Weekly Beta Report Two

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The Decay Support Gem will do significantly less damage, 50% less damage at gem level 20, and its duration will be reduced to 8 seconds.

Jesus TF Christ. Why even have the gem in the game at that point?

Decay sucks a bag of dicks against single targets. It has half the scalability of Essence Drain -- maybe even less. With Occultist's -20% chaos resist and Vulnerability, Decay is still terrible against any mob that actually has a life pool. And this is in low-tier maps!

I ended up pushing Decay down to a 4-link for map clearing and using a 5-link ED to assist with tankier targets. This is not much different than using a 4-link Kinetic Blast to clear maps and a 5/6-link Barrage for actual DPS. Sure, the current Decay is OP for leveling, but it's kinda hot garbage for the endgame.

Just because it's good at leveling -- something not many people actually care for -- and can be exploited a bit by *very* specific gearing and trap/mine cheese, that doesn't mean the gem needs to be completely ruined. Massively reduce its damage at low levels, fine, but leave it the hell alone at L19+.

Maybe, god forbid, traps/mines should be looked at instead? They've been a problem for a long time. Easy Uber Atziri kills? Bladefall mines. First SSF Shaper kill? Arc mines. Destroying Decay before it's even released? Probably mines again. I mean, mines are the entire reason y'all ain't buffing Arc to actually be *usable* when self-cast, right?

These heavy-handed nerfs are exactly why there are so many completely unused skills, supports, keystones, and uniques in the game. Either they were never given a chance to be good or they were nerfed to uselessness. It's just sad.

I'm so tired of this balance team. A new gem that makes leveling easier and tops out at 300k DPS with a *ton* of investment? No god-damned way! Allowing builds to do 800k elemental DPS with 120% combined penetration and resistance reduction? Totally fine! It's beyond explanation.

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鬼殺し wrote:

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sherkhan wrote:

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Whether this means late July or early August is too early to predict at this stage.

Summer's a good time to be away from the computer.

Agreed. A pity that sentiment in regards to this release time only applies to half the world.

Indeed. It's winter down here now...GGG chose winter for them to work hard and to not miss out on the short summer here :D

It feels a bit like 'Perfect Agony' is balanced around the Assassin's ability to get 100% more damage for poison from crits. I saw the advantage of crit multi for poison/ailments so far but it didn't seem to be much different from the 'normal' advantage of crit builds over non crit builds. In fact, in damage calculations it was favorable to use other support gems over increased crit damage - so can it be that broken? Maybe I have to reconsider my calculations.

I am totally unhappy with these changes to gems.

Let me start with:

"We're almost happy with the potential levels of ignite and poison damage available as a result of heavy investment at higher levels, so we will be working on fine tuning these options and the tools to influence them throughout progression."

First of all, poison is NOT ok as it is and needs only "little tweaks". Hell, which game did you play and which (one and only) build?! At least this is not the truth not for the builds I am thinking about - so my conclusion is: you just kill build deversity.

This for sure is the ugliest part of your point of view. The all - in - all mindset of this news leads me personally to not playing on in the beta.


Secondly nerfing decay that heavly as only reaction on the only useful gem for leveling (while planning on doing poison) is a desaster.

I better stop. This is just too much.

Edit: After re-reading the news I came to the descision that we are playing different games and I am out of your beta as I am just getting angry about your reactions. I love POE, no question. But we are really on different sides of the medal.

Thanks for the update, could we also get an update on the ES situation and how ES is in beta?

The time between the legacy league's normal end date and the FoO expansion release is so long, wouldn't it have been better to have another 3-month challenge league in between?... Did this go wrong with your initial thoughts on when FoO could be released?

Thanks for the microtransaction system update, really cannot wait to see this!

LOVING the beta so far. You guys just keep on delivering. When you fix MTX Ill give you 5 stars and rate you 10/10 on amazon.

I'm very happy with brutality only boosting physical damage while disabling elemental and chaos damage. It seems very fitting to the gem theme. I love weapons and physical spells dealing physical damage alone (no chaos or elemental and all those glittery stuff), coupled with bleeding, stuns or leeching.

As for the rest of the changes, I have no idea of what to think about, I'm not in beta and didn't test anything.

I just want to mention that I think the Pantheon System is very underwhelming. It seems disappointing to me that the gods of Wraeclast are only able to provide those insignificant and very situational buffs. Situational buff need to be bigger buffs or people won't bother to pay attention to them. It seems the only decent buff is the Brine King's, it is by far much better than anything else on that board.

I wish we would go Megaman a bit on this Pantheon System. You know? In many Megaman games we can use the power of a boss against another boss, one is stronger or weaker against another. But since the sequence of gods cannot be changed because the progression through the acts are linear, this is not possible nor relevant. It's a pity.

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The Fall of Oriath next year like i said, beta has been dogshit so far and well even beta is having delays atleast they are working hard on the xbone :)

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There's also something I loved about the Lord's Labyrinth and that's its secret passages (even if I generaly hated the lab for it's traps (and due to the fact that I hate labyrinths in any game, not only PoE)). I am an adventurer/explorer type of gamer, I have passions for unlocking all secrets, knowing all there is to know, discovering not-obvious stuff... I am knowledge-driven. I love mysteries and being rewarded for looking for and discovering mysteries. When I started playing PoE, I tried to complete/discover 100% of all areas (the mini maps), exploring every corner there is, before I realized that I wouldn't find anything different or special or be recompensated in any way by doing this. Has anyone played Castlevania? Castlevania games are amazing with their secret passages and rewards for completing maps. I loved how I tried many different stuff in Castlevania games and was frustrated many times until I finally managed to discover a new secret, it felt satisfying. I feel like PoE could compensate people for exploring more, I wish there would be more hidden passages just like the labyrinth's outside the labyrinth, it would be amazing.

Majority here clear up to probably t10s and go OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS GEM IS OP god where the fuck is Neon.