Life Leech 2.0

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but right now its extremely dangerous to take on a boss if you rely on leech - even with investment!

so it is time to stop relying on leech. that was the design goal of leech changes: to stop people going full banana with dps -> leech -> survivability

now it is required to get the survivability from other places. and that proves to be difficult for many thus widespread panic posts

leech works now. it is a viable sustain mechanic that augmented with flasks and other sources (life on hit, life on kill, regen, totems etc) is perfectly adequate. it requires some effort to use and can produce solid return on investment. and it stops people from building uber glasscannons that trivialize gameplay with leech+uber damage+vaal pact. it still works.. untill unlucky combo of thornflesh + bad mods

the only bad thing about changes is the CI/ES situation. something didnt go as well as expected for these builds

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Pahxy wrote:

so as i entered into awakening fully unaware of any of the changes, i soon found that life leech has been nerfed to shit. this must be a bug or something, as i asked lots of guild mates and they said that they fucking hated the leech changes.

everysingle person i asked said they despise the leech change. so why GGG would leave it nerfed i would never know.

if any else feels like this should get changed back to its original working condition. then please give your opinions below. Chances are i wont read this again so if anyone from support wants to talk, try do it ingame or through pm.

Thanks, lets get this fixed soon as possible

leech change is the best thing that could happen to poe

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sidtherat wrote:

"

but right now its extremely dangerous to take on a boss if you rely on leech - even with investment!

so it is time to stop relying on leech. that was the design goal of leech changes: to stop people going full banana with dps -> leech -> survivability

now it is required to get the survivability from other places. and that proves to be difficult for many thus widespread panic posts

leech works now. it is a viable sustain mechanic that augmented with flasks and other sources (life on hit, life on kill, regen, totems etc) is perfectly adequate. it requires some effort to use and can produce solid return on investment. and it stops people from building uber glasscannons that trivialize gameplay with leech+uber damage+vaal pact. it still works.. untill unlucky combo of thornflesh + bad mods

the only bad thing about changes is the CI/ES situation. something didnt go as well as expected for these builds

The problem with the argument that leech works now as an addendum to other sustain sources is that this will lead to players completely abandoning it very shortly. It's not worth the investment when you can invest in regen instead - we're going to see a lot of toons traveling from Ranger/Shadow area to as many regen nodes as possible, and those characters might become less popular (not nearly enough time has passed yet to determine how the leech changes with alter the metagame, but I'm just guessing here).

Basically, there's no reason to use supplemental healing when you can instead invest in a mechanic that will do it all on its own. And, fundamentally, ANY mechanic should be reliable IF a build fully invests in it. I think investing in leech is not impossible, but it takes far more resources than investing in other mechanics. And so, because players will pursue efficiency at any cost, I think it's gonna drop by the wayside - I do not understand why GGG often seems to ignore the way players root out the worst builds/mechanics.

A mechanic existing in the game that isn't utilized because it's obviously inferior to others is the definition of bad balance.

Like I said, I think the changes GGG made are great conceptually, but the numbers need to be tweaked. Base leech rate should be increased somewhat (it's 2% of max life per second. Down from 20%. The change simply didn't need to be that radical) and leech %s on tree and items need to be increased slightly. Vaal Pact should have a leech effectiveness penalty equivalent to the amount that leech %s are increased, so that it remains as effective as it is now.

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demon9675 wrote:

Basically, there's no reason to use supplemental healing when you can instead invest in a mechanic that will do it all on its own. And, fundamentally, ANY mechanic should be reliable IF a build fully invests in it.

Disagree, PoE plays much better now that it requires investment in a combination of defensive strategies. It's more fun to optimize trade-offs among passives and skills than to routinely sink all your chips into cookie-cutter build patterns. The old days of max dps + max leech enabled players to indulge in degenerate pay2win OP builds that trivialized most of the game. Good riddance.

Life leech is now useful for filling in gaps in your defenses, rather than granting you virtual immunity to anything that doesn't one-shot you. Regen is useful for keeping your health ball topped off while power leveling, but it cannot respond quickly enough to save you in emergencies. If you don't want to rely solely on flasks for that, leech can play a vital role in your build.

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RogueMage wrote:

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demon9675 wrote:

Basically, there's no reason to use supplemental healing when you can instead invest in a mechanic that will do it all on its own. And, fundamentally, ANY mechanic should be reliable IF a build fully invests in it.

