On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

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moush wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

People tend to care more when it affects them.

True, and the majority of people complaining about the changes are only doing so because it affects a build they play. If they thought about the changes objectively and how they improve the game's balance, they would be more sensible.

This is ironic, since most of the people who are actively complaining are not affected in the slightest by these changes. They are BAD FOR THE GAME'S BALANCE AS A WHOLE. And yet some people(you) defend them, because they buff your pet build.

THIS RUINS BUILD DIVERSITY WHICH IS BAD FOR LONG TERM BALANCE.

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Nephalim wrote:

People tend to care more when it affects them. This is the wrong mindset because it lulls GGG into the idea that their balance changes are meaningful and welcomed.

None of the changes in this manifesto have as much a crippling effect as the 2.6 aoe nerfs for dedicated aoe builds and very few were as outraged by that. I wonder if it would have been different if those projectile players started to give a crap about aoe users.

I was very pissed about the aoe changes. I think part of why there was less outrage about those was that it wasnt as clear. Like yea, it was clear if you looked it up and wasn't lazy, but I think lots of people were lazy and just didn't check out the new aoe you would get until later.

One reason people are pissed here I think is because we've had enough bullshit. I think this development manifesto in itself is more bullshit than useful info, and a very bad apology if you can even call it one.

i think frenzy changes need to be reverted. the power charge chance i don't completely oppose, but the frenzy ones i do.

it completely removes the value of frenzy charges for spell builds, and that is bullshit, considering frenzy adds cast speed. if you need to, make it so frenzy gives 4% more damage to hits. this includes spells and attacks but does not include things like DoT or scorching ray and the like.

in fact i also think raider ascendancy needs to be changed with the node Avatar of the Slaughter to give cast speed per frenzy charge, much like it gives movement speed/attack speed/attack damage.
this would make it an extremely viable and sought after ascendancy for spell casters. giving so much cast speed by stacking frenzy and running empowered onslaught with onslaught of the chase (gives 40% cast speed. yes plz).

i guess the ascendancy is still a little viable as a caster by just not stacking frenzy or getting avatar of the slaughter, but again at that point you might as well remove cast speed as being a benefit to frenzy charges.
replace it with movement speed then.

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moush wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

People tend to care more when it affects them.

True, and the majority of people complaining about the changes are only doing so because it affects a build they play. If they thought about the changes objectively and how they improve the game's balance, they would be more sensible.

yeah, objectively speaking, killing a boss in 2 hits so you can apply a 30% chill makes sense, you are right ...tks ...i feel so happy now that i am more sensible

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grepman wrote:

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jimdawg57 wrote:

My problem with power charge change: attack builds only get 30% crit from the charges. A power charge is a minimum of 2 nodes that average to 15% crit per node. Every other crit cluster on the tree averages to at least 20% crit per node, includes some amount of crit multi, and doesn't require the work to keep charges up. On no attack build would I take a power charge for 15% average crit per node over a standard damage node

My problem with frenzy charges: spell casters only get 4% cast speed per frenzy charge. A frenzy charge is a minimum of 2 points that average to 2% cast speed per node. Normal cast speed nodes are 3% or higher, so I would never use points on frenzy charges over standard cast speed nodes or other damage nodes. If frenzy charges still had more damage to spells, I would find them a worthwhile choice still. For 4% cast speed they are hardly worth the trouble to keep up, even for the 3 you get with no investment

so instead of blindly stacking charges on both build variants, you are forced to explore other alternatives.

where exactly is the problem ?

Before charge stacking was a choice that was sometimes efficient, and sometimes not, so I had a reason to choose whether or not I wanted to take, using a caster as an example, a frenzy charge. I also had to choose if running blood rage, going raider, etc.. was worth it for my caster character to keep up frenzy charges. Now I can definitively say that even keeping up the 3 free charges will never be worth the investment and certainly not taking additional charges off of the tree or through expensive corruptions. This has now eliminated the choice of taking frenzy charges on all spell caster builds that do not use specific frenzy charge uniques targeted at spell casters. I enjoy this game as much for the fun of crafting builds with meaningful decisions as I do for the gameplay, and every time something gets nerfed to the point of clearly always being a vastly inferior choice for a whole class of builds it removes a part of my favorite aspect of POE.

