Fix/nerf 12-link being the only bis attack endgame

There are skills like Sweep or damage types like Physical that do not scale from going 12-link with Squire and Shaper+Elder one handed sword, and do keep in mind that 12-link is 6 times more damage (1.35^6) compared to normal 6-link (e.g. two-handed weapon, which at best has 70% more damage than one-handed, meaning still a gap of 3.5 times).

Basically there is no true mirror-chase endgame for Two-Handed/Physical archetypes compared to this cold frenzy 12-link stacking that we have for ele non-channel attack builds.
So at some point to scale you are forced by the game to switch from e.g. Cyclone, or Impale, or Sweep towards something that benefits from 12-link, from its Multistrike, from its Elemental supports, from Cold per frenzy damage.

Hot take, I suggest deleting Squire, deleting Supported by shaper/elder mods, deleting Cold damage per frenzy, a based GGG hand of god triple-tap to make sure there is no FOMO remaining from all of this busted stuff, so we can Sweep in peace.

Alternatively add expensive end-game scaling for physical attack builds and for two-handed builds so we have something to chase as well. Like crucible trees, but they are only available for two-handed weapons.

Game devs generally like the low effort approach to balancing/changing. In the caes of physical attacks, impale is meant to be the main scaling system, so just buff impale. Buff the baseline effect, buff the baseline number of max stacks, reflect impale damage to surrounding monsters upon monster death, etc.

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Hexlord#2826 wrote:

Hot take, I suggest deleting Squire, deleting Supported by shaper/elder mods, deleting Cold damage per frenzy, a based GGG hand of god triple-tap to make sure there is no FOMO remaining from all of this busted stuff, so we can Sweep in peace.

Alternatively add expensive end-game scaling for physical attack builds and for two-handed builds so we have something to chase as well. Like crucible trees, but they are only available for two-handed weapons.

That’s quite a strange FOMO-driven take, removing endgame scaling across the entire spectrum only to reintroduce it in a limited form for a single archetype or weapon type.
That’s simply not going to happen, especially considering that even pure two-handed physical weapons already have their own mirror-tier chase items, which are just as difficult to craft as cold-per-frenzy or influenced gear.

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

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Hexlord#2826 wrote:

Hot take, I suggest deleting Squire, deleting Supported by shaper/elder mods, deleting Cold damage per frenzy, a based GGG hand of god triple-tap to make sure there is no FOMO remaining from all of this busted stuff, so we can Sweep in peace.

Alternatively add expensive end-game scaling for physical attack builds and for two-handed builds so we have something to chase as well. Like crucible trees, but they are only available for two-handed weapons.

That’s quite a strange FOMO-driven take, removing endgame scaling across the entire spectrum only to reintroduce it in a limited form for a single archetype or weapon type.
That’s simply not going to happen, especially considering that even pure two-handed physical weapons already have their own mirror-tier chase items, which are just as difficult to craft as cold-per-frenzy or influenced gear.

And yet those builds are generally a lot less effective/flashy as these other builds.

The point is the ceiling if you're scaling pure phys from a 2h phys weapon.

Phys as extra existing as a stat thats far easier to stack than impale is the problem. Impale being awkward to spec into for what it gives you compared to phys as extra. It would be like having a stat that says. 10% chance to deal 10% of physical damage as extra (elemental) damage. Then having to spec into 100% chance to deal 100% of physical damage as extra elemental damage with xxx points on the tree and/or using a support gem that gives you only 60% chance to xxx as xx extra ele damage. Impale also requires a follow up hit to really do anything.

You can just take 5% here 15% here of phys as extra ele damage and get damage every time you click the button on every hit. If you tick a 5% chance to impale 2% attack speed node you feel nothing.

You are stuck having to scale stuff like return proj on splitting steel (lol)
you cant just scale the hit once you get a mirror weapon + 100% chance to impale. you're hard capped without a bunch of extra work like warcries on slams and finding ways to abuse attack speed buffs or crit multi on strikes.

Maybe off topic but maybe not. Also saviour being on uber sirus is an abomination. Can we get that changed. That item was there looooooong before uber sirus existed. If you play hc this item is impossible to use when it even exists on the market. Everyone wants 100d+ for it and its mediocre at best. If you look at hctrade poeninja there are 5 people in the last 2 leagues that use saviour and settlers was almost 1 year long and there is only 1 the entire league. 0 in hcssf for both leagues but thats expected for an uber 1% item so its whatever.

Lonnie, do you have a source for that claim? I do not recall Saviour dropping from anywhere but Sirus back when they introduced him with the Atlas rework as part of the Metamorph league, and the wiki also states that the sword dropped from him.

Here's the first entry into the Sirus page history: https://www.poewiki.net/index.php?title=Sirus,_Awakener_of_Worlds&oldid=756432

Actually I agree, I think GGG should delete Mirror as well, or make it 10 times as rare.
Currently it is feasible to reach 1-5 mirrors in a league (30+ for power gamers), and that means instead of chasing a BiS item (monitoring market / learning to craft) you just mirror an existing one from the market, with current power-creep endgame it is an outdated design, quite anti-climactic at least for us FOMO-sufferers (why self-craft something if you can mirror a BiS item).

