On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

You literally just released a chest that says:
"15% chance to get frenzy charge on trap triggered by an enemy."
This is not a great nerf to suit your needs.
Power siphon?
Tulfall?

This isn't good way to achieve your listed goals.
It destroys usability of many uniques and gems.

I like many of the goals you listed, I see what you are trying to achieve.
But this nerf/chance is not a great way to achieve them.
And no, I have not misunderstood anything.

Please do not shrug this negative response as "Players just don't understand the chance."

First off, thanks for this post. It's one of the reasons I enjoy this game so much, because I know you guys listen. We may not agree with your changes all the time (I know I certainly haven't, though I'm probably in the minority given that I've agreed with a LOT of the changes) but I've felt since about... the Awakening, if not a lot earlier, that you guys have improved drastically in terms of what's better for the game long term, and after I went to bed I thought to myself: "Maybe there's something coming down the road that makes sense for these changes."

I never addressed anything other than the frenzy charges (which, honestly, still don't make sense to me), but:

* I agree with the power charge change, especially given that Assassin could basically crit cap almost purely off PCs
* As a result, Assassin needed a change, too
* Thematically, Frenzy ends up being attack, Power go spells. Okay, cool. Except it's not quite executed like that. So...

Here's two issues I have, and it's admittedly without knowing what's coming down the line in terms of other changes, undocumented changes for 3.0, unique items yet to come in 3.0, etc., and without playtesting the changes as of yet:

* Frenzies are now limited to attack builds, while an attack build can still pick up PC's. Doesn't make a lot of sense, especially given the potency of 2.6 and prior in regards to PCs for attack builds, which will still be strong despite the adjustment to the critical strike chance given. In terms of overall balance, I'm fine with the changes on their own (even if it doesn't make 100% sense yet given what we don't know). All of that said, yeah, Frenzies definitely seemed more mandatory than PCs, regardless of what you do. There's just some weird stuff going on if you look a bit deeper that leaves my head scratchy. Such as the "theme" side of it and:
* Tinkerskin. Unless there's something we're not aware of, or if Tinkerskin (or traps as a whole) gets an exception, this chest will be vendor food. The most effective trap builds out there all revolve around spells. So, either it needs to change to revolve around PCs, or it needs an exception regarding frenzies.


Regarding Shock/Chill: Thanks to Neon for addressing it.
Regarding Flasks: I'm all about this. Unique flasks need to feel less mandatory.


Lastly:

If you have a long-term plan for the charge changes and something's coming that will make it make sense, I'd rather you KEEP IT. I'd rather adjust to the long-term than be happy short-term. I just hope that you will be explicitly clear when you roll out those changes and say "Hey guys, this is why we changed charges."

The power charge changes seem fine to me which nerfs crit hard. The freeze and shock changes are confusing to me as someone stated you need to do 50% of a bosses health just to apply 50% increased damage taken or 30% slow to it. Perhaps changing that since bosses health is doubled? Either tuning down the % damage needed to apply the capped slow/shock dam intake or just rolling with the normal system. I understand there would still be a shock and slow applied even if you're not doing 50% of the mobs health, but the cap slow/shock needs it admission levels lowered. The frenzy charges I think is a good move but far too late of a move. The game should have started with this change. This is bad to change because of
1- the amount of unique items that grant X because of frenzy charges seem somewhat pointless just like that new trapper chest revealed.
2- Now assuming all the unqiues are changed to go accordingly with the new frenzy charge, there is a lack of diversity among builds. Not much reason for anyone to get frenzy charges that doesn't "attack"
(3)- If they do still have cast speed %inc, why do they have that now?

You guys could just leave them how they are and remove the cast speed they give. I can't think of many unqiues it would ruin. It would also MAYBE make melee great again.

Every time you change something part of the community will bite you guys. You do a very good job.

1st: most people ok with all the nerfs probably don't play a character that rely on them. Some nerfs were necessary, but you greatly overdid.
2nd: I don't believe that your balance team is a PoE expert one. At least in the areas you nerfed. If they were, they wouldn't nerf Assassin from OP to completely... shit, I cannot bring any other word to describe it. Your team is composed by people annoyed by other builds OPness, and you focused on nerfing them, not bringing balance. If you were aiming for balance, DoTs would be just ok as any hit-based build, but you needed the Assassin ascendancy to compete at end-game with DoTs, and now you killed off Assassin completely (yes, there are builds in beta doing more than 1m+ DPS and no one loose his mind). And I don't even need to bring that there's lots of times you guys stated something completely off the tracks, like the Goddess Unleashed case.
3rd: Charges were completely ok. Didn't need any changes.
4th: Don't need to say that those changes do Chill and Shock are worthless at end game.

