Feedback and Suggestions - Why are fortify nodes and the fortify gem so punishing/bad? - Forum

Spoiler " SlippyCheeze wrote: The trade-offs of fortify for casters and ranged attackers, vs only namelocking melee? Seems a little unfair to exclude all the non-namelock melee from this, but... They can't use fortify on their attacks, because they are not melee skills. So, unlike melee users, they can't get fortify all the time by trading off a DPS gem on the main attack for a defensive gem. Like melee, they can put that gem on a movement skill that also hits enemies and counts as melee, with the restrictions those impose such as shield and non-wand use, or claw/dagger/sword use. They can also put it on a secondary melee skill they hit with occasionally, either with the support gem, or the fortify-giving melee skills. In both of those cases the ranged/caster needs to give up at least two sockets for skill + support in almost all cases; for vigalent strike they "only" need to give up any non-melee weapon. They also need to either be in melee range (fortify, any melee w/ support), or move to/through enemies (shield charge, whirling blades) which puts them much closer to the enemy that wants to chew their face off than they would be without fortify, and shooting them from a distance. They also trade off that they are highly likely to be doing vastly less damage with these melee attacks, because there are so few physical spells, in the case of casters, and bow builds tend to be relatively low on physical too -- many of their bonuses are projectile or bow based, not melee or physical damage boosts. So, kill-on-connect is much less likely than on a melee-focused character. So: they have to get close to the enemy, and have to use an extra skill. Melee get the choice of doing the same, extra skill, or attaching it to the primary attack, and they are rather more built to be face-chewing right back... " sofocle10000 wrote: Even those cool GMP/LMP got added to so many items without the intrinsic less "multiplier" that it's asinine to even think about "trade offs". Pointing to some random unconnected thing that may or may not be overpowered with ranged attacks is not a meaningful argument about fortify having trade-offs for otherwise ranged builds. If you wanted to have an argument about the relative power of ranged vs melee characters, great, but don't make like that is related to fortify in any way. " sofocle10000 wrote: Fortify needs to be specific for hitting an enemy in a <16 area around your character with MELEE DAMAGE, and become a 1 second buff, and also intrinsic to all single target namelocking melee skills. Everything else needs to have it at MOST at 25% effect. If they want "moar" Fortify, they should work for it and grab every single increased Fortify effect in the skilltree. That is a set of mechanical solutions to a problem you see with Fortify being available to other classes, and irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is "does Fortify have trade-offs for non-melee players". Though it does impose some limitation on Fortify for melee - now blade flurry and sunder attacks all the way across the screen won't be granting fortify even if supported, I suppose. Is that your intent, also penalizing them? Sure thing. There is a thread made by @goetzjam that argues the impact of movement skills and Fortify especially for casters. All is "fine and dandy", as melee builds too need to add Fortify to a movement skill if they want to use it so, and those builds also lack adding Fortify to the main skill. Fortify added to the main skill does indeed pose a damage penalty, and just like Frenzy, can be considered more utility based. Casters have the benefit of NEVER requiring it on a main skill, as most of them don't have to facetank like the melee users do - and that is why I specifically started to talk about single target namelocking melee, because that is what "melee" is all about, being in "melee" proximity to the enemy, not a "moar" than half of the screen away like those "cool" AoE/projectile "melee" tagged skills. Melee players also don't have the same access to the "survival" options that casters have, as that was why Fortify was introduced with a "melee" tag. Sure, I think it's fine to have it available for anyone that uses a "melee" hit versus an enemy in a <16 radius, but it's duration must be set at 1 second, and it's effect needs to be substantially diminished when you use spells/projectiles afterwards, not to mention that same rule should apply when you use the movement skill to leave the dangerous situation. GGG doesn't preserve common sense scenarios regarding "trade offs" no matter if we're talking about skill gems, support