Dotcap and dot build scaling needs to be rethinked.

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Draegnarrr#2823 wrote:

They've designed themselves into a corner and are stuck there

I 100% agree with you there. its an issue that they let fester, and in fact they fostered this issue to all the power creep we have today.

if we're going to talk about nerfs, it needs to be both on players and mobs together.

ggg tends to nerf players but make mobs harder which really skewers the game even more.

theres tons of things that need to change. for starters attack speed. i m of the opinion that attacking more than 8 attacks per second simply creates an unbalanced game.

similarly all projectiles need a shotgun nerf where the more projectile/aoe overlaps, the damage is reduced, and to a point ignored entirely.

maybe crit needs to be reworked too where most players could easily reach 30% crit chance but once they hit 50% it has significant diminishing returns so getting 100% crit is not the encouraged.

in anycase i think its way too late to do this balancing.

as for dot build scaling, i actually like POE2's dot scaling, where your final attack damage is used as the poison base damage. unlike poe1 where any increases to attack does nothing for poison damage.

taking a page from poe2 one idea is to limit poison stacks. maybe to 16 stacks? i dont know.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

theres tons of things that need to change. for starters attack speed. i m of the opinion that attacking more than 8 attacks per second simply creates an unbalanced game.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, but I strongly disagree. Stuff like old Multistrike, which enabled 20 APS builds in the past, did not skew the balance of the game. In fact, I miss it, because attacking fast can be fun af, it's just stupidly expensive these days and not remotely on the same level. And yet, we deal orders of magnitude more damage than back then.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

similarly all projectiles need a shotgun nerf where the more projectile/aoe overlaps, the damage is reduced, and to a point ignored entirely.

Not sure if you are unaware, but most of the projectile skills currently in the game cannot inherently shotgun. Most of them fire projectiles at the same time, and projectiles from the same cast/attack cannot shotgun in most cases (some skills have exceptions) and returning projectiles share the limitations of the original projectile. A split projectile that returns can only hit once on the way back. That is why "barrage" type skills (projectiles fired in sequence) are so powerful with Return, because every one of those is its own instance of projectile and can hit again. Split Arrow or Ice Spear of Splitting with Return are not even remotely at the same level as Ice Spear or Barrage.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

maybe crit needs to be reworked too

I agree that crit needs to be nerfed hard. It's currently the best way to deal damage with pretty much any skill. Turns out that dealing ~5x the damage vs non-crit is naturally way more damage.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

as for dot build scaling, i actually like POE2's dot scaling, where your final attack damage is used as the poison base damage. unlike poe1 where any increases to attack does nothing for poison damage

Like PoE 1's old system that caused a barrage of nerfs and mechanical reworks because of the "double dipping" that occurred thanks to this? There's a reason why this was changed over a decade ago. And it weirds me out that multiple mechanics in PoE 2 now work like they used to in PoE 1.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

You are of course entitled to your opinion, but I strongly disagree. Stuff like old Multistrike, which enabled 20 APS builds in the past, did not skew the balance of the game. In fact, I miss it, because attacking fast can be fun af, it's just stupidly expensive these days and not remotely on the same level. A

fair enough. we're entitled to our opinions but i will agree that having fast attack speed is indeed fun, tho i would still prefer the game to be balanced around a slower playstyle.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

Not sure if you are unaware, but most of the projectile skills currently in the game cannot inherently shotgun.

i m very unaware of that. theres a buttload of things i admittedly do not know about the game. i still feel having a gazillion projectiles on screen at once is probably the wrong direction.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

it weirds me out that multiple mechanics in PoE 2 now work like they used to in PoE 1.

i was very hyped for how GGG kept revealing their design choices for poe2 making it sound like its much more deliberate and how they've learned from poe1.

they actually demonstrate this where poison damage on surface double dips, but actually it does not. unlike poe1, most nodes that give attack damage does not also give ailment damage. these 2 nodes are separate.

you could double dip with chaos damage but chaos damage nodes tend to be on a lower value in comparison to pure attack/ailment nodes.

but what you said about "learning from POE1". it hit me real hard when i realized melee totems exist in poe2.

they removed melee totems in poe1 to make players rely less on totems and have more agency to do damage themselves.

but they reintroduced it in poe2? like nani le fuck.

in any case i have very little confidence that ggg would try and rebalance the game. its a ship that sailed long ago.

despite saying how i would prefer things to be nerfed/rebalanced. with that being a pipe dream, then the next best thing is to give players more unbridaled power.

just let players have fun lol.