I've come from D3 and I can't stand another game being "balanced" this way...

Really, QA must have 1000 hours of play time? Doesn't show at all.

I agree with the assassin nerf completely, I've got no qualms with any part of that.

I agree with having less crit chance available too (it doesn't feel like 'crit chance' when you can get 90+% easily), and having power charges be useful to non-crit characters. But there's a few issues with the approach you're taking in your changes to them.

You're isolating them almost purely for spellcasters. Similarly, you're isolating Frenzy charges into solely helping attackers. Sure, they both give a small boost to the other (global crit on power, cast speed on frenzy), but by and large it'll feel like a waste to use them for such a thing. Charges have for the most part felt like something that everyone can use... power charges sometimes felt like the odd one out since DoT and non-crit builds couldn't take advantage of them, and that's valid reason to tweak them, but doing so in a way that makes powers and frenzies virtually useless for attacks and spells respectively is most certainly the wrong way to go about it.

Not to mention both changes really screw over a lot of unique item and ascendancy mechs. I mean, you *just* teased a trapper chest whose frenzy charge generation will be 100% useless outside of bow/wander trappers, and you just made Trickster able to acquire both while these changes only really allow him to make use of one or the other.


I could see changing their effects (especially lowering power charge's crit in favor of something else), but not in a way like this that forces such a divide between who can and can't use them.


Like, maybe do:

-Frenzy Charges grant 3% more attack/cast speed and 2% increased movement speed per

-Power charges grant 3% more damage and 20% increased crit chance per

Even that makes me a bit wary because trappers and miners get little use from frenzies, but it's still a better solution than what's on the beta.


Or maybe:

-Frenzy charges unchanged

-Power charges grant 2% penetration, 2% of physical damage added as chaos, and 25% crit chance per


As for the chill and shock changes, those are just horrible. They'll be irrelevant where you need help and at their most potent when you need no help whatsoever. At least the old system you could get a brief but full power shock or chill and reapply it frequently... a long duration with virtually no effect is pretty much meaningless.

And these changes take down ground effects with them, which in particular hurts melees in my experience. Arctic armor's and aquamarine flask's chilled ground were great mechs for making the threat of being melee more manageable, but if those are nerfed to anything less than the 30% they're at, they're pretty much useless.

"

ImmaPokemon wrote:

"

Samson001 wrote:

Can you just for 1 patch. Not nerf anything. Take all the useless uniques, all the most unused ascendancies and all the most unused skills and just focus on buffing those. Every patch should actually put more options on the table. Can we just have one patch where the only objective is how do we make this better. Take the mountain of useless shit and just select a few to make interesting and useable again.

Just one time. Only focus on what to buff. What will enable more synergies. I want options. Not to be forced into playing one way for 3 months only to have that become dog shit 1 patch later.

Nothing good comes from just buffing stuff that falls short.

In your opinion. The whole point of buffing stuff is so that it doesn't fall short. There's practically a mountain of skills, uniques and ascendancies that could be removed from the game without anyone noticing. Instead of just focusing on what's currently too OP or the next content update why not make some of the existing under utilized things more relevant. It's less work and would get more mileage than a couple new uniques. Just my 2 chaos.

Guys...
What is last map icon under Chris post..?

When i get home from this holiday i'm going to play 3.0 like i haven't played PoE in some years.. then after a bit i will get a part time job next to my school so i can buy kitava pack.

Cheers GGG i like reading this

About charges: Don't mind the whiners they cry because they lose more more power. It's just numbers that they lose and frankly it's overreacting greatly. These are good changes that give more identity to casters/attackers rather than generic increases used by all builds.

I'm still confused as to how you say that you have two players that are incredibly strong players at the game that claim that you needed to nerf the Assassin when the Pathfinder is clearly over represented in the top 100 in both HC and SC, and arguably in power levels is even stronger than ever before simply because they are the only class that can now flat out abuse flasks despite the fact that flasks are weaker (marginally weaker).


So you nerf one of the worst defensive ascendancies in the game, give him no utility in return, and then proceed to just ignore the Pathfinder. Ok.

"

Crackmonster wrote:

When i get home from this holiday i'm going to play 3.0 like i haven't played PoE in some years.. then after a bit i will get a part time job next to my school so i can buy kitava pack.

Cheers GGG i like reading this

About charges: Don't mind the whiners they cry because they lose more more power. It's just numbers that they lose and frankly it's overreacting greatly. These are good changes that give more identity to casters/attackers rather than generic increases used by all builds.

So why don't we just lock portions of the tree to certain classes then? More identity right?