Hydrosphere Got Bricked In Balance Changes (IMO) - Good Or Bad?

For those who don't know the cooldown to chain off hydrosphere will be 1 second.

Personally I'm very disappointed with this change. That gem opened up a lot of cool builds for me.

The ability to chain off hydrosphere was fun, interesting and added damage to builds that would otherwise be shit and unplayable. The builds I played with it weren't even OP, they didn't melt even with heavy gear investment.

I have seen 3k life mine builds (as usual) that melt bosses in 0.5s with hydrosphere chaining.

Is anyone still going to use this skill? If so tell us your plans and why you feel its still good.

Good for the game because it's a dumb mechanic. Bad for the 50 gems that are now 100% completely dead and buried because they used it as a crutch.

Hydrosphere nerfed = good (at least for the future).

But, if this nerf doesn't lead to buffs for certain skills that depend on Hydrosphere to stay relevant, the change is rather bad. Remains to be seen.

Its a straight 50% single target nerf to a number of builds.

Were those builds really doing twice the intended damage? I guess by GGGs logic, yes. But it sure did not feel like it.

None of the builds were even meta because they were still behind other ranged skills.


I'm not opposed to every nerf (aurastackers? Cmon!), but when they trash already underplayed skills without touching them, it feels like a monkey is pushing buttons in terms of balance design.

the nerf to hydrosphere is kind of funny because... hydrosphere is -still- the best way to dps a boss down

instead of spashing or chaining off the sphere every hit, it now happens every 1 second, which is still better than nothing

using hydrosphere to prop up a bad skill isnt good design.

because hydrosphere can (and was) also being used by top end skills and making them 'a problem'

the hydro nerf will let next league show what builds needed it because theyre underpowered, vs what skills didnt need it but used it for 'lol free deeeps'.


and even with the 1 second change, it's still going to be used for 'lol free deeeeps'

This is a perfect example of 'opening up design space', even if some players hate that term when it comes to nerfs.

Hydrosphere doubling your single target damage (more or less) made it an instant, auto-include into almost every projectile skill. The fact that the interaction lasted as long as it did is ridiculous, BUT at least it finally got the nerf.

Now the skill does what it was meant to do, and it doesn't immediately mean everything projectile based has to take into account a one button 100% more dmg interaction.

It's a good thing.

Get ready to hear the Rage of the Bersekers who kept hitting the Sphere to get 50+ rage before big boss fights :P

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Thror2k5 wrote:

the hydro nerf will let next league show what builds needed it because theyre underpowered, vs what skills didnt need it but used it for 'lol free deeeps'.

Thror I have great respect for your game knowledge, but c'mon.

There have been borderline unplayable skills for the last 5-10 patches and GGG doesn't care.

Storm burst? Chain hook? (only used to build rage) Artillery ballista? Cobra lash? Cremation? Galvanic arrow? Hexblast? Kinetic Bolt? Rolling Magma? Shrapnel Ballista? Static Strike? Sunder? Sweep? Just off the top of my head, there are many more.

And then tons of skills made viable only by weird interactions not available to most. Like EK being used by aurastacker/HH.

They won't care if hydro nerf absolutely breaks certain builds, they will just leave them another 2 years till PoE2.

If GGG had a record of addressing super-underperforming skills, I would totally agree with you.

How many people were using slams in 3.16? Did that get noticed?

then we have no choice but to be loud, and *make* them care.

but we also have to be real careful what skills we call 'unplayable'.

some of those on your list definitely arent. but some (chain hook) need mechanical changes, while others (cobra lash) would benefit from a simple damage buff.

my idea for cobra lash - give it the arc 'extra damage per remaining chain' text. maybe even 'extra damage with ailments per remaining chain'.