An idea to fix the Vaal Pact+Ghost Reaver combo

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Peterlerock wrote:

As an example, my standpoint:
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I agree and can relate with pretty much everything you are saying in this, hence why I'm not so much in favor of buffing Life

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That's why all these threads are ultimately pointless.

This thread is more about "What do you guys think about this" than "GGG plz nerf".

I'm too lazy to read entire thread. Change Ghost Reaver:
"Life Leech is applied to Energy Shield instead
You have no energy shield recharge"
I think biggest problem with Vaal pact is that it's better for ES than for life. On life no regen is at least annoying and sometimes really problematic (lab trials), on ES you just stand in safe space for a moment and get recharged.

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Vaustu wrote:

I'm too lazy to read entire thread. Change Ghost Reaver:
"Life Leech is applied to Energy Shield instead
You have no energy shield recharge"
I think biggest problem with Vaal pact is that it's better for ES than for life. On life no regen is at least annoying and sometimes really problematic (lab trials), on ES you just stand in safe space for a moment and get recharged.

I summed up the ideas shared in my last post page 3 (post just before the last of the page)

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Bouveti wrote:

I summed up the ideas shared in my last post page 3 (post just before the last of the page)

Ah, thanks.

I don't think changing Vaal Pact or its place is a good idea, because it thematically fits great to the Shadow and Ranger, the most squishy classes. Even the littlest change targeted at ES would probably break many of niche builds.
On the other hand, Ghost Reaver is used pretty much for one thing, and the change I propose would weaken, but not break, meta builds.

Life isn't that bad, but armor works shitty, resulting in oneshots. Also, life chars are vulnerable to chaos damage, which most of ES is immune to. With more and more chaos mobs in the game, it has become a problem. Changing this immunity on CI to a 'chaos damage doesnt bypass ES' and a bonus 60% chaos res or something would level the playing field a little.

ES chars need VP cause they don't have any other reliable defenses than big ES pool.

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Vaustu wrote:

ES chars need VP cause they don't have any other reliable defenses than big ES pool.

ES chars don't "need" VP.

You could use normal leech (GR, but no VP).
You could use ZO.
You could buff your recharge rate.
You could invest in substantial amounts of block, AR/EV to go along your ES.

But why would you? VP is just super point-efficient and convenient (read as "op").

(btw, armour works great for what it is supposed to work against)

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The problem here is that you try to apply 1 existing mechanic to punish another.

What you didn't realize, however, is the fact that Life Gain on Hit works only for attacks unless specifically specified (Cybil's Paw, for instance). This would fuck over any current build that is not attack based.

Throwing that aside, the idea doesn't make a lot of sense still. You see, the way you describe it is basically how VP currently works. It's a percentage of the damage dealt applied as Life Leech instantly. Practically the same thing as % Life Gain on Hit.

You're right that I didn't take in consideration that most Life Gain on Hit mechanics existing today applie only to attacks.
What I meant by "is converted to Life Gain on hit" is basically "it can only apply to life and cannot work with Ghost Reaver" without taking in consideration the source of the leeching and being effective with spells aswell.

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Just remove the interaction between VP and GR

My rephrasing of VP is pretty much the fancy version of this.

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Peterlerock wrote:

ES chars don't "need" VP.

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Oh, of course you don't need it. You don't need to be able to do endgame content too. You don't really need anything. Sorry for bad wording.
The thing is, some parts of ES spectrum aren't covered by any of Your solutions.
Normal leech is usable, true, but the base leechrate doesn't keep up with the absurd amounts of big hits in game, and anything increasing it, (except gem quality, i know), is on the other side of the tree. I know that manual dodging is a thing, but I'm pretty sure You too have encountered many undodgable things in game.
ZO doesn't work great if You aren't guardian or trickster, because most of the life regen nodes are either combined with life or placed half a tree away.
Recharge rate is useless in fights if you aren't occultist.
And finally investing in block/ar/ev for not guardian or trickster classes makes going CI useless, since you won't get any good amounts of ES anyways.

Tl;dr:
I think Your proposed solutions are too heavy of an investment for many, if not most, ES builds to work well. While I agree that VP + GR is ovepovered, It's the only reliable way of recovering your ES fast right now, and that is a must with absurd one-shots and overall monster damage.
Anyways, I'd appreciate if You took a look at my earlier proposition, instead of my opinions.

Also; by armor working great you mean for many little hits? If that then i don't agree, but understand.

Step 1: Buff "+% of maximum Life per second to maximum Life leech rate" nodes (Vitality Void/Hematogaphy) by 200%, from +5% to +15%.
Step 2: Half base +evasion/armour bonuses on all flasks (+1500 evasion from Jade flask for example) but increase their duration instead (or leave them with current duration).
Step 3: Buff all +%armour and +%evasion bonuses on the tree by 100%, or buff base armour/evasion on gear.
Step 4: "Vaal Pact only works with melee attacks".
Step 5: Add somewhere a "+% of maximum Life per second to maximum Life leech rate" node or add this bonus to existing life/weapon nodes around the Marauder area. Maybe add one around Shadow/Witch area for ES builds that cannot use new VP.
Step 6: Buff %block nodes by 50% (3% instead of 2%), if not all around the tree, then at least in the left area.


ES based characters will have only half as much free evasion/armour from flasks. ES builds have to invest into other defenses if they want same survivability, and can't get them as easily as now.
Life based characters will have more evasion/armour with and without flasks.
With more evasion/armour, life based characters don't need instant leech and to travel all the way into Shadow area, but instead, can get much faster "normal" leech with little investment. Don't forget, they do have better defenses so their HP isn't going down as fast.
ES based spellcasters and ranged (safeish playstyle) now don't have access to OP instant leech and have to rely on 20% of maximum energy shield per second or have to invest into +% leech node(s).
ES based melee characters can still use VP to their full effect. They aren't OP/meta, no reason to penalize them.

Life will now (for example) have 20k armour instead of 10k and 10k evasion instead of 5k. Life can get more damage thanks to less points spent on block.
ES will now (for example) have 2k armour instead of 4k and 3k evasion instead of 6k.
Life won't need to leech instantly, now it can leech up to 35-50% of its maximum life per second instead of 25-30%, but also has better defenses.
ES spell/ranged (op level meta builds) cannot use VP. ES melee (average power level) can still use VP.


Life is a bit better, ES is a bit worse, balance achieved.
Imo it's a better solution then simply nerfing VP/GR, which will still leave us with ES meta, only a bit squishier, and still leave Life being the second class citizen or leveling choice.
And, if ES values are butchered instead of VP/GR being changed, we will only switch from "ES meta" to "Life+VP" meta.
That is my idea to fix the game.


Why? Because ranged characters don't need instant leech. They are ranged, they have more time to dodge projectiles, telegraphed attacks, or can simply outrun a boss/mobs.
Melee or short range characters do need either instant leech if they have shitty defenses, or just good amount of leech per second if they do have alright defenses.
ES builds shouldn't get big amounts of armour and evasion with little investment, and Life builds should get some return for investing in those defenses.

i LIKE IT

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Bristoling wrote:

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The flaw I see in your proposition is that elemental and chaos damage are a thing and armor cannot help against it (evasion can if the source is an attack).
I don't exactly know the proportion between physical and other types of damage that is relevant lategame but I guess it must be at least 50% if not more being other than physical damage.

Other than that, your reasoning is pretty accurate to me.

PS: Are there any melee spells that would be hurt by this kind of change ? I can't think of any actual melee spells but I'm far from all knowing (RF could be considered melee but I belive it doesn't work with leeching).