The 7 main problems with HLD and how to fix them

Ea users invest in fire damage and area damage on the tree its not like they pick up all life nodes and ea does the rest for them. Theres no reason to play EA without the explosion you might as well go burning arrow if you want the arrow to deal the damage for you. So of coarse no one would play ea wihtout the explosion your breaking the skill they might as well give players a wet noodle.

I bet if you made my suggested change everyone who plays ea because its FOTM would switch to the next OP thing also. If the damage is balanced it dosnt matter if you cant block or dodge the skill... look at pa you cant block or dodge that but with preparation its not that bad to deal with so non blockable/dodgable abilities really arnt this issue.

Lightning stike Static strike deals secondary damage but no one complains about that so I doubt secondary damage is the direct cause of the imbalance either.

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Dethklok wrote:

Ea users invest in fire damage and area damage on the tree its not like they pick up all life nodes and ea does the rest for them. Theres no reason to play EA without the explosion you might as well go burning arrow if you want the arrow to deal the damage for you. So of coarse no one would play ea wihtout the explosion your breaking the skill they might as well give players a wet noodle.

I bet if you made my suggested change everyone who plays ea because its FOTM would switch to the next OP thing also. If the damage is balanced it dosnt matter if you cant block or dodge the skill... look at pa you cant block or dodge that but with preparation its not that bad to deal with so non blockable/dodgable abilities really arnt this issue.

Lightning stike deals secondary damage but no one complains about that so I doubt secondary damage is the direct cause of the imbalance either.

So you are saying ignoring 3 kind of defenses (block, dodge and evasion)for free is perfectly balanced ? RT users have to travel to the key Stone and give up crit to only be able to bypass Evasion. Here it's all a big bonus, you don't even have to invest some skill points or use a special mod (like the vagan one) to get it while keeping the ability to crit.

PA is a terrible exemple because you can't penetrate chaos resistance, that's how the skill is balanced, just stack chaos res and a bit of regen (just running vitality is enought) and you are good to go (but I also think it shouldn't be unavoidable as well).

With elemental damages you got penetration on support and tree + curses + EE to amplify the effect whatever preparation your opponent do, that's why stackable/unavoidable damage are way too strong with those. You can't deny that fact or you are just as hypocrite as EA users saying their build is balanced.

I used to abuse Tempest Shield but I was the first to say it was broken and the way they fixed it was perfect.

Also LS don't have secondary dmg. Projectile only hit at 100% if the main attack connect otherwise every hit is calculated against dodge/block/evasion like every other attacks in the game.

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IceDeal wrote:

So you are saying ignoring 3 kind of defenses (block, dodge and evasion)for free is perfectly balanced ? RT users have to travel to the key Stone and give up crit to only be able to bypass Evasion. Here it's all a big bonus, you don't even have to invest some skill points or use a special mod (like the vagan one) to get it while keeping the ability to crit.

PA is a terrible exemple because you can't penetrate chaos resistance, that's how the skill is balanced, just stack chaos res and a bit of regen (just running vitality is enought) and you are good to go (but I also think it shouldn't be unavoidable as well).

With elemental damages you got penetration on support and tree + curses + EE to amplify the effect whatever preparation your opponent do, that's why stackable/unavoidable damage are way too strong with those. You can't deny that fact or you are just as hypocrite as EA users saying their build is balanced.

I used to abuse Tempest Shield but I was the first to say it was broken and the way they fixed it was perfect.

Also LS don't have secondary dmg. Projectile only hit at 100% if the main attack connect otherwise every hit is calculated against dodge/block/evasion like every other attacks in the game.

For the last time the damage on ea can easily be balanced to account for the fact that you cant dodge or block it. Even if it has penetration the damage values can be set at a number that is balanced. Even now just disable shotgun and no ea useer will be +1 on any ladder it really is that simple. I can stand in sarn arena and let ea users shoot me all day long and I can out regen them its only when they get fuses stuck in the air or ground and shotgun me in the open that i die.

