Low life offers to great benefits and is unique gated.

What the tittle says.

First off,

Dev's original design from my PoV

I believe the intention of the devs with the "low-life" attribute originally was designed to be used as a "temporary" buff to a character.(this explains the benefits of this particular buff, both on items and passives and is logical when viewed from this point)

However, it is quite clear the community decided to disagree with the dev's and utilize
"low-life" as a static benefit (either all or nothing sort of speak) because of this, i think it is time for the dev's to conform to the players on this point. And balance this attribute accordingly.

But low life is not unique gated?

In theory, this is true. However given the addition of high damage chaos monster types has shifted this balance to "unique gated only", i am thinking about the invasion bosses for instance, poison zombie's with map affixes and maps released with act3x having bosses that utilize high end dps chaos attacks.

I would agree that prior to act3x low life was not unique gated (i even have a char that does it without shavs/lorica(<- did not exist then) and it functioned within that game-state, however currently it can not like stated above the addition of new chaos oriented balance has shifted this)

What can be done to remedy the current state of low-life?

These are my personal suggestions and i hope you give them some thought before dismissing them.

1) low life attribute should be activated at 55%hp (a change of name could be appropriate in this case)

reasoning behind this :

The dev's have always stated no unique should be BiS for any build, however due to the new introduction of chaos mobs, shavronnes has become far better then any viable ES/+life hybrid chest that could be utilized prior to this addition to the game.
Simply put, it is BiS for a build oriented around this mechanic.

This makes it a unique that spits on the developers unique design philosophy within the current state of the game.

Making the attribute activate at 55% life would enable rares to compete with shavronnes.
The one benefit that would make shavronnes trully "unique" would be the additional aura's one could have compared to a "rare chest" user, but the "rare chest" user in return could reach higher EHP value's.

This removes shavronnes from BiS state, while still retaining it's usefulness. (= balance?)

2) Low life attributes should be nerfed, and quite harshly! (the benefits are actually "balanced" around not running around in this state all the time, as such they are far to rewarding in it's current state given the community decided it's an "all or nothing" attribute)

reasoning behind this :

Since in its current form low-life is gated, the rewards are far to extreme to serve its purpose. The ability to run "additional aura's" might as well be the only reward one gets from this attribute and it would still suffice to make these builds very powerful and balanced.

The reason why i suggest nerfing the benefits is in line with the thought about raising the low-life cap to 55%.

This would enable a higher variety of builds to utilize this property and make this property not unique exclusive, but also "rare item" viable if so desired.(heavy investment would be required, but so is getting a shavs imo?)

Keep in mind point 1) and 2) are suppose to co-exist to be balanced and not individually implemented.

I think this change is long due and is very "build crippling" and also prevents certain player-enjoyment. (in the sense that for fun build X one needs item Y and no other item will substitute item Y within the current game-state)

Some discussion about this would be appreciated.

And for all the shav users out there, sorry. :o)
But i think you guys know it from first hand that the benefits are just far superior to the downsides in a very unhealthy way. And the low-life state (at 35%) is actually very crippling for builds.

Not to mention i never see a shavs used for "full life build" for example (melee full life MORE gem) and the reason is simple, shavs is the go to item for low-life builds, while in essence it equally allows a "full life benefit build". Just that those benefits are
neglectable compared to "low-life" benefits.

tl;dr low-life mechanic was not designed around a static state but around a short period "buff", since the community decided it is a static attribute the dev's should balance it accordingly and enable more build diversity.

Peace all.

Keep it civil, i just want a better game state, i have no issue with shavs since it is the build enabler, my issue lie's within the "low-life" attribute and its benefits on top of benefits.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes
Posting my gear of a low-life build prior to act3x release and new additions to the game including high spike chaos damage.

This build was viable and made shavs not "BiS" for this type of build. However the game state has changed and currently it is.

Balance should be apply'd accordingly.

Spoiler


This gear enabled a character with 450hp low life to run lvl 75 maps without shavs in prior act3x game state.

Currently impossible.(changing the balance towards shavs being bis and low-life mechanic requiring balance)
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes
I don't really see a problem with shavs being a build-enabling unique, or having builds that are just difficult/expensive to make. But it is irritating that in nearly every case, Low-life is a strictly superior version of a similar CI build, rather than just being different.

I think Crown of Eyes coming out had a LOT to do with this though.

IGN: Smegmazoid
Long live the new Flesh
Why isn't it fine that it plays two roles, one a short term bonus when low on health, and the other a long term bonus at the cost of a permanent reduction in health?

No matter which you choose, there's a draw back.

