Venom Gyre - completelly uncalled for serious nerf

Thats a different set of problems Baharoth, I'm not defending their skill balance just saying that usually if a skill has bad QoL because it requires setup its usually compensated with damage fairly heavily - you listed most of the better examples.

When you get into Archmage you are hitting the worst balanced things they've added to the game because your talking about a support gem that adds ~ 300% more damage if you are built for it, Archmage is a great idea and I love how they've enabled it but its simply too good, far too good its dominated HC since its addition.

And strike skills oh man I'm giving them shit for these constantly, Infernal blow is my favourite skill and its so difficult to make a viable build with it - its not a slam so its automatically lost 400% damage (no seismic, no fist of war), you have to have additional strike targets and melee splash before any strike thats actually melee feels playable and your reward is mediocre damage you can replicate on a 4l slam.

The only reason I can come up with is they've created a feedback loop where strikes are perceived as garbage, so it isn't worth their time to fix them but that feeds back in to the perception of them being garbage. They need to baseline melee splash into every strike and Ancestral call needs a smaller more multiplier like fortify or less duration etc then they also need a numerical buff.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

Then comes the biggest offender, Strike skills. You can hardly get it worse in terms of Qol but the damage is mediocre at best. VDS is good, Flickerstrike has it's niche and stuff like LS/FB/WS also work because it's more of a projectile skill than actual melee but aside from those you get horrible QoL with mediocre damage. Perfect example, Glacial Hammer vs Ice Crash. Ice Crash has AOE build in AND higher base damage.

Personally i think QoL will always win at the end of the day because you can just compensate lacking damage with investment so ultimately, even if they started balancing along those lines, skill usage probably won't change all that much. But they could at least try to give those hard to use skills something that makes them look interesting.

I would argue that clear on Glacial is better than Crash. With Awakened Ancestral Call you are flying thru maps with Glacial.
Damage is the biggest problem as it's really underwhelming without insane gear.

Ice Crash damage though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPPkDu0nwIQ
This build is extremely cheap for how hard it hits. Amazing bosser.

I'm waiting for some love for strikes too. :'(

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sidtherat wrote:

i have like 3.10 (?) version so it is no longer relevant. And the gear i used is simply 'old' compared to what we have today:

If it's not completely broken I'll take it, since it's much easier to figure and fix things like that than to start from scratch.


On the matter of VG, if someone can make 500pdps claws it's better play literary anything else and have a better build. VG as CL as Spectral Throw have one big downside and that's obligatory GMP. They should have had fixed that for once for all ranged skills.

For PF ranged poison skills are dead now. They couldn't compete with melee and now after nerfs they are total joke on PF.
On the other hand, they can still be okish with Assassin as he has unlimited poison scaling thru stacking.

On the topic of quality of life: I recently wanted to change my pure physical slam build into something else as spamming warcries was way too exausting.

Im using a Claw + Shield now as pure phys that alone limits me heavily simply because Steel Skills are Axe/Sword only Blood and Sand Skills are Sword/Axe only. For some reason GGG only supports claws with poison as its identity and i hate poison. So what was left: Double Strike, Reave, Blade Flurry and Cyclone.

In a vacuum Blade Flurry when perfectly played is the most damage BUT it roots you into a spot interrupting your channeling constantly for release and once enough attack speed is stacked you reach 6 stacks before you reach infusion buff from infused channeling and on top when used with Enduring Focus cluster you dont generate Endurance Charges at all.

I will leave the other skills aside as they require either investment like additional strikes from Ancestral Call/ Melee splash support or in case of Reave is like Cyclone in terms of damage but roots you into a spot as well.
You could argue that Reave has more AoE but with an explody chest in my case it becomes irrelevant. Now one deciding factor is MANA COST of skills.

Reave would cost me 29 minus mana cost to be free of mana cost. It was possible in 3.13 with the legacy enchants from jewellery now rather only possible with lucky Aisling slams - no thx. On the other hand Cyclone requires me exactly one Elron ring and its free mana cost for 6 link.

Cyclone perks: permanent Enduring Charge generation since cycloning all the time and moving at the same time with Enduring Focus. Infusion buff is permanently active. All the channeling skills like 5% dodge while channeling/stun avoidance while channeling have basically permanent uptime. On top comes the inherent defense of constantly moving and the inherent damage bonus as you hit the target constantly while dodging hits by moving around at the same time.
In essence this makes Cyclone like a 200% effectivity skill.

And the other options would need to provide like 250-300% damage effectivity to give a meaningful choice. Especially Stike Skills fail really hard to deliver in that gap for single target.

Then there is Mana mechanics like Indigon mana drinking or Agnostic Mana drinking with Archmage boosting stuff by like 300% damage while also mana serves as a gigantic defense with Agnostic and MoM its straight out ridiculous in comparison.

Archmage/mana stacking needs a nerf, for sure. But a lot of the skills people are naming with built-in QoL or many scaling options (cyclone, toxic rain, or high-power two-button skills) should be the norm, not heavily nerfed.

I agree with some nerfs (there have been many recently), but it’s also important to recognize how insane and fast-paced the endgame is - if speed and QoL are taken from players, enemies can’t be swarming like locusts two-shotting players either.

That’s why I lean towards the “buff underused things” argument rather than the “nerf good things” argument. Obviously a combination of both is necessary.

Regarding strike skills, they need some tag-specific support gems at the very least. I had the idea for a “Reach Support” that gives a high damage multiplier and a bunch of strike range, but can’t be used with ancestral call. Surely a few more would help, too. Or at least built-in fortify.

P.S. I’m glad this thread got necro’d. I guarantee we’ll see at least one more odd balance decision in the 3.15 notes, so the topic will stay relevant.

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TorsteinTheFallen wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

i have like 3.10 (?) version so it is no longer relevant. And the gear i used is simply 'old' compared to what we have today:

If it's not completely broken I'll take it, since it's much easier to figure and fix things like that than to start from scratch.

im genuinely sorry for giving you scraps but since youve asked. all i have is gear, the tree got reset, dunno why.

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demon9675 wrote:

Archmage/mana stacking needs a nerf, for sure. But a lot of the skills people are naming with built-in QoL or many scaling options (cyclone, toxic rain, or high-power two-button skills) should be the norm, not heavily nerfed.

Actually agree with this these days, in the past outperforming skills were clearly above the bar we were expected to perform at but the current game incarnation feels like it mandates that kind of power.

Significant buffs are needed frankly, It could be that i've lost the ability to make decent builds but i doubt that - my list of HC viable skills has gone down by like 3 each league to our current point where I can't justify a skill unless it uses a busted mechanic as a fulcrum.

lol aged like fine milk