LA's Secondary damage goes off when it hits frostwall/walls/players/monsters I doubt frostwall has any kind of chance to block dodge or evade LA. With a Frostwall totem you will have frostwall in your face for most of a pvp match, LA just needs to hit a wall close to you it dosnt need to hit you the area damage that comes off of it (secondary damage) you can not block dodge or evade.

if Curse + EE is beating you your a bad PvPer plain and simple there are so many option to overcap res for any build its ridiculous anyone complains about those things.

Next time your having a PvP match with an EA user ask them to use only 1 arrow instead of GMP and see how good they are. The skill is a joke without shotgun it was easy to deal with pre 2.0 and since then the skill has only received nerfs.

Edit: You also cant block dodge or evade Detonate Dead and that can use penetration yet is not an issue in PvP

Finally when I said Lightning strike I meant the Melee skill that explodes after you hit someone(Static Strike). Im pretty sure that cant be blocked either but its a balanced ability that can use penetration.

To make it simple, i compare EA in it's current state to a pre 2.0 GMP/LMP fireball on steroids

Offscreen range
Arrows travel too quickly
Arrows stick on ground when standing on an upper ground object and aiming towards middle screen note that this is a bug and should be fixed
EA sticks on walls and with reduced duration they pop almost instanly dealing massive aoe
sticks on ground
can stick multiple times on a player
the damage overlaps
easy to build
takes most advantage of 2.0 content
does not require BCR gem since you cant dodge/block the explosion ( saves a gem slot for dps )
You dont need to build defenses as you outspeed/outdmg almost any build


Overall if you compare this to current fireballs its clear that EA is OP.

Slow projectiles
Does not shotgun
Cast speed is reasonable
damage with crit is now less than EA damage
expensive to build
requires bcr gem
middle screen range
doesnt stick on players
doesnt take much advantage of 2.0


But let's see the real problem here, EA explosion AOE is way too high, i tried doing a big AOE fireball as much as i could with using aoe gem, aoe on tree ( all of it ). And i could BARELY hit a player next to the wall i was shooting at when the balls exploded, this makes no sense. You can actually hit someone very far from the wall with ea since the aoe is so huge, why is that ?

I really think AOE range paired with too much speed, offscreen range and the possibility to free up a gem slot due to BCR not being needed is the real issue.

simple as that.

EA is ONLY viable with multiple wall stacks. While Fireball can compete without such limitations. It's viable at any range, explodes thus still benefiting from "shotgunning" to some degree via aoe radius overlapping. It's a spell, spells ignore evasion,armor, can't blind them,do retarded amounts of damage with crit/without crit (I had a pledge of hands Fireball caster with 5% crit chance/150% multiplier and it killed anyone I hit in 1-4shots). You can't even defend against them without block or a dice roll dodge. You can almost do as little versus spells as you can versus EA. For casters to even bitch about EA is like the pot calling the kettle black.

EA is a unique skill, it shouldn't lose the benefit of wall stacking/player stacking. It just happens to be very potent in only that area. Even though EA had its overall damage reduced significantly across the board, when near a wall it's strong via overlapping. I think EA is in a good spot right now to be honest, it was stupid before. If anything was done to this skill again, id lower wall damage another 20-25% while raising single target/player stack damage back near where it was initially before both nerfs.

Edit: Ok ok Fireball is pretty weak atm, was much better before.

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Rupenus wrote:

I had CI melee before, maybe you dont know. i was not joining to US PvP scene. I was using Lightning Strike, i was doing very well to big portion of builds in current pvp scene... except... EA.

EA forced me to change my build direction to ranged, Lightning Arrow.

AB level 1 + cwdt + GMP's + increased duration Chill, therefore 30% less attack speed, shit loads of movement speed reduction is way more imbalanced than Crit multi amulets if you ask me.

I see no one complaining about that, why? cause 95% of pvp feedback is because of jealousy, because of injured pride of an immature guy etc.

Im not including you to this statement of mine Mulla, while you are including me as 'skilless geared crit ranger' aka noob. :)

People want to have key to open every door in the game, people want to be able to overcome any difficulty with what they have in their hands. This is typical 'poor people' attitude.

