Character Balance in Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra

[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.

Well, I've long white-knighted pretty much for GGG, and often supported things like harvest nerfs etc because of item balance being skewed so much. This time I feel I need to voice disappointment. I was expecting a huge balance pass after having nothing to savour last league (which consequently I skipped). This seems very underwhelming and there's some very odd changes here, even though some defensive changes did need to be made... but a complete lack of skill changes. I really hope there is more balancing to skills than I can see here in the patch notes but it doesn't feel like that will be the case in context of the wording beforehand. Sounds more like an ongoing process. I'm almost sure I've heard this before. It feels like we're going in circles. Hoping something special happens between now and league launch.

GOLEMS! GOLEMS Everywhere hahaha, the league name should be Lake of Golems hahaahah! Nice, excited for the next league :).

Hi ds_lily! haha kkkk