On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

Don't you think you should take out all the crit on the tree? It would make things so much easier and more fun to play. This is approach, you are taking for quite a long time - removing crit nodes and nerfing them all the time, even this patch, there are nerfs.

Destroy frenzy charges, if you want, but it will fix exactly nothing. It will only limit build diversity for spell casters. I just can't seem to find corelation with frenzy charges being less mandatory. Of course they will be less mandatory, if they do nothing :)

I don't really care for ailments, they were useless anyway. I have many creative and fun-builds friends and I have only seen such ailment build once. Do you know why? Because it's crazy difficult to scale while having sommewhat reasonable damage and survivability. It's supposed to be secondary effect, not non-existant effect.

Do what you think is best, but don't count on many people, including me, understanding your decisions when it comes to nerfs/changes. You very often act too harsh against skills/characters/playstyles.

For example nefing the earthquake made it almost not even worth it trying. Using lacerate or other skills will end up in having smoother playstyle.

As I said, do what you want.

My favourite build is CoC Cyclone-Discharge Trickster (I'm poor at currency and it took me a while to get a 6-link voll's) and with this ascendancy, if the changes to power charges are too crit chance nerf based I'm afraid it will almost for sure make it unnavailable to play compared with the assasin version (and if you decide to nerf this one even more probably my 6-link will become worthless :'(...). This is just the opinion of an unexperienced player but i would like to know what will happen to build like CoC Discharge and Flicker Strike.

BTW, very hyped until 4th...

Tulfall wand is made useless... You are negatively impacted if you reach max power charges, you loose all your power charges and gain a useless frenzy charge.

Changes to charges seem good. Assassin nerf is needed. So far so good.

However:
Where is Inquisitor and Pathfinder nerf?
Where are buffs to shit ascendancy classes?
Are you gonna change the zzzzzzzzz Strand meta?
Aoe skills v projectile skills? Aoe is complete shit, projectiles are god tier.

Please DO NOT revert these changes. The vast majority understand that this is for the good of the game and is NEEDED. We may not be as vocal but I'll definitely start doing so.

I have been looking forward to boss/enemy life changes for years now.
The fact that the most OP builds are being nerfed means you actually listen, I dont want a game where I can watch TV I am a closed beta supported and its what I expect this game to be, a hardcore engaging experience.

In general you are doing an amazing job, the only thing i could say you could "improve" on is trying to give melee some love or just protect it from some of the generic nerfs that needed to be in place, i understand the balancing is quite hard.

When it comes to power charges and frenzy charges these are fine, its a tune down and it was needed and it only just scales back a a FEW over powered skills.

When it comes to poison I think the balance around those doing millions of DPS is not always the best, maybe its the skill that needs rebalancing.

The bleed key stone is a great idea but i am not "wowed" by the effect of just stacking, maybemore DOT or bleed dmg when they move would be more unique.

Keep making a great game, look over melee and revamp some old skills if you can!
Will be playing 3.0 a lot!
Thanks for making a great game.

Agree very much with a Ascendancy class re balance. You are doing some of this so keep at it.
AND THE Strand Meta - slow the game down as you are and make it more rewarding to explore the Atlas since it is just an amazing system and additional content, best builds should be those that can do all kinds of content.

Dear GGG,

first of all, english is not my mothertongue, so sry about mistakes.

I am by no means an expert and dont now your plans in the future, but after reading threw many of the posts, and after hearing some opinions from streamers I formed my opinion with some help of Path of Building and some research.......

Freeze, Shock

I do understand that it would trivialize the content if players could perma freeze bosses, which at the moment is possible until T15 bosses, at least what I know, so maybe its allready to strong. We all know that SHOCK is to strong at the moment, too. Because 50% "more" damage for doing nothing else then pressing a flask or throwing a trap is ridiciluos. So the nerf of vinktars and vaal lightning trap in regards to shock is rly fine IMHO, but both should do the same ammount - dont make it to complicated with different ammounts of "more" damage threw shock - let it be 15-20% on both occasions of shock - that`s it.

