On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

Ok, i would like to know what kind of trap build is gonna use frenzy charges?

You have nodes on tree that have means for you to get frenzy charges with traps and also you just introduced new unique which does the same.

I dont really like idea of tornado shot traps or some other hipster builds.

Maybe don't base your balance shifts on high quantity of nerf-that-shiat reddit rage posts, Chris. Or rage posts in the forums here. Today a lot of people complain over of what they think is somewhat "OP" while it is maybe just one streamer does endgame content with endgame items and an educated build composition they aren't capable of ever reaching - because of them being just them.

The shift in charges maybe look small, but make a big impact: Power Charges go from crit to crit-spell only, Frenzy go from general damage to attack-only. Diversity question mark ... ??? Not to mention the interaction between unique items. This is not a thingy for some non-patch-notes-in-a-beta-wave-number-xy-side-note IMO. This has a scale more like the double-deeps-changes. I would delay that to 3.1.

...cant say much about Assassin, today it is good around crit and DoT-attack builds. DoT-attacks are questionable as of today, so Assassin is down to only crit-spell Ascendancy with that changes. Maybe we are missing something, but can't figure that out until the 4th. From a feeling i'd say tune down numbers maybe a bit (0.5>0.4;100>80 or something), but let it go for another league otherwise.

I for one think that the changes are relatively fine, maybe tune them back a bit though. It's not like normal things getting nerfed to crap, more like OP things getting nerfed to normal.

The only thing that is weird is the shock, cos if u can do 50% of the mob's hp, you're gonna kill it with the next hit anyway so it's pointless + on bosses you will do so little damage (specially with the boss hp increases) that the buff you will get is either unexistant because it's under 5% or very minor.
Chill is weird too.
I think trying to make power charges more for casters and frenzy charges more for melee is fine and the flask nerfs too. Though barrage needs a nerf.
Maybe the crit you get from power charges could be 40% instead of the current 50% and proposed 30%. Toxic delivery nerf is too hard too, cos dots are already pretty meh in Beta.
Other than that, the changes are fine imo, ppl are just whiny about some of their builds getting nerfed, but well this game isn't supposed to be static, it's supposed to be dynamic so yeah i welcome the changes (maybe tune them back a bit though).

Dear GGG
You nerf Assasin alot with poison and bleed nerf. Now you just destroy him. Nobody want to play with this class because we have raider or berserk

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GGG_Neon wrote:

"

I saw someone mention the DoTs, for example. Given that frenzy charges only work with attacks now, do they improve the damages of Caustic Arrow's cloud ? Poisons ? Bleed ? I know they do with Trickster now, but in general ? That is something huge to take into consideration.

The current stat is "x% More Damage with Attack Skills" meaning it would apply to damaging ailments, Caustic Arrow.

Nice but Caustic Arrow is not an ailment. I still need some clarification about the interaction between CA and the new Frenzy charges status.

Im not posting very often but this time i guess i have too.

In general i love to think a bit outside the box and try to do different builds.
So far POE did a great job with it.
Thats why i dont understand how you could think frenzy -> attack; and power charge-> caster may be a good idea.

Charges should benefit all builds and dont prefer any playstyle. You have a lot of nodes/ascendencies restriced to special playstyles. That is enough.
Instead of narrowing the possible builds you should start to give more options.

For example: Deadeye.
Why dont make it a ascendency good for projectiles?
Why dont let it be a good spellcaster too (for projectile-spells).

But please let charges as they are. (or tweak numbers if you think they are to strong)

i've made an actual topic in the beta section but noone answered to it so i just copy paste my wall of text hoping ggg will read it, TLDR at the end:

after this post i still feel the same, i still feel they are bad at balancing
but let's face it, the game needs those nerfs because some builds clear everything super
fast. SOME builds, not all of them, but instead of focusing on nerfing those cookie cutters they are making changes that affects every build

they nerfed ES by around 33%, it was all good and i feel it was needed like most people do
ES was overpowered compared to life builds


this should've been enough but they removed the ES nodes behind CI too + also nerfed vaal pact and with it they destroyed build diversity

you want a good dps build? good luck going CI against reflect, anything above 100k dps will kill you in 2-3 hits max ( 1-2-3 seconds) if you are not paying attention / don't have some kind of defence ( you should have)


