Season 2 Balance Feedback - Week One

Comparing season 1 and season 2 till this point everyone can see that last season's extremeties are really confined, and a lot of steps have been taken towards balancing the game, steps that have disappointed a lot of people cause their builds got nerfed even though those changes where helpful for the whole pvp scene. When it comes to balancing things out, people must understand that being subjective is unacceptable, especially when some of those people's reputations and words bear heavy weight. Having said that i would like to divulge a real incident as an example*: Last season as you all know legacy FB + shield charge/cyclone/3triggers was dominating everything, from ffa, to blitz and swiss, a thing that upset many of the players including me cause it was really OP. So it happened that in a EU Swiss event i encountered GreenDude with his FB build which totally annihilated my 2hander. After the loss we stopped and talked about it a bit and while he agreed that FB was strong he didnt cared for it to change for season 1 since it wasnt so gamebreaking. The thing is that GreenDude had GGG's ear whenever he wanted and cause he was playing FB at that his perspective on the matter was clouded. Thats something we all must avoid if we need pvp to take a step forward and not back.

*Clarification, i have the outmost respect for GreenDude's effort, contribution and work for the general pvp scene and his pvp events pre-season 1, are what made me fall in love with pvp. That example is not made to blame him or accuse him for being responsible for s1 FB thing, just a reminder that people with weight/prestige should more than anybody else try to be objective no matter what.

Sword + shield : The melee scene and builds are exactly the same as last season with a few exceptions. Sword and shield (and in a lesser degree unarmerd+shield) is the way to go and vs other melee builds that dont utilize shield (2h, duel wield ) sword+shield is the undisputed champion. Their active damage output is almost the same with a 2h build, but they excel in mitigation and triggering attack damage. Not only they have insane amount of block and life but with the trigger gems they can dish out 2-3x times the damage any other melee build can. I cant see how this is balanced and how two-handers or dual wielders are supposed to win vs those builds, its not that they have a chance, sword and shield builds can easily afk and still win vs any other melee build. This needs to be adressed, by adding a cooldown and/or damage effectiveness for every extra trigger gem someone is using or make some trigger gems exclusive to builds, like riposte only for dual-wielding, reckoning only for shield users, vengeance only for melee builds without an offhand (2handers and even goddess scorned builds if they still exist).

On the same matter just ask yourself and tell me how many 2handers or dual wielders have you seen until now. Five? Ten? There is a reason people prefer to play with shields and thats because shield builds are better than any other melee build.

Special mention on FB. Lacking the legacy version in the new leagues FB surely has fallen a bit, both in power as well as popularity. The removal of vengeance was also a huge blow, and the small nerf to shield charge was also bad for the build. It still performs very good vs 2handers and dual wielders but nobody is playing those builds, and its performance vs sword+shields is excellent too. What keeps it alive vs those builds is the trigger gems (yes even if it uses "only" two) but since it performs very bad vs any non-melee build i believe this state of FB is very good.


Cyclone atm is the most used melee skill (maybe with flicker strike and leap slam), there are even archers out there that have cyclone on weapon swap (and believe it or not they win vs pure melee builds while on swap). The issue with cyclone is the utility it offers. First of all it allows you to move while attacking which is a big advantage of the skill, but it also grants immunity to stun + knockback. Yes it has big drawbacks like 20% Less AS, 30% Less Ms and deals 50% of base damage, but even with minimum effort it still outshines every other melee skill when it comes to damage. So my suggestion here is to rework cyclone ( FOR PVP ONLY) and instead of immunity to stun and knockback make it so it gives 50% chance to avoid stun and knockback on pvp. Another fix could be that the base damage is reduced from 50% to 40%. Any of those two changes could really help balancing cyclone for pvp.


Heavy strike and permanent-knockback or knockback lock. Thats not the problem of heavy strike on its own, but on weapon range as well. Not only swords have better passives nodes on the tree but they also have outrageous attack range. Fix the swords regarding that matter and we get double the benefits, not only knockback lock will be confined but swords might even lose their throne to something else. Cyclone is GGG original counter to heavy strike's utility (stun + knockabk), but both mechanics are broken for pvp (meaning immunity to stun+knockback on cyclone, and 100% knockback chane on heavy strike plus the reduced stun threshold). Damage wise a small nerf would be most welcome.

That leaves skills like Glacial Hammer (even with recent removal of an older nerf), infernal blow, static strike, frenzy, dual strike, double strike and viper strike in the bin with the unused skills. (i dont even mention sweep, cleave, reave due to their nature and also because they are lame)

Well puncturers took a huge blow with the change to the pots, especially in blitz where pots refill every time, facing a puncturer is not a big of a problem. Since bleeding is very well countered with the flasks now. Though we can still see that bow puncturers are still doing extremely well in top competitive events (blitz + swiss). But as i said before puncturers are in a good position only because the flasks are very good now.

An interesting fact is that Tornado Shot (at least on EU events) has almost gone extinct . The lack of +1arrows corruptions in temp leagues must have played its role too together with the nerfs on the skill itself.

Its nice to see new skills used, Explosive Arrow, Ice Shot, Rain of Arrows, Burning Arrow etc, together with the old ones (Puncture, TS) and until now from what ive seen they are doing well too but thats not because of the skills themselves but the combination with traps which will be further analyzed shortly.

Mirror arrow/Blink Arrow : If GGG plans where to make lld bow users as annoying as possible they have succeeded. They now have 3 skills (along with smoke mine) to escape and reposition themselves while still doing some dmg with the illusions. In 1 v 1 those skills might seem ok (even though they are top tier utility skills) but in 3 v 3 those skills are absolutely obscene. That said, i still havent found a reasonable solution to that clone spamming.

