Chaos DoT builds just got GUTTED (despite nobody playing them). Here's WHY & How to FIX
I just checked my last league build with the new PoB. (CA poison champ, AdeChamp_III_XIX)
Pinnacle boss in 3.19 was ~3.6M Pinnacle boss in 3.20 PoB is ~8.6M Still wondering if there's bogus dmg somewhere, but maybe it's just curses having full effect in 3.20. Also note that the build lacks a Rain of Splinter so there's more dps to be had there. |
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" its because it has the 3.19 hex effect using 3.20 penalties(0), next update will likely have gem updates. |
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" Correct. I compensated the despair flat dmg and damage taken and got 6.6M dps. |
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Now that PoB contains the revised 3.20 stats for gems i can tell that my chaos dot ethereal knives raider got buffed against pinnacle bosses, going from 2.1 M dps to a whooping 2.8 M. Amazing. And all this only for a slight nerf of 6 M dps against basic enemies, going from 9.6 M dps to 3.6 M. I would call the tradeoff honest and well balanced.
GGG is a studio of very competent developers who really care about balance, build diversity, proper testing and honest communication. /s Last edited by Jackkal#5957 on Dec 12, 2022, 12:39:22 PM
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You want to look at the "poison DPS" number for poison builds. Because of the temp chains changes your poisons will last longer, giving an inflated DPS number.
The poison DPS number will almost certainly be lower when fighting any non-boss mob, as much as 50% lower depending on setup. |
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I'm using vortex/cold snap and my mapping DPS was halved thanks to the changes (mostly because of malediction nerf and despair dot effect removal). Granted, I can kill shaper/elder etc a bit faster now, but vrooming through the map got somewhat harder (especially with the new(?) green buff stacking rares, they simply owned me in a second when i used the memory thingie on atlas). I can autocast 3 curses but only two of them give anything substantial. Why even bother with nerfing already unpopular/ button-heavy and unoptimal ways to play the game (can't even call a 'build' what i was doing)?
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Wow, lots of NOT reading going on here... I know it was a long read, but fcs if you're going to critique my post, read the whole thing.
Spoiler
I'm seeing people using "some poison builds got buffed" as a counter-argument (which are on-hit builds). Of course they did, as I said twice in the original post. ON HIT is NOT DoT. Also, as I said before, poison is totally fine as it has many additional scaling routes, and didn't actually get hit as hard. I'm also seeing more of the not understanding resources and opportunity costs going on. If I have to invest in curse effect to "get myself back" to where I used to be, or even "possibly be stronger", then what did I give up getting that curse effect? Okay you can argue FOR BOSSES ONLY it's stronger with curse effect, but how much investment do I need, what did I lose to get it, and was it actually a trade-up, not a trade-even? Skill points aren't free, and they didn't somehow specifically save Chaos DoT builds skill points by rearranging the tree significantly. An argument just saying "invest in curse effect and its stronger" is significantly more lazy than my back-of-the-napkin maths comparing numbers on the gem before-and-after. For reference on a lvl 94 PoB, I had a 1.86m DPS Occultist using despair TC enfeeble in blasphemy links. ~week1 6L blight/ED build. The PoB is now 1.38m DPS. Bosses went from 1.24m to 1.12m. I haven't gone back through to perfectly reconstruct the 3.19 setup, as I was also trying to make the build for 3.20 and gave up half way through when I seen the nerfs. But there's a useless thread of hope in there which was going to be used to jump to new curse nodes, misery everlasting isn't there, which was another nerf source. So honestly it's worse than what I have right now. Maybe I'll revisit this if it seems to be important enough for people/GGG to see officially. But RN unofficially I think this nerf is enough to warrant changes and buffs to builds like this. At this point, there actually isn't just a quick and easy fix. It's too deep. A Very Important Realization
Spoiler
So I suspect GGG knew this would happen, but they HAD to curtail the other DoT builds. The reason they couldn't simply add in a "chaos DoT" tag to Despair is because VG and Pcoc, and other on-hit poison builds would be out of control 36m DPS with little investment. Additionally, a direct buff to the weaker skills like ED/Blight, that would be enough to bring them up to equal, if not SLIGHTLY stronger, standing against tough rares as they were pre-3.20, would mean that against bosses, who now don't nerf curses on them, would deal obscene extra boss damage. They simply ran out of time. The solution has to look like re-balancing monster chaos resistance, which means more care and introspection into how chaos on-hit and chaos DoT builds work and which resources they share. They're too closely linked in terms of supplemental damage effects to make easy and quick buffs. Furthermore, the Occultist is in an identity crisis which requires a big Ascendency rework for her. They played it safe and just nerfed her, until they can revisit her for next patch or PoE 2. |
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