Endgame PVP(standard). There is no real "Counterplaying", only "Counter-building"

I agree with everything Lapiz said. Frost wall created always problems to pvp since it came out. As most of you know, im using Lightning arrow build now, i one shot 8k health builds sometimes, and you know vannele and lib; they simply spam Explosive arrows on cwdt + frost wall with warped timepiece ammy, you die before you can get out of range. None of us are saint, Frost Wall + LA; Frost wall + EA is pretty OP at the moment. Generally, crit is not a big problem, there are ways to deal with crit damage. Crit builds are fragile, find ways to exploit that. Be mobile. High mobility + tankiness > crit builds.

Then again, As ranged crit player, i see no possibility to kill CI, Life tank builds or can match with EA + leg kaoms users(abusers? <3) without wall+shotgun of LA.

Desync caused by frost wall spell casting was OP too in 1.3, its good that the mechanics changed now.

Its also harsh how almost all melee pvp builds get outplayed by frost wall. I was using Lightning Strike + Pierce with my CI melee to be able to handle cwdt+frost wall abuse.

What OP says about aegis, armor, legacy items, penetration... i think he needs to be get more experience to see whats going on in poe pvp. HE exaggerates what his build cant handle and generalizes his thoughts over all poe pvp. Though, his insights about cwdt is what i agree completely with. Builds represent character structures of players in real life, i completely insist on keeping alive 'full tanky, unkillable' builds, since its a childhood fantasy of all, and it must be kept in the game. So im not on the side of cwdt nerf, cwdt triggered spell damage already lowered by 30%, so maybe the damage taken amounts must be reworked specially for pvp. 800 damage taken -> cast, must be changed to 3200 damage taken -> cast. This can be a solution. Numbers are just to give you an idea.

Frost wall should have a hitpoint base, it must be breakable by both players damage. IF thats frost, and a wall, it shoulda been breakable with good amount of damage.



PoE pvp is getting more and more a 'flask management' challenge which is not good in my optinion.

Frost wall should be damageable/breakable I agree. They can't expect everyone to be using skills that bypass it. Letting skills in LA/EA split and stack off of it is fine but they should damage it too. This would require the skill to be leveled up to live a hit or 2, passively requiring higher cwdt set ups and less frequent walls and smarter play.

Crit builds aren't exactly fragile though. I've used real world examples to disprove that, with ghetto gear even. My hp based dual Bino's acrobatics Shadow was putting out over 170k dps dual strike, killing people in 1-2 hits and had 6k hp + dodge + a small amount of block. While my 10k hp at the time 2h sword with 772dps required 5-15+ hits depending on the player. Dodge or not on both characters the likely hood id die on my 2h was much higher then on my crit dagger because of how long I had to engage the target. If I had a real dagger(s) and gear it would be insulting to say the least. Crit reduction modifiers are a joke too, I don't know why Lapiz would think otherwise. In LLD I can see them having a noticeable impact on damage but in HLD you're better off getting more life/damage/mobility and using Enfeeble/chill/TC to either really reduce damage potential or prevent how often you're hit. I'm sure you've done the calculations with those passives/belt based on the wiki formula to know it's not a huge difference.

edit: crit casters and bow users aren't fragile either, melee would be the most fragile and even then it's a non issue versus the damage you deal and the perks of the eastern side of the tree.

Unkillable mega tank builds are fine, I just don't like the current idea that they can enter PvP...stand there doing nothing and be rewarded points. If you can't get a kill there should be no points rewarded and the other player should be allowed to leave with 0 penalty, knowing they'll be wasting their time for x amount of rounds while the troll tank whacks off.

Lastly legacy gear should of never happened. It created more balance issues then it would of to just leave the stuff alone, in PvP. You now have virtually un obtainable pieces of gear for most players because they average 100-300+ Exalts. That's why I sold my legacy gear pre 2.0, I realized how stupid it was. Even if I got the stuff legitly in beta for fractions of their current cost, it was stupid.

Frostwall wouldn't be a problem if LA/EA weren't secondary damage. You could Block/dodge those damages then resulting in a soft counter.

