Dexterity, fixing Ranged vs Melee, fixing totems...etc Solutions. QARL & GGG PLZ READ

"

RogueMage wrote:

If you're going to advocate for Point Blank, please don't misrepresent it this way. Point Blank doesn't force you to close to melee range to do 100% damage, it grants you up to +50% more damage bonus for getting closer than mid-range. This gives sturdy ranged fighters an incentive to close in for the kill. It's a buff, not a penalty - that's why it's a Keystone!

Point Blank only reduces projectile damage when you shoot at long-range targets. It makes intuitive sense for human-powered projectiles to work this way and it balances out the defensive advantage of remaining outside the fray with a proportional reduction in damage. In addition, Point Blank gives ranged fighters protection against off-screen Reflect auras, one of the most insidious threats they currently face.

I wasn't advocating the point blank keystone. I took the whole "distance based on dmg thing", but did it differently.

Your idea of the point blank keystone applying to projectiles would give ranged characters more dmg upclose for no reason whatsoever. They would still be able to offscreen things, but just at a slower rate.

My "point blank" version makes it so no ranged character can ever offscreen anything ever again. You have to be close to deal 100% of your dmg. This puts melee at an advantage always. Melee will be close, so they don't have to worry about dmg effectiveness based on distance. Ranged will.

If they want the "dps" that's shown on their character sheet, then they'll have to be at point blank range, literally. Not point blank the keystone. I meant point blank in a literal sense, which is based on dmg effective per distance. Point blank being up close and 100% dmg, with the effectiveness decreasing the further away you are from the enemy.

That's the reason for the picture. To show what I meant.

"

UnderOmerta wrote:

Point blank on all ranged attacks is a seriously bad idea. All you're doing is pulling everyone into desync and melee range, which forces everyone to spec the same way for defenses, and further homogenizes an already homogenized skill tree.

Also, spells by their very nature need to be spec'd differently than attacks. Spells can't miss, and GGG has compensated this by making their damage scaling notably worse than attacks. That means most spellcasters have to spend more points than attackers in getting additional crit nodes and crit multiplier rather than just slapping on resolute technique and focusing predominantly on survival. If you force spellcasters (particularly those that can't afford shavs for the insane RF boosts) to all get into melee range, then you're effectively overpenalizing the class and making everyone have a bad experience.

I don't mean point blank keystone, but point blank based on a distance/dmg effeciveness. In the sense that point blank 100% dmg effectiveness, and going further away reduces that effectiveness to 0%. So ranged can never offscreen anything.

Forcing spellcasters to get into melee range? So they can put themselves in danger like melee does? They can spec and have the same defense as melee, so they should also be put in dangerous situations like melee if they want full dmg at all times.

"

The evasion/frenzy charge buff has already been addressed. In the long rung, evasion and armor are both equally effective. Trying to dramatically change the effectiveness of frenzy charges and/or dex would make the stat overpowered. The reason why dex characters weren't as appreciated before was because the pure dex character (the ranger) had an absolutely awful starting tree. It's since been buffed and more players are figuring out ways to exploit some of the absolutely insane nodes there. And you can bet there will be more evasion/dex-based characters because of it.

No, evasion and armor are not equally as effective. People need to stop with the "50% armor = 50% evasion thing". ARMOR SCALES TO MUCH HIGHER NUMBERS EASILY WITH LITTLE EFFORT. Not the same with evasion. You can become almost immune to physical from most mobs save rares/bosses. Try doing that with evasion. Physical dmg in maps gets out of control, and taking 100% of it all the time can leave you dead quick.

"

The totem buff is way overboard. You're essentially destroying all viability of totems simply because of one very powerful totem spec. Which other totem spec is near as strong as dual spork? You can make other totem builds good, but you can make their self-cast versions just as good. The main reason why people are willing to build totem specs is for metagame reasons (magic find) and/or to avoid one of the most damaging mechanics in this game (reflect). Both of these issues are problems in and of itself and do not really relate to the totem issue.'

Destroying all viability of totems? Are you serious?

Al I keep hearing is "I won't be able to spam totems mindlessly anymore with this change". This shows me 95% of players, or probably more, don't know what it feels like to play totemless. You're so used to spamming decoy at the sight of any mob you don't know how the game is when you can't hide behind skellie/decoy totems.

You do realize, most likely you don't, that without totems you PULL 100% AGGRO AND TAKE 100% DMG? There is absolutely nothing to hide behind. You've never played totemless, so i can understand why this change would be huge for you.

Sporkers would also never be able to clear an entire map without seeing the enemies anymore.