gems, items, mechanics or various interactions. At times, common sense fails them, and they simply introduce ways to bypass all those "trade offs" "just because". That example was meant to just illustrate that you started from the wrong premise. Fortify should have "trade offs", but those should amount to the same impact for EVERYONE, casters and ranged players included - a less effect tagged to the Fortify gem regarding usage of various projectile/spell damage and not hitting an enemy in close proximity (<16 radius) WITH A MELEE SKILL should do the trick. Melee needs to actually mean "smelling a monster armpits to do him damage". That is what "melee" is most of the time in ARPGs. Sure, in the last few years and most of the new apparitions in the genre the "glorified auto-attacks" that were the pinnacle of "melee" got replaced by various full screen effects that scaled upon "melee" damage, but those are not "melee" per se, they just require you to hit something. So, we could argue that hitting the ground in Earthquake/Ground Slam would require a monster proximity to the point of impact of <16 radius, for Fortify effect to be applied, the same for Ice Crash, but most of the "melee" skills with the exception of Frost Blades, Lacerate, Sunder or Blade Flurry actually require you to HIT an opponent in close proximity to do him damage - Lightning Strike also has a main impact beside the projectiles, just like Molten Strike, the rest of the Strike skill are "per hit", just like Dominating/infernal Blow, Reave, Frenzy, Flicker, Elemental Hit, Glacial Hammer, even Cyclone, Sweep or Cleave without adjusting their AoE work that way. As long as the requirement of hitting an enemy in a <16 radius is set for all, I couldn't care less if those AoE/projectile "melee" skills obliterate the entire screen along, but Fortify should be granted SPECIFICALLY when "danger is close by" and your character is prone to be HIT. Fortify on movement skills wouldn't be as impactful IF those movement skills couldn't be "spammed" continuously. It would make sense to keep it work just like now if those would get a cooldown - and you could be able to bypass it at will for an increasing cost (so you will need 1 charge to bypass the second use of Leap Slam, 2 charges for third and so on). Fortify needs to get it's usage identity back, as right now is helping "moar" those ranged/cast playstyles, while having a heavy trade off only for melee... PSS: Our almighty TencentGGG overlords are very scrupulous regarding criticizing their abilities to take proper decisions and consider everything "needlessly harsh and condescending"... Good to know "free speech" doesn't apply in any form or manner on the forums these days... Last edited by sofocle10000 on Feb 23, 2018, 12:52:33 AM	Posted by sofocle10000 on Feb 23, 2018, 12:47:48 AM Quote this Post
Those fortify nodes always was useless and way weaker than any other nodes, plus so far away from any good nodes that make zero synergy. Necropolis master craft service Necropolis My IGN TreeOfDead https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2037371 Vouch Necropolis veiled crafting all service all crafts mods Necropolis SC master craft service Necropolis SC craft mod! Veiled crafting Service Necropolis craft PM: TreeOfDead	Posted by TreeOfDead on Feb 23, 2018, 12:39:51 PM Quote this Post
What if Fortify granted Point Blank as well? Or a ranged version of Point Blank that affects projectiles AND spells? It would force the user to be in your face with the opponent.	Posted by RockGod on Feb 23, 2018, 2:53:51 PM Quote this Post
" sofocle10000 wrote: All is "fine and dandy", as melee builds too need to add Fortify to a movement skill if they want to use it so, and those builds also lack adding Fortify to the main skill. Fortify added to the main skill does indeed pose a damage penalty, and just like Frenzy, can be considered more utility based. Casters have the benefit of NEVER requiring it on a main skill, as most of them don't have to facetank like the melee users do - and that is why I specifically started to talk about single target namelocking melee, because that is what "melee" is all about, being in "melee" proximity to the enemy, not a "moar" than half of the screen away like those "cool" AoE/projectile "melee" tagged skills. Melee players also don't have the same access to the "survival" options that casters have, as that was why Fortify was introduced with a "melee" tag. Good write-up. Thinking further about what you said, I have come to agree with you. My own suggestion would be that, essentially, Fortify Support fold into the Melee Damage Support gem. That is a nice, general support gem that can help any melee build