Why does Lioneye's Glare have no drawback?

Please let this thread die. GGG has clearly given their answer regardless of how badly you want to twist stats and implicit drawbacks.

These items will remain dominant until higher mod tiers are released.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

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It is, I hope, the last related incident to overpowered uniques slipping into the game despite what is very clearly the lead developer's wishes to the contrary.

Nah. Rather, there should be a complete set of items like this. Sword, claw, wand, and so forth. It's not like you have one and ... voila! ... you cakewalk to level 100 through all maps. Not even close. You know that, too.

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Catchafire2000 wrote:

I'm really glad that you posted this. It shows just how biased your opinions are, and invalid your point is. To say that the Axe is not OP, and yet LG is makes me question why anyone took this three ad seriously to begin with. The Axe makes LG seem like a balanced unit; I mean, how broken is no mana cost for melee skills?

Bias?

I have three characters above level 59. One is a cold witch, another is a phys two-hand sword duelist, and another is a phys crit bow ranger.

I have one dual-wield character around level 45. He's sword spec.

My ranger feels underpowered.

I believe dual wield cleave is a bit overpowered, because the developers never intended for cleave to hit with both weapons at once anyways, and the fact that cleave uses 100% elemental damage is a bit of a clerical error that the devs have let sit for a while, for who knows what reason.

Given all that information, I'm clearly biased towards 1-hand axe builds and away from bow users, right?

1. I never said Lioneye's Glare was overpowered. I was simply looking at stats and a question came to mind. That question being - why does LG have no drawback? If it does, what is that drawback? I received some answers in this thread.

2. Lioneye's has no rare competitors. The axe already has many.

3. Theorycraft is always different from practical application. Have you put the axe in the hands of a character and confirmed how OP that axe is?

4. I have no idea if the axe is OP or not. But it does have its drawbacks in a more pronounced way than Lioneye's does. Tell me, when was the last time you 6-linked a one-handed axe? If you're taking mana regen nodes and/or mana regen on items and/or a mana regen aura so that you can maybe use your utility skills on slightly less delay after wiping out your mana pool, how will you compete with players who've taken damage or HP or ES nodes or mods or auras instead?

I've a few characters above level 70, and a couple above 80 in normal HC. I'm going to explain briefly about my melee character and why the axe is a complete slap in the face to the hardships I endured trying to make the melee build work.

Melee Build
The build centers around two uniques:
and

My idea for the build was to have max block chance 75% which I was able to achieve mainly due to the 15% additional block chance on helm, the 33% block chance on shield, and a few block chance nodes from the tree.

The down side of using those two uniques is that I have ZERO resistances afforded to me from the helm, shield, and NOTHING from a chest. Now, I'm forced to get the max resists from the tree, elemental adaptation, and purity. Purity reserves a large percentage of my mana, and I use hatred which also reserves a percentage of my mana.

You can imagine that as this build is a version of the blender, that I attack quite quickly and thus need a large mana pool to cast my double strike attack. In order to do this, I had to get items that granted physical attack to mana generation.

These items are the following:

Being melee, I really also needed to link my attack combo gems with life leech in my helm to survive.

Here's the weapon that I use:


I consider it a very good decent item. The main drawback is the attack speed.

With the new axe released, it completely eliminates my need for mana regeneration items which is a crucial aspect of my build and allows me a great deal of flexibility. The attack speed on the axe is also very significant. As I see it, there are ZERO drawbacks to the item. In fact, the item is easily more OP than an LG.

I'm not saying that LG is not strong, but I simply think that the state of Ranger/Bows make it seem as if the bow is OP. You might think the bow is OP, and has no draw backs but I am showing you an item that to me I see no drawbacks and you are trying to tell me that there is.

I've been away from this game for a while and did some more thinking on this bow. I am rather disappointed at how vehement the community as a whole seems to be about unique items and trying so, so desperately to make sure they aren't 'BiS' or that they aren't 'overpowered' and that they must have really bad drawbacks on them. Ok, maybe the last one is a bit much but it really just makes me shake my head that people are focusing so much on this unique like a laser pointer that they are missing other things that should be worked on first. From what I am seeing there are TWO MAIN COMPLAINTS about this bow that people bring up:


1. Lioneye's Glare's 'Hits Can't Be Evaded' stat - This indeed is something that is quite powerful, but it's not because of the bow itself. It's because accuracy in this game is an eyesore and IMHO is something that should go the way of the Dodo bird. An archaic mechanic that serves to clog up already valuable stat space on items and other things and a trap to waste passive points on for terrible gains overall. BUT...BUT...if it is to remain in the game, which it seems it is, then ACCURACY needs to be fixed and made more appealing.

By fixing accuracy and making it easier for bow users to get to the...what is it...95% hit cap...this would take a lot of power away from the 'Hits Cannot Be Evaded' status of the bow. Perhaps even introduce notables/passive nodes that actually RAISE the hit cap and allow you to reach 100% for bow hits (in this case) and maybe add in some other little things to them and all of the sudden LG loses more punch. Sure, you could get the bow and not have to use passive points in this scenario, but if the points were worthwhile and again accuracy is given a much-needed boost then the bow will not be seen as being so 'OP'.


