I like life builds, but man I miss seeing build diversity.

I've been hoping for a flat damage reduction to enemies for years as its what devalues defenses more than anything else, like others say theres a chicken and egg problem with VP, its required to deal with spikes, and spikes are required because of VP just get rid of it and tone the damage down appropriately.

Strong defensive builds should be able to do offensive map mod rolls, they can't, only remote skill (minion/totems) can do offensive map mods safely and I think thats ridiculous frankly.

I've been really pleased with the content provided in 3.0 but the game balance changes i'm not happy with at all and it isn't really ES nerfs though i still think they went way overboard on that its the combination of extremely confusing DoT scaling to give rubbish dps and boss health being increased so much you feel pressured to go 100% damage.

Every tree i'm making currently has the same problem, once you have 200% life and a few damage nodes you never have room for anything else, I had to drop dodge from my raider because she can't get enough life, it was only 6 points and I still can't get them in without dps taking a heavy hit or sitting below 5-5.5k life. Previously i'd have taken the damage hit and been a really successful mid-tier mapper but now you have to fight the bosses for so long anything becomes dangerous that isn't leech spam faceroll.

”no build diversity"

Sure all those poison builds were fucking diverse and even str classes building ES, because it was cheaper both on tree and in gear investment, than proper life gear.

"

krenderke wrote:

”no build diversity"

Sure all those poison builds were fucking diverse and even str classes building ES, because it was cheaper both on tree and in gear investment, than proper life gear.

And now we have int classes stacking life. Not really an improvement in any way.

"

TheAshmaker wrote:

They never make a serious effort at balance ever. Its ALWAYS a meta shift.

this so very much this

balance is not their goal

its more like the builds take turns being OP or sucking

right now its ES turn to be in the garbage

"

Bone2flesh wrote:

Simple yes or no question: You find 20K ES, insta leech with 4 mill dps okay?

Simple yes or no question right back at you: You realize that those numbers belong to a fringe .001% of the player base that could afford that level of ES gear AND ran with a support right?

Balancing to the extremes in an ARPG is an impossible task when a LARGE group of players feels like the whole point of the game is to become OP by finding some crazy combination of skills or gear.

A lot of people play this game to break it...and that's typically how ARPGs always have been. You work to become OP and laugh at the content.

IF you think that by neutering ES builds you have magically increased the viability or build diversity of life you are delusional and blinded by jealousy or hate towards a gameplay style you don't understand.

I can answer your question with a resounding NO, because it was such a small min/maxed portion of the entire community that reached these numbers.

Most average players were happy when they hit 12K es... but hey balancing around extremes seems to be the best idea when most players entire goal is to seek that extreme and min/max it.

Seem counter-intuitive.

"

Draegnarrr wrote:

Every tree i'm making currently has the same problem, once you have 200% life and a few damage nodes you never have room for anything else, I had to drop dodge from my raider because she can't get enough life, it was only 6 points and I still can't get them in without dps taking a heavy hit or sitting below 5-5.5k life. Previously i'd have taken the damage hit and been a really successful mid-tier mapper but now you have to fight the bosses for so long anything becomes dangerous that isn't leech spam faceroll.

^^ Exactly the dilemma that many players are facing. Prolonging boss fights is great and all, but now you have to scale damage to end the fight quicker. It lopsides all players towards more glass-cannon/offensive styles of gameplay because defenses in this game (layered or not) are bound to fail.

Most of the time, short-sited players start spouting off things like "get some block" or "maybe drop an offensive aura for a defensive one"...

You can say all that, but it does not good because the boss will still one shot you. Until defenses are meaningful in this game it will always be a DPS chase or play builds that scale of high life pools like DP and RF which is what is dominating the meta currently.

What is it like almost 500c for a Kaom's now? If you dont' see that as a problem or indication of poor game balance I don't know what to even tell you.

"

Vertal0 wrote:

"

krenderke wrote:

”no build diversity"

Sure all those poison builds were fucking diverse and even str classes building ES, because it was cheaper both on tree and in gear investment, than proper life gear.

And now we have int classes stacking life. Not really an improvement in any way.

You can still go ES on plenty of builds, but now the difference is you need to pick an ascendancy, that was designed for it, ofc no vp facetanking, but if you actually layer defenses it is still very good, no-vp builds work still quite as good as they used to with the exception of ED, that used poison in a no broken way.

"

krenderke wrote:

You can still go ES on plenty of builds, but now the difference is you need to pick an ascendancy, that was designed for it, ofc no vp facetanking, but if you actually layer defenses it is still very good, no-vp builds work still quite as good as they used to with the exception of ED, that used poison in a no broken way.

So your defense to all of this is "Oh just pick Occultist or Trickster"... ES is fine.

Completely fucking ridiculous. Pray tell... since when was it okay in POE for any specific ascendancy/class be the "best" option for something? It's okay for ES builds to get pigeonholed?

Once again this is a biased an nonsensical approach to game balance.

