[Feedback] Giga-Nerf Gem Levels on Gear in Patch 0.5

+ skills on 2H can go to +2

1h can go to +1


The runes can be limit 1 or they can change from +spells to something else

Same for the +3 jewel just make it something else. Disable it until you can add cool effects or something to them.




Amulets remove the mod or only +1


Gloves and helmet melee and minions remove the mods


Uniques like vertex say bye bye to +skills entirely, it shouldn’t have that mod

Agreed. There's so many opportunities missed to have any sort of build variety or experiment with anything because if the uniques or rares don't have max +skill levels then it's already trash.

and while we're on it, if the vision is supposed to be "meaningful" combat, then outside of boss ultimates or super charged red abilities I shouldn't be getting 1 shot from a quick attack. That's not meaningful, it's enabling more glass cannon style builds. Cause what's the point in even having a health potion if I never get the opportunity to use it. Kill or be killed, no margin of error, ever, for any boss attack.
Meaningful to me is if I play perfect, I don't have to worry about it, Play mid and can still potentially win. play bad lose. or if the boss has a lot of spells popping off or adds running around, or an aoe with a .0002 second reaction time to dodge roll or w/e and forced to take a hit, I want to know I can take a hit, heal up and continue the fight (depending on build design ofc).

but this current state of the game. I had the crow bell walk to his final room, the split second he became active he did a quick backhand and hit me before I could even react to the attack and I had 8k es 1.4k hp, fully geared up in a 6 mod t15 map and it 1 shot me. So with basic attack 1 shots I'm not even going to entertain the idea of not using as much +skill gem levels to insta nuke the boss and not rip on the map boss.

I want to try cooking up some homebrew builds. I don't want to have to spend 100-200+ divs for crazy ES gear and 30+ skill levels to even play at a decent level of map juice.

I say go even farther.

Only put +Gem Levels on unique items unless it's a Caster Staff(+2) or a Wand (+1).

Remove the potency of scaling Gem levels across the board.

God damn it's so frustrating. So many things in this game just make me hate it and this is one of them.

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sephrinx#7591 wrote:

Remove the potency of scaling Gem levels across the board.

+1

GGG should give gem levels diminishing returns and try to curb some of that exponential growth to damage.

I kind of agree with this, and at the same time I don't. Which is always a great sign in a balance discussion.

Getting one level 40 gem is expensive as hell, but it is not exactly some mythical creature. It can be done. Getting multiple level 40 gems, though, is where things start looking like trying to fund a space program with couch coins. I am not even sure that is realistically possible for most builds.

So overall, yes, I agree that gem levels restrict itemization too much and make +level feel mandatory on gear. That part is hard to argue against when so many otherwise good items get treated like landfill because they missed one line of text.

I would not remove +levels from gear entirely, though. I would rather spread that power around more. Put some of it on the passive tree, maybe out on the edges where it is actually expensive to path to, so there is a real tradeoff instead of every item slot being held hostage by the same affix.

And if someone has a different solution, then I think the real test is pretty simple. With your recommendation, can a build still reasonably reach level 40 gems, or are we just politely replacing one problem with another.

gg

i would sugguest that gems cant go over 26-28 maybe even less

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Jyrlep#4788 wrote:

I would not remove +levels from gear entirely

Agreed on this. I wouldn't want to remove +gem levels on gear entirely, but should be toned way way down especially on weapons which is main culprit:

* 2H-Weapon: Decrease to +3 Max Gem Levels (down from +7)
* 1H-Weapon: Decrease to +1 Max Gem Levels (down from +5)

I'd put even MORE levels.


But let's see how that nerf goes for you guys.

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IILU81II#8410 wrote:

My 2 cents on this nerf request (yet another one)

+Skill isnt the problem here, you need to have a look at how different damage scaling is for every single skill.

Galvanic shard at level 30 = 108%

Lightning arrow at level 30 = 406%

I do play crossbow and i can tell a level 30 galvanic shard is completely fine for mapping, a level 20 isnt fine tho and you'll have a hard time playing stuff like deli or tough mods.
By removing +skills you are tuning couple of skills that overperform the higher the level, in the same time you are killing other skills that absolutely need those extra levels.

So +skill isnt the problem, removing it will directly kill most skills and force people to only play lightning arrow in this example.
Oh wait LA is already the most played skill, nothing you propose will change this situation and removing +skill will probably make it worse.

So just like ES thread, there is no nerf/removing shit needed here but a major balance/buff is required for underperforming skills.

How many skills can hit for millions and how many barely reach 100k, +skill level included?

Edit: If OP played crossbow enough he would know that removing +skills would kill most related skills, same goes for maces...how can you relentlessy ask for nerfs without considering possible outcomes?

I'm a little disheartened it took 13 pages of comments for someone to accurately identify the actual problem and to see that it's also mostly ignored!

+lvl to skills is only "mandatory" because of how similarly and disproportionately beneficial it is for EVERY skill, all of the time. Changing the magnitude of +lvls that can roll on gear doesn't really address the underlying issue of it being a BiS "mandatory" affix.

A real solution would involve changes to how most skills scale as they level so that leveling them up past level 20 would not be the most effective or preferable way to increase their utility/damage.

It could still be useful for a selection of skills, but it would prevent it from being the BiS affix on every piece of gear that can roll it, all of the time.

As for potential alternative suffixes - I think there's a lot more creative headroom in this design space and the default suffix pool on weapons/staves/wands is kind of boring but that's a different convo and this thread is already off the rails.