Two big balance problem [including 0.9.6b]

Looks like our feedback efforts have gone in vain, unfortunately. Still that two big problems continues, which is killing Poe in the first place;

First point - Boss Fights

For not seeing any upgrade regarding to boosting boss' They have been so fragile that they do not impend any threat on us, still. I just can not stand poor boss fights.

Second point - Resistances / Difficulty

Still characters' resistances are not decreased when they are in harder difficulties, progressively. Therefore there left no reason to take any nodes including special ones, because i can already easily max my resistances without any single of them. Imbalance occuring.

If i summarize those below are still are not to be missed;

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BrecMadak wrote:

● There are not 'x immune' monsters exist, still.
● There are not higher resistant monsters, still.
● Even the 'Resistance Aura' gives us no trouble. %35 higher resistance is like a joke.
● There are not any monster mods that burns mana on hit.
● We still do not suffer any resistance penalty for each difficulty goes.

Enemies' resistances are still so low, i can still one-shot almost every white monster in Maelstorm with my AoF mara. And this stuation is even easier for spellcasters. I didn't feel any 'harder' moments in this new level 60 maelstorm, frankly !

I want you to remember your own words Chris, you said that the game shall be extremely hard on hardest difficulty, which is nowhere viable by any point i must admit sadly.

Please, re-consider these, and step up for veteran players, not casuals. And its not only me who is not satisfied about difficulty, many old, and even new comers grumble about these concerns. Hear our concerns !

Yes, Bosses are realy easy to kill.
Emptying 1 Divine ManaFlask and shot with Poison Arrow + FasterShooting... none of the "big" Bosses last longer than 10sek.

The deepest "Boss-Feeling" I had was fighting against a Stonegolem with +Resistance and +Lifereg.
It was hardly possible to do Damage and I was forced to never stop doing DMG cause of Lifereg.
Took like 1-2Min to kill it (12times longer than the big Boss)...

I would say:
Double the Health of Bosses?

I'd say more than double the bosses' health. I was fighting Merveil on my level 72 Witch today in Merciless, and to my surprise, her cold snap froze me every time she used it. Then she closed in and hit me with a melee attack and took off a third of my energy shield in one swing. Then she stopped freezing me and I froze her and killed her in three shots. Second form was even easier than the first. It didn't even get a chance to do anything.

So there's definitely some progress, at least in terms of boss damage which is nice, but I agree bosses are still far too flimsy and anti-climatic. They need much more resistance against stuns and freezing. Their damage seems about right for the level they're at though. I just hope they give Merveil a good amount of mana regen so she can continue to cast throught the fight and not just blow her load at the start and melee the rest of the time.

Bosses are planned to get a significant revamp eventually. Just because something wasn't added or changed in the last patch doesn't mean that GGG isn't planning on doing it. Be patient.

I find that chaos monsters mostly deal a lot more damage than before (0.95/0.96a), but still have rather low health — it's a dumb way of balancing it, because it makes melee much harder than ranged.

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BrecMadak wrote:

Enemies' resistances are still so low, i can still one-shot every white monster in Maelstorm with my AoF mara. And this stuation is even easier for spellcasters. I didn't feel any 'harder' moments in this new level 60 maelstorm, frankly !

I find this a bit hard to believe, since I find that chieftains and goatmen have pretty good fire resist and health (and skeletons, but their health is low).
That said, I wouldn't say it's impossible if you're using a 2 handed axe with heavy blow supported by all 3 damage support gems or even a lvl 20 elemental weakness curse, but you did not specify.
1 shot is also not the best way to make a point either, because 5 shots could be just as good as 1 shot if the player has sufficient attack speed and mana management.

Even if it was true, there's a huge number of magic monsters in maelstrom still — it's not like whites are the only monsters. and if you're 1-hitting whites with a non-AoE skill then I wouldn't say it's particularly fast or effective either.

Lastly, consider that there are other builds in this game, and that they are not all as effective as the build you chose. AoF can very well be possibly the strongest build possible now for DPS, so complaining that things die easily when using that build is kinda dumb if it's the best DPS build in the game. Note that it is completely impossible to balance all builds in this game when players are given so much choice.

Instead of saying "maelstrom of chaos is too easy", try saying "AoF is still overpowered and the stupid change GGG did giving it 0% cold resistance to supposedly balance it is ridiculous", or try playing a lightning dex sword build, or a cold spellcaster, or a hybrid or something.

All that said, I agree that

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Chris wrote:

Reduced the life of normal monsters, but kept magic, rare and unique monsters the same.

did seem like a counter-intuitive thing to do. Would have made more sense to just increase the rare, magic, and unique monsters' healths.

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BrecMadak wrote:

Still characters' resistances are not decreased when they are in harder difficulties, progressively. Therefore there left no reason to take any nodes including special ones, because i can already easily max my resistances without any single of them. Imbalance occuring.

I disagree with the concept of lowering resistances with difficulties. They can just reduce the gains resistance gear on higher level items give and make the monsters deal more damage at higher levels.
It's just a poor-mans way of balancing things in my opinion. If we get lowered resistances, why not lower armor and evasion and energy shield? why not lower our damage? why not lower our accuracy? etc.

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BrecMadak wrote:

I want you to remember your own words Chris, you said that the game shall be extremely hard on hardest difficulty, which is nowhere viable by any point i must admit sadly.

Please, re-consider these, and step up for veteran players, not casuals. And its not only me who is not satisfied about difficulty, many old, and even new comers grumble about these concerns. Hear our concerns !

If you paid any attention to the news recently, Chris has said that Maelstrom of chaos is not anywhere near it's final state.

You really think level 80 players will be fighting lvl 60 monsters as an end-game?
Maelstrom of chaos is a challenge for lvl 55 players, but the fact that you're complaining that it's too easy with a lvl 70 or 80 character who's had hundreds of hours of time to find the best gear is absolutely ridiculous and completely unjustified.

I think it's awesome that white monsters are now weaker. White monsters should be one-shot for a powerful char, because otherwise you feel weak and slow, and the game becomes a dull grind.

Point is, the player should feel both powerful and be challenged at the same time. That can be achieved by having some monsters that are weak and others that are very tough. That way the pace of the gameplay becomes more varied.

So yes, bosses (especially act bosses and chaos bosses) need to be much more difficult to compensate for the weak white mobs.

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BrecMadak wrote:

Enemies' resistances are still so low, i can still one-shot every white monster in Maelstorm with my AoF mara. And this stuation is even easier for spellcasters. I didn't feel any 'harder' moments in this new level 60 maelstorm, frankly !

I think that not a single one high level Marauder noticed the change of difficulty. On the other side you may ask casters if they have noticed change of the difficulty :)

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Strill wrote:

I was fighting Merveil on my level 72 Witch today in Merciless ...and I froze her and killed her in three shots. Second form was even easier than the first. It didn't even get a chance to do anything.

What did you expect, for a monster beeing >20 levels below your char (and even for a ranged one!)?

The game isnt actually balanced for char levels >60... and there's no reason to demand this in its present state.

I'll just add that one-hitting white mosters with a pimped out fotm character is what you should expect.

I find that its really the way to go with having low life mosters (but I'd welcome giving them significant damage so you should at least take care not to get swarmed), with MUCH more difficult champion/unique mosters so you'd always be on guard.

Its a good mix that makes combat generally fast but challenging, especially if youre not using one of the ordinary builds that everyone else does.