Exactly why Facebreaker needs tweaking - An analysis.

PoE game mechanics since .11 is in spaghetti mode. I doubt the developers understand how it works. Facebreaker is a prime example of the mess.

@lolozori While a Marohi might be able to match, a Marohi is also slightly rarer than Facebreakers.

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I'll chip in my 10 cents. I don't particularly care if they buff or nerf Facebreakers since either way I have enough dps. I do think though that Facebreakers got buffed a bit too much in the melee patch.

The biggest problem is that Facebreakers are so common (and therefore cheap). With the introduction of easy-access-6L with Bringer, you are essentially mass-producing a low-entry-requirement high-end-dps build.

And that sort of ruined the build from my point of view. This build which used to be challenging but rewarding suddenly became trivial. Yes, TRIVIAL. Everyone is piling on the FB-BoR train because it's easy dps. I don't know if this is what GGG intended, but this is the situation they created.

(Oh and at low levels, why would I use a sword/axe if I can get 3x the dps with less effort?)

Mind you, I'm not asking for a nerf. I've had my fun already with Facebreakers and I'm working on something else now. I'm just sad to see the build going the way of the sporker.

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Hell, buff the build please. Make Facebreakers do 2000% damage. That way we can kill off non-FB builds too and unify Wraeclast. Plus I'll finally be able to use IIQ/IIR...

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Kriole wrote:

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Acrosis wrote:

You have completely missed the point of this thread.

Nope, but it seems you have no idea what melee characters need to be on par with ranged ones.

Melee needs more survivability options, something in the line of Sorceress' Baneblade from Median, not more offensive tweaks. Any melee build that does 10-25k dps will do just fine in maps. Any more than that and it's just going to be a liability.

Facebreaker became somewhat useful after this patch but suggesting that it somehow compares to any of the other builds is borderline retarded. Most of the itemslots are occupied by gimmicky uniques to augment the insane scaling from flat physical damage, which in turn give you little to no survivability (Abyssus even makes it so that you have to heavily invest into armor to counter the huge downside it has). As a result you're gonna fall behind in resistances and life; you can only do so much with passive points (good luck overcapping without insane gear.)

GGG has already stated multiple times that builds should be overpowered in a fun way. Facebreaker's are exactly that. The damage is good but to compensate the aoe is pretty bad and reflect is a constant issue. And then on the other hand you have burning damage builds which can oneshot map bosses and have absolutely no worries when it comes to reflect. But you're right. Facebreaker is clearly an issue.

And please stop it with the math. No one cares about numbers when you have Firetrappers and EA characters reaching up to a million theoretical dps.

You literally have completely missed the entire point of the thread, end of story. Guess you didn't even read the tl;dr.

In other news.

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Chris wrote:

Here's the full photo with my buddy.

Facebreaker got quite a substantial buff incidentally due to environmental changes, so a nerf is occasionally discussed. It's not high on our priority list though, and may stay unnerfed.

Pretty disappointed, although I do understand the 12 hour downtime would be very disruptive. I do hope that adjustments will be done in future, because as long as Facebreaker stays this way with the specific wording, melee cannot possibly be improved upon without completely making Facebreaker damage shoot through the roof.

@Myrthr
Well, I guess it is only us pre-0.11.1 Facebreaker users that will see this point of view. Quite saddening really.

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Acrosis wrote:

We must nerf/tweak Facebreakers now so melee can be improved as a whole in future.

Why? They could easily tweak fb in the SAME patch they "improve" melee as a whole. But nerfing the only viable melee build BEFORE they fix melee would be just plain ...... oh wait ... I almost forgot it's path of we hate melees. ;D

This so called "analysis" is so bad.

Because DMG only matters, we all know that.


I also don't get your hatred toward FBs ( that are OP at low level, yup, but only at low level ) while we have sporkers, 100% up time immor(t)al callers and stuff like that.

Another thing I don't get, why do you even care? How FBs are ruining your everyday life? You'll always have people DPSing more than you, you shouldn't feel bad about it.

And I really loved the "OMG WITH ABYSSUS (lol) FBS DEALS SO MUCH DMG SO PPL WILL THINK MELEE IS FINE SO OTHER MELEE BUILD WILL ALWAYS SUCK" it makes no sense at all oô

Good question. Because as far as I can see, there are only several ways to improve melee as a whole. I'll just go through a couple likely scenarios.

