On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

We see a lot that you (GGG) are trying to make the game more approachable to an increased amount of players yet you are making all the end game content less achievable across the board. You say you make the game for the players? Your words and your actions do not align.

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VBTrey wrote:

We see a lot that you (GGG) are trying to make the game more approachable to an increased amount of players yet you are making all the end game content less achievable across the board. You say you make the game for the players? Your words and your actions do not align.

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K cool story, heard that for a thousand times already.

As others have previously said, I don't mind a general nerf to Power and Frenzy charges, that part is fine. Where you have crossed the line is by limiting Power Charges to spells (basically) and Frenzies to attacks, which only serves to restrict our character building options. I mean, why would you want to limit our choices?

We already have Ascendancies which narrow our character choices, there is no need narrow them further. Despite the overall success of Ascendancies, this is a very slippery slope here and I'm worried if you keep going down this road we will end up at Diablo 3. Want a certain playstyle? Pick this class, this Ascendancy, and use these items. Please don't take us down this dark, dark road.

Also, balance changes in a game like this require a chisel and a steady hand, but it seems like instead you all just got drunk and picked up sledgehammers. Here's how some of the balance problems should be handled (in my opinion):

1. Assassins too strong for poison builds? Just nerf Assassin poison nodes.

2. Certain skills still dealing crazy damage with poison like Barrage and Viper Strike? Just nerf those skills.

3. People getting crit capped too easily? If we are talking mainly due to Assassin and/or Power Charges, just scale those back a bit.

Aaaand that's it. There is no reason to nerf every single thing when there are only a few outliers that need to be reined in. We need more options to tackle endgame content, not less. While I don't think anybody should be facerolling Shaper, I do think there should a lot of different builds that at least have a fighting chance with a solid tree and gear. Take all the broken builds and Ascendancies down a peg, and buff some of the weaker ones. Simple as that.

I'm glad to see you are listening to your playerbase on this one, I really hope the latest round of changes gets a second pass.

Frenzy/Power Charges and Chill/Shock changes will of course effect lots of items like Tinkerskin and passive nodes, the balance team know that right? DO THEY? (Don't be ridiculous people, they know, just maybe not the way you think they know.)

Remember how you guys deal with changes regarding Area of Effect? There was a full manifesto post all about it including the effected passives, items, skills and how they would be adjusted.
Charge changes shouldn't be just a short quick note without follow up... and sure it will have follow-ups. The community is just overreacting.

However, I do feel the upcoming massive shift in general experience of 3.0, many aspects of the game are coming together to provide a more consistent and Balanced™ gameplay experience (or at least that's the goal in 3.0 IMO).

For whatever it's worth, I think the changes are great. They give way more flavor to the individual charges. The intelligence based charge gives spell damage (4% more is crazy, in my opinion, these are way more powerful for the right build than they used to be). The dexterity based charge favors speed and attacks, just as it should.

Now the brand new unique frenzy trap chest makes little sense, but I actually love the changes to the charges.

Got an idea regarding ailments :

Make an efficiency multiplier to your damage, base multiplier being 100%, saying ailments are scaled based of 100% of your damage.
Having for example a 100% increased ailment multplier would act as such your damage is 200% of what it actually is.
This would make it interesting specifically building around ailments as opposed to pure dps per say, but your damage would still be factored in.

This does not fundamentally change the mechanic, but it can take away a bit of the weight damage has in the equation, which is far too much in its current state.
This would create massive build diversity if the increased multiplier nodes or stats are available in the right amount (havent done the math).
I would guess a maximum total value would get near 400(?) % increased efficiency. My math here was 1% of enemy hp as damage * 4 = ailment treated as 4% of the enemy hp.
Add increased said ailment duration on top of that, and you have a triple scaling factor (Kreygasm) between damage, efficiency and duration. Ailments builds would be a brainstorm for sure :D

well 55 pages of sass, so the odds of a dev actually seeing this is pretty low but i'm gonna put it out there anyway.


I understand and actually like the idea of power and frenzy charges being more specialized to their respective areas on the passive tree, however I believe the current iteration goes too far.


what about making it


Power charge: give 2% more damage (doubled for spell damage) per charge.

Frenzy Charge: give 2% more damage (doubled for attack damage) per charge.



this has the benefit of being more specialized but also not restricting certain damage types to a specific charge.

Devs should fire those "experts" team and just read this topic.

+1 for changes. Will be nice to see something other then Pathfinder and Assassin icons in groups.

(Coming from someone who's main is a Pathfinder)

We had our fun, time to see some variety!


Enters 3.0 group with all RF builds :(

I have to be a bit skeptical of the expertise of the balance team when uniques aren't taken into account and then rendered useless altogether.

It seems like GGG has some disconnect between the design team and balance team and sends us mixed signals lately.

I'm not that passionate one way or another about the changes so much as confused as to what the overall plan GGG has when they release a frenzy trap chest and then screw it over with the frenzy nerf.

And I still want to see that millions of DPS poison build Qarl mentioned.