How would you change the AN-mods?

As GGG is working on adjusting the AN mods, I thought it might be useful to collect some ideas for them.

My suggestions:

- Remove all the immunities. Replace with reduces effect or something functionally similar.

Immunities are generally a bad idea, since they can brick builds. It should be possible to have a build based on inflicting chill or scorch. It might not be very effective, but it should not just completely stop working versus core content.

- Remove rejuvenating, trickster, heralding minions, mana siphoner and invulnerable

Life regen can make combat more challenging (you have to focus more on dps), but this is very hard to balance and you mostly end up with binary outcomes (regen not significant or makes the combat very tedious/long or straight out impossible). And disabling player life regen is build breaking (it is not realistic that you can dodge the blast in modern day POE).

Trickster is interesting, but does not actually lead into interesting combat. Instead, it just keeps on pausing the combat and forces you to go hunt for the rare again and again and again.

Heralding minions is bugged and is very punitive for melee.

Mana siphoner, especially with hasted, is super frustrating and can just kill you with no counterplay. It also work poorly with side-content (like ritual).

Invulnerable works very badly with side content (especially blight).

- Remove on-death effects that leave degen ground.

These very fine in AN-league, but for regular rares, and especially magic monsters, they can lead into very unfair situations (like ritual getting covered in degen ground). Also, having to dodoge dozens of poison balls for a magic pack gets old really quick. It can also make blight an absolute nightmare.

- Rares with rare AN-mods should drop special rewards.

Random uniques and rare items are not appropriate for the challenge of these encounters. Rares with multiple and rare AN-mods should drop something more (scabs, fragments, good gems etc.). The monsters should be actually rare, so these rewards should not have such a drastic effect on the economy.


Anyways, what are your thoughts/ideas? How would you change them?

I don't think its that complicated really but maybe i'm oversimplifying

Rejuv should halve recovery not remove it
Maledict should be a curse and reduced by curse reduction
Effigy should be removed it doesn't fit in how we play the game, same for invul tbh.
Mana siphon probably needs to be removed or ensured that it can't spawn with certain modifiers (which is lots of work hence remove)
Resist type mobs should have your resist is X, not +50% to resist so that they are tanky vs their corresponding element but can't have 85% overcapped fire res.

Rest are pretty much OK

On the magic side of things, magic mobs shouldn't get Toxic, Lightning mirage or anything else that chases you relentlessly with bullshit thats basically it for them.

the rest is OK, frankly if they tuned them properly they could have kept mobs having 3 mods its only because they didn't that they needed removing. I should mention too that another fix is to lower the number of rares spawning in mechanics, you get like 10 rares per abyss stop its just too many for "intense" rare encounters.

Rewards need reworking in general I wouldn't put this one down to AN, i've said it every league for like 2 years its a core precept of ARPG design and they continue to not improve it. I should get interesting drops for killing shit, yes that means power creep but the power that is creeping is off trading with other players not my actual maximum.

Fractured, Synthesis items etc are examples of interesting rewards - yet they are frequently garbage but these have good potential to be really good while most are useless. Regular rares don't have this.

I've been thinking about this a lot actually, as sentinel has turned into my 2nd shortest league ever (the only one I quit earlier was scourge), and I don't think it's the mods that are the core of the problem, it's the lack of visual queues...

An example. Previously, let's say you had an exploding minion build, so maybe soul eater was your nemesis. You're in the thick of battle, you see a mob growing in size, you know to work on it first as it's the threat... Maybe you instead felt haste was your nemesis? Not a problem, keep an eye out for the clearly visible green rings and focus fire in that spot...

But now?

Let's say you're in a ritual and get a flame strider, an abberath touched, a flame weaver and an incendiary mob... Good luck telling which is which in the heat of combat if one of those has an ability that gimps or threatens your build...

If players have the ability to make the choice of fight or flight 'before' they're locked into a situation, suddenly all mods are on the table and no one is feeling ripped.

Solution = clear visual queues (everything else will fall into place)...