Unfortunatly nerfing secondary damages would mean recoding the skills wich will never happen /thread.

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IceDeal wrote:

Unfortunatly nerfing secondary damages would mean recoding the skills wich will never happen /thread.

true

I would like to add that traps and mine HAVE to be balanced in a better way.
I seen 5 players with more than 8k life getting all one shot from arc mines yesterday in sarn.

Cleaver construction: I don t know why such big, obligatory and powerful nods on tree have 0 downside. It should have a downside of damage penality with less damage on it.

In exchange maybe raise the time of cleaver.

attack/ranged/spell skills+traps

I don t know why skills + support trap are so powerful.
skills with crit are already strong but with trap it is super powerful.

Counter playing traps is possible using aoe skills but in reality some skills placed in traps also have too much aoe.

Glacial cascade traps have so much aoe and out running them is not possible for exemple.
Puncture trap can kill you so quick and it don t need to pop close of the player, the arrow will go straight to him and the speed make it hard to see when the arrow pop from the trap.

Maybe skills placed in ranged/spell trap should get a slowed malus so we can try to dodge them manualy.

Block is a big problem used in combination of es regen. Some build can kill them easy (trap/EA) but most will just stop trying to fight them.

Imo block should be like Mines, you should have a "block" activating button .
The block would last 3 second during the time the blocker can t attack and would have block.

It would force blocker to use block with intelligence and force them to take damage nods since block would not be always "on"

In exchange maybe BCR and block on tree could be lowered.

With the actual mechanism of block, people need a buff of block pen more than anything.

"

MullaXul wrote:

Frost wall should be damageable/breakable I agree. They can't expect everyone to be using skills that bypass it. Letting skills in LA/EA split and stack off of it is fine but they should damage it too. This would require the skill to be leveled up to live a hit or 2, passively requiring higher cwdt set ups and less frequent walls and smarter play.

Something I've thought about as well and I feel this could be somewhat a solution. First of all they have to be destroyable and secondly frost wall levels could scale the hit points of them.

"

MullaXul wrote:

Crit builds aren't exactly fragile though. I've used real world examples to disprove that, with ghetto gear even. My hp based dual Bino's acrobatics Shadow was putting out over 170k dps dual strike, killing people in 1-2 hits and had 6k hp + dodge + a small amount of block. While my 10k hp at the time 2h sword with 772dps required 5-15+ hits depending on the player. Dodge or not on both characters the likely hood id die on my 2h was much higher then on my crit dagger because of how long I had to engage the target. If I had a real dagger(s) and gear it would be insulting to say the least. Crit reduction modifiers are a joke too, I don't know why Lapiz would think otherwise. In LLD I can see them having a noticeable impact on damage but in HLD you're better off getting more life/damage/mobility and using Enfeeble/chill/TC to either really reduce damage potential or prevent how often you're hit. I'm sure you've done the calculations with those passives/belt based on the wiki formula to know it's not a huge difference.

I would suggest revisiting that formula cause the way it works is the more you have crit multi the more you get punished. It is almost useless in LLD but in HLD it is dumb. My dualwield melee has around 900 multi and if an opponent has both the belt and the passive, my total damage will be reduced by around 40%. 40% less damage from ALL crit users, casters and attackers, if you swap in a fairly good belt and grab a passive that often is 3 only points. It is nuts! You can try to hit someone who is actually using them both and see the difference.

Add enfeeble to this and you really might as well not crit at all.

Damage mitigation is so much more important than max HP. For HLD, there is a TON of mitigation available against crit damage.

"

MullaXul wrote:

Lastly legacy gear should of never happened. It created more balance issues then it would of to just leave the stuff alone, in PvP. You now have virtually un obtainable pieces of gear for most players because they average 100-300+ Exalts. That's why I sold my legacy gear pre 2.0, I realized how stupid it was. Even if I got the stuff legitly in beta for fractions of their current cost, it was stupid.

Personally I dont see the legacy stuff as a problem. There seriously arent that many things that are completely mandatory. Kaoms, aegis and crit multi amus are the only things that really matter in pvp. Thats not a whole lot of things especially when the cost of them is very similar to god tier non-legacy gear.