2. Lioneye's Glare's Damage Is Too Much - Two reasons are usually brought up here and they are the raw physical damage as well as the attack speed and both go hand in hand. The IAS isn't the problem, it's the base item being an Imperial Bow that is the culprit here. Had this been a Harbinger Bow...even with 20% IAS you're looking at getting the bow at MAX to around a 1.44 AS rating. Considering how people rave and gobble up IAS like it's the greatest gift to ARPGs and what not, if the bow had that as a base then there'd be a whole lot less bitching and whining going on here about it.

It'd be a slow, hard-hitting physical damage bow, which is what it seems the Lioneye's was meant to be or at least physical damage was in mind. However, combine that with the higher IAS and the extra physical damage stat on it, and it's created a cesspool of complaining about it. If the base item cannot be changed, then a removal of the 'Add xx-xx Physical Damage' mod on it would be a better bit of balance compared to some of the really silly suggestions here for 'nerfing' the weapon.


In any case, before ANY nerfing of this or other potential OP items is done, there should be a revision of CORE MECHANICS that are faltering and need to be fixed first like accuracy. Once those are fixed and things are brought in line, THEN the potentially OP items can be looked at once more under the new settings and seeing if rares or other things catch up to them since if accuracy is fixed amongst other things they may prove to overtake Lioneye's Glare (in the case of bows) and that 'drastic nerfs' aren't as needed. This is also something for the playerbase to learn as a whole and to not just scream like Chicken Little and cry for nerfs all over the place.

I AM NOT SAYING that items can't be nerfed, but to do so in more controlled, step-by-step way with small tweaks and adjustments. When you start swinging the nerf bat around wildly you end up doing the same exact mistakes that Blizzard does with their games and how drastic some of their nerfs have been and how badly it's affected the playerbase. Again, I want to reiterate that I am not saying Lioneye's Glare doesn't need ANY adjustments...it may very well need them in the future, but not because the item itself is to blame and nothing else. There are bigger, underlying problems as to why this weapon is considered 'OP' beyond just its stats and it's mostly because it can bypass the issue with accuracy amongst other things.

I am also aware there are other points that have been brought up like how Lioneye's Glare allows bow users to critically strike along with 100% accuracy and thus they can also make use of status effects. The big one there being Shock, but Shock in and of itself is a whole 'nother can of worms that Lioneye's Glare only exacerbates the OP issues Shock has as a status ailment and even without the bow it's still the same problem. Anyways...long and short of it...before any major/minor nerfing of unique items like Lioneye's Glare happen, let's get the bigger issues fixed first to target the core problems and THEN go from there.

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Chris wrote:

I regret that it wasn't fixed before Open Beta because it's a bit rude to change items that a lot of bow users are using.

Dude, just change/balanced it, it is never too late.
And never do that mistake again that you did with silverbranch, dont allow two versions of the same unique in the game universe. Just do it by modifying ALL of the current existing pieces.
There is nothing rude in balancing the game and having a somehow healthy economy and game experience.
(there was nothing rude when you nerfed several builds but suddenly there is rudeness when you nerf an item. doh)
it is that easy.

The only issue, is rarity v power.

Make powerful items like this so rare that they simply cannot be the go to, be all end all.


But LG is really rare?
No, nothing is rare when everything is available to everyone at the right price, a price I might add, that can be acquired via RMT.

It comes down more to availability v power.
And everything is available and always will be if things stay the same.

Just sort out this ridiculous shoppertycoon already and stop causing problems for the game.

the root of the problem is lg being op and almost bis for archers
address the problem by cutting the root (aka nerf lg) not the effects of it.
simple.

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Tanakeah wrote:

I've been away from this game for a while and did some more thinking on this bow. I am rather disappointed at how vehement the community as a whole seems to be about unique items and trying so, so desperately to make sure they aren't 'BiS' or that they aren't 'overpowered' and that they must have really bad drawbacks on them.

So you actually want them to be best in slot? Why?

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iamstryker wrote:

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Tanakeah wrote:

I've been away from this game for a while and did some more thinking on this bow. I am rather disappointed at how vehement the community as a whole seems to be about unique items and trying so, so desperately to make sure they aren't 'BiS' or that they aren't 'overpowered' and that they must have really bad drawbacks on them.

So you actually want them to be best in slot? Why?

Why not?

You could nerf the shit out of LG, you could remove it from game, it wouldn't make any difference. Step straight up to the plate would be Mirror and the best rare in game.

Some uniques being BiS is actually not the problem but that anything, including those uniques, is available to anyone at a simple, all too easily gotten, cost.

LG itself is fine, its availability if you had to loot it yourself is fine, it would literally take on average thousands of hours.

Oh, look...

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Chris wrote:

In the end game, we ideally want to see Unique items only being used for very specific purposes and builds. This will create an interesting and diverse end game, with top players having to rely mainly on near-perfect Rares that are so statistically unlikely that they would take thousands of hours to find by chance.

What's funny, not only is LG available to anyone at a cost, which RMT can and does cater to, but now that 'statistically unlikely rare', via eternal-exalt, is also available to anyone with use of RMT without even killing a single fucking monster.

The solutions are there, but we dance around them keeping the core problem intact.