What is the counter balance to ascendant classes?

oooh I can already see the rage when this is released: since the difficulty is balanced on ascension classes and getting your poins at least in merciless will be very hard, the difficulty curve of the 4 acts will be even worse than it is now (again, ggg doesn't fix basic problems in the game - that's not their STYLE)

I forsee the labyrinth (or whatever) boss will be just as hard as unnerfed malachai... and we all know how well THAT guy was received

there will be a lot of LOL rage posts when this expansion is released, at least I'm hyped (LOL) for those!
since I have no hope for significant game design improvements in this game I am officially done with Path of Exile. done for good
Harder oneshots ofc. Is there any other way of GGG balance?
https://youtu.be/dMsiYZcg-Ko?t=11m21s

Spoiler
Time is 11m21s if it doesn't take you there automatically.


Chris confirming they've rebalanced the game around players having access to Ascendancy classes.
Last edited by Alhoon on Nov 30, 2015, 6:12:51 AM
Hopefully nothing. Still way to much damage from monsters flying around.
ProbablyGettingNerfed - L100 Occultist
Vinktarded - L100 Pathfinder
GoogleDiversityHire - L100 Necromancer

3.13 was the pinnacle of PoE. IVYS+1 Gang 4 Life.
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RogueMage wrote:
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Snorkle_uk wrote:
I'd say 98% of characters cant safely do really hard rolled lvl82 maps right now. From what Ive seen of the sub classes so far when they land probably 98% of that 98% will still not be able to do really hard rolled lvl82 maps.

Irrelevant, since 98% of players will never see a level-82 map (myself included).


There is some truth in this. Any 6 ascendancy point combo seen so far is generally not going to be enough to make a char go from struggling a map to steamrolling a map after counting in the buff to monsters or nerf to player. The lone exception is the spell block passive if for some reason a 75% block tank did not already use stone + rainbows.


I can't decide what's worst, monster damage buff making the game already more of a 1 shot lottery or yet another series of global defensive and crit nerfs to cripple non ranged attack crit players.
IGN: Arlianth
Check out my LA build: 1782214
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RogueMage wrote:
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Snorkle_uk wrote:
I'd say 98% of characters cant safely do really hard rolled lvl82 maps right now. From what Ive seen of the sub classes so far when they land probably 98% of that 98% will still not be able to do really hard rolled lvl82 maps.

Irrelevant, since 98% of players will never see a level-82 map (myself included).



well if a character in question is not trivializing the harder levels of endgame content for whatever reason then they dont really factor in a significant power creep that needs to be addressed with significant game wide monster buffs or passive nerfs. Having a character that could ezmode lvl82 maps but just cant get to them, thats obvious an issue but a separate one. I think the amount of characters who cant do X content right now but will be able to after the subclasses arrive will be quite minor, I dont see people jumping that far up across the board and I dont see the very highest tiers of builds being able to do anything they cant already do, maybe we get some more builds that can reach those kind of levels but not a new level.

Perm fortify, well people already do that, spellblock cap, people already do that. Theres going to be a wider variety of builds that can do these things but thats all it really is. You cna do a max spell block build that always has fortify up right now, thats not a new level of defensive power weve never seen before you just have more freedom in the ways you can achieve it. So it frees up your amulet, ok, and you get an 80 life amulet with flat phys instead, nice, but do you need to rebalance the game to make up for that? Not really, thats still within the small fluctuations you get from having slightly better or worse gear. A dude whos gear is worth an exalt or two more than yours because he has some good strength rolls on suffixes already has the 80 extra life with a bit more physical damage and its a fairly trivial upgrade.

Obviously a char who couldnt get spell block before at all for whatever reason, thats a big upgrade for that character but it only lifts that build into your pool of choices if you want to make a max spell block character. Its not like rainbow strides and lazwhar arnt instantly accessible to literally anyone who trades for next to nothing. Increasing build diversity is going to mean buffing builds who cant up to the levels of builds who can, and thats power creep in the isolated view of that particular build but on the wider scale thats just increasing your options not how powerful the most powerful thing you can do is.

