On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

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Violander wrote:

Just gonna throw my 2 cents in:

I really love the changes around Chill and specifically Shock. To me Shock was always the odd one out since non-lightning builds got free shock with Vaal Lightning Trap and Vinktar. Now Lightning and Shock specific builds have a unique aspect to it.

I also really like Power Charges changes, since, as you said, it provide more uses for non-crit spell casters (which currently do not have any need for power charges and dont tend to get Frenzy Charges).

However, Frenzy charges seems too limitting. There were fun options to build non-attack builds around frenzies (especially with Raider ascendancy.

Raider has interesting elemental dmg nodes and phasing and Frenzies. Before you could make a cast raider and it would be a good character. Now that's no longer the case as only 2 out of 6 nodes are at all beneficial to casters. And what is that? One less build type, less diversity.

Frenzies aren't in a problematic state. Sure, everyone WANTS them, but not everyone can get them, and many dont bother.

Thats what im saying. If a build could get Frenzy charges awesome, if they cant, oh well, not like the build wont work now.

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GGG_Neon wrote:

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I saw someone mention the DoTs, for example. Given that frenzy charges only work with attacks now, do they improve the damages of Caustic Arrow's cloud ? Poisons ? Bleed ? I know they do with Trickster now, but in general ? That is something huge to take into consideration.

The current stat is "x% More Damage with Attack Skills" meaning it would apply to damaging ailments, Caustic Arrow.

ED trickster had benefits from frenzy, as it was "more" damage, so its a nerf, and ED doesnt benefit from power charges either, also you nerfed DOT in general as I understood, so I'm going for this build as a "ruined build".

It's obvious that GGG test with pro players and stuff, and we can't imagine a build where power and frenzy in a trickster works, probablly there is one around, but I think this confuses more ppl that it helps.

Thanks!

Don't make charges specific for certain skills.

Power charges with less crit but spell damage? What about literally ANY build that wants to use them but doesn't use spells? They don't get their investment worth.

Frenzy charges with attack damage instead of generic damage? What about literally ANY build that wants to use them but doesn't use attacks? They don't get their investment worth.


By making charges too specific, you are forcing them onto certain builds and actively kill not only niche ones but just a broad spectrum of build that used them not for the purpose you try to enforce now.

What I want to know is the following: Why do you think pigeonholing charges to spells/attacks is better (as in, better for the game)? Why is their versatility a bad thing? And what about the countless items/skills/ascendencies that utilize charges in ways that this change doesn't account for?

You opened up a HUGE can of worms on this one and it doesn't seem like you are in a position to handle such a change without leaving big parts of your game in ruins until further balance adjustments. I don't think this is how you want to launch 3.0.

With that in mind, this PR post is not very convincing.

As for the flask changes:
I like most of them, however a few things I'd still like to mention.
With the new Pantheon system giving (life and) CI/ES builds that are currently less viable (which i do not mind whatsoever, i pesonally love the energy shield rebalance as less builds are able to abuse the huge lifepool ci/ ES provided without any drawback) freeze/ stun immunity when frozen/stunned i now see even less reason to run kiaras determination. there are so many powerful unique flasks that give % more dmg multipliers for many builds, that using a kiaras in 2.6 was an inferior choice to running another uniquze flask and gaining stun immunity/ prevention by sacrificing your ring/ amulet slot (EVEN for CRIT builds. Reducing the duration on kiaras even further makes this flask by far the worst choice for stun/freeze prevention for any build in 3.0.
I don't know why you even bothered reducing the inc aoe on dying sun, considering heavy aoe investment has been a bad idea since 2.6. this flasks issue is the "2additional projectiles during flask effect" making especially projectile based attack builds OP as hell (tornado shot and barrage being prime examples, though molten strike, ice shot and Lightning arrow (the list goes on) also benefit way too much from this flask. even if it is no longer possible to get +3 projectiles for barrage as a pathfinder (that's what it looks like considering the alchemist nerf) you still have to keep in mind that barrage gains a flat 50% more multiplier from this flask alone unless the number of projectiles is reduced to 1, which as a 25% more multiplier would be more in line with what the other flasks provide damage-wise. (factoring in the barrage helmet enchant obviously changes the numbers, however it should be removed/reworked entirely in my opinion anyways). The reason why i bring up the topic of barrage this frequently should be obvious. Mechanics like dying sun/ helmet enchant make (ele) archers/ wanders
easily the strongest builds for single target. Very few builds come close, with casters having no chance of competing whatsoever as they're designed to be more viable off a budget with less endgame-scaling available. Casters however are still in a fine state, thus the top-end of these elemental attack builds should be brought somewhat in line with what spell-casters can achieve with maximum investment into damage, while maintaining decent survivabilty while mapping/ boss-killing.

