Clarifying the Ascendancy Changes

I do not understand why you would nerf totems (no "strong and more powerfull" option there btw...) , they are not in a good place anyways. Some people only play totems, some people only play minions, some people only enjoy whatever else. It is absolutely fine for me to nerf the damage of a build to bring it in line, but it is absolutely unacceptable to make a build tedious and unfun to play. What do you guys at GGG get out of a nerf like removing the double totem placement? All that does is to make totem builds (that either need to be full glas cannon to get enough dmg or not deal with content at all) unenjoyable to play. Same goes for Minion builds, nerfing the damage some (not 10 times in a row tho...) is understandable, but having to resummon minions nonstop just sucks, its the most unfun thing to do. I understand that you guys dont like the minion playstyle, and you clearly hate totems, but a lot of people love that playstyle. You should improve the quality of life for builds and make them more fun, not the other way round. It would be wise to rethink your philosophy and maybe make smarter decisions in the future...

Assassin... Is this a joke ?

I mean I understand your desire to slow down the game, but :

How is removing a total of 34% of movement speed from Assassin spread out over multiple nodes, lower the reduced damage taken, and remove 15% attack and cast speed.... by replacing it all with increased power charge duration...

How is this not a huge nerf overall ? I don't see the upside whatsoever. Assassin is supposed to be fast.

Or give us the option to refresh Elusive on critical strikes...

Yes some Assassin builds were clearly broken and OP. But by doing what you've just done, you've nerfed EVERY single Assassin build. Why ? Why remove the movement speed, both regarding gameplay as well as class identity.

Please nerf the POE.trade, because people are having too much fun with it!

I didn't like changes you made. Not only with ascendancies but also skills, like spectres (and overall necros) and area of contagion (and assassin). I wanted to start with one of those because it was reliable. Now I don't think I will, not for league start, when I want something familiar I know will breeze me through yellow/red maps - I don't want to experiment on start when you can get most currency with fresh economy. After that I'll make another, stronger build anyway. But I think it's an issue for fair chunk of people who addressed their negative feedback. They lost something reliable for league start, something they already planned to use (or some build that was strong and they didn't manage to try it so far).

Though I don't think those changes are bad. Actually I agree, as so far I agreed with most of your nerfs and buffs in the past. And I do believe most people that complain will change their mind, like they do every league.

My point being - I do understand those changes were necessary, but people won't like it at first for reasons above.

Still, keep up good work, I really appreciate you as game developers, in my mind the best ones out there.

I call bullshit:

Gratuitous Violence
Added
20% more Damage with Bleeding

Removed
Attacks have 25% chance to cause Bleeding
30% increased Damage with Hits and Ailments against Bleeding Enemies
25% more Damage with Bleeding

no interesting mechanic or interaction added just a straight obnoxious nerf to a character that did NOT do excessive amount of damage with normal levels of investment.

And similar nerfs all around. GGG as per usual.

"over 40 skill gem buffs" - So should we take that to mean nerfs, now?

This is a buff/nerf.

Why did you nerf already not played classes though? Like why does Raider with Chase and Slaughter now miss 30% inc dmg with 10 Frenzy charges compared to before before? Like the class was already unplayable. Now you take away 30% inc dmg for 10% inc atk speed.
Please buff underplayed classes and nodes that are not used... And not nerf them for no reason. TY
So many classes are just stricktly nerfed here for no reason.
Buff the weak ones... Nerf AOE across the board.
Play freaking Hades and copy some ideas there if you are out of ideas.

Just a reminder that guardian (neon's favorite class that he always keeps playing and buffing) has once again been buffed.

Was the 34% reduced movement speed from the entire Assassin tree really necessary...? People are trying to justify this by saying it's fine because you get 60% inc elusive effect from Mistwalker but many people don't use Mistwalker and just anoint or allocate No Witnesses instead because people spec into Ambush Opportunistic and Deadly Infusion. Then let's say you give up Ambush, ok well then no matter how you look at it, the elusive will give you 18% more movement speed at 60% inc effect which would be only 48% inc movement speed compared to 30% flat movement speed plus 25% inc elusive and mind you, movement speed from the elusive depletes over time. This means even if you optimize into the new Mistwalker you are losing 12-16% movement speed. There's already little to no movement speed nodes on the passive tree anyway so this seems kind of overkill honestly. Where do you propose to get the movement speed back from the tree if that whole area has little to nothing that offers it and at best you can get back slightly more from the 1% move speed jewel enchants that are rare AF from Harvest. Unless you've added some more movement speed nodes on the skill tree, I could be wrong but as it stands this looks pretty substantial in terms of nerfing a class that was meant to be fast.

You said "rebalances and buffs", you lied. Bleed gladiator lost 30% more damage against bleeding targets. If you were targeting bleed bow glads, you failed melee bleed builds. This show you only nerf for the sake of nerfing, not balancing.

Next time be honest and just say what you are really doing. Truth never hurts.