Unfortunately, you are addressing the wrong problem with Archnemesis. While defences can be annoying, it's primarily two other things that are the real issue.
First is that a very specific combination of modifiers can result in instant and untelegraphed death. This makes it almost impossible to be reasonably confident in the survivability of a hardcore character. While it's possible to remember the "really bad" combinations for your character, you often don't have time to read what the modifiers are before you're attacked, and by then it's probably too late anyway.
The second, and even bigger, problem is that these rare monsters are everywhere. They permeate every aspect of the game and all content. They are impossible to avoid. And since this latest round does very little to make them feel better, they are still not fun. This means the entire game is not fun.
At least in the Archnemesis league, they were chained down, you had time to read and assess the mods that were on them, and you could choose to walk away from them if you wished. This league, that's impossible. They are being forced on us. And it's not something that most of us enjoy.
What really has to happen is some combination of the following: (1) Make the appearance of rares with nemesis mods far rarer. Not every rare should have the mods, only a few of them. (2) Nerf their offence, not their defence. Or, at least make it impossible for certain offensive combinations to exist. And make all attacks better telegraphed. (3) Halve the number of possible mods. In campaigns, rares should have no more than a single mod. In maps, no more than two mods.
+1 for analysis.
I'd go to add visual cues for the monster to contain 1/2/3+ mods like light shimmer/strong halo/bright red aura too to visualize danger.
And for balancing: drop base-life of rare mobs by 50-80% if you keep insisting on stacked mods which i'd suggest to drop. (max 2 at all in general maps)
In case you want to create areas with very high difficulty you might elevate that count. But up to 4 in general maps is a big nono for me. Remember: in Arch there were sure 4 max mods of them but they were totally optional and you skip on all of them.
Unfortunately, you are addressing the wrong problem with Archnemesis. While defences can be annoying, it's primarily two other things that are the real issue.
First is that a very specific combination of modifiers can result in instant and untelegraphed death. This makes it almost impossible to be reasonably confident in the survivability of a hardcore character. While it's possible to remember the "really bad" combinations for your character, you often don't have time to read what the modifiers are before you're attacked, and by then it's probably too late anyway.
The second, and even bigger, problem is that these rare monsters are everywhere. They permeate every aspect of the game and all content. They are impossible to avoid. And since this latest round does very little to make them feel better, they are still not fun. This means the entire game is not fun.
At least in the Archnemesis league, they were chained down, you had time to read and assess the mods that were on them, and you could choose to walk away from them if you wished. This league, that's impossible. They are being forced on us. And it's not something that most of us enjoy.
What really has to happen is some combination of the following: (1) Make the appearance of rares with nemesis mods far rarer. Not every rare should have the mods, only a few of them. (2) Nerf their offence, not their defence. Or, at least make it impossible for certain offensive combinations to exist. And make all attacks better telegraphed. (3) Halve the number of possible mods. In campaigns, rares should have no more than a single mod. In maps, no more than two mods.
I really wish they would listen to this feedback... I actually liked Archnemesis League but now when you run into AN mobs in certain combinations of league mechanics it's absolutely impossible. I've noticed Expedition and Metamorph being some of the worst.
y and u play (ofc) most meta build u can...
but there are players which wanna use more than 10 gems which are on the top of poeninja :D and when game (crafting, AN, loot, ...) is doomed, we... CANT
Last edited by AwesomeZerain#7006 on Aug 25, 2022, 8:43:26 AM
Don't tell anyone to lie if it's you that made a mistake. You're browsing the wrong player.
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Gweeeeed/characters
i think they could adress most of the problems just with minor changes : recombinators back somehow (beyond or another mechanic loot poll ), 3 recipes back in Harvest (reroll rare values, reroll keep suffixes/prefixes), fix tainted currencies to 50/50, drop currencies and map back to pre nerf (not loots, just currencies and map).... with these changes you could have nearly all problems solved...
Since this post is on the topic of Archnemesis mods, I won't parrot the rest yelling about loot and harvest. It still feels a bit off in general but hopefully that will get tuned. Definitely needed more testing.
No, I want to talk about Archnem. While these defense nerfs do help slightly, they don't address certain outliers or really the main issue with their defenses, which is stacked layers of defense. Soul Eater being the most egregious.
If information on the wiki is to be believed, rare enemies by default have a 33% damage reduction modifier.
