GGGs difficult task to balance "overpowered" builds.

@QticaX#4168 can you show me a crossbow build where you can 1 tap entire screen with just one skill and everything on screen goes flat? ofc not... in the best case you need to combine different skills or grenades, light them up etc.
You must be so proud of your build because you wearing a ring (Polcirkeln Sapphire Ring for example) and just because of that everything shatters in ice cubes with 1 hit.. very skillfull player indeed.
All these ppl against balance are mostly those with these broken OP builds.

I mean.. look at these youtubers how pleased they are with their broken op builds is ridiculous af.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD1P3fBkxV0 (skip to 18 min to see how happy he is lol)

It's gonna be a big mess when the nerfs start, because as you say it will hurt so many lower investment builds, and people will correctly point out that alot of endgame content feels tuned for high speed and high clear builds, so they may ended up changing that aswell although it will probably take much longer.

Easily the most disappointing thing for me is how the current meta seems to highlight the complete lack of creativity in builds compared to poe1, my strongest build ended up being poe2 just ended up being a storm wave and falling thunder two button build. poe1 of course had the same minimal button builds, but atleast it was fun to theorycraft, you could trigger spells in so many different ways, totems could use just about anything, apply curses on hits with other skills. Poe2 will just end up having the exact same meta but with all the creativity removed.

I thought about that and wanted to create a thread about that, but since you already did that - might as well post that here.

There are currently 3 kinds of interactions that cause balancing issues in PoE2 and they all can be addressed without destroying their builds entirely like happened to cast on X effects.

1. Effects with too large scaling
Existing example: Archmage
While Archmage requires a lot of investment into gear with mana / mana regen mods its scaling is still too strong - I doubt that you can take any other spell scaling Spirit skill, replace mana and mana regen affixes on gear with gear affixes that synergize with that skill (and that would have similar currency cost to getting mana affixes on gear), pick 4 non-Arcane Surge Ascendancy nodes that synergize with that skill and get even close value of scaling to Archmage. That causes issues for PoE2 spell scaling in general - if Archmage is kept as is then accordingly GGG has to keep base values of spells low to account for giant scaling from Archmage and that would likely keep non-Archmage spell builds not viable / not competitive enough, as they would have to scale quite low base damage values and if GGG eventually realizes that and just nerfs Archmage that would cause massive backlash from players who spent tons of time and resources to make that build. However, solution still exists.
Solution: Increase base damage of most spells and tune scaling of Archmage to provide comparable value to other Spirit gems built with according suitable item modifiers and ascendancy points. For example - if you play a dual element build and use Elemental Conflux (other 100 Spirit cost buff) with stacked synergizing item affixes (instead of needed for Archmage mana and mana regen modifiers) and with 4 synergizing Ascendancy points (instead of Arcane Surge nodes for Archmage) and get comparable scaling and efficiency to Archmage build - then they are fine balanced and a matter of preference and both Archmage and non-Archmage spell builds remain viable.

2. Spammable ultimates
Existing example: Tempest Bell
On its own Tempest Bell does not seem much of an issue - it requires building up combo points, then mindful placement and quick triggering while boss is still within its range (usually when boss is stationary or crowd controlled). That can be compared to ultimates in other games - you build conditions and then get good payoff. However, unlike ultimates in other games and the reason why it causes balance issues is how spammable it is - while ultimates in other games usually have a cooldown or energy buildup mechanic in this game a dedidcated build can dischare first bell, then requires 4 melee hits to build combo points (1-2 seconds, especially if you use Tempest Flurry with its fast attacks) and then can just use and discharge Tempest Bell again and repeat as many times as it can afford to. That also causes massive shift of Monk builds to builds that can attack as many times per second as possible to accordingly quickly break first bell, rebuild combo points and do that as many times as you can while boss is near it. That leads to abilities with slower attack speed quickly falling behind and causes both balance issues with boss dps compared to other classes and balance issues within Monk class itself. And nerfing bell's damage or number of hits is not a very good solution - while it may bring Monk's single-target damage more in line with other classes it would continue to favor fast attacking abilities to discharge bell as soon as possible and repeat and can also nerf already undertuned physical / chaos monk builds too that use bell as a crutch to even deal meaningful damage. There is other solution though.
Solution: Buff baseline damage of many Monk abilities (especially physical / chaos related ones) and add a cooldown that activates only after bell disappears. Such tweak would redistribute damage from bell into melee abilities themselves (so builds that don't want to play with bell become more competitive) and would also bring faster and slower attacking builds more in line - as long as your build can discharge the bell within its lifespan you would use it effectively and cooldown that triggers after that would prevent faster attacking builds from getting too far ahead. This cooldown should also be not too large to be usable against every new pack on maps and should not be affected by Temporalis to prevent it from becoming even more meta.