Obviously every character is going to be buffed in some way by their ascendancy, there is a power creep aspect to it for sure. And certainly there will be rouge builds that slip through the cracks and find unacceptably broken combos that need nerfed. But I think that the creep will be a more trivial thing compared to the increase in diversity. Im looking at my long term endgame characters and yes, theyre all getting buffed, but I dont see them being able to really do anything content wise that they cant already do. I can however see ways I might be able to make a lot more builds that in one way or another can reach the same ballpark effectiveness of my current ones.
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Snorkle_uk wrote:
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RogueMage wrote:
"
Snorkle_uk wrote:
I'd say 98% of characters cant safely do really hard rolled lvl82 maps right now. From what Ive seen of the sub classes so far when they land probably 98% of that 98% will still not be able to do really hard rolled lvl82 maps.

Irrelevant, since 98% of players will never see a level-82 map (myself included).



well if a character in question is not trivializing the harder levels of endgame content for whatever reason then they dont really factor in a significant power creep that needs to be addressed with significant game wide monster buffs or passive nerfs. Having a character that could ezmode lvl82 maps but just cant get to them, thats obvious an issue but a separate one. I think the amount of characters who cant do X content right now but will be able to after the subclasses arrive will be quite minor, I dont see people jumping that far up across the board and I dont see the very highest tiers of builds being able to do anything they cant already do, maybe we get some more builds that can reach those kind of levels but not a new level.

Perm fortify, well people already do that, spellblock cap, people already do that. Theres going to be a wider variety of builds that can do these things but thats all it really is. You cna do a max spell block build that always has fortify up right now, thats not a new level of defensive power weve never seen before you just have more freedom in the ways you can achieve it. So it frees up your amulet, ok, and you get an 80 life amulet with flat phys instead, nice, but do you need to rebalance the game to make up for that? Not really, thats still within the small fluctuations you get from having slightly better or worse gear. A dude whos gear is worth an exalt or two more than yours because he has some good strength rolls on suffixes already has the 80 extra life with a bit more physical damage and its a fairly trivial upgrade.

Obviously a char who couldnt get spell block before at all for whatever reason, thats a big upgrade for that character but it only lifts that build into your pool of choices if you want to make a max spell block character. Its not like rainbow strides and lazwhar arnt instantly accessible to literally anyone who trades for next to nothing. Increasing build diversity is going to mean buffing builds who cant up to the levels of builds who can, and thats power creep in the isolated view of that particular build but on the wider scale thats just increasing your options not how powerful the most powerful thing you can do is.

Obviously every character is going to be buffed in some way by their ascendancy, there is a power creep aspect to it for sure. And certainly there will be rouge builds that slip through the cracks and find unacceptably broken combos that need nerfed. But I think that the creep will be a more trivial thing compared to the increase in diversity. Im looking at my long term endgame characters and yes, theyre all getting buffed, but I dont see them being able to really do anything content wise that they cant already do. I can however see ways I might be able to make a lot more builds that in one way or another can reach the same ballpark effectiveness of my current ones.




I completely agree with this. The ascendancy classes open up vastly more diverse way to make builds, and removes some of the pressure from relying on unique items. Even looking at "fire +1 arrow" or "increased base crit chance", I'm not really thinking "Oh god! Shit is so OP". Sure, it's really strong, but is a lightning arrow build going to only use 2 arrows? The answer is probably no, they are still going to use either lmp or gmp. The same with a dagger build. We know right know that CoC isn't really viable, ele buzzsaw is crap, and only reave seems to be an op crit melee skill. So, nerf reave a little, and allow for characters to not only make CoC good again, but also try crit axes, or oros, or whatever else have you. The options for new builds are so diverse that I can barely contain my excitement.

From what I see, the ascendancy classes almost solely increase offense (with the occasional exception), so I think it would be pretty fair to just increase all monster health from cruel on by like 10-20% or something. I kill most things fine; it's getting 1-shotted that it turning me off from the game.

Add this, and maybe remove 1 of piety's skill point rewards from each difficutly, and I could see the game being reasonably balanced. There will always be op builds, but I think a huge population of players enjoy creating their own out of new, strange combinations, and this is exactly what ascendancy seems to be allowing more of.
+1 arrow from ascendancy, +1 from a random quiver means free LMP which is amazing because you can now push your dps even higher with 1 more dps gem.
IGN: Arlianth
Check out my LA build: 1782214
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Fauxite wrote:


Crit chances are laughably low in Cruel. Even 100% more won't do much.


lolwut? i can get 30% with spells and 40% with daggers by level 50, probably more
Uh and yet again will go back to being 1 shoted everywhere prolly...It is starting to be very annoying.

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