Character Balance in Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra

PRAISE TRICKSTER!

only nerfs without any buffs elsewhere is really lazy and boring balancing.

there is nothing to explore or be excited for

These changes look fucking horrid, nothing but nerfs to players practically. 100% skipping this league if this is the direction its going, lmao.

Problem: Players needed tools to counter a wide variety of new archnemesis mods etc that cannot be countered - what is defined by the player base as what is all this new **** on the ground and why do I have a mark debuff and why can't I move.

EDIT Hi Mathil if you get this far. I go sleep. Patch notes soon enough.

Currently there are multiple items that can gain an absurd amount of flat life regen. With that being said, why are coral amulets and rings still have their same implicit ranges (2-4) while some end game rare items can get over 100 flat life regen? Why not change the implicit ranges based on item level or just change the ring and amulet altogether?

Also, spell suppression EVEN HARDER to get from gear?! Are you freaking crazy?! By removing spell dodge, implementing spell suppression and increasing spell damage all across the game you made it pretty much a necessity for literally every build that's trying to stay alive, the only solution was stacking 90% all res with Melding of the Flesh (which was only achievable [with reasonable investment] through Purity of Ice and Aegis Aurora) or having ridiculous amounts of life combined with reductions and sustain, and now even an investment into all max res nodes in Marauder's area combined with juiced up Purity of Fire is gonna be completely useless because you literally nullify the whole point of using Purity in this case! You HAVE TO do something with the ridiculous spell damage being present at every step in the game at this point, 80% max res is NOT enough and with this kind of nerf to the Melding we're all just getting teabagged at this point...

Another thing I have to mention is the ridiculous situation that 2h swords, axes and maces had been put into: no block (for literally no reason! just give them 18% chance to block attack damage and make all staves have a chance to block spell damage instead), no meaningful ways of on-hit healing triggers (no, Vengeance is not a solution), literally the only option is to get Fortification (which is also accessible for those with an innate chance to block...) and ridiculous amounts of both hp and leech/regen, making combinations like 2h mace Chieftain really struggle on maps, and making pure red builds suffer A LOT if they decide to stick to their "default" basetypes.

I honestly don't get it. You're trying to make people invest into defences which leads to situations where A LOT of players end up with less than 1 million DPS for an off-META build (yes, we do play those, look at majorities instead of streamers and META-slaves with 1500 deaths per char on SC), while every goddamn Pinnacle Atlas Boss fight is more and more punishing the less damage you have, it's really quite ridiculous... especially if you also account for all the clearspeed-biased mechanics like Legion, Blight, even Syndicate (transportation, killing supporting troops in general) or Temple of Atzoatl at some point, it's blatantly obvious that high damage is 10 times more beneficial than high level of defence yet instead of trimming the damage and giving more ways to build defences against specific types of damage (like making max resistances a bunch of rollable suffixes on pure strength bases, or having less hardcore versions of Transcendence that are actually freaking usable with a 2h weapon other than a staff) you reduce the dmg creep here and there while also making defences more important and even more tedious to get decent amounts of, expecting us to be happy about it...

Crimson, Viridian and Cobalt Jewels can now roll 4–6% of damage taken recouped as life as a suffix modifier. Feel like this should be a prefix kind like how you can get %es and recovery rate or recharge time. % life and recoup feel the same to me.

If minions have a limited to duration it makes sense for them to die easy but for minions you want up always like zombies and golems it makes the game play feel really bad and clunky mostly early game but just in general. It has always been taken poorly by the community and I think it is a bit of a mistake. Minions are already not in a great place right now and making them more painful doesn't seem like a great direction. I understand they will be more tanky with future gear but you need to still want to play your minion build long enough to get that far.

Would have loved to see a few more substantial buffs and changes to the underused skills, maybe even mechanically. Oh well still excited for the new league though, you guys always deliver!

Much love!

GGG, I love you guys. 3-4k hours invested.

Always playing Berserker in HC (HCSSF/Gauntlets). You have just made it unplayable in Hardcore.

Well... this is really uninspiring. Some small changes, some massive nerfs, a few weak buffs. The biggest problem are the archnem mobs. You simply have to either oneshot them, or be tanky enough to take them on. I always go the latter route. Getting suppression capped without being invested in duelist/ranger area is now going to be near impossible without massive investment. DB nerf.. I mean I get that it's really strong for just 10% reservation, but to anyone that doesn't play a glasscannon build, the defenses are a MUST. Remove reservation eff mastery.. nerf effect.. So basically, now I get my defensive auras, and don't get any offensive ones. OR skip one of the defensive ones, and get folded by archnem mobs 24/7. Seeing as I only play melee builds, this is extremely sad. Well, I just hope that the patchnotes will bring a lot more information, buffs and/or new skills/tools/passives/ascendancies/whatever to work with. I still have high hopes that you guys at GGG really did a lot of positive things in that massive period without changes. Because this is, honestly, disappointing. And, having skipped 3.17, came back and loving it in 3.18, even though still wishing for melee to be an archetype and not a niche, then understand that melee is probably not getting any love, any time soon.. Do I really have to skip another league, just to forget that my playstyle isn't rewarded and only starts shining with massive investment? *sigh*