Firstly, increasing melee skill damage or damage effectiveness. Now obviously this would be an easy tweak to vastly help melee out, however, this does mean Facebreaker gets a similar increase. Will definitely push Facebreaker straight into being OP and broken.

Secondly, physical nodes for weapons specifically can be improved to make up for the damage that Facebreaker has over them. In theory, this could work, in practice, highly unlikely. There are already established nodes for weapon specifications, but they are already well established to be similar to melee physical damage nodes with a final strong node that is 2-3 times better than a regular 12% increased melee damage node. Would be ridiculous to have an 80% increased weapon damage node or something similar, although you never know, it might happen. Would expect bow user QQ. Still unlikely because specific weapon nodes are fairly streamlined across the board with the exception of a few wand nodes.

Thirdly, increasing everything! Increased melee damage, weapon nodes, attack speed nodes. Same issue as the first scenario, this helps out Facebreaker and weapon based builds, however not equally (due to strong weapon final nodes). But as long as there are increased melee damage nodes within easy range (near the middle) it will still give similar increases to both, so same result as the first scenario.

Fourthly, increasing weapon damage range. This will bring an amazing amount of bow QQ if a one hander can roll 500 dps pretty easily (which has already happened on Anarchy). However, this is also similarly unlikely due to needing a large overhaul of many items.

Simplest solution: reduce Facebreaker damage before applying melee changes.

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Ekainen wrote:

This so called "analysis" is so bad.

Because DMG only matters, we all know that.


I also don't get your hatred toward FBs ( that are OP at low level, yup, but only at low level ) while we have sporkers, 100% up time immor(t)al callers and stuff like that.

Another thing I don't get, why do you even care? How FBs are ruining your everyday life? You'll always have people DPSing more than you, you shouldn't feel bad about it.

And I really loved the "OMG WITH ABYSSUS (lol) FBS DEALS SO MUCH DMG SO PPL WILL THINK MELEE IS FINE SO OTHER MELEE BUILD WILL ALWAYS SUCK" it makes no sense at all oô

It is remarkable how people are misinterpreting my thread. The only reason I believe Facebreakers to be 'overpowered' is because they have gained double damage in the span of a single patch while other melee builds did not get remotely close to the same increase. Therefore, to inevitably improve melee conditions in future, something needs to be done about Facebreaker now to avoid future situations where Facebreaker will undoubtedly be overpowered.

I feel like Al Gore talking about Global Warming. You need to look at the bigger picture.

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Myrthr wrote:

@lolozori While a Marohi might be able to match, a Marohi is also slightly rarer than Facebreakers.

That makes it worse. Not better.

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The biggest problem is that Facebreakers are so common (and therefore cheap). With the introduction of easy-access-6L with Bringer, you are essentially mass-producing a low-entry-requirement high-end-dps build.

That's a good thing. Facebreakers are a common unique, because they're supposed to be build-enabling, and endgame Facebreakers are inexpensive. Good. They should be. This idea that there should be this insane cost requirement to play endgame seems wrongheaded to me. Not only that, but Facebreakers aren't even close to top tier. Oh, and the free market strikes again - jewelry with +phys, +life, +res is fucking expensive. Hell, I even checked, and I have pretty much the only amulet for sale at the moment in standard with a solid phys roll, life, and chaos res.

Plus, running MF is pretty much completely out of the question, and your survivability is, compared to other builds which can actually afford to run Kaom's or CI builds, abyssmal. My facebreaker is level 77 right now, about 3k life, full endurance charges, massive life leech, and he still gets his ass handed to him in high level maps, because he can't afford to run Kaom's (can't give up the slots, want Bringer of the Rain), and there's no respeccing this char to CI.

Facebreaker is a solid budget build with budget results. Oh, and it's still not cheaper than Sporkers or Summoners, both of which can easily run endgame content better than Facebreaker can.

The whole balance thingy has gone to the dogs lately, changing impactful mechanics without balancing for it properly, introducing OP uniques as a temporary melee fix, flooding mod pool with troll modifiers to reduce the flooding of normal with good gear...