Where were you when the GGG killed Incinerate?

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StDrakeX wrote:

But it hasn't been adjusted yet so how do we know?

I have compared my legacy gear from 2 years ago with what drops these days.



I noticed a trend.

Wait, why are we discussing IF they'll nerf it? Chris flat out said it: "Incinerate is certainly being adjusted due to its silly power level."

The only question is how much.

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1235 wrote:

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_Trekka wrote:

I hope they buff a lot of other skills as well.

Currently there is only a handful of popular spells and all this does is take one of those away without adding another.

If they're gonna nerf incinerate, they better nerf SRS as well considering it's more popular

srs is not that popular and never got to 100 first or anything, very few players in the top 40 are srs

In terms of popularity it is the same or in my opinion more popular than Incinerate which hurts build diversity

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_Trekka wrote:

In terms of popularity it is the same or in my opinion more popular than Incinerate which hurts build diversity

How popular a build is isn't really a matter of opinion. There are hard numbers as to which builds are or are not used and how far people get with those builds. And we know GGG looks at a lot of those types of statistics(probably far more than what they actually share with us) and makes balancing decisions based on them.

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Bars wrote:

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veganviking wrote:

Just a noob question. So many crit builds get to the 100k-200k damage. I liked the way incinerate worked, no crit but a constant damage.
The question is: is crit the only viable way to archieve uber damage?

Damage per se is meaningless. Clear speed is the most important. You can get excellent clear speed without crit.

I've seen build videos of melee crit builds with 200-300k tooltip DPS who clear slower than another build with 80-100k dps.

If they nerf incinerate, that will be a serious blow to the power of non-crit casters, though. IMO they need to buff most of the crit-based spells, not to nerf incinerate. We'll see how it goes.

Clear speed per se is meaningless. Fun is the most important. You can get excellent fun without clear speed.

It's a game, after all.

I don't think Incinerate and Poison Arrow are too powerful but too cheap. Dirt cheap compared to top builds of the past (Shavs/CoE for instance). That's why they are so popular and make for a boring meta. Could be balanced through rarity. But that's not an option anymore I guess..

on the other hand it's nice to let the casual (poor) player (me) have a go at atziri too.

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Clear speed per se is meaningless. Fun is the most important. You can get excellent fun without clear speed.

It's a game, after all.

Well said!

Efficiency can be beautiful but in the end you want a build that's entertaining for many, many hours.

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Bataille wrote:

I don't think Incinerate and Poison Arrow are too powerful but too cheap. Dirt cheap compared to top builds of the past (Shavs/CoE for instance). That's why they are so popular and make for a boring meta. Could be balanced through rarity. But that's not an option anymore I guess..

Might be good business to allow new players to have a couple of fun, inexpensive and powerful skills instead of locking them away behind layers of RNG and trading. When it comes to adjusting the price you should look at survivability, not damage. Tabula Rasa is a perfect example for that: A powerful 6-link that everybody can afford but it comes at the cost of less survivability.

Most new players never level past 70 so that's where you can start requiring extra defenses and more expensive items.

don't forget that the popularity of builds in new leagues is also affected by price

incinerate, poison arrow and SRS are very cheap, builds that use mirrored weapons are still stronger but people don't have great bows or daggers in temporary leagues or 1 month races

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Bataille wrote:

I don't think Incinerate and Poison Arrow are too powerful but too cheap. Dirt cheap compared to top builds of the past (Shavs/CoE for instance). That's why they are so popular and make for a boring meta. Could be balanced through rarity. But that's not an option anymore I guess..

But Poison Arrow not just dirt cheap, its FREE build: you can take any 4 link bow and transmut it to +2 bow level and kill endgame boss and any content... its FREE, require NO currency at all, not just dirt cheap but FOR FREE.

Also its so funny to see how GGG still not nerfed or deleted Poison Arrow from the game long ago, because they so much against creating strong unique (muh mandatory, muh philosophy that rare should be better then unique, muh non existent balance, muh game) but absolutely fine with creating SINGLE gem that beats game for free, dont need brain or skill, nothing from player but just faceroll and boredness trash.

What can kill Poison Arrow build? Reflect? Maybe there are some mods in map that can be harsh for PA? Maybe UBER extreme hard for PA? Maybe require 10 mirrors to be viable? Answer would be NO, it just have NO mechanic and no balance, it is what GGG try to avoid at best: creating strong unique (stronger then rare) so they make Poison Arrow in game.

Did incinerate stronger then PA? Nah, Inci require at least some defense and some damage from tree and gear, while PA require not to sleep while press to X, to win the game GGG tried to call HARD CORE...

But GGG not forget make melee unplayable and unreal for anyone who like to play melee, they remember in that exactly moment that their game hard core, but not for PA, just for melee only (exclusively).