I would just make every additional AN mod divide the effect of the rest.

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Alternalo wrote:

I would just make every additional AN mod divide the effect of the rest.

This is poetic tier solution and I salute it, It hits so many markers aside from the chad rare that only GGG seem to really want present

There needs to be fewer rare mobs on the screen at a time.

I'll post my little manifesto here to add more feedback to the pile.

Auras

One of the main flaws of the previous rares was the fact that they ended up buffing each other to the point where they were very hard to deal with (especially for low damage builds).

The new AN mods also have auras. They might be rarer now, but each rare monster is also more deadly, and if you do get two rares with auras, you are probably doomed. We could still have these mods, but restrict them to only buff normal and magic enemies. This way, the rare will come with an army of strong minions without the "rare buffing rare" problem.


Regen

This is the most punishing mechanic for low damage builds and the one that causes
very tanky rares to be unkillable. Yes, frost bomb exists, but we are not in POE 2 yet, so many builds do not have room to run this gem.

I don't hate the idea of mobs being able to heal, extending the fight, but there needs to be a limit. Examples:

When reaching low life, cast a regen pulse that heals 25% of life per second for 2 seconds (can only happen once).

Specifics
Arcane Buffer

I think the "150% faster start of Energy Shield Recharge" adds the extra frustration factor to this mod. This is already "infinite regen" but with a cooldown. This cooldown is just a little too fast with the faster start of recharge.


Echoist

I actually like this mod. Mobs get a stronger burst, but is then stunned. The only problem is that the mob can cast their skill instantly, one shotting you. Maybe this should instead be:

Stunned for 1 seconds before and after using a Skill.

Also, with "Bonebreaker", this becomes a little silly as the mob cannot be stunned.


Sentinel

I have never liked accuracy as a stat. Missing your big slam has always felt awful, because you only attack once per seconds or so. This mod has the same kind of feel for slow attacking/casting builds (discharge, slams etc.).

I don't have a suggesting for how this mod could be improved while keeping the block theme.


Vampiric

This is a regen mod, but with an upper limit of 20% life per second (fun). Minion and melee builds especially hate this, as they have little way of avoiding the monster hitting something.

The extra feels bad here is that you cannot leech against it. The mod wants to give you a prolonged fight, but it will also disable your ability to sustain yourself while in that long fight (great).


Consecrator

I guess the counter play here is to make the mob leave the ground it creates, but minion builds cannot really do that, and melee will spend a lot of time moving around instead of hitting the monster.


Rejuvenating

Has implicit 2% regen, which is a no no. Also, the healing nova stops regen of the player, which disables builds. This might be fine if the pulse is telegraphed before being cast, but I don't notice this mod until after this pulse is cast soooo.

I think if the pulse was telegraphed with 2 or 3 green lights (over 1-2 seconds) before actually being cast and the passive regen is removed, this mod might be fine.


Drought Bringer

I think we should start respecting flasks as a gear slot. Imagine if we had a rare monster that had the mod:

* Disable a random gear slot for 3 seconds every 3 seconds.

A lot of builds have 1 or two items that make them work. For flasks, there is the ward loop. If you remove charges from this build the build kills itself.

Also, regen bad.


Temporal Bubble

Speaking of ward loop builds. Man, I really would not want to play a cast when damage taken build this league with this mod on rares. Such a build would literally be unable to kill this monster as the "60% reduced Cooldown Recovery Rate" would end the loop.


Mana Siphoner

As far as I understand, you can stand close enough to this to not be drained, but this is not super clear. Also, I don't think you want to stand close to any rare monster for a very long time, so going up close is not really a solution for some builds affected by this mod.

I think the mana drain is the real issue here. Otherwise, the mod is fine.


Storm Herald

This mod just feels outdated visually. The endless lightning storm is noisy and spammy, and not very pleasant to look or listen to.


Soul Eater

Same as storm herald in many ways, but also very dangerous. It is very hard to actually counter, as you will kill the pack around the monster, and now it has 20 stacks (100% inc damage, attack and cast speed).


