The BIG Lightning NERF

The following is really nothing more than my impressions. Some may agree or disagree with them in part or in whole. This thread is intended as discussion and not intended to be "inflammatory". Please remember, we all have differing opinions.

My thoughts/impressions; Sporker Builds were OP, doing 10K DPS. As a result, GGG decided to Nerf Lightning, Totems and Auras. I feel they went a little overboard in either the Nerf, or the changes to the monsters in general. And although Arc received a buff it's negated by the totem and lightning Nerf's.

I have a lvl 85 Triple Totem Build. The DPS of my build was nowhere near the DPS touted by the, for lack of a better term, Traditional Sporker Build. The reason for this is that a 3 totem build has no real option but CI if they want to survive. Can't use Shav's Chest because Soul Mantle is needed for 3 totems. Can't go Pain Atonement with CI. Those 2 reasons already Nerf a 3 totem build. Add to it that Shav's has 3-10% Spell Dmg and add Pain Atonement's 30% Spell Dmg, that equals up to 40% more DPS. Then when you look at the other items used by Traditional Sporkers, it's just more stacking of mods from more Unique items to reach the 10K DPS. I think GGG overlooked this to a great extent. Maybe some more MODS on Unique Items like "Can Not Use With..." would have served just as well to Nerf the OP Builds, without killing off Builds that "were" able to manage but are no longer looking to be viable...it's really disheartening, to spend so much time trying to make an alternative to a "Trend Build", only to have it Nerfed when GGG implements changes to kill the Overpowered Builds.

I'm very disappointed in the release, for other reasons as well, and I hope GGG will re-evaluate the changes they've made.

Anyhow, as stated; Simply my opinions.

Take care All.

GGG gets infinitely more data about damages, player builds etc than anyone of us will ever see. Odds are, your build wasn't that good to begin with if you feel like your build has broken completely. Nerfs and buffs will always happen and some characters will not work after them.

Overall, all of the changes done in 1.0.0 has balanced the game a lot and removed some of the most common cookie cutter aspects of the game that made a few builds ridiculously OP.

If you feel like changes to the game breaks the fun, then you will have that feeling at every single patch and major content update. Guaranteed.

Aura stacking was just off the chart before 1.0.0, I'm glad they toned that down a bit.

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AintCare wrote:

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Katulobotomia wrote:

GGG gets infinitely more data about damages, player builds etc than anyone of us will ever see. Odds are, your build wasn't that good to begin with if you feel like your build has broken completely. Nerfs and buffs will always happen and some characters will not work after them.

Overall, all of the changes done in 1.0.0 has balanced the game a lot and removed some of the most common cookie cutter aspects of the game that made a few builds ridiculously OP.

If you feel like changes to the game breaks the fun, then you will have that feeling at every single patch and major content update. Guaranteed.

Aura stacking was just off the chart before 1.0.0, I'm glad they toned that down a bit.

i hope this is not true since the game was officially released... I have invested a lot of my free time in some characters and I do not have hours every day to play, so if my builds are being nerfed/destroyed before I manage to get bored of them this will definitely make me leave... i let it go during the beta but if it continues it will certainly suck

The job of balancing a game like PoE is never finished. Especially considering that they are going to regularly add new content to this game. Everything new needs to be balanced and prerelease testing doesn't always cut it.

If you can't deal with ongoing changes then ARPG's are definitely not the sort of game for you.

All they did was make it so if you are going to be a totem character you have to focus on improving totems. I did that with my sporker, changed her totem to Arc, which is WAY better than it used to be and she is doing just fine. I put the spork onto traps and use arc + remote mines as well. The combination of these things seems better than my old build.

You aren't going to be able to build the way you used to, GGG made it so if you are going to focus around totems, traps, auras, anything really then you are going to have to actually focus on it. Darting down to one keystone no longer makes the build.

The real nerf was not to totems, that is minor if you are willing to get the proper nodes, it's the duration of spark. I think it was over kill, but let's face it, very few people use spark unless they make a spork totem, and they did it just because of them.

This belongs more to the feedback section doesn't it?

There wasn't a particular huge nerf to lightning mentioned and I don't think it is such an issue. If you feel like having too low dmg, you need to spec more into dmg.

Totem players only stand behind their totems, they shouldn't be as tanky eg as maras. At least not if they also want to do equal dps.

first, there were no spork builds EVER getting 10K dps. EVER. Baker was around 8K at level 100 with max power charges.

Second, the % of spell damage on an occultist adds almost nothing to dps. it is INCREASED. Pain Attunement is MORE. The Pain Attunment did add 30% DPS.

