On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

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shinigamiscall wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

I find it remarkable changes to charges and ailments would cause such a unified protest from the community but the 2.6 aoe changes which once and for all made sure melee and some spell builds would never be able to compete in end game clear speed scenarios.

How has the community turned a blind eye to far worse offenses but will take arms against something arguably far less damaging to build diversity?

This thread is proof that GGG will listen to community but only if there is unified disapproval and their income is at stake.

The community didn't just "turn a blind eye to it". We just accepted it because we know we can't do anything to change it.

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Wilde79 wrote:

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There's a common misconception in the community that our balance team doesn't play Path of Exile.

No there is not, there is just a small bunch of noisy idiots who don't even read about the changes, they just see a topic on reddit or on forums and start posting sh*it.

I bet the majority us think you are doing a good job, and we actually have the patience to wait until all the changes are in place.

It really pisses me off that you have to post things like this because people are such *****.

I love the game, and I love what you are doing with it, and I believe everyone in your team is talented as hell.

And I'll keep putting my money where my mouth is in the future as well.

-- Wilde

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lagwin1980 wrote:

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Chris wrote:

There's a common misconception in the community that our balance team doesn't play Path of Exile. They actually do play it, a whole lot. We have people with level 100 hardcore characters, multiple famous community members who have come to work for us and you may not even know it. The minimum requirement to join our QA team is 1000 hours of PoE experience, and we still turn people with that prerequisite away if they're not good enough at the game. Our design, balance and QA team are experts at Path of Exile. I would not accept any less. They put substantial work into each change, planning out not only what it affects now, but what it affects in the future. These changes are all considered in the big picture of the other planned changes.



Thank you for your time, support and occasional overreactions. We expect nothing less <3

you shouldn't apologize to the vocal knee jerk portion of the community, nerf what you need to if it makes the game over all better, those vocal about it will get over it once people smarter than them come up with the next meta must build.

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Dukajarim wrote:

It would be very useful to hear your explanation of why certain builds or items have been damaged (or improved too much) by the [power/frenzy charges] change, with specifics and explanations.

Certain items have been negatively affected. Hegemony's Era provides a way for melee staff builds, a criminially neglected subset of melee builds, to generate power charges on knockback, which can be on any crit with the Blunt Trauma notable. These builds lost crit chance going into 3.0 anyways with the bandits change, but will lose at least another 80% crit chance (3 base charges, 1 from staff). I don't think Hegemony's Era, nor the build it supports, is too strong or dominating the meta.

Surgebinders, already a very niche item, are pushed further into obscurity. This item saw very little play to begin with and now with Frenzy charges providing less benefit to casters it's further pushed aside. Specifically, with double dipping gone and frenzy charges not providing a more multiplier, the main reason to equip them is gone.

Tinkerskin, an item you just teased as a way to generate Frenzy charges for Trappers, loses a lot of allure when you'd have to be a attack-based trapper (a niche within already niche trapping) to benefit from it. The unique has other problems already, like the life/ES recovery not being terribly high and hinging on traps being triggered, so losing an edge on already flawed item makes it much less exciting of a prospect to build around.

Victario's Acuity was a decent, if niche, amulet that was only used by builds that needed projectile speed. Due to the more multiplier from Frenzy being split to Spells on Power and Attacks on Frenzy, the more multiplier effectively stays the same if you could kill fast enough to generate both charges, so it just loses 20% crit chance per power charge. Unneeded nerf.

There are others that are negatively affected like Tulfall, The Red Trail, Essence of Horror weapon crafts, etc. that were bad before, and will now be even more garbage now that Frenzy/Power charges are less globally useful.

The one item that might possibly become too good (unlikely) is The Aylardex for noncrit builds, which now would provide powerful defensive bonuses along with the 4% more spell damage multiplier. This is unlikely to break the game, just raise the cap on how high you can bring your mana:life ratio in MoM builds. Considering this item saw almost no use previously, this is very minor.

Builds that have been negatively affected by these changes are ones that have easy access to Frenzy or Power Charges but don't do an overbearing amount of damage even with them. Caustic Arrow and Explosive Arrow both don't have fantastic ways to scale their base damage, but can easily find the time to occasionally shoot a GMP+Frenzy to stay capped on frenzy charges. Losing at least 16% of their damage (because even the new more spell damage from Power charges doesn't apply to their damage sources) from 4 base frenzy charges in 2.6 is a big blow to builds that aren't so hot to begin with.

DoT ailment builds lost the 4% more damage on frenzy charges, which is not made up by either of the new Power/Frenzy charge bonuses. DoT ailment builds are not in a great place in 3.0, with nerfs raining down every single beta patch. This is further accentuated by the one ascendancy that could make one DoT ailment work, Assassin with Poison, getting heavy nerfs from multiple sources at the same time. The power charge changes to crit nerfs Assassin as well, where spellcasters are certainly going to migrate to different ascendancies now (Inquisitor, Trickster, Elementalist, Berserker, etc.)

On the topic of nerfing Assassin being too easy to crit cap, it's really the only thing the ascendancy had going for it along with Poison (also being heavily nerfed). Inquisitor enjoys relatively easy crit capping and doesn't rely as much on Power Charges, while mostly using spells, and still having some minor (or major if you can get your hands on a Gifts from Above) defensive bonuses. What is the Assassin meant to be good at if he can't focus on high, reliable crit damage w/ a side or focus on poison? That's all he had going for him in 2.6.

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nil4t wrote:

Ignore the whiners! Changes like this keep the game fresh and keeps me coming back to it.