"

A lot of this thread reeks of "Why does your spec have nice things that mine can't? Nerf them all" jealousy, honestly.

Lol, anyone can build any character so how is that jealousy. Lol, as if anyone "owns" any build and no one else can copy them.

I simply want balance, risk/reward, players making choices. Do you?

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

Can you answer the question I posed earlier

Can you give me 1, and I only need 1, reason why you wouldn't want to spam totems (be it skellie/zombie/decoy) 24/7? What is the downside to not wanting to use totems? What makes someone say, "No I don't want to use totems"?

"

The easier you get the damage, the more resources you have to focus on the survivability. Increasing melee damage is the most elegant method for increasing melee survivability; it just works in an indirect way.

More dmg does not increase the amount of dmg you can take. Yes, killspeed can increase survivability, but you'll still need to be able to take a hit. The last thing you want is melee chars going around 1-shotting everything. Their dmg is good. Increasing it further won't increase the thing they need most, survivability.

"

Real_Wolf wrote:

So much wrong with this thread, I feel bad for wasting Qarl's time if he read it.

ON a sidenote, not going to bother going over in depth what you have done wrong here. Once more you has assumed evasion is bad. You have also misunderstood how other things work. You compared the frenzy charge buff with the end/power charge, not noticing that the power charge buff is useless, and builds which use powercharges on spells don't even bother grabbing it its so weak, unless they want to go through it to the passive above.

But mostly, my point has been more elegantly put by other people. Your grasp of evasion is lacking, it is stronger than armour in a large number of cases. Dex itself is weak, but its not the evasion stat that is weak, but the accuracy. Saying that accuracy is useless because of Rt is like saying health is useless caus of CI, so why have health on str. Or mana useless on int because of Bm.

So much wrong here

Oh please explain to me how evasion works. I'm so clueless on the issue.

I hope you're not talking about your facebreaker character, who doesn't spend a lick of a point in offense, and who's also holding a shield, and who's also using stun immune cyclone. I also hope you're not talking about docks/lunaris runs. I really hope not.

So plz explain to me how evasion works. I await your words of wisdom.

Did you even read this thread or did you just see my name and decide to rant?

What does the "power charge being useless", in you opinion, have anything to do with the fact that it incraeses your spell dmg by 2% per power charge regardless of the monster your facing, and how the evasion counterpart is based on monster lvl and scales heavily because of evasion scaling?

DEX is weak cause of the accuracy bonus? Have you ever created a DEX heavy character? DEX's problems is not accuracy, but that it does not increase your primary survivability. Lemme guess, the evasion bonus from DEX increases primary survivability? You're about to explain to me how great evasion is so I'm eagerly awaiting for what you have to say.

Lol, check again. I said accuracy is useless to you if you use RT or spells, which is obviously true, and not "accuracy is useless because of resolute technique". How does that equate to saying "Health is useless cause of CI" O_o? That analogy doesn't even...

I'm asking a serious question, sarcasm aside, did you actually read this thread? or are you acting out of spite for me from the last thread?

I'm entirely behind anything that would make DEX a real stat.

"

SoujiroSeta wrote:

I don't mean point blank keystone, but point blank based on a distance/dmg effeciveness. In the sense that point blank 100% dmg effectiveness, and going further away reduces that effectiveness to 0%. So ranged can never offscreen anything.

Forcing spellcasters to get into melee range? So they can put themselves in danger like melee does? They can spec and have the same defense as melee, so they should also be put in dangerous situations like melee if they want full dmg at all times.

The entire point is that you CAN'T expect them to build to be tanky like melee, and this whole suggestion seems to point to your ignorance as to how casters even work. Casters can't just level up their gems, put on good gear, grab resolute technique, and clear maps. Casters need crit and crit multiplier in order to deal good damage. The only real exception to this is EK, which is mediocre at best (and that may be putting it mildly) in parties.

You thinking that casters can just 'build themselves tanky' is absolutely hilarious. The only caster builds that can regularly achieve this is EK (because they're already tanky and don't crit) and FP (because they go ahead and freeze/chill/stun everything near them anyway).

"

SoujiroSeta wrote:

No, evasion and armor are not equally as effective. People need to stop with the "50% armor = 50% evasion thing". ARMOR SCALES TO MUCH HIGHER NUMBERS EASILY WITH LITTLE EFFORT. Not the same with evasion. You can become almost immune to physical from most mobs save rares/bosses. Try doing that with evasion. Physical dmg in maps gets out of control, and taking 100% of it all the time can leave you dead quick.

