Character Balance in Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra

So instead of just nerfing a few of the numerical values on auras you make it impossible to use on league start builds. How investment builds will make up for the 15% loss no problem, but what are the 5 viable league start builds going to do? I don't usually complain about nerfs, but you didn't really buff anything to make up for the defensive changes, and no one wants to go back to have being made to choose between an offensive or a defensive aura anymore. You pushed Arch nem mods out when they weren't ready nerfed them three times over and they still are not in a great spot and then you take away the ability to run a defensive aura. Not to mention you have 9 ascendancies that are under 2% played for the entire league and you mention two of them. Might be time to rethink these 3 month league cycles. It apparently is not enough time to give the new patch proper changes.

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Problem: The Veiled and Crafted Modifiers that cause Skills to cost no Mana or Life while Focused undermine the importance of skill costs and constrain design space. As mentioned in the 3.17.0 Patch Notes, we originally planned to disable them in 3.18.0, but this was pushed back due to the freeze on character balance in 3.18.0.

Solution: Non-Aura Skills Cost no Mana or Life while Focused can no longer appear as a veiled modifier on Amulets, and the crafted version is no longer available.

Thanks, was nice to play Corrupting Fever build a few times. Maybe at some point it will be possible again, but not now with 13800 life cost on the skill.

How are we still going in this direction? I genuinely cannot even fathom the thought process that lead to this "balance" manifesto.

Disappointing tbh. Melee buffs please.

I expected bigger nerfs to some skills and a lot more changes to old skills. maybe some new skills. We miss that a lot to play and test recently, just move numbers on old skills. This is not final, just a manifesto, so maybe, just maybe we will get more, hopefully..

are the devs sabotaging the game to make way for diablo 4 hype, and then, when d4 flops they launch poe 2?

or are we all playing chieftain with arctic armour doing slams in 3.19?

"require more investment"

With the reservation efficiency mastery I Barely could squeeze in my defensive auras, I died 350 times this league across my two most played characters - and I didn't play that much. The reason the auras are so heavily used isn't that they're too strong, it's that we have to in order to stand a chance.

You want more investment? More than, all of our gear, and gems, and mana reserved, and talent tree? How? What more Is there?

Okay, but how's the mid-game performance of Cast-on-skeleton Dark Pact after these changes?

i feel like the main issue with necro hasnt been adressed

why can necro get max block with basically no investment while the class that is designed for block (gladiator) cant even get these high block values with significant investment?

Champ will still be super OP because of perma fort and will be even more important now that you need to invest more in spell suppression and nerfed defiance banner. - maybe the flat Armour/evasion need to be removed from champ ascendancies.

DD and Seismic nerfs are great

Jugg nerf(?)

Excited for the trickster changes.


i feel like this will be a giga champ league

5% playing Minions skills. Lets nefr them WTF???