On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

The more nerf the ggg does in the game, the less I wish to play. Nerf and more nerf. Always the same bullshit. I pass 3.0. Enjoy u guys pointless and shitty builds. Gonna play dark souls

The changes are good.

Power charges:
4% more dmg
40% inc. crit chance

Frenzy charges:
2-3% more attack and spell dmg
5% more attack and cast speed

power charges will be universal while frenzy charges remain intact for attacks AND spells while focusing more on the theme of "do all things faster". Charges will remain universally enough to be interesting while being not too narrowed down to specific builds/skills. Maybe even go that far to make frenzy charges granting a bonus to performing all actions faster and remove the damage (5% more attack, cast, throwing, laying, dashing, moving, recovering speed)

Endurance: defense
Power: raw Damage
Frenzy: speed

thematically fiting, imho.

Numbers are just rough guesstimates.

Well put Daiena.

I turned on reddit this morning, thought the world had exploded.
Found out what the fuss was about, and thought "a wee bit overblown, eh?"

Assassin doesn't need nerfs to crit, seriously. Bleed was the problem imo.

I have faith in the design team and I'm sure you guys know what you're doing.

That said, I am a little concerned about the frenzy charge changes affecting Caustic Arrow's viability in end game maps. Without a huge investment in frenzy charges, caustic arrow just doesn't hold up. I don't want CA turning into what Incinerate became after it was nerfed to the ground.

Are there any new gems or talents that will help CA in 3.0?

"

Chris wrote:

• Nerf total crit chance available. It was getting too close to cap, too easily.
• Nerf the Assassin. This was frequently requested.
• Provide more uses for power charges on spellcasters (especially non-crit ones).
• Make it less mandatory for general damage dealers to invest in frenzy charges.

My problem is more about how GGG reached the conclusions they did, and in the haphazard way these changes were applied rather than the changes themselves.

1. Is the total crit chance a problem? if yes in which of your 2 games is it a problem softcore? Hardcore? or both? is the main problem with the crit cap, the 50% crit chance power charges gives? or does it relate to a certain ascendancy Assassin perhaps? is it certain items that's the problem or maybe the passive tree?

2. Have u made sure Assassin wasn't already nerfed enough by changes to ES? What ascendancy skills in the Assassin are too powerful?

3. Why would non crit spell casters need power charges in the first place? Don't they already have easy access to the elemental overload which grants them 40% more spell damage? do they really have the need for power charges to do something for them? How do you suppose they generate said power charges when most of the stable power charge generators focus on crit anyway?

4. Which general damage dealers with a mandatory need for frenzy charges are we talking about here?
Is there really a problem here and is it really mandatory?

(1)In general i think the change from 50% crit to 20% is okay, but i think the idea of giving 4% more spell damage is a bad idea as you start segregating specific builds into specific charges in this case casters into power charges.
Though power charges are probably already the most segregated charges used as practically only crit builds run them. And in that regard i'm not against changing them into something more useful for every build, but giving them 4% more spell damage and letting them keep 20% crit ain't the way to do that.
My suggestion is either
a. Change power charges to something more widely useful for all classes
b. keep them as they are now centered around crit and balance their nerf to crit with something else (faster att&cast, Spell dodge, Global defenses, Crit multi, reduced elemental damage taken)

(2)Don't know much about assassins maybe this was the right choice? but from what I've heard about how gutted bleed and poison have been on paper he doesn't look that powerful but honestly doesn't know so will let others talk about this.

(3)I can agree with the notion to make power charges more universal (not focused on crit) but making them give more spell damage ain't the way to go. U need to come up with some modifiers which benefits most classes in some way and doesn't focus on a single class/build-type.

(4)Like a lot of people i question the general mandatory need for frenzy charges. As they are quite hard to sustain in boss fights which is the only place you really need them. And changing frenzy charges from more damage to more attack damage. Seems to hurt build diversity a lot more than fix the general problem mentioned which is mandatory use of frenzy charges.

If you really believe frenzy charges are mandatory and wanted to fix it simply change their more damage multiplier to increased damage, so instead of giving 4% more they maybe gave 8% increased damage instead.
Only factor of frenzy charges which makes them seem mandatory is their more multiplier. (And honestly don't know how your balancing team didn't reach the same conclusion?)

