Spark : We reached another level of stupidity

Well as the main culprit in this issue, I suppose I should say what's on my mind.

I didn't expect this to degenerate into such a huge shitstorm, but I suppose it's a healthy one.

As someone pointed out before, I think a PvP-only nerf to spark would be appropriate. Personally in terms of PvE it feels great and I would hate to see it nerfed now that it's finally shining again. But for PvP it's clearly overly problematic.

It's true that I can just spam a button while watching a show and 4-0 most people. A duration nerf or distance cap would be very appropriate in PvP.


Someone asked what happened with a max block tempest shield vs a sparker earlier. To make this simple, they don't have to press buttons at all once TS is up. Max block tempest shield is a whole other level of cancer.

But yea other than Fanon's and Lib's builds along with spell block tempest shield characters, there is no real counter to spark spamming.


I apologize if it caused anybody any grief. Frankly I just saw an opportunity to snag a quick first place while lib was away from the queue. Otherwise I spent a few minutes a day in the arena for leo or for some giggles, but that's it. I'm aware of how obnoxious it is.


I'd like to point out tho that I've almost exclusively been making obnoxious PvP builds on purpose. My 1.3 firestormer (back when quality reduced intervals) could crash everybody out of Sarn Arena within 5 or 6 seconds. Mostly the same for 1v1s, but if you had a decent enough CPU you just had to shoot some EA/PA/tempest shield at me and I was done for. My reflect build only required me to sit there and wait for people to kill themselves. It's been my track record because having to deal with PA, EA, maxblock arc tempest shield and cycloners over and over was annoying.

I've made one build where I tried to get away from those overly played skills and went ice nova and it was mildly successful, but it got rekt by the shiny top 3-4 skills. Did super good against everything else tho.

If you guys can think of a solution that would make PoE PvP more about player skill, I'm willing to listen but I can't seem to think of one. Until then it's a gear check that can reach astronomical prices and the perfect mix between little player action and tons of cancerous skill combinations.

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"Simplesim45 wrote:

If you guys can think of a solution that would make PoE PvP more about player skill, I'm willing to listen but I can't seem to think of one. Until then it's a gear check that can reach astronomical prices and the perfect mix between little player action and tons of cancerous skill combinations.

Have you ever tried lld? Gear and fotm builds still play a major role in the outcome of a match so I'm not saying it's perfect, but there's far less automation and the cost of t1 gear is a fraction of hld gear.

The tempo of lld is lower due to gem lvl and passive tree restrictions, aoe and duration is limited which makes dodging stuff an essential part of winning a game.

I would suggest spectating a match between runsucker and lapiz's chaos caster if you have the chance. I feel like that matchup comes as close to being skill-based in Poe pvp at the moment.

I told you that in game and i'll tell that now again : This build is litteraly killing pvp. The more you play utter bullshits like this, the less people will get interested into pvp, the less GGG will do something about it. It's a vicious circle.

This is another reason why me and others don't play 1vs1 anymore (the others beeing EA and Immortal trolls).

Nothing beats old crit caster fights bewteen me and shadowthefall both using EK and lightning warp.

Shit required a ton a timing to know when to get out or engage etc, i actually miss those a lot but EK is far from what it was...

those fights were the ones that lasted FOREVER compared to most fights vs most builds ending in the first minute nowadays

ES recharge was so shit back then you literally needed pro LW avoiding skills in order to not get hit for es to recharge.

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Simplesim45 wrote:

But yea other than Fanon's and Lib's builds along with spell block tempest shield characters, there is no real counter to spark spamming.


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I am neither and I have won every match vs spark so far, avengers gives you 100% uptime on flasks

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

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Simplesim45 wrote:

But yea other than Fanon's and Lib's builds along with spell block tempest shield characters, there is no real counter to spark spamming.


.

I am neither and I have won every match vs spark so far, avengers gives you 100% uptime on flasks

Yeah, I have to agree with this statement as my observations show the same. This is even with AV topaz withstanding...the damage just isn't there per hit. Since spark has such a massive coverage area via projectile speed/duration I can see it being mechanically strong in a crit vs crit matchup, but it lacks the impact to put pressure on ehp/regen or anyone who can stay away from the coverage area and still deal damage.


Although, I have also observed that the sparks are invisible sometimes. I'm not sure if it's a client/server/cache/latency problem, but I would consider that to be an issue.

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ShinFuuma wrote:

Although, I have also observed that the sparks are invisible sometimes. I'm not sure if it's a client/server/cache/latency problem, but I would consider that to be an issue.

it has to do with projectile speed, same stuff happen sometimes with my ST. if the projectile reach a certain distance/duration, the server don't show them visually but the "body" still exist and keep doing damages.

We reported the ST bug with Ritch (he even made a video of it) so maybe they'll fix it... Or maybe not...

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ShinFuuma wrote:

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

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Simplesim45 wrote:

But yea other than Fanon's and Lib's builds along with spell block tempest shield characters, there is no real counter to spark spamming.


.

I am neither and I have won every match vs spark so far, avengers gives you 100% uptime on flasks

Yeah, I have to agree with this statement as my observations show the same. This is even with AV topaz withstanding...the damage just isn't there per hit. Since spark has such a massive coverage area via projectile speed/duration I can see it being mechanically strong in a crit vs crit matchup, but it lacks the impact to put pressure on ehp/regen or anyone who can stay away from the coverage area and still deal damage.


Although, I have also observed that the sparks are invisible sometimes. I'm not sure if it's a client/server/cache/latency problem, but I would consider that to be an issue.

I haven't been on enough to truly optimize the spark build but having played it a bit I'd have to disagree and say that spark dmg is very high, especially when it covers the entire 1v1 arena. I've melted immortal builds, high block builds, and high life regen chars. Spark obviously does have some drawbacks, particularly in certain arenas (like the two level one), but it's in a pretty strong state right now, and this is prob evidenced by the fact that I've seen a significant spike in the number of people using spark in PvP. The other drawback is that is pretty f'king annoying and could decrease interest in the PvP scene if this becomes out of hand. I personally will be speccing out of spark soon.

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Aiur wrote:

The other drawback is that is pretty f'king annoying and could decrease interest in the PvP scene if this becomes out of hand. I personally will be speccing out of spark soon.

it's nice to see someone realizing this at the difference of most EA users who never admitted it.

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IceDeal wrote:

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Aiur wrote:

The other drawback is that is pretty f'king annoying and could decrease interest in the PvP scene if this becomes out of hand. I personally will be speccing out of spark soon.

it's nice to see someone realizing this at the difference of most EA users who never admitted it.

Even after receiving the crazy buffs, spark is nothing compared to EA at the moment.. Bis geared spark would never beat a few hundred ex+ EA. EA "counters" every single build at the moment ;<

The difference is you can mitigate spark damage in gazillion ways whereas you cant even properly go immortal tank with legacy aegis vs EA..