Nobody says they scale the same way. Your assumption is that 1 point of evasion is functionally expected to compete with 1 point of armor. This is hardly true at all. The evasion equation is public thanks to Qarl. Run the calculations of 1k accuracy vs 10k evasion and look at the damage mitigation.

No one out there is regularly dying to plain white mobs unless their build is bad. Armor is systematically less effective against large damage hits than evasion is. You can look up plenty of research on the subject.

"

SoujiroSeta wrote:

Destroying all viability of totems? Are you serious?

Al I keep hearing is "I won't be able to spam totems mindlessly anymore with this change". This shows me 95% of players, or probably more, don't know what it feels like to play totemless. You're so used to spamming decoy at the sight of any mob you don't know how the game is when you can't hide behind skellie/decoy totems.

You do realize, most likely you don't, that without totems you PULL 100% AGGRO AND TAKE 100% DMG? There is absolutely nothing to hide behind. You've never played totemless, so i can understand why this change would be huge for you.

Sporkers would also never be able to clear an entire map without seeing the enemies anymore.

Most of my game experience has been without totems. Secondly, you don't "PULL 100% AGGRO AND TAKE 100% DMG" without totems. You kite, you throw traps to separate mobs, you frost wall, etc.

Your solution is simply that EVERYONE should play like this and that somehow increases diversity. This is laughable. According to you, if we force everyone to play like you do, then we achieve diversity. LOL.

"

SoujiroSeta wrote:

Lol, anyone can build any character so how is that jealousy. Lol, as if anyone "owns" any build and no one else can copy them.

I simply want balance, risk/reward, players making choices. Do you?

Your suggestions don't achieve balance, as I've already stated. Why don't they achieve balance? Because you yourself lack a fundamental understanding of how different classes play. You need to play more alts with different playstyles, some melee, some ranged, some totem builds (non-spork, preferably) and look at the difficulties of each style. I've seen melee builds that are pretty faceroll, ranged builds that are pretty faceroll, and totem builds that are pretty faceroll. I've also seen any of those fail horribly. You have to understand WHY people make the decisions they do, and not simply react to results.

I like the totem idea but not thepoint blank too much. Bows are mostly op bc of attack speed with elemental scaling. Then theres the LA Chain thing that hits like 36 times with 1 shot. Weapon elemental should be melee elemental and la should hit 0-3 extra targets. It would go along with the whole lightning spike damage theme. The distance thing can apply to leeching. If you are tanking things, you leech more.

Why not put single totems on a timer like with traps. Ancestral Bond can summon 2 totems with no timer but you take a % of the damage because you are bonded with those totems.

Edit: also acrobatics should roll a 1-100% crit extra damage reducer when crit. Same with phase. That would make it viable.

"

Necrogue wrote:

I like the totem idea but not thepoint blank too much. Bows are mostly op bc of attack speed and elemental scaling. Then theres the LA Chain thing that hits like 36 times with 1 shot. Weapon elemental should be melee elemental and la should hit 0-3 extra targets. It would go along with the whole lightning spike damage theme. The distance thing can apply to leeching. If you are tanking things, you leech more.

Why not put single totems on a timer like with traps. Ancestral Bond can summon 2 totems with no timer but you take a % of the damage because you are bonded with those totems.

Edit: also acrobatics should roll a 1-100% crit extra damage reducer when crit. Same with phase. That would make it viable.

LA is not even necessarily the best bow skill in the game. Nerfing it doesn't really do much except as a token gesture to, "we want act like we nerfed bows."

What is better then? Roa is good but only with the ele scaling.

Edit: i think the safety that ranged abilities offer more of an issue than damage. Also thanks for not jumping on the CI is OP witch hunt bandwagon. Get it witch hunt hahaha!... o_o anyway skills play a role there too. CI melees get rhaped just as hard as life melees.

Sorry for the wait. Been busy with helping my parents on their property.

"

UnderOmerta wrote:

The entire point is that you CAN'T expect them to build to be tanky like melee, and this whole suggestion seems to point to your ignorance as to how casters even work. Casters can't just level up their gems, put on good gear, grab resolute technique, and clear maps. Casters need crit and crit multiplier in order to deal good damage. The only real exception to this is EK, which is mediocre at best (and that may be putting it mildly) in parties.

You thinking that casters can just 'build themselves tanky' is absolutely hilarious. The only caster builds that can regularly achieve this is EK (because they're already tanky and don't crit) and FP (because they go ahead and freeze/chill/stun everything near them anyway).

Lol Wait what?!?!?!

Casters/archers can build have access to the exact same tree melee has access to.

