Then don't run any fkin auras. This game is supposed to be made in a way so nothing is 100% mandatory, people running with every single aura that could benefit them endgame is ridiculous. Auras are supposed to be meaningful and provide an impact, not simply passively stacking the majority of them.
That's not even the point, some auras are 100% mandatory. Having good defenses and resists late game are mandatory, saying otherwise is just plain ignorant.
We're not talking about the EB Witch running 7 auras, we're talking about the BM Duelist running Grace, Determination, and maybe Anger. Grace and Determination synergize with Iron Reflexes, which is picked up in the vast majority of melee and life based builds, and Anger is just an optional DPS boost. In fact, you're not even running Determination and Grace with these changes. You might not even run Grace.
So if I divine my current Kaoms Heart after the patch it will reduce the life and it will not receive the fire damage bonus? What if i never divine it?
Auras
The cost of the new auras do not match the benefit they provide. I can guarantee this for three reasons.
First off, changing a flat cost aura for a percent based aura isn't such a bad idea for some builds, however, it almost completely negates the benefit of Eldritch Battery. Before now, the point of Eldritch Battery was to trade ES for Mana to run auras and maintain high cost skills. Now that all auras are percentage based, there's no benefit to take EB over a few flat mana nodes or flat mana mods on gear to compensate for this change. Most builds took a large amount of auras to compensate for the ridiculous amount of RNG this game has. Running 70+ maps is only good for exp and the challenge of running them, not the gear it provides.
The concept of "crafting" in this game is counter-productive, the sheer fact that you can roll Lvl 5 mods on an ilvl 70+ item is horrible. For the higher rarity orbs, using them to craft probably won't happen for a lot of players simply because their market value is higher than the opportunity they're almost guaranteed not to provide.
Secondly, Blood Magic users do not benefit from this change at all. In fact, it hurts more than it helps. Running a flat cost aura on 4k Health is no big deal. Reserving 200 life out of 4000 isn't a big loss. However, the higher your life is, the higher your reservation is. Meaning if you can get your 60% reservation aura down to 25%, you're sacrificing 1000/4000 life for a single aura. A direct nerf. There's hardly any increase in effect an aura can provide to warrant the loss of 1000 life, especially auras that are necessary simply to provide some survivability for end-game content such as Purity, Grace, or Determination.
Thirdly, most people grind to Lvl 60-70 just to grab all of the essential Keystones and Life nodes just to survive, totally neglecting most sources of damage that aren't directly on the path to the aforementioned nodes. Having to sacrifice even more points that would otherwise be invested into defense just to run more than 1 aura is a direct nerf to survivability. This was probably the main reason for the change in Exp Dropoff in Merciless areas. Now you might be grinding to 80+ just to have what it takes to survive and MAYBE run 3 auras before you're map-capable unless you're in the good graces of RNGzus and get some amazing drops.
Changes to Life
The changes to life simply don't compensate for the vast gap between Life and CI.
At Lvl 75, you're offering 150 more Life. With a decent Life build sporting 200% increased Life, that's a grand total of 450 Life. In fact, even with the changes to Life Nodes, it's still not enough to compensate. Let's be generous and say that, after patch, a standard 200% Life Build ends up with 300%, that's only 600 extra life. Most life builds, even right now, struggle to achieve what most ES builds can obtain with just a few ES Clusters all conveniently nestled in the same area of the tree. Meanwhile, Life builds are literally snaking their way around the tree just to compensate for a system that continually remains neglected by GGG.
Non-Retroactive Unique Nerfing
This just creates an even bigger gap between rich and poor in this game. Legacy uniques will sky-rocket in price and new uniques will be generally undesirable after this patch. Like a few other posts in this thread already noted, there's no real loss of losing a Lvl 80+ character when you're pocketing hundreds of dollars by selling your legacy uniques. These changes should be across the board or not changed at all.
As a side-note, the argument of new leagues is vastly irrelevant. The new leagues are temporary and after they end, they're going back to the cesspool Standard and Hardcore have become. In which case, you'll probably be waiting another few weeks/months for the new league to start. Standard and Hardcore are the only permanent league and a lot of recent patches are leaving them in worse and worse shape.
Solo vs Party
The Aura nerf, combined with a few others, are a direct nerf to solo play. From the point of view of a summoner, not only am I grinding through the game just to get minions to a decent state, I'm restricted on auras, wasting points I would've invested into minions/survivability just to run these auras, but I'm also forced to play in a constantly nerfed solo playstyle simply because of the build I chose.
Let's face it, no one wants summoners in parties. They fill up the screen with minions alone and make it hard for others to simply target monsters. Now that Partying is getting a buff (+25/50% monster health is really not a problem), solo play has even less of a meaning. Add to the list that GGG publicly stated in an interview that they have no intention of a Self Found League and their current nerf to Solo play, it's becoming apparent that GGG's statement of "We do not intend to force players to party" is a huge lie - effectively devaluing their credibility on any promise they make in the future.
Skill Nerfs and Neglected Skills
With all of the skills GGG adds to the game, the vast majority of them are either useless, buggy, or in a state of constant nerfing. GGG really seems to be taking the RIOT approach - Nerf everything that's widely used until we have a plethora of mediocre choices; now we'll force people to choose the least mediocre of all their options. Shock Nova and Ice Nova go unattended to after their initial nerf after Closed Beta, and certain other skills like Whirling Blades and Cyclone are too dangerous to use simply because of Desync.
In the meantime, instead of trying to fix the problems that exist in current skills, even more new skills are added, not even to fill the void of older skills but to simply distract players from noticing the older, unused, broken skills that already exist.
