Armour Stacker, ES Stacker etc. need to be removed from the Game - Change my Mind

Controversial topic, I know, but please indulge me for a moment. I will keep it brief:

Defensive stats turned into offensive stats are not healthy for the game.

How many more leagues of the same BS every time?

STR stackers stacking flat life and damage. ES Tricksters stacking ES for massive eHP and damage. Armour stackers and Mana stackers doing same thing under a different coat of paint, etc.

It completely warps the game for them, essentially putting them out of reach of everyone else. You simply cannot compete with that, at all.

We used to have Physical Damage Reduction (PDR) on the tree and on more items, and they were all removed because it was deemed too powerful. Now, look at where we are. Meta running completely rampant with stackers everywhere.

This is 3.10 Deli Herald stackers all over again, though perhaps a little less extreme.

On a sidenote: I'm calling it now. Next thing to be nuked next patch will be Cast When Stunned.

Defensive stats scaling offense (or vice versa) has always been a problem in lots of games, but GGG clearly wants it in the game, and even made it very strong in PoE2.

Personally, I'm a bit torn on the subject.

While scaling defense through offense (or vice versa) creates a more or less indefinite way of improving your character and makes stacking-builds fundamentally better than everything else, I do like that VERY expensive "currency dump builds" exist as a long-term league goal to work towards. "No one" league starts a stacker because the investment needed is just to high.

I don't think they need to be removed from the game. The gap can be reduced by adding diminishing returns on certain ways of stacking, especially attributes. It can also be adjusted by nerfing the different tiers of different items, especially % increases to attributes. They should probably also take a long, hard look at the "Kalandra mirroring mechanics" and those Heist amulets/rings.

Anyhow, I'm VERY rarely for removing builds from the game, but nerfs are always a tool. I'm not here to change your mind, though.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

It completely warps the game for them, essentially putting them out of reach of everyone else. You simply cannot compete with that, at all.

tl:dr If i can't have expensive toys then nobody should have them.

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Phrazz#3529 wrote:

I do like that VERY expensive "currency dump builds" exist as a long-term league goal to work towards. "No one" league starts a stacker because the investment needed is just to high.

No, but they buy up all the items early for their second character. Thing is, they snowball super hard. I actually have to resist doing it myself every league, simply because it'd just make the game boring for myself, but I can't deny that it is tempting af.

I'm all for tank builds, in fact, I genuinely enjoy them, but there's a fine line between a tank build and just straight up OP. Currency dump or not.

GGG would nuke things in the past for the sake of nerfing the top end, as they did for example with Fortify, which was changed due to deep Delvers abusing it with stacking mechanics, so I don't understand why this is being allowed to continue.

Builds with +15k ES, CI, Svalinn and 90% effective Block and whatnot AFK tanking The Feared just shouldn't be a thing. Svalinn is unhealthy for the game on its own, much worse than Mageblood, but that's a topic for another time.

All of this would be fine if GGG weren't balancing the game around this. However, they obviously are. T17s were supposed to be a stepping stone to Ubers with NO REWARDS, only for "bragging rights" as per their own words in interviews, only for them to do a 180 before release and making them the best maps to farm. Stuff like this only exists because these broken things exist.

When you got builds dealing over 2B damage, trivializing content that was intended for them (Ubers, with 70% less damage taken), there is something seriously, seriously wrong. This isn't specifically a power creep issue as a whole, it's specific outliers that are allowed to persist.

On a sidenote, my CWDT build was killed off and for what? They don't like builds spamming a shit ton of projectiles a second that still take 3-5 seconds to kill Minotaur, but it's fine to take a poop while AFK farming invitations? Where do they draw the line?

Edit:

Case in point: They deleted PDR from the tree and never buffed RT over the years, but Precise Technique (40% more Attack Damage, no crits) is allowed to be trivialized with CI and at least +2 Accuracy Rating (which you naturally get from Dex)?

Edit 2:

They deleted Vengeance, Reckoning and Riposte because they were deemed too effective for automated hit effects such as Onslaught, but in turn added skills allowing us to one-shot Ubers. Whatever they are cooking, it just tastes bitter.

