Path of Exile 3.16 Balance - Part 3 - Auras, Curses and Elemental Damage Over Time

Dear GGG,

After reading this I remembered a line from the baeclast podcast...

https://youtube.com/clip/UgwF_iTBLwe8xOPrODJ4AaABCQ

The planned changes mentioned on this post are a 180 from this statement.

If these aura changes go through I will feel like many others, that the many hard earned dollars I spent on this game to make my aura stacker look cool will be for naught, and ultimately discourage me from wanting to spend money ever again to make my character look cool, or just straight up discourage me from wanting to play the game at all.

Also, the statement at the end of your post about "changes aren't final" is what you should lead the post with, in my opinion.

That's how you do the meta shift GGG!
So many changes, so much new stuff to try!

Looking forward for the league anouncement in anticipation.

So basically after everybody complain about too many nerfs in the past few leagues, you guys decide to make more nerfs and Even destroy some builds and playstyles completely?

I'm going to admit I'm personally excited with any big changes because I can explore and find new builds, but if you guys are looking to keep your players, this doesn't make any sense.

This last league was dead and I am bothered that people are not playing cuz I like to play softcore and trade/buy/sell items on the market. The market was dead on Expedition. :(

it's about damn time aura bots and stackers got hit. these are some nice looking changes.

It looks like balance team doesn't want you to do any math for the game and have fun in thinking and developing variety of builds

I guess it's safe to say it's possible now to turn Path of Exile into a clicker

Pls check or reviewed Mine's reservation

Awesome changes all around. Many of these will have strong and immediate positive impact on the build meta.

There are only four things I'd like to point out, although they mostly concern the previous post but it probably makes more sense to post everything in one go.

1.

"

Problem: Energy Shield is most often used with leech and regeneration like Life, rather than embracing its unique recharge mechanic.
Solution: Increase the base recovery rate of Energy Shield recharge. Rework the downside of the Wicked Ward Keystone.

I feel like this is the only solution that was completely misidentified. The reason behind this problem is that the recharge is all too easy to disrupt, not that it's necessarily too slow. It means even if you're taking tiny hits just often enough or are under the effect of any DoT, you don't get the advantage of the mechanic at all, as opposed to regeneration working the entire time. Regeneration is simply more reliable, and this solution will shift some more power towards Wicked Ward but will still force players to choose one of the two options for reliability as opposed to efficiently using recharge as is.

I think the reason behind this is that the mechanic itself was developed back when the speed of the game and the density of monster packs was nowhere near the present levels, and players in general were forced to kite more. The recharge delay has shortened from 6 to 2 seconds over the years, but it's still not enough for the tempo of the game. The design of this mechanic is largely antithetical to how the game encourages one to play, it's not something experienced players willingly want to engage with, so maybe it needs to be reviewed completely, with the Wicked-Ward-like behavior accepted as the default.

2. I'm somewhat concerned with the relative power level of the Gladiator as the result of the change to Versatile Combatant, considering it was the main allure of the entire ascendancy class, with almost everything else in it possible to relatively easily compensate with items and other mechanics. I'm not sure the proposed lucky attack block can fully compensate for this unless it also propagates to spell block.

3.

"

Previously, there were some very tanky characters, but they were gated behind specific niche mechanics and uniques that were not accessible to everyone.

The bolded part hasn't really changed much. Some of the powerful uniques got nerfed but those that actually gated the defensive mechanics, e.g. Timeless jewels, are unchanged. I'd also love to see more Watcher's Eye effects moved to auras themselves to shift some more of that late-endgame items' power into base game considering just how much it affects respective builds.

4. Among all auras, Discipline still sticks out like a sore thumb as outright mandatory for any build investing in ES because it's a major source of raw HP. It's like if a life build had an aura that gave it extra base life—what build would possibly forgo the opportunity? I suggest moving the extra base ES to tree and items and changing it into a utility aura that would be optional for ES builds rather than mandatory.

Aside from that, again, excellent work compiling and identifying problems and coming up with meaningful solutions. Many of them have been overdue for a very long time, and I can't be happier to see them finally implemented. This doesn't encompass all defense-related woes I can think of, but it's a big and appreciated step in the right direction.

I hope to one day be able to play the game more efficiently with friends on random builds.

So far it was always more efficient to play solo unless resorting to some op aura build.

"

ekaye wrote:

"

Sobert wrote:

Feedback: Essence Worm unintentionally nerfed x3.5 times
"Essence Worm now grants 80% reduced Reservation Efficiency (not specific to mana), instead of 40% increased Reservation."
with 1 skill in 1 Essence Worm and no other reservation modifiers:
BEFORE you had 100/1.4=71.4% of mana reservation capacity left to use
AFTER you have just 20% of mana reservation capacity left to use
which is x3.5 less than before
I understand that it was an x2 formula applied but it is wrong in case of big negative values.
To keep the power of the ring at the same level it should be 30% reduced Reservation Efficiency, not 80%

I think the intended use case of EW is that you put your reservation skill in it, and possibly one in another EW, and don't reserve mana anywhere else. You're probably not meant to use it alongside other reservations. And in any case, you can pick up 50% res efficiency if you really want it at its old value.

The new EO works with traps, mines, and totems, right? Because it only matters if the skill crit, not you? Will there be icons to indicate if EO is active for a given skill?

It'll be lulsy if they move EE and don't update the flavor text.

" You're probably not meant to use it alongside other reservations. "
-- nope, the ring was helpful to get a lot of free mana with a setup of 50% aura and 25% herald or 35% flesh and stone or petrified blood.
Now if you equip 2 EWs you literally can't reserve anything unless you get at least 60% reservation efficency which is nearly as hard as getting 30% reduced reservation now.
In addition, the plan to accumulate high investments in reservation efficency is not relevant, since ring is a very low budget solution, why should I stack so much for it to be as good as before, I rather look towards Aul's Uprising

As someone who has played an aura stacker and has a friend that has pushed it really hard, it sucks when your build and the currency put into it is utterly deleted. But the game has never been about Standard and you can't expect the game to stay the same.

But honestly speaking it's surprising this last as long as it did. I mean nothing can kill you and you can kill everything. Its a level of op that is of course a lot of fun since it feels like cheats. And it's something you can do by yourself instead of relying on another player and coordinate with. I still think aurabots shouldn't have that level of power either the fact we even label them as bots is not a positive thing. Multiplayer should be about people playing together which Poe frankly isn't good at encouraging.

So yes aurastacking seemed like a justifiable goal since while the build is completly busted, getting the currency is no small feat compared to an aura bot. And the skills you can use are very limited. And until you reach that 300% aura effect threshold the build feels really really bad especially for the currency invested or is unplayable. If someone spends 200-300exalts shouldn't their build be able to do stupidly impossible things? And the answer should be no, and aura bots shouldn't exist in that capacity either.

But just like many changes in the past people will find new op builds. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't some sort of immortal armor/es build hybrid discovered this league that will probably be nerfed mid league.