A potential change I'm keen to hear your thoughts on

Has anyone of you who thinks this change is great even tried to run AA without EB? With only mana reg from gear and the little from the passive tree?

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Tempada wrote:

I agree with the first part, and it is trivial to get enough mana regen to simply sustain a spell, but it's not trivial to run a high level AA except maybe when you use Discipline, which isn't ideal. You need to invest in a lot of mana/mana regen nodes and mana/mana regen/es on gear, especially if you don't use Cloak or a high ES chest. What's trivial in comparison is defense as a ranged attack build (just take Phase Acro).

im able to run a lvl 19 aa without clarity or discipline, due to just 1 single node, EB.



i am not running mom for that sake, but i could very well go down to a lvl 15 aa and run CoD

and yeah, im not even investing that much into mana (atleast not specifically) (most of my mana nodes are so i have enough open mana after 2 heralds + 2 purities. not to run the aa)

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Rory wrote:

This is one of the Keystone changes we'll be trying out in the Beta soon:





More background: This change has an interesting history; I suggested it offhand as a strange idea, but it solved a few key factors we were investigating, like AA/MoM defense being too high for too low a cost, so it was decided to go ahead and try it out.

While i agree that this change is really nice

I have to disagree on that point, atleast a part of it

MOM isnt powerful

Its Cloak of Defiance that is ridiculously OP


EB+MOM synergy has a drawback, Distance in the tree, COD removes the drawback and add a +10%...

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Sexcalibure wrote:

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Rory wrote:

This is one of the Keystone changes we'll be trying out in the Beta soon:





More background: This change has an interesting history; I suggested it offhand as a strange idea, but it solved a few key factors we were investigating, like AA/MoM defense being too high for too low a cost, so it was decided to go ahead and try it out.

While i agree that this change is really nice

I have to disagree on that point, atleast a part of it

MOM isnt powerful

Its Cloak of Defiance that is ridiculously OP


EB+MOM synergy has a drawback, Distance in the tree, COD removes the drawback and add a +10%...

you did realize that CoD went legacy in 1.3?

"

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Tempada wrote:

I agree with the first part, and it is trivial to get enough mana regen to simply sustain a spell, but it's not trivial to run a high level AA except maybe when you use Discipline, which isn't ideal. You need to invest in a lot of mana/mana regen nodes and mana/mana regen/es on gear, especially if you don't use Cloak or a high ES chest. What's trivial in comparison is defense as a ranged attack build (just take Phase Acro).

im able to run a lvl 19 aa without clarity or discipline, due to just 1 single node, EB.



i am not running mom for that sake, but i could very well go down to a lvl 15 aa and run CoD

and yeah, im not even investing that much into mana (atleast not specifically) (most of my mana nodes are so i have enough open mana after 2 heralds + 2 purities. not to run the aa)

The mana drain of AA maybe a low. If the problem is that just increase the mana drain cost.

My builds when using AA are specifically customized to have lots of mana regen so that they can sustain AA even when the character walk for around 10 sec. (So that my AA will not go off even when i move.)

This "protect the mana" idea will kill all those builds (after lots of min0maxing) which reserve most of their mana to gain the full benefit of EB.

I really dislike the Energy Shield mechanics. The EB keystone just remove it and turn it into a larger mana pool which i can capitalize on.
But I will be forced to play around it if the changers go through because I love playing Int Life caster.

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im able to run a lvl 19 aa without clarity or discipline, due to just 1 single node, EB.

Running a lvl 19 AA without Clarity is not thanks to just 1 node. What kind of gear do you have? Do you take Inner Force? A lot of players find it hard to run a lvl 20 AA (and I mean run it without draining much mana while walking) even with EB + Clarity.

I'm really excited for this change.

Firstly, it decouples AA, EB, and MoM which is good since they don't require as much investment as other forms of def. As you can basically run AA the moment you get EB and CoD or MoM (if you're going that far already) are trivial to put on because your mana pool is so high.
Yes, this means that on the live game your characters are unplayable, BUT GGG is planning on re-balancing all of the game anyways so anyone who says that you can't run AA with EB or that EB builds will not be viable (after act 4 is released) are just wrong. If AA's drain gets reduced by a factor of 10 at level 20 then it's viable (mana drain is like 20/sec), though fairly unrealistic. My point is that AA's viability is tied to it's numbers so the mechanical change to EB is quickly fixed by a re-balance in AA. In fact this allows AA to get changed which is a good thing.

Currently AA requires just over 200 mana/sec to run at max level. The only characters who can get this (viably) currently are those with EB. If you change EB so that getting the keystone is no longer necessary to run AA then it allows you to balance it for a lot of other specs instead of just this case. AA is primarily a dex gem so I don't think it's a good thing that only int spell casters are the only ones who can use it. It's a unique and interesting gem mechanically, and it should be viable in other builds. This change allows for AA to be used in other specs.

Secondly, it allows you to move MoM since taking MoM and EB together is now counter productive, like taking CI and EB. Thematically MoM being at the bottom of the tree makes zero sense and it makes CoD almost always better than the keystone. With this change, you can put MoM up by witch and templar which makes way more sense thematically and it synergies with hybrid armor/es builds (which frankly need some available routes). To explain, endgame mana in that area is going to end up probably in the 700 range (max without any int at level 100 is ~450 and ~200% inc mana isn't that unreasonable at that end of the tree). 30% of endgame damage to mana with reservation from auras is probably going remove all of your mana. 50% mitigation from armor is not impossible to achieve with a granite that's rolled well so unless you're face tanking vaal smashes you have a reasonable defense.

