3.18.0b Hotfix 1

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moozooh wrote:

Please remove Effigy completely. It's the most anti-fun mechanic in the game.

Player has no agency when and where it spawns. It's impossible to see it in a sea of enemies like in Heist or Ritual. If the monster also has a bunch of damage reduction mods, it may not even be a matter of noticing it in time.

Hardcore leagues become meaningless when there is no strategic counterplay to this mod. In Archnemesis, the player chose when to spawn it. Now, they don't—they can experience it whenever, and die instantly (oh, okay, "after 2 seconds") if they prioritize a different monster instead or if they choose to run past or something before they realize what just happened.

It's not clever, it's not "hard", it's got no place in the game. In the near-decade of playing PoE I've never seen anything so outrageously idiotic. It's worse than the old reflect because you could always compensate for that with build and gearing decisions and such. Not this time.

You've removed Necrovigil, Phylacteral Link, and old reflect mod because you realized they weren't fun, changed Volatiles and DD to be well-telegraphed and feasible to dodge to make skill a factor in dealing with them. This mechanic, however, is quite possibly the worst offender thus far, because all it takes for the player to die is for one monster to spawn it and another dozen or so standing nearby to attack it. The player has barely any say in what happens; the monsters decide it between themselves. It is not a matter of skill; it's a matter of luck.

Please remove it. I only play on HC because I don't find SC fun, and I refuse to come back to the game until Effigy is removed completely.

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Invulnerable: Can no longer appear on Magic Monsters, or Rare Monsters that aren't part of a Monster Pack (such as those spawned in Blight encounters). We plan to review this modifier further and make it more similar to the Benevolent Guardian Nemesis modifier.
Reduced the number of Magic and Rare Monster that can spawn in Ritual Encounters. The amount of Tribute granted by Rare and Magic Monsters has been increased to compensate for this change.