Nerf life nodes while boosting base life so life itself isn't nerfed 2: Electric Boogaloo

@RogueMage

Nah, diminishing return formulas are to be avoided at all cost... They're like band-aid to broken design. If someone wants to invest heavily into something, they should never get punished by some asymptotic equation telling them they can't. It just sucks.

I truly believe it's possible to balance life without using this sort of fix.

Basically what I have been saying for years and I am not surprised that its you who brings up something like that. You seem to be one of the few reasonable people left in this game.

Reducing %life nodes and maybe just swapping them out for +life nodes doesnt only make you less dependent on them, it also gets rid of the problem that Kaoms is overpowered and life being a mandatory roll on items. I opens up a lot of paths for life based characters, makes crafting easier and gets rid of a problematic item without having to touch it.

But hey, its easier to just nerf the item and thats pretty much what they will be doing.

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Nephalim wrote:

Actually, ias is one of the worst nodes to stack due to most builds already having 100-200%. projectile damage or wed and even 20% accuracy will generally yield more dps per point investment. The only reason to stack it is because its really fun and enjoyable to shoot faster.

Not every life node should be good. It's actually quite perverse that every life node is considered to be worth grabbing, when every other stat on the passive tree uses a "what you need to hit the notables" approach.

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Novalisk wrote:

I'm fine with most of it as I'm a big proponent of gear being too powerful compared with the skill tree, but I don't see how nerfing life nodes again will serve a purpose.

The skill tree problem is that life nodes are "boring", and that can be fixed not by nerfing them so people take them less, but by making them more interesting like the ES nodes.

We already have ranger Evasion/Life hybrid nodes, now we need some more hybrid nodes instead of the plain ones. Doesn't even have to be resists/armour/evasion, it can be a node that gives you extra life and int/dex/damage/crit multiplier/etc.

What I had in mind was to just make some life nodes flat instead of a %. Buffing strength is nice, but remember that a lot of strength comes from gear.

I'd actually like to see more hybrid life/defense nodes as well.

However, the problem is not that life nodes are "boring." The weapon damage clusters are boring (except for a few like Adder's Touch). It's obviously not the same problem.

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Thalandor wrote:

Like I said the only point I disagree with is point 3. I think reducing the amount of %life per node is not a good idea, they need to remain relevant. What should be done instead is balance this new influx of base life coming from levels is to remove a ton of life nodes from the tree. Currently I try to get about 150% life on my characters. When you think about it, the fact that I'm able to do this is kinda insane. I can more than double my survivability, and I can triple it if I go all out and get 200%. The tree should just not allow this, it makes every other nodes look like crap.

1. Don't you think they're a little too relevant currently?

2. So currently, going from 50% IML to 100% IML with these stats means gaining 515 Life. Under what I'm suggesting, the same amount of nodes would gain 448 Life. That's a 67 life difference, which is a 13% difference. As I said in the OP, the net change is actually quite moderate. It's hard for you to make the case that I'd be making life nodes "irrelevant." It's honestly not even that huge of a change, and I'm sure people will continue getting lots of life nodes, especially in Hardcore; the pull will just be slightly weaker. Key word: slightly.

3. What the tree allows has more to do with value per node than it has to do with node density. Reducing the number of available life nodes, while keeping them at the same value per node, isn't going to discourage players from stacking as many as they can; instead, it will motivate them to focus on the areas of the passive tree which do have them, and ignore the other parts. What you're suggesting would lead to more tree-spanning, less focused life builds.

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Thalandor wrote:

@RogueMage

Nah, diminishing return formulas are to be avoided at all cost... They're like band-aid to broken design.

At this late stage of Beta, band-aids are probably the only resort left to stop the bleeding sores. Yes, I am talking triage, not theory.

Aesthetically speaking, I regard your disdain for diminishing returns formulas as a fetish of the digital age, where things scale on a flat line increase until they hit the ceiling and crap out. Real-life processes work on analog scales where diminishing returns and gradual roll-offs are natural and make things feel right. This is one of those subtle details where Diablo II had a built-in organic funkiness that PoE has yet to match.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Key word: slightly.

The question is, why do slight changes, which will not change anything?

I have 10 characters and only 1 CI and 1 Low Life. Rest is HP based. My main has 4,6K HP and my second most viable character has 3,5K HP.

While building character I estimate how much life and life regeneration I will need to loot area I want to loot with given character.

I estimate, that considering my playstyle, I need 2,5-3K HP and 1-2% life regen for 66-69 lvl maps and at least 3-3,5K HP and 3-4% life regeneration for 70+ maps (my main have 5,4% life regeneration). I need life regeneration, because it is my usual chaos dmg defense, my typical chaos res is -60%.

So, your proposition doesn't change virtually anything in my builds.

I still need 175-200% from tree and upper range life roll on every piece of gear to do high level maps. I still 175-200% from tree, at lest medicore life rolls and be able to have max 1-2 slots without life for low level maps.

I estimate, that my approach is typical for someone, who doesn't want to die every few minutes and would like to not be on constant edge of not dying.

Its really dumb that we have to have super high life on every piece of gear in order to get a decent amount.

Lower life just doesn't work when hits do so much damage.

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iamstryker wrote:

Its really dumb that we have to have super high life on every piece of gear in order to get a decent amount.

Lower life just doesn't work when hits do so much damage.

Thats not true at all. Most of my gear pieces do not have life. The exception being items that cant roll any good prefix other than life like boots and belts.

character building is a careful balance between offensive and defensive affixes on gear and your passive tree.

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Nephalim wrote:

The exception being items that cant roll any good prefix other than life like boots and belts.

So how much life you have, having life only on belt and boots? :)

Unless you don't have Kaoms, if you want to break 4K life, you can't afford for having slot without life especially considering, that it's hard to get best roll on every piece. Not everybody is wearing mirror grade rings ;)

8063 and yes its with koams.

w/o koams you would need to go full on path of life nodes + 79 life gear on all slots which is incredibly dull.

Assume a lvl 81 high hp melee build like this:
103 points

50 base hp
6 -> 9 hp per level (480 -> 720 @lvl 80)
246% -> 178% hp
372str:186hp -> 372str:372hp

Assumed Equipment:
65 hp ring x2
65 hp amulet
115 hp belt
85 hp helmet
95 hp chest
75 hp gloves
75 hp boots

Current version level 81:
Normal: (50+480+65+65+65+115+85+95+75+75+186)*3.46 = 4691~ hp
Kaoms: (50+480+65+65+65+115+85+1000+75+75+186)*3.46 = 7823~ hp

Your version level 81:
Normal: (50+720+65+65+65+115+85+95+75+75+372)*2.78 = 4953~ hp
Kaoms: (50+720+65+65+65+115+85+1000+75+75+372)*2.78 = 7469~ hp
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Your proposed changes literally did nothing to really resolve neither the kaoms nor life issues in general.

Kaoms with the above example still dominates a large part of your total base hp. Even if you were to max out the hp for each equipment slot (I took away 14 hp per piece) the advantage of Kaoms is still too significant that most serious HP based builds would still choose it over another chest piece. Maybe when the average build is capable of breaking 6k hp without kaoms, then would the issue with hp vs es be resolved.

6 -> 9 (per level) and 2str:1hp -> 1str:1hp is far too small of a change.