Nerfing Life Nodes: A Retrospective
"This was a component of my original suggestion I'm really sad hasn't been implemented yet. It's the best way to reducing Kaom's effectiveness without changing its text; that is, nerfing it indirectly. That seems a lot more organic to me than simply banning it from certain leagues. "If they increased mana costs simultaneously, they could even make conventional mana more viable while nerfing BM/EB. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
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" I think in general their goal was to lower power creep, and slightly give a boost to armour. It wasn't so much trying to rebalance life nodes, as lower the 'average life' and change how life interacts for future changes to be easier to deal with. I don't feel it was so much a balance patch, as a scaling patch allowing them to set up future balance patches. That being said, as you pointed out there ARE some issues that came about from that (elemental damage spikes are worse now, and critical hits appear to be 'more' dangerous relatively) |
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" But why nerf BM/EB? The problem with BM/EB is not, that they're OP but that "conventional mana" just sucks. I have BM/EB/conventional mana characters and this mana starvation while using "conventional" method is irritating but I don't see this as a problem with BM or EB but with conventional mana management. As I wrote previously in this topic, both BM and EB have serious drawbacks (eg. to use BM gem I have to sacrifice one slot and lower my DPS, when I use EB I'm more prone to stuns and have to take long way to passive and many others). Maybe some problems with "conventional" method is that we are unable to took mana management passives as we will loose tons of survivability. It make sometimes a little laugh when I read about those all nerfs "needed because some nodes are too popular". So what, should we end with all nodes so nerfed that not appealing at all? Maybe we just should remove passives tree then and put all stats on gear... Ups... but that would be like in "the other game" ;) And in the other game we have good example StI - after nerf still it it used by 90% of monks, as there is no alternative. So please nerf BM and EB and see if people will go away. I not because I don't see viable alternative. Anticipation slowly dissipates... Last edited by tmaciak#3784 on Jun 26, 2013, 1:31:15 AM
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Being able to spam your skills continuously without having to rely on mana flasks is borderline overpowered.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Jun 26, 2013, 1:37:27 AM
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" I think its very inline with end-game ARPG expectations. Pretty much all builds use either bm or mana leech or excessive mana regen if im not mistaken. IGN: Arlianth
Check out my LA build: 1782214 |
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" Do you have any high level character? Let's say at least 70-75 lvl and doing maps? Maybe this your account is only for posting and you have them on some other account? If yes, please explain to me, how you survive maps without continuously spamming skills? And how you fit those mana flasks into those 5 slots without sacrificing place for survivability flasks? Anticipation slowly dissipates...
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"You should be required to move (not expend mana) occasionally. To clarify, you should be able to sustain some form of run-and-gun (or run-and-slash), but not just standing in one place spamming. People who say BM and EB aren't overpowered are expecting the latter standard. The latter standard should not be possible without significant passive and/or gear dedication. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Jun 26, 2013, 1:59:08 AM
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" Visit some maps with such approach please, the best something >70 lvl. You will be dead on first white mob. And going BM/EB is significant dedication. You just proved, that before reading some long post, one should look at PoE statistics and see if OP have at least one character >80 lvl. If yes, continue reading, if not, move to next topic. Anticipation slowly dissipates...
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" Nobody in maps ever "stands in one place spamming". As well thought out as your posts are, some of your assumptions are flat out wrong. I don't know where you draw your conclusions that BM is overpowered from but they are off the mark. Blood Magic (keystone) makes the player lose their ability to use percentage reservation auras. The support gem means they must use an otherwise damage-oriented socket or alternatively would be mana leech. In a 5L this means they give up Weapon Elemental Damage or something equivalent - that is big. Eldritch Battery is mediocre without decent gear. My claims come from the fact that I've played all said builds extensively. Last edited by Lyralei#5969 on Jun 26, 2013, 2:16:23 AM
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" The game has mana management in the earlier portions because other things like spatial situational awareness are not required in the extent that they are when dealing with dangerous mobs. You can let rhoas smash into you 5 or 10 times before you need to get moving. To counteract this, you have to keep an eye out on your mana. This teaches you how to pay attention to multiple aspects of the game without putting your character in danger. Forcing the player to have high mob and skill choice awareness(when to curse, when to gain charges, when to use an aoe or single target, when and where to be placing totems or minions, when to have things like blood rage active, where mobs are in relation to you, etc) , as well as mana awareness even after taking something designed to sacrifice another aspect (Aura space + Points for Clarity, Points + Survivability for battery, Points + survivability for BM, Survivability + gem slot for BM Gem) in order to negate it, is not a good thing to do. Having to move and not use skills is NOT fun when having to deal with the kind of mobs that show up in the late and endgame, and i cannot think of any positive benefit that this would have on the game. It would simply frustrate players without having any sort of payout for it. A net negative. You go from paying attention to mana and moderate attention to health, to paying high attention to health, high attention to mobs, and using a larger skillset that requires more thought process. This is one of those systems, like the old chaos recipe, that was balanced, even if it didn't initially seem like it, but they decided to change anyway. Everything else already requires significant gear investment, and the game is already fucked up when it comes to getting brickwalled by gear and drops. Why would you ever want to increase that exponentially by both requiring better gear (Or sacrificing necessary nodes) in order to get back to the already lackluster state you were in before, while also drastically slowing down the process of doing it AND being less fun? There is a reason that the first focus of any build is to either get yourself to a point where you can spam your skills, or getting a twink item that allows you to destroy enemies easily without skills (like shiversting). It's because it's not fun to not be able to use your skills. What possible benefit is there in extending this period significantly while also making it more difficult? Last edited by Xendran#1127 on Jun 26, 2013, 2:36:41 AM
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