Content Update 2.6.0 Balance Changes

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To improve player choice, we've increased the base damage of many one-handed weapon types across the board.

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imLuCaSsS wrote:

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Leech effects in the Shadow area of the tree now leech from all attack damage, not just physical attack damage.

Finally, was about time. Only dualist life leech nodes was really bad in such a gigant passive tree.

Thank you GGG.

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PaperAirplanes wrote:

This is obviously a bit of a newbie question but when they release a patch with something like this:

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To improve player choice, we've increased the base damage of many one-handed weapon types across the board.

Does that effect existing items?

I noticed that changes to explicit mods on uniques doesn't effect previously-existing items and that's why there's this whole "legacy" business.

Is it going to be the same way when they change the base item, which normally wouldn't even have randomized stats?

If so, wouldn't that completely devalue every previously-existing phys-oriented one-handed weapon?

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Some physical to cold conversion has been added to the passive tree near the Ranger area. This allows for skills like Ice Shot & Frost Blades to have more conversion to cold than ever before.
A new weapon elemental damage cluster has been added to the passive tree near the Ranger. This now allows for dexterity aligned characters who specialise in elemental attack skills to invest more of their points into damage.
The area between the Shadow and the Ranger has been made more efficient and less restrictive, while also improving the efficiency of clusters in that section of the tree.

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prescben wrote:

I don't like to comment on these, because:

1.) They aren't the full patch notes and without full patch notes it's hard to know what full impact will be.
2.) Changes HAVE to be made for continued development of the game. Sometimes things will become more powerful and sometimes less. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. But if a change is too drastic, it gets corrected usually. So at worst, over-corrections you live with for only a while.
3.) Because these threads are usually toxic. It is, after all, a forum on the internet.

However. Can anyone actually claim that these changes aren't aimed at addressing legitimate problems in the game? These aren't arbitrary. They are legitimate attempts to balance the game.

Vaal Disc is getting a lot of attention on this thread, but ES is not balanced against life right now. That's not an opinion. That's fact, confirmed by numerous of our "elite" players and, more tellingly, confirmed by GGG acknowledging the point in it's announcement of what's coming in 3.0.

Let's not pretend that the MINOR nerf to ES that the Vaal Discipline change represents is enough to bring the two into balance... There's going to be a LOT more changes coming in 3.0 (I hope) to address this and other balance issues... This Vaal Discipline change won't break anyone's build. It may force a play-style change, however, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Similarly, conversion was getting out of control. Given double-dipping, there was almost no reason NOT to convert ANY vortex build to a fire-build for the ignites. Or CotB so we could use spark and chill of corruption. It's not that these mechanics shouldn't be used, GGG just feels they are TOO powerful. And they're probably right. It won't kill your build. It will simply bring it more in-line with other builds. The community WILL find a way forward as demonstrated by ALL previous nerfs (CoC begot Mjolnir begot Cospri's begot Still Cospri's begot Still Going to be Cospri's).

I choose to get excited about finding the new things that I can do with the new and altered tools GGG is going to give me. Not to mention watch what everyone WAAAAAY more clever that I are going to do!