Path of Exile 3.16 Balance - Part 3 - Auras, Curses and Elemental Damage Over Time

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Replace "Reservation Reduction" with "Reservation Efficiency".

This is amazing. The aurabots and aura stackers were both overpowered when using almost all auras and solo players auras were a little underpowered. This is a very smart way to fix both of these problems at the same time. I love this change.

Party play will be more interesting now. Everyone can contribute there own medium powered auras while playing a build of their own, rather than being a bot.

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Problem:
Characters specialised in maximising the power of auras provide an absolutely insane amount of damage and defence to party members, making a party with an aura-specialised character so much more effective than one without.

Solution:
Remove sources of Aura Effect from Cluster Jewels and move the Aura Cluster Jewels type to Small Cluster Jewels, so it is no longer possible to continuously stack Aura Effect for your party.

I don't like the medium cluster jewels changing to small ones. People who are struggling to fit in auras into certain builds need 2 notables that lower mana reserve cost on their cluster jewels. This is only available on medium cluster jewels.

I do like removing the aura effect from the medium cluster jewels though. Even though aurabots will not have as many auras, the rich players will still stack voices if you do not remove aura effect from the cluster jewels. Buffing all notable cluster passives to individual auras will offset the loss of power that solo players lose from the removal of aura effect.

Also all cluster notable passives should effect one aura only. Make them really strong since you won't need to worry about aura bot power on one individual aura.

Leave all other sources of increased aura effect alone, because they are not overpowered. The jynxed juju amulet is not overpowered leave it alone. The main 2 problems were too many auras on one toon and voices cluster stacking aura effect and those 2 problems are gone with the changes I mentioned above. No need to nerf other aura stuff after that.

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Solution:
Make Curse Cluster Jewels a Small Cluster Jewel,

I disagree with this. Medium cluster jewels have 2 notables and that can be needed for some solo builds. Having 1 less notable could mess up some builds, so no small cluster please.

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Problem:
Characters specialised in maximising the number and power of Curses provide far too much damage and defence to party members,

The powercreep of curses is a little too high, but you make it hard to balance around cause only 1 players curses count in a party at a time. Curses from multiple players don't stack together like auras do and that forces a single cursebot.

Remember different builds need different curses. If those curse needs are different for party members and only 1 player can curse, you force certain parties to have cursebots. Whether or not there is cluster stacking or not there will be cursebots in parties. I don't mind seeing curse bots overpowered, cause the game forces it right now.

The easiest way to fix this is to make it so player's curses do not remove other players curses. Then limit everyone to 1 curse, except the occultist at 2. So for example most 6 player groups could have 6 curses or 7 with a single occultist. But everyone has to scale their own curse and the occultist can only scale 2 curses for the party. Now the party gets most or all of their curses without having a cursebot do it all for them. They all have to scale their own curses and probably have less curse power, but the end result is a strong party with no cheesy cursebot mechanics.

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Summon Doedre’s Effigy Skill now has a short Cast Time (previously Instant),

Please don't do this. It used to be the clunkiest piece of junk nobody ever used back before it was instant. I understand the nerf to max power of cursebot because it is so much power on one character. However this makes the build less fun and nobody wants fun removed.

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The Elemental Equilibrium Keystone Passive Skill now applies 25% Exposure of the Elements not Hit with,

This is scary. This is huge power taking from playerbase. It might work out if you buff enough stuff. Give huge damage to all the weakest elemental skills at the exact same time. Anything elemental that is not meta boost it a lot. Remember in party play everyone would have elemental equilibrium before and they lose that party power now. Unless you balance around solo mostly anyway.

Also make sure you don't take away too many options to lower enemy resist. Otherwise the new meta will cause everyone to use ignore enemy resistance or penetrate enemy resistance instead. Maybe add some options to lower enemy resistance that are not as strong somewhere else.

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The Elemental Overload Keystone Passive Skill now gives more Hit and Ailment Elemental Damage to Skills if they crit in the last 8 seconds.

This looks like a great change. It will make it so tiny investment is needed rather than cheesing it and that sounds great. Anything to stop the cheese sounds great.

I don't get it. I disagree with these changes.