Corrupter

I know this is an old mod, but, this one I have always hated. There is no counter play other than playing slams, having a lot of regen or being immune. It is also not very interesting once you are actually immune. There is no fun gameplay experience to be had here. Also, imagine someone not knowing what this is and dies to it. How would they know how to get this immunity?

Remove the "Inflicts Corrupted Blood when Hit." and this is a fine mod.


Invulnerable

Poor blight or ritual players. This mod is so dangerous and there is no way to counter this.


Effigy

Aaah, that is what the red thing is that sometimes hit me. Yea, this is just the old reflect mod but with fancy graphics. I don't think this is an ok mod.

Idea: Maybe, instead of this, it would summon a clone of the player, using a build that is visually the same (area of effect, + projectiles, chain etc.) but does not do the same damage. This might be a lot of work, but would be a very cool mod then.


Unsure
Dynamo and Storm Strider

Can a monster "Immune to Shock" still be shocked, but with zero effect, or? Storm Secret builds are not very happy about this if the monster cannot be shocked.


Conclusion

This has mostly been negative, but reading over the mods, most of them are fine in my option. The signaling now is a lot better than before. A lot of the time I actually know what the monster has as mods without looking at the mod list.

Also, during leveling, you actually have time to read the monster mods sometimes, so it is a good way to learn a lot of the common once.

[Removed by Support]

I do however agree that rares/magic monsters is something players should notice while playing instead of just plowing down. That is a good change for the game and is is a much better direction to modify monsters over player skills. Missing the bar at the level they did is just terrible for the company reputation though and has to have consequences.

As a player just reading over the list of modifiers they gave us clearly shows that a vast number of testers either does not play the game "for fun" or has a concept of what their players find enjoyable. There were multiple easy to spot issues that should have been solved before release. My claim is that a player that plays this game regularly could spend about 5-10 minutes reading the list and have alarm bells going off.

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Examples:
Flameweaver:
25% of Physical Damage Converted to Fire Damage

Issue:
These mods are epeated for several elements where some even go up to 50%
Isolated an ok mod. However if you combine these mods on a headhunter/replica headhunter/inspired learning or behead you end up bricking any build that uses brutality.

Fix: Ditch the conversion stuff or make the numbers waaay smaller where 100%(or even 75+) conversion is unobtainable.

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Stormweaver/Frostweaver/Steel-infused ETC ETC:
Immune to Lightning/Cold Ailments and Cannot be Stunned.

Issue:
Immunities bricks builds. Playing stuff like lightning warp shock proliferation or Ice trap where a HUGE portion of the build relies on either the survivability or damage from these is miserable.
For the love of ... immunities are bad mkay?

Fix:
Just make it unstackable 50%. That's more than annoying enough for a vast amount of builds. You have to rememeber that these mods combine with map mods that has 70%-96% ailment avoidance(depending on atlas nodes and juicing)

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Vampiric:
Enemies cannot leech from you.

Issue: Basically makes ascendancies like Slayer completely brick. Sure, they can get life on hit but this is waaay too obnoxious. It is an ok-ish node for maps since you can usually opt out of the mod by choise.

Fix:
Make it % less leech.
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Temporal Bubble:
Surrounded with a Temporal Bubble which prevents all damage originating from sources outside its radius.

Issue: It is a pretty big agreement that proximity shield that does 100% damage reduction is a monstrosity of this game. It is a big issue that makes some builds feel terrible while other builds just plainly ignores it.

Fix:
Make it 50% damage reduction instead of immunity and if possible make the monster detect if there is a player nearby. If not it takes less damage. If yes then normal damage. This will make sure that ranged character gets the needed "nerf" and prevents certain builds to bypass it without actually standing close. Added bonus: A melee/tank will be more useful in team play to make team do full damage.

