Nothing wrong with Blade Flurry, it's not OP it just doesn't suck like typical melee

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

I'm telling you this because bf is a weapon skill and weapon skills are shit all over hc. This is why it's not relevant whether it's REALLY melee or not.

Well your argument is kinda worth a look because bows suck even more. Archers are in a way worse state. Melees have Star Forge, Disfavour and even Binos is pretty strong. Archers have Reach and Lioneyes. Of course there are other good options like Doomfletch or Opus... but they need more investment and are a lot less tanky than those melees.

And it also doesn't work the other way around, because melee spells suck as much. Unless they get insane damage. But who ever uses Lightning Tendrils or Flamesurge. Even Freezing Pulse which offers a bit of defense from its element is hardly used.

And then even spells are not great, if we are speaking spells we are usually speaking of one single spell, right now that is Flameblast (not counting Blade Vortex). Yes technically Essence Drain is a spell but it falls into an entirely different category, more similar to CA. Do we see Fireball, Glacial Cascade, Ethereal Knives or Ice Spear? No we see Flameblast.

Also it is hard to count that one random oddball. Considering this I think it was in Perandus when someone with Dualstrike was the highest melee in the HC ladder (I think the best placement was even Top20^^). Yes the char wasn't able to beat even some map bosses, but that isn't really necessary to be Top50 in HC.

To Fruz: I have tried frost blades yes, didn't like it. But the range was pretty dam good, it was just an annoying skill to use.

By EA I'm going to assume you mean EQ? Because there weren't any EA in that bracket last league.

The problem with your argument is that EQ by your reasoning has the same downsides as bows and is apparently really good in your eyes while bows in your eyes are bad DESPITE in reality having an extra item slot in quivers and better range than EQ.

To emphasy: only difference between flame blast and essence drain really is that one scales from chaos and one scales elemental. They both clear screens from a long range and still one shot many bosses without needing a weapon.

Of course I've always contested that boss damage even matters, the game is about clear speed which is the main reasons bv and vaal spark and shield charge abs flicker strike are good. But of course those don't top charts so.

Yeah I meant EQ sorry.

I actually forgot to mention EA, which is a particular niche where people manage to stack very high amounts of life, while still being ranged.

EQ has the advantages , being on the life side of the three for what scales well with it, and well .... juggernaut, endurance charges, etc ...
It was also kinda OP, post nerf, it hasn't been that popular anymore anyway, or so it seems to me.


And seriously, frost blade's attack range is small compared to every range, or BF/AW(at least pre nerf), and ... you have to target a monster, you don't just shoot in a direction, which matters quiiite a bit.

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

The problem with your argument is that EQ by your reasoning has the same downsides as bows and is apparently really good in your eyes while bows in your eyes are bad DESPITE in reality having an extra item slot in quivers and better range than EQ.

To emphasy: only difference between flame blast and essence drain really is that one scales from chaos and one scales elemental. They both clear screens from a long range and still one shot many bosses without needing a weapon.

Of course I've always contested that boss damage even matters, the game is about clear speed which is the main reasons bv and vaal spark and shield charge abs flicker strike are good. But of course those don't top charts so.

I wouldn't go as far as saying bows are bad. The problem with many bow builds is just that the interesting projectiles nodes are on the side of the tree with the least amnount of life nodes. But then there are the CI bow builds, so that's something to keep in mind.

On a side note this constantly returning argument of what skills are better because there's a list of some sort, always means looking at things in a vacuum. When you build an EQ juggernaut, or a slayer for uber lab farming, you will easily get past level 90 while racking up lots of currency. This does not imply that EQ is one the best skills in the game, it only implies it is a convenient choice for life based lab farmers, which is what many people do. So unless you can clearly identify why skill A is used more often than skill B, these lists and spreadsheets do not have a lot of weight to them.

Essence drain vs Flameblast: In my book there's more than just the difference in scaling to be considered, but that brings me back to how Legatus' opinion lacks expertise. ED has a "built-in" proliferation by way of contagion, and it also regenerates life the moment it hits, while being immune to elemental reflect as well.

As for EA, if you want high life values, you will need a kaom's to begin with, otherwise an EA build is not necessarily much more "tanky" than a regular bow build would be.

It doesn't really matter why people build what chars, the fact is one build gets more xp and currency than another.