I follow impulze3's opinion and quote him:

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this leaves a bad taste in my mouth, you disregard the time i spent on this build in one single patch because reddit crybabies are complaining about party play. again and again you kill things in collateral from multiple angles.

There is a way to solve all these problems without having to kill archtypes and leaving my character list with empty shells of themself.
This patchnotes prove what everyone knows dspite chris saying on stream that you don't do such things.
Aura stacking is now the Nth build that is unplayable after balance changes. Thousands of hours lost for many players too.

I'm very disappointed in this game.
The "League"-System that was introduced back then to test out and add new things is now the main focus of poe and its balance. Disregarding anyone that does not want to play in a loop over and over again bordering on insanity and dopamine addiction.

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Essence Worm now grants 80% reduced Reservation Efficiency (not specific to mana), instead of 40% increased Reservation.
Memory Vault now grants 20% reduced Reservation Efficiency (not specific to mana), instead of 10% increased Reservation.
Vivinsect now grants “Socketed Gems have 20% reduced Reservation Efficiency”, instead of “Socketed Gems have 10% increased Reservation”.

Penalties on those items are greatly increased.

For instance, if we consider old penalty from Essence Worm with 40 % increased reservation it will result into 1.4 MP instead of 1 MP however after the change while formula for reservation used as follows:

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MP reservation = Base reservation / (1 + Increased Reservation Efficiency)

it will render 1 / (1 - 0.8) = 5 MP reserved that corresponds 5 x Base Reservation against old 1.4 x Base reservation.
Noticeably, that following this consideration a character wearing both Essence Worm and Memory Vault will result in

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1 / 0 or infinite MP reservation

Therefore reduced probably means inverted.
Thus for Essence Worm reservation could be calculated as

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1 / (1 / (1 + 0.8)) = 1.8

that is ~28% worse than 1.4 @Chris W, please advise.

Shattering steel lost its bleed damage?...
It may not have been a very popular skill for bleed appliance but i liked using it...

If you don't like it then quit like me.
They have already lost 50% of players by nerfs in 3.15 and they don't mind losing more.
This game means nothing in 2021

Hate the nerfs or love them,POE brings something no other game of its genre brings,complexity and actual interest to try and push a certain build to the limit and it actually gives you a good feeling when your custom build actually succeeds.

The reason GGG can do this sweeping changes and try something new or something brave is because it is really the only game out there that is worth investing its time in,like what are you gonna play D3 where the only skill set you need is to have keyboard and a mouse or a controller.

or your gonna play there Resurrected D2 in some pathetic attempt to get the glory days of D2 ,or maybe D4 which from what i have seen is so heavily orientated to all the instant gratification casual players that the game looks so bad mechanically and as an idea that i can't believe there people actually excited for it.

POE is the only good game on the market in this genre,and it depends on GGG if they will kill or keep their game good,in general POE 2 is the make it or break it moment for GGG.

On a very serious note, I welcome sweeping changes like this for couple of reasons:

1.It shakes up the meta and completely turns things 360 and you have to find something new to play,this is a personal thing since i hate playing only one style or build with time it gets boring.

2.Most changes always affect the top 1% the most and i think that should be just exciting for them to try and break another build.


GGG main aspect is Leagues,the reason Leagues are fun is because you get to try new builds and try to beat the game in 3 months(for some people that is a strain after all kids,wife,work etc etc) + you get some interesting addition content if the league is actually good you know.


Honestly one of the only real issues i have with the game and i have barely any hope it will be addressed in POE 2 is PVP,if they are able to capture the essence of D2 PVP onto POE and make it their own thing ,this game will actually be the complete package for me.

Yes there are things to be desired but nothing is perfect.

This game has always been about overcoming stuff its just the truth,its not a game to play one build 24/7 and just cruise through it,if you want to play that there are D3 for that and other similar crap.

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Poganyz wrote:

It's nice to see all this effort, and I appreciate the changes, but these are not the changes the game needs right now.

We would much rather have :
- An auction house
- Death logs (or any sort of explanation of character deaths)
- Auto pickup for currencies / shards

I would also pay for any of the above without hesitation.

