An Update to the Volatile Dead Helmet Enchantment

Good :)

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Scryer16 wrote:

Good :)

What so good about nerfing stuff mid-league ?

Doing this kind of balance change(please face it, to players it is definitely a not bug fix but a rebalancing update) mid league is definitely not the best approach. It will give the impression that dev can do whatever they want whenever they deem fit and doesn't care about players.

The enchant itself is extremely rare, one in hundreds. Due to its rarity and how much power it adds to that one skill, it became hot and expansive very quickly. A lot of players farmed very hard for almost two weeks to get this enchant(either ran lab themselves or purchased), on an assumption that they'll enjoy it at least for another couple months. Now whoever did the hard farming and think they can finally enjoy the chase item they were farming all the time for, are essentially told by GGG "you know this was way too op, you shouldn't have tried to chase such op items/mechanics. Sorry for your loss", Except without sorry for your loss part.

Players should not be paying for game maker's own mistake. In this case for many of us who did spend the time to farm that enchant like myself, we feel we did. Our time and effort spent on farming extensively for this enchant this early in the league were all wasted. For many of us, we essentially wasted most if not all of our currency. Mid league rebalancing did not happen to crit bv pf, worm flask, flameblast, df qotf nor to many other builds existed. Is doubling damage for volatile dead a worse problem than those? I believe a lot of players would say otherwise. For every player, this move is essentially sending a message: "if we think your build is too strong, you can expect your build to stop being that strong tomorrow". Please rethink about the decision!!!

850 comments on reddit and 30 pages here. Most people agree on the fact that rebalancing gameplay mid league is not a good idea. Could we have any commentary from dev team on it please?

8 Day after is mid league ?
So, 3 month later is what ?

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Dreamounette wrote:

8 Day after is mid league ?
So, 3 month later is what ?

Mid is not middle exactly. It means league has already started, doesnt matter 8 or 88 days.

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Dreamounette wrote:

8 Day after is mid league ?
So, 3 month later is what ?

thats not the point...
the point is that with such a move the whole economical aspect of poe is questonable.
why are there legacy items in the first place? why do they have to lie and call it a bug while +2 barrage was untouched way too long.
why is the obviously op elder jewel (with possible mods to be better than a whole ascendancy) in the game?

if they dont rethink this and handle it differently their position as a dev team which they worked for in the past is a joke.

i actually never thought i would take part in such a conversation but they have to rethink this and come up with a better solution.
and there are 2 obvious ones:

make it legacy or wait till the end of the league and do whatever they want...

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oztaahh wrote:

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Dreamounette wrote:

8 Day after is mid league ?
So, 3 month later is what ?

Mid is not middle exactly. It means league has already started, doesnt matter 8 or 88 days.

Its more along the lines of we have probably already hit 50% of the total hours played by all players for this league.

Hopefully this will be read by people and not just lost in the ocean of salt, but here goes...

The Poet's Pen is not overpowered. Volatile Dead is not overpowered. They are both new and fun, but far from OP. I've been playing this build since about the 3rd day of league and it's the most fun I've ever had in Path of Exile... and while I do not have the helmet enchant yet, I was going to buy it today as I had saved up the currency yesterday!

Here's the thing. The helmet enchant deserves a nerf. In fact I don't think this nerf goes far enough - compared to most other skill enchantments, uber lab provides +40% increased damage. This was offering +100% More damage, which is way out of line. Nerfing it to just +1 ball still is a +33% More damage boost - way out of line, still powerful beyond almost all other enchants.
As others have pointed out, perhaps it was not intended and somehow overlooked that these enchants made it into release with these stats. Perhaps it was somehow not noticed until the other day - this makes for suspiciously bad timing, considering the way meta shifts in this game with streamers. This build had *just* started to get picked up by popular twitch channels, etc. and gained a lot of traction, and is now getting nerfed partway through it's huge upswing of popularity. That's really fun-killing.
Nerfing something so severely during a league is an extra cold and cruel move. People have mentioned barrage enchant... those of us who have been playing longer can remember far more OP things. How about 100% chaos conversion spark, for example?
The helmet enchant needs nerfed, more than what GGG has posted, BUT it should wait until after the league to be consistent with other changes. As-is, it is strong, but calling it "overpowered" is farcical when in recent memory we have things like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr9bJ9VOt-A

Vaal pact, high ES pools, crazy OP flasks like vinktars and taste of hate, these all got nerfed finally. But it was between leagues and after being in for several leagues.
100% chaos conversion, double dipping nerfed, poison, ignite, etc., but after several leagues, and between leagues. I could go on, and on, and on...

Let's get to the real issue here, and what I believe to be the real reason for this change. GGG wants their boss fights to matter, and not be trivialized. This has been made clear by the recent huge buff to boss fights/boss HP, and by countless nerfs to things that scale to trivialize boss fights (like ignite double dip in the above video), vaal pact (also used in the above video), and nerfs to other skills such as SRS. Yes, summon raging spirit was nerfed way back in the day, and people cried like mad. Why? It was one of the best boss killing skills in the game, because just like VD, you could pre-cast all your damage. As the boss spawns, talks, does some cutscene-esque move, you are summoning 50 angry flaming skulls that will obliterate it. And back in the day when Atziri and uber Atziri was among the top and very end game content, as you all know, being able to push Atziri through her phases with high dps absolutely trivializes the encounter.
Now: I want you to watch these two videos and compare them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta-4h82IVIs (VD getting nerfed)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_gYTK4stac (GC got buffed this league lul)
Volatile Dead, Mines/Traps, Summon Raging Spirit, Blade Vortex, etc. - these abilities all share a common feature. You can pre-cast or pre-load the damage before the boss actually becomes available for dps. This is a tremendous advantage for any encounter that has phases, or any period where you are able to do this - which is MOST end-game content. Even boss rooms in general allow you to zone in and pre-cast before aggro-ing the boss itself. This is a design flaw that is not specific to VD, but the pre-loading of DPS that many other abilities can also do - in other words, a flaw in boss encounter design, not skill design! The fix is EASY and works against ALL of these abilities - stop allowing players to pre-load damage! Freeze them while the boss does his talking. A classic example is Izaro - you have like 20 seconds to muck around while his elevator rises.
"But this shifts balance in favor of front-loaded builds that have full dps from t=0 (like a cycloner), instead of my back loaded build that requires t=-10 to pre-load! (like summoning 20 srs or casting 20 blade vortex or exploding 40 corpses with VD)" Yes. But this can be addressed in other ways, with categorical changes to this dichotomy of skills when it comes to bossing.

TL;DR
Helmet enchant needs to be nerfed, more than what is being communicated.
Nerf should wait until league ends. As it stands it is hardly "OP".
Far more powerful things have been in the game for far longer, and enjoyed more equitable treatment.

This change is out of line with GGG's history of balancing the game, and feels very knee-jerk and "slap in the face". UNLESS this signals a precedent to a change in the way GGG will balance the game going forward... which does not seem to be a popular change...

Horrible way to approach it.

How to fix this so that you're not perceived as a scum bags.

1) existing versions will keep the 3 volatile until the season ends. Then they will be changed back to 1.

2) trading the helm will result in loosing 3 additional corpse enchant, reverting it to the 1 additional corpse.

1. Solves the issue of playing being screwed over during the season.
2. Solves the issue of playing forking out huge ex this early on for the item, that now will have it plummet in value. U spent 10,15, or 20 ex on a helm that's going to be worth 2-3 ex now. All that extra currency you just got robbed off.


How not to approach any future issues like this.

a) dont make a choice to fix something without considering all the parties involved
b) pick the solution that makes you the least enemies