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

I proposed a (better) fix to life node dominance in this thread:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/519913

and someone came up with a counter-argument which also applies to this OP.

Regardless of how bad life nodes are, players will always get them, because they are the best way to increase surviability. Even if life nodes only gave 3%, and you had heaps more base life than normal, everyone would still stack life nodes and life on gear, because then they would have even more life.

There's no 'magic' amount of life that is 'enough'. 5k life is a lot, but 10k is much better than that. And 15k is much better than that. And 20k is much better than that. Even if you had 20k life, then going to 25k is still awesome; it increases % regen and life leech rate, and also increases the number of huge-dmg hits you can take by at least 1. (And think of the RF dps!!! ;) )

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Zealflare wrote:

Spoiler

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
-------------------------------

Your proposed changes literally did nothing to really resolve neither the kaoms nor life issues in general.

...

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

1. I'm not trying to nerf Kaom's into oblivion here. It actually does have a pretty stiff drawback; losing a potential 6L hurts. The problem isn't that it provides a lot of life - it damn well should - but that it provides too much life. By your numbers, donning Kaom's goes from adding 3460 life to 4691 (a 73% increase), to adding 2780 life to 4953 (a 56% increase). That's a nontrivial difference, but it stops short of trying to nerf Kaom's into the obscurity.

2. This isn't just about Kaom's. I'm also trying to get characters to be less Path of Life Nodes and encourage more build diversity, without making life nodes utterly useless. With lower values on life nodes with about the same (actually slightly better) base survivability, players will be a little more inclined to try for other passives and explore some areas of the passive tree they wouldn't be willing to before.

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dudiobugtron wrote:

someone came up with a counter-argument which also applies to this OP.

Regardless of how bad life nodes are, players will always get them, because they are the best way to increase surviability. Even if life nodes only gave 3%, and you had heaps more base life than normal, everyone would still stack life nodes and life on gear, because then they would have even more life.

There's no 'magic' amount of life that is 'enough'. 5k life is a lot, but 10k is much better than that. And 15k is much better than that. And 20k is much better than that. Even if you had 20k life, then going to 25k is still awesome; it increases % regen and life leech rate, and also increases the number of huge-dmg hits you can take by at least 1. (And think of the RF dps!!! ;) )

I could make the exact same argument for DPS nodes. More DPS (assuming you bypass Reflect in some way, such as totems or traps) is always better. Regardless of how bad DPS nodes are, players will always get them, because they are the best way to increase DPS. Even if a DPS node only gives 3%, and you had heap more base damage than normal, everyone would still stack DPS nodes and damage affixes on gear, because then they would have even more DPS. There is no 'magic' amount of DPS that is 'enough.' And so on.

Obviously, that's bullshit, and so is that life argument.

What really happens is: they want to stack both, as much as possible, as efficiently as possible, but they have to choose. Therefore, they make calculated choices, balancing the benefits of going down Passive Tree Route A versus Passive Tree Route B — a certain % increased Life, versus a certain % increased DPS. The problem with the passive tree currently is that life is still winning a little too often compared to damage, as well as against other forms of survivability (such as armour nodes).

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I'm not trying to nerf Kaom's into oblivion here.

Then what you're proposing is little more than a lose-lose proposition.

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RogueMage wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I'm not trying to nerf Kaom's into oblivion here.

Then what you're proposing is little more than a lose-lose proposition.

Kaom's is not imbalanced in concept, it's only imbalanced in degree. I won't seriously consider extremist views that Kaom's needs to be removed from the game or rendered useless.

@dubiobugton: Following your link, I can say that such a thing shouldn't be commonly available on rares, since it would be OP to stack; however, I do think %life would by acceptable as a rare amulet affix; amulets can get +% total ES, and I don't think life% would be OP in similar amounts.

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dudiobugtron wrote:

Regardless of how bad life nodes are, players will always get them, because they are the best way to increase surviability. Even if life nodes only gave 3%, and you had heaps more base life than normal, everyone would still stack life nodes and life on gear, because then they would have even more life.

Not quite, since life nodes wouldn't be as point efficient as before.

If you have 200% increased life now, a 6% node adds 2% more EHP.

If you have 133% increased life after the proposed node changes, a 4% node adds 1.7% more EHP.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I could make the exact same argument for DPS nodes. More DPS (assuming you bypass Reflect in some way, such as totems or traps) is always better. Regardless of how bad DPS nodes are, players will always get them, because they are the best way to increase DPS. Even if a DPS node only gives 3%, and you had heap more base damage than normal, everyone would still stack DPS nodes and damage affixes on gear, because then they would have even more DPS. There is no 'magic' amount of DPS that is 'enough.' And so on.

Obviously, that's bullshit, and so is that life argument.

You could also make the same argument about lettuce.

