Character Balance in Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra

I don't get it.

About half of these are un-nerfing things that were destroyed by changes.
The other half are just nerfs to alternative players had to use instead.

You guys killed Flesh to Stone when you increased it's reverse cost.
You guys killed Wind Dancer when you changed it to One-shot Dancer.
You guys killed Blind investment when you changed the mechanic.

Lets be real here too. Sniper's Mark is the only good mark but it's not due to potion gain. I don't know where that thought came from. It's strong cuz more projectiles and Life on Hit.

Nerfing Defiance Banner is a repeat of Flesh and Stone. Players are just investing more and more into mana reservation to stack more auras in order to compensate these things.

Brittle actually makes sense though more than half effect is pretty gross looking for balance.
Please, just give up on the current Fortify. I would like to play a DoT melee this year.

There are no Strike or melee improvements in this at all and that's the playstyle hurting most in your game. I don't get it. I've played 2/3 melee since the game started. Not easy sometimes but right now I just don't wana bother. When can we at least having Enduring Cry back to a reasonable point?

Fixing bad choice nerfs is great but man, I was hoping for a lot more fixing.

not so sure those changes are what is actually needed :(

when I read the changes to CLEAVE to make it more competitive I almost fell off my chair...GGG, please wake up...

[Removed by Support] In a vacuum, a couple of these changes make sense, but youre going at it from multiple paths, just like you always do. There is a reason GGG is known for its terrible balance. You either slightly nerf something to where its still the strongest build in the game or you nerf it 3 different ways to make damn sure no one wants to play it.

Look at Defences. As a Hardcore Player, it is already hard to get Spell Suppression for any build on the left. Making it that much harder is just going to force people to play Shadows/rangers/Duelists. On top of that, Mana Reservation getting nerfed is absolutely bonkers. You JUST instroduced this so that people could use auras in such a way that aurs stacking wasnt a huge issue. So now you just take that away.

Guess the meta shift is going to be shofting to other games for a few months. (Or at least a few weeks, because we all know GGG is going to go back on these nerfs just like they did last time once they see how low their launch numbers are.)

Here's hoping you guys have any semblance of good news for the Patch Notes. Because youve been given an extra 3-4 months.to get this balance right and so far you have gotten a fat F.

"Reduce the power of a couple of overperforming minion skills, and increase the power of others, with the goal of providing more minion options that feel good to play."

Can we get this for melee pls? Melee hasn't been touched since Slam nerf.

I was hoping for a little more substantial buffs to underused skills and melee/strike skills than these few. I just want my beloved Frost Blades to be able to compete with Lightning Strike again :(

I appreciate the changes, but hope the full patch notes will make it far more comprehensive. Probably because there weren't any changes for Sentinel, I probably feel the changes should be twice as impactful.

i agree on lily's opinion 100% ggg. plus im here bcuz of her

Problem: MoM sucks
Solution: Make it suck more while letting us know they are aware that they suck at balancing MoM

self owning ftw

some good, some bad, some terrible... why touch minion builds that havent had a buff since they were last nerfed again... blanket theory crap is annoying. oh sorry to all the bandwagon and **** riders around here, who every patch say everything is GREAT.

Interesting. So flicking through I'm reading broad nerfs to defences, specifically aura stacking in general (reservation), Spell Suppression, Defiance Banner, Lifetap-based Blessings, Sniper's Mark, Melding of the Flesh, defensive flasks' uptime. Some lesser and a little niche buffs to Arctic Armour, Flesh and Stone, Evasion (very slightly), Ward, Fortify, damage recouped as life.

Detonate Dead fixed, and nerfs to minions (especially Skeletal Mages), the RF Fire Trap build, Seismic Trap (and other cooldown traps), Explosive Arrow, CWDT damage, Berzerker Lightning Strike (Brittle).

A nerf to Juggernaut and a TBC buff to Trickster. Omniscience nerfed, melee slightly buffed, but probably not enough to make it popular, although I'm a terrible PoE theorist. And some sundries.

I actually expected far more meta build nerfs, but the defensive nerfs are a bit of a surprise. I'm not sure the point buffs to certain defences are going to do much to increase defensive diversity. If Spell Suppression is meant to be the right side of the tree, I might have expected to see it disappear from gear other than pure Evasion but keep its current power from gear.

If these are all the major nerfs, I'm slightly surprised, and if this will come along with the revert of Archnemesis mods (one can hope), sign me up, it's a small price to pay and I'll be excited for the league content.

It'd be quite nice if the overall theme of the manifesto was more clearly stated, as I'm not sure I follow what the overall end goal is that these changes are working towards, what GGG are seeing, reacting to and aiming for, in terms of pacing and damage/reaction versus everything's-great-dead. Presuming that there is a bigger picture, and given the lack of commentary on Archnemesis since the day one patch last league. For instance, if the goal is to make the endgame harder to complete by inducing more deaths, causing more to be time spent gearing up or (for casual players) just not completing it. It might not be popular but it'd make it easier to follow along.