I think my general issue with skill and gem balance is that a lot of the balancing has left many gems in very unfun game states. The existence of Poison minions or Archmage has completely decimated some skills. When minmaxers find a fun skill to throw all their currency into, then the skill receives like a 10-20% reduction later.

What I think needs to happen is great rebalance wave, remove a lot of mechanics and add them back into the game at a sensible level. Like strip out every gem and support gem, and then readd them with new stats and synergies. Remove stuff like point blank from the tree and leave it in gem form, that kind of thing. Make the passive tree more interesting and diverse.

It would be a lot of work, but a lot of balance changes from a decade ago are shafting areas of the game now. GGG has the hard task of making a game fun for people who are doing like 5 maps per minute on a uber mirror twink character and a player taking his time and hitting like 4 buttons in a combo to slowly kill one monster at a time.

Players need to spend so much gear and passive tree investment on making a skill feel "good" to play. Area of effect is slightly too small or too large, projectile speed is slow, accuracy being a thing at all for attacks. There are so many little checkmarks of I need this much melee strike range, or totem placement speed.

In almost every case the floor is too low and the ceiling to high. Monsters do too much damage versus capped resistance and a reasonable amount of es/arm/ev. Life regen never seems to outpace burning ground. I think almost every system could be changed for the better. The mana costs of attacks is way too high as well.

Damage over time cap is probably based more on server tick rate shenigans than intentional restrictions on damage over time. If it makes you feel better hit based builds also hit a cap, but it is very hard to hit. in the sense that almost every computer program has an integer limit.

I honestly think they did a great job balancing DOT builds, and I believe it was done on purpose. The DOT archetype is already pretty strong compared to other build types, especially early on. Once you apply your DOT, you’re essentially free to roam, dodge, and focus on positioning without having to worry about maintaining your damage. That uptime is huge, it allows you to keep hitting your enemies while staying mobile and avoiding danger.

It feels like this was a purposeful design choice to make DOT builds more accessible and efficient in the early game. Another reason DOTs are so appealing is that, while they require more gear to truly cap out damage, they deliver solid results early on for relatively little investment. That’s why they’re such a go-to for players starting the league, they get cheap, effective damage that carries them through content. You can rush through the game, then swap to a more high-end build once you’ve cleared everything.

With DOTs, you can get consistent, tanky gameplay while not having to micromanage downtime, making them perfect for rushing through content and then upgrading to something with insane damage scaling.

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

I honestly think they did a great job balancing DOT builds, and I believe it was done on purpose. The DOT archetype is already pretty strong compared to other build types, especially early on. Once you apply your DOT, you’re essentially free to roam, dodge, and focus on positioning without having to worry about maintaining your damage. That uptime is huge, it allows you to keep hitting your enemies while staying mobile and avoiding danger.

It feels like this was a purposeful design choice to make DOT builds more accessible and efficient in the early game. Another reason DOTs are so appealing is that, while they require more gear to truly cap out damage, they deliver solid results early on for relatively little investment. That’s why they’re such a go-to for players starting the league, they get cheap, effective damage that carries them through content. You can rush through the game, then swap to a more high-end build once you’ve cleared everything.

With DOTs, you can get consistent, tanky gameplay while not having to micromanage downtime, making them perfect for rushing through content and then upgrading to something with insane damage scaling.

