Facebreaker Over-Nerfed?

I recently got my hands on a very nice pair of Facebreaker mitts, and I already had Meginord, Ignomon, and Blackgleam. Naturally, a curiosity about a Facebreaker build quickly dawned a new character on my list.

Other than the horrendous attack speed, I quickly fell in love with my Facebreaking Marauder. However, as I progressed into later difficulties, I began having some issues.

For example, the loss of a huge chunk of armor, life regen, and possible elemental resist mods by lacking a shield in favor of Blackgleam severely cut into my livability, but I considered it a fair trade off, given the insane increase to attack power. Especially when using the likes of Infernal Blow and Elemental Hit.

But then I got curious and swapped the quiver for a high armor shield I got as a drop. After noticing that I lost only a little damage, and gained a significant amount of damage reduction, I figured I would try to work with a shield for a bit.

Upon further review, I noticed that upon equipping the shield, the DPS for Shield Charge was increased by the Physical Damage increase from the mitts. This made my day. Until I tried to use it!

Simply put, why in the hell does Shield Charge not work with Facebreaker mitts? This makes no sense at all. An equipped weapon is not needed in any realm, fictitious or non, in order to bash somebody with a shield.

Some have argued that with Shield Charge always hitting, this could be overpowered, however that point is moot on Resolute Technique builds anyway, which most Marauders will use.

After being disappointed in my current marauder's state, I decided to tweak his build a bit upon seeing some nodes to increase physical damage. This was great. However, I was once more disappointed to realize that none of the 1H damage increase nodes work with Facebreaker due to the lack of a melee weapon. I understand the technical reasoning for it, however, I still feel that if you are to treat your hands as a weapon, 1H weapon nodes should still apply. Especially given the lack of simple global increase nodes. While they are present, there are quite few.

Next, I figured I would change classes all together and try to take advantage of the Critical Damage Multiplier on the mitts.

I transferred all items for the build to my Shadow due to the easier access to crit chance and crit multiplier nodes within his portion of the tree.

Needless to say I was further disappointed to realize that the multiplier stat on the mitts is completely out of place and entirely useless without equipping a weapon.

The only benefit to this stat is that it is incredibly high in comparison to other items, and can be used in place of normal hand wear even when using a weapon rather than going unarmed; In this manner, the stat is still useful, yet still irrelevant to the items intended purpose.

With changes to unarmed build possibilities in the not too distant past (such as weapon elemental nodes no longer being applicable) now being coupled with the above down falls, a once niche but very fun build possibility is now very much hindered once in the realm of Merciless.

I only state Merciless because I immediately began having severe difficulties with the build the moment I progressed into said difficulty.

I understand that an unarmed build is meant as a novelty build, but in a game that offers a vast option of creativity and possibilities, no one build she be any less viable than another. Furthermore, while I love the path PoE has taken (no pun intended) to set itself off from the rest of the aRPG genre, it has also made a true effort to stay within the heritage and tradition many have come to know.

Part of that heritage is, indeed, the addition of Monk-like, Unarmed, Physical Combat oriented classes.

We have the tools to make it so; Why are we not using them? With very few tweaks here and there, a Facebreaker build can not only be fun but also efficient. I see no reason to make the following simple changes:

1 - Shield Charge SHOULD be able to be utilized with the Facebreaker Mitts.

2 - The Crit Multiplier stat on the mitts could easily be lessened in order to allow aspects of a crit build to be used, without the concern of being overpowered. However, I have zero issue keeping as it currently is being that the stat still proves useful for that stat alone on an ARMED build. Be that as it may, perhaps we could increase the Evasion and ES stats on the mitts to make the item a bit more efficient if used on an armed character.

3 - Show some love with more attack speed for Wraeclast's sake. For example, if I can use Quill Rain and spam lightning arrow or poison arrow at over 3 attacks per second WITHOUT taking an increase attack speed nodes, it should not be too much to ask for my Shadow who HAS learned numerous attack speed nodes to not still be stuck at 1.39 attacks per second when using the mitts.

I know many will say that the addition of crit chance and/or increased attack speed would very quickly make Facebreaker builds extremely over powered. And this may be the case, but then again, I am not a balance specialist either. The ONLY reason I would call for either of these to be changed would be to help aid in the lose of survival by not being able to use traditional gear in order to make the Facebreaker builds truly effective at later difficulties.

Even if points 2 and 3 are discarded, point one still stands. There is absolutely no reason for SC not to work with these mitts. Especially being that equipping the gloves with a shield equipped DOES alter SC's DPS.

I would gladly enjoy a discussion on this, as well as Dev input if possible.

You also can't shield charge if you use a wand, which always annoyed me.

BTW, using quill rain pretty much forces you to do elemental dmg, which is pretty bad, as it basically disables your phys dmg.

Quivers dont work with facebreaker.

"

ansuk wrote:

BTW, using quill rain pretty much forces you to do elemental dmg, which is pretty bad, as it basically disables your phys dmg.

My ranger does 100 physical. My dps is 4k, thanks to all the lightning damage. Where do you get ele damage being bad? Wake of Destruction boots give me 900 dps from all the ele % passives

Questions about Shield Charge aside, Facebreaker was definitely not "over-nerfed".

It still punches well above its weight as a build (Excuse the pun.)

There is at least one player with a current build that is late game viable with Facebreaker. It is much stronger than we originally modelled it as being when we added it to the game.

When we do a balance pass over the unique items, if Facebreaker is changed, it would likely only be related to its secondary caster usefulness.

If wands aren't melee weapons then why do they spawn with phys dmg mods and why are there passive nodes that add to wand physical dmg?

The item mods and passive skill nodes dictate that wands should work with Shield Charge.

"

GodlyMe wrote:

If wands aren't melee weapons then why do they spawn with phys dmg mods and why are there passive nodes that add to wand physical dmg?

Because they are ranged weapons.

Melee means hand to hand. Bows get Physical Damage affixes also, and aren't considered melee either.

"

Qarl wrote:

"

GodlyMe wrote:

If wands aren't melee weapons then why do they spawn with phys dmg mods and why are there passive nodes that add to wand physical dmg?

Because they are ranged weapons.

Melee means hand to hand. Bows get Physical Damage affixes also, and aren't considered melee either.

I see, it was the passive nodes that threw me off.

I didn't realize that any ranged wand attack was considered physical.. I assumed it was spell damage.

Thanks for clarifying. :)