How you deal with the freeze and shock "on hit" mechanic is something completly differrent, and for sure it`s a hard thing to get it right, but like many mentioned before it makes absolutly no sense that we shock and freeze oponents when we do at least so much damage (50% of their life), because then they will be dead anyway after our second hit - terrible design, sry. Even if we bring that down to 20% or 25% with investing in the tree (shock and/or freeze effectivnes), it´s still a bad desing. Most chars do like 3-8 hits per second. One hit for 20% of opponents life then normlay means the opponent is dead in app. 1 more second. Why do we need shock or freeze for that opponent !?

IMHO, it would still be much better to "play arround" with the durations of both alligments.


Charges & Crit Cap Problem

The change to frenzy charges does only one thing - it brings down the build diversity. To let frenzy charges only be effected by "attack based builds" is dumb, sry. And if you look at your new trapper chest (hipe), that change looks only more dumb. Sry about that, but there is nothing more to say here.

The change to power charges makes not much sense either. I understand the idea with the spell damage on them, so non crit chars can have more use out of them, too. But lets be real please, do you rly think a "non-crit" based character will invest two points for a unreliable 4% spell damage ? Come on, you should know that better. And every crit char will get more crit chance from each crit chance point in the tree then from a power charge. 2 points for a power charge means 15% unreliable crit chance per point. A normal crit chance point in the tree gives arround 20%. Off course there are some with only 15%, but some have 25%, too.

I understand that to get to the crit cap nowadays is a little bit to easy, especialy if you are an assassin, but there is no reason to nerf the unreliable power charge down to 30%. Assassin is THE CRIT CHARACTER, and this class should be crit capped off course. But yeah, other classes should not be that easy to get to the cap, soooo...............

The "real" problem

Use Path of Building on any character you want, build the charackter up to app. 76% crit chance with power charges and then try out all unique flask and look which flask does the most for your damage. But please calculate only "10-20% more" for shock. That way you will find the REAL and ONLY problem for the crit cap. Its name is LUCKY (DIAMOND) FLASK ! In most cases this flask will bring more added DPS then the OP Taste of Hate, the OP Atziris, the OP Sins, etc, etc.....
And dont forget - you can roll 20 more charges on this flask, so 3 uses are possible without any investement in the tree. :D:D

You nerf a majority of the OP flasks (which is ok), but you let this OP flask in the game ?
DELETE this FLASK and you will make it a lot harder for people to get to the crit cap.
(Probably Diamond Rings will then get more use again, too)

Ok, sry for that wall of text, but "GGG", you wanted opinions !

I'm welcome the powercharge change (less crit more damage), much needed in my opinion the lower the always crit meta.
I do believe the 4% more damage on frenzy charges were better, with all the item's in the game that grant frenzys, that now must be revisited.


I would propose another change, that binds charges somewhat more to the attribute that they derive from:
I would give all charges 2 % more damage (yes even endurance... it's called balance)

To be usable, every charge needs accumulative 30 statspoints of their relating attribute.
So to use 6 frenzycharges one would need 180 dexterity to use them.. only got 167 dex.. only 5 frenzy maximum available.

With this we bind the charges somewhat to the stats and they have a flavor, but you are not forced too much in an attack or caster build. Every build can still get every charge, but you are not forced to gain frenzy charges to ramp up your damage as a templar which is strength and intelligence after all.

I do believe this change would be implemented easily and would broaden the game options players have. It would

Feels like charges are too specific rather than general. I'm worried about the frequency and amount of nerfs in 3.0.

(took this from my post in another thread)
By removing more builds than you put in it does funnel people down the path of least resistance. unless its your design or a build with a purpose (lab farming/shaped strand chaining) most people don't actively choose to play builds that are locked out of a lot of content. I wouldn't for instance build a build that I know will have trouble with yellow maps. the reason people will play ele wander in 3.0 is because they know the shaper has been killed with it convincingly. You want a build that can do all content and with the right gear faceroll the game.

Chris mentioned longer term changes. so while i'm unhappy about the loss of a lot of viable builds in 3.0 compared to 2.6 my hope is that they are doing it with the goal of longer term build diversity - I just wish for gods sake they would say that and put people's fears to rest.

Power charge changes don't seem too bad to me, may see some spell users get them now.

But I would like to see the frenzy charges reverted back to how they were before.

I'd be happy seeing both reverted though if it was keep both as they are now or revert both. I think there will be time enough for more balance changes next league once 3.0 has properly bedded in. From the looks of things DOT needs some serious looking at by GGG if you want more casual players to want to try those types of builds. Speaking as a casual player myself ;)