I agree and also, while u maybe can't scale ur damage anymore at a certain point, u can still scale ur movement speed and defenses.
A speedy character that's also very tanky and has 37mil dps is a very solid character that can do almost all content in the game.

Elementalist maybe isn't the best defensive option for that tho.

afaik dot cap is a technical limitation in the code, didnt jonathan talk about it on a podcast years ago? i forget, but i dont think its a choice its just how it has to be.



i think 35 mil dps is enough tbh.




i tend to agree with the idea that they cant make significant balance changes. the community riots and its really bad for the games health in so many ways. anything that could even be perceived as a nerf is endtimes, thats the sad world we find ourselves in.



and maybe its not all bad, poe1 exists because people like it the way it is. theres a new game for new ideas and massive changes, this game is about people who have spent 12 years enjoying it to keep enjoying the game they have been playing. change is needed to stay fresh and alive but massive changes have improved the game and made it more appealing to some but also ruined the game for others, confused, bloated and turned away people, alienated returning players. theres ups and downs to big change and i think theres credit in the idea that we have poe2 for the big changes, thats why it exists, and we have poe1 for the people who want the game to be the way they game has been.



maybe its not wrong to keep a 12 year game for who like it actually like it as it is and for new ideas to go into new games, be that poe2 or people leaving to start new ideas where they are allowed to be devs who make games rather than caretakers of an old idea some people still love.

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Snorkle_uk#0761 wrote:

i tend to agree with the idea that they cant make significant balance changes. the community riots and its really bad for the games health in so many ways. anything that could even be perceived as a nerf is endtimes, thats the sad world we find ourselves in.

How is this even remotely true? Hexblast got completely destroyed. Top tier melee skills like Lightning Strike and Frost Blades were nerfed to hell. Detonate Dead has been nerfed multiple times now. Where the riots at?

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roundishcap#0649 wrote:

The existence of Poison minions or Archmage has completely decimated some skills.

I totally agree. I refuse to touch Minion builds again until they bring back Impale for reasonable investment. It actually annoys me that, when I make a Minion build in PoB, I could go Poison and deal a considerable amount more damage than anything else, Lightning shenanigans with Doryani's not included (I consider that basically cheating).

~30M DPS on a pure Phys Phantasm high crit all-in build gasping for Dex and Str vs ~56M DPS on a Poison Phantasm build plus DoT cap.

It's just so dumb and I hate it. Even Dancing Dervish is now at its strongest as a Poison variant. This but times ten: 🙄🙄🙄



PS: Please buff Dancing Dervish. Permanent Minion and more base damage. Thanks.

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Johny_Snow#4778 wrote:

"

Snorkle_uk#0761 wrote:

i tend to agree with the idea that they cant make significant balance changes. the community riots and its really bad for the games health in so many ways. anything that could even be perceived as a nerf is endtimes, thats the sad world we find ourselves in.

How is this even remotely true? Hexblast got completely destroyed. Top tier melee skills like Lightning Strike and Frost Blades were nerfed to hell. Detonate Dead has been nerfed multiple times now. Where the riots at?

but thats micro, an individual skill change that is met with some dooming but generally gets through. its end times for a small group of hexblast enthusiasts and some may quit but theyre not significant.


when they make big changes like nerfing all more multipliers on gems across the board there was outrage, chris had to go on emergency interviews, acknowledged they lost 1/3 of the player base and try to calm things. then chris was hounded endlessly every after for destroying the game with his vision etc.



you need changes to skils like that to keep the meta fresh, keep the game moving and interesting. but i would make a distinction between we nerfed 3 skills + buffed this other bunch vs completely rebalancing the game, changing all the mechanics unwriting every skill to fundamentally change the larger picture of skills and supports etc.

you could 'fix' issues by making every build that does 300 million damage now do 30 million by changing scaling numbers across the board. then the dot cap works fine in the context of the game, then you need to rebalance all monster life but also take into account scaling through acts etc, its a massive task. the game would probably be in a better state if they did that but it might just be a new game in some ways and i think its too big a risk.