One Week Nemesis Race Infographic

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irdunecat wrote:

As the matter of fact, now hardly anyone even plays hc\nemesis anymore, since most builds suck and dont stand a chance there nowadays.

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irdunecat wrote:

Sad part in this story is that judging by their actions, GGG loves when people die in their game, as it is their only way so far to keep the end-game balance alive. People have to die. One way or another. All possible options in the game have to be crap enough so that in the end, you would die, sooner rather than later.

And if not, they still have the dsync option, don't they.

That seems to be the master plan behind the game's balance so far. Everything has to be crap enough so you wouldn't hit 100 any time soon by any chance. And all available options should guarantee you die sooner than later.

And if you find a way around all that, there is always an option for league reset or nerf bat or passive tree rearrangement.

What this game needs imho is more flexible end-game options that wouldn't require the game to be crap enough to keep its balance alive.

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

nice little infographic thing.


In terms of skews to particular nodes, I would worry about balancing things in the game as a whole based on short events. Imo CI, hybrid ev + ar and full ev with acrobatics are all very strong, but far more gear dependent than taking IR.

IR and Resolute Technique are cheap nodes, if I was starting a new league tomorrow Id make a character with IR and possibly RT because is eases gear dependency, not because they are overpowered nodes. Once I had the gear to make a really op character after a week or two I would go for hybrid ar/ev or a ci build which would be far safer in high maps with ugly mods. I don't think IR and RT need nerfed, because theyre already more often than not a bad choice for a really high end op character, what I think is needed (if anything is really needed at all) is more ways for Evasion to be viable in this kind of environment.

The problem for Ev is that unless you are getting to extreme stages like Willy talked about earlier with high block, high ev, acro etc where you virtually never get hit, you need physical damage reduction. If you could make a node that sets your armour to 0 but alows you to use you're evasion rating to reduce phys damage, a 'roll with the punches' style node, 'glancing blows' as I think Chris called it would be good. I don't think it should be flat reduction on all hits, more of a slope off from the 'miss' to the 'hit' section of your evasion where in between you take hits at reduced levels fading from 0 damage to full damage.

But I think part of evasions problem is that the shadow is crap, thats also another factor that is stopping people going to the right. So is force of habit, so many times I see posts where people still think IR, US and RT are essential melee nodes and theyre really not, thats such a mental hangup from the early days of open beta, and also a symptom of people who have never got over that gear wall where those nodes will save your life on one side of the wall and then actually hinder you in a lot of cases once you are over it. I think one thing that can be done to help defeat this is to use the build of the week format to showcase a variety of builds that don't use these nodes.

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Therapist1 wrote:

I exclusively play Nemesis or HC races. And to your other post, yes GGG wants players to die. Death is a mechanic in game that has a purpose, you should NOT be able to just do whatever you want.

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Therapist1 wrote:

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irdunecat wrote:

As the matter of fact, now hardly anyone even plays hc\nemesis anymore, since most builds suck and dont stand a chance there nowadays.

I exclusively play Nemesis or HC races. And to your other post, yes GGG wants players to die. Death is a mechanic in game that has a purpose, you should NOT be able to just do whatever you want. I've lost a fair amount of 80+ characters and I love it. If you can build characters so that death is no longer a factor, HC and Nemesis become meaningless leagues. This is why there is an experience punishment upon death. This is working as intended and great game design. Personally you can get too much defensive in this game; and they need to make it more difficult; but that is just opinion.

They do need much more, and much better defensive nodes or keystones spread evenly through the passive tree. The fact that you can divide the passive tree in two, and Mind Over Matter, Iron Reflexes, Acrobatics, and Chaos Inoculation are all on the same half; is an example of this error.

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irdunecat wrote:

Without IR, or any other way to get really high physical damage mitigation for relatively cheap, crit builds will be dead in hardcore once and forever, since they wont stand a chance vs physical reflect, even if you have Lightning Coil and whatnot.

What amuses me most in this thread is how many people jump on the bandwagon claiming everything that is OK - read not as underpowered as the rest of crap in this game - to be OP.

These must be the same people whose crying made GGG nerf most of their game into the ground.

As the matter of fact, now hardly anyone even plays hc\nemesis anymore, since most builds suck and dont stand a chance there nowadays.

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MackBesmirch wrote:

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irdunecat wrote:

Without IR, or any other way to get really high physical damage mitigation for relatively cheap, crit builds will be dead in hardcore once and forever, since they wont stand a chance vs physical reflect, even if you have Lightning Coil and whatnot.

Hmm, there is an idea... regarding reflect. What about adding a new Keystone Passive to the Shadow area that offers a powerful, but inverse mechanic from Iron reflexes? Maybe a keystone that is like "Evasion Rating for all types of reflected damage increased by 30%" so that if you already had a high enough evasion rating, you could conceivably always evade reflect. The node would only be useful, though, if you already were investing in Evasion. Or maybe even "your evasion chance against reflected damage is lucky" -- like diamond flasks, the evasion roll is rolled twice and you take the better of the two rolls. Or maybe not just evasion of reflected damage, but of trap and mine damage?

Or perhaps a keystone like "Chance to evade doubles for the attack following a successful hit that lands." So if i get hit once, on the next hit I have an increased chance to evade. It wouldn't be stackable, just a yes/no: did i get hit? yes = evasion chance doubled for next strike against me; no = evasion rating stays as it is until i am hit. But, again, this keystone only makes sense for characters that are already evasion based; armour and ES characters with low evasion ratings would not benefit much.

Combined with Acrobatics and Phase acrobatics, which grant the chance to Dodge in addition to the chance to Evade, one might conceivably have three-to-four (depending on how the mechanics are tweaked) chances to avoid any and all damage. Those odds make it more acceptable to lose half one's armour and ES and still survive past Cruel Act 3. Also, if it is possible to achieve an exceptional Evasion rating from Dexterity and gear, Evasion characters might even forego Grace in favor of Determination...? maybe, i don't think i get the math with Determination as I have never used it. :P Cuz Evasion s capped at 95% chance to evade, right? I'm probably nearing the limit of my understanding of mechanics here.