Many of the archnemesis mods would've been fine if they had counters

Title.

A good previous example I think is Hexproof. Obviously this would break some builds entirely, except we have a counter to it (occultist ascendency and some uniques). Many archnemesis mods are equally build breaking but have no counter.


- No life/ES recovery
- No leech
- Flask draining
- Mana siphoner (for mana users)
- Stun immune


I'd suggest nerfing these temporarily to be much less black and white until you later add things like "your stuns can affect stun immune enemies".

Oh and a special note for certain auras: Melee exists and also things like ritual box us in, so "stay out of the aura" isn't an acceptable counter.

There's no way to counter the mods when they happen in stuff like Ritual. It's just busted now. Must have screen wide 10 million DPS or you can't play the content. I think they're going to combine Ritual with Ultimatum in the future and they'll just make it so that mobs with those mods can't spawn.

I'd like to add to this, because I've seen a lot of complaints about build-killing effects but not this: crystalskin.

'Just run away' isn't a valid excuse. Essences & strongboxes force you right in the thick of it. Or maybe the rare mob has another mod like hasted, ice wall, or is just the kind that uses flicker strike.
Or maybe we're supposed to run from everything that could spawn a rare in melee range? Might as well save time and not run the game at all.

So, assuming you still want to play, many game mechanics force you to kill everything asap, else death ensues.
Toxic mod is ok. The balls spawn, they're green, they hover, the threat is clear - move or die.
Crystalskin isn't. You attack something that popped up alongside 17 other mobs, it dies, you die. The old volatile russian roulette all over again. Why keep remaking the same mistakes ?
How many years before this one also gets proper visual/audio cues/telegraphing ?
It might have been because it was combined with steel-infused (impossible to check), but then why even let the combo exist at all ?

I expect similar issues will eventually become obvious with invulnerable (feels like allies can't die and necrovigil lessons were forgotten yet again) and any kind of purely random stacking of archnemesis mods.
Those things must be manually tuned, with only limited combos allowed, and the lessons of previous failures must be remembered.

"

kaijyuu2 wrote:

Title.

A good previous example I think is Hexproof. Obviously this would break some builds entirely, except we have a counter to it (occultist ascendency and some uniques). Many archnemesis mods are equally build breaking but have no counter.


- No life/ES recovery
- No leech
- Flask draining
- Mana siphoner (for mana users)
- Stun immune


I'd suggest nerfing these temporarily to be much less black and white until you later add things like "your stuns can affect stun immune enemies".

Oh and a special note for certain auras: Melee exists and also things like ritual box us in, so "stay out of the aura" isn't an acceptable counter.

There does become a bit of a problem with THAT many counters. It forces things like...Pathfinders MUST take these nodes/ascendancies/items because flasks even harder. Except EVERY build will have those caveats where half your ascendancy and passive tree and just countering the game, or you die...over and over. Some interactions, like no recovery, ruin Righteous Fire builds entirely, and would every skill gem have things like "While RF is active, your health regeneration cannot be stopped"...UGH...it's just...why?

Edit, because I just realized if next league they add support gems that "counter" Archnem mods, and therefore lower players damage (less links for damage mods), and stand on the hill of "no nerfs" for another league, I might lose my mind.

Having 100 boxes to tick before your build becomes viable is pretty par for the course for PoE. For archnemesis mods in particular you probably only add 1 box to tick for most builds, maybe 2.

It can be done deliberately to try and counter power creep. Instead of directly nerfing the player's stuff, add more things that need to be fulfilled, thus stretching the stat budget thinner.

A lot of these counters should be on the passive tree as notables or masteries.