Revert back the pledge of hands change, you ruined it GGG
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sindronian wrote:
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BlackRainbow666 wrote:
Give it animation cancel AND reverse it: 100% increased Spell Damage for the first shot, 50% first echo, 0% second echo.
Best idea I've heard so far. I'd still just prefer for them to reverse changes to previous variants of the staff and keep it to new drops, though. Probably not realistic.
There's no way they will do that. That would make animation cancelling after the first cast essentially mandatory and the actual echo part of the staff essentially a newb trap.
Logged in to test my 6l pledge using witch. LMFAO. That staff is utterly ruined. It's so much worse than garbage - her stormcall damage at level 95 went from 28k to 8k.
The constant destruction of your characters on standard is half of why I quit by the way. The other half was the atlas. I'll stop by again in another 3-4 months and see if they have unf*cked their game for standard players yet. Notice no purchases in many months from me GGG? That's called a dissatisfied former customer.
Toodles.
Last edited by Sabranic_SilverDeth#2793 on Jun 9, 2019, 5:48:33 AM
I'm not entirely sure, why they even made that change. Was Pledge too strong or too weak? Neither of it seemed true, it was a fine caster unique, not better than rares, but a cheap staff you could get for an easier 6l (since it provided Spell Echo).
I'm also not sure why if they want to make it something better they didnt gave it the multistrike threatment, because this is a straight up buff. Giving Pledge a baseline castspeed multiplier and basically 3 damage stages with the ability to cancel them you would at least always get the 40% more cast speed, even if you cannot get all 3 casts in.
I played a bit with the new multistrike to test it an it is great in that. If you manage to get all 3 hits, which depending on weapon and skill (Claws + Reave is super fast and you always get those hits) is more or less difficult you get a 116% more damage, but if you dont you still attack pretty fast and are more mobile, it basically combines Faster Attacks and Melee Physical Damage in one gem, except for that it is better than Faster Attacks.
Logged in to test my 6l pledge using witch. LMFAO. That staff is utterly ruined. It's so much worse than garbage - her stormcall damage at level 95 went from 28k to 8k.
The constant destruction of your characters on standard is half of why I quit by the way. The other half was the atlas. I'll stop by again in another 3-4 months and see if they have unf*cked their game for standard players yet. Notice no purchases in many months from me GGG? That's called a dissatisfied former customer.
Anyone notice how it's always just Standard players complaining about changes in Path of Exile? League players cope with the changes and innovate while you clasp onto ye builds of olde not accepting to move an inch into any new direction.
The opposite of knowledge is not illiteracy, but the illusion of knowledge.
I took the following post from another user by the name of "codetaku". They provided a good analysis and perspective that might be of use in this discussion.
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Will the repeats be "free", ie, will they happen independently of your character animation (unlike current spell echo)? Further when it says "repeat twice", does that mean 2 additional times like multistrike or "occur twice" (repeat an additional time like current spell echo)?
It's impossible for me to tell if this is a good change. If it repeats two additional times and the repeats are animation-free then this weapon is becoming godlike-amazing. If the repeats are not animation-free then the support gem itself is nearly useless.
Edit: I'm reading through the responses and people seriously don't seem to understand the potential that this is a huge nerf.
The balance around the "intensify" gem shows that GGG doesn't actually get how damage ramp-ups work. Let's say hypothetically that Greater Spell Echo works like this:
Your spells occur 3 times at normal speed, but you have to be in the animation to let them happen. The first spell works like normal, the second spell has 50% more damage (and x AoE, who cares), and the third spell has 100% more damage.
If you are standing still through a whole boss fight while casting the spell in this weapon, that'd only be 50% more damage on average ((0 + 50 + 100) / 3 across 3 hits without a cast speed modifier). If you ever have to animation cancel, you are losing that extra DPS (since it only applies to the repeats), in a way that regular spell echo will not lose.
In contrast, level 30 spell echo (as the old pledge of hands has) is 80% more cast speed and 10% less damage, for a 1.8 * 0.9 = 1.62. In other words, old pledge of hands is a 62% more damage multiplier in a support gem.
The likelihood that this is a nerf that GGG doesn't even understand feels very, very high. To be a meaningful buff, it'd need to be more like 100% more damage per repeat.
The repeat from an additional Spell Echo also gets the stages debuff. Tested with Ice Nova (you can see the area growing pretty well, so it should also boost your damage even more because that is also stagebased.)
Last edited by SuperMotte#2631 on Jun 9, 2019, 9:24:50 AM
Yeah, as I suspected (thanks to the person who copy-pasted my previous rant from an older topic), this is an ENORMOUS nerf to pledge of hands. Like, "Bex should be embarrassed for choosing to tease that item, it was downright rude of her".
