A serious look at Blood Rage, the most broken gem in the game

In other words, why do people assume that low life can be something stable enough to build around?

Because they'd like to build around it. That's the whole reason why Shavronne's exists (and Lorica too).

Take away the ability to sustain it and low-life isn't really a build anymore. It's just a thing, and an awkward thing at that. This would lead to a great deal of awkward itemization. I imagine Shav's would be alright at the end of the day (most likely seen as an auramancer chest), but items like Redbeak and Wondertrap would be completely alienated.

so you are ok that the most powerful bonuses are limited only by the size of your orb bank? this is 'game design'? LOL!

there is NO THOUGHT required for low life builds - you get shavs and then stack all the goodies. so hardcore! so much thought!

where is the risk? (reward is clear to everybody to see) what price (Except dulurs) you pay for that? what are the limitations imposed by LL?

there are none! LL is enabled, defined and created with shavs.

making it the way i want it - 33% combined HP would not make LL impossible. it would make people 'go hybrid' and get 4k hp and 6k ES and stroll trough the content with 3.5k combined HP

tough? maybe. fair - waaaay more than current cr.. situation

and what is 'wrong' with LL being 'a thing' instead of 'a broken build'? buffs from flasks/skills are 'a thing' and people are able to utilize these no problem

ofc greed shall blind people. it is hard to let such broken sh.. go

edit

redbeak and other LL snapshoting items are gone/dead/removed the day snapshot fix hits. this shows once more how stupid current LL implementation is

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sidtherat wrote:

redbeak and other LL snapshoting items are gone/dead/removed the day snapshot fix hits. this shows once more how stupid current LL implementation is

No, they're not. They might not be relevant anymore to some endgame low-life builds, but this doesn't make them irrelevant as items in the game. Not everyone is working with an infinite budget; not everyone is using Shav's with their low-life build (there are even people trying to make it work without Lorica). Don't be such an endgame elitist that you forget about the players who are brand new and still coming up in the game.

I'm getting tired of your constant accusations that I'm "fine" with the status quo. I've made it clear that I think some kind of nerf for low-life builds is appropriate. Your particular solution for the (mostly) agreed-upon problem sucks. A solution better than yours is required to proceed.

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sidtherat wrote:

shavs leads to playing sloppy. it is pretty much obvious - you fear nothing you dont care and then some stupid rouding error kills you because after leveling your aura costs 1hp more (now it is impossible but few months ago it was a common thing to die applying BM auras)

and - bear with me - WHO and WHEN promised anyone that 'low life' can be permanent? why people (the greed!) assume that these sweet bonuses are there for granted and possible to be 'on' all the time?

most of low life bonuses are very powerful and seem to be designed to help player to get OUT of low life status ASAP

it is greed that made players think that low life should be kept 'on' all the time - without any associated risks. and it is greed that blinds people in this case

I agree with you in principle but you have to admit the practical situation in Path of Exile means low life is either on all the time or it's never on.

Path of Exile doesn't have the attrition gameplay required to make a temporary low life work. Life regeneration is too prevalent, spike damage is too prevalent, life leech is too prevalent, insta-logouts exist etc.

In PoE you're usually either at/near max health or you're dead.

Quadruple health and ES, keep regeneration of all kinds as well as life leech and damage at pre-buff levels and add a log-out timer and low life as you describe it may work.

But right now? Not feasible.

I would really do a very simple thing to fix BR while on low life status:

Chance modifier on solaris and shavronne in "chaos damage dealt by enemies does not bypass energy shield

Also increasing life degen of BR to 5-6% and let it drain ES too it's a good idea

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

However, removing its enablers functionally removes the builds. You can't sustain low ES under those circumstances. That's kind of like saying the solution to world peace is nuclear armageddon.

Poor analogy. Sidtherat's solution would not be Wraeclast-wide armageddon, it would be more like nuclear disarmament. In its aftermath, there'd be plenty of builds left thriving, i.e. everything except low-life builds.

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Mahesys wrote:

I would really do a very simple thing to fix BR while on low life status:

Chance modifier on solaris and shavronne in "chaos damage dealt by enemies does not bypass energy shield

Also increasing life degen of BR to 5-6% and let it drain ES too it's a good idea

the best solution would be just change damage type dealt from BR from "chaos damage" to "pure damage"
so no shavs or CI tricks

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RogueMage wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

However, removing its enablers functionally removes the builds. You can't sustain low ES under those circumstances. That's kind of like saying the solution to world peace is nuclear armageddon.

Poor analogy... In its aftermath, there'd be plenty of builds left thriving, i.e. everything except low-life builds.

Noted. Next time I'll use genocide as an analogy — everyone gets to live afterwards except that one color/creed who we're blaming all our current problems on.

I imagine the worst genocides in history have been the ones where those who were blamed actually were guilty. Makes it harder to bring peace to the situation, doesn't it?

I've already said it once, but i don't believe removing the reliable use of low-life is the way to do it. It's not a good solution, it's just saying: Damn, this here got issues but i'm too lazy to find a proper solution so i just remove it. It should not be a goal to take choices out of the game.

Also i think a reason many shavronnes users die is always because not everyone got some insane mirrored shield, boots or whatever. Many can probably only just afford the essentials, and they want max power, so they don't take a million ES nodes. The result is that shavronnes for builds without an insane shield has very low ES. So they play with very low es and are reckless due to it's power.

I'm tempted to bring back an old suggestion, that Low Life be a scale, not a benchmark. E.g. LL mods are between 50% effective at 66% to 100% effective at <=33%. Something like this could actually take into account Life+ES without breaking builds, where perhaps when at...
99% of combined total Life+ES, you receive 16% of low life bonuses.
88%. . . 20%
77%. . . 25%
66%. . . 33%
55%. . . 50%
44%. . . 100%
33%. . . 200%

Actual LL bonuses can be adjusted as appropriate to fit the new scale.

Edit: Just suggesting that if there is a problem with Low Life builds, then there is a better response that can be taken--one that addresses Low Life directly, without destroying it as a build, but especially without collateral damage to non-Low Life builds.