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

So you just murdered SRS? Great, unlike last league where I tried a few things before the grind got too boring, now I'm forced to not play because the build I know the most about isn't around.

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Itsapaul wrote:

So you just murdered SRS? Great, unlike last league where I tried a few things before the grind got too boring, now I'm forced to not play because the build I know the most about isn't around.

Wow youre forced to LEARN new builds, OMG thats so sad, you may need to use your brain instead playing faceroll meta builds

awww sad face

Definitely think they need to change the "effect auras have on you" to "effect auras have on you and your minions", otherwise they're entirely gutting auramancers, which aren't a problematic archetype in the least.

Poggo

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Riverwind77 wrote:

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Itsapaul wrote:

So you just murdered SRS? Great, unlike last league where I tried a few things before the grind got too boring, now I'm forced to not play because the build I know the most about isn't around.

Wow youre forced to LEARN new builds, OMG thats so sad, you may need to use your brain instead playing faceroll meta builds

awww sad face

Yea, because SRS is totally a "faceroll meta build"... :DDD

So far super solid changes in all 3 manifestos. Only thing that I think needs work is cold dot dmg numbers. Probably another 50% more dmg to be a good build. In 3.15 cold dot was already struggeling alot with another damage loss of 30ish percent I don't see anyone playing it. Unless there are further changes in the patch notes that we don't know yet.

I never reply in this sort of post but today is deserved.

Note: I'm trying to approach this with good will but is going to have some rant here and there.

Aura-Reservation effects.


In your attempt to balance the game, you made things even hard to understand while not only not balancing but destroying everything in your path. Like, been asked to mow the yard, instead you burn everything out then throw salt.

Here I leave you (GGG or whoever cares to read) three versions to a solution based on how hard you want to balance it:


1- Easy mode.

Player auras that affect other Players only effects 25% to 50% of it’s value.

Self explanatory. With a hard cap of 50% that can’t not be increased past this point, only aurabots would be punished by this while still retaining their play style. Reservations to auras are the same.

2- Hard mode.

Player auras that affect other Players only effects 25% to 50% of it’s value.
Players can only have a maximum of 5 auras affect them (can’t be increased) from all sources not coming from their skills.

The above example has no impact on the 99.9% of players: not solo players (with minions or not), duo players, aura stackers…

Instead It takes the current problem, aura bots, limiting the total number of auras a player can receive by other players. By reducing the number, you also reduce the increased power while limiting the number of aura bots withing a party.

In addition since there are not changes to the reservation of auras, builds such as aura stackers are not influenced by this.


3- No pain, only tears of joy.

Players can only have a maximum of 3 auras affect them (can’t be increased) from all sources not coming from their skills.

Auras from players skills don’t affect other players.

Add a new unique:
Item in helm, boots or gloves slot with only three white sockets and not linkable.
Has a property: Auras socketed in this item also affect other Players.
Has a property: Auras socketed in this item has X increased aura effect.
Has a property: Auras socketed in this item has X increased area of effect.
Has no other stats.
Some random flavor text like with: “To achieve greatness, one must sacrifice something.” Some type of “All for one”.

This is obviously the most extreme case of nerf (can’t not even be called balance) and impacts both aura stackers and duo+ players. Players sacrifice the ability for their auras to affect other players with an empty armor slot. The auras effect have standard values (100% of their value + whatever effect+ the player has).

The three examples provided before (while not the best), clearly attack the current problem with aura bots and at the same time they don’t impact the rest of the player base, build or archetypes. The last been heavy nerfed for no reason in bad attempt to improve the situation created and maintained by you (GGG).

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Reservation Efficency.

I read it. Not once, not twice but too many times to the point that I reached a conclusion.
I must go back to school, get a master in maths, physics, aerodynamis, social science, pyscology… so I can try to undestand why you want to make things more difficult to understand than already are.

