Feedbacks and Suggestions vol.1

Items:

Nerfs
Mageblood : ignores flask enchantments
Foulborn hand and motion : accuracy per 25 int 5% > 1%
Ephemeral Edge : max lightning damage equal to player max es 10-15% > 5-10%

Buffs:
Continue reworking/updating various underutilized uniques.

Skillgems:

Traps and Mines:
First off let me just bring to your attention that in my game mode (HCSSF) according to poe.ninja both mines and traps are used by ~1% of characters if you ignore fire trap which seems to be the only usable one due to it's obvious synergy with the way people scale RF builds and I do not necessarily want to classify them as trap builds. The 2nd most used trap is ice trap and apparently nobody using it was able to get past level 92.
As for mines they seem to fare a bit better as two players managed to get lvl 100 on a miner build but aside from power siphon and reap/exsang miner the state of mine builds do not look particularly good right now.
There are probably 120+ spells in the game which can be linked to mines to deal damage yet only 2 of them seem to be viable, quite depressing if you care about build diversity.

Totem builds:
In general they do not seem to be in a much better place than traps and mines right now, only 2 of them managed to get level 100 and at a quick glace they are all hierophants and the builds don't seem to be anything to write home about.
Diversity once again doesn't look great, mostly EA/Stormburst/Flameblast.

Self casting:
It is in an abysmal state, the most commonly used gem being Reap which is the same one miners are using, what an odd coincidence. Then we have the new doomblast build using foulborn doedre+vixens occupying the second most popular spot. Beyond that I'm not even seeing anything popular or relevant enough to write about.

Strike skillgems:
Aside from boneshatter of complex trauma there seems to be no real viability when it comes to strike skills, especially not for phys builds, the best ones seem to be using energy blade + insane es pool. For this argument I'm ignoring all accuracy int stackers since they deal more dps than most strike skill users I saw while using default attack which is just an unlinked 100% modifier attack so that build shouldn't be used to judge the viability of strike skills since it shouldn't even exist as it currently is.

Slams:
Nerfing overexertion would bring slams closer to being on-par with the potential of strike skills while also allowing players to create slam builds that aren't hyper-focused on warcries without feeling like they are being punished for not using it at all cost.

Summons:
More diversity would be nice here, nobody is using golem of hordes or reaper, many other summoning gems being pretty much dead. DPS spectre options are giga limited, I heard someone say "might as well rename the gem to Raise Frostbearer" and lol that's kind of true sadly.


Ascendencies:

Elementalist is a tad too powerful: Nerf Liege of primordial, it is being played 12x more than trickster/deadeye/sabo and 6x more than assassin/occultist/guardian/inquiz and it's not because of any skillgem or item in particular such as exertion gems + berserker, it is simply OP in a nutshell seemimngly.

Ascendant is too weak, pretty much nobody plays it, most of the mini ascendencies are not interesting and not great.


Overall QOL improvements
Maps can be upgraded directly from the stash


More to come in vol.2 soon

"

MrEpic#2507 wrote:

More to come in vol.2 soon

They do ask that each suggestion gets posted in its own thread.

"

MrEpic#2507 wrote:

Nerfs
Mageblood : ignores flask enchantments
Foulborn hand and motion : accuracy per 25 int 5% > 1%
Ephemeral Edge : max lightning damage equal to player max es 10-15% > 5-10%

Nah

"

MrEpic#2507 wrote:

First off let me just bring to your attention that in my game mode (HCSSF) according to poe.ninja both mines and traps are used by ~1%

A niche gamemode and a website which highlights nothing but build popularity.
Nothing about this tells anything about actual balance. I think GGG is already aware of things that do need a buff or nerf :)

Mageblood fomo in 2026, really? Also the game isn't balanced for (hc)ssf.

Your numbers for Traps are a bit off. In Hardcore Keepers, Trap Support is used by 0.1% and Deerstalker by another 0.1%. You do not account for builds that use Influence gear to gain Trap Support (gloves) so the exact number we can't know.

For mines you have to add up both High-Impact Mine Support (0.9%) and Blastchain Mine Support (0.3%). Pyroclast Mine of Sabotaging (0.1%) is more of a support spell for other main skills, but Icicle Mine of Fanning (0.1%) and Pyroclast Mine (0.4%) are legit main skills.

Traps have fallen off for a while already and I'd welcome buffs for them, but mines remain powerful and need no changes. Regardless, popularity does not equate how powerful a skill is. They can be indicators, but they don't allow conclusions just from pick rate alone.

The reason why Traps and Mines archetypes are not as popular in HC should be obvious though. Without high investment you won't see great defences on those builds.

Totems are FINE, trust me. You'd hear Tatiantel2 complain about them if they weren't. My nastiest build this league in fact is a totem build and it's not one you've listed. Again, popularity != relative power.

