0.9.12 Information and Incomplete Patch Notes (Updated)

Thanks for help Zakaluka!

I'm not sure where or why was the current way without this cap a problem but I don't think this will affect any common builds.

What you can see in this thread is people who play a certain, overpowered kind of character having to face changes that will balance things out, but instead of accepting them they fall into a state of denial. It is a quite common sight in Betas and I can't say I haven't been at this point in other games I have tested myself.

Hilbert, what you are posting here is ridiculous and to be honest for me borderlines trolling, because certainly many things you say you cannot be serious about. Telling people that the summoner in its current state needs a buff is a joke. I have played summoners up to lvl65 and they are ridiculous in this game. I was not a single frikkin' time even close to dying. It simply cannot happen, at all. Not possible.

Do you think that should be the gyst of this game? To have an easy cookie-cuitter build that roflstomps through the game? I don't. I expect this game to be demanding, to force me to think, to create plans, strategies and I expect this game to kill me.

Why don't you just sit and wait? You cannot change the changes right now anyway. Provide feedback after they are in game and I am almost 100% certain that a lot of what you said might still be on your mind right after the patch...but a few weeks in you will have developed another strategy to use the summoner and be just as happy playing it. Maybe even more happy since now you have reliable minions following you around rather than those throw away skellies people kept spamming.

If however you are not into the role as a real summoner at all, but simply used skellies as meatshields...well then guess what? They were probably never meant to be purely that at all. Just use alternative means like frostwall or try to make use of decoy totems.

To sum up my thoughts considering your in detail critiques is that you really have lost sight of the in game balance at all. You just choose what makes your own build stronger and disregard the game as a whole. That is why usually closed Beta testers are hand picked by the devs to make sure they are not getting a players, but a testers advice.

That leads me back to what Charan said. As my above statement shows, I agree with most of your assessment on the necessary qualifications a Beta tester needs to have. That is the very same reason why a "P2B" (Pay to Beta) is problematic since you will get people with expectations. Expectations a paying customer has. Making clear to them what kind of product it is they just purchased often really doesn't help at all. Typical consumer mentality that drives most of us everyday and everyhwere. But people need to stop viewing the game from their in game toon's perspective. View the game as a whole and you will easily see how broken the current summoner was and it was (compared to what is to come) unfullfilling on top of it to just have a ton of disposable gqarbage as summons.

Being able to summon only two skeletons at once is a considerable nerf, but a well deserved nerf. The skill in its current state is horribly unbalanced, providing both considerable defense and offense at the same time and a fast rate.

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Hilbert wrote:

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And anyway, it's so broke that you can simply just summon 5 at a time on top of anything you're fighting. "Yes, Mr. Map Boss. I WANT you to kill my skeletons while I spam summon them. Thanks."

Why is it broken that's how you play a summoner except you need far more mana nothing will change.

That's just as if you would say "Omg the Bow Ranger is so broken it kills everything before it gets even close."
or "Omg they groundslammer takes no damage and kills everything 2-3 hits"

And let me guess your summoner is a witch with 1k+ mana and CI?

Uhh... It's broken because it IS broken. Seriously, have you actually played a summoner? Your whole post screams "I've never played a summoner before in my entire PoE life. I'm just hopping on here to cry about stuff for the sake of it."

I was able to down Cruel, Ruthless, and Merciless bosses in 30 seconds or less because SKELETONS. ARE. BROKEN. I'm not even being hyperbolic when I state that I actually downed Ruthless Vaal in less than 15 seconds thanks to skeletons.

Are you seriously going to try and compare that to rangers or ground-spammers? Something tells me you ar- oh wait, you did. LMFAO

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I have played summoners up to lvl65 and they are ridiculous in this game. I was not a single frikkin' time even close to dying. It simply cannot happen, at all. Not possible.

Do you think that should be the gyst of this game? To have an easy cookie-cuitter build that roflstomps through the game? I don't. I expect this game to be demanding, to force me to think, to create plans, strategies and I expect this game to kill me.

Then play Diablo 3 and die your way through inferno or play HC inferno and waste your time till you die.

Look at the handful of HC Players that are still playing as if the game would be already 5 years old.

Creating safe builds is a given in ARPGs also you have to consider that the devs try to reach a larger audience and not only "Pro Players" that can play 2 bullet hell games at the same time.
Creating a game where only such players succeed would be a financial disaster because normal players either die their way through(One of many things that made D3 a bad game) or normal HC players not being able to reach the EndGame for some time because they keep dying(Hello D3 HC[imagine there would be an Endgame])

You really think that a summoner is the only safe build?
10-12 K CI Casters(where can they die? There is no map mod such as player looses 10 ES each second.
5K Maradeurs/Duelists with 95% reduce that get only 100 damage while their regenation is about 300-400.

Rangers that leech their entire mana cost and taken damage with one shot(That's the only class that can die if the arrows don't hit)

Have you even seen more characters than a Shadow(which is underpowered) and a Maradeur(depending on the build is overpowered)

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Maybe even more happy since now you have reliable minions following you around rather than those throw away skellies people kept spamming.

