Archmage/Stormweaver/Eldritch Battery nerfs were too excessive

Nerfing the damage and number of projectiles of spark was a good change and warranted. Nerfing the damage scaling of archmage was also good. However, every build in this game struggles with manacosts, and the average archmage build was at the perfect balance between mana costs and mana regen. However, now I can't cast spark more than 5-6 times before I'm completely out of mana, and my curse costs 2k mana to cast, which is over half my mana pool. For eldritch battery specifically, PoE 1 doesn't have to double the mana cost of skills because everything else around it is balanced, but by adding this you have completely removed eldritch battery as an option for ANY build EVER. Spark needed a nerf, but the additional nerfs to core mechanics like archmage, eldritch battery, and stormweaver will prevent people from choosing these for any other build in the future as well.

The nerf to EB is such nonsense. It's not a nerf when no one can use it. That's just removing it from the game.

Why use a scalpel when you can use a hammer to nerf

Totally agree. The additional 6% max mana cost on Archmage is ridiculous and should be completely removed. We're already spending all of our base spirit on it, that should be enough.

They also significantly nerfed it's damage so I don't know what this ridiculous mana cost increase is about. It makes it unusuable for basically everything except super slow skills like meteor. Without it all sorc skill damage is a joke compared to other classes.

The double mana cost on eldritch battery is ridiculous too. Maybe like a 10 or 20% cost increase would make sense but not a full doubling of cost. We're already doing like 300% less damage with Archmage, and then they go and make it so that we can't even use it because of these cost changes making us blow through our mana in two seconds. It also doesn't help that the effectiveness of Arcane Surge has been reduced by a considerable amount, it almost cuts our mana regen in half from what it was previously.

Sorc definitely got unfairly over-nerfed with these ill conceived changes. It's an absolute slog running any endgame maps with Sorc now. They wanted to slow the game down apparently. Well, they certainly succeeded, not that the players actually wanted this.

I'm personally just going to take a break from the game and not spend any more money on it until they decide to do something about this. I've yet to hear them even acknowledge these glaring problems.

+1

EB might as well be removed from the tree, re-place it with anything else

This isn't even just a problem for Stormweavers and Spark builds; Chrono is no better off. So far I don't see any viable builds that won't be a pain in the endgame (running around waiting for mana regen to cast one spell, then run around some more... nobody wants to play like that).

Damage reductions all-around, CD increases, huge mana cost increases... I understand nerfs had to come, but to reduce the effectiveness of spells and then also make them more costly? Lame. Honestly kind of losing interest in the game since everything just feels "meh" now. And I can't even hop back to my old character to have some fun since they applied all changes to that as well. I have currency there, but it doesn't matter.

I Fully agree with author, and Spark is now SUPER WEAK.

1.
MANA issues in general and EB worthless.
Sure it needed a nerf, but yeah they completely gutted mana and EB is NOT possible!

2.
META Skills were nerfed to much.
And sure they nerfed the ever living daylights out of META skills with getting half energy which makes it difficult to build up at all with shocks. I understand nerfing LC by one fifth, that was needed but then I was buying my first Jewel with Meta and WTF, it only goes up to 8 now instead of what, 15 before! This is just plain silly. I am maxed out on everything shock, shock magnitude, Exposure etc. on the tree and I have all the Meta nodes up to Energise passive, have a 8x top Meta Jewel and a wand with 71% Shock chance - My LC procs like every once in a blue moon - it's super annoying, it's like they removed it from the game instead of balancing the DPS only.

3.
Also did they zoom the game in more in last patch (d) or am I going crazy!?
Like the game was already super too much zoomed in and I'm playing on a big 4K monitor and I feel super constrained now - it's super bad how little I see - it's annoying as hell, and with the white flying stunning mobs, you don't have time to react with this small viewing space!

I'm having a hard time staying with the game as it is, I'm really forcing myself hoping it will get better.

One-Hundred-Percent Agreed! +++1