Try playing a class that doesn't get free ES in ascendancy. Now... try using that class without a shield (I know shocking that some templar out there might want to use a staff).

All of the people saying ES is fine hasn't even played ES in 3.0. Actually if you want to go look at the ladders, let me know at what position you finally find a player that is not a support using ES...Bet they are a trickster or occultist... yay so much diversity.

If people keep allowing GGG to fuck around by meta shifting instead of balancing this will always fuck players over in the long run. One day your favorite life build will be dumpstered when GGG gets tired of the life meta and pull's the puppet strings again.

GGG is nullifying player effort over and over and over again since beta...which was fine since the game kept adding content. NOW however I am watching GGG closely. If they keep fucking around with player time like this then there is no point to play the game.

So many of my friends have quit because they can't finish their characters in standard before GGG nerfs some core mechanic they rely on and it fucks them.

I know GGG doesn't give a shit about standard...if that is the case then they need to stop telling people that Standard is where you play when you dont' have that much play time and want to invest long term in a character.

It's fucking horseshit and unjustifiable.

"

I mean, they clearly don't have a problem with instant leech, since it still works with HP, and you can still get like 14k life if you have top end gear and use Kaoms.

i genuinely wonder how i could literally triple my raider's HP who's already sitting in over 20ex worth of gear with belly, hp on every item (except helm, if i swap helms i gain like 400 hp tops)

i mean im sure some build somewhere with tons of cash CAN get 14k hp

but that's about as commonplace and sensible to do as those so called "30k energy shield builds with good balance of offense and defense"

so dont talk about 14k life as something everybody runs cos i bet most people (even above level 90) dont have half that

whereas my howa last season had 10k energy shield with the same(ish) gear and the same level with a grand total of 3(!!!!!) energy shield points spent

my raider is now in 6200 hp, with 27 life nodes that's 7 times as many points for barely more than half the hp

"

Simple yes or no question right back at you: You realize that those numbers belong to a fringe .001% of the player base that could afford that level of ES gear AND ran with a support right?

Balancing to the extremes in an ARPG is an impossible task when a LARGE group of players feels like the whole point of the game is to become OP by finding some crazy combination of skills or gear.

A lot of people play this game to break it...and that's typically how ARPGs always have been. You work to become OP and laugh at the content.

IF you think that by neutering ES builds you have magically increased the viability or build diversity of life you are delusional and blinded by jealousy or hate towards a gameplay style you don't understand.

I can answer your question with a resounding NO, because it was such a small min/maxed portion of the entire community that reached these numbers.

Most average players were happy when they hit 12K es... but hey balancing around extremes seems to be the best idea when most players entire goal is to seek that extreme and min/max it.

Seem counter-intuitive.

However the issue is actually the fact that those number were obtainable in the first place. It should not be practically possible to break the game like that. It kills the game eventually and GGG wants to prevent that. Who would have thought.

You want to know why it's an issue?

Because the community is made of sheep who follow the 0.1% you mentioned and the majority of people went ES because with enough play time and effort YOU could potentially at some point break the game.

Want proof? The 0.1% deemed ES unusable and went life (something I played from day 1 POE launch exclusively) while life had no chnage. Check the boards and see how 80% of people now are life. WHOOHOOO for having a god dam brain of your own.

ES is first of all not neutered. You picked on everything in my post that you could argues with (poorly) except the examples of viable CI and low life in it's actual state that can beat the game.

What it is however now is simply not the best choice in the game. That is literally increasing the choice pool of builds. People go mainly life now BUT mark my words once the 0.1 % get bored and try ES again and deem it viable the sheep will follow.

Blinded by jealousy? Play style I don't understand? I know the game well and have had enough currency in Standard to have one of the 20K ES builds. Just that some of the my wealth is on some friends accounts who like to mess in standard: a few legacy Kaom's, a 6L Legacy Shav etc. But I kid you not I could have at any time had a build like that. I just don't enjoy cheesy bullshit that is inevitably getting nerfed. I am surprised it took so long.

I love life builds, I only played life since day 1 and will continue to play them regardless of the state of ES. All this drama is however really really making me want to play a end game CI just to slam you Negative Nancy's in the face with it. I know people proved to you people it's viable and they are just disregarded, but it would be satisfying for me to do it.

Also thank you for making my point. You should not be able to reach 12K ES as an average player when an exceptionally well geared player could reach 9k HP. The very definition of poor balanced again. Congratulations: you played yourself.

Also even if I were to go on your silly premise of balancing around the 1%, wan't POE presented as a game for the hardcore players? That actually implies they balance around what those players can do with the game. Anyway it's not the case as I eloquently made my point above.

"

Completely fucking ridiculous. Pray tell... since when was it okay in POE for any specific ascendancy/class be the "best" option for something? It's okay for ES builds to get pigeonholed?

Necromancer for all varieties of summoner.

The minion damage% from the ascendancy tree cannot be matched. It's frustrating.