Regarding the vinktar changes,I agree with what Zizaran posted:

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Zizaran wrote:

However I feel like everybody has been requesting a vinktar nerf for a very long time without specifying what was wrong about it. Vinktar's life-leech is way too high to the point where it lets a non-lightning build completely mitigate reflect and becomes mandatory for too many builds, damage was never really an issue of vinktar, the mana leech removal i would say is a bad thing even though i was hugely in favor of getting vinktar nerfed.

I'm also not a massive fan of the fact that you only need to get 4 agnerods and the droprate of vinktar is then a 100% if it was more similar to atziri and shaper by having other items in the drop table that would help alongside nerfing the leech down to 5-10%

The rest of the flask changes are a nice suttle nerf while still keeping flask-"SPAM" as a big part of your gameplay if you want to maintain more damage. Having every individual unique damage-oriented flask provide around 15-25% more damage is if anything still too strong and not enough of a nerf.

@GGG

I had planned a hybrid melee / caster type of character for 3.0 that relies on generic "damage" and "elemental damage" so i can scale both forms of damage, since most of my passive tree is spent getting defense. Besides jewels, frenzy charges fit that niche for me since it was "generic" damage.

After this change I will no longer be able to use frenzy charges for this build i had planned in 3.0 as a starter character.

There are VERY few true melee/ caster hybrids and I have been looking forward to playing it.

Since blood rage is a popular way to generate frenzy charges, and blood rage naturally increases your attack speed, my suggestion would be to keep the generic damage buff in frenzy charges but tone down the attack speed portion.

Thanks for reading.

Baby steps, but nevertheless in the right direction

To be honest, this game was always easy, all you had to do is to have a proper build. Problem is, currency and time investment cost of these builds now are literally twenty times less that what it used to be. Clearing guardians on a 1ex budget, really?

While at it, please nerf SRS

Hopefully this gets seen:

First off, let's talk about uniques that suffer from the frenzy charge nerfs:

Tinkerskin (for obvious reasons, at least I hope since you say you guys play over 1000 hours and support build diversity)

The Green Dream - There are currently only a select few places this jewel makes sense, and a MAJORITY of builds that utilize this jewel are spell based, most attack builds already have MANY different ways to generate frenzy charges so why in the world does the jewel exist? For the 1% of attack builds that are too lazy to generate frenzy charges via frenzy?

Oh and let's talk about Tulfall... Hello? ITS A WAND WITH DAMAGE TO SPELLS THAT INTERACTS WITH FRENZY CHARGES! There are spells that don't benefit from cast speed so what in the flying hell is the point of frenzy charges on those spells now?! Please, you play over 1000 hours and you miss this interaction?

Victario's Charity - Another unique that interacts with both spell and frenzy charges, now let's say for instance you went ahead and updated power charges to utilize the "more" damage multiplier to spells. This shield would be really nice for a spell user but I guess not anymore? This isn't a STRONG argument, just a musing honestly for this unique since it could be really nice for spell users.

Surgebinders - HEY LOOK GGG! A pair of gloves that interact REALLY nicely for spells with frenzy and power charges, since the new trickster is out, it's really nice. Oh wait, frenzy charges for spells? HA!


Skills:


DISCHARGE?! WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU?! Oh yea, design team spends thousands of hours on PoE and goes "HA! What's discharge? No one uses that skill anymore. Oh wait you mean we have designed multiple items around this skill?! Nawwww no one uses it, let's nerf it some more, the CoC nerf wasn't hard enough."

Basically any spell based build that thought frenzy charges would be nice, not necessary, but a nice addition to their repertoire AND invested in, let's say, the green dream? to generate said frenzy charges. Name one build that does that you say? Abberath's hooves stampede build is one such build.


And this is only with about 30 min of work on my end to look at the shit you broke. If I decided to put more dedication AND I was getting paid to do so, you can be damned well certain I could find a lot more things you guys broke with this change that has far more specificity than just general uniques and a single build a simple google search led me to. So please, I hope you understand the bitterness of everyone at this uninspired quick fix to a long term issue. You don't spend 4+ years designing the game around something to just completely rip it to shreds without changing everything else that utilized or benefited from it to the point that it weakens the build or the unique in so many builds. For now, this is as far as I'm willing to go, you have people you pay, they should have done their research and you guys should have communicated more with us.