Really the skeleton strategy only had to be used in the Crematorium map because most summons didn't follow. If you did it in other maps you could repeat to take the stairs till you had enough zombies with you.

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To sum up my thoughts considering your in detail critiques is that you really have lost sight of the in game balance at all. You just choose what makes your own build stronger and disregard the game as a whole. That is why usually closed Beta testers are hand picked by the devs to make sure they are not getting a players, but a testers advice.

The only thing summonskills need is an increased HP/Damage value in normal. In Cruel+ they work fine.

I see the game as whole just by looking at the statistics.
You can clearly see it doesn't matter if you take HC or Default.
In HC Maradeurs,Duelists and Rangers take 66% of the playerbase

While in default the Witch, Ranger and Maradeur take over 66% of the playerbase.

What do this statistics tell us? The witch is obviously a character that is harder to get to Endgame but once it got certain level there won't be a problem.

Maradeur and Ranger are highend Damage Output builds which clean maps within 3 minutes.

HC Duelists are common Maradeurcopies.

The devs could simply look at the Top 300 skill trees and see how many similar or identical builds exist.

You will see that skeletons are mainly abused by meleecharacters or Rangers with a Totem to have some decoys.

Or you wanna claim that those statistics are lies?


Also you have to consider that devs want to hear player opinions at the first place and have bugs reported.

If they want to test balance settings they could simply do the following. Give the player average items for certain levels and let him stat the character. Then they send the character into an open field or a small maze and check how fast he succeeds or fails. I guess you haven't participated in those betatestparts.

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Uhh... It's broken because it IS broken. Seriously, have you actually played a summoner?

Convictionist till III are Summon Templars.....

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I was able to down Cruel, Ruthless, and Merciless bosses in 30 seconds or less because SKELETONS. ARE. BROKEN.

My prior dualwielding duelist could beat Ruthless bosses within 2 strikes while normal mobs were one strike. And it doesn't take 15 seconds between 2 strikes.

My rangers shoots massmobs down with 2-3 arrows and bosses take ~10 sec.

Talk about balance issues now.

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I'm not even being hyperbolic when I state that I actually downed Ruthless Vaal in less than 15 seconds thanks to skeletons.

Create a video of it and I believe you.
Sorry but Vaal Ruthless takes at last 45 seconds with a high summoner and yet other overpowered builds beat him within 30 seconds.

Heres my summoner vs Merciless Vaal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6cllK1gL1M&feature=plcp

Notes:
1. Only took minimal damage from the falling ceiling and construct projectiles

2. Took just over a minute from the time I could damage it to the time it had zero health.

EDIT: Noticed this was with damage support gems, not IIQ/IIR as I had originally thought.

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Hojirozame wrote:

Heres my summoner vs Merciless Vaal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6cllK1gL1M&feature=plcp

Notes:
1. Only took damage from the falling ceiling and construct projectiles.

2. Took just over a minute from the time I could damage it to the time it had zero health.

3. IIRC, this was with IIQ/IIR support gems. I believe I could have done it quicker with +Minion Dmg, Added Elem Dmg and so on.

4. It could probably be done quicker by someone who actually knows what they're doing.

Yeah my first run on that game was a shadow, it was pretty hard, still i enjoyed it but couldn't go to the end game as he was melee ( WB/Fliker desync made him unplayable ).
Then i make a summoner witch and i really felt sorry for all the bosses, all of them really ( apart from Merveil first run who is able to one shoot your skellys, this wasn't fun neither. )

Now i understand the fact that summoning skellys by 2 may be boring ( if we need to spam them and don't be able to do much more ), but we'll have to see how it goes. More HP, more efficient and they'll follow us from the other aera which is a big buff already.

I'm not even sure that this nerf is designed for totems. It won't change that much. I guess totem should stop casting when you got your max skellys allowed on the field. IDK, but there's something wrong here for sure.

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Hojirozame wrote:

Heres my summoner vs Merciless Vaal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6cllK1gL1M&feature=plcp

Notes:
1. Only took minimal damage from the falling ceiling and construct projectiles

2. Took just over a minute from the time I could damage it to the time it had zero health.

Your build please :D

1.Witch not a Templar.-->High Mana build with good access to reduce mana skills.

2.Look at all the auras. That's where the damage comes from-->Simply half or quarter the Aura effect on minions and it's ok or just make 2 Auras useable at the same time.

3. Still gets one shot if hit by Vaals mace/ lightning-->AI Change forces this build to be far more defensive.


Look at the pics I posted in the bug forum and you see how my Templar looks like High HP average ES. Low mana only Discipline as Aura 2 Curse 3 Summon Hotkeys 1 Totem.


Also 2 min that's an OK time. I am still waiting to see 15 secs.

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chris wrote:

Please wait until you get a chance to play this version of the game before complaining about changes that you don't like.

Please...