Vaal Pact - The node make the game imbalance

Vp is a thing, zerker is an other thing, saying you need to be a zerker to be able to sustain spells is also an other thing.

Zerker, aside from getting a crapton of ias when hit/savage hit is nothing special, unless your dmg is really shit, the savage hit leech thing won't be that different, from only having 1% leech, for example I can leech trough shaper's beam with that 1% because my dmg output is high enough.

Sustaining mana comes in a 100 different ways, stacking mana for MoM not just solves this, but now with the small nodes behind it becomes really easy as well.

Eldritch battery, while most people overlook this node, one of the best caster chestpieces are skin of the Loyal/lords, granting you 100% global def, meaning you can get away with very little ES investment and allows you to use hybrid life/ES gear effectively.

Also no idea which spell has such high sustain cost, that people can't solve it with some small investment, oh well "zreker onlx option, #meta nerf plz".

Other, than that leech and the generic dmg you get nothing else from the ascendancy for spells, while you could go inquisitor for example, cash in a ton of free cast speed, crit,resist ignore, a 15% more multiplier.

Not to mention if someone really wanted to play a meta spell that would be SR which has virtually no mana cost, so it is rather the case of people wanting to play suboptimal skills without trying to think about anything at all.

Yeah my crit on hit gmp chain essence drain is so hard to sustain on mana, when I'm a lazy cunt to pick up 5 nodes on the tree. /s
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krenderke wrote:

Zerker, aside from getting a crapton of ias when hit/savage hit is nothing special, unless your dmg is really shit, the savage hit leech thing won't be that different, from only having 1% leech, for example I can leech trough shaper's beam with that 1% because my dmg output is high enough.


But even getting that 1% unconditional leech without Berserker is damn hard if you use spells? Prefixes on rares and items like Doryani's Catalyst provide mere 0.2% leech, and that's not enough even for high-DPS build. If you deal 1 million DPS (which is very high DPS VS boss), you will leech only 5k hp/sec with 0.2% leech.
There are very few options to get 1% unconditional leech or more for spells. Berserker is one of the cheapest options, btw.

If you have a build, that deals insane amount of hits (CWC icestorm, etc), then there is a HUGE difference between even 1% leech and 100% leech, because with first, you still cant be "bursted" with few hits in 0.3 sec, and with second, you cant be bursted down by anything but oneshot (or hits in 0.02 sec time window).

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krenderke wrote:

Sustaining mana comes in a 100 different ways, stacking mana for MoM not just solves this, but now with the small nodes behind it becomes really easy as well.

And i didnt even mentioned yet mana leech as well... That trivializes mana sustain for kinda expensive spells, you know. Sure, you can stack mana and use MoM... But guess what? You need Atziri's Acuity to leech mana instantly. Without it, you can leave OOM if taking serious DoT damage. Without ability to cast spells and leech you.... that's right, you die. Not to mention how many nodes and gear mods should be sacrificed just to get decent mana pool.
Still, MoM is one of the most popular defence mechanics in the game. But is it better than pure life? Well, i theorycrafted many builds in PoB, and i can assure you, that if your build doesnt invest many points into mana anyway (like pathfinder, just because flask nodes also provide mana), or use an item with huge mana boost anyway (like Pledge of Hands), you MoM build will always be worse that pure life one.

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krenderke wrote:

Eldritch battery, while most people overlook this node, one of the best caster chestpieces are skin of the Loyal/lords, granting you 100% global def, meaning you can get away with very little ES investment and allows you to use hybrid life/ES gear effectively.

The problem is, you still dont receive an ES pool automatically, you must use flat ES items for it. And dont forget, that you also need to recover it quickly, and WHILE CASTING (so normal ES recovery will hardly do the job). With ES values nerfed drastically, even with +100% global defences, you'll receive less "pool" than before 3.0.
EB is a complete crap aside from very few specialized builds, and they are far, VERY FAR less powerful than any of T1 meta builds.

Sure, with proper investments, you can make any interesting mechanics "work" But dont forget - your skill point number is limited, gear and jewel slots are limited, socket numbers and links are limited, and bonuses provided by gear are limited too. If you spend too much "efforts" to make something work, you will have to sacrifice something else. You will have less HP, or less sustain, or less DPS, or less AoE, or less movement speed, and so on (and most probably, less of everything), COMPARED to top-tier builds with approximately the same gear "level".

Like my current build has less DPS, less HP, less AoE, less clear speed, than "top-tier" 2-h Sunder... So simple.
IGN: MortalKombat
Molten Strike build guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1346504

There is no knowledge
That is not power
Most builds on HC don't use vaal pact because one has to sacrifice precious life nodes to get it. VP won't help you against crappy one-shot mechanics.

I'd really love it if GGG removed insta-alt+f4 and nerfed mob crits so that i had a chance to get to that VP node some day.
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LaiTash wrote:
Most builds on HC don't use vaal pact because one has to sacrifice precious life nodes to get it. VP won't help you against crappy one-shot mechanics.

I'd really love it if GGG removed insta-alt+f4 and nerfed mob crits so that i had a chance to get to that VP node some day.


Hardcore is different, true.

The problem is, from HARDCORE perspective, the overall PoE desighn is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. Enemies have insane damage, insane damage burst, can hit you off-screen, and you CANNOT build defensively enough to be completely safe in endgame content, even with full BiS mirrored gear. And god forbid you get a small lag or disconnect in hard content... Or just get surrounded by too many mobs and your FPS melts down...
Because GGG think it's "good for game", when player can press one "oh shit" button (alt+F4) and instantly escape from any danger, if he's still alive and has control over character (and how it can be automated by bot-like "chicken scripts" that disconnect you on HP drops").
The best you can do, is to grind easy-as-fuck underleveled content, that has no chances to harm you (T10-11 maps, Beachhead, etc).

GGG is trapped by their own decision to make instant logout, instant leech, other forms of overpowered sustain to be present in game. To make enemies able to kill player in those circumstances (and make game a bit interesting), they should deal enough damage to oneshot player.
IGN: MortalKombat
Molten Strike build guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1346504

There is no knowledge
That is not power

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