Damage(1)*Resistance(0.25)*RareDefault(0.67)*SoulEaterDamageReduc(1-0.05X, assuming 90% cap(which is only 18 stacks...) so 0.1)*Block(0.76/0.6/0.4)
Soul Eater, Resistance mod, Sentinel, capped block (75%, 80% effect(60% less average damage))
1*0.25*0.67*0.1*0.4 = 0.0067 -> 0.67% average damage taken
Soul Eater, Resistance mod, Sentinel (50% block, 80% effect(40% less average damage))
1*0.25*0.67*0.1*0.6 = 0.01005 1% average damage taken
Soul Eater, Resistance mod, Bene Guard (30% block, 80% effect(24% less average damage))
1*0.25*0.67*0.1*0.76 = 0.01005 1.27% average damage taken
Soul Eater, Resistance mod
1*0.25*0.67*0.1 = 0.01675 1.67% average damage taken
Of course these values are before resistance reductions and penetration and ignoring all other sources of mitigation or increased damage taken, but you get the idea. If I've got something wrong here, apologies.
Soul Eater stacks ramp up very quickly and have NO CAP, though I assume that any damage reduction is capped at 90%... Right? Maybe? (doesn't feel like it.) In most scenarios there is no counterplay to avoid them getting ridiculously stacked. They'll pour out of an abyss, a breach, in the middle of an expedition or incursion, get all roided up with 40-100 stacks instantly and become near unkillable murder machines. If it also has leech or regen, gg.
In my humble opinion, Soul Eater archnem mod on rares should cap at 10 stacks, or 20 with damage reduction reduced from 5% per stack to 3%, or 2% like the unique boss version. (please cap their stacks too, I hate having to deal with burial chambers when playing minion instability builds. Soul Eater is simply anti-fun to play against.) If you don't want to cap their stacks, please at least have the stacks fall off similar to virulence, that way players can at least have some means of counterplay by avoiding the enemy for a short time.
I would also like to see Lightning Mirages be changed to either spawn randomly around the player at a certain radius (maybe 1/3rd-ish distance to edge of screen?) or to spawn from the monster itself. Having them spawn directly inside the player model, especially with mtx going strong, they are easily missed and if the sound effect is lost in the cacophony of other combat sounds, the player can simply explode without warning. Not fun.
Lightning Mirage and those annoying dark crystal lightning pylons that cluster around you and explode are extremely oppressive for non DoT builds that don't just run circles around things without having to stop. Crackling lance has been an absolute delight to play with these. The pylons spawn far too rapidly when encountered as a magic pack, they also seem to spawn well off-screen from the monster that created them, even when not in combat with said monster.
My two cents.
Some AN mods + Soul Eater can very easily create unstoppable killing machines, stronger and more dangerous than anything else in the game.
And they don't even drop anything remotely worth the fight IF you manage to beat them.
I find it funny how Chris mentioned "running away" as an option to get around these mobs. It's not. Depending on the layout of the map, they can make it completely impossible to finish the map.
I really like your idea about lightning mirages spawning at least a few feet away from the player. This should make them more visible as they'd not be obscured by the ridiculous visual clutter the game has.
Pylons feel like a strange addition to the game. They're like lightning mirages, except they're stationary, but still have the same visual problem lightning mirages have.
I don't see how they add anything to the game. It's a redundant mechanic IMO.
Pretty soon we're going to see "We're removing Archnemesis from the game" and I simply cannot wait for that day to come.
Screw it, I'll buy a supporter pack for that statement alone. I don't buy packs until I'm happy with that league, and I'm sticking to that policy.
This is an improvement, but baby steps. Archnemesis mods are a long way from a good state. At this rate it will take many leagues to tweak, if ever. I don't know if dozens of mods in millions of combinations with well over a dozen league mechanics is too much for humans to sort through, or PoE 2.0 is the priority.
Archnemesis is harming the game, notably for me personally. Just revert it. You can add it to occasional maps over time, or as one good suggestion to rogue exiles instead of all rares. It is still poorly tested and imbalanced at it's core. Or at least completely remove it from places it is hopeless, blight and heist from memory.
Last edited by Covenant#5720 on Aug 25, 2022, 8:53:53 AM
I feel like for Archnemisis, the devs should add a Modifier tier system. Assign a tier to each mod. Make it so certain combos arent available to stack together. That would at least reduce the chances of getting the build braking Archnemisis monsters from showing up and destroying peoples will to play. The defense nerf was very much needed as well. Doesnt really make sense that an Archnemisis monster is scarier then a boss monster.
