feedback after playing the last 3 leagues: game balance

I've been playing some passives that i haven't used much in the past 2~3 leagues, and i have some things i want to give feedback.
SSFHC perspective

I can't say for sure if these ideas are good because i dont know Developer's balance philosophy. still, i think the more ideas the better.
I will describe the Issues i felt while playing various builds and 2~4 ideas. (mostly melee perspective)


1. Rage stack
Melee builds that dont have high APS(attack per second) are quite stressed about managing rage stack.
this happens when picking up items, playing league content that requires you to stand idly by, fighting boss that has invincibility phase.
low APS melee isnt very good in current meta. Nevertheless, if you are playing 1 APS build, you will want to have attack speed that feels *AT LEAST SMOOTH*. so rage is good source for every melee builds

make melee builds to use rage flexibly
idea 1: lower maximum rage. amount of rage gained, amount of rage used, and power of other passive/skill gems are adjusted accordingly. (berserk, rage vortex, warlord's mark, berserker Ascendancy nodes, etc)
idea 2: add some items like gain rage per warcry power Charm introduced in Affliction league


2. The Impaler keystone + acestral totem
Once you allocate The Impaler keystone, you will not be able to impale enemies again for 4s. so you will want to hit your first hit with as much damage as possible.
but what happens if a non-linked totem used simply to get more melee damage buff impales enemies first?
your dps will be disappointed because your totem, which has very little damage, will already impale enemies
to avoid this situation, i tried to summon totems far away from enemy. however, things didnt change as intended. its either too far away and the totem doesnt work, or enemies get close to the totem.
quality effect of acestral warchief didnt help much either.

make an option to prevent totems from applying debuffs
idea 1: add line to The Impaler Keystone. totems can not impale enemies.
idea 2: add ancestral totem-specific support gem. supported skills have x% increased attack speed, but Enemies can not be Maimed/Impaled from supported skills.
idea 3: totem deal no damage Mastery or Crafting
idea 4: make an option to toggle attack/stop status. im looking forward to Ancestor totem being removed from game tbh xD


3. Spell suppression is too strong
Unlike other meta builds, many melee builds are forced to make sacrifices in order to cap 100% spell suppression. (amulet annointment, armor base, wasting more passive points, etc)
melee builds can more easily take block passives, but in the current meta, spell suppression is much more powerful and stable when you reach endgame.
i think blocks are treated as an additional defence layer especially if you are trying Ubers. its not essential like spell suppression.
its becoming difficult for melee builds to use powerful uniques that are newly added every season in order to have spell suppression.(unless you are playing an super endgame build that uses most powerful uniques like Chaos hit dual strike)
So, i think that compared to other builds, melee builds dont change as season passes and have tendency to only do same builds as in the past.(and everyone is just playing boneshatter!)

make a way to get elemental damage redcution once you reach the endgame, even if you use strength armour type
idea 1: it would be nice to have a new keystone/mastery comaprable to Juggernaut's Unbreakable(x% of armour applies elemental dmg taken from hits) node. for example. if you have max fortify and you gain addition fortify, you gain +x% max resistances for that fortify time.
idea 2: buff uniques taht can get spell suppression with downside like Willowgift and add new uniques with spell suppression.
idea 3: revamp maximum fortification affixes to use it more flexibly and adjust maximum fortification number(new way to get maximum fortification rather than focus)


4. Slow slam(1APS) damage scaling
I think fast attack builds have and advantage over slow attack build that dont scale attack speed.
for slow slam builds, most use Intimidating warcry(Deal double damage&Phys overwhelm). then x% chance to deal double damage on Focus(suffix), which is one of the weapon crafting favored by fast attack builds, is virtually useless.
so what more can slow build do with suffix of a weapon that has phys plat(prefix) + phys increase(prefix) + phys hybrid(prefix) + attack speed(suffix)?
since Double damage(suffix) has little to do with dps, so exluding this, the only crafting to increase weapon dps is Accuracy rating(suffix) for allocating Precise technique or Increase attack speed while a Rare or Unique is nearby(suffix). these are much less powerful than Double damage(suffix). so i think fast attack build has an advantage.
there are crit mods in suffix, but crafting a weapon with both physical damage and these crits is not easy to make due to low weight, and even if it is, build itself must be optimized to crit build. and optimization process requires really high gear level.
additionally, Panopticon passive increases effect of all active ancestor totem. ancestor protector will make fast attack build more faster.
slow attack builds can also benefit from not using a protector by buffing only warchief totem(not protector) with Dawnstrider, which is relatively easy to get, but as i said before, if melee uses a unique, it will be more hard to cap spell suppression.
im glad that Echoes of Creation were added to the game, but spell suppression is hard to get again.(and this is Uber drop now!)

i completely gave up on capping spell suppression and tried to improve survivbility by increasing maximum life or maximum resistance, but it required more investment to get damage reduction as much as spell suppression.
only build using Chieftain's Valako, Storm's embrace can scale elemental damage reduction close to builds with spell suppression, but there are requirements such as mana reservation, requires flask maintenance, requires multiple cluster jewels.
Chieftain's Valako, Storm's embrace even reduces elemetal attack damage. but i dont think suppression is weaker than Valako, Storm's embrace because most bosses dangerous abilities are mostly spell damage.

revamp mods for melee weapons.
idea 1: buff uniques taht can get spell suppression with downside like Willowgift and add new uniques with spell suppression. (i think it has something to do with spell suppression. to equip uniques that slow attack builds can use)
idea 2: higher physical affixes number but local attack speed suffix is prefix now (to fill a gap between fast attack builds and slow attack builds)
idea 3: add new suffix mod to melee weapon. x% increased area damage.
idea 4: add new suffix mod to melee weapon and some armour. x% increased warcry cooldown recovery rate, x% increased warcry buff effect, x% increased warcy duration


5. Its very hard to get 20% quality transfigured gem with Vaal version.
I agree to some extent if you say that like "it should be more hard to obtain because its has Vaal skill!"
however the effort required to get 20% quality in SSF is too much compared to non-Vaal gem

make it easier to get Vaal version transfigured gem.
idea 1: add vaal gem crafting to regular Labyrinth crafting. instead, it adds some penalty, such as random 0% to 20% quality loss.
idea 2: increase chance to change the transfigured gem to its corresponding Vaal gem when using vaal orb or Doryani’s Institute(double corrupting)
idea 3: increase Eternal Labs entrance fragment drop rate, and lower difficulty little bit



Other suggestions

Harvest tier3 text color is displayed more clearly in yellow
Inquisitor's Fanatictism VFX needs to be bigger
It would be nice to have Trickster's Heartstopper VFX
It would be nice to have Ruthless support VFX like Fist of war support
Please make a way to use Fist of War mtx for the skill granted by Chieftain's Tukohama, War's Herald