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

In not sure, I have wasted so much time on numerous brand characters only for them to fade out and not be able to deal with end game content without serious investment.

"

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...

Take this thread with a grain of salt. This is 99% brand fanboys who think its okay to only have to cast brands one time in a map and then be able to rush through the map only using instant cast brand recall to keep their brands up indefinitely with out ever having to stop moving except to loot.

"

Head_Hunter_CFC wrote:

In not sure, I have wasted so much time on numerous brand characters only for them to fade out and not be able to deal with end game content without serious investment.

That's an effect of balancing skills around outliers (a few who invest fully into (usually stacking) some mechanic) - it requires everyone else to make insane investment or the build is useless. I wish GGG would balance the game around the median and just limit excessive multipliers and stacks instead.

Same as with temp chain HH, strength, dexterity, sluster jewel stacking - all the same mistakes repeated each patch...

"

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...

Brands were incredibly popular even before archmage. Good lord you people are insane.

"

PR1ME86 wrote:

This will kill the playstyle and identity of brands. Now it's a totem playstyle. I understand the nerf for brand recall, but destroying it is just a bad move.

Make it so that the duration refresh gets less and less, so you can recall like 3 times and then have to recast brands or something.

I was hyped about brands, but the hype went away reading this :(

I still can see the use of EK/Bladefall in a 3-4L and selfcast bladeblast 6L tho, but maybe it will just be clunky.

I love this argument. "Now they're just spell totems - except better in every way"

"

As a small change to remove some more of the potential passivity of Brands, Brands now return to their original or recalled location when dropped by monsters, rather than the dropped monster's location. This puts a greater focus on Brand Attachment Range, and prevents the Brand from disappearing into the distance while killing monsters you've yet to see.

There's already been a lot of comments about this in this thread... but I think this change is horrible.

I'm not arguing against changing things, but there's a happy medium here. Make it so that there's some distance a brand is allowed to chain away from its base location and have that modified by brand attachment range. But tethering it to the original location ONLY modified by attachment range really just turns brands into a spell totem. It kills the identity that makes brands fun... watching them rip through packs off of the screen is what makes them great.

I agree that they should have to be recast, and that's how I've typically played them. I don't care much for brand recall because I have to get too close to enemies, so I'm all for the changes to prevent infinite recalling.

Bottom line of my opinion: Brands need to be able to continue chaining from their currently occupied location, that is their entire defining feature.

Tying them back to where they were cast makes them too much like the mix of a spell totem and a trap.

Please reconsider this stuff GGG. Don't murder the brand playstyle just because you underestimated Archmage and (like normal) your community found a way to abuse brands.

"

Head_Hunter_CFC wrote:

In not sure, I have wasted so much time on numerous brand characters only for them to fade out and not be able to deal with end game content without serious investment.

Holy cow... what did you wrong? My first Stormbrand ever character, just deleted endgame in Delirium with like 5-10 Exalts...

UwU Acanist Brand UwU <3

"

GentleDirk wrote:

These changes are bad and you should feel bad

Not just another rant, I think many people here already hit the nail on the head with their explanation. I personally liked the brand playstyle and you removed that (and offering us another playstyle, which may or may not be better, but different) just because you didn't think archmage support all the way through.

If you feel like brand playstyle is too passive, have you ever played a minion build? Or totems?

All the while you're leaving in Harald stackers because that's more investment?

Nah, you just "oopsed" on the brand recall/archmage interaction and now you're overcorrecting

The solution was as simple and elegant as "Archmage, cannot support brand skills"

The end.

??

Totem play is far, far more active than brand play ever was. You actually have to recast totems as you run through a map, and you also have to recast them constantly in fights because they die.

Arc brand would work to? with alot chains O.o