And now while we are working on the whole charge system why aren't there any changes to the endurance charges which is probably the worst charges of them all? (It seems so random only to focus on power and frenzy charges without doing anything to endurance charges, it's simply mind boggling to me, don't come and tell me people haven't asked for the resistance on endurance charges to be changed to something meaningful for at least the last 2-3 years)

GG PLEASE READ. I OFFER GENUINE THOUGHTS ON GAME BALANCE AND ISSUES. (DISCLAIMER AM A NEWB BUT A PASSIONATE ONE)


This paragraph is just general discussion of my feelings. My ideas and solutions to some game mechanics are listed below. I am alright with the changes to shock and freeze I feel like they are going to be heading towards the right direction eventually and might lead to some new interesting builds. When I first saw the charge changes I was crushed since I was planning to start the new league using discharge for the first time and frenzy played an important role in my planned build. But now I have had some time to cool down I feel like the changes aren’t really that bad. I am worried that the array of changes I have been seeing might limit future builds but I trust that GG knows what it is doing. Anyway here are my personal ideas and recommendations on certain balancing issues with charges and also with bleed and poison.


Personal ideas that I think may help with game balance specifically regarding charges:

1- I like the power charge but maybe increase power charges to 40% more crit so it is still worthwhile for non spell-caster builds to speck into them. Maybe change it so critical strike cap cannot pass 75% since it seems like crit is a balance issue for you (crit will still be viable but only if character is specked in crit multi{buff crit multi sources if so}).

2- Maybe change frenzy so it gives 1% increased damage, 5% increased attack speed, 5% increased cast speed, and 1% increased movement speed (or maybe to keep in line with my max crit chance recommendation 5% increased global crit multiplier per charge). The whole 4% increase damage never really seemed to fit in with the "frenzy" thematic and I feel like these changes would make frenzy charges a more interesting spec option for different builds while still not being necessarily mandatory for damage amplification.


Personal ideas that I think may help with game balance specifically regarding poison and bleed (Which I think will be in bad spots in 3.0):

Poison: Change poison so it innately deals damage and change the scaling it deals off the initial hit down to 2%. Make it so that the characters poison damage scales directly with the characterlevel*4 (I.E. a level 1 character would deal 4 innate poison damage per stack while a level 100 character would 400 innate poison damage per stack). Skills that specifically deal poison damage (I.E. viper strike/ poison support) would offer a base damage increase to the characters innate poison damage scaling and certain passive skills would also offer a base damage increase. Also make it so that critical strikes deal two poison stacks instead of one and maybe offer the possibility through passives or ascendancies for critical strikes to deal 3 poison stacks. I would like to see poison more focused on how fast you can apply your poison stacks and less focused on the initial damage dealt.

Bleed: Change it so that hits that cause bleeding deal 60% less physical damage. Increase the damage that the bleed deals while the target is not moving to 65% of the hits total physical damage increased to 85% of the hits total physical damage while the target is moving. The idea here is to make bleed an effective damage amplifying mechanism similar to how totems amplify your damage. While the poison mechanism favors attack speed to apply stacks as quickly as possible bleed favors hitting once as strongly as possible. Also change the new bleed keystone around it doesn’t really seem to fit in thematically with bleed. Poison should be the only stacking mechanism.

Quick opinion: I think the assassin nerfs were a little too harsh. and all these figures are just estimations I am not a game balancer.

Anyway that was my two cents let me know what you think I really hope someone reads this and it is helpful and offers some new ideas. Anyway just wasted an hour and thirty minutes writing this post lol. Keep up the good work GG I really enjoy your game AND MAKE EVERY SKILL AND MECHANISM ENDGAME VIABLE PLZ <3. Also plz notice me :’(

please keep in maind AUXIUM belt not work anymore with fixed chill duration for 4sec

The Problem might not be on the offensive but defensive side of builds using those charges.

With about 4 power and 3 frenzy charges I created a decent LS high speed, high crit damagedealer asssasin last league who barely - and often not - survived bosses on numerous layers of defenses: life based EV, Dodge, AA, Fortify and Endurance Charges - all up all time.

So my problem with those nerves is that I cannot imagine (m)any life based build on the right side of the tree being able to put more skillpoints into additional charges to reach a decent damage on any given non-uberclever-meta-skill to still survive high tier maps. In most cases I just can't afford to lose those skillpoints from defense. The Scion's life wheel ist mandatory at last. Given that we need some EV/life-love on the right side of the tree and then I can absolutely life with nerverd blue and green charges.