Just my 2 cents:(NOT A SHITPOST)

Charges topic:

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While processing player feedback in preparation for 3.0.0, we found four requests that we could address simultaneously with our proposed charge changes:
1.Nerf total crit chance available. It was getting too close to cap, too easily.
2.Nerf the Assassin. This was frequently requested.
3.Provide more uses for power charges on spellcasters (especially non-crit ones).
4.Make it less mandatory for general damage dealers to invest in frenzy charges.

On 1. and 2. points i agree, crit builds in my opinion had uncomparable more top end dps compared to noncrit builds in general.

3. and 4 :
The thing is if you us the top/right end of the tree(spellcasters) you dont really have hp regen to sustain bloodrage and not degen, so youll need to go a little out of your way to be able to sustain it. While frenzy chages are op you cant really sustain them with bloodrage in bossfights where they really matter especially the multi phase ones. SInce you already one shot white packs they dont really matter there except the smoothness that they provide(aspeed and cast speed). The problem is Raider that can get free frenzy charges ON HIT vs bosses(both as caster and attacker), like if you have 10 charges you get the same benefit as Berzerker just without the downside and as cs on top. So the problem is the ascendancy not really the frenzy charges.
Having more spell damage on power charges is huge buff to noncrit casters, you can just Orb of storms-Power charge on crit and you get 12 more spell damage for no invesment, which also buffs Elemental Overload since it can proc more reliably, as well as no need for regen investment and sustainable in boss fights since you can just cast orb and geteven more free damage(Arcane surge anyone?) which is just broken imo. Dont even get me started on Void Batteries. (oh and you can still get frenzy charges for the cast speed btw).

tldr: These changes dont adress your 3 and 4 conccerns, while frenzy charges are more or less unchanged for attackers(i dont belive they will scale explosions anymore) they will still use them with bloodrage since that part of the tree can get ez life regen. But now for casters instead of frenzy charges, power charges take their place as mandatory for them and are much easier to sustain than frenzy, which makes the problem even bigger instead of solving it.Also Power charges are now so ineffiecient for attack builds since they give liek 15% per point , which polarises the charges even more(frenzy for attackers power for casters).


PS:The only bad and most confusing part here is the interaction with the current items and skills, like Power siphon is attack that uses power charges, so its a direct nerf. Or the new Trapper chest that gets Frenzy charges. Its just confusing and limiting in some aspects, and was the main reason i think people outraged so much.


Shock and chill topic:
It goes in the right direction with the always 4 seconds status effect, i will always take 4 seconds of 5% more damage rather than no damage at all(since you cant realistically shock bosses for longer than a 0.3 - 0.5 seconds tops with the current system) same for chill. The numbers need adjusting thats for sure.

Suggestion for shock:(just a rough concept) Make the damage stackable(like the old shock theme), like if you reach certain amount of damage treshold in a certain amount of time with certaion amout of casts-attacks you will shock for 4 seconds depending on the damage you have dealt. For example in 1 second if you attack X amount times and deal 5% damage(i think this should be lower) to the boss he becomes shocked for 5%extra dmg for the next 4 seconds.(4 seconds for shock is a lot too it hink, 2-3 seconds i think would be better).

Suggestion for chill: Maby have stackable reduce enemy chill threshold(since shock basically reduces the bosses effective hp thus reducing its shock treshold linearly) for enemies that are chilled so you can just scale it more with the following attacks/casts.

* Flasks: A step in the right direction imo, as the benefits flasks grant out-of-the-box are definitely too out of line compared with other methods available for gaining similar stats. I'm still a bit confused on what flasks are meant to be - short injections of power, or reliable parts of your build that you can rely on? There are flasks that pull towards both directions, and I think it's important that a decision is made and clearly communicated.
I personally would prefer weak flasks, that can be invested into with gear and passives to have consistent reliability and become a cornerstone in a build's offensive and defensive power even in a not-top-tier build. I'm perfectly fine with a character gaining semi-permanent 40% global dmg reduction and 200% more dmg if they equip 4 uniques and path to 8 flask clusters.
I'd be really happy to see new ways of flask sustain, as the ones we have now are very gutted (and they have to be, because flasks are too powerful..).

