Why does Lioneye's Glare have no drawback?

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

- cut the attack speed by 2 or 3 (cant be evaded because you aim carefully), that would brin it en par with 'normal bows'

That is the one I have recommended. This thing clearly hits with a fucktonne of punch and it can't miss. It's like a sniper rifle (massive damage) with auto aim (massive accuracy).

The first and clearest drawback of that much power regarding damage and accuracy MUST be firing rate (speed)

Lioneye's Glare hits the three points of the ranged triangle (damage, accuracy, speed) too well, too easily.

Sounds very reasonable.

Don't you think that would be better seen in a unique Harbinger Bow though as it's the highest-tier bow within the category of high damage and slow attack speed?

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

"

sidtherat wrote:

- cut the attack speed by 2 or 3 (cant be evaded because you aim carefully), that would brin it en par with 'normal bows'

That is the one I have recommended. This thing clearly hits with a fucktonne of punch and it can't miss. It's like a sniper rifle (massive damage) with auto aim (massive accuracy).

The first and clearest drawback of that much power regarding damage and accuracy MUST be firing rate (speed)

Lioneye's Glare hits the three points of the ranged triangle (damage, accuracy, speed) too well, too easily.

Are you proposing reducing the APS from 1.8 to something like .9?

The nerf should NOT be retconning one of the main points of the bow (Slay without Hesitation), and a seemingly important aspect of the character Marceus Lioneye. Especially since with the Rain of Arrows change proposed below combined with the inability to chain, fork, or have additional projectiles, it's not necessary.

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The change you suggested will only cause all Lioneye users to switch to using either Rain of Arrows or Split Arrow (not sure if the arrows here are considered "additional projectiles") as their aoe and keep using whatever they want for their single target ability. If we use your change, you do understand that there is literally no nerf to any Rain of Arrows users right (depending on what "additional projectiles" is defined to be, this can also be true of Split Arrow)? Do you agree with that at least?

Split arrow is an additional projectile.
As for rain of arrows, it's problematic in a lot of balance situations because it has an AOE that isn't in any way modified by projectile count, which is different from every other bow skill in the game. I actually don't like rain of arrows in general because of that. It makes balancing things around bow gems much harder becuase it's such an outlier and can so easily break things (of which my suggestion is a perfect example. A bow that would otherwise make 100% sense in terms of its flavor text, have a unique downside, and be balanced out, is broken by a single skill being in the game. This also prevents you from balancing ANYTHING ELSE with projectile number modification as well, because eveyrbody would just use RoA with it)

Rain of arrows should work on multiplied projectile numbers, and should not gain any radius on levelling. It should instead increase the multiplier on projectiles (explained below). This would mean that in order to get the ridiculous radius like you can get now, you would have to sacrifice a gem slot for a Multiple Projectiles gem. Currently it's too ridiculous with radius + passives + it's amazing quality bonus + conc effect. It makes its radius way too big for how much power it has.

This would make lioneye, and any bows that have any relation to projectile number, much easier to balance for.

We could use the arbitrary number of 10 arrows as a start for example (since i don't know how many arrows you start with). You then add rain of arrows with a modifier of "Number of projectiles multiplied by 10". This adds another 10 arrows to the rain per projectile added.

This may seem crazy with every individual arrow counting as a projectile, however they would all be rolled the exact same, and arrows cannot shotgun, meaning no crazniess would occur.

I know this seems like a situation of "change a skill entirely becuase of one unimplemented change that you think should be on a unique?", but Rain of Arrows working the way it does poses a lot of problems with what they can and cannot do with bows in the future. It's better to fix it before these problems start popping up even more (as we've already seen a perfectly good idea that significantly improves the balance of a bow become obsolete with the current iteration of this skill). It's also still beta, so an entire mechanical change to a gem is not out of the question.

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I also strongly disagree when you said, "This would acutally nerf lioneye to the point where nobody would use it anymore." A physical bow user can still use Lioneye if they choose. Please understand that in the future, physical bow users will actually be viable like elemental bow users. It seems like a far-fetched and hard concept to grasp, I know, but I am confident that GGG will balance this as they've already taken steps to do so in the previous patch with the increased physical damage nodes and the nerf to elemental damage nodes.

