New Brand Gems and Brand Changes in Path of Exile: Harvest

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MandrulDuce wrote:

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Wissle wrote:

Can someone please unironically explain what makes the changes bad or why you think that will kill brands entirely? I don't know the mechanics that this apparently ruined now?

I get that the "brand returns to where it was placed when enemy dies instead of dropping where the enemy died" is a nerf, but I cannot judge the magnitude and for the rest I lack the insight as well...

TLDR: The changes to brand recall alter the play style to a generic self cast skill and destroys the identity of brands.

Long rant:

Let us staart with what they wanted to address with this nerf... the interaction between archmage support skill and storm brand. Archmage transforms the cost of the brand from flat mana to a percentage of your unreserved mana and adds lightning damage based on the amount of flat current mana cost of the brand.
The interaction created is broken because what ends up happening is you cast ridiculously expensive brands (90%-ish of a 10+K mana pool) at the start of a map and then use a cheap brand recall skill to basically carry around those extreme cost brands throughout the whole map (with enough cooldown recovery on brand recall you would cast it often enough that the 1.2 seconds refreshed duration it gave to brands would make the decay in their duration almost non-existent).

And now to answer your question in longer version:
With brand recall you had a more chilled play style more on the passive side. You would basically run around with brand recall on your left mouse button and cast it on cooldown and kill packs. To some it seems boring while others prefer a more relaxed play style. The option was there though.
There was a downside thoug because you needed to invest a bit in brand recall. To get it to a place where you can recall brands pack-to-pack and refresh their duration often enough to recast them very very rarely, you need a 3L with recall-second wind-empower with all of them max lvl. (there may be other ways to do it but this is what I've seen most often)

Now... all changes they made to address the archmage - brands interactions are good. Having brand recall inherit a portion of the mana cost of the brand is a natural and good change.
Lowering the 1.2 seconds duration that brand recall gave to brands would also be fine so that you have to cast your brands ocasionaly (like maybe 10 times a map ?!). What they did with removing it completely is that now you will have to cast your brands EVERY pack. And they fall off somewhere random (like a misplaced trap that never got triggered by mobs)

So, if you have to cast your brands every pack why not play any other self cast spell (with a tone of them being more powerfull than brands)? Just for the visuals?

And that is basically imho the problem. They nerfed an interaction with a support gem by gutting a play style which it seems they are condemning because it is more passive. Which is a shame and unnecessary

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f1rstborn wrote:

RIP archmage brand. Fun skills are always gutted by GGG.