That would also solve the frenzy-stacking 12-link madness being the meta and power-creep overall.

I know 3.27 already nerfs the loot quite a bit, but I doubt it is anywhere near sufficient to diversify the top-tier builds. However that is a different topic, and this is more about Physical vs Elemental endgame specifically.

Good point by Lonnie, part of the problem is that elemental + frenzy-stacking gives you everything: instant clear, movement speed, feels good to play, allows using practically any attack skill. It is min-max best way to scale everything, on top of that Slayer/old Trickster EB also fix the defenses easily.

Physical attack builds basically mean you are forced to use Impale for scaling (non-instant clear, arguably worse than DoT), you hit the cap for Impale scaling very fast (and of course it is not as easy as affixes on rings & amulet, herald + hatred - you actually have to sacrifice lots of passive nodes / watcher affix / glove implicit / weapon affix), you are even more so forced into using Abyssus as the only source of +phys that survived, which in turn forces you into stacking armour to survive the increased phys taken. You are also forced into two-handed weapon, because it is by far the best way to scale raw phys damage.

Basically Physical Attack is a very narrow power fantasy in PoE if you want to actually deal damage, and has a much lower ceiling than elemental builds.

Elemental builds get to enjoy wearing various fun unique shields, crafting insane 12-link setups, using any skills that have conversion, using huge variety of added damage sources (lowering the requirements for the weapon), etc etc.

I understand why it is like this (conversion rules, as such physical damage is the most powerful due to stacking phys&ele more multipliers), perhaps that could be resolved by buffing Brutality to add base physical damage, and adding sources of flat added damage (e.g. veil on gloves, unique jewels, etc.) that cannot be converted to elemental damage.

E.g. "Adds 20-30 physical damage to attacks" affixed by "Cannot deal elemental damage".
I appreciate everyone's responses, I understand the issue much more clear now.

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ArtCrusade#4438 wrote:

Lonnie, do you have a source for that claim? I do not recall Saviour dropping from anywhere but Sirus back when they introduced him with the Atlas rework as part of the Metamorph league, and the wiki also states that the sword dropped from him.

Here's the first entry into the Sirus page history: https://www.poewiki.net/index.php?title=Sirus,_Awakener_of_Worlds&oldid=756432

He's talking about UBER Sirus. Obviously Saviour was a Sirus item before Uber even existed.

I agree on that point btw. They didn't even buff Saviour or change the drop rate, just slapped it on ubers drop table instead. Still <1% chance but on a much harder fight.

I don't understand this thread at all......

BiS LITERALLY MEANS "one type". That is what makes it BiS: there are NO OTHER OPTIONS. When you get to that level of build, ANY BUILD.....they all homogenize into the same copy/paste items. Because that is the ONLY possible way it functions as a BiS build.

it is categorically impossible for the same archetype to have more than a singular BiS options.

Meanwhile, just a tiny bit below that there exists an entire WORLD of different attack builds. That conveniently gets completely ignored.


Not only that, but this whole premise that THIS is the only BiS build for ALL attacks.....is wrong. It is MUCH smaller than that. If its even true for THAT at all, considering BiS can mean very different things depending on what content you try to run, or what your particular build goals are. Not everyone is ONLY building DPS to the max.

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Sadaukar#2191 wrote:

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ArtCrusade#4438 wrote:

Lonnie, do you have a source for that claim? I do not recall Saviour dropping from anywhere but Sirus back when they introduced him with the Atlas rework as part of the Metamorph league, and the wiki also states that the sword dropped from him.

Here's the first entry into the Sirus page history: https://www.poewiki.net/index.php?title=Sirus,_Awakener_of_Worlds&oldid=756432

He's talking about UBER Sirus. Obviously Saviour was a Sirus item before Uber even existed.

I agree on that point btw. They didn't even buff Saviour or change the drop rate, just slapped it on ubers drop table instead. Still <1% chance but on a much harder fight.

Well they did buff it a while back but i dont think it was the same league they moved it to the uber loot table.

Being on the uber loot table sucks. ill make this comment till im blue in the face.

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ArtCrusade#4438 wrote:

Lonnie, do you have a source for that claim? I do not recall Saviour dropping from anywhere but Sirus back when they introduced him with the Atlas rework as part of the Metamorph league, and the wiki also states that the sword dropped from him.

Here's the first entry into the Sirus page history: https://www.poewiki.net/index.php?title=Sirus,_Awakener_of_Worlds&oldid=756432

The same league where they moved echoes of creation to uber shaper only they moved saviour to uber sirus. they did this with all the uber loot tables. Which i get it for items like nimis that are completely broken but saviour is something you play because you think its cool not because its better than any old average build.

Just me personally it makes me dislike ssf a bit more. specifically hcssf but ssf its just not viable even in sc to try and get a saviour. You will be burnt out farming t17s before you get enough sirus fragments to reasonably find one unless you fear farm the card and harvest luck it. then you will probably hit a resolute technique corruption and brick it.