Genuine Suggestions going forward

Overall, we need more mitigation if T16's and below are going to continue to have power increases to monsters.

TL:DR We need more mitigation strategies for increased difficulty and some changes to a few passive nodes.

I hate to break it to all of the elite players that pretend they aren't but a 6 mod T16 map is already hard. It's hard. It's been hard. Now, it's harder? If you're going to make t17's and above, then maybe leave t16's alone. The mods are already hard. 70% reduction in buff duration is not a joke, mod. It's hard to keep buffs up. -12% to max res is a hard mod to map on. It's hard, please don't increase the difficulty without giving us the ability to opt out OR giving us more mitigation strategies. I'll talk more about it below.

Some passive nodes need to be updated to be more clear or be more viable.

Last Rites for example, it's either a visual bug that the curse shows before the monster dies when you do the curse on hit or it's not working as expected. Destruction is pretty important now to mitigate so much post monster death nonsense. Either reword it, fix the visual bug so it's clear the curse happens after the kill, or eliminate the destruction wording all together but I've talked with a number of people that feel duped by this node. I'm running stranglegrasp on a build and i feel like I made a mistake now that I have to manually cast my curse to get it's effect. It's expensive to redo an entire, corrupted, stranglegrasp.

Adamant needs to be updated. It's way too easy to get max corrupted blood stacks for one cleanse to be viable or helpful. The node is in a great timeless jewel spot and it does add decent armour. Maybe lower how much armour it adds and make the cleanse last for 4 seconds? Like a high utility armour node as opposed to a hybrid. Most people will end up using a lethal pride timeless there anyway so they can get armour from that.

Natural remedies also need to be updated. If 100% of enemies will maim or hinder, one flask use only cleanses it once. Pressing your flask every second just doesn't seem viable. I think it should be for 4 seconds as well. Maybe get rid of the effect duration, as we have tattoos now.

Charge Masteries have 3 options for ailment immunity. When i comb through PoE Ninja, I don't see virtually anyone using them. I actually think it should allow to add +1 to max charges per charge type as opposed to ailment immunity. i.e + 1 to max endurance or +1 to max Power, etc. I know that seems overpopwerd now but it's 4 nodes everywhere except one place to get a mastery. That's a huge investment of passive points to get a mastery from those clusters. I think a +1 is acceptable. That's .2 additional power charges per passive point at that point in addition to the passive itself.

Fortify should be easier to obtain. Things like whirling blades or Shield charge should have more chance to get fortify. Maybe it could be a flask or a curse or mark can provide fortification stacks. It doesn't last long, it doesn't stack easy but limiting fortify to damage output, at this point, is a little too limiting. I know fortify has been a problem in the past but there has to be a way to balance it so that it's more available. Everything hits too hard. Maybe it was part of a mastery for Melee to grant 100% increased fortification or just anything to improve it.

We need more ways to reduce the effect of action speed debuffs. I suggest a flask mod or a new flask. Something that can reduce by a small percentage. It doesn't have to be huge. Similar to Suppress flask. It's not a high utility flask but it has it's good points. Being immune to maim, hinder, and having good movement speed only to be sunk in sand, grasping vines stacks, temp chains, etc the whole map is just getting out of hand. I'm not asking this for the elite builds. I'm asking for us filthy casuals that sacrifice ms for some other functionality. I'm patient, I can be a little slow but there is a point where too slow is just not enjoyable and I just don't think it should be my fault I'm slow so much. There are just too many debuffs to speed in general.

If you're going to make T17's the way they are, I suggest call them T19's and balance some new tiers in between 16 and 19. T17's are not just twice as hard as T16's, they are almost 5x as difficult to deal with.

Too many invincibility mods on rares is making clearing maps unenjoyable. You have the shadow clone jutsu one where it's temporaility invincible when it performs. The eater mobs that take a second to be targetable, same with abyss. It's slowing down maps too much with how much content is already on these maps. You have soul eater, which has become too common, and the invincibility aura one. I'm not saying don't have challenging rares, but I think soul eater needs a cap of some sort or should act like rage where it lowers over time to a minimum. You almost have to leave some maps. Can't kill it and it can't kill you. It's bizarre.

