Path of Exile 3.16 Balance - Part 2 - Core Character Defences and Recovery

Im spending like a half of my ascendancy points to just have 1 good def mechanic, and you nerf this, thx

No phys mitigation??

See ya next year guys.

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zhepartak wrote:

I read everywhere that bow characters are going to die. They say they will buff evasion and spell negation as a trade for dodge removal. Can anyone explain this noob why that should or should not work?

A lot of that mitigation comes off of shield.
Can't have a shield while you have a bow.

Even with that being the case, this doesn't nothing for the attack hits that have been one-shotting people. It does nothing for the fact that you need hp on every single piece of armor. So it does nothing to allow you to stack evasion higher.

all those changes will not bring me back to PoE.

still killed it.

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Serdoa wrote:

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Ageless_Emperion wrote:

Yes, but actually no...because the primary source of the death in the game is still one shots. The NPC side of things got no changes done to it to make extra investment into defenses actually viable for end game. Its harder to get viable items now and lets not forget the multimillion dps checks that are the end game bosses.

All these changes do is cripple accessibility to defenses while not doing anything about the underlying reasons why the player base asked for more diverse defensive options in the first place. This is a tonedeaf response from developers that are far more concerned with fulfilling their fetishized vision of an ARPG than actually making a fun, functional game.

I truly believe that one-shots are much less common than is believed. We call it that because it happens so fast - but often enough it is obvious that it was not one big hit but 50 or even a 100 small ones in an incredible short time-window. These changes should help mitigate that by providing more ways to actually get defenses against those small hits and make it easier and faster to regen life / ES when it happens.

As for viable items: I guess we should wait and see. I too read the details of additional mod tiers for several things which means even more crap that can roll late-game. But at the same time, some slots also lost stuff. We will have to see how much harder it is to get a good item. I believe it will be easier to get a good (or viable) item but more costly and expensive to get a perfect one. Not that that's a hard prediction with the random range of bose armour /evasion / ES on items now.

And lastly, I'm surprised that you think accessibility is lower for defenses than before. My impression is that it is much easier to get defenses in the tree, which is a more natural way to achieve them and I believe will lead more people to actually use them or at least consider them. Yes, items will be harder to roll and get certain modifiers on, but I don't see that as removing accessibility overall, just making it harder to perfect your gear. But maybe you mean something else?

In my experience one shots or any death resulting from damage that occurs in a timeframe that is beyond human reaction times make up the majority of my deaths. In the few times I am given a moment to respond to something that leads to my death the damage or degen is usually so immense it simply overwhelms any defensive layers I have and I get a more delayed wtf. Of all the games out there I believe this one sorely needs a combat log for the last 1-2 seconds of character life so one can have the tools to piece together what happened.

For items, I am of the opinion that good items should be accessible to players and they should not take multiple years or a professional level of time investment in the game to be reached. Read, I am not advocating people just get handed things, but what I want is to work towards achievable and plannable goals for my gear that don't require me to no life the game. Currently that's not possible and these changes are always going to hurt the players in the middle and at the bottom, never those at the top who GGG is apparently taking as examples of people having grossly easy access to perfect items. GGG is of the opinion that normal players stumble into mirror tier rares on the ground or that they knock them out over a couple of beers on the weekend. They also want the crafting process to involve as much RNG as possible as per their feedback on the matter in interviews. They are staunch believers in lucking into your gear from everything I have heard and seen of their handling when it comes to items. I HATE that kind of approach, for multiple reasons. Also don't even get me started on the whole item bases can be potentially 20% better thing that they are also doing.

The tl:dr from the rambling is that gear is the lifeblood of the game and GGG is doing things to make acquiring it, interacting with it or selling it more tedious with every new thing they change about the item system. That's just disrespectful of their players' time investment and dedication. Its something I can't stand for.

As many people have mentioned, although getting defenses in the tree sounds like a perfectly valid response to the problem of 'we need more defenses', it does nothing so long as we are not given more points to invest into it. If PoE was a game where mechanical skill could make up for lack of DPS then we wouldn't be having this conversation. Yet it simply isn't. End game content requires you to have a build that more often than not is almost entirely invested in damage. Since in the end game of PoE where gameplay boils down to playing bullet hell or the floor is lava in a tiny arena with every color of the rainbow being simultaneously expressed across your screen, bypassing these mechanics is the real defense while the 'efficient' layers that GGG is stripping away were meant to shore that up.

Will their other changes make up for that? I have seen them make enough 'big' changes to say no. Will I be happy to be proven wrong? Perfectly. So lets see how this will shake out in the end.

thats what i want to see from a company like GGG and even if the changes doesnt work as intented , big ups for the effort !

After the last announcement I had very high hopes for the next league, but after reading this I'm asking myself why the devs don't understand the complaints. We had multiple podcasts, several people explaining what the problems were and THIS is their solution?

I was really looking forward to next league yesterday, but now my excitement is at 0 again.

My first whiny post.

I honestly do not care about values being more or less, I have managed to make progress in every league that has come and gone since Betrayal so far. I even enjoyed Expedition.

My major gripe is this:
Why have ascendancies at all at this point honestly?
I chose the gladiator for blocking / bleeding centric builds.
That was part of the identity of the ascendancy for me.

Same for totems and Hiero.
Poison and Assassin.

Instead of real solutions it is just "nerf block" and make it available for everyone. Make Ghost Shrouds for everyone. Make multi-cursing for everyone. Edit: Or just remove it for good :).

Why make ascendancy defining nodes available for everyone? Why does every class need to have a weaker version of x-y available via a keystone?

If I want to go maxblock somewhat easily then should I not have to make the choice to play a certain archetype? I know I would not choose a Gladiator for curse-heavy chaos damage over time builds. If the changes keep going in this direction, however, maybe that will be a possibility for POE2. Just have one class - "the Ascendant" - no need for a Lab or tough choices, just package all ascendancy nodes as weaker versions via keystones on the tree.

Where has the defining uniqueness + the advantage of choosing one ascendancy over the other gone? This trend of moving characteristics from ascendancy classes to the tree seems to have been going on for a while now without betterment in sight.

Sorry but it really does seem like a bunch of nerfs being packaged as "wins" for everyone with nice wording. You did not like how powerful block was overall, especially spell block, so in comes the cavallery and destroys another ascendancy defining node and we are left with more generic bland run of the mill replacements. I cannot fathom how you can make up for the change but we will see. If it is anything as good as Hiero then, well, offensive bleed gladiator it is (until bleed explosion is moved to the tree).

Just my two or three cents.

Edit: To add a positive note, it is good to see discussions being taken up before the league releases and I can appreciate the amount of work being put in to release so much content basically every 3 months.

Love this sea of information before league reveal!
Also: it's cool how you listened to community about this defence problem. It really is. Thank you! Keep it up!

Ah also It would be nice if you could do something about Blind support, shaper blind gloves, alternate quality of the gem.

And while we're at it a reminder that chance to flee and Inc accuracy support still exists