Archmage is NOT the Problem

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JODYHiGHR0LLER#6171 wrote:

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Nerim#4690 wrote:

TL;DR: “+N Level to (Cold/Fire/Lightning/All) Spell Skills”

+levels is also extremely problematic because the mod is absolutely mandatory

No clue why they made it roll 6+ bonus levels. It's insanely useless to play before you have one. Can barely even finish the campaign without getting at LEAST +2.

I doubt that there is any one thing that's a problem -- it's a combination of things that when taken together that causes problems.

So while the "problems" being discussed may well be problems it's having the combination of everything in one package that's killing diversity.

Basically when you can get good damage, good damage projection, good CC, high move speed, high clear speed, high MF [rarity], have good one-shot protection, and have enough "defense", and low gearing pressure, etc. all combined is the problem ...

I.E. when a build is at least "good" [and often outstanding] at everything it takes to be successful in a trade economy then you have real problems esp. when on balance those builds are vastly better than many alternatives.

archmage must have more penalties like increased mana cost of skills. its current power is ok.

Archmage is broken, that´s not even a discussion, but man the + levels gotta be one of many of those dumb design choices they choosen for the game, so in PoE 1 basically any wand without + levels was automatically trash, mostly the same for amulets (at least for spellcasters), and instead of them making the other affixes compete with + levels so the itemization could more varied they do exactly the opposite and make + levels go up to +5 on wands for example, now not only wands without + levels are automatically trash, but even anything with less than +4 is trash too, same for amulets etc making itemization completely one dimensional and booring.

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Brisket5450#4084 wrote:

archmage must have more penalties like increased mana cost of skills. its current power is ok.

No it isn't lmao are you serious

Go play Witchhunter, then come back and reaffirm your comment. Squishy as hell, regardless of any elemental buff. Christ, we have to sacrifice 50% armour/evasion to get Sorcery Ward, which I'm really questioning if it's worth it. Why does "Meditate" not have a debuff in ascendancy, yet WH does?
And if you look at the elemental buff portion, why is it only Int classes? It's like the devs had a circle... well... thinking about casters.
You can include Mind over Matter in that comment - which is the opposite side from where we start.

I can't wait for a big nerf on Archmage, Monk Invoker etc. - the content of people trying to learn the boss mechanics, rather than just spam a single skill, will be worth it. Sorry but Arbiter etc. should not be taken down in 30s, the point of the game is not just to mash a single button - respectfully, anyone who thinks that's a normal way to beat a game (one notorious for being challenging, at that) is delusional. Everyone needs to learn - properly - rather than just do basic math to scale damage.

Yes, admittedly salty cause I've had it hard and then watching classes just destroy screen-after-screen - but balancing is exactly that. And unbiased, some builds DPS and survivability is way, way off.

Theres been too many YouTube videos showing off their builds and filling their screens with lightning all over the ground - sorry but even Stevie Wonder could see that's wrong.

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Junki3JJC#5645 wrote:

Go play Witchhunter, then come back and reaffirm your comment. Squishy as hell, regardless of any elemental buff. Christ, we have to sacrifice 50% armour/evasion to get Sorcery Ward, which I'm really questioning if it's worth it.

I can't wait for a big nerf on Archmage, Monk etc. - the content of people trying to learn the boss mechanics, rather than just spam a single skill, will be worth it. Sorry but Arbiter etc. should not be taken down in 30s. Everyone needs to learn - properly - rather than just do math to scale damage.

I played with hunter till 87 and dumpstered it - it's a vastly underperforming class.

That doesn't mean that it should be used as a baseline that we nerf other classes down to.

Witch Hunter and everything related to crossbows is in a bad state.


I also do not think that it's that unreasonable for an exceptionally well built character to be able to bypass mechanics on bosses. I do agree that current interactions between some skills are OP but if you have a lvl 95 with 200d worth of gear - you SHOULD be OP.

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Mordgier#6997 wrote:

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Junki3JJC#5645 wrote:

Go play Witchhunter, then come back and reaffirm your comment. Squishy as hell, regardless of any elemental buff. Christ, we have to sacrifice 50% armour/evasion to get Sorcery Ward, which I'm really questioning if it's worth it.

I can't wait for a big nerf on Archmage, Monk etc. - the content of people trying to learn the boss mechanics, rather than just spam a single skill, will be worth it. Sorry but Arbiter etc. should not be taken down in 30s. Everyone needs to learn - properly - rather than just do math to scale damage.

I played with hunter till 87 and dumpstered it - it's a vastly underperforming class.

That doesn't mean that it should be used as a baseline that we nerf other classes down to.

Witch Hunter and everything related to crossbows is in a bad state.


I also do not think that it's that unreasonable for an exceptionally well built character to be able to bypass mechanics on bosses. I do agree that current interactions between some skills are OP but if you have a lvl 95 with 200d worth of gear - you SHOULD be OP.

I'm new to PoE - but everything I heard was "it's hard". And playing WH (also played Infernalist Witch btw - OP because just hide behind minions) - it has been hard.

Watching Archmage, Invoker etc. - that is not hard, I'm sorry but it's not. I agree that it shouldn't be a baseline, but even, objectively, removing my bias with what I've had to play - no, even at 95 (if you have the boss nodes in the tree) it should still be somewhat of a challenge.

I'll say it one more time - spamming a single skill is not a hard game and, from what everyone has told me, is not the point of this game.

Edit: sorry, to add - I did miss your point about gearing. And you're right, to an extent, given that's one of the primary points of any RPG. But the way people are facerolling bosses is still not normal - respectfully. Whilst WH does need a buff (and thanks for acknowledging) - I wouldn't want to just steamroll bosses the way I've seen some builds do it, to be honest. It takes away the accomplishment factor. And some builds (including Archmage) are doing exactly that right now. Just an opinion, we can always agree to disagree,

Archmage also should not be restricted to Lightning damage.

Stormweaver already favors Lightning because that dmg type does not have to waste 2 points getting the "all damage can inflict Shock" node , so they just get Double Shock and spend the 2 points elsewhere.

Any gigantic damage buff should not be tied to a specific damage type.
Otherwise any other damage type for that class/playstyle is instantly inferior.

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bogdanov89#0793 wrote:

Archmage also should not be restricted to Lightning damage.

Stormweaver already favors Lightning because that dmg type does not have to waste 2 points getting the "all damage can inflict Shock" node , so they just get Double Shock and spend the 2 points elsewhere.

Any gigantic damage buff should not be tied to a specific damage type.
Otherwise any other damage type for that class/playstyle is instantly inferior.

This is also true.

WH is the same, if you're playing a build that at least lets you challenge maps without failing embarrassingly, which will be predominantly the lightning projectile skills. Honestly, my build right now is galv shards (40% phys to lightning) for map clear, and plasma blast/shockburst for bossing.
Could maybe play with the grenades - but not how I want to play it personally.

There's a few classes that should be able to spec Chaos damage builds (for example), if I'm being totally honest. There does seem to be a strong bias towards elementals for many builds (both in offense and defense btw) for some reason. Casters, well I think that's in the nature of the class that they should be able to play chaos ha (I know Witch has a few spells, but one of the few I'm aware of). Suppose it's early access and it'll be tweaked upon, but still, feels like a lot of us are somewhat "forced" down a pretty narrow meta path or two if trying to play the game in an enjoyable way.