Leech: GGG clarify please!

Hi

GGG up to its old tricks since CB. My 2h mara sucks now, greeeeaaaat.

1+

Maxor

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Basically they decided that leech was too strong for what ever reason so instead of toning it down a little and seeing if it was enough, they did the standard GGG thing and totally over did it and then told us that they didnt nerf it and we are mistaken.

The bad thing with this one is that its not something we can respec to fix. So all AOE/multi hit low mana builds i.e every-one because of the stupid aura changes are now mana starved unless you can find at least double the mana you had before.

Another job well done gg GGG.

cheers

I think many here have extremely awkward wording so I'll use a very simplified example in hopes of getting things straight, both for me and others.

You have 4000hp(max leech 800hp/s)
1 attack or spell per second
8% leech
Single target attack doing 10000dps
Flameblast doing ~2000k dps
Lets assume the monsters have no resists/armour.

Single target isn't changed very much.
Lets say you attack a monster with single target, doing 10k, leeching 800life. You leech for the full amount in 1 sec which is when you hit again and continue leeching with no stopping.
This is all good and well(you'd lose some life after you attacked for the last time compared to the old way if you dealt more damage and hit several times but lets not get into that)

Now onto aoe.
Lets say you attack 5 monsters with flameblast. All monsters are damaged at the exact same time for a varied damage, 1800, 1900, 2000, 2100 and 2200 for a total of 10k damage.
Before the change all the leeches would stack and you'd leech 800life over 1 sec, just like with the single target.
With the change however, you only leech the strongest one of all hits, in this case 8% of 2200(176), which you'd leech in 0.22 seconds. After that you get nothing until you attack again, meaning you'd get 624 less life than before the change.

This is correct right?

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keyarchan wrote:

This is correct right?

That is exactly the question. I don't think Mark's explanation really covers the scenario you're pointing out and that's why there are so many questions. My experience using GS makes it seem like I'm leeching far less on AOE attacks that previously but it's just anecdotal. Without some figures from GGG one way or the other we're all just speculating. I figure they haven't provided us with a) the reason for the change and b) solid math backing up the change because that either never actually had more than a gut feeling or never actually did the math themselves. This isn't something like drop rates which they naturally keep under the covers. This is a fundamental game play element that was very easy to understand and calculate and has now become nebulous.

So, GGG, please give us some clearer answer, especially regarding AOE attacks.

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Phaeded wrote:

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keyarchan wrote:

This is correct right?

That is exactly the question. I don't think Mark's explanation really covers the scenario you're pointing out and that's why there are so many questions. My experience using GS makes it seem like I'm leeching far less on AOE attacks that previously but it's just anecdotal. Without some figures from GGG one way or the other we're all just speculating. I figure they haven't provided us with a) the reason for the change and b) solid math backing up the change because that either never actually had more than a gut feeling or never actually did the math themselves. This isn't something like drop rates which they naturally keep under the covers. This is a fundamental game play element that was very easy to understand and calculate and has now become nebulous.

So, GGG, please give us some clearer answer, especially regarding AOE attacks.

+1

I asked in couple of threads, no response. I personally am sure they wanted to achieve their goal 1 ( at least i belive they had one) but they heavily underestimated the side effects and now have no clue what to do.

Actually I proposed already somewhere else solutions, e.g. limiting mana and life leech queues to 5 each. But it is hard to assist providing a better solution of it is totally unlear what the problem was ( and they keep it hidden).

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keyarchan wrote:

With the change however, you only leech the strongest one of all hits, in this case 8% of 2200(176), which you'd leech in 0.22 seconds. After that you get nothing until you attack again, meaning you'd get 624 less life than before the change.

This is correct right?

no, this is not correct.

it picks the strongest leech RATE, not the longest duration. this is relevant if you are getting leech from different forms (eg life leech gem with quality - it has a higher leech rate)

if all the leech rates are the same, and you hit a bunch of simultaneous hits, which one is active (affecting you) is random

it could just as easily have been the 1600 hit instead of the 2200.

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Vipermagi wrote:

If you have decent Attack Speed/Damage/Leech, Ground Slam should have few issues keeping up Leech constantly due to its slow wave mechanic. The hits are spread out over time, which means Leech effects trigger in sequence rather than simultaneously.

And that's true, from my experience, ground slam leeches almost as good as before, same goes for cyclone and spectral throw, However, skills like cleave or reave which hit roughly at the same time get the shaft. That's the main problem with leech rework, some skills are more affected than others.

