Delve Balance Changes

RIP, Cluster Trap now useless.. :'(

Uhmmm no ele hit fire conversion nerf?
Why?
Given that you're introducing the endless dungeon mechanic you really have to trim down the god tier skills otherwise you'd have even more extremely stiff meta.

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We've made a large number of effects instant, mostly buff effects. Most of these are reservation effects, to make applying your auras and heralds faster, but we've also applied this to Molten Shell, Phase Run, Blood Rage, Convocation and Righteous Fire.

In the previous announcement Detonate Mines was discussed as one of the skills becoming instant. Is this no longer the case?

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Oblitus wrote:

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Haadd wrote:

Every now and then we have some tweaks here and there, but not a single mention to cancerous dual wield stat stick mechanic which needs a serious nerf, or 2h buff, specially 2h maces

Well, we have block and shield charge nerf, I guess it means that it means that GGG plans on further encouraging stat sticks instead of shields and off-screen glass cannon clearing meta.

there is no block nerf, block got buffed.

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phxxbullet wrote:

HOWEVER ablut that secondary damage thing, I'm quite worried.
Does this include things like Inpulsa's explosion and Proofane Bloom Node?

Not that Inpulsa wouldn't be still very powerful, but Occultists might have a harsh time if they can't relynon Proofane Bloom at all anymore.

its not really going to effect builds in this fashion. There are very, very few monsters who have block, and Im not aware of any monsters who have spell block, dodge or spell dodge. So the fact you can spell block secondardy damage caused by a spell when using inpulsas, that would only matter in a team pvp situation because thats the only time youd be triggering explosions that might hit an enemy who has spell block right?

The change is only really a buff to our defences, its so that WE can block or spell block secondary damage. Its a buff to block and since virtually no monsters actually use these defences its simply a buff to us when we use them.

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this_name_already_exists wrote:

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Bex_GGG wrote:

Spell Block
We've changed how Spell Block is gained, so it is only available from flat sources of spell block. All existing sources of attack block to spell block conversion have been changed to a flat source of spell block, and we've added spell block to more places in the passive skill tree, with higher values than were previously available. The Gladiator passive skill now uses your attack block as your spell block.

This change was made partially to remove some restrictions that impacted design, but also to let spell block be something all characters can have access to, rather than being very powerful for very high block characters and weaker for characters that haven't heavily invested in this.

Most of the time block ended up as 15-30 point investment on top of losing a stat stick. This change can be a double edged sword, because if you're now forced into picking even more nodes for spell block, that 5 point investment into Phase Acrobatics seems even more and more attractive.

youre not forced into picking more nodes. The ways you were getting spell block before these changes still exist so you can just keep using them to get your spell block and ignore the nodes. Theyre just an option you can replace your previous sources of spell block with if you want to.

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Demonoz wrote:

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SaiyanZ wrote:

What happens to my perfect legacy Rumi flasks?

OMFG.... i read this comment and instantly died a little inside thinking the same about mine now....

it remains unchanged right? I dont think any of these changes effect it at all.

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Kiro_TaintedFate wrote:

Didnt see any changes to Berseker.
Any buffs to pure physical melee builds?

I saw a nice buff to berserker in there:

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Bex_GGG wrote:

Instant Skills
We've changed what it means to be "instant" to mean the skill can be used while performing other actions. They can't be used while you're unable to take any action, like when you're stunned or frozen.

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The Guardian no longer has a notable that affects Warcries. We've taken those bonuses and placed them on the passive tree. One cluster between the Templar and Marauder grants you and allies attack, cast and move speed if you've used a warcry recently, removes the warcry mana cost, as well as some other smaller bonuses. The other cluster between the Marauder and the Duelist makes Warcries instant, lowers their cooldown slightly, as well as other minor bonuses.

Of course we don't know how annoying it will be to path to instant warcries, but if it isn't very many points invested, instant warcries would be so nice for berserker. Don't go the rage path, that mechanic is garbage. Just get 40% more damage, warcry heal, leech, savage hit leech.

Why are you guys nerfing Vaal Earthquake builds... it was so hard to make them work in the first place now u most likely killed them... focking hell mate

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magicrectangle wrote:

Of course we don't know how annoying it will be to path to instant warcries, but if it isn't very many points invested, instant warcries would be so nice for berserker. Don't go the rage path, that mechanic is garbage. Just get 40% more damage, warcry heal, leech, savage hit leech.

I just wanted to see Rage mechanic removed and replaced with something interesting. Well, devs can keep it, but really tweak some degen numbers.

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xXP3PP1Xx wrote:

Why are you guys nerfing Vaal Earthquake builds... it was so hard to make them work in the first place now u most likely killed them... focking hell mate

It seems pretty clear that they don't want any perma-vaal build to work.

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Discipol wrote:

Can you make Shield Charge work with wands & any one-handed or unarmed attacks? Since the weapon doesnt matter anymore, there's no reason I couldn't use a wand to Shield Charge, right?

+1 for this. And it should deal damage according to your shield(like SST) not the weapon.

Trap Throw Time, Multitrap, Cluster Trap, Minefield
I think nerfing Multiple Traps and Minefield is a mistake. The real abuse case with Traps right now is Arc, and Arc is just *so* much better with Cluster Traps than Multiple Traps it's not even funny. Out of any skill you could conceivably want to Trap, Arc has the strongest preference for Cluster Trap over Multiple Traps (although Demolitionist likely makes this distinction moot, but that's fine because that makes Demolitionist special).

Instant Skills
This is actually the coolest shit. I am pretty much 100% incorporating Phase Run into my next build with this change.

Spell Block
This is also really great. This should also increase the value of the Spell Block nodes in the Witch area since getting a few small % of Spell Block kinda doesn't matter. If you had a shield and a significant amount of Conversion, Rumi's gets you close enough to capping both that what you're actually looking for would be a Reckless Defense or something.

Movement Skills
Shield Charge
Flame Dash and Lightning Warp
I don't have much of an opinion on this, I never liked moving with movement skills. Gimmie them Quicksilvers of Adrenaline.

Sunder
Melee really doesn't need nerfs, especially not to leveling. What do you want us to use, Cleave and Ground Slam?

Kinetic Blast
I think the change will actually make the skill clear more reliably, where now there's sometimes that one random zombie that somehow gets missed by all the crap flying all over the screen. Definitely a nerf to it's single-target potential, though. You're going to need a secondary skill in order to make this skill work single-target.

Vaal Soul Gain Prevention Time
Swift Affliction on Vaal Burning Arrow is even better, now.

Vaal Righteous Fire
Earthquake and Vaal Earthquake
These things make sense.

Physical Projectile Attack Damage Support
IMO Poison and Chaos Damage Over Time was lacking a little bit of support compared to other methods of dealing damage over time, so making PPADS work for it seems like a good idea.

Passive Tree Changes
The Guardian Ascendancy
You have my attention.

The Pathfinder Ascendancy
Bow Passives Now Affect Skill Damage Over Time
Not so much for this.

Now, all that said, where are the major balance change manifesto notes for those Elemental Hit nerfs?