Nerfing MB = POE1's demise.

-I don't think the game should be balanced exclusively for HCSSF ofc but maybe they can do something about the very stale meta that has developped without ruining it for SC players.

-Not mageblood fomo just trying to improve the game's balance and build diversity
nice attempt at ragebait though once again celestriad

-I did take into account those things, click HCSSF then click playstyle > trap (3%) then see 72% of those are using fire trap so 28% (the remaining portion) times 3% is 0.84%, I don't think we should worry about decimals here I am just more or less roughly pointing out the lack of diversity.

-For mines once again click HCSSF > Mines and you will see that I right, doing it this way includes all actual mine skills and mine supports

-Populary undeniably DOES equate to how powerful a skill/build is, or are you saying the majority of this community are trying to play weak builds just to be hipsters? Because it is fact that the majority do not think like that, and the statistics can confirm it, it is a community of sheep. There are TONS of streamers who are constantly looking to create the next OP build they can post on their platform to gain a boost in popularity/relevancy/income. Tons of players also use PoB constantly to try and cook up the next best thing yet things do not seem to change.

-It shouldn't necessarily be the case that building traps and mines = bad defences, from an optimal balance perspective they should even reward players for a slightly higher dps payload for the same skillpoint investment since the drawback is that traps and mines do not leech.

-I mean you can SAY that totems are fine but statistics do not lie bud, and no, I did not hear about this tantil2 guy I do not follow streamer culture and certainly do not repeat every single thing they say, I would rather think for myself.

Anyways if you think everything is in a perfect state you can create your own feedback thread to tell GGG that you are very satisfied and that nothing should change. Leave it to the visionaries like me to take care of the future of the game.
Also remember that my post is concerning HCSSF balance and build diversity, if you post a reply arguing from a SC trade / HC trade standpoint I just fail to see the point of even posting here, we already know you can create any clown build in SC and portal hop your way to "victory". Again feel free post your own thread to tell GGG everything is perfect in those game modes I'm sure they will appreciate the thumbs up.

Edit: And no I am not creating a new thread for every single point

More edit: Care to explain exactly why/how nerfing mageblood would result in poe1's demise?

No, popularity is only an indicator. Not all powerful builds are popular. What's popular is affected by more than just raw build power, but key factors such as

- visibility (did a streamer play it? is there a video guide on YouTube the algo picked up? is there a flashy new unique that's generating hype?)`
- cost to power ratio (if your build requires a Mageblood to function, is it a "good" build? respectively, if items required for the build to work are cheap, more people will be able to play it)
- defensive reliability (typically builds that have less defensive options are less popular in hardcore, while in softcore they're fine)
- clearspeed and mapping efficiency (e.g. Flamewood doesn't clear a map in 2 minutes, but it shits on ubers)
- don't require clunky setups (1-button mentality)
- ease of play (RF is not a strong build, but it's a "chill" build to play and has good defence, so people play it anyway)
- league mechanic synergy (anyone remember ED/Contagion absolutely popping during Legion? still not a powerful build)
- fun factor

If you equate pick rate and relative power you're wilfully ignoring a plethora of reasons why skills are being used. Don't be obtuse.

"

ArtCrusade#4438 wrote:

No, popularity is only an indicator. Not all powerful builds are popular. What's popular is affected by more than just raw build power, but key factors such as

- visibility (did a streamer play it? is there a video guide on YouTube the algo picked up? is there a flashy new unique that's generating hype?)`
- cost to power ratio (if your build requires a Mageblood to function, is it a "good" build? respectively, if items required for the build to work are cheap, more people will be able to play it)
- defensive reliability (typically builds that have less defensive options are less popular in hardcore, while in softcore they're fine)
- clearspeed and mapping efficiency (e.g. Flamewood doesn't clear a map in 2 minutes, but it shits on ubers)
- don't require clunky setups (1-button mentality)
- ease of play (RF is not a strong build, but it's a "chill" build to play and has good defence, so people play it anyway)
- league mechanic synergy (anyone remember ED/Contagion absolutely popping during Legion? still not a powerful build)
- fun factor

If you equate pick rate and relative power you're wilfully ignoring a plethora of reasons why skills are being used. Don't be obtuse.

Lol..yes a very strong indicator just like if it is -20 Celsius outside it is a very strong indicator that it is winter therefore we can safely assume that it is the winter season.

Not going to address every single one of those weak arguments just for the sake of discussing with someone who's doing it in bad faith. Like I said if you think the game is in a perfect state you can go ahead and create your own thread and give GGG a thumbs up.

Respectfully, you don't understand what a sleeper build is, and how hype makes builds popular even if they are not the greatest overall.