Ways to balance low-life shavronnes builds and daggerers/wanders

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Startkabels wrote:

It took me some time to comprehend your post but it appears you are against nerfing all the ingredients of the build you mentioned, to which I agree as the issue with this build being overpowered would more likely be a result of the total package.

You do seem to support nerfing Blood Rage and Atziri's Acuity yet without further clarification why (except calling them overpowered).

And I might not understand correctly what you were suggestion for CoE but can you explain how that change would affect low life builds and why CoE should change?

Not surprised, I didn't edit for grammar, sentence structure, or overall clarity, I thought it might have been a bit incomprehensibe XD.



And that, sir, is why blood rage is EXTREMELY overpowered (credit goes to Crackmonster for writing that up, I quoted it from his thread I linked above).

Why nerf acuity? I think that's fairly obvious, but I could explain if you'd like why the "Leech applies instantly on Critical Strike" is very overpowered, but again, I don't think it needs to be explained.

Sure, why nerf crown of eyes? I tried to emphasize that most of the lowlife bonuses (it's not just PA!) apply to attacks rather than spells: auras don't help LL spellcasting, blood rage doesn't help LL spellcasting, OPness of daggers don't help LL spellcasting, etc. I personally think a LL spellcaster is not overpowered (they might be, but all of those things I mentioned don't apply to them), their (only?) major bonus is from PA. And they don't need Crown of Eyes. PA brings out all of the elemental and physical damage we deal from attacks. If PA didn't exist, neither would LL builds. But our goal is to nerf LL builds based on attacks, because they benefit from alot more from the low life state than spellcasters, as I already said (there is a reason 99% of LL builds are based on an attack like ST, Flicker Strike, Power Siphon, Split Arrow, etc. etc. Because so many more things benefit them than just PA, it's the whole package, as you mentioned, that makes it OP). If we nerf CoE (the nerf to leech is.. optional, I suppose, not the major point, more important is the nerf to the "Spell damage to attack damage", then we make the PA bonus more reasonable for LL attack based builds, who already benefit from a ton of other things besides PA (but it doesn't make a difference for LL spellcasters). This way, LL builds based on spellcasting are not affected (they don't need CoE), but LL builds based on attacking have their damage evened out. This whole argument is based on the premise that we are targeting a nerf to LL attack builds without affecting LL spellcasters. A nerf to CoE would indirectly reduce every aspect of the damage LL attack builds get, without actually changing anything (besides CoE itself, of course). That way, we would get 60% of the effect of PA (a number I just pulled out of my ass, I didn't actually calculate the impact 60% vs. 70% vs. 50% on final DPS, just a placeholder really), 60% of the effect of %spell damage from daggers, 60% of the effect of RF, etc. etc.

If that made any sense, let me know, it could just be my incoherent rambling...

Why not nerf daggers? We'd just move over to wands and bows (I remain of the opinion that daggers are OP, but I don't think that directly relates to LL being OP. It's definitely a contributing factor, just a more global problem).

Why not nerf crit multi? That addresses the issue of crit being OP, not of LL being OP. A totally different argument (and it would have much greater implications than a nerf to LL, which is our only goal).

Why not nerf auras? Alot of builds utilize auras for damage (esp. Wrath, Anger, and Hatred). Again, this would hit alot of other things besides LL builds. To cap out the max number of auras is just a knee-jerk solution imo.

Let me know if this made any sense...

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Shouting that something is overpowered is not a valid motivation for a nerf without explaining why you think that you know.

I assumed you read my previous posts in the topic where I did explain. I'm short on time so will summarize.

Bloodrage with level 3 enhance/empower and inner force reaches 82% IAS and 16 leech. The chaos damage is based on life so lowlife builds barely take any damage.

CoE is the number one damage factor in these lowlife builds. You can get up to 70 spell damage on both shield and weapon. You can get spell damage nodes that require no travel and pain attunement which is 30% more damage. The gear alone is the equivalent of 15+ passive nodes for damage nodes that don't really exist.

Those two factors are also things that can be changed without butchering many other builds as well(like changing auras/crit multi which OP wants to do).

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kasub wrote:

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Shouting that something is overpowered is not a valid motivation for a nerf without explaining why you think that you know.

I assumed you read my previous posts in the topic where I did explain. I'm short on time so will summarize.

Bloodrage with level 3 enhance/empower and inner force reaches 82% IAS and 16 leech. The chaos damage is based on life so lowlife builds barely take any damage.

CoE is the number one damage factor in these lowlife builds. You can get up to 70 spell damage on both shield and weapon. You can get spell damage nodes that require no travel and pain attunement which is 30% more damage. The gear alone is the equivalent of 15+ passive nodes for damage nodes that don't really exist.

Those two factors are also things that can be changed without butchering many other builds as well(like changing auras/crit multi which OP wants to do).

This is the TL;DR version of my post above. I agree with this guy alot XD. And let's not forget about Atziri's Acuity...

I like the suggestion to change the spell dmg applies to attacks on CoE a lot better than a direct nerf to Blood Rage since the first suggestion seems to more precisely addresses the build we're talking about.

