The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Harmful Content

WED is one of the few examples where i would rather just see physical damage buffed.
Elemental damage in terms of the game is pretty good (its a bit high in the more extreme cases, but it's not horrible overall), but it looks like it's outrageous because of how much better it is than physical.

In reality, when you consider that a lot of physical builds aren't considered just sub optimal, but nonviable, nerfing elemental down to the level of physical would make everybody who has experienced the game already feel like they are now playing a nonviable build.

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perfectmemento wrote:

I think the WED support is balanced around weapon elemental damage being hard to obtain from the passive tree. It's easy to rack up a ton of increased physical through strength and passives, but increased WED comes mostly from Catalyse and gear. Unilaterally nerfing it would be a bad idea imo.

There's 5 slots that can have 30% WED, not including weapons and elemental bonuses from uniques. There's 100% WED on tree then the 30% individual WED along with all the general elemental damage and specific elemental bonuses.

There's the possibility of 3 ele rolls on 5 slots again (again, excluding weapons). Then there's the fact that many elemental builds are just conversion builds in the first place so they get all the IPD bonuses then all the WED bonuses with a nice 70% more WED to top it off, so 3 layers of multipliers.

Nerfing WED and buffing MPD would leave conversion builds at roughly the same DPS but will hurt the builds that should be more based on high APS.

Currently there's almost no reason to go pure physical damage it's better to get a decent base then convert it. Most of that revolves around WED support.

Your post was great read, and good that you brought up many problems in the current state of the game! I agree with you in many of your points, except regarding the Passive Tree changes(and few other things, but I'll focus on that section).

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pneuma wrote:

Ghost Reaver

Needs to be changed to melee damage only. Leeching with long range spells and attacks is not needed for energy shield and it's too much power with no downside for CI users (who weren't using the life anyway). ES values should be buffed in compensation.

Ghost Reaver needs not to be changed to melee phys only. It would completely decimate CI caster, ranged and MELEE elemental builds. And what I have understood about Path of Exile, is that more possible builds, the merrier. The issue again lies in the life and CI balance. If CI and life would be in balance we would not be having this discussion at the moment. And also if your suggestion would go through, the dual totem needs a nerf(which you addressed) at the same time or the ever powerful sporker will become even more powerful.

Resolute Technique

With IR removing all need for dex defensively and RT removing all need for dex offensively, this duofecta cuts the game in twain. The downside of never critting is not nearly strong enough to make up for being able to ignore accuracy, especially when players need both accuracy and crit to make crit work. Melee base crit could come up across the board to make this less desirable, and a crit effect added to non-elemental hits would likewise make "never critting" a more serious downside.

I'm not sure what to say to this. All I know, is that whenever I wanted to make Phys Dmg build, and was twinkering with crit + accuracy, I always ended up scrapping the idea and go the RT route, because of the points it saves. Especially because life builds are so dependent of the HP nodes.

Zealot's Oath

Life IR, this ties life and es too closely together and makes them inseparable. If its purpose is to make life/es viable, then it should have something that benefits both and not either individually. I don't know what the thought process was behind adding this so I don't know where to begin. Getting some insight into its origins would be a first step. Since this is now tied to Shavronne's Wrappings, consider the two in one balancing attempt.

I myself don't mind the ZO existing and I wouldn't either mind if it was removed. My beef with ZO is that how overpowered it is. It shouldn't apply to the full ES, it is simply ridiculous to have the regen to apply 6000-8000 ES, when life builds have 3500-5000hp. Although it is harder for CI/ES builds to acquire regen nodes, Vitality, solves that quickly.

Ondar's Guile

The true evasion supernode. Needs to be made like Acrobatics: actual tradeoff required. More damage taken at point blank range would be an interesting start, though I'm unsure of Ondar's theme, so a more suitable downside may present itself.

Here I agree, but I would still like to wait. Because I bet my kidney, that It was made to make evasion characters more viable, as recently they haven't been, but with the Ranger changes, we might see truly viable evasion builds and OG could be the passive node that enables them.

Vaal Pact

Again, no downside for CI builds. At first glance being in the strength section of the center of the tree and being surrounded by life nodes you'd be enticed to think that it's a life gain on hit keystone but you'd be completely wrong. It needs some kind of downside for CI builds, such as disabling ES recharge as well as life regeneration and life flask usage. The theme is "you're only healing when you're attacking", and that theme is being violated.

