"... to let spell block be something all characters can have access to, ..."

I don't know if the dev who wrote the text for the Balance Manifesto either had outdated information or your internal communication is so bad he didn't know what to write in the first place. Maybe it was just a note from another dev: "Hey, just write that spell block (SB) is good now for many more characters".

While it's true that Max Block/SB is strong it wasn't easily achievable and was in a good state. Now you gutted it with no fucking reason in the first place and any character wanting to have SB will certainly NOT take it anymore.

- Why did you change the conversion B2SB to flat SB? Does it give you headache internally when you do builds but can't properly build, because math is difficult?

- Acceptable uniques for endgame, such as Rathpith Globe, Reckless Defence etc. are now fucking USELESS. RG now gives 15% SB at max. RD is at 4%. WOW. These changes get these items from several chaos worth ones to 1 alch immediatly. Great job!

- The [Life]/ES/Block Build (e.g. Summoner) is now severly gutted in terms of defense if you invest into ES and Block. What other defenses are there in the north?
-- Life could go MOM (how exciting!)
-- ES? Do you still know what it is? ES alone has been crippled and with block practically gone now it'll be much harder for ES builds to get a reasonable DEFENSIVE LAYER, which would be at least 60/60 B/SB.
--- One could go e.g. for Dodge, however then you'd have to build around items which have dodge ... and most of them are EVASION, and not primarily ES.

- A solution would be, as suggest here: https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/9b5g9u/ggg_let_spell_block_be_something_all_characters/ is to multiply all the SB numbers by at least 1.5 to 2.

At GGG headquarters:
"Should we give the items better numbers?"
"No, fuck it, everyone now will go Life and maybe MOM, we don't care, and still make false and misleading statements."

Absolutely agreed.

I had high hopes after Bex announcement that I might not need the ranger dodge wheel now when playing with a shield but that hope was shattered after looking into the new PoB.

What they did to the Staff Wheel (letting block numbers the same and just adding the equivalent amount of spell block) they should have done to all block wheels and nodes so a normal non gladiator player with a good shield doesnt need to burn more than 5-10 skill points to get the similar defenses as with the Dodge wheel (40% attack and 30% spell). Something like 50% attack and 20% spellblock for 8 Skillpoints investment when wielding a 30% block shield would have been great.

And the Ranger dodge wheel just got a lot more attractive eventhough it was pretty much the most skilled thing in the last leagues according to poeninja. SAD.

100% agree on the block part and making more unwanted legacies to confuse new players even better:(

-

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Funkjoker wrote:

I don't know if the dev who wrote the text for the Balance Manifesto either had outdated information or your internal communication is so bad he didn't know what to write in the first place. Maybe it was just a note from another dev: "Hey, just write that spell block (SB) is good now for many more characters".

While it's true that Max Block/SB is strong it wasn't easily achievable and was in a good state. Now you gutted it with no fucking reason in the first place and any character wanting to have SB will certainly NOT take it anymore.

+1



what they did was instead of making it something all chars have access to the way old attack block specialists did, they made it something no characters have meaningful access to the way non block invested characters used to, except for gladiator of course.

Why lie to us? If it wasnt a lie then thats even worse because it means the devs have no idea what theyre actually doing... so what faith are we supposed to have in them either way?

I think that 99% of the changes in the 3.4 patch notes are good BUT the change to spellblock is beyond stupid! Now it's either play that one garbage ascendancy or forget that spellblock even exists.

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666lol666 wrote:

I think that 99% of the changes in the 3.4 patch notes are good

I agree, and its worth putting out there cause we bash a lot right, but were bashing the few things that need bashed, all in all theres a ton of great stuff in those patch notes and full cred to the ggg crew for it.

Edit : Spent some more time in PoB and worked out how to fix the changes for my build.

78/78 block still achievable on Necro/Gladi Ascendant, I'm so relieved ! :D

Waiting see if my build is still playable? (bump :-) )

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Turtledove wrote:

Waiting see if my build is still playable? (bump :-) )

Depends on how you define "playable." From what I've read on forums it will almost certainly have lower block chance, and almost certainly be inferior to other choices. You maybe able to get close to the old block chance (possibly even surpass it?) if your passive tree pathing can be changed to get the new spell block nodes.