Anyway, the 'life nodes are too powerful' complaint isn't one that affects ordinary players. Ordinary players (like me) do balance life and DPS from nodes like you claim.

The people who have a problem with the game being 'path of life nodes' are high-level players, especially hardcore ones. They need all the life they can get because end-game enemies hit really hard, and also they can easily get enough dps for end-game content just from gear, with very few dps nodes at all. For those people, your dps version of the life argument is BS, but the original life argument isn't.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

@dubiobugtron: Following your link, I can say that such a thing shouldn't be commonly available on rares, since it would be OP to stack

Why? Because then people wouldn't have to get life nodes, so they could get more dps nodes instead? ;)

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

1. I'm not trying to nerf Kaom's into oblivion here. It actually does have a pretty stiff drawback; losing a potential 6L hurts. The problem isn't that it provides a lot of life - it damn well should - but that it provides too much life. By your numbers, donning Kaom's goes from adding 3460 life to 4691 (a 73% increase), to adding 2780 life to 4953 (a 56% increase). That's a nontrivial difference, but it stops short of trying to nerf Kaom's into the obscurity.

2. This isn't just about Kaom's. I'm also trying to get characters to be less Path of Life Nodes and encourage more build diversity, without making life nodes utterly useless. With lower values on life nodes with about the same (actually slightly better) base survivability, players will be a little more inclined to try for other passives and explore some areas of the passive tree they wouldn't be willing to before.

And the disparity between Life and ES?

My point is that currently, the only way the average build (200%~ hp passives) is able to achieve at least 6k hp is via kaoms. With the same dedication in gear and passives, an ES based build will still be able to get 7-9k ES, and considering the nature of the game itself (armor mechanics, surviving big hits, chaos damage vs CI etc) Life will still remain the "inferior" choice of health pools. That is still a problem.

The changes you are proposing merely scales down hp% passives while giving people a tiny boost in base hp. Nothing is solved, people still need to stack as much base hp (from items) and hp% (passives) as possible to even hit a respectable hp threshold without kaoms (4-5k). People who are even remotely serious at high level play WILL build around kaoms (or simply go CI) even with the changes.

You're basically switching numbers around with barely any visible result. So what's the point of the proposed changes exactly?

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dudiobugtron wrote:

The people who have a problem with the game being 'path of life nodes' are high-level players, especially hardcore ones. They need all the life they can get because end-game enemies hit really hard, and also they can easily get enough dps for end-game content just from gear, with very few dps nodes at all. For those people, your dps version of the life argument is BS, but the original life argument isn't.

One can and should expect characters in Hardcore League to prioritize Life (and other survivability), while also expecting Softcore characters to prioritize DPS more than life.

Perhaps some of the problem isn't entirely passive tree, but in how endgame monsters are designed; perhaps we need more cases where the overwhelming health of the monster is a major obstacle to clearing, rather than hitting so hard. I actually think having both kinds of challenges - high-life medium-DPS, and high-DPS medium-life - monsters is the best solution. In such a case, one might argue that trying to edit the passive tree isn't the most efficient route to fixing the problem, and they might be right.

However, the core issue is that picking up a variety of nodes on the passive tree is somewhat discouraged; going pure (or near-pure) survivability is overly effective.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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RogueMage wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I'm not trying to nerf Kaom's into oblivion here.

Then what you're proposing is little more than a lose-lose proposition.

Kaom's is not imbalanced in concept, it's only imbalanced in degree. I won't seriously consider extremist views that Kaom's needs to be removed from the game or rendered useless.

Kaom's has already been banished into oblivion (aka Standard League), and hopefully it will soon be joined by the rest of the broken OP Uniques. This is the only practical solution since, as GGG has explained about numerical nerfs, existing Kaom's cannot be retroactively toned down.

So in your view, a major part of the "Path of Life Nodes" problem is that GGG's nerf of Life Nodes didn't go far enough, and all those 6% Life Nodes (that we have to take to get to the good stuff) should be chopped down to 4%. In other words, nerf the bread-and-butter nodes that all HP-based builds require, in order to accommodate the excesses of the most broken and overpriced items in the game. If that's not an "extremist" approach, I can't imagine what would be even more perverse, other than eliminating Life Nodes altogether.

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RogueMage wrote:

So in your view, a major part of the "Path of Life Nodes" problem is that GGG's nerf of Life Nodes didn't go far enough, and all those 6% Life Nodes (that we have to take to get to the good stuff) should be chopped down to 4%. In other words, nerf the bread-and-butter nodes that all HP-based builds require, in order to accommodate the excesses of the most broken and overpriced items in the game. If that's not an "extremist" approach, I can't imagine what would be even more perverse, other than eliminating Life Nodes altogether.

It does the opposite, as the numbers in the OP show.