I'm sure you are well aware of these issues, some of them are downright comical at this point. Are you guys keeping these changes for POE 2 ? If so, that's fine, just let us know at least.

Anyway, looking forward to the next league !

Every league kill some builds. Aurastacker and Aurabots gave a strong advantage in the game, no matter the cost of making them was huge. For example, when playing in a party you have x% more currency and x% more chance to drop it than a solo player. By collecting currency in 6 people, theoretically, you are able to collect the appropriate eq faster than a solo player. Some people do it within a few days (max 3 weeks) from the start of the league. Summing up, you can do any character you want, because thanks to the auras you have a colossal dps and defense, with 0 investing in the tree (most points go to attack for characters with dps, plus you add points to life or ES).

Currently, everyone in the party will be able to invest aura (the fact that the aura effect on allies is reduced), but this is probably what the party game is about to play together and plan the game together. And not on mindless you will be aura bot, and you will be from curses, we will do the rest with shi**y items.

Playing in a party currently only costs the clothing of aurabots. For example, invest the same money in 1 character in the party who will be responsible for dps (not aura bot) and achieve the same effect as aurabot. Impossible. Boost for 5 people in party vs dps build is disproportionate. This is what it is all about. Since playing in a party is more profitable due to the greater chance and the number of dropped items / currency / uni, etc., it must involve a greater risk. Currently, this looks like dressing two characters and being more effective at dps and defense than anyone else, and the reward is more drop.

A person playing alone, who does not have time, works in various shifts and is not able to play with someone, is in a lost position. For example, I will collect in 2-3 hours of 50ch, you will have more of them, you do maps faster, you have more drops, you have more people who can focus on raising currency from ground... I spend more time raising currency. So playing in a party is still profitable. Besides, since no one sees the optional version of the game yet, apart from removing the aura enhancement, I think it will be possible to continue playing aurastack.

Aurabot MTX refund when Kappa

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knorpl wrote:

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Poganyz wrote:

It's nice to see all this effort, and I appreciate the changes, but these are not the changes the game needs right now.

We would much rather have :
- An auction house
- Death logs (or any sort of explanation of character deaths)
- Auto pickup for currencies / shards

I would also pay for any of the above without hesitation.

I'm sure you are well aware of these issues, some of them are downright comical at this point. Are you guys keeping these changes for POE 2 ? If so, that's fine, just let us know at least.

Anyway, looking forward to the next league !

Every league kill some builds. Aurastacker and Aurabots gave a strong advantage in the game, no matter the cost of making them was huge. For example, when playing in a party you have x% more currency and x% more chance to drop it than a solo player. By collecting currency in 6 people, theoretically, you are able to collect the appropriate eq faster than a solo player. Some people do it within a few days (max 3 weeks) from the start of the league. Summing up, you can do any character you want, because thanks to the auras you have a colossal dps and defense, with 0 investing in the tree (most points go to attack for characters with dps, plus you add points to life or ES).

Currently, everyone in the party will be able to invest aura (the fact that the aura effect on allies is reduced), but this is probably what the party game is about to play together and plan the game together. And not on mindless you will be aura bot, and you will be from curses, we will do the rest with shi**y items.

Playing in a party currently only costs the clothing of aurabots. For example, invest the same money in 1 character in the party who will be responsible for dps (not aura bot) and achieve the same effect as aurabot. Impossible. Boost for 5 people in party vs dps build is disproportionate. This is what it is all about. Since playing in a party is more profitable due to the greater chance and the number of dropped items / currency / uni, etc., it must involve a greater risk. Currently, this looks like dressing two characters and being more effective at dps and defense than anyone else, and the reward is more drop.

A person playing alone, who does not have time, works in various shifts and is not able to play with someone, is in a lost position. For example, I will collect in 2-3 hours of 50ch, you will have more of them, you do maps faster, you have more drops, you have more people who can focus on raising currency from ground... I spend more time raising currency. So playing in a party is still profitable. Besides, since no one sees the optional version of the game yet, apart from removing the aura enhancement, I think it will be possible to continue playing aurastack.

You actually have 0 idea about investment into making aurabots work,. it's not just a victario's influence and game done LOL