0.9.5g Patch Notes

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Chris wrote:

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Malice wrote:

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Chris wrote:

• Zoomed the view out. Later we'll probably add controls for this.

Any news on proper scaling based on aspect ratio?

That's still on the cards for "soon" :)

good enough for me :)

How does Necromantic Aegis interact with shield passives, such as ones that increase block or the defenses the shield gives?

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HunkeTunke wrote:

I personally have no AoF-char, but i wonder if flask with "dispells frozen/chilled" do any good...? oO

It's really not as bad as people put it. The ones who are complaining now, shouldnt just focus on dealing damage, but defence aswell. My aof templar is almost 71 and haven't died all day after i installed the patch.
But yeah, the "dispells frozen" flasks work as they should.

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Jurge wrote:

It's really not as bad as people put it. The ones who are complaining now, shouldnt just focus on dealing damage, but defence aswell. My aof templar is almost 71 and haven't died all day after i installed the patch.

This statement is laughable.

#1. You haven't died because you're high level and/or maybe a bow templar, which this hardly affected at all by the change (lots of extra AoE ground slam is the same way too). The biggest problem is with shorter range characters, especially slower ones.

#2. Is the particularly laughable one. Defense isn't possible vs this — that's the main reason why anyone is saying that the AoF change is bad — you cannot take any less damage at all from cold — you're stuck taking maximum damage. Even if one could deal with the freeze/chilled (which due to the flask change, I'd say isn't easy at all), they'd still not have any way to maintain their health when fighting cold damage monsters — even if they had 1500 health or more. Blocking and evasion can help a bit vs the attacking cold damage, but that is not a major option for 2 handers or dual wielding, and still lets many hits in. Evasion works, but it does not apply to templars or marauders that stay in the int/str areas, or other classes that don't go for evasion defense.

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Chris wrote:

We did test many AoF characters after we made the change and found that it just required somewhat more careful play (but wasn't completely deadly).

The solution of capping all resistances at a lower value was considered but we felt that it didn't provide a large enough drawback to such an immense damage boost when synergised properly.

A lowered cap, while doing half the work, only lowers the cap as opposed to resistance gained before the cap, making it better than otherwise.
"all elemental resistances operate at 66% of normal" (66% lowers the caps to 50%, halving the total possible mitigation damage from resists) makes a lot more sense for the change than a completely unchangeable 0% cold resistance.
Even "cannot deal cold damage on attack, total attack speed reduced by 10%, cold resistance operates at 66% of normal" would be better. The slow even synergizes in a sense, because burning is lacking so much usefulness in numbers, but with a slower attack speed it becomes a bit more useful.

The biggest problem with the changes you guys made is that it doesn't nerf AoF ranged users at all really (primarily extra AoE ground slam & bow users), since they avoid shots anyway, by out-ranging archers, and killing melee from long distance. Bow users are also more likely to even have faster movement speed, being able to dodge magic projectiles easier. The biggest thing to help them against magic projectiles is that their range lets them easily scoot'n'shoot, without worrying about not dealing damage. Melee/close-range characters need to stand still while attacking right up close, and if they move to dodge, they are not dealing their damage.

The change makes AoF useless to some builds due to survivability issues, and then pretty much just as overpowered as it ever was on other builds. That is in my opinion, a worse imbalance than if everyone was just overpowered.

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FaceLicker wrote:

For all we know PvP skills will balanced completely seperate from PvE like they did in Guild Wars.

Not possible. Guild Wars separated PvP a and PvE completely via instances, so that was possible. Here, that cannot be done Cutthroat is PvE and PvP mixed — could could be attacking (or be attacked by) a monster one second, then a player a split second later.

They could make SOME effects not apply on players when performing PvP actions though (not all though, such as blood magic), but then the character sheet info becomes misleading unless it's changed as well to incorporate PvP stats (which is certainly possible I suppose).

Heh, good point Xapti. That totally slipped my mind. Regardless, I don't see the point in arguing what will and will not work in PvP when we don't even have it yet. It's something that will need to be considered, but for right now let's just get the PvE balancing out of the way. There's still dozens of skills and various other game mechanics yet to come. Worry about PvP later.

Re: "Avatar of Fire now has "Cannot Resist Cold Damage." Rather than reducing its fire damage, we felt it more appropriate to accentuate the glass-cannon aspects of builds based around this keystone."

This could be a major problem in PVP. An AoF character won't have a chance against cold witches or anyone else spamming ice spears, cold snap etc. Nerfing cold immunity seems a bit arbitrary to me. Why not fire or lightning?

I think the Reflect Elemental Damage Aura of enemies did enough to balance AoF already. It's much like the Iron Maiden curse in D2, except that IM reflects physical damage, not elemental, with devastating results to OP physical damage Barbarians.

At least D2 Barbs can use Berserk against IM, converting all damage to magic damage, but if cursed while using physical damage it's sudden death. You can't steal life/mana with Berserk, plus your defence drops to nothing, so that skill is balanced.

AoF Templars like mine (Trodaire, L38 Cruel Difficulty Legacy League) can't even use cold or lightning skills against Reflect Elemental Damage Aura enemies, and physical damage isn't an option. They also ignore my minions and attack me first. Isn't that enough of a nerf to AoF characters?

AoF Marauders, whom I assume were never meant to be "glass-cannons," will be PVP punching bags. With nothing but fire in their arsenal and no cold resistance at all, any character with high fire resistance and cold snap will stop them in their tracks.

GGG, please delete "Cannot Resist Cold Damage" from the Avatar of Fire keystone in your next patch.

Life isn't always pretty guys .. you cant always get what u want...
Aof is an extreme char. This is already shown by the nice golden circle around this skill.
Extreme chars cannot have benefits only!
Plz grab your dicks and try .. I think if the guys from GGG didnt alway die .. you can survive too! ;P

Easy mode is over.. sorry.

This is exacly the same type of mass whine like when the Shock Nova total OPness was nerfed.

You get extremely good effect from AoF? YES
Now AoF has drawback? YES
Is drawback "counterable"? YES (Heat Flasks, "cannot be frozen" effect, run speed for easier cold projectile dodging, big HP pool etc...) And i think that over time there will be much more ways to counter disadvantages like this in AoF (for example more uniques with "cannot be frozen" or maybe some "flask specific mods on belts that are coming soon).

BTW. This is awesome how great is dedign philosophy in this game and how every major design decision synnergise with each other and whole gameplay.....

I think for example..
Mega OP Keystones + hard to counter disadvantage that makes it "niche build" + unique mods (cannot be frozen) on uniques that fits particulary build and counters this particulary disadvantage.... BRILLIANT. :P

PERFECT DESIGN GGG. KEEP GOING and dont change philosophy because ppl whine that their easy mode/oneskill spamming char was nerfed in beta.

Just stop crying plx.