Bring back penance curse, please. It allowed lowt dps builds for single target to use their explody to kill tougher monsters, rares, and bosses.

Allow toggling of pantheon mods please. I've spoken to a few people that seem to actually dislike this new feature a great deal since they can't opt out for some of the more bizarre builds.

In Crucible, Sentinel, Affliction, Scourge, etc we were given new difficulties, however, we were given ways to mitigate the difficulty through the mechanic itself. Even with archnemsis, we could just skip the statues we didn't like. But Necro has zero capacity to opt out and it is just not good. I often get bored of some of the mechanics in the game and don't want to deal with them until my next build. It allows me to keep a build fresh for longer or see some of the different changes in the game that were made.

The new difficulty in even T16's is so high it is disheartening to want to make lower budget builds. I've always built around 40 to 70 divine max and been fine until this league. I'm finding that I'm just too cheap. i actually have to FARM for real to get enough divines and not just craft some above average, semi scuffed stuff. I know devs don't control eco but they can control the content and difficulty. If you have T17's, there is no reason to increase the difficulty of the existing 16 tiers. Just make more tiered maps with more difficulty and let people choose what and how to play. The truth is, you can have mechanics and content past t16's that are optional. I don't like a lot of the boss fights in this game. Not because they are bad, but because I just don't like bosses in games in general. I'd like to be able to continue to be a t16 guy but now the difficulty spike and expense and amount of troubleshooting to be viable in T16's is just too much of a time sink. I'm not sure I can continue playing more than one or two characters a league and truthfully, i'm getting bored troubleshooting these builds.

I think there should be a level 75 version of pinnacle bosses. I know it would sort of sidestep some of the intent of the game but I'd like to make more scuffed builds and I'd be happy with less loot or worse loot. One mod watchers Eyes or something could drop from elder. Maybe div cards for forbidden flesh and flame drop instead of the jewel. No awakened gems. I don't know the answer but there are times where I have build ideas and a limited amount of time in the league. I'd like to have a new minimum for bad builds that is achievable. I really would like to just get a build to the 80's, try a few cool things and move on if it sucks. Right now, I feel this obligation to get it to a very high level of performance, and then I'm miserable with the build or burnt out by the time i get to T16+ content or pinnacle bosses. Having a 'tier 1" pinnacle content would be a good mitigation for people that don't have the time to sink into builds all league like others do.

I know you hate that we ask for faster second campaigns but, honestly, I stand by my statement that I believe the devs made necro mandatory to make the campaigns longer on purpose. You've never made content that increased the power of monsters mandatory before. Why now? I get it, we aren't the ones that run your game but I'm so unhappy with this league, I'm concerned that this league could be a precedent on what is to come in PoE2. More bullet spam? Unmitigateable (I know it's not a word) debuffs? Etc. I've also not bought a supporter pack which is a first in a while.

Rares have lost a lot of value because block, spell suppress, life, defences, etc in a traditional sense are borderline useless without stacking massive amounts of % phys as ele. It's wildly expensive to be tanky now. Most prominent T17 capable builds are all unique heavy, but that seems relevant to T16's as well right now. Some of us like crafting. What is the point of 6 influences, awakener orbs, spamming eldritch currency for great mods if they are near useless in the grand scheme of things? I know it's a small exaggeration to say that you can't make a build primarily off rares but it's extremely difficult in this league and it makes crafting a chore. We can't have a few T3 mods anymore. Every mod freaking counts. Every gem socket counts. Every flask counts more than ever. There is so little wiggle room right now.

Right now, it's about being a glass cannon and trying to do content in less than 6 portals. It's just not fun playing like that for the rest of us. I don't like dying. I like not dying a lot. It makes me feel good.

Now, I know a bunch of people are going to disagree or type "essaying.". This isn't a Joe Rogan podcast. I'm not going to argue with a contrarian. I know most people will read this and think I should go kick rocks and the truth is, I might just go do that. It might actually be more fun than PoE is right now. I have 2 more builds I'm going to try to make this league and I might just call it my last league for a while and just assume things will get better over multiple leagues. I've grown to make this game my hobby. Like toy trains or collecting coins. It's hard to be average at this game. It's very difficult and this league has made the average player below average.

