Pre-Release Alpha Changes - A Krippendium

"

kompostownik wrote:

So if you want stay alive in hardcore you MUST use decoy totem, especially when you have tough situation.

I ve used in HC Conversion trap instead of decoy totem (my char was melee DW duelist). You can also use skeleton spamming spell totem. There are many ways to stay alive for few seconds more.
And take into consideration that your decoy totem will not last forever, it is not permanent like actual CI.

With conversion trap you can convert only 1 enemy at a time and with decoy you "convert" all enemies.
with actual CI you are immune only to chaos damage. still can be killed by other types of damage. with decoy totem you cant be killed with anything (maybe by poison or burning ground but anyway no monsters attack you). Decoy yotem should have only some chance (for exaple 50%) to distract the enemy. now it has 100% chance so its way to op in my opinion.

Yep true they should increase the manacosts of decoy totem about 100% too

"

neonesis wrote:

It's not "because we use ES" (look at Templar), it's because "we choose to focus fully on ES", that's why 1 HP.

To counter Chaos, you need to focus on HP. It's entirely possible on Witch, but CI is a Keystone, a choice. You can forget about HP, but beware, there's only ES protecting you now.

It's simply a choice between two mechanics of damage buffer, liquid HP or cooldown-fastregen-ES.

HP-ES regen thingy is still-to-be-determined so I wouldn't worry about that too much - also, it really depends if the regeneration rate is based on your HP level or on ES level.

Chaos immunity should never be in the game; I think we need to agree on this. Chaos immunity takes over the role of HP regen, and then some more. That is why most builds are CI, because of the advantage the build gives when it comes to end-game, high level play.

As chaos damage hit life directly, the initial idea of CI was to allow shield builds to be viable. I believe it was a mistake for the node to ignore chaos damage completely, when the mechanics should have been to apply it to shields instead (as might be planned in OB). One should be able to choose either build without feeling shortchanged, but chaos immunity skewed a majority to a CI/ES build.

And since ES regen (together with the existing Ghostreaver) is planned to allow shields to basically function as life, there is now equality when it comes to mitigating chaos damage. And if "Regeneration effects now affect your energy shield instead of your life" is anything to go by, it is based on ES. How is it possible to base it off life, when it is only 1?

And since life is 1 with CI, the Devs opted to give 50% more shield to compensate for the EHP loss. Problem is, a CI/ES build typically takes less skill points than a life build to achieve. To scatter this 50% ES bonus across several nodes to balance it out was the right thing to do. For example, getting to 5k ES +1 life should take as many skill points as 5k life.

In essence, I think the Devs got it right on this one. Do not harp on the Chaos immunity, because it gave an unfair advantage, and it should never have been there in the first place....especially not when only ES build gets it.

3 conversion traps layed in one row make a big difference in fights with huge packs of mobs, especially with flickers. It works even better than decoy totem in my opinion.

The number of attacking you mobs will depend on range of your decoy totem and size of the packs of creatures. Melee characters, utilizing close combat skills, will have difficult times without things like decoy totem. conversion trap.

"

kompostownik wrote:

But kripp and others probably would die more frequently if they woudnt have it so they dont wont to nerf it..

This is your own estimation only.

"

kompostownik wrote:

i dont know how pack size affects decoy totem becouse if you stay near decoy totem you still have immunity to all damage sources regardless how many mobs are there. and always you can cast decoy totem and run away..without it it wouldn't be so easy. So if you want stay alive in hardcore you MUST use decoy totem, especially when you have tough situation.

Quit bitching about something that not only is subject to change but if you had taken the time think before typing, a larger pack size, sometimes MUCH larger, means that totem of yours that withstood a couple of rounds of damage is now being obliterated by half the pack and the other half then finding no better target but you, to attack.

Situationally its not much of a punching bag anymore as it is quite possibly nothing more than buying yourself a second to make another decision. Read: "Decoy."

You're not adding anything constructive by spamming capital letters like you're screaming at the screen about something that is obviously powerful, saying it is, well... obviously powerful.

"We would rather add something to the game in an version that is powerful, so that people will test it and find its flaws, instead of adding something that is not and have people completely ignore it, never having it tested properly."

Para-phased from Chris Wilson on Kripps stream one night. Everybody (that doesn't already..) would do well to keep that in mind, as we are all technically testers like our Alpha counter-parts. It would clean up a lot of tears off the beta forums if a lot of people could be so inclined.

I know, I know.. but I can dream.

I have to say, people are really quick to judge something that is a work in progress. Not to mention all the finger pointing here.

You either leave constructive feedback or you remain silent, in my opinion. Stop bashing the alpha testers and start trusting the devs. I'll assume that all of you are here because you like the game?

Sorry for sounding harsh, but i would hate to see this forum becoming breeding grounds for the viral QQ waves that exist on other unmentionable ARPG forums.

GGG has wanted to change CI (read nerf) for over 6 months.

Some of you guys here focus too much about current numbers. Until we actually see how full builds work (or how they can be made to work) we can't really say that something was overnerfed. At the same time something that was overnerfed yesterday can as well change tomorrow. My impression is that preventing such uproar is the main point of NDA and alpha testers not discussing balance changes in open forum. Things are tested and will change.

For example Hilbert saying there should be 3 nodes not 5 to get more ES after CI. This is the easier thing to change. A few clicks to make those ES nodes stronger and we can get it balanced, considering it is not balanced currently. We also don't know the values of ES you can get on top level items with best affixes. At the same time, when I compare similar life+ES builds to full ES CI builds, I think you save a lot of points by taking CI and having comparable defense anyway. Short argument from Hilbert comparing skillpoints from bandits to additional nodes can influence opinion of many players. However, this rewards do not justify number of points that CI nodes should require in any way - you gain something for every point and you also have to compare it to mana or resistances reward.

A lot of people complaining about clarity change. We don't know the regen values on all the clarity levels (I feel that in beta it is currently especially insane on low levels, maybe that's main thing changed). We don't know if mana costs of certain skills changed at top levels, same with cost multipliers on support gems. Also, there are more skillpoints available in total, which allows for some easy additional mana passives. Then there is also mana reward from Alira (and even Chris said that bandit quests will probably be refundable). Finally, most CI witches currently don't use any mana potions and just focus on infinite regen. Having no clarity and 2 slow mana pots with charge recovery solves problem and allows to do maps with no regen. With granites (and possibly diamonds?) nerfed you can just use mana potions anyway.

"

lethal_papercut wrote:

For some reason it seems some the Alpha testers have become very defensive about the alpha realm asif they feel like criticism of the changes there is somehow offending them personally. Quite odd.

It isn't odd at all; there have been several posts now in numerous other threads about alpha that have pointed fingers at us alpha testers, as though we are responsible for your favorite build being reduced in power.

The alpha testers do bug testing, but we've been primarily focused on polishing act 3. Major overhaul balance changes did not start until very recently, the developers also just came back from break; there has not been enough time to iterate on the very first changes that have been made toward long-term balancing of the game. Game-making is about iteration. It's never right the first time. Get a grip.

People are overreacting to something that has been stated over and over: You guys don't have the full picture. We're not giving you the full picture. You haven't played on alpha. You have no idea the state of the end game and you are making too many snap judgments about changes that were just made.