Thirdly, EB no longer raises your mana. This sounds like I nerf, but remember that GGG wants to re-balance the game so that you can get supports earlier. One of the reasons that supports have such high multipliers was because EB allows people to have 1000+ mana with almost no investment. This lets them lower the cost and multipliers across the board. Also, you can get more interesting supports earlier. This is fantastic, imagine getting a lmp before merveil instead of after weaver. Yes mechanically ES has the problem that it's regen has a delay and takes a few seconds to fill unlike mana. Cut the recharge delay, get ZO or GR, they're in the neighborhood already. The point is that there are mechanics in place to make ES not suck, though they could be better.

Lastly, though this is probably more of a pipe dream, New Skills. Personally, I like the idea of more AA type skills. It's the only one that causes a mana degen for an effect at 0 mana reservation, it would be cool if there were more skills like that. Say we have a similar skill but instead you leave shocked ground as a trail, or get a move speed increase (phase run anyone?). The point is, there's a lot of room for new skills here and GGG can't make them since you can't lower AA's cost due to the current game balance.

As an aside since I haven't rambled enough (sarcasm), a nerf to casters but a buff to AA on other builds is to give a mana regen bonus when moving instead of having a larger mana degen. Most current caster builds spam a spell (arc, flame blast, incinerate) until everything is dead so they don't need to get a mana regen over the movement penalty degen since they're staying still more than they're moving (also lightning warp). If you switch it, other styles of play get more utility from the skill, whirling blades, leap slam, all hit and run builds, etc.

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Tempada wrote:

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grepman wrote:

the less 'mandatory' keystones this game has, the better. right now EB is the defacto keystone taken by any caster who goes by it.

...its too TRIVIAL to get crazy mana and mana regen by just grabbing one node- EB.

I agree with the first part, and it is trivial to get enough mana regen to simply sustain a spell, but it's not trivial to run a high level AA except maybe when you use Discipline, which isn't ideal. You need to invest in a lot of mana/mana regen nodes and mana/mana regen/es on gear, especially if you don't use Cloak or a high ES chest. What's trivial in comparison is defense as a ranged attack build (just take Phase Acro).

why would you NOT use cloak ? and second part I agree on, thats why ondars is getting a nerf. acro already received several nerfs, and acro is 5 points, not one.

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A lot of players find it hard to run a lvl 20 AA (and I mean run it without draining much mana while walking) even with EB + Clarity.

well lets do some math. level 90 character with 250 int, running level 20 clarity, wearing a cloak and having, say 800 ES on gear (this is on a highish tip but lets just keep that for now)

he has 400 base mana, 125 mana from int, 100 mana from cloak = 625 mana
800ES becomes 1200 ES because of int bonus

so without any nodes of es or mana or regen or mana/regen on other gear besides cloak we have 1825 mana

20 clarity gives us 25 mana/s. base regen is 32 mana/s. 57 mana/s total. cloak gives 50% regen so you have 85 mana/s.

lvl 20 AA requires 230 mana/s. we're more than a 1/3 of the way there and already have MoM, but really, its a matter of couple of regen pieces on gear and a couple of nodes on the tree. mana flows for example, absurd node.

yes, its not really free per se, sure, but just like acro you invest very little to get a lot. unlike acro where 5 exact nodes are mandatory, only one node is mandatory and rest is flexible, so you can save on mana nodes by getting regen on jewelry pieces

on other hand, show me a caster right now who invests in strictly a lot of mana nodes instead of taking EB ?

the problem is when you say mana, tree says EB. if you stack mana and or regen, you HAVE to go EB. maybe I want to make a hybrid toon who uses mana ? nope, tree+cloak say EB.

devs themselves said AA wasnt meant to be always up, but they left it as is.

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

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grepman wrote:

any time I made a mana-intensive character or a casting witch/shadow/templar, there was no reason for me to NOT go EB. and then to NOT get AA and to NOT get MoM. that shit is pretty much a must-have trifecta for a ton of builds. this is why that's bad in game like poe which is all about choices.

I completely agree with you on this, it was way too must have, well, the cloak itself was way too must have honestly, some could get the node, most got the unique, I feel like that situation should have been in reverse, this isnt a D3 find the legendary bullshit game.


but I disagree that this is the way to do it, because many builds that are not MoM, and maybe not even AA use EB, and this destroys a lot of those builds while there are far simpler ways to solve the MoM issue without doing this. If anything I think using MoM with this change is one of the setups that is least hurt, and considering that was the target, I cant help but feel this is just such an apologetically bad decision on their part that, i dunno, Im just in complete disbelief at how they could ever humor this idea as a change to EB and not an alternative while addressing EB by nerfing it with an effectiveness penalty without fundamentally changing its functionality.

ok, so we're on the same page here- Im not crazy about the implementation either, but we both agree the existing trifecta had to change

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GGG used to be about subtle, elegant changes like that,

I dont know about that- I never had that impression. to me, GGG either nerfs to the ground or buffs a lot. its not often the balancing was done just right. the IR balance was made by making evasion better and trigger gems (which enabled CWDT + EC +IC trifecta) and stuff like LC which is a 'clever' way to bypass a huge portion of physical damage.