Character Balance in Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra

At this rate,. POE2 Is going to be a bust

As a player who started to play in 3.9 metamorph league , which is not so long ago compared to PoE veteran , I can safely say this is the worst manifesto I've ever red.

I am not that much disappointed by the nerfs (all of them seems fair except aura reservation nerfs cause they provide a buff to lackluster builds) than I am by the lack of buffs and metachanges. So many skills and archetypes are undertuned or dead and not even relevant for the actual state of the game right now with uber bosses (cold dot , mana builds , strike skills -except LS-). So many ascendancies are just bad and I don't even think you realise that (Assassin , Trickster , Hiero , Jugg , Pathfinder even Ascendant should get a complete rework).

Are we supposed to play the same bullshit skills over and over again to enjoy the whole game? I don't know , seems like we are taking this way.

Seismic : Not enough to be relevant
LS : Not even touched
Nightblade : Not even touched

and some of those builds , may be 10 in total , are so far away from the other that's not even if you want to play those build as a starter to do good.

This patch should have been THE GREAT balance patch , we are far from it. Balance got worse and worse since I started playing that's for sure. 3.15 was the first nail in the coffin , 3.19 might be the final one. Not because the changes are bad , they are way insufficient especially for the buffs.

Buff low-end , Nerf high-end. Give us back the fantasy , the appeal of ascendancies and skills. The game feel so bland right now.
I want to be baited into exciting-buffed-reworked-new skill for a leaguestart and I want to feel I have the choice to be wrong in my leaguestarter , just to take the gamble. I don't feel like it can happen right now anymore sadly.

Stop thinking for a League or 2 about gear , this shouldn't be your main focus right now. Think about gear when character balance is decent , it's not.

minion, reservation, defenses nerfed. Buffs for skills that most people don’t give a sh*t. Rip all my fav builds. If the patch note is out and all this sh*t is still there with the same archnem mods then see ya in 3.20

Kalandra - Borders (Official Music Video) ^_^

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This has led to the combination of Defiance Banner, Determination and Grace feeling near mandatory for characters in hardcore leagues, and very attractive elsewhere.

And what about who does NOT stack Determination and Grace? Just nerfing the banner indiscriminately for everybody? If that's your problem, why not conditionally nerfing Defiance Banner only for who has both Grace and Determination active?

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Problem: The introduction of reservation efficiency has encouraged a much larger range of builds to invest in reservation skills to a small or moderate degree. This is not a problem in itself, but currently the options for doing so are similar for every build, and provide slightly too much generic power relative to the investment required. Reservation mastery options are the biggest outliers in power, as they provide larger amounts of power than entire notable passive skills.
Solution: Remove the mana reservation efficiency mastery and reduce the power of the aura effect and life reservation efficiency masteries.

Buffs to monster healt and damage and the introduction of archnemesis mods made it MANDATORY to stack as many auras as possible to have even a possibility to counter them and survive. The sources of mana reservation efficiency on the skill tree were a bare minimum to play for the majority of players, and an "outlier" only for the usual few. In 6 months you really couldn't find a better solution to counter aurabots without damaging every other normal player? What are we getting to compensate this unwarranted nerf?

So you acknowledge that spell suppression is a mandatory pickup for most characters that want strong defenses (and tell me, who don't want strong defenses?) and instead doing something that it isn't you just making it harder do obtain? Solid logic...

i hope kalandra is cute, [Removed by Support]

Hello GGG,
I usually don't post that much, but I will post some of my thoughts this time.
I started playing this game not long ago, but I can now see some of GGG's problems. I have played other games, so I can immediately see the problem POE has. It is mind-boggling that GGG seems cannot see the problem. Customer satisfaction should be the number one priority to be successful in business. Understandably, it isn't easy to satisfy all customers, but most customers have to be happy with what the business provides. I noticed that this game is extremely difficult for casual players and newcomers. And it seems that every new league is getting more difficult. The difficult part is item acquisition. Expert gamers can get items they need by grinding hard for many hours per day (many of them have time) and have the knowledge to craft, so it is not that difficult for them. GGG has been catering to top gamers' preferences and making the game harder. Many new and casual players try hard and give up eventually and move on to other games. How many new and casual players do you think you have lost over the years due to simply being too difficult for them? There were 390 MILLION people who played the Super Mario game. Do you think they played the game because it was super complex and difficult? How many players playing this Path of Exile game currently? Have you considered this game from a casual and new player perspective? You are losing your business simply because you are not accommodating new and casual players in your overall game scheme. You first need to introduce HARD mode for expert gamers ASAP to fix unbalanced game schemes between new and casual players and experienced players.
Don't bother with planning about 3.20. You can extend this 3.19 for next season if you need to do so. You listened to expert gamers' input in the past, made this game more difficult, and even introduced Uber bosses to satisfy them. By introducing Hard mode, you will satisfy top-tier players, and new and casual players will enjoy normal mode. Most people play any game to have fun and enjoy, not to grind and have stress and headache. Don't you know this simple logic? Who is responsible for reading this feedback and reporting to top management? This employee has to take this responsibility seriously and report every single feedback to top management to improve this game.

changes feel really bad to be honest. You made it look like we want to run grace-determination-def banner to abuse getting def, but it is necessity to stay alive during alch and go maps, even with 100ex+ gear. I know many people wanted hard mode, but it doesn't mean we want it as base game mode. Changes might be fine if you plan to lower monster damage and stop with your mechanics like dot grounds dealing 10kdmg/s with 75 res. There's ton characters and builds that can do insane damage with insane defence but let's be real; that's only few percent of the player base. If you want to create boring game with 1 archetype of playable character you are going in good direction.

Nice.
Looking forward to seeing some more nerfs on the tree for traps.
And of course a few more nerfs for "AN". Will they? Will they?