It's actually even worse than I expected: 35% more damage per repeat means that the average damage bonus across 3 instances is only 35% more, and even when synergizing with regular spell echo (which adds an additional repeat, making the spell lock you in place for 4 casts) it's only (0 + 35 + 70 + 105)/4 = 52.5% more damage on average.
The old pledge of hands was 62% more damage from the level 30 spell echo (80% more cast speed and 10% less damage: 1.8 * 0.9 = 1.62). Unleash functions as a "reoccur" rather than a "repeat" so it doesn't synergize with greater spell echo at all, so greater spell echo + spell echo is the best synergy you can get.
So basically, with greater spell echo becoming a 6.2% damage nerf (1 - 1.52/1.62), the only way in which this is even a pure numerical buff is if you're playing a spell for which level 21 spell echo is at least that much better than your worst support gem (which you are now dropping). Incidentally, level 21 spell echo is 1.539% more damage, which means your worst pure-dps support gem had to be no better than 44% more damage (math: (1 - 0.062) * (1.539) = 0.938 * 1.539 = 1.443582, which means 45% more damage beats it out overall) for greater spell echo to be a purely numerical buff even when working with optimal synergies.
Spoiler alert: absolutely no spellcasters were in that shit a position. You can find a pathological build that's crit-based yet still uses controlled dstruction, I guess? (but usually controlled destruction goes with ED or EO) But those aren't the good builds.
So yeah, it's a numerical nerf on top of a mechanics nerf. The mechanics now also, as everyone has been complaining, lock you into place (somehow it's even worse than I expected on this front too--I expected it to at least work with fucking animation cancelling!), and considering how slow the cast is... yeah, it's embarrassing. This is an embarrassing item.
I feel like the balance team probably did this on purpose but I am honestly pissed at Bex for choosing to tease it.
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SuperMotte wrote:
The repeat from an additional Spell Echo also gets the stages debuff. Tested with Ice Nova (you can see the area growing pretty well, so it should also boost your damage even more because that is also stagebased.)
But as I just explained, even then it's a fucking numerical nerf, in addition to the obvious mechanics nerf of "now you're locked in place for fucking ever"
Last edited by codetaku#0468 on Jun 9, 2019, 9:46:09 AM
I feel the same, i rly like everything that pledge provides with the exception of the new greater echo.
Pledge feels like trash now, they should just revert it back to lvl 30 spell echo.
As a side note, unleash doesnt work well with echo, but it allows you to cancel the animation of it
Yeah, as I suspected (thanks to the person who copy-pasted my previous rant from an older topic), this is an ENORMOUS nerf to pledge of hands. Like, "Bex should be embarrassed for choosing to tease that item, it was downright rude of her".
It's actually even worse than I expected: 35% more damage per repeat means that the average damage bonus across 3 instances is only 35% more, and even when synergizing with regular spell echo (which adds an additional repeat, making the spell lock you in place for 4 casts) it's only (0 + 35 + 70 + 105)/4 = 52.5% more damage on average.
The old pledge of hands was 62% more damage from the level 30 spell echo (80% more cast speed and 10% less damage: 1.8 * 0.9 = 1.62). Unleash functions as a "reoccur" rather than a "repeat" so it doesn't synergize with greater spell echo at all, so greater spell echo + spell echo is the best synergy you can get.
So basically, with greater spell echo becoming a 6.2% damage nerf (1 - 1.52/1.62), the only way in which this is even a pure numerical buff is if you're playing a spell for which level 21 spell echo is at least that much better than your worst support gem (which you are now dropping). Incidentally, level 21 spell echo is 1.539% more damage, which means your worst pure-dps support gem had to be no better than 44% more damage (math: (1 - 0.062) * (1.539) = 0.938 * 1.539 = 1.443582, which means 45% more damage beats it out overall) for greater spell echo to be a purely numerical buff even when working with optimal synergies.
Spoiler alert: absolutely no spellcasters were in that shit a position. You can find a pathological build that's crit-based yet still uses controlled dstruction, I guess? (but usually controlled destruction goes with ED or EO) But those aren't the good builds.
So yeah, it's a numerical nerf on top of a mechanics nerf. The mechanics now also, as everyone has been complaining, lock you into place (somehow it's even worse than I expected on this front too--I expected it to at least work with fucking animation cancelling!), and considering how slow the cast is... yeah, it's embarrassing. This is an embarrassing item.
I feel like the balance team probably did this on purpose but I am honestly pissed at Bex for choosing to tease it.
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SuperMotte wrote:
The repeat from an additional Spell Echo also gets the stages debuff. Tested with Ice Nova (you can see the area growing pretty well, so it should also boost your damage even more because that is also stagebased.)
But as I just explained, even then it's a fucking numerical nerf, in addition to the obvious mechanics nerf of "now you're locked in place for fucking ever"
Well with Greater Spell Echo you get the AoE you need for Storm Call and Spell Cascade to overlap nicely. Haven't tested on monsters but the graphics look like it should hit with all three strikes.
