2.6.0 Area of Effect Changes

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Malone wrote:

it's definately a very good balance update, AoE went too far.

I agree, but also this nerf to some skills went to far!

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Aynix wrote:

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xX999Xx wrote:

You are not getting it. Check the Video comparsion from the Streamer who did the Flameblast video! After this patch your aoe will be smaller with all the tools you listet, than Flameblast with only 3 aoe nodes WITHOUT lvl 20 inc AoE gem! You cant even reach the size with dying sun. Thats 40% smaller (minimum). Holy shit people are either dumb or blind.

So what? It's still huge AoE. Cry me some more because you won't be able to kill whole screen with 1 AoE...

Either you are a fool or I dont know.

First of all, I don't play flameblast. Second: It is also a nerf to many skills, that absolutely do NOT deserve a nerf in their AoE capability. And second: I can do the same with a BOW build without any need to cast and be even faster. Flameblast for example would be okay for a nerf. But not this MUCH of one from my observation. And I say this as non Flameblastplayer lol...

Your argument is invalide comrade!

May I know what is the new radius for Melee Splash?

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Rory wrote:

All sources of "Increased Radius of Area Skills" have been replaced with an increase to area.

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Rory wrote:

Pendulum of Destruction's Area of Effect modifier is unchanged.

These two statements are tautologically impossible to both be true as something being replaced would be a change. What I believe was intended by the second statement is that the numerical value of Pendulum of Destruction is unchanged (despite it now being an area modifier rather than radius). This (as some others have indicated) means that it's a huge nerf to the relative power level of this node compared to other sources of area of effect.

I also wish that the words "diminishing returns" had not been used in the balance changes, as strictly speaking if you look from the reference point of area, it's now a linear scaling which is how things should probably have been designed from the start. The previous modifiers to radius gave a strict exponential increase to area total, and there are only diminishing returns if you're still calculating based on a radius. The focus on total area rather than radius allows for a cleaner system with regard to how balance can be handled going forward, and can (as been hinted) allow non-circular and conical area spells to have proper scaling (e.g Glacial Cascade and Flame Surge).

While this change is inciting some panic from the community overall, I believe it to be healthy for the long term health of the game.

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old_joe wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

The fastest builds were not strictly aoe based.

All this does is hurt the tier 2 builds that needed min maxed aoe just to be viable.

i'm going with this

or i'd be ok even with explanation like - "that quick Reave-radius-increase-monsters-hit-check-calculations put too much pressure on our servers"

Yeah, they were projectile based. -.+

If that were the problem with Reave, they could have decreased the number of stacks... Or just finally removed Vaal Reave stacking with normal Reave from the game. Because that's just stupid.

New Player:"Hey, I got this reave gem, but it kind of sucks."
Old Player:"You need to get a Vaal gem that doubles it's stacks."
New Player:"Oh, ok. *gets the gem* Wait, this still sucks. I can't maintain my stacks because of mob density/lack of dps/the fact that I actually stop to pick up items."
Old Player:"Hah! Scrub!"

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xX999Xx wrote:

Spoiler

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fesru wrote:

Seems very weird and bad? Guess I'll start the league with projectile build. Though still it will be less fun, because what is the point in getting a lot of currency if there is less builds to play?

I actually think after my league starter, I will make a cyclone character with conc effect, taking no aoe nodes. Seems like that's the way people who likes these types of changes want melee to be. Not realizing melee will suck in a game like this except for single target then.

Either it will have good clear speed and not look as melee, or it will be slow clear speed. Guess this might be changeable by making everything slow and making people stand and shoot at one mob multiple times per screen. Changing the definition of good clear speed. Then this true melee people seem to be wanting will be viable. But I don't know if many players will stay then that is used to going fast?

ARPGs is fun to a lot of people because you improve your character and make it feel powerful. If you suddenly go from killing 30 mobs to ½ in the same time then its the opposite of improvement.

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fesru wrote:

EDIT:
A better solution than making everything tedious IMO:
"Force" melee to use two skill gems. Make the ones with horrible aoe do very good damage, and make the big aoe ones do worse damage. Similiar to bow and wand builds that run barrage for single target and something else for clearing.

How do you expect this to be implemented? Some builds use 2H some use 1h+Shield. So they only got the option for a 3 or 4 link. Think this is not that easy to balance out. Because some AoE with 3 links clears shit and single target with 3 links is worse than AoE/GmP 5-6 link for Bosses to kill.
For 2h/Bow/Staff users its theoretically possible. For 1h users not (or people with Kaoms chest). You would need to carry cromatics and pray for rng everytime before entering arena :-P

It would be the same as for wand builds. They are maybe not in the best situation right now, but ok and its certainly possible(or was before this patch?) to build a very good wander character. If you put kinetic blast on a 4 link, preferably in an item where socketed gems get some benefit, you can easily clear red maps. Then you have your single target skill in 6L.