Disagree, PoE plays much better now that it requires investment in a combination of defensive strategies. It's more fun to optimize trade-offs among passives and skills than to routinely sink all your chips into cookie-cutter build patterns. The old days of max dps + max leech enabled players to indulge in degenerate pay2win OP builds that trivialized most of the game. Good riddance.

Life leech is now useful for filling in gaps in your defenses, rather than granting you virtual immunity to anything that doesn't one-shot you. Regen is useful for keeping your health ball topped off while power leveling, but it cannot respond quickly enough to save you in emergencies. If you don't want to rely solely on flasks for that, leech can play a vital role in your build.

Again, I totally second your good riddance to the days of max dps + leech metagame. That's why I said I'm happy with the direction GGG went with leech, but I just think they nerfed it too much. It's a magnitude problem, which occurs often with balance changes in this game. GGG likes to take nerfs/buffs extremely far, further than they really needed to go.

I do not agree that leech is useful for filling in defensive gaps, as I think the points and equipment required to make that happen are not worth the benefit. I also do not agree that every build should be forced to use so many kinds of defenses. Specialization ought to be a viable option, within reason of course (I'm not arguing that players should be able to have minimal life and resistances but 100k armor). The reason for this is because it's one of the key ways a game fosters build diversity.

Leech, especially because of the way it's oriented on a certain part of the tree in lieu of life regen, ought to be a viable sustain method on it's own if players invest skill points and mods on equipment into it. The game seems like it's designed that way, in fact. I really don't understand why that's some kind of problem, as long as it's not as crazy OP as it used to be.

Life leech is just as strong as it used to be if you invest in it (with the only exception of being unable to fully heal off one hit in less than 5 seconds by stacking 10%+ leech).


The problem I see with leech now is that:

-It's really weak if you don't invest in it. Having less than 1% leech with a slow attack speed may as well be regen mods on gear for how little good it does you.

-To get mana leech anywhere useful you have to spend way more on it than any other cost sustain strategies. In a world with Elreon jewelry, blood magic support gems, ES/mana on hit jewels, spending a support gem + some passive nodes + some gear mods just to sustain skills is not going to be worth it.

Screw the Leech Changes.

Let's talk about Mana Leech.

Have fun if you reserve more than 75% of your mana. It's going to take a whole SECOND to leech back all of your mana as melee.
Let's say it's 50 of your mana per attack, attacking at 1.2aps. It's IMPOSSIBLE to sustain mana on single targets with only 60-90 mana remaining. If you manage to attack twice, let's say, by having 100 mana, your leeches stack. TOO BAD. IT STILL ISN'T ENOUGH.

Perhaps if you can manage 3%+ Mana Leech, with it on every piece of gear, or Warlord's Mark, and every Jewel slot near you, but the amount of currency that is going to take, you mine as well roll a fucking clarity, or single mana gained on hit jewel build.

But you're STILL limited by the leech caps!

For that, grab half a dozen +max mana nodes, and mana leech nodes. Good luck with that, considering they're so far off of certain build paths that it just isn't worth it.

Not to mention, a potion does fuck-all when it recovers 60-80 mana, and shuts itself down. Have fun using 1 charge per attack, and filling your entire bar with mana potions just to be able to attack consistently.

I've already abandoned Life Leech. It's completely inferior to the Frenzy Snakebite Bino meta we've entered.
But having to invest so heavily in some forced bullshit just to keep up mana on a build that is made to NOT hit 20 enemies at a fucking time? Come on.

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lilmrock4457 wrote:

Screw the Leech Changes.

Let's talk about Mana Leech.

Have fun if you reserve more than 75% of your mana. It's going to take a whole SECOND to leech back all of your mana as melee.
Let's say it's 50 of your mana per attack, attacking at 1.2aps. It's IMPOSSIBLE to sustain mana on single targets with only 60-90 mana remaining. If you manage to attack twice, let's say, by having 100 mana, your leeches stack. TOO BAD. IT STILL ISN'T ENOUGH.

Perhaps if you can manage 3%+ Mana Leech, with it on every piece of gear, or Warlord's Mark, and every Jewel slot near you, but the amount of currency that is going to take, you mine as well roll a fucking clarity, or single mana gained on hit jewel build.

But you're STILL limited by the leech caps!

For that, grab half a dozen +max mana nodes, and mana leech nodes. Good luck with that, considering they're so far off of certain build paths that it just isn't worth it.

Not to mention, a potion does fuck-all when it recovers 60-80 mana, and shuts itself down. Have fun using 1 charge per attack, and filling your entire bar with mana potions just to be able to attack consistently.

