What We're Working On

I've heard a lot of negative stuff about crackling lance but I'm really enjoying it. I started making my own build this league, and it was pretty mediocre up until I added impending doom to my conductivity, and that helped out A LOT. It's my poor man's Inpulsas.

The only thing my build struggles with is survivability. Standing still to shoot crackling lances is really dangerous, and losing charges when you use a travel skill further discourages me from moving around. If there is one thing I'd rework about the skill it would be that. I like pretty much everything else about it.

So yeah, that's my two cents.

Had a bug which prevented the last doors from opening by rogues in 2/2 of grand heist's wings, the button disapperead and no reaction followed. Tried running back, killing mobs, triggering Lockdown - none of this could return the button on it's place :(

I played Splitting steel and it feels great but sometimes inconsistent.
Also why is Call of Steel not a Warcry?
I tough this would be a fun method of more interactions with passives and what not.
And why is it so hard to scale the DMG on this skill and Physical Skills in general?
Best i saw is 1.8 Million DPS and this is small compared how high you can get with Elemental DMG and how easy to achieve this is.

Curses rework

Visuals - icons are smaller and in current POE (gfx vomit) completely unreadable. Previously one could EASILY tell what curse affected who. Currently - nope. it is all a blurr (and i play 4k so it is not 'potato computer effect'). Icons are also very similar, it is going to take some using to their new 'better' look. Also - very thin lines + bloom == completely unreadable icons. That design direction where everything looks like 5px flash font from early 2000's is questionable and puts serious strain on eyes

New skills - havent tried them, i do not see their point. curses are curses - power multipliers. Making them be that AND deal damage? Why? Whats the point? Not to mention that their power and design is railroad-y as hell where one version works (archmage ignite) and everything else is weak as hell.

What was the point of HexBlast anyway? Was there a niche to fill? Players seem to see it otherwise

Impending Doom is another story - it is something like bursty DOT you apply once and get paid in damage seconds later. Nice source of EXTRA damage. problem with that:

Doom mechanic

WTF is this? it is the most cryptic mechanic in POE, even leech is clearly described in tooltips (albeit it is convoluted for no reason). Doom on the other hand - it seems it got implemented D-1 and thus all the alt-tooltips are bland and generic, lacking any details.

You cannot see the doom level, you cannot see when the curse is going to expire - you cannot see anything. it is all guesswork, and guessing sux as a gamedesign principle. it takes players agency away - never a good thing

Specific Curse Reworks:

Marks are still best put on a ring. Self casting them is pointless, clunky and the benefit ('gain charges per quality') is.. you can live without it.
Nerfing them for some builds was a good idea but the execution of said idea failed.

Not to mention that Warlord's Mark is dead. There is no reason to use this skill ever. The leech is ok, but who doesnt have leech nowadays? Endu charge on hit? Who cares, Enduring Cry on LMB does that for everyone. Stun? What is stun? it is the thing removed in 3.11?

The best Mark is still AssMark, nothing changed. The best way of using it - ring with mark on hit.

In that aspect the rework is a flop. Poacher's Mark might be ok but why flat phys?

Punishment rework is criminal. What is the point of this curse? Summoner's curse? Because it used to be (weak) melee curse - right now it is 100% pointless for melee so what is the reasoning behind it?

otherwise nothing really changed - you still want to automate curses as sources of %more damage and not care about self casting them. Game is so fast-paced that asking people to self cast anything to get barely 5% better result is a sad joke. The passives are also rather unimpressibe. There going to be builds (or rather ONE build) that makes it all work but for general use, in broad selection of builds - curses are the same, self-casting them is pointless and the less you think about them the better.

In this terms - i think this rework is a failure.

Not sure if you are still reading this post, but still.
I started this league with Hexblast, and while it feels good on clear, it really lacks in single-target department.

The main issue is: Maximum Doom is too small.

The skill cannot be scaled in any usual ways:
1)Base crit is 4% so crit scaling is obviously a poor choice. (unless you are playing assassin, but why are you playing hexblast at this point?)
2)It is a one-two like ED Contagion, but ED has DoT multi.
3)It is a chaos skill, so flat stacking is nearly impossible too.

So supposedly you can build it in its unique way like DP and health, with its doom timer. But in reality it maxes out in a couple seconds, so you neither can spam it, nor you can build up for a big boom.

Please increase the maximum doom and make Hexablast great (again).

Nothing about the insane amount of damage in heists?

Seriously GGG, not one single word about a fix for KNOCKBACK? The whole Mechanic is broken atm and not working, Mobs get stuck in the enviroment, bosses aswell.
You can't finish Maps, Blight Encounters/Maps, Syndicate Members....
And you are not even calling this massive bug out? What is wrong with you guys?
Everyone! on my FL and everyone on reddit has it...

Delerium drops my fps to 1, fix that shit too. Thanks.

Thanks for putting in all the work

Didn't play first day but so far it's the smoothest league launch for me, hardly any problems at all, except that stash in harbour (MMO vibes were strong though), and maybe a few times rogues stuck at corners fighting mobs rather doing their damned job.

Overall good job! I'm not often to praise GGG but this time it's realy smooth and good job.