in terms of performance, and which already serves only melee skills, so doesn't need additional special rules. I see your point on EQ, Sunder, etc, but I think that while GGG are calling those melee, they probably reasonable get the same benefits. A separate debate is if the /should/ be melee, but whatevs, not relevant here, I think. I think dropping the duration to one second is too punishing: you really need fortify to stay up long enough to be able to cast one or two other things between applications, otherwise it becomes too painful to even consider using a warcry, a utility spell/attack, etc, along with it. Four seconds is reasonable for that. Ultimately, though, I can't see a good way to stop builds that are not melee focused using fortify without also giving up one of the GGG goals, which is that all base classes can use all types of builds. D3, through restricting builds and abilities, actually had an easier time: they were able to just give the melee classes a flat 30 percent damage reduction for free, which worked out well. The best I could come up with that wasn't unreasonably punishing was, as you suggest, a strong cooldown on movement skills, or pulling the melee tag off them entirely. They both suck in their own special ways, especially as that would require a >= 4 seconds cooldown to work, but probably "movement is not melee" is the least worst choice.	Posted by SlippyCheeze on Feb 23, 2018, 3:47:07 PM Quote this Post
'Fortify support' skill gem duration should be reduced to 2 seconds, with no additional duration bonus. Its damage modifier should be changed to '% increased melee damage'. Its quality bonus should be changed to '% increased melee damage'. This will reduce impact of 'movement skill + fortify support' and eliminate unfair phys-only bonus. retired from forum because of censorship and discrimination	Posted by DivineChampion on Feb 23, 2018, 5:37:02 PM Quote this Post
Wouldn't go that far as some suggesting the reduced duration for fortify, in some boss fights it could be the difference of living or dying (Invulnerability phases before spawning adds as one example). Personally I would go in the direction of changing the skill gem in this way; - If Fortify is supporting a movement skill (Skill with movement tag), the skill goes onto 4 second cooldown ^^ This way you're making a choice by yourself to changing your movement skill into more of a support skill and you have to rely more on your positioning. (You could still use two different ones, but make all with same name share cooldown.) Considering that you'd need at least two sockets to make it work, three usually for most builds, sometimes four, would make people think their options more. Melee builds can still use fortify for the purpose of taking less damage in boss fights or swarm of enemies, slot it in your main skill or secondary skill (Frenzy for example) to keep the buff going while making Fortify harder to get into builds which aren't melee focused. _Skittles_	Posted by _Skittles_ on Feb 24, 2018, 11:52:41 AM Quote this Post
" Dharall wrote: And drop the duration to 1s Why? Well that would "fix" the ranged users permanently having fortify with for example shield charge. And it wouldn't affect melee at all, well.. as long as you have it linked with you attack skill. :) So basically as a melee you should have fortify as a support on your main attack... completely wasting a gem slot. This would hurt melee more than it would hurt ranged.	Posted by FrancescoV on Feb 24, 2018, 12:11:45 PM Quote this Post
" FrancescoV wrote: " Dharall wrote: And drop the duration to 1s Why? Well that would "fix" the ranged users permanently having fortify with for example shield charge. And it wouldn't affect melee at all, well.. as long as you have it linked with you attack skill. :) So basically as a melee you should have fortify as a support on your main attack... completely wasting a gem slot. This would hurt melee more than it would hurt ranged. That's why people are also asking for Fortify to be changed to have a HEFTY "more melee damage" modifier on it instead of its ultra paltry "increased melee damage" one. So a melee character putting fortify on isn't having to gut their damage.	Posted by aleksandor on Feb 24, 2018, 11:12:31 PM Quote this Post
