Fortification gain adjustment

In the 2nd Balance anouncement https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3185101

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Fortify is intended as a defensive benefit for being a melee character, but can often be obtained by spellcasters using melee weapon types that don't actually engage in melee combat.

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... so that tiny little Melee Damage Hits don't provide a full strength Fortify. ... we're working to avoid a system where every spellcaster wants to run Shield Charge to get Fortify at little cost. Our eventual goal here is that all Melee characters keep Fortify up reliably without a huge cost, while spellcasters and ranged characters won't have access to the mechanic without significant investment (or being a Champion).

Assuming the nerf bat was supposed to hit SC+Fort and Vigi strike abuse, the change that went live in 3.16 completely removed the ability to gain fortify for some melee builds. They don't have ANY means to gain fortify now.

The %gain nodes on the tree feel like they either don't help at all, or you do enough dmg so that you don't need to worry about them. Builds like melee DoT based builds, Cyclone builds with lower dmg investment, Dominating Blow, General's Cry, etc.. were completely left out, even though there were several threads on reddit voicing concerns over such archetypes (melee DoT builds at minimum). But I guess as they didn't garner enough of an outcry from the community, they didn't matter?

The fact that you can gain 0 fortification stacks from fortifying hits is terrible.

The minimum dmg to reach an "ailment threshold" along with requiring 20+ stacks to reach full fortify seem like an unnecessarily layered nerf (which anecdotally is something GGG is quite fond of, sadly). Requiring 20 stacks for full effect should've been more than enough.

What could casters do, were Fortification introduced with a minimum of gaining 1 stack with fortifying hits, while benefitting the other archetypes?

• Shield Charge -> Would grant about 1-3 Fortification charges depending on distance and amount of mobs hit (since you can gain charges every 0.1s)
  
• Static Strike -> Bop something (with terrible accuracy, missing 1/3 of the time or more) and gain 9 Fortification stacks over 3 seconds, assuming you can stay close enough with the 0 strike range that you have.
  
• Cyclone -> Requires you to sit on top monsters, and not do anything else other than cyclone. Still requires attackspeed/accuracy investment to reach a decent amount of stacks in a reasonable amount of time, thus is basically limited to CwC/CoC cyclone builds, and cyclone builds in general, which are essentially melee builds.
  
• Vigilant Strike -> Basically removed from the game already.
  

Proposed changes (at least one would be huge for a lot of builds):

• Remove minimum threshold to gain a fortification stack allowing fortifying melee hits to gain at least 1 stack.
  
• Add such threshold removal onto the passive tree fortify wheels/mastery allowing builds TO INVEST into fortify.
  
• Straight up change the %gain nodes on fortify wheels to provide a +# minimum stacks gained on fortifying melee hits.
  

With these I don't really see how non-melee builds could abuse this to gain 20% fortify "at little cost" or "without significant investment". (if there is I'm more than happy to learn)

If these changes go against some kind of "vision" and would break someones immersion with the game, please let me know so I can kill any sort of miniscule expectation for change that I've got left, thanks.

E: To prove the point even further how bad Fortify is now: https://clips.twitch.tv/LachrymoseArborealBillAliens-LPe-pnfTKUo8J20V. A melee character that clears gauntlet can't get full fortify (lv83 Heist) without spending 10+ points on fortify wheels. That's supposed to be the case now? (And in case you don't know (GGG?), 10pts is a very significant investment)

There is definitely problem, I run cyclone/impale/bleed build and on easy mobs when I can one shot them I have the stack all the time but can't get single stack on boss or "tanky" SINGLE rare, look like stack depend on % of damage taken by hit from mob. Long story short, I can't get fortification( on bosses) when I need it most, and have it when shot everything and don't need it...

HOA JUGG here cant fortify ever, tried the mastery melee attacks fortify/-3 fortify stacks doesn't guarantee a stack per hit as speculated elsewhere. Meanwhile every champ in the game is running around fully stacked using a bow....come on GGG really? Im in melee range on the mobs, face right in the danger, why cant I have fortify?

Fortification needs to be changed. As you say appears to based on percent of mob health done, which means super fast attacking builds sometimes just don't get fortification. I have never been so mad about a change in this game. If GGG were going to brick rage builds they should have told us so in advance.

+1

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Shloppy wrote:

Fortification needs to be changed. As you say appears to based on percent of mob health done, which means super fast attacking builds sometimes just don't get fortification. I have never been so mad about a change in this game. If GGG were going to brick rage builds they should have told us so in advance.

Over 2000 hours in this game, first league I quit on launch weekend. FIX FORTIFY.

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Esord wrote:

E: To prove the point even further how bad Fortify is now: https://clips.twitch.tv/LachrymoseArborealBillAliens-LPe-pnfTKUo8J20V. A melee character that clears gauntlet can't get full fortify (lv83 Heist) without spending 10+ points on fortify wheels. That's supposed to be the case now? (And in case you don't know (GGG?), 10pts is a very significant investment)

What were the mods on that heist? I just tried a L83 heist and was able to get full stack by hitting one of those unique enemies, no fortify passives and the character is hardly doing millions of dps with tectonic. Sure, it's a slam but it doesn't really hit all that hard and there's a big difference between zero fortify and full.

+1 I'm playing General Cry Shield Crush build which only gets very few stacks of Fortify and even 0 while fighting Act Bosses

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raics wrote:

What were the mods on that heist? I just tried a L83 heist and was able to get full stack by hitting one of those unique enemies, no fortify passives and the character is hardly doing millions of dps with tectonic. Sure, it's a slam but it doesn't really hit all that hard and there's a big difference between zero fortify and full.

• No mods
• Tec Slam hits almost twice as hard. The character in question has about 2-3M dps, but it apparently doesn't matter because the actual hits aren't big.
• I'm not 100% sure, but I believe some heists have way tankier mobs (e.g. the one in the clip)
• Unique enemies/bosses/etc. seem to have lowered threshold for getting Fortification stacks. What about normal mobs?

Or when I take my character - during mapping - able to maintain 20 stacks. Then I encounter a league mechanic - harvest,expedition,... - I get to maybe 7-8 before the stacks start expiring while using the skill non-stop. Mobs get a little tankier? No Fortify for you. It's a really punishing concept. Want to build a tanky character with lower dmg? No Fortify for you.

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williampwq wrote:

+1 I'm playing General Cry Shield Crush build which only gets very few stacks of Fortify and even 0 while fighting Act Bosses

You should try running a 4L Shield Charge - SC-Fort-Brutality-[] - lifetap, pulverize,melee phys (not impale as that counts for s**t for Fortification, need to pump the actual hit dmg). Should provide stacks at least while clearing and in the krangleverse.