As an aside, I can't ever remember a build where I "blindly stacked both types of charges". I can't stand crit, or relying on frenzy damage on. Holds that can't keep them up against bosses, so I actually almost never use either charge in any of my builds.

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NessOnett8 wrote:

THIS RUINS BUILD DIVERSITY WHICH IS BAD FOR LONG TERM BALANCE.

How does a pretty much across the board nerf to all of the strongest builds in the game ruin diversity? Making charges less mandatory is good for general play and leads to less tedious gameplay. Slapping a Herald + CoH set-up to every build is not diverse.

Way too many people are assuming that beta changes are set in stone and will go to live as they are.
Calm down folks, take a deep breath. The world isn't ending.

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NessOnett8 wrote:

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grepman wrote:

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jimdawg57 wrote:

My problem with power charge change: attack builds only get 30% crit from the charges. A power charge is a minimum of 2 nodes that average to 15% crit per node. Every other crit cluster on the tree averages to at least 20% crit per node, includes some amount of crit multi, and doesn't require the work to keep charges up. On no attack build would I take a power charge for 15% average crit per node over a standard damage node

My problem with frenzy charges: spell casters only get 4% cast speed per frenzy charge. A frenzy charge is a minimum of 2 points that average to 2% cast speed per node. Normal cast speed nodes are 3% or higher, so I would never use points on frenzy charges over standard cast speed nodes or other damage nodes. If frenzy charges still had more damage to spells, I would find them a worthwhile choice still. For 4% cast speed they are hardly worth the trouble to keep up, even for the 3 you get with no investment

so instead of blindly stacking charges on both build variants, you are forced to explore other alternatives.

where exactly is the problem ?

Did you even read what you quoted, or what you wrote?

This change MAKES you blindly stack charges. It makes you BLINDLY stack power charges on EVERY caster and nobody else. It makes you BLINDLY stack frenzy charges on EVERY attacker and nobody else.

By supporting this change you support BLINDLY STACKING CHARGES and nullifying the ability to EXPLORE OTHER ALTERNATIVES because the only builds that can use these charges at all are a narrow sub-set of predefined builds that HAVE to use them. It's paint-by-numbers character creation, which is the opposite of what PoE is about. And you're literally arguing against your own end goal in supporting it.

Exactly. Thank.

I'm relieved to say that even with the changes to crit chance from Assassin and Power Charges, my planned build haven't been completely dumpstered. In fact, it seems like my total DPS increased by quite a bit, on account of Power Charges now granting more spell damage, which is the only change I personally like. In any case, I have some concerns.
As others may have mentioned, Assassin's base crit increase is pretty underwhelming now, especially compared to Scion, who can get nearly the same bonus without having to bother with Power Charges at all.
Whenever I played Assassin in the past, I did so solely to reach as much crit chance as possible. Usually, this meant a flat 3.5 crit from 7 Power Charges, which felt fine, considering I had to travel far across the tree to reach it. To me, scaling crit chance was the more enjoyable alternative to simply picking up damage nodes, as I would usually forego those completely, since I still needed to grab several crit nodes. Now I stand to lose nearly 20% crit chance, counting Assassin's Mark, which is already somewhat unreliable since the Blasphemy AoE was hit hard by the AoE changes a while back.
I think something in the range of 2.5-3 flat crit would be acceptable. You still need to reach maximum charges, and while Unstable Infusion helps with that, I think many would agree it's not all that great.
Ultimately, I feel that for an Ascendancy Class focused on crits, Assassin took a really hard hit. And that's not even going into the poison branches.

If you want a concrete example of a build that was hurt by the changes, look no further than CoC or Cospri's Malice. Using either of these, you'll be scaling weapon crit chance in order to proc spells. Flat crit is a godsend for this purpose, as it affected both the weapon and the spell. However, it takes a very heavy investment to scale both from the tree, as most of the nodes are either spell only, weapon only, or hybrid nodes where the weapon damage is wasted. They are also spread out pretty far. If there were more sources of global crit, especially on the top of the tree, this would be a bit easier to handle.

All in all, in my opinion, the crit nerfs were a bit too harsh. I just wish I had known earlier, so I could have played my build in 2.6. I'm not sure if the tree I had planned will hold up, I was already pretty starved on life nodes from investing in crit.

Each type of character blindly stacking one type of charge is still better than every character blindly stacking both.