EDIT: My main problem with these arbitrary changes is that they in no way adhere to the flavor text or lore of this weapon or the character that it belongs to. The physical damage thing is a whole different story. Lioneye's bow is "See without doubt, slay without hestitation". The fact that it is a base physical bow does not mean that it has to be purely physical in everything it does. If it was meant to be exclusively physical, it would be designed in a way that benefits physical and limits elemental, and the flavor text would indicate as such.

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I think that's the point. We're trying to nerf the damage boost from shock stack (but also burn and freeze which are also not trivial forms of status ailments). It's no surprise that LA bow users is so common. LA bow users can still keep doing what they're doing, just get a tri-elemental resist bow like they were supposed to.

Then nerf shock instead of preventing a bow from using it completely arbitrarily.
If we want a bow that has no status effects on hit, it should be a new unique.

You may think that adhering to flavor text and lore, and having uniques make sense isn't important, but things like that are very much a part of balance. Balance entails everything, not just the numbers. Also, the story guys are just as important as the balancers and mechanics designers, and their work should be respected just as much as the numerical balance.

I'm not a fan of adding a drawback for the sake of adding a drawback. If it fits in the lore or flavour of the item, sure why not, but just adding a "forced" drawback, to make a powerful and desirable item less powerful and desirable, isn't the right way to go in my opinion.

Like I said, something HAS to be the best, or else they could just let all high end weapons do the same amount of damage, hence not risking anything in particular standing out as an endgame goal for players to strive for.

Lioneyes might be best in slot at the moment, but who cares? The situation will even out itself with further progression of the game's development and addition of new items/content. But even then, some other bow will become the best in slot weapon at that point, like it should be naturally in an item progression game. I don't see an issue here.

That always hit makes it really hard to top that bow, as you would need several acc nodes to equal that effect. It needs a drawback, but i dont like the type you cannot cancel out. A good example is carnage heart, a bad kaoms - but that whole item is stupid.

So i propose a -100% chance to crit affix. You will need some nodes/equip to cancel that effect, just as you would have to spend on acc.

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Xendran wrote:

Spoiler

The nerf should NOT be retconning one of the main points of the bow (Slay without Hesitation), and a seemingly important aspect of the character Marceus Lioneye. Especially since with the Rain of Arrows change proposed below combined with the inability to chain, fork, or have additional projectiles, it's not necessary.

"

The change you suggested will only cause all Lioneye users to switch to using either Rain of Arrows or Split Arrow (not sure if the arrows here are considered "additional projectiles") as their aoe and keep using whatever they want for their single target ability. If we use your change, you do understand that there is literally no nerf to any Rain of Arrows users right (depending on what "additional projectiles" is defined to be, this can also be true of Split Arrow)? Do you agree with that at least?

Split arrow is an additional projectile.
As for rain of arrows, it's problematic in a lot of balance situations because it has an AOE that isn't in any way modified by projectile count, which is different from every other bow skill in the game. I actually don't like rain of arrows in general because of that. It makes balancing things around bow gems much harder becuase it's such an outlier and can so easily break things (of which my suggestion is a perfect example. A bow that would otherwise make 100% sense in terms of its flavor text, have a unique downside, and be balanced out, is broken by a single skill being in the game. This also prevents you from balancing ANYTHING ELSE with projectile number modification as well, because eveyrbody would just use RoA with it)

Rain of arrows should work on multiplied projectile numbers, and should not gain any radius on levelling. It should instead increase the multiplier on projectiles (explained below). This would mean that in order to get the ridiculous radius like you can get now, you would have to sacrifice a gem slot for a Multiple Projectiles gem. Currently it's too ridiculous with radius + passives + it's amazing quality bonus + conc effect. It makes its radius way too big for how much power it has.

This would make lioneye, and any bows that have any relation to projectile number, much easier to balance for.

We could use the arbitrary number of 10 arrows as a start for example (since i don't know how many arrows you start with). You then add rain of arrows with a modifier of "Number of projectiles multiplied by 10". This adds another 10 arrows to the rain per projectile added.