The funny thing indeed is, that Vaal Pact was probably made for life based characters. Sad truth is, no life based character uses it(at least not many) and the usage has gone for CI, because there is no downside for CI. I agree it should have the same effect for CI = No ES Regen. That balances it some what. But still it doesn't make it viable for life based builds. The penalty is very harsh, especially when considering mapping(chaos DoT mod). HP pots should still work, but 1/4 or 1/3 of their effectiveness.

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Moosifer wrote:

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perfectmemento wrote:

I think the WED support is balanced around weapon elemental damage being hard to obtain from the passive tree. It's easy to rack up a ton of increased physical through strength and passives, but increased WED comes mostly from Catalyse and gear. Unilaterally nerfing it would be a bad idea imo.

There's 5 slots that can have 30% WED, not including weapons and elemental bonuses from uniques. There's 100% WED on tree then the 30% individual WED along with all the general elemental damage and specific elemental bonuses.

There's the possibility of 3 ele rolls on 5 slots again (again, excluding weapons). Then there's the fact that many elemental builds are just conversion builds in the first place so they get all the IPD bonuses then all the WED bonuses with a nice 70% more WED to top it off, so 3 layers of multipliers.

Nerfing WED and buffing MPD would leave conversion builds at roughly the same DPS but will hurt the builds that should be more based on high APS.

Currently there's almost no reason to go pure physical damage it's better to get a decent base then convert it. Most of that revolves around WED support.

Yes I was experiencing this doing glacial hammer melee splash multistrike ele prolif. 1.5k dps with 2aps and it was like 400 cold 400 physical. I had like no cold duration with that amount of cold so weapon elemental was going to be needed with a 5l link not to mention a new 2h.

The issue is that people consider elemental damage as one thing instead of 3, Basically the increased elemental gem needs to go and be replaced with individual %element damage supports.

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Omnivor3 wrote:

The funny thing indeed is, that Vaal Pact was probably made for life based characters. Sad truth is, no life based character uses it(at least not many) and the usage has gone for CI, because there is no downside for CI. I agree it should have the same effect for CI = No ES Regen. That balances it some what. But still it doesn't make it viable for life based builds. The penalty is very harsh, especially when considering mapping(chaos DoT mod). HP pots should still work, but 1/4 or 1/3 of their effectiveness.

I disagree strongly with this logic. What we need are less map affixes like Labyrinthine, which are boring and encourage every top-tier map to look identical, and more in the way of heavily build-dependent map affixes like Blood Magic that say "fuck you" to a keystone (or keystones), but are free IIQ for the players who can build for them. Therefore, I think a constant damage-over-time map affix is a wonderful thing as a Vaal Pact counter, although I'd make it burning damage instead of chaos; there is no need to allow flasks for VP, and it would actually be counterproductive.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Omnivor3 wrote:

The funny thing indeed is, that Vaal Pact was probably made for life based characters. Sad truth is, no life based character uses it(at least not many) and the usage has gone for CI, because there is no downside for CI. I agree it should have the same effect for CI = No ES Regen. That balances it some what. But still it doesn't make it viable for life based builds. The penalty is very harsh, especially when considering mapping(chaos DoT mod). HP pots should still work, but 1/4 or 1/3 of their effectiveness.

I disagree strongly with this logic. What we need are less map affixes like Labyrinthine, which are boring and encourage every top-tier map to look identical, and more in the way of heavily build-dependent map affixes like Blood Magic that say "fuck you" to a keystone (or keystones), but are free IIQ for the players who can build for them. Therefore, I think a constant damage-over-time map affix is a wonderful thing as a Vaal Pact counter, although I'd make it burning damage instead of chaos; there is no need to allow flasks for VP, and it would actually be counterproductive.

True true. But my reasoning for this came from looking it as a comparison between CI builds and Life builds using Vaal Pact. In this case CI wins, again... The burning damage would be interesting, I don't go as far as say a good thing, but at least there would be a map affix which would say, as you put it "fuck you" to dual totem builds.

awesome post. hope this gets dev attention.