* Nerf crit: Agreed as needed; I'm okay with the changes so far, but please go and make more passes over some items. For example, simply cutting the crit multi on all uniques by half is okay as a baseline change, but some definitely need a touch on their power level or to get their crit multi a bit back up.

* Nerf assassin: I'd say assassin took a lot of indirect nerfs. The DoT ascendancy node nerf were justified (and long overdue), but with one of the last anchors helping DoT numbers cling to high values falling, a look has to be had on the new powerlevel of DoTs as a whole and their place in builds.
I don't like the other node change because assassin was a way of getting base crit, allowing you to go for crit options on skills that normally you could not because their base was too low or they had no base crit at all - with appropriate investment. I'd much rather it didn't grant any crit multi and still gave scaling base crit, or give it base crit that scales with something that isn't power charges.

* Power & frenzy charges: I don't like them because they're not thought out well (with regards to current mechanics and unique items in the game). They also raise other issues: If I made a non-crit spell build up until now I didn't care about power charges at all. Now you've just replicated the situation you tried to avoid with frenzy - it's "free" 12% more dmg for the low cost of slapping 1 unique that has other benefits or 1 tweak on a gem setup. You've merely split it into "attack builds do X their free dmg and spell builds do Y for their free dmg", while also reducing the availability of that free dmg (like spell builds around the lower area of the tree). If you think frenzies or power charge are too strong, nerf them to 3% more dmg and 40% crit chance or something.
* Provide more uses for power charges on spellcasters (especially non-crit ones): You've already got some related uniques that could use some love (*cough* aylardex). Tweak old ones, make new ones, give a passive wheel related to it, make a keystone (power charges grant 100% increased mana cost and 10% more spell dmg), the options are endless. Don't break the core of what power charges are, introduce optional ways of changing it.

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GGG_Neon wrote:

Flasks

The Vessel of Vinktar now applies a much weaker Shock Aura to enemies, and no longer has mana leech during the flask effect. To confirm, we have not made any surprise changes to Diamond Flasks.

Charges

We will re-evaluate the Power and Frenzy charges situation over the weekend. It would be very useful to hear your explanation of why certain builds or items have been damaged (or improved too much) by the change, with specifics and explanations. Many of the posts so far have just said "X is ruined". While the initial feedback has been somewhat helpful, proper discussion and analysis from the community will really help us fine-tune (or abandon) this change.

Hi Neon, it's great to hear you guys respond despite how late it is in New Zealand. I thank you and GGG team for that.

- Vessel of Vinktar's main problem is the 20% lightning damage leech as life not the mana:
+ Most of our leech come from: Doriyani's Catalyst (Gears), Points in the skill tree, Warlord's mark(Curse), Atziri's promise(Flask) etc..(I've mention once per category) give around 0.2% leech to a maximum of 2% leech.
+ The Vinktar's life leech itself give 10 to 100 times more leech when comparing to all other sources.
+ The Real problem begins when a person playing a non-lightning build like Fireball, Vaal Fireball, non-lightning attack build etc... using added lighting to spell/attack Vessel of Vinktar can leech instantly to full. This put all other leech sources to become irrelevant.

- Changes to Power and Frenzy charges are somewhat confusing and counter-intuitive rather than it's damaging any specific build.
+ Most SMALL-Nodes in the skill tree gives 20% increased critical chance and follow up by a notable of Assassination (35% chance, 35% multi), True Strike (45% chance, 12% Multi), Annihilation (50% chance, 15% Multi) and Doom Cast (60% chance, 15% Multi). They usually take 2 to 3 points to allocate and uptime is 100%.
+ To be able to allocate a +1 Power Charge notable, it will take a similar of 2 to 3 points. However the power is much less (30% crit chance, 4% more SPELL power), On top of how to keep up the buff.
+ Let's compare this 3 points investment:
* For Caster: Doom Cast gives 100% crit chance, 15% crit multi vs 1 Power Charge gives 30% crit chance, 4% more Spell power ,18% duration and 10 Int.
* For Attacker: Assassination gives 75% crit chance, and 35% crit Multi vs 1 Power charge gives 30% crit chance , 18% duration and 10 Int.
+ Frenzy charges changes simply remove options for spellcaster.
+ New changes to Charges make : Tulfall, Hegemony's Era, Power Siphon, Tinkerskin etc.. become either weaker or irrelevant despite such build aren't strong in the first place.


With all respect, I love Chris and GGG no matter where the direction of the game goes.