Path of Exile is already a comboluted mess in all It’s glory. Almost every update the team adds more obscure and difficult knowledge into items and mechanics that in other hand could be easy explained with little effort if you treated us (your community) like idiots we are.

For example: “Reservation efficiency” At first glance this tells me two things: something about reservation and efficiency of it. The first It’s quite self explanatory but the second… How can a reservation, that can be false of true or have a definite value, can have any “efficiency”.
If the reservation of my aura is not effective does that mean if I don’t stack this bullshit instead of the 50% mana reservation (can be found in the description of the skill), it will go up exponentially for no reason, at who knows what time and by only godly Chris knows how much?

The naming or terms used to attempt to describe something that already exist, is easy to read or understand and didn’t have or make any problem is out of control. Not only Players can’t not understand at first glance what are each thing but even if I check the other sources of information like tooltip, description of the skill or even the menu (C key), we won’t find an answer. Instead we will have to be forced to basics: “equip it. Unequip. What changed. What didn’t. It got better? Maybe not?”.

In addition to the problem with the “numeric scale”. While I understand that having a bigger number pool means you can fine tune numbers with only lowering or increasing in smalls quantities for the intention of balance; the numbers on reservation efficiency just prove how ridiculous the whole thing is.
Until now Aura reservation was based on a value of 100(%), hence you have 100 aura reservation, your auras will not have any reservation (cost). A clear example is the following item:
“Essence Worm now grants 80% reduced Reservation Efficiency (not specific to mana), instead of 40% increased Reservation.”

The values have doubled.
Unless you are a player who played PoE before and read the change that specifically says “efficiency numbers are doubled to compare the previous one” you will find yourself trying to understand what is the perfect cap where your auras would cost 0. In the notes says 100% is only half of the previous one (so 50% aura reservation) which means I need 200% for achieve 100% aura reservation. I can’t be the only one who see this troubling right? I mean you could say 100% and instead you doubled for no reason, making everything harder than It should.

Reduced, increased, positives or negatives.
This topic had been the bane of my existence and blunt attack to my anxiety while playing this game. Why do reservation need an multiplicative (reduced or increased) text/value, if they can be simplified with negatives and positives?
The ring above has recieved a change from “increased” (a positive aspect) to a reduced (negative aspect) but both have a negative influence or connotation within the game terms.
PoE would profit greatly from having a stable base all across the game for how the mechanics works. The best example I can find for this are the player’s resistance. Any new or old player will face this mechanic and understand what should be picked: Resistances are white (or green) or positive That’s GOOD! Red or negatives OOOOH SHHHHH*T!


In the notes this double or increase to value change are in concordance with nerfs to aura bots but as I proved above there is a way more easy to balance auras all across the board or with a specify target without harming or changing the rest, like cluster. I don’t even know how to try explain my opinion and feelings about the cluster changes without been extremely rude or toxic.

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Curses – curse bot

Yet another example of “We have a problem. Let me grab explosives”. There are two type of build that nowadays can profit greatly from curse stacking: Bane and Curse bot. The first one (Bane) has been nerfed to the ground every update so this changes are just another nail in the coffin but the actual problem is curse bot.
You (GGG) choose to make changes to cluster (why? I don’t even..) and also to items such Doedre’s skin. You release the problem is the amount of curses that multiple players can’t stack on enemies but instead of capping the amount of curses an enemy can have or curses overwriting others, you decide to nerf items the instead. WHHHHHHHHHHY?! Why take most lame way?

Let me try to explain with two examples on how curses on PoE are based on a MMO RPG style but not in ARPG and why that’s a mistake.
Under normal situations, in games, curses are part of the CoC/affliction meta. Spells or abilities that helps to enhance the dmg deal to an enemy or debuff such enemy with the intention of lower It’s defense or offense capabilities. In RPG the amount of dmg is limited/capped and the mechanics which has Area of Effect or multiple instances of damage are limited in quantity in order to achieve a slow and tactic playstyle without numbers in the millions.

