3.16 - the 'we are sorry' patch

So, the 3.15 must have been a serious shakeup because this time it is the QoL that takes the front seat.


At first glance, this patch is massive. But once you strip the unnecessary wording from manifestos and patch notes (the problem/solution in most cases is just filler) it kinda doesnt look that big:

- flask changes are mostly reverting all the 3.15 changes (these were TRULY BAD) with added sprinkle of 'more mods for everyone'
- ailment changes: we have increased base DoT damage by 60% and ignite now deals 150% more damage (with 3 exceptions) because...
- EE is now a meme (this change is really, really boring) and EO is no longer abusable


you can condense all other changes this way and suddenly instead of 16pages you get something more realistic.


The QoL

After 3.15 they had to do the long overdue QoL pass. So suddenly the impossible became possible and currencies drop in stacks and you can stack 'the unstackables'. The colour blind changes happened after 7 years, yay! Less tedious grind. And few more. The QoL is good.


The Passive tree

Note: not having the new tree in PoB is a serious hype killer. Im pretty sure GGG just realised just how bad the situation is. Whats worse, there is little chance PoB devs will manage in time. That might seriously backfire on GGG.

Masteries: cool, i guess. yet another layer of faux-complexity but the shiny icons are nice
Removing damage from the tree: the real goal of 3.15 and 3.16. it is the vision. the REAL motivator of both patches. move as much power to the gear so people HAVE to grind like crazy even if they do not want to do crazy end game.

From the looks of it, the bottom/left (STR area) is still the garbage zone with nothing anyone would ever want to pick. 'Keystone density' is still HEAVILY skewed in favour of casters and esp Shadow (because he is jack of all trades). Sad but it seems GGG simply doesnt care.


The balance

...what balance? There are almost no changes that might impact 'the meta'.

SST/FR nerfs are miniscule, aurabots are still OP (just less so), Toxic Rain is still strong as ever, same as minions.
On the other hand self-cast (esp channelling) is a choice noone should make.

3.15 skills' buffs? Irrelevant, complete misses. The buffs targets exactly the stats noone cares. +crit for Concoction? Everyone plays with Brittle FFS! Everyone playing EC has crit chance capped! Why would you increase base crit? Voltaxic Burst gets ~8% more damage.. unless you stack duration and play the uber-annoying version. Absolution change is cool, I guess. The damage is still unplayable tho.

Defences

Im sure people will realise that quickly after playing for some time, the net result is a giant nerf. EV might be the winner (esp if it is feasible to stack it with ES) but it all depends on how stackable Supression is. AR-base builds are dead thanks to block changes.

Loss of old blind means you get hit twice as often. Is the paltry buff to AR formula enough to balance that out? Nope. AR doesnt work vs elemental anyway.

I admire GGG for selling a net negative changes as a buff and people actually buying that. I expect lots of negative vibe once people realise what has been done.

These changes, for sure, wont make channelling spells or stopping for more than a second viable option.


Changes that are not here

Melee changes. Slams were gutted for no reason. Strike Skills are a piece of trash (that get nerfed for no f.. reason). Standing still is not an option, esp with defence changes. Fortify changes are nerfs as well btw.

Gutting the snowflakes: summoners, toxic rain. When?

Maven invitations: why items?

Rare mobs aura stacking: why is this sh.. still possible? Why there is no limit to this bs?



summary

It is going to be interesting investigating new/old passive tree to see how much damage evaporated. The masteries indeed might fix the issue of some rare stats that forced players to travel to unrelated part of the tree just for one node. This is the best part of the patch so far.

The meta - no change, this is quite sad.

Itemization. For worse. Rolling flasks is going to be a terrible experience. Each new affix should mean one affix(tier) is removed. Items like abyss jewels are TERRIBLE to roll, there are FAR TOO MANY rolls with most of them completely unrelated to any given build. Crafting de-bloating project is far overdue.

Current system works when there are 50k active trading players, then you can buy stuff you need. In 3.15 when population was very, very low - you couldn't buy even the 'regular' mod combos. No, crafting is not an option.


The game remains 'kill them before they kill you' but you are expected to play longer to get good enough gear to pull it off. Not the expected outcome of 'defensive pass'.

+1

+1
The hype from the live stream is completely destroyed by patch note.

In the end, whoever do not enjoy the game will leave. Same as Diablos and WoW and everything. There are now few more PoE/Diablo-like games available and as long as you find/invite a friend there it will be your new game to play, have fun and relax, as should be. If about to leave, can just write calm letter of what pushed you away of PoE and thats it. Or start your own game that will be better than this. :)

Agree, shame GGG still does not realize and appreciate how much of an impact external resources have on PoE. Without trading websites and build planners PoE would be stuck in stone age...

I am glad that slowly "impossible" QoL changes are taking effect, think 3.15 fiasco was exactly what GGG needed to get their shit together even if not 100%.

Now Chris, about that "loading to town instead of hideout" thing...

+1


I think more bad in 3.17 because is end game expansion, imagine play this with melee builds.

while I agree with OP assessment that lack of current PoB support will be a huge downside for a ton of players....

I think this is an excellent thing to strive for!

*gasp we have to test and try things IN GAME without having everything all planned and mapped out ahead of time! Sure, its complicated, and sure you will hit a wall at some point, but its finally classic PoE at least for a little bit.

If I were GGG, I would try my damnedest to create something that CAN'T be ported into PoB. Part of what hooked me into PoE in the beginning was the trial and error and regrets and respeccing required IN GAME to make a good build. Now, all of that is basically done completely outside the game and the game itself becomes a simulator for the PoB spreadsheet.

weeeeell.. you can just not use POB? and do it the hard way.


POE at this point is (overly, needlessly) convoluted. It is bursting in seems with bloat that is being added with each patch. Having some of that fluff taken care of makes it actually digestible for many (me included)

There are like 20 sources of fire DoT multi in the game. I do not want to waste my mental resources remembering all of them. I do not want to guess what 'nearby' means in this or that case. There are 900 cluster jewel passives - i do not want to remember them neither. Alternate qualities - same story. The list of such things is very, very long. And the wiki (even the 'new' one) is outdated and full of errors (no, i wont be correcting them).

PoB solves that at least to some extent.


There are no real life rewards for knowing that and I do not find remembering them FUN.

Most games i play provide me all the info needed IN GAME. Even the actually complex ones (POE is convoluted, not complex btw). I could guess things, make build with try-and-error approach but you know what? some concepts require build with a specific gear, lvl 75 and content to test it. how many hours is it per try? you have time for that and find it fun? go ahead, literally noone stops you.

I dont.

And while i speak for myself, i presume my sentiments are shared by a significant % of the playerbase.

+ 1, although I disagree the minion part, specters e.g. already need quiet some gear investment to do endgame and this patch they seem to be been gutted, it was already hard in 3.15 and it seems to get to the point of unplayable right now.

Personally I think EE was a meme for years. You could hardly make an elemental build without it.

They should have blown it up and adjusted enemy resists accordingly a long time ago.
Exposure is almost as pointless.

At any rate this patch is more like a revert over the past 5 years, not even recent. Evasion / Armor didn't suck bad until they started adding Mix damage hits to enemies. Talking Pre-Elder here.

After that point we needed more of other layers like Dodge, Block, Conversion, ect which is exactly what they said they did but I don't think anything really improved for build variety.

Dual Wield still sucks, Shields are still strong, swap Physical DR cap with Evasion.
Itemization will probably be easier but functionally nothing big changed.