Appeal to GGG – Mana leech

I love this game. I would have its babies, like Arnie in Junior, if it were possible for a man to give birth to the spawn of a computer game.

I think it’s kind of unfair that it’s hard to talk about POE without referencing Diablo II, especially since (heresy alert!) POE eclipses that seminal game in just about every single way (except cut scenes, but I’ll forgive you for that). However, please forgive me as I’m forced to recall one area in which I find myself craving that old dinosaur once again. Offline play. Or more specifically (stay with me) constancy.

You made the best ARPG money can buy, and then gave it away for free and it still took me over a year to relent and play it because of the always online component. I hate online. I hate it because it means I can’t play when the internet goes wrong, I hate lag, and I hate it more because, unlike Diablo II, where my characters are still sat on a USB stick at level 80, ready to go whenever I want them, my character is sat on your server at your mercy. And that, clearly, is paranoia on my account.

Except that now my character is dead, following the mana-leech nerf. He’s unplayable. He is, as far as I can tell, unrecoverable. I could roll 2 more characters to try and find enough fusings to get 5 links and use blood magic, (after all, two characters to merciless have so far failed to achieve this) but why would I? I put a billion hours into my main already, and he’s worthless now. Why invest a billion more? And I bought stuff for a game that no longer wants to play with me. I can’t stick with a game that doesn’t want to stick with me.

Anyway, this isn’t an ultimatum. My account is worth very little to you. And I love you guys. I’m grateful that you made the world’s best ARPG, I’m grateful that you listened to the world’s likeminded fans and said “the world needs a gritty ARPG, with real choices and real builds and real freedom” and then actually made the damn thing. But a lot of people think like me (well, not exactly, but close enough). What, 3% of your user base use the forums? I was in the 97% until this patch. 97% aren’t even social enough to use the forums. 97% basically just want to play. And that’s fine, that was me, and I was super-happy. But that percentage, along, I’m sure, with many of the good posters here, are not going to react well if the characters they’ve poured their hearts and souls into are rendered useless with – what was it – about 5 days warning on the patch notes? If they read ‘em. Somewhere in the small print. This online thing is still a battleground for players hearts and minds. Giving the game away was a howitzer. Making it the best damn ARPG in the world was a WMD. But making us care about our builds means it only cuts deeper when you cull them like this.

So please, please, from the bottom of my hearts, revert the leech changes. And give me my favourite game back. Thanks for reading.

Some ppls will just tell u to shut up and use pots. =\
If they think leech is op and want to balance it, it's fine. But this nerf is just too much.

The mana system in POE is bad. Players who spec into mana as they lvl find it falls off a cliff in end-game when your gems are high lvl and you get 5-6L. This has always puzzled me.

Forcing players to use either BM/EB or an insane combo of regen/max mana/gear seems very limiting in terms of build variety. Spending so many passives on fueling your attack makes for less passives used on aspects that actually customize your build.

I believe we have a plethora of build variety in POE, but viability severely limits that down to a handful of options because of mistakes like the mana system.

Thanks for reading guys!

As a duelist the Scion circle of life nerf hit me hard, but I could live with it because even pre-patch it looked unbalanced to me. But yeah, rendering a character completely unrecoverable is beyond a nerf, and having to base a build entirely around mana-regen nodes, rather than around what you want to do with it, is no one's idea of fun.

Pre-patch the mana seemed fine to me (for melee at least, haven't got far as a caster) in that it got gradually less limiting until I could afford to run an aura and used fewer and fewer potions (progression!) - whereas now I'm screwed.

As a Chaos Inoculation / Freezing Pulse, my build is dead too. Cause of CI I can't use BM or EB. All my gear is for CI (as my 6L vaal regalia) then no way I change that.

And for those who talk about build diversity : Now all life build will use BM, when previously some was using it, some others not. That will make less diversity. CI/Casters are now dead, most people are life based builds now, and physical to deal more dmg. Killing builds never made more diversity... The only way to have more diversity is to let more than one OP build.

Then I support the AnotherJuan appeal.

!!! PLEASE GGG REVERT LEECH MECHANICS NOW !!!

That was a pretty good post :) Thank you for sharing.

But I emphatically disagree about reverting leech... It might not be ideal for a time, but this sets precedence for more adjustments in the future. Adjustments that will, ultimately, make PoE better. While it might not be ideal for a time, leech was the kind of all. Want to survive almost anything? Life leech. Want to cast nigh-indefinitely without investment into mana? Mana leech.

Removing leech from the forefront of every build, allows it to be re-balanced in a different way--how, I don't know. It allows other measures to be brought to the fore--what, I don't know. It allows monster balance to be reexamined--how, again, I don't know. But I do know, that so long as leech remained as it was, we would always have a leech-centric meta. This nerf, while perhaps not ideal, allows things to change, and allows them to change in a good way.

I think that you should give up some points to invest in mana regeneration.
After all, the piss-easy resources management that physical attackers had over casters/elemental users was ridiculous, now we gotta actually manage the resources.

Still, I think that there is one problem remaining now : no-regen maps, I don't think that man people can actually do this now, 50% regen is already difficult post-patch.
Imho, they should remove the "no-regen" map affix now, 50% regen is basically the old no-regen with the new leech lol.

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beefnuggy wrote:

The mana system in POE is bad. Players who spec into mana as they lvl find it falls off a cliff in end-game when your gems are high lvl and you get 5-6L. This has always puzzled me.

Forcing players to use either BM/EB or an insane combo of regen/max mana/gear seems very limiting in terms of build variety. Spending so many passives on fueling your attack makes for less passives used on aspects that actually customize your build.

I believe we have a plethora of build variety in POE, but viability severely limits that down to a handful of options because of mistakes like the mana system.

Agreed. The mana system needs delineation. Mutually exclusive mana mechanics would help in that regard i.e. Mana Vaal Pact. Clarity has been a crutch of most builds for too long.

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Fruz wrote:

50% regen is basically the old no-regen with the new leech lol.

Absolutely right.

Also, hybrid flasks are amazing, if you've never used one. They continue regenerating mana even after it caps off, provided you're not full on life yet. They allow you to sustain the use of a skill while capped at full mana. I like the combination of one bubbling (of staunching/dousing/grounding.. etc) for instant recovery, and one saturated (of adrenaline/iron.. etc) for prolonged recovery.

Honestly they should just nerf mana cost on things or how much they multiply your mana cost when you attach support gems.

Even after you get more then a 4link you still can't even run the attack because of the increase mana costs.