However PoE uses the same approach when it come to Curses yet the playstyle is complete the opposite. By default Players can have insane numbers of damage with little effort, for example gems level and to top this PoE has a lot of mechanics that add extra damage in form of Area of effect without the original source of damage having such intent. Curses add another layer of damage that multiply Players damage without a proper trade off and many can be auto casted.

From PoE point of view Curses should be an utility to overcome difficulty or to help playstyles that can’t not achieve the clear speed and the fast peace action that PoE requires in order to not be overwhelmed by the enemy and die.
Bellow I’m going to explain some different versions to take both the problem of Curses and Curse bot.


1- Overwriting Curses

Curses can be divided into groups: Damage (frostbite...etz), Marks (assassin…etz) and Afflictions (enfeeble, temporal chain…etz). Once we stablish this we can create a pattern where curses are replaced by another of the same group such as: frostbite been replaced by vulnerability. I would like to make it clear, it’s replacing the first with the second and in this example the enemy only would have one curse.

The reason behind this is while PoE gives the means to have 2 or more types of damage but at the same time teaching us that if we focus on one is always the most profitable (in terms of damage). Due to this having multiple Damage Curses only improve damage to those who play in party of 4+.

My suggestion would be Creating 3 pools (explained above) and only 1 of each pool could be applied to enemies from all sources. For example: Frostbite, Enfeeble and Sniper’s Mark at a time.

2- Less global, more specifically.

Another way to improve curses would be creating situations where it can be used for a reason rather than direct form of “more damage”.

Frostbite:
Chance to chill 10%.
Chance to Freeze 5%.
Chill and Freeze increased effect X%. (soft cap 10% without curse effect)
Enemies take X% increased ice damage% (soft cap 10% without curse effect).
Enemies cursed by Frostbite only take ice damage.
The above values are double for the Player (created the curse) and allies (not Players) if the curse was selfcast (no triggered…).

The above example creates a curse that specifically buffs the add effect of using ice damage (Chill and Freeze), marginally improves ice damage taken by the enemy and greatly encourage the player to self cast. The trade off been enemy can only take ice damage and C.Bot’s curses would have a much reduced impact on the enemy due the player not dealing or doing low damage.


I was going to say this are my two cent but It ended been a damn wall of text. Anyway this is my opinion and my suggestion to try to help the team for balance the game while not burning bridges as we move on by updates.
I won’t bother to try read other people reply to my post. Not because I don’t value your opinion but not going to waste even more time going by 100+pages of replies to the original post.

Thanks for your time. GL.

P.S: please change the format of this type of manifesto content is really hard to read with the yellow-ish text without double line space.

Very nice changes, 3.16 is looking very exciting!

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impulze3 wrote:

rip aurastacking.

gz on ruining another build archetype.

How to kill another aspect of endgame and stomp a 10+ mir build into history.

I played this build for 5 leagues now, improving it bit by bit every league.
About 15-20 mirrors of stuff, soon to be obsolete.

Aura effect gone from clusters, clusters unuseable.
i'd need 588% increased reservation efficiency on my gear to run all my 16 auras, which is impossible with 2% on jewels.

this leaves a bad taste in my mouth, you disregard the time i spent on this build in one single patch because reddit crybabies are complaining about party play. again and again you kill things in collateral from multiple angles.

the solution was so simple, lowering aura effect on others and leaving reservation alone as it impacts other builds aswell. now you probably ruined a bunch of builds with those changes, not just aurabots and stacking.

we'll wait and see how it plays out. If 3.16 is not the ultimate bomb league mechanic to make up for this loss, i will quit this

You are not alone in this bro, there is probebly 1000s of players with good/mirr gears that now will go to the grabage disposal, not only that but all aura mtx we bought to make nice looking chars with all auras are also wasted, GGG want to kill builds fine for the uppcomming leagues, i dont mind at all but at least leave the builds that already spent 1000s of exalts and hours on them.