Mistress of sacrifice is too powerful

The main problem of this ability, is that bone offering allows to reach max block and a huge amount of life on block without any real commitment on gear or the skill tree.

Here is a tree for a basic lightning caster (copy paste the link into emmitts new skill tree planer) :

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwMA37Dtd4IQm4pIjhUnB6W-Tw3ijLEC40myLJwQWCt4dhEfx-TsLYsyNG0ZHwII9AQHNsXAVEyzg9vYJLzqakPQH0V-VcanCFZI7-sOXDpYna7r7mr6rJgabBzcmuARDzbp5CK4k48aRZ1-rySq1aYo-lNStYWNGRZv7TyCx-9Q4BLjapo7Hb756MG02V_hc4KbM4dodEGHLX3djKIA7DgD7tpitz7wHwSzhXs62BhW_grAZmZUJy98u_JF2L2Ub5BVPQ864TWScg8aOAY5r6emV_6PcYX7qhzOTePMt1cp8wYrUNV1RtdRYA3NsUL-VA==

By using the following items:

- A helm with +2 minion gem level slotted with bone offering (bone offering is a minion gem)

- A 25 block shield with +3 block crafted by haku (the craft costs 3 chaos)

- A Stone of Lazhwar unique amulet (50% of Block Chance applied to Spells)

- 3 jewels with 1% block

- tempest shield gem


This setup gives us 75 block / 67 spell block and 750hp on block. For reference, an aegis build with 30K armor gets 600 es on block while requiring a full tree commitment.
As a result, 10-15 chaos worth of gear will make 90%+ of the game utterly trivial.

Better yet, this scales incredibly well with gear.
The shield can be replaced with a Rathpith Globe, freeing the amulet slot and making the gear commitment even less relevant, while using rainbowstrides will cap spell block.
With an empower gem in the helm, bone offering can now be raised to lvl 26, giving a whooping 1200 hp on block.
With Rumi's Concoction, the shield itself can be skipped.

Finally, If the defense of bone offering is not needed, it can be swapped at will for a 30%+ movement, attack and cast speed buff.

I think this really cheapens the choice of ascendency classes. I picked a lightning build as an example to show that a build doesn't even need to be summoner or chaos damage oriented to fully benefit from it. Those 2 points make most of the defensive classes redundant and put the gladiator, a block specialist, to shame.

As a fix, I think the line "your offering skills also affect you" should be changed to "your offering skills also affect you at 50% effectiveness".
This would still allow a character to reach very high, or even max block, but would require both gear and skill tree commitment to achieve.
Alternatively, a more thematic way would be to scale the effectiveness depending on the amount of zombies/specters controlled.

I know I'll get some flak for suggesting a nerf before release, but I honestly think this is needed to avoid a "path of necromancer" league.

It needs a nerf, but 50% would probably be too harsh, it would still be strong at 70% of offering effects apply to you.

Honestly, I thin it would be nice if some of the other Ascendancies had stuff going for it like this.

Many feel rather lackluster, and sure this looks rather strong too, but to be honest, without Mistress of Sacrifice, Necromancer is a terrible Ascendancy that doesn't really do anything that exciting for Summoners.

Unless they overhaul the whole thing, enjoy your max block and massive life gain on block. Take it away and change nothing else, and Necromancer will not be used.

you do realize that in order to abuse this mechanic you actually have to give up your ascendancy tree right ?

i mean sure it is probably worth it. but unless you are a summoner you wont get much else maybe some chaos damage...)

I think it would be fair.
You'd still get 15/15 block plus 300+ hp on block with no investment.
And the crazy scaling potential with rumy and empower are still there.
I'd argue it would still be the most powerful defensive 2 point ability in the game.

this is stupid .look the issue here is non summoner classes abusing necromancer to get free block.


real summoners need block , because they wont have room for all that block gear not unless they want to be even slower at clearing than they already are.


simple solution then. keep it as is , add a 50% less damage mod. minions arent affected by player damage mods so it works just fine for summoners.

now you non summoners can be tanky all you want and do no damage as well. and normal summoner can still use it all they want

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

you do realize that in order to abuse this mechanic you actually have to give up your ascendancy tree right ?

i mean sure it is probably worth it. but unless you are a summoner you wont get much else maybe some chaos damage...)

Spirit eater works for everything, and offerings will constantly trigger it.
You also get skill duration, which is huge for stuff like (vaal) spark or Immortal call.
The last point is somewhat lackluster if you don't go chaos/minions or play in parties, but it is a small price to pay for having a virtually immortal character.

Edit: It would be fine if it only worked with summoners, ence why I said it may be better to scale the effectiveness depending on player summons. The problem is it makes every single build op as hell at no real cost.

If your perception of small investment is 2 auras + keystone, locking out your shield slot and 2 flasks what would you consider a big investment?

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SaiyanZ wrote:

You can just use Aeqis and Rumi's for replenishment and not have to sacrifice your Ascendancy class for it. eg. I have over 20k armour, 75%/65% block, 2k ES. The only investment is:

Plus Grace and Discipline auras and Iron Reflexes.

Absolutely zero pathing on the tree for block, armour, ES or evasion. Only nodes that were on my path were taken.

This is a passive and easy way to play too. No need to cast anything. Just hit flasks every few seconds while playing normally.

You are using a legacy aegis + legacy rumy's. Those are twice as good as the normal ones.
I don't think legacys should ever be used as a balance point. They where made legacy for a reason.

TBH, your Damage wont be great. (290 Increased+150 from gear = 440%)

No crit and a full sacrifice of Ascendancy tree.

As a summoner, im not sure if block is necessary (since you have meatshield). As a self caster, you loosing so much damage by choosing Necromancer, that it wont compete with the more damage oriented build.

A pure Eva/Acro lightning caster with Pledge will reach similiar defence values (not the spell avoidance, but 70% attack and 46% spell avoidance are really easy and cheap to achieve) with a lot higher DPS and a free Ascendancy tree

You have to balance off/def really good meanwhile, so i think in general, this is going to be fine, since you sacrificing a lot of offence for a great defence (that is also conditioned, 'cuz you have to cast it first).