Another way could be of making the single target damage good enough to work in a 4l.
I bet you could already make it work, actually. But I know the feeling of having to sacrifice 12 sockets for something some builds do in 5-6. Or even not having 6 sockets because of kaoms. You get used to it though.

I think nerfing AoE for things like bomb specialins or splash damage is a mistake...

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fesru wrote:

Another way could be of making the single target damage good enough to work in a 4l.
I bet you could already make it work, actually. But I know the feeling of having to sacrifice 12 sockets for something some builds do in 5-6. Or even not having 6 sockets because of kaoms. You get used to it though.

That would be really cool. (atleast to not overbuff em for easy killing non Uber Bosses). But I doubt they would buff ST skills. They already buffed melee gems quite a bit (I think it was 2.0). But still, every non Melee build is just way more efficient in farming and also "cheaper". I know its a comparsion of apples and pears, (different topics), but it would not be gamebreaking, yet still they would not do such a thing. KR

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tntultra wrote:

Oh, i fucked up 8%.
So its a buff for 1 and 2 clusters. 1,56R and 1.71R after 2.6 with aoe gem.
Diminishing returns is a "clever" word to describe growth of square root function. These "diminishing returns" are already there in every formula.
And yes, with dying sun radius will be a bit lower, you should be able to do math yourself.

You simply don't get it, there's no buff whatsoever

The sad truth (and the formula of the whole thing) lies in this part of the manifesto, despite being explained in a terrible way:

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Rory wrote:

All sources of "Increased Radius of Area Skills" have been replaced with an increase to area. This means that rather than the area of the skill increasing geometrically as the player invests in the modifier to area scale, the radius gained per point of the stat will be lower and lower as heavy investment occurs, similar to diminishing returns.

Doesn't matter the source of aoe increase, they're all the same now; all skills and effects have their own range measured in units (you can think of it as a surrogate of virtual meters of something like that), be it a single target,point blank, targeted aoe,cone or whatever, every skill has them, and they measure the max distance from the character where they can cast/hit a monster.
To put it in a visual way (wiki image)


Right now any increase to aoe affect radius directly, so if you increase aoe by equal amounts each time the gain it's pretty much what you see in the image, a linear increase of the radius that roughly turns into a quadratic increase of the area since circle area is A = (Radius)^2 * 3.14

With the new calculation, increased area goes to affect the actual circle area, that means increasing aoe with equal amounts each time will make radius will have a logarithmic increase.

Let's take an example on a skill unaffected by focused buffs, Ice Nova
Radius = 30 units
Base Area = Range^2 * 3.14 = 30^2 * 3.14 = 2826


Let's consider the current version of the game, 2.5.3

- Adding an aoe cluster (witch or templar), +15%
Radius = 30 * 1.15 = 34.5 units
Area = 34.5^2 * 3.14 = 3737

Radius increase of 15% correponds to Area increase of roughly 32,2%


In 2.6 (pay attention on where the bonus gets added):

- Adding a generic 15% area increase
Area = Base Area + 15% = 2826 * 1.15 = 3250
(to calculate radius we must revert the area formula)
Radius = SQRT(Area/3,14) = 32.2 units

Area increase of 15% corresponds to Radius increase of 7%


- Adding the revamped witch (or templar) cluster, +26% area
Area = Base Area + 26% = 2826 * 1.26 = 3561
Radius = SQRT(Area/3,14) = 33.7 units

Area increase of 26% corresponds to Radius increase of 12%



Conclusion: in this game is the radius length that matters, because it's the linear value that makes you exactly see how far away you can hit monsters with your skill, the area value is just there for maths; that said you already lose 3% radius over the old formula for a single cluster alone, and this loss piles up more and more by adding stuff; consider into this that a lot of items, passives, enchants weren't touched by the buff, so the loss of aoe will be way worse as you progress further into the struggle to find more aoe.

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xX999Xx wrote:

That would be really cool. (atleast to not overbuff em for easy killing non Uber Bosses). But I doubt they would buff ST skills. They already buffed melee gems quite a bit (I think it was 2.0). But still, every non Melee build is just way more efficient in farming and also "cheaper". I know its a comparsion of apples and pears, (different topics), but it would not be gamebreaking, yet still they would not do such a thing. KR

Maybe a new melee gem that boosts single target a lot? Maybe make them not usable in spells and attacks tagged aoe(just like melee splash), while also making it not usable with melee splash.
Or make it so if you put the gem in EQ, both the first hit and the aftershock only hits the targeted enemy :D

I just thought of the gem idea so it is probably terrible. So anyway, lets pretend they implemented something and made the now bad single target melee skills usable for killing bosses.

Would anybody really complain about the AOE and clear speed of melee skills then if they retained or even improved their AOE? Who would be pissed about EQ not feeling very meleeish when you used another skill for single target? Hell, you could remove the melee tag from those aoe gems and add something about how they also benefit from melee nodes, if some mega nerd would still complain just because they would be defined as melee.