I Strongly Dislike the Defense Systems in PoE - from a new player

Ah yea, I got them mixed up which is funny cuz I'm using that wheel right now.

Asylum 30% Chaos Resist. I planed to drop it though. The Chaos Cluster "Can't be Stunned casting a Chaos spell" is a bit more attractive than the 80% Stun/Block recovery nearby. The small notable also drops Determination to 24% reserve. I dunno, I try stuff out and see how it goes.

I always play off-meta so stuff is usually cheap to grab and try.

I'm fine to build defenses but in certain scenarios like maven, cortex, uber elder, alva incursions in maps, I'm also being punished for not investing in offense. The arena would be filled with s*** if the fights take too long. I simply can't beat the clock in incursions.

I agree with this post 100%. Defence is in a really bad spot now. The nerfs have been so heavy handed it's just not fun. I've custom created my league starter (Vortex/Cold Snap Occultist) and played it for the past 6 leagues. Love it because it's tanky AF with Energy shield/Armour and CI. I can get it up and running for less than 60c, and I can blast through the campaign in 4 hours. I could even take it all the way to endgame if I chose to.

The PoB has been only extremely minor changes to adjust for the changelogs. The gear and skills loaded into the PoB has remained exactly the same. According to PoB:

In 3.16 my eHP just read "inf" with 13.7 million DoT DPS.

In 3.18 my eHP was under 1 million with 11.2 million DoT DPS.

In 3.20 my eHP was 390k with 7.8 million DoT DPS

In 3.21 my eHP is now 141k with 5.3 million DoT DPS.

It's not a glass cannon cranking out 100 million DPS. But it's a solid and stable league starter. Through all these leagues the chance of getting 1 shot by a random enemy while just running maps was possible, but has been getting more and more frequent where now I just fall over dead wondering what could have possibly hit me if there is nothing on the screen.

All of this just shows the direction the game is going. NERF NERF NERF.

I hate the fact with all characters that we are forced to take 2 out of 3 between Determination, Discipline, or Grace. And only late in the game when we finally get very high end gear we are able to remove Vitality/Precision/Clarity. Being forced into using at least 3 of those auras, especially with all the reservation efficiency changes, leaves no room for anything. No room for experimentation. So why have any other options?

The game at this current league is in one of the worst places I've seen and I've played in beta, then came back in 2.0 to play a few leagues. But only after returning in 3.9 did the game finally hold my interest. 3.13 was still the best league, but not for the league mechanic. It was simply that everything was balanced between... well everything. If you wanted to do this or that, you could. You had options, now the game forces you into a handful of paths, and if you choose to stray from those paths you will not enjoy it.

It feels like you need to be a spreadsheet warrior just to play the game. Which makes it nearly impossible for a newer player to achieve anything beyond just the tutorial/campaign. Not to mention lately being forced into playing less, and spending more time in the hideout trading just to make enough currency to be able to buy reasonable gear which has been a major challenge this league with all the issues the trade site has been having.

Right after the super heavy loot nerfs in 3.19. I was in act 7 before I dropped my first scroll of wisdom, let alone any other currency. Can you imagine constantly having 30 of the same rare piece drop, only not being able to identify any of them? Yeah I stopped playing that league instantly, I didn't even make it to atlas. It felt really, really bad. I tried 3.20 and quit again before atlas.

Anyways, I fully agree with everything in this post, and while the game itself is great and I love it, I'm left wondering how long or how many terrible changes it will be before I finally quit for good. I just can't see "the vision" will ever be able to attract any new players and will slowly dwindle the player base until there is nothing left of this or even PoE 2 for that matter.

"

Sarkonis7 wrote:

According to my PoB:
In 3.16 my eHP just read "inf" with 13.7 million DoT DPS.

In 3.18 my eHP was under 1 million with around 11.2 million DoT DPS.

In 3.20 my eHP was 390k with 7.8 million DoT DPS

In 3.21 my eHP is now 141k with 5.3 million DoT DPS.

All of this just shows the direction the game is going. NERF NERF NERF.

My experience as well. I generally build rounded character outside Ultimatum where the league was literally stand in a circle and don't die. Not only are the number down but their reliability is down.

Exposure is now a thing for some reason. More pen on rares, stronger curses and to removal of most flat DR. Armor / Evasion look nice on PoB but I'd take 15% reduced damage taken over 20% from armor any day because map mods and enemies wouldn't take it from you.

I tell people Wind Ward is one of Deadeye's strongest perk and they prolly think I'm crazy. Wind Ward + Frost Armor = 21% - 61% less damage taken. Enemy Ignores armor. Okay, doesn't apply.