I've already abandoned Life Leech. It's completely inferior to the Frenzy Snakebite Bino meta we've entered.
But having to invest so heavily in some forced bullshit just to keep up mana on a build that is made to NOT hit 20 enemies at a fucking time? Come on.

bolded part is the cause of your problem. when something allows your build to work 'it IS worth it'

for too long 'mana management' was 'get any piece of gear with mana leech on it'. for FAR too long. people got so used to that that now ANY node put into mana they consider wasted. ignoring the fact, that their builds without mana DO NOT WORK. and then that stupid dance with BM-gem/keystone begins when people are willing to gimp themselves just because they 'will not waste nodes on mana'

btw - ive checked your build (doriani+bino, is that the correct one?) and you've put FOUR nodes into mana. 4 (with 1 of these being mandatory anyway because otherwise you wouldnt reach INT requirements and second one having VERY strong flask duration mod). remove some stuff out of your damage and take revelry OR replace jewel with one with mana on hit OR take Versatility for -%mana cost etc etc

old tricks in new game. this wont work

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sidtherat wrote:

bolded part is the cause of your problem. when something allows your build to work 'it IS worth it'

for too long 'mana management' was 'get any piece of gear with mana leech on it'. for FAR too long. people got so used to that that now ANY node put into mana they consider wasted. ignoring the fact, that their builds without mana DO NOT WORK. and then that stupid dance with BM-gem/keystone begins when people are willing to gimp themselves just because they 'will not waste nodes on mana'

btw - ive checked your build (doriani+bino, is that the correct one?) and you've put FOUR nodes into mana. 4 (with 1 of these being mandatory anyway because otherwise you wouldnt reach INT requirements and second one having VERY strong flask duration mod). remove some stuff out of your damage and take revelry OR replace jewel with one with mana on hit OR take Versatility for -%mana cost etc etc

old tricks in new game. this wont work

Old tricks in a new game. What a true statement. I'm not running fucking a Flame Totem character. Go figure.

Get any piece of gear with mana leech on it? So mana leech effects elemental damage? Your whole statement is flawed for FIFTY PERCENT of damage at that point.

Builds without mana do not work, exactly. So why should a character going into TWO SETS of Mana nodes, STILL NOT be able to keep up with 0.8% leech, AND hitting for 15,000 physical damage on single targets?

The entire Spirit Void wheel does NOTHING, because Melee doesn't come with 800 mana worth of Int and Mana nodes to make use of it. There is no way to reach the mana regeneration required, and no need for THREE TYPES of mana regeneration (leech, gem, regen) just to make up 110-120 mana per second on a melee build.

The flask duration is COMPLETE GARBAGE because it wastes the effect of both of my potions. This is only a maximum mana buffer, thus, maximum leech, buffer. The second isn't required, because I have two +30s that I'm touching. They are just a waste of 3 passives just for a buffer that shouldn't be required for the level of effort being used for this type of mana gain already.

Take Revelry? Good luck with that 2 mana on hit. It'll help a whole once every 30 attacks. Like I said, Mana gained on Hit, and Leech are nothing without a mass AoE build. That still requires MORE than one enemy, AND the area to hit them.

Getting every -cost, every max mana, every mgoh (Primal, Druidic, Revelry, Versatility, Unrelenting), SHOULDN'T be required (SEVENTEEN POINTS, 17) JUST TO KEEP UP with mana on a character with 0.8% leech, 15,000 Physical damage, AND slower attacks on single target!
It's ABSOLUTE B.S.

i saw your builds. all of them. glass-cannons with over-abundance of damage nodes with little to NO mana investments
pretty fun to play i guess but as anything that has no balance - fail at some point.


it is time for you to take a step back and re-think the whole mana stuff once again.

it works for me in a 7link with 100% ele damage melee build, i'm sure you can make it work for yours. heck, it works for all my 2.0 melee builds without any problems. it just required some thought and gear (and a cheap one, most think that mana on gear is 'wasted affix')

2.0 forces people to build their characters properly and i do not see anything in-proper in spending 6 passives on mana so my build can work.

ps. before you exaggerate about how taking 'everything' is needed and is still not enough, just try with a % of 'everything'.

ps2. if you cannot afford 6link setup - why are you using 6link setup? one do not buy a ferrari if one cannot afford the gas and the insurance. that is the real meaning of term 'afford something'. you can afford a 6link chestpiece, but you cannot afford a 6link skill (unless you re-do your passives and gear a little)