it would be overpowered.

Haha Devourers, I thought I cant die to anything... then I rolled Palace with 50% monster pack size, 98% monster cold damage, animals. I lost 50% there :D Not even CWDT could save me against so many Devourers with ele damage.

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BurnedInEffigy wrote:

One good suggestion I saw for ES recharge is to make it start regening immediately at a low rate, then have the regen scale up to the current recovery rate over the 6 seconds (or whatever delay you have based on passives/items). Since the regen would start slow, I don't think it would be overpowered.

Thats sounds like and interesting idea.

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BurnedInEffigy wrote:

I don't necessarily agree with #1, but the other points are well made.