Actual health concern - Penance Brand of Dissipation

I want Path of Exile to be successful, so please see this as constructive criticism - not only for the visual effects of this specific skill but also the route the department is going with effects in the future.

Let me start by saying I am not aware of any skill, or game, that has realiably caused me a headache in the past. This all changed now, to my surprise, with Penance Brand of Dissipation. It took me a bit to figure out my headaches were coming from this skill because I had played the character for a while before - just not in the mid/endgame.

In other words: Once mobs live longer and the skill ramps up to occupy a large part of the screen (maybe in combination with high cast speed for more damage and a faster flickering rate?) I now perceive this as a serious issue not only for me, but a lot of other people as well. Not everybody might make the connection between this skill/flicker rate and their headache.

Anyway, as my last service before dismantling the toon/trying another skill I decided to record a few clips to show the problem. These are not special in any way - it's an average character on an average map doing average things, in other words: What a big number of players are doing right now, daily, for hours on end.

Example 1 - 11 seconds, T14 Jungle Valley Boss: https://youtu.be/NHktbuVJfZ4
Example 2 - 36 seconds, T14 Jungle Valley Beasts: https://youtu.be/9jtJie4V69U
Example 3 - 1min 28s, T14 Jungle Valley with MTX: https://youtu.be/-vA_NNY6BB0

If you just look at it for a short period of time there might not be a problem visible, but this flickering is on the screen all the time - for hours on end, the tougher the mobs (meaning they don't die instantly) the more pronounced the issue gets. I wanted to do Abyss, which I had been doing very successfully with another toon - and this one would have been great for it too, if only Penance Brand of Dissipation didn't cause me a headache. I decided to show the problem now with a Boss and Beasts because there is less clutter than with Abyss, but the problem is the same.

The possible solutions seem plenty, with the most flexible of course being a way to remove the visual aspect of the skill as already available for buffs on the character. Another route would be an additional MTX that does not flicker. I'm sure there are many more, but I just wanted to raise some awareness that the current visuals of this skill are not working out for what I bet is a solid number of people.


Last bumped on Jan 17, 2024, 2:02:14 PM

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