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jackof8lades#6863 wrote:

tl:dr If i can't have expensive toys then nobody should have them.

TLDR: You are missing the point.

I'm okay with people having expensive builds. I'm not okay with GGG balancing the game around them because they exist.

Remember the days when we could run around with -60% Chaos res? Or no ailment immunity beyond Freeze and Chill? They added multiple more since then, mainly to counteract those immunities.

Have you tried playing a build these days without capped Chaos res and ailment immunity? I personally feel my build is so much squishier if I don't get ailment immunity. It's no longer optional, it's practically mandatory. Same as Chaos res.

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jackof8lades#6863 wrote:

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

It completely warps the game for them, essentially putting them out of reach of everyone else. You simply cannot compete with that, at all.

tl:dr If i can't have expensive toys then nobody should have them.

Stacking es used to be the thing in the last hc ssf gauntlet, so it is way out of balance.

Armor stacker at least does not seem to be accesable in ssf and needs to have mirrors investment in trade if i observed that correctly.

The problem is that it would be lame if they just nerf it so that ES is out of the game again like they did years ago, but ohwell looks like this time the nerfs were to soft.

Edit: If we see trickster and some vortex archmages again in this gauntlet i have to seriously consider if i would prefer the lazy design nerfhammer meta shifts again over those more reasonable nerfs that just don't seem to be enough at the moment...

stacking armour does very little to boost your ehp.

So now we're demanding archetypes to be erased that have been around longer than you've probably been playing the game, just because you don't like them? Based take.

Stackers have been here for years, and they've never been a problem. They've always served as a nice currency sink for those who enjoy throwing currency at them cause they can fit indefinite amounts of currency.
But hey, if you can’t afford to make them work, let’s just nuke them from existence, because obviously, nobody else should be allowed to play them, right? What a ridiculous idea.

The amount of currency you throw at stackers to make them perform well could already get you an equally amazing-performing build of any other archetype, well assuming you know what you're doing and actually put that currency towards good choices, rather than just total unoptimized meme concepts that are already struggling to either survive or deal damage in the first place. But hey, that's something we can chalk up to the good old "skill issue,"

But hey, what’s next? Anything that stacks something to make their build work? At this rate, they might as well just take PoE offline because you’re always going to stack something on a build.

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jackof8lades#6863 wrote:

tl:dr If i can't have expensive toys then nobody should have them.

This really hits the point.

The ONLY potential issue is stacking ES. Certainly not armour. But it most definitely doesn't need to be removed from the game.

I am running a 2 million, 5 mirror armor stacker build right now: I am VERY tanky but not immortal. And not anywhere near the level of ES at a fraction of the cost. And thats 5 mirrors.....pretty much the upper limit of any possible build in terms of cost. It BETTER be damn good!

There is a pretty simple fix that I think should happen: intelligence doesn't add to ES. That alone can cut the defensive power of intelligence stackers quite a bit.


I don't think it should be removed: it needs to receive a balance pass. Armor stacking requires a TON of currency for it to even remotely have an effect. It's fine. But ES doesn't because there are just way too many synergies that all seem to add ES.


As for "remember when we could run around with -60% chaos".....i mean that itself was a problem lol. We should have never been able to do that. Very poor argument to make.

And for the record, there are still MANY glass cannon builds that are extremely popular and can tackle t17s and all other content. So the "Required defenses" of today.....aren't really all that required.


I think 99% of this feeling is FOMO which is a personal hangup....not an actual problem with the game. The whole statement of "resist the urge to switch to stacking" is a pretty dead giveaway that this is the real truth. Most players wouldn't have that urge at all, or even know that it exists. And they'd be perfectly fine.

ES stackers are fine, but Trickster isn't (still)

As for armour stackers its kinda like well they are very expensive, and other expensive builds also trash everything so is it out of the ordinary?

They do usually gut things that scale offence from defence though and i'm surprised they left armour stackers as they are considering its entirely propped up by one item.

but really issue is with trickster because its cheap, not armour stackers which aren't.