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boss hp increase

there is another topic about it with multiple posts
so i won't go into it very much, IMO bosses should feel like bosses so the increase is good but it is forcing us to play meta builds, who wants to kite even mid tier bosses for 1+ minutes on a caustic arrow build using vulnerability and wither totem when you can just play something like blade vortex and kill the same boss in 10 seconds max
either make bosses more rewarding so it's actually worth the time killing them on tier 3-4 builds or make them totally skippable by removing the map drop chance but giving the players something else to kill for, you should be able to sustain higher tier map pools without killing the boss, just my opinion

this destroys build diversity in its current state by forcing you to play the meta

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frenzy and power charge changes

the power charge change for non crit builds ( % more spell dmg) is actually great but for me the 20% crit chance nerf is too big, you need 2 points for every charge so its basically 15% crit chance per point, not worth it, at 40% crit chance it would be good, imo

frenzy charge nerf is once again affecting the build diversity, let's just look at the new unique body armor, why would anyone use it for anything but "attack" traps like kinetic
blast?
just to make it clear i'm playing attack builds 95% of the time so it doesn't affect me but i care about casters, if someone wants to go for it he should be able to gain benefits from it

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the new chill / shock interactions

i do hope you guys really work on it and find a good solution so if someone wants to invest into these it would be useful for both bosses and simple monsters

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1927897

this would be a great idea

my personal idea would be something like this for shocking:

make targets take ~5-10 increased damage MAX when you shock for 3-4 seconds ( you dont have to deal x% of hp damage per hit), but add passives or items that can increase this number or make shock stackable 2-3-4 times ( like the old shock mechanics )
+ you have to deal x-x flat lightning damage to be able to shock something based on monsterlevel or whatever like acts 1-5: 200 dmg per hit, act 6-8: 700 dmg per hit, act 9-10-maps 1.5k dmg per hit etc so lightning has it's own unique mechanic and if you cant deal enough lightning dmg you simply cant shock, unless you use something like vinktar

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the new revealed uniques

ahn's might
is just another instant vendor unique until you buff it, any 2-5 chaos yellow sword is better than this, scaeva too and let's not talk about the +200 str req

i already wrote my opinion about the body armor + frenzy charges but if you fix it somehow ( the wording too) then this will be a great item for trappers

soul tether: vaal pact doesn't work with ES, so i don't really understand why would anyone use it, it has too much drawbacks, but even with vaal pact i dont think this item is any good vs a high ES resist crystal belt ( good yellow belts offer so much), just my opinion again maybe someone already made a build around it

speaker's wreath:
there might be 1-2 builds for this, i don't know because i've never played summoners but why would any invest heavily into dexterity? it's mostly on the other side of the tree and you need int / str for minions
+ the baron is a lot better, while boosting minion damage also gives the user very good survivability

please just edit existing uniques to make them good for leveling or for some builds etc like you did last time, there is no need for more vendor trash at all, 80% if items already not worth to even look at

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just some of the recent changes i wanted to talk about
i could go on if i wanted but english is not my native language and i'm not sure
if it's readable at all, there might be spelling mistakes etc
plus there are many others who did similar posts suggesting ideas / alternate options

now don't get me wrong, i'm not a crybaby i LOVE the new acts, even the reused acts (6-7-8) feels very new to me, i like the new skill gems and almost everything about the new content
but the balancing is the worst i've ever seen in this game and so much people complaining about it too

so my overall TLDR opinion on balancing would be this:

instead of nerfing overpowered stuff to the ground just make them less OP nerfing them bit by bit until you feel comfortable with it
BUT and its a very important but
work on stuff noone's using because it's too weak currently or it has bad mechanics
(looking at you ice spear) dont just nerf 90% of the time
so basically nerf stuff while increasing build diversity instead of destroying it

once again this is only my opinion you don't have to agree with me but i just felt i should write it down

oh and about ice spear imagine this idea: first form piercing the targets at close range has a built in point blank keystone ( risky but rewards the player if he is close to the enemy, second form forks and the forked projectiles deal damage in a small aoe ( pack clear) just some brainstorming

This is why power creep is bad. You're paying the costs for it now... in real dollars spent fixing the issues you've caused. Note that in the future when someone comes up with a "cool idea" that makes players more powerful.

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EzBreesy wrote:

Changes doesn't look bad, assassin was too strong as even traper would be assassin.
People need to stop crying before they actually test it, we will also have new harbinger uniques which in my opinion should add a lot of new builds.

Sure if you go for crit poison traps assassin is the best choice because it boost both mechanics. But thats not surprising. Trapper has nothing except 2 passives that actually boost generic traps and are as strong as other ascendancy passives. The minor nodes are only useful for elemental based traps. The other passives are mines, elemental based and some defensive melee ranged blind mechanics.

You're better off doing scion is the funny part here if you wanna do an assassin type spec.