"

lolozori wrote:

"

IceDeal wrote:

Unfortunatly nerfing secondary damages would mean recoding the skills wich will never happen /thread.

true

I would like to add that traps and mine HAVE to be balanced in a better way.
I seen 5 players with more than 8k life getting all one shot from arc mines yesterday in sarn.

Cleaver construction: I don t know why such big, obligatory and powerful nods on tree have 0 downside. It should have a downside of damage penality with less damage on it.

In exchange maybe raise the time of cleaver.

attack/ranged/spell skills+traps

I don t know why skills + support trap are so powerful.
skills with crit are already strong but with trap it is super powerful.

Counter playing traps is possible using aoe skills but in reality some skills placed in traps also have too much aoe.

Glacial cascade traps have so much aoe and out running them is not possible for exemple.
Puncture trap can kill you so quick and it don t need to pop close of the player, the arrow will go straight to him and the speed make it hard to see when the arrow pop from the trap.

Maybe skills placed in ranged/spell trap should get a slowed malus so we can try to dodge them manualy.

Block is a big problem used in combination of es regen. Some build can kill them easy (trap/EA) but most will just stop trying to fight them.

Imo block should be like Mines, you should have a "block" activating button .
The block would last 3 second during the time the blocker can t attack and would have block.

It would force blocker to use block with intelligence and force them to take damage nods since block would not be always "on"

In exchange maybe BCR and block on tree could be lowered.

With the actual mechanism of block, people need a buff of block pen more than anything.

its really hard to get more life than 5.5k for a crit ranged build. This is what you can achieve with top gear. You gotta lose all your 'having scary damage' abilities to pass that 5.5k life limit. Traps/mines handle all the downside of squishyness of crit ranged builds. I totally agree with damage reduction but nerfing mine damage harshly would cause crit ranged builds totally outcasted from pvp scene. In order to have mine/trap damage players shoulda be forced to spend more points on damage nodes than they used to now.

I think people having block option for traps/mines would totally destroy any crit ranged bow build in the game. how can i have chance vs a melee, when they can get 100% damage reduction for a certain duration vs mines? What good mines are good if i cant punish a careless initiation of the opponent? Just initiate, press 'block' get TC on hit gloves... bam, in your face!

As ''Unkillable'' builds having a spot in pvp scene, i think 1-2 shotting builds should be in pvp scene too. Its a human fantasy that should not be missed in games: be fragile, but others are fragile too compared to your damage. You give up 'life' to get more 'power' this should be in game. Such builds need to require very hardcore micromanagement to make it work. Ahfack simply one or 2 shots me too while im having full life 5.5k. : ) (i one-two shot him too with mines or lightning arrow) This is kinda balanced i think, this situation turns battle into 'who is going to initiate better' wars, which is pure micromanagement wars, thats good in my opinion.

Mine traps can be outmicroed by high movespeed. Just marke a circle around me until i get panic force me to detonate my mines, then initiate, simple. Mines are autotargetting, and always attacking to nearest target, whatever projectile speed you have when opponent has 35-40+ movespeed they always miss. Thats the balanced part about mines, if you caught by mines, that is your fault, at least this is what i believe.

Though, Arc mines are autotargetting in 100% accurate way, and glacial cascade mines have OP range. I havent played any of those builds, im sure they have weaknesses too so im not going to say nerf this nerf that. I played vs a Arc mine guy, he won 4-0 against me, i understood his tactic, won 4-1, 4-0 in bo3. with careful initiation, mines are not a big problem.

CC is good, the downside shoulda be '-% mine/trap laying speed' cause mine trap laying speed is what makes you alive or dead in battles. CC gotta have downside of low laying speed, so if i want to lay a mine, i gotta be very fragile during that time. opponent shoulda be counter initiating me. Damage nerfs turn pvp to 'who has better gear' wars. If they nerf mine damage ill simply switch to kaoms heart and get more damage nodes in tree. Ill have second bow on my secondary weapon slot to lay mines. This wouldnt help anyone. Simple. Nerfs should force players to micromanage their chars more carefully, nerfss shouldnt be forcing players to get better gear all the time.