3. PoE1 builds and PoE2 builds within the same game
Existing examples for comparison: Lightning Arrow Deadeye and Flameblast Sorceress (any ascendancy).
Other issue that causes balancing issues in PoE2 is that it seems like some builds were designed with PoE1 in mind (fast, can quickly clear both packs and bosses, don't involve too much risk) like Lightning Arrow Deadeye that can just throw lightning rods around and then destroy a screen / boss with a lightshow and some builds were designed with PoE2 campaign experience in mind like Flameblast Sorceress that first needs to pick correct placement for Solar Orb (which it can have only 1 at a time) and then find good opening for channeling explosion from it without getting interrupted or outright killed. This build seems like it was designed to imitate PoE2 campaign experience and actually require some strategic gameplay and planning. The issue is that both builds are in the same game and they keep their pros and cons in endgame and with how punishing death in endgame in PoE2 is - why as a new player would you ever pick Flameblast Sorceress if you can just play Lightning Arrow Deadeye that is faster, more effective and much less risky? Even if GGG tomorrow would buff damage of Flameblast by X% that would not solve the issue - Flameblast build would remain much slower and riskier and would likely still be inferior. There is other solution.
Solution: GGG need to choose whether they want endgame in PoE2 to be like PoE1 (fast / flashy / less risky) or like PoE2 campaign (methodical / strategic / more risky) and adjust both endgame mechanics (it is hard to imagine something like breach with campaign level of risk without adjustments to number / frequency of mobs) and all kinds of builds to that type of endgame. If they pick PoE1 way then maybe power level of Lightning Arrow Deadeye is fine and other builds should be brought to its level, like Flameblast Sorceress being able to spawn multiple Solar Orbs wherever she wants (like Ranger can throw lightning rods left and right) and being able to quickly detonate several of them to cover and wipe screen with chain explosions as analogue to Ranger shooting several lightning arrows and covering and wiping screen with its lightshow. If they pick PoE2 campaign route then they should adjust all builds to its methodical / strategic / risky gameplay and if needed tune both the endgame mechanics and overperforming builds. As a result - they should pick a direction and tune all builds to suit that direction, so that whatever of them you pick and play is more of a matter of preference.

Devs should just balance around SSF even never check trade builds. The guys making balance decisions should basically be locked in a room with a smart firewall which blocks all non-ssf content.

Balancing op builds with op gear always leads to that build beeing unplayable for casual players.

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Volsal#8024 wrote:

I thought about that and wanted to create a thread about that, but since you already did that - might as well post that here.

Thanks for your feedback, very nice addition. :)

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Bentic#7016 wrote:

Balancing op builds with op gear always leads to that build beeing unplayable for casual players.

That's why I wrote that it's a "difficult task" as the title says.

In POE1 this ways always the case so my hope for POE2 is that they consider that 500+ Divine builds are not the metrics for the majority. ;)

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loopax55#5378 wrote:

@QticaX#4168 can you show me a crossbow build where you can 1 tap entire screen with just one skill and everything on screen goes flat? ofc not... in the best case you need to combine different skills or grenades, light them up etc.
You must be so proud of your build because you wearing a ring (Polcirkeln Sapphire Ring for example) and just because of that everything shatters in ice cubes with 1 hit.. very skillfull player indeed.
All these ppl against balance are mostly those with these broken OP builds.

I mean.. look at these youtubers how pleased they are with their broken op builds is ridiculous af.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD1P3fBkxV0 (skip to 18 min to see how happy he is lol)

It's a shame because I play with crossbow and 1 shot the whole screen.. and I don't use Polcirkeln. I don't play "meta" I create my own builds and I generally don't share them.. as to make sure they remain futureproof.

I can guarantee you've never seen a Galvanic Shard build hit for as much as mine.
If you have show me because as far as I am aware everyone is running that lame ass freeze build that Lazy showed everyone.

Galvanic Shard: 12.3kx6+2 fork = 98.4k + (chain beam 84k) = grand total of 200k+ Keep in mind that that's without shock




Shocburst Rounds: 42k + pulse (needs shock to function) 290k x19 (quality is still bugged should be 26 with 20+10 quality) = 1 full clip = 6.3m DPS




So no my guy I use one skill to clear the screen. Galvanic Shards and Shockburst for bosses... I just know what I am doing.

bro, many builds can clear a screen eventually, I was talking about being able to kill all with one press of a button (which is not the same as holding a button down and spamming the skill multiple times) and the entire screen goes flat with one action (in you case example im not sure that you can without holding the button and use multiple bolts to kill everything 360 around you. which is not the same as 1 click kills everything).

look in my posted vid at 18:15 to see what I am talking about.

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loopax55#5378 wrote:

in the best case you need to combine different skills or grenades, light them up etc.

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loopax55#5378 wrote:

bro, many builds can clear a screen, I was talking about being able to 1 click/press literally and the entire screen goes flat, not sure you can click once (in you case example im not sure that you can without holding the button and use multiple bolts to kill everything 360 around you. which is not the same as 1 click kills everything).

Just like the video you posted I can click one time and clear the screen just like that monk.. just like a spark build.. just like a storm wave build.. 1 click but no one clicks 1 time they attack multiple times... Now, you're just changing the idea of a 1 tap... which is clearing the whole screen like you said with 1 skill.

I even highlighted and bolded your previous statement don't change it now to something that was never intended.

You can build anything to clear a whole screen with the correct knowledge and the investment. I still stand true to this statement.

That's what I've meant all the time, 1 click to kill a screen full of mobs is not what I call a balanced game and this shouldn't be a thing, if you can do it, no wonder you are so defensive against nerfs/balance happening to prevent that type of gameplay (which imo is not even gameplay is just a mess on the screen.. you use a skill and literally you gpu and cpu can explode from its effects lol)

There should be some level of player effort—not just easily mowing down enemies and roaming around to pick up drops like a farming machine.