Balance Changes in Content Update 2.1.0

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willianvon wrote:

the conclusion after reading that content update is that GGG seems to worry about only new leagues and races... we those 'balances' GGG is nerfing a lot of players that wasn't even that powerful but OP builds like COC discharge and other crazy stuffs which was already stronger than anything keep the same, also buff bow builds? they are already extremely op and has like the fastest clear speed..... what the hell?!

I understand you guys do those changes aiming for the new leagues but you guys forgot that many players don't are interested in those things, we just want to play our standard and relax

Then stop worrying, continue to play standard and relax, maybe?

We woo, after reading a good bunch of pages here, I now realize that whatever you do, even if it's good, some people will be ungrateful. But on a side note, those people are the most vocal, so I'm not sure.

Yet we got like what, 30~ pages of replies? The majority of the replies are people complaining. I don't get it, the changes are good, it's a 180° from what they did before (i.e overnerfing), and people complained about that (rightfully so), and now they're angry? I don't get it.

Anywho, I think I'm just gonna ignore all of that negative bull and enjoy the new league, just like I'm avoiding listening to all the bad shit happening around the world. Happier this way. Somewhat.

Really looking forward to the detailed patch notes, hoping to see viable skills increased by x3 to x4 for both leveling and end-game. Thank you for taking this direction in the patch GGG.

Only one worry though, with the current monster damage at higher map levels, isn't the life % available in the shadow/ranger part of the tree a bit low?

Acrobatics builds need the high life, whereas an armour build can already survive at 5.5k HP in high level maps. A buff to outer 6-8-6 node in shadow side (perhaps 6-12-6?) and making only one 4% life 8% evasion life node 6% life instead will at least balance this out a little bit, and you won't be buffing much that would make people roll shadow class dominantly.

Please consider this, HC builds are already traveling around the tree to grab every life node possible, and SC builds are painful when you die in high maps at 90+ levels.

Thank you for the great contents you give us over and over again!

TL;DR: Great approach in increasing viable skills, shadow/ranger area need just a little bit of life improvements due to evasion/acro builds not being able to survive large hits like armor/MoM builds do.

Two years in POE already and every expansion release is the same: people whining about skill changes and nerfs, but, in the end (as far as I'm concerned), there'll always be OP builds out there, cause that's what GGG and we, players, want.
Quite funny how we are all complaining without even knowing the final patch notes though.

Although I just spent 100+ in alterations to make "good" surgeon's flasks, I still think there shouldn't be legacy surgeon flasks.

I'm thinking that your decision to have legacy surgeon flasks was heavily influenced by database nightmares that would have resulted from changing affixes of existing flasks. On the other hand you did change leech affixes across the board.

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_PapaLegba_ wrote:

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

the issue with incinerate was unique in that clear speed was not the issue but rather what you could do with it investment wise.

1 it had no crit , but had the rather insane damage ramp up instead... this freed the player from needing to take crit nodes and by extension needing to really go deep into the int part of the tree for it. That is a huge advantage over every other spell in the game which often need crit to scale and be competitive.

2 it really was stupid powerful on totem builds since you could have zero resource management ( beyond what you implicitly get from leveling) invested and run fully decked out. this freed up another crippling dependency that other spells have (mana issues)

3 because damage scaling on it is simple it means you can focus both your gear AND your tree on other things.

you make incinerate expensive. YOU , not the gem . My incinerate cost me 30 chaos and i was doing end game.

It needed a change it was explicitly the superior option over several skills even in roles it should not be explicitly better in. that alone should have been enough to warrant adjustment.


cyclone has been THE melee skill of the last 2 years. It combined both single target , movement and aoe and did more damage than prominent skills in any one of those catagories to boot.

It is not about it being able to clear as fast as say coc (because lets be honest NOTHING clears like a crit build expecially coc) It is a bout being the clear best option in all cases for a melee character... and that is messed up.


Same with surgeons flasks, be glad they didn’t simply remove the mod.

Although I appreciate your points, I think we have a fundamentally different set of rules. End-game content for me is Tier 12+ maps, rippy shit. Not your Tier 6 Strand. I would love to see a video of someone clearing Core on a 30c Incinerate totem build. Hell, it's almost impossible to clear Core with my 50ex+ BM/Frenzy Incinerate, becacuse of a pretty retarded wall you'll hit in true end-game content being caster based (i.e. defensively).