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Corpse Detonator:
DD

Issue: corpse effects are very unfun to most builds and too trivial for other builds(corpse shattering etc)

Fix:
Much much better visibility with option for sound que or removal(preferably last)

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Invulnerable.... this should be too obvious to explain...

Fix:
REMOVE and if not then lower the 4.5 seconds to 1 second or less. This is just unfun.

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Empowered elements:
Every four seconds gain a new affinity cycling between Fire, Cold, Lightning, Physical and Chaos.
While you have an affinity you have 90% reduced Damage Taken from all other damage types and 50% increased Damage taken of the affinity damage type.

Issue: Lower dps builds end up with 90% damage reduction for 16!!!! seconds if unlucky with a 4 second window to kill the mob. This is hopeless design and even more hopeless QA to let through

Fix:
Remove or lower damage reduction by a LOT and consider make it not stack with life recovery stuff.

Now there are also straight up bugs that should have easily been spotted if tester did a single simulacrum:

Heralding Minions
Rare Minions spawn Invulnerable Totems on death that cast a Lightning Nova Spell
Totems despawn on death

Issue/Bug: Lightning nova totems stay forever even between simulacrum waves and unless you have an aura bot with 90% resists and or an aegis aurora/life on block you will die horribly.

HOW ON EARTH does this get through "extensive testing" ????

Ok well those were just some of the issues I noticed by quickly reading through the list and/or a few encounters ingame. [Removed by Support]

EDIT:
Ok seeing the constructive angle got destroyed by things and stuff I'll speak with wallet instead :) It's fine

Two quick fixes for the most annoying mods:

Invunerable:

Make tha rare monster resistan 40% more resistance to all damage
and nearby monsters 70% until the rare its killed (this make verything harded unless you focus the hard, but not outright imposible).

Mana Siphoner:

Make the mana siphon a % of current mana, so high mana builds (arcane cloack, archmage support) suffer, and low mana builds doenst become outright wortless (even worst if the wrong map mods are rolled).

My recommendations are as follows.

Change all the archnemesis status immunities to % less effect of said ailment. (there are many builds that only work when a certain ailment can be applied, regardless of what it does. This fixes a single mob being an outright brick to your whole build. Even 100% less effect is fine in this case, as long as it can be applied.)

Change Invulnerable to link each mob to the rare via a line, perhaps similar to links, so you can tell which mob is making the rest immortal. Reduce its 50% immunity time to 25-33% uptime. (Currently this makes minion and herald builds unplayable, as it's virtually impossible for them to hit the correct target through all the others in the very limited window.)

Change Deadeye to need to hit you to apply the mark, and or remove it on death. (The marks presently seem to apply to you even when your totems are hit, and persist even through portaling out and back into that area. This may have been fixed since launch, but was noticeable during day 1.)

Vampiric can make monsters that are completely immune to minion or totem builds, as you can't easily control their position. Perhaps change these to have a maximum of ~5% of hp per second healed from leech? That should be enough for even low dps builds to get through these monsters, while still very significantly upping the challenge if they're tanky or very speedy. (Or disable their leech against non-players altogether. We can't leech from totems, why should they?)

Rejuvenating monsters should be immune to healing nova from other rejuvenating monsters. Essence mobs being duplicated are a thing.

Executioner should only apply the no regen on hit, not simply by existing. RF/Death's Oath are builds that exist.

Mana Siphoner should perhaps have a less recovery effect instead of the very heavy DoT. The no mana effect is already very severe on many builds when combined with other effects.

Effigy has too long a tether distance. It's very easy to die to the tether to minion/totem damage, which you can't really control. Another option is to apply a maximum cap of damage over a set period of time, so you can't kill yourself in, say, fewer than 3 seconds. This last option is meant only for damage that you don't do yourself. You should absolutely be able to kill yourself to your OWN damage. ^.~

Some of the AN mods that spawn something have it be targetable, but not damageable. This seems to occasionally cause your minions and totems to act like idiots?

The -Touched AN mods were meant to be dangerous and powerful, but they're completely overshadowed in raw power by the more common mods that are just far more dangerous.