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Omnivor3 wrote:

The burning damage would be interesting, I don't go as far as say a good thing, but at least there would be a map affix which would say, as you put it "fuck you" to dual totem builds.

I think that Reflects Damage should be a map affix for tanky players, and the core problem with totems currently is that they are too tanky. Totem life should be reduced to the point that glass-cannon totems kill themselves on reflected damage the same way players do, and thus have much less utility in Reflected Damage maps. I'd then allow the Minion Life support gem to work on totems, so you could have current-tankiness totems if you dedicated to it. Additionally, totem cast speed may have to be lowered (even if it means increasing totem damage per hit) to give spark totems some time to kill themselves without leaving a bunch of sparks on the ground between initially casting and reflection-death.

That's not to say that dual-totems shouldn't have a map mod to make their lives harder; I'm just saying I don't think Reflect Damage should be it. I don't think burning mod would be it either. Maybe something like "Your Minions and Totems are invisible and incorporeal." Try drawing aggro with them now. :)

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dudiobugtron wrote:

If you don't want to play in Onslaught, then fine, but stop complaining about the economy.

The economy is not what I consider playing aRPG game, because, as strange as it can seems, not everybody wants to play trade simulator.

There is too much Patch of Merchants here already...

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nhargobange wrote:

Without actual details, your post is only nominally authoritative, and affords the image of a black box out of which shitty uniques tumble (with troubling, increasing frequency) when someone gives GGG $1,000.

Until you expound a little on what the process really entails, we have your word and a pile of mama-cost-removing, always-hitting Mary Sue Sticks, to say nothing of the weakness of "you don't know the pain I had to endure in spending $1,000 and making this AWESOME THING!"

Were you NDA'd? Don't be a primadonna about it, then. Being tactless doesn't strengthen your argument.

Well aren't you just a bundle of pleasantness, fella. I'll try to match your cynicism.

I know it might be hard for you to understand how to have some confidence in the decisions that the powerhouse team at GGG makes, and just sit back and let the changes and unique items roll, but I implore you, relax a little and take a few breaths before spouting more shit from your mouth.

Anyways, I've already been over some of this previously but I guess I'll give you general outline here (since you asked so graciously):

Step 1: Pitch an idea to Rory.

Step 2: If Rory likes the idea, type up a list of the different type of stats you would like on your item. Usually a pretty decent sized list of choices is a good start.

Step 3: Rory gives the list to the item guys and they put together a few different items based on the theme and stats you have selected.

Step 4: Pick one of the completed items they have presented you (if you like one) or send them back to the drawing boards.

Step 5: Decide what level bracket in which your item will be located.

Step 6: Wait for Rory to send back an item that is tailored for the level range you have selected.

Step 7: If your item introduces new stats into the game, wait for them to program them.

Step 8: Decide what your item will be named and how it will look while they QA and playtest with the item on private realms (and/or alpha?). You can also come up with the flavor text if you want to.

Step 9: If any changes were made to your item during their testing, the new numbers are sent back to the designer for finalization to determine if you still want to release the item in its new state.

Step 10: If both parties are happy with the item and the art is finalized, it will be released soon in an upcoming patch.

Note: GGG will say no to an item that is too overpowered, they will say no to an item without a strong theme, and they will say no sometimes when you tell them you think an item is too powerful. Rory told me no multiple times to different ideas I had, this includes multiple downsides I pitched for my belt--Cannot regenerate mana, Cannot deal damage with spells, etc. There is no hand holding like people think (and complain about with zero knowledge of the facts). You have no idea where GGG is taking their game, and what changes they have in mind to tweak balance in upcoming patches. I'm sure many of you would have them waste their precious man-hours to type out every change on the forums begging to hear what you have to say about them, but that isn't how it works. There is already work being done on Act 4 and we don't even have Act 3x yet. Just relax and enjoy the damn game and let them do what they want with it.

I know many of you guys complain when a decent unique comes out without a glaring downside (since many of you don't realize that lacking stats and item rarity are downsides) that makes the item unusable. Many of these same people will surely and gladly use every item they complain about, and are certainly super excited when they find one as it is one of the guaranteed ways to increase your in game wealth.

I hope I have cleared up a few things when it comes to GGG's stance on holding the hands of those who support them the most.