Make Ralakesh T0 rarity instead of nerfing them

I don't think they should touch them at all.

Making them much rarer (and therefore, more expensive) doesn't solve anything. It just makes things worse by doing the usual approach of ensuring only the wealthy players can access them. Terrible solution. Particularly when we know that GG's approach to this is to balance the game around the haves rather than the have nots.

Nerfing them would also be a terrible solution. The reason they are so popular (and as Ashes of the Stars prior to this) is that they allow the player to make otherwise lack-lustre skills or interactions work in fun and creative ways.

You just need to look at these boots prior to the change. Hardly anyone outside of a small group who could tolerate the weapon swap shenanigans used them. Now they are hugely popular and are driving experimentation with various other strategies. The game needs more items like these, not less.

Have a look at items like Astral Projector and Badge of the Brotherhood. Particularly Astral Projector which adjusts skills that are otherwise poor in the current state of the game and make them playable in a new way. Personally I'd rather see elements of that ring be part of the tree or ascendancies instead.

It's about time there was more fun in this game, not less.

Why would they change the rarity of such a niche item?
Only a few specific builds really make a use out of it cause in most cases crafted boots or other uniques offer way better benefits. If anything they will likely nerf Penance Brand with the next league causing the item to be less desired by the community cause only very few specific niche builds along with uber killer really make use of them. So there's no real reason to turn such a simple item into a t0

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Pashid wrote:

Why would they change the rarity of such a niche item?
Only a few specific builds really make a use out of it cause in most cases crafted boots or other unique offer way better benefits. If anything they will likely nerf Penance Brand with the next league causing the item to be less desired by the community cause only very few specific niche builds along with uber killer really make use of them. So there's no real reason to turn such a simple item into a t0

Not exactly...17% of ALL builds this league are using these boots. Hardly "niche" in any way. It is one of the MOST used items currently in the game. And its not all penance brand. There is a very healthy mix of builds that all leverage Ralakesh and the Maven belts. It's basically the "mageblood" of all things charges. Which is a little ridiculous...You'd be hardpressed to find a rare boot that outperforms Ralakesh right now in terms of overall defensive and offensive power (provided you are properly building max charges). Charges aren't a "niche" mechanic, and if anything the boots are REMOVING the niche aspect from a lot of charge stackers.

I'd actually argue that current Ralakesh boots are possibly in the top 5 most broken items ever to hit PoE. Possibly even top 3 behind HH and MB. It's ability to improve almost any build, when paired with maximum charge investment and possibly a Maven belt, is almost unrivaled. Only reason its behind HH and MB is because it would require specific build changes to make full use, whereas HH and MB can basically just be slapped on for instant power. But it is WAY ahead of things like Omniscience because the actual "adjustments" are minimal. Things like Omni require a full override of an existing build for it to work at all.

But PBofD will absolutely get nerfed! That has nothing to do with Ralakesh though.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

Not exactly...17% of ALL builds this league are using these boots. Hardly "niche" in any way.

And now do some research of what the 17% are made of. Most of them are Penance Brand cause everyone's following fav streamer xyz's build, followed by hexblast, some Kb enjoyer along with two other skills used by a very few people. Also a small amount of ice trap enjoyer but they've already used these boots before the change anyways. So yea that's pretty niche giving that only 5-6 builds can actually make a good use of the item vs a item that you could slap on literally any build for a large benefit.

It's true that Penance Brand is disproportionately represented when paired with Ralakesh (30% of all Ralakesh builds), but that is a separate issue of TWO uber powerful things coming together.

The other 70% includes almost a full HALF of all the other possible skills in the game, in various proportions. 20 or so different skills show over 1% ralakesh usage which is kinda nuts. Not niche...

You can also see, based on the spread, that they are used across MANY vastly different playstyles and build forms. Of course there are more desired skills than others...that is always true. But the fact that Ralakesh is used significantly across the board shows how versatile and powerful the item is.

But even without those stats...you can think for yourself using your knowledge of the game. With NO investment, slapping on Ralakesh gives you:
1) 12% all resist, 12% pdr(!)
2) 12% increased attack/cast speed, 12% MORE damage (!)
3) 150% increased crit chance (global)
4) 25% cold/chaos, 30% movespeed

Builds will likely generate 1 out of the 3 charges, but the other 2 are less likely. And these boots also enable immediate use of any extra charge of all types which typically only cost 2 passives to get. Corrupted +1 helms are commonplace and cheap. Almost all classes path towards one of those charge clusters on the passive tree that give you massive additional bonuses per charge. And then you get into brutal/absorption charge craziness too...plus interactions with OTHER unique items that relate to charges such as the charge rings, the charge amulets, etc. The benefits and ridiculous power potential are ubiquitous.

Rare boots can get a lot of power, but to compete with even the most basic Ralaketh bonuses those boots need to be DAMN good. Except Ralakesh boots scale and rare boots don't (at least not in the same way).

An aside, not intended to address any perceived balance issues, but I'd change the mod functionality if I could.

Either:
1) Make it so that "counting as having the maximum number" literally just affects the number for the purposes of fulfilling "when you are/are not at maximum charges" conditions, without giving you any stats for having charges you don't have.

2) Remove the ability to gain or lose charges and trigger "when you reach maximum charges" conditions, because the game is currently having it both ways. It wants to say "well you have stats because you're at maximum charges so you actually have those charges!" and simultaneously "well you can gain charges because you only count as being at maximum charges, you don't actually have those charges!". It's nonsense, pick one.

Or just
3) Change the mod on the boots to "you have maximum endurance charges" etc if they want you to have the stats too.

The mod just feels messy and overengineered at the moment.

^I totally agree with that, and before I learned more I thought that WAS how the mod acted....

I thought it just meant that, if you have zero charges, you have the tag "at maximum charges"....NOT that it gives you all the benefits of being at maximum too.

Personally, I think it SHOULD be changed to the above, but we should also get more "while at maximum charges" effects to play around with too.


It's "weird" to me that you can slap on a belt that says "gain brutal charges instead of endurance charges" and yet.....still "kinda" have endurance charges. They should overwrite each other like the legion jewel keystone did with Power/Frenzy charges (until Ralakesh ofc...).

... or maybe provide us three versions of the boots? Each gives you max charges of only one type of charge. Still fun, still possible to build around, but not quite as all encompassing as the current type.

It also allows GG to maintain the current rarity tier (not that I'll ever see them) but really making them three times as rare. Kind of like the Maven belt drops.

+1 (to OP).

New boots are awesome, and I'd much rather keep them as they are than get a watered down version nobody cares about. It's more than fair to bump them into a higher rarity tier though, since they're better than anything except double influenced boots on a HUGE variety of builds.