This may seem crazy with every individual arrow counting as a projectile, however they would all be rolled the exact same, and arrows cannot shotgun, meaning no crazniess would occur.

I know this seems like a situation of "change a skill entirely becuase of one unimplemented change that you think should be on a unique?", but Rain of Arrows working the way it does poses a lot of problems with what they can and cannot do with bows in the future. It's better to fix it before these problems start popping up even more (as we've already seen a perfectly good idea that significantly improves the balance of a bow become obsolete with the current iteration of this skill). It's also still beta, so an entire mechanical change to a gem is not out of the question.

"

I also strongly disagree when you said, "This would acutally nerf lioneye to the point where nobody would use it anymore." A physical bow user can still use Lioneye if they choose. Please understand that in the future, physical bow users will actually be viable like elemental bow users. It seems like a far-fetched and hard concept to grasp, I know, but I am confident that GGG will balance this as they've already taken steps to do so in the previous patch with the increased physical damage nodes and the nerf to elemental damage nodes.

EDIT: My main problem with these arbitrary changes is that they in no way adhere to the flavor text or lore of this weapon or the character that it belongs to. The physical damage thing is a whole different story. Lioneye's bow is "See without doubt, slay without hestitation". The fact that it is a base physical bow does not mean that it has to be purely physical in everything it does. If it was meant to be exclusively physical, it would be designed in a way that benefits physical and limits elemental, and the flavor text would indicate as such.

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I think that's the point. We're trying to nerf the damage boost from shock stack (but also burn and freeze which are also not trivial forms of status ailments). It's no surprise that LA bow users is so common. LA bow users can still keep doing what they're doing, just get a tri-elemental resist bow like they were supposed to.

Then nerf shock instead of preventing a bow from using it completely arbitrarily.
If we want a bow that has no status effects on hit, it should be a new unique.

If we implement the changes you suggested, then that will effectively make both Rain of Arrows and Split Arrow useless skills to anyone using a Lioneye. They were meant to be aoe skills and hence their lower damage effectiveness. The solution proposed would make 2 bow skills to be completely nonviable because there are better single target skills that shoot only one projectile.

This will severely limit the type of skills a bow user can use. I am curious. How exactly/what skill were you planning on using as a bow user to do aoe damage if you can't use additional projectile or chain/fork?

It's really too much work to debunk everything, but suffice it to say, I think we're confusing the issue here. I have no qualms with following the lore and the flavor text. However, I am unsure where exactly in the flavorful text of "See without doubt, slay without hesitation" did you get the impression that we have an absolute right to cause status ailments?

I understand it's not as clear-cut as Storm Cloud's "Centuries of development in steel armoursmithing turned the armies of the Eternal Empire into very effective lightning rods." where it can obviously imply that it only does lightning damage, but the text from Lioneye has stated nothing about physical or elemental damage. In fact, it also said nothing about not being able to fire additional projectile or to not be able to use chain/fork, does that mean we shouldn't implement your suggested changes also by that logic?

Let's look at the new Bringer of Rain helm's text, "'What lies beneath your feet?!'
'Sacred ground, watered with tears of blood!'" Can you tell me exactly where it suggests that we can't wear a chest armor when equipping it? Is it against the lore/text?

I am not stating that the change of not being able to cause status ailments (wasn't even my idea, but someone else's) is necessarily a good one. I just happened to like the sound of it, that's all.

I am suggesting, however, that the changes you proposed are bad.

Edit: It's also worth mentioning that the change of no additional projectile and chain/fork also makes the gems LMP, GCP, Chain, and Fork nonviable for all Lioneye users in case it wasn't obvious.

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Xendran wrote:

You may think that adhering to flavor text and lore, and having uniques make sense isn't important, but things like that are very much a part of balance. Balance entails everything, not just the numbers. Also, the story guys are just as important as the balancers and mechanics designers, and their work should be respected just as much as the numerical balance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring#Logical_fallacy

Reducing crit to zero means every other source of crit has no effect since it functions multiplicatively based on innate crit instead of additive.

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Let's look at the new Bringer of Rain helm's text, "'What lies beneath your feet?!'
'Sacred ground, watered with tears of blood!'" Can you tell me exactly where it suggests that we can't wear a chest armor when equipping it? Is it against the lore/text?

