3.16 - the 'we are sorry' patch

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raics wrote:

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RoyalMarauder wrote:

On PVP topics, here is the thing, the player base that actually play PVP and focus on it, it's quite BIG. You can see that in MMORPG genre.

If we look at new world as a recent example, it has good pvp, and that's because the game is built around it. Pve is pretty weak, quests and campaign are kinda just there so you'd get familiar with the game and hopefully not get slaughtered before you jump in pvp. You have to build them differently for pvp, if a game was developed for pve and has great pvp, it's an exception rather than a rule.

If poe was developed symmetrically from the start it would be a much tighter game with a possibly decent pvp experience. But they kept piling on more and more on the pve side over time until it wasn't possible to keep track of pvp anymore so they only trim the worst offenders now and then.
At this point, they would have to invest so much effort to beat some sense into pvp and it would have to be so tightly curated with customized rules and mechanics that nobody in their office would be dumb enough to even think of investing serious dev time into it. Especially not now when every spare minute goes into poe2.

Not played New World and can't comment on it. But if we go into that direction ESO and SWTOR for example have very solid PVE and PVP.
And yeah there is always a cry babies that will whine that x or y is not balanced or stronger or weaker or so, but in this game you need to rely on your skill as well, and when someone is bad, the whiny part start.

But if we are 100% fair, POE doesn't even have slightly balance PVE towards the skill, and the difference between X and Y ones are insane, so the chance to even slightly good PVP is absolutely zero.

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RoyalMarauder wrote:

On a ***** Gladiator i can't get over 50% Spell Block, unless i made some insane investment to just get to 52% ....

Seriously... Why should a GLADIATOR have any Spell Block?

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Turtledove wrote:

GGG was up front and honest for the 3.15 release. There was a mini revolt in the base. The lesson they learned from this is that they will sugarcoat the nerfs and present them as buffs instead. Almost everything was presented as buffs in 3.16.

It was not presented as buffs, not even once.

It was perceived by people as buffs The main GGG points - reworks of passive trees, defenses rework, etc never really talked about increasing player power. Well, maybe the only exceptions were raw ES increases and armour effectiveness, which did have net increased gains.

Whereas 3.15 was indeed presented as a 'nerf' league, 3.16 was never presented as a 'buff' league. They just built hype off tree changes and teasers, which was wise and welcomed by most.


And honestly, good. I'm glad that we're at a point where it's not trivial to predict which builds will dominate and are absolutely broken. I do feel like they could've shaken up the meta a bit more since very few new skills are introduced.

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Cyzax wrote:

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RoyalMarauder wrote:

On a ***** Gladiator i can't get over 50% Spell Block, unless i made some insane investment to just get to 52% ....

Seriously... Why should a GLADIATOR have any Spell Block?

Maybe because it was the only thing he really had over the rest? And he got zero DAMAGE, and need crazy investment in tree and ALL ascendancy to get to decent Block/Spell.

But i can do such a question about every single one of the Classes, why x or y should have this or that ?
It was what made him Unique, now it's crap.

grepman, you are totally wrong. Chris himself said that there won't be any nerfs, and 3.16 will be all BUFFS, which is a one big fat lie.
He repeated that on multiple occasion on multiple channels.

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grepman wrote:

And honestly, good. I'm glad that we're at a point where it's not trivial to predict which builds will dominate and are absolutely broken. I do feel like they could've shaken up the meta a bit more since very few new skills are introduced.

that bolded part.. the only missing part are new uniques. everything else is known and it is very easy to predict what is going to be great:

- does not require standing still to deal damage (defence changes didnt change the 'dont stand still for more than a second' POE paradigm)
- scales well from skill gem levels (aka dont waste passives/resources to get 'enough' damage)
- utilizes as much SEPARATE multipliers as possible (counterexample: Scorching Ray that you can scale ONLY with few select stats WHILE toxic rain has not only more stats to scale but also separate avenue of 'overlap stacking' AND 'TR ballista stacking'.)
- is not outright blocked by content (aka: self-cast Arc vs Uber Atziri. without wasting passives on reflect immunity you CANNOT do this content)

there are some minor factors: mana cost, good build guide available, playable from early levels, size of AOE etc but in general, all meta builds share the same set of traits

any build that does not tick all boxes is irrelevant 'meta' wise. sure, there are other builds but then the last factor kicks in: the cost. people can make lets say Heavy Strike build that is strong but then you check the cost and see that you could make 10 fully decked TR chars for the same investment..