EDIT:

I'd also like to see Chaos res roll as high as ele res. It's no longer optional to have under cap chaos res so it should be treated like ele res.

"I hate to break it to all of the elite players that pretend they aren't but a 6 mod T16 map is already hard. It's hard. It's been hard. "

sorry mate, but this statement alone made me decide not to read the rest of your post because its utter nonsense.

Regardless, I would like some more creativity when it comes to damage mitigation, and more effective ones at that.

Map mods are getting harder and T17 mods were unpleasant to run. I think this is GGG's way of trying to offer new challenge to top builds instead of an unpopular nerf, and is well meant, unfortunately there is a lot of collateral damage as map mod changes as a nerf aren't targeted. If they add more defences they're back in the same arms race. On the teensy plus side, I struggle to imagine how much worse mods could be. Famous last-

T16 and hard? If anything t16 and all the other content became hella easier with the ever increasing player power in both offense and defense lol.
Even t17 maps are a mere joke with the current level of player power.
We are already on the best way to have Diablo III levels of overkill power creep and easy content.

They're not hard and neither are 17s.

Honestly defense passives are pretty bad generally. Their are some good outliers, like the armor life/max res wheel. Hell even adding all attributes would be nice.

I think it they added cool stats to less popular nodes that would help a lot. Ideally I want ggg to move away from auras and flasks being where the majority of defenses come from.

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Genstein wrote:

Map mods are getting harder and T17 mods were unpleasant to run. I think this is GGG's way of trying to offer new challenge to top builds instead of an unpopular nerf, and is well meant, unfortunately there is a lot of collateral damage as map mod changes as a nerf aren't targeted. If they add more defences they're back in the same arms race. On the teensy plus side, I struggle to imagine how much worse mods could be. Famous last-

I can see that being the case. However, catering to a minority of players is a little unjust. Let the freak players be freaks. They earned it. The game is hard and if someone can overachieve the rest of us shouldn't be punished for it. Just because the players like me aren't on the forums (except for me at times) doesn't mean we don't exist or shouldn't be able to enjoy the game anymore.

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roundishcap wrote:

Honestly defense passives are pretty bad generally. Their are some good outliers, like the armor life/max res wheel. Hell even adding all attributes would be nice.

I think it they added cool stats to less popular nodes that would help a lot. Ideally I want ggg to move away from auras and flasks being where the majority of defenses come from.

I agree that some passive wheels and nodes definitely need to be updated.

I have mixed feelings about moving away from flasks and auras. I never thought about Auras as an issue. Flasks, I enjoy the mechanics. I know some people don't like having 8 or 9 keys to press for their builds but I always felt that was necessary to min/max an off meta build. Focus, blood rage, 2 high effect flasks that you manually press at the right times, vaal haste, movement skill, etc. Manually casting a curse to save a gem socket for vaal haste instead of using hextouch feels like it's a staple in the game. However, I can also see the cumbersomeness of it.

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Coconutdoggy wrote:

They're not hard and neither are 17s.

T17s are hard though. Too hard, so almost nobody can have fun with that content.

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ekopalm wrote:

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Genstein wrote:

Map mods are getting harder and T17 mods were unpleasant to run. I think this is GGG's way of trying to offer new challenge to top builds instead of an unpopular nerf, and is well meant, unfortunately there is a lot of collateral damage as map mod changes as a nerf aren't targeted. If they add more defences they're back in the same arms race. On the teensy plus side, I struggle to imagine how much worse mods could be. Famous last-

I can see that being the case. However, catering to a minority of players is a little unjust. Let the freak players be freaks. They earned it. The game is hard and if someone can overachieve the rest of us shouldn't be punished for it. Just because the players like me aren't on the forums (except for me at times) doesn't mean we don't exist or shouldn't be able to enjoy the game anymore.

100% agree with this, no argument from me. I think power level extremes are so out of control that it's hard for GGG to work out how to apply any sort of rebalance that comes out fair. Let alone popular. I wish I had better suggestions for them.