That's actually kind of a bad example, because this is taken from spartacus, and it is a spartacus inspired gladiator helmet. This makes the "cannot wear chest armor" mod fit perfectly within the flavor text.

I just feel like instead of an arbitrary change, one can be made that would make sense regarding the way the bow is meant to be designed.

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If we implement the changes you suggested, then that will effectively make both Rain of Arrows and Split Arrow useless skills to anyone using a Lioneye. They were meant to be aoe skills and hence their lower damage effectiveness. The solution proposed would make 2 bow skills to be completely nonviable because there are better single target skills that shoot only one projectile.

This will severely limit the type of skills a bow user can use. I am curious. How exactly/what skill were you planning on using as a bow user to do aoe damage if you can't use additional projectile or chain/fork?

Edit: It's also worth mentioning that the change of no additional projectile and chain/fork also makes the gems LMP, GCP, Chain, and Fork nonviable for all Lioneye users in case it wasn't obvious.

Ice and lightning skills are nonviable with The Searing Touch. Queen's Decree and Midnight Bargain are nonviable with non-minions. Taryn's Shiver is nonviable with fire and lightning. I don't see how some skills becoming nonviable with a specific unique that you are not forced to use is a bad thing. If anything, it balances it out further and makes it more unique. You would use this bow differently than you use other bows. That's the point of unique items. It shouldn't be a run of the mill bow with a fancy "cannot miss mod" and jacked up speed that breaks the cap. It should be truly unique and really convey its flavor text in the usage of the item.

You're playing too much into the idea of "I should be able to use any bow gem properly with this item because it's a bow". It does not limit bow users in any way unless the opt-in to use lioneye's glare.

It is much better, fully acceptbale, and commonly done, to make a unique that makes certain skills useless with it. It is different, however, to make a unique that can only be used with one skill when it was not intended to be only used with one skill, while also being BiS (i'm not saying they havent done this, but i'm saying that it's bad design).
Also, the term "bow user" is not applicable here. The term you're looking for is "lioneye user". Not all bow users are using lioneye, and if you think they're forced into using it thats BECAUSE of how powerful it currently is.

As for aoe damage...
1. Who says you need a bow gem AoE with it?
2. Pierce, totems, lightning arrow, ice shot, using *gasp* more than one skill such as supplimenting with minions or an AoE trap or mine, weapon swapping.

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Soulscythe wrote:

I simply don't get it why every item needs to have a drawback of some sort. Some items have to be the best/almost the best ones eventually and I want to feel excited if I finally manage to find one.

Let's compare this to D2. It hat a lot of amazing endgame uniques, which many people were striving for and finding one caused loads of excitement. I can't remember any serious drawbacks they had, other than being outshadowed by perfectly rolled/crafted rares. Why can't it be like this in PoE? Let there be endgame uniques, which you can use unitl you replace them with a perfectly rolled rare.

Ok, that might be technically impossible right now with the current pre/suffix ranges, but I think people forget that the current stage of the game is not the end. LG is level 66, but what about possible upcoming level 75, 84, 92 or even level 100 unique bows, with the respective increase in pre/suffix ranges for rares?

What we have right now is the current endgame, but only because the game isn't finished yet. The current "endgame" items might be easily surpassed by upcoming additions, when the state of the game is progressing further and all of a sudden LG might turn into an only mediocre midgame item. That's why I think nerfs for current "endgame" items isn't necessary at the moment. It will all even out itself after the game is nearing its completion.

Finding an unique in PoE excites me so much, because I know they often can make a difference. A feeling I dearly missed when finding uniques in another popular hack & slay game.

+1 agreed

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Chris wrote:

I'm speaking personally here and this doesn't reflect what GGG may or may not do with future changes to this item or to the game.

I personally completely agree with you and think that it should have a drawback. When it was rebalanced in the past, the power level was set a little too high. 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. I don't know if it's going to get changed, but it's a situation that I don't like being in.

Please don't hinder your game that is still in beta just because you don't want to be "a bit rude". This is beta, mistakes will & should be made. That "no more wipes" is becoming more & more a thorn in the side of this game.