Punishment - 1.05

(have also ~15% version but cannot find it)

so this curse got a buff (numbers went up). i spent SOME time trying to make it work (i presumed that it is still worthless but..)

- for a melee: dmg returned is insignificant and means nothing. rare/unique mobs have like ~25% curse effectiveness so it is around 5% dmg AFTER MITIGATION reflected. assuming great phys-only hit of 4000 it means that 200dmg is reflected.. wow.

- for a ranged: you arent getting hit anyway and there are so many dmg/defensive curses available that this is not even something that i considered seriously

- summoner: obvious choice. tried VERY HARD to create perfect conditions (using skeletons on singled out bosses etc). this is a joke.

Following make Punishment a waste of skill slot:

- every other DMG curse is WAY better
- for a defensive/in-between curses there are obviously better choices (Temp Chains/Enfeeble)
- does not reflect elemental dmg
- rare/unique mobs curse 'resistance' makes the obvious scenario a joke
- reflects mitigated DMG so tanks reflect nothing because they take nothing. block builds reflect nothing. and low-arm builds die if they get hit. summoners have better curses (Enfeeble + Temp Chains + Vuln if you go for 3 curses. replace Vuln with Warlords Mark for healing if needed)

so what is the use of this curse? why the numbers are so low? why cannot it work with ALL dmg. how frequent is all-phys dmg in maps?



there is a reason iron maiden in d2 reached above 600% reflect

I think they need to decide whether or not they want players to be able to reflect damage, or not. If they do, player reflect is going to be OP. No ifs ands or buts. If they don't, and leave this middle-of-the-road stuff, it's just going to waste space.

Player reflect either does something (can kill monsters) in which case it's OP because it's passive damage, that can kill.
Or it does nothing (doesn't kill monsters) in which case it deals insignificant damage compared to what any one other action is expected to do.

I say: either allow punishment to be supported by added fire (passive EE triggers w/o shield + TS; offers at least some utility), buff it to at least 100% of all damage at level 1 and 3-400% at level 20 (double that, if only phys attack), or just send the damn thing back to the void.

If they do want to keep it around: make it a flat %reflected, curses are already less effective against higher rarity adversaries. This double penalty to rares and uniques pushes the curse from useless to hahahahahahsouseless.

Bottom line is, punishment is a waste of an action. Unless you run around with single target melee and use default attack, literally anything else you can do will inflict more damage-per-click than this.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/13725

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OnmyojiOmn wrote:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/13725

as you can check last post in that thread is mine. i posted here because - it seems - ggg visits skill subforum once a blue moon. current punishment buff failed to change it from 'wasted skill slot' to 'viable albeit niche' and i wanted to describe situation here, where it had a chance for a bit more attention

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sidtherat wrote:

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OnmyojiOmn wrote:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/13725

as you can check last post in that thread is mine. i posted here because - it seems - ggg visits skill subforum once a blue moon. current punishment buff failed to change it from 'wasted skill slot' to 'viable albeit niche' and i wanted to describe situation here, where it had a chance for a bit more attention

You posted this thread because you're a beautiful, unique snowflake and it's all about what you have to say.

GGG reads all feedback.

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OnmyojiOmn wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

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OnmyojiOmn wrote:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/13725

as you can check last post in that thread is mine. i posted here because - it seems - ggg visits skill subforum once a blue moon. current punishment buff failed to change it from 'wasted skill slot' to 'viable albeit niche' and i wanted to describe situation here, where it had a chance for a bit more attention

You posted this thread because you're a beautiful, unique snowflake and it's all about what you have to say.

GGG reads all feedback.

/ignore

btw. ggg employee?

Mark does keep up on the skill feedback section, you can see in that thread he has 2 responses on the last page even.

Anyways, I feel they are trying to balance this between PVP and PVE as there's not many other reasons to not have it go much higher. As mob's damage is balanced around our life and their life is balanced around our damage, very out of whack.

If they don't want to balance it purely around PVE then it should just be a flat return that you could stack with other thorns. ATM a mildly buffed tempest shield + spell block will ruin titty bitches and voidbearers (not sure if still because of their slow cast speed).

% reflect just doesn't work.

Personally I'd like to just see X-Y damage returned on attack and X-Y damage returned on block, both equaling up to a meaningful amount of damage. Which you can actually balance ok around PVP and PVE with the PVP damage reduction + consideration that players have higher armor/evasion/block than mobs do.

Mark does read the feedback, but remember he is skills guy not balance guy, so its mostly the mechanical side he is looking at, not wther a skill is pointless

The issue I have always had with this is; how do you balance the extremes?


On a single target (your character) that is trying to minimize the damage you take to avoid dying then its always going to be subpar unless obscenely overpowered. Your going to be better off building for direct damage because all reflective damage does is put your character at more risk then it needs to be in, which is counter-intuitive with surviving difficult encounters since it relies on them doing their full damage to you first in order to deal damage back.


On a summoner with 12+ skeletons being infinitely spammed from a totem, totems, 10+ zombies, 2+ spectres, converted mobs, the minions of your spectres, animated weapons, animated guardian and dominated mobs then it is a entirely different matter. And to top it off it can be quad stacked with 4 different sources of damage reflect at once; punishment, lightning thorns from spectre, and two damage reflects from necromantic aegis (supreme spiked shield with damage reflect mod). Then top that off with curses to boost the damage it takes from the reflect, shock stacking and minion instability for when they die.... when you can have 50+ minions surrounding a mob per player then damage can stack up to scary levels fast. Imagine what 6 summoners can surround a mob with....




Not sure that balancing reflect is something even slightly possible with this system.

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Jiero wrote:

On a summoner with 12+ skeletons being infinitely spammed from a totem, totems, 10+ zombies, 2+ spectres, converted mobs, the minions of your spectres, animated weapons, animated guardian and dominated mobs then it is a entirely different matter. And to top it off it can be quad stacked with 4 different sources of damage reflect at once; punishment, lightning thorns from spectre, and two damage reflects from necromantic aegis (supreme spiked shield with damage reflect mod). Then top that off with curses to boost the damage it takes from the reflect, shock stacking and minion instability for when they die.... when you can have 50+ minions surrounding a mob per player then damage can stack up to scary levels fast. Imagine what 6 summoners can surround a mob with....

but you know that in such (extremely unlikely) situation mobs have bigger issues than punishment curse? like 50 minions on their back..

and seriously:
- Punishment reflects only phys dmg
- Most mobs deal SINGLE TARGET phys dmg (exceptions: split arrow archers, maybe devourers, maybe avian corpse-spitters, leaps from goatmen/frogs)
- Only bosses that come to my mind that deal phys, semi AOE: thicket-ROA, Blacksmith/Brutus/Kole-type, that Bear with cleave and Oak sweep/leap. Only that ROA guy deals AOE large enough to clip more than 5-6 minions at the same time

In such conditions even pushing it into 500% reflect changes little. with 500% only extreme scenario (like 40minions) + that poor ROA skele would significantly change the proceedings of the battle.

adding something like 'Monsters that attack you are stunned for XX' or '.... knocked back' or '..their crits affect themselves' would add something to the curse

currently it deals no dmg, does not change dynamic of the fight in any way and even in extreme scenario (40+ minions) - due to mob design - does not scale

im ok with it having no single-target viability. but at very least make it useable for summoners..