Third - They destroyed Shavs value when they made it so that RF is no longer useable for ES users. Now with a Shav you can get the pain attunment bonus, but you then take the full brunt of chaos damage (-60%) so it is not a large enough increase to use it instead of using CI.

Spork was not at all OP previously. It was just cheap to gear and you could stack magic find. They nerfed the piss out of it in every possible way because members of the community whined so much. You could still clear much faster with discharge, wander, facebreaker, flicker, Freezing pulse/RF, and a ton of others. Proof is that Qarl himself even said Shav's was fine a month or so before he destroyed it. This is why there are so many whine threads now. You whine enough, The dev's cave.


I'm very sad about the spork nerf because I enjoyed the playstyle after a long day at work, but there are far better builds. Now you just stack life nodes + block chance, use leech and carry a granite + saffell on swap and tank through the game.

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AintCare wrote:

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Nonsensei436 wrote:

If you can't deal with ongoing changes then ARPG's are definitely not the sort of game for you.

well o now we don;t have beta tag to blame it on so we just going to say all ARPGs have major balancing changes every month?

yeah I don;t think so man, much better games out there that you could have fun with builds for years...

again this game is cool but if this major nerfs and shit will be happening im out, and I feel many ore will follow... beta is beta but this shit was released

You have nowhere to go in this genre. Any online only ARPG you play will sooner or later have major rebalancing changes.

Oh cut the crap...

On 50+ farming zones in Domination almost every "X RUNS" party has sparker in it, people still do it and adapted to new tree. LOL, they even do MORE dmg... You can check my acc i had 78 dual sparker earlier, and i know its clear speed on 55+ lvl.

To be honest, nothing changed, just change spelldmg nodes to Totem dmg nodes.

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eragon1111 wrote:

Oh cut the crap...

On 50+ farming zones in Domination almost every "X RUNS" party has sparker in it, people still do it and adapted to new tree. LOL, they even do MORE dmg... You can check my acc i had 78 dual sparker earlier, and i know its clear speed on 55+ lvl.

To be honest, nothing changed, just change spelldmg nodes to Totem dmg nodes.

55 level content is not nearly the same content as someone who is 85+. Spark is now useless for this. We are talking solo, not in groups where someone else does the damage and spark culls.

The RF nerf destroyed any high level sporker. You can still do it, if you dont mind taking 5x as long to clear something as any melee.

Just to clarify a little more.

I have no problem with Balance changes. I just think more care should be put into the changes made. When a balance change, directed at a few OP Builds, make a build that was viable (when many thought it was not), then something may have been overlooked. I built my character to have decent defense, including good Ele Resist, and a DPS value that worked well.

I copied and pasted my Totem DPS, from my build page, below.

Spork DPS 508.7 (573.1 with Haste)(Beta DPS 587.7)
Mana Cost 170 (up from 160)
Cast time 0.42 (up from 0.4)

Arc DPS 347.4 (407.3 with Haste)(Beta DPS 338.2)
Mana Cost 181 (down from 213)
Cast Time 0.58 (down from 0.64

The Beta DPS numbers include Haste Aura running. So you can see this build did decent DPS, my opinion, (not like a "Traditional Sporkers" 10K). So, either the change in the Shock Stack Dmg increase, shock Bonus Dmg decreased from 40% to 30%, or something else drastically changed that impacted my build. Either way, imo, no "Balance" change should kill off viable builds, in order to Nerf the OP Builds. That's why I suggested alternate MODs, stating something along the lines of "Can Not Be Used with..." After all, we do have a "Custom Content" button in the Micro-Transactions, that allows you to Create a Unique item. As more and more people do this, the potential for someone, "slipping in", something that could ultimately lead to an OP Build, increases incrementally. So what will be the fix then? More Skill and Passive Skill Tree Nerf's? That hardly seems a wise choice, as it could result in other viable builds being caught in the take down. Every ARPG (that's all I play) has problems with Unique Items allowing people to combine them into Builds that become OP. And every one of them seems to take the stand of Nerfing character related skills or passives. This creates a world where only a select few, correctly outfitted, characters can survive. Then all you see is the "cookie cutter" builds.

I started to play POE because you could actually build your characters. Unlike D3, I quit that title because; In that game there are no "Bad Builds", just bad selections of equipment combinations. Just lvl up to 60 in D3, all skills are unlocked, go buy the uber equipment you want, and go murder everything. I thought POE was different. But what I'm seeing with the release is that they may be caught up in the same pitfall as all the rest. Only certain builds will work, because more emphasis is placed on Unique items vs actual character builds.


edited for typos and grammar, hope I got them all...lol...

BTW, not quitting POE, but my Scion's name,...May_As_Well_Since_Nerf...hardly the reason I wanted to make one.