Leech: GGG clarify please!

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Nemmerle wrote:

Ummm...Mark...

Was the same mechanical change for life leech also applied to MANA leech? I ask because I seem to be leeching insufficient MANA now.

There was a mechanical change to leech, the mechanic, not specifically to only life leech.

pretty aweful for toons with low natural regen... especially mana users.
Built a toon around leech mana/life and have low regen, now penalized for no real reason... why not gimp the excessive regen abilities instead? I have a freezepulser that is impossible to run out of mana on with just high regen, but my archer using 10% mana leech now runs low after 3 shots ?

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H4T3MONG3R wrote:

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Nemmerle wrote:

Ummm...Mark...

Was the same mechanical change for life leech also applied to MANA leech? I ask because I seem to be leeching insufficient MANA now.

There was a mechanical change to leech, the mechanic, not specifically to only life leech.

pretty aweful for toons with low natural regen... especially mana users.
Built a toon around leech mana/life and have low regen, now penalized for no real reason... why not gimp the excessive regen abilities instead? I have a freezepulser that is impossible to run out of mana on with just high regen, but my archer using 10% mana leech now runs low after 3 shots ?

I have similar experience with my high regen toons.

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Nemmerle wrote:

I'm fairly sure that the main reasons for the change are

a) +Life was FAR too important as a stat, and almost all builds were built around it
b) Lifeleech was very powerful and made other methods of regaining life much less important - almost all builds were using it
c) these add up to less build diversity
d) now people will use armor, evasion, energy shield and other options more due to better "balance" between these various strategies

Note - I am not expressing a positive or negative opinion on the change - I am officially "neutral" about the change, but I'd be much happier if it was fixed to be lifeleech only, and not mana leech.

leech was changed to accommodate changes to vaal pact. VP was abused. leeching was fine.

I can understand the necessity to change leeching so that the new vaal gems didn't crash clients everytime but the queue depth should have been shrunken to something greater than 1. having an infinite queue in the old system was problematic for large screens of mobs and fast clears in terms of transient leech queues. just cap it to 10 active sources or make it modulus/ring buffer or a limited heap so it's already prioritized.

one active leech for 100% and the rest for 20% efficacy with no queue depth is bollocks.

endgame players were using block, dodge, evasion and armor. leech doesn't change that. sure some were just facetanking with enough life and granite/jade to avoid being 2shot and heal through anything else but those players were also using block which is ridiculously strong. that's not leeches fault.

the entire game is designed around leeching. it is intrinsic to every build of any use. regen is negated with vaal pact anyhow. half the keystones modify or rely on leeching. it's too large a change affecting more than a few niche players.

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kehlarn wrote:

it's too large a change affecting more than a few niche players.

Any news dear devs?

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kehlarn wrote:

leech was changed to accommodate changes to vaal pact. VP was abused. leeching was fine.

What makes you say this? If that was true, the changes should have been implemented if and only if you select the Keystone. They could have made the leech penalty for VP 80% or 95% or whatever if they wanted.

I'm trying to understand the effects on AOE attacks like GS. My first impression and my feel when playing is that leech is suffering pretty bad for those types of attacks compared to before. I'm not smart enough to chart it up both ways but it certainly feels and plays like regen is so much less effective that it's been "over balanced".

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Phaeded wrote:

I'm trying to understand the effects on AOE attacks like GS. My first impression and my feel when playing is that leech is suffering pretty bad for those types of attacks compared to before. I'm not smart enough to chart it up both ways but it certainly feels and plays like regen is so much less effective that it's been "over balanced".

GS isn't affected too much from my recent testing, its wave travels pretty slow and does delayed hits which serve to fill the leech gap created by lower hit damage. I'd say it's still pretty sustainable.