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Vipermagi wrote:

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Phaeded wrote:

My experience using GS makes it seem like I'm leeching far less on AOE attacks that previously but it's just anecdotal.

If you have decent Attack Speed/Damage/Leech, Ground Slam should have few issues keeping up Leech constantly due to its slow wave mechanic. The hits are spread out over time, which means Leech effects trigger in sequence rather than simultaneously.

Every Hit creates a new 'Leech effect'. It replenishes 20% Max Life per Second (more with a Qual Leech Support), its duration depends on the amount of Life Leeched. If you hit five dudes at exactly the same time, you get 5 simultaneous Leech effects with pretty much the same duration. They all tick down at the same time, but you only benefit from one.
Ground Slam has some time between Hits. By the time your first Hit's Leech is over, the second hit still has some time left, thus making it easier to maintain constant Leeching.

The largest difference is that you don't get a minute's worth of Leech when you stop hitting dudes.

Leech is no more nebulous than before. It works exactly the same, except the Leech effects tick down simultaneously instead of subsequently. That is the only difference.
Mark has answered adequately. People are just thinking it's way more complex than it is.

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@Keyarchan: Yes, that is correct.
(technically it just picks one Leech effect arbitrarily at the start, and then lets them all run out, but that's a pointless technicality that I simply must mention)

Ahm that only applies if you dont invest in attackspeed, what all groundslammer do. E.g. Berserkering is normal to pick. Atm I have 3.39 Attacks per Second ( Multistrike), thenyour aregumentation is already gone.
I have 4k life. This means I can leech maximum 4000*0,20=800 Life.
I have 5851 pDPS, even with my basic 9% life leech I have 5851*0,09=526 life per Hit!

When this is now pushed by at least vlnerability ( +25% melee damage) and blood rage ( +5% life leech) it looks already different:

5851*1,25*(0,09+0,05)=1023 life per hit!

That will end up in max 800 in the first second and 223 in the second 2. But these 223 are already capped since in the new second a new attack happens.

And this is only for the hit of ONE target, mutiple hits are lost anyway ( but for sure these enemies hit ME, so thats totally unfair).

With Heavy Strike ir is even worse!
Heavy Strike: APS: 1,65, pDPS is 7990.

Here the math looks loke this:

7990*1,25*(0,09+0,05)=1399 life per hit!

This is a loss of (1399-800)/1399= 75% leeched life !!!

If I team up with other dischargers/summoners I have no idea why Groundslammer needed to be nerfed that hard since these builds are much stronger.

Groundslam is not extremely viable, less survivable than other builds, thats ok, but nerfing it that hard really feels arbitrary.

Also changing to less fast attacks and hitting harder is no alternative, since already at maps >68 monsters to enormous amount of damage, even when you have maxed resistances and ~35% physical reduction.

Some assumed it is to reduce desync and that these queuing mechanism is a real problem.
I already said, to have an acceptable tradeoff we could limit mana/life queues to each 5, so that would still limit greatly life leeched by groundslam if you see the number of enemies coming all the time, but at least keeps this build on the map.

In the marauder build list (http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/740906) used to be couple of Ground slam builds, right now there is only the newbee guide left. Next sign that this change killed this build.

Btw, this also applies to Melee Splash...

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Tlaloc4 wrote:

Ahm that only applies if you dont invest in attackspeed, what all groundslammer do. E.g. Berserkering is normal to pick. Atm I have 3.39 Attacks per Second ( Multistrike), thenyour aregumentation is already gone.

Bottomline is it's pretty easy to get a gapless leech with groundslam, attacks speed even helps you with it. And if you achieve that you're constantly getting 20% of your life per second, same as before, you just won't be getting life for ages after the fight is over. Multistrike also helps a bunch with leeching, you leech 36% less per hit but the gap between attacks is halved, boosting your leech effectiveness (that should probably be a new stat :).

And I agree, for cleave, splash, reave, sweep and most of area spells which hit almost simultaneously the situation looks much, much worse. This single-target calculation is applicable for them, and it kinda sucks because area skills typically do significantly less damage per hit.

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If you got 5K health max leech rate is 1000 hp/sec
You do 2K damage per hit every 0,5s
You leech 10%, or 200 damage on every hit and it takes 0,2s to get that amount
So you get nothing for 0,3 seconds when you hit again.
And your leech effectiveness is 0,2 / 0,5 = 40%

The thing with GS is the wave takes half a second or so to travel, so as long as your enemies are spread out even a little you will get 'gapless' leech easily because of delayed hits. As I said, I'm using GS now and the only situation where it gets less leech then before is when I get surrounded and there's nobody further back to hit.