Mid-Level Item Changes
Although it's much easier to roll 4L items, which was greatly needed, this doesn't solve the real problem that exists - This is the point of the game where defenses are greatly necessary, for the first time in gameplay, and the RNG nature of equipment simply doesn't allow for that. In the dozens of builds I've leveled to map-worthy-levels, 40-55 really is the hardest gap to make it through simply because of the mods on rolled gear.
If GGG were to reverse the link changes and change the level of possibly rolled mods to something like:
"Mods cannot be spawned on equipment that are less than half of the Item's Level (Ilvl 70 items cannot roll mods below 35)"
It would be a lot better. It wouldn't impact early game, have a very refreshing effect on mid game, and greatly benefit end game so that 99% of the rares you ID aren't ridiculously useless to anyone who's equipped enough to grind them. One of the most frustrating things in the world is blowing all of your portals in maps to sell a ton of rares that wouldn't even benefit a Lvl 20.
As a final note, some of the nerfs were really deserved and some of the changes and additions are greatly appreciated. However, a lot of changes just don't make sense, are poorly executed, or simply break progression.
Spoiler
A lot of what's here has merit. I am scratching my head at 1.0 when compared to many sayings for Chris and the "we don't nerf" etc. Yes there are changes and buffs to the tree... but holy fuckballs..they have nerfed almost everyfucking thing in the game (lil exaggeration but you get my point)
Couldn't care less about any of these nerfs to unique items. I don't mind legacy items either. The people who are crying are the ones that don't own one to sell for whatever. I don't even own any of them, apart from a pair of facebreakers. It's that simple.
I was looking forward to playing so I could unlock scion, but since I beat normal, I guess she will already be there when the patch is out. As for auras being 60% now, I don't know what GGG was thinking, but I guess I will reserve judgement for when I see how significant this change will be in regards to EB.
This is my first post on that forum, and, i think, it will be the last. I want to say THANK YOU to GGG and Cris for:
Elimination of solo play
Creating tons of Legacy items
Destroying a lot of existing builds
And many other things...
Tell the truth i spare that i support you. And i don't think that after such "positive" patch notes some players, who already quit Poe, will return. GL
So you've decided this without even playing the released version of PoE. Nicely done sir!
Last edited by ibugsy#7076 on Oct 22, 2013, 1:35:50 PM
Then don't run any fkin auras. This game is supposed to be made in a way so nothing is 100% mandatory, people running with every single aura that could benefit them endgame is ridiculous. Auras are supposed to be meaningful and provide an impact, not simply passively stacking the majority of them.
That's not even the point, some auras are 100% mandatory. Having good defenses and resists late game are mandatory, saying otherwise is just plain ignorant.
We're not talking about the EB Witch running 7 auras, we're talking about the BM Duelist running Grace, Determination, and maybe Anger. Grace and Determination synergize with Iron Reflexes, which is picked up in the vast majority of melee and life based builds, and Anger is just an optional DPS boost. In fact, you're not even running Determination and Grace with these changes. You might not even run Grace.
Then the game will be re balanced in the proper direction(the one its headed in now), not simply adding more to an already broken system.
So if I divine my current Kaoms Heart after the patch it will reduce the life and it will not receive the fire damage bonus? What if i never divine it?
You sir have pointed out one of the more...less intelligent things GGG has done.. "Divine that Koams bro..it'll cut the life down to half but you don't get the added benefit to make up for the nerf"... I mean seriously wtf are they doing?
We are already running more auras than needed. People think of auras like honour badges.
I once experimented with a leap slam marauder. I felt I had to run all the auras recommended in the build guide I was following. However, once I decided to just try playing without any auras.
I did just fine, didn't die at all. Could not notice any difference in clearing speed too.
Now that aura effects are "boosted" (hopefully more than just radius), it might be actually meaningful to run just one aura.
Question though: I find it a bit hard to believe that the flat aura reservations have also been changed to 60% (with one exception). Is it really so, or did it mean that all % aura reservations now stand at 60%, and all flat reservations will apply as usual?
Auras and party mechanics:
One more point to note is, now that auras are harder to support for single characters, people will use auras judiciously in parties, and will actually stick together rather than one trigger-happy thug running ahead of everyone trying to prove that his anatomical part is bigger and longer than the rest of the party members.
My wife stole 10 levels from me, and my job stole another 2. That is why I am still level 88.
Last edited by Rudraksh#2430 on Oct 22, 2013, 1:37:44 PM
This is my first post on that forum, and, i think, it will be the last. I want to say THANK YOU to GGG and Cris for:
Elimination of solo play
Creating tons of Legacy items
Destroying a lot of existing builds
And many other things...
Tell the truth i spare that i support you. And i don't think that after such "positive" patch notes some players, who already quit Poe, will return. GL
So you've decided this without even playing the released version of PoE. Nicely done sir!
He does have i point, i am not looking forward to release either. Of course we all try it and time will tell, but on paper it looks more shit than good to me and not sure i would have supported as much if i knew this all was coming.
Still appreciate GGG, but i hope they do not lose their face to much
Last edited by roetetoet#5335 on Oct 22, 2013, 1:39:01 PM
So if I divine my current Kaoms Heart after the patch it will reduce the life and it will not receive the fire damage bonus? What if i never divine it?
You sir have pointed out one of the more...less intelligent things GGG has done.. "Divine that Koams bro..it'll cut the life down to half but you don't get the added benefit to make up for the nerf"... I mean seriously wtf are they doing?
Relax bro, let him finish reading the patch notes :)
My wife stole 10 levels from me, and my job stole another 2. That is why I am still level 88.
