Defenses are So bad!!!

Just go Totems build and shield charge around and dodge stuff. Done

Instant leech is the 3rd most important survival aspect in the game.

The first is capping resistances.
Second is getting a good EHP.
Third is Vaal Pact/Atziri's.

The problem with instant leech is that it takes very little investment (1 node on the tree, or a crit based character with 1 item). A character built decently can easily grab VP for 1-2 nodes of investment, while getting resistances capped takes 4+ pieces of gear and a good EHP takes 20+ nodes and 6+ pieces of gear.

It also makes reflect a non-issue. Unless you're spitting out ungodly amounts of damage with absolutely no EHP or defenses, reflect is pretty much completely destroyed by VP.

It also scales with DPS and Life Leech. Regular life leech without VP only scales to 20%/s of your HP/ES. That is pretty low compared to the amount of DPS and Life Leech you can get. VP completely removes that restriction and makes a DPS focused character way better than a defense focused character due to the DPS scaling of VP.

It makes Berserker facetanking and Vessel of Vinktar completely broken. It trivializes the game as characters can easily just facetank the hardest content in the game by pressing a single button.

It also makes ES melee builds essentially non-viable. Why limit the build opportunities for a game by a completely broken mechanic? ES now is pretty bad compared to life. Removing VP for them just makes it even worse.

My solution is pretty simple: removing VP and put more max life/es rate % leech nodes on the tree/gear, while also toning down monster damage a little bit. Will make people actually have to plan their characters a little better, will make the game a bit easier for those non-VP characters currently struggling to keep up with VP and it will remove the broken mechanic. Things like the Berserker ascendency can give more max hp/s leech, and where VP used to be can be a cluster for it as well.

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Divini wrote:

Instant leech is the 3rd most important survival aspect in the game.

The first is capping resistances.
Second is getting a good EHP.
Third is Vaal Pact/Atziri's.

3rd "easiest", I'd agree.
3rd most important, I doubt that. I doubt there's anything taking the 3rd spot in this list.
You need capped resist and you need a life buffer big enough not to get constantly one-shot.

Everything that follows is a matter of taste, build and gear restrictions.

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The problem with instant leech is that it takes very little investment (1 node on the tree, or a crit based character with 1 item). A character built decently can easily grab VP for 1-2 nodes of investment (...)

It makes Berserker facetanking (...) completely broken.

While this investment is totally worth it, there's no way we're talking "1-2 points investment" here for a Berserker. Unless you can make real use of Shadow starting zone (Crit, 1h, elemental), VP is in "no man's land" for a marauder, about as far away from his start as possible in the tree, with nothing interesting along the way except a couple life clusters and jewel sockets (which can be found all over the tree).

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Divini wrote:

Instant leech is the 3rd most important survival aspect in the game.

The first is capping elemental resistances.
Second is getting a good EHP.
Third is getting a good sustain to your EHP.

I agree with first and second rules, though first rule requires a slight fix as i did. I fixed third rule as well.

You need SUSTAIN for your EHP, to recover from damage taken. Instant leech is a very strong sustain mechanics, but it isnt the only one. My Slayer relies on non-instant leech, and still feels very good. Without VP or acuities..

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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Divini wrote:

Instant leech is the 3rd most important survival aspect in the game.
The first is capping elemental resistances.
Second is getting a good EHP.
Third is getting a good sustain to your EHP.

I agree with first and second rules, though first rule requires a slight fix as i did. I fixed third rule as well.
You need SUSTAIN for your EHP, to recover from damage taken. Instant leech is a very strong sustain mechanics, but it isnt the only one. My Slayer relies on non-instant leech, and still feels very good. Without VP or acuities..

But the problem is that VP not just make you feel good.

Many VP builds can kill Shaper's guardians in secs, and kill Shaper or uber Atzri solely in a 6-members-party map.

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smtad wrote:

Many VP builds can kill Shaper's guardians in secs, and kill Shaper or uber Atzri solely in a 6-members-party map.

Builds, that kill Shaper is seconds, dont need VP, dude! They dont need to use life leech at all, even! Shaper doesnt have time to hurt them.

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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smtad wrote:

Many VP builds can kill Shaper's guardians in secs, and kill Shaper or uber Atzri solely in a 6-members-party map.

Builds, that kill Shaper is seconds, dont need VP, dude! They dont need to use life leech at all, even! Shaper doesnt have time to hurt them.

Yes, what you said is 1000 exalts build. But VP can reduce the cost to less than 100 exalts.

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smtad wrote:

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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smtad wrote:

Many VP builds can kill Shaper's guardians in secs, and kill Shaper or uber Atzri solely in a 6-members-party map.

Builds, that kill Shaper is seconds, dont need VP, dude! They dont need to use life leech at all, even! Shaper doesnt have time to hurt them.

Yes, what you said is 1000 exalts build. But VP can reduce the cost to less than 100 exalts.

Not really. Every other day Mathil creates a new `100-200 chaos build that usually does not have Vaal Pact, and yet he does all the content. He uses a wide variety of builds, but all have on common denominator. INSANE DAMAGE. Vaal Pact is overpowered, sure. So is leech in general, but the biggest defense anybody could have is just over the top DPS. Just yesterday out of boredom i respeced my bersker from 4.7K HP with Abyssus and 10 million DPS to 7,5K HP with higher regen, evasion and armour and lost about 8 million DPS. Results? Sure safer in general while mapping, BUT WORSE overall for boss kills. Bosses in the endgame will kill you at some point no matter how tanky you are. The fastest you kill them the better. And my DPS is still high AND i have istant leech.