Crit builds force other players initiate/micro harder, yesterday Mulla handled my traps/mines very well with rain of arrows or poison arrow. If i had lesser mine laying speed, he could have more chance vs me.

I would like to whine about how leg kaoms is OP in HLD pvp but nobody is saint except Mulla who is using non legacy items only. So im not the one who is on the spot to whine about things, still i think that, Leg kaoms is only problematic legacy item imho but i dont care about it much. Legacy crit amulets? yeah... but additional 30 crit multi is not that impacting a build like leg kaoms does.

I've re-visited the formula and know its more potent versus higher multipliers. I've also tested it myself multiple times versus people like Shadowthefall and others with known legacy crit gear. I hardly noticed a difference, hit for hit the damage output I received was barely changed. The difference was a few 100 hp with the passives+belt. Can 100's be the difference between life and death, yes...but at the cost of 3 better passives and a real belt I weighed the benefits versus my tested results and it just wasn't worth it.

Edit: To add to this, I know you're familiar with Hrimmors. I used to use that helmet pre 2.0 and chill immunity versus Devoto's speed was a marginal difference as well at the end of the day. I also tested shock immune versus Shadow, barely noticed a difference at the cost of a real helmet. I've tested and tested all of these things and as melee versus critical damage you're not seeing the benefits you'd hope for when you sacrifice a real piece of gear. In Diablo you could swap out a solid rare ring for a suck ass Dwarf star/Wisp/Raven...still be 100% viable and see huge benefit for it versus those elements because damage was not multiplied. Only in rare situations using items and/or as a barb/zon could you crit and only for 2x damage not 9x it where trying to mitigate such huge damage is stupid and you're better off just not getting hit. Most of these things are no more effective then Fortify, which itself is pretty useless for mitigating damage in PvP.


Legacy gear i.e Kaoms is a huge game changer. It allows you to travel the tree freely to acrobatics while still having more life/damage then someone using a new one. That is a huge advantage and even with legacy Kaom's look at how viable 2h melee actually is? It's still in a bad place with acro/legacy kaoms and mirrored gear compared to say...a dedicated ES crit build. Now consider non legacy 2h melee, shits a joke and takes a perfect tree/item choices/gear swaps to even compete and high character level, 98-100 ideally.

You also can't just say "block" for everything, that can't be the universal answer to balance. For obvious reasons, 2h melee, staff caster, balance shifts that aren't necessary like the ones Nurse pointed out. It should take passive investments, a considerable amount to have traps be that potent as a bower. You shouldn't be able to just slap on a 4l supported puncture with "more" multiplier supports and murder ppl in 1 shot or 1shot+1step bleed out. The only builds that should have that much damage with a trap/mine are dedicated trappers/miners where that's the only attack they have. As a bow user it should be a tool, a tool to control space, deal some damage...not a 1 hit kill trump card.

To further add to the give and takes and concept of "counter play". Why do I have to ramp my aoe radius in an attempt to compensate for the constant desynch/rubber banding I get everytime I flicker/leap/get near someone and cyclone? Why can't I properly move,space myself and know I'm hitting someone where I am. Instead I need a stupid amount of AoE radius+weapon range so I can hit shit half the screen distance away because odds are they aren't even really near me on my screen anyways? You can't properly avoid taking damage in this game as melee, you can't calculate anything. You either need to face tank shit with bis gear+flasks or be ranged that's all there is to it.

Intrestingly, I recently published my build on the scion page, as I'm always in search of ways to defeat my current ea build, along with 500+ regrets and some of the most expensive and rarest gear I've had little success.


A new patch will bring new problems, if you just have enough currency, you'll be able to create new problems

I have a close group of mad scientists that experiment with me on a daily basis, without a new patch and meta shift (2.1) you won't be able to beat a decked out ea build.

Shadowfall recently developed something potent and extremely deadly, ask him to enquire. I believe in 2.1 casters/LL may have some room to survive, or atleast competitive again. Compared to how bad ll is right now.