I agree for some of the points, especially on Slams that were truly unique. I was expecting to bring a least some power back, nothing so far.

Barely anyone played Tectonic Slam this league , and for noobs like me trying that one is just gimping myself.

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sidtherat wrote:

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grepman wrote:

And honestly, good. I'm glad that we're at a point where it's not trivial to predict which builds will dominate and are absolutely broken. I do feel like they could've shaken up the meta a bit more since very few new skills are introduced.

that bolded part.. the only missing part are new uniques. everything else is known and it is very easy to predict what is going to be great:

- does not require standing still to deal damage (defence changes didnt change the 'dont stand still for more than a second' POE paradigm)
- scales well from skill gem levels (aka dont waste passives/resources to get 'enough' damage)
- utilizes as much SEPARATE multipliers as possible (counterexample: Scorching Ray that you can scale ONLY with few select stats WHILE toxic rain has not only more stats to scale but also separate avenue of 'overlap stacking' AND 'TR ballista stacking'.)
- is not outright blocked by content (aka: self-cast Arc vs Uber Atziri. without wasting passives on reflect immunity you CANNOT do this content)

there are some minor factors: mana cost, good build guide available, playable from early levels, size of AOE etc but in general, all meta builds share the same set of traits

any build that does not tick all boxes is irrelevant 'meta' wise. sure, there are other builds but then the last factor kicks in: the cost. people can make lets say Heavy Strike build that is strong but then you check the cost and see that you could make 10 fully decked TR chars for the same investment..

I mean, I doubt many of these are ever going to change much. But the atziri reflect point is pretty bad one, even less relevant as you get reflect protection for arc in even more places in this patch.

But the rest...fubdamentally standing in place will get you killed, yeah. Even in D2 that's the case a lot of times. And I don't think there's a solution.

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grepman wrote:

But the rest...fubdamentally standing in place will get you killed, yeah. Even in D2 that's the case a lot of times. And I don't think there's a solution.

Near the end of the league I tried swapping firestorm for incinerate and getting full 8 stacks was often iffy even with the crazy cast speed from fanaticism. I mean, the bandaid is obvious enough - 'fortify effect is doubled while standing still', but that's hella lazy.

On an unrelated note, it reminded me how wack incinerate is now that's it's a cone area spell, sometimes it just doesn't hit things you expect it to hit, same as tendrils now that I think of it. Also, fanaticism-related nitpick, when using a normal spell you notice when it's up because the grandpa goes into turbo cheer mode, and that's your best bet because GGG made a really subtle effect for something that should stand out like a lighthouse. But you can't really tell with a channeling spell.

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grepman wrote:

I mean, I doubt many of these are ever going to change much. But the atziri reflect point is pretty bad one, even less relevant as you get reflect protection for arc in even more places in this patch.

reflect is an example and it is pretty relevant when you acknowledge that 'reflect immunity' costs resources. passive point here, gear roll there - these are things i could spend on other things. reflect in general is the reason Chaos builds are so strong. they might do 90% damage but they can do 100% maps. and that is huge. imagine Toxic Rain dealing reflectable damage. it would be sidelined by a skill that doesnt, instantly

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But the rest...fubdamentally standing in place will get you killed, yeah. Even in D2 that's the case a lot of times. And I don't think there's a solution.

it might be true, I honestly dont remember D2 that well. but i happen to know that it is 20yo game now and it no longer is a measuring stick. there are plenty of games where you actually CAN stand still if you actually invest into survivability, and be 'rather safe' if you invest mildly.

in POE you can invest all you want, feel safe and then be WTFed from nowhere by some lucky combination of bull and sh.. and because noone knows if that hit was legit high-roll crit with everything as extra or simply a bug - your best option is to not test it and run in circles even if you have 15k AR, 40% all block and 81% max res, 3end charges (at lvl 77). this char got ONE shot by one arrow from a rare in T7 white map. 5k HP gone in one arrow.

I understand it is not a lot of defences, but it is still FAR MORE than most people have even in endgame. one rare. one arrow. i even saw it fly. bam, gone.

just dont get hit