As a fellow new player myself I couldn’t agree more. Defenses are imperative if you want to see all content. Yet the defense options are placed in the right and left side of the tree. Forcing you to spend ten or more points into getting evasion or spell suppression capped so you don’t get one shot. Why? Why can’t each type of toon have its own defensive passives? Spell suppression should be placed in the top of the tree where spell casters reside. Evasion on the right where speedy rogue like toons live and armor delegated to the left side of the tree where the plate wearing brutes call home. This would allow each type of character it’s own specific brand of damage mitigation that’s easily accessible and doesn’t force you to waste numerous points. The way it is now every build is the same. Stack spell suppression/evasion and a few of the mandatory auras. That’s about as far away from a diverse meta as you can be. I e never played an rpg that had a caster focused on defensive measures normally used for rogues or barbs. In Diablo 3 each defensive option is easily accessible by each character with each character having downsides and holes in the defenses. Casters are weak to physical damage due to lack of armor but excell in elemental mitigation. Barbs excel in physical reduction yet struggle with elemental and DH utilizing speed and maneuverability to mitigate its lacking damage reductions. It’s simply poor and lazy design to force every toon to use the exact same defensive setup and it causes playability problems when specific classes need to weaken themselves in order to get passives that are on the opposite side of the tree by spending points traveling to the desired (mandatory) passives.

Make the auras supplementary defensive options. Not mandatory must haves.

Pick a defensive type each class specializes in and make them viable and easily accessible inside the tree. Blue tree gets spell suppression green tree gets evasion red tree gets armor.

If the game is balanced around capped resistance, each tree should have minor buffs to them along with their other bonuses. Example all those crappy minor passive nodes could have +10 to intelligence and +1% to fire/cold/ or lightning resistance respectively.

They claim to want to slow down the player base. Why? You have the foundation for an endlessly playable game with near limitless options. Let people experience the game and dive into the character building that the game has built.

How can you have a game where the NPCs refer to you as “Godslayer” yet this slayer of deities gets one popped by random mobs?

in other words: the op is asking for the game to be played for you ahead of time so you don't have to think about anything or fail at anything.

If we don't want to worry about defenses or learning how to avoid attacks, then why do we need enemies? Can't we just have brick walls with ever increasing life that we bash our swords and spells against to test our clearing speed and power?

We just need a full "XMen Juggernaut vs. buildings" sim to play.

"

Sarkonis7 wrote:

In 3.16 my eHP just read "inf" with 13.7 million DoT DPS.

In 3.18 my eHP was under 1 million with 11.2 million DoT DPS.

In 3.20 my eHP was 390k with 7.8 million DoT DPS

In 3.21 my eHP is now 141k with 5.3 million DoT DPS.

I agree the nerfs have been heavy handed...but PoB also has issues with "ehp". I currently have inf ehp but I die all the time in regular mapping, not single big hits like you would think. It is not a reliable metric to use when judging your defenses. That 141k you have now might actually translate to MORE survivability overall than the other higher numbers you have seen. It all depends on how you have structured your defenses.

And you need to think about it yourself: what can hurt you, how are you protected, is it enough? Even with 100k or LESS ehp, you can create a character far more tanky than one with inf ehp (like mine). I am aware that, even though i have inf ehp, I am almost entirely defenseless against nearly all forms of damage over time. PoB does not tell me that, only the game tells me that.

To be honest, It is not the defenses that are the issue: it is the sheer force and amount of monsters being piled on you. You are taught to build resistances and overcap etc., yet now monsters have 50+ pierce resistances in certain cases meaning all your defenses mean absolutely nothing. Damage over Time effects from environments and on-death effects from monsters deal so much damage that you are incapable of creating enough defenses to deal with them short of being totally immune. My rf build with 89 max resist fire and 2000+ regen STILL dies to burning ground. That is NOT a defense problem, that is an EVERYTHING ELSE problem.

Defense itself, in its current form, is basically crystal clear and GOOD; with multiple avenues and paths you can take to build your defenses. It's just that, when you encounter enemies, those defenses don't mean what they SHOULD mean because the numbers are totally off the scale.

Man, you have definitely started at the worse time. Even I, an old ass supporter since the dawn of time here, had issue surviving campaigns with max resists and some armors. Cast on Death + Portal is my friend even in T16 lol.

They need to refine the defense mechanism way more and tone down the crazy rare monsters in campaign.

And later on, expecting casual players to hit 50K armor in T16s is also crazy >.>

They´ll never nerf Movementspeed as a defense.

"

atrolotenri wrote:

And later on, expecting casual players to hit 50K armor in T16s is also crazy >.>

They're not expecting casuals to have 50k armour in T16s because they're not expecting casuals to be in T16s in the first place. Casuals are meant to reach white maps at best.