Season 2 Balance Feedback - Week One

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Qarl wrote:

After much discussion and analysis of the results of the most recent Swiss we've decided to hold off on balance changes for the remainder of the season.

There is a mix of builds at the top. The results are close enough to make separating the gear and player skill factors from the builds very difficult.

We think the trap support is overrepresented, and there are several other skills we are keeping our eyes on, but we think there is room for the meta to shift and players to adjust without our interference. Some of the current strongest builds are mostly strong due to the benefits they provide in a trap-heavy meta, rather than due to too much power.

We will of course continue to observe throughout the season as we plan for Season 3. Of note, we'd like to see more melee skills being used.

In the meantime, feel free to continue to provide balance feedback. It's being read and noted, even if you aren't seeing immediate action.

Remeber to keep LLD balance out of HLD balance, vice versa

This is good news.

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Qarl wrote:

After much discussion and analysis of the results of the most recent Swiss we've decided to hold off on balance changes for the remainder of the season.

There is a mix of builds at the top. The results are close enough to make separating the gear and player skill factors from the builds very difficult.

We think the trap support is overrepresented, and there are several other skills we are keeping our eyes on, but we think there is room for the meta to shift and players to adjust without our interference. Some of the current strongest builds are mostly strong due to the benefits they provide in a trap-heavy meta, rather than due to too much power.

We will of course continue to observe throughout the season as we plan for Season 3. Of note, we'd like to see more melee skills being used.

In the meantime, feel free to continue to provide balance feedback. It's being read and noted, even if you aren't seeing immediate action.

Welcome to Season 2 HLD. Please play Poison Arrow or Explosive Arrow and enjoy your stay.

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FreeMark wrote:

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Qarl wrote:

After much discussion and analysis of the results of the most recent Swiss we've decided to hold off on balance changes for the remainder of the season.

There is a mix of builds at the top. The results are close enough to make separating the gear and player skill factors from the builds very difficult.

We think the trap support is overrepresented, and there are several other skills we are keeping our eyes on, but we think there is room for the meta to shift and players to adjust without our interference. Some of the current strongest builds are mostly strong due to the benefits they provide in a trap-heavy meta, rather than due to too much power.

We will of course continue to observe throughout the season as we plan for Season 3. Of note, we'd like to see more melee skills being used.

In the meantime, feel free to continue to provide balance feedback. It's being read and noted, even if you aren't seeing immediate action.

Welcome to Season 2 HLD. Please play Poison Arrow or Explosive Arrow and enjoy your stay.

Pa is easy to counter

Losing to PA...... now that's new.

PA has to be one of the crappiest easy to avoid/beat skills in the bow arsenal. If you don't have chaos resists blame yourself.

Once more, look at this post on PA EA. Every elemental attack(cast) on enemy with 0 res(or -%) ar BRUTAL. So this is good example about elemental penetration gems. If u dont have good chaos res(or CI, or middle chaos res with good hp regen)PA blow u up in a sec.
P.S. and yes , PA is only itemisation problem, u simply need good resist, but we dont have chaos penetration gem(thx God), and EE dont count chaos dmg.

"

Qarl wrote:

After much discussion and analysis of the results of the most recent Swiss we've decided to hold off on balance changes for the remainder of the season.

There is a mix of builds at the top. The results are close enough to make separating the gear and player skill factors from the builds very difficult.

We think the trap support is overrepresented, and there are several other skills we are keeping our eyes on, but we think there is room for the meta to shift and players to adjust without our interference. Some of the current strongest builds are mostly strong due to the benefits they provide in a trap-heavy meta, rather than due to too much power.

We will of course continue to observe throughout the season as we plan for Season 3. Of note, we'd like to see more melee skills being used.

In the meantime, feel free to continue to provide balance feedback. It's being read and noted, even if you aren't seeing immediate action.

Lets assume that the top you are referring to Qarl in the swiss events are the top 10 players? If yes i kindly ask for the whole PvP support team/devs/staff to look closer.