Yeah... this. My incinerate spell totems did fairly well. I am not going to lie, I really liked playing them and they were fairly strong. Running rarity, and quantity in 5 exalt worth of gear, most of which being either rarity gear or my epic wand... I struggled in higher maps. I died, and often. It isn't like you could slap the build together for an exalt and go fact tank Atziri. No one was running around with a 10 chaos wand and trashing tier 11 maps, and no one was doing it with a consuming dark and a tabula rasa either... not without ripping every five maps or so.

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Rory wrote:

Point Blank (Buffed)
Point Blank was one of the least-used Keystone passive, so we have reduced its damage penalty to be less punishing. It now retains its damage bonus over a longer distance, and now only scales down to 50% less damage, instead of 100% less damage. This should make it more tempting a choice for players who want a riskier, deadlier, up-close-and-personal bow build.

Will this also apply to chin sol, considering it utilizes a very similar mechanic?

Will it also get an increase in radius for its more% multiplier?

Asked this in the other threads, but i reckon it doesn't hurt to also post it here.

Peace,

-Boem-

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

the issue with incinerate was unique in that clear speed was not the issue but rather what you could do with it investment wise.

1 it had no crit , but had the rather insane damage ramp up instead... this freed the player from needing to take crit nodes and by extension needing to really go deep into the int part of the tree for it. That is a huge advantage over every other spell in the game which often need crit to scale and be competitive.

2 it really was stupid powerful on totem builds since you could have zero resource management ( beyond what you implicitly get from leveling) invested and run fully decked out. this freed up another crippling dependency that other spells have (mana issues)

3 because damage scaling on it is simple it means you can focus both your gear AND your tree on other things.

you make incinerate expensive. YOU , not the gem . My incinerate cost me 30 chaos and i was doing end game.

It needed a change it was explicitly the superior option over several skills even in roles it should not be explicitly better in. that alone should have been enough to warrant adjustment.


cyclone has been THE melee skill of the last 2 years. It combined both single target , movement and aoe and did more damage than prominent skills in any one of those catagories to boot.

It is not about it being able to clear as fast as say coc (because lets be honest NOTHING clears like a crit build expecially coc) It is a bout being the clear best option in all cases for a melee character... and that is messed up.


Same with surgeons flasks, be glad they didn’t simply remove the mod.

Cyclone was the best melee skill because the other melee skills suck donkey balls, not because Cyclone is in anyway shape or form good. It still puts you at serious risk since it totally disables all your movement skills.

Great, much needed balance changes. Good stuff! Glad to see more skills MIGHT become more viable end-game. Not sure how you determine what is over-powered or under-powered, but bow skills in general don't jump out at me as something needing a buff... Great move with mana adjustments though!

What's up with leeching? I guess you realized you over did it in the last nerf. Can't do much with 0.2% or even 0.4%! Bit of a joke really... what were you thinking?!! Didn't do enough playtesting with it; at least you're correcting that oversight by the sounds of it.

OK, so on to my MAIN beef with you guys. Why the hell do you announce things like, "We're going to nerf the Surgeon's flasks?" For God's sake, JUST DO IT!!! UNANNOUNCED. Instead, you have all the greedy bastard trolls scurrying to buy up all the available flasks on the market so they can throw a 6 exalt price tag on them for those not "in the know" to choke on!!!

Changes that players have no control over don't matter, announce them all you want, but things that impact the economy ***MUST NOT*** be announced before hand. You want to talk about balance, hey, start there! Now you have rewarded those who got this information first with the chance to scam others (including me) so they can line their pockets with even more wealth. It's <<insert obscene expletive>> obscene!!! You didn't think a mad flask grab would ensue? Had you withheld this info, at least EVERYONE WOULD BE IN THE SAME BOAT. You dropped the ball big-time on that one boys!

Bloody hell! We already have greedy money-hungry bankers running the world and manipulating stock markets and commodity prices, do we really need to promote that sort of thing here?

Stop whining about incinerate

They also said they are increasing most spells dmg. If they raise incinerates base damage by 5% then change the %100 increased damage per stage to %50 then it will only be a slight nerf.

But then reread the new Controlled Destruction support gem which only down side is on critical chance which won't effect incinerate. It will end up being about the same worse case