" sofocle10000 wrote: This is why I always supported Fortify becoming intrinsic to single target namelocking melee, and work if an enemy is hit by the character in a <16 radius (with a subsequent decreased effect when linked to melee movement skills)! Casters also enjoy various defensive alternatives, like MoM/ES way more easier than a melee character would, so they could manage without benefiting from Fortify - there is a reason why Fortify has the "melee" tag, and the "close combat" casters that use a Mjol/Cospri's always HIT with a melee skill, just like any other Coc build... So, nice try, but maybe try harder? I'm talking about spells like ice nova and shock nova. And don't try to tell be they have better defensives than melee do, I don't believe it. " _Skittles_ wrote: Wouldn't go that far as some suggesting the reduced duration for fortify, in some boss fights it could be the difference of living or dying (Invulnerability phases before spawning adds as one example). Personally I would go in the direction of changing the skill gem in this way; - If Fortify is supporting a movement skill (Skill with movement tag), the skill goes onto 4 second cooldown ^^ This way you're making a choice by yourself to changing your movement skill into more of a support skill and you have to rely more on your positioning. (You could still use two different ones, but make all with same name share cooldown.) Considering that you'd need at least two sockets to make it work, three usually for most builds, sometimes four, would make people think their options more. Melee builds can still use fortify for the purpose of taking less damage in boss fights or swarm of enemies, slot it in your main skill or secondary skill (Frenzy for example) to keep the buff going while making Fortify harder to get into builds which aren't melee focused. _Skittles_ I think this idea is simply awesome. Last edited by Telzen on Feb 24, 2018, 11:33:45 PM	Posted by Telzen on Feb 24, 2018, 11:25:01 PM Quote this Post
Spoiler " Telzen wrote: " sofocle10000 wrote: This is why I always supported Fortify becoming intrinsic to single target namelocking melee, and work if an enemy is hit by the character in a <16 radius (with a subsequent decreased effect when linked to melee movement skills)! Casters also enjoy various defensive alternatives, like MoM/ES way more easier than a melee character would, so they could manage without benefiting from Fortify - there is a reason why Fortify has the "melee" tag, and the "close combat" casters that use a Mjol/Cospri's always HIT with a melee skill, just like any other Coc build... So, nice try, but maybe try harder? I'm talking about spells like ice nova and shock nova. And don't try to tell be they have better defensives than melee do, I don't believe it. " _Skittles_ wrote: Wouldn't go that far as some suggesting the reduced duration for fortify, in some boss fights it could be the difference of living or dying (Invulnerability phases before spawning adds as one example). Personally I would go in the direction of changing the skill gem in this way; - If Fortify is supporting a movement skill (Skill with movement tag), the skill goes onto 4 second cooldown ^^ This way you're making a choice by yourself to changing your movement skill into more of a support skill and you have to rely more on your positioning. (You could still use two different ones, but make all with same name share cooldown.) Considering that you'd need at least two sockets to make it work, three usually for most builds, sometimes four, would make people think their options more. Melee builds can still use fortify for the purpose of taking less damage in boss fights or swarm of enemies, slot it in your main skill or secondary skill (Frenzy for example) to keep the buff going while making Fortify harder to get into builds which aren't melee focused. _Skittles_ I think this idea is simply awesome. Neah, as long as those spells scale AoE, and don't tell me they are ONLY used with CE as we both know that is hardly the case, they are off the table. Any caster that scales his ES and/or adds MoM IS more favored from a survivability than a melee character with ONLY Fortify, and a caster doesn't directly intends to "tank" all the damage. If he does so, Fortify is only "the cherry on top". I might concede to grant you this point based on the <16 radius, but Fortify is tagged "melee", so by default a caster that doesn't also HIT WITH AN ATTACK, shouldn't gain the buff. Great idea regarding the cooldown interaction for a movement skill + Fortify. That might do it too. Regardless, the current implementation of Fortify FAVORS casters more than melee characters, and that is simply wrong. It needs to be addressed ASAP. PSS: Our almighty TencentGGG overlords are very scrupulous regarding criticizing their abilities to take proper decisions and consider everything "needlessly harsh and condescending"... Good to know "free speech" doesn't apply in any form or manner on the forums these days... Last edited by sofocle10000 on Feb 25, 2018, 12:03:47 AM	Posted by sofocle10000 on Feb 25, 2018, 12:03:13 AM Quote this Post