Ha, dude I didn't call you a skill less newb. In general ranged + crit is just ridiculous compared to other potential builds. It doesn't even need to be thought about, ranged.....1-2shot crit damage...ranged....1-2shot crit damage.....hmmmmmmm

As far as RT builds being all about defenses, no...you're giving up the explosive damage of crit right out of the gate. Meaning you need to take any and all dps you have available to you, have amazing gear, a great skill choice and then take as much hp/regen as you can within those areas. You do consistent, yet smaller hits versus everyone. It takes you many many hits to down someone while a crit can wipe you out before you get all of those in, near instantly in some cases. That's why crit casters can "tank" RT melee hit for hit and more often then not out dps/survive them. Ultimately all the defenses in the game don't save you from crit damage, why is it that only crit builds can kill troll tank builds effectively like deepwater/dyness/dukan/dismantle? Every RT user that queues versus them have to suffer draw after draw til they fuck up and you can get 1 round off them then stall.

Crit builds have access to the best side of the tree for PvP. Evasion,crit,speed,dodges > armor,RT,regen. Glyph mark users with Kaom's were sporting 7-9k hp and 2shotting people, there are now better bows/more life and the same amount of crit/dps on the tree as before.

I agree though, you can't go into PvP using poverty gear and a bad build expecting to go far. Why my comparison was current best available gear for the average player versus old legacy/mirrored gear. Best versus best, it's not close enough.

Frost wall + EA is an issue after 2.0. not EA alone itself. EA + frost wall and stacking fuses wherever you want makes it totally broken. Also, Pierce + EA is a big issue. I dont care whether its gonna be changed.

Should i mention EA ground stacking? That weird bug, or whatever its called... when you aim you can stack fuses to ground most of the time. Thats what lib does very often, she just simply initiates, you attack, cwdt+frost wall happens and you die in seconds with pierce + EA due to multiple multiple explosion of EA. Sometimes fuses got stacked on ground for some weird reason.

I am not sure how you guys can say EA is in a good place atm? Sure, some average 6L quill, belly/kaom/leg/kaom guy is not OP for an experienced PVPer with solid gear, but did you ever beat Lab or bitch in 1v1? Ok you caught them once or twice by surprise. How about consistently beating them, with any build?

Sure many things are OP in PVP but nothing is this stupidly OP.

stupid high dmg, stupid high area control (ye 1 arrow doesn't deal dmg...5 arrows is meh.... how about 50 arrows all over the place popping in 1 s, 10 overlap wherever you may run - did u play vs that? is that balanced?)
stupid high movements speed, stupid high mobility via mirror/blink
bypasses all forms of dmg mitigation apart high life, es

many things are shit in pvp in my opinion and I still like it, but I don't like it when I play vs a top EA player, and not just coz I lose. Do you?

I played eva/dodge/block crit dagger flicker before, sure it was not balanced, it got nerfed to hell in all forms - dmg, dodge, block all of it, I don't want ea to be unusable I just don't feel any other gem allows for this kind of abuse.

There are other issues too but one of the biggest one is frostwall/ea/la. But there is maybe a reason firestorm and icestorm are like the only viable spells to use at the moment. Maybe they should try and figure out why that might be.

Aegis users aren't really a problem due to the fact that they've invested so much into block their damage will be really shit and they won't be a problem either way, they can feel tanky if they want although they won't really be a threat to anyone. Sure, use all slots for cast when damage taken spells and feel strong but you won't be of any problem if you can't kill anyone without them

Poison Arrow is also pretty easily countered. Most serious pvpers should bother to get chaos resist on gear, even if they aren't capped, 20% chaos resist is better than -60%.

Explosive arrow is explosive arrow

Just to clarify when I said EA was easy to deal with pre 2.0 I was referring to the EA builds that didnt use GMP/LMP the single arrow builds like Slay and Lord. Current Ea users Play like old Freeze Pulse users... get in your face and out tank/dps you with shotgun damage.