Casters/archers have access to the exact same gear melee has access to.

This is one of the problems, with POE, that stems from the free open ended way it was built. This "infinite freedom" is why the disparity exist.

In other games, mages/archers would be premade as squishy classes by default. Their gear would have lower values than melee, they would have less health, and less defenses. They can't afford to get hit.

And yet, you're telling me about "my ignorance as to how casters work". I'm asking you if you know how POE works?

Are we talking about different games cause it seems like it?

"

Nobody says they scale the same way. Your assumption is that 1 point of evasion is functionally expected to compete with 1 point of armor. This is hardly true at all. The evasion equation is public thanks to Qarl.

My assumption? What assumption?

Everytime people talk about armor vs evasion they always pull up the "50% evasion = 50% armor" thingy. That's what I said that. That doesn't mean I assume 1 pt evasion = 1 pt armor. Heck even if you were to look at it as 1pt evasion vs 1pt armor, armor would flat out wisn as armor characters can get their % physical reduction to much higher values than evasion characters with ease.

"

Run the calculations of 1k accuracy vs 10k evasion and look at the damage mitigation.

What are you talking about? I hope you're not about to theory craft on me, which seems to be how most people talk about evasion.

"

No one out there is regularly dying to plain white mobs unless their build is bad. Armor is systematically less effective against large damage hits than evasion is. You can look up plenty of research on the subject.

Lol, if you've used evasion, you'll know that white/blue/rare mobs are you're biggest threat. People always talk about those 1-1 situations, which are too few and in between, and also not realizing that you have to get there first. You worry about the boss when you get to the boss, but first you have to deal with the waves of enemies that approach first. Sorry, but I'd rather have something that is good 99% of the time, and not so good 1% of the time (boss fight with armor), than have something that can help 1% of the time, and be terrible 99% of the time. People also seem to forget that the boss will still hit you even with evasion. 1-1 scenarios with evasion are not freebies like people seem to think.

Unless you're spamming totems or specced into block chance or attacking from a distance. I guess then you can say evasion is working.

I don't even care about evasion entropy anymore. If I had my way I'd remove it entirely and change the system back to rng with higher evasion values.

I just want DEX to be a primary stat. This will make the entropy system manageable.

"

Most of my game experience has been without totems. Secondly, you don't "PULL 100% AGGRO AND TAKE 100% DMG" without totems. You kite, you throw traps to separate mobs, you frost wall, etc.

Your solution is simply that EVERYONE should play like this and that somehow increases diversity. This is laughable. According to you, if we force everyone to play like you do, then we achieve diversity. LOL.

Most? What does "Most" mean? That's vague. For all I know you could use totems 100% of the time and you'll still tell me "Most". For all I know you could use totems 95% of the time, and you'll still consider that as most.

I don't use totems at all. When in a multiple projectiles map and I enter a room and see a rare alchemist surrounded by blue alchemists and blue poison arrow archers I don't put a totem down when I need it "most". No. I have to be a bit more creative in disbanding the room. Especially considering the fact that I'm also melee and have to be point blank to deal dmg. I don't have an easy button like you.

Wait what?! you don't pull 100% and take 100% of the accompanying dmg from hits that land when you play totemless? Lol, it's clear you have never played withou totems.

You kite you say? Ahh, kiting is great. Every learns to do it. That won't save you when you're totemless though. If you think kiting and throwing traps is the answer to playing totemless then you've never experienced the game without totems.

I also have a feeling you play ranged. So not only do you spam totems, you're off-screening waves of mobs before you even see them. Heck you don't even care what you're attacking. You just put a totem down and fire 4 screens away.



Now I will ask you a question that hasn't been answered in this thread yet, plz don't dodge it. It's quite simple really:


Can you give me 1, and I only need 1, reason why you wouldn't want to spam totems (be it skellie/zombie/decoy) 24/7? What is the downside to not wanting to use totems? What makes someone say, "No I don't want to use totems"?

"

Your suggestions don't achieve balance, as I've already stated. Why don't they achieve balance? Because you yourself lack a fundamental understanding of how different classes play. You need to play more alts with different playstyles, some melee, some ranged, some totem builds (non-spork, preferably) and look at the difficulties of each style. I've seen melee builds that are pretty faceroll, ranged builds that are pretty faceroll, and totem builds that are pretty faceroll. I've also seen any of those fail horribly. You have to understand WHY people make the decisions they do, and not simply react to results.

Lol, funny you say this considering the amount of builds I had in closed beta. That's okay though, you're allowed to think freely. However that may be.