Frenzy charges devoid of Purpose now

I haven't been one to focus on charges (not since 0.9.2, anyway), but I've recently been working on a frenzy build on alpha. I still think it does just fine, and it took a hit when they removed the the charge passives... and it's a templar... using a bow and duelist armor.

EDIT: Beware Wall of text.

what about power charges? I've got a witch wich i built as a 'Dagger Wielding Lightning strike Power charge' user. This is not possible anymore.

the Node that added a power charge on melee critical hits made it possible to build power charges on a melee based witch. to get power charge always were more tedious then any of the other charges as unlike Frenzy & Endurance wasn't a garantee on use/hit as you needed to kill a enemy with a wand (Power Siphon), get a melee crit Or let your minions die.

If you chose to let your minions die it becomes somewhat easy but in turn it becomes wasteful to keep summoning minions just to let them die instead of using the charges you got to kill the enemy as the duration is rather short.
this could allow you to use power charges as a spell caster & have your minions protect & empower you. this is also unreliable. If you level your minions to much you'll have trouble keeping your charges Or Level them to little & they'll die to fast forcing you to summon new ones to help you stay alive. This is now not possible anymore.


If you chose to use power siphon you'll need to rely on it to deal Most of your damage & Kill enemies to make sure your running with maximum charges at all times. Wands have the Least damage in the game but in turn have the highest Built in Crit chance. wich will give them the biggest benefit from any +% crit chance including power charges. why even bother using spells if they are already dead from power siphon & you need power siphon to sustain your charges, Now even more so. This makes a wand witch potentially extreamly powerfull wile any witch that wanna build for spells & power charges useless as you have no way of sustaining Or gaining charges for spells. In addition you didn't remove the 5% more damage with wands per power charge. This & Voll's protector are currently the only 2 ways to get power charges.


The 'Add power charge on Melee crit' made it possible for unique builds for a caster based class. It would be building them for melee combat. now building a witch for melee is rather useless.

From the Witch Start point i can Either spend 10/21/33 for a additional 1/2/3 power charges. wich only grants a additional 50% Crit chance increase each. Instead of spending 10 points I can spend 6 for 60% crit chance increase & 10% Crit multiplier, I could also spend 7 points for a 54% crit chance increase, Whilst i spend less points I can still use the 3 Free Power charges which you increased from 2. power charges nodes are to far away to be useful Even if you pass them by to get the nodes nearby (Especially the one next to the 'storm cast' node)


Power charges are Tedious to get & Sustain But gives you a potential Huge increase in damage. please note it's just a potential increase not a guaranteed like a bonus to your damage.

Frenzy charges need effort to get & Sustain. It was justified to move the frenzy charge maximum increase nodes & decrease the amount available, Not just the fenzy ones but both power & Endurance charges aswell. But the removal of the charge improvement nodes, (movement speed, Damage etc per Charge) was not justified. Previously with the amount of frenzy charges you could get & the improvements the additional nodes next to these gave you, they were quite obviously overpowered. with the removal of both of these they are now the considerably lacking (Much like power charges) to Less costly passives nodes. The frenzy charge improvements were to close to the increase in the maximum amount of charges.

Endurance charges are Extremely easy to get & provides a defensive bonus instead of a damage bonus. Endurance charges are currently the most usefull of the 3. They provide a Free 15% Damage reduction with almost no effort.

Hopefully the promised new skills will adress some of the issues we have with the charges. Potentially a support gem that grants charges on critical hits & adds some lightning dmg per level. maybe a support gem that grants increased dmg per frenzy charge or something entierly different.

Added from a friend of mine over skype:
[22:15:13] Dead Walker: The nerfing of the charge system not only brings less variation to the amount and flavour of the builds available to players (Although i understand this will be balanced in the future), but also essentially has removed a unique and interesting aspect from the game in patch 9.7 which was present previously, and the charge system will no longer be utilised as perhaps envisioned by the development team and a large proportion of the players, even if before 9.7 it was exessivley utilised in more prevalent builds such as discharge. I understand the efforts to fix this system in the future are not a massive priority but to myself and others this really is something close to our hearts and to new players entering the beta this mechanic proved new and exciting, and without it the game may fall prone to labeling as another "Generic ARPG" such as upcoming competitors such as Torchlight 2 and Diableo 3 (Although you'll do much better than them obviously, with such a superior game)

TL.DR:
Things i don't like:
1: Removal of the 'power charge on melee Critical'

2: To Costly in comparison to similar nodes on the passive skill tree.

3: To hard to sustain power charges as a spell user.

4: You start with 3 wich will allow you to be stronger without spending points on Charges.


edit:
I'll add more to this later as there is still alot yet mentioned. like the improvement nodes for charges.

I wasn't necessarily a fan of charges in general, maybe it's aesthetic but bright green orbs, orbiting your character feels tacky especially since the only variety between them is just in the colors. Maybe something more specific such as frenzy charges do something with weapon color or weapon effect, and endurance adds an aura to your character, a pale red glow or something that intensifies with increase

everthing is ok i have 3 ranger and skill make good dmg with frenzy =]

Guys the change to charges was temporary. I agree it was stupid and lazy (especially lazy) for them to just rip-out all of the charge-related passives (including ones like charge durations, or even "gain charge on X" which shouldn't have been removed), but they'll be returning stuff later.
In the very short term I hear some things like the charge duration passives will return.

I now balancing is really hard. They just need to find the path so you can build frenzy characters just because you like fast attack characters OR be slower but with more powerful attacks. But not both together. So people could choice what build they want when both builds are fair for the game.

I mean, it is ok if they decide to nerf frenzys to check now, but imo they need to find something in mid, not too powerful but not weak like they are now. Because the autor of the post said something that is the key: atm noone wants to invest 5 pasive skill points just for +5% attk speed.