But the goal of your suggestion appears to be nerfing the damage of LL builds, so why don't you just address LL attack bonusses (but not spell bonusses) directly if you think that is the problem?

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CabooseDog wrote:

Why nerf blood rage?

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/981897

I responded in the topic with:
The mistake you make in all your calculations is that you first put BR in the context of a build that for instance uses low life, but mark BR as the problem directly.

And also the effort and investment of speccing into a min-maxed build like low life seem to be no factor at all according to you.

Why don't you want to address low life directly for example and when are you finally going to decide what ingredient of the build is the problem?
You already posted topics about nerfs to:
-Shavs
-CoE
-Auras
-CoC
-Blood Rage

1) reduce the low life attack speed bonus on blood rage. leave the leech alone. the leech part is an interesting bonus for both life builds with high chaos resist and CI builds.

the attack speed, though, is just outrageous. one buff is doing more than what you could ever reasonably get from the entire skill tree and all your gear, combined.

2) nerf coe somehow. this requires elegance. i don't know the exact nerf, but this item is a huge part of the problem. there's nothing wrong with the concept of converting attack based builds into "low life" and wanting to scale it a bit more at the expense of survivability.

the concept is sound. the numbers are not. it's just too much gain from the massive spell dmg.

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i am a fan of "change as little as possible" -- try not to hurt builds that did nothing wrong, and don't need nerfing.

you could adjust other things, such as auras or low life in general, etc...but changing those mechanics will have a much larger effect on the meta as a whole.

the attack speed bonus on blood rage however, is not exactly commonly used...neither is CoE. the builds that utilize those features, i don't think people should have much sympathy for. you could cut them in half and they would STILL be strong.

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Startkabels wrote:

I like the suggestion to change the spell dmg applies to attacks on CoE a lot better than a direct nerf to Blood Rage since the first suggestion seems to more precisely addresses the build we're talking about.

But the goal of your suggestion appears to be nerfing the damage of LL builds, so why don't you just address LL attack bonusses (but not spell bonusses) directly if you think that is the problem?

Sure, in this context, we can say nerf the Blood Rage attack speed bonuses. In another, we can say nerf the leech bonuses (18.6% leech.. don't you think it's just a little bit OP?). I do indeed think the leech is rather pertinent to LL builds, as the main defense is life leech and mobility (saying "The beset defense is offence" applies perfect to LL builds, the only way they survive is to leech 20+% of damage instantly). But leech also appplies to every other build that uses blood rage (while the atk speed bonus is specific for LL).

The thing is.. the LL attack bonuses ARE the LL spell bonuses thanks to... Crown of Eyes! That's we are all saying, let's nerf those 2 things.

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Startkabels wrote:

The mistake you make in all your calculations is that you first put BR in the context of a build that for instance uses low life, but mark BR as the problem directly.

And also the effort and investment of speccing into a min-maxed build like low life seem to be no factor at all according to you.

Why don't you want to address low life directly for example and when are you finally going to decide what ingredient of the build is the problem?
You already posted topics about nerfs to:
-Shavs
-CoE
-Auras
-CoC
-Blood Rage

I never said anything about nerfing Shavs. I never even mentioned it, actually.

I said nerf CoE, and I stand by it.

I said not to nerf auras.

I never mentioned CoC (Cast on crit, I'm assuiming)...

I said nerf Blood Rage, it is one of the main reasons LL is OP.

That boils down to:

Nerf Blood Rage and CoE, and that's all.

I don't think there is a simpler way to put it...

It was a response to Crackmonster's post you quoted in case you didnt notice.

And why for example do you want to nerf BR directly and for example not Shavs so that chaos damage from monsters only does not bypass ES. That would address these low life builds more specifically instead of a direct nerf to BR.

In my opinion the way to address this build is still to redesign ST so that it won't work with any melee weapon anymore so that daggers cannot be used.
Wands or bows are definitely not similar to daggers like the people said who disqualified this suggestion. Switching to bows or wands with this build means you will typically have less damage, less attack speed and less crit but most of all that you have to use a different skill than ST like Power Siphon or Bows skills. These skills do not have returning projectiles and do not hit enemies multiple times.
At the same time this change would balance ST with wand and bow skills but also with melee which is better of being ranged with ST in its current status.

So I say address the design flaw instead of breaking synergies or nerfing the ingredients of the build, ingredients that are use by other builds too. For example I don't think you are able to justify a nerf to life based melee builds that use BR.

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Startkabels wrote:

Wands or bows are definitely not similar to daggers like the people said who disqualified this suggestion. Switching to bows or wands with this build means you will typically have less damage, less attack speed and less crit

not sure where you got got this

wands have higher crit than daggers. windripper has higher crit than daggers.

wands and bows open up CHAIN, which results in a fairly substantial effective dmg boost.

for the 324792347397th time, people use daggers because of WHIRLING BLADES, a movement skill.

i don't know how many fucking times i'm going to have to repeat this

Meh, I gave up a while back.

Tempted to give him my low-life set so he can actually gain the experience but then.. fuck that.