Uniques most useful to melee builds got the biggest nerf hammer(historicaly)

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Poutsos wrote:

This has been an issue up for discussion for sometime. There is no quetion that the strongest unique item ever created is Shavronne's Wrappings, which has been dominating most end game OP builds for over 1 and a half years so far. This item got an extremely insignificant nerf compared to other uniques, most useful to melee builds. Sure Shavronne's can still be used for a melee character, but since low life builds, when attacking from melee range are abit glass canonny, i do not consider this as an item primamarily used by melee builds. Let's take a closer look:

Kaom's Heart: This item got it's life providing stat cut in HALF. This was even more severe when life nods were stronger. THe nerf was so big, that if we had to draw a paralel to SHavrone it would be to cut in half the amount of chaos damage that can bypass ES. SUre Kaom's was being used by bow builds as well, but it was infinetely more useful to 2 handed melee, since they can not have the safety of attacking from distance, neither they can stack block.

Bringer of Rain: This item has been hit with the most severe nerf so far propably. It has lost 80-100 HP, 6 levels of 2 of the most important support gems, an indirect nerf due to the nerf to blind, and most recently it also lost 9% block chance. It can be argued that the legacy item was strong, but still, even it's legacy version for MOST builds would not have been the BiS item compared to a pair of GG helmet and chest. It had no resists, you could not have 20/20 MP and faster attacks, and you would be potentially losing a ton of armour/evasion. Was it too good for it's price and rarity? Propably, but this could be addresed by increasing it's rarity abit. Also it made end game melee builds viable for low cost. Since melee/ranged is ever going to be balanced in performance, this item along with others(Facebreaker, aegis etc) it would be balanced by price. Melee could be the very decent cheap choise. Not so much anymore. It was also a strictly melee item.

Soultaker: It lost around 100 flat DPS. This was viewd as an OP item due to the fact that master crafting was not available yet, and hadling mana was also harder. Nowdays, even it's legacy version would only fit specific builds, and would not be by any means the BiS resolute technique weapon for every build.

Aegis Aurora: This item is still very strong, but again it lost HALF of it's effectiveness. When you could replenish say 500 ES on each blocked attack, now you would replenish 250. It is primarily a melee unique, still it's nerf was 10 times more severe than shavronne's nerf.

Facebreakers: It lost 20% of the potential damage output. Again the nerf was severe and totally not needed. Facebreaker builds were powerful compared to the cost, but never OP GG builds that could demolish maps in 15 seconds.

I will stray abit now and mention

Frenzy: This is not a unique but a skill gem. The nerf affected more it's melee version. Bow builds got other OP skills like tarnado shot, and you know, split arrow was intact for the most part. For melee builds nowdays, with a comparable skill tree you need 7 frenzy charges with frenzy to surpass double strike in damage by a tiny bit, and 8 frenzy charges to surpass heavy strike, and frenzy costs like a ton of mana to use. I am pretty sure they had bows in mind when they nerfed this, but melee got the biggest hit, no quetion. This skill was awasome if you build around it, with the skill tree and the use of corrupted items, to have enough damage if you were building a tank.


On the other hand, alot of ranged uniques that have been considered OP or even BiS during some periods had not been nerfed. Lioneye's Glare was considered the best weapon in the game during the start of open beta, and has not been nerfed. Windripper and Voidbattery have not been nefed either. Can you get better results with BiS rares than these weapons? Sure, but this holds true for the melee items above as well.

All in all, the nerf to Shavronne's which is the most powerfull unique in the game has been very insignificant compared to nerfs to others far less powerful uniques, which were mostly used by melee builds, which is inferior to ranged anyway. Well whatever :P

Edit: I am just making observation, zero jealousy inculded sine: 1) I am not playin PoE anymore and 2) During the time i did play, i have owned the legacy version of every single item i have mentioned above, including a 6L legacy SHavronne's

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Varkorium wrote:

I have yet to play a non melee since joining the game, no problems here :P