If you want to discuss potential nerf or buff options then sure, right now we're comparing essentially xp per hour divided by death ratio.

Five days later and you still chasing one another's tail with no end in sight.

I bet your both happy the league starts tomorrow eh.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

It doesn't really matter why people build what chars, the fact is one build gets more xp and currency than another.

I actually think it matters a lot. When you look at the difference between HC and SC you will for sure realize that many people opt to run "purpose-made builds" in HC, and "general" builds in SC. And that of course reflects on what you see on the ladders. When people can grind uber lab ad-infinitum with an EQ juggernaut, they will get past level 90 easily, and with minimal effort in terms of currency. So there's the risk/reward thought process involved. Losing a marohi erqi doesn't hurt as much as losing a rare dagger with 4 t1 rolls on it, for example.

What's more is that when you say why people use which builds doesn't matter, there's barely any point in discussing balance anymore, because one could stretch it to the point of a skills's powerlevel, and when the skill is picked because of its powerlevel, but the reason doesn't matter, then what is left to discuss?

If I was to start in a league and go for uber-lab farming, I would run an EQ juggernaut for example, because it's cheap and easy to gear. There's no point in using a CI bladevortex pathfinder, when you just want to do it for cheap as soon as possible. That doesn't put EQ on the same powerlevel as bladevortex though. So I think the point of not looking at things in a vacuum is a pretty strong point, which is actually very important in regards to balance.

Looking back at the EQ nerf a while ago, that is what you end up with when you balance things based solely on numbers in a vacuum. EQ wasn't too strong prior to the nerf (in my opinion), it was a popular build because it was easy and cheap to gear, while allowing for relatively good cleaspeed. Want to play EQ? Buy a marohi for a couple chaos, and you're set.

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

If you want to discuss potential nerf or buff options then sure, right now we're comparing essentially xp per hour divided by death ratio.

I'm not discussing exp/death ratios per hour. What I am saying is that balancing things solely based on "popularity" isn't going anywhere, and the same applies to judging a skill's powerlevel based on spreadsheets.

Well I see the argument that weapons have a native downside in terms of scaling, but that only matters for the start of the league, not for the overall power. Early on the league of usually full of life based casters, which move over to CI casters and later you have whatever.

Weapons aren't really limiting, just try to find a weapon better than Starforge, it is impossible and Starforge is rather cheap.

I also said before that HC is not a good way to balance (and CoD is a pretty odd argument if you are arguing with Ladder placement), not because how many people play it but also because people might play HC in Standard due to the better economy and not being vulnerable to DCs.

Many people just delete chars when they die, that is what people used to do before HC was invented.

"

Boem wrote:

Five days later and you still chasing one another's tail with no end in sight.

I bet your both happy the league starts tomorrow eh.

Peace,

-Boem-

I'm more interested in the discussion at this point, I frankly just don't understand how someone can look at a melee gem and knowingly and willingly say "this is overpowered", knowing full well that melee is always shit in every single league since the beginning of time.

Mechanics of ranged "melee" notwithstanding, it's a gem that will provide melee access to content and/or ladders where there was no way before. That's good enough for me, but honestly I don't think this gem will even do that. We'll find out in 4 days.

"

Sure_K4y wrote:

I'm not discussing exp/death ratios per hour. What I am saying is that balancing things solely based on "popularity" isn't going anywhere, and the same applies to judging a skill's powerlevel based on spreadsheets.

Popularity is not the same as performance. Popularity in this case is the number of people who select a gem/build as a total, performance in this case would be HC top 50/100/etc. You can use any bracket or use the SC top #, whatever you use, it will show a performance indication when a build over-represents (or under-represents if that is the case) its total selection in that bracket. I don't bother looking at the totals because I'm confident in my knowledge of the meta, but if you disagree you're welcome to go check the totals and prove me wrong. My knowledge tells me EQ has a lot more than 1/50 total selection of builds/gems and it shows up once in the top 50, that is an extremely poor performance indicator for a build that is actually really popular.

I was on a break from POE when EQ got nerfed, but unless you have numbers to support a claim that it was or wasn't OP before nerfs I can't comment on it. What I do know is GGG often nerfs shit that doesn't need to be nerfed (and vice versa) and that has nothing to do with its popularity, cheapness, or effectiveness. See current league's BV "nerfs". So that doesn't really indicate anything to me.