A Closer Look at the New Passive Tree!

Hopefully there's some explanation behind the huge loss in life nodes near the Witch start. ES sucks during leveling for now, and this tree seems to be missing multiple clusters.

I salute you OP.

Very nice analysis, thx for this.

Peace,

-Boem-

Thanks for the responses everyone.

"

Tanakeah wrote:

Little concerned about the Witch starting area given that if you want to go with life you're going to have to waste what looks like at least one node on ES. Energy Shield isn't exactly the easiest thing to start off or level with early on, but maybe GGG made some other changes that haven't announced yet to make ES a bit more viable for leveling?

They may change into Life/ES hybrid nodes, since we know GGG wants to promote that when they removed the Suffering map mod. They're going to need more buffs like that if Life/ES hybrid is going to be viable.

"

Tanakeah wrote:

Not really too surprised, but it seems they axed some of the crit nodes specifically for daggers, and given how potent that particular weapon is compared to others...it was to be expected.

Yeah, maybe now that the passive tree isn't biased towards daggers we'll see more diversity with claws and other things.

"

Tanakeah wrote:

Static Blows got flipped around a bit it seems and it's now closer to the Shadow area, which I can see making sense given that there's already a node in the starting area that gives 5% shock chance. Makes it easier to get them both in that regard, though like you I wonder if that red node in the circle is merely lightning resist, or perhaps something else? LR seems kinda not worth it, but if ya gotta fill the cluster in with something, then that works.

It seems kind of odd to have lightning resist there, but then again, they did remove all of the 3-node resist clusters. I'm not really sure why.

"

Tanakeah wrote:

You did mention the new energy shield/something notable that seems to replace the 12% ES node in the ES circle. That seems to match up with the Evasion notable and makes me wonder if the 10% life is going to get changed to a notable as well to even things out?

I think they may make a notable on each of the three wheels, I just wasn't sure exactly what the ES one was because it didn't look like the other ES notable nodes.

"

Tanakeah wrote:

The Written in Blood life notable is now connected to hybrid life/mana nodes, which means that unless WiB has been changed then that cluster will have a net loss of about 6% life total. Not a whole lot, and if what Chris says about us needing to take less life nodes to get the same effect with the base life changes...could work out well.

Everyone is wondering about the life per level changes. They seem to have removed quite a bit of the life nodes around witch/shadow, which never had that many to begin with. If the life nodes in the Mara/Duel/Ranger areas remains the same, then this will be a huge buff to them.

"

Tanakeah wrote:

Though we can't see it all, it appears that the Rune Cleaver and Galvanic Hammer notables are now shifted over further into the Templar region instead of bordering the Templar/Witch zones. Might make it easier and more worthwhile for those speccing into Axes or Maces to pick those clusters up, though at the same time it makes me wonder if that means they aren't going to be 'gated' by anything else leading into them like the old Strength and Agility notables from before.

It looks like they're not going to be gateing with the notable stat nodes anymore, so they'll truly be optional now. It's also nice that they moved the hammer/axe notables closer to the templar, as I was never able to reach them before without gimping on other things. And honestly, the old Galvanic Hammer circle wasn't that great anyways (crit multi & accuracy for hammers?). Hopefully they changed those values as well.

"

Tanakeah wrote:

Interested to see what the starter nodes on the physical side of the Shadow tree are going to be. I would hope they aren't going to be melee nodes since those would be wasted if you wanted to trek down the projectile nodes as a bow/wand user, or whatever. Thinking they may just be generic physical damage nodes that work on anything.

They should be new "Physical Damage" nodes, at least, that's what they should be if what they said about providing a route for non-elemental spells is true.

"

Tanakeah wrote:

I have to say, I was very surprised to see the Influence aura cluster still hanging around...I was convinced that cluster and maybe one other was going to get axed given that GGG said they were changing auras around. However, perhaps it won't be via the tree but other ways outside of it and they are going to leave all the aura nodes intact...definitely interested to see where that will lead.

Hopefully they at least lowered the numbers on them, because they were super effeicent before with both aura effect AND reserve, which is like having critical chance AND multiplier on the same node. I think they're reworking auras themselves a bit as well, so we'll see.

Aura nodes are being moved further apart. They aren't nerfed per se, just require a bigger investment to take them all.

Very well done, Meridin. :)

Even though this isn't final, I appreciate all the work you did to make the tree viewable. The eye strain! Oh god the eye strain!

Hey thanks Meridin for going to the extra effort, I really appreciate it.

Even if this is (obviously) all subject to change, this is an informative insight into where the changes are going. And, chances are, a good part of it will end up looking like that. Thanks! =^[.]^=

If those lower path Shadow node(s are Physical Damage nodes (generic) then we'll see a lot more of Puncture (that double dip...:D), Ethereal Knives, Bear Trap coming from Shadows. I think it'd be fitting since all those are very biased towards the Shadow in flavour xD (Note that the following three green nodes that are speculated to be Projectile Damage nodes would also favour Puncture and EK to a great extent)

Given this and the fact that Shadows are the closest to the DoT(Entropy) and Chaos/DoT passives, Puncture's future looks blindingly bright. The possibility for increased effect of curses would put Vulnerability as THE curse for the build. Increased Physical Damage Taken double dip with an extra 40% ooomph for the DoT part... Hehe, now add in Shadow's stupid crit cluster + Trap + Point Blank and that's a shit ton of damage...

I'm sooo looking forward to a new tree to play around with. Currently I've mashed this section of the new one and the rest of the old one together to get a sense of what build I'll make. It's still too hard without knowing the Ranger -> Shadow area which was to see substantial changes for easier pathing.

I'm also extremely curious as to what the new percentages on the life nodes in the Shadow, Witch, Ranger areas will be. It seems that many of them are moving to hybrid Life/Mana nodes and given that there's fewer of them, I'm wondering if these will be the standard 6%/8% or maybe they'll buff each one to 8%/8% given that there's less of them now anyways (3 in Witch instead of 4 (36%), 10 in Shadow instead of 12 (104%)). If they do buff them then it's still less percentage than before but not so heavily nerfed (3*8% = 24% vs old 36% and (4+2+2)*8% + 2*12% = 88% vs old 104%). If it were 6% instead of 8% the values would be brought down to a total of 98% Life in the entire NE quadrant of the tree vs the old 140%... There would need to be serious flat life leveling bonuses if that was the case...