Regarding melee builds i can see only two total appearances of non shield using builds in the top 10 ( both in EU and US). Doesnt that mean that shield-using builds are the only solid/legit way to advance as melee? The same was true in season 1 and i believed you saw that but im wrong i guess. (trigger gems are the main issue on that, in case you dont know why they are faring so good)

The fact that selfcast fp won both EU Swiss events isnt troubling at all?

Bow/puncture/trapper have more apperances in top 10 than any other build (and im not including the other bow builds that made it into top10)

From those facts alone you can clearly get that something isnt right.

And thats if we take into consideration only Swiss events, because in Blitzes the situation is even worse. Elemental dual wielding can 1-shot, kinetic blast can 1-shot, fireball-lmp-trap can 1-shot, molten shell can 1-shot, fp (either selfcasting or trap) can kill in 1-2hits, trigger gems (when stacked ofcourse with shield builds) can kill in 1-2hits. Cast When Stunned got 8th position in blitz the other day! (im writting this here for more people to see it and start playing it cause there is no other way for GGG to fix things unless they get massive hype and everybody starts using them, oh wait thats not true, cyclone/sword+shield/traps/moltenshell are in that category but still no change, hmmmm....... )

You say traps are overrepresented, isnt that a reason to do something for it? Ask yourselves why traps are used so much, its obvious to me and so many others (even trappers admit to that). I even made an extreme suggestion that traps can be used with melee skills if there are no changes in the current state just so that 100% of the builds out there use them and not only the 60-70% that uses them now.

Its late here and GGG's post was really dissapointing and frustrating, i was let down big time by GGG once again :( (thats why the post might seem a bit resentful or bitter). I must respect though your decisions guyz, even if i dont agree with them, you probably see something i dont (a nerf to traps might drive away 30-40 players and thats half the pvp season 2 scene atm). Anyway, i have made my points and observations in this as well as in my two previous posts, and i feel like i pressed the repeat button for some matters.


P.S. : I'm truly sorry if in the part where im talking about how many builds appear in top 10 something is wrong, since im not familiar with some of the players there.

P.P.S : I have two suggestions 1) It would be nice next to the names after every event to have a text informing if the character is created in Torment or Bloodlines league 2) It would also be nice if someone (player/GGG staff) can give info about the builds that got into top 10/top 20 in all the Swiss events (not detailed info, just say for example : ele dual wielder or bow/ice shot/trapper, or 2h sword/axe/mace/staff etc.) It could be a post here in this thread or a new thread or even a personal message to me only if people are not interested. Im asking for this cause i dont know a lot about the US scene and i cant really watch the matches.

Like Sith already said. Poison arrow is a weak degen, can't even penetrate chaos resists. Its gear dependent whether this skill owns you or not. It 9 out of 10 times is not attached to a heavy hitting bow thus the initial hit is weak, its all cloud damage. Its a pathetic degen compared to puncture. Puncture can kill you outright before it even begins to degen you on the initial hit, not like it used to but its still a thing in the right hands vs the right people. Move from the clouds, get chaos resists and/or some form of regen. Zealot's oath isn't out of the question for ES if you can figure out how to pull it off and Hp has enough regen even at 0 chaos to deal with PA. Its when you're - chaos resists that it can cause you problems or if you're general ES user. It will slowly dissolve your es due to the constant damage preventing the time delayed regen...still very very manageable.

Its a great way to pester people but when it boils down to whether its strong or not...it really isn't.

Vegan Mode should be turned off in PVP or make it RT with no crit

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alshabibi7 wrote:

Vegan Mode should be turned off in PVP or make it RT with no crit

You should elaborate if you want any credibility whatsoever. Melee crit is not absurdly OP even with a vagan weapon. Most users who use vagans are not even crit at all, so the majority of people wouldnt even eel this nerf. Right now vagans is the only thing keeping crit dggers relevant. I had a 133 pdps vagan skean s1 and still lost to a handful of non-vagan sword users. Tossing baseless requests around like urs weakens the voice of the LLD community as a whole. * furthermore, these are not easily accessible. only 2 high dmg vagan skeans exist in all realms.