What you suggest is simply "I find build X to be strong so you should nerf it". There will always be successful gated builds. You can't just ask them to nerf stuff on the basis that it's strong and gated.
You can´t blame them for the decission to implement a mod like "cannot be penetrated"
we need items that do shit like that, we need a ton of them.
you can blame them for underrating the fact that casuals can be low on way more than just life.

Shavs is fine, despite me calling her lovely "names" :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcKqhDFhNHI
You guys are missing the point of this thread.

I have no issue with shavs and what it does/allows.

My issue is with the low-life buffs and there strength. Obviously this correlates directly to shavrones, but i ask you then, when was the last time you saw a non shavs low-life build?

There is absolutely no need for low-life to be gated behind a shavs/lorica.

At the same time, when it is gated like this there is absolutely no reason to not remove this "gating of low-life" and enable more builds to use this attribute.

I guess it is hard to focus on low-life without bringing shavronnes into the discussion, if anything this proves my point and the limitations of the current "low-life" attribute.

If anything shavronnes allows low-life builds and full-life builds, i ask you then another question. Why don't we see full life builds utilizing shavronnes?

(the property of shavronnes allows both to shine, yet one is vastly superior to the other, this is not balance)

"
Why isn't it fine that it plays two roles, one a short term bonus when low on health, and the other a long term bonus at the cost of a permanent reduction in health?


Low life builds utilizing a "static low life buff" actually gain more EHP because of the boost's in dps and sub-sequentially the usage of EHP enhancing aura's. There is no appropriate drawback associated with them. If anything the recent aura patch buffed them even more.

"
No matter which you choose, there's a draw back.


Wrong, like i just explained the static usage properly utilized has no drawbacks only buffs.

The non-static version has a drawback, and i believe it was the devs intention to only have this non-static version in the game. Since that form of the attribute is balanced very well.
(item/passive point investment while being useless at some times while greatly enhancing at other times to balance this out)

"
What you suggest is simply "I find build X to be strong so you should nerf it". There will always be successful gated builds. You can't just ask them to nerf stuff on the basis that it's strong and gated.


Nope, you completely missed my point.

Like i said earlier, you could remove low-life from the game and shavronnes would still be very strong just because of the additional aura's it allows. Low-life bonuses are like a cake on top of a chery on top of another cake.

And low life is currently not being used by any character not utilizing it in a static function.(some people get the buff from blood rage i imagine, but that is because it is build in and will proq in some occasions, however nobody will invest a passive point in pain atonement if not "low-life" oriented.)

Also Shagsbeard

Balance =/= nerf

You seem to miss that point and how the current game has evolved making low-life unbalanced, while like i mentioned it prior to act3x was not.(since it could be attained using rares reducing shavs value in a balance perspective and removing it from BiS status)


"
I don't really see a problem with shavs being a build-enabling unique, or having builds that are just difficult/expensive to make. But it is irritating that in nearly every case, Low-life is a strictly superior version of a similar CI build, rather than just being different.

I think Crown of Eyes coming out had a LOT to do with this though.


Sorry to say but you also missed the point, i see it is hard to disconnect low-life as a game mechanic attribute from shavronnes, this only proves my point further that it is BiS in it's current form and disables build diversity as a game mechanic.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes
"
1) low life attribute should be activated at 55%hp (a change of name could be appropriate in this case)

this wants me to make a non es-low life-loh build, that use bloodrage/etc/etc

would be unbalanced as hell
not sure how many reductions it needs on low-life stats to undo this unbalance
"
Boem wrote:

The dev's have always stated no unique should be BiS for any build

Source? Also the devs have stated that uniques should be build-enabling.
"
You can´t blame them for the decission to implement a mod like "cannot be penetrated"
we need items that do shit like that, we need a ton of them.
you can blame them for underrating the fact that casuals can be low on way more than just life.

Shavs is fine, despite me calling her lovely "names" :)


More confirmation it is impossible for the community to view low-life without an intrinsic interaction with shavronnes.

Thanks for demonstrating my point i suppose.

I only wish some people would respond that grasp my point about the low-life attribute.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes
"
this wants me to make a non es-low life-loh build, that use bloodrage/etc/etc

would be unbalanced as hell
not sure how many reductions it needs on low-life stats to undo this unbalance


The reduction in low-life buffs should be quite harsh. Else it would indeed, like you envision it, be
O P.

I imagine pain atonement from 30% to maybe 15%/12%

And bloodrage buff i think currently it is around 45%ias at max lvl?(for low life) should be toned down to around 25/20% i imagine to balance out the lesser restriction on utilizing the benefits.

Edit : also thx tommyvv for understanding my point from a mechanics design perspective. From one theory-crafter and mechanics abuser to another : Thanks.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes
Last edited by Boem on Apr 26, 2014, 10:47:07 AM

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