So, Vaal pact nerf?

"

grepman wrote:

have you ever realized that 6k hp is squishy as fuck for a melee build with no investment in defense ?

Riiiight. Show me how you're planning to invest in defence on ranger or better shadow and also reach at least 6k hp without Kaom's.

"

shaunika90 wrote:

"

Shppy wrote:

"

1453R wrote:

HA HAAHH!!

Gotta say, that was a satisfying rant to read. And I pretty much agree; as vindictive as it sounds, it's gonna be fun to watch the people that think the game is impossible without vp squirm and cry.

nobody said it's impossible, we'Ll just all go serker slayer totem and miner

What we're complaining about is build diversity. Ranged or slayer, much variation.

So did they buff monster damage this time? Maybe even more one-shot mechanics? To make sure you really don't want vaal pact ANYWAY? I still don't feel like i don't need insta-leech in this game..

"

Shppy wrote:

"

1453R wrote:

HA HAAHH!!

Gotta say, that was a satisfying rant to read. And I pretty much agree; as vindictive as it sounds, it's gonna be fun to watch the people that think the game is impossible without vp squirm and cry.

Oh yeah, I know I'm being a total dick. Sadly I can't really find it in my blackened little demonic heart to care, given how much utter horseshit the Speed Clear guys have shoveled on everyone else for so long now.

Don't get me wrong; now that Vaal Picnic's finally been addressed we really should start looking at whether certain things enemies can do are too spiky for typical play. Reflect could use a going-over like Volatile Blood got, and certain specific critters might mebbe be in need of a tone-down.

But man, watching all these folks raise such a ruckus over problems that, for the most part, everybody else has already solved is just fun. Frustrating too, but still fun. I'm not even that awesome a player and I can deal with the crap they're all citing as being Totes Legit Impossible[TM] on any build I actually put a modicum of effort into.

I mean c'mon, folks were complaining about white packs being dangerous! White packs! They're all "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO AFK FACEROLL A BREACH DOUBLE BEYOND T16 MAP WITH MULTIPLE DAMAGE MODS WHILE LISTENING TO A MATHIL STREAM AND OGLING PORN WITHOUT VAAL PACT?!", and it's like...they can't even hear how utterly ridiculous that sounds! Like certain things aren't supposed to be incredibly strenuous and dangerous, a real test of your abilities! It's almost like the randomized map system was meant to occasionally produce a little slice of living Hell for masochistic people to enjoy or something!

It's awesome!

I haven't really bothered with the vaal pact, high ehp, millions of dps, 0 defense meta because getting momentarily interrupted and then exploded by something is pretty frustrating in HC. Nevertheless I managed to do guardians/shaper with several budget builds and am not sure what you guys are on when you say that without vaal pact you can't play up close. There are plenty of options, and frankly most of the skills/builds that I wouldn't view as overly safe are ones that wouldn't be able to make good use of vaal pact anyways.

Try going max block with kintsugi, fortify, and some evasion. Or 8 endurance charge jugger with the bonus fortify, reduced elemental taken, and ahn's heritage. Or duo curse with curse nodes, quality gems, a helmet enchant, and flasks. All of those are extremely hard to kill in almost any situation. Perhaps there are a few choice attacks that you won't be able to facetank and leech through, but it's probably for the best that you can't sleep through anything and everything even in the furthest of end game content... Having some investment in these builds will allow them to be clearspeed monsters even with the heavy defenses.

Anyway the vaal pact location is pretty weird, and I wonder if Slayer will see any changes because of it. I built a Slayer for this league that would have had 10k life and a little over 6k life regenerated/leeched per second with just the Hematophagy cluster. With this new vaal pact I'd be regenerating more than 100% of my life per second. Sounds little different from the previously nerfed ES vaal pact caster builds and that's why I assume something is going to happen.

"

Shppy wrote:

"

1453R wrote:

HA HAAHH!!

Gotta say, that was a satisfying rant to read. And I pretty much agree; as vindictive as it sounds, it's gonna be fun to watch the people that think the game is impossible without vp squirm and cry.

Same, lol. This thread has been gold. Keep the nerfs keep coming!

"

unTop wrote:

Anyway the vaal pact location is pretty weird, and I wonder if Slayer will see any changes because of it. I built a Slayer for this league that would have had 10k life and a little over 6k life regenerated/leeched per second with just the Hematophagy cluster. With this new vaal pact I'd be regenerating more than 100% of my life per second. Sounds little different from the previously nerfed ES vaal pact caster builds and that's why I assume something is going to happen.

I'm not really an expert on Slayers, so I am interested to hear your explanations on how you intend to raise the default leech cap of 20% of max life per second to over 100%.

"

unTop wrote:

...
With this new vaal pact I'd be regenerating more than 100% of my life per second. Sounds little different from the previously nerfed ES vaal pact caster builds and that's why I assume something is going to happen.

"100% of Life Leeched Per Second" still isn't "You Leech Life Instantly". it still places a limit on what Leech can do for you - stand in a Shaper beam on top of a Shaper rift and I doubt your 100% Life Leech cap will save you. And frankly, even then it should be okay to make builds that are really, really good at leeching. Thing is, it requires investment now. You need to take Hematophagy, the whole Duelist cluster, other leech nodes, other leech sources - it takes more than "I click Vaal Pact on the skill tree, I am now immortal".

That's fine. Investment should be rewarded, there's no reason not to allow players to make builds that have very high leech. They should just have to pay for it, the same way everyone else has to pay for their defenses, and similarly they should have to respect leech rules the same way everyone else does.

"

unTop wrote:

Try going max block with kintsugi, fortify, and some evasion..

Oh i tried some sort of max-fortify no-insta-leech build. 20 minutes to fully clear a single map.. no thanks. It feels terrible!

"

I'm not really an expert on Slayers, so I am interested to hear your explanations on how you intend to raise the default leech cap of 20% of max life per second to over 100%.

Right, I took a look and the issue was that in my initial post I added my leech per second with my regen per second and then simply doubled it without thinking at all.