On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

Liking the chill and shock changes myself. Though I feel the dropoff of the effect is a bit harsh. With the initial hit limit being (I assume so) similar to as it was previously, but having barely noticable effect to go with it ? It'd be much much nicer with more 'increased shock/chill effect' (guessing effect duration will be that now ?) mods available throughout the game.

But the charges? Nerfing power charges slightly is fair and all considering overall nerfs coming with 3.0 and a welcome change for me. Cannot say much for the 4% more spell damage since I don't play spellcasters all that often.

Frenzy charge .... was already harder on spellcasters, so removing the damage from spells hardly makes sense. Somebody invested to go over far to the right on tree and get those, loosing other stuff and got extra dmg - cool. Somebody didn't get those charges and instead took something else - cool. Now only one of this is viable.. cause frenzy don't work on spells? What for ? Make it less mandatory for damage dealers you say, but you only addressed spell based DD - makes no sense.

And to top it off, the new uniques (and some old I believe) with this frenzy change... that's the biggest fuck up. Had to be said.

I'm not gonna go out into a frenzy (pun not intended) and start calling you liars and saying game is worse than horseshit now, but you really shot yourself in the foot with that frenzy stuff.

Personally I'd leave frenzy as it was/come up with something completely else/rework all related uniques (least favourite option), but in no way can it stay as it is now in the beta. Everything else not included.

But what about energy shield being nerfed into the ground...

As someone who has played ES builds for years, since long before they were popular - This was the single-most disappointing nerf to me.

While I agree that ES needed *some* tweaks, the changes that were made went way overboard.

I keep hoping to see some further changes to address these over-nerfs, but have yet to hear anything from GGG.

Personally I don't like nerfs. It feels like we are having our options limited. I understand there is need for it. But it feels like you guys have just gutted CI, ES, DOT at all levels and not just at the top end. I don't understand or like the charge changes - it was a serious investment to get both frenzy and power charges on the tree (10% of your available points w/o pathing to them included). But making them too specific it's removed options for diversity - power charges are now for spellcasters. Frenzy charges are now only for attack builds.

To be honest I know you say the game is made for us and that's true but it's also your game. You make the decisions. Sometimes I just want to understand what the goal is. I'm looking at 3.0 and feel like I've lost access to 30+ builds that were functional in 2.6 and now won't work in 3.0. And to be honest I'd be totally ok with this and stop all of bitching if I was just reassured that you're doing this because you have a long term plan to put 100 more builds back on the table. In a game where content grows every patch I don't think we should have less options for viable end game builds.

Could we at some point, not now, but when you can find the time get some feedback on a few points.

Why the meta shifting?
Is there a longer term build diversity plan?
What's the process for collating player feedback into a design decision?

I know there's the answer you think we want. But I just want the honest answer.

If build diversity is not the imperative. That's fine. I'll respect your honesty and I won't complain about it. If meta shifting is the plan for player retention that's fine. Having these answers won't make me play any less. It'll just change the way I play - as in I'll go for more different builds each league rather than spend time farming amazing gear for any one build. And to be honest if I knew the answer I'd probably support you more.

I just don't want to invest hundreds (maybe even thousands one day) of hours into 1 character if they will be trash 3 months or 3 patches later. If that's always going to be the case that's fine I'm an adult I can accept this. It'll just mean I play 10 builds to 85 each season rather than 3 builds into the mid90s (never done 100 - maybe first time in harbinger hey:)) for example.

The changes on charges don't make a lot of sense to me. Limiting frenzy to only attacks doesn't accomplish anything other than limiting your options for builds, it also ruins a lot of synergy with many items / skills in the game and would require many more changes than simply changing them to attacks.

The power charge change makes even less sense to me. I get the idea of going for "frenzy is for attacks, power charge is for spells". But that doesn't make any sense, frenzy is dmg for all builds, and power charge is for crit builds. Why would u turn something that is for crit builds into only spell crit builds? That is even more niche and leaves attack based crit builds desperately trying to find ways to get to levels of crit that feel good without having an insanely high base crit % weapon.

The shock and chill changes of 4s base duration are good having them be more reliable is good, but they need to be able to be applied at values that are meaningful, which you've said your looking to do so hopefully that turns out.

imho, worst changes in game. please, stop nerfing charges and chill\freese\shock mechanics.

At least for me, the one thing that needs to come with this beta wave are Patch Notes. I know that you have said you won't make patch notes in beta, but, since they are balance changes, it's most about numbers and information. The lack of it make people slowly discover the nerfs without any explanation, the buffs were overshadowed, this combination is a hatred bomb.

So, the next time you make balance changes, I purpose that it comes with patch notes (maybe even the notes could come first).

I 100% trust in GGG when it comes to balance, specially nerfing things. Im a silent majority deciding to speak up, because im rly rly fed up with the knee jerk reaction the vocal part of the community makes. And i think it does not represent the majority of the players or even the majority of the non super casual players (such as myself)

i rly rly dont get upset over any balance change especially if it nerfs stuff but i get super excited about new currency and new league stuff.
I rly dont see why the changes to the charges are soo bad.
I think it never made sense that frenzy boosted anything other than attacks. For all i care they can kick the whole balance up so we all gotta figure everything out once again.
In games i rly rly do like big changes as it shakes things up.
They are only bad if u consider current things good and everything else deviating from it is bad. Specially as i see if it changes the core of the thing, or makes it less op / mandatory / sought after

the changes to shock and chill basically removes their effects from the game and turn them into proc tagging mechanics. which is a JOKE compared to their INNATE effect that we have currently, i honestly cannot understand how you can brick 2 entire MECHANICS because you wanted to add some shitty "against shocked" or "against chilled" enemies bullshit when shock and chill ALREADY WORK. and i dont mean you gutted shock and chill i mean you all but removes and replaced them with this change. REMOVED. not changed! that's the key difference here, your "changes" destroy the entire idea behind shock and chill ENTIRELY. E.G. if i want to chill something for 30% slow (anything less is unnoticeable) i have to do ?cold damage? but now i HAVE TO DO 12.5% of the enemies MAXIUMUM HEALTH to get ONE SECOND OF CHILL. so riddle me this if i can kill something in 8 fucking hits why should i even care that i chilled them? you don't, the point is that if i have to do so much damage to chill then i don't even notice its existence at all and therefore it is no different than just simply removing shock and chill from the game entirely and replacing them with a PROC TAGS SYSTEM that i am COMPLETELY AGAINST.

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Make it less mandatory for general damage dealers to invest in frenzy charges.

Horseshit. I have never felt like it was mandatory for me to get frenzies on my spellcasters. You might as well have removed crit multiplier for non-spells, arguing that it felt too mandatory for attack builds to invest in critical strikes.

I like the fact that you are trying to nerf charges, a simple "ice bite support" on an herald used to give spell casters an easy 12% increased cast speed, 12% more damage and 12% attack speed for shield charge. That's far too much, we can all agree I guess.

This being said, charges related builds are really diverse and interesting, like raider casters. Dont kill them please.

I would suggest characters to start at ZERO CHARGE, so they dont benefit so much from an easy charge generation mechanic, but make the accessibility to charges MORE COMMON through tree, quests and gear (closer to starting areas, more frequent +1 charge on gear). You would have MORE SPECIALIZED characters like you seem to be willing to go towards, keep a GOOD BUILD DIVERSITY and maybe even expand it, no more FREE BUFFS WITH NO DOWNSIDE.

I like the new power charge, but the new frenzy feels super underwhelming.

Cheers.