Skills like cleave, reave and RoA are most affected, they hit all targets almost at the same time.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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demivion wrote:

what about small hits that have no chance of capping leech rate? we're stuck with one leech effect at at time, because it's the strongest, but "strongest" is a relative term... incinerate and freezing pulse seem like they will be very bad off

There's no such thing and never has been. There is not a "cap" on leech rate, just a set rate.
All leech, always, happens at the leech rate (20% of max life per second unless you use the quality gem). That's not a cap that has to be reached, all leech is that fast, and cannot be slower*. The only thing that changes based on the size of the hit is the duration for which that leech lasts.

If the quality gem is not in play, all leech effects are at the same rate, and thus all have the same "strength". It's completely arbitrary which one is active at any given point, and there's no way it could possibly make any difference which one is active.

*outside of map mods that reduce recovery speed.

I can't believe this post came from a developer. Just, wow.

Sure, there doesn't exist a "leech rate" if you deliberately define it in a stupid and evasive way.

Instead, let's say your leech rate is how much you actually leech per second in practical situations. Yes, there is a static flow when you do leech. The important part would then obviously be the percentage of the time that you are actually leeching. This will obviously be different depending on which skill you use since it might not lend itself to a continuous stream but rather large bursts that mostly cancel themselves out.

I think you know this, and maybe you're just being evasive/obtuse on purpose in order to deflect criticism.

Who knows.

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tikitaki wrote:

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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demivion wrote:

what about small hits that have no chance of capping leech rate? we're stuck with one leech effect at at time, because it's the strongest, but "strongest" is a relative term... incinerate and freezing pulse seem like they will be very bad off

There's no such thing and never has been. There is not a "cap" on leech rate, just a set rate.
All leech, always, happens at the leech rate (20% of max life per second unless you use the quality gem). That's not a cap that has to be reached, all leech is that fast, and cannot be slower*. The only thing that changes based on the size of the hit is the duration for which that leech lasts.

If the quality gem is not in play, all leech effects are at the same rate, and thus all have the same "strength". It's completely arbitrary which one is active at any given point, and there's no way it could possibly make any difference which one is active.

*outside of map mods that reduce recovery speed.

I can't believe this post came from a developer. Just, wow.

Sure, there doesn't exist a "leech rate" if you deliberately define it in a stupid and evasive way.

Instead, let's say your leech rate is how much you actually leech per second in practical situations. Yes, there is a static flow when you do leech. The important part would then obviously be the percentage of the time that you are actually leeching. This will obviously be different depending on which skill you use since it might not lend itself to a continuous stream but rather large bursts that mostly cancel themselves out.

I think you know this, and maybe you're just being evasive/obtuse on purpose in order to deflect criticism.

Who knows.

Which skill does small bursts in a short period and then nothing?

I tested it with several skills and most of them work pretty much the same as before, except for the extremly large out-of-combat reg leech gave you. I do see a problem with mana, because the leech-cap for mana is so incredibly low.

When your leech ends before the new hit arrives you aren't hitting the leech-cap. It was really funny with cyclone in a large pack, you sometimes gained several seconds of recovery, which was stupid. The only change is that while reposition in combat you are not leeching life now, like you did before (since you propably still had active leeches). But to be fair... you shouldn't leech life without attacking. The actual leech-cap was far higher than 20% because you could use it for repositioning yourself while a leech-effect was still going on you. With my shadow I normally just slowly walked backwards from enemies while firing at them so that they weren't able to attack me permanently but I still got permanent leech.

If they change the mana-cap to 20% too I'm propably fine with the changes. Life-Leech didn't change much if you are just standing there attacking. It basically means that getting frozen or stunned actually has a meaningful impact now.

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Emphasy wrote:

Which skill does small bursts in a short period and then nothing?

I have no idea what you are asking.

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Emphasy wrote:

When your leech ends before the new hit arrives you aren't hitting the leech-cap.

As quoted from Mark_GGG above, there is no "leech-cap" in this context. You either leech or you do not. It always happens at the same rate.

The only thing that matters is whether or not you are leeching and for how long. Any skill that tends to hit monsters all at the same time will suffer substantially under this new system.

And yes, mana is the particular issue.