Balance Changes in Path of Exile: Betrayal

Even if working with archetypes seems a good thing, I'm not sure skills should be tied to ascendencies or ascendencies limited to a specific subset of skills. I feel that it is limiting the diversity of builds. (for example and not talking about spellzerker, chieftain changed from fire-based skills to more specific physical-to-fire conversion skills, RIP scorching ray+volatile dead chieftain).

Also,please rethink the change on ritual of awakening. The damage buff will probably compensate the dps loss for the missing totem but double summoning feels bad. Double summoning on each totem skill will destroy the utility of searing bond totems. The "Can have up to 1 additional Totem summoned at a time" on this skill means it is made to be used as additional totem when using other totems ! Double summoning will remove the searing bond too easily. Also, it will make very hard to use more than one type of totems. Why not give placement speed and reduced mana cost instead ? 100% more placement speed and 50% less totem cost is almost the same without hindering placement and strategy.

And I don't care about stat sticks.

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FonaR007 wrote:

People are babyraging over GGG nerfing the builds they play, however they don't consider those as broken.
Just calm down, the game is growing better and you don't consider that we have many things added in the patch that would buff those builds ever further which is too OP to be in the game.
Pls stop shitting the devs, game is fine, it is whiners who are the problem.

People like to blow things out of proportion. It was the same when Double Dipping dmg was removed 2-3 leagues ago. And before that when they nerfed items like Kaom's Heart and Mjolnir. For a while CoC discharge and RF builds took a dump but as always they come back.

People look at the small details and miss the big picture. GGG included apparently, as they've been doing these little bandaid nerfs/buffs in cycles since closed beta. The real issue however has persisted without address.

That being that while every skill and build is technically viable to reach maps, they hit a wall at the truly end game content of ubers and corrupt 8 mod t15's, Vaal Temple. Sure, it's meant to be the hardest content. But when one min/maxes their build and items and that content is just as out of reach, there is a problem.

That problem is that those skills just weren't viable to begin with. It takes a niche exploit build to do the hardest content, What does that really say?

"

DedeX wrote:

Dear 1.000 hours Balance Team.... why do you hate melee so much???

.

They hate people who win the game.
You want to win from now? It will be according to our rules
And you'll have to live in our bubble for a long time

It`s not that bad. You just won`t do million of DMG on budget gear, and will have to spend more time and currency into your build.
The problem is the double standart. Some builds need very, very heavy investment to be successful, like one hand + shield, and they suck at budget, while other builds on budget can do insanely amount of DPS.
If million DMG is available for some, should be available to all or to none.
And they always nerf melee.
Kaom was nerfed, instant leech was nerfed, block was nerfed, and what buffs exactly melee got ? Nothing. Especially in defence.
People complain about two handed weapons, that need second slot with def. mechanics, and while i agree to degree two-handed weapon(exclude bows) need a slight buff, if they get secondary slot, then the one hand + shield will just be usless. For melee like Gladiator for example, you can make good defence, but to be successful offensive you need insanely amount of investment.
When shield user will get buff?
Sorry but with my current item if i switch my shield to second weapon, like Rigward for example, my DPS was tripled.
And what would i really lose? 2k armour and 200 life for 3x the dmg ...
That just show how such shield builds are weak and need some love finally.

Love it!

I love the fact that GGG is doing even something to stat sticks but i'm not quite sure this is the right way. Like some have said here nerfs seems to only effect melee builds now and if you ask me they gave more to spells than melee builds anyway.

So why not just limit the "extra phys as cold/fire/lightning/chaos/elemental" mods to 1 per item? So if you get for example "Gain 32% of physical damage as extra cold damage" mod then that would be it. No more those insane 3+ mod stat sticks. I think this would be much better way to balance those items than just screwing one side and let other side have all it's fun :)

I have never liked those elder/shaper stat sticks anyway and only tried maybe once or twice in standard (shitty ones) so won't effect me in anyway. I still have my fun with mostly melee/bow builds even if they removed stat sticks all together.

Game is fine, melee is fine, self casting is fine...some other aspects are just a bit "too good" atm. so i just hoped that when this day comes it would not be this one sided. But i'm sure they will figure out better ways to improve/change the mechanics like they always have.


Ps. For those few who says that "AoE nerf killed melee builds". It didn't...you just stopped playing melee because you saw negative change to skills you loved. Truth is that after a while you don't even notice the difference ;)

I understand that wielding a statstick for more damage is not very realistic, but with that argument, you should not be able to use shields with 1h weapons either, because they too can give you more damage.

And for the balance perspective, I looked at the available delve statistics:

Softcore-Delve statistic for characters lvl 95+ (poe.ninja):

Skill popularity:
blade vortex (20%) <-- 1/5 of ALL players used blade vortex
molten strike (10%)
elemental hit (10%)
frenzy {poets pen}(9%) <-- note that the first four skills covered almost half of all builds
tornado shot (7%)
arc (7%)
righteous fire (6%)
reave (6%) <-- first melee build that uses statsticks
.
.
.
the second one is double strike, at 3% followed by blade flurry at 2%

Deepest solo delve:
blade vortex (3.8k)
tornado shot (3.4k)
molten strike (3.1k)
poets pen (3k)
magma orb (2.3k)
elemental hit (2k)
glacial cascade (1.6k)
.
.
.
the first melee statstick build is blade flurry at 1.1k

Now by looking at this statistics I would never say that statsticks were "op" for melee based builds, and nerfing those builds will make them even less popular.

I have a feeling that this was just the tip. Tomorrow they are going to thrust their whole nerf shaft (with some buff springles on it) into the official patch notes..

Well, was hyped af. Now not so much anymore.

Get rid of those insane affixes not stat sticks all together.
Another option would be: You cant use your offhand weapon for that skill? Well then you dont get dual wield bonus anymore. But that would make to much sense i guess..

What wizardry keeps my character from attacking with BF with his dagger in his main hand? Bad descision, bad design. Its so obvious isnt it?

How can this be your serious solution to this? Oh people get dual wield bonuses but they arent dual wielding.. well better force them to dual wield..

Let me take an educated guess: even shitty stat sticks are far better than the dual wield bonus, so noone would dualwield anymore, but do single weapon + stat stick. Well guess what? Your fucking stat sticks are imbalanced.. Is it really that hard to see?

This is just a quick and dirty short term solution, not the right thing to do. Pathetic.

"

Bex_GGG wrote:

Balance Changes in Path of Exile: Betrayal


The following principles were applied in looking at rebalancing unique items:

• Any item that drops very rarely should be justified in being that hard-to-find. Many very rare items have been improved, while a few were made more common.

Hopefully, one of my main concerns regarding the looting system will be addressed in a way that dropping unique items would feel much more rewarding than in the past!