The matter though that needs addressing from GGG as soon as possible is the one shot capabilities of Kinetic Blast. Its unacceptable that 1-shot skills still exist in pvp after season 1 fiasco with 1-shot shield charge. One shot mechanics should not exist for any reason at all, and the fact that Kinetic Blast builds have low health in general does not mean they are entitled to 1-shot people. Please fix that.

Bow users in general have a wide variety of vialbe skills that they can use and they actually do. Only exceptions are lighting arrow and split arrow but the latter one's nature is not suitable for pvp.

Well until now, the pvp season 2 is dominated by spellcasters (who would have thought that eh?). Selfcasting spellcaster nonetheless too, pretty exciting if you ask me. Is it ok though to win so easily?


First of all we got Freezing Pulse, either selfcasting or with traps. Its really good, good enough to win EU swiss yestarday and have 2 more people in top 10, as well as having 2 people in US Swiss top 10 too. The damage with lmp + the utility (chill + occasionally freeze) with the very good range (with faster projectiles) make it super strong. Add to that some utility skills like cold snap/molten shell/ or the occasional trap, and you have a build that has answers for everyone (except other casters maybe). Whats the problem with that skill if you ask me is the huge damage output in combination with the utility it offers (something like cyclone for melee). Either reduce its damage (its damage though is augmented so much for lmp in which case lmp is the problem and not FP), or lessen the utility it offers

Molten shell, i talked about it last season as well as in alpha : the damage done by molten shell is over the top. It can easily take out 60-80% of your HP and it can be casted immediately after detonation granting you also some protection from physical attacks. It should be noticed that molten shell is the common denominator in all succesfull spellcasting builds. Its damage needs to be lowered, nothing else to add here.

Firestorm : Well i for once was really happy to see a new entry on spellcasting scene. I have encountered plenty firestorm builds and i can say that not everybody is good. The problem though is that people complain about certain individuals and their firestorm which obliterates everything without even sweating. I'm not against selfcasting spellcasters to have a night in the spotlight, but being so easy (proof US Swiss the other day) is against the fair and competitive nature pvp should offer. From videos and streaming i watched some firestorm builds win vs everything else no matter what, and thats an issue that should be checked.

And then we have skills like fireball, firetrap, flameblast, discharge, flame surge, ice nova, shock nova, lightning tendrils, storm call and searing bond that are not even used. Maybe its time to change that?

Honorary mention: Arc/Spark those skills still find their way into competitive plays no matter what, without being overpowered, they can offer utility or even damage output (spark vs melee is still excellent). Make the least used spells offer at least something similar to what arc/spark offer.

Cast when stunned gem : its in the same category as cast on death before the nerf the damage output can be extreme, maybe raise the chance to cast the spell linked when stunned but reduce its damage to a similar way COD was nerfed.

Lastly i want to mention that contrary to season 1 there are no summoners in season 2.

Stun: I do agree that it is a crucial matter and that stunlocking can easily win games, ill say it though for the hundredth time, its so easy to counter it or confine it : US, Chayula, Leo mod, Cyclone, block/dodge, Heart of Oak, stun recovery mods. Seriously why people still crying about it?


Elemental Equilibrium (EE) : I mentioned how strong EE is countless times both pre-season 1 (in alpha) as well as during season 1, and people used to mock the very notion that EE can be strong, the "pros" at that time couldnt believe that EE was even viable/usable how could it even be OP? Well now that people started facing more and more EE and die like Krillin in DragonBall cause of it they realised that indeed EE is a big uncounterable threat (and please dont use the argument get +50res over the max, cause with elemental weakness combined you need +80res over the max and thats 155res in each element). Add some scaling in EE that affects it in pvp only or leave its values as they are at the moment but make it removable with Warding flasks (yes i know its not considered a curse)

Desync : Unfortunately its chronic continuous existance in PoE, made me (as it made many others too) to consider desync part of the game. And losing due to bad servers in pvp is outrageous. What happens when ranged/spellcaster character runs around pillars and obstacles laying traps and the melee flicker strikes or leap slams? Yes he desyncs like crazy and dies. Sadly but true desync needs attention, cause players can use it to gain advantage by using that stupid tactic of running around obstacles, when somebody desyncs its obvious to the enemy too who will launch an attack that moment (especially if the desynced person is melee and the other one can use ranged skills).

Resistance rating on the events : Can we get an answer what that value represents? Its crucial enough to decide who can get a Talisman of the Victor and still nobody knows what it takes into account.

Traps : Well traps are still a gamebreaking mechanic all spellcaster/ranged characters use and offer MORE damage. They can control areas preventing opponents from using paths to find an opening, and can be placed in such a manner that they can win games too offensively. They are so good that allow you to lay 1-2 and fight where you want too, and while you opponents try to find a way to bypass them you can easily rain hell on them. Its a mechanic that provides both offensive and defensive utility and its exclusive to spellcasters/bow users with the exception of bear trap that melee builds can use but only for the utility while every other traps can have utility + INSANE damage. Raise the CD, raise multiple traps support gem lvl to 31, raise the mana multiplier for everything that has to do with traps, all are viable solutions (not all together but one of them).

Point Blank : While the Keystone is very well balanced, the gem is not looked at, at all since the beggining of the pvp seasons. Physical attack damage traps can be augmented with the ridiculously overpowered point blank gem offering 50% MORE damage without any drawback. Wouldnt be wise that this value was reduced to something like 20-25%? Even if it was reduced to that it would still be strong as hell since it has no drawback (even its mana multiplier is low). If that is deemed to be to strong of a nerf for bow users raise its mana multiplier to 160% or something.